Nooner

Last night was one of those nights where lack of sleep made it impossible to do my walk in the morning. As I lay awake last night -- 1:30, 2:00, 3:00 -- I finally arrived at the root of the problem.  How many cups of coffee can one have in the morning before the law of diminishing returns kicks in?  Every morning I have two huge mugs of coffee -- no more.  But again, they're HUGE, each one easily the equal of the two "cups of coffee" the health experts refer to.

So I gulped those two (four) down yesterday, then proceeded on to my breakfast with Barbara, whereupon I consumed (I'm estimating) six more cups. We were there almost an hour and a half, and the waitress refilled my cup every 15 minutes, at least.  So that explains my tossing and turning last night. That, and the fact that Matthew (on PBS' Downton Abbey) will probably never walk again, after the injury he suffered in the war, not to mention the death of his loyal servant William, who died trying to save him, and not only will he not walk, but won't be able to procreate, and how is that going to work with the hot-blooded Mary?  Really, I've been through a lot.

I decided to take my walk over the lunch hour.  (Banks, I'm SORRY!  Tomorrow, I promise!)  I'm lucky to have a flexible job, where it's not a problem to take an hour and half lunch, then just stay an extra half hour in the afternoon. Unfortunately, the 1.5 hours turned into closer to two as I became distracted on the Lady Bird Lake trail, lost my bearings, realized I was way over the halfway time mark, and then tried to shave off some minutes by, inexplicably, taking a shortcut through Austin High School (literally -- I walked through the halls and past the cafeteria -- it made sense at the time) and then dodging speeding vehicles as I walked, vagabond-like, on the narrow sidewalk alongside Cesar Chavez.  I think from now on I'll stick to a more sedate route for those time-sensitive lunchtime strolls.