March 17 - St. Pat's Day

Day two, or day five, depending on how you count. It's day two of the move to "maximum telework" at work. I spent the last few days getting ready for that, and also trying to work in some fun, relaxing things for me and Maxwell. Yesterday and the day before, I took him to Rock Creek Park, the big national park in the center of D.C. Two hour walks starting before day light, both days. Stepped outside the first day and saw the moon, a perfect half, then watched the sun come up from the park.

Found a new trail. It was so peaceful and quiet - almost felt like we were far away in nature, even though I knew we weren't. Couldn't hear any traffic. And the park was nearly deserted. Saw maybe four people. Practiced off leash walking, which went pretty well. (Here's a video, if you press play it should work).

When we got bak to the car I noticed these pretty purple flowers 

mixed in with the frost. They reminded me of mom.

This morning, we saw an owl. She was with an owlet and seemed to be teaching it to fly. You can almost see the owl in the pic on the right - a little blob in the upper left quadrant. The owlet would fly from one tree to another and the owl would follow. We watched for a long time, but Maxwell got bored.

One benefit of these long walks is Maxwell sleeps a good part of the day, 

which gives me time to pretend to work.

Over the weekend, I spent a lot of time getting ready to telework full time. I went to the office on Saturday and picked up a monitor, then Sunday (and Monday and Tuesday) I spent a lot of time trying to set it up. 

I finally figured out all the connections and got it up and running today. Now I can really pretend to work. 

I also bought a genuine beer garden table and benches, which were delivered today. I'm hoping the guys who live upstairs, four out of five who are teleworking, will use it as extra work space. All the cafes are closed now. I bought an umbrella for the sun also. Hopefully that will arrive tomorrow. Looks pretty good.

Prost!

Of course, when he's not sleeping, Maxwell wants to know when we are going outside next.  He misses his dog friends a lot.

"Can we go outside?"

But he's also finding ways to make himself comfortable. 

My mat for the standing desk, for example, is a new favorite bed.

And I'm trying to find small ways to enjoy myself too.  Such as raspberry pancakes for dinner.  

I made these tonight using whole wheat flour and fresh raspberries, and ate them with real maple syrup.  They were really delicious.