Bringing Balance to Your Being...Oh, Look a Squirrel

Today was another consolidation day.  A consolidation day is one of those days or weeks or months or even years when things feel like they are just not moving anywhere very quickly.  There is motion all around, but it's short motion, and it is not directed in any sort of noticeably coherent manner.  Quite frankly, I was a little bit worried about what I should say in the daily column, so on the early morning walk I started looking for something funny or spiritual or entertaining to snap a daily photo and then spend the rest of the day slowly piecing together the text that would add the profundity to the pixels.

Every bit of that last sentence (with the possible exception of the profundity bit) is generally how the process has been working over the last several weeks.  Minutes into my walk, I noticed that the breeze was unusually calm, and the water of the Anacostia River were about as smooth as I have ever seen them.  There was a crew from one of the several rowing clubs just upriver from the Riverfront Park area that was out practicing.  You could hear the slice of their shell through the water, and it reminded me of early Sunday morning waterskiing at the east end of Broad Bay off of Lynnhaven Inlet in Virginia Beach.  It was a holy hour before the chop had been put on the water by other boaters and breeze, and the clean swishing sizzle of the boat across the top of the water made everything seem right with the world.  Balance could be found with a 60 hp outboard and the right time of day.  That was the same type of calm that I sensed this morning on the Anacostia.  The mirror images of everything near the river demonstrated the flatness of the river, and this is what it looked like.

ex-USS Barry reflected in the Anacostia River

At the time I knew I was forcing it, but I hoped to be able to come up with something profound to say about the balance and serenity.  Something deep and spiritual and meaningful.  Because I was forcing it, unsurprisingly, that's not what happened at all.

Fortunately I was saved from the unpleasant and probably unfruitful task later on in the afternoon during my second walk for the day.  You guessed it I...Oh look, a squirrel.

Albino Squirrel (Front View)

Not only did I spot a squirrel, I spotted an albino squirrel.  This guy was an attention grabber, and by the way he reacted to the camera I suspect he'd been given quite a bit of camera time by the folks out and about on the Washington, DC Mall.

Albino Squirrel (profile view)

Apparently, sightings of albino grey squirrels are relatively common in Washington, DC, but this is the first one that I've ever seen.  This is the guy you can thank for ensuring that today's entry was not some ponderous overly sappy segment of life balance and the oneness of the universe.  There will be plenty of those I'm sure, bur for now I'll just celebrate this unusual squirrel sighting.