Interlude

Yesterday I left the house for a few hours without my phone.

Like just about everyone these days, I have a “smart” phone (an iPhone). And like just about everyone else I carry it with me pretty much everywhere I go, checking it constantly for emails, text messages, the nonstop stream of missives by those I follow on Twitter, and so on.

I didn’t mean to leave my phone at home. It usually gets included in the small number of items jammed into my pockets whenever I leave, along with my wallet, keys, and iPod. But somehow I managed to leave off grabbing my phone this time and so found myself on the highway and without it, driving out to meet Vera at the farm where she rides several times a week.

Goes without saying I found myself a lot less distracted during the time I was away from home. At the farm I paid more attention to enjoying the unseasonably mild weather. I noticed the sun low on the horizon, a bright blur behind the gathering clouds. Birds chirped. Horses whinnied. And the wind blew through the branches of the large trees surrounding the property, quiet hints of a possible late afternoon storm.

At one point I watched Vera from far away walking her horse back to the pasture, thinking how striking the scene appeared with Vera dressed in light clothes, her dark horse trotting beside her, the green beneath, and the grayish blue above.

I thought it would make a great picture. But I didn’t take one, of course. I’d forgotten my phone.

Further musings ensued, all more or less revolving around the irony suggested by the fact that if I had brought the device with which I could’ve taken a picture, I probably wouldn’t have noticed the scene which had looked worth capturing with a photograph.

Soon enough I was back home. And not long after I’d gotten back, I was checking in once more on the messages and everything else.

The poker world hadn’t changed too much during those few hours. Some were reporting on their fluctuating chip stacks here and there. A few were talking further about the Republicans and that bit in their platform supporting the prohibition of online gambling (discussed here yesterday). And I saw something about Howard Lederer’s lawyers wanting to put into play that recent U.S. v. Dicristina ruling that poker wasn’t illegal gambling as defined by the Illegal Gambling Business Act (as reported on today by PokerFuse).

But overall not a lot was happening. A bit of static, but no storms.