Mariner’s back yard, typically a number of gardens surrounding a large circular lawn, has been for the last week or so an archipelago – a series of random islands amid a large body of water. The rain is relentless and endless. It is difficult to weed or otherwise work with plants while standing in several inches of water; cutting a lawn beneath standing water is comparable to one of Las Vegas’s water displays. The cattail ditch has become the deepest part of a large pond preventing mariner from reaching his compost bin.

So outdoor work is unavailable. There are endless projects in mariner’s workshop but they don’t spark any interest. Workshop projects are of three types: timeline projects which must be finished sooner than later (too much like work), waiting projects which are on hold for some reason (reasons which may become infinite), and big task projects usually involving furniture, shelves, repairing equipment or welding.

Another pastime is cooking. Something mariner hasn’t done for a while is bake. That’s because mariner is on a low carb diet – sort of.

To pass some time, today mariner will make English muffins Alton Brown style. Alton must have difficulty keeping interest, too. He invented a way to make English muffins using 3-inch tin cans sitting in an electric frying pan. Mariner has made these muffins before and it is fun to tinker with tin cans rather than to sit by the oven waiting for the timer.

Mariner also has some 4-inch tin cans to experiment with baking cake rolls in a similar fashion.

Mariner also has mail to process.

Finally, his last available pastime is to write a blog post.

Ancient Mariner