Blink and you're old.

 This post is about four months in the making. It has been an on-again, off-again thought process. I suppose, in a way, it's an adult lifetime in the making, but it has mostly been a process taking place since my last birthday, mid-April. It was a big birthday as birthday numbers go. The ultimate motivation to begin writing about it early Friday (Aug.14th) morning came from an odd source. I was reading news and saw a photograph of a 44-year-old man. I wasn't at all focused on the story; I was focused on the photograph and thought, this dude is ONLY 44?! That had me reflect back on when I was 44, and that, in turn, had me reflect on when I was 53. 53 because I posted an image of myself at 53 in this post from July 25th, along side a photo of me, wearing the same cycling jersey, taken that day, 17 years later. 53, that image seemed like yesterday. The calendar says nearly two decades have passed, but from the inside looking out, I had the realization that I haven't vanished into the background—I've simply collected a lot more life along the way. Aging gets a bad rap, but there’s a quiet strength in realizing my mind and spirit are just as vibrant now as they were then. Aches and pains aside.

Time, a "big ball of wibbly-wobbly.... timey-wimey.... stuff..."

The point is, I've been thinking about the sudden realization of aging and how the brain naturally blocks thoughts of decline to protect us from existential anxiety. Catching your reflection unexpectedly and seeing your parents' features instead of your own. Noticing that minor injuries or workouts require days of recovery instead of hours (my right wrist still suffers from this incident, April 26th). Realizing that I have no idea who 98% of the people on talk shows are. Then there has also been a shifting of the narrative. Framing aging as a privilege denied to many, rather than a loss of value. Addressing functional fitness by shifting workout goals from aesthetics to maintaining mobility, balance, and bone density. Being proactive about health by addressing minor aches early through physical therapy and nutrition instead of ignoring them. And finally, leaning into the emotional resilience, boundaries, and self-knowledge that only time provides.

And then there was the acclaimed Doctor Who episode "Blink," Series 3, Episode 10 of the modern revival series (beginning in 2005). It first aired on June 9, 2007, and was written by Steven Moffat. I have been partial to science fiction for most of my life. Thanks in part to the books my sister left behind when she left for college and a few I may have borrowed beforehand. For example...

The Sirens of Titan, by Kurt Vonnegut, remains one of my all time favorite books. Douglas Adams, the most fun I’ve ever had reading.

I watched Blink again about a week ago. Blink is a masterclass in sci-fi television. Steven Moffat's writing is superb. It was at least the fourth time I have watched it. What really struck me differently this time was how a sci-fi monster turns out to be a precise, visceral metaphor for the quiet reality of aging. Revisiting the episode became a way of naming the experience. The warning, "Don't even blink," isn't really about keeping your eyes open; it's a recognition of how fast the years close the distance when you aren't looking, leaving you standing in the present wondering how you arrived here so quickly.

SPOILER ALERT: If you haven't seen Blink and think you might want to, I recommend you stop reading this and watch it. The easiest way to do so is to follow this link to YouTube and pay $1.99 to own the episode on your YouTube account. That's it, a one time purchase, standard definition (typically DVD quality). The episode is about 44 minutes long.

Or you can buy the entire Season 3 on DVD, here on Amazon for $9.99. I'll assume there's also a Blu-ray edition. I bought the DVD set a few years ago.

Now for the spoilers... you've been warned.

In Steven Moffat’s classic Doctor Who episode “Blink,” the Weeping Angels are portrayed as the ultimate, albeit paradoxical, predators. Unlike traditional killers, they don’t kill their victims; instead, they consume their potential. By transporting their victims into the distant past, the Angels force them to live out the rest of their natural lives in another era, effectively stealing their present and future. Initially presented as a terrifying sci-fi premise, the warning to “don’t even blink” serves as a poignant metaphor for the accelerating, non-linear nature of growing old.

The first Weeping Angel as seen by the story's protagonist, Sally Sparrow.

 

Sally Sparrow, an aspiring photographer, approaches the property known as Wester Drumlins,  a derelict London mansion, the hiding place of four Weeping Angels.

The central rule governing the Angels encapsulates the subjective experience of time in one’s later years. In youth, time appears vast and endless, but as the decades accumulate, it seems to compress. Years slip by in a blink of an eye. The true horror of the Angels lies not in a violent end, but in the sudden realization that time has vanished. One moment, you are immersed in the vitality of youth, and the next, you are decades away from where you began, gazing back at a life that sped by faster than you could comprehend.

An unobserved Weeping Angel begins to move.

This experience is deepened by the physical speed of the Angels themselves. Observed they are statues, unable to move, but when unobserved, they move with near-instantaneous velocity. In the quarter-second it takes to complete a single blink, an Angel can cover the room. We often speak of aging as a slow, gradual march, but the lived, psychological experience feels much more like an Angel attack. a sequence of sudden, jarring jumps. You go along for years feeling relatively unchanged until a sudden diagnosis, a loss, a glance in the mirror, or the quiet realization of a lost decade brings age abruptly into focus. Aging seems to stay still while you watch it closely, only to leap forward the moment your attention wanders.

"They are fast, faster than you could believe. Don't turn your back, don't look away, and don't blink."

The closer an Angel gets, the shorter the distance it has to cover, making each subsequent blink exponentially more perilous. This phenomenon mirrors the psychological reality of time accelerating as we age. When evaluating the Weeping Angels as an allegory for aging, the detail of their actual physical speed deepens the metaphor significantly. Adding this layer of physical mechanics to the analysis reveals how the speed of the Angels reflects the true nature of growing old. A single year represents a significant portion of a child’s existence, yet it feels like a mere fraction of an older person’s life. Yet there's another element to this and it's something you have some control over. This video from the Veritasium channel on YouTube, hosted and created by Derek Muller, a Canadian-Australian physicist, filmmaker, and science communicator, goes over this in greater depth. Briefly, it begins by addressing the common proportional theory (where a year is 1/5 of a 5-year-old’s life vs. 1/50 of a 50-year-old’s). The video points out a major flaw with that model: if human brains actually calculated time that way, a person would feel as though they had already lived half of their entire life by age six.  

If you live to 80, doubling your age happens only about 6 times in your entire life (1 --> 2 --> 4 --> 8 --> 16 --> 32 --> 64). Because those early doublings happen across such tiny calendar spans (1 to 2, 2 to 4, 4 to 8), the proportional model mathematically front-loads half of all your "subjective life experience" into early childhood before you even finish elementary school. 

Instead, the video presents several biological and psychological factors that better explain why time feels faster as we get older. As people age, the rate at which neurons fire decreases. When an internal clock slows down, external time feels like it is moving faster by comparison. In an experiment on Venice Beach, older adults consistently overestimated when a minute had passed (often guessing around 1:02 to nearly 2:00), whereas younger people were much closer to real time. Subjective duration correlates strongly with how much energy the brain uses to process information. Young children experience almost everything as novel, requiring significant mental energy—around age five, the brain consumes fully 66% of a child's resting energy intake. As adults face fewer novel experiences and more repetition, the brain spends less energy processing everyday events, making time seem to pass faster. When people are deeply focused or fully immersed in an activity they pay less attention to the passage of time, making moments feel much shorter as they happen. The real culprit behind time’s acceleration isn’t just simple arithmetic; it’s memory density and novelty.

Sally exclaims to Kathy that an Angel has moved since she first saw it the night before.

Kathy Nightingale, moments before she is taken by a Weeping Angel.

Back to Blink. Early in the episode, the character Kathy Nightingale, a friend of Sally Sparrow, blinks, is touched by a Weeping Angel and is transported back to 1920, where her life takes an unexpected turn. Instead of ending, it is redirected, allowing her to live a fulfilling and complete life. She raises a family and passes away at a grand old age. However, to the story’s protagonist, Sally Sparrow in the present, Kathy vanished without a trace. This stark contrast mirrors the profound grief of aging; the shrinking horizon of future possibilities and the gradual replacement of ambition with the pursuit of memory. Moments later, a letter is delivered to Sally Sparrow by Kathy’s grandson. It's dated February 7, 1987.  Kathy wrote the letter shortly before her death in 1987, instructing her family to deliver it to Sally at Wester Drumlins on that exact day and time in 2007 when Kathy was touched. Just as Kathy’s letter from decades ago shifted the focus from building a future to documenting and reflecting on the past, the process of aging does the same for Sally.

Kathy Nightingale in one of the photos contained in the letter from 1987.

Blink evokes a profound sense of reflection on memory and time. Sci-fi at its best gives us a surreal mirror for very real human experiences, and the idea that time stays frozen only while we are watching it closely—only to leap forward the moment our attention wanders—is a remarkably fitting metaphor for how we navigate our own pasts.

Even the frozen nature of the Angels—quantum-locked statues when seen—provides a compelling image of how society often treats the elderly. As people age, they frequently report feeling invisible to younger generations, frozen in place like monuments to a bygone era. Younger people look right through them, much like the characters initially glance past the stone statues in the overgrown garden of Wester Drumlins. Aging transforms individuals from active, moving participants in the current narrative into static observers of a world moving past them.

A significant part of the storyline revolves around the Doctor’s conversation with Sally Sparrow, facilitated by an “Easter egg” discovered on not only one but seventeen DVDs. Notably, these DVDs happen to be the sole possession of Larry Nightingale (Kathy’s brother). To fully comprehend the temporal trap, one must refer to the renowned explanation provided by the Doctor to Sally Sparrow through the DVD’s “Easter egg” transcripts. The Doctor challenges the human perception of time, asserting that it is not a rigid progression of cause to effect, but rather a complex, non-linear tapestry—a “big ball of wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey stuff.” In our youth, we tend to view our lives linearly, constructing an orderly timeline of cause and effect. However, as we age, our memory ceases to operate chronologically. A vivid moment from forty years ago can feel as immediate as yesterday afternoon, while entire years blur into a featureless haze. In our minds, we never truly feel like a single age; we remain a collection of every age we have ever been, existing simultaneously within a constantly changing frame.
 

"People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect... but actually, from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint, it's more like a big ball of wibbly-wobbly.... timey-wimey.... stuff."

The DVD Easter egg, a scene where Sally holds half a conversation in 2007 with a transcript of the Doctor speaking from 1969, mirrors the internal dialogue of getting older. As we age, we find ourselves conversing with our past choices, reflecting on old decisions and realizing that our younger selves unknowingly set up the conditions for our present. This realization underscores the fact that while we live in the present, the echoes of our past selves constantly broadcast from the past.

This non-linear reality is precisely why the Angels are so formidable. By transporting someone back in time, an Angel disrupts the linear flow of time for a creature accustomed to it. For a human, being unexpectedly displaced into another era creates a profound sense of temporal dislocation—a feeling many experience in their later years when they encounter a modern world that feels alien, wondering how they arrived so quickly.

Ultimately, the Weeping Angels are not mere alien monsters; they are manifestations of time itself. They embody entropy, nostalgia, and the irreversible march of years. By combining the idea of living one’s life in the past with the split-second speed of a predator and the non-linear nature of temporal physics, Moffat encapsulated the ultimate paradox of aging; it unfolds gradually over a lifetime, yet when we look back, it feels like an instant.

The Weeping Angels take time away from people, but sitting inside that "wibbly-wobbly" ball of time isn't a loss—it's accumulation. You aren't just letting time pass; you're building a life inside of it. Youth has the illusion of endless time, but it also carries the heavy baggage of figuring out who you are, constantly proving yourself, and worrying about the road ahead. What the calendar takes in raw years, it pays back in clarity, self-worth, and perspective. One needs to take time to realize the value of your body and mind. making time for beautiful things and intellectual pursuits. By living life with the inquisitiveness of a child your mind stays sharp through curiosity-driven learning and creative work, and your body stays capable because you honor it and keep it moving. That’s the real antidote to feeling like time is slipping away; you’re actively engaging with it. Time may move in a blink, but we aren't helpless bystanders. We get to decide what we fill those blinks with.

If you ignored me about watching the Blink episode but you'd like to see the DVD "Easter egg” portion for kicks, here it is...

 And if you have Time for a song, well, here you go...

The photograph of me with my son, I was 38 years 2 months and 17 days old, or 458 months and 17 days, or 1,993 weeks and 6 days, or 13,957 calendar days old.
Photo credit: Jeff Kober.

Image credit: BBC / Doctor Who ('Blink'). 

Today's walk report: Walk-Dawn Walk

I made a decision last night that I would put myself together early, get out the door before 6:00, drive to my starting point (1/2 mile from home), and go for a walk at the local college campus. I'm almost always up before dawn, but getting prepared and motivated to go for a walk that early is another matter. As it turned out, I was awake at 2:15! The bathroom wasn't calling me, Lucy was sound asleep next to my shin bones, so I can't blame her, and for the life of me, as much as I wanted to, I simply could not get back to sleep. Of course, as it was approaching 5:00 or so (I stopped looking at the clock around 3:30) and getting closer to the time I should've been thinking about stuff to do before leaving the house... I dozed. I ended up sleeping about 4 hours in round one, plus I threw in a 30-minute nap. I was parking for my walk at 6:08. Sunrise was at 6:04. The temperature ranged from 65º to 68º F, with relative humidity hovering between 76% to 78%. It was the most comfortable I've been out walking in somewhere near forever. Over the past two weeks, we've been in triple digits 9 days. Over the past 30 days, it was triple digits for 14 days. The highest temp was 108º F on Friday, July 31st. 

Here are some photos I took on today's walk. I was out and about for precisely one hour and covered 2.09 miles.

Early enough to see some Night Blooming Cereus, (Cereus peruvianus) with flowers still open. 

 

Hollyleaf Cherry (Prunus ilicifolia), a native California evergreen shrub. The fruit is edible but something likes chewing at the leaves more than the fruit.

 These are the female cones of Oriental arborvitae (Platycladus orientalis).

 This is a Madagascar Periwinkle (Catharanthus roseus), specifically a variety resembling 'Bright Eyes' which features white petals with a distinct red center.

 Coreopsis verticillata 'Creme Brulee', a variety of threadleaf tickseed.

 
This is a Hebe, a genus of evergreen flowering shrubs native to New Zealand. 

 Salvia farinacea and a carpenter bee. The common name "carpenter bee" derives from their nesting behavior; nearly all species burrow into hard plant material such as dead wood or bamboo.

 Lesser goldfinch (Spinus psaltria). There must've been 25-30 birds in a flock. I don't believe I've ever seen that many congregating together. They weren't especially cooperative on the photo front.

 However, there was also a flock of Bushtit (Psaltriparus minimus) in the mix. When I first approached everyone scattered and I was pretty far away. Bushtits are very social and are often seen moving quickly in small flocks through shrubs and trees. I have but a few good pictures of a Psaltriparus minimus. This isn't one of them.

 This is a a California Towhee (Melozone crissalis), more commonly known as a "grumpy bird." I rarely see them up this high.

 The above were all in or near the campus arboretum, I walked from there to the botanical garden.

Grevillea 'Moonlight'.
 

More Cereus peruvianus. There were lots of flowers but unfortunately most of them were cluttered with dead organic matter from above, mixed with spider webbing. I walked into a lot of spider webbing this morning.

 I wasn't going to post this photo. I did not shove the Cooper's hawk feather into that post. I'm posting though because Google AI kept arguing that this was not a Cooper's hawk feather at all but rather a moth. Saying nonsense like, "The resemblance to a Cooper's hawk feather is absolutely brilliant, but this image is actually a famous piece of wildlife photography showcasing a living insect in its natural resting pose.The insect is a Barred Lappet Moth (Porela subfasciata), a species native to Australia that survives daytime predators by perfectly evolving to look exactly like a discarded bird feather." I had to crop in on the feather for Google to "see" what it actually was.

 Some Ancient Car Worshipers were out early, preparing to worship each other's cars.

This is a Shelby Cobra replica. I couldn't get an ID on the other car. I'm pretty sure these guys are talking about cars.

 This is an Austin Healey 3000, probably 1960.

 A 1961 Ford Ranchero. 

 What do you think they might be talking about now? The Star Wars themed Dodge Charger is affectionately known as "Dodge Vader."
 

That's it. I did my regular "short," there's nothing to take pictures of so why sweat it, loop and headed back to my car.

Dawn, by Mahavishnu Orchestra 

 

Happy Juniversary!

 Today, July 31st, 2026, marks the one-year anniversary of formally feral kitten Junimoon (AKA, Juni)  coming into this house to stay. She was born wild on or about April 9th, 2025, and was carried from my lap to inside the house at 6:44 p.m., July 31st, 2025. It was a process. I had tried about a week earlier, and that experience was a little traumatic for both of us. I will point out that I had some emotional, logistical, and general moral support for this process over the phone, and for that, I will always be grateful.

Currently, Juni is curled up, sleeping in my lap. Which means typing is somewhat compromised. She's a big girl now. She last weighed in at 11.8 lbs, nine days ago. By comparison, 20 year old Lucy the cat is 9.2 lbs. 

 Here's some of the evolution of Juni finally coming indoors to stay.

 A feral mother cat typically stays with and cares for her kittens until they are about 10 to 12 weeks old. I could probably pin down a very accurate date when I started to see Juni's mom letting Juni know she was on her own but that's not the point of this post, this post is a celebration. However, I will note that feral male tomcat Vit, started playing a very important role as Juni's protector as Juni was just moving into her 9th week. Vit was immensely affectionate with Juni's mother, Kalika. He was and still is the dominant male in the neighborhood and is the most likely candidate for being Juni’s dad. Vit taking on this role as protector, that’s unusual, a feral male taking care for one of his offspring. In typical feral dynamics, tomcats rarely pay mind to individual kittens, let alone actively guard and play with them. For Vit to display that kind of steady, protective presence over Juni—especially as Kalika was beginning to step back—says a lot about his temperament. Whether it was paternal instinct or just a unique bond forged on the patio, he gave her a safe buffer when she was at her most vulnerable.

Here is Vit tolerating Juni playing with his tail on July 9th, 2025. That's 8 weeks and 5 days for Junimoon, and her mother was no where around. Juni and Kalika did cross paths on occasion but Kalika’s indifference was beginning to show. Vit was actively following Juni, keeping an eye on her and this went on into evenings. Vit didn't ever hang out here that much before Juni was around. 
 

Here's Vit from this morning after he had breakfast.

 Yes, he was alerted to my moving closer with my phone but I kept talking to him and he relaxed. 

 
I've only barely touched him a couple of times. He is reasonably trusting of me. I've even done yard work with him nearby and he's okay with it. Power tools and all. He does appear to be hard of hearing but this is not linked to the genetic condition that causes deafness in white cats with blue eyes--congenital sensorineural deafness. That high rate of deafness applies almost exclusively to completely, solid white cats with two blue eyes. Perhaps, he just likes to ignore me.

Back to Juni's story about coming inside...

June 27th, 2025. I was starting to figure out how it might work out. Juni was also becoming very attached to me. If she had a choice to play with me or to hang with Vit, she chose me.

July 29th, 2025. I had started leaving the patio door open for her. She was encouraged to come inside with toys and food. She had accepted my petting her and coming into my lap out on the patio, the goal was to get her to become comfortable enough to start nodding off in my lap indoors. 

Here you can see her feather toy just hanging over the edge of Lucy's cat tree. Hauling that cat tree near the door was also an enticement to come inside, 

Another catalyst for my convictions about getting Juni inside and soon. One, there was the hooting from a great horned owl almost every evening and two, there were these guys. I would do a camera check with the GardePro trail camera before daylight.

 
June 30th, 2025. This was the day Juni felt most comfortable about casually going from outside back inside the house. The patio door was open for most of the day. Surprisingly, there weren't a bunch of flies coming inside.

 

Ping pong balls were the best trick to get her to explore more of the house with Juni chasing them down the hall to the bedrooms.

 Once she started going down the halls, she was hooked on exploring. Note, the ping pong ball is near the Target bag. 

 Spring toys too. Anything I could throw that would bounce was a wonderful new indoor adventure for Junimoon.

 

I couldn't follow her. I didn't want her to get spooked over my movement. When she was close, I still had the fishing pole and feather toy.

July 31st. I really wanted this to be the day I was going to feel comfortable closing the patio door with Juni inside. This was 6:51 a.m., something else she loved to play with outside.

 I followed the same program I had followed out on the patio. I encouraged her to climb up my pants legs into my lap. Again, the goal was to get her to feel comfortable in my lap inside the house. 

 7:52 a.m., a decision was made to close the patio door partway and see how Juni reacted. She was fine with it. She was staring at a bug here.

 Meanwhile, when Juni would go outside, I would go check on the unsuspecting Lucy in our bedroom. Lucy had already taken a path to rarely leave the bedroom. The bedroom was her comfort zone. Lucy remains the Queen of the castle. 

 This happened about an hour earlier. She stayed in my lap for several minutes, but mostly because I was petting her. This happened more than once, but it wasn't until we were back on the patio, approaching evening, that Juni was in my lap and seemed very content; I didn't want her outside for another evening. The decision was made, and I simply picked her up, walked inside, and gently closed the door.

 And so she remains, content and safe.

 
May 12, 2026.
 

July 30th (yesterday).

Lucy too, content and safe. Lap time with Lucy just started up again a couple of nights ago. She simply hasn’t been inclined to go there but would rather sleep along side me, or sleep in her fort. This was last night during the Dodgers game. Lucy and Juni get exposure time but it has to be strictly supervised. I don't think there would be an altercation but Juni's age and size difference is intimidating to Lucy. Lucy has earned her peace and quiet. 

 Lucy splits most of her time with me on the bed or inside her custom nightstand fort. 

Yes, everybody wants to be a cat 
Because a cat's the only cat who knows where it's at