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The weight vacation is over.

 I gained half a pound this morning.  I was happy with my weight when all this started so I don’t mind if I gain it back.  It was fun to weigh in the 150s for a few days though.  No telling how many years it has been since I’ve been there. I know it has been 50 years since I was 120 pounds juggling rocks!    
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I may have discovered a new diet plan

 It’s really easy.  Go get surgery on your neck, come home, eat and drink normally, watch the pounds fall off.  I haven’t changed my routine from pre-surgery, I eat and drink the same amounts, but for some reason I’ve lost a pound a day.  One more day at this pace and I would be a total 10 pounds lighter.  I think the pace has slowed though.  I only lost half a pound yesterday. It would be strange to have to over-eat on purpose to maintain my weight.  I suspect I won’t have to; when the tide turns I’ll be gaining a pound a day whether I’m eating or not, until I get back to my “normal” weight. 
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I should be clear

 When I say I’m going back to work, it’s not that I put on a suit and go to the office, or go out to work directly with a client.  I don’t do that anymore. Now I mostly work on client promotion and proposals.  I do some other administrative stuff too, but I no longer go out and annoy clients directly; I stay right here in my home office and work digitally to annoy *potential* clients.  Sometimes my home office is in our house here in Edinburg in way South Texas.  Sometimes it’s in the motorhome wherever that happens to be. Did get away and look for the gray-crowned yellowthroat a little bit.  My driver takes me out and aims me at what I’m supposed to find.  She didn’t do a very good job today.  We missed the yellowthroat.  No new birds today. 
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A day of “firsts”

 First off, I stayed awake all day.  That’s a first since the surgery.  I’ve dozed a lot.  I took all of last week off work to recuperate.  That was probably a good idea. Tonight I got to take my first full shower and wash my hair.  It’s okay to get the wound wet now.  Another milestone. Earlier, Judy drove us out to some agricultural fields in search of a small flock of wintering mountain plovers, a prairie falcon, and a ferruginous hawk.  It was not an auspicious start to the day because we whiffed on all three birds, but then we saw a juvenile golden eagle soaring.  It looked like this.  (Not my picture.)Year-bird. Then we drove to another spot and got the long-tailed duck way at the back of the pond.  (It’s the black and white thing in the middle.)Year-bird. (Here is what it is supposed to look like up close.) While we were at the pond for the long-tailed duck, we heard about a marbled godwit, drove to the spot, and got that.Year-bird for the county. So in the last two days, we’ve gotten six county birds for the year.  This is working just fine.. Grilled chicken for dinner. Time to go back to work tomorrow.  I can do that.  Maybe sometime during the day I can get over to Estero Llano Grande for a Gray-crowned Yellowthroat too…  
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That was fun!

 I can’t drive for the next six weeks (down to 5 ½ now already), but Judy has volunteered to take me anywhere I want to go.  Today we went to the Edinburg Wetlands and walked around looking at birds.  (She tells me which way to look.)  Saw 36 species; three of them new county birds for the year: black and white warbler, wilson’s warbler, and brown thrasher.  The brown thrasher is really cool to get because they’re not normally here. It has been a little cool and windy for the last couple weeks, but today was warm and comfy with more nice weather on the way. Here is a white-eyed vireo.