Cumbia
Sometimes I have perfectly wonderful dreams--this morning, for example. I dreamed I was invited onto the dance floor to dance cumbia. I've had exactly one cumbia lesson in my life--not even a whole lesson; it was tacked onto a salsa lesson. But in the dream, I put aside all timidity, joined my partner, and it was perfect. We were so in sync; we improvised--I can catch the feeling just writing these words. This had the same joy as dreams of flying: incredible, freeing movement.

Krucial
The cashier was a young guy with fluffy hair pulled back in a pony tail. His name tag said "Krucial."
"That's an awesome name," I said.
"My mom gave it to me. It was on a wrapper," he said. [Maybe related to this: Krucial Rapid Response]
"That's great," I said. "You're crucial for your mom!"
"Awww, thank you!" he said, and and we high-fived.

Snowy Owl
A snowy owl has been hanging out near where I live. All the birders in the area are going there and taking pictures of it, and some of these have filtered into my social media, and they're magnificent, like this one, by someone named Dale Woods:


Sturgeon
Elsewhere on social media someone recommended the story "The Man Who Lost the Sea" (1959), by Theodore Sturgeon. I've never actually read anything by him, and the person linked to a 2009 reprint in Strange Horizons, so I gave it a read. The poster said it involved a surprising twist. Well not really: I understood the situation halfway through. But I liked the story all the same: the writing was lovely, and I wanted to see how the main character would realize the truth. This, very near the end, struck me especially:

For no farmer who fingers the soil with love and knowledge, no poet who sings of it, artist, contractor, engineer, even child bursting into tears at the inexpressible beauty of a field of daffodils—none of these is as intimate with Earth as those who live on, live with, breathe and drift in its seas.

If you want to read it, here's the link: "The Man Who Lost the Sea."