Category Archives: friends

by | March 4, 2013 · 7:56 pm

Traho digitus meum

March weather at times seems like a series of practical jokes. The dog Latin post title translates to “Pull my finger” and fart gags (pun intended) date back to ancient Greece. Read “The Clouds” by Aristophanes for some 2,500-year-old proof. (The EPUB format is compatible with Nook readers.)

Today’s weather was a “pull my finger” sort of day. The heavy snowstorm threatened for last night took a more leisurely route and may arrive tonight. A Winter Storm Advisory issued Sunday morning became a Winter Storm Warning by Sunday afternoon declaring 7″ – 12″ of snow during the day Monday. Mother Nature gave us a “pull my finger” joke with the delay.

I’m a very logical, linear person and that can cause some “pull my finger” moments, as Lucy found out while we were dating. We learned quickly how to adjust, mostly with me adjusting to her communication style. My sister-in-law Julie has had the misfortune to experience a few of these moments, yesterday included. I feel badly that she ends up as the occasional (I hope) locus of my foibles and I am deeply grateful for her good humor and patience. I really am lucky having Julie and Suzy in my life.

Movie listings in the daily papers, on Yahoo! and on Google presented a “pull my finger” moment yesterday with a bogus showing time. Suzy, Julie, and I had planned on lunch and a movie yesterday. We settled for lunch at TGIFriday’s. It was still a very nice day despite the “Keystone Kops” subplots.

Parking in downtown Minneapolis is usually a “pull my finger” ordeal. During an event, parking downtown has a finishing touch of a flaming bag of dog poo. There are numerous restaurants worth the trouble of finding near the Convention Center. Check the Minneapolis Convention Center event calendar  before making the trip, trust me on that.

It’s been nice getting a chance to see some long-time friends. I’m catching up with Susan, and I have to make plans with Mike and Ken next week.

The Forsythia cutting is in full bloom, which is about three weeks earlier than I expected. It is a welcome splash of color and a reminder that spring is on the way in sixteen days. Another sure sign of spring are the seed and gardening catalogs arriving in the mail. Jung and Burpee seed catalogs are here and the Spring Hill Nursery catalog will probably arrive yet this week. Lucy had planted some Gloriosa lily bulbs a couple of years ago and I would like to try them again. It’s time to get the dahlia tubers in some dirt and start the seed tray.

I have completed the blog conversion. Facebook has been problematic with group notifications, so I have created a “Journey of the Teal Owl” page. If you could take a moment and “Like” the page, it will help with future notifications. I’m still discovering features with the WordPress software. Let me know what you think!

Having fun with loved ones is always a pleasure. Some of you like to play practical jokes. Let that special someone know that you care, hopefully without having him or her pull your finger.

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Filed under family, friends, gardening, literature, philosophy, rebuilding, weather

by | February 24, 2013 · 5:32 pm

Change is good

The first change is the location of the blog. I am switching from Blogger to WordPress. The blog itself is now at http://new.tealowljourney.com and I’m still making minor tweaks to the imported posts. Some of the formatting got mangled during the conversion. I am about 40% of the way through the old posts. I like the extra functionality such as email registration and social network integration. Have a look around! Hosting is at First Degree Systems. The website will be down for a couple of hours on Tuesday, February 26th so please be aware of that.

Our weather is in flux now. This February is one of the snowiest on record already. Today’s snowfall didn’t have a lot of moisture in it, but it caused problems on the roads. I hope everyone had safe travels today. I have already used the snow blower more this month that I did all last winter.

The Amaryllis bulbs were a flop. The large one failed set a flower stalk and the small one had signs of wet rot when I bought it. The large one will go dormant in a few weeks and I will try reviving it again. I have a Forsythia cutting in water now. It should bloom within four weeks. A splash of color is always a welcome change even if it takes some time.

The back-and-forth weather shows we are getting close to spring. Change happens and it isn’t always easy or smooth. Our days are getting longer at this latitude. We have gained almost three hours of daylight since December 20th and are picking up nearly three minutes per day of daylight. The cold snaps are shorter, which I welcome. The seasonal tug-of-war is causing some strong winds at times. Solar angle is more favorable as shown by melting snow on an asphalt driveway when the temperature rises above 10°F. Soon the white shroud covering the ground and coating the trees will give way to green and life.

Babies are another change in some people’s lives. My cousin Diane will be a first-time grandmother July 25th. I have mentioned Lucy’s cousin Chris eagerly waiting on her grandson’s impending birth. Those are wonderful changes.

New jobs and new careers are other changes. The economy has caused a number of changes with some people branching in new directions. I applaud your courage and vision, Mary, and I am proud to help any way I can!

My changes have not been as exciting. Enough time has passed to determine the new normal and I’m still making adjustments. Life is a series of changes and adjustments are part of the process. Lucy never quit and she inspires me to keep trudging forward. Joy and happiness are gone, but hope remains.

Mark Twain said, “To get the full value of joy you must have someone to divide it with” and his words are still true over a century later. Dr. Suess said, “Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened”. It is not easy, but both are worth remembering. Hope allows us to smile when surrounded by despair and gives us a reason to keep plugging away.

Spend some time with your special someone and get that full value of joy. One can never have too much joy.

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Filed under friends, philosophy, rebuilding

by | January 27, 2013 · 8:40 pm

“Slip Slidin’ Away”

Paul Simon’s song of remorse and longing could apply to tonight’s weather. My location dodged the freezing rain, but sleet covered the roadways with a few billion icy ball bearings. Braking on nearly frictionless spheres is not conducive to optimal stopping distances. There are a few drivers in large four-wheel drive vehicles that seem impaired in logic and feel that blasting down the roads at 10+ mph over the posted speed limit will not affect their vehicle’s braking power. The tow truck companies will have a profitable day today.

The weather put a damper on my plans today. I had planned on going to the orchid show at the Como Conservatory today. I couldn’t find anyone to go with me and I did not want to attend it alone. By the time Annette told me about the brunch at the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum, the weather was starting to become a factor here in Bloomington.

Lucy really enjoyed attending the orchid show the years we attended. She enjoyed the beauty of the flowers coming from exotic and tropical locations, and I was happy tagging along and spending quality time with her. Our next orchid viewing would come in June at the Arboretum when the lady’s slippers would bloom. Believe it or not, the Minnesota state flower, the showy lady’s slipper, is an orchid and several types of lady’s slippers are native flora. Lucy’s parents had lady’s slippers growing in the bog. Embarrass, MN gets extremely cold during the winter. Their home was close to a peat bog near a river, so the cold air stayed concentrated. I could count on Bob letting us know several times during the winter that it was colder than -50°F before wind chill. Summers were short and muggy and yet orchids survived in those conditions. Orchids in the northeast corner of the state and prickly pear cactus in the southwestern corner always cause disbelief in people from outside the area. Beauty is not always frail. Lucy’s battle taught everyone that lesson.

The electrical work Lucy and I wanted done is completed. I could not have it done during her battle because of the dust. Her immune system was working hard enough the way it was without introducing particulates. Midwest Electric and Generator did a great job despite working in sub-zero temperatures for part of the work. I think she would be happy with the ceiling fan in the living room.

It has been fun catching up with some of my friends. Mary and I had breakfast a couple of days ago and I heard about her new business venture and what she wants done for her website. It was a fun couple of hours and I enjoyed her witty banter. It knocked some of the rust out of my brain. My cousin Julie and I worked on a craft project together (OK, she did the majority of the work). Suzy and I had lunch about a week ago, so I am getting out occasionally. Ken and I will be getting together after the weather warms up and I hope to meet up with Gerry sometime soon.

We may not get above zero from Wednesday night through Friday afternoon. Monday and Tuesday potentially can drop more sleet and ice on the area. Groundhog’s Day is about a week away and it marks the halfway point of winter. Getting a later start on snowfall has helped make the winter more bearable and seem a little shorter.

One of the nice things about blogging is not being constrained to a subject or a deadline. Lewis Carroll’s “The Walrus and the Carpenter” has a verse that could describe blogging despite being written in 1872:

“The time has come,” the Walrus said,
“To talk of many things:
Of shoes–and ships–and sealing-wax–
Of cabbages–and kings–
And why the sea is boiling hot–
And whether pigs have wings.”

OK, the oysters did not fare well after the walrus uttered his soliloquy, and I hope that reading this does not make you long for boiling water. I do thank you for reading sticking though the blog’s transition and I hope I’ve provided a modicum of entertainment along with my ramblings and philosophical pontificating.

Spend some time with someone special to you and give that person a hug. For those of you in a cold clime, cuddle if you have someone. It will keep your life from “slip slidin’ away”.

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Filed under friends, rebuilding, weather

by | January 21, 2013 · 11:24 pm

The warmth of a hug

Minnesota in the winter can get cold. Cold weather can induce a variety of creaks, pops, groans, and other unusual noises that will rouse me from a deep slumber. Those are usually from my knees, shoulders, back, and neck. The house will also have some peculiar noises from the uneven contraction of building materials. With the wind shifting to predominately northwest, the airport is using their alternate runways, which occasionally cause an international flight or cargo flight more laden with fuel than other planes (called “heavies” by air traffic controllers) to fly lower over Interstate 35W a mile east of me. Cold air is denser so the planes have more resistance to overcome. That density also causes the sound to carry farther and amplify.

Today was the first day in just shy of four years where a midnight to midnight maximum temperature did not exceed 0°F (-18°C for my metric friends) at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, where the official National Weather Service acquires its readings. There were several days during that span where the temperature was one or two degrees above zero at midnight, but slipped below zero by the 1:00 am reading. For those who heard it is the coldest weather in the past four years, the talking head on TV is wrong unless it drops down colder than -33°F tonight. The forecast low is -12°F.

The wind was steady today with some surprising gusts. Cold weather is lethal. One increases survival chances by preparing. Utility workers are often times called out to do an emergency repair in weather most foul or frigid. When I went out today, I knew the battery in my car is good, I keep the car well maintained, the heater works, and the OnStar, heated seats, and remote starter are nice. I also dressed in layers in case I needed to wait in the car if something unexpected happened, like a flat tire, or getting run off the road by a drunk driver.

I had not planned to venture out today. The original plan was to help a friend with iPhone ringtones sync issues, but I completed that yesterday, and everyone had a great meal and a lot of fun (thanks, Patty!). Today I spent time with my cousin Julie. Her work schedule is crazy so we don’t get much time together anymore. I had two days in a row where I could laugh a lot and enjoy good meals. I am so happy my schedule was flexible enough for me to enjoy those opportunities.

Tomorrow could get interesting. I have Midwest Electric coming over to replace my breaker panel and do a couple other wiring jobs. That means no electricity and no furnace for at least four hours. It could get a bit nippy during that time. I’m not worried about the pipes freezing because the house temperature will not get that low. I think the cold will motivate the poor person doing the outdoor wiring and attic wiring to work quickly. These are tasks Lucy and I wanted to accomplish. Now I have the time.

Today was also National Hug Day. I hope all of you participated at some point. Give your loved ones a meaningful hug tonight, cuddle if you have someone, and thank you for your time!

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Filed under friends, rebuilding, weather

by | January 13, 2013 · 7:23 pm

“Melancholy Man”

The bad part about having a music player on shuffle while getting housework done is sometimes a song hits one right between the eyes. Today’s song was “Melancholy Man” by the Moody Blues from 1970. Today marks nine months since Lucy left this life. I had not heard the song in quite some time, so it added to an already emotional day.

A few days ago, I was at the VA hospital in Minneapolis saying goodbye to an old acquaintance. I met Marty in 1979 when we worked together. He flew helicopters during the Vietnam War and sometimes I could pry a story out of him. Marty didn’t like talking about the war; I found out later that is typical of combat veterans that saw too many of their unit come home in flag covered coffins. He was also a bit of a loner, an only child who never married. Through the years, we would occasionally bump into each other on a contract job or at a restaurant. Towards the end of his life, Marty had ALS and severe dementia. I think he just turned 70 in September. I had heard from a mutual colleague that it was time to say goodbye to him. I’m quite certain Marty didn’t recognize me, and he seemed mostly unaware of his surroundings. I don’t know if that was a blessing or curse for him. Afterwards, I went to Minnehaha Falls, which is really close to the hospital. It was nice getting some fresh air and seeing how wonderful the falls look even though they are completely frozen at this time. Marty died Friday afternoon.

I did squeeze in a quick trip to visit Mom and Dad. By quick, I mean getting there Thursday afternoon and leaving early Friday afternoon due to impending freezing rain. There were a couple of things I wanted to do for them while I still had time. I hadn’t counted on a trip into Sioux Falls to pick up some stuff at Home Depot that the local Ace Hardware didn’t carry.

Julie, Suzy, and Brady came over to visit today. I was very happy having visitors, especially people I love deeply, and who aren’t soliciting donations for a charity. We had lunch at the new (in the past six months) El Loro’s restaurant on 84th and Lyndale. I was surprised at all the different items were on the menu. Lucy wanted to take me to the El Loro’s in Savage, but we never quite got to it. It was very emotional for me when they left, and Julie saw me starting to break down. Poor Julie, I feel bad for doing that to her.

I was lucky that in the past couple days I got to spend time with loved ones. It helped get the new year on the right track and it was very good for the soul.

Let your loved ones know you care. That has helped brighten many a sad day for me, including today. Enjoy some time with someone you want to spend time with, and give that person a meaningful hug if your relationship permits. In the meantime, I have to start separating my songs into playlists so I am not hit hard while driving.

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Filed under family, friends, music, rebuilding