silent night
At this time of year, I don't mind when the weather drops 15 inches of snow overnight. I DO mind, however, when the weather drops 15 degrees. I like spring snowstorms when they bring heavy wet flakes and then melt off nearly as quickly as they arrived: a big day or night of snow, and then back to sunshiny 50 degrees--nothing wrong with that. But this weather today, it's just not right. Cold and windy and little sleet pellets most of the day today. Tonight was a frosty clear walk home from the library at midnite, with slick bubbles of ice frozen odd-shaped and flat-topped on the sidewalks but at least no breeze.
On the bright side, though, the weather was reason to enjoy some hot cocoa yesterday and to steep a fine cup of Good Earth tonight.
In other, unrelated news, I don't really like mapquest. I like maps. Or an atlas. Not just directions from A to B with no larger perspective. I realize tonight, as I'm planning for the Indiana trip, that I really don't care to print intersection-by-intersection directions for the driving: I wanna just start looking for the signs that say 'I-65' and find my way south. Finding one's way in the world isn't a simple science that can be trusted to someone else (or to some robot); navigating is an art of finding the back road, sensing the path, learning to read the signs.
In still other news, I learned today that the spring indoor soccer league starts tomorrow. Since I just signed up yesterday, it's probably my own fault (mostly) that I'm so out of the loop. In any case, I'm glad for some additional impetus to get moving around again--after a impressively active start to 2009, the last few weeks have bogged me down in travel, conference work, and assorted other distractions that have kept me pretty sluggish. Hopefully the pressure of defending our hard-earned crown will motivate me to get back in shape.
In yet other, other unrelated news (for weeks I've had nothing to say, and now the dam breaks loose), I finished "One Man's Wilderness" last night. Tonight I'll leave off with a few more bits of wisdom from our man Dick:
* Reflecting on his birthday after several months in Alaska: "This country makes a man younger than his birthdays."
* A trip for me down to the lower end of the lower lake takes three hours by canoe if I don't have the wind to fight. That's a distance of eight and a half miles. ... Eight and a half miles can be covered in minutes with a car on an expressway, but what does a man see? What he gains in time he loses in benefit both to his body and his mind. At my pace I can notice things."
* There is definitely a need and a place for teamwork, but there is also a need for an individual sometime in his life to forget the world of parts and put something together on his own--complete something. He's got to create.
* I am my own newspaper and my own radio. I honestly don't believe that man was meant to konw everything going on in the world, all at the same time.
* I don't begrudge a hunter his Dall ram if he climbs to the crags to get one and packs it down the mountain. If he does this, he has earned those curved horns to put up on his wall. Yet there are so many who have not earned what they proudly exhibit. Even though the hunt may have cost them thousands of dollars, they did not pay the full price for it.
On the bright side, though, the weather was reason to enjoy some hot cocoa yesterday and to steep a fine cup of Good Earth tonight.
In other, unrelated news, I don't really like mapquest. I like maps. Or an atlas. Not just directions from A to B with no larger perspective. I realize tonight, as I'm planning for the Indiana trip, that I really don't care to print intersection-by-intersection directions for the driving: I wanna just start looking for the signs that say 'I-65' and find my way south. Finding one's way in the world isn't a simple science that can be trusted to someone else (or to some robot); navigating is an art of finding the back road, sensing the path, learning to read the signs.
In still other news, I learned today that the spring indoor soccer league starts tomorrow. Since I just signed up yesterday, it's probably my own fault (mostly) that I'm so out of the loop. In any case, I'm glad for some additional impetus to get moving around again--after a impressively active start to 2009, the last few weeks have bogged me down in travel, conference work, and assorted other distractions that have kept me pretty sluggish. Hopefully the pressure of defending our hard-earned crown will motivate me to get back in shape.
In yet other, other unrelated news (for weeks I've had nothing to say, and now the dam breaks loose), I finished "One Man's Wilderness" last night. Tonight I'll leave off with a few more bits of wisdom from our man Dick:
* Reflecting on his birthday after several months in Alaska: "This country makes a man younger than his birthdays."
* A trip for me down to the lower end of the lower lake takes three hours by canoe if I don't have the wind to fight. That's a distance of eight and a half miles. ... Eight and a half miles can be covered in minutes with a car on an expressway, but what does a man see? What he gains in time he loses in benefit both to his body and his mind. At my pace I can notice things."
* There is definitely a need and a place for teamwork, but there is also a need for an individual sometime in his life to forget the world of parts and put something together on his own--complete something. He's got to create.
* I am my own newspaper and my own radio. I honestly don't believe that man was meant to konw everything going on in the world, all at the same time.
* I don't begrudge a hunter his Dall ram if he climbs to the crags to get one and packs it down the mountain. If he does this, he has earned those curved horns to put up on his wall. Yet there are so many who have not earned what they proudly exhibit. Even though the hunt may have cost them thousands of dollars, they did not pay the full price for it.
Comments
Secondly, I love maps - so fun to look over.
And most importantly...Good Earth Original is one of my all time FAVORITE teas out there. A perfect mix of spicy and sweet - I really love that stuff!