Self-Portrait with Dog

Yesterday Bravo and I went to Centennial Lakes Park. It's small, but quite a nice park for such an urban setting - nestled amid office buildings, shops and condos. I may do a whole week of Park pictures...

I understand that mazes like this one are the new thing - very meditative and new age. I may have to come back and walk this one sometime - without the dog. Somehow I don't think he would get the whole meditation thing.


Fortune cookie of the day:
You will soon have your moment of glory.

Random thoughts on recent events

I haven't posted much for a while, so here are just some random thoughts I had on recent local news events. The first couple are depressing, but then there are some lighter, more personal notes at the end.

1. I told people a couple of weeks ago about the news article on a cross that had been burned into the lawn at the house of a black man in the northern suburbs. Yes, into, not on - rather than a wooden cross planted on the lawn and set on fire, this was the shape of a cross burned into the grass. Ok, I thought that was a little odd at the time, but I hadn't kept up on cross-burning techniques - maybe this was the new way? A couple days later, the article in the paper said the man was now accused of doing it himself. Allegedly, he told some inmate friends of his that he planned on doing something like that to gain sympathy and maybe money. And one of them ratted him out. If you can't trust your prison friends, who can you trust?

2. A very sad incident occurred across the border in Wisconsin last weekend. A 20-year-old sheriff's deputy shot several people to death, apparently when he went to a party looking for his ex-girlfriend and she was no longer interested in him. The youngest victim was 14, most were 18-20. There were articles about how 20 is too young to be in law enforcement. While I do agree that seems a little young, I think the bigger problem, which didn't seem to get quite as much press, was the fact that he had not been required to undergo a psychological evaluation before hiring. Yeah, why check on the mental stability of a person who is going to carry a gun and be a figure of authority? Isn't it a waste of time and money? (Minnesota does require a psychological evaluation, though.)

3. The headline a few days ago said that Minnesota had turned down Federal money earmarked for bridge repair. Oh my god! A state whose bridges are in such sad shape that THEY FALL DOWN did not accept free money to repair them??? Well, not exactly. If you actually read the article, it sounds like there were a couple of mutually exclusive pots of money that the state could have accepted. Instead of the bridge repair funds (which had restrictions such as they couldn't be used to replace a bridge, only repair it), the state accepted other money that did not have such restrictions. They may not have made the wisest use of the money they did accept, but I still think the headline was irresponsible.

4. On a lighter note, my co-worker and her husband were on Fox news the other night. They had the local gas company come to winterize their furnace, and the news asked if they could tape it for a spot on preparing for winter. The funny thing was, while the repairman was filmed working on their furnace, he talked about the odd things he had pulled out of furnaces - pounds of walnuts, chipmunks, easter eggs. But the way they cut it, sounded like he was getting all this from my co-worker's furnace!

5. Agility was great this week! There was a very complicated course, and I was sure it would be hard to keep Bravo on the right path as he had to change directions quickly, ignoring obstacles right in front of him to go for the ones I asked him to take. But he did really well, seldom taking the wrong path. I was so proud!!!

6. It is still dark when I walk in the morning, though I have moved back the time so it does get light before I'm done. This morning as I passed the end of Bush Lake Beach, I heard a sound like a wave breaking. When I looked around, I realized we had flushed a flock of geese (or maybe ducks - it was too dark to tell) and they had all slipped into the water at the same time. A little further on, I heard another flock landing on the water with a similar wave-like sound. And then a flock of ducks (it was lighter this time) that had more of the many-wings-flapping sound. I don't know, it just caught my attention and I liked hearing it.

Have a great weekend!

Fortune cookie of the day:
Your problems just become your stepping stone. Catch the moment.

Of Cat and Dog

This morning as I was walking Bravo before sunrise, he suddenly veered away into the middle of the road to avoid something ahead of him. I peered into the dark and eventually realized that there was a cat standing in the gutter, back arched in warning. Yes, my 70-lb dog was afraid of a cat. Once he had made a wide circle around this scary critter, Bravo turned back to check, and she appeared to be following us. So he would run ahead, then turn again and kind of growl at her (but it was really more like his little talking noise than a fierce growl). This went on for a distance of 3 or 4 houses. Eventually we got far enough ahead, or she lost interest in scaring the big dog, or something, and we continued our walk.

So Bravo is afraid of cats, but he loves college students. We went to Beloit last weekend, and I think he believed that all the petting he got from the Beloit students was worth the 6 hours in the crate to get there. We had so many students come up to us, ask to pet him, and talk about how they missed their dogs. At least one girl said we made her day. Karis and I took him on a couple of long walks, he got to visit the farmers' market, and even snuck into her dorm room once. He thought the hotel room was a little strange, but all in all he did quite well with new experiences.

The weather was beautiful, and I very much enjoyed visiting Beloit and meeting some of Karis' friends there. But most of all, it was great to see my daughter again. I'm really glad she gets a fall break, and will be home in about 10 days.

We did have a strange incident where we couldn't call each others' cell phones, and so couldn't find each other for about an hour. That happened again on Tuesday when I went to pick up someone at work from the airport - she finally had to use a pay phone to reach me. I'm not sure what was going on...

Fortune cookie of the day:
Take some time and really listen to your own inner wisdom.

Hidden treasure

On Friday I went to get my hair cut at Carly's new salon. I turned down the next street past the salon, and noticed that the parking lot was reserved for "MAHA residents". And so was the next one. So I found a place to park on the street. As I walked back up to the salon, I noticed that on the next street over, there were some interesting houses that all looked very similar. So after my haircut, instead of going straight back to the car, I turned the other way and found myself on a pedestrian street lined with small but beautiful houses, mostly brick, decorated with gingerbread. I was in the Milwaukee Avenue Historic Area, and a sign said there was a home tour on Sunday.
So today Russ and I rode the light rail to Franklin Avenue and then walked over to Milwaukee Avenue. We discovered that this area had been slated for "urban renewal" in the late 60's. The houses were built in the 1880's mainly for low-skilled immigrants. By 1970, most were dilapidated and plans called for them to be razed, but a group of activists managed to save the street. The houses that were structurally sound were jacked up so that basements with all new mechanicals could be constructed, they were gutted and rehabilitated. They also chose to make the narrow street a pedestrian walkway. Most of the seven houses open for the tour are similar on the outside, but each is unique and interesting in its own way. Some have extremely steep stairs with shallow risers and detailed woodwork, one has 4 different levels and no interior doors, one has a back staircase that can be lifted up to make room for a dinner table underneath, and one has had no major restoration at all. Most do not have garages, thus the parking lots I noticed on Friday. The tour has a blog with pictures of each house and comments by the owners.

By the way, the salon is nice. Not as funky as either of the other locations, and nowhere near as much space as the last one. But as Carly said, it is much cleaner.

Fortune cookie of the day:
Do not let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do.

Rain, rain, go away

So they were supposed to put in the glass block windows today to solve our problem of water coming in through the window wells. But it rained. All day. So they couldn't do the work AND we got water in the basement. I was watching for it, though, and vacuumed it up with the wet/dry vac as it came in. By the time Russ came home, it had stopped. I'm hoping the rain is pretty much over for the night.

And when the rain let up a little earlier in the evening, I went out to walk Bravo. THAT is when they chose to call to re-schedule the windows. And of course, no one answered the number they left on the machine, because it was after office hours. Not the best evening I've had in a while.

Ducks and geese better scurry

We were taking a tour of the lake in the Hendees' boat on Saturday. There were many many ducks and geese on the lake and the shore, and most of them took off when we went by. It's a nice little lake. Convoluted shoreline, spring-fed, no wake, and when we were there, the water was very clear.

Before we went out on the boat, Russ cast a fishing line off the pier. One cast, one fish! There were no barbs on the hook, and the fish went right back into the lake.

After the boat ride, we had home-made BLTs for lunch. They were SO good. I may have to learn to make them at home. Later in the afternoon, we went by an elk and buffalo ranch, and I got some great pictures. Then we wandered the shops in Princeton and had dinner in Wautoma.
We got back to the cabin just in time for sunset. That's the bench at the end of their dock. After I took the picture, we went back out on the boat and had some wine while the sun went down. I wished I had the camera to capture the moon in the water, and when it was full dark, the stars out there were magnificent.

Sunday morning we spent some time talking politics before we left for home. It was a great weekend.

More photos here.

Fortune cookie of the day:
A small act of charity will go a long way.

Of this and that

I was at the library tonight and just started thinking about having recently read a discussion of whether listening to an audio book counted as reading the book. In my opinion - absolutely. Yes, you can say that many people who listen to books don't really hear all of it as they are distracted by other things. However, the same is true of many people who read by looking at the pages - there are people out there who skim. (I know - it's heresy!) There are people who are more aural than visual, and a good narrator can really make a book come alive. I've "read" several books by listening to them, and I usually feel I got at least as much from them as if I had been turning pages. And if the audio book is narrated by Simon Prebble, I got more. I absolutely love his voice. I like the Bill Bryson audio books, too, because he reads them himself - I think they are funnier in the audio version. I admit I sometimes realize I have drifted off to other thoughts. But the biggest problem I have with audio books (especially CDs) is how to put in the bookmark.

On the way back from the library, I stopped at a light behind one other car. When the light changed, the other driver got started so slowly that the light turned red before I made it all the way across the 4 lane highway. Did I mention it was only ONE other car? And they never did go as fast as the speed limit. Which was 35 mph. Now you are probably asking yourself why I am mentioning such a mundane occurrence. Solely because the car .... was a CORVETTE! I had to ask myself if the driver really deserved such a car.

Fortune cookie of the day:
You will inherit a large sum of money.

Maybe I can use it to buy that Corvette....