Story A Day

It’s the fourth day back on the job at the outdoor center but the first that I was able to spend some time on the trails.  I took note of the slightly overgrown trails with many rebel plants soon to be trampled by little explorers.  One of the sad casualties will be the ginormous (my favorite made-up word) fungi that I found in a few spots in the middle of the trail – one looked like a whole bunch of rounded marshmallows all smooshed together. Probably not as tasty though, or as harmless! And then, of course, somewhere along the trail I must have walked through a swarm of tiny insects and once I’d inadvertantly introduced myself to them they certainly had no interest in leaving me alone!  I call them the dehydrated divebombers because for some reason they like to aim for the eyeball. Don’t ask me why!  I can only guess that it might be because of the moisture?  No clue, really.  I could make up a smart, naturalist sounding answer but the truth is – I have no idea!  Perhaps they just fly erratically and it just seems like they are aiming for the eye.  Nonetheless, I’ve learned this little trick that if I RUN fast and get out of the swarm I can enjoy some peace before walking through the next swarm!  All in all a great day of feeling re-invigorated and ready to have those little explorers come to the outdoor center soon!!

Upon arrival home from work today I was walking up the sidewalk, a bit absorbed in my own thoughts of the day and I looked up to see a squirrel contently perched on the arm of my adirondack chair.  He look quite comfortable, really, munching on one of the flowers from a nearby pot.  It made me smile – out of defeat more than anything   You see I decided some time ago that there was no use in battling the squirrels because they will win!  Instead, I figure, go with the flow, laugh at their goofiness, even if they are eating my flowers.  So, he could have the seat for now, but later, it’s mine again   And no, the squirrels have not gotten up the bird feeder pole yet!!

That was the title of the speech that Mike Veeck (Co-Owner/President of the Saint Paul Saints) gave today at a district seminar.  He wrote a book by that name as well.  Sounds like a simple idea, really, but is it? 

He proceeded to give one of the most hilarious, but also one of the most touching and compelling speeches that I have heard in a long time.  “Fun is Good” - such a simple idea.  Laughter, that is what most of us really need more of in our lives. 

The speech reached deeper into my thoughts than it may have at another point because of my direct experience with this idea – my blog.  My blog has brought a somewhat unexpected but tremendous new gift to my life – the ability to reshape thought patterns toward a more light-hearted and laughter-filled approach to life.  Instead of getting frustrated with the little things in life I find myself, instead, crafting the story in my head that I would write about it.  At the end of the day it’s often tough to pick which one to write about.  And I’ll tell you, it really is AMAZING how much the re-creating of mental narratives, even about the little things, has had on my life…

Today, rather than my own story I want to share one that Mike told because I found it very touching…

Mike attends most (perhaps all) of the Saints games.  A few seasons ago there was a man named Larry who came to every game (PS. Larry was in a wheelchair, you’ll need this reference later).  Mike would greet him at the gate and they would always go up to the stands and watch the last few innings together.  One day Larry asked Mike:

“if you could have anything you wanted in the world, what would it be?” 
Mike said, “I would have Bob Dylan play at the Saint’s Stadium.” 
Bob Dylan was one of Mike’s idols but Mike figured he was way too big to play at the Saint’s Stadium.  About a year later Mike’s phone rang. 
“I am calling to let you know that Bob would like to play at your stadium” 
“Bob who?”
Mike was shocked when the agent said Bob Dylan.  “Why would Bob Dylan want to play at my stadium?”
“He talked to Larry,you know, Larry, the guy in the wheelchair that you watched games with”
Bob Dylan and Larry grew up together.
The Bob Dylan concert turned out to be called “One of the best events of the year” in Saint Paul…all possible because of the time Mike took to spend with one of his customers, Larry, who certainly returned the favor.

I don’t do this story justice in writing it b/c Mike told it much more thoroughly and with much emotion throughout, but I wanted to at least attempt to pass along a story that made me smile today.  Many of his stories did, I think I will check out that book…

So, today, and tomorrow, and the next day - laugh…

Okay, let’s see how good your guessing skills are…
What smells good, tastes great on toast, is a nice topping for oatmeal and repels ants?  Cinnamon folks, oh yes, cinnamon.  It has come to the rescue twice now this year!  As soon as the cinnamon touches down the ants scatter like little children running from “it” in a game of tag.  It’s amazing.  Truly, truly, amazing.  I have never seen ants move so fast.  So here’s the thing, our house is old, it has cracks, ants like cracks, ants like food, we like food.  Therefore, ants like us and love to navigate out crack-filled (not the drug kind) house! But, guess what, we don’t like them (well, except for the time I was enthralled for at least 15 minutes by their amazing ability to travel in a very organized line, the same one EVERY time).  But mostly, we don’t like them, so, in comes the cinnamon.  Here’s how it goes:  sprinkle, scatter, smoosh.  Of course as I am smooshing it spreads the cinnamon smell all along their previously well-organized line of travel.  A few sprinkles of cinnamon down into the crack of origin and poof no more ants.  The split-second instinct of course is “oh no, I can’t put food in the cracks in my house, I might get…oh wait, ants don’t like it.”  Yippee!  I haven’t discovered any other pests that seek out cinnamon – yet…So, bring on the cinnamon!  No Raid around here, especially in the kitchen, so this works well!  Fun discovery, but no more in-home ant farm shucks, says the intrigued, ant-line enthralled naturalist.

Let’s sum up the past year: 
Bought fixer upper house 4 months before wedding…had wedding…continued fixing up of house, not much settling in happening yet…didn’t do much at all in kitchen besides bare minimum to satiate hunger due to overwhelming number of other tasks…continued fixing up of house…reached plateau (sp?) of fixing up house…finally started to feel “settled in” as of about a month ago…That, my friends, can really all be summed up with one little statement…We own an ice cream scoop and I didn’t even know it   I had some friends over tonight for ice cream, it occurred to me last night that I didn’t own an ice cream scoop – a spoon would do I supposed.  I entered my kitchen as a friend prepped the ice cream this evening and there was an ice cream scoop!  Where did you find that, I asked?  In the drawer somewhere, I just kept looking until I found one, she said…Hmmmmm…I giggled inside as I thought to myself, I guess we are not quite settled in yet, since I didn’t even know that I owned an ice cream scoop…but I’m very glad I do

PS.  An update…the wasp nest is in the attic…fun adventure ahead…

Today, well I guess yesterday by 30 minutes , was one filled with conversations.  If I had the time I could write so many stories from today.  Each their own nugget of greatness.  But since it is late, and I’m sleepy I will just say this…one of the best gifts of being human is the gift of conversation…

Okay folks, I just came from my office window where I stood watching my newly placed bird feeders. No traffic yesterday, but, oh boy, did the neighborhood critters find their way today!

Here’s the lowdown:
- 19 LBB’s – that’s naturalist talk for little brown birds, in other words, the ones I am not good enough at identifying yet, yes, yes, I am a naturalist, but cut me some slack Three of those LBB’s had reddish heads, I know that my coworkers have told me the name, but I don’t remember, maybe I’ll track down the bird book later!

Okay, back to the stats:
- 3 mourning doves, they waited their turn on the powerline.
- 3 squirrels, not ONE made it up to the feeders. Oh, they tried, but that darn pole is just toooooo slippery I guess, it was quite fun seeing them sliiiiiiiide back down! The problem: when it gets a little dirtier they probably WILL be able to make it – then, time for the anti-squirrel devices!
- 1 chipmunk, haven’t seen one of those recently but birds drop seeds and oooohh, chipmunks like them too!

AND, DRUMROLL PLEASE!!! A red-bellied woodpecker!!! I see these everyday at my job, but I had NEVER seen one in my neighborhood since I moved here. Oh yes, this is cool. I’m a nerd, I know, but I don’t care

Here is a properly credited, yahoo-obtained, copyrighted photo of what a red-bellied woodpecker looked like in my backyard today. That’s a suet feeder it is hanging on to for the non-birdfeeder types. And, I know, it has a red head, not a red belly. Well, the feathers are a VERY SLIGHT shade of pink – can’t you tell? Whoever named this bird – silly, silly person.

Well I didn’t quite get to writing my story of the day yesterday, but better late than never, right?   The day happened to have a number of interesting stories too, so here goes…

- Birthdays:  My family celebrated birthdays with my dad last night since Tim’s birthday was yesterday, my dad’s is today and mine was Tuesday.  The great thing is that there is a steak restaurant in Eagan where you get a free $28 sirloin dinner on the Thursday of the week of your birthday!  They could hardly believe when nearly half the table was eating free   That’s a good deal if you ask me! It was a great time.  My dad nearly had us falling out of a chairs with “pilot stories” and we sat at the table long after finishing our meal just talking and having a great time.  Oh, and if any of you are Treatza Pizza fans (the DQ ones) you’re out of luck – they are Tim’s favorite so I tried to buy one yesterday for his birthday – they’ve been discontinued , bummer…guess he’ll have to adopt a new favorite cake!

- Bunnies:  Earlier in the day I was working in my home office on some projects.  I looked out the window and there was a baby bunny eating away.  It was so cute, it was not even half the size of a full-grown rabbit.  And it was made MORE cute by the fact that it was learning young to eat the overgrown Burdock stand in the yard rather than my carefully tended perennials.  Now that bunny can stick around

- Burnt Toast:  I spent some time with a college friend today and we were in such an engaging conversation that we managed to burn – not two, oh no, but four grilled cheesed sandwiches!!  We were laughing so hard at ourselves.  We were excited to salvage half of the bread in the second batch but laughed our way all the way to the garbage with the rest.  Such is being human…and distracted

- Basements:  I can’t remember if I mentioned our own home-grown Niagara Falls in a previous blog or not.  Folks, there’s no need to travel far to see it, you can just come to my home office window.  It seems that one of our gutter downspouts is clogged and as a result enormous amounts of water flow over the side gutter outside our office window when it rains.  It really is quite spectacular to see the volume of water than runs over one’s roof when such events occur.  Why titled basements?  Well, you can imagine where the water from Niagara Falls ended up.  Thankfully it only moistened the bottom foundation bricks and we didn’t end up with small rivers like we’ve had before   But, clearly, time to get the ladder out and do some investigating!!  

So, until later today, because I will blog on time today!  Enjoy your Friday!!!

Last summer, just weeks after we moved in to our new house we got an invitation for an annual neighborhood potluck.  It was a nice surprise  and we had a great time.  We hoped there would be another one this year – and indeed, the same great neighbors hosted one again.  It was tonight.  We live on this kind of secluded street in the sense that its a little horseshoe, so it’s very easy to have a “block party” of sorts.  I love the feeling of getting to know my neighbors.  It’s something I always hoped for in a neighborhood but thought wouldn’t happen because of how our society seems to be content with seclusion in that sense.  This being our second potluck since moving into the house we got to know our neighbors even better than last year.  I have a pretty good feel now for who everyone is in the 20 or so houses on our block, and a bit about them.  Of course not everyone came but a large percentage did.  Some fun and interesting folks, and all seem very invested in the area.  That’s a great thing about this block, most everyone (except us) has lived here for a LONG time, most for 15+ years.  And none of them seem to be going anywhere any time soon! It feels like a nice community.  A good time.  It makes me really appreciate the people who make the effort to reach out and make a tradition like this.  And, there was lots of great food!

It was a great birthday today.  I just got back from an evening with family where we indulged in chocolate fondu and angel food cake – I can think of worse ways to spend a birthday!  Other than that I treated myself to a few other things today – lunch and a stroll around the lake with a college friend and a fairly lengthy nap in my new favorite spot - the hammock .  The great news is that I got a bunch of bird feeders for my birthday so the hammock will soon be even more entertaining as I hope to attract lots of cool birds to my backyard.  Of course the day was not without any work – I made progress on the overwhelming basement-organizing project and I spent much of the day doing research for a new endeavor I hope to embark on in the coming year.  I’ll keep you in suspense as far as the details of that because I am still working some things out.  But, you’ll soon find out what I am dreaming up!  I am 26 afterall, and you all know I am not very good at sitting still   Until tomorrow…