All posts by djones

friday high five

Five “Instruments” …

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Time once more for

(Hosted by Angela, who gave me this award

 

the Premios Dardo that I now am figuring out which 15 others to pass it on to.)

Five “Instruments” That Should Have Been Omitted From The Symphony Early This Morning

  • The caterwauling female cat looking desperately for male companionship under my bedroom window.
  • The wildly barking Molly dog trying to open the sliding door to have a few words with the aforementioned cat.
  • The crows who chose to dive bomb and caw at said cat, hoping to drive it out of their territory.
  • The mourning doves that felt they had to get their mournful coos in with all the other noise.
  • The train engineer that just had to sit on his horn to put a real edge on things.

Needless to say, further sleep was impossible after being roused by that cacophony.

friday high five

Five "Instruments" …

2 Comments

Time once more for

(Hosted by Angela, who gave me this award

 

the Premios Dardo that I now am figuring out which 15 others to pass it on to.)

Five “Instruments” That Should Have Been Omitted From The Symphony Early This Morning

  • The caterwauling female cat looking desperately for male companionship under my bedroom window.
  • The wildly barking Molly dog trying to open the sliding door to have a few words with the aforementioned cat.
  • The crows who chose to dive bomb and caw at said cat, hoping to drive it out of their territory.
  • The mourning doves that felt they had to get their mournful coos in with all the other noise.
  • The train engineer that just had to sit on his horn to put a real edge on things.

Needless to say, further sleep was impossible after being roused by that cacophony.

writer's challenge

The Incredible ….

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Time once more for Mama Kat‘s Writer’s Challenge. This time with special sauce and a prompt from yours truly. The prompts:

1.) Mother’s guilt…tell us what happened.
(inspired by Lolli)

2.) Write five “Incredibly Short Books”. Some examples:

“Chemical Contraception Choices for Catholic Couples”
“Teenage U.S. Presidents”
“The Book of Female Popes”
“The 2008 Book of General Motors Profits”

Dan says, “The point is that the book is of zero size since the title is a contradiction with reality.”
(inspired by Dan)

3.) I’ll be happy when ________________.
(inspired by Tracy P.)

4.) Relay an interesting conversation you recently had with someone that may or may not involve creating a Loch Ness Monster Theme Park.
(inspired by Jen)

5.) Show us something you made!
(inspired by Janis)

#1 – Mother’s guilt. I have to leave this one unfilled since I am not a mother. Besides, as we all know, fathers never suffer from guilt. {*grin*}

#2 – Incredibly Short Books. I am honored, nay tickled pink to have a prompt inspired by me. My must read list of Incredibly Short Books includes:

  • Quantum Gravity for Dummies
  • The Pictorial History of Overweight Playboy Centerfolds
  • Heart Healthy Deep Fried Food
  • The Well Rested Newborn Parent
  • The Ugly Plastic Surgeon

BTW, the idea of short books came from Indie 101.5 FM, an eclectic radio station out of the Denver area.

#3 – I’ll be happy when … I’ll be happy when the weather once more turns to the cooler nights of fall. I’ll be happy when I have a real job. I’ll be happy to see L tomorrow.

#4 – Interesting Conversation. This morning as I was walking across the Wal-Mart parking lot to speak at the Grand Re-Opening after the remodel, I ran into a local attorney named Alex. I asked him what he was doing up at 8am for the gala. His reply: “Somebody good looking had to be invited to make up for all the rest of you people in attendance.” Think Alex might be just a little bit vain? One of the newspaper reporters couldn’t resist remarking, “If Alex spent as much time on law as he does on his appearance, he’d be on the supreme court by now.” It really is funny because Alex is not truly that vain, he just likes to cultivate that appearance.

#5 – Something I made. I made this little windmill a long time ago. It has set on top of my book case in the office here fo somewhere between 15 and 20 years, I looks somewhat like the one I remember from my grandparents farm in my childhood.


hiking, mountain

Downhill All The Way

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Saturday while playing corporate wife for L, we journeyed up the mountain at Vail in the afternoon for an ice cream social. Like most sane people, we took the gondola up the mountain to the top where the social (and various entertainments for the kids) were to be held. A short gondola trip for those used to multistage backbowl gondolas like the one at Keystone.

L and I had a pleasant trip up with the gondola car all to ourselves. Once up on top (at 11,000+ feet), we moseyed around and visited the eco-school display and generally putzed around killing time until the social. At the duly appointed time, we snarfed our bowl of ice cream and began preparations to journey down the mountain by hiking trail.

(A little background here. L is not noted for having mad map reading skills, but since she and the Son have skied the area before and returned to tell about it, I assumed she knew where she was leading me. Her words were that it was an easy 45 minute hike to the base of the mountain.)

We started down and it was indeed a beginner type trail at the beginning, avoiding any really steep descents. About a third of the way down, we were passed by a group of girls wearing school uniforms and backpacks. We had heard them following us for a while since they were all in the 13-16 year old range that cannot be silent. When we came to a widening in the trail, we stepped to the side to let them pass with the words “Go ahead, we don’t want to hold you up.” The response was “You guys are doing really good” with the unvoiced “for old fogies” muttered under breath. L. and I got a good laugh about that. We marvelled at how the girls could all be talking, wearing their IPods, skipping lightly along in tennis shoes, never looking down, and not trip or fall on all the obstacles on the trail.

Over the next half hour, the trail began to look more like an expert only trail in places. It had become clear that the 45-minute descent did not describe the trail we are on. Since a few turns back, the trail has begun getting steeper and steeper. Of course my toe gets torsioned and the nerve fires. (The story of the nerve that has been dieing for years due to diabetes is a thing for another time. Suffice it to say that when it fires, I will do anything to stop the pain.) I tried to protected the nerve by using mostly the other leg and pretty soon we are coming down black diamond slopes with both of my legs in danger of not working. Even L, who is built for downhill hiking (I am not. The combo of being 6’5″ and wearing size 16 shoes does not make for a good downhill hiking experience on steep and narrow rocky and rooted trails!), was starting to falter a bit. The net result is a nearly four hour torture trip down the mountain, leaving both of us limping and in L’s case blistered.

To make it all the more exciting, L and I are supposed to be at the formal awards dinner starting at 7pm. At that time we are just at the base of the mountain and still have to hike to the hotel and get ready. All I have to say is that it was really good that the cocktail hour lasted a bit overtime and that we had a room that was luxurious enough to have both a tub and a separate shower in the bathrom. We made it just in time to file in with the crowd (although I didn’t have time to shave, so I had a bit of a white shadow over the face.)

Of course, this being a sales district meeting and awards ceremony, there were a lot of standing ovations. My legs hurt enough that I was waiting for them to quit working evertime we had to stand up and clap. L and I were basically cussing under our breath at each and every new occasion requiring us to stand up. We were very happy when the ceremony ended. We still had enough giddy-up go to make it to the post ceremony party (a hike of a couple of blocks) and to outlast most of the crowd. Proof positive you can make old warhorses hurt, but you can’t make them quit!

What are the morals of this story:

  • Never believe anyone who says a trail is easy without proof.
  • Never believe anyone who says “this is a short cut when we ski here.” Slopes and lengths are a lot different on foot versus on downhill  skies.
  • Never give up. You can make it even when it already looks impossible.
birds, MIL

The Bird and the Mother-In-Law

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I was over at L’s Mom’s house this morning. As I took my leave, she was standing in the open doorway talking to me. At that time, a bird decided that it would like a tour of the house and nose dived past MIL and into the house. Needless to say, I got recruited for bird chasing and removal duty.

The bird flew to and fro and finally came to rest in the living room behind the knick-knack tower in the corner. It looked to be an adolescent crow. It certainly had little fear of humans as it sat there daring me to make it move. After a few desultory hand waves and some calming words, the bird finally decided a change of venue was in order and flew across the dining room table to the desk on the other wall. After calmly walking across the papers there, it took a moment to sit on the top of the letter opener.

This time when I finally convinced it to move on, it flew into the kitchen and hopped up on the kitchen counter. After performing a strut along the counter, it then tried the lids to all the cannisters to see if they would open. When that failed, he hopped up on the cooking utensils sitting in the wooden jar on the counter. There are few things funnier that a crow giving you a quizzical look while perched on the edge of a spatula.

Finally tiring of the kitchen, the young intruder returned to the living room and perched on the wall tapestry, looking much like a wood pecker. Then he dropped off and flew over to perch on the magazine rack. At this point, the MIL and I figured the game was up. He was sitting at the juncture of one arm of a T shaped hall, with one of the arms leading to the now propped open door he had entered. I took one arm of the T and MIL the other and we crowded the bird on out the door, which we immediately closed.

What made the whole thing extraordinary was how little fear of humans the bird showed. Even after being chased out of the house, he proceeded to stay a few feet from me as I started walking home. Makes me suspect someone has been working on taming the young crow as a pet.. Crows are among the most intelligent and resourceful birds around and are known to form relationships with people, so I hope the bird finds his way back to his person.

Time to head for the sack. Goodnight.and don’t let the birds get you.