He's Still Got It

Did you see Bill last night? Woooo-weee!!

i am bossy is a blog I frequent. Today Bossy summed up perfectly how many of us feel about Bill.

Have a read here.

What Time Is It?

"Know what we need to bring back in this house? Cocktail Hour!"
(10 points if you can identify that quote)

Theo and Ben are spending the week at Camp Grandma in St. Paul.

Which is great. Except that Eric has been gone most of the evenings this week, which, all put together, means that I have none of my usual time markers.

See, when you work from home and you're not the kind of person who really looks at clocks, you count on the flow of the people around you to mark time.

Like, I know that my workday is done when the kids come home. And I know that evening officially begins when Eric comes home.

So, with everyone gone, my day seems like endless hours that have no shape. There is no "flow."

I'm like an untethered dinghy, floating aimlessly in a sea of time... :)

Except that, at around 5:00 or so, I get this niggling little voice in the back of my mind. It's telling me that it's time for something, but what??? What is it???

Oh yes...of course...Cocktails!

My own natural rhythms speak so loudly when there's nobody else here.

He Has My Vote

If you know us, you know that we love, love, love our town. EVEN when its mayor and city council are too busy lying and suing each other to actually govern the town.

We've had a rough couple of years, so this fall's mayoral election is really exciting.

We love our town because it is only here that you can find candidates like this:


Brendon Etter Platform from Bonnie Obremski on Vimeo.


You can find out more about his campaign here on his very funny blog.

Just When We Were Wondering if Miracles Really Exist

They do, and I've got a story to prove it.

Over the years, fall has come to mean something to me other than crisp days and apples. It's the time of year when I start to see extra magazines around the house entitled, Fantasy Football Picks '08 and Football Pro Stats.

I also notice a general distraction in Eric, since his mind is WAY too full of roster possibilities and player stats to do things like say, "hello." Every time I talk to him it's clear that I've interrupted an important computing moment in his head.

And, inevitably, our calendar gets filled up with many long and grueling draft nights.

Yes, it's Fantasy Football Season. A season that only happens once a year, but that takes all of the brain cells and spare moments a guy's got in his life, leaving him to see the rest of the year as "recovery."

Well, the other day Eric announced that this year he is only participating in ONE Fantasy Football league. He said it with a cheerfulness only used when telling your wife something she'll be extremely happy about, but that causes you great internal pain. I didn't ask the why, I just took it as proof that good things happen to good people.

If you're thinking right now that THAT is the miracle, you're oh-so wrong.

Because the VERY NEXT DAY I picked up a phone call from an old friend with whom we've reconnected because we happen to have ended up in the same town.

You guessed it, he was calling to see if Eric wanted to join his Fantasy Football league.

THAT, my friends, is the miracle. Because it is nothing short of miraculous that a man can pick up on another man's pain from across town.

And to rescue him from the torment of a fall that doesn't contain the words drafts, rosters, picks and stats? Miracle. Nothing short of a miracle.

Choices

Okay, I know...this may be more than some of you can stand in the way of tree love. It may confirm your fears that I'm going to walk out into the woods someday, never to be seen again.

It's possible, but...

There's a fact about trees that I find to be so poignant that it almost brings me to tears. It makes me want to run outside and hug all of those big, brave trees and even plant a few kisses on them, too.

It's a fact about trees that one of my Horticulture professors tossed out on a "field walk" one day as if it were just a random, trivial thing and it struck me like a lead pipe. It's like having a crush on someone and then learning something about them that throws you right over the edge into love.

It was the factoid that made me fall in love. With trees.

It goes like this: When a tree realizes that it's dying, it will choose to do one of two things.

In a last-ditch attempt to grab life and not let it go, the tree will throw every last ounce of energy and life it has into putting out a flourish of new growth. It makes as many leaves as it possibly can, soaking up as much sun as it possibly can, and photosynthesizing as much as it possibly can. The tree doesn't waste it's energy producing fruit. It is focused only on itself and its own survival.

....or...

The tree will desperately attempt to reproduce before dying by putting out an extraordinary amount of fruit (berries, apples, pine cones, etc.) It's a final and desperately sad attempt to carry out its reproductive mission when it knows it's going to die.

You see, it will decide either to save itself or its offspring, making trees seem almost human and almost as if they have a thought process. It seems as if they don't just accept death as a part of the natural cycle, much as we humans don't.

It appears that, when faced with a tough reality, trees get desperate, too.

And, for those of you still with me ... how, exactly, does the tree decide which option to choose? Don't you want to ask one?

In our front yard there is a beautiful crab apple tree that's vase-shaped canopy covers our front porch perfectly. That's a picture of it taken last fall. It's like having an umbrella over our favorite evening perch. Its branches reach up to the second story, making our bedroom feel like it's nestled in a tree house. It's the best tree in the world.

And it's dying.

I've been watching it to see which option it will choose, and tonight I noticed it's branches loaded down with fruit.

A bittersweet swan song.

Busy Bees

Earning Their Keep

A slow day at the lemonade stand still nets $14,

thanks to ingenious "wear a sign while throwing your body in front of passing cars" marketing strategy.

Happiness Is...

A fancy dinner date...

A rainy evening, a snuggly Ben...

A cozy couch and an old movie.

Back to the Lower 48 (Or Road Trip Part 4)

After much fun, it was time to load up the car and head home.

We listened to books on tape, we read our books, and enjoyed the scenery. It was a very peaceful trip.

Broken up only by stops for lunch that also involve hair painting.

And stops to enjoy various bodies of water.

A river in Canada

Lake Michigan

We will miss the great coffee,

the Canadian sense of humor,

and the general good time that we had.

Thanks, Canada! Thanks, Maureen and Jean-Paul!

Oh, Canada (or Road Trip Part Trois)

In addition to the birthday festivities, we enjoyed the city of Ottawa to the fullest. We stayed in a hotel right downtown, where we were only blocks from the Parliament buildings and the daily changing-of-the-guard parade.

Many years ago, when Theo was a wee pup, we took a trip to Ottawa and took a picture of him on the lawns of the Parliament buildings. Ten years later he has hair, he walks, and he gets really annoyed when his parents take pictures of him. He's come a long way.

The monuments, buildings, and flowers were beautiful.

We took a boat tour of the canal that runs through downtown. The captain let Theo and Ben drive the (very large and expensive) boat.

He had the good sense to take over again when we came to a traffic jam of multi-million dollar yachts. Good man.

On the night of Maureen's birthday, we all had dinner at a Japanese steak house. Theo and Ben never dreamed that there existed a career that involved swords AND fire.

Not to mention really great ways to embarrass grown-ups.

We had a great night, and the boys now have an entirely new respect for the restaurant business.

And finally, because we all enjoy a good scare, we took a haunted ghost tour of the city. Very spooky. We toured the old prison, where prisoners were held in cells like this one.

Only they weren't so smiley about it.

I highly recommend these tours to anyone with impressionable boys between the ages of 8 and 12. They will never sleep again, and seem to appreciate the physical closeness of their parents a little more.