Dreams mean different things to different people. For me, my dreams (the ones that I remember) tend to be my subconscious sorting through all my conscious flotsam and jetsam. Over the years I’ve come to recognize that intense dark stuff – television shows, movies, books — can give me some whoopers to sort out.
This week there has been a perfect storm of dark stuff. I’m reading Emperor of Maladies by Siddhartha Mukherjee. The author calls it a “biography of cancer”. It is EXCELLENT, however it is a bit gruesome in places and, of course, not very uplifting. I’m also watching a series on Netflix named Dark Winds, loosely based (very loosely) on the work of Tony Hillerman. It’s much darker than the Leaphorn/Chee Skinwalkers tv show of twenty years ago. Yesterday I fast forwarded through a bunch of the third episode because it was giving me the creeps.
As usual (I think I’ve talked about this before), I’ve been careful to only watch a couple of episodes a day and not after 7 p.m. But the combination of the book, the tv show and my underlying low level of anxiety about our current political hellhole was a doozy. I don’t even remember my dreams last night but I remember waking up three times pretty tense and anxious.
Guess I might have to cut back to one Dark Winds episode a day and come up with some kind of soothing ritual before I go to bed.
In the “nothing should surprise me” arena, I have discovered Banana Ball. If you haven’t heard of Banana Ball, try to imagine the Harlem Globetrotters but with baseball instead of basket ball. Specially made banana balls, outrageous uniforms/outfits, trick plays, dancing… just a bit different:
Banana Ball started with the Savannah Bananas in 2016 and competed as a summer collegiate team for several years. In 2018 they started playing exhibition games outside of their regular season and in 2023 they switched to all exhibition games against three partner teams: the Party Animals, The Firefighters and The Texas Tailgaters. Supposedly there will be two more teams added next year.
It kinda looks like baseball but there are some different rules:
Innings are worth one point each.
The team scoring the most runs in an inning wins that point.
In the final inning, every run counts as a point.
Time Limit: Games have a two-hour time limit, and no new inning can start after 1 hour and 50 minutes.
No Walks: Instead of walks, a “ball four sprint” occurs, where the batter sprints to first base and can advance until every fielder touches the ball.
No Bunting: Bunting is not allowed and results in an automatic ejection.
Stealing First: Batters can steal first base on any wild pitch or passed ball.
No Mound Visits: Mound visits are prohibited to speed up the game.
Fan Involvement: If a fan catches a foul ball, it counts as an out.
Stepping Out: If a batter steps out of the batter’s box, it’s an automatic strike.
Showdown Tiebreaker: If the game is tied after the time limit, a one-on-one showdown between a pitcher and a batter determines the winner.
Golden Batter Rule: A team can, once per game, substitute any batter into any spot in the lineup.
Challenges: Both teams can challenge certain umpire calls.
This appears to be pretty popular and they are playing to sell-out crowds wherever they go. I haven’t been sucked in enough to watch whole games… and I don’t know who the various players are… yet. But Is a lot of fun to watch all the Facebook clips – glad to see them having fun and not taking themselves too seriously.
Do you think mainstream sports should be more entertaining?
When YA and I go to the zoo, we normally follow a particular pattern of what we see in what order. I’m not sure why, it’s just a habit we’ve fallen into.
There’s been a lot going at the new zoo (Minnesota Zoo – it will always be the new zoo to me – unless a third zoo opens up in Twin Cities – then I’ll have to revise). There is the sea lion show which has been getting good reviews, new Bennett’s wallabies from Australia, a new Black Water Monitor, the new Red Panda / Crane exhibit, the summer Llama Trek AND the bird show has moved outside for the summer.
You can’t just show up at the zoo and get in these days – you have to get reservations ahead of time (this is a post-covid thing) and you also have to get reservations for the sea lions and the bird show. No charge for these. For the sea lion show if there are still seats at 5 minutes before the show, you can get in without the reservation. For the bird show, YA and I were there fairly early to get the seats we wanted and to settle in and drink the pop we had just bought – if they were asking folks to show their reservations, we didn’t see it.
SO… with all this going on, we had an agenda and as the day went on, we adjusted as needed. First Tropics. This took longer than usual because the tapir had just gotten out of its pool and decided to do zoomies:
I’ve hardly ever seen a tapir walking around much less running. Clearly nobody else had either, judging by the crowd it was drawing. Even the two zoo staff were filming!
We had time to do the Minnesota trail before we headed over to the sea lion show. YA got some good photos of the coyote and the mountain lion.
Sea lion show was great and so was Llama Trek. It was almost as if the llamas had all had a “Photo Op” seminar over the winter:
The tiger waterfall was turned on and the bird show was very nice, ending with a flurry of beautiful macaws free-flying into and out of the exhibit. We got to everything we wanted and at the right times. Fabulous day at the zoo!
When was the last time you had to keep to a schedule?
Happy day after July 4! Everyone still got all their fingers and toes?
Corn and oats both made knee high.
It’s been a busy week for a lot of different reasons. Monday morning I got a call from the co-op asking if I could pull out a stuck sprayer. No, I couldn’t, I was about to head to town with daughter and I also had an appointment. They called neighbor Dave, and he ran right over. I was pretty sure where the sprayer was stuck: a field that was wet when I tried to plant it a month ago, and that was before we got 6 inches of rain. I talked to Dave later and he said all he did was get the sprayer more stuck. The sprayer driver had gotten out and looked before he drove into the field, and Dave agreed, it was dry on the top. But you broke through that crust and it was muck underneath. And he didn’t get more than about 10’ into the field. Heck, I didn’t even think that was the wet spot.
Eventually a tow truck was called to pull the sprayer out. This was one of those fields that neighbor K wanted for a deer food plot and it’s the first time it had been worked up in 20 some years. I kept telling the neighbor there’s a reason this field was put in the Conservation Reserve Program back then, but I don’t think he’s figured it out yet.
Sunday afternoon Kelly and I had our usual Sunday Farm Gator Tour and we also found a wet spot in a field. Didn’t get stuck but close enough.
When I came home Monday afternoon there was another drone at the farm. neighbors Dave and Parm, who rent our pasture hired a company that uses a drone to spray for weeds. They used the drone to spray the wonderful crop of thistles. It was really pretty cool to watch. The pasture is so rugged, with so many gullies, and steep slopes, that you can’t drive it with a tractor and mower, so this was an absolutely perfect application for a drone. Talking with the operators, the drone will cost you about $25,000. They also have $75,000 in the spray trailer, complete with a 30 kW generator on the front, landing pad on the top, room for a second drone, chargers, chemical storage tanks, etc. Maybe we could all chip in and buy one. Then what should we do with it? Oh, you also need the drone operator’s license, which is fairly involved, and a license from the federal government allowing you to spray chemicals from a drone.
I did cut the grass on the sides of our road, and the one small field here in the front of the shed. I put the exhaust pipe and the new muffler on the 630 and used that for raking. That thing is as loud as ever. I never really thought about it before but evidently John Deere two cylinder tractors were not known for being quiet. I got it baled Wednesday afternoon. The baler worked perfect, never missing a knot on the bales, and my camera to watch the knots, is still slick to have.
Kelly’s tractor and the smoking wire I still haven’t completely diagnosed but I’ve ruled out a few things.I replaced a couple wires and I’ve disconnected both the rear light and the front lights and the wire still gets hot, so now I’m not sure if it’s the switch, or there’s something else wrong. I don’t really know what it could be, and adding to the mystery is a blown fuse on the dash. And if the fuse is blown, why is anything still working?
There’s a couple different places I order old tractor parts from. Lind Brothers included a bag of microwave popcorn in their box. It was really good popcorn. Steiner Tractor Parts always puts “Cow Tails“ candy in with their parts. When I order theatre stuff from Monkey Wrench, they throw a handful of candy in their boxes, usually something banana shaped. And Sweetwater, of course has to put candy in their box too. Can’t have a name like that and not include candy.
The padawans and I spent three days working on summer remodeling projects at the Rochester Repertory theatre. One day I painted the bottom of the balcony black.
We are adding a few more hanging racks in the costume room, and trying to remove an old boiler that was original to the building,1959. I asked a few plumbers how to get it out and they’d all groan and roll their eyes and say get a sledgehammer and a couple young men. Every day I bring a new Implement of destruction, we are working on it, and it’s slow going.
The big job will be insulating a north wall which is just concrete block. I have two by fours and blue insulation board and I’m bidding on a power actuated nail gun on an auction. It’s a “hammer“, that uses a 22 blank as a charge to drive a nail. I’ve seen them, never used one. Sounds like fun. I think that would be faster than trying to use cement screws. This is the auction that I took that old cultivator, running gear, and garage door to be sold. As of Friday the cultivator is at $41, the wagon is at $6 and the garage door at $7. Drifting off to sleep one night I bid on a really nice 26 foot cabin cruiser, and a mower. I need to not open the auction page as I’m falling asleep. Thankfully I was outbid on both within a day or two. The boat was gonna be a steel at $6! Kelly said I should at least go up to $10. It jumped to $96. We thought we could make a B&B out of it. Park it out on the lawn.
REMEMBER CRACKER JACK’S? WHAT SURPRISES WOULD YOU LIKE TO GET IN A BOX?
Yesterday YA had the day off so we decided to tackle a couple of outdoor projects first thing in the morning before the heat took over the day.
I started with putting some paving stones on the south side of the house under the water spigot. The pavers were left over from when we expanded the little patio two summers ago so I thought I’d put them to better use than just being stacked up in the garage. Unfortunately the ants didn’t think this was a grand project and it took a bit for them to give it up and I did get a couple of good bites out of it before they moved their party elsewhere.
By the time I was done, YA had made a good start on edging our northern “garden” with bricks that we inherited from our neighbor who just moved. She asked which of the jobs I wanted – digging or placing the bricks. While placing the bricks seemed like the easier of the two jobs, I know my daughter well. If I placed the bricks, she would eventually come behind me and “fix” what I had done. I admit freely that she is more patient with a lot of home projects and therefore does an overall better job. This made it an easy choice – I dug and let her place the bricks. It was a great decision. As I dug I watched her running her hands along the bricks to make sure they were even and using her finger as a measurement tool to make sure they were all the same depth. I would not have thought to do either of these steps.
We didn’t finish yesterday. It got a bit too steamy so we knocked off about half way through and vowed to finish in a couple days when it’s a bit cooler. Looks good so far.
My guess is that I’m more aware of post offices and postal boxes than the average person. As you know, cards are my thing and I figure I send out over 400 cards a year: I spend a lot of time stopping by post offices during my regular errands.
About a month ago, I noticed that one of the two postal boxes outside my Nicollet post office was gone. I didn’t give it much thought. Then two weeks ago, I swung by the Edina post office. For years they’ve had a “go around” that had four postal boxes – now there is just one. I still didn’t think too much about it. Then as I was going to the drive-through at the Richfield branch last week, there was a massive truck in the parking lot and it looked like one of the six boxes was being hoisted onto the truck by two big burly guys. Shy isn’t a word that applies to me so I walked over to ask them what they were doing. They were really nice and told me that they were removing postal boxes as part of the “reduce redundancy” strategy that the USPS is going through. They said they were taking five of the six boxes; luckily it’s the drive-by box that remains. Phew!
I couldn’t stop thinking about it though and had to do some math (and a bit of research). I’m being pretty conservative with these numbers, also rounding down. 31,000 post offices in the U.S. Wild speculation that the average number of boxes per post office is two. Then I’m figuring 3 minutes per box to unlock it, get the mail out and re-lock it. Times 2 boxes per post office, times 4 for how many times a day they clean out the box. Times 6 days a week brings us to 4,464,000 minutes or 74,400 hours per week, 3,868,800 hours per year. The average postal workers wage is $25,000 which means we’re talking $96,720,000 to keep these postal boxes cleaned out. So by removing all the extras, USPS is saving $48,360,000 – $1,560 per box. Sounds like impressive savings except for one thing. It was a massive truck taking away the boxes. And if I had to guess, those two big burley guys make more money than the average postal worker. I can’t imagine how much money is really being saved in the end, but my guess is that it’s significantly less than $48 million. I suppose if you add up future years it will eventually be worthwhile. Here’s the actual math if you want to scrutinize my work:
On the phone with my friend Pat last week, she reminded me of the following story.
This was about 20 years ago. Cell phones were a thing but not the ubiquitous kind of thing they are today. In a department meeting, Lydia’s cell phone (names changed to protect the innocent) buzzed in her pocket. When she looked at it, she got a funny look and zipped out of the meeting room. About 5 minutes later she came back in and announced to all of us that she needed to leave. I don’t know about anybody else, but all kinds of dark thoughts jumped right into my brain. Sick kids, husband in car accident, mother fallen down steps… that kind of thing.
Apparently her dog had gotten out of the yard and wandered several blocks over to a local gas/convenience store. He headed straight over to the bread section and proceeded to help himself to a couple packages of hot dog buns before anybody noticed him. Luckily Lydia and her family had a chip so the local animal control was able to get hold of them pretty quickly.
After she rushed off, the meeting broke down completely. Apparently we had all thought the same kinds of horrible scenarios and were really relieved that it was a funny story instead of a tragic one.
The next morning when Lydia showed up, her desk was covered in packages of hot dog buns. I can’t say whose idea that was, but I do remember who did the leg work with a handful of collected cash!
YA works in the office on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. Occasionally she also goes into the office on a Monday or a Friday. When she has a big project, she likes the quiet of the office as well as the big screen on her desk.
There is a fairly complicated (from my perspective) process for her to get ready for work. During her junior high and high school years she started wearing make-up and taught herself how to apply it. As part of her beauty routine, she has a massive number of products, from masks to foundations to mascara to eyelash curlers to lip glosses. Massive. She can sit at her make-up table for upwards of 30 minutes some mornings. It’s exhausting just to watch.
She learned none of this from me. Not one smidge. I think I’ve told the story of when I quit wearing make-up; it was well before she was born. Even when I DID put on make-up it wasn’t anything as robust as YA’s routine.
Every now and then, when she is in a rush (usually when we’re going some place on the weekend or if she’s gotten up really late), she can cut the time down but very very rarely goes without. On work mornings, I don’t usually pay that much attention. I have my morning stuff to do (feed animals, make bed, eat breakfast, gym, errands, etc.)
Last week on Friday, she came rushing down and out the door before I even had a chance to look up. After 15 minutes, our ring doorbell dinged my phone, which was in my pocket and as I was opening the app, I heard the front door open and YA’s footsteps running up the stairs. She didn’t come down for almost 10 minutes, way too long for a forgotten key card or computer mouse. When she was headed for the front door I asked what she had forgotten and she replied “I forgot to put on make-up.”
I’m still thinking about this. First off, how do you forget something that is so much a part of your every single day routine. And mostly, why get 10 minutes from the house (about half way to the office) and turn back to put on make-up when it’s Friday and there’s next to no one in the office? Her answer when I asked her later was “just in case”. When I asked “just in case what?” all I got was a shoulder shrug.
So, yet one more instance of my certainty that I live with an alien from another world!
Do you have anything that is an every-single-day-no-matter-what routines?
We rolled the stump down to the boulevard. I didn’t think that anybody driving along would see it and think “hey, we could use a big stump for something, couldn’t we?” and take it. I was hoping however that it was small enough that the yard waste folks would take it. Nope. Turns out that they’re fairly strict about that kind of thing and my Plan B of rolling it into my trash can was quashed when I saw in the garbage/recycling website that it is actually illegal to put “substantial” yardwaste into your garbage can.
YA was not tricked into thinking that chopping up the stump was a fun way to spend her time so I finally decided to tackle it myself. If I chopped it into small chunks, I could put them in my yard wastebags with my run-of-the-mill weeds. In order to make myself do this, I had to say “just 20 minutes”. It helps that our little chainsaw has a fairly short battery life so 20 minutes is about all I can do at one shot. At the rate it was taking, I figured this would be a 10 or 12 day project.
While I was working on this, I noticed a woman working on the yard kitty corner to me. She didn’t look familiar and there was a name emblazoned on her pick-up that indicated she had been hired, as opposed to living there. As I continued on other yard projects, I noticed she was coming across the street. Turns out she is the mother of the gal who apparently has just bought the place. She asked about what kind of bags the city requires and I pointed out my paper bags. I asked her if she needed a couple and I gave her two and when she asked, I gave her directions to Menards which is about as cheap as you can find the bags these days. We talked about what you could and couldn’t put out; I told her about leaving bigger branches/small logs out for people to take. I then mentioned that the city wouldn’t take my stump which was why she had seen me cutting bits off. To my surprise she immediately said she could take the stump in her truck; her home is on 30 acres in Wisconsin and she has a perfect place to dump it. I was stunned. And grateful. I almost offered her more bags.
So within 5 minutes, we had rolled the stump into her wheelbarrow, pushed the wheelbarrow across the street and gotten the little monster into the back of her pickup. After three weeks of it sitting on the boulevard, miraculously and suddenly it’s gone!
I don’t think I’ve ever had a good deed of mine reward me so quickly and so wonderfully.
Can you think of a time a good deed has paid dividends?
When I read Scientific American, it’s not usually a deep dive; I admit that a lot of the detail is over my head. I would also say that most of the ideas, while interesting, don’t usually seem too personal to my life.
Until now. Turned the page and found “Wiki-Curious” which described research about how people reign in (or don’t) their curiosity when they are online. Apparently there are three different types of rabbit hole styles: busybody, hunter and dancer.
A busybody is someone who is all over the board, often going from topic to topic – not always topics that are closely related. They found that in countries with higher education levels and greater gender equality, more folks browse like busybodies.
A hunter is a person has a more intense focus, circling around a fairly small number of related articles. Hunters are more numerous where there is less higher education and lower gender equality.
A dancer “links together highly disparate topics to try to synthesize new ideas”. Don’t ask me to explain this. This is the smallest group type.
I am normally a busybody until I hit on a topic that sends me down a rabbit hole, then I can be a lot more focused. The one thing that is different for me is that once I go down a rabbit hole, it doesn’t take very long before my browsing leads me to books and then the browsing is over.
I’m currently on two book treks that started online. Watching a show online by Lucy Worsley (a British historian) about the British love of murder mysteries has led me to several books about early female detective in literature. Susan Hopeley, Loveday Brooke, Lady Molly, Miss Gladden – some of the earliest women detectives in print. In addition of these, I have a couple more books coming from the library. Fascinating.
The second rabbit hole started when I was reading an interview by Michael Perry about why he wrote “Forty Acres Deep”. This was right before the Rivers/Ridges Book Festival and that was when I decided that I wanted to read all of Michael Perry’s stuff, in order. I’ve read four so far and number five is on its way via InterLibrary Loan.
Who knows where the next rabbit hole with lead but I’m sure it will lead to books.
Are you a busybody, a hunter or a dancer? Any interesting browsing lately?
Trail Baboon 