My little neighbor, who is six, gave me a very stern warning over the weekend. “My friend had a bear come up on her deck to eat from her bird feeder. So be really careful and be sure to close your gate at night.”
I’m not sure where the friend lives, but I’m pretty sure it’s not in southwest Minneapolis. We normally keep an eye on the gate so the dog doesn’t get out, but I will admit that I did look out the back window last night to make sure it was closed!
Any irrational fears you’ll admit to?
Husband has always been a pretty deep thinker, and lately has been talking to me quite about about how he strives to teach his clients to navigate complexity in effective and healthy ways. He defines this as paying loving attention and using carefuly planned, organized strategies to solve problems.
Husband says that to do therapy well is to navigate complexity with loving attention. He says that we do this while cooking. He says that this also draws us to musical performance. Other would do the same by canoeing the Boundary Waters, flying an airplane, and leading a rock climbing expedition. The ways we have to navigate complexity in our every day lives are more subtle but equally as important.
What complex situations have you had to navigate? What have you seen others navigate? What are your hopes for how we and others shall navigate complexity in the future? How good are you at asking for directions?
Dictionary.com still sends me an email every day. Some days I already know the word and most days I think “I’ve never seen this word before and I doubt I’ll ever see it again.” But it’s still fun. Last week, the word snollygoster hit my Inbox. It means a clever, unscrupulous person. This definitely falls into the category of “I’ll probably never run into this again” but it seems like such a fun word that maybe I should play with it for a bit.
If you are clever
But a bit unscrupulous –
A snollygoster!
Can you use it in a sentence? Extra points if you can do a better haiku than I did!
Well, we have had non-stop national drama for the past four years, and I am so looking forward to a respite. I was imagining the other day what political figures I would cast in plays by Shakespeare, imagining who on the national scene would make a good Lear, Lady Macbeth, or Beatrice. The possibilities are endless and amusing, so go to it, Baboons!
What roles would you cast current national or international political figures in plays, movies, musicals, or operas? Don’t limit yourself to Shakespeare. What are your favorite political dramas or comedies?
The wind chill advisory is scheduled to expire today at 11:00 am. It is still only going to be in the single digits the rest of the week, though, so no big warming trend.
I thought this would be a good day for jokes about the cold. I will start:
Two friends meet on the street “It sure was cold this morning.” “How cold was it?” I’m not sure, but I saw a lawyer with his hands in his own pockets!”
You get the idea. Tell some cold weather jokes.
I am not typically a big fan of opera music, but I love the stories they tell. The other day I heard a selection from Nixon in China by John Adams on MPR. I think it was The Chairman Dances. I remember seeing a televised performance that opera, and I found the costuming, with all those drab Mao jackets very amusing.
Operas do a good job of immortalizing important moments in history, and I suppose that Nixon’s breakthrough with China was monumental. I wonder what the opera repertoire will be like fifty years from now?
What recent events would you like to see made into operas? What is your favorite opera?
The only South Dakota news I noticed Saturday in the Fargo Forum was an article about a woman cracking open an egg that had four yolks. Well, it is 1 in 11,000,000,000 occurrence, but I still imagine there is a lot more going on South Dakota than that. Plus, it is such a stereotypically Midwestern, rural story.
I have become a real news junkie over the past four years, mainly out of anxiety. I do so look forward to the future when news might become more dull.
What sort of beat would you want to cover if you were a reporter? What print media do you like to read?
A grad school friend of mine from Montreal told the story of her father at meal time. They were a working class family, but at every meal her father would proclaim “Not even the Queen is eating a meal as good as this!”
I think that was a charming thing for him to say, and may have set the stage for gratitude from his family for what they had.
What do you imagine are the pros and cons of being the Queen? In what way is your life better than hers? What will you eat this holiday season that the Queen might be envious of?
I am sad to report that on Monday, Husband and I had to take Millie, our Tortie, to the vet to be put down. She had been doing quite well with her steroid treatment for lymphoma for the past two months. She took a sudden turn for the worse on the weekend, and we knew it was the end, so we loaded her up and went together to the vet. It was sad, but we are relieved her suffering is over.
Husband said he was really glad we went to the vet together, and that neither of us had to do it alone. Then, he suggested a question for the Trail:
What do you think are essential qualities for a spouse or partner?
It was terribly foggy the other day. There is a saying out here that when it is foggy in the fall or winter, we will have snow in three days, three weeks, or three months. Well that is a pretty safe bet and leaves a lot of room for fudging. “Yep, remember that fog we had in early December? See, its snowing” (in mid February)!
I love hearing sayings like this. It seems to me that they are ways to make sense of the universe, even if they aren’t really true.
What are some of your favorite sayings, colloquialisms, and euphemisms? Can you make up some new ones?
