Well, things didn’t out like I expected. I was completely figuring that today’s post would be a full-on rant about bureaucracy. Didn’t turn out that way.
I got the dreaded yellow card in the mail about a month ago reminding me that my Class D driver’s license needed to be renewed. It also went on, at length, about the Real I.D.
Pretty sure I chronicled the last time I had to renew; it was during Covid and I ended up arriving at the AAA location at 6 a.m. for their 8 a.m. opening since I had waited too late to get a coveted actual appointment (who knew you needed an appointment). Being one of the first 25 in line meant you could get service that day. I had heard several stories about the trouble in getting the Real I.D. so I had a file folder, papers, copies of papers. Turned out to be fine.
That’s why I was a bit surprised to see all the verbiage dedicated to Real I.D. You’d think in this day and age, it would be easy enough to sort a mailing list by whether or not somebody has already jumped through those hoops.
Checking on line I found that you can’t to appointments any longer, which seemed weird so I picked up the phone and called. (Now I do have to say, even if I were ranting, that one of the reasons I like the AAA is because they do answer the phones.) The gal on the phone confirmed that they don’t do appointment anymore but that weekdays are relatively slow. She also confirmed that I had to re-present all my Real I.D. paperwork again. Sigh.
I gathered the same stuff as four years ago and headed out yesterday morning. I was expecting this process to take at least an hour and I was fully prepared to whine about the insanity of having to basically re-apply for Real I.D. when I was clearly Real already. Full transparency – I was crabby.
Well, I got there at 9:05. I was called 5 minutes later. The little gal behind the counter laughed when I told her that I had been instructed to bring all my Real I.D. stuff; she said “not needed” and didn’t even look at it. I didn’t have to fill anything out except to sign and date the application that she printed off. Picture and eye exam was fast although I’m sure in the history of bad DMV photos, I’m now in the top ten. Final paper and current license snipped and I was out the door at 9:19.
In weird news this week, it’s been reported in the South China Morning Post that a 64-year old man has undergone surgery to remove a toothbrush from his stomach. The kicker is that he swallowed the toothbrush when he was 12. Apparently he was afraid to tell his parents and figured that it would just dissolve. Turns out even stomach acid is no match for hard plastic – his stomach started to bother him last year.
It took the surgery team 80 minutes to remove the 7-inch toothbrush – it was stuck in “a crook of the intestine” where it had been living happily for decades. Yikes.
I’m not sure how you can swallow a toothbrush but as Hamlet said “more things in heaven and earth”. Maybe he is one of those folks who brushes their tongue with their toothbrush and got a little carried away? Maybe the dog surprised him in the bathroom while he was brushing? Maybe he was practicing to become a sword swallower?
What kind of toothbrush do you use? Toothpaste? Floss?
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.
Not long after we moved to our current house 37 years ago, Husband and I planted some roses. At that time, hybrid tea roses were advertised as only hardy as far north as Zone 4. We knew we were pushing it a little given how close we were to Zone 3, but we put in about four hybrid tea roses on the south side of the house.
We did all the things that you are supposed to do regarding tea roses, putting cones on them in the fall to protect them from the cold, pruning appropriately, etc. They flourished. One in particular was our favorite, named Taboo.
We loved its intense color. About 20 years ago we even stopped putting cones on in the fall, and yet those roses on the south side of the house returned year after year. Within the last 5 years, though, most of them seemed to age out and die, but Taboo kept going until last summer, when all there were in its spot were dead branches.
Imagine my delight this weekend when I encountered some new rose shoots just a few inches away from the dead Taboo stems while I was weeding the south flowerbed. They look healthy. I hope we can have one last Taboo blossom before we move. Hybrid tea roses are now advertised as only hardy through Zone 5, and I don’t know how we did it, but what a lovely surprise!
Any pleasant surprises for you this last month, gardening or otherwise? What have you succeeded doing even when the odds were againt you?
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:
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?
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?
I heard on the radio the band ‘The Who’ is beginning their farewell tour. I thought back in 2016 they were on their farewell tour. Which isn’t anything new, the Rolling Stones are still out there and how many farewell tours have they had. Anyone seen the Stones?
I saw The Who in 1982. I think it was my second big rock concert and as an 18-year-old, driving with a State Farm atlas in my lap from Rochester up to the big city of St Paul and the St Paul Civic Center, it was a pretty big deal. I’m sure my folks were concerned sending me out into the world like that, even if it was just two hours away. I know I’ve told the story before but I like to brag about it so I’m gonna say it again: My first rock concert was Queen 1982, when Freddie Mercury was still strutting around the stage. My brother says Queen was the warm-up act when he saw the band Chicago right after Bohemian Rhapsody had come out.
So I set the bar quite high to have Queen and The Who as my first rock concerts. I know I have programs from them both, might even have tickets stubs in a drawer somewhere. And that’s when you had to go to a ticket office on the second floor of Dayton‘s department store. I feel like I found out about both of these fairly late so it’s not like I was waiting at the doors the first day tickets went on sale and a bunch of us rushed to the window. And then I found out you could call in to get tickets, so you called, getting the busy signal, hung up, and called again. In 1986 when tickets for Pink Floyd went on sale at the old Metrodome, I was home sick in bed and Kelly, while at work, was able to call and get tickets for us.
I digress.
The Who on a farewell tour.
They were well past their prime in 2016 and I decided I was not gonna remember that concert, I was gonna remember the 1982 concert.
You probably all remember the rock opera Tommy, and a really bad movie that was made after that. I always liked the Quadrophenia album better. Pete Townshend, the arm-windmilling guitarist, is married to Rachel Fuller. A singer-songwriter, musician, and composer. Together they created an orchestral version of Quadrophenia and I recently saw it’s a ballet in England. I enjoy the sound of an orchestra behind a rock band. And the climactic final song of Quadrophenia called “Love Reign O’er Me“ sung by a full throated, powerful opera singer like Alfie Boe, is really something.
How long should you keep doing something?
I am sure they don’t need the money, and if you love it, and you are able to do it, I guess you should keep doing it, right? I mean should I quit farming because I’m “too old“? But I’m not farming in front of tens of thousands and charging an obscene amount of money for people to come see me struggle to climb up into the tractor and make crooked rows across the field.
But I’ll be skipping this tour.
Farming.
I’ve finished all my spring work. Although I am remembering now I’m supposed to plow up a couple fields and plant some corn as deer food plots for a neighbor. I kind of forgot about that. But the important fields, the ones that I’m trying to make money and survive on, they’re done.
I was hoping to finish soybeans last Tuesday, which is still two weeks later than all the neighbors, but… life.
It rained just enough on Tuesday that I had to quit. Once the dirt starts getting sticky, which only takes a couple of hundreds, it sticks to the gauge wheels on the planter. The gauge wheels control the depth of the seed, and sticking an extra half inch of dirt on the wheels changes the planting depth, and you’ve heard me say before, the depth is pretty critical. I quit for a little while.
I spent most of Monday out working up all the ground, me and Bailey, and was a little bit sad to be done. Only because I enjoy my time in the tractor. The next morning I realized I had forgotten a field. So while it was a little bit too sticky to plant, it wasn’t too muddy to do fieldwork. Bailey and I got another hour of tractor time.
And then later on Tuesday I was able to go out again and I planted until 9:30 PM when it was again raining lightly and I was out of seed. I finished planting Friday afternoon. I started going over the fields with the drag, just like I did with the Oats, but the point of this is to smooth it out so that the combine header, when harvesting the soybeans, can ride as low as possible. Because soybeans pods will grow very low to the ground.
I had my last event at the college on Thursday evening. Tuesday will be my last day and I can haul out the garbage, and lock up cabinets, and take the rest of the summer off. So to speak.
The question was asked why my eggs are different colors. It’s different breeds. Some breeds of chickens lay white eggs, some brown eggs, and then there’s a couple breeds that lay the green eggs. I have Araucana’s.
The house next door has sold and my neighbors are moving out this weekend. Just by chance, I was out front gardening on both the days that there was an open house, so I actually got to talk to quite a few folks who had walked through. The question that almost everyone asked was how it was to live on my street, which is a busy thoroughfare – in fact, it’s a county road as opposed to a city street.
Everybody got the same answer. I love living on my busy street – it’s easy to get to, easy to get out and around. During the winter, my street is always clear; the plows start early and are consistent. Even when side streets are still snowed in, we can always get out.
The other great thing is that you can get rid of anything by just putting it down on the boulevard. You don’t even have to put a “free” sign on it – if it’s on the boulevard, it’s fair game. Two summers ago, the house across the street was almost gutted and their boulevard was like a second-hand store for three or four weeks. I thought maybe there might be a traffic accident one day because so many people were pulling over to look and grab. Over the years I’ve put out a lot of items and the only thing that never got taken was a mattress (which makes sense) – but the city took it on trash day anyway.
The surprise this week is that someone stopped during the day yesterday and took all the little logs and all but two of the bundles of sticks that YA and I had put on the boulevard after the first day of our “tree adventure”. We didn’t put them out because we thought anybody would want them, but because that’s where they need to be for the city pick-up. But, what the heck – if these little logs and bundles will make somebody’s life better – whoopee.
Of course, I wonder why they didn’t take ALL the bundles. Maybe they didn’t have room in the car? Maybe they have just so much room back home to store the bundles? Maybe there were two of them and they weren’t aligned on whether to take any of them? Hopefully it didn’t start a fight. I also wonder if they’ll come back at some point for the last two. Or will somebody else take them? Maybe I should just put out a table instead of schlepping things to Value Village and GoodWill? I could call it Boulevard Freecycle?
Do you live on a busy or quiet street? Have you ever had a great garage sale?
We’re coming up on the 10th anniversary of the baboons taking over the Trail. The math is pretty straightforward. 6 posts a week times 52 weeks a year times 10 years. 3120. That’s not exact but close enough for horseshoes.
I think Renee and Ben would agree with me that the QUESTION is the hardest part of writing so many posts. What question relates to what you just wrote? How many times have we asked a similar question. Will the question lead to some good discussion during the day? Will it be too hard to answer? Too personal to answer? Too inane to answer?
Richard Feynman once said “I would rather have questions that can’t be answered than answers that can’t be questioned.” That’s all fine and good for a world-renown physicist but he never had to come up with a good question every day!
So here’s your chance to beat Richard Feynman at his own game.
Trail Baboon 