It’s been a busy week. I’ve crashed early several nights, so I wasn’t as timely as I should be with posting. But here I am.
Tonight, I went down to the local brew pub with a couple friends and we started a batch of beer. In two weeks, we’ll bottle around 72 22 oz. bottles of a nice amber lager. I am looking forward to eating hamburgers and having a beer with friends.
I plan to be more timely, but I will take a break on Saturday and post on Sunday. Once you see the topic, you’ll know why I picked to post P on Sunday.
Around my house, there is someone who is responsible for most of the mess and problems. Their name is Not Me. Not Me puts dirty dishes into the cupboards. Not Me plugged the toilet. Not Me forgot to feed the dogs. Not Me left all the lights on.
Macalester is my rescue boy. He turns 6 in two days. We created a birthday for him because we really don’t know when he was born. April is a big birthday month for my family and friends, so why not add one more to the mix?
Macalester rarely has his ears up in pictures. He’s so submissive and eager to please, so his ears are frequently back. He’s a big talker, too. You can literally carry on a conversation with this dog. He is funny and very loving.
Macalester was my third dog in the house. St. Paul allows you to own three dogs at once without requiring a special license. I had wanted a third dog for a while, there he was on Petfinders! I announced to my husband that we were getting another dog — I did it in such a fashion that he couldn’t argue with me.
Like most of my decisions, it was a good one to add Macalester.
Laddie is my almost 10 year old Scottie. He was the first male dog for me, and that was a learning experience! The leg-lifting thing, the there’s-not-as-much-belly-to-rub as a female dog thing.
Laddie is much like a rag doll. He loved being hauled around the house like a stuffed animal. He still puts up with such treatment.
Laddie has a special skill. He can smile. A great big happy grin. It really is a smile, because you can see his eyes light up, just like what you’d see in a person who had a big happy smile.
I am a relative newbie to running. I started running at the end of last October by working through the Couch to 5K program. However, I hit a kink — I can’t run for more than three minutes at a time. At least not right now.
I am a plus-size runner, and I am terribly out of shape. I am running on the treadmill at the YWCA, because Minnesota winters. I’ve spent most of the winter alternative between running three times a week or taking a week or two off because I’ve slipped on ice somewhere outside.
My primary kink is a weak and wobbly left knee. I injured it initially after my stroke three years ago. My goal is get the knee strong enough, so I don’t have to worry constantly about it sliding out from underneath me. The advent of Spring has been a relief — as long as winter doesn’t throw in a last hurray.
The stroke also hampered my ability to start at a dead run — I couldn’t sprint across a street to save my life. I had to re-teach myself to hop and skip (that sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it?) so I could get my body moving so I can run. I’m sure watching me go from a walking to jogging speed on the treadmill is quite funny. I hope others find me entertaining!
Another kink in my running process is clothing — I cannot find clothes that 1) cover my backside, or 2) don’t ride up or down while working out. Sometimes while hopping into a run, I am also trying to pull up my yoga pants or pull down my t-shirt. I am hoping this summer to find some gear that will fit me better.
Despite these kinks, and the kinks that hit my calves and feet periodically, I keep going. I have no goals beyond running an entire 5K someday. I will get there eventually.
After complaining a couple days ago about how tired I am, I have to get moving. We had one small blast of winter on Thursday, and now it looks like spring will take over. Time for me to get my gardening plans in action.
Some of my tulips are above ground, and this will be their last year. I need to rebuild my bulb bed after a couple years of semi-neglect. I plan to put more tulips back in, and will try to salvage the bulbs that make it above ground and bloom.
I believe the squirrels or old age have gotten to my crocuses. I have some asiatic lilies in the bed, which won’t pop up until May, but they were looking pretty poorly last year.
I have overwintered a number of geraniums, and it looks like it will stay warm enough that I can leave them outside. They need to be cleaned up and cut back. It will be nice to see them on the deck again.
Last, but not least are my roses. I have mostly Canadian roses, one single bloom shrub rose, and a hybrid rose that I tried to winter over. The hybrid is a yellow rose called Julia Child. It is beautiful. I don’t have a lot of luck overwintering hybrid roses, but I’m hopeful that I got it right this time.
I’ve got about a month before I start buying tomatoes and herbs. So right now it’s time to jump on moving winter out, and welcoming spring.
What’s in your garden? Do tell!
P.S. I have plenty of weeds in my gardens. So if that’s what you’ve got, it’s OK!!
Nerf Wars is a spring tradition at the high school my oldest daughter attends. It’s mostly a Juniors vs. Seniors thing, but other classes participate, too. There are teams and brackets, rules, Twitter feeds, and commissioners. And there are Nerf guns. The goal is “shoot” your opponents so your team “survives” through the various two week rounds.
My daughter, a sophomore, has not participated but is an avid follower of the action on Twitter. She tells me what’s going on, who has been “killed”, about the latest showdowns.
I don’t know what to think of this all. I know it is all in good fun. It just seems odd to think about bands of teenagers running around with Nerf guns outside of school hours. I guess in some instances neighbors have called the police because they didn’t know what was going on. I would think this tradition might make our neighborhood police a little nuts, or make them shake their heads a lot.
When I was in high school, we raced cars on deserted roads or Downtown on the Loop. That was our spring rituals. And yes, I participated. I lost a race to a male opponent, when I knew the road was ending soon and dropped back so I could stop in time. My opponent sailed past me, over the hill, and wound up in the ditch at the end of the road. I lost the battle, but I won the war.
The occupants of the other car were OK, but the driver had to explain the grass stuck in the car’s grill to his dad.
My kids know all about this racing story. They know I’m no angel. They also know that I played it smart and didn’t let my ego get in the way. While high schoolers will do dumb stuff, I also hope they don’t get hurt.
What bit of high school insanity did you participate in? Let me know in the comments.
My hind quarters are seriously dragging lately. It’s as if my body is trying to squeeze out one more hibernation spell before the warm weather hits. I’ve increased the intensity of my workouts, so that probably adds to the wiped out feeling.
I think I need to head to bed — my computer just crashed in the middle of this post and restarted. My computer is probably tired, too.
I love guys playing guitar. Not literally, but you know what I mean. So, I thought I’d finish off this series of posts with some serious guitar action.
This first song, you’ve heard before with a different singer. This is Roger Daltrey from The Who joining the remaining members of Queen, plus Tommy Iommi from Black Sabbath for “I Want It All” at the Freddy Mercury Tribute Concert for AIDS Awareness.
That was fun watching Tommy and Brian on the guitar bridge. So much excellence on stage.
Here’s another favorite guitarist of mine, Pete Townshend. I’m looking forward to seeing The Who in October for their 50th Anniversary Tour. This is from The Concert for New York City, when John was still with us. That reincarnation of Keith Moon on the drums is his godson, Zak Starkey. You know, Ringo’s kid.
Some time in the winter of 1976, my junior year of high school, I heard “Bohemian Rhapsody” for the first time. I was enthralled. Having become a fan of The Who the year before, I knew about rock opera, and the genre of mixing musical styles in a single rock song. I liked Queen, but with “Bohemian Rhapsody”, I became a fan.
Then the “music video” came out. This was before MTV (MTV use to play videos all the time — really, they did!), and you’d see bands put out performances to be played on Wolfman Jack’s “Midnight Special”, the staple of my dateless Friday night existence.
At the time, I didn’t know Queen was more than Freddy Mercury, the man with the magnificient voice. To me, Freddy was Queen — and eventually I realized the play on words for the name of the band. I was in college before that sunk in. No matter what they did, their music was magic to me, Freddy’s voice soaring, stinging, laughing the soundtrack for my life.
By LiveAid, I noticed (as did everyone else) that Freddy was looking different. Still singing divinely, although not as popular in the US. I read the rumors in Rolling Stone that Freddy was ill. By 1990 the gossip was he had AIDS.
At dinner one Saturday, I heard the announcement that Freddy acknowledged he had AIDS. The next morning, on my way to church, I heard he was dead. That was it. No more Queen.
However, Queen lived on. I had always intended to buy Queen’s Greatest Hits Volume I & II, but it wasn’t until 2010 when I actually purchased it as an iTunes download for my new iPod Nano. I reacquainted myself with their music, and introduced my daughters to the music — The Man With the Pretty Voice, as my oldest called Freddy.
Freddy’s pretty voice is a musical tie between generations. Queen is a go-to musical choice at home. Now that I’m older, I can appreciate how much more than Freddy Queen is. But, with Freddy, it is magic.
