Scientific Ink

Tag: Gratitude

  • A party on the block (gratitude #29)

    The 600 block of South First Street had a block party last Sunday (6/22/2008). Wendy, my across the street neighbor, organized it by gaining the signatures needed to get the permit from the city to close the street. We live on the block of First Street where it goes from 1 way to 2 way. Much of the traffic that zooms down First turns onto Madison before our block, but we are close to downtown, and we do get a fair number of cars on our block. So, when they put up the barricades to close the street, the quiet was noticeable. And then came the kids. From the corner house, from across the street, from neighboring blocks.

    They came with wheeled vehicles of all sorts – bicycles with training wheels, tricycles, bicycles, scooters, and a funky skateboard with an axle in the center. But there were no cars. We pulled some tables into the middle of the closed street, and as the kids did their bicycle/tricycle/scooter laps in the street, we set up a table of snacks and drinks. The cookies and the cupcakes went first, individually taken by kids looking thrilled to be getting dessert before dinner. Each one that grabbed a cupcake seemed to be waiting for one of the adults to insist they put it down and eat their veggies.

    Then the squirt guns came out, and the hoses, and the kids formed some loose teams and had a water fight. The adults only interfered when the shenanigans got too close to the adults and the food table, but otherwise the water war raged at the north end of the block. Adults of grandparental age marveled at the way the girls and boys played together – said it wasn’t like the old days. Later, after our neighbor Georgia created a geyser with Mentos and Diet Coke the gangs of kids broke into gender groups – the girls skipped rope and the boys continued to beat on the plastic 2-liter container.

    We met one neighbor for the first time, and we’ve been here for almost 8 years now. And, we got to know other neighbors better, not only those on our block, but also neighbors who live on nearby blocks. What fun.

    In the week since the party, I’ve been looking for people on the block, looking to say hello and continue the conversation. Looks like 8 hours of no cars and some food on the street has started to coalesce some neighbors into a neighborhood. Thanks Wendy!

  • My most amazing bridesmaid’s dress (gratitude #28)

    Everyone complains about bridesmaid’s dresses. I’ve bought some pastel tiered wedding-cake-esque “wonders” that immediately went into the “for Kiwanis” pile after the event. But I did get one dress, for my sister’s wedding, that has become my go-to dress for formal events and weddings since.

    bridesmaids and the brideMy sister is a pragmatic woman. When she got married, 11 years ago in May, she asked her bridesmaids to wear an off-the-rack dress. The Talbot’s dress she chose was a formal black dress, with a keyhole back and two discreet bows one on each side of the keyhole. The dress fit all the bridesmaids well, which was amazing considering that we ranged in size from 5’0″ to 6’2″ and in figure from hourglass to rangy. I think my mom did a bit of alteration to make the dress fall nicely on me, but overall it was a great deal.

    Well, my friend Vici got married last week, and, over a decade later, I was able to pull out that dress for another wedding. Thanks Chris!

  • Garden visitor (gratitude #27)

    So, I’ve been contemplating doing some landscape work on the backyard. The grass is dying (grubs, I think), the deck is too small for the table and the grill we have on it, and the random plantings (my fault) and the bi-level deck and backyard (inherited from the previous owners) feels like there’s too much going on in a small space. I’ve had it.

    So, I called in the professionals. I am getting quotes from a couple of different landscape architecture firms to redesign our backyard. A representative of one came out today, and we discussed several things. I got excited. Finally, the backyard of my dreams was about to hatch. However, translating this to my skeptical and more financially responsible husband didn’t go so well tonight. So, I felt a bit bruised and sulky, but the two of us went to our backyard and wandered around our small downtown yard, trying to think about next steps.

    I was fretting over this and that, weeding here and there, and then Dave said “is that a real moth?”. There was a huge Cecropia silkmoth, Hyalophora cecropia, just hanging out on our bee balm. It gripped the bee balm stem delicately in its full regalia -fuzzy striped russet, black, and white body, gigantic russet, brown, grey, and white wings, glorious feathered black antennae. And of course, the engineer saw it, not the biologist, cause the biologist was all bent out of shape. And it was sitting there, with grace and beauty, quietly yet quite firmly directly refuting my assertion that my backyard wasn’t terrific.

    Moth on Monarda
    Cecropia moth on my bee balm

    I still have a few ideas about improving the yard, but the moth drove the sulkiness away. Hard to complain about the garden when it is pulling in such lovely fans.

  • Spring Bounty (gratitude #26)

    Today was a banner day. My sister and I stopped at a local farmstand for eggs, rhubarb, and asparagus. Tonight, we harvested wild leeks, though we were kind of wary since the leeks were in the spot folks have been sighting a juvenile black bear.

    Dave and Nathan enjoyed a day fishing and catching (instead of just the former) and got these two lovely fish – a rainbow trout and a coho salmon. On the way up this time, we picked up a smoker, and have been enjoying smoked foods – tonight we had smoked trout, grilled trout, grilled asparagus, and new potatoes pan fried with wild leeks.

    Oh yeah, and the neighbor brought over a huge cardboard box (5′ x 3′ x 2′ or so) and the kids drew all over it, cut a door in it, hung a flag on it, and played played played.

  • Comedy of errors on the ground and boy are we lucky (gratitude #25)

    So, Dave and I took the Cessna-182 from UM Flyers to Tobermory for Memorial Day weekend. Due to the weather, we might have a short long weekend, we might have to come back on Sunday instead of Monday, but I was excited to fly instead of drive. Holiday weekends involve long, long, long waits at the Blue Water Bridge border crossing. And flying takes 1/3 of the time as driving. And the views are spectacular, absolutely spectacular. We flew from Ann Arbor, crossing into Canada at Port Huron/Sarnia. It’s always choppy until we cross the border: somewhat nausea-inducing. Dave thinks maybe it’s all the parking lots and building roofs, absorbing and releasing heat, causing thermals.

    back-up-the-bruce

    Then, when we crossed the border into Canada and the skies opened up, and Lake Huron was calm and beautiful, and the turbulence ended. Sigh lovely.

    I was feeling like a queen, having left work a bit early to get on a plane to go to my favorite place in the world.

    Then, we arrived in Tobermory. The local mechanic had fixed the car (alternator froze, taking the serpentine belt with it), and left it at the airport for us. Dave drove it onto the pavement where we parked the plane, and when I walked around the Jeep, I saw the back passenger-side tire was completely flat. Hmmmmmm. Weird. Well, we had a spare. I worked on getting the old tire off while Dave unpacked and tied down the plane. I got exactly one lug nut to move. Fail.

    Dave’s greater confidence in kicking the tire iron got the others off, we got the spare on, and then drove off. I admired the head of the screw that had pierced the old tire, and I had an urge to pull it out, but didn’t have any tool that would do it, so I just tossed it into the back. The spare was looking a little less than full, so we pulled into the first (only) gas station and tried to fill it. No dice, they had some kind of air compressor thing, but it didn’t seem to work.

    We got almost to the cabin (we were in the Meadow) and Dave pulled over. Our spare tire was by now completely flat and we were riding on the rim. The tire was pulling itself off the rim. Ummmm. What do to? We had no additional spares. There are no local auto parts stores, CAA is at least an hour away, and we were blocking the (little traveled) road.

    We remembered my aunt and uncle’s minivan has an air compressor in the back. If they were already at the cabin, maybe I could walk there and drive it back. I started walking, while Dave took the second flat tire off the car. As I walked down the road, I got nervous thinking of Dave under the car, lying in the one-lane road. So, I circled back to see if there was some kind of warning I could put in the road ahead of the immobile Jeep so that he wouldn’t get crushed by an oncoming car.

    When I got near, I asked “so, are you OK if someone comes?” and he said “someone is coming”. And then my aunt and uncle, with the air compressor, pulled up.

    Rescue!

    Our dead spareThey were able to get the tire with the screw in it up to pressure, so we switched it back onto the Jeep. We drove it to the cabin and the tire still is full enough a day later. We still have 2 tires that are busticated, one moreso than the other. Oddly enough, the one with the screw in it appears better than the spare.

    So, we made it to the cabin, we have access to another car, and we sure are feeling lucky. I have no idea what we would have done if Pat and Bob hadn’t showed up right at the right moment. Happy coincidence!

    My next step will be to research air compressors that might run off of the car battery/cigarette lighter.

  • The value of libraries and bookstores (gratitude #24)

    So, there’s this blog I read, and the author has a book with a really compelling title. I’ve enjoyed his blog posts on the topic, and I had put his book on my Amazon wish list.

    In support of my intention to acquire, maintain, and store less stuff, I moved most of my Amazon wish list to a wish list (personal card catalog) at the Ann Arbor District Library. They don’t have every book I’ve ever wanted, but they have an awful lot of them. Amazing. I suppose I’m not as unique as I thought ;). I’m also storing some of the list on my anobii.com bookshelf’s wish list (edited to remove the link since I now use Goodreads).

    Anyway, this blogger’s interesting sounding book with the compelling title was available from the library. I put it on hold, received the notification email, visited the library, checked it out, and then returned it the same day. Funny, flipping through the book, it seemed so tangential to my current interests and so, yes, I’ll say it, thin with huge spaces between lines, not many words on the page, not many pages. After touching the book, I no longer had any interest in its contents. Funny. Glad I didn’t buy it or get someone else to buy it for me.

    Note to self – always touch books I’m going to buy or ask to be purchased for me. Online descriptions just don’t compare.