49  bar rises 29.77  0mph ENE dewpoint 32 Spring

                           New Moon

Kate’s either in the air or just on the ground in Denver.  Jon will pick her up and take over to his house for Ruthie’s birthday party, or some kind of celebration.  I will call them about 6PM tonight.

After dropping Kate off at the airport, I turned around, drove all the way through St. Paul, onto 94, then 280.  At 280 I connected with 35 E, then 694 to 10, 10 to Round Lake and Round Lake to 153rd.  I do this so often, in one combination or another, that the drive feels normal, but it’s actually several miles.

On the way home I diverted to Costco to get gas, $70.00!, for the truck, then over to Home Depot for some Preen, a couple of buckets, Brush-B-Gone and kitchen garbage bags.  That took up the time between 8:00 AM and the 8:30 opening bell for the Anoka Post Office.  Mailed a package, then came back home for an egg, some yogurt.

160 pounds today.  The upper end of acceptable, so I have to be more vigilant this week, still in good shape.

Geez, this is domestic.

E-Wire, Vol. 13, March 27, 2008      Last Sunday’s Service Charlie Ellis It’s always a treat to hear our old friend, the Rev. Charles Ellis. Last Sunday, Charlie offered a wide-ranging, in-depth presentation on transcendentalism. While focusing on Emerson, Charlie interwove threads from Des Cartes, Kant, Freud, Jung, Thoreau, Channing, Parker, and other intellectual and spiritual leaders who have influenced Unitarian-Universalism.  The discussion that followed touched on important topics of interest such as the interplay between individualism and community.  We’re grateful to Charlie for deepening our understanding of both transcendentalism and our UU heritage.

29  bar steep rise 30.04 0mph SSW dewpoint 23  Spring

             Waxing Gibbous Moon of Winds

Walked outside today, no ice on the driveway, sun in the sky.  Felt healthy and limber.  Good.  Ready to be out there.

In these caesuras between one bout of intense concentration and the next I tend to clear out my in basket.  So, I gathered beneficiary forms to complete the living trust work Kate and I did last fall.  I filled in all the upcoming dates on my calendar including Kate’s CME trip to San Francisco and her trip to Denver hoping it will be during the time of Gabriel’s birth.  Filed the property tax papers.  Things like that.

While working on the hydroponics, I remarked to Kate that I can see Asperger’s Syndrome as a magnified version of the typical male.  When I want to get something done, I like to stay with it, put my energy and focus in one place.  One aspect of Asperger’s is the tendency to become absorbed in one thing to the exclusion of others.  I get it.

I had a few days of nice compliments about my work from the China tour on Saturday to the Groveland presentation.  A friend called me a polymath and for a generalist like me that’s a high compliment.  Another, who comes from a long line of farmers, a really long line–over 4,000 years worth–liked my project for the Woolly Mammoth year.  It’s good to hear positive comments, but so easy to get sidetracked by them, too.  These days I’m much better at hearing them and saying thank you.

Time for sleep.  Good night.

40  bar rises 29.60 3mph W dewpoint 30  Spring

          Waxing Gibbous Moon of Winds

So, this guy goes out to get his newspaper and slips on the ice.  If you read my obituary early, it may start with the line, Died for His Morning Paper.  After some initial conflict in our relationship–I wanted to be in the city and Andover was stubborn about remaining in the exurbs–I have come to love our land.  All of it.  Except.  The driveway.

It slopes.  Most days in most years this is no big deal.  I drive a car up it and down it.  If it snows, I get out the snowblower and remove it.  On occasion, usually in March or April, snow melt or rain freezes on the sidewalk and on the slope of the driveway creating a downright dangerous condition.  Even more dangerous of course because I encounter it before I’m awake.  Kate often gets the newspaper, but she seems to handle the slope better, or at least, doesn’t talk about her slips. (She’s a Norwegian. Stoic.)

Case in point.  This morning.  I put on my Acorn slippers with their padded plastic soles and went out the front door, down the front steps and onto my @##!  Aside from my dignity, which I have little of in the morning anyhow, nothing serious damaged, but I did go back inside and announce that the paper would be retrieved when “conditions warranted.”

Since Kate was stuck reading Parenting magazine, one of the many free magazine subscriptions she gets just being an MD, I listened to the first few groans, smirks and cries of disbelief at the bad advice, about Parenting, of all things.  This made me head for the downstairs and the plastic bucket in which I deposited my Yak-Traks last years.

Yak-Traks are a fraidy cats dream.  They slip over your boot or tennis shoe and put coiled metal in contact with the ice rather than your slippery soul.  They worked great.  I spread salt on the bad places, got the Tribune, came inside and promptly, you guessed, had a near miss slipping on our tile floor.  Turns out the Yak-Traks create instability on solid surfaces.  Sigh.

 Woolly Bill Schmidt found this.  What we knew all along.

We’re Stunned! Most Fun U.S. City Is…It’s not New York, New Orleans, or even Las Vegas. The city where you’ll have the most fun is…Minneapolis.

Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota
Orange County, California
San Jose, California
Atlanta, Georgia
Chicago, Illinois
Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill, North Carolina
Washington, DC
Oakland, California
Salt Lake City-Ogden, Utah
Seattle-Bellevue-Everett, Washington
Portland-Vancouver, Oregon-Washington
San Francisco, California
Baltimore, Maryland
Milwaukee-Waukesha, Wisconsin
Denver, Colorado
Detroit, Michigan
St. Louis, Missouri
San Diego, California
Indianapolis, Indiana
Cincinnati, Ohio
Columbus, Ohio
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Sacramento, California
Nashville, Tennessee
Las Vegas, Nevada
Los Angeles-Long Beach, California
Kansas City, Missouri-Kansas
Nassau-Suffolk, New York
Charlotte-Gastonia-Rock Hill, North Carolina
Omaha, Nebraska
Norfolk-Virginia Beach-Newport News, Virginia
Houston, Texas
Cleveland-Lorain-Elyria, Ohio
Dallas, Texas
Memphis, Tennessee
Orlando, Florida
Louisville, Kentucky
Fort Worth-Arlington, Texas
Riverside-San Bernardino, California
Greensboro-Winston-Salem-High Point, North Carolina
New York, New York
Boston, Massachusetts
Hartford, Connecticut
Austin-San Marcos, Texas
Newark, Newark
Miami, Florida
Bergen-Passaic, Newark
Fort Lauderdale, Florida
Phoenix-Mesa, Arizona
New Orleans, Louisiana

Just got word that the temperature in Minnesota is -13.  Well, now.  That’s different than the 73 and sunny here.

Mario says the traffic in Bangkok bugs him, too.  Traffic in Bangkok is like rain on Mt. Wai’aleale, there’s always too much for most of us.  If I didn’t blame myself, I’d blame Bangkok traffic for my ruptured Achilles.

Am reaching a new place, hope I find that it sticks.  My goal is to have no goal.  My ambition is to have no ambition.  I want to follow the flow of the chi in my life, go with it wherever it runs, let life lead life. 

Alan Watts has this book, The Watercourse Way.  I mentioned it yesterday.  The tao is the movement of heaven and the movement of heaven, exhibited in temporary conditions surrounding us, is th way.  As we adapt ourselves to it, we blend with the season, the hour of the day, the time in our life, and other circumstances in which we find ourselves.  This the way water runs down a mountain to the sea.

Our life is a mountain stream.  At the headwaters it is full of energy and rushes quickly over the rocks and around the bends, as it gets closer to the ocean its bed widens and it travels more slowly around the bends until, spent, it merges with the ocean, our mother and our primal home.

Also, the waves do not quit.  They keep coming back, sometimes stronger, sometimes weaker, but always there, always caressing the shore.   The wave is the ocean  as lover, stroking the flanks of Gaia.  It is this persistent loving that the Hawai’ans have named Aloha.  It is a condition to which we can conform ourselves.  Perhaps it is not temporary.

Another, slower workout today, this time toward Poipu.  As I hiked, there were whales at play, a couple breaching.  They come here for the reasons many tourists do, warm water and sex.