grumpy

People in Laramie are getting grumpy. After a long, cold winter, we are traditionally rewarded for our grit by a sweet summer. This summer has yet to come. We have barely had spring. The lilacs have just started blooming. The trees have finally leafed...most of them anyway. The winds stripped the crabapples of most of their blossems. The greenhouses are full of yet to be purchased bedding plants. Porches here and there harbor cartons of plants purchased in optimism and waiting in caution. The caution is warrented. It snowed yesterday. People are advised not to drive unless it is necessary on the roads around the mountains just west of here. We are ready for some warm weather.

Lunch Talk

Today at lunch our friend Jane told us about the Bullock’s Oriole http://www.birds.cornell.edu/AllAboutBirds/BirdGuide/Bullocks_Oriole.html
which she spotted in her yard and how she put out orange halves for it and went to Ace Hardware to get a special Bullock’s oriole feeder in the hope of attracting more of the species. I was amazed by two things. One was that she found having a beautiful bird in her yard was a wonderful thing worth reporting to friends. The other was that there was such a thing as a Bullock’s oriole feeder.
It does amaze me when people find interesting and worthy of note things I find interesting and worthy of note. I have long since assumed that I have weird and arcane interests. So Jane’s report on her backyard birds was a pleasant surprise.
Jane also told us she had put up her hummingbird feeder as they were back. Gail and I had heard one fly by just the other day so we were able to substantiate that fact.
I don’t dote on birds, but do enjoy seeing them and noticing them. I like to know their names and recognize their calls. I have two acquaintances here who know a great deal more about birds than I want to. Beth and Tim are wonderful resources whom I can ask about birds I see or hear.

Six little words

Earlier this week a friend sent me a review of a book entitled Not Quite What I Was Planning with a challenge to write my own six word memoir. I thought it sounded like fun and sent the challenge along to some friends. Only one of them, Naomi,took it up. I have received several efforts from her (Life's journal penned in disappearing ink., I didn't bargain for all this.) She's still playing with it. I imagine I'll be getting some more from her.

My first effort was: Sounds like fun; let me think.

I really like the idea of trying to condense parts of your life into such an economical statement. It's fun to try to find very few words to represent pieces of what you've experienced. Gail is leaving for Tacoma today for an interview. I can sum up these past few months of our lives, when we've been trying to decide whether to stay in Laramie or leave, with this: You're gone. I am here waiting.

I've written a lot about this winter but what I've written could be condensed into this: It's cold. Will summer ever come?

I know these are riffs on what the original book wanted to do which is take the themes of your life and put them into a few words. Here's another effort at that:
My life isn't what I expected. Which I think really gets at one of life's truths I've come to know.

I invite you to give it a try. See if you can come up with some. Put them in the comments section.

Frozen Fog

Last Saturday I drove from Laramie to Silverthorne, CO to visit my nephew and his family who had come out from Florida to do some skiing. I went the back way, over the Snowies through North Park to Walden then to Kremmling. From there I followed the Blue River valley to Silverthorne. It's about a 3 hour or so trip depending on the weather, of course.

We have had much more snow this year than any year since we have lived out here
(2001). This became very apparent as I got up the grade to the top of the mountains. The cabins along the road had two or three feet of snow on their roofs. Very picturesque. I want to stop and take a couple of shots, but there was no place to pull over. I continued into North Park and into monochromatic splendor. Everything was frosted white from the effects of frozen fog. The thick rime frost was on every surface, weeds, wires, bushes and trees. The sun had broken through, but the frost had not started to melt. Every bend in the road, the crest of every hill brought a new picture just begging me to take it. But there was all that snow, it lay deep across the fields clear up to the road where the plows had left high berms right up to the edge of the road. No place to pull off and I couldn't stop in the middle of the road. All this beauty and now way to capture it to share.

When I got to Muddy Pass which is where you turn north to go to Steamboat and south to go to Kremmling, there was finally a turn lane where I could safely stop. Here's what I saw.



I missed many wonderful shots because there just was no safe way to stop. Those shots are in my head. But here is one more. There were pull outs that had been plowed by a lake.

Still, while looking at these pictures, I know the limitations of photography and what I have pictures of is not what I saw.

Something for the gray days of February

I read in the paper this morning that Punxsutawney Phil saw his shawdow yesterday. Shoot, he should have been in Laramie. It was cold, gray and snowy all day. If he had managed to poke his nose out of the solidly frozen ground here, winter would be over soon. As it is we won't see spring until May.

Winter has been howling here. The roads west have been closed on and off for most of the last week due to white out conditions. WYDot has been trying to keep I 80 plowed, but the wind covers the pavement up almost as soon as the plows pass by.
The winds have been awful. Steady winds of 30 to 40 with gusts of 60+ have been blowing most days. Coupled with temperatures which haven't been above freezing and you have a really dangerous situation. The forecast is stuck on wind and blowing snow.

Everyone here is complaining about the gloomy weather and whining about how tired of winter they are. We have had more gray days than sunny ones which is unusual for here. Flu season has arrived and lots of people are sick.

I will spend the entire month grant writing which means long hours and working weekends. UGH

February has little to recommend itself except for one thing.


This is one of the amarylisses that I planted before Christmas. The other is like an reluctant groundhog and apparently doesn't want to poke its nose out. This one however, is glorious and well worth the wait.

Sunrise, sunset.

As I sit here watching the sunrise, it seems like a good metaphor for this entry. Or maybe it is just a good way to spend a little time early in the morning before the day really gets started. I thought this sunrise was going to be a spectacular one and it still may be. There are a few clouds in the east which had started to pink up, but they have faded back to gray and it is still a while before the sun crosses the horizon. I’ll keep you posted as I continue to write.

I have thought a lot about what I would like to do with all that time which may comprise the next phase of my life, retirement. I have a plan. I am smart enough to know that I do need to have some idea, some goals for myself, otherwise I will just fritter the time away in frustration, boredom and futility.

Ah, now this sunrise is showing some promise. The clouds have gotten rosy, deep rose at the bottom shading to a coral at the top. The colors area deepening steadily and now are all brightening as the sun approaches. Very nice. I think I’ll just watch for a few minutes. It’s wonderful how sunrises work. They start as a tiny patch of color and grow to fill the whole sky staining clouds you didn’t even know were there. It changes constantly. Blink, it’s different. Look away, look back, it’s changed.

One thing I do want to do is take more time to observe and think about things. My life to this point has been one of generalities and dabbling. I have rarely taken the time to really explore anything deeply. I knit a little, but not very well. I write a little, but not very well. I cook a bit, but am not expert. I want to take the time to get really, really good at a few things instead of being sort of good at a lot of things.

It’s really fading now. All the clouds are the lightest pink shading back to gray.

What are you going to do with yourself?

Sometimes, when I talk about retiring, people ask me what I am going to do with all that time. Because they seem to imply that retirement is a bad thing, I usually infer that these are people who so identify with their jobs that they see having no job as a condition to be avoided. I don’t think that way.

I grew up thinking that retirement was something to eagerly anticipate. My father talked about retiring early and going to Florida for as long as I can remember. That was his goal. He achieved it by retiring when he was 55 and moving to Florida. His father and mother had retired to Florida in the 1940’s. Their choice of a place to spend their “golden years” had a great influence on him and on me. Unlike many people, I had two generations of successful retirees as examples.

When I got my first “real job”, I was lucky enough to be approached by an agent who sold annuities for an insurance company. I made the decision to start investing in my retirement at that early age. I did this not because I was wise, but because of the examples of my father and grandfather. Retirement was something a long way off, but it was something I knew would eventually arrive. I steadily saved. Now I have the means to consider a life without a steady job and the income one provides.

All this doesn't address what I am going to do with myself. While I was teaching, I had three months in the summer of miniretirement. I often didn't do well with filling that time. I often found myself bored and grouchy. I've learned from those summers. One factor which contributed to the boreddom was often it was too hot and too humid in Kansas, where I lived at the time, to do much outside, so I had to contend with summertime cabin fever not unlike what I have been experiencing here in Laramie this winter. I realize now I have choices. I can find meaningful occupation when the weather is bad. I can bundle up and go out anyway. I can go elsewhere. Each of these options has merit. I suspect I will counter cabin fever with a combination of the three. The key is to avoid the mindset which beings on the funk of feeling trapped by the weather.

More the next post....