Tag Spring

Happy Things

Michael 15 Comments

I had some of the snarkiest content ready for this week when I decided I didn’t want to add to the spectacle. If you haven’t yet figured out Washington is now full of parasitic nutcases, nothing I can say is going to change that clearly wrong thinking you are holding on to.

Instead, I am going to heed my own advice and make me happy. It was in a ROAMcare post from last fall when we wrote, “The most positive thing you can do to offer happiness to someone is to be happy for yourself and to be happy with yourself.” It is in that spirit that I offer you that which made me happy last week and maybe you will gain a smile from it too.

You know that two weeks ago I had surgery on my arm and for a couple days, if I wanted my arm to go anywhere with me it came along in a wheelbarrow because like a newborn, it had to be carried everywhere it went. I am happy to say since early last week I have regained all movement and flexibility in that appendage. I may never be able to throw a curve ball again but I never could anyway so there’s that. I still am limited to lifting nothing heavier than a small hard bound novella but I expect by next month I should be able to tote around a Stephen King novel.

I was at a meeting Thursday and as we standing about and talking someone asked now that spring is coming, if we were plants or flowers, what we do to prepare ourselves for the new season. I didn’t even have to think about it. If I was a plant, I’d tear myself up from the roots, toss me in the compost pile, mix me around a little, and take another shot at things. I think everybody probably could stand to have a little overly dramatic self-rejuvenation project and come out the better for it.

Yesterday I made a fabulous breakfast for my weekly Sunday ‘meal of any kind’ with the daughter. Little breakfast slider sandwiches with eggs, bacon, sausage, cheese, onions, bell pepper, spiced with chili powder, smoked paprika, and (hold on now) cinnamon and baked together in sweet Hawaiian rolls. Did I mention they were delicious.

It’s been two weeks since Jingle went to doggie heaven. Two days ago, we were introduced to a new member of the family. Daughter said his spirit said it was the right dog who came along at the right time. Meet Gabby.

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In last week’s ROAMcare Uplift post we wrote about the power of positive thought. I think this worked out pretty well.

Have a great week. We’ll talk again soon.

Jelly Beans for Olives

Michael 12 Comments

For the last month in two, the weather here has been inconsistent, more warm and dry than cool and rainy (odd), but during that time, the weekends have been beautiful (very odd), except for this past weekend when being outdoors was a requirement of the day (par for the course).

Saturday, I had a meeting out of town, far out of town, requiring driving on interstate highways in the dark, in the rain. Highway drive is tolerable in the dark, tolerable in the rain, knuckle whitening scary in both. Sigh.

Sunday, the daughter and boyfriend ran the Pittsburgh Marathon (half marathon version) in morning rain and chill after weeks and weeks of training on dry pavement under sunny skies. Sigh

Something about this weekend reminded me of another spring weekend I wrote about. It took me a while to find it, but I did and I re-present it here from 7 years ago. If you read it then, humor me and give it another go.

From April 17, 2017, ‘Tis the Season, Spring Edition:

I’m pretty sure I should have been born the son of an Italian wine maker. Or perhaps an olive grower. I could see myself spending Sunday afternoons on a rough stone terrazza nibbling on marinated olives and peppers and artichoke hearts sipping a glass of wine, listening to Old World folk songs and letting the sun warm me where the wine doesn’t. Ahhhhhhhh.

Instead I have jelly beans and a leftover beer I found waaaaay back in the fridge, trying to find a spot somewhere on the 4×8 patio that is out of the wind driven rain storm, hoping the next lightning bolt stays waaaaay on the other side of that hill over there.

BOCThat’s all on me though. I couldn’t pick where I was born but I could have moved if I really wanted to. I chose to stay in the only city in America with less sunshine than Seattle. (That’s what I’ve been told. I didn’t believe it so I looked it up and they were WRONG! That particular proverbially always rain-logged Washington hamlet actually has less sun than my burgh but just barely, coming in at Number Nine of the Top Ten Cloudy Hit Parade with a 57% chance of clouds compared to our 56%. What is the number one least sunny city in the US? Juneau, Alaska. Sorry Land of the Midnight Sun dwellers. Apparently that’s not enough for the midday darkness the rest of the year.) Where was I? Oh, yeah. I stayed.

I chose to stay here where the chance of pressing my own olive oil is somewhere around the chance of me removing my own appendix. Wine making might have a little advantage, but still it’s not likely I’ll be trading in the Miata for an Alpha Romeo and riding it along a strada panoramica overlooking the Baia di Napoli. I’ll just have to keep an eye on the morning forecasts and pick those choice hours when the sun will come out and the top will go down and the drive will be just as scenic. Even if it is of the access road leading to the 27th worst commuter road in the country. And we do better than Seattle there, too. (They have the 8th worst commute. Sorry.

Thank God I don’t have to go to work in either city. More time for olives and wine. Or jelly beans and beer. Happy Spring!

There is always room on the calendar for special days. We found a few extra ways to celebrate everyone among the special days. Check them out on Uplift!

Easter Parade

Michael 3 Comments

Yesterday, Easter Sunday for most of the western Christian rites, closed the day with a rare showing of the 1948 Oscar winning musical, “Easter Parade.” Songs, dances, a far-fetched plot, and two lead stars who were called in as last-minute replacements. All inspired by a single song from 15 years prior, Irving Berlin’s “Easter Parade.”

I’ve been around a long time and live outside a city that will hold a parade or a fireworks display, or both, for almost any reason, including next week’s solar eclipse. But I’ve never seen an Easter parade. Have you?

You would think of all the things we’ve paraded for, Easter would be high on somebody’s list. It’s a natural time for a celebration, not just a Christian celebration. The beginning of spring hosts a bevy of religious holidays, spring breaks, and just a great time to shake off the winter blues. Or grays.

Spring is a time of new life, bright colors, happy songs, and a spring in most people’s steps (pun intended). That’s the definition of a parade. Can’t you just imagine a high school band lining the avenue, the high brass section playing about frilly Easter bonnets, woodwinds echoing the antics of the photographer on Fifth Avenue, all almost in time with the beat laid down by the bass drums and deep brass. I want to march around the room just thinking about it.

Instead, we march to open pre-Black Friday sales and the tapping of the green beer kegs. What a waste of a happy song.

Spring isn’t just a time for parades that don’t happen but for spring cleaning too. Did you ever spring clean yourself? In the latest Uplift we write about doing just that. Check out our version of Spring Cleaning.

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Springing up all over

Michael 6 Comments

This is it, today is the day, the day we’ve all been waiting … okay I’m not going to do that again. I have no idea what you’re waiting for but indeed, today is the day I have been waiting for, for today, at 5:24 this afternoon (per the Old Farmer’s Almanac), winter turns to spring!

As far as winters go, this has been the mildest winter I can recall, and I recall a lot of winters.  But it started output terribly cold, super cold, super terribly cold even, and I never got over the coldness of those first few days of Winter 2022-2023 even when some of the days in February approached and in at least one case exceeded 70°F. I think it might be because in between those 70° days there was always a 30° day. Do you know what that’s like? Well if you lived within 10 or 12 miles of me you do. Anything outside that radius and you were having you own weird winter weather that may or may not have had daily 40° temperature swings.

Of course that was only in February. In March, it has been just plain cold. It snowed the past two days. It snowed 4 days out of the past 7. The temperature hasn’t been above freezing since Friday afternoon. I’m done with this. Today I fully expect at 5:24 this afternoon to hear birds singing, see flowers blooming, and watch trees leaf out before my very eyes. If that doesn’t happen, I want to know right now, who to go to for a refund. The old Old Farmer’s Almanac never let me done before. I expect it to not let me down now.

I do hope I haven’t led you to believe that I’m being unreasonable about this. I think as I get older, and Heaven knows, I’ve gotten older(!), I’ve grown less tolerant of cold, but more less tolerant of these crazy temperature swings. I’m sure I would have been not as disconcerted with this winter if it had just stayed being winter for it’s duration, or maybe a gradual and slight warming as we approached this year’s vernal equinox. (Good word, no?) Rumor has it, La Niña, the lesser famous but more troublesome Pacific wind current, is, after three years, winding down. Those who know say this has been a major contributor to the weird weather patterns we’ve been experiencing. (Please note, I said weird weather patterns, not concerning climate conditions – there is a difference.) If we get a year of neutral weather influences we might see seasons that actual look like Currier and Ives envisioned and that would be okey dokey with me. But for now, I’ll settle for birds singing, flowers blooming, and leaves once again covering those bare branches, sometime later today.

So then, what is the day we’ve all been waiting for. Altogether now – TODAY! Thank you very much. I knew I could count on you.

Anything worth having takes effort. With trust in the process what is worth having can be yours. In the latest Uplift!we explore why making a good life is like making good pizza!

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Tuning in to the nature channel

Michael 5 Comments

Tomorrow is the day everyone is waiting for. No. Wait. I’ve done that not much too often already. Maybe tomorrow is. It’s Pi Day, but I already wrote that one to death. Maybe it’s Wednesday, the Ides of March. (Nobody ever talks about other Ides although every month has one.) (Hmm, is that right? Oh yes, every month has an Ides, but grammatically, it’s that right making Ides a singular?) (I think it is.) (where was I?) (oh,yes…) In truth, any day can be the day that somebody is waiting for. And that’s a good thing. It shows we are still alive and looking forward, rather than being withdrawn and looking back.

Spring is naturally a time to look forward. Vernal, the fancy adjective for all things spring-like (think vernal equinox) can itself be replaced by the not so fancy adjective, youthful. Spring truly blooms with new growth, youthful buds beginning their journey to full fledged flower-hood, or leaf land, or whatever they may grow to be.

In most American living rooms you find a similar furniture placement. A nice comfy sofa, loveseat, or couch, an easy chair with or without matching ottoman, and/or a recliner (or two or three) aimed facing or providing an obstructed view to — the centerpiece of American culture, the television. The bigger the better! Everything happens on that screen: sports, dramas, movies, upcoming coronations, bits of news, and Saturday Night Live.

My living room isn’t much different than that prototypical gathering spot. There is one addition though. I am fortunate to have one wall in my living room that is all window. (Maybe not so fortunate during the heating months but poetically speaking, fortuitously fortunate.) And I have facing that window a small couch and in that couch I sat the other day and looked out the window at the real life movie called spring. (This was before the snow squalls of this past weekend [sigh].) Out there the trees were budding and birds were looking for a good spot where they might anchor their nest. Other birds could be heard singing, and the grass in the field behind the trees was taking on that lush green we’ll only see the first few weeks of spring. And it’s not even spring yet! It was like watching the coming attractions on my own movie screen that looks out to nature.

So yes, tomorrow is the day someone is looking forward to. And tomorrow’s tomorrow will be the day someone is looking forward to tomorrow. And so on, and so on. Any day can be the day somebody is looking forward to. Even the birds. They told me that the day I sat in my spot, when I was tuned in to the nature channel.

How well do you thank your cast and crew? We talked about our supporting casts in the most recent edition of Uplift! at ROAMcare.org.

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Bright Yellow Daffodils and Dirty Old Cars

Michael 5 Comments

It seems the bright yellow daffodils and colorful tulips popped out of nowhere to boldly welcome Spring!  That’s not an original thought. I stole it from a text I got a few days ago. My friend opened a conversation with that. She went on to say how exciting spring is and, how it fills her with wonder watching the world transform as nature awakens from its log winter slumber. As the chat continued she talked about her neighbor, bundled against the still chilly air while he conducted his own transformation, washing the last of winter from his car, wiping not only the visible exterior but getting under the bumpers, between the open spaces on the wheels, and in all those other nooks and crannies nobody sees whether the car is sitting in the garage or speeding down the highway.

How does one get from daffodils to dirty cars in the same conversation? They naturally go together of course! Consider how those daffodils and tulips, how the crocuses and all the other early bulbs bring forth their colorful displays. They spend the winter buried under layers of dirt, push they way through the surface, some rain comes and nurtures the part we don’t see until with a little coaxing, a shimmering flower blooms with a burst of color. Not so different is the car that spent its winter buried under layers of road grime and salt residue. No matter how often you spray it down with soapy water out of a hose it won’t really shine until you do a little coaxing, getting down to the wheel and bumper level and give it the attention is needs to pull it through the dirt.

Daffodils and dirty cars. We fit in that discussion also. We too need a good cleaning after sitting dormant for so long. We need to give ourselves that attention and wipe away our stress, wash off the fatigue, polish the shiny parts of what makes us burst on the scene, coaxing ourselves into a riot of bright ideas and invigorated thoughts. We need to wake ourselves from the dormancy of complacency and refresh, rejuvenate, and re-energize our lives a few times a year.

Now would be one of those good times. Now while there are flowers blooming and cars shining under the sun climbing hirer into the sky each day. Now while all things of nature and of man are going under their yearly rebirth and renewal, now would be a good time to act like a daffodil or a dirty car and do a little regrowth and self-polishing.

What do daffodils, dirty cars, and you have in common? If you can answer that you’re ready to boldly welcomed Spring.

 

Weather Fools Day

Michael 2 Comments

April Fools and all that. Yeah yeah yeah. I understand it is still early spring, I know I live in a “temperate” zone, I get that average temperatures, especially nighttime temperatures are still “cool” — but it’s snowing! And not that little fluffy pretend snow. This is sticking snow! According to the weather nerds we could be looking for at least an inch accumulation and there could be 4 inches in the mountains. Now I’ll admit, that’s not a whole lot, but hello! It’s April! Now watch, this will be the only time the weather people get it right.

I don’t usually care much about weather, but this year it’s getting old. And it’s only April!!! If somebody offered me a grass shack on a tropical island where I would never see freezing precipitation again, I’d take it. I’d rather take my chances with hurricanes, sun stroke, and shark attacks than go through one more inch of snow fall this year.

On the bright side, we only average 140 days of any precipitation all year and we’ve already had 60 days of the stuff so in another couple months I should be able to take the convertible out of the garage.

Sheesh, a convertible – here. That’s about as much use as a pair of galoshes on that tropical island. Hmmm. Let me get those galoshes out instead.

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Spring into Action, Spring into Love

Michael 9 Comments

Spring is close to being around the corner you can smell it in the air. I cannot remember a Spring I have waited for more than this year, and that’s a lot of Springs. Talk about a winter of discontent. It should have been one of great hope. A vaccine was out and in use! Even though the first doses were administered in December, technically that was still Fall. And then it went downhill.

Right out of the gate, reports of cheating among West Point cadets hit the papers. Of course the Commander in Chief was busy trying to beg, steal, or cajole a few million nonexistent votes (oddly he never tried to buy) so why shouldn’t the youngest of the military try to game their way through the system especially when just the following day the first of over 40 pardons or sentence commutations were issued by Trump in his last month in office. December wrapped up with three people shot in a bowling alley in Illinois. January saw landslides in Norway, blizzards in Spain, and nutcases raining down on Washington DC. In February, if CoViD-19 wasn’t an infectious enough problem to deal with, avian flu broke out in Russia and an Ebola outbreak in Guinea had all of West Africa on alert. The month wrapped up with 5 dead from a shooting in Indianapolis. That lead to February opening with 4 dead in an Oklahoma shooting, and in a weird homage to December, three people were shot in a bowling alley in Central Pennsylvania. Uprisings and protests dominated the news in February and March with unrest in Myanmar, Ethiopia, Catalonia, and Somalia.

With just 3 days remaining in this winter, the Stop AAPI Hate reporting center released a report documenting 3,795 incidents of harassment, physical assault, and civil rights violations against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders since March 19, 2020 that include 503 in January of February of this year. (The Asian Pacific Planning and Policy Council (A3PCON), Chinese for Affirmative Action (CAA), and the Asian American Studies Department of San Francisco State University launched the Stop AAPI Hate reporting center on March 19, 2020.) These are only the reported incidents. It is impossible to say what the actual incident frequency is although the Pew Research Center estimates 3 in 10 Asian Americans have been verbally abused since the start of the pandemic last year.

In front of a house on a road I use often there is a sign proclaiming, “Impeach China Joe.” I doubt the people responsible for posting that sign understand what the words mean. Like most bullies, they simply repeat what the head bully says. One of their favored means of attack is denigration. In the school yard fifty years that would be “Four Eyes,” or “Stinky Pants.” Now it’s China Joe, Crazy Nancy, Braindead Bernie. Now it’s every time that somebody wants to look tough without a pack of Marlboro’s rolled in the white t-shirt sleeve, they repeat a select epithet. Even if it was just name calling to make themselves feel superior it would be so wrong, but the modern societal bullies do not stop there. Actual violence, hospitalizing and killing people make up over 10% of the reports received by Stop AAPI Hate. That was before six Asian women were killed and one other wounded in the Atlanta shootings this week.

IMG_20200726_232745We have a new season starting Saturday. Spring is supposed to be a season of rebirth, hope, and beauty. This would be a good time to start acting like reborn, hopeful, beautiful people and stop the unrelenting slide into the ugliness this country and this world have become. It will take action of your part. Positive action, not just a heart and praying hands icon on your Tweets and emails. I have said this here before, you cannot stop the hate if you are doing the hating. You must love. Make no mistake, the opposite of love is not hate. It is however the cure for hate. The opposite of love is apathy. If you are not actively loving then you are not truly loving, and if you are not loving you cannot oppose hate.

RogersClemmonsI don’t suppose that it is coincidence that Saturday is not only the first day of Spring but also Fred Rogers birthday. If I had to pick only one hero to model my life on it would be Mr. Rogers. For over thirty years Mr. Rogers was a friend to millions of young Americans, and with a diverse group of performers shared time, stories, music, and make believe. Unfortunately at the same time, thousands of young American bullies were already gearing up to throw water and hatred on the devotees of Fred Rogers gentle manner and universal friendship.

Don’t let the bullies take over. Spring into action. Spring into love!

Chasing Groundhogs

Michael 6 Comments

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For Twelve days I chased that groundhog, that rodent brought to me …

Twelve handlers handling
Eleven chipmunks chatting
Ten marmots munching
Nine ground squirrels chomping
Eight gophers going
Seven woodchucks chucking
Six lemurs lounging

five – hollow – trees! 🐾

four woolen mufflers 🧣
three top hats 🎩
two fur-lined mittens🧤

and a shadow for him to later see 🕳

 

 

((C) MRoss 2021, All Rights Reserved)

 

Prepping for Phil

Michael Leave a comment
 

Phil

Happy Groundhog Day Eve! I’m not gong to try to post links of all the GHD related posts I’ve written.  There aren’t enough electrons and bits or E-ink or whatever makes things visible on these screens to do that.  Trust me that there have been a bunch and you can search for them, even the one that actually is moderately educational. Okay, so there is one link for you.

 
Here’s another link for you. You see, unlike some of the more “intelligent life” on this planet, Punxsutawney Phil knows the danger of going out in crowded conditions and is encouraging everybody to celebrate his coming out for 2021 remotely. You can see him accurately predict the coming of this spring livestream on the Visit PA site starting at 6:30 am EST, Tuesday, February 2. (My prediction is six more weeks of winter.)
 
Come back here tomorrow for a special Groundhog Day  post, Real Reality style, 2021 edition.