Change Is Hard

…but change is certain.

Monthly Archives: October 2010


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Memorizing sound

This weekend husband and I explored the coast of Lake Huron.  While I have been in love with Lake Michigan my whole life, I have never spent much time near the big lake on the eastern side of our state.  After two short days in and around the vicinity I can see how easy it would be to cheat on my first love.

As we were driving along on assorted “Lakeshore Drives” up the coast I was looking at the homes – some little cabins, some monster estates – and wondering if these people who are so lucky as to wake up to that huge beautiful lake ever take it for granted.  Or if they, like I believe I would, wake up each day in awe and wonder and thankfulness just to be there.

One of my favorite stops this weekend was Tawas State Park, which we walked on the beach for what seemed miles.  There were little spits of sand sticking out into the water, and at the end of one of them, Sunday early afternoon I stood with my eyes shut and memorized the sound of the soft waves lapping at my toes, gurgling around the sand, sliding away.

Today, when I find myself back in my cubicle working on files and making decisions, when the hours grow long and my neck is tired, when my head aches and I’ve adjusted my glasses for the thousandth time, I’ll think of that moment standing on the sand with water all around me.

And in my heart I’ll smile.


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The race not run

I spent last weekend in a small town a couple of hours away at the home of a friend.  Once upon a time I would have called her one of my running buddies…but I haven’t been running in two years so I guess now we’re just regular friends.  Friends who happen to get together for running events.

A year ago she did a half marathon that sounded like a lot of fun and I vowed that by this year I’d be in shape to do it with her.  And I was moving along toward that goal, up to six miles, when I messed up my knee.  So though I was registered to participate in the event this year, after spending most of August and September sitting around with ice on my knee I was in no shape to run.

But I didn’t miss out entirely!  Three of our little band of four actually DID run the half marathon on Sunday.  I went with them to the spaghetti dinner the night before, spent the night at our “runners slumber party” and got up early to see them off the next morning.  Then the husband of one of the runners and I went out to eat breakfast while they ran the race.

Doesn’t seem a bad thing does it!  And it wasn’t.  It was great to see everyone, to talk about old races we had done, to plan some races for the future (because FOR SURE by next year I’ll be back on track!) and generally support each other in our attempts to foil the aging process as we keep active.

The race itself was small, but beautiful. It ran through the streets of a quaint, Norman Rockwell type town for a mile…

…then most of the rest of it was along a rails to trails path that ran past ponds and colorful trees, farms and open fields.

I got to walk some of it, and kept myself busy taking photographs of the beautiful scenery, including the current header picture, as I waited for the front runners to come back by on their out and back race.

So this old runner had a good time, even though I didn’t get to run the race.  Running can be a solitary sport.  Or it can be a sport that brings solitary people together in celebration of good health and friendship.

Great job ladies!  You’re all my heroes!


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Training Challenge # 9

For our challenge this week Katie and I went on a photo shoot.  Our tiny little town is having what they call Heritage Days this weekend.  For a couple of weeks now I’ve noticed scarecrows, each wearing a different outfit being placed along the road heading out of town.  First one, then another.  Then last night I was at the library and saw a picture of “their” scarecrow, dressed as a woman reading a book.  Turns out local groups and businesses dressed scarecrows, complete with pumpkin heads and entered them in a contest.  They are all numbered and you get to vote for your favorite.

During the weekend there were tours of a local historic barn, houses and other historical sights.  Early Saturday morning the downtown was getting ready for the tourists, setting out sidewalk sale stuff, sweeping the walk, watering the planters.  Everyone was very busy as Katie and I strolled by.

Katie and I went early that morning, because I love taking pictures in the early morning sun…and because Katie was already awake;  she’d been barking at the sound of duck hunters on a nearby lake since 7 a.m.

The challenge for Katie was to sit quietly while all sorts of activity was going on around her.  Lots of cars and trucks driving by, up close and personal.  Many of them had extra noisy trailers hooked up behind, hauling trackers, antique and new, up to the big barn at the top of the hill.

Those trailers were the worst for Katie to sit through; they make so much noise!  And a few times she just couldn’t handle it and would lunge and bark.  But for the most part she sat when I asked her to, though her head was swiveling around keeping track of all the people and traffic.

I took pictures of her sitting near some of the scarecrows or in front of pretty displays.  She got to sit next to her very own tractor.  It took a bit of persuasion for her to sit so near that tractor tire!

You can almost see the scarecrow sitting on the tractor seat.  The sun was just moving over the top of a building and the light kind of obliterates his head…anyway Katie is prettier and a better focus.

Here’s the library staff’s contribution to the contest…

…and the one in front of our local yoga and meditation studio…

…and Lady Harriet Heritage herself!

…where Katie says “GEE MOM!!!  How many more of these do I have to sit for?  And can I have another piece of CHEESE?”

All done now sweetie….wait…how about one more!  In front of the historic Candle Factory!  This will be my FAVORITE!

All in all, though she wasn’t perfect, she did sit when I asked her, most of the time, and only lunged at two trucks.  Well, maybe three.  She isn’t as good at heeling when we’re around all this interesting stuff and lots of people, so we need more practice there.  And of course we always need practice not barking and lunging at cars.  So we’ll be doing more of this.

Meanwhile, I hope you all enjoyed a beautiful weekend!  Katie sends kisses.


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Evidence for keeping a camera in your pocket at all times.

Last week my husband and I met for supper after work.  Following him home I noticed the sky was turning orange and pink, and that the clouds were all ringed in brilliant gold.  But I didn’t have my camera.

By the time I made it home, raced into the house, found the camera and made it out to the park the sky looked like this:

Then a couple of days ago I noticed the trees in the backyard glowing in the late evening light.  I went outside to investigate.  Looking east was like looking into a classical Renaissance landscape.  Well…except for the paved road:

And toward the west the sky was turning into this:

The thing I’ve learned about photography and light is that you can never outrun the sun.  That perfect photo that you catch a glimpse of will be lost while you’re looking for the camera and it can never be recaptured.

Sometimes perfect remains in your mind…and good enough is what you get.


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Catch a shooting star

I went to bed early last night exhausted from nights of sleeplessness.  But it was another restless night.  As husband slept, and dog slept I watched the clock.  Finally early morning, maybe 2:30 a.m. or so I got up.  Naturally Katie did too.  And as soon as we ventured out to the living room she starting running around barking.  As I’m shhhhing her, afraid she’d wake up the husband, I turned on the floodlight in the backyard.  There, right near the house was a little rabbit.  A terrified little rabbit looking for somewhere to run.  I turned the light off and tried to distract the Sheltie.

We went out the front door, she sniffing the ground, then wandering around till she found the right spot to do her job.  I sighed as I shivered in my pjs, wondering why I, the only one with a job, was standing outside in the middle of the night waiting for Katie to finish.  Then I urged her back to the house, posted the this mornings wordless Wednesday entry and tried to go back to bed.

Nothing doing.  Katie had to go out AGAIN!  Seems I rushed her inside too soon.  She has a persistent bark that means I’m not going to get away with ignoring her.  So out we went again.  Maybe 2:45 a.m. now.  We wander around until she finds a new perfect spot.  I sigh some more, watching the stars, which were heavy and low in the crystal clear October night.  To me the Big Dipper represents Dad, and Orion’s belt is my Mom.  Mostly because those are the only two constellations I can recognize.  Still, I talk to them regularly while Katie and I are out in the dark.

And then, just as Katie began to do her thing, the biggest, brightest most wonderous shooting star arched across the sky right above me.  It was amazing.  It was beautiful and it shot through the sky for a full second or two.  Katie didn’t notice it.

But I did, and right there hugged my baby-girl for making sure I was outside on a chilly October morning so that I could see such a beautiful thing.

Way to go babe!


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Lessons at the grocery store

Generally I try to stay away from the grocery store on weekends; it’s too crowded, there’s nowhere to park, and there are almost always kids selling stuff at the door.  You know, the girl scout cookies, the grade school wrapping paper, collections for this band trip or that new playground equipment.  I feel so bad when I say no to those little faces, but I don’t want any of their stuff and I can’t afford to buy from them all.  So I don’t buy from any.

This past weekend I had to go to the store for something.  And sure enough there were cub scouts all set up just inside the front door with their table full of stuff to sell.  On the way out a little boy asked me if I wanted to buy some popcorn to help send them to camp.  I said “Not this time,” and headed out the door.  Just as I was clearing the front door I heard a man standing around nearby make a crack; “Guess you’ve lost your appeal, Luke.” and then I saw the little boy’s face fall.  As I passed through the door I registered that the man speaking was in a cub scout uniform himself, and I got mad.

All the way out to the car I got angrier and angrier.  What kind of leader of young men would make a comment like that, in public, and unwarranted?  It’s hard enough as a kid to spend your weekend dressed up in uniform asking strangers to buy stuff, but the kid was doing his job.  The leader, who was a smart-alack noisy, jerky kind of obnoxious guy was just standing around doing nothing more helpful than cutting his own guy down.  Instead of being encouraging, supportive or inspiring he was sarcastic and degrading.

I unloaded my grocery cart at the car, walked the cart back to the cart corral and kept on walking, back to the store.  Just inside the door I planted myself in front of the cub scout leader and announced quite loudly that I wanted to buy something from Luke, to prove he had not, in fact, lost his appeal.  I stared into the cub scout leader’s eyes and waited for his response.  He turned red.  “You heard me say that?” he asked.  Yes, I confirmed, I did.  And I wondered aloud if he had in fact seen the face of Luke at that moment.  The leader mumbled something unintelligible about “just kidding him” and I turned my back on him to confer with Luke as to what his favorite flavor of popcorn was, which I bought.

One of the mothers manning the table said thank you very much for coming back to buy something.  But buying something wasn’t the point.  The point was that people in leadership positions dealing with children should never ever belittle the kids.  Especially in public.  And that if they do, they need to be called on it.

Now I’m stuck with the stupidly expensive box of popcorn I didn’t want.  But maybe Luke feels better.  And maybe an arrogant, thoughtless cub scout leader will rethink his words in the future.

Hope so.


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Dream speak – and driving a boat over a cliff

I was going to post about an experience I had over the weekend, but this early morning I am awake and remembering a dream.  It’s 4:30 a.m.  and I’ve retreated to the living room because no way will I be able to go back to sleep in the bedroom.  And to get the dream out of my head I’m going to share it with you.  Hope it doesn’t keep you all awake!

I’m driving a pickup truck and towing a big boat.  I think it’s a sailboat but that’s odd because we’ve never owned a big sailboat.  I’m attempting to get the truck and boat down to a beach which has a boat launch of sorts.  The problem is that the “road” down to the boat launch is more like a very steep, very narrow hiking path.  The kind that is more like a trail to climb up a mountain, or a place where water has run and carved a fissure in the rock.  And it’s almost straight down.

But apparently this is the way down to the boat launch, so I start down it.  I remember that my Dad, whose boat and truck I am driving, told me that the weight of a boat makes it harder to stop and so I downshift to the lowest possible gear just as I get to the steepest part.

Then in the dream I have parked the truck with the boat somewhere and have climbed back up to get some belongings I need to take with me out in the boat.  I am worried because the boat launch turned out to be two parallel chunks of concrete with water in between and I’ll have to be an expert to back the boat trailer out onto it to launch the boat.  I am thinking I’ll need to find someone that can back up a trailer better than me.  I’ve never hauled anything larger than a jet ski, and I’ve never backed up towing anything on a trailer.

I’m also worried because I don’t know how to sail a big sailboat.  I don’t even know how to sail a tiny sailboat, and the ocean (yes this is all at an ocean with big swells of water) is crashing on the rocky shore.  There’s a rumor of a baby shark out there too who’s been snapping at swimmers.  Great.

Then somehow I’m walking around trying to find where I parked the truck and the boat and I can’t find where I parked it, and more than that I don’t have any memory of actually parking it, just the vague feeling that I did.  I can’t find it anywhere and I start saying that aloud, that I can’t find my boat, and finally a woman asked me if it’s the crumpled brown one that is bouncing around between the piers on another side of the peninsula we’re on and I say I don’t think so, but that I can’t remember anything after I began the decent down the steep mountain and shifted into low gear.

She gently says that she thinks it probably is my boat that is totaled over on the other side, and the truck is over there totaled as well, and there’s blood on my forehead and I’m thinking Dad is going to KILL me for ruining his truck and boat and I still have no recollection of anything after I started over the cliff…and I walk by this shallow part where there’s a “baby” shark that’s about fifteen feet long and people are petting it, like in a petting zoo, and some little kid is crouched on the end of a rock petting the back of it’s head and it turns it’s head around and you can see it’s teeth, and the kid is petting it’s snout and I tell the kid “This isn’t Disneyland you know, that thing is real.” and I turn my back quick because I don’t want to see what happens next and I climb back up the steep mountain to get to the other side to see if it’s my boat.

I can’t even remember what “my” boat looks like and now it’s possible it’s a ski boat not a sail boat…and I don’t remember what color the truck is, and the lady is leading the way through some sort of back door into a dark hallway that is supposed to take us to the other side of the mountain where my boat is crumpled up.

And I wake up and find my knee hurting and the dog sleeping on top of my leg and I am SOOOO glad that I didn’t actually drive the truck and boat over a cliff.  But if I had I am SOOOO glad I survived it.  And I’m sure I’m not going back to sleep because I don’t want to find myself  back on that mountainous peninsula  looking for my truck again.  Ever.

So Katie and I are out on the sofa now.  Think we’ll try to get another hour or so of sleep before the work week begins.  She’s already asleep.  Wonder what dogs dream about?


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Training Challenge #8

This week we took our cue from Oreo over at Sara’s blog.  We’re working on the vacuum cleaner!

Ever since she was a little tiny puppy Katie has hated the vacuum cleaner.  I don’t know if she thinks she is protecting me, or if it’s a game, but she barks and growls and pounces and bites the vacuum.  She’s so vicious I am afraid she’ll break a tooth.  So mostly I put her outside when I do the vacuuming, and frankly I don’t vacuum as often as I should.  Which isn’t such a bad thing when you stop and think about it.  Sort of liberating actually.

But wait.  I digress.

I can’t even touch the handle of the closet door behind which lurks the evil vacuum without her spinning in circles and barking hysterically. To actually drag the hose out creates mayhem.  And turn it ON?  Unthinkable.

So one day this week I put her in a sit/stay and opened the closet door! If she barked I closed the door and walked away.  No treat.  I tried again later.  Eventually she sat while I opened the door and she got her treat.

Next we tried MOVING the vacuum hose.  Same deal.  Sit, don’t bark and you get a treat.  I’ve left the hose and the vacuum heads sitting in the middle of the living room floor for a couple of days now.  She doesn’t have a problem with that…

…until I move that evil vacuum head…it’s not even turned ON yet…then she gets all crazy again.

Sigh.  So much more work to do.  Of course we haven’t put in the hours and hours of relaxation work that Sara and Oreo have done.  Just goes to show…if you don’t do the work, you don’t earn the treat.

My treat would be to vacuum in peace.  I think.