Change Is Hard

…but change is certain.

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Shadows

Those of you that live Somewhere Else, somewhere warm and sunny, might have noticed that others of us got hit with another major snowstorm yesterday.  We here in what appears to be Forever Winter were fooled by a day or two of warmth and sun earlier in the week.  The snow banks diminished.  We could see our driveway again.  And, as every year, we were lulled into thinking winter was over.  And then it snowed.

Hey Mama! What happened to my path?

Hey Mama! What happened to my path?

And snowed and snowed.  Where I live, about an hour north of Detroit, we had nine inches of snow in just a few hours.  I know because I measured it before I hauled the snow blower back out of the garage.  Down in Detroit where they measure these kinds of things officially they got a little over 6 inches, leaving the region just about 2 inches shy of breaking our record for the all time snowiest winter in these parts.  Gee.  Maybe I should wish for one more storm.

But I probably don’t have to wish.  This is, after all, Michigan.  And it is not unusual for us to get snow in April…sort of a Michigan April Fool’s joke…on us…year after year.

Lonely leaf.

Lonely leaf.

I didn’t make it to work yesterday.  I tried..really really tried.  But there was too much snow falling during rush hour, too many accidents to maneuver around, too much ice on the windshield.  I called my boss after an hour of driving and turned around.  Katie was glad to see me.

This is supposed to be my NAP time Mama!

This is supposed to be my NAP time Mama!

And then….later in the afternoon the sun came out!  It was a miracle!

Happy sun.

Happy sun.

And I was so glad to be home to watch the sun create the prettiest shadows.

Shadows creeping across the yard.

Shadows creeping across the yard.

And even though it was very cold I couldn’t help but go outside every time I saw something beautiful.

The moon smiles down.

The moon smiles down.

And whenever Katie asked to go out.  Which seemed to be quite often.  So I got a little laundry done, some cooking done, some reading done.  But mostly I sat and watched the snow come down, then watched the sun play with lines and shapes on the fresh snow…

Shadows on the deck.

Shadows on the deck.

…and took some deep breaths and tried to relax before heading into the office again today.

I don’t want to think about any more spring snow storms.  So I think I will just hide my head in the sand…um…snow until it’s really summer.

I don't see any snow Mama!

I don’t see any snow Mama!


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Weekly photo challenge: Perspective

The photo challenge this week from WordPress is to show perspective.  As usual my mind pulled me this and that way when I considered what to do with that concept.  I think I know what the photo challenge developers are getting at with the assignment.  But I think, this  week, I have to go in another direction.

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Because, you see, I’ve been thinking about truck safety stuff more lately.   My family was permanently upended in December of 2004 because of a truck, but that doesn’t mean I eat and breath trucking issues every day.  I slip into complacency just like anyone might.  But this week a letter was published in the New York Times from Joan Claybrook, who once headed NHTSA (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration), the Joan Claybrook who helped get seat belts mandated, the Joan Claybrook who fights the good fight for all of us on highway safety issues still today.  You can read her short letter here.  So this week my thoughts on perspective are slightly skewed toward safety and trucks.

I see some awful stupid stuff on my long commute to and from work.  In our hurry to get where we’re going some of us driving the cars are making moves that aren’t worth the risk.  Let me plead with you.  Please, never cut in front of a semi.  Never careen crazily around a slower truck.  Never shift lanes without warning to gain an extra 100 yards in stopped traffic.  Never tail gate behind that big rig.  Put down your phone.  Pay attention.  Stay away from the trucks.  Stay as far away as you can get.  Because when you look at the big picture, when you see in perspective how small you are next to them, well, it’s obvious who will be the loser in any truck/car altercation.

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No matter whose fault it is, if you tangle with a semi truck you and your family are going to lose.

The trucking industry is still lobbying hard to get bigger and heavier trucks on the roads.  The roads they share with you and me.  Despite overwhelmingly public disapproval for larger or heavier trucks, they are still trying; in just about every major bill before Congress there is an attempt to override states law size and weight limitations.

You can help by calling your Senators and Representatives and telling them you don’t want bigger or heavier trucks on the roads you and your families drive.  People are already dying.  People are already living with life long injuries.  Bigger and heavier trucks will not make the numbers of deaths (approximately 4,000 a year) or injuries (approximately 100,000 a year) go down.

Let’s keep trucks in perspective.  Let’s stop bigger trucks.  Visit the Truck Safety Coalition’s website for more information.

Please.

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Enough already! It’s March for pete’s sake!

One more time.

One more time.

When I was a kid I always felt like winter was half way over at Christmas.  I know.  It is not.  But that’s the way I felt back then, a million years ago and light years away from this winter.  Oh yes, by Christmas you were half way home, you only had to get through January, then it was February and February was short, right?  And then it was March and everyone knows that March is spring!  Sure it might snow a couple of times, but the sun shone and the snow melted and you got days and days of warmth creeping back into your bones.

Right.

The record snowfall in our area of Michigan is 93.6 inches set in 1881.   No one around today would remember that snowy winter, and no one back then would be commuting to work in bumper to bumper traffic on a freeway in all that snow.  No, this winter, though it will probably end up being the second snowiest winter, is plenty winter enough for me.  People seem to hope  we break the record – we’re only ten inches away now at 83.7 inches (that’s 212.60 centimeters for those of you outside the US).  Wouldn’t that be cool, people say.

It's pretty though.

It’s pretty though.

What I say is that 83.7 inches is plenty enough of a record for me.  It’s the most snow we’ve had here in my lifetime and  I don’t need to experience ten more inches of snow this winter.  In fact I’d be fine if this last snowfall, this last four or five inches received on Saturday night was it.  Done.  Finished.  No more.  No way.  No how.  I’m hoping that I’ve put the snowblower away for the last time this year, felt the last of the cold wet stuff fall down my neck in the middle of the night when I’m out with Katie, shoveled my last chunk of ice away from the mailbox.  That’s what I’m hoping.

Even Katie thinks this is enough snow.  It’s higher than she is tall.  She can’t play in it, won’t squat in it, can’t chase a squirrel across it.  There is no reason that either of us can think of to keep it around.  So if it’s OK with all of you, we’d like to request that it begin to melt, slowly, starting tomorrow.

The only spot to play is the driveway!

The only spot to play is the driveway!

Cause somewhere under all this are little buds of green things just waiting to show us their stuff, there are little peepers waiting to sing and fish waiting to be caught.  Somewhere under all of this is spring, and it can’t get here soon enough to satisfy me.

How about you?

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Weekly photo challenge : Abandoned

This week’s WordPress photo challenge is show ‘abandoned.’  Lots of things ran though my mind immediately.  There’s an old rusted truck  out by the main road and I thought I might do that.  And I will someday.   But as I thought more about the word abandoned I began to feel the city of Detroit pulling me.   Some of you probably know the city is in bankruptcy, the biggest city in the United States to head down that road.  There’s been a lot of abandoning that has happened in the city in the past many years, but hopefully the path is becoming clearer for the emergence of a new, brighter city.

There’s one building that stands, for me, to represent the abandonment of Detroit by so many.  I’ve always wanted to go downtown and photograph it, but it’s a little daunting.  Scary too.  So I haven’t.  This weekend I decided to drive down before our weather gets worse and just see what might be possible.  Turns out there were lots of people out and about right there, going to some event down the street.  So, though I wasn’t able to get really close as they have it all fenced off I was able to get a few shots of the abandoned Detroit Train Station.

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What a magnificent building this was in its day and what a shame that it has come to this.  You can see photos of the inside here and imagine what it once was.  It’s totally gutted now.  When you’re further away from the building you can see daylight all the way through it, from one empty window through to the empty window on the other side.  This year they hung giant lit snowflakes in some of the windows.  I hear it was pretty at night.

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Then I turned around and saw an old hotel, probably the place people landed when they arrived in Detroit and first stepped off the train.  It’s been abandoned too, though not by the graffiti artists.

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And next door to the hotel was an abandoned house, you can still see the good bones of it hidden under the boarded up windows.

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Around the side of the house was this,  which epitomizes abandonment to me…the abandonment of hope.

Someone had dreams here.

Someone had dreams here.

There’s so much more abandonment in this city;  I saw it everywhere as I scurried into downtown and back out to the illusion of safety in the suburbs.  It needs a braver person than me to document the pain there, and to document the return to life of what was once a great city.  I’d love to do it, but it’s just too darn scary.

You can find more photos by creative people that represent “abandoned” to them, up at the first link at the top of the post….or here and here and here are a few of my favorites.

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Musician?

Music maker

Music maker

After our community band’s back to back concerts last weekend we’ve had a week off.  And as usual when I’m not up against a time constraint, not pushed to my limits, not facing epic failure, I didn’t practice my instrument at all.  Not once.  All week.  I did take it out and clean it a bit.  And I thought about practicing, surely that counts.   So I had a somewhat pleasant jolt earlier in the week when our director sent an email out to everyone thanking us for two great performances, telling us how much she enjoyed Saturday morning when we played at the Community Band Festival, how she was honored to work with such a fine group of musicians.

Musician?  Me?

I have never thought of my self as a musician.  A musician practices daily, does exercises that aren’t any fun, limbers up fingers, breathes from the diaphragm, tightens the embouchure, can hear whether notes are flat or sharp and can fix it.  None of that describes me now or at any time in my past.

Still.

She made me smile when I read her email because it had been fun, that early morning concert – the applause that seemed to last forever, the good feeling we had watching her take another bow, the celebratory singing on the way home.  It was all fun, and I wouldn’t get to do that, experience that from my place in middle age, without a Community Band.  I’m lucky we have one near my town, lucky that our director is exacting and can choose a good program, lucky to play with other folks who are so talented.   Just plain lucky.

I was watching PBS a bit this afternoon.  They were doing a show called “My Music” with groups of middle aged and older once upon a time famous (and some still famous) folks singing music from the 50’s and 60’s.  I didn’t have any problem thinking of them as musicians, and as I watched the grey haired, slightly rotund musicians throw themselves lovingly into their performance I realized I was watching more of the lucky ones, the ones that get to keep doing the thing they love.

So here’s to all the musicians out there.  The famous ones and the not so famous, the has beens and the never really made its.  And to all of us who never quite considered ourselves to be musicians at all.  We might just be the most lucky because we do it for nothing more than the sheer joy of making something so beautiful it lasts forever in our hearts.

She sent an email to thank us for being fine musicians.  I think we need to say thank you back to her…for pushing us to be musicians at all.

Horn

Horn


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Thanks

Katie here.  I told Mama that I needed to borrow her blog so that I could say thank you to all of you out there worried about me, and all of you that sent Mama messages with advice and support during the bad days.  Let me tell you this has been so stressful for me!  I suppose it’s no fun for Mama either, taking me in and outside all the time, and then carting me around looking for an answer to why I felt so terrible last Thursday night.  Most of you saw this on facebook, but this was how I was feeling Thursday night when my Mama rushed me to the emergency vet clinic.

I didn't feel good.

I didn’t feel good.

And I bet you are wondering why I got sick during the evening of a snowstorm when the roads were terrible and the wind was howling and Mama was scared to drive.  Well.  Let me tell you.  I am a princess and a princess does not care about all that when she has a tummy ache.  She just lets her minions know…well her Mama know, and off we went to get me some help!  My Mama’s good about stuff like that.  I guess I’ll keep her.

So anyway…they did all sorts of nasty stuff to me!  They took my blood!  And they poked me to get urine!  GEEZE…just ask me, I’ll pee for you, you know what I mean, but noooooo…and then, then…why it’s too horrible to even tell you!  They shaved my tummy!  Unthinkable.  I noticed my Mama wasn’t even there for that one…I had to sleep at the hospital by myself without her and then in the morning did they let me go home?  No they did not!  They shaved my tummy!!!  And then they put cold goop on it and got the rest of my furs all sticky and matted and they rubbed it around a long time.  My Mama says they told her I was very good.  I’ll let you in on a secret.  I was too terrified to move!

They took a bunch of pictures trying to figure out what was going on with me and they decided it was probably pancreatitis which upset my Mama a lot.  But I didn’t care what they called it, cause it gets me this wonderful soft dog food!  Out of a can!  I could hardly believe it when my Mama gave me some the first day home.  It was so good, and she only gave me a little cause I was just home and all, so I asked her for more.  In fact I asked her for more about every other minute all night long.  She was very appreciative of all the attention.  I’m sure.

Saturday my Mama got a call from the vet and guess what?  My score for the pancreatitis test was only 40!  That means I don’t have it…or so says my regular vet.  So I don’t need all that fancy food…but Mama says she’s going to keep feeding me the rest of it…and then she’s going to get a low fat version forever…but she says it won’t be in a can cause cans are a pain in the…well..anyway.  I’m going to keep pestering her for the canned stuff though because let me tell you that stuff is gooooood!

I figured Mama would be all happy and stuff but she seemed more worried because now she didn’t know what was up at all.  She made another appointment, this time with my own vet and you know what she did today?  She put me in the car!  Now let me tell you.  I went in the car last weekend and ended up at the kennel.  Then I came home for one stinking day and I got put in the car again and ended up at the hospital.  So I was not too happy about being in the car this morning, and I told her so.  Loudly and often.  If you shelties know what I mean, and I think you do.  We got to the vet and I was shaking so much they could hardly read the scale!  (By the way I am a svelte 20.9 pounds, just perfect I think!)  Then we went in a room to wait.  I know all about waiting for scary stuff so I insisted on sitting on my Mama.  Not beside her.  On her.  And every time she put me on the floor I asked to be picked up.  When the vet lady came in I tried to crawl into Mama’s coat.  And she was still wearing it.

My lady vet made my Mama feel a lot better.  She said not to worry about the gall bladder, there were no stones, and that sometimes dogs like me just get an irritable stomach and it likely wasn’t a mild case of pancreatitis, though it’s possible it was.  And she said it wouldn’t hurt to keep me on the low fat diet (hint hint Mama) and you know what else?  You know that stupid urinary infection I’ve had for a month?  That the emergency vet said was still there?  Well the culture came back today and there was nothing there!  So after this week Mama can stop giving me those pills.  Of course that means I have to go back to the vet to give another urine sample on Monday to make absolutely sure…and while we’re there I guess they’re going to pull more blood and check all that again.  But between you and me, I think I’m ALL BETTER!!!

I feel good.  I’m a happy camper.  Want to see me from when I was at the vet today?  Here you go!  This was after I got the good news and the lady vet left the room.  I wanted to go home!

I'm a happy girl!

I’m a happy girl!

So I think that’s the end of my adventure.  I’m really sorry all you guys were worried about me.  But it made me feel very special and loved.  Just think!  Most of us have never even met and still we care so much about each other!  I know it was all those positive thoughts and paws crossed that got us through this with the least amount of wear, if you call a pink tummy and an empty wallet lack of wear.  Mama says she’s going to work on the mats under my fur tonight.  I told her we should just rest.

I bet I win.

Love to all of you,

Katie-girl.

Love you guys!

Love you guys!


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Weekly Photo Challenge: Threes

This week the WordPress photo challenge is “threes” as in three photos that tell a story…or a photo with three of something in it…or three angles of the same object…or, and this is what I did, three photos starting from the broad topic and moving to the detail.   There are endless possibilities for great shots that include something of threes.  Design uses the rule of three all the time and you probably use it unconsciously when you’re out taking photos, or designing that kitchen or painting that next masterpiece or just redecorating the living room.

I thought about showing you more of the immediate world around me.  But that would involve snow and I know you’re all tired of snow.  I certainly am.  I wanted something brighter, happier, colorful.  Where to go to find that?  I was thinking about this conundrum during my morning commute which passes, by happenstance, the local nursery.  As in summertime hopes, heat, flowers.  Flowers.  I wonder what’s inside this time of year?

Want to see?  Well, here you go!

A bit of joyful pink to brighten your day!  At the nursery I could pretend, for a few short minutes, at the end of a long harsh winter that spring was just around the corner.  I’m sure it is…

…isn’t it?

Here and here and here are some of my favorite ‘threes’ from others who posted their own creativity for this photo challenge.

Another three

Another three