Change Is Hard

…but change is certain.

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Weekend Paradise

I spent the weekend in Northern Michigan where the fall colors were peaking, the sun was shining, the air was warm and sweet and Lake Michigan was gorgeous. And to top it off, I got to stay with a good friend in her wonderful home complete with a loving dog-cat. Well. A cat that sort of acts like a dog, you know what I mean. We wandered quaint little towns, poking our heads into art galleries and book stores and hiked through beautiful sun drenched forests listening to woodpeckers and the silence. We walked the beach and waded into the gentle waves, kayaked the turquoise still waters of Lake Michigan, and sat in warm sand drinking wine and drawing with pastels. We contemplated in silence the wide, ever changing lake, and talked incessantly; stories about the past and hopes for the future. We read and napped and laughed a lot.

It would have been easier to leave, both the lake as well as the friend and her cat if the day had been dreary, cold, misty or rainy. But it was perfect; in the 70’s, sunshine, the lake a cobalt blue. The trees glowed against the sky. I drove away with the car windows rolled down, listening to the crunch of brilliant leaves beneath the tires, memorizing the sights, sounds and smells of lake living in the fall, trying to impress the image onto my eyelids so that later, when I closed my eyes, I could bring it all back. Listening to the radio on my drive through the brilliant colors of mid-Michigan I heard “True colors shining through…I see your true colors shining through and that’s why I love you, that’s why I love you…” (Fredro Starr) It seemed appropriate and I hummed along with the music.

We took a last walk on the beach before I left, me dressed in jeans and running shoes, intent on keeping my feet dry given the long drive ahead. As we returned to the house I became less vigilant about avoiding the gently swelling water, and a rogue wave quickly slapped me in the ankle, pouring into my shoe. I laughed; it was as if Lake Michigan was grabbing for my foot, trying to keep me from leaving. In my heart I told the lake that it didn’t have to try so hard…it had me at hello. When I saw it again this trip I knew I was falling in love all over again.

PS: The images actually look better if you click on each of them v.s. making them into a slide show…


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Homework

Today was a beautiful day, and with no rain forecast for tomorrow I spent almost 7 hours on my homework – – staining more railing on our new deck. I now have the big deck finished! I still have the smaller one to do. Maybe tomorrow morning. Maybe not. I finished the big deck with about an hour of sunlight to spare, so Katie and I went to the park to work on her homework. The image above is our shadows at the park this evening with her sitting dutifully in front of me waiting for a reward. If you look carefully you can see her little ears tipped forward in anticipation.

When we got to the park it was very windy…

…but that didn’t keep Katie from chasing a phantom rabbit that she heard in the tall grass. That’s me you don’t see, running right along with her to get the picture.

She did really well as we practiced all her obedience skills, and she didn’t want to come back home when we were done exploring and practicing. I did though. I’m exhausted! Tomorrow I am driving up toward Traverse City to visit a friend for the weekend. No deck staining. Can’t beat that!


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SURPRISE!! New toy!

Katie got a gift from the UPS man this morning. The box was addressed to her, and neither I nor my husband had purchased anything for her. So it was with a sense of mystery that we opened the box. Katie was excited, how she knew is beyond me. Turned out to be a gift from her Uncle P in North Carolina, a bright pink and green Soft Bite Dog Disc to play Frisbee with! She instantly grabbed it and ran around the house shaking her head in an attempt to kill it.

Eventually we got it away from her, took off the tag and tossed it. Turns out we are not expert at tossing, but we will get better. She actually caught several of them, though I didn’t get good pictures of her. She loves it.

Thanks Uncle P! This evening she is napping, exhausted from all the fun. Probably dreaming of becoming a famous frisbee dog. Maybe she can support us in our old age.

We need more practice!


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No news on the foot

I have no news on my foot yet, but so many of you have asked me I thought I should say something. I went to see my regular doctor yesterday and got an x-ray of the foot. He can’t see any stress fracture but he says my description of the pain sounds like there is one there. So he is sending me for a bone scan. I go very early tomorrow morning. Actually I have to be there in 8 hours, so I should get to bed. Katie, who did really well at doggie school tonight is already sound asleep, having dog obedience dreams. More likely she is dreaming dog disobedience, but I can hope. More on the foot later. Promise.

–photo taken by brother C.


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Like I promised

I know you don’t need three posts from me in one day, but I’m so excited that I can’t wait to show you! Remember in a previous post when I described running (almost literally) into a pair of sandhill cranes while training and how I wished I had my camera? I vowed to go back to the park someday and walk around until I found them again. Well, today being such a sad day, missing the opportunity to run the half marathon, I went to a place that always makes me smile: Kensington Metro Park. I wasn’t really expecting to find the cranes as I had seen a flock of over twenty of them this week in a field near my home and I figured they were getting ready to fly away for the winter. I thought that the ones at the park would probably be gone. But I went out there anyway, to find some solace. After a couple of hours I had given up finding them, and was headed for home when I caught a glimpse of these two by the road. If I had been walking I wouldn’t have seen them; they were in a section of the park where the bike path had been taken up and moved. I had to park about a mile away and walk back and I was glad they were still there when I finally arrived. This picture shows their size; the split rail fence is about two and a half feet tall, maybe three feet at most.

But I also know I promised to get you an up close and personal picture of these beautiful birds. So, though they were more skittish today than the time I ran by them a couple of weeks ago, they did let me get pretty close, and you can see their rust feathers in a couple of these pictures.

I can say that the day turned out not to be a total waste. Finding these birds and them allowing me to get so close makes up for missing the race. 🙂


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Drats!

I got up this morning without the alarm way before sunrise. I had my stuff all organized in the breakfast room, I ate breakfast, stretched, drank water, worried, and got on the road for the 8 a.m. race by 6:00. I was ready for the Brooksie! But you know how on your way to the airport you compulsively check that you have your tickets, your ID? OK, maybe you don’t, but I do. I’m about 20 minutes into my 30-40 minute drive to the race start when I reach over into the passenger seat to check. Hat? Got it. Gloves? Got ’em. Race number to be pinned on the front of my shirt? ? ? Race number? RACE NUMBER??? My fingers couldn’t confirm it was there, yet I know it was in the pile of stuff I dumped on the passenger seat when I left the house. Wasn’t it? I stopped at the next exit, pulled into a gas station and searched the car. No race number.

I had time, if I hurried to drive back, grab it off of the table where I was sure it was, and get back to the parking lot before they closed it and make the race. Maybe. So I headed back home, speeding all the way. Ran into the house, startling husband who was just up to get ready to go to work, and the race number was NOT ON THE TABLE! We searched the car again. We searched the house. The whole house, even places I hadn’t been this morning. No number. Eventually it got to be too late for me to even make the start of the race. So sadly, at 8:00 a.m., when the race began I was watching the sun tip my trees in golden light and feeling very sad.


In retrospect I know I could have run without the number. The paper timing chip attached to my shoe had my number on it. And if I hadn’t checked the seat while driving I would have arrived at the race, not found my number, and run anyway. But I really thought I had time to scoop it up and still get back. On the other hand, maybe this was a way to make me not run the race which might have done additional damage to my foot. Once I sat down I realized it still hurts. Tomorrow I will call my doctor and make an appointment to see if it has a stress fracture. Meanwhile I am very very disappointed. I have never not run a race after training so hard. It was a beautiful day for a race (despite the cool start temperatures) and a beautiful course. And it was the inaugural race, which is always cool to be involved with.

Double drats!


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OK, I'm awake

The Brooksie Way half marathon is this morning. It starts at 8, I’ve been awake since 4. Not that unusual for race morning, to be awake early like this. I have my morning routine figured out, what to eat, what to wear. Did I mention it’s 36 degrees out? And I’m wearing shorts and a long sleeved technical shirt, designed to wick away sweat? What sweat? Wish me luck…

More later.


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56th Wedding Anniversary

We woke to frost on the ground today, seems too early, but maybe not. It would have been my parents’ 56th wedding anniversary, if they were still living. They spent their honeymoon camping at Point Betsie up near Traverse City…in a tent. I was thinking about camping in a tent on a frosty morning up north as I took the dog out this morning, while bundled up in a heavy coat and gloves. And just because I’m thinking about them, I’ll show you a few pictures:

This is their wedding day in 1952, at Mom’s childhood home in Ann Arbor…

…and in front of their first home in the mid 50’s.

It’s hard to find a picture of just them together in the 60’s; there always seems to be a few kids around!

The whole family in the 70’s…

…and just them at the lake in the mid 80’s.

At my house in 1993…

…in their own yard later in the 90’s…

…and heading off to church circa 2002.

I didn’t see much aging in them, and looking at these pictures I can see why…it was so gradual. When I think that I am already as old as my mother was when they moved so far away to Alabama, I am surprised. Back then, in the early 80’s, I thought she was pretty old…but yet today I don’t feel old at all. Most of the time anyway. I sure wish they were still around so that I could call them and say “Happy Anniversary!” I have to believe they are celebrating their anniversary privately…and together. But probably not in a tent.


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Just a bunch of thoughts

To borrow a theme from a few blogger friends here are some unrelated thoughts, in no particular order:

Today I attended a half day seminar on oral histories put on by the Michigan Historical Society. It’s a concept I’m very interested in, and I thought the $10.00 fee to attend was reasonable for an unemployed librarian. I learned a lot, and am somewhat overwhelmed. Now I need to figure out what to do with the information and how to get more involved. I hope that, aside from enjoying working with oral histories, this may be a step to differentiate me from other library candidates when a position opens up somewhere near home. Plus it was fun to be in a library (it was held at a library not to far away) and be sitting with librarians!

**

Last night was week five of intermediate obedience. Katie and I had a good time, and we got to practice heeling OFF LEASH for the very first time! Good thing we were indoors! Still, it was stressful for me to think I didn’t have total control over her. But to be honest she did pretty darn good, except when she’d find a fallen treat along the way and stop to gobble it down. For a dog that initially wasn’t interested in treats while we were in school, she has certainly come out of her shell! I don’t think she even realized she wasn’t on the leash most of the time. And to top off our evening the instructor actually used her as a demonstration about a new skill because she knew that Katie already knew how to do a right finish (walking around me and sitting on my left side). So I got to watch Katie work from a ways away, which was enlightening. When I’m not concentrating so hard on getting her to do stuff, and when she isn’t sitting right next to me, with me looking down at her, I can see that she is a very pretty little girl! Rather than thinking how irritating she is when she won’t sit, or won’t stay, or won’t…well you know. And I know I’m still her favorite; when she got her treat from the instructor for doing the right finish, she glanced over, realized I wasn’t next to her and ran at top speed back to me. I could she in her face that she was saying “MAMA! MAMA! I got a TREAT!”

**

I haven’t finished staining the deck. It’s been too rainy. Oh darn.

**

I have started picking up “stuff” around the house. There is so much stuff it’s been overwhelming. So I decided to just work on one little part each night. Tonight while cleaning up a part of the closet I found a photograph of Bonnie, our previous sheltie, taken before she was so old. Gosh she was a cute dog! I showed the picture to Katie but I don’t think she cared.

**

I also found some lyrics to a song that I wrote down while I was in Alabama. The first evening I was there I sat at my mother’s piano. Randomly I opened a song book (Alfred’s Basic Adult All-Time Favorites) that she used to use when she went to senior housing to play for sing-a-longs. I slowly picked the melody out, then tried to play it with the chords. (I had piano lessons when I was ten, for one very long year.) I could sort of play this simple song. Then I went back and read the lyrics and wondered how I had come to open this particular book to this particular song out of all the music piled on her piano:

There’s a Long Long Trail, by Stoddard King, music by Zo Elliot

Theres a long, long trail awinding into the land of my dreams,

Where the nightingales are singing and a white moon beams

There’s a long long night of waiting

Until my dreams all come true,

Till the day when I’ll be going

Down that long, long trail to you.

I wonder how I came to play this piece, because sometimes I think it’s a long long time until I get to see her again.