Favorite place, favorite team

On Tuesday, we kicked off Gabi's summer vacation with a spontaneous day trip to the Cities. We started with lunch with a friend in Maple Grove, then headed to Chanhassen to spend a couple of hours at the arboretum ~ one of my very favorite places to visit.

We were a little early for the height of the peony bloom, but had perfect timing for the iris.



One of the very fun things about the iris garden at the arboretum is that there are lots of older varieties ~ Dusky Challenger, Beverly Sills, Stepping Out ~ that my mom grows in her garden. These are varieties that I haven't seen in years, and seeing them at the arboretum is like visiting with old friends. I get downright wistful.

It was also fun to see the lady slippers in bloom. The arboretum has a few different varieties (the fancy ladyslippers weren't blooming yet). These are such unique and fascinating flowers. They were blooming both in the wildflower garden and along the bog walk ~ which we enjoyed on Tuesday but I wouldn't recommend it once the mosquitoes are out in full force.



After spending a few hours wandering around the gardens, we drove to Minneapolis to catch a Minnesota Lynx game. Now, I am admittedly one of the least jock-ish people I know. Please don't ask me to name any professional football, hockey, basketball or baseball teams or players. Or anything like standings, rivalries, scores, scandals, etc. It's not just that I don't know these "vital statistics." What is truly dazzling is my utter indifference.

However, I love going to Lynx games. I love the crowd, I like supporting the athletes, and there's something vibrant and thrilling about the WNBA. Also, the women don't play it like a power sport for the star poser. There aren't many slam dunks in the WNBA. Instead, there's finesse and teamwork, and that is so much more interesting. So, my birthday present from Gabi was Lynx tickets. What fun. I am slowly learning a few of the rules as well ~ although my complete bafflement at what does or does not constitute a foul would likely drive a true basketball fan to tears. Unfortunately, the ladies lost. However, it was a great game.

Oh ~ and in the off chance that it matters to any of you ~ they played Connecticut.

Thanks, Jon

First, a caveat:

I do not regularly get my news from The Daily Show.

I do, however, sometimes get a jolt of information about the news from Jon Stewart & co. This happened a couple of days ago when the lead story on TDS was about the nearly complete lack of coverage by the major news networks ~ cable and otherwise ~ regarding the recent report put out by the Senate Intelligence Committee. Evidently, instead of reporting on the administration's exaggerations, omissions and shameless propagandizing in building a case for the Iraq war, the networks and cable news shows chose to run with the sexy kerfuffle over two dykes kissing in a ballpark.

Even my dear Gabi, who listens to NPR all the time, had not heard the news. I had, because I read my news online and somehow had the right combination of news sources plugged into my Google Reader.

So, for those of you who missed this story, here's a couple of choice links:

Senate Finds Pre-War Bush Claims Exaggerated, False
By Jim Lobe*

WASHINGTON, Jun 5 (IPS) - Claims by U.S. President George W. Bush and other top administration officials before the 2003 invasion of Iraq regarding Baghdad's ties to al Qaeda and its weapons of mass destruction (WMD) programmes were generally not supported by the evidence that the U.S. intelligence community had at the time, according to a major new report by the Senate Intelligence Committee released Thursday.

The Truth About the War (editorial, NY Times, June 6)

A new report shows clearly that President Bush should have known that important claims he made about Iraq did not conform with intelligence reports.

And, just in case the news networks failed in their reporting role vis-a-vis the shenanigans the administration is pulling in Iraq, here's another story that is more than a little noteworthy.

From the British paper, The Independent, US Issues Threat to Iraq's $50bn Foreign Reserves in Military Deal, by Patrick Cockburn, Friday, June 6, 2008

The US is holding hostage some $50bn (£25bn) of Iraq's money in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York to pressure the Iraqi government into signing an agreement seen by many Iraqis as prolonging the US occupation indefinitely, according to information leaked to The Independent.

The pretty ladies are back again

Finally, the first of the fancy bearded iris are open.


"Charisma"

They're almost two weeks late this year. However, as though to make up for their tardy arrival they are preparing the best display we've had in a few years. We have buds on plants that haven't bloomed for years ~ long enough that I've lost track of their names. I'll be sending the pics to my mom so that she can identify them for me.



This one has the most intense, gorgeous perfume! And while it's hard to see from the pictures, the beard hooks up instead of laying flat against the fall. The coloration goes from deep blue to tan on the underside of the petals. And the stalk is sturdy and nearly three feet tall. Wow! I have no clue who she is, but she's stunning.

Update: Mom says she's called "Fragrant Lilac." Gorgeous!

Now, if the severe thunderstorms will just bypass St. Cloud for a few weeks, we should have a really lovely show.

What am I doing here?

It's a question that crops up from time to time:

Why do I spend the time and energy to blog?

Some days, the voice has a tinge of self-pitying doubt. These are days when I look and see that even though my site meter tells me that I've had several visitors in the last week, no one has left me a comment since forever (can you hear the 14 year old?). Do they not care? Is my writing that bad? Should I go hide by head under a blanket and never touch a keyboard again?

Fortunately, those times don't last long.

Other times, such as today, I am inspired to ask this question more intellectually, and then both the accompanying questions and the answers are much more pleasant.

I stumbled across an essay by Meredith Farkas, of Information Wants to Be Free, where she asks a similar question. She's looking at the issue of self-disclosure and social media, and wonders about her motivations when she does disclose personal information about herself. Farkas writes,

I notice that my blog started to get more personal as I started to connect more with real people online. I had a few regular readers and commenters whom I got to know and like, and I wanted to share things with them, both good and bad. Personal and professional, online and real world all seemed to blur together.

She finds herself in the position of knowing a lot about people she's never met in person, and of being completely involved in the dramas going on in their lives, because of reading their blogs. And lots of people know a lot about her, because of reading her blog. Boundaries get blurry. She thinks of them as friends, but does that make sense?

Another question Farkas poses is how much her self-disclosure has to do with ego. Is she telling personal information, for example job search woes, so that someone will leave an encouraging comment?

It's a fair question, and one I pose to myself. Of course it feels good to have someone comment. How great do you feel when a stranger notices and comments on your gorgeous new shoes? Great, you feel great. I think we all want to be noticed, and this only increases when something means a lot to you. If writing ~ blogging ~ is a passion, of course you will want people to appreciate the effort you put into it. The same goes for whatever you blog about. On some level you will want someone to comment on that recipe or picture or bit of unsolicited advice.

But I also think there is more to it than this, and I suspect it's a commonality with many of us who put a lot of care into what we write on our blogs, regardless of the size of our readership or the subjects we write about. The epiphany came to me as I was putting away dishes and thinking about writing this essay. I realized that lately when I'm working in the yard, at the library, puttering away my time on the water, or reading a good book, in part of my mind I am also thinking, "Is there something here that would be worth writing about? Is there something here that is interesting? What am I feeling at this very moment?"

For me, the great thing about blogging is the care I put into what I write, as much as how I write it. In short, I pay more attention to the good things going on around me. It becomes a sort of gratitude exercise or prayer, and consequently I get more out of what I'm doing and experiencing.

I've made a very conscious effort to focus on positives in this blog. Yes, there have been a couple of rants, but even the quest for joy must be done in moderation. And when I do feel a rant coming on, I try to think about it for a while and figure out a way to write about what is bothering me in a way that is thoughtful and constructive.

The key here is that the process of committing my thoughts to the blogosphere makes me pause, take stock, and look at the world around me ~ good and bad, profound and mundane ~ in a way that is more productive than I might otherwise have done. I want to make my blog a place that friends, family and strangers can visit and find something interesting, hopeful, peaceful or thought-provoking. I hope I succeed for those of you who read these words.

What sustains me through the comment droughts and self doubts is that even if no one else read this blog, the process of blogging is good. Somehow, making the blog worth visiting makes me feel the grace and goodness in my life as well. It's more powerful in this way than journaling, because journaling is private and blogging is emphatically not. When I've written a journal, I didn't ask myself, "what would my mother/lover/boss think of this?" because that person would not be reading my words. When I blog, I do think of these people, and a whole lot more, and evaluate how my words might impact them, for better or worse. But I don't think it's the same as self-censorship, because I've discovered that by caring about the impact of my words on others I actually like what I'm writing and thinking better as well.

Which is not to say that I wouldn't love to hear from you, whether we know each other outside of the blogosphere or not. Go ahead, leave a comment. It will make my day.

BTW: the lovely pic up top is from
www.publicdomainpictures.net

Off to see the ... Ouch!

This is not my favorite day every year. Today's the day I get my mammogram done.

Time to tip-toe up to a big machine with two smashing plates that go first up and down and then to the side, my tenderest parts squished miserably in between. It's embarrassing and uncomfortable and I feel bruised for hours after.

So here's my plea: to all you women who might think, "maybe I'll do it next year," please, please, get your mammogram this year.

Seriously. For all the trouble, it's more than worth it. Because we all know someone who's survived breast cancer and someone who has not.

Get it done.

The nursery in our garden

It's that time of year.

Newly fledged starlings have been hopping around the yard screeching at their parents for food. These little guys, who remind me of Einstein the way their juvenile feathers stick out in a crown over their heads, are noisy, ridiculous, stubborn and oddly endearing. On Sunday I had to get right down next to a particularly petulant little guy to shoo him off the lawn so that we could mow (Gabi was so sad not to have a camera for that one!).

This morning as I went out to water transplants I saw a baby bunny dash into the hostas in the corner bed. They're so cute when they're tiny! The momma looks lean and a little worse for wear (it was a hard winter for everyone), but the baby's adorable.


Somewhere in there lurks the cutest baby bunny.

Then, as I continued on, I found a young mourning dove crouched behind a planter in obvious distress. I caught him and saw immediately that his feathers were matted with pine-tips, the resinous, flaky brown bits that get pushed off the tips of the pine by new growth. So I sat down and took a few moments to clean him up. Then I noticed that he still wasn't looking good, so I inspected further. I found a whole sunflower seed ~ shell and all ~ lodged in the little guy's throat. So I brought him inside and used tweezers to get it out. From the smell of it, he'd been gagging on that seed for a while, poor little fool.


Fuzzy pic, I know, but he wouldn't exactly pose for me.

Now he's in a cat carrier on the back porch with fresh water and chipped sunflower nuts. Fortunately no cat found him, and there is no sign of external injury, so hopefully he'll survive. I just adore the doves that hang out in our yard. They and the chickadees are my favorites.

Update, 6/6/08: The little guy was looking alert when I left for
work yesterday but was dead when I got home. No sign of cat attack,
so I think there was just more wrong on Tuesday than I could see.

Another splendid Sunday

We could not have ordered nicer weather today. It's been sunny, with just a light breeze, and temps up to about 80. Perfect. So, yes, of course we took the kayaks out.



Today we went out on the Mississippi. We put in at Little Rock Lake, near Rice. The lake had a severe algae problem last year, and it looks like it might develop the same stinky problem this year. However, right now it's lovely, with just the occasional green glaze. It's a very populated area, yet full of little hidden coves too shallow for the pontoons and larger boats to get into.



Near the edge of the lake, where it merges with the river, we were exploring a shallow area that will be soon be choked with water lilies. Behind us, just hidden behind cottonwood, pine and willow trees, were several large houses. Someone was playing, of all things, a Sousa march at speaker-breaking volume. Then a train went by, sounding its whistle as it approached a nearby bridge. And a speedboat throttled up somewhere not too distant.

And amidst all this noise, we discovered a patient heron, standing quietly on a log while a couple of red-wing blackbirds busied themselves in the underbrush nearby. Herons are normally very shy, but this one let Gabi drift close enough for a great picture.



This is what I love about exploring the Mississippi as it flows past Sartell, Sauk Rapids and St. Cloud. The river is wide and deep enough for powerful boats to cruise up and down, but then you can also find these shallow, "secret" areas where the big boys can't get to. And in these places, the wild essence of the river remains. There are still unspoiled areas of great beauty, they're just small and infrequent, and you have to pay attention so that you don't miss them.

But, if you do pay attention, the beauty and wildness is there, surprising and remarkable in its tenacious, willful exuberance.