Silver Liningness Sunday

I'm basking in the smell of freshly fallen rain wafting through the open windows and doors.  Aaaah.... smell it?

RIP, Michael

Our heat wave finally broke, the break heralded in by an exciting lightning storm on Friday night that actually brought rain with it instead of fire.  It's been pretty comfy ever since.  I'll happily take it as long as it lasts.  No more loitering in the frozen foods section at the grocery store.


The silver lining to the uncomfortable heat is that it got me to try both an ice bath and iced coffee.  Yeah, that's right, I'd never had an iced coffee until a couple of days ago.  So what!?!





And I actually enjoyed some nice running this week after somewhat of a hiatus.  Smoky air and a weird tinge in my leg that felt kinda like a shin splint, but I don't think it was a shin splint, brought on the hiatus.  (for now) Air's clear, leg's better.  Yay!

Meego enjoyed his time Biblin'.  ("Biblin'" became a verb here last year during our trip to Nebraska, but that's another story).  I think he enjoyed having the structure during an otherwise structureless week and enjoyed helping out the younger kids.  He received a very nice thank you note from the VBS teacher he assisted.  As expected, his ignorance of all things churchy was not a problem.

Wolfgang got a package in the mail from The Bolder Boulder.  He was out with friends so I texted him and asked him "whatizzit?"  I was curious, was he in trouble?  He had no idea what it was.  Pffft.  Turns out it was a 7th-place-for-his-age-group medal, which was a nice surprise.  We didn't know they gave out medals and have no idea how many places got them. His buddy Reid got one for 6th.

The sun is threatening to come back out, so I think I'll go play in a puddle before they all evaporate.
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Equality

Once again, I think it's safe to assume that this week's Illustration Friday prompt, "Equality", is inspired by news of note from current events.  

Yes, it's time once again for Crested Butte Bike Week!  A little nice press for promoting bicycle love.  Really, sometimes when I'm out and about on the bicycle, I feel invisible.  Then there are those who feel we are somehow a threat to their way of life.

So I chose my love Tessa, a.k.a. "The Girl with the Emerald Tires",  as this week's model.  It's so nice to have our relationship recognized as the good healthy, harmless relationship it is.  CELEBRATE!

More photos HERE

Share the road, share the rules.  Don't be hatin'.

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afterglow

We learn so many things from our blog friends.

I think moreso than our real life friends a lot of the time.  I suspect some of the reasons for that are (a) people are willing to be more open and intimate on their blogs than in real life, and (b) blog friends live in and grew up in different parts of the world, making for a more diverse pool of experiences.

Years ago, I had a blog friend who began blogging during a very low point in her life.  She was reluctantly going through a divorce from her husband of about 10 years.  They had two kids. The divorce was his idea.  There was cheating involved (him not her).

But, contrary to how that may sound, her blog was typically upbeat.  I think that was the idea - she started blogging as a way to vent and focus on other things.  In the time I "knew" her, she became even closer with each of her kids, her social life picked up, she became healthy and fit, she met a new man, he and the kids got along great, she eventually married the new man, they bought a new home together, and at the time her blogging stopped, they were living happily ever after.

I like to think that the happily ever after is the reason the blogging stopped.  Its purpose had been fulfilled.

I appreciated her blog.  It was very inspiring, as might seem obvious.  And just recently, I was thinking of her, thinking of something she'd mentioned that I found intriguing at the time, but had yet to act on.

I mean, here I am, been in the same relationship for years and years.  After a while, it's like I just go through the motions and don't think much about changing things up a bit, going outside the lines.  But there she was, where everything was brand new, and with all that open mindedness and experimentation, not to mention an able and willing teacher...

A hefty part of her blog was writing about these particularly new experiences.

I remembered a blog post she wrote.  She was in a hotel(!) for a sort of endurance event.  I mean, really, this thing went on for DAYS!

And she went on to describe this nightly ritual they would do that was totally foreign to me.  I just remembered it this week, so I decided to try it.  This morning.  And, Oh... GOD!

Truthfully, I don't see myself doing this all that often, just maybe for special occasions.  But this morning, the conditions just seemed right to let loose and try it out.

I'm still all a-tingle.

See, one of her life changes was that she took up running.  She decided she was going to train for and complete a marathon.  In fact, she completed at least two marathons, countless half-marathons, and a few adventure races that I recall.



Having never been a runner, she wisely took up with a coach to help her meet these goals.  Her coach was a proponent of the ice bath.







That was the blog post I remembered.  About how she did it in a hotel.

I did it today.  At home.  And it was goooooood.  Maybe someday, I'll even do it in a hotel.
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mending fences... or not

Yesterday afternoon, I poked at the window blinds to take an assessment.

"Damn clear blue skies", I murmured.

What an ingrate, huh?  But what can I say, it was hot again without a friendly cloud in sight.  We really haven't had much appreciable rain since the mass car-washing ploy that helped put out the Black Forest fire.  While other blog friends are getting more rain and yuck weather than they seemingly deserve, I wish we could organize this weather better and share the "wealth"!

Terri recently shared some photos of her parents' downed tree from a recent storm.  She also noted the neighbor's deteriorating fence.  I'm not trying to pull any one-up-blogship, but I looked at the photos of the deteriorating fence and thought, "oh honey..."

Allow me to share just a couple of deteriorating fences in my neighborhood.  I snapped some pics during this morning's China walk, trying to be incognito.

Exhibit A

Exhibit A is what is left of the poor fence at the house near my former office, the school crossing.   Looking further up the way, we see that there is a slight bend in the road.  An errant driver, however, decided not to follow it and instead, to drive into the now gone fence.

This is actually the second time in about five years that has happened.  Gee, I'm gonna miss that job but not really.

Exhibit B

Exhibit B is my favorite, though.  This photo really doesn't do it justice (incognito, remember?).  If it did, the pile of tree branches placed in line with the gone fence line would be more prominent.  Several sections of fence are missing, and the pile of branches are saving seats?  There is also a utility box in shadow that is covered with graffiti to give it a certain urban feel.

Exhibit B.1

Exhibit B.2

One feature I get a kick out of is how that one section of fence remains standing.  It's like a lone tooth in an otherwise toothless mouth.

Now let me just clarify that I'm not neighbor bashing!  Most of the fences are in decent shape, but weather and traffic and teenagers with spray cans happen.  And some people have things going on in their lives that preempt fixing back fences. 

We live in an HOA-less neighborhood and we like it that way.  If something is a safety issue or such, then there's already a city code for it.  We don't need an HOA to tell us our house isn't beige enough.  

With that comes the potential for tree branch fences and graffiti-ized utility boxes.  Signs of freedom.

HOA's.  Do you have one?   Pro or con?

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So, you know who Jesus is, right?

I inquired this of Meego this morning.  A little background:

When I was growing up, my family didn't attend church, but my dad arranged for brother Guano and me to crash the local Lutheran church and attend Sunday school and VBS as church orphans.  Looking back, it was a positive experience.

I was not a churchgoer when I met Magnum and neither was he.  But by the time we became parents, I felt maybe we should at least expose the kids to "the basics" of our Judeo-Christian society like I had been.  With that, we dipped them in a few church experiences spanning about three years.

It started with a non-denominational church that was so ridiculously non-denominational that we didn't see the point (rhymes with "spoonitarian").  From there we went to Christian Science - not to be mistaken with Scientology.  While we had a few issues with the church itself, that I won't expound upon here, we were happy enough with the Sunday school.

But when we moved to another town and another CS church, the hypocrisy smothered us out.  We began  attending a non-denominational Christian church in our somewhat rural community, Chaco and Wolfgang did Sunday school.  It was all right, the people were nice, and I don't really remember why we stopped going.  I think the hypocrites at the previous church had just left such a bad taste in our mouths.  We were churchgoers no more.

Meego was just a baby then.  His sole church experiences were of either sitting in my lap drooling on the hymnal, or spending time in the nursery with the Noah's Ark pillow pets.

I did think about it over the years - what to do about Meego.  I vaguely remember getting a book of Bible stories from the library and reading a few selections with him.  And we've talked to him about what Christmas and Easter are to Christians.  Haven't we?

Which brings us to this morning.  This morning is his first day as a VBS volunteer at the church up the street.

So how did this young heathen become a VBS helper?

Meego has a couple of good buddies in the neighborhood, twin brothers K and J.  K and J are nice kids.  Playful, polite, boy bundles of activity.  They're about two years younger than Meego, and the three of them hang out for hours at a time, shooting hoops, riding bikes, playing video games, etc.

summer daze

Last week, K and J were at VBS at the church down the street.  Meego sat around the house ho-humming until they were released in the afternoons.  Even the kids next door, a.k.a. "the girls", were at VBS.  Everyone was out having VBS fun except Meego!

K and J announced that this week, they would be attending the VBS UP the street.  Meego should go!  I said I thought he was too old.  He is, but learned that older kids could volunteer as helpers.  

I got the contact info for volunteers, e-mailed, and left it to Jesus.

Jesus... er... Julie e-mailed me back quite directly.  "Yes!"  

We walked up there, set foot in that church for the first time in our lives, talked with whom we needed to talk with, and it was a done deal.  

So this morning, as he prepared his breakfast before heading out for a rip roaring good time with Jesus, I inquired the title of this post.

He gave me a look that said "duh", and reminded me, "We learned about him in humanities, remember?"   

Oh, right.  They did a unit on world religions in school.  

Hopefully public school Jesus will suffice for a VBS helper.

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Silver liningness Sunday

Not to harp on fire season, but I was glad to learn last night that the fire near my parents is now 10% contained.  Anything is better than zero.

East Peak Fire
Source

Really, it does seem that Colorado has two seasons:  Winter and Fire.  The fact that we've had two destructive fires near us in a year's time is not indicative of a necessarily bad row.  Colorado burns every summer, it's just a little "better" when it happens in the boonies.

That said, the smoke is not so bad this morning.  We're advised to "limit time outdoors, close the windows, and use the air conditioner".  Well... our open windows ARE our air conditioner.

Nighttime temperatures usually get into the 50's.  We open up all the windows, run the swamp cooler, and the house is pretty comfy.  Then in the morning, near sunrise, we scramble around closing and boarding up the windows to keep out the evil passive solar.  It's quite a fun challenge to time the closing of windows and blinds for optimum temperature control.  Each window is different.  I imagine it's something like successfully baking a souffle'.  Only trickier.

And all of this forced house arrest has meant that I've gotten pretty caught up on the housewifery.  The house is "clean" enough for an insurance video, but tidiness is a fleeting thing around here.  Some areas are just NOT going to make the video...

In other silver liningness, I've already mentioned that I've got both bicycles back home.  And they are running like well-oiled, prettily tired machines.

Wolfgang went to see Man of Steel.  He and his friends - all comic book movie aficionados - totally panned it, so I know not to waste my time.  Not that I had much desire to see it anyways, but now I have a good excuse if someone tries to get me to go.

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Surveillance

This week's Illustration Friday  prompt is "surveillance", probably inspired from recent news events.  

I drew this relatively passive gargoyle because I thought about old buildings and churches that have gargoyles adorning them.  I think gargoyles were first included near the tops buildings to act as spouts for rainwater, and it's also thought that they warded off evil spirits.  

Makes sense to me, since they had such good surveillance positions.  

Well... before the NSA.

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