Springtime Celebration

So there we were last evening.

Enjoying the first evening of Spring by having dinner on the pool deck under the darkening evening sky. Steaks that were a bit over cooked and a nice bottle of wine were on the table as we reflected on the day.

We had the propane heated going to help us to enjoy the evening and not be too cold. Watching the dog and the cat wander around the pool area. We also had music blaring on the radio kind of as a foretaste of the celebrations to come this summer.

Talking about the day and the hard work we did to get the house ready for the coming season. And to make everything look good. Removing the dead branches and plants and replacing them with new life. Pruning our lives too of the dead pieces left over from the winter.

The grass is already green and our lawn service has put down the first treatment of the year to make it green so I have to mow it more.

It was nice to look into the darkening sky and to see the stars through the trees which soon will be clothed in green leaves. And to imagine forward into the summer and splashing on the pool.

What a great ending to the first day of a new season!

How Can You Tell it is Spring?

We had a growing pile of limbs and tree related refuse sitting off the yard in the woods. We were going to rent a chipper last year to get rid of it. But with the rain and the summer we never quite got to it.

Well in penance for that travesty I have been sitting in a huge line of vehicles for the last 30 minutes waiting to access the landfill to drop the stuff off. The first of probably two runs that will be required. My truck is full to overloaded.

My trusty dog is at my side and she keeps looking at me wondering why we are not going anywhere.

It appears everyone in Howard County has the same idea. And so we are all idling here and getting frustrated about not getting anything done.

The vehicles are all loaded full with broken trees and limbs which will be recycled into mulch.

But right now we are trapped in a line more suited for leaving a parking lot after a sporting event.

Without the thrill of victory. Just the waiting for my turn.



Bob Doan
Elkridge, MD
Sent from My Blackberry

Cars and Relationships

You don't really think about them--cars, that is, until they break.

For instance, we just go out, get in, turn the key and expect them to start and take us safely where we want to go.

But what happens when the second most expensive purchase we make decides not to work?

Mayhem!

We went through the accident/broken car situation with Patrick and Tina a few months back and now it is our turn--the Lexus navigation system decided to break. And the Lexus dealer had it for three days. Lexus is great in that we get a loaner. But still--waiting to spend large sums of money at the car dealer! How much fun is that!

But is really makes you appreciate when vehicles work and redouble efforts to do preventive maintenance.

Kinda like relationships. Sometimes you don't really think about them until they get broken and need repair.

It would be a lot better if we took time to care for and do preventive maintenance on our relationships--just like we do for our cars.

Hmm. An interesting thought. Maybe go out to dinner or a show or a ballgame, just because! Reconnect, much like an oil change for relationships.

I'll have to give it a try.

He Got It Right!

This week I heard something in church that one doesn't often hear being uttered from the minister's mouth.

"He got it right!" And I was in shock. Really. Because we, humans, never get it right. It is just the way we are.

Of course, the one who got it right was Job--my old friend and it was no one other than God who made the statement that Job got it right! Wow--

Check this out:

After the Lord had spoken these things to Job, he said to Eliphaz the Temanite, “My anger is stirred up against you and your two friends, because you have not spoken about me what is right, as my servant Job has. (Job 42:7 - NET Bible)

Job's friends, who were trying to give him advice had it all wrong--and God told them so in no uncertain terms.

The lesson here?

When your friends start preaching to you about what they think God would want you to do/believe. Don't listen. Be true and honest with yourself and God. That's what he wants. It is OK to be bewildered, frustrated, mad, grief striken--just be honest in your heart!

Sometimes bad things happen for no reason at all!

It is how we respond that is important to our relationship with God.

For the Love of My Dog--Keeping Life in Perspective

I had a really humorous thought this morning as I was walking Makayla in the darkness which is now upon me as a result of Daylight Savings Time.

There I was--as my beloved keeshond Makayla was happily running up the drive to my neighbors yard to do her morning bowel movement (a/k/a poop).

I just know she waits all morning for this moment--as I eat and get ready for work. She knows that the last thing I do is take her out for this quick walk--and she is always quick. I usually pick-up my newspaper at the same time--but the paper person has been very unreliable lately--so no paper at the end of the drive.

Makalya runs into the neighbors lawn and squats--as she does every morning--only it was really dark. I was looking intently at the spot on the ground as I opened the doggie poop bag in preparation to clean the spot. As she moved away I realized that the only way I was going to be able to find the poop was by its warmth. Yuck!

And so I did--my hand went down pretty close to the spot, but nonetheless, I was reduced to finding and removing her poop not by sight or smell--but by the feel of the warmth.

We used to have a small flashlight on the end of the leash--but it broke some time ago. And with all of the snow--it was relatively easy to find the dark poop on the white snow--so the flashlight wasn't replaced. And even after the snow melted, the dawn was close enough at 6:15am that the light in the sky was enough to identify the spot of the foul.

But not now! And especially when she goes in a location where the spotlight on the neighbor's house does not reach.

I am reduced to finding and retrieving my dog's poop by feel.

And I laughed at the humor of it all. Here I am humbled by cleaning up Makayla's poop just before climbing into my car and motoring away, dressed in my sport coat and power tie ready to for work.

Just keeping it all in perspective!

Government Adrift

I hate to do it--but I have an axe to grind this morning. With our elected representatives.

And the first is with Congress---yes our U.S. Congress which is so embattled with trying to salvage an ill-advised health care situation that the business of running the country is failing.

The second is with the Maryland legislature which has been bought off by the liquor lobby and is poised not to act on wine shipping bills which are supported by the people of the State of Maryland and over half the delegates and senators in the state.

Bottom line: Our governments are out of touch with the electorate.

Most of the the people I know do not want "big" government health care and frankly are scared by it. What program has the government ever run well?

And most of the people in Maryland want to be able to ship wine to their houses off the Internet and to become members of wine clubs. We can ship guns, but we can't ship wine? Go figure. And it is the liquor lobby that is standing in the way promoting Abolitionist Era laws that are out of touch with reality.

For Congress--the representatives and senators are walking a very fine line of legality as compared with the Constitution of the United States. A bill may actually be enacted which has not been ratified by both houses of Congress. All through slight of hand! The Director of the Stanford Law School's Constitutional Law Center quoted in this morning's Washington post said "I feel pretty confident it is unconstitutional. What a court would do about it is a murkier problem."

These are exciting times. And frustrating times. At one level of government, they are not acting on legislation that the people want and at the other, they are enacting legislation that few people want!

March Madness

Yes--it is that time of year.

Fill out the brackets and take on the challenge of calling as many of the 63 (64 if you count the play-in) games in the NCAA tournament as possible and of course--select the next NCAA Men's Basketball National Champion!

Go Cornell! Well I do have them losing in the second round, but I believe they will pull off the magical 5-12 first round upset over Temple.

Even more importantly are Syracuse and Maryland--both back in good form for the tournament with Syracuse as a number 1 seed and Maryland a number 4. Sadly, I have Maryland losing to Kansas in the Sweet Sixteen--but hey, Kansas is a number 1 seed (although I almost picked Maryland in an upset).

March is such a great month for sports. The madness, the NHL is winding down and getting ready for the playoffs, and spring baseball training just oozes springtime and a fresh start for the Orioles.

So who are my final four? Georgetown, West Virginia, Syracuse and Duke. And I have Syracuse defeating Duke 89-86 to win the national championship! Yeah--I know, I'm dreaming. The professional bracket analyzer says that I have a 10.7 percent chance of being correct in predicting that Syracuse will be the next national champion--but hey, so what. It is all in good fun.

And that, of course, is why they call it March Madness!

Monday Musings - March 15, 2010

1. It is the Ides of March--Et tu, Brute?

2. The tax man cometh--a mere 31 days from today. It is our annual time to pay for our government. Some people look forward to getting a refund--what an interesting way to make people believe that taxes are painless, withhold too much from their pay and then give it back (without interest) to make them believe they are getting something for nothing!


3. We have fallen back into the days of darkness--thank you DST! No wonder I feel terrible and sleep deprived this morning.

4. I did it last week--I had a small respite from bad weather and was able to project forward into the summertime fun. It is amazing how flexible we are with our minds to be able to project into the future and see it as we want to see it--the hard part is then to make the future a reality. That is the part most people miss.

5. Yesterday I had the pleasure of following a two-year old through the Jump Zone in Columbia at a birthday party. Wow--did he have fun. He had so much fun I was exhausted when he was done! All-in-all it was a great way to spend the afternoon and have some great grandpa time with two of my grandsons.

6. Bad gloomy weather really gets me down. Sunshine, on the other hand, lifts my spirits.

7. Friday night, we went to see Tom Rush a folk singer who was playing in Annapolis. It was a great evening with friends and good music and reminded me that I enjoy getting out every so often to enjoy the arts and especially some good music.

Saturday Downpour Drowns Outdoors Initiative

What does one do on another too wet Saturday?

It seems there is more than enough to keep busy with and much of it involves being places outside the home even though at times the rain was falling so hard that driving was a bit dicey.

Let's begin with the second most exciting part of the day--I saw my first earthworm of the season. Now I know many people look for the robins, but we have been besieged with a whole flock of robins all winter--so seeing an earthworm making its way across the driveway yesterday was truly an event to note.

OK, so I'm a bit boring because I get excited about earthworms.

Of course with the rain, there was no way to continue the winter yard clean up and I tried not to even think about it by staying away from The Hope Depot and Lowe's.

But there was a trip to the mall--to exchange some clothes and wander around. I soothed my need to buy something by buying a new pen. Since it was early, not too many people had decided to venture out--so the mall was relatively pleasant. The mistake though was going from the mall to Costgo at about noon. It should have been declared a federal disaster area. I'm amazed how poorly people drive in the rain--drive first and worry about getting wet second! Seems they forget that they are dry in the car. And loading groceries in the rain should be a new Olympic sport.

And then it happened! The climate control system in the Lexus ceased functioning! In the rain and in the parking lot. Ugh! Fortunately the vehicle was and is driveable.

I spent much of the rest of the afternoon in the rain and then in the garage looking for a blown fuse or something I could repair to avoid a trip to the Lexus dealer--to no avail. It's going to have to go. And since Lexus is just a glorified Toyota--who knows what the damage is ultimately going to be. $$$

And as the rain continued to make me more depressed--I decided to work on the taxes and get them closer to being ready for submission.

Thankfully we were going to some friends house for wine and food to overcome the depression that the taxes started to send me into! Ugh. I don't look at the refund/pay line--but rather the overall tax bite. Ouch! I'd rather be swimming with sharks. I'd have a better chance to come out alive.

But the evening with friends, good food and wine was the best part of the day and successfully erased the memories of the rain and gloom. I enjoy talking sports--especially Orioles baseball with my friends and trying to determine if we agree with Baseball America's assessment that the O's will win 79 games this year. I'm still believing for 82!

So this morning the rain has stopped--and we are beginning the process of drying out. Now we can do it all over again.

Call it a Heatwave

Since Monday--(or early Tuesday morning) the temperatures here in Maryland near the Chesapeake Bay have been moderate and believe it or not--above freezing!!!

Most of the snow is gone--although some huge piles remain if you know where to look.

It is clear that Springtime had descended upon us and that although we expect at least one more big wintery assault, the time for this to actually occur is reduced day by day.

We have seen temperatures in the 60's which have us rejoicing and longing for 70's. I even cooked out on the grill the other evening--without a coat on. I actually cook out all winter, but it was nice to sip my one allotted evening glass of wine and look into the trees and deepening night sky without feeling like I was going to develop hypothermia.

And I can smile--because I apparently have survived another cycle.

Today though--rain and gloom. But good weather is out there, somewhere.