Lessons of the Snow

An excursion for Ken and I out and about on New Year's Eve made me think about snow. It's northeast Ohio- we get plenty of it. Usually, it's dealt with, enjoyed for a couple days, and we're sick of it in short order. Even in this college town, where I see plenty of people walking and no many people without a car or with one car in a family, just ignoring the snow is a viable option for many businesses and individuals. That makes trying to walk instead of drive pretty dang difficult. But we managed to get where we were going and back without major incident and even enjoyed ourselves in the process. So I thought I'd share a few of these thoughts here.

Proper preparation prevents poor performance. Sure, this is a lesson that can be learned many places, but it seemed especially true this time. Skimping time on the bundling would have made our journey much worse.

Lead by example, not by the hand. Taking someone by the hand and guiding them may get you someplace more quickly, but if one of you stumbles, you both end up in the drift, and considerably less learning goes on.

Even a small child can topple a giant if the giant is on an unstable foundation. At this time of change and uncertainty, this one strikes me as especially relevant. On a related note- always be sure of your footing, the extra time to be sure saves quite a bit of soreness.

Sometimes the path of least resistance may take you a longer distance, but you get to the same point in the same amount of time anyway.

If you're looking, beauty can be found anywhere, although all beauty eventually fades and beauty can hide very treacherous conditions.

Laughter does wonders for warming the heart and making a journey seem shorter, and a companion has the same effect, so if you want to make a trip quick go with a smile and a friend.

Recap

I hope everyone had a great weekend celebrating whatever and however you like, because we sure did. Weekend with the mother-in-law and sister-in-law went well, and even was able to tolerate the father-in-law reasonably enough. We left Kent after Dwight worked on the 24th and hit Cincinnati around 6 PM. Had a spectacular dinner at May's of China. Fabulous food, great atmosphere, local and a decent portion of organic to boot, with the bonus of perfect service and good prices. Denny gave Ken the gifts we bought, we gave Denny his gift and a certificate for when he goes out with Dwight's sister Monday.

Ken's birthday was spent at Newport Aquarium, alongside the other heathens that don't have much to do on Christmas. I really got some good pictures, thankfully. It was so cute- there were about three turtles and a crocodile all piled together in one display. True peace on Earth, right? Ken's cake was about as nerdly as you can get. He wanted Star Trek, he got Star Trek. I burned through my digital camera batteries, so you'll have to wait for those pictures, but I promise to show off exactly what a bunch of geeks our family is.

Saturday we discovered another new to us- Relish Modern Tapas in Mason. Again, I can't rave enough. Awesome food, fantastic experience. Can you tell I like food- pretty much our entire visit revolved around it. Oh, well, have to stay fed somehow, right? Enough gushing from me. Hope you enjoyed the weekend, and are getting as much done this week as I am.

Autumn Bog Colors

I'm feeling like a silent Sunday. Enjoy.

I promised pictures

So here they are. It was an I love my job kind of day. These were out at the research wetland the university made as mitigation for a little Woopsy-daisy when they built a new rec center.

Fishing spider

Sparganium sp.

Yep, dragonflies. Doing it.

Muskrat.

Bumblebee. Helping a flower do it.

Yes, my mind is in the gutter. But how can it not be with all the life going on out at the wetland. And one last pic, just because. My favorite bug.

Names changed to protect the innocent

For those of you that know me, you know I've had some stresses lately that have been putting a cramp in my style. Things not going the way I had planned. Small disappointments, and lots of them. Nothing disastrous, but annoying, and eventually those little annoyances become like piranhas and slowly nibble you to death. Death by nibbling is not fun, by any means.

To try and alleviate this nibbling, nagging feeling I went for a walk today. I'm out of town, trying to make this into an adventure so I'm doing what I can to keep busy. I headed out about 6 AM or so, went to the park I had my eye on, and started hiking. It was a smallish park (or so I thought), maps available, multiple trails with fun names like Overlook Pass, and Waterfall Loop. Having this odd obsession with water that I do, I headed for the waterfall one. I figured I'd go, get some pictures, have some fun, do a little birding, and start my day out right. I've been needing a day that starts out right.

And at first it did. But then, as is wont to happen with my adventures, a shiny object crossed my path, and I set off after it. I'm not bright, I can deal with that. You can too, apparently, or you wouldn't be reading. Unless you just like laughing at this life I call mine. The shiny object, if you were wondering, was a summer tanager. I hadn't seen one in the wild before, but I'm 95% sure that's what it was.

Well, before I knew it, I was in sight of not a single trail, and surrounded by fairly steep ravines and headwater streams. Not steep if you're prepared for them, I'm sure, but at 7 AM in mules and lounge clothes, carrying a camera and binoculars among other things, they looked steep. Not a person in sight. Not a single sound of a car. Nothing remotely trail looking. Hmm. So I kept walking. It's an urban park, I couldn't really get lost, right?

The walking kept getting harder, more slipping, more landing in creeks, less time spent on pictures. Less, not none, mind you- I still got some great shots. The option of going down anymore decreased as I got closer to the river that the creeks were feeding into. The option of going up did not look any easier. It finally came to a point where I slung the camera on my back and shut it off so I could concentrate on climbing. About four hours after I went in, I came out of the park. With the help of a couple of kind police officers and after a few calls. Aside from some bumps, bruises, dirty clothes and a few minor scrapes, I came out undamaged. It was not my proudest moment.

However, I learned a lot of little lessons, and was reminded of some I already knew. First, as much as I love the detail, sometimes you have to step back and look at the bigger picture. One can make serious progress that way. And motion is not always appropriate, sometimes life requires stillness and thoughtfulness. Following that, forward motion does not always get you closer to your goal. For those times, you may need a little backwards or lateral motion. Sometimes you have to put away the things that are dear to you in order to protect them. It would be nice if we could share our lives fully with what we love, but it's not always practical or in anyone's best interest. Finally, there comes a time when you're falling and you just need to give in, sit down, and enjoy the trip down. Of course there's also the observation that sometimes the best time spent has nothing to do with what you thought it did, but that's one that I know very well and could never forget.

Hope your weekend has been wanderful as well!

Gah, I love technology, don't you?

Being totally and amazing sarcastic here. Today is one of those days I could kill my computer if it were alive. Wasted all damned day trying to get it to work. Why would anyone design an anti-virus program to act like a virus? Well, the one I added this weekend did just that. Locking up the computer, constantly screaming about updates, generally hijacking my mental well-being. Until I finally just started the thing up in "Last known good settings" mode. But at least it appears to be working now. If I start stuttering on here, or typing in tongues, blame technology.

And I have a bit of a confession. I feel like a fraud calling myself a wanderer these days. We broke down and bought a Garmin GPS unit. We've had a GPS unit forever, but it was one of the early ones, no fancy talking lady, just a research tool used for marking field sites and getting sizes and distances. Well, after a wrong turn (or a few) on the way to the museum a couple weeks ago, and a map to the head, it was time to make the plunge. So I found a really good deal on Ebay, and now it's here and in the car. Can I still really be a wanderer when I have a GPS unit that talks to me? Really? Maybe I'll just have to walk more often.

Something to brighten the day. A dirt smiley that we found at the park on Sunday! No manipulation necessary!