Archive for March 2011
Perfect Passing
Last night I enjoyed the pleasure of watching my former high school’s hockey team, the Eden Prairie Eagles, emerge victorious from their first game of this year’s Minnesota State High School Hockey Tournament. It was the first time I’ve seen them play this year and I was duly impressed. The team is #1 seed in the tourney. I hope they achieve continued success.
Of course, the star players attract the majority of attention, but I was seeing some amazing effort and production from the supporting cast. It is a shame that the sublime beauty of a perfect pass is so easily overlooked and under-rewarded. The players know when it happens. Truly engaged fans notice that it happens. But, if a goal doesn’t immediately result, it’s just a pass like so many other to the inattentive eye.
It occurred to me that this same thing probably translates to other aspects of life.
Give some thought to what our inattention is overlooking and under-appreciating.
This Day
It is Thursday. It is March. I have a cold. Life goes on.
Yesterday morning when I opened the garage door and exposed myself to the day, it wasn’t the new snow that first caught my attention. Granted, the snow was a primary feature, albeit a relative small amount of new coverage. What made the biggest impression was the cheery spring-like sound of birds.
Later in the day, when I stepped out from work to run an errand, what I found most remarkable was how clear and dry the roads were already, after the overnight snowfall. In a little over a week, we will have reached the vernal equinox. The prediction for these parts is to expect near-record flooding as the snow-pack melts.
I sure hope my lungs will have long ago cleared of the congestion brought on by this cold.
I can sense things changing. Meanwhile, it’s just Thursday. It’s March. Birds are singing. Life goes on.
Dream Lesson
I believe that our minds do productive work while our bodies sleep. Often, the dream we recall when we wake up is so bizarre that whatever meaning it might hold for us is disguised beyond recognition. Yesterday morning, I awoke to a very rare occasion of having had the same situation appear in two different dreams, one right after the other. I’ve not thoroughly deciphered all the possible messages for me in these dreams, but I’ve been given a pretty clear pair of situations from which to ponder a meaning.
In both dreams I was playing soccer. For some reason, I have better recall of the first dream, where I was out wide to the left of the goal, and my teammates repeatedly moved the ball out to me for a shot. The ball kept coming to my left foot. Three different times it happened. Each time I was hoping for it to arrive for a big shot with my dominant right foot. I found myself off balance to react well with my left, because I was looking for it to be on my right. I finally made a weak attempt with my left foot and the ball slowly rolled toward a crowd of players and then, to my surprise, somehow it squeaked into the very corner edge of the net for a goal.
I woke up just enough to realize my dream, then turned over and went back to sleep. Then it happened again. All I remember of this dream was that the ball came to my left foot when I wanted it on my right. I begrudgingly kicked a weak shot with my left anyway. It went IN!
When my alarm went off, the thought that was on my mind was the remarkable fact that I had two different dreams about the same thing.
I could easily interpret this lesson literally and practice being more prepared to use my left foot, and just take the shot whether it’s strong or not. It could also be symbolic of many other things for me.
I don’t usually put a lot of analytical effort into interpreting my dreams. I tend to let them influence me subconsciously. It seems the most congruent match for the oblique, bizarre image-stories that are broadcast in my noggin at night. That might explain some of the slow evolutionary progress I am able to demonstrate thus far in my life.
The message of these dreams appears much less complicated. I am inspired to take a LOT of shots with my left foot at my next morning futsal games on Friday. If I score a lot of unexpected goals, you can expect to hear more from me on this subject.
Revisiting Archives
Not feeling quite on top of the world today. Some bug has got my white cells working double-time. What better excuse do I need to dig into the archives to revisit a poem first published here in April of last year? And what a nice segue from yesterday’s post… This one has colors, too!
From a Sunday morning, April 11, 2010… it was titled: Confusion
.
confusion floats
can you feel it?
all the colors
masquerade as sounds
little reasons
rolling on the ground
all the castles burning
bright lights shining down
answers everywhere
just unmatched
to the many smells around
as if we’ve known it all
but kept it secret
from ourselves all along
while some have found an answer
by accepting all the chaos
with expectant nonchalance
never fearing for the worst
as if witch trials never happened
nor slavery either, too
we carry on oblivious
wondering what there is to do
never having learned a way
to speak of things taboo
.
Color Burst
I don’t know about you, but this time of year I’m starting to feel a need for some more color in my world. Not to mention it’s another Monday. These just keep showing up, these Mondays.
Bring it on, I say.
Oooh, pretty colors!
Imagine This
Imagine if one day at work there was a laugh track simulating a live audience watching everything you did.
Imagine if, when one person learned from experience, every other person on earth instantly gained the same insight.
Imagine if everything we thought was broadcast out loud while we were thinking it.
Imagine if it was physically impossible to eat any more calories than our bodies would burn.
Imagine if we knew how upset someone was going to feel before they became upset.
Imagine if the people who don’t think they know anything found out how much more they know than they realized.
Imagine if no one ever tried to swindle another person.
Imagine if truth and justice actually trumped everything laid out to obscure them.
Imagine if it was impossible for traffic to jam.
Imagine if pizza didn’t have any calories.
Wait. Don’t imagine that. It could get ugly.
Imagine if toothpaste with the word, “Whitening” on the label, actually made teeth noticeably whiter.
Imagine if, no matter what time we go to sleep at night or get up in the morning, 8 hours transpire for our body clock.
Imagine if humans were able to sense everything impacting their health at the moment of exposure and take corrective action to prevent undesired outcomes.
Imagine if no one ever fell for the cheesy images of UFOs but everyone believed in the likelihood there is life in the universe beyond this planet.
Imagine if people practiced mental exercise with the same dedication they give to physical workouts.
Maybe food for thought is worth snacking on.
Shovel Love
Yesterday was another quiet day in John’s wobegon neighborhood. ‘Bout the biggest excitement to report was the delivery of new snow shovels to my doorstep. I ordered them online and had them delivered. When I got home from work, I found them leaning up against my front door. Instead of bothering with a box, they just wrapped them together with stretch-wrap, so it was clearly visible what was being delivered. I was like a kid at Christmas.
When one of my favorite tools wears out after years of service, all I want as a replacement is a new version of the very same thing. In this era of constant innovation and new product introductions, by the time my favorites wear out, that model is often long-gone, replaced by the next “improved” version on the market.
It happened with our toaster oven recently, and it happens to me all the time with clothes and shoes. When I was no longer able to find my favorite shovel at the local retail stores in my area, I went online to YO-HO Quality Tools, the source of the best snow shovel for my uses. As long as I was ordering, I bought an extra one, too, in case they discontinue this model for some newfangled one next year.
While researching the site, I found a very nice looking shovel without the metal blade on the business end of the scoop. I needed one of those, too, since I broke the one I usually keep for clearing the wood deck. A plastic shovel is also what I take up on the roof, because I don’t want to damage my shingles with a metal edged one.
So, I received three shovels wrapped together. What I was very pleased to notice when I picked them up to bring them in the house, was how surprisingly light they were, even strapped as a group of three. They weigh less combined than the metal shovel that Cyndie bought a while ago as a potential replacement because it had a yellow handle and a black blade.
In addition to the light weight, another feature that makes this shovel my favorite tool for clearing our driveway and sidewalk is the shape of the scoop. It is shaped with side edges and an ideal curve to facilitate pushing snow like a plow AND picking it up and tossing it. Often times those actions are exclusive in a shovel blade. One design is good for pushing and another design is good for scooping and throwing.
Not to be overlooked is the 46″ fiberglass handle with poly ergo D grip. The D grip is essential in allowing my preferred technique of tossing the snow out of the scoop by releasing my left hand from the shaft as I snap the shovel forward, then pulling it back with my right hand in that D.
Just describing it almost makes me want to go out and shovel. Maybe best of all about these tools, they never fail to start, they don’t require gasoline or electricity, they don’t emit an unpleasant exhaust, and they don’t make near the noise of mechanical snow blowers.
Since the month of March is historically good for one or two big snow storms every year, I think my purchase was made at just the right time. Our local 7-day forecast shows a possibility of a big storm next week. With that ‘backup’ extra shovel I bought, I may even invite Cyndie out to allow her the experience of discovering just how meritorious a design the YO-HO poly snow pusher really is.
Relative Something 