Relative Something

Despite the promising prediction that our daytime temperatures will warm considerably next weekend, the near-term prognosis suggests we will experience a couple of overnight hard freezes. Our last required act of preparation was shutting down the landscape pond yesterday.

We pulled the pump and associated plumbing and then Cyndie trimmed back the Sweet Flag pond grass and picked out handfuls of pine needles and leaves. We have come to the realization that a pine tree is a bad choice to have around a landscape pond.

The final step of winter preparation for the pond was the netting we drape across it to capture the continuing assault of fallen leaves that blow in all throughout the off-season months.

Mission accomplished.

What’s next? I don’t know about you but I’m feeling ready for a day when it is snowy and cold and there is no reason to do anything but lounge by the fireplace and read or work on a jigsaw puzzle for hours on end. Maybe with a cup of hot chocolate.

I shouldn’t get greedy. I spent a few hours on the couch yesterday watching the NFL Minnesota Vikings achieve their fifth victory of the season. I tried to swear off the NFL some years back but that was a goal I failed to achieve. There are just a bit too many of my impressionable years immersed in the games and the characters involved, not to mention my father’s fanaticism, which still runs in my blood. I watch games now somewhat begrudgingly.

Keeping a distraction handy when things aren’t going my team’s way helps me avoid getting sucked into a funk. Yesterday, I tried searching the internet for a live performance of a song I once had on a VHS tape and haven’t seen for decades. After a few iterations with increasing promise, I stumbled on more than I hoped to find.

I recognized the look of the first image that appeared. Not only was it the right artist in the right venue, I had discovered a full 26-minute segment of the 1991 show broadcast on our local public television station. I let it play while simultaneously following the ever-improving circumstances of the Vikings football game.

Unfortunately, only one of the two versions of entertainment turned out the way I wanted. The Vikings won!

When the 26-minute performance had ended, the song I was waiting for had never shown up. It had been left out of this version.

This afternoon, we have a scheduled appointment for the final step of getting hooked up to high speed broadband internet. One of the first things I hope to do when it is connected is deepen my search for that song performance, using what I discovered yesterday.

Greg Brown with Pat Donohue performing “Good Morning Coffee” on Twin Cities PBS program called, “Showcase,” air date 12/1/91.

Why that song isn’t included in the 26:55 available minutes of the version on TPT’s web site is a mystery to me.

Seems like a good project now that we’ve got the pond down and it’ll be freezing outside for a couple of days.

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