Posts Tagged ‘serendipity’
Other Ventures
Yesterday I wrote about the horses venturing out but they aren’t the only ones around here who’ve been on excursions. To make December a little more festive, Monday night Cyndie and I took a little drive to Minneapolis and picked up our daughter to meet Cyndie’s brother and mom for dinner at Giulia restaurant followed by a George Winston concert at Orchestra Hall.
The food was delightful (I ordered salmon) and the concert was… interesting. I’m embarrassed to admit that I never considered that George would have aged since the last time I paid any attention to him, which was so long ago I don’t actually remember. I think it was when we lived in the rented double bungalow on Cedar Avenue which would make it over 40 years ago. His command of the keys was still remarkable. He played a few Vince Guaraldi tunes that are always a treat to hear among selections of his other compositions.
The evening was only slightly more challenging an outing due to accumulating snowfall and Cyndie being confined to crutches.
The week before, I was on my own excursion, driving out to Eden Prairie for an annual December gathering of old high school buddies. In a wonderful serendipity of experience, I ended up finding more than twice the number of friendly old faces than I was expecting.
Much to my surprise, at the same restaurant, there was a gathering of folks from Physical Electronics, many of whom I haven’t seen since I left that company in 1999, after 18 years of employment. I was torn between socializing with the roughly 30 former coworkers and my group of about 15 former classmates.
As tough as it was to cut the coworker greetings short, I was there for the EP guys, so I returned to mingle with them, but it was a thrilling surprise to have stumbled unexpectedly upon a reunion of friendly faces from the best years of my working life.
We don’t expect to be doing any venturing out for the next few days. Snowfall is due to begin this afternoon and then tomorrow and Friday the snow will be blowing around in winds that could hit 50 mph. Wind chill temperatures will be extreme.
I took a picture of our horses modeling their blankets in advance of the wild weather. Yesterday was very much the calm before a storm. They soaked up the sunshine and napped most of the day.
I’m guessing they will see little reason to venture from the protection of that overhang when those high winds kick up. I wonder if I should tie a guide rope from the house to the barn to help me find my way in a whiteout blizzard.
There is always a possibility it won’t be as bad as the warnings are preparing us to expect. Our fingers are crossed.
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Just Lookin’
In avoidance of extending our exposure to more of the daily war news than necessary, I turned to surfing reddit on my phone to pass some time while digesting my dinner. As is the norm, scrolling past the first few posts brought up the featured live feed of the moment. I usually scroll past these with barely a glance, always with the sound muted.
However, I was shocked to discover I knew the person who showed up on the screen this time. Giving out a shout, I hustled down the stairs to show Cyndie.
“It’s Julian! Julian’s on the… he’s drumming on the… on Reddit’s live feed!” I struggled to blurt out.
How’s that for timing? My son was broadcasting a live session of playing his electronic drum set in video game fashion similar to the classic “Guitar Hero” while a synchronized LED light show illuminated the background, and I just happened to stumble upon it.
It was wonderful serendipity that I logged in at that very moment and a special treat to get to see his performance was also being watched by over 20-thousand others around the world.
You ROCK, Julian!
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Nurturing Possibility
Anything’s possible, so we may as well allow ourselves to be open to it. I do believe that it is possible to cultivate our own luck, but when good fortune and grace flow over me, I find it hard to process the unexpected blessing. I’m the most pessimistic optimist I’ve ever known.
One of the bike shops I visited on Thursday mentioned I could try calling the Trek home office directly to see if they would do a nationwide search for the specific Domane+ I wanted. To prove a point to Cyndie about how dismal things were looking in my bike hunt, I told her about that longshot advice.
She encouraged me to try it. As we were preparing to turn in for the night Thursday, I decided I would confirm there were none available anywhere by calling Trek in the morning, and then I would focus on finding one of the alternative choices in stock somewhere in the Twin Cities.
A little before 11:00 a.m., I pressed the numbers on my phone to reach Trek. It only took two or three easy steps of the decision tree to bring up a human voice eager to assist me. He quickly searched the 2022 bikes and found zero in my size. I could hear him keying away as he described changing the search to 2021 models.
“I found only one in the nation that size. Looks like it is at Freewheel Bikes in Minneapolis.” he happily reported.
What!?
I was just at the Freewheel in Woodbury the day before and they couldn’t find any Domane+’s. With giddy thanks, I logged off that call and entered the number he provided to the Minneapolis shop.
“Let me look it up.” the voice on the other end said. As he clicked keys he cautioned that the shop computer systems don’t necessarily update instantaneously so discrepancies are possible.
“Ope, there it is. Yep, we have that bike. It arrived at the beginning of this month and was assembled on the 10th.”
That is likely the reason the other shop didn’t find it yet. It had just been built and had yet to be accounted for in the system.
Go ahead. Tell me the odds of the timing of my search and the very recent local availability of this single bike in the entire country.
“And there is no claim on this bike yet?” I don’t know if he could sense the state of shock I was entering.
“Nope. There is no name attached to this bike.”
“Put mine on it please and I will be in to pick it up today,” I said, not even thinking about the falling snow and blustery wind creating hazardous winter driving conditions all day long.
Choosing to go get the bike immediately was the easiest decision I’ve made in a long time.
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Lucky Balance
First off, you should know that by simply bringing up this subject, I am totally jinxing the longevity of this latest installation of balanced rocks, however, this one has already outlasted my wildest expectations.
You just never know how long any “sculpture” will last when it comes to the unrehearsed balancing of random stones. This gem is perched on the stump of the most recently dispatched dead pine tree in the yard just beyond the front door of our house.
I was walking past the stump on some unrelated task one day when inspiration struck. I checked the nearby grove of trees for a big enough rock to make a good impression. I needed one that was also small enough that I could still lift it. I rolled it into position, which wasn’t easy at all because as you can see it was not of a rolling shape.
With some serious grunting and an unwise risk to my back, I finessed the beast upwards to the top of the stump. Then I headed to the rocks strewn about the landscaping around the house in search of a suitable size and shape for the upper balance.
It stood up in place with minimal coaxing. Balance was achieved so simply, I figured it might not last very long. Now, over three weeks later, it has survived the heavy snowfall, several days of high winds, a couple nights of significant freeze, and this week, record heat.
I got lucky.
Sometimes, it’s the ones I put in the least effort to accomplish that end up having the greatest longevity.
But not always.
There is one little set of three rocks that I assembled in the woods along our perimeter trail that is collapsed almost every time I walk by.
The difference is subtle to the point of being beyond my level of mastery.
Here’s hoping the ones in our front yard, pictured above, are unaware of what I’ve just written about them.
I am rather fond of seeing how they look from different perspectives as I walk past at all times of the day or night.
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Split Seconds
Who knows what’s going to happen in any given second? In this case, my phone decided to capture an image of falling from my hands.
I like it.
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Puppy Love
While communing with Cyndie’s family over the weekend, I learned of a wonderful photo captured by one of my fellow Friswold in-laws, Sara (married to Cyndie’s youngest brother, Ben). They are the only other Friswold family with multiple pets in the house. In addition to their three kids, there are two cats roaming the house, (and multiple amphibians and reptiles in a bedroom), and two dogs. Mocha is a 3-year-old mix they got from the Humane Society and Hazel is a 4-and-a-half-month-old rescue puppy.
Given that variety of kid and animal energy, it is easy to imagine the perpetual hum of commotion from ongoing activity constantly underway in the background of their everyday lives. In that setting, it is any sudden absence of activity that causes a person to take notice.
Sara reports just that scenario one day while she was occupied at her computer. She noticed it had gotten quiet and turned around in her chair to glance in the direction of the dogs. This is what she saw:
Puppy Hazel had her paws on Mocha’s chest and they were gazing at each other, nose to nose.
Sara quickly, but subtly, reached for her phone and captured the moment over her shoulder in the split second before it was over and Hazel moved on to other pursuits.
I asked how it might have transpired and Sara said it is not unusual for Mocha to sit upright in that spot and hang a front “arm” over the chair to look out the window. It is assumed that Hazel just took advantage of the position to stage an impromptu up close and personal puppy style greeting.
Everyone who has seen the image has enjoyed it so much, myself included, that I asked if I could share it with my readers, too. Let’s amplify and spread the puppy-love joy it brings.
It’s better than the “chew on everything in sight” puppy energy that is more the norm.
Congratulations, Sara, for the deft achievement of capturing this image in the moment’s notice!
It’s a winner of a photo. Thank you for letting me feature it and your pooch smooches.
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Interesting Perch
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Does anything stand out to you in this rocky photo of our pond that I captured yesterday?
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Yes, that’s our permanent resident metal frog on one of the rocks with an intrepid visiting frog perched on its back.
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Perfect.
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Feeling Happy
Woke up this morning and looked out at the sun coming up over Round Lake in Hayward, Wisconsin and realized we weren’t at home. Then, I remembered the wonderful dinner we had at the Lake Magnor Lighthouse restaurant attached to the convenience store gas station on Hwy 63 in Clayton on the way up.
Servers were fully present and projecting great energy, which enlivened the whole place. We seated ourselves in a booth with a view across the road to Lake Magnor and soaked up the atmosphere. It wasn’t our second honeymoon, but it was feeling a lot like the first one.
This was the first weekend we had coverage to be away since the occasion of our 37th anniversary, so the two of us have dashed up to a solo weekend at the lake. Easily reminiscent of our visit this month back in 1981.
When dinner was delivered, the “bottomless” real fresh-cut potato fries on Cyndie’s plate won me over instantly. This was after I had already visited the salad bar and discovered a spring mix of greens in place of the usual iceberg lettuce, plus every topping I ever wanted. More characteristic of a trendy urban restaurant than this perfectly kitschy rural diner.
Good food, great service, and two oldsters reliving their lifetime of being in love provided all the ingredients necessary for a memorable moment that lasts.
The fact that we’d cluelessly driven past the place so many times before on our travels to the lake enhanced our delight over the serendipity of finally discovering it this time.
I won’t deny that my mindset was already primed with happiness over an achievement earlier in the day that I have been waiting far too long to resolve. We got our home back-up generator serviced!
It has been over five years since installation and I have neglected it ever since, despite repeated mailings urging us to purchase an extended warranty and service contract. There was a constant mental conflict over thinking I was being negligent and they were being overly persistent.
Eventually, I contacted the installer to inquire about a preventive maintenance inspection. They no longer provide support to this product. I tried another place they referred me to, but it only offered long term warranty programs like the one the manufacturer keeps mailing to us.
I mulled over trying to figure things out on my own and changing the oil myself. That never seemed to lead to any action.
Finally, I found a new company that could service it without a long contract and would come from Minnesota to do it. However, they charged me immediately on the day I scheduled the service, and then postponed the appointment twice, both times without warning me in advance.
I was thrilled yesterday afternoon when the tech called to say he was fifteen minutes away. The firmware is updated, oil, spark plugs, and air filters changed, and specs calibrated.
With that completed, I was more than happy when we set off for this lovely weekend celebrating September in the north woods. No wonder the food tasted so good.
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Relishing Serendipity
Maybe it was related to our pending departure to the lake with our precious friends, Barb and Mike, that had me feeling particularly giddy, but when additional serendipity iced my cake, I was moved to relish it to the fullest.
Several times this week, we were striving to match schedules with the auto body shop to apply some last touches to conclude, once and for all, the repairs related to my deer incident. It took three more tries than it should have, but yesterday they completed the task and I was on my way to pick it up.
On the drive, I received a call from the hardware store surprising me with news that our trimmer repair was already completed. I would be able to pick it up on my way back home, saving an extra trip.
That eliminated the immediate concern over deciding whether to buy a second trimmer, or not. Another occasion to add to my history of delaying decisions long enough that an answer ends up materializing all on its own.
Now, if all has gone according to plan, this morning we are up at the lake for the weekend again. After the last two visits, when the internet connection was unusually dubious, I have chosen to fall back on my old vacation mode of scheduling a few “Relative Something” posts in advance.
My car is done, the trimmer is repaired, the hay-field is getting cut, and we are off with friends for the weekend.
I am relishing the blessings and last evening’s serendipity to the fullest.
Here’s to practicing the art of soaking up the joys available in the everyday.
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Relative Something 