Category: Life Is A Spell

You can never tell what the cross skiing will be like until you get out there. The other day it was plenty cold and we had a few inches of new snow but the sun was shining and the snow was sticky. It was above freezing today, in fact it started raining while we were out there, but we moved along just fine. This has been the best winter we can remember for skiing.

Southtown Beverages is one cool spot. They had both of doors open today and a pretty steady flow of drive through traffic. Of course it is the day after the Super Bowl. We watched the big game over at my parents on big tv. My mom said the guy with the big black curly hair reminded her of Brad Fox. Brad lived at our house for a while a long time ago. Peggi and I were the only ones routing for Pittsburgh but neither of us really gave a hoot in fact Peggi spent most of the game loading up their Netflix queue on my father’s iPad.

We stopped in Old Navy and Peggi bought some jeans. It’s her birthday tomorrow. Happy Birthday Peggi! We stopped t pick up Chinese on the way home and I ordered Jalapeno Tofu and we each ordered fresh Spring Rolls. The total was was $21 and it seemed kinda cheap but when we got home we found out there was no Jalapeno Tufu in the bag. Something was lost in translation.

On skis you can cover a lot more ground with the same amount of effort on foot. We wind up at the lake on most days. Sometimes you can’t find the horizon in the beautiful grey mist. Lately we stop and study the icebergs that form on the sand bars and eventually float free. This view, like the pages on the daily dog calendar that our neighbors have, is completely different every day.

Luka Romel commented on the tree shirt I talked about here. She designed the shirt for Matt & Kim and she ordered me to buy it. All she had to do was ask. I went to M&Ks merch store but that T was sold out. Speaking of fulfillment, we’re handling that department for PeteLaBonne.com and today we shipped our first $100 order for the complete “Gigunda” collection!

I love the work of Robert Smithson. And he has so much beyond Spiral Jetty. I’m always on the lookout for earth art and I think I have come across a fair amount in the woods. I was marveling at this dead tree today while Peggi was taking a pee. It seemed to have grown in a spiral pattern and then shed all it’s bark.

We ski for about a mile before breaking out of the woods and onto the golf course. It is often a surreal experience but today we were in earth art territory. We watched this guy, undoubtably the same guy who taped the small flag to the tree that I talked about yesterday, walking in right angles to spell “USA” in the snow in giant letters. You get a good view of his work when you’re on top of the hill to the right so we skied up there.

My newest camera weighs a ton. David Pogue described this model as feeling like “a brick in your pocket.” I carry at least three pens, a Swiss Army knife, a small flashlight and a drum key attached on my key chain and a pocket full of change on the other side so I’m sort of balanced. In the rear my wallet is bloated with notes and membership and credit cards and an iPod on the other side. I don’t have room for a phone if I had one.

I did lighten my load a bit by weeding out my keys. I couldn’t find any match for half of them. I had keys to Sparky’s shed and I gave them back to him. I’m quite sure one of these keys goes to our old house. I ran into Elizabeth a while back and she told me she reads this blog so Elizabeth, if you need an extra key I might have one. I’m putting them all in a jar out in the garage for future archeologists to sort out.

Golf courses are prettier in the winter. This big old willow tree straddles the property line of Durand Eastman Park and a private home. Willow trees are soft wood and they’re messy but I love them. The guy who lives in this house has three “No Trespassing signs stuck up there to keep golfers off his lawn. I stepped on his lawn last summer to retrieve a couple of balls that were sitting out there and he came out on his porch and yelled, “Get off the lawn.” It was like something out of a movie. If I see him again I’m prepared to yell, “You’re lawns is an eyesore.”

Speaking of golf. My friend Angel posted a print I did a long time ago in a printmaking class. And she has a cool photo up there of the Chinaboise. Peggi and I were in this band for a few months before we moved here and long before they recorded this beautiful song.

We haven’t seen the sun in days, maybe weeks. When it comes out, it’s dramatic. You appreciate things like that if you live around here. The days are noticeably longer. Twenty eleven is beckoning. Margaret Explosion plays our last gig at the Little Theater until March tonight. We plan to cover the Stooges’ 1969.

I used to see pheasants all the time in Webster but I hadn’t seen one in years until this guy waked out in front of us. He was chasing a drab looking mate and was completely oblivious to me. We moved into one of the first housing tracts in Webster back in the sixties. The place is overrun with them now but back then we were surrounded by farm land. We took hikes everyday and had our own names for the pockets of woods that separated the various farmer’s fields. Every time we’d cut through corn fields we’d scare up a batch of pheasants. They’d scare us too when they took off from under foot. I don’t remember them looking this colorful though.

Modesty, Courtesy, Integrity, Self Control, Perseverance, Indomitable Spirit all seem like worthwhile pursuits. These words were written on the wall surrounding an American flag at Gregory’s seventh birthday party. The festivities were held at the Martial Arts Center in Loehmann’s Plaza. I had my iPod Touch with me so I looked up “Indomitable Spirit”. In martial arts it is considered a refusal to be beaten, no matter how tough, talented or big your opponent may be. That will probably be the toughest challenge for these little guys.

It is solved by walking.