There is a tiny strip of woods alongside the Des Plaines River behind the building at work. For a few days now I've been wanting to go stroll it. Today I did.
Here in December, on one of the last days before winter officially beings, two ducks took their own stroll down the same river.
There was a calming quiet in that woods by the water. No humming office equipment; no grinding construction from the other side of the building; no constant babble of people walking by.
A soft barely rain started when I reached the water. It was beautiful by itself, but made more so by the juxtaposition to the glass bottle litter strewn all around. Rain softly fell on the carpet of dry leaves, yet not a drop fell on me the drops were so scattered. Oh, but I could hear them making crinkling noises--the soft forest footsteps of unseen spirits.
That same light rain that dotted road and sidewalk ended after my second step from under the empty branches. Goodbye my ducky friends. The land of glass and concrete and steel is waiting for me.
I post so infrequently now, I know. It isn't for lack of content. Partly it's lack of time. Partly lack of energy. Sometimes I find myself, shortly before bed, having a little bit of time to myself. All too often by that point, thought, I don't want to have to engage brain any more. So mindless Spider Solitaire for ten minutes or so is easier. There are a lot of things I haven't been getting done, not just blogging.
Earlier today we figured out how we want to celebrate the Solstice this year. The actual solstice is at 6:22pm on the 21st (Thursday). That's the point that the Earth's axis actually points the furthest from the sun.
As the sun appears lower in the sky, the sunlight passes through more atmosphere before reaching the ground, making it colder and creating winter. It also means that each night approaching the Solstice the sun sets a little earlier. Each night gets a little longer (with also each morning coming earlier).
In ancient times this scared primitive people big time. (If it keeps up like this, pretty soon there just won't be ANY day time and we'll all just die!). So ancient people held celebration festivals the night of the solstice, encouraging the sun to come back. Sure enough, days started getting longer. Whew. Of course, we understand things a little better now.
But lengthening days still mean summer will happen again one day. It'll get warmer, and we can plant things and play outside. That's still worth celebrating, right?
So, that brings us around to what does it all mean to us. Here's my half of it:
Thursday the 21st will be the shortest day of the year. That night the longest night of the year. Also kindof the end of one year and the start of the next. Sure, there's the whole January thing, but that's just an arbitrary date with no real meaning.
Our plan is to stay up all night through that longest night. Lots of drumming and happy celebration. We'll share some thoughts about the past year, make some goals for the new one. We'll watch that first sunrise of a new beginning, a new season, a new year. And then we'll feast. A breakfast feast. A new dawn.
Our Solstice is also about sharing with others. Maybe Amy and I will both share some unique personal tidbit on respective blogs. We're both going to go through our wardrobes and find the things we just aren't going to wear any more. Friday those items get donated. We'll help Jareth pick a toy he's done with. We'll donate that toy. He can share, and let someone else play with it. (We're definitely going to be involved in helping him make that decision! Leave it to our kid to try to want to share his favorite toy...)
Heck, staying up all night is just another 4-5 hours longer than normal, right? :-) We'll see if we make it, but the intent is there. With any luck, I can take the day off on Friday. Otherwise I'll at least be late (not to mention close to worthless at that point).
So that's the thinking for right now. I'll have to let Amy know I just posted this. Maybe she'll quickly put up her thoughts, since they won't be 100% the same as mine. And they shouldn't be, either.
The past few days have been a whirlwind. I'm not going to be staying up late enough to chronicle it all just now. It's nearly midnight as it is.
So it was a bit before my alarm went off Wednesday morning (so figure about 4:30) when Amy woke me up. We had water, she told me.
Now, when we moved in the water softener was old and not working nicely. Neither of us actually like soft water. But there was a bypass valve at the top. So we had pushed that so that water would just go around the water softener. We got rid of the salt tank some time ago.
Well, it turns out that that very bypass valve happened to fail utterly, sending all the incoming water pressure into our basement. The bathroom was about 3-4 inches deep by the time I got in there and shut the water main off.
Down in our basement, where this happened, is also where the family room is. That's the room for our computers. Amy's computer came so very close to unhappy wetness.
Fortunately I have an iguana. She has a very nice cage, with her own little pond and waterfall. For this I have a portable sump pump, with which I empty the water out of her cage. This very sump pump got rid of a lot of water for me.
I had the presence of mind to call the insurance company, along with a plumber. I want to say that Farmers has been just great, and I will never buy discount insurance over the internet just to save a couple bucks. I've had a few people tell me I did everything right, and that early call to Farmers was one of those things.
They sent out Service Master (who I sold a couple motorhomes to just after Katrina, although a different office/division). Service Master ripped out the carpet and set up a bunch of drying equipment. By Monday everything's supposed to be dry, and they can do the damage assessment.
So now the computers are upstairs while the downstairs dries out. Downstairs is utter and total chaos. The rest of the house is slightly better. It looks like we're out the plumber's bill (rant on him later, perhaps...) and our insurance deductible. But maybe that's it, although it might force us to remodel down there earlier than planned, and the remodel will take more than Farmers will pay us, so we're still out more. But it could have been much worse. Thankfully Amy woke up to pee and heard the water...
So things are a bit topsy-turvy right now, and we're even more short of sleep than normal. And now it is past midnight. I think it might be time for bed now.
G'night?