Corvette Season

Home at last and ready for a wash

The October summer toy storage is the first milestone marking the end of summer and the beginning of another northern winter. Bob's sadness is hard to bear and I'm always glad when the job is done.

The reverse is true in the spring when we make the trip to Isanti to pick up the Corvette and the boat. Bob's glee is contagious and I picture the little Corvette ready to escape the gray  shroud covering her in the Isanti barn. This year he did fret a little after learning about a "controlled burn" planned for area surrounding the building. He had a vision of the plastic body of the car melting merrily before a gas tank explosion.

Fortunately, fears were unfounded. Bob had his spring list ready and the main task was to reconnect the boat and Vette batteries. We were on our way in almost record time and I had pretty much -- finally, after all these years! -- memorized the route so I wasn't too nervous about getting home. The Corvette is fun to drive, even for a scaredy-cat like me.

That great "happily in control" feeling lasted about five minutes, until the seatbelt started to strangle me. At first, I thought I could get through the next hour, but the belt got tighter and tighter as I drove along. I fiddled with the lock and suddenly the whole damn thing flew off.

Rolling down the highway at 60 mph isn't the best time to mess with an unfamiliar seatbelt, but I did try valiantly for a few minutes. Then I began to rehearse my explanation to the police, just in case I was stopped for either a seatbelt violation or out-of-date plates (new plates and tabs were in an envelope on the passenger seat). We managed to hit a green light every time I might have tried to re-buckle, so I stopped worrying and finally buckled up a mile or so from home.

 The C6 Corvette is an electronic marvel. Assuming that the battery is charged, the push button start works as long as the fob is in on or near you. The only problem now is that the key fob system is acting up and for awhile Bob couldn't start the car. The Chevrolet dealer told Bob to have the car towed in for servicing!

He did get the car started and we fooled around unsuccessfully with the instructions for resetting the two key fobs, but at least the car is now in the garage and not sitting in the alley. Bob is replacing the license plate right now, and giving the key fob re-programming another try. I foresee a dealer appointment in our near future.

Veep

I loved Julia Louis Dreyfus in Seinfeld and enjoyed her role in The New Adventures of Old Christine. I don't know how I missed her latest role as Selina Meyer in Veep until I saw Season 3 advertised on TV last at the beginning of April.

I didn't even know we were HBO subscribers, and I certainly had no idea that I could watch TV online. I might have suspected that online watching was possible, but I had no earphones and didn't want to isolate myself in another room where I could turn up the sound.

Turns out Bob's earphones for his unused mp 3 player are a perfect fit, and I embarked on a weekend of binge watching, a first time experience for me.

A week later, I've finished Season 2. I haven't laughed so much since my annual Christmas Vacation intro to the holiday season. Veep characters actually remind me of people I once knew when I was a staffer in the Canadian House of Commons and the Minnesota House of Representatives.

Certainly "must watch" TV for any political junkie with a sense of humor.

Quebec General Election - April 7, 2014

I've lived in the United States for nearly 31 years, but I always feel a pang of something like regret whenever I follow a Canadian or Quebec election. It's a sense of missed opportunity to participate in building the future of Canada.

This passion and emotions surrounding this year's riveting Quebec general election reminded me of  November 15, 1976, when the Parti Québécois, Quebec's independence party, first came to power. It was one of the worst days of my life, partly because I wasn't on the voter roll and didn't vote in that election, but mainly because I drank far too much as I watched election returns well into the night.

For voters who favored the Parti Québécois, the next day was filled with euphoria and hope for a new, exciting future. For me, not so much. I woke up the next morning under a friend's dining room table. Literally -- the beginning of a three-day hangover and years of guilt for missing the election.

At the beginning of the last election campaign, I thought there was a good chance Premier Pauline Marois would get her majority government and move forward with isolationist policies that would culminate in yet another referendum.

That was until "star" PQ candidate Pierre-Karl Péladeau's right wing, anti-union positions clashed with the party's left leaning history. PKP created so much controversy that the Parti Québécois lost track of other campaign themes that might have seemed more attractive to the electorate.

I started to look for election results shortly after the polls closed on April 7 and was stunned that the Liberals gained a solid majority early on in the evening. The outcome of the election was a disaster for Marois and others who lost their seats. The Parti Québécois itself seems in disarray, with fewer seats than at any time in the last 35 years.

The jubilation of loyal Canadians was reminiscent of that long ago day in 1976 when Parti Québécois victors celebrated for days. The independence bullet has once again been dodged, but civil debate and respectful dialogue could provide many opportunities to identify and embrace common ground. The issue won't just "go away" until the sovereignty option seems unnecessary and undesirable

Ignatian Volunteer Corps

I like to put structure into my day, with the objective of achieving a balance between physical and mental activities. I tend to divide every day into a few hours of physical labor, some writing, keeping up with social media, and work on my photos. The beauty -- and major attraction -- of photography is that it requires so many physical and mental skills, while providing the opportunity to spend time outdoors.

For the last few months, I've also entertained the possibility of part-time work. One of the interesting opportunities was the Ignatian Volunteer Corps. Like many other American Catholics, I'm somewhat influenced by Pope Francis' charismatic personality, so I thought I'd check out the IVC, whose work is grounded in Jesuit spirituality. I met with the regional director on Tuesday and learned a little about the IVC's presence in the Twin Cities.

The idea of finding a match with one of the partner organizations is intriguing, but I'm reluctant to commit two full days a week to a project for ten months of the year, at least for now. Over the short term,  two books by Jesuits on my reading list: Jesus and Tattoos on the Heart.

First 70F Day since October

I didn't want to miss a minute of the warm day promised by Twin Cities weather forecasters. I was in shorts and a polo shirt by 9:30 a.m., determined to get "indoor work" out of the way before noon. I'm not quite caught up from the month away, but by the end of the morning the kitchen and bathrooms were clean, most carpeting was vacuumed. The irritating cat puke stains are still there ... it will take a professional carpet cleaning to resolve that particular problem.

Both Bob and I worked outside all afternoon. He washed the deck and deck furniture, and put a good dent into spring window cleaning. My main task was to remove the leaves insulating Bob's roses and my spring bulbs, a bigger job than it sounds.

I uncovered burgeoning daffodils and tulips, one of which I ruined with the rake, but most seem to be intact. I'm hoping that the daffodils' yellow foliage will soon turn green now that it's exposed. The bulbs planted too deep near the front of the house have yet to peek through the ground.

After filling full barrel with leaves, I started on another and added to it by picking up leaves that had drifted to the area between the back fence and the garage, and we made our first trip of the season to the compost site.

I ached all night from using muscles I'd forgotten about over the winter, but feel reasonably energetic this morning. Spring planting seems a long way off, despite recent balmy temperatures.

One Year Anniversary

A year ago today I worked my last day as a State of Minnesota employee. I had been preparing for several months, so my last day's activities were limited: last-minute emails, goodbyes, file purging; lunch with the MN.IT team @ Commerce; last log out and key card return; happy hour after work.

In retrospect, it seems that I spent many hours in the following weeks shoveling snow and cleaning house. Bob's knee replacement surgery seemed more all consuming than my own had been a few months earlier. Suddenly, summer was over and we set off on our awesome Grand Canyon trip. I spent much of the fall and early winter recovering from a nasty virus that knocked me off my feet in Ottawa, precluding a long anticipated visit to Montreal.

Despite all our misgivings, the Florida road trip was a great success. The winter of 2013-14 provided a lot of outdoor work and I realized that I am physically stronger than I was a year ago. I haven't published the online book I'd hoped to write ... but I do have several writing and photo projects in the works.

Happy to have the first year under my belt as I look forward to an active spring and summer.

Florida: Epilogue

Tulips and daffodils will soon be in bloom

After I hit 60, I often thought about this segment in the opening monologue of  a Jerry Seinfeld episode:

"My parents live in Florida now. They moved there last year. They didn’t want to move to Florida, but they’re in their sixties, and that’s the law. You know how it works. They got the leisure police. They pull up in front of the old people’s house with a golf cart, jump out, “Let’s go Pop, white belt, white pants, white shoes, get in the back. Drop the snow shovel right there. Drop it!”

Although we've occasionally entertained the idea, I don't think we'll be moving south anytime soon. The Florida road trip now seems like a distant memory, and I was really ready to come home to quiet St. Paul last week. Like true Minnesotans, we followed the weather in Midwest and across the continent while we were gone, and we had the impression we would be returning to the dead of winter, with five-foot snowdrifts in the yard.

In reality, we were a little stunned to see signs of spring everywhere, with the little remaining snow melting under a hot April sun. Of course, last Friday's blizzard felt like something of a setback, but the snow was already melting on Friday morning and by yesterday, it was almost gone. Some of the daffodils and tulips I planted last fall are peaking through the protective cover of leaves in the garden, and I am enjoying the long days, bathed in the glorious light of a Minnesota spring.

The temperature soared to the high fifties yesterday, as warm as a few of our days in Florida. Today the sun will shine on the Twins' home opener. Summer can't be too far off and I'm happy to be spending it in Minnesota.