I’m on vacation!

This year the Lutheran’s With Attitude skipped out on the church fishing trip. Things were getting a little wierd. But the Red Eye, now that’s another matter. The LWA has decided to spin off to a new location for our annual spiritual gathering. TC, one of the original LWAs (we met at a men’s fishing trip) has a converted barn on the Crow Wing River, up north as we say. Right across from the National Guard camp. Last year I thing the constant artillary fire spooked the fish. It’s ok though, we’re not all that serious about the fishing.

Actually, just Lon and I fish. The others golf and then we meet up for poker in the evening. This year Lon and I have decided we’re going for catfish. Which means we’ll take the pontoon to a likely spot, put on some stink bait, throw the lines over and get out the guitars. Now this particular river flows into the Mississippi and we all know where that goes. I guess we’re hoping to use that connection to channel some southern soul.  But then I’ve always maintained that Minnesotans are just rednecks with different accents. Besides, both Lon and I have the Scotch-Irish backgrounds and that’s one of the cultures the music came from. Worked it’s way east to the river, met up with the blues in Memphis and the rest is Rock and Roll.

I’m breaking tradition this year. I’m bringing and electric guitar. I have a bit of an urge to show off for these guys and I really need an electric to play my best stuff. My playing has come on so much stronger over the last year. I think it really helped me to start learning country, I was kind of bogged down in the blues for so long. Getting my fingers to dance to the major scale patterns really seemed to open things up for me. I know my way around the majors better than the minor scale that the blues use. Thats after only about a year of playing in that vernacular as opposed to 35 of the other. Anyway my boat has drifted closer to Nashville than Memphis these days.

Know any catfish recipes?

I’ve been lobbying to get a wheelbarrow for about a year now. Last week morning I employed on the “better to ask forgiveness than permission” theory and picked one up at Fleet Farm. One tub, two handles and a box of hardware. Made in China. The parts were in branded Zip Lock bags. Good for Ziplock. The wheelbarrow itself is called an Iron Brigade. Or at least that’s what’s stencilled on it’s side. Along with the silhouette of an eagle. It makes me feel like a hero of the proletariat. I feel like one of those guys in the great communist poster art of the thirties and forties. Only I don’t have the jaw for it.

When I opened up the hardware box I was pleased to discover that the instructions actually made sense and appeared to have been written by someone who had at least a familiarity with the English language. But as I read on I realized this was going to be beyond a simple assembly. It required putting the handles up on sawhorses (like I have sawhorses) and balancing about five pieces and trying to line up the holes for the bolts and getting the bolts to go through the holes. At first inspection it didn’t look like the holes were lined up at all. I’m starting to think that I grabbed the wrong set of handles out in the Fleet Farm yard. There was only one thing to do. Ask my wife for help. She’s about a hundred times handier at that sort of thing than I am. And after years of close brushes with divorce percipitated by similar activities we’ve finally become a pretty good team. She managed to thread the bolts and we got everything put together but not tightened.

That’s when she asked me what the washers in the bag were for. “I don’t know, they don’t mention them in the directions and they’re not in the diagram, I just assumed they were for some assembly that was going to happen later.” Of course there were no assemblies left. Only dissaemblies. It was hot. I’d been digging in the garden all morning. We shut down for the evening, showered up, went to the Sample Room for dinner with some friends and I dealt with the washers this morning. There are only a few left in the bag.

I thought it was bad when the horticulturist/plant patent lawyer moved in next door, but now it’s been revealed that the new neighbor across the street is a master gardener. She’s also retired and a very hard worker. How do I know this? She and her husband spent last week building a raised garden bed that’s about 12 by 24. Saturday morning it was filled with dirt. Saturday evening it was filled with plants. I went over and talked to her, she told me that it was her nursery bed! The plants were the one’s she’d moved over from their previous home. She planted them all herself in a day. During that time I mowed my lawn and trimmed a couple of bushes. I was exhausted. I dug up a little garden that’s maybe a hundred square feet last fall, and it still sits there with a couple of hastas and a few other plants, no mulch, no border, very sad little garden. It’ll be nice though, someday, really. Now that I don’t have children in sports and am only about four months from an empty nest, I should have more time to devote to it. It’s about as close to I get to exercise these days.

Q just bought a new MacBook, the new black one with the Intel dual processor. Very cool!

Quinn is 18 today. Last night she was talking about the tradition of going to the casino, getting tatoos and whatever else you can do at 18 to celebrate your birthday. She said that there was no rush for her, “After tomorrow, I’ll be over 18 for the rest of my life.”

Last night I had dinner with my High School sweetheart , whom I haven’t seen for 30 years. She knew how long because the last time I saw her was when she was pregnant with her first child. They were going through some very rough times at that time. But it all turned out well. He picked up a job in Seattle building cabinets for a coffe shop. The first Starbuck’s. Then the next fifty. They parlayed their little cabinet business into what they call retail theater. They work for Microsoft and Xbox and are about to build a 40,000 sq. ft. building to house their business. 

Tonight I was walking around the back yard in the dark, enjoying the beautiful spring weather we’ve been having. We have one of those cheap wrought iron fire pit things, I tripped over it. Hit it square with both shins and went over the top. Thank God the ground was soft! I hope the neighbors didn’t see that one.

The garden is at least a week ahead of last year. Several plants are coming up that I’d written off as failures last year, they look great. Won’t be long and there will be daffodils and tulips blooming. That’s right I live in a cold climate. But it hit 80 today! Part of me loves it, and another part is thinking, this isn’t right.

Some critter, I’m guessing a bunny, grazed down the crocuses that were blooming in my front lawn. I think we’ll be serving hassenpheffer for Easter dinner.

Most of you know that I’m a big fan of the U of MN Women’s Basketball team. I’m so bummed out. In the last couple of weeks 5 players have quit the team. No one seems to know what’s going on, but there are a lot of fingers pointing at Pam Borton, the coach. I always thought she was a great coach, but perhaps things were going on behind the scenes. Obviously the girls didn’t like her much!

There are three people and a cat in our fairly small house. The humans are all awake on a rainy gloomy day. The house is silent. My wife and daughter are engrossed in their books and I’m working away at sorting out images for my new portfolio. Every hour or so a riff gets in my head and I pick up the guitar briefly to mess around with it. I sometimes, purely by random chance, even find the notes.

The mystery crocuses under the gas meter on the side of the house are blooming. I saw a bluebird land out in the cemetery while I was the binoculars on the couple who were passing a joint out there. I wonder if they know a Minneapolis cop lives two doors down from us.