Coop's Corner: Not As Planned But A Fine Day Nonetheless

Saturday, May 4, 2013

Not As Planned But A Fine Day Nonetheless

After a night of steady degree above freezing rain, both Peg and I were nervous about her ability to leave this morning for her Cleveland Road Trip (melting snow -> flooded driveway) to bring our youngest home from school. I went down for a look and all was fine, so my trip to Mpls coffee with the guys was the short trip, her 700mi trek to OH was the long one. On the phone this afternoon just before leaving IN, she reported one of the faster episodes through Chicago, something we always wish for but don't often receive.

Home after a more brief than normal time at the coffee shop, I was anxious to replace our mailbox that the recent heavy snow's attack on overhead trees smashed our mailbox, the 2nd replacement in a year. Last fall our box suffered greatly from what was probably a baseball bat, at least this time it was nature's attack. The box was fixed in time for the mailman's delivery and before lunch, other odds and ends were taken care of.

This afternoon, the Cafe Project bike was pushed back onto the lift and work was commenced to get it put back together only enough to provide a road test to confirm the motor and transmission will not need serious work. I had started the engine last summer but decided that before I invest any more time and money that I'd like to know that there's a solid enough powertrain to justify any more input on my end. Hopefully I'll soon have a chance to start it and run it through the gears, though the condition of the bike is far short of being ready for a ride of any real distance. To make it 'around the block', such as it is, will be all I need to move forward with the project.

Much of our snow left today, though not gone, conditions will be good enough for a ride tomorrow unless something changes. At 5PM, the water was still running under our slab on the driveway and though that may change by 7 (I'll go see in just a bit), things should be fine by tomorrow for a ride if we do in fact reach the predicted high of almost 70.

Plans are underway for next Saturday night's screening of Girl Meets Bike, a locally produced and shot film. This will be the 2nd of 3 intended early viewings of the film in Minnesota and a group of us will make it an evening of dinner, the film and ?? in nearby Northfield, MN. Jesse James once caused a great deal of commotion in Northfield, something the small community celebrates with a festival each year. Our evening will be much more low-key I suspect though most of us could use a sudden increase in funds, I hope that none of us are quite as desperate as Jesse was.

11 comments:

VStar LadyMay 4, 2013 at 7:15 PM
Don't like the weather - wait 15 minutes and it will change. Glad yours is changing for the good. (How many cm of snow? Followed by 70F! Incredible.)
Hope Peg and the offspring made it home safe and sound ... and the ride takes place for you tomorrow.
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Coop a.k.a. CoopdwayMay 4, 2013 at 7:33 PM
31 cm of snow Thursday, another 5 on Fri morning, rain all night. Last Spring, warm and early, an overly dry summer and fall. This Spring, late and wet.....seems we're back to even :)
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Erik RMay 4, 2013 at 8:10 PM
I'm still waiting for the latest snow to melt. Today, was the start of fishing season and all the lakes around me are still frozen.

I just noticed your Ben Tyler quote on the side bar... great movie.
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Martha May 4, 2013 at 10:02 PM
Ow. On those tummy tattoos.

Sounds like you had a good day! We should have a warm week. I hope you continue your 70s.
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Dar May 4, 2013 at 11:07 PM
You seem to be having the never ending winter. We are at summer temps right now and I hope that this doesn't mean we are getting it all now and none during the actual summer. It has been a glorious weekend here and I have been out riding for most of it. I hope you don't get too much flooding and that it warms up nicely for you.
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SonjaMMay 5, 2013 at 12:48 AM
Good luck on the cafe racer project, I hope the bike will come to life soon.
Please let us know how the screening went, I am sure some of us ladies will have had similar experiences.
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Coop a.k.a. CoopdwayMay 5, 2013 at 6:30 AM
Thanks Sonja, as a rule, I avoid summer bike wrenching, instead trying to deal with most of it when it IS nice to be inside. I imagine myself out there getting dirty on rainy weekends, when nothing else is planned :)

We are looking forward to the film, in part due to the fact that we know the area so well.
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Others say....

"it was auspicious to approach any situation from a deferential, inquisitive place. Conceding that there is much to learn is the best blueprint for discovering something new." ----B. Fuller

The Man straightened stiffly above the block of salt fixed to the stake and looked at the young cattle ringed about him. The pasture was holding out well and the stock was looking good. This bunch would be ready to sell in another month, maybe sooner if the market was right.

A stir among the cattle down near the river brought him round to face the swinging bridge he'd built years before. Someone was coming toward him from the bridge. Someone in breeches, but it didn't look like a man, somehow. What was a woman doing in his pasture this time of night?

He bent over the salt again; maybe if he paid her no heed she'd go on past and let him mind his own business. He heard her footsteps come nearer and stop. "Good evening," she said.

Her voice was smooth with book learning but friendlier than most, and somehow almost shy. When he made no answer she went on, "I've been sitting on your swinging bridge....I thought I'd like to say thank-you...." Her voice stumbled a little, then she tried once more.

"You are Mr. ____". His name sounded strange in her voice, but she went on to tell her own.

"That's what they've called me the last sixty-eight years," he said, looking past her face to the hills fast darkening under a single star. "I reckon the woods are free for those that like to walk there."

The unfamiliar voice laughed a little. "That's what Emerson said: the grove belongs to the man who walks in it with an open heart....On that basis I guess I've owned part of your woods for a good many years.....". She made a final effort. "I've always wanted to thank you....."

Something deeply hidden stirred in him. "There's a stump up there, in the notch of the woods", he said slowly, "that before the timber grew so tall you could stand on it and see all over this country."

He kept still a minute, remembering, then, "I used to stand up there an' look at things, an' wonder how they come to be like they was, an' how the hills was created, an' all the things in Nature.... I told my wife I guessed all the religion I ever had I got standin' on that old stump, a-wonderin'..." He turned his face away from her.

She helped him out. "I know about that, a little. This afternoon I saw......." Her account of a thing she had really taken time to look at eased him, and he answered with telling of the badger den at the foot of the swinging bridge.

When she had gone, he turned to watch her. After a moment she stood clear and unmoving against the sky. You could hear the sounds of the river where she stood. She was one that could stand still long enough, he thought, really to hear what a body was saying, or a river.

Then she walked down the farther side of the slope and was gone. ------Margaret Snyder from A Chosen Valley

Fall was the end of harvest, end of the growing season, a burst of color and sun-warmth before killing frost turned the land gray and cold. Fall was a moody time, full of both life and death, a time when we were reminded of the power outside of us, reminded that the seasons happen to us. We do not invite the change to come.-------Ben Logan, from The Land Remembers

When you get those rare moments of clarity, those flashes when the universe makes sense, you try desperately to hold onto them. They are the lifeboats for the darker times, when the vastness of it all, the incomprehensible nature of life is completely elusive. So the question becomes or should have been all along, what would you do if you knew you only had one day, or one week, or one month to live. What lifeboat would you grab onto? What secret would you tell? What band would you see? What person would you declare your love to? What wish would you fulfill? What exotic locale would you fly to for coffee? What book would you write? ------- Ben Tyler

We were also cautioned about journeying far from home. As an example of the dangers, the town had a badly crippled lady named Lucy, who as a girl had traveled to New York City. As she traveled along a sidewalk, sightseeing, she was struck by the outstretched hand of a suicide who had leapt from high above. Her spine had been shattered and for the rest of her life, she was to walk bent forward at the waist, tapping the sidewalk with two black canes. Whenever the subject of travel to a big city was raised, someone would say, "Just remember what happened to Miss Tripp." ---- Ted Kooser, from Local Wonders

"Steamboats are like wedding cakes without the complications...." ----Mark Twain

"It's not about having lots of money, it's about having lots of options......." -----Chris Rock

As the very proud father of three former ponytail wearers, hopefully I can get away with this....."For the past few years it's been fashionable for young women to wear ball caps and to snap the strap on the back under their ponytails. I like the looks of that, their shiny ponytails jauntily swinging, but it's hard not to think of the rear ends of horses. There's a piece of harness called the crupper that goes just under a horse's tail to keep its nose down. If the horse lifts its head to look for a way out of whatever predicament it's in, the crupper tightens and hurts the horse. But it's foolish for parents to think that a ball cap might keep a young woman from running away. Anybody can see they're made for running." ------Ted Kooser, Local Wonders

"I tell the guy's girlfriend that the only difference between the book's main character Phaedrus and myself is that I am neither brilliant, tortured or insane, she looks at my bike and there is an uncomfortable silence." --------ahendepe (a.k.a. Vermin)