Blowing & Drifting

Lyman Ice

admin — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 01:00:01 +0000

he Lyman Lakes on Carleton’s campus are still mostly iced over, after many above-freezing days (including today, though it’s gray and gloomy). Ice is remarkably durable stuff.

Upper Lyman Lake is still mostly iced over, nearly two-thirds of the way through March.

Lower Lyman Lake, on the other hand, is still about half iced over, though as late as Wednesday all of the open water here was still covered.

Doing a Sunbathe

admin — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 23:46:39 +0000

Exactly midway through our pre-dinner bike ride around the block tonight, Vivi hopped off her trike, climbed on up on this retaining wall, and lay down on the grass. “Vivi,” I asked, “what are you doing?” She looked over at me and said matter-of-factly, “I’m doing a sunbathe!” I couldn’t disagree.

Seven Signs of Spring

admin — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 00:45:40 +0000

As seen from the seat of my bike.

1. Numerous singleton mittens and gloves, most thickly distributed near bus stops.

2. Decomposing dead animals on the now-exposed roadsides.

3. Thick strips of plowed earth along the edges of the fields, where it’s dry enough for the tractors.

4. Harley riders heading loudly toward the country roads east of Northfield.

5. The Carleton grounds crews tidying flower beds, trimming trees and shrubs, and sweeping away tons of sand.

6. Balding middle-aged men driving their two-season sports cars.

7. The reddening tips of our maple tree branches, getting ready to bud next month.

Threats to Campus

admin — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 03:25:33 +0000

Never mind the endowment’s slow growth, delayed building maintenance, the lack of pay raises last year, or helicopter parents: the real threat to campus is beavers. It looks like a beaver (or three) took care of a tree that had already been neatly trimmed with a chainsaw.

Coffeeshopped

admin — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 00:43:06 +0000

Julia improved on my shot of the girls at the downtown coffeeshop on one of our Saturday-morning bagel outings with this excellent rendering. The lights are realistic, if somewhat (say, 1000%) oversized in relation to the three of us at our table. Vivi was wearing heart-kneed pants; I was not holding my coffee mug over my head like an Olympic torch – nor was the guy at the sofa behind us. Not included in this picture are the twenty or so soaking-wet runners who show up every Saturday and devour coffeecake with whipped cream on top.

Jammies Jams

admin — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 00:50:19 +0000

The girls are into a hilarious (and occasionally annoying) phase of choosing, re-choosing, and re-re-choosing their pajamas every night. Tonight after bath, for instance, Julia put on a crazy pair of purple jammies that attract her with a complicated Ariel-the-mermaid motif but repel her with scratchy synthetic fabric and tight elastic cuffs. For her part, Genevieve donned a heavy, warm sleeper right after bath. Not five minutes later, she switched to her favorite bright-green t-shirt/pants set, having (correctly) concluded that the sleeper would be too warm on the night after a 60-degree day. She wore the green PJs until bed, at which moment she took off the shirt, put on a long-sleeve pajama top, and then pulled the t-shirt shirt back on. I asked her, as she climbed into bed, if maybe she thought she would be too hot in all those clothes under all her covers. “No, I not,” she assured me.

No more than three minutes after lights-out, Vivi called me back in, complaining of being too hot. As I helped her out of her long-sleeved top, Julia hopped out of bed, trumping up the usual charges against her Ariel getup and switching into some far more comfortable light-cotton jammies. At least now they’re settled in, if not yet asleep.

Such are evenings at my house nowawdays. For those scoring at home:

Time: 60 minutes
Number of jammies, Julia: 2
Number of jammies, Genevieve: 2.5
Average lifespan of jammies: 13 1/3 minutes
Equivalent number of jammies over 12-hour day: 54

Spring Skiing

admin — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 01:30:54 +0000

Sometimes spring skiing is great: warm temperatures, sunshine, interesting and fun snow. Today was not that day here in Northfield, but goddamn if I didn’t have One Last Ski™ - a solid and sweaty hour in conditions that included foot-deep slush, inch-thick ice, and various obstacles. I prefer to think of these obstacles as increasing the technical difficulty of the course. And thank god for “rock skis”!

Bare Ground
Ten feet further, I had to ski over a foot-wide isthmus of ice between two open expanses of ski-eating gravel.

Deer Crap
Perhaps the fiftieth collection of deer crap on the trail.

Standing Water
You can’t really see it, but there are numerous inch-deep puddles of water here on this “snow.”

Springing Forward, or Okay, Start the Off-Season

admin — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 01:57:30 +0000

I guess winter is well and truly over. Yeah, we might get one last storm, but even a colossal one won’t save the skiing, which is now finished until December – November if I’m really lucky.

This isn’t all bad. The snow looks horrible right now – brown, filthy, icy junk – so it definitely needs to go. We could use a few solid rainfalls to wash the grit off the pavement, cleaning it up for rollerskiing. I think my skiing improved quite a bit this winter, which encourages me to try to use RS’ing and other “ski specific” workouts to maintain some of my form and strength. I don’t want to start from scratch next winter.

Though this week has been gray and damp, I hope we get a string of warm, sunny days to dry off the Arb trails and the gravel roads. I haven’t run since November, but I can’t wait to get back into the Arb for some nice muddy runs. And a few long bike rides on the endless gravel roads would be an even better way to welcome spring.

CafeteriArt

admin — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 01:36:55 +0000

Julia is semi-obsessed with the cafeteria at her elementary school. More than once in the past week, we’ve had to look up the menu on the school website and talk about all the options. And since Julia is Julia, this has led to art: a drawing of kids getting their food. It’s pretty accurate. You can almost smell “Big Daddy’s Pizza.” (Click through for notes.)

Portraiture

admin — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 10:58:57 +0000

Genevieve drew this portrait of me last Sunday. The text reads as follows:

To Dad
By Genna
Love Vivi

This is you!
And this is me

She didn’t draw herself into the picture, though. She also said that I’m wearing a brown dress, not pants and a shirt, and then laughed at how crazy that idea was.