Dog Heaven

For five days at the end of May I paddled a Canadian river (the Dog River) to Lake Superior with friends Alan, Dave and Dan. We carried our camping gear and so rode a little lower than normal for whitewater, and we had to portage around the odd waterfall, but it was a great trip. I haven't blogged about it because there's too much to say and I can't get started, but this picture from Alan says it pretty well. I'm the one in the purple boat. I was in dog heaven.

Additional pictures are here.

Urban Wild Life

I checked on Alex this morning and found him in the back yard with a wild turkey the size of Big Bird. According to the Minneapolis Star Tribune we share the metro area with a couple thousand of them, but this was our (and Alex's) first encounter. Please notice the fierce cat in the bottom photo, all puffed out yet somehow backed as far away from the bird as he can get.

The older I get, the better I was.

In an effort to reanimate myself after a long, gray winter (not that it's over yet) I've been watching whitewater video and uploading some of our Grand Canyon snippets from 2003 and 2004 to YouTube.

209 Mile Rapid with Ann in 2003 (with one prominent profanity):



Lava Falls solo in 2004:


Granite with Ann in 2003:

feeding the iguanas

Overnight our youngest cat Emmie knocked a few blooms off the pinkish-purple azalia Robbie and Jeff gave us. Ann put what she could in a tiny vase and gathered the rest to throw into the yard. She stood in front of me with a fist full of purple and said "I'm going to give these to the iguanas. They love the purple ones."

I didn't remember the name of the tree whose blooms the iguanas preferred (wygelia?), but I assumed I had told Ann the story of the iguanas that wouldn't go back to eating lettuce when winter came. At least once. And, unlike me, she had remembered it well enough to make the comparison. And that became today's post.

Then Ann read it and said "I wasn't feeding iguanas in Ohio! I was feeding iguanas in Costa Rica!" Evidently she was remembering more recent (and more distant) iguanas who liked purple blossoms.

The moral being that profundity and reality may intersect but don't necessarily.

Lovely Meta

Our friend Meta died yesterday. She fought it out with ovarian cancer for three years, winning battles but never quite vanquishing the cancer; and she realized a few weeks ago her body couldn't win the war. Hospice, in her room overlooking the farm in Red Wing, eased her final days. Her husband Mark has been with her every step of the way.

We last saw them when we took lunch down two months ago. Ann made chili and cornbread. Meta was fighting tumors, had a cold, was recovering from chemo a week prior and an infection that had sent her back to Mayo, but she was an extremely gracious host. She didn't waste any effort, but was funny and very present. When I have just a cold - forget the rest - I'm lousy company. Her presence was a great gift.

Meta didn't suffer fools gladly even when they were doctors, and she kept on top of the art, science and technology of ovarian cancer treatment with an extremely keen mind. She posted the results of her research and her personal experience on her CaringBridge pages here and here. I find it lovely just to read her voice.

Ann and I taught whitewater tandem canoe with Meta and Mark for several years and we rocked at it. We had two women and two couples teaching a sometimes macho sport in what is generally referred to as "the divorce boat," and showed how it could be done well and still love your sweetie at the end of the day. It was repeatedly the high point of my year. Outside the class they have been our favorite boating partners in Minnesota, Wisconsin and the southeast, and just great friends.

Sitting here writing, I would love to talk about Meta's incisive - wicked - sense of humor, her never-ending love of the outdoors and all God's creatures (except box elder bugs), and the potency of her friendship; but I imagine Meta at my shoulder saying "cut the crap," so I'll try to keep this short. Meta decreed a no-nonsense rule on memorials, and love her as I do, I fear her a little in this. During the first successful go-round leading to her remission two years ago, Meta as Warrior Woman unleashed a potent force of "you are not wanted here" on her cancer and it backed right down. I saw how just merciless she could be; and if Meta is possibly in a position to open up a celestial can of whoop-ass on someone in the earthly realm, I don't want it to be me.

We love you, Meta. We love you, Mark.

Choo Choo Bob's

Our chance to have an Antonio-only play date came last Friday. We went to Choo Choo Bob's just across the river in St Paul, which has a couple of nice electric train setups and several play tables in the back with the wooden trains we grew up with. I can attest that Antonio was the best behaved kid I've seen there (they tend not to want to leave). His only request was to go back sometime and bring Crystel.

First, though, we had a rousing game of Candyland at our house. Ann won first, I won second, and Antonio won third.

Choo Choo Bob's has books in the same series as one my dad has a picture published in (but not the same book). We already have an autographed copy, but I wanted to show the proprietor I come from good train stock and know which end of a train goes first (it's a trick question).

Welcome Visitors

As I was rummaging about at noon I kept hearing little outdoor voices but couldn't find the sources (Sarah and Johanna), like in The Wizard of Oz when you hear Munchkin voices but can't see them yet. Finally they appeared at the back door, all snowsuited and smiling. Johanna showed off her vocabulary - notably "kitty cat" - stacked boxes, charmed, and generally stomped around owning the place. Sarah and I, having heard the same public radio piece yesterday extolling the virtue of communal child-rearing, patted ourselves on the back.

Johanna is turning out to be an outdoors girl, hard to separate from her snowsuit. She and her family spent the weekend in the snowy Far North. I wish I had taken pictures today because she's growing so fast any picture more than a week old is obsolete. Visit her dad's blog for shots from the weekend. The one above is about 10 days old.

Johanna and Emmie (the youngest kitty) are peers of sorts, each delighting in the attention of the other. I'm reminded of my niece Chris growing up with the family dalmatian as her nearest sibling. A girl could do worse.