Say What?

I read a book a couple of years ago titled Waking Up White by Debbie Irving where she writes about her life of privilege that allowed her to ignore the hardships of others different than herself. Once realizing that she was indeed privileged, she set out to try and more clearly understand the ways in which her privilege manifested itself in her life while at the same time helping her to gain a better understanding of the struggles of others who don't share a similar privilege because of their skin color. It was eye-opening for me and dovetailed well with what has been an ongoing effort in my own life over the past dozen years or more to try and see the world through eyes other than my own. A practice that has revealed in me my own tendency to be ignorant of others' struggles. I'm a work in progress. Before reading Waking Up White , I already understood that my life was one of privilege but I had never taken the time to try and put myself in the shoes of someone who was...

I was up early last Saturday to participate in a ride out of Northfield (25 miles south of me), trying to get a jump on the day with hopes of completing the ride before forecast rains arrived in the afternoon. I tuned to the '70s music station on Sirius XM for the drive, curious to see if I could guess the month and year of Casey Kasem's Top 40 Countdown rebroadcast that was playing ('70's music will always have a special place in my heart). The first song I heard was "Wildfire" by Michael Murphy, number 29 of the countdown. I guessed the rebroadcast to be from either April or May of 1975 because that song (as songs sometimes do) always takes me back to a memory of sitting on the bus for the ride to school from my apartment in the spring of that year, my senior year. It's also a favorite song of mine. Sure enough, the show was from May 17th, 1975. The number 22 song on the countdown was "The Immigrant" by Neil Sedaka—a song I hadn't heard i...

Our home has become a no-kill place for mice. We'll occasionally catch a mouse in one of our traps down in the utility room or in the cabinet under the kitchen sink. I always feel bad that the only solution seemed to be to kill them to rid our home of them. I found a no-kill trap online a month ago and it appears to work really well. I've caught two mice so far. The only improvement I'd like to see with it is an ability for the trap to send a notification to my phone when a mouse has been caught. I doubt there's much of a demand for a feature such as that but I'd pay extra for it. I try and check our traps twice each day. Our spring season seems slow to get off the ground this year. We've had a smattering of warm days but nothing sustained. It looks like our warmer temps will arrive on Thursday for an extended stay. I made two trips to Gertens this morning to buy some hanging baskets and a few flats of flowers. I had to bring them inside due to one last night...

What a beautiful Minnesota day today! I'm out on the deck for the first time this year, enjoying the sounds of Mandolin Orange with Charlie at my side. And there's little to no wind for a change! We received our stimulus payment of $2400 into our bank account last week. What's happening with the coronavirus pandemic is such a huge hit to our economy. If you trust the science behind this pandemic, this is only the beginning stages of what lies ahead. I'd have rather seen the stimulus money directed at those who were hurt by the downturn in the economy rather than to people who suffered no loss in income. This amount of money will do little to help those whose pay has been drastically cut by businesses that had to close their doors. There is going to have to be significantly more outlay in the form of monies for those in need to carry us through this. For all of the bluster from Trump about the strength of the economy, we're seeing that much of it was merely a ven...

When learning the art of air traffic control, many trainers like to instill in their trainees the need for a plan B in case their initial plan for separation in a given scenario turns sour. You don't want to be so locked into making a poor decision work that you fail to utilize your alternate plan until it's too late. It's sound advice. And that's where I see us today as a nation, poised to reelect the most incompetent, unfit president in our history because many of you are insisting on making your initial plan work. I get that some of you voted for Trump as a protest vote or that you're a one-issue voter and that's all that matters (I was that guy once as well). I didn't agree with your vote because it was plainly obvious to most that he wasn't presidential material but given the built-in checks and balances of our democracy, I at least expected he would be prevented from acting on his worst inclinations. I couldn't have been more wrong. Trump h...

We're doing our best to shelter-in-place here in Minnesota in our collective effort to "flatten the curve" of the COVID-19 pandemic. Essential services are still operating but most likely with reduced hours, that includes liquor stores. Plexiglass shields are showing up at grocery store checkout aisles and elsewhere to protect workers from customers who may be infected. Markers on the floor provide recommended spacing for customers waiting in line both inside and out . My heart goes out to the millions who have been laid off from work and have no income, especially those who were barely scratching out a living to begin with. Many retirees are also hurting as their 401Ks have taken a huge hit over the past six weeks with significant losses in the stock market. The market was due for a correction but I don't think many were imagining one such as this. I'm so impressed by those who continue to show up for work each day to keep the basic infrastructures and variou...

Rachel and Holly made it home safely from South Africa a few days earlier than planned. With things changing so much with respect to international travel, we were relieved to see they made it home with no problems along the way. Rachel is doing a 14-day self-quarantine to be on the safe side in case she's been infected. That makes good sense. The screen for the COVID-19 virus when they re-entered the country was not much more than a cursory once-over. We spent 45 minutes with her on a video chat yesterday. It was nice to see her and hear a little more about her travels. Much of our country is sheltering in place due to the COVID-19 virus. Non-essential stores are closed as are restaurants however, most restaurants are open for either carryout or curbside pickup. Paper towels and toilet paper are in short supply as is hand sanitizer. A worker in a store recently told me that manufacturers aren't taking orders from stores for hand sanitizer at this time—it's all being sent ...