winter

Fall is in the Air

My photos look a little out of focus today. Kind of psychedelic. Or is it just me? The sky is an odd color. A rainy, dark day. But color starting as the trees adjust to winter.

I actually got a story published this week. No money but think of the fame! The notoriety!

Today is also gloomy and rainy. But that’s okay. We need rain. Rain is good. Winter is coming.

I read today that scientists think mammals will die out in 250 million years. All the land masses will collide, the sun will get brighter, and carbon dioxide will rise. We will suffocate and melt. I wonder if we will really last that long. Will we morph into something else? Will another species thrive on the new atmosphere? Will we build bio-domes like our science fiction writers predict? It is hard to imagine what 250 million years looks like. The dinosaurs roamed the earth for 165 million years and then all blew up about 65 million years ago. Mammals showed up about 225 million years ago. So we are almost half way through our time here. On the other hand the earth itself is 4.5 billion years old. We are but blips in time. It’s like democracy in Russia. A nanosecond. Apparently Earth has another 4 billion years to go. Don’t think I’ll be around to see it.

I’m reading Isabel Allende’s memoirs and in it she mentions the filming of The House of Spirits. I never knew it was made into a movie so I watched it last night. It was star studded, Vanessa Redgrave, Meryl Streep, Jeremy Irons, Glenn Close, Antonio Banderas, Winona Ryder, and a million other people. Of Love and Shadows is another one of her books that was made into a movie. I haven’t read that one but looks interesting.

I read that people who are optimistic and have positive thoughts on aging tend to live longer. I’m feeling positive I am aging.

A friend just found out he is going to Burundi for work. The poorest nation in the world. The most unhappy nation in the world. I first heard about Burundi during the Hutu-Tutsi genocide of the 1990’s. So I have been trying to find positive things about it. It is in the African Great Lakes region bordering on Lake Tanganyika. This is what I found.

They make pretty sisal baskets.

https://basketsofafrica.com/product-category/burundi-baskets/

They have pretty birds.

Image: Michael Gwyther-Jones

Nice landscape.

Image: Dave Proffer

Drums are important.

Lake Tanganyika is big. It has hippos.

See, positive, positive, positive.

wall bricks

Rock Ballet

Yesterday we went to see Pink Floyd The Wall: A Rock Ballet presented by the Twin Cities Ballet Company. I am kind of a ballet snob so my expectations were not super high but I thought it might be interesting. The last time they performed this ballet they got some good reviews. The music was performed live by a local band as well (Momentary Lapse of Floyd).

The Fitzgerald Theater is a fairly small theater built in 1910 originally called  the Sam S. Shubert Theater. It has gone through several iterations and was renamed in 1994, after native son F. Scott Fitzgerald. 

The story of The Wall is kind of a sad one. The boy named Pink loses his father at a very young age and his mother becomes over protective, symbolized by bricks in a wall used to shelter him from the world. School is a bad experience with abusive teachers and it pushes him to drugs and it is down hill from there. 

The musicians were on a raised platform at the back of the stage and the dancers performed between them and the audience. The only ‘set’ were a bunch of large styrofoam painted ‘bricks’ that the dancers carried around with them and built walls.

I would say overall it was interesting and there were some good dance moves. I noticed early on that the whole dance troupe was white and mostly tall blond white. Yes, we are in Minnesota, Dorothy. The band was way too loud for the venue and made it uncomfortable. I wished I had earplugs. Maybe I’m just old but I sat with my fingers over my ears most of the time. And we left at intermission.

We went home and put The Wall on YouTube and Don performed interpretive dance around the living room. Very entertaining.

Then we drove to Como Lake and took some pictures.

It is snowing again, of course. have a good week!

It is Official

Skyway Art. Walking through the Skyway this week I noticed these new window murals. They are kind of cool.

It’s official. I’m retired. Day three of retirement. The countdown is over. Now I can get to all those projects I’ve been putting off for my retirement. 

You might want to check out postcardbuzz.com this week. I came across some postcards from the turn of the century (1900’s). Apparently it was all the rage to send photographs as postcards. Here is one that was appropriate for the season. 

Speaking of the season. We have had over 40 inches of snow this winter so far. We are running out of places to put it. 

The US House of Representatives are the butt of all jokes at the moment. Specifically Kevin McCarthy. What an idiot. They have voted 10 times so far and he still can’t get elected speaker of the house. Where is Nancy when you need her?

I started reading the Raj Quartet, first one is The Jewel in the Crown. I saw the dramatization on PBS years ago. So far I am enjoying the book.

Obviously not much floating around in my head this week….