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Sunday, 22 November 2009

Finding Treasure

Yesterday was a glorious day here in southern Michigan and it looks like today will be more of the same. It was late afternoon by the time Brett got home and I finished ironing his shirts and looked up some cache sites, but we went out to enjoy the last couple of hours of sunlight while hunting geocaches in the beautiful town of Buchanan.

Our first stop was at a small downtown park with a creek running along the edge. I found the coordinates on the footbridge over the creek. We knew we were looking for a microcache in a magnetic container, so I concentrated on the bridge railings. I refused to put my hand through and just feel around for the container, though.

Once again I forgot my gardening gloves. I really need to just leave them in the van. While I was leaning over the railing to see behind it, Brett found the cache under the bridge and tossed it up to me to sign the log.

Our next stop was just a few blocks away at the Art Center. It was closed, but the cache was hidden in the belly of a large metal giraffe sculpture on the front lawn. Just as I found it, the woman who runs the center opened the door and invited us to come in and look around, dog and all. There were some wonderful photographs of the inside of the Clark Equipment Co. main factory which has stood abandoned and falling derelict for two or three decades.

As chance would have it, the next stop on our list was a small park outside the guardhouse that once protected the factory. The factory itself sits across a field. It was a bit far for my little camera, but you can see the old buildings next to the awesome old brick chimney.

There were other buildings scattered around. This one, which was probably once the factory offices, is being used by another company now.

We parked behind an empty building with beautiful rounded edges. I'm not sure when these buildings were erected.

By the time I finished taking pictures, the sun was setting and we hadn't even started looking for the cache yet. We wandered into the little park, which was mostly a walkway built around a duck pond. The cache was under the footbridge. As we headed back to the van, I stopped for one last photo of the reflections in the pond.

We only made three stops and we found all three caches. But those weren't the treasure. The running water at the first park, the beautiful photographs at the art center, the old buildings at the last stop, finding places we didn't know were there - that is the real treasure and the purpose of geocaching.

I'm holding back a few photos for other posts. I'm glad that one of the first lessons I learned in geocaching is to always take a camera with me. Now if I could just learn the one about gloves as well!

Saturday, 21 November 2009

Currently
Chronicle, Vol. 1: The 20 Greatest Hits
By Creedence Clearwater Revival
Run Through the Jungle
see related
Waiting for Crotchety

I’m getting so cranky in my middle age; well on my way to being a crotchety old woman, but I‘m not there yet. Brett and I went shopping yesterday. Nothing so fun as Christmas shopping. No, we went poster frame, sheet of acrylic, impulse DVD, windshield wiper and grocery shopping. Okay, so the impulse DVD was kind of fun. And grabbing a sandwich at Steak - n- Shake would have been fun if a parade of people had not marched past our table every five minutes asking if everything tasted okay. First the server, then the management guy, then the management woman, five seconds apart and back in five minutes. I was more amused at Brett’s increasingly irritated expression than annoyed.

The grocery store was busy, but I knew it would be worse today and tomorrow. We filled the cart and got in line at the checkout. The woman in front of me was one of those annoying people who unloads her cart, then leaves it in the aisle behind her, blocking the next person (me) from getting close enough to unload her (my) cart. Cranky saintvi pushed the woman’s cart forward until it bumped her butt and started unloading my cart. Then it started. The woman’s daughter was in the next lane. Apparently, they had the exact same items and the daughter was being charged a dollar more for hers. Mother and daughter blocked two check-out lanes and tied up two cashiers as they argued loudly. Cranky saintvi kept pushing her items onto the conveyer belt and shoving the mother’s grocery cart into her butt trying to get her to move along. I can’t wait until crotchety old saintvi bursts out of her shell. She would have thrown two bucks at mother and daughter and told them to shut the hell up and get the hell out so the rest of us can go home. Then she would have told the cashier to stop helping the customers in the next lane over and take care of the line of people waiting in her own lane. Crotchety saintvi would have been very popular with the people waiting in line behind her. I hope she busts out someday. Cranky saintvi is too nice.

Friday, 20 November 2009

Currently
The Other Side of the Mirror
By Stevie Nicks
Doing the Best I Can
see related
25 Things For Which I Am Thankful
I've been tagged more than once for the little "25 Things About Me" writing fad. I swore I wasn't going to resort to that for a post, but then I had the bright idea to combine it with the Featured Grownups topic "Giving Thanks." I was trying to keep it recent, things from within the past couple of weeks, but after the first dozen it got a lot harder than I expected. Yeah, I should have thought it out more carefully. And I definitely should have started earlier. I stayed up entirely too late working on a list. I could probably do a better job if I rewrote it now, at 9:30 AM, but it's more fun to see how my fuzzy brain was working at 2 AM. Oh, and if you really want to know more about me, here's the post I wrote last year when I was tagged.
1. The kitchen is painted!
2. I no longer have to get up in the morning and put on my tie-dyed Peace Frogs tee-shirt. (Because the kitchen is painted!)
3. Most of November was sunny and warm.
4. I met some friends for lunch at a new Thai restaurant this week.
5. Krysten made it safely to the conference in Mexico City. (Apparently, I should have been trying to track the taxi ride from the airport to her hotel instead of her flights, since it was clearly the most dangerous part of the journey.)
6. Boo had a bath last night and doesn’t stink so badly today.
7. I figured out how to save my old iTunes library I had backed up on the external hard drive onto the new version of iTunes and was finally able to sync my iPod.
8. I am married to a man who doesn’t mind when I’m too tired to do more than open a can of Manwich and make sloppy joes for supper.
9. We watched Star Trek while eating our sloppy joes.
10. We didn’t get swine flu.
11. We still have lots of candy left over from Halloween.
12. Brett got a free turkey.
13. This list is half finished.
14. The fog this week meant the temperature rose. It also looked cool.
15. I spent a couple of hours last week with a friend whom I rarely see and her adorable son.
16. My husband installed a new internet card in my laptop.
17. The Messiah Sing Along is coming up.
18. Sniffing Vicks VapoRub clears my sinuses.
19. One jar of Vicks lasts years. (Since I just sniff it, I can ignore the expiration date.)
20. The Colts beat the Patriots.
21. I met Katers last month.
22. Krysten is coming home for Thanksgiving.
23. Did I mention the kitchen is painted?
24. This list is almost finished.
25. My beautiful little Savanna had her second birthday yesterday.
What are you thankful for?

Thursday, 19 November 2009

Currently
Imagine
By Eva Cassidy
Early Morning Rain
see related
Autumn Mist

Yesterday was a dark, gloomy day. Or so I thought until I actually got out in it late in the afternoon. It was still dark, it was spitting rain and misty. Once I got away from the houses surrounding my view in the village, however, it didn't seem gloomy at all. There was a fog that, like a rainbow, stayed just out of reach, always ahead of me, tantalizing.

I love fog. The starkness of leafless trees is softened and a sense of mystery prevails as familiar objects wrap themselves in misty veils, landmarks transform and you try to guess what it is rising out of the mist ahead. A farm, in this instance.

Even the mundane takes on a certain beauty when shrouded in fog and misty rain.

Wednesday, 18 November 2009

Currently
Finding Nemo (Two-Disc Collector's Edition)
By Eric Bana, Nicholas Bird (II), Albert Brooks, Willem Dafoe, Ellen DeGeneres
see related
Fish-n-Flush
I have so much I want to blog about that I can't, so much I want to say that I won't. My mind is so full of things that are going on that I either don't want to talk about or have been asked not to, I can't seem to think clearly enough to write something original and innocuous today. You know what that means? Repost! This was originally written while we were in the middle of a bathroom remodel which is finally, thank heaven, finished except for purchasing a new clothes hamper and trashcan. Even if you remember reading this before, it's a fun one to revisit.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the Fish-n-Flush.
Is that a crappie hiding behind the float ball?
The fish tank is built around the toilet tank, so don't worry - the fish will survive the flush. I'm pretty sure my daughter will look at this and think it's cool and will want one. I'm not so sure. Let's make a list of pros and cons, shall we? I'm willing to overlook the hideous yellow rocks and turquoise plant. I'm even willing to pretend the horrifying green plastic seat and lid are not there.

PROS:
Convenient draining: When the tank needs cleaning, simply hang the siphoning hose over the side and into the toilet bowl.
Convenient burial: It's like burying Grandma in the basement. No fuss, no messy transportation.
Convenient...um...okay, I'm all out of pros.

CONS:
Guilt: Anyone who has one or more fish knows that whenever the light goes on and a person approaches the tank, the fish think they're getting fed. They're so cute, swimming in excited circles expecting their reward of dehydrated fish flakes. Instead, they get an up close and personal view of your bare backside. If that's not bad enough, when you stand up they get a fisheye view of what you accomplished before you flush. It's like you're taunting them. "See what goes in here? Someday, that's where you're going."

Creepiness: I can't think of a situation where I feel more vulnerable than when I'm on the toilet. Pants around the ankles, unable to move. If I see a spider or a cricket across the room, I freak. I can't imagine being able to reach the necessary level of relaxation if I'm leaning against living critters. This leads to...

...Performance anxiety: No way would I be able to take care of business with all those little eyes watching me.
The fish of the world can relax; I've decided the Fish-n-Flush is not for me. Guess I'll just keep swimming looking. Wondering what else is out there? Tune in tomorrow. It's even worse than this one.