7.31.2009

[Your caption here]

While we were walking pit bulls this morning, one of the subjects in the photo below asked me if I had put it on the blog. No, I replied, because every time I looked at it, I was reminded of the title of a certain movie starring Jim Carey and Jeff Daniels.

But since you asked nicely, sweetheart, here is the shot of you and Michael, the dynamic engineering duo, posing before your professionally guided fly fishing trip earlier this month. Blog readers may feel free to affix their own caption it.

7.29.2009

A Room With a View

We drove to Vail this afternoon to visit our friend Kim, who's in the hospital there after taking a bad fall during a bike race last Saturday. Despite many broken bones and a lot of pain, she's revelling in the view from her hospital room's huge window, which looks out through the tops of tall pines to—thanks to all the rain we've had this summer—Vail's lush, green ski hills.

Hopefully she'll be fully recovered by the start of ski season.

7.28.2009

Behind the Scenes of Art History 101

As some of you know, this tale of thwarted artistic treachery is currently captivating my imagination. It appears in British author Rachel Cusk's The Last Supper, a travel memoir that also features commentary on Italian art.

At the time the story opens, Michelangelo was in the midst of sculpting a tomb for Pope Julius II.

While Michelangelo was out of Rome, [the artists] Bramante and Raphael set about trying to undermine his reputation. They suggested to Julius that to build his own tomb was to invite his own death. When Michelangelo returned, he was told by Julius that work on the tomb had been suspended. Instead, he was to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, a job at which Raphael and Bramante were confident he would fail, for Michelangelo was principally a sculptor, not a painter. Michelangelo locked himself into the Sistine Chapel: no one was allowed in, not even Julius. It seemed that to fetter Michelangelo was simply to make his myth the more powerful. Soon, all of Rome was fixated by the mystery of what lay behind that locked door. Then, according to Vasari, Michelangelo had to leave Rome for a few days, and while he was away Bramante got hold of the keys. He and Raphael went in to look. And what they saw, of course, was the preeminent artistic achievement of the Renaissance, and perhaps of the whole history of art, past, present, and future.

If only we could see the expressions on the faces of Bramante and Raphael at the moment they stepped into the Sistine Chapel . . .

7.26.2009

Dead Silence

Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.

William Shakespeare
from Sonnet 73

During the hail and wind storm last week, the Denver Post noted that in one park alone, "hundreds of birds . . . were killed or maimed by hail and flying debris." A local news station reported that, "The Birds of Prey Foundation in Broomfield has been swamped with injured hawks and owls since Monday's storm."

Our neighborhood, which is bordered by a woods on the south and open space on the north, used to be full of birds, particularly small ones — finches, chickadees, sparrows. Their chirping often woke me in the morning. Now there is only silence.

I walked Hana today in the local park in which I first heard (and saw) a western meadowlark. Again, total, eerie silence.

7.21.2009

Mother Nature Strikes Again

An enormous hail storm hit us suddenly late last night. My neighbor Kim says that even long-time Denver residents have never seen anything like it. It killed all of our flowers and vegetables, and stripped most of the leaves from the five spirea bushes in back. The hail also shredded two big window screens in the front of the house. Being unemployed sometimes leaves us feeling like white trash; now our house reflects our mood.




7.20.2009

Splendor in the Grass

The Denver Post reported yesterday that "2009 has been a banner year for wildflowers." In the past three months, we've seen wildflower species that that we never even glimpsed last year. In 2008, we certainly never saw hillsides full of wildflowers, as we have this year.






This exuberant fecundity isn't limited to the plant kingdom. During yesterday's mountain hike, there was so much grasshopper hanky-panky going on that it made Jim and me act like third graders. ("Euuuw, there's another couple going at it!") Too bad all those the grassshoppers didn't appear to be enjoying themselves.

7.15.2009

Adieu, mon ami

Adieu: from Old French a dieu, (I commend you) to God : a, to (from Latin ad) + Dieu, God (from Latin deus)

Despite your best intentions to get to know the locals, when you're an expat in a foreign country, hanging out with other Americans can be as restful as flopping in an old easy chair. So it was with our friends Joe and Jill, fellow Midwesterners (as Minnesotans, they were the genuine article) living in Brussels at the same time we did.

Joe and Jill jumped into European living with zest. Their travels took them to the continent's great cities—Paris, Rome, Athens, Venice, Berlin—as well as to quirky, known-only-to-locals spots, such as the only farm in Belgium that sells donkey milk (with the added benefit of a herd of adorable donkeys for Jill, a great animal lover, to pet). They loved perusing the open air markets for antiques, trying grand and hole-in-the-wall restaurants, and entertaining their friends in their beautiful, high-ceilinged row house near the Ixelles ponds. (Joe made an exquisite kir royale and then told you hilarious stories while you were trying to drink it, making it difficult not to snort champagne out your nose.)

Joe, an accomplished cyclist with, as Jill says, a "passion" for riding, went native and joined a bicycling club in a country where cycling is revered; Belgians follow the Tour de France with the enthusiasm of Americans during March Madness. After he and Jill were transferred to southern California late last year, he became a member of a local cycling club.

Joe was struck and killed by an underage, drunk driver during a cycling club ride in the Angelus National Forest last Saturday morning. He was 43; he and Jill had been married for six years.

7.10.2009

Mountain Girl

Lillian, my "granddaughter-of-the-heart," is visiting Colorado with her mom and dad this week. (That's Michael, her dad, in the background.) Although she's only three, Lillian hiked the trail to Rocky Mountain National Park's Alberta Falls like a pro.

7.06.2009

Arrrghhhh

The dryer decided today to ignore its timer, while simultaneously emitting only cold air. The clothes were still damp when I finally realized that the "the most expensive appliance in your home to operate" had been running for hours. HOURS. Of course, this happened two days before Catherine, Michael, and Lillian arrive for a six-day visit, and after a weekend when I had better things to do than laundry.

If anyone would like to witness an example of spontaneous human combustion, just try telling me that, "God doesn't give us more than we can handle."

7.02.2009

Flee response

Overwhelmed by stress, we fled to the mountains yesterday, hoping that a hike in the Mount Evans wilderness area would ease our minds.


On the drive home, we talked of how difficult it would be to leave Colorado, of being able to see views like this only on vacation. If we return to Michigan, will "our" beloved mountains call to us constantly as Innisfree did Yeats?

I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand in the roadway, or on the pavements gray,
I hear it in the deep heart's core.*

Will our hearts break?

*William Butler Yeats, from The Lake Isle of Innisfree

7.01.2009

What now?

We learned yesterday that the tenants in our Michigan house are moving out ahead of schedule, due to a job transfer. The news, coming on top of our Colorado landlord's insistence that we sign a full year's lease (we've been going month-to-month since May, paying a 20 percent rent premium for the privilege) threw us into a panic.

Do we move back to Michigan, where the economy is worse than it is in Colorado, but where we have friends, family, and professional contacts? Or do we stay in Colorado, which we have come to love for its community spirit and friendly people, and, above all, the incredible natural beauty which has been a balm to our ragged souls during these stressful months?