Tag Archives: Nature

‘Tis the Season

Posted on by
Reply
Winter Stars, by June Winter, wildflowers

Winter Stars, by June Winter, wildflowers

Work this week was in turmoil. There was the usual program politics, which level set the workplace angst. On top of all of this, was Friday, the final day in our open enrollment period for next year’s benefits. There’s no minute like the last minute. The angst can be fairly placed at the feet of Obamacare. As a Democrat I am entitled to say this. This year, we had a Cadillac healthcare program, or so it would have been judged, if the company hadn’t jacked-up our rates for next year. Like I said, there was a lot of angst this week at work.

A month ago, the previous paragraph would have been preamble to a mighty political rant. Today, I don’t really have the heart for it. I guess that the furor of this year’s election season has tamped down. All of our elected servants are back at work, doing what they do best, bickering. We’ve heard it all before and we will certainly hear it again, and again, and again, before it is finally all over. As we careen every closer to the looming fiscal cliff, I say let Toonces drive.

Although it was a little grayer than I had hoped, Saturday was way too unseasonably warm to spend all day railing against the Republican’ts. “Holy climate change Batman, to the bike cave!” Anne is still on the disabled list. She started PT for her injured knee this week. So, I’m riding solo today.

Afterwards, Anne and I returned to the park and went to the Missouri History Museum to view the Discover the Real George Washington exhibit. I’ll write about this show later, except to say that they had a pair of Washington’s false teeth on display and they weren’t wooden. The other main exhibit currently at the history museum is Missouri in the Civil War. We’ve already seen this show, but in the MacDermott Grand Hall separating these two shows, a museum intern put on a one woman dramatization of African-American history in Saint Louis, during the Civil War. After the show she took questions, but was quickly overwhelmed. Her boss stepped in and answered this question so thoroughly that no further questions were asked.

Except I saw the boss later and asked her about the Spirit of Saint Louis airplane that hangs in MacDermott Hall. She said that this replica of Lindbergh’s plane was built in 1928, the year after the famous transatlantic flight. It was built by Ryan Airlines, the same company that built the original plane. Our replica is quite special itself, having been featured in the movie “The Spirit of Saint Louis”, starring Jimmy Stewart. Both Stewart and his consultant, Charles Lindbergh, flew this iconic replica.

Jane Winter’s “Winter Stars” wreath is part of the collection on wreaths on display this Christmas season in the Ridgeway center at the Missouri Botanical Gardens. I like this wreath, but I really like the juxtaposition between the work’s tittle and its designer’s name. There are many other wreaths in this show and I’ll be doling them out, in this year’s run-up to Christmas.

Oak Knoll Park Fountain

Posted on by
Reply

Oak Knoll Park Fountain

Oak Knoll Park is the closest park to our home. When the boys were young it was the go to place for open green space and playing outside. It even has a nice little playground. It is a Clayton city park, so we’ve always had to cross Clayton Road to get to it. This has led to a few heart stopping moments over the years.

There are two large houses in the park. These were once the private residence of two brothers. The large tyrannosaurus and triceratops figures that now reside outside the McDonnell Planetarium lived here, back in our own little Jurassic age. One of the two buildings was open to the public, it served as the Saint Louis Natural History Museum. When the Science Center expanded to the south side of Highway 40, the dinosaurs left, along with the Natural History Museum.

At the bottom of the knoll that contributes to this park’s name it a small pond. Anne always enjoys searching for turtles in the warmer months. Once there was a rather large stainless steel sculpture that was designed to rotate, so that it was always facing the sun. Its motion didn’t last long, but the sculpture hung on anyway. Now, it has been replaced with the pictured fountain. I went for a walk this week and snapped this picture.

Under the rubric of Anne teaching Pooh, I have another story for you. Anne passed out different colored slips of paper to her fourth grade class this week. Written on each slip were sentences from “Winnie the Pooh”. Students with the same colored slip were asked to order the sentences written on each slip correctly. After they had deliberated, Anne queried one of the groups, “Which slip should be first?” One young boy piped up that it should be his. Next Anne asked, “How do you know this?” He explained that his slip had the extra wide top margin that you would expect to see at the top of a page. That’s thinking outside the box.

Wednesday night was the big Powerball drawing. For the record, I bought a single ticket and I did not win. There were two winners and one of the winning tickets was sold in Missouri. That was all that was announced until later in the day. Thursday morning, the question on everybody’s mind was who was not there at work. I made the joke that the IT department had won, which elicited the desired sour expression among the gathered throng. Later I passed by the IT room and the door was locked. I had my own little sinking spell there and then. Later still I found the IT group. They were all losers like me, holding on to their day job.

Dan-isms

Posted on by
1

Yosemite Sagebrush Lizard

The Dan referred to in this post is a friend of mine. Dan shared with me some of his accumulated wisdom about the modern workplace. As background, we both work in office environments, for large companies. The reader should be warned that Dan holds a rather sardonic opinion on work. Here are a few of my favorites from his much longer list.

  • Engineers are like machines which turn coffee into PowerPoint presentations.
  • Never under any circumstances drink a large cup of coffee before a three-hour staff meeting. [I wish that I had known this before this week’s staff meeting.]
  • If you think nobody cares, miss all of your meetings. You’ll know for sure in a week, one way or the other.
  • There are two ways to argue your point, yell and yell louder. [If you say it long enough and loud enough, it has got to be true, right?]
  • A closed mouth gathers no budget. [This is sort of the opposite of the squeaky wheel gets the grease.]

The Yosemite Sagebrush Lizard pictured with this post was photographed at the overlook between the upper and lower Yosemite Falls. This is located a good thousand feet above the valley floor. He is about a foot in length. Since he was encountered at the halfway point, this begs the question, did he climb up or did he climb down? Either way it makes for a long journey, maybe even a generational one.