Springtime in Wyoming

How do you know when it's Spring in Wyoming?

65 degree temps the day before? Check
Blizzard conditions the day after? Check
60 mph winds? Check
Horizontal, snow, no visibility? Check
No school, no work, no power, no traffic? Check
Any road in and out of the state closed? Check
Snow accumulations over three Corgis in height? Check

Yup, it must be spring.

Let's see, Sunday, pleasantly warm, breezy(really breezy)... Monday, early A.M, cold, blowing, snowing. Nothing like waking up to a foot of snow. Luckily, the school district has a robo caller that let me know schools were closed. Right after that, the power went out. I love sitting in the morning dark listening to the winds howl and snow pile up... On the bright side, no power, no work. Not that I could get out of my driveway anyhow.

Child 2 shoveled the walk during a lull in the storm on Monday. Not that you can tell, much. (View out the front door)

Child 2 went out to shovel the walk on Tuesday, after the storm passed, and did a good job - with appropriate cell phone breaks to whine to friends how mean his mother is, making him do manual labor. (Child 1 is in Arizona in college, laughing at me). Shortly after, Child 2 vanished, leaving me to shovel the driveway on my own. "I'll be back later" he says. I've heard that one before.


So armed with Old Blue, and the Corgis, I set out to tackle the 60 foot driveway.

Circled in red, in the back, my birdfeeder that is 6 feet off the ground, in the front, my birdfeeder that is 3 feet off the ground... now resting on top of the snow. Sorry birdies, hope you pigged out before the storm, I'm not wading out there today.


Of course the Corgis had to make some trails to navigate the yard. (With yellow snow directional markers). Here, Max samples the snow and decides how much to eat.


Merlin, being a good little brother, lets Max break trail through the yard. Once the yard trails were cleared, the Corgis came to stand in the shoveled sections of the driveway, supervise, chase the snow I tossed, and bark.


After an hour I had a donkey trail shoveled out. Not going to get me to work in the morning. I've high centered my car before, not going there again. So trying to blast out is not an option. Oh, and see the nifty sheet of snow hanging off the roof? It fell. Right onto the shoveled out sidewalk. So after I recleared the sidewalk, I went back to the driveway. About four scoops for every shovel width of snow, to get down to pavement. My chain link fence is four feet high, if that gives you any idea.

Heaving shovels of snow up over my head is a workout plan I don't really care for. Oh, and notice the pretty blue skies. Everything close to the pavement was melting... and growing heavier by the minute. Back to the driveway.

3 Hours Later...

Houston, we have driveway! Oh, and the thing under the red arrow? A Monte Carlo. Don't worry, it wasn't going anywhere.

So, does anyone want to predict how long it was before the snowplow came by and buried the end of my driveway after I finished? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

19 minutes.

That's got to be a record, last the radio said, they wouldn't get to plowing out the low priority streets until tomorrow. I didn't even have time to unknot my soggy bootlaces and peel all the skin from my blisters. So back out, with Corgi help (Max ended up with more than one shovelful of snow in the face, not that it stopped him) to unblock the end of my drive and give me a fighting chance of getting out of my street, never mind the subdivision.

That's it, I'm done, and I have a sneaking suspicion I won't be lifting my arms over my head tomorrow. The Wyoming spring workout. Yes, I could get a snowblower, but where's the fun in that? Just in case, I left Old Blue on standby alert. With Child 2's name on the handle.

On Your Mark, Get Set, NaNo!

It’s heeeeerrrrreeee. November. Time to dust off that half-baked plot and try to mold it into a culinary masterpiece. Or at least force it to cough up a bunch of words that form coherent paragraphs.

I’ll be doing NaNo Light this year. I have family obligations and a week long mandatory training for work I can’t weasel out of. I know the spirit of NaNo, according to its founders, is to write no matter what, but you also have to know your limitations. After eight mind-numbing hours of learning a new computer system that isn’t working right yet, coupled with rah-rah sessions extolling the virtues of the latest strategic plan, believe me, I won’t want to write. At least not anything but bloody battle scenes involving Admin vs. Fiscal.

Since I did NaNo last year, I know what I’m capable of, along with the limitations. I’ve set my goal to complete the novel I’ve been working on instead of starting anything new. I’ve spent the past two months tap dancing around the ending and getting nowhere. It finally dawned on me I had a logical inconsistency that had to be addressed before I could move on. Identifying it and figuring out how to handle it opened up a few new possibilities, made things consistent, and gave me my ending. Mostly. (The thuds you hear are from the “Know the ending before you write the book” crowd, fainting in horror.) I knew the ending before I started. But that was before the book mutated along a much more interesting path. So it goes.

So I will NaNo along the best I can, and bull my way through to the End That Remains Elusive In The Light Of Day. I’ll be chopping down those logical inconsistencies one at a time until I’m through the Irrational Jungle.

And here “Anonymous” thought my philosophy degree was a waste of time.

If you need me, I’ll be off NaNo-ing my ending, and thinking deep thoughts about being underemployed.*



*For a bonus Gnome, named the philosopher whose quote I ripped off and blatantly rearranged.

No Whining

Or: I feel opinionated today.

There is a piece in the Commentary section of the Christian Science Monitor today. "Bull's-eye for amateur book critics: An author warms up to her bad reviews on Amazon.com." (HERE) that harkens back to the discussion on David Anthony Durham's Blog about the Rise of the Cyber Critic.

"My first negative review on Amazon.com felt like a dagger to the heart." says Curtiss."

"Not even bestselling authors can escape being maligned by amateur critics whose time has come."

It seems the author doing the commentary takes exception to anyone reviewing her book that is not a 'professional'. My reply would be "Suck it up." People have opinions, people express opinions, the Internet just makes it easier to let a large segment of the universe know about your opinions. The world doesn't owe you pats on the back and fuzzy kittens. The authors I admire and hope to emulate someday are those that are gracious under fire, that realize you can't please all of the people all of the time, and project a Zen-like attitude towards reviews and criticisms.

"It's actually fun to read the ridiculous ones aloud to disbelieving friends. Positive reviews alone, unleavened by a little dissenting vitriol, are really rather boring. Imagine "American Idol" without Simon Cowell."

It's times like this that I think I should have completed my psychology degree but the Board of Psychology Examiners would frown on me smacking someone in the back of the head and saying, "Whatsa matta wid u? Grow up.".

Obsessing over the negative is counterproductive. I still hate getting rejection letters (emails), but that's the way the business is. On the other hand, I dislike conflict and hate giving bad news, so maybe that makes me the wuss here. Critiquing is an art form in itself, one that you have to actively master. It's far easier to roll your eyes at critics because they don't understand your brilliance. Much harder to smile and say, "You may have a point. I'll take that under consideration for next time."

I know my biggest barriers on the Eightfold Path are Right Speech, and Right Effort. Bad reviews hurt, and I can sympathize... but I still don't like whining.

So David, Scott, Kris, thanks for having the class you do in your public relations and blogs. As a reader, writer, and 'amateur critic', I appreciate it.

-- There's no CRYING in baseball!-- (A League Of Their Own)