Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Fiddling as Rome.......

In a comment here on the blog, curiosity was expressed as to the recent disappearance of my editor Sam. Well, Sam's still around but his enthusiasm for blog editing has waned tremendously recently.

Seems with the sudden plunge in outdoor temperatures last week, Sam's suffering a severe case of autumn pyrexia (the exact opposite of spring fever, only the same thing).


This past Saturday morning we awoke to find 4 inches of snow on the patio. That's the day we took these pictures. I should have waited until the next morning. That's because we discovered seven inches in the backyard Sunday!

With the snow I detected a renewed desire in Sam to play. Recalling the snow experiences from my days as an Oregon youth, I accommodated Sam. The snow packed wonderfully, so I tried to show him how to build a snowman, but in rolling the snow, I made it too big to hoist it's middle onto its base. Sam lost interest.


I made a snowball and tossed it at Sam instead. He caught it and ran with it, taunting me to chase him. And so I did, retrieving it from him and throwing it to him again and again. Sam really enjoyed this game until, sadly, he dropped the snowball and we couldn't find it.

But I have to say, more than anyone, Sam keeps me planted in a better reality. Mrs. Dada doesn't help like Sammy does. That's because she shares the same anger and angst as I, watching the nation burn a little further to the ground daily. But Sam distracts us both, many, many hours each week , and for that we owe him big time. (Even though his talents as my blog editor are slipping badly.)

~~~~~~

6 comments:

D.K. Raed said...

Wow, I didn't realize you got all that snow last week! Our temps have dropped, too (low 30's overnight), but not into snow territory yet. We rarely get a snow that stays on the ground all day, but when it does, I'm miserably reminded of our yrs in Spokane WA. Oh hey, yeah as Fran points out, that's the Eastern side of WA, which is much like the eastern side of OR in its very RED nature (plus throw in some white supremecists & other wackos). Jeez, no wonder we couldn't wait to make it back to sandy eggo.

But your attempt to build a snowman with Sam reminds of a big snowstorm one yr in Vegas where the local radio station sponsored a snowman contest. Now the idea was to build the most unique snowman & lots of people came up with some very artistic ones. But you know teenage energy ... my girlfriends & a bunch of big basketball players came up with: well we can't compete with all the creative doodads, so we'll go for size. One guy's dad had a bobcat which we used to pile up humongous amts of snow for the biggest snowman you've ever seen. Must've been 20-ft tall. The base was even wider. The mechanics of it were such that it kept falling over until we figured out to use the Egyptian example & go pyramidal. It actually made the newspapers with us all standing in front of it, looking like king tut's recreational-use zombie army. No award though, not even honorable mention. Must've been the non-snowman shape (it kind of resembled a triangular snowbank), or maybe our slack expressions. But it was the BEST day & not the least because one of the guys brought his huge dog to "help" us. That dog rode the bobcat & kept trying to climb the snow mtn. His spirits were even higher than ours (snow being very rare in Vegas). He ran up to sit on top of the "snowman's head" for the newspaper photo, looking like Rin-Tin-Tin!

D.K. Raed said...

wait, I just realized: Sam has the markings of a Snow Leopard! No wonder he loves it!

Dada said...

D.K. Sounds like just what I needed - a bobcat! I don't remember how we got such big snowman mid-sections hoisted atop their base....there were several of us? We put several smaller ones up there then "joined" 'em?

Anyway, I didn't mind the snow too much. It was kinda cozy. But I really disliked the past two days of drip, drip, drip....melting, wet patio, cold out, etc.

It was nice today with temps in the upper 60's I believe and everything has stopped dripping. Snow's all gone (except for those to big snowman sections, which aren't so big any more).

Speaking of that, I discovered sinking a long piece of PVC into the snowman and drawing it out, I had a dart gun like thing, only filled with snow of which Sam found immediate enjoyment yesterday, dodging snow "darts".

(Wow, Sam--a snow leopard--wait'll I share that one with him.)

Fran said...

Are those flowers in bloom on the edge of the snow? Good to see the Editor enjoying the great outdoors. Editors can only take so much of this real world stuff. Romping about & playing in the snow is a necessity.

Reading dk's snow sculpture story reminded me of someone who built a really impressive *snow godzilla* it had he ridged back & tail, and they used some kind of blue glass for the eyes. It was really cool. I had no part in building it- just one of the best snow sculptures I'd seen.

It's nice to see pics of Sam- he's kind of a breath of freah air in this crazy world.

Dada said...

Fran: Yes, those are real geraniums and my fading mums.

Sounds like a great snow sculpture. Probably the result of your proximity to the coast where they have those great sand sculptures every summer. No doubt a bunch of folks missing the season sharpening their skills for the next summer's competition?

enigma4ever said...

I think your editor is beautiful and doing a great job keeping you in line, whether it be playing in the snow or long walks....he is so handsome....I can tell you my little yellow dog Lilly would just adore him...he is a cutie....( she loves spotted dogs..)

thanks for sharing these...