Twist of Fate

It was a typical workday, rushing around, 10 things going on at once. Always trying to sneak in one last thing before dashing off to something else.

Today I was preparing some papers I needed for a 4 p.m. appointment and pretty fixated on whether or not I had everything with me when I left for the parking structure. I have a great job and I work in a great downtown location, but the down side is I have to park two blocks away in a parking garage.

In cold weather, I'm not digging it, but that's what I have to do, so I do it.

Anyway, I'm rushing out to get my car, head down on Fourth Street, watching for icy patches on the sidewalk.

All of sudden, my foot landed wrong on some sort of grate in the sidewalk and my ankle wrenched to the side. I stopped in my tracks, straightened out my foot, gingerly set it down on the pavement in front of me to make sure it wasn't going to be painful and then -- SPLAT!!! -- about two feet in front of me a huge glob of ice and snow landed on the sidewalk.

It had fallen from somewhere high above me. I was walking next to a six-story building, so I guess it could have been the roof or else one of the ledges on the higher floors.

I walked around it -- and then it dawned on me.

If I hadn't twisted my ankle, that mass from above would have landed on my head.

So there must be a little angel out there who twists people's ankles.

To that angel, I say thank you.

Let It Go

After several days of mind-numbing cold, the mercury hit 37 today. It is indeed a sad day when we are cheering for 37, but here I am and "hooray."

In the spirit of thawing, I decided to soften my heart toward the outdoors. It's been harsh to me, so I was giving it right back with attitude. But 37? I can work with that.

So I took the dog for a long walk and upon my return, decided to have a go at the ice-caked driveway with a strong, flat-edge shovel.

As I'm digging and chipping up little 4-inch pieces of ice and snow from the long driveway and pitching them up on the lawn, a woman walked by with a boxer on the end of her leash.

"Let it go," she said to me with just a hint of a laugh.

"I know, I should," I said. "I don't why I'm doing this."

"There is no point," she said, again with just a bit of a giggle in her voice.

Off she went.

I could have taken offense. After all, I'm trying to clear dangerous ice and snow from my driveway and sidewalk to help people like her who want to walk across it. I'm saving her from falling on her butt and being dragged for blocks by her dog while clawing the icy ground in an attempt to get up.

But she said it so kindly, almost like she was talking to an old lady cutting her grass with a scissors. What I was doing -- or more accurately put, trying to do -- was absurd.

I should let it go.

There is no point.

So I put my shovel away and went in.

Starting again

So this didn't go so well in 2007. My experiment, that is. I wanted to regain my interest in writing, try to find that elusive thing that I have lost. And in 2007, I didn't.

The end of the year is only weeks away. Christmas will be here next week, followed in short order by my 40th birthday.

I like the sound of being 40. It makes me feel -- maybe this is silly, I don't care -- finally grown up. Like someone who can make her own decisions without anyone questioning them because, after all, I did get to 40 years old, so I can't be that stupid.

Will 2008 be the year I get it back?

I went to a meeting last week for something I'm going to be helping out with at the high school and two strangers stopped me to tell me that they loved my column. They read it every week and loved it. I never know what to say in that situation.

Is it rude to say I got sick of it? Is it a lie? Kind of, yes, it is.

The truth is that for a variety of reasons, I contracted writer's block. A severe case. I gave up the column in 2004 and still haven't started writing again. I'd say that going on four years warrants the name "severe."

All of a sudden, I hit a wall. I wasn't sick of writing. I literally could not do it anymore.

I've always been one who finds life interesting, and all of sudden, and again, for a variety of reasons, I didn't find life interesting. In fact, when people would tell me that they had something interesting to share, I often felt dread. I knew I would not find it interesting, no matter what it was.

In writing the column, I wrote about my own life a lot, but I liked to share other people's stories too. But when you are bored with your own life and certain that no one else's is interesting either, what do you do with that? What on earth do you write about?

So I said "enough" and stopped.

The sad part is that I really miss it.

So this is my New Year's resolution for 2008. I'm going to sit here every few days and put words on this blog and see what happens. I've been limping along with this thing long enough. It's time to juice it up and see what happens.

Just might be interesting.

The Grinch Who Stole Tree Stems

I was walking with a neighborhood friend tonight, stretching our legs and trying to burn off some holiday excess, when she told me about something strange she saw earlier this evening.

There was a man walking up and down the streets in our neighborhood carrying a small saw. He would stop at each Christmas tree discarded at the curb, bend over the tree and saw off the stem of the tree. As my friend and I walked the streets, we checked each tree we found and sure enough, the stems were missing, cut right up to the start of the tree branches.

This odd sight raises a lot of questions. Mainly, what on earth was this guy doing?

Maybe he has a wood-burning stove in his house as one of our other neighbors does. But if that's it, he's only getting about four to six inches of fuel at a shot. Is that worth the effort?

My friend thought maybe he uses the tree stems for candle holders or some other crafty-type project, in which case cruising the streets undetected under cover of darkness might make a lot of sense. He could get a lot of stems and make candle holders to last him a lifetime -- or to resell for an outrageous profit in Door County or Lake Geneva.

Don't know, but if you see him, do something we didn't get the chance to do. Ask him what's he's up to.