Surprise!

Surprise!

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Last weekend, I pulled off a surprise party for Tom. I had partners in crime, especially my daughters, but I was feeling the pressure. Would one of us give it away? Would guests arrive on time?

My worries were for naught. Partygoers arrived promptly, parked where instructed (away from the house), and did everything they could to throw the birthday boy off the scent.

Now that the dust has settled I’ve been thinking about the nature of surprises, how people like to be in on them. So many of life’s sudden revelations are unpleasant ones. A call in the night. A rushed trip to the hospital.

To participate in a happy surprise is a gift. In fact, it’s as much a gift for the bystander as for the guest of honor, who may be in shock.

Does this mean I want to plan another surprise party anytime soon? No thank you!

Photo by Beverly Tomb

Lenten Favors

Lenten Favors

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Ash Wednesday has already done me a favor — it’s held off until after Valentine’s Day. I’ve not had my fill of chocolate, because I doubt that’s possible, but I’ve had enough to satisfy.

Today I’ll focus on the hopeful aspect of Lent, the fact that the word itself is derived from the Old English lencten or lengthen. Days are growing longer and lighter. Spring is coming.

Lent, like Advent, is a preparatory season. It’s a time to firm up, whittle down, strengthen the spiritual fibers that hold us (or at least me) together.

Since Lent has done me a favor. I’ll do it one, too. I’ll try to heed its call of growth.

Sublime

Sublime

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I woke to a foggy world. The snow still carpeting my backyard seems to be rising into the air, transforming itself from a solid to a gas, skipping the liquid state altogether. Is there a name for this?

Yes, there is. It’s sublimation, I learn, or relearn, since surely I was tested on this at some point in my schooling. Sublimation is the noun; sublime is the verb.

It doesn’t look sublime (adjective). It looks like a soggy mess. Tufts of ground cover emerge from the now-softened snowcrete. A lone limb lies helter-skelter under the witch hazel tree. It’s more Ash Wednesday than Shrove Tuesday.

Shrove Tuesday it is, though. Also not sublime, because this day of feasting precedes a day of fasting. On the other hand, I have some time before the boom is lowered. I think I’ll go downstairs now and have a piece of cake for breakfast. Now that is sublime.

Better Living Through Chemistry

Better Living Through Chemistry

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This morning, I learned how to make a bomb. I doubt I will ever put this knowledge to use, but if I find myself in need of propulsion in space, I’ll have a trick up my sleeve.

According to Andy Weir’s novel, The Martian, which I just finished, all I need is sugar, which I have far too much of in this house. I’ll also need a zero-g environment, more difficult to summon, true. But if I had such an environment, Weir explains, “sugar would float and the grains will separate, maximizing surface area. In a pure-oxygen environment, 16.7 million joules will be released for every kilogram of sugar used, releasing the explosive force of eight sticks of dynamite.”

I will soon stir some sugar into my tea.. The fact that I could turn these calories into an explosive device is, well, blowing my mind. Better living through chemistry. Or something like that.

Mars surface map, courtesy NASA.

Spoke Too Soon?

Spoke Too Soon?

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Yesterday I had coffee with a trail watcher, someone who lives near a Reston trail and knows its condition. “I’ve seen people walking their dogs on the trail,” she said. “I think it’s plowed.”

Did I speak too soon yesterday when I moaned about being trail starved? After all, I haven’t been driving around to all the trailheads in the area, checking their status. The Franklin Farm trails are certainly not plowed, and the Reston trails near Lake Anne were unreliable when I tried them last week.

So after we parted, with the odd snowflake flying in a blustery gray sky, I went in search of a nearby path to wander. And sure enough, one that wasn’t cleared last week was down to pavement.

How good it felt to amble among the trees again! There were a few stretches of black ice to avoid, but other than that, I was in business.

Trail Starved

Trail Starved

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These are long days for walkers in the suburbs. Yes, we can walk on the roads. We can and we do. We can use ellipticals or treadmills in gyms or in our basements. Some of us (my neighbor, in fact) traipses around her house when everything else fails.

But what we cannot do (unless we have snow shoes) is walk on a trail. My neighborhood and many of the developments around me have no sidewalks. What they do have, though, are paths, often paved.

Finding these and using them has lifted my heart and put a skip in my step. Trails have given me what I didn’t think was possible when we first moved here — a walking life. A way to make my way on foot from one place to the other.

But for almost three weeks now the trails have been off limits; more ice rinks than paths, and I’m logging miles on the main street in my neighborhood. I’m still putting one foot in front of the other, propelling myself through space. But I’m trail starved. I can’t wait to be back.

(If I’m going to imagine a trail walk, I might as well make it summer.)

Virtual Vacation

Virtual Vacation

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We’ve entered the double digit dates of February. The snow is melting, but not fast enough. It’s time for a virtual vacation.

I”m thinking of friends vacationing in Madeira. No trip there for us this winter, but many memories. Last year we hiked across the island, beginning on the Mimosa Trail, then traversing Madeira’s vertiginous spine along Boca do Risco. I’m a scaredy cat, and there were spots along this trail where I refused to look down, across or anywhere but the path directly in front of me. When I did raise my eyes, I saw the view you see above.

A few hours later, we were climbing down to the village of Machico. It had clouded up by then, but the rain held off and we sat outside at a cafe planning how we would get home. Bus schedules were consulted, poncha was consumed. A few hours later, we arrived back at the hotel, muddy, tired and filled to the brim with the beauty and charm of this special island.

Sculptural

Sculptural

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We will have highs of 40 degrees or more the next few days, a welcome respite to the Arctic chill that’s plagued us for a month. But what we won’t have — soon — is sculptural snow.

I’ve grown accustomed to parking lot art displays and corner exhibitions, to strolls that are more like gallery walks than typical rambles.

Yes, there are advantages to warmer temperatures. Soon, perhaps, we’ll be able to park both cars side by side in the driveway.

But before this happens, the snowcrete will weaken and turn to mush. The chiseled snowbanks and statuesque berms will vanish before our eyes. Soon, we’ll be back where we started — strangely still in drought conditions.

Normal life will be easier. I won’t lie. But there’s a part of me that will miss these bizarre, frigid, sculptural days.

Improving with Age

Improving with Age

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What is it about watching the Olympics that seems to improve with age? The events themselves seem more audacious and death-defying. Take slope style skiing — the rails and jumps, the sheer moxie needed to fling oneself down a mountain.

Or take figure skating, my favorite winter event. I watched hours of it over the weekend. I learned that the American men’s phenom, Ilia Melinin, grew up 20 minutes from my house, attended a local high school. Has everyone else in the world already heard of this man, who’s called the Quad God for all the quadruple axels, toe loops and salchows he can do? Probably!

No matter. He — and all his compatriots from the U.S., Japan, Italy, Georgia and Canada in the team finals — are all the better for being new to me.

The more inflexible my body becomes, the more I must exercise to keep it in working order, the more I admire youthful bones, muscles and tendons. These are treasures you do not recognize have until you do not have them. And Olympic athletes have them in spades.

16 Candles

16 Candles

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Today, A Walker in the Suburbs turns 16. It’s grown from a baby to a kid, and is now a rebellious teenager, asking for the keys to the car. How does a blog become rebellious, you ask. It demands a makeover, for starters. It sleeps late. It takes risks. In short, it grows up.

When I wrote my first post on February 7, 2010, blogs may not have been in their heyday but they were more relevant than they are now. But I’d finally found a moment to start the one that had been rattling around in my head, a perennial resolution I thought I’d never keep.

I know that a blog in an AI-driven, highly algorithm’d world is like one of those Amish horse and buggies I used to see on the roads in northern Ohio, when we visited Suzanne in college. It is hopelessly out of date.

But the more out-of-date blogs are, the more rebellious I feel. Here I am on WordPress, world! Take that, Substack! Must be those 16 candles, egging me on.

(Photo: Wikimedia Commons. I only count 15 candles, but close enough!)