May You Live in Interesting Times...

The title of this blog is the content of an ancient Chinese curse. "Interesting times" are just that--interesting. Doesn't mean that they're good or bad; as a matter of fact, the most interesting times are those filled with the most strife, heartache, disaster, etc.

Look at history. Does any of our history detail the daily lives of regular people? Hell, no! What our history details are the wars, the conflicts, the inventiveness, of extraordinary people, or those who lived through unusual events--in short, 'interesting times."

Well, I don't know how history will judge the times we are living in right now, and looking at the big picture, it would probably be best if history just plain forgot the last 30 years or so. But I can tell you about some tiny, insignificant things that I've noticed right in my own neighborhood that I would call 'interesting'.

For one thing, the weather. Now, we all know that the rest of the country has climate, while we here in Wisconsin get weather. That's a given. But what weather we've had!

Last year between December 2005 and March 2006, my town was hit by no less than six major thunderstorms. That may not sound exceptional to those of you who live in southern climes, but for Wisconsin to get rain, much less out-and-out T-storms in mid-winter is, at best, unusual.

And that may have a bearing on this next little bit of trivia.

In my yard, I have two sugar maple trees. One is in the front yard, and one in back. The one in the front yard is old...really old. It has a semi-hollow trunk, and about a quarter of its limbs are dead or dying. This year, it leafed up later than usual, and the little helicopter-like seed pods that usually drop in late Spring never dropped then--they were in tight little clusters on the tree all summer, never grew to more than half the size they usually do, and didn't drop from the tree until the end of September. And that's unusual.

The tree in the backyard is younger and healthier, and dropped its pods right on schedule, in late May. I've been waiting for it to turn color (usually a golden-orange) and drop its leaves, because it really sucks trying to rake those leaves up once we've had our first snowfall. But, alas, the tree [as of this writing] has still not changed color.

However, two days ago, just after dawn, I went out into the backyard to have a smoke, and almost got smothered by all of the leaves raining down from my green-leafed maple. The leaves rained down for nearly an hour, and then stopped.

The tree still looks as bright green as it did in July, but my yard is full of maple leaves. How did this happen? Where did they come from? And why hasn't my tree turned color? It's certainly gotten cold enough.

Two more oddities, and I'll let you ponder this at your leisure.

One night about two weeks ago, I was sitting out in the parking lot at work about 2 a.m. The wind was blowing from the north, and chilly. A few minutes later, the wind abruptly shifted around from the south, and of the 20 or so trees in the lot (all of the same variety), only one of them--the one in the center of the lot--dropped all of its leaves to the ground. I'm not exaggerating here--I mean every one of its leaves. But none of the other trees did more than rustle in the wind. Almost scary.

And the last thing, and I don't know if this is unique to Wisconsin or not. We have an abundance of gray squirrels in this state. Probably more of them than there are people. And they've become weird. They are not timid, and they are barking.

Not barking like a dog, but a high-pitched, guttural shrieking that is rhythmic and quite scary. I didn't even know the little suckers made noise until this year, and now it seems that they're communicating, and quite vocally at that.

Believe it...or not.

And so it goes...