weather | The Direction of Intention

The Principle Applies [David’s blog on DR Thursday]

Posted on December 11, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

Steve-across-the-street said that we’ve already had more snow than all of last year. “It’s not even the middle of December!” he exclaimed. I haven’t researched snow totals but it certainly feels like we’ve had more snow. I barely touched the snow shovel last year or, for that matter, the year before. This year the shovel and I are getting daily workouts. It’s possible that I could be snow-buff by the end of this season. It’s also possible that I could be snow-broken.

(note: Kerri tells me to “be careful” each time I lace on my boots and put on my gloves to go shovel. That is a relatively new development. During my last teeth cleaning the dental hygienist spoke to me in an extra loud voice; my greying beard led her to believe that I was hard of hearing. I admit that every time I look in the mirror I ask myself, “Who the hell are you and what have you done with my face?” But I don’t shout my question since I’m not having problems hearing my inner voice).

The excess of snow is producing an abundance of icicles. They are magical if you remember to appreciate them from a safe distance and not stand in awe beneath them. They are beautiful if you refuse to consider what they are capable of doing to your house. We have a special collection growing just outside our backdoor. I’ve learned not to smack them away as they will take the awning and any vinyl siding with them. Dan loaned us his heat gun and I am looking forward to melting them away between bouts of snow shoveling. Melting them is not a solution since I know that they will inevitably come back in a few days but I consider it akin to mowing the grass: I do not expect my mowing to be one-and-done since grass-grows and the same principle applies to the icicles. Plus, they are fun to melt.

Even at my age.

read Kerri’s blogpost about ICICLES

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Filed under: DR Thursday, Identity, Navel Gazing | Tagged: aging, artistry, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, December, icicles, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, musing, snow, story, studio melange, the melange, weather | 1 Comment »

I’ll Leave It To You [David’s blog on DR Thursday]

Posted on February 29, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

Yesterday we sat in these chairs, ate lunch, and took a few minutes to close our eyes, faces to the sun. And then, late last night, the temperatures stepped off a cliff. The snow you see on the chairs is not really snow. It is encrusted ice. If I hit the chairs with a hammer they’d shatter.

I took down the chimes in anticipation of the wind gusts. The arborist tells us that the tall pine tree standing outside of our bedroom is strong but his assurance does not keep us from laying awake on the nights when the wind roars. We imagine the worst. Last night we lay awake listening to creaks and groans of the swaying pine, readying ourselves to roll off the bed in a desperate act of survival.

We are both artists. There is no lack of imagination going on in our home. There’s no lack of drama when our imaginations entertain certain demise.

I probably made up the part about the chairs shattering. I wanted to test my theory, the product of my imagination sometimes referred to as a “hypothesis,” but Kerri intervened. She stood between me and the backdoor. “You can’t hit the chair with a hammer,” she said. She was calm and also she knows my weakness. “Besides,” she added, “It’s really cold out there.” She knows how much I hate the cold.

Okay. I made up the part about Kerri standing between me and the popsicle chair. Plus, I was only thinking about getting a hammer to test my theory. I imagined what she’d do if I actually gave into my imagination and went for the hammer. She suffers me.

Okay. I didn’t make up the part about her suffering me. That’s not my imagination. Call it observation. To be fair, she is given to improvisational madness, too. I’ve had to stop her from testing an unreasonable hypothesis a time or two. Or at least try to stop her.

Okay. I made up the part of trying to stop her. I imagined it. I know better than to get between her and a theory. She’s more dangerous than the pine tree. At least in my imagination. And my experience. Believe it or not.

Okay. I’ll leave it to you to sort out what’s true and what’s imagined. It’s a snow day so we have to stay inside. Imagination is the way we keep ourselves entertained. Or terrified. Or confused. Or filled with gumption.

read Kerri’s blogpost about SNOW DAYS

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buymeacoffee is not a figment of your imagination.

Filed under: DR Thursday, Random | Tagged: artistry, change, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, drama, entertainment, gumption, imagination, improvisation, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, madness, making it up, Random, story, studio melange, suffering, the melange, weather | 1 Comment »

Count The Surprises [David’s blog on DR Thursday]

Posted on January 18, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

The weather by the lake is often different than a mile inland. While the rest of our area was buried in snow, we had slush fall from the sky. This was not graupel or sleet. It was as if the 7-Eleven-in-the-sky opened the Slurpee nozzle and it filled up our back patio with slushy like a kiddie pool. Only the color wasn’t neon lime. And then it froze. I grew up in snow country. I’ve lived all over this nation. I’ve never seen Slurpee pour from the heavens. It was a surprise.

The second surprise was even more curious and beautiful. When it froze, the slush formed into polka-dots. Ice circles similar to the phenomena that occasionally occurs on the lake. I’m certain there’s a meteorologist out there who can explain what happened in our back yard – and it’s on my list to investigate – but for now I want to sit in the awe of the tiny circles.

The third surprise came with the blizzard and deep freeze that followed the next day. Again, our area was buried in snow yet we had nary an inch. What we did have was a waterfall that poured in the back door. Lovely and cold. Definitely surprising. I opened the door to let Dogga out and stared through the streaming water – as if I was standing behind a waterfall. Only then did I realize that my feet were soaked. And then I realized that in the sub-zero temperatures, the waterfall was quickly freezing. Kerri met my soaking wet excitement, “We have a problem!” with her usual stoicism. It arises in crisis moments. She took one look at the waterfall, yawned and said, “Ice damming.”

And then she went to boil water. Focus on the solution and not the problem.

We spent the entire day on ladders, pouring the boiling water and using a hair dryer and rubber mallet on the roof of our house, breaking the dam, and draining the reservoirs that formed behind them. Ice damming usually involves the gutters but not this time. Those ice circles, the miracle delivered by Slurpee from the sky and subsequent freeze, made a perfect wall of ice running the length of the roofline.

It was the fourth surprise, something I’d never seen before. The dam was my least favorite and the most labor intensive, but I have no complaints. In a world awash in “same-old-same-old,” I can say with confidence that this week was nothing less than a festival of the unexpected, a celebration of surprises. Who wouldn’t be grateful for that!