Lindsay and I loved it the first time we saw our house. Our realtor, Pistol Pete extolled the virtues of having one like this. In the end, it was a big reason we bought our house. It was a huge, lush 100+ year old Elm tree. The trunk was almost 5 feet in diameter. Nice, big ol' tree, providing shade for our house -- and pretty much the entire neighborhood. It was easily the tallest tree on the block -- and none of the other trees nearby were as tall and full.

Here's the house. Note the tree towering over the 2 story house.
(photo from July 2003)

Late last summer, while I was working late, I received a frantic phone call from Lins. Our tree had been spray painted orange around the trunk and there was a horribly vague pamphlet in our front porch about Dutch Elm disease. It didn't say anything about our particular tree, what options were available, and what, if anything would happen. It was scary. We were under the impression that it would have to be cut down.

It was tough to deal with the enormity of the whole situation. The tree was about 4 times Lindsay and my age -- and it was on the verge of no longer existing. We were crushed -- we loved the tree. We couldn't let it go without a fight. We worked the phones, worked the internet, tried to figure out exactly what was going on, what our options were, that kind of stuff. We really wanted to save this big old tree.

In the end, we found out that the tree was too infected, and would have to be cut down, to protect other trees from Dutch Elm disease. We received a letter from the Minneapolis Parks & Rec Board outlining all the companies that put a bid in on removing the tree. The prices ranged from $5,000 to $28,000... and Lindsay and I would be responsible for the cost.

Yep, that's right. We'd lose our beloved tree and have to pay thousands of dollars, just for the privilege -- fucking great.

We had to go with the lowest bid, obviously, so we sent everything in, and everything was supposedly in order. The tree was supposed to get cut down in August. August came and went -- tree still there. Couldn't get ahold of anyone at the tree company. September, October, November, December... still nothing.

Well, after months of "what the fuck is going on?", the tree finally got cut down Tuesday. We got about a week's worth of notice. Lovely customer service. (Sarcasm!)

On Tuesday, they closed off the street in front of our house, brought in a massive crane and proceeded to dismantle the tree, piece-by-piece. By the end of the day, our giant tree was reduced to a foot tall stump and sawdust covering everything in our backyard.

We had plenty of time to come to terms with losing the tree. So we didn't take it as hard as we would have last August. But it's still not easy. It's just so... different now.

Now our house is too symmetrical. And there's a huge, gaping hole in the sky.

Wondering why there's not a new picture of the house without the tree here? Well, I haven't had the heart to take one, quite yet. That, or I'm kinda lazy. But likely a mixture of both.

---

We knew it going in. Lindsay watched him warm up. I wore a brand new jersey with his name on it. We knew Latrell Sprewell was going to go off last night -- and he did, nailing 7 out of 8 three point shots -- a franchise record. Behind Spree's wicked shooting and 31 points (not to mention KG's triple double), the Wolves fought to a 95-81 win last night. Oooh. It was delicious! Now the Wolves hold a 2 games-to-none lead in our first round matchup against Denver.

After the game, KG was a special guest on Inside the NBA. Hee. If you know KG, you should know what's coming... He gave Charles so much shit for the way he's been dogging the Wolves. "Did you or did you not say the Nuggets were going to win tonight?" "Did you or did you not say that Sam and my game 1 games were flukes?" Hee. After awhile, Charles didn't even try to come back anymore. KG killed him. But all in good fun. Meanwhile, Kenny "the Jet" Smith (and EJ) backed up KG on pretty much everything he said. The other guys take pretty much any opportunity to good naturedly rip into Charles. Gotta love that!

Woo! Go Wolves!
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