All posts by reneeinnd

History, Uncategorized

Without Warning, A Growing Trend

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Today’s post comes from Bill in Minneapolis

Seemingly out of nowhere, big beards have become a thing. You might argue that beards have been always with us and certainly that’s true for most of living memory, but those were primarily modest chin covers.

Beards do go in and out of fashion. Apparently, in the century between 1730 and 1830, beards were not only unfashionable but rigorously opposed. In 1830, a Massachusetts farmer named Joseph Palmer was jailed for over a year as a result of an incident stemming from his refusal to cut his beard. He was denounced from the pulpit and in the street.

The beards I’m talking about here are startling, exuberant, prodigious beards. Biblical beards. Beards that haven’t been exuded since the nineteenth century. Jefferson Davis chin ponytails. Rip Van Winkle beards. Jubilation T. Cornpone beards. And I wonder, what started all this and why did it spread so widely and across generations? I didn’t get the memo.

Now I would be the first to admit that I am generally out of the loop and even if I had been aware of the trend, I wouldn’t have been a participant. My own facial hair, should I grow it, would be more along the lines of Robert Bork’s and nobody needs to see that, ever again. But it makes me wonder what triggered the movement toward extravagant hirsuteness (hirsutity?).

I sort of felt the same way about tattoos, when they became a thing. They’re ubiquitous now and scarcely attract notice but I never understood why they became newly popular and what the attraction was in the first place. If you do, explain it to me.

What trends have taken you by surprise?

Stories, Uncategorized

Counterintuition

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Husband and I are in Fargo this weekend with a sofa in our van. We hauled the sofa to Fargo so that the moving company can take it and all daughter’s other furniture to Tacoma. Why, might you ask, would we haul a sofa 300 miles East when the moving company will drive right past our house on the way West  to Washington? Well, it apparently costs lots of money for a moving van to make stops along the way, so here we are in Fargo with a sofa.  This is counterintuitive to me.

It is also counterintuitive to me that I have to fly East to Minnespolis in order to fly West to Seattle.  That is what comes from relying on a peripheral airport in Bismark to fly anywhere.

We thought of some other counterintuitive facts on our trip today:

1. People with ADHD take stimulants to slow down.

2. Reconstituted juice has water taken out and  then put back in.

3. It is lack of moisture,  not cold temperatures, that is the limiting factor in our gardening in North Dakota.

4. It is easier for us to grow vegetables than grass.

5. The best way to get people to stop smoking is to load them up with nicotine patches and gum.

What is counterintuitive in your experience?

Family, Uncategorized

Passing Time

17 Comments

 

Today’s post is from tim

i had to fill out an application on line with what appeared to be a program that wasn’t quite right. it asked for my date of birth and when i went to type in my month date and year, it was obvious  the only way to get there was to click the little arrow on the top of the calendar back a month then another until i got back to the correct date. it was frustrating and after i had clicked back i discovered it called for another calendar for my wife so i tried to backdoor the form and lost the first one with all the typewritten name and details required in addition to the many, many many clicks on the birthday response.

this time a funny thing happened on my way to the finish line, i started being aware of where i was in my life as i did a reverse recount of my life, then again when i did my wife’s bd, and by the time i was done with my kids i had clicked past dates i hadn’t thought about multiple times. i didn’t stop and think but i slowed a little each time and as i went by the last time i had added enough memory each time that it was a deep dive in total

 

when was you last surprise positive experience

 

books, Family, Uncategorized

Reading

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I come from a family of readers.  My paternal grandfather was a farmer who read voraciously, and had shelves of books in his house. He had an entire set of Dickens, all of Shakespeare’s plays, and many, many history books and novels, which he picked up at farm sales during the Depression. When he died, I took the books, and my librarian cousin took the shelves, which were the kind used by lawyers that had glass fronts that opened up from the bottom.  I think they are called Barrister’s bookcases

Grandpa’s grandfather was a reader, too. He was named Martin Cornelius Freerks, and was born in Rysum, Ostfriesland Germany in 1827. He was a laborer there, and immigrated to the US in about 1851. He lived first in Pekin, Illinois, and worked as a drayman, which meant he was responsible for meeting passengers at the train station to haul them and their goods where they needed to go.  Family history indicates that he was often absorbed in a book when the train came in and would arrive late or not at all. “Ganz in boeken besiet” (completely lost in books) friends and family would say.  He eventually moved to Iowa and lived the last part of his life with my grandpa and his family. Grandpa said that Martin had “a whole roomful’ of books accumulated over the years.

I used to read all the time, but for some reason, perhaps due to life stress with my parents’ deaths, children’s transitions, work issues, etc., I stopped reading for pleasure about five years ago and filled my spare time with crossword puzzles.  I am trying to start reading again. Husband visits our local libraries regularly, and we have scores of books in our house. I just have to pick up something and start and apply myself. I typically like traditional murder mysteries, but I find them hard to appreciate now. I am impatient waiting for the plots to resolve. I don’t like suspense these days.  Perhaps I need to start with non-fiction and work my way back to previously unread novels.  I think it will be good self care if I do.

Daughter says she is going to join a book club when she graduates from college, and admits she has a book addiction problem.  Great Great Grandpa Martin would be pleased.

What are the pleasures and pains of reading for you? What is hard/easy for you to read? What do you want done with your books when you die?

Business, Family

Just Breathe

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Today’s post comes from tim.

the need to breathe is well documented

i find myself breathing differently when under stress especially newly realized urgent response called for kind of stress is introduced

i remind myself to breathe, to try to stay in a thinking vs reaction mode (dual mode are the reality) to try to help by doing a meditative shoulder roll and uhmmmm kind of mantra and then to look for avenues to the desired end result in light of newly introduced whatever that input was

some times like when i switched the bald tires from the front to the back on my car only to get caught in icy conditions the next day and have the 65 mph rear end of my freshly rotated vehicle go around the curve on the freeway ahead of me like a snowboarder in the x games

i bet i did do a little body english and a quick look to the side ala dorthy in the tornado at the sights going by during my rotation but i must have had an instinctive response because upon completing one full rotation i regained my original trajectory and found a new appreciation for simply going forward.

last tuesday after assurances from my property manager that my landlord word discuss extending my lease beyond  the 6 month offer made when she was confronted with the reality of her thoughts of selling the leaky lifeboat she had me occupying, i told her i’d fix it up and give her a fair price but only through my mediator. i tried to push for a conclusion before taking off for china and by golly thursday i got my wish

notice to be out by may 31. i get back from china may 3 and leave again may 8 for the week to return the 12th. my breath got short, my shoulders tensed the meeting with developers needing my direction for the final tweak of a program we are working on hiccuped severely and i decided how to break the news to my wife 48 hours before my departure.

i tried talking to the property manager and went invisible

i told my wife and sent her the rental property entities i am familiar with and she started her search

she found a new one who is custom made for people in my circumstance and i called the guy at 2 and was viewing houses by 245 with 2 more than acceptable options to take her to on friday morning and as i am getting ready to board my flight for the detroit to shanghai leg of my flight i am trying to decide on bigger quieter with a yard or exactly the right size with a busy street and no yard to speak of but parks across the street and bicycle paths lake access etc less than 3 minutes away.

i am breathing ok and hope my application goes through as expected.

i hate having to remember to breathe.

 

when have you felt relieved?

 

 

Stories, Uncategorized

Goofiness

48 Comments

I have had an intermittent  buildup of fluid behind my left ear drum for a couple of months, and tried using decongestants get rid of it, as well as having one of my colleagues box my ears in a special way that somehow is supposed to realign the eustachian tubes so they drain. It didn’t work. I couldn’t hear much out of my left ear, and couldn’t even listen to the phone with the receiver to my left ear.  I finally went to the doctor this week when both ears were water logged, since I couldn’t hear much out of either ear.  Why did I wait to get medical attention for this? I knew how it would be treated, and the treatment would render me goofy.

Prednisone it the treatment of choice for this condition, and I get giddy when I take it. I start telling jokes. I get expansive. It is embarrassing. I warned my coworkers about it. They were less than supportive and just laughed and  said they probably wouldn’t notice much since they found me goofy most of the time anyway.  Rat finks!

On Thursday night at the Maundy Thursday service, we have a tradition of people washing one another’s hands. The two women serving as assisting ministers went back and forth with large white china pitchers of clean water for the hand washing ewers. They wore their typical white assisting minister robes. That they reminded me of Grecian nymphs bearing water pitchers was probably not such a strange thought, but did I really have to mention it to one of them (my attorney, in fact ) when she came over to me in the choir to share the Peace? Probably not.  She told me, after she said “Peace be with you ” that I must be psychotic.

I only have a seven days worth of pills. I hope I don’t get goofier. I also hope the water drains.

 

Tell about times you were goofy.

History, Songs, Stories, Uncategorized

High School

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Today’s post come from Steve Grooms

I was listening recently to the funny, evocative song “High School” by Pat Donohue. Readers probably know it. The song played often on the Late Great Morning Show.  Here are a few lines:

Full of wise guys and zeros and basketball heroes

Who taunt me

That was my school

Full of cheerleader cuties and homecoming beauties

Who haunt me

With tough guys who fright me and girls who don’t like me

Just that I’m not their sort

Back in high school

I’m glad I’m not there any more

 

sg on high school date

 

The song was a reminder of how high school was nightmarish for me. I was shy. In my eyes, I didn’t fit in with my classmates. I loved outdoor recreation partly because it didn’t involve the social interactions I found so troubling at school.

I have worked out a story to describe my high school years, a story that I share with friends and family members. In short form, my story has been that only two kinds of kids at school scared me: the boys and the girls. I feared the boys because I wasn’t an athlete and some of the kids were pretty scary. I feared the girls because I was so unsure of myself with them. Given the choice of trying to talk to a girl or going fishing, I strongly preferred fishing. My story goes on to say I was too shy to date anyone. My experience of high school was a lot like the story Pat Donohue told in his song.

Recently, however, I’ve experienced an uncomfortable clash between my story and evidence that I wasn’t such a misfit after all. When I attended the 50th reunion of my class, a lot of people remembered me and acted as if they had liked me. Before I lost my box of old family photos, several of them showed me dressed up for dates. I must not have been as shy as I have been claiming, for I was photographed dating on several different occasions.

Now I struggle to resolve these clashing images. I considered my high school years a botch, a time when I hid from other kids and lived almost entirely inside my head. Evidence now says I was actually fairly popular and could have been more so if I hadn’t spent so much time fishing. Now I feel about high school the way I feel about most of my life: it sure could have been better, and I’d like a second chance at it to do it better, but on the whole it wasn’t so bad.

How do you remember your experience of high school?

Family, History

Tumbling Socialists

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Husband and I attended a family wedding in Milwaukee, WI recently. The ceremony and reception were held in the ballroom at Turner Hall, a historic building constructed in 1882. It takes its name from the German word “turnen” which means gymnastics or physical fitness. It was built for the members of Milwaukee’s Turners, a German-American gymnastic and political association. The photo at the top is of actual Milwaukee Turners.  The building was quite ornate, but under restoration, with murals and photographs all over the walls and stairwells. The hall boasts of a ballroom, beer hall, and theatre, as well as a gymnasium where gymnastics is still taught.

The Turners began in Germany in 1811 to train young men in physical fitness and to resist Napoleon and anti-democratic forms of government.  It was a nationalistic gymnastic organization, usually quite liberal in philosophy.  Men tumbled and planned revolutions.  The Turners were very active in the revolution of 1848. They didn’t do so well in that revolution, and many fled to the US, with a great number serving in the Union Army during the Civil War.  Turners provided an honor guard at Abe Lincoln’s inauguration as well as at his funeral. There were Turner Halls all over the US in the 19th Century in areas where there were concentrations of German immigrants. The Milwaukee chapter was founded in 1853 with the name “Socialist Turnverein”.  All three of Milwaukee’s Socialist mayors were Turners.

The Turners held gymnastic competitions and provided social, political, and cultural support to German immigrants. The Turners are the reason we have physical education in our schools.  They supported women’s suffrage, and, by the 1920’s, girls were also getting gymnastic training at the Milwaukee hall. My sister in law’s 90 year old mother tumbled and did rings and uneven bars there, under the direction of a male coach who would wack her with a stick if she messed up.  They often espoused the motto  “A Sound Mind in a Sound Body”,  but I really like the more explicit motto below:

Liberty against all oppression

Tolerance against all fanaticism

Reason against all superstition

Justice against all exploitation

If you started an organization, what would your motto be?

Business, Nature, Science

Ambivalence

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Today’s post comes from Jacque

On March 16 I started my new job one day per week.  I will gradually build my time there to 3 days per week by June 1, while at the same time reducing my time at the other job.  Most of my clients will follow me to the new job, which gives me a nice head start building a caseload and an income.

Every new job starts with The Orientation.  This one is no different.  I will be working with a colleague and friend who I met at a previous job at a Chemical Dependency Treatment Center in 1993.  We know each other well.  She showed me around her office, identifying where I find supplies and where I find the coffee.   I noticed an item sitting on the top of a file cabinet next to the refrigerator.  A chocolate man, a la chocolate Easter Bunny, packaged in plastic and labeled as follows:

“He’s sweet and decadently rich!  Just how a man ought to be!”

I barked a startled laugh, asking, “Where’d you get that?”

She replied, “A friend sent me that recently.”

I was surprised.  I find such a limited view of a man objectionable.  I am surprised she has this.  And I find it wildly funny!  Especially when ensconced in chocolate.  And I am a woman who has nearly always challenged limiting assumptions of what a woman can or should do.  Don’t men get equal treatment?

Several inches away from the Chocolate Man, hanging on the wall,  is a sign. The sign says, “Get the facts and reject false beliefs.”  This phrase would reflect a techniques of the kind of psychotherapy we practice:    Challenge cognitions which are somehow limiting and faulty.  Describe consequences and refrain from judgments.  I teach this technique at work daily.  And concurrently,  I hold fast to some false beliefs of my own.  And I must add I am completely unwilling to let go of those beliefs.  These are best left unwritten.

But back to the topic.  There the two items sat together, awash in judgments and assumptions about the gender role of a man.  What a combo.   I moved the man next to the sign to take this picture, thinking, “Now this is a Baboon topic!”

This combination of items created ambivalence in me.  I think the Chocolate Man is funny.  And politically incorrect.  And offensive.  That is a dynamic that humor experts say often occurs in humor—two opposite statements juxtaposed, creating cognitive dissonance. Many of the jokes we told on joke day last week have the similar dynamic that is what makes the jokes funny.

I think the Chocolate Man is perjorative to men, and I think it is funny.  It says boldly the unspeakable belief held by some women towards men. I am ambivalent—holding two conflicting emotions in the same breath.  And I am still laughing.

 

What creates ambivalence in you?

Family, Nature, Travel

Adventures in Moving

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Daughter and I had a productive time in Tacoma getting ready for her move there in early May. She now has an apartment, a bank, a primary care physician, renters insurance, and is signed up with the electric utility company. She met the people who hired her, and is set to start her new job on May 15. We have arranged for movers to take her few pieces of furniture over the mountains from Fargo to Tacoma. We are set to go.

We took a fun day on our trip to visit the Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium. I am ambivalent about zoos, but it was a sunny day and it was interesting to see the different aquatic life in the region very nicely displayed in the aquarium.

The minute we got to the zoo we heard a very loud hooting, whining  sound not unlike that of a whale singing. We followed it to its source and met Dozer, a love sick walrus on loan from a zoo in Houston, TX.  He was hooting for a girl friend, and none of the local girls were interested. I asked an attendant zookeeper how they transported a walrus from Texas to Washington. She said that he traveled by truck.  She explained that walruses don’t need to be kept in water all the time, and so he could go in a truck without a large water tank.  He was due to return to Texas later in the week.

I think daughter’s move to Washington, although complex, is far less complex than moving Dozer back to Texas. All that hooting!

What moving adventures have you had?