Starting Sunday, it will be a wild ride at our house. Our son and his wife are flying to Savannah, GA so our son can attend the American Counseling Association conference and they can both have a much deserved vacation. Our grandson, who will be 5 in April, was going to spend the week with his maternal grandparents in Mankato. They are a lovely retired couple, both educators, some years older than me and Husband. We are Oma and Opa. They are Grandma and Papa.
Last weekend Papa fell and broke his upper arm bone. It is painful. He and Grandma are disappointed that their combined health issues make it impossible for them to look after our grandson, so we agreed to take him for the week. Son will drive him to Fargo from Brookings, SD on Sunday, I will pick him up in Fargo on Sunday and drive back here with him.
Opa and I plan to tag team child care next week in terms of work. I will work mornings. Opa will watch Grandson, and then we will switch, and Opa will work afternoons and I will watch Grandson. Opa loves to swim and will take him to the swimming pools at our local recreation center. We also have story time at the local library, lots of books in our home, and Oma’s play therapy room at work where any 4 year old would think he was in heaven. We will have to integrate Grandson and our spoiled dog. I expect to be exhausted, but happy, by the end of the week.
Imagine an almost 5 year old boy was coming to stay with you for a week. What would you do with him? What are you favorite grandparent memories?
Last night I was the assisting minister at our Ash Wednesday church service, so I got to smudge people’s foreheads with ashes and remind them that they are going to die. Not the most cheery message to give people.
Over the past several months I have had to tell quite a few people who I had evaluated that it was very likely they had a progressive dementia. Those are the meetings I absolutely dread. There is nothing cheery about suggesting to people that they should probably make sure all their end of life decisions have been made known to their family. I am constantly amazed and humbled at the grace and dignity with which they hear the news. It just isn’t fair that people have to get these awful diseases.
It is only over the last 20 years or so that Lutherans here started to incorporate the imposition of ashes into Ash Wednesday Services. I remember as a child the Catholic children leaving school at lunch time and coming back with ashes on their foreheads. It was all very mystical. Now that I experience it, I just view it as sobering. I giggled last night, along with a 3 year old’s mother, at his protest that he didn’t want to get dusted! I respected his request. He has enough bad news awaiting him in his life, and I sure didn’t need to add to it.
What are your memories of Ash Wednesday? How would you want bad news delivered to you? Any thoughts about T. S. Eliot?
I got the idea for this on Sunday as I talked with our daughter. (It is sort of a continuation of VS’s post from yesterday, although I didn’t plan it that way.)
I drove our daughter to Bismarck for violin lessons one day a week from the time she was in Grade 6 until she graduated from high school. That was a 190 mile round trip each week for seven years, but it was worth it. It was a really wonderful experience for our daughter. It gave us time to bond. She made a particular, same-age friend named Michelle who is now an environmental engineer based in Virginia. Friend’s job is to monitor and lessen environmental impacts for a coal mining company. She and Daughter decided to visit their Suzuki teacher this past weekend who moved to New Mexico to care for her aging parents. They had a great time.
They flew into El Paso, had a rather harrowing, late-night drive to Roswell, NM to see what was there, and then drove to Las Cruces to visit their teacher and her husband, and see the sights. They were surprised by the high elevations and all the snow. They drove into the mountains and visited the grave of the real Smokey The Bear, where they both inexplicably burst into tears. They loved the food. They had such fun connecting with their teacher, and pledged to visit her again.
One of their most memorable eating experiences was at a hole in the wall place in Las Cruces called Perk and Jerk, a breakfast place with award winning jerky and great coffee. Its interior was less than welcoming.
Daughter said it was the best jerky she ever had. I guess appearances can be deceiving.
Daughter and her friend decided that they want to have more travel adventures together. Daughter said that being together seems to cancel out their respective anxieties, and that they are extremely compatible. Their next trip is to West Virginia to visit a coal mine museum in September. I reminded Daughter that her ancestors are Scots coal miners, and that her great great great grandfather died in a coal mining accident near Glasgow. The family immigrated to Ohio and West Virginia and continued to mine until they found other work. Her friend has an adopted grandparent couple in Bismarck who are from Norway, so in the spring of 2024 they want to travel to Oslo and the Faroe Islands and honor those folks’ relatives. I think it is wonderful.
Who are your best and worst travel companions?What makes for a great traveling companion? Ever been to the Faroe islands?
On Saturday I went to the Celebration of Life for my oldest friend, Deana. She wasn’t my oldest friend in terms of age but in terms of longevity; there are folks that I have known longer but they fall into the acquaintance category. I met Deana in 1977 and we were fast friends from the beginning.
When she met my then-boyfriend, she used to refer to him as “the Greg Person” which eventually became “the GP”. Once we got married, if Greg picked up the phone receiver and then after a few seconds of silence, he would hand the phone to me saying “it’s Deana”. She always said she was so surprised when a man answered the phone that she was temporarily speechless.
At one point I took a cake decorating class from a visiting artist and one of the things we made were pink elephants sitting in champagne glasses. Deana adored these elephants and when her youngest got married, she had me make a groom’s cake covered with pink elephants and tipped over champagne glasses. It was hysterical.
Deana loved to travel – all her traveling involved throwing her bags and various children/grandchildren/great grandchildren into her big van and heading off down the road. She even included YA once when YA was about 10. That trip went to South Carolina and Florida.
She never wanted to retire – she always said she would work until the last minute. After leaving the food industry, she ended up at a support and housing organization for the intellectually disabled, a place where she worked for close to 40 years. She also worked at the local grocery store, managing the floral station.
Once when I visited I discovered all my Ukrainian eggs along with some shiny holiday ornaments hanging from the ceiling in the front room. She said it was too dangerous to have a tree up that year with her youngest having just learned to stand and walk but she didn’t want to entirely forego her ornaments.
I wouldn’t call her a hippy but she did love bright colors, especially tie-dye. She actually told folks before her death that she wanted people to come to her service in vibrant colors – no black or gray or, heaven forbid, navy blue.
Deana was a collector of people. If you wandered into her orbit, her gravity would grab you and never let go. She was very close to all of her family as well as those she considered family. The house was always full of kids and grandkids. If you needed a hand, Deana would be there to offer help.
At the service we sang one of her favorite songs, Puff the Magic Dragon. Normally a tear jerker for me but considering that Deana is gone, it was particularly poignant. And as always, I did not come prepared with enough tissues.
Ever since we defrosted our freezers several weeks ago and were able to see what frozen leftovers we had, Husband and I have been making a point of eating those leftovers and trying not to put any leftovers from new dishes in the freezers. Every night during the week we say to each other “we’re not cooking or baking this weekend, are we.”
Then Saturday rolls around, and our resolve crumbles. This weekend, “not cooking” resulted in an Italian Pie of Greens and two loaves of Leinsamen Mischbrot, a German sourdough bread made of several kinds of flours and flaxseed. The previous weekend, “not cooking” resulted in a cod and mussel stew with harissa, chicken tortellini soup, and four loaves of French bread. We tell ourselves that since the Swiss chard for the pie and the makings for the stew and the soup were already in the freezers, that it is good to have homemade bread on hand, and that none of the newly prepared main dishes went in the freezer as leftovers, we are kind of, sort of, sticking to our plan. There are noticeably fewer containers now in the Lutheran freezer where all the leftovers go.
Husband informs me that we are now eating the last loaf of rye bread from the freezer. Beatrice Ojakangas, the Duluth cookbook author, said that her father would complain to her mother that “there isn’t anything to eat in this house” if he couldn’t find any rye bread in the kitchen. Husband loves rye bread, but insists that he isn’t going to bake for a while. I notice, though, that there is rye sourdough starter in the fridge, and we just got some rye chops we had ordered, so I can guess what we are “not baking” next weekend.
When is your resolve the weakest? What is your favorite bread to make or eat? How do you deal with leftovers?
The cold weather this week has thrown off my groove. It was 40’s and sunny last week and I was without a jacket. It’s hard to readjust to temps in the teens isn’t it.
Still got two ducks! And some wild ones. It rained all day Tuesday, and Wednesday morning there was 10 or 12 squirrels running around together. Up and down the trees, across the yard, digging up acorns, back up the trees, it was fun to watch them playing. I didn’t even know we had that many squirrels. Bailey would have been having conniptions if she’d seen them.
Years ago, when I was measuring grain bins for the Agriculture Department, there was a squirrel running around inside a bin. The grain was down about 10 feet and the squirrel couldn’t get out. I wrote a note on my report to tell the farmer there was a squrril, squerrel, squierril, “rodent” in his bin.
There are a few icy spots around the yard yet. It’s kinda funny to see a chicken slip on the ice. And when you think about the ground contact area of a chicken’s foot, they don’t really have much surface area so I guess it’s not really surprising how often they slip.
We had to put our dog Allie down. She was 18 years old we think. We got her as a stray when a sheriff deputy picked her up one cold rainy October night and called me, because I’m on the townboard, and said she had this stray dog that had jumped into her car, and she’s not supposed to have dogs in her car, so I needed to take her. Kelly heard me on the phone talking about a dog and me saying, “Bring it out”. Kelly groaned and rolled her eyes. Just what we need, another dog. Kelly was with me when the deputy got out of the squad car with this little Rat Terrier in her arms. Kelly had a little dog like this when she was growing up, so her heart kinda melted right there. And Allie had a home. We’d never had an indoor dog before. I said she wasn’t staying inside, and she wasn’t sleeping in our bed. Lost on both of those counts, but that was OK. She must have been abused by a man in her first life because she sure didn’t like men at first. And if she did, boy, you were OK. If there was thunder, Allie would climb up on my head. As she got deaf, that became less of a problem. Deaf, and eventually blind, but there was nothing wrong with her nose. And she never lost her spirit or spunk. She ruled the house and the other dogs up until the last day. All attitude. We loved that about her.
I attended a meeting about growing oats for the food market rather than the animal feed market. It was very interesting. It needs to be much higher test weight to make oatmeal, than it does to be animal feed. The diagram is from the article Processing of oat: the impact on oat’s cholesterol lowering effect. by Grundy, M, Fardet, A, Tosh, S, RIch, G, and Wilde, P. Food Funct, 2018, 1328-1343.
Representatives from the Albert Lea Seed House, from Grain Millers Inc, and from soil and water conservation department spoke. There are some grants that have been received by RAA – Regenerative Agriculture Assoc, and the county to support cover crops or small grains. There are some hoops to jump through yet, and there’s a huge carry over of oats from 2022 driving down prices. Canada sets the markets for Oats; they’re the largest producer of oats in the world so what they say, goes. But it was all interesting and I’ll get signed up for some of it and see what happens this year. They provided lunch. Pizza! How about that.
Wednesday night Husband and I were talking about a recent complaint that my regulatory board received about a licensee, as Husband is the new Board Investigator. It is an unpaid position that I volunteered him for because he is semi-retired and very fastidious in his work and there wasn’t anyone else to do it and he is my spouse.
He said we would need to finesse the written response to the complaint. I thought he said defenestrate the response. I was confused. Once we got that cleared up, we had a good laugh and both did some research on The Defenestration of Prague. What a strange word and even stranger concept!
What have you been “volunteered” for something by virtue of being related to someone? Have you ever wanted to be an investigator? Who or what have you wanted to throw out of a window?
The regulatory board of which I am a member has had the same attorney for the past 11 years. The Board attorney is provided to us by the State Attorney General’s Office. He has been very helpful. We were sad to learn at our most recent meeting that he is leaving to be the executive director of a medical practitioner regulatory group. We will miss him.
I am happy to say that my experiences with attorneys have been pretty limited over the years. I mainly interact with the local county attorneys in my capacity as an expert witness and when I am the expert examiner for mental health commitments. I get along quite well with all the county attorneys and district judges. We used to have a quite inept local attorney who everyone referred to as “The Dumb Swede” to distinguish him from “The Big Swede”, a very tall district judge. I keep waiting for the retirement of another local attorney who must be in his 70’s and who has had the same really awful toupee for the 35 years I have known him. The toupee looks like it is being devoured by moths.
The other day in the grocery store, Husband and I ran into one of our district judges (not the Big Swede) who also attends our church. The judge made a comment about a rather flamboyant older member of the congregation who had recently died. Husband told His Honor in jest that he really needed to stop judging people like that. The judge thought that was pretty funny.
What have been your experiences with attorneys? Any good lawyer or judge jokes?Any stories about toupees?
Husband and I have an extremely loving relationship, but we have never been able to agree about toothpaste. I find Colgate toothpaste too chalky. He doesn’t like the way my Crest toothpaste tastes like fluoride. Neither of us will change our toothpaste preferences. I guess that is what you might call brand loyalty.
I am the most fussy about food ingredients, so that I try to bake with King Arthur Flour products and cook with this Turkish olive oil we get at the Syrian grocery store in Fargo. We also buy Barilla or De Cecco pasta, organic cream, and Land O Lakes butter.
I wonder if the days of exclusive brand loyalty are over for marketing agencies, or if they still try to make people exclusive Ford purchasers, for example.
What brands are you “loyal” to? What are some “off brands” you would recommend? What kind of toothpaste do you prefer?
There is a Beast in my kitchen. It’s been there all along, ever since I moved here. Black and huge, it sits in the corner, humming to itself and sucking up kilowatts of energy all day and all night, every day. It causes me to use “22 percent more than efficient nearby homes.” I glare at it and sometimes curse it. Then it builds up frost in its bottom compartment and forces me onto my knees to clean it. Then it resumes humming and sucking up kilowatts, contributing to climate change and irking me even more.
I didn’t buy this Beast. I wouldn’t have even looked at it in a store. Black appliances just don’t look right to me. I guess I wouldn’t like the old shades of olive or gold these things once came in either though, so I just try to get along with it. Plus, it’s a huge thing. I have no need for that much refrigerator space.
Yesterday the inevitable happened. A cutting board slid down into the narrow space between the kitchen counter and The Beast. My favorite cutting board. I had to move The Beast to retrieve it.
The Beast has wheels in the front but it just drags along in its rear. The wheels don’t engage unless you use a ratcheting tool to elevate its footrests. I have to remember these steps as I struggle with it. Finally I got it raised so that the wheels were on the floor and ready for action. Inch by inch, back and forth, I coaxed The Beast out of its corner.
Did I mention that my kitchen is just 3 feet wide? So once I got The Beast out of its corner, I had to move it all the way across to the other counter before I could even see behind it, and still there wasn’t enough room for me to squeeze my shoulders through the gap. I shouldn’t have looked… Out came the homemade cleaning solution and the vacuum cleaner and the rags. I had to use a reacher to get some of it done, and to grab my cutting board, as well as a beloved picture that had also fallen back there. I got it clean though, and I eased The Beast around to line it up a little closer to the counter so that mishaps like this don’t happen again. Gradually I got The Beast back in its clean corner, steadily humming and sucking up kilowatts.
I need new appliances. Most of them are well past prime and not functioning properly, except for The Beast and the stove. It works as it should as long as I keep its voluminous doors closed. I’m not at all eager to buy new appliances.
Do you have any appliances you’d like to vent about? Describe an experience moving something huge in a small space.
Trail Baboon 