Category Archives: Family

2025, Family, Food, Seasons, Weather

Orange Freeze Redux

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One of the very few things that I miss about Missouri (where I grew up) is Steak & Shake.  S&S is a hamburger joint.  No drive-through, just order and take it home or stay and sit.  Booths with individual juke boxes. 

I always ordered the same thing.  Shoestring fries and an orange freeze.  Normally my mom didn’t fuss that I didn’t have an entrée; if she did, then I added a grilled cheese.  An orange freeze was basically an orange creamsicle shake and I adored it.  When I moved away from Missouri, I lamented the loss of the orange freeze.  The orange Julius just didn’t cut the mustard.  (I did find shoestring fries at the Convention Grill that stand up to S&S.)

For forty years, every time I visited family in St. Louis, we would always have one meal at S&S.  This was OK until last year when we visited and discovered that S&S had DISCONTINUED the orange freeze.  Truly awful news.  Only my mother’s wish to not make a scene kept me at the table.  Grilled cheese, shoestring fries and diet coke just wasn’t’ the same.

Fast forward to yesterday.  YA and I were headed for grocery shopping and decided to make a stop at Dairy Queen.  While it’s not technically summer, a few nice warm days have a way of lulling you into believing it’s close.  As we were waiting in the drive through, I noticed something called an Orange Cream Shake featured on the menu with a lovely picture and a huge notice that it was new.  Cynic that I am, I didn’t consider it for a minute, but YA said “hey, that looks like that orange thing you like – let’s get a small one so we can taste it.”   Guess I’ve mentioned the orange freeze just a few times in her life. 

Well, glory be.  It’s perfect.  If I closed my eyes I could just imagine sitting in an S&S booth, sipping away.  YA was lucky to get half.   We’ll see how long the orange shake lasts on the DQ menu but I’ll have a few in the meantime.  Now if only I could get Dairy Queen to make those fabulous shoestring fries!

Do you have any favorite summer time treats?

2025, books, Family, Mysteries, Travel, Uncategorized, work

Packing

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When I packed for the book festival, I went about it like usual.  I printed out my packing list (that I keep on the computer), filled it out and started to pack.  I was gone two and a half days (six hours of which was driving) and two nights.  Since I was wearing jeans and t-shirt to drive down, all I really needed was two t-shirts, two undies, two pairs of socks, pjs, a pair of zorries for relaxing at David’s and assorted personal hygiene stuff.

Obviously I didn’t need a big bag for this so I pulled a small bag from the attic and threw everything in.  15 minutes from beginning to end.  Except then the conversation started:

YA: Are you taking that bag?
VS:  Yep.
YA:  What are  you taking (picking up the packing list and perusing it).
YA:  No extra socks or underwear?
VS:  Nope.
YA:  What two t-shirts?
VS:  The coral t-shirt with books on it and the black rocket sheep for breakfast with the boys
YA:  Nothing else?
VS:  Nope.
YA:  What if you decide you want a different shirt?
VS:  Then I’ll suffer from my poor choices.l
YA:  What about shoes?
VS:  My blue tennies.
YA:  No other shoes?
VS:  Not for 48 hours.
YA:  (sighs and walks away)

When I was traveling for work, I packed a little more robustly.  Having an extra shirt or pair of socks can’t hurt when you’re on a business trip, but I’ve always been a fairly minimal packer.  YA is completely opposite.  She packs her work uniforms then at least one full non-work outfit for each day.  Multiple pairs of shoes.   For a couple of years she used that cube system, in which you packed all your stuff into individual cube/cases and then put the cube/cases into your bigger suitcase.  Personally I never thought this was a big help to the packing process, but to each their own.  She got the cases free from work; they were popular as pre-travel gifts a few  years ago and there were always extras laying around.  I haven’t seen her using those the last year.

My packing strategy worked out perfectly.  When I got home from the festival, all I had to do was dump the contents of the bag straight into the clothes hamper.  Hygiene stuff all lives in one zipper pouch together so that’s easy to put away as well.  Two minutes to unpack.

I’m pretty sure I packed and unpacked in less time than it took to talk to YA about it!

What about you?  Over-pack or under-pack?  Do you have a “process”?

2025, Family, History, home, Stories

Mom

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Today’s post comes to us from Ben.

When my parents moved out of their house in town and into a senior living place, I wrote this short story. Several years later I found it again, shared it with the family, and one of my sisters commented that I could write another piece and update the situation. Which I did, and filed away.   When mom died last week I updated that story.

So here are some stories about my mom.

FEBRUARY 2007

Mom and Dad have finally moved. They decide to move even though the house hadn’t sold yet (maybe due to the cold and snow? Mom says she’s just tired of cleaning the house…) and low and behold the house sold anyway.

So we all met at the house one Saturday a couple weeks ago; 0 degree’s outside… Oldest sister Ellen is here [from Pennsylvania]. Ernie and Joanne decided to rent a moving van, Bob parked his pickup at the back door and started loading stuff from the basement; I loaded my truck after his and Ernie is asking what we rented the big truck for? But then we filled the big truck, and the two pickups and there’s STILL stuff left in the house…geez; where did all this stuff come from?? Didn’t think there was that much stuff?!? They cleaned all summer, threw stuff, and still….

And now the apartment is filled with boxes of … stuff. The pickups fit into the underground parking garage, but not the moving van of course. So Bob and I take turns shuttling our pickups back and forth from the elevator to the moving van to load stuff and drive back to the elevator. And from there it’s one flat cart and two shopping carts to get everything upstairs. And the place is filling up and they don’t have the dining room table or sewing table in the apartment yet. Judy [my aunt] makes lunch for us since she’s in the building too.  Eventually they rent a storage closet in the basement and the next Saturday Joanne, Arlen, Kelly and I haul some more stuff from the basement and the deck furniture and shelving and pack the storage closet.

The next week, since it’s Presidents Day and no school [Son] and [daughter] and I meet Dad at the old house and clean out his shop; Steve is taking the table saw; Matt’s getting some odds and ends, and we load my pick up with saws and ….stuff. Dad’s wood jointer / planer and …stuff… and haul it out to the farm. I put the band saw in the garage so Dad can use that; some of the ….junk…down in the old shed, other stuff in the new shed. Then back for one more trip to pick up the real junk, vacuum the shop (with his little dinky shopvac with the 1” hose and no attachments… it was kinda funny / pathetic!)  Finally, the only thing left is Mom’s sewing table and the shopvac.

April 2025

Mom’s Moves

Mom has died. 

Mom spent her first 22 years living in her parents’ home, and her first move was as a new bride into Dad’s farm house. Or rather, her in-law’s house, Carl and Helen.  Anna Conway, her Mother-in-laws mother, was also living there. Bedridden and cared for by Helen, Mom learned how to care for her. Mom said it’s where she learned not to be afraid of death. Anna lived for a few more months and mom’s compassion, home nursing care skills, and possibly entire attitude about life, came from that situation. Her Mother-in-law, Helen, had 5 sons and was pretty excited to have a “daughter” in the house and they got along well.


Eventually the in-laws moved out and mom could make it her home.  Mom and Dad lived the next 20 years in that old farmhouse which was made up of bits and pieces from the previous 100 years. Mom could have done without the snakes that came out to sun on the stone foundation or the honeybees that moved into one wall, ate through the plaster, and got inside the room late one night.


When Mom was 42 years old, the time came to build a new farm house. She moved the family into the machine shed for a few months in mid-summer. Which became fall.

And then winter. And then she moved the family out of the machine shed and into the new house.  And she made that a home for 21 years until they moved into town when the next generation took over the farm. Mom was 64.

They found an empty lot in town and started building a house and they were determined NOT to still be living on the farm when the next newlyweds moved in. She had done that and wasn’t doing it to the next couple. Their next-door neighbors in town were going to be gone for the summer, and offered that mom and dad move into their house while the new house was being finished. They didn’t have to move quite so much stuff at first, and when the new city house was done, they simply moved next door, to their new home in town.  And they lived there for 17 years until they decided it was time to move to Senior Housing. Mom was 81. It’s surprising how much stuff one can accumulate so quickly, and they spent the summer having garage sales and giving stuff away. Mom was determined to move and she worked hard to convince Dad this would be OK. He really wasn’t so sure, and he was grumpy about it all summer. And one can’t really blame him; moving from the country into town was bad enough, but now, moving from their house into an “apartment”…well, that was quite an adjustment so his anxiety was understandable.


That move took a while to sort out as many things went to temporary storage, and more stuff was given away, and it took a while to figure out what they needed in the apartment. And Dad discovered it was OK not having to worry about snow or grass. And he was able to create another workshop.  They made a nice home there for the next 8 years until Dad’s passing. Mom was 88.  And mom moved into another apartment, got rid of more stuff, and she made that her home for another 7 years.

And then she moved once more. Her last move. Into a single room with a shared bathroom.   And the kids packed up her stuff again. Mom was 95 and slowing down.

It felt different that time. She didn’t need much, nor did she have room for much. And there was a lot she wouldn’t need again. The move was her idea so that helped. Ever practical, she knew she needed more assistance. She knew it wouldn’t be perfect. “I’ll need to have a lot of patience.” she said. With her usual resilience and attitude, she made the best of it. Most of the time. Through new staff, through covid, and paper plates, physical therapy, new friends, visits from old friends, she was able to enjoy it.

She was often awake at night “thinking” about things.  She’s had a lot of thoughts over the years.

She never thought she would be blind. That’s been the hardest thing. That’s what’s gave her the most trouble of everything. As much as she would say “Oh well, God will take care of it.” she sure had a hard time rationalizing God taking care of that one. She was so close to 99, just a few weeks short. Not that that was ever a goal, no one ever heard her have a goal that was age related. Her latest goals were more of being able to walk again, or seeing. And when you think of the things she did, and saw, you would understand that.

So, finally, the best move of all: rejoining her beloved husband, and her brothers and sisters, and her mom and dad, and all her cousins and nieces and nephews. She’ll be asking everyone ‘What do ya know??’


She loved getting together with family or friends.  She always wanted to make sure everybody had a chair. She wanted to make sure everyone had something to eat.


And now she has a chair.  And she has ice cream.  And She’s really home. Again.

WHAT ARE YOU SERVING WHEN GATHERING WITH FRIENDS?

2025, Family, Government, History, Travel, Uncategorized

Newcomers

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I was fascinated to read that today is the date in 1562 that the first French settlers arrived in North America. They arrived in Florida, of all places! I may need to research further how they fared.

When we lived in Winnipeg we would talk with our friends about our and their families’ immigrant experiences. My family came over in the 1850’s and the early 1900’s. It was a little daunting to hear that some or our French Canadian friends’ families arrived in Canada in the early 1600’s.

I have become rather close with the Newfoundland Psychology Board representatives who attend the licensing board conferences we just went to in Montreal. We were lamenting the current political strife between our countries, and two of them told me that they were registered with the Canadian Government as formal refugee sponsors, and said with all seriousness that if we needed to claim political asylum they would be happy to have us come to St. John’s and stay with them. I told them I was very touched by their offer, but that I was sure there were far more people in need of asylum than we would ever be. Since Son was born in Canada, and since that means Canada will always claim him if he fills out all the proper paper work, he could sponsor us in. I don’t see that as happening, but it is nice to know there are options out there.

What were your families’ immigrant experiences like?

2025, Family, Travel, Uncategorized

Airport Schedules

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We are finally home from Quebec after a wonderful time. The Montreal airport is quite fascinating, made even more so by my very poor ability to make a cogent travel itinerary and a computer glitch by Delta Airlines.

For reasons even I cannot fathom, I scheduled our return flight to Minneapolis and thence to Bismarck for 6:10 am on Sunday morning. That meant we needed to be at the airport at 3:10 am according to Delta Airline’s advisory to be at the airport three hours before take off for international flights. I had no idea that just about everything at the Pierre Trudeau airport closed at 8:00 pm.

It is hard to sleep knowing you have to get up at 2:00 am to catch a taxi to the airport. We decided to go to the airport at 10:00 pm on Saturday night and try to doze as we could. When we arrived we were informed that the Delta ticket booths and most everything else were closed until 3:00 am. We signed in to our flight when the ticket agents arrived on the dot at 3:00am.. That entailed a wait until 3:30 am until the folks who operated the baggage conveyor belt arrived. That is their regular schedule. We were then shepherded into another large room with several hundred people to wait until 4:15 am until the TSA staff arrived, and thence until 4:30am when the US Customs staff arrived. I am happy to report we had no issues at US Customs.

I made our flight reservations in late March, and the Delta computer miscalculated our arrival and departure times in Minneapolis because it didn’t take the time change from the Eastern time zone to Central time zone into account. Even the Montreal ticket agents were fooled. Our Montreal flight arrived late in Minneapolis. We feared we had only 15 minutes to catch our Bismarck flight. We tore to the gate. The door was closed, and we feared we were too late to board. The rather confused ticket agent told us that the plane didn’t leave for an hour and 15 minutes. That hour from from Eastern to Central time made a huge difference!

We arrived home in Dickinson at 12:00 pm on Sunday after no sleep since we got up at 8:00 am Saturday morning. I am surprised I could even drive the 100 miles home. I vowed after this that I will engage a travel agent in the future for any domestic or international travel.

Travel horror stories or happy accounts? Know any rigid schedule adherents?

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2025, animals, Family, Nature, Seasons, Uncategorized

Let the Sun Shine

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Most years, our first foray to the zoo is during Farm Babies, which usually starts towards the end of April.  The zoo opens up the Farm and there are usually some baby animals to pet.  It’s not a big a celebration as it was in years’ past, but who can resist petting baby goats.  Not us.

This year, YA broke tradition by waking up last weekend and suggesting we go to the zoo that day.  I didn’t have any plans, so off we went.

Our normal routine is to start with the inside exhibits – first the Tropics and then the Minnesota Trail.  We skipped the Bird Show as they re-jiggered the winter show last year and we didn’t care for it too much.  Then we walked on the lake bridge to see the tigers, caribou and moose then around the Northern Trail – the Bactrian camels were all out sunning together – it looked like they were at a symposium:

The two takins that were out were having a great day, chasing each other around; we’ve never seen them that active.  One of the snow leopards was also enjoying the sunshine (see the header photo).  In fact, that did seem to be the theme of the day; many of the animals were enjoying the sunny day. 

After winding back to the main building through the Grizzly Coast, we had our lunch, augmented with french fries.  Had to hit the gift shop, although we almost never purchase anything.  Then sea lions and weedy sea dragons and sharks before we headed home.  A wonderful day.

How do you like your sunshine?  Porch?  Adirondack chairs?  Chaise lounge?  Hands and knees in the garden? Sun lamp?

2025, Family, Food, holidays, Kids, Uncategorized

Easter Dinner

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I believe I wrote that we were so busy at church over Easter weekend that we had Easter dinner the weekend before Easter, and we weren’t going to cook Easter weekend. Well, as usual, that was not what happened. I made the header photo, Pizza Rustica, on Good Friday. It is a southern Italian deep dish pie with ricotta, mozzarella, parmesan, hot Italian sausage, mortadella, sun dried tomatoes, salami, and seven eggs, encased in a lovely crust. My pie looked just like the header photo. It was absolutely delicious. I highly recommend it.

We are traveling this week (more to come on that). The Grade 12 son of one of my coworkers is going to water the tomato seedlings, bring in the mail, and tend to the cat. He and his mom came on Saturday so we could show him what he needed to do. He intends to go to culinary school, so Husband showed him our cookbook library and I showed him the Pizza Rustica recipe. We loaned him several cookbooks and our pasta maker, since he expressed an interest in making homemade pasta and had used a pasta maker just like ours in school. It is one with a crank handle that is clamped to the counter. Husband calls this part of our “Radical Food Ministry “, getting people to cook from scratch. Husband told him he can borrow any of our cookbooks.

What is your favorite Easter dinner? Who mentored you? Who have you mentored?

2025, animals, Family, Music, Nature, Uncategorized

Animal Sounds

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I have always loved the music of Sibelius, and was tickled to hear that he described the third movement of his violin concerto as “a polonaise for polar bears”. What a visual! It is a sort of lumbering piece. I also love the pieces he has done that are inspired by swans.

Carnival of the Animals and Peter and the Wolf are family favorites. Many composers were inspired by animals, like Delius On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring and Vaughan Williams Lark Ascending. Satie wrote about a dreamy fish, and Scarlatti wrote a keyboard sonata called the Cat Sonata. Vivaldi wrote about the goldfinch. Then, of course, there is Gershwin:

What are your favorite animal-inspired musical pieces or songs?

2025, animals, Family, pets, Uncategorized

The Fashion In Facial Hair

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Yesterday was Kyrill’s grooming appointment. He gets groomed every 6 weeks or so. Cesky Terriers don’t shed. Their coats just gets thicker and longer. It is also curly and needs regular brushing out. This is him, exhausted, after his appointment yesterday.

As you can see from the photo, Cesky Terriers have a very distinctive grooming pattern for their faces. They have the traditional terrier beard along with a hank of hair that extends from the eyebrow to the nose. This is presumably to protect their eyes as they rout vermin out of their holes and chivy wild swine from their dens so hunters can shoot them. Kyrill can see very well through all that hair. I make a point of trimming the hair from the outside of his eye sockets so he has good peripheral vision.

My father and grandfathers never had beards. Neither Husband or son has a beard currently. Son will occasionally grow one for a special contest at the college where he works. Husband had a beard decades ago, but his hair is curly and his beard had the texture of a scrub brush, so he hasn’t had a beard for more than 40 years.

I don’t find the current trend of excessive human male facial hair particularly attractive. I suppose it is less expensive than shaving every day. We are traveling to Montreal next week, and Son wants us to get him some fancy shaving things at a store he likes there, at our expense, of course!

Male Baboons, do you have, or ever have had, a beard? Female Baboons, ever had a significant other with a beard? What are your favorite or least favorite dog grooming standards?

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2025, Family, Food, Media, Uncategorized

Garlic Soup

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Husband found a soup recipe the other day that called for 40 cloves of garlic. We had just been to Costco where he had purchased a bag of garlic bulbs, so he felt well equipped to make the soup.

The recipe only made 1.5 quarts of soup. It was a creamy style soup with chicken broth and pureed potatoes. The garlic cloves were sautéed and the pureed, too. We also added some white beans. It was really good and wasn’t all that garlicky.

I suppose some people might find that many garlic cloves in one dish kind of off-putting. Just for fun I looked up weird foods on the internet, and my, were there some doozies. Chocolate covered bacon caught my eye, as did fried caterpillars with guacamole. The recipes for these dishes were included, and people had actually made them and liked them. I don’t think we’ll be making either of those in the near future, though.

What is the oddest food you ever ate or prepared? Come up with some interesting food ideas.