Category Archives: Family

Family, Food, home, Nature, Seasons, Uncategorized

The Chestnut Tree

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Today’s post comes to us from Ben.

The horse chestnuts are falling.

The walnuts are falling too and they make more noise when they fall. And boy, if they hit the deck it’s a good “Thud”. But hit the metal deck table? Wow, that’ll wake you up. “KABANG”! We have 4 nice big walnut trees that shade the deck. But they sure make a mess.

But it’s the horse chestnuts that I’m attracted too.

This is the one chestnut tree we have at home.

I planted it from a seed. Mom says she’s surprised it ever grew at all because I was digging it up every day to see if it had sprouted yet.

I would collect the nuts on Sundays along the sidewalk on the way from church. There were several chestnut trees next to the parking lot we used and in the fall I’d be lucky to find some left from the kids at the earlier services.

They’re just so appealing with their large size and smooth shell and the nice brown color. And they’re fairly easy to get out of the husk. Walnuts are messy and stain your fingers and they’re just dark brown and yucky. Acorns are kinda cool, but they’re small and sometimes hard to get out of the husk. But horse chestnuts. I get warm fuzzies just thinking about them.

Here’s part of what I collected. There doesn’t seem to be very many this year. Yet another victim of our cool, wet spring?

Here’s chestnunts in their natural habitat.

And the empy husk, which was almost as appealing as the nut itself.

I had the big yellow Tonka dump truck and I’d fill it with acorns I picked up while playing in the street. Yeah, Mom and dad told me to go play in the street. Not exactly; the oak trees are along our driveway so that’s where I had to go to collect acorns. I was probably about 9 or 10 years old.

I remember when I was about 4 or 5, mom and dad had just built the new house. There was a tree stump in the backyard that I played on. And it seems like there was an upended stump; all roots sticking out, I could climb up in there and find a place to sit in among the roots. That was fun.

I’ve lived here 55 years. A lot of trees have come and gone.

TALK ABOUT A TREE.

Art, Family, Gatherings, Music, Stories, Uncategorized

OH, sIT cLOSE!

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At my mother’s residence (and nursing home) several weeks ago, she and I attended a concert in the Main Dining Room, where there is a baby grand piano. A collection of string quartets (and one trio) were performed by students from St. Mary’s University String Festival – a 10-day music camp for middle and high school musicians. 

http://camps.smumn.edu/project/saint-marys-university-string-festival/

The campers attended concerts of the Minnesota Beethoven Festival, whose dates coincided with the camp dates, and a concert performed by the St. Mary’s faculty – aka the Lark Quartet. The students also gave two concerts, one as community outreach that acted as their dress rehearsal, which is what Mom and I saw.

I wasn’t sure if Mom would last the entire concert, and in order to position us with an “escape path”, we sat to the far left, but ended up quite close to the First Violin. Now that I think of it, I doubt if she had ever sat so close to a performer before. The first few offerings by the young musicians went well enough. Just when I thought she might be falling asleep, she sat up a little straighter and looked at me out of the corner of her eye – she was REALLY enjoying this, and was enthralled with watching whomever was in the first chair position. Not only did she last the entire hour-long concert, she talked to the students as they came around to greet us afterward, and said over and over how she had never seen anything like it before. She was charmed, and so were they.

I remember at the end of my first summer in San Francisco, I got to see the traveling Broadway show Hair, twice in one week. The first time was with tickets acquired in the usual way, and we were in the second balcony so got to see, essentially, an overview. Two days later my roommate and I were offered tickets by her friend who could not attend – these were in the Third Row Center… I will never forget this experience as long as I live.

When have you seen a performance “up close and personal”?

Which do you generally prefer – an overview, or a close-up experience?

Family, home, Nature, Seasons, Uncategorized

Four & Twenty Blackbirds

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Today’s post comes to us from Ben.

The blackbirds have arrived. Or maybe they’ve just arrived en-mass. Kelly does not like them. She will go out at 6 a.m., slapping two boards together to scare them off. To me it looks like an exercise in futility. She’s thinking if she scares them off soon enough and often enough they’ll stay away. And I’m not sure – I can’t prove it *won’t* work. But I don’t think it is working.

It’s morning, she’s just driven off to work and the trees are already filled with cackling blackbirds. I’m sure it upset her no end; she knows they are mocking her now. But I admire her determination. The barn swallows have moved on so that’s depressing as well. Tonight when she gets home, she’ll be out there cracking those boards together.

We’ve even tried firing shotguns at them. Yep, they all fly away, but then they’re right back. Like turkey or deer. Or raccoons. Or a bad fungus.

The city of Rochester has also been fighting crows roosting in trees in the downtown area. So at least we’re not fighting the messy droppings of the blackbirds, just the noise.

“What wakes you up in the morning?”

Art, Family, Food, home, Uncategorized

Tedium Terminator

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Caregiving is many things but one of the side effects that you don’t usually hear about is the tedium. Maybe others don’t experience this but I can only run up and down the steps to fetch food and ice so many times a day before it starts to get tedious.  Stress baking and cooking didn’t help much either this weekend.  I’m even looking forward to going to the office.  Yikes!

So I was thrilled when I heard from a girlfriend that her newest grandbaby came a week early and is healthy and at home already. Thrilled for two reasons: a healthy new grandbaby is always thrilling AND I now have a project to work on.

I’m making baby blocks and I have to know the baby’s name before I get started since the number of blocks and paper squares depends on the number of letters in the baby name. Once I got going on the blocks I remembered that  I needed to make a couple of thank you notes for YA as well.  I spent a couple of relaxing hours in my studio and now I feel better.  Guess I need to come up with some projects to work on the next couple of weeks!

Do you have any go-to tedium terminators?

Business, Family, holidays, home, Kids, Medicine, Uncategorized

Binder Heaven

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Binders are my thing. Give me a good binder with tabs any day.  I have a binder for my other book club, for poetry that I’ve printed off the internet, for directions, for recipes and for Solstice planning.  Vacations and special events like the solar eclipse also get binders.  I made a binder for YA’s college search and another one for college financial aid.  Luckily at work, I need a binder for each program and I also have a binder for assorted things I need to keep track of.

YA’s injury has generated massive amounts of paper: emergency room paper, orthopedic paper, worker’s comp paper and insurance paper. Every time we leave the house for an appointment, I get handed the folder.  I joked on Tuesday that I was going to put it all in a binder; YA snorted.

So I was surprised yesterday morning when she said “can you put all these papers in a binder?” I didn’t know how serious she was and although I agreed, I didn’t have the project on my immediate radar.  She asked again at 5 p.m. and then 8:30.  At that point I grabbed an unused binder (yes, I have a stash) and some tabs (yes, I have a stash) and we worked on it together.  She sorted out all the papers, I labeled the tabs and 3-hole punched everything.  As she wheeled herself back to her room with the completed binder, I felt a warm glow.  Two binder gals together!

How do you like to organize your papers?  Do you think our society will EVER be paperless?

education, Family, home, Kids, Music, Uncategorized

Violin Debacle

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The discussion of bands and band instruments the other day reminded me of something that I haven’t thought about in quite a while.

When Child was in the third grade, she came home with a permission slip and information on joining orchestra at school. I was a little skeptical.  When she was five, she wanted to take piano lessons but after 2 months, her piano teacher fired her.  She didn’t want to practice and then at the last lesson apparently she was rude to him (I was in the kitchen when this happened, so didn’t witness it).  She hadn’t made any other overtures toward an instrument, or even music in general, so I was surprised when she informed me she wanted to play the violin.

I always wanted to let her try things, so I read through the papers and signed her up. Luckily the school had a violin she could use for free and the next day she carried it proudly home.  Then for the next week she proceeded to torture the poor thing horrendously.  I can’t even begin to describe it but whatever you’re imagining right now, amp it up.  The dog and cat hightailed it as far away as they could get from her.  I wanted to jump off a cliff, but since that’s not very encouraging to a kid, I pasted a smile on my face and ate a lot of chocolate.  At one point I thought, is it really that hard to make a decent noise on a violin, so while she was at gymnastics, I tried it.  I certainly wasn’t going to win any awards, but I could at least pull the bow across the strings to make a sound somewhat reminiscent of music. So there it was; Child had no violin ability.  Still I let her scratch on because I figured I’d let the music teacher do whatever dirty work was needed.

By the end of the second week, she was practicing much less. While this made all the ears in the household happier, I knew it meant she was losing interest.  The third week she didn’t practice at all, despite my reminders.  There was a practice book in which she was supposed to record how much time she spent playing; I told her that if she wasn’t going to practice she had to be honest and put down “0” or it wouldn’t be fair to Mr. Brown, the music teacher.  So she marked all the days with a “0” and off she went to school.  When she came home that afternoon and she still had the violin, I was a little surprised but not nearly as surprised as when I looked at her practice book and where there had been “0”s that morning, there were now numbers on every day.  10 minutes, 20 minutes, one even said 30 minutes.  She had erased the “0”s when she got to school and written in her false data.

While I appreciated her ingenuity, I couldn’t let this go, so I made an appointment with Mr. Brown, took her with me and had her tell him what she had done and then apologize. He was AMAZING.  He was very kind and understanding.  He asked her if she really wanted to continue and when she said “yes” (I just about fell on the floor), he suggested they give it another week.  Of course she didn’t even pick up the violin the next week so we went in again and met with Mr. Brown to give him the violin back.  She never looked back.

Is there something that you just don’t a talent for?

Family, Food, Health, home, Kids, Uncategorized

Caregiver Update

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The orthopedic office was busy but inside the treatment room, it was pretty quiet. “In 99% of these kinds of breaks, we put on a cast and they heal up on their own.”  I was momentarily elated.  Then he turned to YA and said “Unfortunately, you are in the 1%.”  Surgery is scheduled for Tuesday.

She is in better shape than a week ago, but both ankles are still quite swollen, sore and hideously discolored, so for the most part she is hanging out on her bed, using my studio chair to roll herself down the hall to the bathroom and back. For the two doctor appointments this week, she literally had to scoot down the stairs on her backside and then use the crutches to get to the car.  This takes quite a while.

Even if she gets downstairs, she’s not stable enough on the crutches to do anything, so all meals are being prepared by me. I’m doing all dog and cat duty as well as YA’s other chores (vacuuming, garbage/recycling, poop patrol in the yard, mopping) as well as her laundry and, it goes without saying at our house, her dishes.  In addition, because her dog (Guinevere) has a teeny tiny bladder, I’ve been going home over lunch every day to let the dogs out.  I’m also the go-to for discussions of workers’ comp, insurance, appointments, etc. None of this is physically taxing work but I’m tired anyway.  When the alarm went off this morning, only the knowledge that my alarm clock is a fancy-dancy expensive thing kept me from sweeping it off the nightstand!

My kudos and admiration to everyone who has ever had an extended period of care-giving. Real heroes in my book.

Have you ever had to be a care-giver? Been the care-give?

Family, Gatherings, Kids, Technology, Travel, Uncategorized

Staying Connected

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Day Three of the Fair — first day for YA and I together. As we were sitting on the bus at the Park n Ride, YA says “I left my phone in the car”.  The bus driver had already announced that as soon as the bus was full, he was taking off even it was a little early.  When I asked YA if she wanted to go retrieve her phone, the driver made another announcement; YA didn’t want to wait for the next bus so said she didn’t need her phone.

I almost laughed out loud. I shoved her off the bus and we sprinted back to the car, grabbed her phone and made it back to the bus before it left, although we had to stand at that point.  I couldn’t think of anything worse than spending 8 hours with a young person who didn’t have their phone, even if it meant waiting for the next bus.  A couple of hours later, while she was taking pictures of bunnies, she thanked me for going back for the phone.

Any essential items you need to take if you’re spending a day out and about?

Family, Food, Gatherings, Kids, Uncategorized

I Shoulda Known Better…

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On our second day at the Fair, YA and I hit the Ag Building a little before lunch. She surprised me by asking if we could check out the Minnesota beers.  The surprise is because not only have I never had a beer at the Fair, she doesn’t drink much at all and I’ve never known her to drink beer.  But keeping an open mind, we went and looked at the Minnesota beers.  If you haven’t been to the Fair the last few years, you can now get four smallish cups of beer – there are about six different “themes”; you do not get to mix and match.  After looking at them all and asking if there were “sample sizes”, YA said no to beer.

We wandered around a bit more, petted some more baby animals and then found a good spot for the parade, right across from the International Market. After the parade, we headed over to the market to see what kind of good foods we might find and as we went, we passed the Schmidt Brewery store front where they do a flight of three beers.  One of them was a “fruity” and YA asked if we could get a flight to share.  I am not a beer drinker but I figured we were splitting 3 small cups, so even though I felt SURE that this wasn’t a good idea, we went for it.

The fruity one had grapefruit in it. I knew after one sip, that I wouldn’t be having more of that one.  YA felt the same, so we dumped that one.  YA kept the pale ale and I took the last one.  It really wasn’t to my taste, so after a couple more swallows, that one went in the trash as well.  Then YA baled on the pale ale, leaving it to me.  I was forcing myself to drink it, thinking if I didn’t, it was a complete waste of the money I’d spent.  I made it about 2/3 of the way through the small cup before I realized that the money was gone and my having a terrible time wouldn’t bring the money back.  Into the trash it went.  So I figure together we only drank about ¾ of one small cup.  Then we each got a lemonade to wash away the beer taste!

When was the last time you did something against your better judgment?

Art, Family, home, Kids, Media, Music, News, Uncategorized

Gender Bender

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I have followed with some dismay the recent criticism of poor little Prince George for taking ballet lessons, and was glad to see the support of his dancing by other media figures and dancers.  Our son studied ballet for 12 years. It helped with some of his motor coordination problems from his prematurity. He channeled it into a study of the martial arts in college, and now he can break a board on his head!  He still retains some dance moves, and it is amusing to see all 6’5″, 250 lbs. of him doing a pas de chat (dance of the cat) down the sidewalk.

I did not encounter much gender bias growing up. My parents encouraged me to do what I wanted to do. I remember being outraged at about age 5 when I was told I couldn’t run around outside without a  shirt, though. Most of my cousins were boys, so I played lots of sports with them and tagged along with them as they did their boy activities like building model cars and tree houses, stockpiling fire crackers, making homemade cannons, and setting pocket gopher traps.

I remember that boys with non-traditional interests had a harder time of it.  I remember the discomfort people back home had when a boy became the first male cheerleader at my high school.  It looks like, given poor Prince George,  that things haven’t changed much. I hope he keeps dancing. Maybe he will do a pas de chat through Westminister Abbey at his coronation.

What gender bias did you encounter or witness growing up?