Category Archives: History

2024, Family, History, Media, Uncategorized, Words

Cheater

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I love crossword puzzles. I subscribe to the New York Times online, and get their crossword puzzles all week as well as the one in the New Yorker each edition.

I hope none of you think of me as a cheater, but I feel it entirely within my rights to look up crossword clues on line. Given the number of sites I see for just this purpose, there must be many like me. I view these puzzles as research projects, not as measures of my intellectual acumen. It is so satisfying when they are completed and correct!

Today would be my mother’s 100th birthday. She didn’t mind bending the rules at all! She got secretly married at 19 against the 1942 rules of Mankato State that students couldn’t be married. Ha! She showed them!

What are your favorite puzzles to solve? When do you bend the rules?

2023, Fantasy, Gatherings, History, holidays, Media, Theatre, Uncategorized

Little Christmas

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Manitoba and southwest North Dakota have quite a few Ukrainian communities. We have several Ukrainian friends on both sides of the border. Some are members of the Ukrainian Orthdox Church, some the Ukrainian Catholic Church. Both denominations have married priests. I don’t quite understand that.

Both denominations also seem to celebrate Christmas on January 6th instead of December 25th. I personally don’t know if I could stand waiting until January 6th for Christmas to be over. I read with interest the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in the Ukraine militantly moved Christmas celebrations to December 25th this year in a punch in the eye to the Russian Orthodox Church.

Husband was doing some idle research and found that in Scotland, Ireland, and in Amish communities in the States, January 6th is called Little Christmas, and there are traditions of the men that day doing all the women’s work. How big of them! I certainly hope in those societies that Christmas isn’t just for women to arrange and orchestrate! It certainly isn’t in our house.

I regret that our basement is all in disarray and our TV and various media players are all packed up waiting for carpenters and carpet layers. One of my favorite recordings is the 1998 production of Twelfth Night from Live From Lincoln Center with Paul Rudd and Helen Hunt in the leads. Watching that is a nice way to end Christmas.

When is Christmas over for you? Any memories or good quotes from Twelfth Night, by The Bard?

2023, History, Uncategorized, work

Woulda, Coulda, Shoulda

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Wednesday I took nine boxes of goodies to UPS to send to friends and relatives. The process was fairly painless except for the irritation I felt being referred to several times by the perky, young clerk as “Dear”. It was clearly a reference to my being noticeably older than she. My initial impulse was to say “I am not a Dear. I am Dr. Boomgaarden and that is how I would like to be addressed”. 

I didn’t say anything, of course. I typically don’t with clerks or people I don’t know well. I didn’t want to come across as rude. Now, if you are a client or someone close to me, I don’t hold back and I can be pretty blunt. Besides, I wanted the clerk to not get flustered while she was getting my packages labeled.

I sometimes replay situations in my head to reflect how I wish I would have responded or acted. I used to do it a lot more when I was younger. Sometimes doing that helped me rehearse what to do the next time similar situations arose. There are only so many times one can bite one’s tongue.

Any regrets? Are you blunt, diplomatic, or a tongue biter?

2023, Family, Food, History, holidays, Uncategorized

Ich Mache Engelsplatschen (nicht)

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I make a variety of cookies for Christmas that I send to friends and relatives. This year our son asked me to make some marzipan cookies called Engelsplatschen, or angel cookies. He provided the recipe. One of our daughter’s friends, a young woman originally from Stuttgart, also was interested in them, as she is having problems with gluten intolerance, and these only had two teaspoons of flour in them. The only other ingredients were marzipan, almonds, powdered sugar, and an egg.

I have never cooked with marzipan before. My Aunt Leona made marzipan fruits that she painted with food coloring. She learned how to make them from her mother, who was a professional cook in Hamburg. I expected the cookies to stay in the round balls I rolled them in, just like her fruits. Well, they spread out all over, ran into each other, and burned.

I did some research, found a better recipe, and ordered more marzipan. My new recipe has quite a bit of almond flour. They will still flatten out, but will have more substance. Live and learn.

What are your favorite Christmas cookies? What new things have you been learning about or learning to do?

2023, Family, History, Uncategorized

Leaving a Legacy

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There is a woman who attended our Lutheran Church for many years before she and her husband moved to Minnesota. Her lasting legacy , the thing she is remembered for, is her lefse recipe. Hers’ is the recipe we all consult when there are any doubts about how to make lefse. I think that is a pretty nice way to be remembered.

One of my Great Uncles is best remembered for being a very musically inclined bootlegger who was really good operating steam threshers. HIs children carried on his love of music by running a dance band for many years. Since Prohibition was over, they didn’t need to keep up his bootlegging when he died in the early 1930’s.

I hope that Husband and I are leaving a legacy of good psychology practice that others can learn from. I like having students and interns to teach and supervise. I only get to do a little of that, though. I guess I could consider my psychological evaluations as lasting legacies. It would be fine with me, though, if I am mainly remembered as a good cook and baker and as a kind person.

What lasting legacy would you like to leave? What skills or talents would you like to pass on to someone?

2023, History, Music, Uncategorized

How Terribly Strange

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Can you imagine us years from today,
Sharing a park bench quietly?
How terribly strange to be 70….

– Paul Simon, Old Friends

The classic Simon & Garfunkel album Bookends was released in 1968. While working on the album, Paul Simon reportedly told a writer at High Fidelity, “I’m not interested in singles anymore”, but when the album emerged, it featured the hit single Mrs. Robinson, which was featured in the hit movie The Graduate.

The B-side of the single was the contemplative melody Old Friends, which segued into Bookends Theme (Reprise).

Paul Simon is 82 today. If weather permits, I hope he is sharing a park bench, quietly, with a friend.

How has the passage of time changed your views on aging?

2023, History, News, Travel, Uncategorized

Close Call

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The big news in Fargo this week has concerned the fate of a group of 85 local Roman Catholic parishioners, clergy, and their relatives who were on a pilgrimage to Israel.

The group was in Jerusalem when the bombing started, and for some reason they fled to Bethlehem where they holed up for a few days with the fighting happening just 45 miles to the south.

Yesterday they managed to get on three buses and made their way through multiple checkpoints until they were able to walk to safety in Jordan. I can’t imagine how frightening that must have been. They are scheduled to be back home in the next couple of days, many of them facing 40 hours of travel with their plane connections. It could have all gone so much more badly for them.

When have you or someone you know had a close call with disaster? When have your travel plans changed significantly?

2023, Gatherings, History, Media, Uncategorized

Balloon Disaster

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We had a lovely time in Cleveland, OH, last week. The conference I attended was actually interesting. We also met up with a dear graduate school friend who lives in Ohio. She is originally from Newfoundland, participates in competitive ballroom dancing, and lives with 16 cats.

Cleveland was nice, and we could see the lake and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame from our hotel. Cleveland has had its struggles, though. It is sometimes referred to as the mistake by the lake. The Cuyahoga River caught fire here years ago. Nothing beats the balloon disaster, though.

In 1986, the Cleveland United Way proposed a fundraiser by trying to beat the world record for the number of helium balloons released at one time. Disney held the record. The United Way released 1.4 million helium balloons not far from where our hotel stands. They used substandard helium, the winds were uncooperative, and the balloons didn’t float very high and then came to earth. Balloons covered the roadways and the lake. Roads were obscured and people crashed their cars. Two fishermen who went missing in the lake couldn’t be located because of all the balloons. They drowned. Horses ate the balloons and also died. The United Way had to pay millions in damages. The Guinness Book of World Records stopped measuring balloon releases.

Any good disaster stories? What are your favorite disaster movies? How many cats is too many?

2023, animals, Business, History, Science, Uncategorized

De-Extinction

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I read with interest last week the news story of a company that wants to resurrect the wooly mammoth, perhaps in ND. A fairly intact wooly mammoth tusk with all sorts of usable DNA was found in a coal mine here in the state. The company wants to use it to recreate the mammoth.

What is quite surprising to me is that the ND government is paying this company $3,000,000 to consider locating the company to ND. This a pretty fiscally conservative state, and the public reaction to the Department of Commerce spending money on this venture hasn’t been exactly supportive.

The local climate is more conducive to mammoth well-being than Texas, where the company is located. I wonder what you do with a wooly mammoth once you have de-extincted it? Let it wander around the Badlands here? Can it be fenced in at all? Raise it for meat? Have mammoth rodeos? The company thinks they can have a viable mammoth by 2028. I am glad that I will be living in Minnesota by then. I would hate waking up to find a mammoth in my yard eating the tomatoes.

What would you do with a woolly mammoth ? What would you like to see de-extincted?

2023, books, History, Mysteries

Quitting

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Pretty sure I’ve mentioned that I’m reading biographies of the English monarchs in order.  It’s been awhile since anything got added to the list and when I clicked on the tab of my spreadsheet, I realized why.  Richard II is up next.  I suppose there might be a few more controversial English kings than this one but it would be a close race.  I don’t know all that much about Richard II but I do know that his death ended the reign of his line and that victors always write/rewrite history.  So when I went looking for a biography, I tried to find something more recent and hopefully balanced.

I did watch the series “The Hollow Crown” a ways back but never read the book so when I found Within the Hollow Crown I thought I’d give it a shot.  After two pages it went back to the library.  I’d prefer to have a more straight-forward biography without the author writing whole swaths of what they believe the historical figure is thinking.  If I had known this book was historical fiction, I wouldn’t have checked it out.  Just not my cup of tea.

Now I’m back to a hunt for a balanced biography… or even if I can’t find one that doesn’t absolutely vilify Richard II, I’d at least like one that doesn’t try to fill in the mental gaps!

If you start a book, do you feel compelled to finish it?  What was the last book you abandoned?