Category Archives: home

Gatherings, holidays, home, Media, Poems, Songs, Uncategorized

Problematic Hymns

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Our church choir, usually at about eighteen voices, is now down to five, (two altos, one mezzo soprano, and two tenor/baritones). The director is an operatic type of soprano who can sing and direct at the same time, and the accompanist is a very fine bass/baritone who can’t sing and play at the same time.  He just accompanies, and does it very well.  We sing masked and socially distanced, which is interesting in terms of listening to one another and blending.  We sing once a month.

I love to sing in the church  choir.  I have mixed feelings about sitting in the congregation and singing hymns.  I grew up in a Norwegian Lutheran congregation in South West Minnesota, and we had to sing every blessed verse in every hymn on Sunday.  To this day I just cringe when I have have to sing  four or more verses in the hymns.  I like the sentiment in the early verses, but I am more drawn to the melody and harmonies.

The folks we sing with in choir are an opinionated bunch when it comes to hymns. The accompanist, a retired high school choir director,  blanches when Amazing Grace is in the bulletin.  He can’t stand it for some reason.  The mezzo soprano, an elementary music teacher, refuses to sing Blessed Assurance  because she finds it so smarmy, and my fellow alto, a college librarian, cringes at Holy, Holy, Holy  because she had to sing it so often as a child.  I am drawn to mournful Scandinavian, German, and English tunes, but please don’t make me sing more than two verses of anything.

When I attended Concordia College in the 1970’s, the Concert Choir sang what I thought was a very odd song written by Paul J. Christiansen,  the choir director at the time,  based on Carl Sandburg’s  Prayers of Steel:

Lay me on an anvil; O God.
Beat me and hammer me into a crowbar.
Let me pry loose old walls.
Let me lift and loosen old foundations.
Lay me on an anvil, God.

Beat me and hammer me into a steel spike.
Drive me into the girders that hold a
skyscraper together.
Take red-hot rivets and fasten me into the
central girders.
Let me be the great nail holding a skyscraper
through blue nights
into white stars.

I don’t know If I would have chosen this as the text for a sacred song, but hey, it only has two verses.

What are your favorite songs?  What songs can’t you stand?  What do you like to sing?

2020, animals, Family, Gatherings, holidays, home, Kids, Uncategorized

Lights – My Way

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For the last 35 years my best friend (Sara) and her husband (David) have come over to help decorate the Christmas tree.  We have cookies along with hot chocolate and Baileys.  Real whipped cream.

About 30 years ago, I was a little too vocal about how I like the lights as David was putting them on the tree.  He stopped, handed me the remaining lights and “suggested” that I should probably do the lights from then on.  He was correct.  I like the lights to peek out from the interior of the tree and for at least 20 years I’ve had lights that slowly fade on and off as well. 

Covid means no tree trimming party this year, so I was thinking there was no rush to get the lights on the tree.  YA thought otherwise and asked me repeatedly when I was going to put the lights up (we got the tree on Friday).  She even took the lights out – hence the decorated dog in the photo. 

When I eventually relented and started with the tree, she sat on the steps and watched.  Then she made a recommendation.  Then another.  I told her the story of David handing me the lights and telling me to do it myself.  She went upstairs and didn’t come down until I was finished. 

What job do you just like to do yourself?

2020, books, education, Games, home, Movies, TV, Uncategorized

The Chess Gambit

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Several baboons responded on Tuesday to a comment about the 6-part Netflix mini-series called The Queen’s Gambit. It’s based on a book by Walter Tevis (who is also author of three other books which became movies: The Hustler, The Color of Money and The Man Who Fell to Earth).

Apparently chess sets have been flying off the shelves, both in-store and online. I have located our set here, a Christmas gift years ago from son Joel. I’ve never really taken to chess – though Husband has tried to teach me, I never thought I had enough…  desire, mental acuity, or stamina to be a competitive player.

Because of this movie, I’ve become aware that women have been serious chess players for centuries first documented during the Middle Ages – this from Wikipedia:    “Chess games between men and women were a common theme of European art[2][3] and literature in the fourteenth through 18th centuries.” By the 19th Century, the field was dominated by men, and “during the 20th century, female players made significant progress in breaking male dominance on the game.” The first female International Grandmaster was Nona Gaprindashvilli, who received the title in 1978.

Back on the home front:  It wasn’t that I thought women in general wouldn’t be good at chess, just me. I am willing to rethink that and, with a long and at-home winter facing me, I think I just might take another stab at chess. I will, however, need to do a quick room-arrange to accommodate a table where we can leave a chess board up. And wouldn’t it be fun to paint our own chess board right on some old table?   

Here’s a puzzle:  Imagine you’ve decided you need a chess set and there are none to be had in all the land. By what art or craft would you create the board?

What found objects around the house could stand in for the various pieces – pawns, rooks, bishops, knights, king, queen ?

OR:

Because you may be home-bound for several weeks (or months), what other sort of learning might you tackle, that you would otherwise not have attempted?

2020, Business, Family, Food, Gatherings, holidays, home, Seasons, Uncategorized

Happy Thanks-Carb-Giving

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For the first time ever, it’s just me and YA today.  Even though it’s just the two of us, YA is determined that at least the food will be the same as always.   Normally all I ever bring to Thanksgiving dinner is my Sage Sourdough Stuffing (vegetarian) and sometimes a dessert.  With at least four or five other families, everything else is covered.

I did find some nice platter-sized paper plates and matching napkins along with a paper table covering at The Dollar Store, so we’ll have a festive table.  Here’s the final menu:

  • Sage Sourdough Stuffing
  • Scalloped Cheesy Potatoes
  • Mashed Potatoes w/ Vegetarian Gravy  (YA making)
  • Sweet Potato Casserole
  • Green Bean/French Fried Onion Casserole  (YA making)
  • Cranberry Sauce
  • Dinner Rolls
  • Cornbread
  • Pumpkin Gooey Butter Cake

Any plans for the day?  In a particularly difficult year, is there a way you are maintaining any gratitude?

2020, Family, home, Mysteries, Radio, Technology, Uncategorized

The Find

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This past Saturday morning, right before Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me, Husband and I decided to do a Deep Clean on an alcove right off the kitchen. This corner houses a tall shelf unit full of large items like crock pots and cookbooks, and a small chest of drawers. I had accidentally shoved something behind the tall shelves, noticed when trying to retrieve it that it was pretty dusty back there, and realized that space hadn’t been deep cleaned since we moved in 4 ½ years ago (!).

Well, you know how this goes. In the process of clearing everything off, you find stuff you’d forgotten you had – which gets returned to its proper place or tossed. Stuff piles up in the rest of the house for a while, but you promise you’ll put everything back before day’s end, and you roll up your sleeves. And you swear you won’t let the cleaning lapse for this long again.

Then you move the furniture out so you can sweep and swipe and clean everything in sight, and vacuum out the cobwebs and dust fuzzies. As the small chest was being moved away from the wall, I heard a “thunk” as something dropped to the floor, and discovered… MY CAMERA, which has been A.W.O.L. for about a year. I don’t own a smart phone, and luckily I hadn’t bought a replacement. I am so happy to have it back!

So, for the first time since last December, I’m able to submit a blog post AND supply the photo.

What have you found that was lost?  

What cleaning or clearing project are you likely to accomplish during self-quarantine?

2020, History, home, Uncategorized

B-17 Fridge

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We are extremely unhappy with our kitchen fridge. It is a GE brand fridge, with a top freezer and bottom refrigerator section. It is no frills, without an ice maker or water dispenser.  We have had it for about 10 years.

The  plastic edging on the glass refrigerator shelves cracked and we had to replace the shelving. That was not cheap. The fan for the freezer burned out once already, and was also replaced.  A couple of months ago it started making a horrendous noise every time the motor runs. It is so loud it is hard to hold a conversation in the kitchen, and it seems to run all the time.  It wakes me up at night. I manually defrosted the freezer the other day, and that helped for a day or two before it started with the noise again.  I refuse to throw any more money at it.

My father never liked loud noises or cramped spaces. I attribute that to his time as a gunner in a B-17 when he was stationed in England during the Second World War.  He would have found the noises from this fridge disturbing.  He also hated throwing money at appliance repair. We went to our main appliance store a couple of weeks ago and found an LG fridge that fit in our kitchen space. It has a double fridge door with the freezer section at the bottom.  I was shocked to find that it will take two months to get it. This was true for all the models and brands we looked at. I guess Covid has slowed manufacturing.  We are keeping our fingers crossed that the current fridge lasts until the new one arrives.  I will think pleasant thoughts about my dad to counter the annoyance when the Flying Fortress in the kitchen roars.

What appliance or machinery woes have you had?

Family, holidays, home, Movies, Music, TV, Uncategorized

Holding The Line

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In my world/head, I don’t play holiday music or turn on holiday movies until the day after Thanksgiving, although every few years I might listen to holiday music in the car on the way home from Thanksgiving dinner.  This rule is mostly just to keep the Christmas/Solstice season within some kind of boundaries.  I think 5-6 weeks is plenty of celebration – no need for it to spill out into October and early November. 

So I was surprised to come home from picking up pizza yesterday to hear holiday music playing.  Loudly.  As we sat down to our pizza, I gave YA grief about playing Christmas songs.  Without missing a beat, she said “oh please – you’ve been doing holiday stuff since March”.   I have to admit that she is correct.  In the spring, when we all thought covid would be history by this time, I was expecting to be extremely busy at work, with all my spring programs bumping into the fall.  Since this was my mindset, I figured I should get all my Solstice stuff done early, so I wouldn’t be stressing out about it in October and November.  I did all my cards, my egg ornaments and my calendars in the spring.  I also worked on the family gift throughout the summer.  The last week I’ve done what I consider my “last-minute” stuff: the newsletter, wrapping, labels, cookie selection, etc. 

I consider all this holiday prep, but not holiday celebration.  No music or movies for me yet.  But I’m all ready for next Friday…. all my holidays movies are in a separate bin so I can get to them fast and YA’s “Alexa” will be on call every day (and I’ve finally figured out how to get her to play Radio Heartland). 

Will you be celebrating this year?  When will you start?

2020, Family, home, Kids, Technology, Uncategorized, work

Doin’ the dishes

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Dirty dishes have always been a contentious issue between YA and me.   She has a much higher tolerance for dishes in the sink than I do; particularly I don’t like coming down in the morning to dirty dishes.  For several years, if YA leaves dishes in the sink overnight, then when I come down in the morning, I yell up the stairs and she has to come down and do them.  This is no fun for anybody but it does work pretty well as a dish pile-up deterrent.  Of course it doesn’t do anything about dishes that accumulate during the day.

When I started working from home back in March, I was assuming (like many others) that covid would have run its course by the fall.  I decided that as my gift to household peace, I would just do all the dishes during shelter-in-place.  Fretting about dishes just didn’t seem like a good vibe to add to an already bad scenario.  I’ve had a couple of times said to YA that I didn’t want to feel taken advantage of and every now and then she does belly up to the sink on her own, but for the most part, I’ve washed every single dish that has been dirtied here since March 15. 

Now that covid hasn’t gone away and we are all still sheltering-in-place, I’m thinking maybe I need to re-negotiate my dish-pan hands situation.

Any suggestions??

animals, Fantasy, home, Nature, pets, Uncategorized

Our Companions

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As I clicking around yesterday, I found a list of the best breeds for each astrological sign.  If you can get past the idea that all of humanity can be dumped into just twelve categories, based on the month in which they were born, can you get past the idea that all people born in a certain month will all be suited to the same dog? 

  • Aquarius – Siberian Husky
  • Pisces – Cavalier King Charles Spaniel
  • Aries – Labrador Retriever
  • Taurus – German Shepherd
  • Gemini – American Pit Bull Terrier
  • Cancer – Old English Sheep Dog
  • Leo – Border Collie
  • Virgo – Dachshund
  • Libra – Bernese Mountain Dog
  • Scorpio – Rhodesian Ridgeback
  • Sagittarius – French Bulldog

Even if you CAN get past both these problems, this list is seriously flawed.  First off, it’s missing the best two dogs on the planet – the Irish Setter and the Samoyed.  I’m guessing that a few other baboons will think there are others missing – English setters, terriers, bassets.  My mother would absolutely dispute the choice for her sign – only the Golden Retriever would make her list.  Then there’s the problem of all the fabulous dogs whose pedigrees are unknown.

For me, I’m not sure the Border Collie represents me well.  Although I certainly like to keep busy, I don’t think of myself as particularly driven and pandemic has made it clear that I have big-time couch potato tendencies.

Do you think there’s a perfect pet to match your personality?

Business, home, Technology, Uncategorized

Assurance

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Ran down to the basement yesterday morning to put the wash into the dryer – SURPRISE!.  Water all over the basement floor.  &^#%%$!## — bad words came pouring out followed by deprecations about how much I hate having such an old house.  Fantasies of a brand new townhouse or a very handy person showing up on my doorstep washed over me.  I told YA to leave me alone for about 10 minutes.

This isn’t my first rodeo where the main drain is concerned.  I called CenterPoint/Minnesgasco right away and they told me they could have somebody out between then and 11:30 p.m. last night. When I got off the phone YA said “how much is THIS going to cost?”  But what she didn’t know is that I have Home Service Plus for the main drain.  In fact, I have the house to street drain on my plan as well.

I have a love/hate relationship with insurance.  30 years ago Montgomery Ward tried to sell me an insurance plan on a dishwasher I had just bought from them.  The sales person said “if this breaks down tomorrow, you won’t be covered.”  I told him that if this brand new dishwasher broke down tomorrow, I would not be the sorry one.  When I bought my car six years ago they tried to sell me gap insurance which would cover the “gap” between the car’s new value and the normal insurance during the first year (I’m sure I’m describing this badly).   The more they pushed, the more I resisted.  I finally said “I understand the risk, my sister is an actuary.”  This is not true, but it shut them up.

But for this old house, bring on the insurance.  My home plan covers my boiler, my fridge, my washer, my dryer, my dishwasher and also the drains.  And despite the fact that I pay for this insurance every month, I’m pretty sure I’m a loss leader with my old house and old appliances.   Once about 20 years back, I had two guys working on my boiler for almost 2 days straight – over 24 hours of service time – no charge. 

So while it wasn’t fun waiting for the service folks to show up, at least I wasn’t worried about having to find a pot of money for them.  They actually showed up earlier than I expected, got the drain cleared out lickety-split and now life in the basement is back to normal.

What are you willing to insure?