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?
Our children grew up eating a lot of rice, especially Basmati rice since we made curry pretty often. I made risotto occasionally, but not often since it was such a boring pain to make, standing at the stove and stirring and adding the broth for what seemed like an eternity.
The advent of the Instant Pot has revolutionized risotto making, and you can get a really decent risotto in no time with very little effort. I splurged and got a large bag of Carnaroli rice from a fancy, mail order Italian grocery store. It is heavenly. It is said to be far superior to Arborio rice. I haven’t decided yet.
I was tickled the other day when our daughter told me that she and a friend are determined to sample every risotto in Seattle. Their most recent foray into risotto was at a very fancy Italian restaurant where the risotto was green (presumably from pesto) and had Wagyu beef on the top. Daughter said it was wonderful.
I think she and her friend are on a lovely quest, and I wondered where I would want to go to sample a delicacy. All the minestrone in Tuscany? All the baguettes in Paris?
Where would you like to travel to sample the food? What is your favorite rice dish?
Our dog’s toy arsenal has been quite limited because of his post-surgery cone, and he has had to adapt to continue to have fun. Some toys just don’t work with a cone. I am happy to report the horrid cone comes off today. We and he are heartily sick of it.
One toy that has proven a continued delight for him is the large, orange tennis ball in the header photo. I placed a smaller red ball next to it so you could see the size difference. The orange ball is about 7 inches in diameter. He plays with it in several ways. He loves to peel the orange cover off it. That orange cover is glued on really tightly, and I am amazed at the strength of his jaws and teeth. He also likes to slam the ball on the floor while holding the fabric scrap in his mouth, then shaking it violently. He rolls the ball and chases it all around living room. We like it because it is too large to roll under the furniture. He barks and whines for us to retrieve smaller balls. He also likes to have us hold the ball while he tugs and tugs the fabric scrap. A ball lasts about a week.
What have been your pets’ favorite toys? What were your favorite toys as a child.What toys would you buy for a child these days?
Boy, If I was gonna pick a week to stay inside, last week was the week to choose. Although 5 months ago when we set this up, I wasn’t expecting this weather yet. I think there’s some record of the second week of February being historically the coldest. I do remember February 1996. Daughter was born in 1995 and that February she was in the NICU with a bad cold. Kelly spent nights there with her. I was still milking cows and doing chores and it was -42° one morning. That’s the coldest I remember. An owl spent the night in the garage it was so cold. And some yahoo went 4-wheeling with his truck in one of our fields and got stuck and came into the barn looking for help. I wasn’t very nice to him, but I did pull him out. Eventually.
This cold weather is also a helpful remind that I didn’t turn all the heat on in the house this fall when it first got cold. Because we have electric heat, all the rooms have thermostats and individual breakers. I turn them all off in the summer. When it started getting chilly, I turned on some of them. They’re not all labeled, so I only turned on what I thought were the important ones.
Then later we started saying ‘It sure is cold in the living room’ forgetting that I hadn’t turned everything on. Until last week. I managed to get my knew knee (I know that’s wrong, I just enjoy the alliteration) down to the basement for several things, including going in to check that breaker panel and oh. Yea. Only about half are on. We don’t use the basement for much, so I set those all to about 50° and turned on all the heaters. Boy, there’s nothing like the smell of dust burning off a heater.
Got my grade for Meteorology class. ‘A’. I don’t take classes spring semester; too much other stuff going on.
The ducks are spending all their time in the pond with this cold weather. Maybe to stay warm, maybe to keep it from freezing. It has shrunk up a little bit as the stream of water coming into it is pretty light. We seem to have picked up a couple stray ducks. One flies away when Kelly approaches, but there’s still an extra in the pond too. Alumni? Possible. And the chickens don’t have much interest in coming out of the coop either. Kelly opens the doors and throws out corn for them. But no Thanks. We’re fine. They do have water, corn, and egg layer ration in the pens. No reason to come out if they don’t want too. The guineas come out a bit further, but even they don’t go far.
I’m getting around pretty well on the knee. Better than I would have expected at this point. It’s still uncomfortable due to some swelling, and it’s still all sorts of colors. I get a little stiff in the shin and calf. Takes a few steps to get the muscles and tendons loose and moving. Using a cane 50% of the time and walker 25% and nothing 25%.
I’ve hit the BDDT phase of recovery. ‘bored, discouraged, depressed, and tired’. Hard to sleep at night just cause I have a hard time getting comfortable. And eventually, lack of sleep just makes me grumpy. But I’m surviving!
Did you know there is drone racing on TV?? On NBC! With fancy lighting. And drones, which I don’t care so much for, but the lighting is cool. Found a lot of old B&W movies on these new TV channels (new to us. Something called ‘Pluto TV’ which I haven’t quite got all figured out). Jack Lemmon in ‘Operation Mad Ball’. Spencer Tracey in ‘The Last Hurrah’ (with Basil Rathbone and John Carradine. Man, what a long face he has! And he sure could scowl!) ’12 Angry Men’ and things like ‘The Professional’, and several versions of Pink Panther movies. Plus, ‘St. Vincent’ on Netflix. Highly recommended.
Kelly continues to be my rock star. Not only doing all her work, but my work too. She really has never liked cold weather, so extra accolades on her for getting up early and going out to collect eggs and feed everybody. The day she spilled water into her boot I thought she’d quit. But she’s almost starting to enjoy driving the tractor and plowing snow. Almost.
WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO WITH A WEEK STUCK INSIDE?
Yesterday was possibly the worst Christmas Day we have ever had, as all the things that could have gone wrong with Daughter’s flights home went wrong. Our weather in ND was awful, with snow, sleet, a Winter Weather Advisory, and then an Alberta Clipper with a High Wind Warning. Her flight from Denver was cancelled. To make matters worse, her flight from SeaTac to Denver was four hours late due to technical problems, and they allowed anyone at SeaTac who missed a connecting flight to depart the plane with their luggage. The cost and uncertainty and anxiety in rescheduling was too much for all of us, so she had a friend drive her back to her apartment in Tacoma. We will try to have her fly here for Easter. It is in early April. I know we have April blizzards, but this gives us some hope.
Daughter was as brave as could be, waiting on the plane for four hours. She would have had a couple of days waiting around in the Denver airport for a flight here, but that would have been too sentimental a decision. It was a tearful decision, but I am glad she is at her home in Tacoma. I will send her cookies and lefse and her presents.
When was your first Christmas alone? What are some good Christmas jokes? I need some humor!
We finally got out of the house yesterday to buy some groceries. The weather had been so awful we didn’t want to venture out until Friday afternoon. I think the whole town got to the store the same time I did. It was crazy busy, and I saw one ribeye roast after another being handed out at the meat counter. Grocery shelves have been pretty bare due to the interstate being closed and trucks unable to deliver to the stores. Anyone planning a large family gathering for Christmas must have been stressed and panicky not being able to get things from the stores.
Our daughter will arrive at our local airport tomorrow night around 9:00. We are traditionally Christmas Eve people, going to church, celebrating with our big meal, and opening presents and calling it a night. This year our Christmas dinner will be on Boxing Day, and we agreed that presents will be simple and few. The bathroom remodel is at a standstill until the flooring arrives and workers can get here from Bismarck. Our home isn’t the tidiest right now, and there isn’t much we can do about it until the construction is done.
The most important thing for us now is to get our daughter home, and to just hang out together for the week. I am not so concerned with having everything done at the proper time than I am at having a less stressful holiday. Our tree is up but not yet decorated. We will do that on Monday. The Christmas baking is done. We will spend the week cooking our favorite foods and taking naps.
Are you a Christmas Eve or Christmas Day person? How do you manage holiday pressure and stress? Tell of some of your more memorable holiday gatherings.
Plan A: This plan originated in September, when Daughter purchased her tickets for a flight home for Christmas. She would leave Seattle/Tacoma on December 22, fly to MPLS, have a nice long layover, and fly into Bismarck at 11:00 PM. We would pick her up that night and take her home.
Plan B: This plan originated late last week when I saw that we were to have patchy blowing snow the night of the 22nd, and the wind chill was predicted to be -51. Daughter decided that she would spend the night of the 22nd in Mandan with the mother of her childhood best friend, and we would pick her up on Friday, when the snow was predicted to stop blowing.
Plan C: This plan emerged after Daughter saw that the weather was going to be a little snowy in MPLS, and that, if her flight to Bismarck was cancelled, she would stay with a friend in the Cities. Alternatively, if the friend couldn’t get to the airport to pick her up, she would stay in a hotel close to the airport. With either option, she would hope to get to Bismarck on the 23rd.
Plan D: By Sunday, Daughter started to panic, and thought that she wouldn’t get out of Seattle/Tacoma because there was a snow storm predicted on the 22nd, and there had already been many cancelled flights after only 1/2 inch of snow. She planned to prepare herself for being stuck in Tacoma.
Plan E: This plan emerged in the wee hours of Tuesday after Daughter saw the terrible storm predictions for MPLS. After convincing herself that she wasn’t being impulsive, she cancelled her reservations for the 22nd, and rebooked herself on another airline for the 25th that would take her to Denver, and thence directly to Dickinson by 9:00 PM. The weather and winds in Denver and Dickinson are predicted to be manageable on the 25th. She didn’t book this sort of flight in the first place because she really dislikes the Denver Airport.
What is your plan B?Have your thoughts about winter travel changed at all over the years?What is your opinion of John Steinbeck?
Trail Baboon 