I just saw an ad for the new movie Peter Rabbit, opening in a couple of weeks. It looks really mean and violent. Beatrix Potter must be turning over in her grave.
What cinematic travesty has set your teeth on edge?
Category Archives: Stories
Enforced Idleness
This was so dumb. Here I was with a long weekend and I was laid up for three days on the sofa with a cough, fatigue, and a low-grade fever. I didn’t have real grand plans, but it would have been nice to have some productive time at home. It was too cold to go anywhere. All I was good for was as a heating pad for cats.
The enforced idleness wasn’t so bad. I rarely get sick, and when I do it is a sign to slow down and rest. One of my favorite ending lines to a Lawrence Durrell novel is “I felt as if the universe had given me a nudge”. This viral thing I had was a nudge, and I paid attention.
How do you take care of yourself when you are sick? Does the universe nudge you or wallop you?
Today’s post comes to us from Occasional Caroline.
I don’t really have a bucket list, but for quite a while I’ve thought it would be delightful to see the cherry blossoms in Washington DC. It’s tough to predict when to be there, but last year I thought I had it nailed. I found a website ( https://cherryblossomwatch.com/peak-bloom-forecast/ ) that predicts and tracks the probable peak bloom days for the annual display. Without knowledge of this website, you probably do not know that there is an “indicator tree” that helps the National Park Service fine tune the prediction of Peak Bloom. For reasons too complicated for me to comprehend, one particular tree hits stage one of the 6 stages of blossom development nearly 2 weeks before the all the rest; the others usually follow on a predictable timetable. Usually, but not in 2017. 2017 was not a typical year in DC, on many levels.
http://www.cherryblossomwatch.com
The latest information and forecasts on when Washington DC’s cherry blossoms around the Tidal Basin will reach peak bloom in Spring 2018.
But I digress. In late February, due to a very mild winter in the nation’s capital, the indicator tree indicated that the 2017 bloom would possibly be the earliest in history and particularly spectacular. The original prediction was March 10-13. The earliest ever recorded was March 15, the latest, April 18, and average somewhere around the last week of March to the first week in April. The whole show lasts 1-2 weeks, from buds to petals on the ground and green leaves on the trees; and peak lasts 2-3 days. That time frame was particularly convenient for us to take a trip last spring, so the planning began. We decided to leave on March 11, the day after our granddaughter’s 7th birthday party. We hit the road (yes, we drive on vacations) early Saturday morning, heading east. The plan was to be in DC from the 13-15 and then spend a week in the Williamsburg area. Day one was going well until we started hearing reports of the cold snap hitting the East coast. The NPS started pushing back the prediction for peak cherry blossom bloom. Suddenly the buds were encased in ice and it might possibly be the first no-bloom year in history. Peak, if there was to be one, would be at least a week later than previously predicted.
Time to rethink. Go to Williamsburg first, spend the week there and go to DC on the way home. Good plan. No problem changing reservations, peak Williamsburg season and peak cherry blossom season do not correspond. Remember the cold snap hitting the East coast. Yep, that includes Virginia. We weren’t looking for Florida weather, but 20s? Blustery, frigid winds? For days? We made the best of it, we went to the attractions that were open; most opened April 1. We were there March 13-20. We had a good time in Virginia and there was going to be at least a 50% of normal blossom “peak” on March 25, it was now March 20 and time to leave Williamsburg. Husband had been fighting off some insidious eastern US disease for a day or so, but seemed to be winning. It wasn’t peak yet, but this might be the closest we’d ever get, so we scheduled a Cherry Blossom bus tour of DC for the next day, that would require getting up pretty early, but we could handle that. Right? Nope. The illness won during the night and a feverish, achy, mess of a man was not going to make it from Williamsburg to DC and enjoy a bus tour that day. Well medicated and much later than our original plan, we headed west without ever seeing a single cherry blossom.
I have a new cherry blossom plan in mind now. My chiropractor tells me that his uncle lived in Traverse City MI, which is known (at least in Michigan) as the cherry capital of the US. If they have cherries, they must have cherry blossoms, right? While checking it all out, I discovered that a shortcut to Traverse City is to go to Door County WI and take a ferry to Traverse City, thereby going across Lake Michigan instead of around it, and with a boat ride to boot. I’ll just look at pretty pictures of the DC peak, and head for Wisconsin next time I have a yen to see cherry blossoms.
Have you ever fought with Mother Nature?
The Cats of Yore
Oh, where are the cats of yore, those aloof, independent creatures who disdained we mere mortals unless it was dinner time, and who were happy to accept a few scritches before they had enough and left to find a nice, solitary napping place?
We and our daughter have welcomed an entirely different breed of cat into our respective homes over the last year. I call these the needy cats, and they are interesting to live with. Daughter tells me that her cat, almost 9 months old, is either on top of her or following her around her apartment. She wants to play with daughter all night, hence kitten’s banishment from the bedroom so daughter can sleep.
We adopted a 5 month old rescue kitten in October. Her name is Millie and she believes that the best place to be is right by our side. She loves to sit on the counter and watch us wash dishes. She wants to supervise when we cook. Any food we eat must be hers, too. We have tried to dissuade her jumping and intrusiveness with water from a squirt bottle, but that backfired. She really likes water. She hurls her body against the closed bathroom door so it opens, and jumps in the tub even if the faucet is turned on. Wherever I sit, she plops herself in my lap, demanding to be petted. At night I am awakened by her gently patting my cheeks with her paws.
Given the tufts of hair between her toes, the tufts of hair in her ears, and her extremely long and very fluffy, luxurious tail, we think she may be part Maine Coon. Perhaps that could account for her personality.
This is also the first time we have cats without having terriers, too. The terriers did pretty well with the cats (as well as any terrier can do with creatures they consider vermin). The dogs would pursue and bark if the cats were too active or jumped on the table or counters. Maybe the dogs squelched the cats’ full expression of their personalities. All our new cats are rescue cats. Perhaps they are just so grateful to us that they can’t stop thanking us.
The header photo is of Millie in the bathroom sink. The other photo is a head shot of Millie after we caught her with her face in the cream cheese. She provides lots of photo opportunities and topics for conversation, which are somewhat redeeming qualities.
What kind of personalities have your animals had?
Soirees
I spent more time this weekend clearing out unwanted stuff in the basement. The three camping cots were donated to the homeless coordinator at work. Girly, twin size bedding was donated to the thrift store operated by a service provider for our developmentally disabled citizens, and I tossed all of daughter’s dorm room Christmas decorations from her freshman year. Then I got to the shelving where we store things from our parents we don’t use but still have.
We are the proud owners of my mother’s cut glass punch bowl, along with 12 glass cups and a glass ladle. We also have her silver service, as well as my mother-in-law’s silver service. I started to reminisce about the fancy lunches, family wedding receptions, and other soirees from my childhood and young adulthood where those things were used. I remember having to choose with care which aunts would sit at each end of the table and pour out the coffee at my wedding reception. They had to be different aunts than the ones who got to cut the wedding cake for so it could be served. Nice memories.
Husband thinks we should keep the punch bowl. I would like to keep the silver tray from my mother-in-law’s silver service and have it replated, since it is large with a pleasing design but has some of the plating worn off. I can live without silver coffee and tea pots. They just don’t have parties like they used to.
Tell about some parties you remember.
Bruce and I
Today’s post comes to us from Ben.
I found Bruce at an auction. At first I intended to give him to a friend of mine, but after purchasing, I liked him so well I decided to keep him.
Sometimes sculptures such as this are called “Green Man”. Or maybe he’s a gargoyle. Or he could just be a door knocker.
I hadn’t heard of Greenmen so I had to look that up. There are a lot of different looking versions of green man characters and multiple descriptions of what each means:
“The Leaf Man or Green Man of ancient pagan, druidic, and neo-pagan belief is a nature spirit of woodland places, plants, trees, & foliage. He represents fertility, springtime, and renewal and roams the woodlands of Europe in legend. Also called Green Jack, Jack-in-the-Green and Green George he is depicted as a face peering through leaves, usually Oak, which was sacred to druids, and a crown of leaves as a symbol of divinity.
I choose to think Bruce really is a spirit of woodland places and that he really does represent fertility and springtime.
At first I put him on the front wall of our well house so he could look across the yard and toward our house. That was OK, but eventually I moved him onto a tree. Now he can look down toward the chickens and a field. More tree’s and yard. Even a creek (in the winter when he can see through the trees).
He honestly looks much happier.
But DANG! He’s gotta be cold with that cast iron knocker in his cheeks.
Let the benevolent Leaf Man nature spirit greet guests to your home or garden with a mystical, architectural touch, and bring you good luck and prosperity!
Got a nature spirit?
PJ’s Sprite
Pajama Enforcement
Today’s post comes to us from Crystal Bay.
Like VS’s friend from last week, when my children were little, I’d search for matching pjs every Christmas. I wanted to photograph them together looking really cute, then use the pictures for holiday cards. Back then, matching pjs of different sizes were hard to come by because clothing sizes only came in age groupings: infants to toddler, toddler to elementary school, junior to adult. This forced me to go to three different departments in hopes that each one just might have the same pj in the next size up. Now, whole family sets are available, from infants to grown men.
After scoring (when I could), the next challenge was to get my three kids to put them on just for a photo shoot. They wanted nothing to do with fulfilling my desire for matching children. I cajoled them, bribed them with treats, got angry at them, and sometimes even said that I’d pay them. The age at which they became uncooperative was around six. I’ll never know whether their obstinacy was due to not wanting to look alike, or due to them knowing how badly I wanted to show them off.
Moving this tradition up another generation, my daughter skipped matching pjs when her five kids were little and started buy them when they were teenagers. For five years running, she’s spent a fortune buying each matching pjs, including a pair for herself. Each Christmas, they not only don them, they spend the whole day in them! This year, they even wore them all day at my son’s house. We always gather there because he has the largest home of all of us.
Maybe her success is because they identify with being a big brood. The older they get, the closer they’ve become to one another and to their mom. In my child-rearing days, my kids were closer to me when they were not yet teenagers. I can no more picture my kids spending all of Christmas day in matching pjs than I can imagine walking a mile in sub-zero weather!
What tradition will you be “enforcing” in 2018?
Helmer and Leroy
November 11 was a red letter day in Luverne this year. Helmer and Leroy, the two remaining members of the Last Man Club opened the bottle of Bourbon, took a swig, and named and honored their deceased friends in a last ceremony.
Helmer Haakenson is 98, and Leroy Luitjens was 93, I believe. Helmer is the thinner man. Leroy died a couple of weeks later in November. The club was started in 2010, comprised of Second World War veterans who met every day at the grocery store for coffee and mutual support. My dad was a member. Every guy had a coffee cup with his name on it. Glen, the grocery store owner, provided free doughnuts. When you died, they turned your cup upside down and placed it in the cup rack on the wall. The rack also contained a huge bottle of expensive bourbon. The bottle was to be opened by the last man, who then was to name his fallen comrades and drink a toast to their memory.
After the founder of the club died earlier this year, Helmer and Leroy decided to open the bottle at the town Veteran’s Day Ceremony. Former Governor Pawlenty’s wife was a special friend to the group, and she participated in the ceremony. Ken Burns, who featured Luverne in his documentary The War, wrote a congratulatory letter, which was read aloud. Then they opened the bottle, drank a toast, and the name of every member was read and a passing bell was rung.
Helmer insisted that the remaining members in 2014 be honorary pall bearers at my dad’s funeral. He is a hero to me, along with Leroy. I have known them both since my childhood. I need to write to Helmer.
Who are your heroes?
Christmas Fun
Today’s post comes from Crystalbay.
I always look for inexpensive gifts for all my grand kids, then buy 12 of them. Last year, I found little attachments for iPhones to enhance the quality of pix. Only $10 each. This year, I found something called, “Flashing Disco Ball”. This amazed me on video tape. It’s a golf ball sized ball with LED lights inside it and has two sets of helicopter-like rotor blades. It senses any object within six inches, so just putting your hand or your foot within this distance, the ball rises over and over and over.
I thought I’d try using it to make sure that it even worked as advertised, then turned it on. Boy, did it ever work. The damn thing flew all over the room every time my palm approached it!! YEAH!! A great gift!! Then, things turned ugly as I decided to bring it in for a landing. I moved all over the room trying to retrieve it but each effort just sent it off in a different direction. It’d gone up and wouldn’t come down. I tried sneaking up on it with the intention of grabbing it. I did this with reservations, thinking either I’d break the rotors, or the rotors would slice my fingers. Again, it darted away.
By this time, I was desperate to bring it home, so I grabbed a broom to just whack it. It sensed the broom and made a beeline to the other corner of the room. Eventually, it just disappeared on the floor. I’ve yet to find it. It later occurred to me that if I’d just refrained from trying to catch it and it had no more resistance to something 6″ away from it, it would’ve come down on its own!
Now then, I plan to charge up all 12 (minus the one I can’t find) so that all of them can fill Steve’s living room at one time. Just try to imagine that!
What are some of your more memorable holiday gifts?
A Simple Misunderstanding
I have a dear friend at work who has the most delightfully quirky elderly relatives. They are, by and large, aunts and uncles in their 80’s and 90’s, all who speak in thick, German-Hungarian accents with very local idioms. My friend, I will call her Donna, can relate their conversations with great accuracy, even down to the accent. She recently had two priceless conversations.
The first was with an uncle who told her “Sweetie, I have to tell you, I’m not doing so good”. He apparently had some sort of “spell” and totaled his car after running into three others after going into reverse when he meant to go forward. He didn’t go to the doctor since he had just been there two weeks before. He then told Donna “Don’t be surprised if you get a call one of these days to tell you that I woke up dead”. ” Waking up dead” happens a lot out here. It is a one of my favorite phrases.
The other conversation was equally serious. Donna sent out a short, humorous Christmas letter this year letting people know that her oldest son and his wife had another child. Donna put photos of the two grandchildren on the page, and ended her letter with “I never thought I would be sleeping with a grandpa!” referring, of course to her husband.
Donna got a phone call from a very elderly aunt and uncle, both in their 90’s, after she sent out the letter.
Her aunt told her “We got that Christmas letter, then. That was pretty dirty. You shouldn’t talk like that. We prayed for you.”
Donna realized that her aunt and uncle missed entirely the news that she and her husband were grandparents, and thought she was bragging about sexual exploits. She patiently told them about the new grandchildren and that she was referring to her husband in the last sentence. She told them, “You know, I’m not one of them runaround girls “, another lovely local phrase. Her uncle then said:
“That is pretty funny! Oh!! You!!” accompanied by a quick, sharp, wave of the hand to emphasize the silliness and loving exasperation he felt. As Donna always says, you can’t make this stuff up.
When have you been misunderstood?
Trail Baboon 