Category Archives: Stories

Stories, Weather

Teasing Temps

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It’s really quite a tease, these couple of days of near 60˚weather. Because of this unusually warm winter we’ve been having, I was able to ride my bike on Sunday to our friend Walken’s house. Last warm spell I rode to t’ai chi class at the Friendship (Senior) Center, and to pick up a few items at Midtown Foods. I am also in either walking or biking distance from:

– Paperbacks and Pieces, a book exchange that also sells some new books and other items

– Nia (aerobics class) at the WMCA

– the Winona Public Library and Post Office

– two coffee shops and the Acoustic Café  (plus innumerable fast food or pizza joints)

– Chapter Two Books (more used books)

– Bluff Country Food Co-op, and the downtown Farmers Market (in season)

– Winona State University, incl. theaters and auditoriums

– several large churches that host musical events and ad hoc groups like our Wellspring Singers

– Winona History and Winona Art Centers, which have classes, art show openings, political events, and films

– my chiropractor, dentist, and doctor

– three thrift shops

It- a couple of pubs, and Ed’s No Name Bar (where artsy types gather every Friday eve)

This is the advantage of living in the “inner city”, here on this nice flat piece of land stretched along the Mississippi. I consider “walking or biking distance” to be anything I can get to within ten minutes. Several other things are not prohibitively far – for an outing, we have biked the 4 or 5 miles to my mom’s residence in the west end, and even out the Marine Art Museum.

Where would you like to walk to or bike to, once spring is really here?

Speeches, Stories

Fancy a Game?

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I discovered Tom Stoppard when I was in junior high. I was involved in a youth theater program and one of my pals showed up with a copy of “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead.” I was immediately hooked. I was giddy with the word play Mr. Stoppard employs. She and I would spend hours sitting on the steps between rehearsals or during breaks reading that script – she as Guildenstern, me as Rosencrantz. (Decades on, we still address each other with those names and can recite parts of the play from memory.)

The best part of the whole script is the scant few pages that encompass the Questions Game. Rules are simple: keep asking questions. A point is scored if the opponent returns with a statement, repeats a question, hesitates, or uses rhetoric. Check out how Gary Oldman and Tim Roth play the game in the movie version here:

I was reminded of this when my buddy Guildenstern posted a video from the Old Vic with Daniel Radcliffe and Joshua McGuire playing a non-scripted version of the game as a promo for their upcoming production. Check out their version here:

An online game of questions quickly ensued with friends from different parts of my life chiming in. A portion of the exchange:

Was it your intent to score?
Did you start the game?
Ooo, can I play?
Is it good if I am already down one point?
Would you prefer it to be good?
Would I be a fool to prefer it so?
Are fools the only ones who can play?
Are you foolish?
Could any answer truly stop us from playing?

I couldn’t help but think to our conversations here that always start with a question.

A brief recap of the rules: only speak in questions. Statements, pauses, repeats or rhetoric will give a point to…someone. How much of the day can we spend only speaking to each other using only the interrogatory?

Would you like to play at Questions?

 

Fifty Words, Stories, Travel

No Shirt, No Shoes – No Cash

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We got an announcement at work today that British Airways will no longer take cash at any airport. All fees, upgrades and luggage fees must be paid by credit card.  It struck me that I had not expected cash to be banned during my lifetime.

What change has surprised you?

Stories

Garage Nemesis

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I hate my garage door. And the garage door opener.  The opener is 26 years old; I had it installed (unfortunately not by a professional) when I bought the house.  I haven’t the vaguest idea how old the door itself is.  Of all the things that I’ve had to mess with over the decades, this is my nemesis.  I’ve spent more time putting in my screws, new washers, re-adjusting the various sensors and fixing the lightbulb than I care to think about.  And now it’s broken again, although it’s broken in a way I’ve never seen before.  So, one more trip to the hardware store!

Do you have a household nemesis?

Baboon Achievers, Family, Stories

A One-derful Year

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Today’s post comes to us from Occasional Caroline.

I believe I’ve created a thing. At least I think it deserves to be “a thing” and to the best of my knowledge I thought it up.

Once per decade, beginning at age 21, we each have a full year of being “one-derful.” Twenty-onderful, thirty-onderful, etc.

Whenever anyone I know achieves a one-derful age, I urge them to invoke, acknowledge, and bask in it throughout the year. Many look at me oddly, but I think it should be a thing, celebrated by all. The “Golden Birthday” is a thing but I like my invention better. For one thing, Golden is really only celebrated on the actual birthday; if you were born early in a month, you’re too young to appreciate it when it happens to you. Never an issue with one-derful birthdays. Anticipation of a one-derful birthday can help take the sting out of entering a new decade; when you have a “significant” birthday, you’re only a year away from a one-derful one.

I rest my case.

What have you invented?

Stories, Words

A Head Full Of Connections

Gallery 57 Comments

Often when I am alone and my mind is free to wander, I am drawn to make connections between things I observe and things I know. Hisstarstorical things. Cultural things. Sometimes something I see or hear will trigger a question of etymology. I see a word or name in a new light and wonder, what’s the association there? Why are cantaloupes named for the call of the wolf? What does porcelain have to do with pigs? How does lactation fit into galactic? (It all goes back to the Milky Way) Is there any link between taxicabs and taxidermy? (There isn’t. Different root.)

I was out walking and happened to see an advertisement that used the word POSH. A widely held and completely unsubstantiated explanation of its etymology is that it originated with British sea voyage to India and that the most desirable staterooms were, on a round trip, “Port Out, Starboard Home”, and that this acronym was stamped on tickets of passage in purple ink. The problem is thaposht, though many souvenir tickets still exist in scrapbooks and museums, not a single one is so stamped, not in purple or otherwise. And who would such a stamp inform? The passenger would know what they had reserved. The crew would surely know the stateroom’s orientation by its number.

Like many etymological theories, the real origins of posh are speculative but a late nineteenth century dictionary of Romany (gypsy) terms lists “pash” as describing a dandy. By the early twentieth century, P. G. Wodehouse used it in its currently understood sense in a story, suggesting that by then it had entered into common parlance.

So, that’s a glimpse at what goes on inside my head when I am by myself.

What goes on in your head? Any favorite etymology?

History, Stories

Validation!

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You’ve all heard my theory of the presidency. Anyone who wants to be president is automatically disqualified by that desire.  Imagine my surprise when I found out that a former president was of the same opinion, so much so that he wasn’t even a candidate at the 1880 convention that nominated him.

Political cartoon lampooning the 1880 convention
Political cartoon lampooning the 1880 convention

The book I’m currently reading has this quote:

“I have so long and so often seen the evil effects of the presidential fever upon my associates and friends that I am determined that it shall not seize me. In almost every case, it impairs if it does not destroy, the usefulness of its victim.”

James Garfield

Who would YOU like to find out agrees with you?

Fifty Words, History, Stories

Lego Ore Boat

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Look at that massive block carrying masses of taconite. Efficient. Cost effective. Where is the curved grace of a classic ore boat?

ore-boat-3

Industry once designed for aesthetics as well as purpose.

Can a photographer discover poise and rhythm in industry today?

bridges

Wait until you see the Lego bank under construction near me (future blog).

What floats your boat this week?

Stories, The Baboon Congress

A Case of the Giggles

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Today’s post is written by Jacque.

Last week I was visited by a case of the giggles. The giggle incident was almost worthy of the Mary Tyler Moore episode in which she gets the giggles at Chuckles the Clown’s funeral.  Several friends were horrified.

When Lou and I arrived home from Arizona February 2, it was abundantly clear that while we were away, the mice did play in three drawers of the kitchen. Immediately I cleared out the drawers, then washed everything in them.  Lou set the traps.   These mice were wily!  It took 2 weeks to catch the first one in the knife drawer, a pink, sleek, healthy specimen which had apparently thrived in its makeshift home.

mouse

However, there was still evidence of mouse life appearing in the empty drawers. Lou reset the traps.  Nothing happened for several days, then one morning the bait was gone yet the trap was not sprung.  Then last Saturday I opened the plastic lid drawer to check the trap line to find the trap vanished, the drawer strewn with mouse blood and droppings.  An event had occurred.  The picture of the scene is what you see above.

drawer

I started to giggle and could not stop.  Giggling, I called to Lou to come look, then he started laughing.   Still giggling, we searched all the places we could access that might hold a mouse attached to a trap.  Nothing.

That evening I hosted my Open Studio Group and Potluck—a group of artists that gathers once a month to work together on projects, laugh, and entertain each other. I told my mouse story, giggling hysterically.  They were horrified.

“I can’t believe you are laughing!” one of them said.

“I know. I can’t help it.” I replied lamely, still giggling.  “I am like Mary Tyler Moore at the funeral of Chuckles the Clown.  It’s gruesome, not that funny, and hysterical.”

What gives you the giggles?

Stories, The Baboon Congress

Exceptional Taste

Gallery 40 Comments

Today’s post is written by Occasional Caroline.

I’m not the least bit exceptional, except, possibly for being exceptionally ordinary. I’m overweight, but so are 26.1% of Minnesota adults; nothing unique about that. I’m short; common trait. I’ve been married to the same man for nearly 48 years; I guess that stat is fairly unique, but at this stage, it’s pretty mundane from the inside looking out. I have children and grandchildren who are the lights of my life, but to you, they would seem pleasant, though not exceptional. I can’t sing or play any instruments. I have no artistic talent. I am a world-class “appreciator of the talents of others,” a worthy, but not particularly notable trait. My only somewhat out-of-the-ordinary characteristic is that I have rather eclectic taste in “stuff.” Many people (including my beloved children) find my taste and predilections “interesting,” but they certainly don’t covet any of my stuff or aspire to acquire similar stuff of their own. I am extraordinarily fond of some of my possessions, in particular one that is no longer with me  —  the late, great upside-down Christmas tree, that I lamented in a reply to tim’s “what is your signature” post two weeks ago. Here are a few of my favorite things.

Do you have a quirkiest object?