Category Archives: The Baboon Congress

Family, The Baboon Congress

Crying “Wolf”

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Header image – “The Boy Who Cried Wolf“, by Francis Barlow

Today’s post comes from Barbara in Robbindsale.

I’ve just come from a semi-annual Care Conference with two of the people in charge of my mom’s care at her assisted living residence. This is sort of like parent-teacher conferences, except in reverse – YOU are learning about your PARENT. You find out which medications are working and which aren’t, what other services might be needed, and any concerns on our part or theirs are addressed. You are given a written update, and may have to sign permission slips which will be appropriately filed. “Are we all on the same page?” is one underlying question, and “Do either of us know anything the other doesn’t know that would be helpful?”

The concern I voiced was “What would it take for my mom to get an assisted walk every day?” We resolved that to the best of our ability. Then they had one for me – a new behavior my mom has done just once so far:  testing the system. She apparently called out to one of the cleaning people for help, telling them she had fallen and needed a nurse or caregiver. When the caregiver showed up several minutes later, they learned that she had indeed not fallen, but just wanted to see how long it would be before someone would come to help her.

Oh, boy. We’re going to “watch and wait”, see if this happens again. What is behind it – some sort of desire for attention? If it does happen again, she and I will have a little talk about:  if you create false emergencies, then when you really DO have an emergency maybe no one would believe you… She is still lucid enough to understand that she shouldn’t be doing this.

All in all, I am pleased with where she is – she loves the physical space, the resident dog and cats, and she now has pretty good relationships with the staff. There is just this one little glitch.

Have you ever “cried wolf”, or known someone else who did?

The Baboon Congress

instant inspiration

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Today’s post comes from tim

i remember hearing about , i think i even read the book by amy tan about the travelers to myanmar   (burma… siam) where the story came to her in one sitting and she simply sat down at the desk and out it came from her brain to her fingers to the page to our published finished product. well it was a pretty good book and i think the bridges of madison county came about the same way if i remember  the way that story goes… it seems a bit hokey but the truth is the magic is in us and the release is the thing we all search for.

i was watching monday night football last night and one of he running backs who was having a great night had been asked why he is doing so well this year and he said he just quit thinking about running and let his legs run. i think that is the way it is with life and with all great things on the planet. you dont need to over anaylize them , you just let them go and kind of follow along like water down  the driveway to the curb to the hill to the drain pipe on the corner. if it is engineered correctly and life often times is… we can wake up,  let the flow carry us as it should and hopefully the destination is a more ideal setting than the drainpipe on the corner but the destination has likely been charted to be no surprise by the steps we take.

my sons two favorite movies are good will hunting and shawshank redemption. he can watch these over and over again. in one the hero is a smart guy who does his job and the end result is that the bad guys turn out to be the heads of the prison and he escapes from their suppression and they get caught and in the other the hero is a guy who is super smart and has the challenge of figuring out his way in the worlld. his role , who he loves and how he faces it with the help of another person who struggled in a similar fashion.

it is interesting where the stories and lessons of life take us. where our fingertips  take us  if we  let them. it is automatic as can be. this is not the best damn blog entry ever written but it took my fingers little time to get it down and out the chute.

what would you write if the word you just typed couldn’t be taken back and the next one was coming up whether you liked it or not? how would the stories unfold if your fingers took over for your  brain? automatic writing 101 anyone?

start with the first  word that enters your mind and follow it with he next and see where it takes you. fun stuff this mindless drivel

produce. maybe you will be better.

ready set go!!!

Food, The Baboon Congress

Come Along, Don’t Go Along

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Today’s post comes from Jim Tjepkma

I had the very good fortune to spend five years working closely with Dick and Sharon Thompson in my job as the coordinator of the Rodale Institute’s Midwest On-Farm Education and Research Network.  The Thompsons were among the nation’s foremost leaders in the development and promotion of sustainable farming.   I meet them soon after Rodale hired me early in 1989.   I was the second coordinator for the Rodale network that had been setup several years earlier.   The network was based on Dick and Sharon’s approach to advancing sustainable farming, which was centered around farmer participation in education and research programs for the development of alternatives to conventional farming methods.

Screenshot 2015-12-09 at 6.47.31 AM

Dick said that he had received a message telling him that his approach to farming should be one of coming along and not going along.   For him this meant that he should question the current farming methods that were very widely used and look for better ways to farm.   He started by trying out some unconventional farming practices he learned about from other farmers who were also questioning the increasingly industrialized approach to farming that most farmers had adopted including heavy use of pesticides and the use of very large machinery.

Under Dick’s “come along, don’t go along” approach, he put together some of the best of the alternative ideas he could find into a system that worked well for him.  Dick had a lot of skill at finding and adopting better farming methods and came up with practices that worked well which were not in line with many of the practices recommended by universities.

He decided that he needed to demonstrate that his methods were as good or better than the ones the universities promoted by setting up scientifically designed research plots comparing his practices to theirs.  His research plots became a central part of large field days that he and Sharon hosted and he also taught other famers, included those in the Rodale network, how to do their own research.

Dick was a featured speaker at many farm meetings and usually participated in these meeting with Sharon at his side to let everyone know that she was an important part the work he did.   He also encouraged other farmers to come forward as speakers and as educators as well as encouraging them to engage in research.

I think Dick and Sharon’s approach of “coming along not going along” sets a good example for all of us.  In fact I think his approach is basically what a good citizenship should do.  We should not automatically accept what we are told by authorities and we should be actively engaged in creating a better world.

Who do you know who has influenced you by setting a good example?

News, The Baboon Congress

How Does This Change Things?

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Header image via Flickr,  copyright Moyan Brenn (CC by 2.0)

Today’s post comes from Barbara in Robbinsdale

I have just come across this article by Kerri Westenberg in Sunday’s (12/6/15) Star Tribune Travel section about a woman (Catherine Reid Day of St. Paul) who was in Paris during the November 14 attacks on the City of Light. She, her husband, and daughter had spent the day being tourists – been to Notre Dame and the Louvre – and were back “in their hotel by 9:30. The terrorist attacks at restaurants, a stadium and a concert venue began at 9:20.

She found out about them via a text from a friend back in the States, asking if they were OK. Then they turned on the TV.

The next day (Saturday) they ventured out and found one store open, a book store – appropriate, she said, “because education is the antidote to all of this.”

To have the attack in San Bernadino, CA, happen on “our own soil” almost three weeks after this event is unsettling, to say the least. One of the saddest outcomes of this random act of violence is, ironically, how much it will hurt the Muslim communities throughout the US and the world.

A Washington Post article re-published Monday, 12/7 on msn.com contains this quote: ‘ “The purpose of terrorism is to make ordinary people afraid to do the ordinary things that make up their lives,” said Janice Rutherford, a member of the [San Bernadino] county Board of Supervisors. “We can’t be afraid of our lives, of our community, of our neighbors, of our coworkers.” ’

It seems from all the rhetoric around these two events that this is being considered another “watershed moment” in our history, the way that 9/11 was – we will remember a before and an after.

What, if anything, do you think has changed in the world?

The Baboon Congress

tim tackles time

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today’s post comes from tim

my 28 year old son made the comment the other day that his friends who were giving him crap about not being available as much once he got into a relationship was seeing the other side of the equation now that they got involved in a relationship and are now not able to get away themselves.  he laughed and mentioned that he was going to try to put together an event that would call them together so they wouldn’t lose the friendships out of attrition. i was about to suggest that he set it up for every two months because the every month get together is too easy to miss. if its every two months the missing of oen meeting makes a 4 month void which either is a big deal or the premise was wrong to begin wit.

this got me thinking about time chunks. if a year is 365 days and a season is 90 ish days long and a month is 30 and a day is 24 hours…. what does it say about the decisions we make regarding the comings and goings of a time chunk?

i love the christmas feeling of goodwill and the side of people that comes out to greet the season. i got to thinking if christmas were every  6 months it would lose its effect. the time is perfect for a renewal without feeling harassed.

the seasons are perfect 90 days of spring followed by 90 days of summer followed by 90 days of fall then  winter to be done in order once again next time with a variation of the glob to be realized during and after it is experienced. fall 2015 has been mild, winter has been easy on the shoulder hunchers and downright mean to the winter outdoor enthusiasts. if summers warm got issed the way winters cold is mieed this year we would have wailing and gnashing of teeth. . people in san diego and equador lose the urgency to do it today because the time of this cycle is real.

our book club meets every 2 months because every month  is too often. my card palying group plays once a month because we need one  night  a month to call our own the group is not particlarly close but has an appreciation for the celebration of coming together once a month for reknewal and commrodarie in the name of the time gods.

if a day was 12 hours long and the planet sun a little faster so the day of work play and sleep had to happen in a 12 hour instead of a 24 hour frame it would be schitzo. if the day were 30 hiurs long would it be nice to have a little more time to ge tthngs done but what would we do with the extra 6 hours?

there was an experiment i read about ears ago where they locked people in a building with no references to time and had the days and nights blocked out and no clocks radios or references to time in the traditional sense. you could watch a movie but not on the normal 7-9 agenda you normally do it would be when you wanted and when it was over the next thing on your calendar would come up. sleep would go as long as it needed to and only as often as you demanded it.

how often would  you do what if you were the timekeeper? 

The Baboon Congress, Words

Mail DisOrder!

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Header image by Dvortygirl via Creative Commons 3.0

Today’s post comes from Barbara in Robbinsdale

I know a lot of Babooners probably shop Online, which has to make things easier during this season. Husband and I are still going to the Bricks and Mortar places for most of our purchases. HOWEVER, we have managed to get on catalog mailing lists galore – we probably bought something through a catalog in 1992 that sold our info to another catalog… and now I’m getting Christmas merchandise catalogs to the tune of three a day.

I have here in front of me: LL Bean, Catalog Favorites, Potpourri, Whatever Works, Harriet Carter, Miles Kimball, Bits and Pieces, Collections Etc., Walter Drake, Dream Products, FeelGood Store, and the Vermont Country Store.

And that’s within just the last few weeks.

I have to admit I like looking at some of them, especially if I haven’t seen one in a while. I particularly enjoy the funny t-shirts, some of which I cut out and put in people’s Christmas cards with the caption – “If I were buying you a gift, here’s what it would be.” Some that have made me laugh out loud this year are:

Plus these hits:  

    • It’s not hoarding if it’s only books 
    • You cannot be old and wise if you were never young and crazy
    • I’d grow my own food if I could only find bacon seeds
    • Families are like fudge, mostly sweet with a few nuts!
    • A little gray hair is a small price to pay for all this wisdom!
    • What is this word “NO” you speak of? 
    • You are about to exceed the limits of my medication
    • Gardening is cheaper than therapy, AND you get tomatoes

And my personal favorite:

  • I may be old, but I got to see all the cool bands

But even though I often dog-ear some pages and save the catalogs for a while, I won’t order anything, and I wish I could think of a way to stop them from sending me all this paper.

What’s your all time favorite t-shirt?

The Baboon Congress

Adventures in Smudging

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Header image of sage from lebensmittelfotos on Pixabay

Today’s post comes from Renee in North Dakota.

I must start out by apologizing to the Baboons for the obtuseness of the following post. I had to leave out some details so that I could tell you the substance of something I did without incurring all manner of rannygazoo for my furtive act.

I recently went somewhere (I can’t reveal where, for reasons I can’t divulge) which is usually full of people, but was deserted during the time of which I write.

It is a place I really like going to. It is also a place, however, where I have experienced a great deal of interpersonal strife, some of which goes back more than a decade.  The strife ended suddenly and unexpectedly a short time ago. My purpose for going to this place was to heal myself and the place by smudging.

Smudging is something our Native American friends do to ceremonially purify and cleanse themselves and their surroundings by burning fragrant plants and wafting the smoke all over.  I consulted with some Native friends about my smudging idea. They thought it was quite appropriate and supplied me with a shell, sage and bear root that they had harvested from their Reservation, and a  braid of sweet grass.

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The sage and bear root purify and heal; the sweet grass provides a blessing and counters negative energy.

Early one morning I took my supplies to the place I needed to smudge, all the while thinking peaceful and healing thoughts and good Lutheran prayers. It was just sunrise. I lit the sage and bear root in the shell, got them smoldering, and wafted the smoke all over myself. I then went from area to area in the place that were heavily associated with the strife. In psychology terms I would say that the areas were “deeply cathected” or full of negative energy. There was very little smoke but incredible fragrance, especially from the sage.  I then lit the sweet grass braid and repeated the process. The whole procedure took about 30 minutes. I left the place and went  home.

This is one of the goofiest things I have ever done. I told  a few non-Native people what I was planning, and one of them said “That is so weird, Renee! I was just thinking, what would a shaman do to help heal this place?” Well, I am no shaman, but I took this as an affirmation from the cosmos that what I had planned was ok.

I had to smudge in secret because smoking and burning candles aren’t allowed at the place I smudged, and many people wouldn’t have understood why I needed to do this. Anger and strife are killers, in my experience, and I needed to put as much of them to rest as I possibly could.  I feel more at peace now, and that is a good thing.

How would you nullify bad feelings associated with a significant place?

The Baboon Congress

Fa La La La …

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Today’s post is by Sherrilee.

People hate me this time of year. This is how I got here.

As a newly married young gal, I had lots of ideas about how we would start our own holiday traditions and celebrate together. We agreed that we would spend the holidays on our own in Milwaukee as we both had grueling schedules (me in the bakery and him at grad school). It was right around Thanksgiving when his parents called; I could hear him in the other room sliding down the slippery slope. By the time he got off the phone, he had agreed to go home to Kansas City for Christmas. I made him promise that if we spent time with his family, we would split that time with MY family. On the 23rd I worked until 2 p.m., rushed home and we took a night flight to Kansas City. Spent a day and a half with his folks, then we flew to St. Louis on Christmas morning and spent a day and a half with my folks. Home on the 26th and back to work on the 27th. I hadn’t done holiday cards, done no baking, hardly purchased any gifts and no down time. I cried for 3 weeks.

As the year progressed, I promised myself I never wanted to go through that again. I bought holiday cards on sale in January, purchased gifts through the summer and even baked cookies in early November, putting them in the freezer. By Thanksgiving I was all done. The whole holiday season was less stressful and there was also no yelling and cursing at my Wasband. The next year I wasn’t at the bakery, but got everything done early anyway.

It’s been decades but I still work hard to get everything done by the beginning of December. It means being organized, thinking about it throughout the year and working on the projects months before the holidays. Even though I now celebrate Solstice and also now make all our cards and gifts, I still get done early and then thoroughly enjoy the whole holiday season. taking plates of cookies everywhere, going to every party I’m invited to and watching all of my holiday movies. I love it.

So go ahead and hate me; that’s the spirit!

What would it take to make your end-of-year stress vanish?

The Baboon Congress

Baboon Redux – Beer Bottle Lamp

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Header Image of bench made from skis by Victor Grigas /
CC By SA 3.0

Today’s post was first published in 2011,  by Jim (who used to be) from Clark’s Grove.

As an impoverished student I learned to do a lot of improvising. In those days I got by with shelves made from boards and cement blocks which were also found in many other student apartments. I even had a guide to living as an impoverished student that gave all kinds suggestions for living cheaply. It gave a recipe for cooking a tasty chicken dish to serve on special occasions, along with instructions on making your own beer, and talked about using colorful cloth to cover worn out sofas and other things.

Most of the improvised things from our student days have been replaced by items that cost a little more and don’t need to be covered with colorful cloth. The lamp made from an over sized beer bottle is no longer in use. The board and block shelves were replaced by less rugged shelves made with 2 by 2s and boards and those shelves were finally replace some that were purchased at a furniture store.

We are still making use of some used furniture that we refinished during our student days. One of these items is a Hoosier cabinet that we bought for next to nothing at a back street auction house. We painted this cabinet and used it for many years before stripping it and giving it a coating of polyurethane. We even found a source of hardware that matched the style on the cabinet and replaced a broken latch. This cabinet has a lot of interesting features and is still in use for storing dishes and other things in our dining room.

There are some other pieces of refinished used furniture that we are still using. Most of these refinished items came from relatives. They include and old arts and craft styled oak kitchen table. The legs of the kitchen table were not refinished and still are covered with the old wood finish and decorative stripes of green paint. We are also using a refinished dresser that might be made of maple and a small refinished table made from some kind of fairly good looking wood. An old oak dresser has been stored for many years in our basement waiting refinishing, but I doubt that I will get around to working on it and I think it will end up as a donation to the Salvation Army.

The most treasured remnant of impoverished student days is a homemade spice rack still being used in our kitchen that is seen in the picture. It was made from some rustic wood slats that came from an old wooden orange crate and is filled with sets of recycled glass jars of various kinds. This is one of the few times that my tendency to hoard all kinds of things, including used jars, paid off. It isn‘t a highly attractive item, but it has a ‘folksy’ look that keeps it from sticking out like a sore thumb. It could use some new better looking jars with better looking labels on them. This spice shelf is a well liked reminder of the days when we didn’t have much money.

It can never be replaced.

What’s your greatest low-budget improvisation?

The Baboon Congress

Baboon Redux – Over the River

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Today’s guest post, originally posted in November of 2011,  is by Clyde.

When we were raising our children, we lived in Two Harbors and my parents lived above the east end of Duluth, only about two miles from Hawk Ridge. Among the four ways we could drive to their house, our favorite was to take the Seven Bridges Road.

Here is YouTube of a song about the Seven Bridges Road:

In winter the Seven Bridges Road was plowed only part way up the hill. Thus for our traditional Thanksgiving Day drive to my parents house we would always take the Seven Bridges Road, assuming that it would ere long be closed. And a family tradition was born to sing as we passed over each of the seven bridges “Over the river and through the woods to Grandmother’s house we go.” As our children matured, one would always ask, “What’s another popular Thanksgiving song?” A question which still lacks an answer.

Why is that? Why are there not many popular songs for this second most American of holidays? Everything seems right for songs: the season, the purpose, the mood, the many items associated with the day. But no songs have arisen.

Also, serious writers of serious music, i.e. classical, often embody popular songs, i.e. un-serious songs, in their serious music. Have I missed it, or has no one used Lydia Maria Child’s “Over the River and through the Woods” in this way?

Another mystery: Her poem which provides the words to the song was called “A Boy’s Thanksgiving Day.” Why is her poem of her childhood memories called “A Boy’s Thanksgiving Day”?

Here are her words:

Over the river, and through the wood,
To Grandfather’s house we go;
The horse knows the way to carry the sleigh
through the white and drifted snow.

Over the river, and through the wood—
Oh, how the wind does blow!
It stings the toes and bites the nose
As over the ground we go.

Over the river, and through the wood,
To have a first-rate play.
Hear the bells ring, “Ting-a-ling-ding”,
Hurrah for Thanksgiving Day!

Over the river, and through the wood
Trot fast, my dapple-gray!
Spring over the ground like a hunting-hound,
For this is Thanksgiving Day.

Over the river, and through the wood—
And straight through the barnyard gate,
We seem to go extremely slow,
It is so hard to wait!

Over the river, and through the wood—
Now Grandmother’s cap I spy!
Hurrah for the fun! Is the pudding done?
Hurrah for the pumpkin pie!

Why the dearth of Thanksgiving songs?
Go ahead. Write one.