Category Archives: The Baboon Congress

The Baboon Congress, Travel

Christmas Past

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Header photo of Adliswil by Parpan05 (Own work), CC-BY-SA-3.0 or CC BY-SA 2.5-2.0-1.0  via Wikimedia Commons

Today’s post comes from Cynthia in Mahtowa.

Christmas is not one of my favorite times of the year, Memories are loaded with emotional and physical loss – each of my parents died, I received divorce papers, old reminders of the difficult maneuvering after my parents separated and divorced and remarried. Then there was exhaustion after the long hours working in my father’s retail business wrapping presents, followed by a six hour drive to southern Minnesota to be with grandparents, my parents smoking and arguing what seems like the entire way.

But one Christmas I love to remember: the year I was in Switzerland.

After my first year teaching I quit to travel in Europe. I ended up staying with a family in the small village of Adliswil just outside Zurich. They lived above their tearoom and bakery but also had a home up in the mountains near Einsedeln. The month leading up to Christmas they made candies — delicious Swiss chocolates, many with nummy hazel nut cream. (I thought they were called Moor’s Caps/Moorenkoppen, but I can’t find what I remember them being on the web…so memory being what it is…who knows what they were called.)

Not only did they put up with me, but they graciously allowed me to invite a college friend who was studying in England to join me for the holiday.

On Christmas Eve we drove up to their mountain home. The tree was decorated (did I help decorate it? I don’t remember) with real and lit candles. Interestingly my friend remembers many more details of the holiday than I do, but this we both remember: There was snow. In the evening, we walked somewhere I don’t recall and on our way up along the mountain road a man was riding a bicycle down the road yodeling. A perfect Swiss moment.

Do you have a favorite Christmas memory?

The Baboon Congress, The Future

Here Come the Robots

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Today’s post comes from Steve Grooms

I used to hate computers. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, computers increasingly intruded into the lives of average people. And they were no fun. I hated them. Just about everybody did. People had notes on their cubicle walls saying, “I am a human being. Do not bend, fold or mutilate.” That—for younger readers who might not know—was a reference to the legend printed on the universally hated computer data cards.

When I heard that people were buying computers for their homes, I was astonished. What? People needed computers to do their taxes? That made no sense at all. I suppose I first heard about home computers in 1980, for that is when the first home computers were hitting the market.

Well, guess what? The most astonishing gift I got in the Christmas of 1982 was the computer my parents gave me. My life has not been the same since then. I used that primitive computer (an 8 bit CP/M Osborne) to write six books. I soon was writing email letters to friends, sending articles and manuscripts electronically to publishers and even (yes!) using the computer to do my taxes. A computer hater became a computer lover almost overnight, and now I can’t imagine life without my computer. I use it more and enjoy it in more ways than my TV.

All of this is necessary background for what this blog is really about, which is robots.

When I first heard people wanted robots for their homes, I was amazed and derisive, just as I had been about home computers. And just like computers, robots are coming into our lives and into our homes. The most militantly humanistic young couple I know owns a robot that whirrs around vacuuming their home without human guidance. The manufacturer of the Roomba now makes a similar robot that mops tile floors.

Now there are robot lawn mowers that will roar around peoples’ yards mowing the grass without human guidance. If I had a lawn to mow now I’d be tempted by these. They aren’t cheap. For all I know, they might chop up the occasional tulip garden or Pomeranian. But these are the “Model T” versions of robotic lawn mowers, after all. We can expect them to get better and cheaper year by year, just as computers did.

When I scoffed at the notion that robots would enter our homes, I was thinking of little tin men clanking around brandishing brooms, trying to sweep the kitchen floor. But that’s not the way it will happen. Of course, that could come. Sony already makes a robot called the QRIO that looks like the stereotype of a robot, something that has two legs and two arms and walks upright. But that’s not how robots will first enter our lives.

The first robots to enter our homes will be stationary, yet they will be able to listen to us and talk back. And they are already here. Examples include the Amazon Echo, Amazon Dot or Google Home. These little robots were extremely popular Christmas gifts this year. What they feature is artificial intelligence. They talk to us and respond to things we say. They interact with their human “owners.” They even perform simple tasks, like playing music or ordering takeout food.

I first understood how close all this is to revolutionizing our world a few weeks ago when I viewed a promotional video for Jibo, the “home robot.” I used to think “home robot” was an oxymoron like “military intelligence.” But, no, it is a clever new social robot. Watch this video and draw your own conclusions:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3N1Q8oFpX1Y

This is the future. And the future is now. Robots are changing our lives, just as computers once did. Brace yourselves!

What will home robots do? Nobody can know for sure, but the general answer is that they will do anything that is unpleasant or bothersome to the point we don’t like to do it ourselves.

Something else that is coming—and indeed is here already—is the robotic pet. These are highly popular in some societies. Count me among those who are creeped out by the idea of a robotic cat or dog. But many people, particularly in Japan, find robotic pets comforting. A robotic cat presumably would not need a sandbox, and it would only “eat” batteries.

Beyond doing unpleasant things, I am convinced that social robots will increasingly serve as substitutes for human friends. We already have robots that chat with us and perform small tasks. It wouldn’t be difficult to create a small robot with AI that that would have something like a face and something like a personality. Are there lonely people in this world who would love to have a robot that never tires of talking to them and laughs explosively at their jokes? How would you react to a robot that sits by your toaster in the morning chatting with you, making coffee, delivering a weather report and saying snarky things about Donald Trump?

What bothersome tasks would you like to have done by a home robot?

The Baboon Congress, Weather

Neither Snow nor Rain nor Heat nor Gloom of Night…

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This post is from littlejailbird.

The city of Minneapolis has a wonderful thing going where you can get a free tree for your boulevard. You just have to make a request before November and the following spring you will have a tree planted in front of your house, no money or labor from you required.

Many years ago, I requested one of these trees and subsequently had a pin oak tree planted on my boulevard. I don’t know if the city still does this, but back then it took care of watering the tree for the first summer. They must have had a schedule where the watering truck would go around and water the new trees.

They were very good at following the schedule and didn’t let pesky things like bad weather interfere. They could have taken the motto often associated with the U.S. Post Office and tweaked it to reflect their dedication to the tree-watering schedule: “Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays theses tree waterers from the swift completion of their rounds.”

I know this because one day there was quite the deluge outside. It was pouring so hard that a person would have been totally soaked in approximately 2 seconds. I was nice and dry indoors and while I watched the rain pouring down, a truck pulled up in front of my house. Soon the tree-waterer had the hose out and was diligently watering the boulevard tree. I was impressed with his dedication…and amazed at a system which would send someone out to water trees when it seemed the tree was already getting plenty of moisture by natural means. I’m sure the tree-waterer felt his job was redundant that day.

Tell us about something you’ve done or witnessed that turned out to be totally unnecessary.

The Baboon Congress

I Ain’t Got Time To Bleed

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Header image by Kathleen Tyler Conklin via Flickr – Creative Commons 2.0

Today’s post comes from Wessew

I cut myself again today.

I mention “again” as cuts are an all too frequent occurrence in the flooring installation trade. There are sharp thingys everywhere just waiting to deliver a laceration. This time it was the sheet vinyl itself that I mishandled resulting in what can be described as a paper cut that bleeds. But, as Governor Ventura famously said in the movie Predator, “I ain’t got time to bleed”, so I put a dab of antiseptic on the wound and covered it with duct tape. (I confess to have watched too many Red Green Shows) The damage today was minimal. No sutures required.

On one occasion I had just finished gluing a floor in an empty rental apartment and stood up to roll the material into the wet adhesive. Unfortunately, the stove exhaust vent got in the way and delivered unto me a nasty gash in my scalp. I had no choice but to take my shirt off for use as a compress and finish that part of the job one-handed.

Scalp wounds bleed A LOT but I had no time to bleed as the flooring material needed to get into fresh adhesive. The emergency room gave me a dozen sutures that day. Duct tape would not have been effective in this case.

Another notable cut happened when I was cleaning a glue-coated trowel. The material had to be scraped off, so I was using a razor sharp, four inch wide, half inch deep wall paper scraper. It slipped and my left thumb got in the way. It was bad. Very bad. About two inches long and a quarter of an inch deep. I squeezed it together and proceeded to the emergency room which was one sixteenth of an inch away; just behind a sheet of plastic. It comes in handy to sometimes work in a hospital. They didn’t even make me wait and
fill out the paperwork. From the time of the accident to the time the doctor gave me a local anesthetic, was less than five minutes. The doctor and I chatted a bit as he worked on me and I casually enquired when I would be able to play the piano. For some reason he didn’t see the punchline coming because he said, “Probably in two days”. To which I replied, “Two days? Wonderful. I never could before.” His assistant practically fell on the floor laughing. He groaned and gave me an extra stitch.

What keeps you in stitches?

Family, The Baboon Congress

POTTY TALK

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Today’s post comes from Jacque

Many of you on the Trail have seen the books I make for my mother for Christmas. Several of the books I have posted on the Trail.   For those of you who are new to the Trail or might have missed the previous posts I will tell you the story of the stories.

tootie-pumps-waterDuring the summer of 1984 Mom, who was then a teacher, took a course given by the Iowa Writers’ Workshop to update her teaching license. The Iowa Writers’ Workshop sponsored these courses throughout Iowa. She attended her class at Morningside College in Sioux City, Iowa.   Writing memoirs was the topic. My mother wrote her stories of growing up on a farm near Pipestone, MN during the Great Depression, in a family of eight children.

going-north-to-the-outhouseIn 2008 and 2009, after Mom was diagnosed with Alzheimers Disease,   she moved out of her home to live with my brother in Central Iowa. I drove down for the weekends, picked her up, and we would be off to her house to sort through her belongings. I made a note to myself to find the stories. Mom had told us her stories throughout our childhoods, including these. We knew they were in her house, but as her memory for things faded, she forgot where she stored them.

chamber-ptTucked away in a file were the stories she had written 22 years before.

I co-opted them. As her Christmas gifts from 2009 to this year, I adapted one story per year to a children’s book. You can find all of them posted on the Bookemon website. The one I post here took me two years to complete due to life’s demands. This one is called “Potty Talk” about life on a farm without the modern plumbing we now have.

Follow this link to see the book.

Most families have potty stories. Do you have one?

The Baboon Congress

The Butterfly

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Today’s post comes from Ben

Once upon a time there was a butterfly.

He was the most splendiferous colors of glass stained blue and red with silver framing holding him all together. And with his two curly antennae he would listen to the sounds of the world. And he spent his days gazing at the wonders of the world as they sped past his view from the sliding glass doors.

And it was good.

He lived on the deck of a wonderful Lady who would talk to him and tell him news and they would grumble about how the Twins were playing and she would get the giggles over things. And one day she told the butterfly she was taking a little trip but she would be back.

And after that, a man with a Big Brown Seed Corn Hat came into his view. And the man in the Big Brown Seed Corn Hat moved about taking care of plants and flowers and other things but he didn’t much notice the butterfly.

And then, the man in the Big Brown Seed Corn Hat smushed the butterfly between the sliding glass doors.

And the butterfly lost one of his antenna and his bright blue belly fell out of its silver frame and his head was sort of crunched down into his wings. And it hurt. MAN, did it hurt!

Plus, he fell off his suction cup and got wedged between the sliding doors.

And, of course, the man in the Big Brown Seed Corn Hat didn’t know it at first and wondered why the doors wouldn’t close right. And he tried to close them again. And again. And AGAIN! Crunch! Crunch!

CRUNCH! Went the doors on the poor butterfly’s head.

Then the man in the Big Brown Seed Corn Hat figured out what was going on and spent 10 minutes with a stick and a spoon and a piece of paper trying to fish the poor, broken butterfly out from between the sliding glass doors.

And the man felt Sad. And the Butterfly said ‘…Ow…’

And the man in the Big Brown Seed Corn Hat told his wife and his sister, ‘I broke the Butterfly! Don’t tell Mom!’ and he hid it away and hoped the Wonderful Lady wouldn’t notice the Splendiferously colored Blue and Red and Silver Butterfly with the two curly antennae was missing.

“If I wait long enough, she’ll forget”, he said to them.

Finally, the Man in the Big Brown Seed Corn Hat got out his soldiering Iron and tried to fix the poor broken Butterfly. And it was difficult. And not as easy as he thought it might be. And he burnt his fingers.

And he got a different soldiering iron and some alligator clips. And that didn’t work and he went back to the first soldering iron. Finally, the Man in the Big Brown Seed Corn Hat said, ‘Well, I guess that will have to do.’

And the Butterfly looked forward to being back with the wonderful lady and listening to the sounds of the  world (although some of them are a little bit muffled in that one antennae).

And they all lived happily ever after.

Have you hid something you broke?;

The Baboon Congress

Waiting

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Today’s post comes from Renee in North Dakota

Advent is a time in the Christian church year of waiting and anticipating.  Hymns are somewhat mournful and quiet, and  readings deal not only with the wait for the Christ Child but the end time and the crucifixion.  We wait for packages and children to arrive, we wait in line, we wait for bread to rise and for cookie dough to chill. I always seem to need time off from work during Advent to recharge and regroup, and that is what I am doing this week.

Yesterday I made some cookies I have never made before-Nurnberger Lebkuchen and Spekulatius.   Both are German cookies. The Lebkuchen are honey cakes, and the Spekulatias are like the Dutch Speculaas windmill cookies. I have been contemplating my German roots lately, and I would call these contemplative cookies, as they turned out weird (the Lebkuchen), and ugly but full of flavor (the Spekulatius).  They make me contemplate what people were thinking when they came up with the recipes.

The Lebkuchen sound good in principle. They call for honey, flour, spices, citron, almonds, candied orange peel, and butter, as well as a cup of strong black coffee. The sweet honey and the bitter coffee compete for dominance in the taste. I believe the cakes have to sit for a week and mellow. We will see how they progress by New Years Day. The Spekulatius are made by pressing dough into wooden Speculaas molds, intricate woodcuts of old-fashioned figures and scenes. I don’t have any of the wooden molds, so I used a springerle rolling-pin, which has carvings of hearts and other shapes cut into it.

20161223_131253

The cookies look like tiles. The only problem is that the pretty shapes disappeared while baking, and I have these terribly ugly yet great tasting cookies. I know that the honey must preserve the cakes so they last a long time; the wooden molds are lovely and the cookies could be too as long as the decorative imprints don’t disappear. There is something about these recipes that is important to the people who grew up with them.  It is interesting how tastes differ from culture to culture.

Today I will make Spritz cookies and pepparkaker. Husband wants to make Krumkake on Sunday, as we are now waiting for a blizzard on Sunday and we expect to be snowbound. The NOAA keeps putting out warnings and advice to stock up and prepare for a terrible storm.  They have been warning us for days, and now tell us that we will get between 6-8 inches of snow with very strong winds, while others in the central and eastern parts of the state could get up to 15 inches. It is sunny today, with no wind, which is quite unusual here. It is as though the world is holding its breath.  We have been to the grocery store, and husband has filled the bird feeders.  Now we wait to see if the predictions come true.  I am thankful we are all home and safe, and no one has to go anywhere. The air pressure should drop with the storm, so bread should rise well. Husband has mixed up a rye sour dough starter, and I want to make Julekag and Bremen Klaben. We will need to carb up in order to shovel.  For now, though,  we wait for Christmas and snow and wind in the unnatural stillness and sunny skies outside.

What are you waiting for? 

 

Food, The Baboon Congress

Cookie Marathons

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Today’s post comes from Verily Sherrilee

My mom doesn’t like to bake. Heck, she doesn’t even like to cook that much. So it was interesting that she decided on cookies as a great holiday gift for teachers, ministers, postmen, etc. We would make eight to ten kinds of cookies during the weeks before the holidays, all of them going into the freezer. Nothing fancy, just the basics: chocolate chip, oatmeal, snickerdoodles, peanut blossoms, sour cream with almonds, frosted sugar, brownies. Then one afternoon we would put all the cookies out on the dining room table, each take a box and walk around the table, loading up the box w/ an assortment of cookies until it was full and then we start again with a new box. We were still doing this each holiday when I was in high school.

marathon2Without even meaning to, she handed down a baking tradition that I cling to, to this day. I don’t do as many cookie gifts as when I was in school, but I still do plates for my vet, my hardware store guys, my library and my milkman. Most of the cookies, however, end up being taken to various parties throughout the season, or brought out for visitors. And eaten with hot chocolate while watching holiday movies.

marathon1Nonny doesn’t bake anymore, although she does help out when she visits around Thanksgiving. She won’t measure, pour, stir or any job that requires that she get her hands dirty. However, she LOVES to clean so we are a perfect pair. I mix and measure and every time I’m done with a cup or a spoon, she whisks it away and washes it. On the years that she isn’t visiting when I cook, I really miss that!

This year we did 13 kinds of cookies in three days. Peanut Blossoms, Chocolate Chip, Vanilla Crescents, Peanut Butter Bon Bons, Oatmeal Scotchies, Chocolate Crinkles, White Chocolate Ting-a-Lings, Frosted Shortbread Sticks, Red Velvet Shortbread, Ginger w/ Caramel Filling, Spritz and 2 kinds of fudge.

Do you have a favorite holiday cookie?

The Baboon Congress

PLAY TIME!

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Today’s post comes from Jacque

               Recently I sold my psychotherapy practice. From the time in 2014 when I made the decision to do so, it took 2 ½ years to bring the process to completion. The last year of this period of time was so busy, I could not even participate in this blog anymore because there were so many demands on my time and energy. But now I am moving on to a life with fewer demands. I am not retiring, but I will work much less. After orienting the new owners of the practice to ownership, during October and November, I am now out of the office for two months, working via a telehealth website. The goal is to detach.

               I am writing this post from Arizona in front of the TV, with HGTV “Property Brothers” airing on Cable TV. It is hard for me to believe that for the first time in years, I have a little time to watch whatever I want. For hours. I can sit here and watch an over-privileged couple somewhere in Canada, be meticulously picky, arguing with designers about the windows and granite countertops. On the air.  It is doing a great job of distracting me away from results of the recent election, which I could obsess about until I live in an inner world of pessimism and despair. No Thanks. Watching obsessive people with silly décor standards is preferable to that.

It is Play Time for me.

img_0221When we arrived in Arizona in early December, both Lou and I were sick with a virus we picked up at the family wedding for which I made all the pie (see the past pie post). It took forever to recover. When I did recover I ventured out to the park in the center of town. There I discovered an area of the children’s playground I had not seen before. There is a little play area filled with gongs and xylophones and mallets. It is crawling with children banging on the stuff and having a ball. A Sonic Playground.

When I was a kid, I never could have even have dreamed of a playground like this. But I know I would have loved it.   So after I get bored with the Property Brothers, I plan to venture down there during school hours, so I can have the instruments to myself, and make some music, as loudly as I want, for as long as I want.   I will watch the fountain spout for a while, then mosey on home to take my girls, the dogs, to the dog park. That is not optional. The dogs are used to a big yard to run in, so the confines of our little condo require the dog park daily.

Then I will start sculpting with clay and playing games with grandchildren. I doubt that I will be stuck on HGTV for long. By the second week of February I will be back in Minnesota. The condo renters will be here for 2 months and I will be working 3 days per week at the practice I sold, and at another practice in Savage. I anticipate that. I love what I do.

But in the meantime, it is the Sonic Playground and Play Time for me.

What do you do when it is time to play?

 

 

 

 

Family, Science, The Baboon Congress

The Sly Fox

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Header image by NormaliltyRelief via Flickr.  CC 2.0

Today’s post comes from Renee in North Dakota.

In the Summer of 1978, I accompanied my mother to Los Angeles so that she could receive treatment for Multiple Sclerosis. I was home on break from college, and my parents let me know in no uncertain terms that it was my duty to go with mom for the treatment. I was miserable, since I knew that the treatment was a sham and a fraud, but they wouldn’t listen, so off we went.

Mom had an initial manifestation of MS when she was 30 years old.  It was pretty typical, with visual anomalies and numbness in the lower extremities. It was quite difficult to diagnose MS in the days before neuroimaging, and she was never officially diagnosed with the disease at the time.  Her symptoms disappeared,  and she had no more signs of the disease until 24 years later. The diagnosis was confirmed at the Mayo Clinic in 1977.  Mom was devastated. She had to quit teaching, but remained able to walk unassisted and drive.  She set out to find a cure for herself, and the treatment in Los Angeles held out great hope for her.

MS is an autoimmune disease in which the body destroys  the lining of the motor nerves so that electic impulses can’t travel down the nerves efficiently. People lose the ability to move their limbs.  There is no cure.

Mom heard from other local people with MS about a surgeon in Los Angeles who claimed to have great success in increasing blood flow to the brain and reducing or eliminating MS symptoms.  It was interesting how the information  about the treatment travelled in the days before the internet and social media. Mom talked to people who either had the treatment or knew of someone who had, and all swore by it. Mom contacted the doctor, who was more than happy to take her as a patient.

We arrived in LA and spent the first night in a residential hotel that the doctor had arranged for us. Mom had an initial examination at the doctor’s office. He declared her a perfect candidate for the procedure, and she was admitted to a private hospital in the Century City area of LA.  The doctor was a vascular surgeon. He claimed that the medical establishment and insurance  companies wouldn’t accept his treatment as legitimate for MS, (although he and his patients knew the truth of the matter), so it was billed as vascular treatment for clogged arteries. He reamed out his patients’ carotid arteries, thereby increasing blood flow to the brain. That was it. No repairing of the nerve linings, an impossible task that is the only thing that would have made a difference. He  just removed what little accumulation of fat that lined the carotid arteries.  His patients stayed in bed in the hospital for a couple of days after the surgery. By the time they were ready for discharge they were quite well rested and of course told the doctor they felt better.  They were discharged home and never saw the doctor again.

I spent my time hanging around the hospital talking with other patients and their family members. They came from all over the US, from Florida to Illinois, to Nevada. All were so hopeful, and talked of the doctor as a misunderstood saint. I slept on a cot in my mom’s hospital room.  Somehow I found that a nearby theatre, the Century City Shubert Theatre, was putting on a production of The Sly Fox,  a modern adaptation of Ben Jonson’s Volpone, with George  C. Scott in the title role. He had initially done the play on Broadway. I managed to get a ticket to a matinée. I had never seen a professional production like this before. It was wonderful. It was so ironic to see that play about a con artist when I knew my mom and the other patients were in the hands of such a sympathetic and sincere con artist. I knew he was a fraud, but how can you dash people’s hopes.  He had set up a perfect scam, founded on the hopes of desperate and trusting people.

We returned home after a week.  We heard several years later that the doctor had lost his medical licence due to insurance fraud. Mom had very little to say about her LA experiences, but eventually agreed with me that the doctor was a con artist. She lived to be 91, still living at home, able to walk using a walker, still a fighter.

What are your experiences with sly  foxes?