Category Archives: Uncategorized

Media, The Future, Uncategorized

So, What Now?

43 Comments

I have mulled over this topic  for the past couple of weeks,  as one man (and  few women) after another has lost his job, credibility, and respect with accusations and admissions of sexual harassment and assault.  My first thought through all this has been “They are really lucky I am not their mother!!!!”

My husband used to assess low and moderate risk convicted sex offenders, usually those who had committed crimes against children,  for their suitability for treatment. We know from research that the sooner those folks are integrated back in the community and have jobs and stability,  along with ongoing therapy and careful monitoring by their probation officers, the less likely they are to re-offend.

What do we do now with the Al Frankens, Roy Moores,  and John Conyers  of this country?  How do we heal, and promote inclusivity for all our citizens? I wonder if the model of Truth and Reconciliation, used in South Africa after the end of Apartheid has relevance here.  I believe that in that circumstance people admitted their wrong doing, faced their victims, and engaged in meaningful acknowledgement of the damage their actions had caused. Then they ceased engaging in the behavior that was so harmful and wrong.  People could move ahead.

So, what do you think we should do now?

holidays, Music, Songs, Uncategorized

Planning the Pageant

31 Comments

I always look forward to the MPR airing of the Festival of Nine Lessons  Carols from Kings College in Cambridge, England.   I have been in the chapel at Kings on a couple of occasions and sat in the choir stalls next the choir during an Evensong service.  This Sunday, our church is having its second annual performance of  Lessons and Carols, and I am really excited because I get to plan it.

Our bell choir director asked me to finalize the program for the service again this year.  She is more interested in the music than the lessons, and you have to take both into consideration when you plan the service.  The hymns and musical numbers need to reflect the meaning of the lessons. For example, the first lesson is about the Adam and Eve story, and the music that follows needs to reflect the Fall.  Hence, the musical number is will be that of the choir singing Lost in the Night, a mournful and serious (but kind of hopeful) Finnish Christmas carol.  The Kings service always starts out with a lone boy soprano singing the first verse, acapella, of Once in Royal David’s City.  We don’t have any boy sopranos, but we have a female high school Junior who has a pure and high voice and who is willing to give it a try.  Local people from other denominations will read the lessons, and our bell choir and vocal choir will perform songs.

Our church was founded by German immigrants, and is affiliated with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA).  I am of German ancestry, but most of my relatives were members of the  Missouri Synod Lutheran Church.  For reasons too complicated to go into now, I was raised in a Norwegian Lutheran Church.  I adore Scandinavian hymns, and planning our Lessons and Carols gave me complete control over the hymns that the congregation will sing at the service.  I made a point of finding as many appropriate Scandinavian hymns as I could. These people need to be educated.

We will sing Swedish,  Norwegian, and Danish Christmas carols, ones I  loved as a child, but none of which we sing regularly in our church. Some include:

Bright and Glorious is the Sky (In Danish, De Jlig Er Den Himmel Bla)

Rejoice, Rejoice, Believers (In Swedish Haf Trones Lamp Fardig)

Savior of the Nations, Come (A German hymn but popular in Norway)

I suppose this is sort of self-serving, but it is fun, and no one has complained yet.

What pageantry have you been a part of?  What are your  favorite carols?

 

 

Food, gardening, holidays, Nature, Uncategorized

Garden Surprises

31 Comments

We didn’t grow butternut squash this year. I was delighted  when our neighbor offered us a butternut from her garden.  She thought she planted cucumbers, and was horrified and deeply disappointed when they turned out to be squash. Our neighbor is German-Russian, and the German-Russians here are mad for raw cucumbers in the summer.  The squash were truly a tragedy for her.   We certainly enjoyed the squash at Thanksgiving.

A Lutheran pastor friend of mine  operates a market garden with his family.  They planted what they thought was a very long row of onions, but what turned out to be leeks.  Lots of leeks. They were not familiar with leeks, and live in the only area of ND where there were sufficient rains this summer to insure a vigorous leek crop.  They were at a loss to know what to do with them. He asked me too late to take any off his hands.  They didn’t sell.  I love leeks, and was sad.

We haven’t had too many garden surprises or any other surprises for a while.  I hope I plant spinach this summer and don’t get gourds.  I hope I am surprised by mild weather and sufficient rain.

 

When have you been surprised?

 

 

books, Poems, Uncategorized, Words

How to choose…Post Script

40 Comments

I received permission from Robert Bly’s wife Ruth to post the poems I had chosen for my book club, the ones Renee suggested we not post because of not having permission.  But with permission, she suggested I share them now.  So…here they are:

Or Robert’s The Dark Autumn Nights…?

Imagination is the door to the raven’s house, so we are

Already blessed! The one nail that fell from the shoe

Lit the way for Newton to get home from the Fair.

Last night I heard a thousand holy women

And a thousand holy men apologize at midnight

Because there was too much triumph in their voices.

Those lovers, skinny and badly dressed, hated

By parents, did the work; all through the Middle Ages,

It was the lovers who kept the door open to heaven.

Walking home, we become distracted whenever

We pass apple orchards. We are still eating fruit

Left on the ground the night Adam was born.

St. John of the Cross heard an Arab love poem

Through the bars and began his poem. In Nevada it was

Always the falling horse that discovered the mine.

Robert, you know well how much substance can be

Wasted by lovers, but I say, Blessings on those

Who go home through the dark autumn nights.

 

I love the tiny book, Four Ramages, with illustrations & graphics by Barbara LaRue King.

Grief lies close to the roots of laughter.

Both love the cabin open to the traveller,

the ocean apple wrapped in its own leaves.

How can I be close to you if I am not sad?

There is a gladness in the not-caring

of the bear’s cabin; and in the gravity

that makes the stone laugh down the mountain.

The animal pads where no one walks.

Meanwhile, I found my Yeats collection and further inspired by Barbara in Rivertown, I also found “Now We Are Six” by A A Milne…and decided to do “Down by the Sally Gardens” and “He Bids His Beloved Be At Peace” by Yeats; “Wheezles and Sneezles” by Milne. But I still love Bly’s poems…

 

PS…I just changed my mind again, well, added one (I hope), “King John Was Not A Good Man” by Milne because it is about Christmas.

Enough of my favorites, please share more of yours.

books, Uncategorized, Words

Books: Theory Number 1

34 Comments

Today’s post comes from NorthShorer (Clyde).

I lifted the following from my second novel:

He took out the two novels, Jon Hassler’s Simon’s Night and Elizabeth Strout’s Olive Kitteridge, which he brought to occupy the many hours he would pass in the chair. “Hulger, maybe truth about old age is best told in fiction.”

Hulger held his pout; his tail still said J’accuse.

Clair had read both books, Simon’s Night a few times. He brought them for their shared theme of old people who have drifted out of the central river current into the slack water. Dropping both books onto the rock, he opened his journal to write. “Fiction comes in four categories:

1) Stories of extraordinary people doing extraordinary things to face extraordinary challenges, which seems to be the grist of most current movies.

2) Extraordinary people facing ordinary challenges.

3) Ordinary people facing extraordinary challenges, which Hitchcock preferred.

4) Ordinary people facing ordinary challenges, which I prefer, but which is not in fashion in popular fiction.”

Assuming this is proper grist for your thoughts, which type(s) do you read most often?

books, Poems, Uncategorized, Words

How to choose?

60 Comments

Our Library book club has a “sort-a” December tradition of reading aloud a favorite poem or two. In the past I have read a Lady Gregory, plus several by Louis Jenkins, Mary Oliver and Yeats. This year I am at a loss, having covered many favorites.

So far, these are the books I have pulled off the shelf…

Galway Kinnell’s Body Rags, Mortal Acts Mortal Words, Selected Poems

 Lawrence Durrell’s Selected Poems

Mary Oliver’s New and Selected Poems

Seamus Heaney’s Beowulf: A New Verse Translation

 Selected Poems of Rainer Maria Rilke translated by Robert Bly

Robert Bly’s Four Ramages

Olav Hauge’s Trusting Your Life to Water and Eternity translated by Robert Bly

Tomas Tranströmer’s 20 Poems translated by Robert Bly

Robert Bly’s My Sentence Was A Thousand Years of Joy

 A Julius Berg Baumann poem from his Fra Vidderne translated by Josh Preston

I can’t find my book of collected Yeats poems. Or the ever-so-old copy of D.H. Lawrence poems. But perhaps I have enough to sort through – though I’m afraid we might be limited to only one or two.

My favorite Rilke poem?

I live my life in growing orbits

which move out over the things of the world

Perhaps I can never achieve the last,

but that will be my attempt.

I am circling around God, around the ancient tower,

and I have been circling for a thousand years

and I still don’t know if I am a falcon, or a storm,

or a great song.

 

Or Robert Bly’s The Dark Autumn Nights…?

 

I love the tiny Bly book, Four Ramages, with illustrations & graphics by Barbara LaRue King.

 

Okay, my decision has been made…I’m going for all three Bly poems!

(plus the other 3 Ramages)

 

Who (or what) are your favorite poets (or poems)?

Family, Kids, Media, Uncategorized, Words

Whispering

47 Comments

Today’s post comes from Ben.

The final project in the English class I’m taking, “Critical Reading and writing 1” is to create a research paper on a topic of our choosing. We’ve written three other papers based on material we’ve read in class. The entire class to this point was mostly learning how to properly use commas, quote marks, how to attribute a quote, how to add citations to a paper, all that stuff you need to get a college level research paper done right.

I felt like I had a pretty good handle on things going in. What I’ve learned is just because I can do it doesn’t mean I know the rules and knowing the rules is harder!  English is hard! I only whined about that once or twice to the teacher. She’s been great. I knew her before the class and knew I would like her as a teacher so that’s all been good.

For my research paper, I choose to write about whispering. This came up because our daughter speaks really loud. I mean it makes my ears ring sometimes.

But it’s not that simple. I talked with an ENT doctor from Mayo. I spoke with a professional opera singer and I interviewed a speech pathologist.  The fact we can speak at all is pretty amazing! There’s a lot going on in making a “voice”. But loudness has to do with how much air you’re moving (and that comes from your “Pelvic Floor”) and it has to do with intonation and resonance and it all gives your voice a tone or pitch.

AND THEN, the speech pathologist said he didn’t think our daughter spoke that loud. Huh! So now ‘Loud’ is relative. Loud compared to what? I looked up that the average speaker is about 60dBA’s. A quiet room is about 40dBA. A lawn mower is about 85-90dBA. (And those are all rather subjective too). And using an iPhone app, she does speak about 60dBA. But the rest of us in the house don’t talk that loud. So I guess she’s only loud “in comparison”. And it’s loud when you’re in a quiet restaurant and the lunch rush is over.

I’ve learned a lot and it’s been interesting. It’s just not that simple. And I guess really, I just need to be grateful she can communicate at all.

Got anything to say about your voice? “

Food, News, The Baboon Congress, Uncategorized

I Shouldn’t Say This, But . . .

64 Comments

Today’s post is from Steve Grooms.

They say confession is good for the soul. But, then, “they” say a lot of things that aren’t true.

I’m more inclined to think that a little confession can be a little good for the soul. I have stuff in my past that I could admit to, but wild horses couldn’t drag that out of me. I also have tiny things I can confess without getting me thrown in jail or embarrassed.

The StarTribune recently ran a column that invited people to make small confessions. Many did. I can’t find it now, but they were of this sort: “I don’t care how many times the name is changed officially, it will always be Camp Snoopy for me.”

Some readers made their small confessions and then said they felt better about themselves. If making many such confessions could make me feel better, I’ve got enough questionable stuff to confess that I should be able to make myself love myself.

But in the spirit of confessing to small but wrong ideas, I’ll get things started with a confession that will probably provoke outrage with some Baboons. I like the best hydroponic tomatoes better than “real” homegrown tomatoes.

I used to assume homegrown tomatoes were incomparably better than the things we can buy in stores. Then I got a bunch of “real” tomatoes grown by a friend in Port Huron. They did not—to me—test much better than the best hydroponic supermarket things, and they kept far better. My “real” tomatoes went soft and foul on me within days of being picked. Meanwhile the hydroponics in my fridge tested great almost two weeks after I bought them. I’ve had this experience before. So, with some guilt, I admit to preferring those store-bought hydroponics that have such an awful reputation.

I’ve got more, but perhaps that will do. What about you?

Do you have anything to confess?

 

 

Food, Uncategorized

A Pretty Pickle

74 Comments

Today’s post comes from Linda.

When I’m having lunch with someone, I often hear myself asking “Do you want your pickle?”

It bothers me to see a pickle languishing on the plate. I estimate 80% of diners leave the pickle to be thrown away. What a waste.
I appreciate a good pickle. Or even a mediocre pickle.

What do you appreciate that others don’t?

Family, History, The Future, Uncategorized

501 Jeans

48 Comments

My husband is a pretty finicky fellow, and has definite preferences regarding the clothes he wears.  He has been somewhat distressed lately after futile searches for his favorite jeans-Levi’s 501 jeans. Those are the ones with the button fly.  I have no idea why he prefers them, but there it is.

He has had trouble finding the size he needs  as well as the colors he wants.  His secret worry has been that they are no longer being manufactured,  and that he will have to find a new style and brand of jeans to wear.  This makes him feel as old and as out of date  as the Dodo. It is as though he can still imagine himself as a young man  at U of Wisconsin when he wears those jeans with his Frye boots.

He was delighted this weekend to find some on-line.  He tends to shop in stores instead of on-line, and our choices out here are limited.  Now his youthfulness  is preserved, and he can go forward into his mid 60’s with confidence.

What keeps you feeling young?  What do you fear will go out of production?