History, home, Uncategorized, Words

Dilemna or Dilemma?

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In helping YA proofread an essay last night, I noticed that “dilemma” was not underlined as misspelled. When I corrected it to “dilemna”, I got the squiggly red line saying it was now incorrect.

The internet tells me that I am not alone in believing that “dilemna” is how it should be spelled. In fact, the internet also tells me that the majority of English speakers over 40 worldwide, believe that “dilemna” is correct, being taught that spelling in school.

The revered OED doesn’t even list “dilemna” as a variant, although the misspelling can be found as far back as 1551 (Wilson’s Rule of Reason) and even in Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe.

So here I am, after 50+ years, trying to figure out a way to remember the correct spelling. Maybe I’ll just come up with a good synonym instead!

What new tricks have you had to learn lately?

Family, Gatherings, Media, TV, Uncategorized

Surprise! It’s a Wedding

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I’ve observed recently how many weddings are more expensive and elaborate than they used to be, while at the same time skipping over some of the tried and true rituals – paper invitations in the mail comes to mind. This week’s CBS Sunday Morning program featured something I’d never heard of before – a Surprise Wedding. What happens is this:  the happy couple, for whatever personal reasons, invite their desired guests to a Party, and once everyone is there partying, announce that that it is ALSO THEIR WEDDING. In the show’s clips , the guests were loud and ecstatic in one, and kind of stunned and subdued in the other. (I wonder if, for the surprise wedding where everyone was so joyous, they let at least the parents know ahead of time.)

I can imagine why someone would want to try this, considering all the difficulties and angst involved in wedding planning. When Husband and I started contemplating our wedding, we got stymied at the guest list – my extended family was all over the map, plus I’d already made them travel to one wedding that did NOT prove to work out. Husband’s family is huge, and where do we stop – if you invite one cousin, should you invite all 39? We kept putting off the decisions, and then decided to elope! We did tell our folks about it beforehand.

There are a few planners, apparently, who can help you pull it off. It does seem to cut down quite a bit on the wedding gifts, but with any luck you’ve also cut down on some of the expenses.

How do you think you would react to being at a party, and discovering you were also at a Surprise Wedding?  What’s the most fun you’ve ever had at a wedding?

Business, Family, Technology, Travel, Uncategorized, work

I Forgot

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Our leisurely, stay-at-home Sunday turned into a 180 mile round trip drive to the Reservation where Husband works. He was so tired when he drove home on Thursday that he forgot his laptop computer in his office. He usually isn’t so forgetful. He hauls many things back and forth from the Reservation to home and I know he is eager to get on the road at the end of the week.  He needed the laptop  to complete case notes for his private practice. All his note templates are on the laptop. He really wanted to get the notes done this weekend, so we jumped in the van and drove to New Town and back. It took about 4 hours.

The road to the Reservation is a two-lane State highway with lots of twists and turns and steep grades.  Husband  was upset and angry with himself, so I drove. There wasn’t as much oilfield traffic on a Sunday afternoon.    At least we got to see lots of red tail hawks and a bunch of calves getting branded.  It was sunny and the Badlands terrain was green from recent rains.  I also got to see the two raised- bed gardens  that Husband set up for the boys’ addiction group to tend.  I suggested that he put copies of the templates on our home computer in case he forgets his laptop again.  He agreed.

What do you find hard to remember?

 

Family, Food, home, Music, Uncategorized

What Will The Neighbors Think?

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We live in a very quiet neighborhood. When our windows are open, sounds and smells often waft out to the curb.

Our son liked to guess what we were cooking when he pulled into the driveway, just by sniffing.  We cook food that would be considered  pretty exotic by most people in town. We often hope that homesick Pakastanis and East Indians will follow their noses to our house so we can give them a good meal that  tastes like the old country.  Tonight we are cooking Stifado, a garlicky Greek beef stew, and Turlu, a Turkish version of ratatouille. (We had leftover Eye of Round, and we were hungry for spicy vegetables). I can smell both in the driveway.

When husband isn’t home, I like to crank up the classical music. He loves classical music, but at a reasonable decibel level. On Thursday night I had a strange compulsion to hear the 1812 Overture. Really loud. Especially the cannons. Maybe it was because it was Midsummer’s Eve.  When it came to the first cannon shots at 12:43 into the recording, I stopped it and replayed it multiple times. Then there are the cannons at the end, about two minutes later.  I played and replayed that part. Both cats were hiding under the dining room table. I then saw two people walking their dog past our house. Oh, my, what must they have thought about us?!

What could people surmise about you by walking past your home? What smells and sounds waft into your neighborhood from your home?

Family, Media, Travel, Uncategorized

A Good Hair Cut

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My hairdresser of 30 years had a stroke last year, and I had to switch to a new stylist. The new one  did sort of OK for the past 12 months, but things weren’t really working out for me but I didn’t really know how to tell her what wasn’t working.

When Barbara in Rivertown did her Baboon retrospective a couple of weeks back, there was a photo of me and Husband taken by Steve when we met up for a meal in Oregon. I had just had my hair cut by my old stylist before we set out for the West Coast. I showed my new stylist the photo, and she knew immediately what I wanted. A picture was worth a thousand words. I don’t speak the same language she does, and the photo did the talking. I left her looking like I wanted. It was such a relief.

Who do you find it easy to communicate with? Who is hard for you to communicate with? 

Family, Gatherings, History, Kids, Uncategorized

New Name

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This weekend was the Twin Buttes, ND Pow Wow. The grandson of one of our dearest friends received a new Indian name during the festivities. His new name is Four Bears.  (The Mandan Four Bears, not  the Hidatsa Four Bears. They are two different people. Our nearest reservation is comprised of three tribes, the Mandan, the Hidatsa, and the Arikira.) The Mandan  Four Bears was a tribal leader who attacked the Assiniboine enemies with the strength of four bears. It is a very strong name. He may need a strong new name to carry him through the struggles of late adolescence and early adulthood.

I have known of such naming ceremonies, but I was surprised to find that such ceremonies can occur throughout the life span. I think that is wonderful. The name that fits you at 20 might not be the  name that fits you at 60. Names are important. They indicate who we are. I may need a new name to carry me through the last two years of my work. It may help to get me to the finish line of a successful retirement.

What name best describes you now?

Business, Family, Food, Kids, Uncategorized

Pucker Up for Inflation

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Two young girls had a card table set up outside the hardware store on Saturday, selling lemonade.  They had made up matching t-shirts for their cause and were very friendly and respectful.  I’m sure I’ve mentioned here before that I am a sucker for kids selling stuff.

I know I talked about my childhood KoolAid stands before. My mother always allowed me to use any Kool-Aid packets and sugar that I could find as well as Dixie cups and she never made me pay her back for the ingredients with my profit.  5 cents a cup.  Most days I made between 50 cents and a dollar, depending on how long I could keep it up.  I always felt a little like John D Rockefeller with this money.

These girls had options: water or lemonade. They also had something I never did – a choice of size!  Small, medium or large.  Their pricing started at $1.50.  I gave them $2 and told them to keep the change, thinking it wasn’t too much more than the pop I bought from a kid during the Lyndale Open Streets  festival a couple of weeks ago.  As I was driving home I thought back to my Kool-Aid days and hoped the money they made felt like a lot, like my 50 cents did to me way back when!

What’s something you’ve noticed has substantially increased in price since you were a kid?

 

 

Family, Kids, Uncategorized

Grief Purse

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This spring and fall mark the 5th anniversary of the deaths of my parents.  Sometime between their deaths, I was in Sioux Falls and I bought a rather fancy Coach purse. It was a total splurge.

I am not the sort of person who has lots of shoes and purses. It don’t care if my purse matches anything else I am wearing.  I just use the same purse until it wears out, and then I get another one. I go more for utility than style.

I put the new purse in the closet back in 2014, in the fancy cotton storage bag that it came in, and didn’t think about it again until this spring when I needed a bigger purse to take on a trip in lieu of a brief case.  My current purse, a burgundy one, was a little too small, and I thought about the other purse in the closet. I have used it ever since, retiring the burgundy one in the closet.  My son saw the new purse when we visited him over Memorial Day. He said “Oh, that is your grief purse. You bought it when Grandma died. I wondered when you would use it.”

Well, I never thought about it like that, but I think he may have something there. I have been thinking a bit more about my parents than usual, and I suppose my not using this purse for 5 years  has some deeper meaning.  I am glad my son is so observant.

What do you have that is associated with the memory of another person or persons?

Family, Kids, Uncategorized

What’s New in the Neighborhood?

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We have lived in the same house for 30 years. When we moved in, there were only a few young families, and the elderly couple across the street was so excited to have “nice, young family” move in. The elderly couple have both died, and until a year or so age, the neighborhood was mainly full of middle aged couples whose children had grown and moved away.

Many houses have changed hands lately, and this week I counted seven new families on our block, each having or about to have a new baby. There are many more older children as well. Now we are the older couple welcoming “nice, young families” to the neighborhood.  It is good to see and hear children again. We have to be hypervigilant backing out of the driveway so no one gets run over. It is the price we pay for progress, I guess.

The cultural  makeup has changed, too. When we moved in, most of our neighbors were Roman Catholics, and many were of Czech heritage.  Most were people whose families had lives in the area for several generations. Three families were even related to one another.  That is completely different now, and our neighbors are a mix of locals and new people, and they are far less public about their religious views.

How has your neighborhood changed since you moved in? If you have recently moved, how is your new neighborhood different than your old one?

Family, Games, gardening, Gatherings, home, Uncategorized

Ritual

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The neighbors across the street are a hard working, industrious couple who spends every weekend at a little, man made lake about 50 miles east of here. It is a murky hole in the ground that greens up quite soon after the temperature gets warm, but people from around here flock there, mainly for spots to park their campers and get away from the hectic bustle of city life. (Such as it is out here!)

Every Sunday afternoon they return home and we get to observe the ritual washing of the pickup. They have only been gone two nights, they travel mainly on paved roads, yet that pickup gets washed and vacuumed inside and out.  It never fails.It is as though they can’t settle down and relax until the pickup is spotless and back in the garage.

I suppose we all have rituals of some sort. Many rituals serve as declarations of the sacred, whether we are religious or not.  Other rituals serve to bring families together.  Many folks out here have a ritual of playing pinochle after extended family dinners, or rituals involving  sausage making during deer season. Some hunting families  out here have a communal shoot into the air before starting hunting to honor family members who have died. Morning coffee has become a ritual in our home, as the person who goes to work later makes the coffee for the person who goes to work earlier, and the quality of the coffee is always evaluated. The point is that we have coffee together before anyone goes to work.  We will attend the Twin Buttes Pow Wow this weekend, a celebration full of rituals.

What rituals do you observe and participate in? Did your family have rituals when you were growing up? Are you a creature of habit?