News, The Baboon Congress

How Does This Change Things?

24 Comments

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

51 Comments

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? 

Science, Travel

A Weekend Getaway

61 Comments

Although there’s no real reason to want to escape on this mild December weekend in the heart of what is already one of the busiest travel times of the year, we do have the opportunity to transport ourselves to Pluto today, thanks to new images released by NASA.

I would not have guessed even last year that I’d be able to sit in my living room on a sunny Saturday morning and do a flyover of Pluto. The texture of this distant terrain is fascinating, but not so much that I’d like to see it first hand.

The heat source is a bit distant for my comfort.  I’m fine watching from here.

The image above is of Pluto’s moon, Charon.  They’re calling the dark smudge at the top of the moon “Mordor”, which sounds like the first bit of travel marketing for this far end of the solar system.

No doubt the Plutonian Tourism Agency (PTA), when seeking to book tour groups, would have a big challenge in closing the deal, with an average surface temperature of -384 F.

One time honored tactic is to show impossibly beautiful people having fun in the location being advertised.  But its hard to see those models when they’re sealed up inside their spacesuits.

And for outright fun, how about “surviving”?

What travel marketing tricks work on you?

 

 

Uncategorized

Ask Dr. Babooner

66 Comments

We are ALL Dr. Babooner

Dear Dr. Babooner,

Last Friday I spent ten hours building websites and troubleshooting tech problems at my day job, and then I trudged home to do some online shopping.  Through the weekend I checked in with all my friends and family on Facebook, followed the Sunday football games on my fantasy league sites, and spent the wee hours of the next day chasing down Cyber Monday deals before heading off to work.

Then today while I was Googling concepts for a client who has an amazing idea for a new app, I realized something kind of frightening – I’m totally fed up with computers.

Which is kind of a problem  because I’m at the keyboard,  staring at a screen pretty much nonstop during my day.  If I really can’t stand computers, I’ll be out of work and on the street before the week is out.

At first I thought I should go to the HR department and talk to someone about it, but then I realized I didn’t have to – I could just go online to find a whole bunch of great resources to deal with computer fatigue.

And guess what?  The internet is also full of advice for what to do when you’ve had it with the internet.   Most of the sites tell you to log off and go outside and do something physical, though there are also a bunch that suggest you to clean the house or take a nap.

But I didn’t do any of that – because the more websites I found about people hating computers and being online, the better I felt!

I don’t know if that means I’m cured, or just more pathetic than ever.  Do you?

Uncertainly,
DigiFried

I was about to answer DigiFried when I realized it was an unseasonably mild day in early December, and if I took an afternoon walk I could watch some snow melt in the local park.

What do YOU think, Dr. Babooner?

The Baboon Congress, Words

Mail DisOrder!

37 Comments
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

87 Comments

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.

image003 (2)

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 …

36 Comments

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

51 Comments

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

29 Comments

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.

Food, The Baboon Congress

Fun in the Kitchen

54 Comments

Today’s post comes from Barbara in Robbinsdale

The next couple of days will be very busy for people who like to cook, and who like to appreciate – by eating what’s cooked. If you’re not hosting the feast on Turkey Day, you may be contributing to the meal. In our case, we will be cooking on Wednesday, then transporting to Winona our favorite side dishes and a dessert, for a mid-afternoon meal with Friends on Thanksgiving.

For my part, I will refer to my two favorite cookbook authors, Laurie Colwin and Alice May Brock (of Alice’s Restaurant fame – the real Alice). My favorite things from Alice’s Restaurant Cookbook are the Stuffed Mushrooms on p. 104, and her irreverent attitude, which is (paraphrasing here): don’t get hung up on the details – improvise, don’t take it all too seriously. And I quote: “Wine and liquor are great for cooking, and also for the cook… in fact, more important for the cook…”

Laurie Colwin, a delightful writer who left us too soon, has just two cookbooks Home Cooking: a Writer in the Kitchen and More Home Cooking… (in addition to several works of fiction). Not sure what I like better, the stories about how she taught herself to cook, or the casual, irreverent approach to cooking. With chapters like “How to Disguise Vegetables” and “Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant”, she had me at the Table of Contents. What to do when you have too many red bell peppers? (“A large number of red peppers is a beautiful sight.”) Simmer in plenty of olive oil, etc., till you have what “some people might call… Red Pepper Conserve, but it will always be red pepper sludge to me.”

So I’ll bring my red pepper sludge, stuff some mushrooms, do something fun with sweet potatoes, and bring a pumpkin dessert. But I won’t get too serious about it.

Will you be cooking or appreciating this Thanksgiving, and what’s your favorite food to cook or appreciate?