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The Baboon Congress

`Tis the Season

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Today’s post comes from Verily Sherrilee

I like to think that I’m above marketing and advertising. Whoever invented the Mute button on the remote control should be canonized and when YA was younger I would routinely tell her that if you see it on TV it’s probably a lie.

But I never reckoned on seasonal marketing. When I was a kid, M&Ms were the same color all year round. Oreos were filled with white stuffing no matter the month and Ivory Soap was always in the same wrapper even on holidays. Not now!

So many products jump on the seasonal bandwagon: pasta, paper towels, soap dispenser, beer, pop, candy of all kinds and, of course, Oreos. I never even used to buy Oreos at all (I’m a Hydrox gal) but now I can’t keep away from them when they show up in stores with spring filling or green or the holiday red. Easter M&Ms, pasta in the shape of pumpkins or flags, Ritz crackers in the shapes of snowflakes, red and green tortilla chips, paper towels with bunnies and chicks or ghosts and goblins– I just can’t resist.

So I’ve finally succumbed to the realization that seasonal marketing has me licked and I don’t try to fight it. Yesterday alone I bought Hershey’s kisses in red & green foil, paper towels with snowmen and snowflakes, pasta in holiday shapes and snowflake crackers. Who knows what tomorrow will bring!

Do you have any seasonal favorites?

Food, The Baboon Congress

Duck for Thanksgiving

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Today’s post comes from Barbara in Rivertown

Our good friend Walken (Husband’s BFF from the hippie farm days) lives several blocks from us here in Winona. Since the three of us are having Thanksgiving together, Walken suggested the other day that we look through his chest freezer for the Thanksgiving fowl, as he has a wealth of meat and poultry stashed there: some lamb, couple of chickens, and… a DUCK! So as I write this, sitting on a platter in my fridge is 6 ½  pounds of water fowl, begging the question:  what does one do with a duck?

First I go to the Joy of Cooking – on page 475 I read “About Wild Birds”, although there is no indication that this bird is wild-caught, being encased as it is in shrink wrap. At any rate I don’t need instructions for dry plucking or singeing it, but I did find these useful tidbits:

  • Duckling Rouennaise – “Unless you choke your duck, pluck the down on its breast immediately afterward and cook it within 24 hours, you cannot lay claim to having produced an authentic Rouen duck… If, as is likely, duck-strangling will bring you into local disrepute, you may waive the sturdy peasant preliminaries and serve a modified version, garnished with quotation marks.” (p. 474)   I had no idea Irma Rombauer et al. could be so tongue-in-cheek!
  • Roast Domestic Duck – “Most duck on the American market is not descended from wild native variety, but from a type bred in China where, of course, this bird is held in high esteem.” (p. 473)
  • Besides duck, turkey, and goose; there are recipes for guinea or cornish hen, pigeon, grouse, ptarmigan, prairie chicken, dove or wood pigeon, pheasant, partridge, quail, and snipe or woodcock, just in case you come upon any of these. (Before cooking, you must read “About Small Game Birds”.)

There are recipes for Roast Duck Bigarade and Apricot Honey Glazed Duck (involving brandy and Cointreau, both of which we have!).  Or there is, on p. 326, a nice Orange Sauce for Duck or Goose. I have also found a couple of things on line, including Julia Child’s Duck L’Orange, which looks like a lot of bother and will probably lose out to the Roast Duck L’Orange recipe at food.com.

Whatever I decide upon, it will be fun to try something out of the ordinary.

What, if anything, do you eat during the Holidays that veers away from the Traditional?

 

The Baboon Congress

My BFF

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Today’s post comes from Crystalbay

It’s said that people come into our lives for a reason, a season, or a lifetime. My friendship with Greg is the most enduring and unusual of any I’ve ever experienced.  It began precipitously in 1974, when a girlfriend and I picked him up at a bar during my too-short window between marriages.  He was strikingly handsome, gregarious, and lonely.  He’d recently moved from Texas and had no friends.

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He also, as it turned out, disco danced better than John Travolta!  It didn’t take long before I had a schoolgirl crush on the guy.  We dated briefly before he told me, “I just want to be friends”.  In other words, he wasn’t attracted to me  “that way”.  This was more than just a little disappointing for me.  A few months later, I met the man who would be my second husband.  He was no where near as attractive to me as Greg was, but he filled a big hole in my life at that time.
Greg and I drifted away from each other, but I wondered for years whatever happened to him. There was no way I could find him because he’d legally changed his name to “Sean”.  Thirty years later, we found each other.  On Match.comno less.  Our faces had changed, but I looked familiar to him.  He messaged, “Are you Nancy with the laughing face?”.  He remembered my fondness for that old Sinatra song!
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We’d both been divorced for two years.  He came to the cottage the next night and we sat in my double rocker in front of a glowing fire, sipping wine. I’d also put on some romantic music.  We talked for many hours about the 30 years apart and all that life had brought us.  I, of course, was flooded with thoughts of “This was meant to be!! Fate brought us back together!!”  As he was about to leave, we shared a kiss.  This nailed it for me. “This was meant to be!!!!”
A few days later on the phone, I alluded to my romantic interest in him – and he said, “I just want to be friends, Nance”.
Once again, I was crushed.  This is where the story gets interesting. If I couldn’t have a full relationship with the guy, I wanted nothing to do with him, but he kept calling and calling and calling.  It took about a year for me to move past my strong desire for him and begin to accept that he really meant what he’d said about being friends.
That was ten years ago, and to this day he phones me almost daily. For ten years.  We’ve engaged in lively conversations over 3,000 times since we reconnected, some of them highly stimulating, some of them just checking in, and some of them boring.  Our primary subject has been relationships and the gaping difference between men and women. At this point, he’s probably gotten half a million dollars worth of free therapy as I stayed by his side through years of gripping depression.  What he’s given to me is one person in my life who’s genuinely interested and caring about the day to day   I refer to this rare kind of friendship as “tracking”.  He’s my only tracker, wanting to know every detail of my life’s unfolding story. Having this consistent dialogue allows for everything to be held in a context.  Most friendships require “catching up” because time passes between contact.  With Greg and me, only one day passes.
Throughout the years, we’ve learned about the struggle between men and women from each other.  I get the male side from him; he’s gets the female side from me. I’ve named him the“King of Match.com” because a good looking guy his age is a very rare commodity.  There were times when he’d meet a new woman five times a week.  I don’t think he’s ever gone more than a few days without some romantic involvement.  He’s had a few long term girlfriends (meaning a year). I inquire about every one of his romantic escapades and give unsolicited feedback.  He’s a master at listening and loving to hear women’s stories even if there’s little attraction. Unfortunately for him, and even though I’ve helped him fully understand the psychology of his wounding, his childhood history continues to manifest by being attracted only to the very women emotionally unavailable for a long term commitment.
Never once in all of these years have we angry or disappointed in one another.  That alone is pretty rare, I think. He’s told me that I know more about him than any other human being in his life.  This goes both ways.  In fact, he’s never wanted me to meet one of his girlfriends out of fear that something will come out of my mouth that could jeopardize his new relationship.  Given that I can be somewhat unfiltered at times, he’s wise to not introduce us.  Over the years, several of his cast-offs have recognized me where I dance and, because every woman he’s dated knows all about me, they approach, asking, “Do you know Sean? Are you Nancy?”.  I have to remind myself that I’m the only person in his life who stubbornly still calls him “Greg”.  If any of these women knew how much he’s told me about them, they’d be more than a little distraught.
He continues his determined search for a woman with whom he can go the full distance, while I’ve discontinued dating five years ago. And, we continue our daily chats. I’ve helped teach him how to feel; he’s helped teach me how to stay rational. In the season, reason, or lifetime frame, this poor man is definitely a lifer.
What is the story of your BFF?
The Baboon Congress

the circle

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today’s post comes from tim

the colors i get in the walks around the neighborhood have been wonderful. i think it was bir who wished me new smells this spring when i was new to the house and all the surroundings. the walks with the dogs and the wife have been good. the circle of life is out there for all to see. i used to marvel at martha stewart and the calendar she was ruled by with seeds started. swapping sweaters and short boxes doing her christmas list of details and yet when you walk around outdoors the obvious that there is a cyclical nature that i have been standing in the midst of without acknowledging it.

we are starting birthday season at my house with the november birthday followed by a 2 december, 2 januarys , 3 februarys,  3 march than a break until june for the 2 at either end of the kid rollodex,

the dark afternoons and mornings make the hottub sessions a special deal.i enjoyed it so much last year i am reminded of the circle now that 7 pm or 6 am is dark. i need to put speakers out there but then again maybe not.

the paths around my neighborhood are incredible. there are trails in all directions and the dogs are different whichever we go. it is fn to see the response from them and from me.  the leaves came and went as did the flowers the critters the seasons the berries  the seasonal ronds will be something to look forward to.

im waiting for the costco christmas trees to show up. i need to grab one quick. they dont last long.

 

whats a reocurring event you look forward to

The Baboon Congress

Bags of Time

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Today’s post comes from Verily Sherrilee

Right now I’m feeling pressed for time – I’m almost done with holiday prep and Nonny is coming next week. I have two separate lists and there’s not much time for sitting around. I read this Billy Collins poem last night and love the idea of having bags of time.

It seems like so much more than just my regular old time; I could get boatloads more done!

What would you do with bags of time?

The Baboon Congress

The Hand You’re Dealt

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Today’s post comes from Wessew.

I love playing cards. I rarely ever make a wager on card playing, so my love is not based on avariciousness.

I enjoy making the best of what I am dealt. Early on Crazy Eights and Go Fish were my games of choice. Then, several winter nights in 1963, my whole deck was changed. My sisters and I were taught how to play Pinochle. There was a three day blizzard with little to do except watch the white world outside or the black and red world inside at the table. Pinochle is a great card game. The card combination of Queen of Spades and Jack of Diamonds is key to play and from where the game gets it’s name. The worth of those two in one hand depends on the scoring system you use. In our home system, a single Pinochle was melded as 4 points and a double Pinochle as 30 points. Thus were we trained that Spades and Diamonds go together.

Then we learned the game of Hearts. The object is to score the least points. Typically a heart card in your hand at the end of a hand of play counted one point against you. The Queen of Spades counted 13 against you; a very, very bad card unless you also took ALL the other Hearts in which case you have “shot the moon” and now give every other player 26 points. “Shooting The Moon” was always a coup. Being the last player below 100 points meant you were the victor. One summer, my workmates and I engaged in a four player Hearts tournament. The first guy to win ten games was the winner. We played at break and at lunch for days on end until it came to this: We had each won 9 games and each, in what had to be the final hand, had 90 points each. We were so evenly matched that it reminds me of a Vulcan mind meld. Whomever was ahead was to be dealt with harshly. We knew who needed to get the queen and just enough hearts to keep the game alive. Now we were at a final reckoning. No longer allies. I will never forget that moment. We were working laying carpet at a school in Cannonball, North Dakota. (Very near the site of the present civil disobedience action regarding the pipeline.) We declared victory for all of us and never played the last hand. It felt wonderful.

I play Whist, Canasta, Cribbage, Rummy and Oh Heck among many other card games but the one game I have yet to learn is Bridge. I would love to learn for one simple reason: I understand that in trying to score the best hand possible one can declare “NOTRUMP”. Let me learn and may the Gods of Luck deal me hands for which I can bid….NO DAMN TRUMP.

What is your favorite suit? Why are Clubs so neglected in card playing?

The Baboon Congress

Bully!

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Today’s post comes from Renee in North Dakota.

North Dakota doesn’t have a native son who became president. I think the only president who ever lived in North Dakota was Teddy Roosevelt.  We have clasped him to our collective bosom, however, and his only presidential library is due to be built about 4 blocks from my house, on the former rodeo grounds at our local college.  The Theodore Roosevelt Center At Dickinson State University website tells us:

“Theodore Roosevelt established two ranches in the badlands of western North Dakota: one called the Maltese Cross seven miles south of the Northern Pacific Railroad (1883) and the other called the Elkhorn, 35 miles north of the village of Medora, North Dakota (1884). Roosevelt never owned a single acre in North Dakota. Like most other ranchers in the badlands, he was a squatter on lands that still belonged to the public domain or the NP Railroad. The Maltese Cross (Chimney Butte) Ranch had already been named by the time he invested in it. He named his second ranch the Elkhorn after he found the horns of two male elk interlocked at the site. The elk had been butting heads in a struggle for primacy when their horns became locked. Unable to extricate themselves, the elk died of starvation. This appealed to Roosevelt, who regarded life as a Darwinian struggle.”

“At the Elkhorn Roosevelt ranched and played cowboy, went on long solo horseback rides, often for many days at a time, and hunted for elk, mule deer, white tail deer, and other quadrupeds. He also grieved for his mother and his first wife Alice, who died together in New York City on Valentine’s Day 1884. In fact, at the Elkhorn TR wrote the only tribute he would ever pen for Alice, who died two days after giving birth to Roosevelt’s first child Alice. He also wrote parts of two of his 35-plus books at the Elkhorn.”

The plan is to rebuild the Elkhorn Ranch house next to the library. For that purpose, large cottonwood logs have been collected from the area, and local ranchers are encouraged to donate logs to rebuild the 60 x 30 foot cabin. A builder from South Dakota has been hired to build the cabin by hand using only tools that were available to Roosevelt’s builders. You can see some of the logs that have already been hauled to the grounds.

It will be quite a job, and I look forward to seeing progress on the cabin when I drive to work each day. The Legislature set aside many millions of dollars to build the library, as long as the TR Center could raise 3 million more. They have a ways to go, but are optimistic that the library and the cabin will both get finished.

If you could design a presidential library for any president, what would you do?

The Baboon Congress

My Life in the Petri Dish

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Today’s post comes from Clyde in Mankato

My mail carrier on the North Shore used to joke about the range of mail I received. As a person actively involved in unions, I received a lot of liberal mail. As a pastor I received a lot of conservative mail. And, as a joke, students would fill in magazine subscription cards with teachers’ names. It was a bit of a hassle to stop these, but before I did, the hunting and fishing magazines supplied my name to ultra-conservative organizations. Sorry about that, Steve, but it is true. One of these promised to tell me the evils of public school teachers.

In my life I belonged to many subcultures. Small farm culture, neighborhood culture (three times), teacher culture, faculty room culture, North Shore culture, Iron Range culture, small church culture, lumberjack culture, union culture, University of Chicago culture, nursing home culture, taconite plant culture, team culture, coaching culture, railroading town culture, and many others, such small bar culture, which may surprise you. But I love small bars, especially the rural ones, especially in the north woods, of which there are many. In most of these cultures I was a sort of outsider, never quite at home.

When I write my short stories I try to use these many subcultures. It is fun to revisit some of them in my memory, some not so happily. Lumberjack culture and north woods bar culture are among my favorite things to write about.

I assume Babooners have belonged to many subcultures, too.

What have you learned from the culture’s to which you have belonged, willingly or unwillingly?

The Baboon Congress

The Good Place (and the Other Place)

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Today’s post comes from Steve Grooms

“The Good Place” is one of the popular new TV shows. It’s a clever comedy that plays with notions of what Heaven might be like. I’m not that clever. When I try to imagine Heaven, I end up hoping it would be a whole lot like the places I’ve already known and loved. That says nothing about Heaven but maybe a lot about me and my limitations.

But it is a hard concept for me to contemplate. I once heard about a lawyer who died and was whisked up to some fancy gate in the sky. There he is invited in to do his favorite thing on earth, which was golfing. Amazingly, his very first swing results in a hole-in-one. The next hole was the same, and so forth for the whole round. Every shot went in the hole. The lawyer confided to his caddy, “You know, I didn’t expect to get to Heaven. In my career I, uh, took a few ethical shortcuts.” The caddy turns with a devilish grin and asks, “What makes you think you are in Heaven?”

I remember Lily Tomlin’s thoughts on the Good Place. She was asked if we would have sex in Heaven. “Of course we will!” she said. “We just won’t feel anything.”

Mark Twain has a famous quote on the topic. When asked where he’d like to spend eternity, he said, “Heaven for the climate, Hell for the company.”

It seems the cartoonist Gary Larson is an expert of Heaven and Hell, for he drew many cartoons on that theme. I’ve found about 30, and there may be more. One cartoon shows a bunch of devils laughs hysterically at notes from a Suggestion Box. In another a devil tells a new arrival, “Your room is right in here, Maestro.” (The room is filled with doltish guys holding banjos.) And in another cartoon a new arrival in Hell has just taken a swig from a coffee cup. “Oh man!” he says, “The coffee’s cold. They thought of everything!”

The more I try to imagine heaven, the weirder it becomes. I have to admit that drifting on a cloud with a harp singing the lord’s praise would get old in a hurry. Any place that has me singing is gonna be more like Hell than Heaven. I’m not the only one to wonder if things might get a little dull in the afterlife. In one of my favorite Far Side cartoons some fellow sits all alone on a cloud thinking, “Wish I’d brought a magazine.”

I’d like to think Heaven comes with a good cable TV package and no irritating commercials. I’m sure Heaven will have really fast internet connections. It would be great if I could eat ice cream all day and not gain weight. In my version of Heaven, in fact, scotch and wine would be health foods. Doctors would frown during annual checkups and ask, “Are you sure you are getting enough beer and pizza?”

And dogs! I want to say that Heaven just would not be Heaven unless it would return me to my dear buddy Brandy, the impudent springer spaniel who shared so much of my life. But right there I’m in trouble again. Before Brandy there was Danny, and a more lovable and loving dog never lived. After Brandy came Spook, the elegant gentleman who never did a single naughty thing in his life. Spook was followed by Katie, who loved me totally and helped me survive a difficult time. I can’t imagine Heaven without any of these dogs, but I can’t quite picture Heaven with all of them milling around my feet.

But while I can’t form a clear picture of Heaven, it is not hard to imagine my personal Hell. For me, Hell would be a windowless room with a telephone, computer and uncomfortable chair. I would be given some crucial task to perform, but to do it I’d have to gain cooperation from my bank, or a large software business, or an insurance company, or Social Security, or . . . you get the idea!

My personal hell would involve struggling to find phone numbers for businesses that don’t want me to call, so they don’t list their numbers. In my version of hell I’d spend hours “on hold” while insipid music plays in my ear. Periodically a voice would come on to say “Your call is very important to us,” which is a lie, a damned lie, actually. And then, after sweating an hour or two on hold I would get to one of those triage tapes that gives me four choices, only none of them will be remotely appropriate for the issue I’m calling about.

When home computers were just becoming popular it was tricky to connect to the internet. (Does anyone remember using a telephone modem? Remember the bizarre sounds they made, like R2D2 vomiting in an echo chamber?) In the early days of home computing, frustrated consumers would have to phone their ISP for help getting online. Before they could talk to a human being a taped voice would ask infuriating questions, like, “Are you sure your computer is plugged in?” Or the taped voice would say it wasn’t necessary to for me to bug a customer service agent with my issue. All I had to do was to log onto their helpful online database!

Now, that would be my version of Hell. And if the managers down there truly “think of everything,” when I walk in Hell they’ll hand me a notice telling me that there was a goof in the Registrar’s Office. I didn’t actually graduate, for I still have to take several more years of German.

What would be your version of Heaven or Hell?

The Baboon Congress, Weather

Toes `til it Snows

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Today’s post comes from Verily Sherrilee

Last week I decided to go to the gym on my way to work. To save time I threw on shorts and a t-shirt and packed my work clothes into my gym bag, slipped on my Birkenstock sandals and headed out. I needed to do a quick stop at the library to return a book before it went overdue; luckily the library is right on my way.

As I walked from the car to the library drop box, another woman pulled up behind me and got out to return her book. She had on a hat, jacket, gloves, long pants, shoes and socks. And there I was in my shorts, t-shirt and sandals. That’s when I realized that I have Minnesota’s weather in my blood.

I did chose Minneapolis based partly on the weather here. As a child, my family spent some of each summer and winter vacation in northern Wisconsin. Winter up here compared to winter in my home town is like those proverbial apples and oranges; I knew even as a 10-year old that I preferred cold and snow to mostly cold and mostly rainy. At the end of high school, I only looked at colleges in Wisconsin and Minnesota and after my wasband finished graduate school, we headed straight for Minneapolis without looking back.

I’ve been here ever since.

This year we’ve had such a nice protracted autumn that I still haven’t put away my summer clothing or brought out any of my long-sleeved items. I’m still wearing my Birkenstocks every day. A couple of days ago a friend of mind looked at my feet and said “Toes `til it snows?” My official new motto.

How to YOU prepare for the winter?