Tag Archives: Featured

The Baboon Congress

East Side, West Side

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Header Image: Forest of For Sale signs in Oughtibridge, England. Terry Robinson [CC BY-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons.

Today’s post comes from Barbara in Robbinsdale

The Winona saga continues. For any newer readers to the Trail, Husband and I are planning to move from suburban Mpls. to Winona, MN, this summer. For the past six weeks we have been in house hunting mode, and after seeing probably 18 houses, have narrowed our choices down to two.

I’ve found find that every day a different criteria floats to the top of my priority list. One day it is size (not necessarily large, but well laid out), another day it’s a good sized kitchen, and on a cold, rainy day last week it was an attached garage (good luck). When we first considered, we thought we were maybe done with gardening, but when we started attending open houses in February, what attracted Husband was a garden space out back; and I found that I need a good tree somewhere on the lot, preferably outside the kitchen window so as to enable birdwatching.

There are two houses in the running, one on the East end of Winona (very near a friend that is like family), that actually has more square footage than our current home; it was remodeled in the 1950s, so feels like a ‘50s rambler even though it was built in 1895.

The other is smaller than what we’re used to (not all the furniture would fit), but has received some wonderful remodeling touches by the present owner, has hardwood floors and a GAS STOVE (they’re apparently few and far between), and is on a rather busy street on the West end, a couple of blocks from an old friend of mine.

We’ve made an offer on the East end one, partly because we’re aware of a ready-made community of friends near there, but I’m still waffling between the two.

What criteria would be at the top of your list if you were house hunting?

Baboon Blog Redux

Baboon Redux – A Splash of Color

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While our early spring may not be this much advanced, I was warmed by the recollection of this post from May 2011.

While riding my bike yesterday morning on the way to retrieve a car that has been in storage all winter, I was stopped short by a splash of color on a corner lot.

A friendly fellow named Pete was out tending his tulips. He told me in lightly accented English that he was from the Netherlands, and that gardening is something he does as a gift to share with the community, including lucky passers-by like me.

He was examining the beds. Some late-blooming tulips were mixed in with a few of the earlies, which is not a fatal flaw, but it means with a little bit of shuffling bulbs around, things could work better next year. Pete likes everything to be timed properly, just like the producer of a fireworks show wants to create amazing crescendos.

Also, once the petals fall, it’s tough to remember exactly which color is planted where, so it’s smart to take notes and make adjustments.

He showed me his map of the layout. I admire anyone who is a careful planner.

I felt lucky to have the chance to stop for a look at Pete’s garden – now that I’ve got the car back I’m much less likely to happen down a random street. In this case, a random street with an appropriate name – NE Summer St.

What have you planned for the Spring of 2016?

The Baboon Congress

Occupational Hazards

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Today’s post comes from Renee in North Dakota

About twenty years ago I told my supervisor, also a psychologist, about the latest movie husband and I watched. We liked dramatic, offbeat films at the time. I remember feeling somewhat appalled and a little disdainful when my supervisor told me he could no longer watch heavily dramatic and/or suspenseful films any longer. He attributed it to his clinical work and the trauma and heartbreak he dealt with all day. I remember thinking  that nothing like that would ever happen to me.

Well, it has happened. For the past couple of years I have found that I can’t tolerate the least bit of suspense or uncertainty or drama in films. We usually watch films at home  (not having the greatest of movie theatres in town), and once things start getting worrisome or too suspenseful I excuse myself and leave the room until I deem it safe to go back. Then husband has to tell me what happened while I was gone.

I can only describe the sensation as major knots in my stomach accompanied by an overwhelming urge to flee. Guardians of the Galaxy just about did me in, since my clever but annoying son stopped the movie every time I left the room, and wouldn’t start it up again until I came back.. We had to take first two seasons of the recent BBC production of The Three Musketeers back to the library half watched. I particularly dislike plots involving people wrongly accused of crimes, and such plots are far too plentiful in this version of the Musketeers. I take some comfort that my supervisor also suffered with this, and it isn’t just my own neuroses to blame.

One of my friends is a former State inspector of butcher shops, meat markets, and meat-packing plants. Her experiences in this job left her quite sensitive to issues surrounding the handling of raw and processed meat. If she is coming over for supper, I know that I have only a few locations where I can buy the meat for our meal. Her husband says he always knows when they are having chicken for dinner, as he can smell the bleach she douses all the kitchen surfaces with during  meal preparation even before he gets in the house. She wasn’t always like this before she had her inspector job.

I wonder if hotel housekeepers get to the point that they can only sleep at home, knowing what they know about hotel rooms. Do fire fighters lie awake wondering if the smoke and carbon monoxide detectors are really  working? Do classical  musicians find that they can only listen to certain works performed by certain ensembles with certain conductors at just the right tempi?

Occupational hazards come in many forms. I hope that after I retire I can return to watching new and suspenseful  films. Until then, I am stuck with comforting reruns.

What are your occupational hazards? 

 

 

The Baboon Congress

A Man With Bandwidth

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Today’s post comes from tim

The blog community is an interesting phenomenon isn’t it. Wes showed up what?….. 6… 9 months ago or has it been a year…. Hes part of the flow now. Ljb popped in what 5 year ago and stuck… we all kinda came here and just started throwing it out there. Now Dale throws a redeaux out when the lull is too long and we muddle through without dales daily writing record stretching out the consecutive daily post record he established.

It is fitting that we slid into it without too much trouble. We havnt really found a strong following. Those people who post their names on the likes list… i dont get it. Are they lurkers? Do they just throw it out to x number of blogsites to build a following on theirs? Nothing wrong with that. I have other blogs i would like to get involved in. on being comes to mind… but what the heck. I barely have time to stick my head in here as often as id like to.

Bandwidth is the new term in my vocabulary these days

You only have so much bandwidth then you are all done.The term refers to the number of things you can put on a bandwidth before it gets full. Only so many telephone numbers can be pt out there then the airwaves are full. Airplanes have to have a bandwidth different from radio stations so they dont run into or over the taxi drivers, cell phone, radio station broadcast wise….In life and in blog land there are only so many hours in the day. To choose to do something is to choose not to do everything else at that moment.  The trail Baboon is a nice place to hang out but…. other stuff comes along doesnt it?

I am buried right now with new adventures and need to keep my nose to the grindstone. I love being able to stop in and visit the trail on my way to and from my day. Morning is best for me but i am apt to book my mornings up more often these days than in the past and so i find time when and if i can. Night after everyone is done is fun. To read over everyones take on the topic of the day and decide it there is two cent with throwing in is a question that comes up on occasion these days.

 

When life seems too full

And the 4 corners pull

And the schedule you have is too much

Just do what our dale does

It works out so well cuz

The trail has that hunker down touch

The vibe is low key

That appeals to me

I dont need bloggers who want to fight

Bir and vs

Clyde pj linda and yes

Renee jim ,ljb theyre alright

The trail feels like home

When the sing songy poem

Is the thing that you need it will be there

Or political discussion

you tube complete with percussion

And the voices of lots of gray hair

Yes here on the trail

Thanks to our alpha dale

Weve grown close as carrots and peas

Oregon to dakota

I dont care one eyota

baboons  can make home where they please

Chris chose owatonna

Me i dont wantta

And wes lives in the other direction

Clyde ben and soon jacque

Stick their heads in by cracky

from distance to share their reflection

But the blog is home base

A most comfortable place

Where loomis and billy reside

We all get together

In all types of weather

As a group we do food baked and fried

At book club or theater

Rock bend well see ya there

Weve become quitie a troop of baboons  

From the late morning show

We have all come to know

Each other through food words and tunes

So heres to the blog

Mans best friend is his dog

But the blog keeps your thought trains a flowing

Heres to my mates on the trail

Sharing lifes holy grail

Finding friends and a group thats worth knowing

If you were going to start a meetup group what theme would you build your group around?

The Baboon Congress

Of Fishes and Families

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Today’s post comes from Jim Tjepkema

I tell people that if they go fishing with me they will not catch any fish.

The main reason for my lack of success – fishing is low on my list of preferred activities. I had great time fishing with my Grandfather as a boy. The same was true for my father. He took part in outings organized by my Grandfather and had fun doing that, but he almost never when on any other fishing trips.

Dad spent a lot of time sitting in boats with his father, and he did not appreciate it when his father stayed out on the water for extended periods of time in bad weather trying catch a few more fish. Apparently these unpleasant hours caused him to develop a dislike for the activity.

But while Dad and I didn’t inherit Grandfather’s passion, my Granddaughter enjoyed fishing at summer camp and asked us to give her a chance to do more. We found a place where we could fish with her from a dock, and she managed to catch 3 or 4 “keepers”.

We ate them for dinner.

Actually my wife and I were the only ones who ate the fish, because Granddaughter is a vegetarian. She tried a small sample and didn’t like it. She will not be carrying on the family fishing tradition in the same way my Grandfather did because he loved eating fish as well as catching them.

Never the less, she does seem to have his love of catching fish.

How does your family feel about fish?

The Baboon Congress, Words

R. I. P. Pat Conroy

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Today’s post is by Barbara in Robbinsdale

Pat Conroy, author of The Prince of Tides, The Great Santini, et al., died last week on March 4, 2016. He wrote prolifically about a harrowing childhood in which his father played a huge role – his military style of parenting; the verbal and emotional abuse he visited on Conroy and his siblings; and the “military brat” lifestyle of moving around the South – 24 places by the time Conroy was 15. Conroy’s writing both “saved” him, and was the cause of more conflict – in the form of rifts with family members throughout his adult life.

Four of Pat Conroy’s books became movies:

  • The Water is Wide, 1972 (movie 1974, Conrack)   (also a Hallmark TV presentation, 2006)
  • The Great Santini, 1976 (movie 1979)
  • The Lords of Discipline, 1980 (movie 1983)
  • The Prince of Tides, 1986 (movie 1991)

In his final memoir, The Death of Santini (2013), he may have finally achieved a degree of closure and peace about his father. But as I listened last week to a “Talking Volumes” interview with MPR’s Kerry Miller, it was the stories he told about his mother that enchanted me, and shaped the rest of his life – how “she made reading the most important thing a person could do.” She took all the kids (ultimately seven) to the library every week, and they each checked out as many books as they were allowed (5 books in most libraries). They would then “read ‘em and trade ‘em,” so the kids might read as many as 25 books a week!

Literature became as real as anything else in the world, “and my mother made it that way.” She would read to him at bedtime each night, one of the first in his memory (at about age 5) being her favorite: Gone with the Wind.” He remembered it this way in the interview:

“Now Pa-at… when you hear me read about Scarlett O’hara, it is quite naturally for you to mistake Miss Scarlett for your own pretty mama. And when you read about that dastardly Rhett Butler, you can think about your fighter pilot father in Korea.” And she said, “When you think about Melanie Wilkes you can think about your tacky Aunt Helen… that girl don’t have a lick of sense and no personality whatsoever.”

When she read that way, with “every character in that book she could associate somebody we knew – it was the first time I knew there was a relationship between life and art.”

The more I read about Pat Conroy, i.e. from his website,   http://www.patconroy.com/about.php

the more of his books I want to read, especially The Death of Santini, and The Pat Conroy Cookbook: Recipes of my Life.

 

Is there a book in your “repertoire” in which you can insert people you know for some memorable character(s)?

Baboon Blog Redux, Poems

Revelers Beware!

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Today’s high temperature in the Twin Cities is expected to hit the mid-60’s.

A seasonal giddiness warning has been issued, effective all day and doubly so during happy hour.  We are on a 24 hour recklessness watch.

Gloomy realists will note that when Spring arrives, the dividing line is usually not drawn so sharply.  For every mid-March warm spell, there’s a St. Patrick’s Day blizzard on the way.

Sometimes it’s good to look in the record books for proof – thus today’s Baboon blog redux.

During what  passed for the Spring in the year 2013, America’s Singsong Poet Laureate, Schuyler Tyler Wyler, climbed into his drafty garret to produce a May Day Ditty that, this year, is more appropriate for March.

Embrace the May, but be a cynic.
Mother Nature’s schizophrenic.

She brings us air so sweet and mild,
and then a freezing zephyr wild.

She’ll green some grass, hey nonny nonny,
then kick your ass a little, honey.

Drape floral garlands ’round your feet,
then fill your face with freezing sleet.

Get out and do your May Pole dance,
but put some hot sauce in your pants.

Though May bringst bees and buds to flower
Conditions changeth by the hour.

What will you do to enthusiastically but realistically accept the gift of an early-season warm day?

Uncategorized

Beechly Gives His Trump Speech

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Today’s post comes from Congressman Loomis Beechly, representing Minnesota’s 9th district – all the water surface area in the state.

Greetings constituents!

As the district thaws out for spring 2016, I’m encouraged to see many of our residents still honoring the tradition of having a contest around when the ice will ultimately leave their local lake.

Once my dad and his friends dragged a broken-down 1940 Studebaker Champion out about a quarter mile from shore to see how long it would take for the thing to drop.

But that was back in the day when nobody would complain if you tossed a car in the water and left it there.

We don’t do that kind of oil-slicked, gravity-based, gambling anymore, but I’ve been running into a lot of people lately who want to know the same thing about Donald Trump – as in: “He’s big, he’s an eyesore, he’s been sitting way out there for a long, long time – when is he finally going to disappear beneath the waves?”

I’ve been around elections far too long to feel OK predicting the political demise of anyone.  Oh, demise comes to all politicians, but just like comedy, timing is the key!

Recently, the Republican Party establishment has been outspoken about trying to hasten the end of the Trump candidacy, with no real effect.

I think people are beginning to realize that Trump is a NEW kind of political animal – one that feeds on our scorn!   It used to be that pure, focused criticism destroyed careers.   The most successful kind of politician tried to be loved by virtually everybody and negative comments ate away at their support.   Donald Trump has turned that equation on its head.  You can’t defeat Trump by disapproving of him because that just makes him stronger.  Attention is the fuel he runs on, so the only way to weaken him is to pretend that he is boring!

That’s why, whenever I see Trump on one of my many screens, I force myself to yawn.

At first it felt odd, but it became easier and now it’s almost automatic.  I’m actually starting to think he IS boring.

I’m not saying it will change things overnight, but in the same way children work to save Tinker Bell by clapping, I think we can send Trump back into the  murky depths of Lake  Biggity with a coordinated,  open-mouthed, closed-eyed campaign.

Like internet cat videos, yawning is contagious and potentially viral.  And even if it doesn’t change the election,  it might help distressed Americans get the rest they so desperately need!

What popular fascination do you find boring?  

 

The Baboon Congress

Agony in the Garden

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Header image: detail from Andrea Mantegna “Agony in the Garden” [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Today’s post comes from Renee in North Dakota

I really have very little to complain about. I have a job, a home, a wonderful husband, good friends, reasonable children, my health, etc. There are some times, however, when stupid, annoying things happen to take all the fun out of life, and leave me disgusted and crabby and preoccupied. I am a natural worrier, and these annoying occurrences just fuel that worry and I have a hard time managing it.

February was one of those months. Early in the month we got a new credit card with the security chip, preparatory to our trip to Europe this spring. We had it a week when we heard from the company that it had been breached and there had been all sorts of suspicious charges and the card was deactivated. This was just before daughter was going to Washington, DC for spring break and was going to use the card on her travels. We only have one credit card, so when it is out of action, we are all out of luck. There wasn’t enough time to get a replacement card before she left for DC, but she managed with her debit card. Still, it left me fuming and fussing since we never had this happen before.

Our next issue happened the day before we were to leave for Sioux Falls for the weekend. I noticed that the freezer in our fridge was dripping water inside and the ceiling in the freezer was hot. We emptied the freezer and phoned the repair person. He told us it was not a problem and that it was defrosting itself and we had it too full, so we just took half the things out and it was fine. I worried about it the whole time we were in South Dakota. It is still working fine, but I think the compressor sounds louder than before, so now I worry it is going to break down some time soon.

Lastly, last week, the actuarial experts at State Farm miscalculated  and decided that my husband was a great risk and cancelled his car insurance. It was a total error on their part, but it will take a week or two to get all the correct information into their calculators so husband still has insurance at the end of the month. Honestly, if you can’t trust a statistician, who can you trust.

This looks like real trouble.
This looks like real trouble.

I read my words and I think, “Renee, you have nothing to complain about and many people have more serious and deadly things to worry about, so get over yourself”.  I wonder if  too many of us in this country don’t have enough gratitude for what we have, and that perhaps we need to stop expecting life to be trouble free.

Maybe that attitude accounts for the rise of demagogues like The Donald who speaks to that inside ourselves that puts us first and others second, and makes is believe that we are owed something just because we are who we are.

I read once that a martyrdom of pinpricks is still a martyrdom. Well, I have a working credit card, the freezer that is loud, but works, and an insurance company that admitted it is wrong. I need to realize that pinpricks will happen and they are nothing to let ruin my day.

What pinpricks ruin your day? 

 

 

The Baboon Congress, Travel

The People on the Train

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Today’s post comes from Barbara in Robbinsdale

As you may have guessed if you follow this blog regularly, I barely got started talking about the 1998 Rail Pass trip in the post of 2/20/16. As I was reading through my journal while writing it, I came upon many of my encounters with the other people on the train, some of whom I can still recall without prompting.

Day 1 on the train, in coach seat:  This is my first taste of freedom and anonymity – I remember this feeling from when I began living in San Francisco – my first time in a large city.  I’m resisting the temptation to pipe up and join in ongoing conversations that I can overhear.  I want to stay single, independent, anonymous.

Day 2:  There are people from all over – speaking German, Polish (?), an Oriental language. It’s very beautiful to hear… And it’s fun to watch the various couples, being not part of a couple, for a change. The similarities (playing cribbage) and differences… The sweet things they sometimes do for each other, the bossiness, the assumed closeness, the laughter, and the frowning. It’s quite a phenomenon.

Day 5:  It really is different being a single traveler. Ate in the dining car at same table with three Japanese young adults who cared not a whit about me, made no effort to engage a conversation. (Only one spoke much English.) I finally asked them at meal’s end where they’re from, etc. – a minute or two – then left it alone.

Other non-USA riders (a Londoner in Canada, a couple from Luxemburg) have been equally un-curious.  Is it that I look uninteresting? Or is it just an American trait to be curious and nosey? I guess I was hoping to tell a lot of people about this adventure I’m on.

Day 18: There’s a little girl sitting somewhere behind me – probably 3 years old or so – who sings delightfully … would  love to have her voice on tape!

Day 19: Have had some delightful conversations with various women in the last few days; just breakfasted with three generations from Beaumont, Mississippi – artist types – and asked them about how to learn perspective (in drawing).

In Observation Car: Two little girls have met here on the train, found each other (no doubt to their parents’ delight).

Day 20: Had a lot of fun drawing with a little boy named Kris. He has a cat at his grandma’s place called Shockamo-doo-da-day.   I gave some drawing paper to the family with an almost-two-year-old, across and behind me – little boy who gave his momma such a sweet hug.

One southern woman knows how to have fun with that 3-year-old grandson. He’s in her custody, she tells me… and she’s also going to adopt a baby – she’s 52 and rides a motorcycle!

Day 23: Worked a crossword puzzle with a very nice kid (11-ish) en route to church camp.

Day 28: Ate in the dining car with another vital grandma traveling with her daughter and grandson – a widow full of life and actively seeking a good time – on a trip to Canada to study genealogy with her cousin.

What’s your modus operandi when traveling? Anonymous, or “out there”?