BLissed-Out Grandma

A Valentine Wish For You

2012-02-13T15:14:00.000-06:00

Valentine's Day seems a perfect occasion to celebrate all the love in my life and to wish for family and friends - including blog friends -
whatever will make your heart happy. You already know what makes my heart most happy!

Hoarfrost

2012-02-09T23:38:00.000-06:00

Last Saturday we awoke to hoarfrost. I learned that it forms when the air is very moist or foggy and the temperature then drops below freezing. When the moisture in the air touches something - anything - it freezes in place.

The azalea buds, which form in the fall, have been growing, encouraged by our warm days. I hope the cold snap keeps them from opening prematurely.

The barberry shrubs are a favorite photo subject after it snows. It was more difficult to capture the frost, and I was using the newer camera, which I haven't yet mastered. Time to reread a few sections of the manual!

Even the wind chime had its share of hoarfrost. Was it just me, or did the tiny ice formations seemed especially dagger-like and ferocious this time?

The prodigious blogger Connie, aka Far Side of Fifty, had posted especially striking pictures of frost and fog in northern Minnesota just the day before I took these.

Here lies Mali. She was a good cat.

2012-02-04T14:14:00.001-06:00

Mali and Vi, 2/3/12

In an episode of The Berenstain Bears, a pet dies and the cubs make a sign for its grave. Augie and ViMae decided that when our aging cat died, they would make a similar sign for her.

Today is that day.

We got Mali in August 1994, the weekend we delivered Abby to college. We named her for her birthplace, a farm in Malcom, Iowa. Our other three cats were getting old and slow. Mali was feisty and fearless. She managed to get Macaroon to join in some of her games, and she learned that Lucy and Chatsy had no sense of humor. She was an awesome tree climber, back when we let her out, and she chased off neighbor cats twice her size. When we stopped letting her roam, she loved just sitting nearby while I worked in the garden.

For the last few years, Mali was our only cat, and she grew into the role nicely. She stayed under the bed when the children were babies, but in the last couple of years, as they became more like the adults she'd always known, she had made friends with them, too.

Mali in 2005

A year ago, Peter woke me early one morning to say she'd had a stroke and seemed to be on her way out. A couple of hours later she was back to normal, but she began to lose weight and to take on some nasty old-cat habits like ignoring the litter box.

Cats, when they are dying, will often try to get away to die alone. Instead, Mali followed us around all week, crawling into our arms at every opportunity. We knew her time had come, and we had been discussing it with the children.

This morning Peter found her dead. He cleaned her up a bit and uncovered the hole he and Augie had dug in the garden. The kids came over after swimming lessons for the "funeral."

Augie, ViMae, Mali 2/3/12

They didn't want to touch her, but they looked at her lifeless body for a long while and talked about what a good cat she'd been. Then we tucked her into an old pillow case and laid her in the hole. I thanked her for giving us such good memories. Vi got sad and went to her mom's arms. Augie was proud and very serious as he and Pa filled the hole with the dirt Pa had stored in the garage. Then Augie picked up the sign he'd made this morning and laid it atop the dirt. Augie hates practicing letters, but today he wrote his first two full sentences: "Here lies Mali. She was a good cat."

The sign in place, we all came inside and had juice and snacks. That, after all, is what you do at a funeral. We also made plans for getting a couple of kittens this coming summer, after we've replaced the upstairs carpet and gotten rid of as much old cat scent as possible.

As Augie pointed out, it's okay. We will have lots of fun with our new kittens.

A new kind of retirement program

2012-02-01T23:46:00.004-06:00

ViMae and Augie love zoos...the kind they visit and the kind they build with Legos. This afternoon she was telling us about some ways that zookeepers care for the animals.

Pa: Are you going to be a zookeeper?

Vi: No, ballerina.

Pa: Is Augie going to be a zookeeper?

Vi: No.

Pa: Who will take care of the zoo animals, then?

Vi: Just the ones who are already zookeepers.

Grandma: What will happen when all those people get too oldto work?

Vi: They will go to work at different zoos where the animalsare too old.

Eat dessert first...

2012-01-22T15:56:00.000-06:00

Life is uncertain; eat dessert first.

A week ago, I updated my Blogger profile to declare this my motto for 2012. I'd had something more serious in mind, but I couldn't quite settle on the wording. I realized there was some ambiguity in my goals, and I decided I was okay with that. Hence this flippant motto. Or is it?

I don't want a lot of goals right now. Caring for my grandkids - growing with them - is my top priority, as it is for my hubby. Our days of full-time daycare will end when the kids start school (Augie begins all-day kindergarten in fall 2012 and ViMae in 2013). With this limited window of opportunity, we intend to continue to throw ourselves into the task.

To us, that means responding to the kids - to their interests and passions, to their developmental phases, to their behaviors that call for praise or encouragement or, um, coaching. We take the initiative to expose them to lots of things, but we're always watching for what seems to capture the attention of one or both, and before you know it we're buying books or finding YouTube videos or researching field trips.

They liked the birds at the feeders, so we got bird books (and an iPad app) and learned a lot about birds ourselves. They enjoyed Lego Duplos, so we amassed the world's largest collection of zoo pieces. They love books; our living room overflows with them. Augie drummed on every surface in our house, testing the sound qualities; we got him a drum kit and then expanded it with "wooden blocks like Karen Carpenter's" and "a floor tom like Gene Krupa's" and "a ride cymbal like Levon Helm's." (YouTube really is a fabulous resource.) They like building forts out of cardboard in the living room, staging impromptu marching-band performances through the house, and dancing in front of the mirror, and they insist that we participate.

So here's the thing. My goal is to contribute everything I can to their happiness and development. That means being playful, curious, flexible, loving, and healthy. I was going to make it my stated goal to exercise more in order to build up my stamina to keep up with the kids. But that felt pedestrian and uninspiring.

I've had a lifetime of serious goals. Self-improvement goals, measurable work goals, always goals. For most of my life I felt obligated to do my work first, before I could play. I didn't always DO that, but the obligation weighed on me, so even when I did play, I often felt guilty. Over the past year, a full year of retirement, I've let go of that sense of obligation. I work hard while the kids are with us, and then I mostly do what I want. My motto for 2011 was "Follow your passion, feed your bliss." I threw myself into life with them and allowed myself the time to revel in it.

I've become newly aware that time is fleeting and we are not guaranteed either time or good health. "Life is uncertain."

So, even as I do what I can to preserve Peter's and my health and to build my strength and stamina, I'm going to "eat dessert first" - figuratively. I'm going to do those things that seem most important, or most rewarding, or most meaningful to others. Sometimes those things will be the most fun - like dessert. Sometimes they may not be quite so appealing, but I hope they will be memorable, and that as a whole they will make a wonderful and lasting course, following the entrees and sides dishes that have made up my life to date.

In other words, and I know I'm pushing the metaphor beyond all appropriate limits, this time in my life is the chocolate-souffle-apple-crisp-creme-brulee topping off years of chicken breasts and broccoli. Yum.

My iFamily had an iChristmas!

2012-01-11T17:02:00.000-06:00

iPad2, photographed using my iPhone

Yes, it's late to be posting about holiday gifts. But I've been busy. And distracted. Specifically, I've been setting up and playing with my new iPad2 and new iPhone. And setting up two older iPads for other family members who happily got them as hand-me-downs. As if that weren't enough, I've been installing and playing with my new versions of Photoshop (for photo editing) and Dreamweaver (for creating web pages).

It's exhausting, I tell you.

Okay, it's mostly fun. Yes, I'm the person who thought the iPad was a ridiculous idea, who was heard to say, "Who needs a lesser version of a laptop?"

That was before I knew about apps, and before I realized that an iPad can slip into my large purse, whereas my laptop needed its own case and about broke my shoulder. The iPad 2 is lighter and faster, and it has built-in cameras for Skyping or FaceTiming.


iPhone, taken using iPad

Which brings me to my new iPhone. Again, I never thought I'd want one, but now that I have it I love it. In the past, I didn't use my mobile phone much, and frankly I've barely learned how to make or accept a call because the rest of it is so much fun. I've loaded lots of apps, and I've tried out the camera, which is far superior to that in the iPad. I will love carrying this around, using some of the same apps I use on iPad and finding lots of new ways to use it, too.

iPod, taken using iPhone

I also have an iPod Touch, the first of the iDevices I acquired. Frankly, I used it as an mp3 player and never explored all the ways it could serve me using the internet. One reason: it didn't have a phone. If you have to carry a phone, you're perhaps not going to bother also carrying an iPod. Now that I can load applications to one, two, or all three of these gadgets, I might find that I use the iPod more as well. But mostly it has taken the place of our old 100-disc CD changer, which bit the dust sometime during the last year. Since Peter loaded all the music to electronic files, we don't need to replace the bulky changer. Ain't life grand?

One of these days I might talk about a few of my favorite applications. But before I do, let me ask: Do you have an iDevice or something similar? If so, what are your favorite apps?

--Nancy

Roosting under the tree

2012-01-02T15:33:00.000-06:00

A couple of days ago, the kids were looking at our Christmas tree, spotting ornaments that have become familiar to them and ornaments that bear their own faces from years past.

That got Augie looking deep into the tree, admiring the way he could see lights far inside. And that led to the four of us plus Mali the cat lying under the tree for a view from underneath. Augie kept saying, "Color and light." It looked like this:

When their dad arrived to pick them up from our play date, we looked like this (and then he got under there, too):

We had talked about the fact that we usually stand the tree in a snowbank in the back yard and let birds roost in it while they wait to use the feeders. So Augie decided we were roosting under the tree.

Augie wondered why we had so many lights..."numberless," he called them. Yes, he knew that "numberless" means "too many to count." But then Pa said he knew exactly how many there were. Eight strings of 50 each makes 400. So they agreed that only the ornaments were numberless.

We'll have our tree for another week. Then, if we get more snow or figure out another way to stand the tree in the yard, it will serve as a roosting place for a few months. And then it will be spring!

Dancing our way through Christmas

2011-12-27T17:11:00.000-06:00

Our grandkids love to dance. ViMae will tell you she wants to be a ballerina, and she can show you her best moves and her several tutus. She wanted to take classes, but around here you have to be four to enroll. So in the meantime, she twirls and spins and practices raising her leg to there. Augie joins in by grabbing her arm and swinging her around until one or both fall down. Then they laugh and do it again.

This fall Peter and I took them both to some free noontime presentations by the St. Paul City Ballet. The sessions graduated from barre exercises to snippets of a ballet-in-progress, and finally fully costumed excerpts from the company's holiday production. The Enchanted Toy Shop borrows some music from The Nutcracker; Augie recognized it as being from Disney's Fantasia. They love the Nutcracker Suite portion of Fantasia, and Augie can hear two notes of music and tell you exactly what it corresponds to--for example, the dancing mushrooms, the turnips, or his favorite, "the flowers that fall down over a waterfall."

We explained that the music was first written for a ballet, and the kids said they'd like to see it. Cue another great opportunity. A local dance school was presenting a 20-minute version of Act 2 of The Nutcracker at Rosedale Mall on Wednesday evenings before Christmas. We met the kids and their parents for dinner and then found the performance just as it began. The kids made a beeline for chairs up front and watched every step. This was no virtuoso performance, but it was up close and lively, and the kids thoroughly enjoyed it.

A few days later, we watched parts of two new DVDs--Act 2 of the Nutcracker followed by the corresponding segment of Fantasia. They loved both, and they danced around the den the whole time we were watching.

On Christmas morning at their house, The Nutcracker was playing as they opened gifts, and again they danced. Look at that picture of Augie, wearing his elf hat and red pajamas, dancing like the "action elf" he claims to be.

It will be some time before they are old enough to sit through a full-length performance, but a Christmas Nutcracker is definitely in their futures.

We wish you a...

2011-12-24T13:45:00.000-06:00

...Merry Christmas! And if Christmas isn't your holiday, have a wonderful weekend!

We'll be with the grandkids and their parents, seeing Christmas through the excitement of children. And that is the best gift we could ask for.

I began Christmas Eve day as I always do: listening to the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols from King's College in Cambridge, England. Every year it opens with the pure soprano voice of a young boy singing "Once in Royal David's City," and every year I get chills the instant I hear it. Somewhere deep inside me lives the girl who loved midnight Mass and whose greatest musical performance thrill was playing the organ for the parish men's choir for two years. (Remember, beating Bob Dylan in a talent contest wasn't especially significant until several years later when he became uber-famous.)

The Festival is broadcast around the world by American Public Media and the BBC; you can learn more about it on the APM web site and listen to it until December 31 on the BBC site.

May you, too, encounter something during this holiday that stirs fond memories and deep satisfaction within. And just for good measure, a couple of bonus pix:

Best Flash Mob Ever - Hallelujah Chorus

2011-12-17T17:01:00.001-06:00

I've never seen a flash mob in person. I didn't know much about them--mostly associated them with mischief.Well, this one is the opposite of mischief. It gives a whole new meaning to the concept of Shock and Awe. Enjoy.

(If the embedded version doesn't work for you, try this link.

P.S. According to Blogger, this is my 250th post.

Wedding promises

2011-12-10T15:07:00.001-06:00

A week ago today my youngest brother, David, married Monica, whom he'd been dating four years or so. About 40 close friends and family gathered at a friend's home on a Saturday afternoon for a ceremony that was intimate, loving, and intensely meaningful.

Their vows, and the officiant's charge to the bride and groom, were clearly based on mutually frank discussion. The officiant counseled patience, helpfulness, taking time for oneself, and other virtues. And to David she said, "Ask Monica for the help you need."

I'm sure every guest was listening from the perspective of their own partnership. For example, if David finds it hard to clarify his needs, he is clearly not alone among my siblings. When the subject comes up, our spouses and significant others have been known to roll their eyes, exchange knowing glances, and mutter about not being mind readers. It occurred to me that 26 years ago I had included in my own vows a line about asking for help, and it's still something I have to work on. Not that I don't seek help. Rather, I might assume that what I need is obvious, so when I finally ask for it I issue what sounds like a scolding, not a request. When I invite advice, I may reject it in a way that isn't very gracious. Sometimes I comment about something when I'm not even asking for help, but Peter thinks I am. Oh, the opportunities for misunderstanding are plentiful.

For Dave and Monica, questions of seeking and giving help have a special significance right now. In early November, he was diagnosed with stage four lung cancer. For this 55-year-old lifelong non-smoking distance runner, the news was both shocking and puzzling. He wasn't aware of any symptoms until late September, when he had some shortness of breath, which led to the discovery of a blood clot, which led to the discovery of the tumor in his lung.

Dave immediately went into action. He and Monica, who had been talking about marriage, decided to do it immediately so they can take this journey together. They are choosing to focus on all things positive, to take hope from stories of people who have beaten the predictions and the odds, to draw strength from positive thoughts and actions. He has begun chemotherapy in the hope of shrinking tumors in his lung and bones. If all goes well he'll have radiation later targeting the ones in his brain. Dave and Monica are exploring healthy diets and ways to sustain energy and handle stress, they are supporting one another, and they know they have a strong support system of friends and family.

The wedding was a happy occasion. As guests ate brie and wedding cake after the ceremony last Saturday, snow began to fall, gently at first and then more insistently, in huge wet flakes. A couple of dozen folks joined the wedding couple to continue the celebration at a neighborhood restaurant, the front windows of which framed a glowing, magical wintery scene.

David and Monica, may you give and receive all the help you need, and may the love and joy and magic of your wedding day sustain you forever.

The importance of blueberries

2011-11-30T23:30:00.000-06:00

Yesterday the children and I were reading, for the hundredth time, Little Cottontail. It's the story of a bunny who wants to be all grown up, but his mother says he must first learn many lessons. Among them: how to wash himself, how to find food winter and summer, and how to avoid being caught by a fox.

We have often talked about that fox. Ask what he would do if he catches Little Cottontail, and ViMae says, "Chomp." We talk about children learning to watch for cars, to be careful when climbing, to listen when grownups warn them that something is dangerous.

We also talk about balance in nature. If the fox gets Little Cottontail, that's good for the fox, bad for the rabbit. If the rabbit eats the farmer's lettuce and carrots, good for the rabbit and bad for the farmer. ViMae once picked up a forkful of omelet and declared, "Good for me, bad for the egg."

Yesterday when we read that Little Cottontail's mother taught him to raid the farmer's vegetables and fruits, I made a comment, something like, "The farmer won't like it if the rabbits eat all his lettuce. We won't like it either, because we get our vegetables and fruit from the farmer."

Augie suddenly buried his head against me and wailed something about rabbits eating his blueberries. I thought he was joking, but then I realized he was crying real tears. I finally got it out of him: "I don't want the bunnies to eat all my blueberries." And then he was sobbing again.

I explained that the bunnies would never eat all the blueberries. I said bunnies don't even like blueberries. I said farmers have fences and other things to protect their crops. This boy who cheers for the bunny hero in a dozen different stories would pause for a moment and then cry again. "What if the bunnies eat all my blueberries!"

Here's the thing I didn't tell him. Blueberries are out of season, and they are getting very, very expensive. I still buy them because this boy loves them so, and because I have loved them ever since I was a child picking quarts of them alongside my family in the woods around our cabin. More recently I learned that blueberries are high in antioxidants, and they've even been called "brain food." That's an investment I'm willing to make.

In the summer when they are plentiful, we eat them by the handful with every meal. As they get more expensive we share a few with our oatmeal in the morning. But in the coldest months, when blueberries get to be $5 for a few ounces, I usually don't buy them.

Until now, that is. I may cut back on something else, but I'm pretty sure I'm going to be buying blueberries on a regular basis.

Thankful Thursday

2011-11-24T11:18:00.001-06:00

Abby posted these on her private site. I'm re-gifting them. We'll be having dinner with these delightful children and other family in a few hours. Happy Thanksgiving!

P.S. I just realized that Miss Buckle, a photographer who lives in Norway and has a fabulous eye, has a weekly feature called Thankful Thursday. So I'm linking up with her today. Her images on this particular day are in-your-face portraits of classmates. She's also great with scenery and with sweet glimpses of her beautiful blonde sons.

More stuff I wish I didn't know: That beautiful warm sun is not my friend

2011-11-19T16:52:00.000-06:00

Don't get me wrong; I love the sun. A shining sun sustains my mood. A sun that stays behind the clouds saps my energy. In the winter, when it hangs so low in the sky that it can't warm anything, I suffer from Seasonal Affect Disorder, the initials of which are no coincidence. But that's a topic for another post.

Sun on my skin warns me and, I'm told, produces vitamin D.

It also produces skin cancer.

I've been lucky so far. Over the past 15 years, I've had six or eight basal-cell carcinomas (very slow-growing, do not spread to other areas), one squamous-cell carcinoma (faster, deeper, can spread to internal organs) and dozens of pre-cancerous bits that my sharp-eyed dermatologist has deftly removed. In most cases, treatment has been little more than an annoyance.

A month ago - just a few days after I fell - I went for my twice-yearly checkup. I pointed to a tiny new red spot just below my nose, which I thought resulted from my fall. It was next to some scar tissue from an earlier fall, which occasionally peels, I said. Hold it, he said.

Scar tissue doesn't peel. What I had was a little triangle, less than a centimeter in any direction, likely a basal cell carcinoma. It was in a dangerous spot (near the nose), I'd had it for years, and the new spot was an expansion of that. Without even waiting for a biopsy, he prescribed flourouracil, a chemotherapy cream that creates a nasty but efficient chemical peel of the cancerous tissue. It also irritates the heck out of regular tissue. I applied it daily for four weeks across half my upper lip, producing a painful, bright-red swath until a couple of days ago, when my treatment was up and I could begin to heal.

I was already feeling a bit old and vulnerable after falling, and this didn't help.

On the other hand, it may have saved me from something more serious. And it reminded me to wear sunscreen. Lots of it, even though I hate the feel and it blocks my pores.

And now I'm reminding you. Wear sunscreen, avoid getting burned, learn what to watch for. They tell you the ABCs of melanoma - assymetrical, brown or black, changing. It's good to know those, because melanoma kills. But especially if you have a light complexion, blue or green eyes, and a history of sunburns, you should know that non-melanoma skin cancers may be white or pink, are often pearly but can take many forms, sometimes show up where there was an injury or an insect bite. Wikipedia and other sites have good info, sometimes with fairly grisly photos. Don't let yourself show up there.

It's been snowing all day and the sun is nowhere in sight. When it returns, I will receive it with joy - and sunscreen. Yes, even in winter.

Stuff I wish I didn't know: falling

2011-11-06T12:39:00.002-06:00

About a month ago, enjoying a walk around the lake in Como Park,I tripped and fell. Hard.

I’d fallen once before, so I was very conscious of gettingmy hands in front of me. Good, Ithought, I’ve broken my fall. But my head had momentum, and I couldn't stop it. My cheekbone hit, but not heavily like fifteen years ago when Ilanded flat on my nose, teeth, and chin.

Two women helped me up and made sure I was okay. And I was,sort of. I’d been in high spirits just before that one false step, laughing at theantics of a little dog being walked by one of the women now helping me. I gotup, not quite as quickly as I intended. I took stock.

My hands stung; they were full of tiny cuts from thedevilishly jagged bits of gravel embedded in the walking path. I knew I’d havebruises on my face, hip, and shoulder. I didn’t know yet about the pulled something-or-othernear my ribcage, but for the next two weeks it would stab me every time Isneezed, and occasionally it would cause me to blurt out a four-letter word.Since I didn’t know about that yet, I mostly worried about the bruise on myface, which turned out to be minimal.

I walked back to my car and drove to the fish-and-chips shopto pick up dinner. It felt like the “plucky”thing to do, although I tried to shield my hands, which didn’t look veryappropriate to be in a place where food was served.

From that fall, I learned three things I’d rather not know.

Crushed rock used in paving projects is razor-sharp and jagged, and bears no resemblance to the friendly rounded pebbles fished out of stream beds for use in, say, playgrounds.
No good deed goes unpunished (okay, I’ve been saying this for a while). I was, after all, trying to get stronger and healthier by walking that path.
I have reached an age, or perhaps a state of mind and body, at which falling makes me older. I didn’t feel embarrassed; I felt vulnerable and old. When you feel that way, it’s easy to act that way. My cuts and bruises have healed, but it has taken a while to get my confidence back. This is complicated by that fact that there is always something else that can go wrong…but that’s a topic for another day.

Still, I am reminded every day that I have a great life and thatit would be ridiculous to waste it worrying about the small stuff. I’m startingagain on efforts to get stronger and healthier. But I’ll be doing that indoorsfor a while. I don’t do winter.

Meet Smaug the Dragon...and Bob the Builder

2011-10-30T16:25:00.002-05:00

If you're a fan of The Hobbit, you know that Smaug is a dragon who spends a lot of time lying atop his enormous pile of stolen gold, until his chest is almost entirely encrusted with gold.

ViMae's Daddy has passed along his love of this story, and she decided to be Smaug for Halloween. "Maybe a nice Smaug," she says. Still, she wants to breathe fire and scare other children.

We started with a red hoodie and pants, and I built the whole costume on the hoodie.I posted some sneak peeks here.

She was very specific: There had to be gold, jewels, and long, "mean" wings. I bought stick-on jewels at the fabric shop and she applied them.

I glued some pointy wings to the sleeves of the hoodie and drew on them with a gold pen. (ViMae was planning to fly from door to door trick-or-treating; Pa and I were careful to tell her these wings are just pretend.)

She loves that the tail swings when she walks, and in this photo she is admiring the shadow of her spikes, wings, and claws. Pink claws.

Augie decided to be Bob the Builder. Not surprising for a kid who owns a full-size tool box, hammer, screwdriver, and metal measuring tape, and who spends lots of play time constructing roads, houses, zoos, castles, etc.

Peter and I scouted up the necessary garb including "work boots," and Peter fashioned a tool belt using his own father's WW II ammo belt.

Augie brought goggles and some toy tools. The minute he put on the goggles, he was the proudest builder in the universe. He kept them on for hours.

Our trial outing was to the library for story hour Thursday. We knew from last year that lots of children would be wearing costumes. (Pa was the only grownup wearing one: his red sweater and Santa hat.)

Friday evening, the kids and their mom and dad went to a preschool party. These two photos are from Mommy's blog: she reports that ViMae did a lot of fire-breathing, and Augie stayed in character all evening. No surprises there!

A comment on another blog said the real test of success for a costume is how the child feels wearing it.By that standard, these outfits seem to be a real success, and it's the most fun I've ever had celebrating Halloween.

Grandma's been busy...

2011-10-28T17:19:00.000-05:00

...and here's a sneak peek at the project that has consumed my time and creative energy for the past couple of weeks.

We took the project out for a test run yesterday, but it's making its real debut as I write this. I'll post pictures of the completed creation in a couple of days. Can you guess what it is?

Meanwhile, I'll just say that between this and the World Series, Grandma's been putting in some late nights!

What's the deal with the monkey?

2011-10-16T16:54:00.001-05:00

September is a great time to get back to walking. The scenery is beautiful, and I am motivated to get in some walking now, before winter makes it nearly impossible.

I've been walking around the lake at Como Park about three times a week. The scenery has been so wonderful I had to take my camera one day, so I'm sharing.

Geese, ducks, cormorants, herons, and other birds make good use of the lake during migration. I miss most of the birds-in-residence because I don't walk at dawn.

People-watching is great; folks of every description run, walk, bicycle, or skate the paths around the lake. There are babies in strollers, dogs of every size. and one dignified-looking monkey. I don't know the monkey's story. How does one ask? "Hey, mister, what's the deal with the monkey?" I think I'll just mind my own business.

October adventures

2011-10-05T16:51:00.000-05:00

A stretch of Mississippi River that divides Minneapolis and St. Paul residential areas is breath-taking in its autumn colors this year. With Vi and Augie, we drove along St. Paul's East River Road and stopped at this overlook.

The kids enjoyed the color, but they were disappointed that we couldn't climb down the bluffs to the water.

But...we visited another part of the river, where it curves around downtown St. Paul (or vice versa). We took a picnic lunch to Harriet Island, played at the playground, and walked along the river to look at buildings, boats, ducks, and minnows.

The playground includes this impressionistic sternwheeler meant for kids to climb.

Under the plastic slides and bridges of today's playground equipment are cozy spaces where Augie "opens a restaurant" and serves me lunch. Today's pretend menu was potstickers and lo mein.

A highlight of the day came during our picnic, when Augie pointed to the sky and shouted, "Look! An eagle!" Sure enough, he'd spotted a bald eagle soaring above the Mississippi. It circled slowly above us, and in the noonday sun its white head gleamed against the deep blue sky. Alas, it returned downstream before I managed to get my camera out.

Peter and I have scouted a few Twin Cities bird-watching spots, hoping to find a place that the kids can enjoy. At Harriet Island yesterday, we learned that it only takes one really good bird to make an outing a success. Extra points for playgrounds and colored leaves.

Ode to a friend

2011-10-01T22:33:00.000-05:00

Our friend Herb had a soft, deep voice and a deadpan deliverythat made him seem perpetually glum.

When our efforts to rescue the historic State Fair Carouselhit the media 23 years ago, he was among the first to call. We weren’t surewhat to make of him, but he became a hard-working volunteer and fiercely loyalboard member during some unexpected struggles. He also became a friend.

One hot July day in 1990, Herb introduced us to his twinpassions: eight or ten vintage Cadillacs and a roomful of jukeboxes. There was realjoy in his eyes as he powered up the music, and from then on we knew him as aromantic at heart. We weren't too surprised when, four years ago, he married a second time, to a woman from his high school graduating class.

A year later Herb tripped and fell, and his legshattered. His doctor never questioned why the injury was so severe. When itdidn’t heal, Herb sought a second opinion and learned that he had sarcoma, adevilishly aggressive cancer. With chemo and radiation he managed to live threeyears, instead of the six months he’d been told to expect.

Yesterday Herb was buried. The parking lot was full of oldCaddies as his car-club friends said goodbye. His daughter played hauntingEnglish horn and violin solos. A carousel pin graced his lapel. Herb was atraveling salesman, a humble man, a sometime curmudgeon, a valued friend, and adedicated volunteer who found satisfaction in service to the carousel and hisautomobile clubs. He will be missed.

My September began with melancholy thoughts of my lateparents, and in mid-month I was mindful of the loss of my brother five yearsago. As we attended services for Herb on the last day of the month, it dawnedon me that I’ve reached an age where funerals and loss are no longer rare. Butif Anyone is listening, I’ve had quite enough for now, thank you.

A visit to the nature center

2011-09-28T16:18:00.002-05:00

Augie was hurtling toward the floor. I watched frame byframe as he landed on his face. On part of a deer skull. With antlers attached. Amidloud, indignant sobs, he clamped both hands tightly over his right eye. I pulledhim into my lap, held him, rocked him. Meanwhile, Peter begged, “Let me seeyour face.” Finally we saw: A large bruise was forming an inch below the eye. Weshared a look that said omigod, that wasclose. As we left, I reached to help Augie down from another bench. “Grandma,”he said, “I didn’t hurt my legs.”

Mr. London Street has returned to writing his lovely 100-word posts, something at which he excels. When this real-life adventure happened yesterday,I decided to try writing about it in exactly 100 words. You’ll just have toaccept that antlers of various sizes are a popular part of our local naturecenter’s hands-on learning tools. Augie is fine; Peter and I are still a bit shaken.

Missing my brother

2011-09-17T18:16:00.001-05:00

Bruce, Keith, Allen, David, 1959?

I grew up as the oldest of six children. My sister is about fouryears younger than me, and starting three years after her birth my parents hadfour boys in six years. The first, Bruce, was smart and funny and very introverted.Until he left for college, he was pretty much inseparable from Keith, 14 monthsyounger, also smart, and extroverted enough for the both of them.

Bruce sailed through engineering school and undertook amaster’s. That’s where he ran into his first roadblock: his adviser left for ayear, and Bruce could not complete his master’s project. I’m sure he didn’tmake an issue of it; instead he found an engineering job at a paper mill in Michigan.

He was never one to stay in close touch with the family, butafter a while he went incommunicado. Unable to reach him, my mother finallycalled the paper mill. She was told he no longer worked there. They connected herwith the personnel department, where a woman did her a great kindness. “I can’ttalk about confidential information,” the woman said, “but let me tell you whatI can.” She said people had liked my brother, and that he wasn’t fired formisbehavior. The bosses were all engineers, she said, and engineers are notknown for communication skills. Bruce was not the first bright new hire to needmore help and guidance than he was given.

Uncle Bruce with Lisa and Chris

Losing his job was a shock for to my brother and to ourfamily. Nobody had taught us that workplaces are not like classrooms. Assignmentsaren’t always spelled out clearly, criteria can be hazy, and you won’t alwaysknow the questions, let alone the answers. Bruce found another job, and anotherafter that. He always waited until his money was running out before he startedlooking, and sometimes he cut it too close for comfort.

Then one day he got hired at a startup company making PURwater filters. They had a great story. Their new technology was more effectivethan anything on the market at the time. It could convert sea water to potablewater; it could even pull a drink out of a mud puddle for someone in a remotelocation. Their first customers included the US Navy. One day a news storybroke; a couple had been stranded at sea aboard their boat and had survived bycleansing sea water through their PUR filter. With the help of that story, thecompany’s founders talked their way into the household market. Business tookoff. The company grew. My brother was loving it. He received awards fordeveloping new approaches to inventory control and distribution. He madefriends, bought a little house, bowled in a league with brother Keith, enjoyedthe occasional visit to the local racetrack, and happily joined the familythree or four times a year for holiday gatherings.

Me (left) and Lynne with Al, Dave, Keith, Bruce 1985

One day Peter asked Bruce, “If money were no object, whatwould you do?” The answer: “Sit around in my underwear and watch television.”We thought that was a good answer. Happiness is being satisfied with what youhave, loving what you do. And he seemed happy enough; he was extremelywell-read, had opinions on lots of subjects, and never minded when somebodydisagreed. He refused to take things personally.

Everything changed when the founders sold the business toProctor and Gamble. Oh, the company survived for a few years, during whichBruce shook his head about various changes made by the “suits” from P&G.Then came word that the plant would close. All the jobs were exported to Mexico. Mybrother tried to be stoic about it, but I know it broke his heart. He was oneof the last to leave; he was the one who knew how to disassemble the lines andship everything out.

He looked for another job, without much hope of finding one.When funds ran out, he began to take small weekly withdrawals from hisretirement funds. He stopped paying his utilities and began to live off thegrid, using a windup flashlight and a sometimes cooking on a small charcoalgrill. He was probably sitting around in his underwear, but he was no longerwatching television. Except we didn’t know it.

My brother Bruce had had a heart attack in about 1991, whenhe was 40. At the hospital, we’d heard the doctor’s advice: stop smoking, eatless fast food, get more exercise, take these pills. Over the years, he did seemto be eating more wisely and riding his bike a lot.

On Friday, September 15, 2006, he went to his bank towithdraw a few dollars for the weekend. He dropped to the floor, dead of aheart attack at 55. When we got his keys and entered his house, we learned thetruth of his existence. That’s when we discovered that he had no electricityand no heat (we don’t know for how long). About three years of unopened mailwas tossed on the floor near and under his bed. Books overflowed their shelves.There was a lot of dust, but no animals and no filth – it was not a garbagehouse. But it had problems, including the fact that the cold water in thekitchen sink was running full blast and couldn’t be turned off. Clearly it had spilledover at some point; floor tiles were lifted out and there was still the smellof mold.

Emptying Bruce’s house after his death, it didn’t take uslong to find the very pills he’d brought home from the hospital 15 yearsearlier, plus the prescriptions, never filled. We also found cigarettes, andhis reading spot reeked of cigarette smoke. We found bags of empty Mountain Dewcans, and new cartons in the kitchen. And a large bottle of aspirin.

Clearly (to me, at least) he knew the risks. He was havingpains, had no interest in being medicated, and stocked up on caffeine andnicotine, two things that could help send him on his way.

Al, Kay, me, Dad, Keith, Dave, Bruce 1993?

He did it because he was depressed. He was running out ofmoney and knew he’d never find a job like the one he’d loved and lost. Thingsaround his house needed fixing, and although he had assembled an impressivesupply of tools and how-to books, he couldn’t manage to do the work. I talkedwith my doctor about some of the things we found, and my doctor called themclassic indicators of depression.

How could we not have known?

We held a celebration of his life a month later. We calledall the numbers on his cell phone and located many former co-workers whoconsidered themselves his friends. They all came, and they brought others, andthey all told us how much they had enjoyed my brother. He was funny, a goodstory-teller, proud of his family, and very, very good at his job. The storiesthey told, and their obvious regard for him, were extraordinary gifts for ourentire family.

Having been stunned by finding the hidden sad anddysfunctional part of his life, it was wonderful to discover the equally well-hiddenhappy and successful part. It makes me smile to think of it now. Except that Iam angry – very angry – that an American company shipped my brother’s jobacross the border. Of course he’s just one among hundreds of thousands. Thisexporting of jobs is not good for the country or for the people to whom ithappens. I wish I believed that all the other people’s stories turned outhappier.

It has taken me a long time to write this, and to decidewhether to publish it. The time has come. Bruce, I thought about you all thisweek. We miss you. Rest in peace.

Class reunions: young and old, then and now

2011-09-10T13:51:00.001-05:00

Recently, Marion at Create Joy and Wonder wrote about the anxieties involved in preparing to attend a high school reunion. Reading her words reminded me that I attended my (gasp) 50-year reunion in July and still haven't written about it.

This reunion has stayed on my mind longer than the previous three I've attended, and it has eluded easy description. I finally understand why.

Attending this reunion immersed me in a dual reality. For three days (including the four-hour drive each way), memories of high school came flooding back. Some were in sharp focus, some were hazy, but all were in living Technicolor. I recalled the faces of my classmates as they once were, youthful and unlined. And yet, the faces that now surrounded me were - like my own - older, creased, a bit saggy. I often found myself peering into those faces, seeking traces of the person I had known. Sometimes recognition came easily; other times the transformation was almost complete. This seemed especially true of the men; I easily recognized a small handful, but sometimes, looking around the room, I was tempted to wonder whether some of us had wandered into the wrong party.

I began to notice that I was carrying in my mind both faces, the "then" and "now" of each classmate I happened to speak with. With 350 graduating seniors and more than 200 at this reunion, my mind was a crowded place!

Something else was crowding in as well. No matter the conversation, I always had a visual subtext: We are old. Yes, we might be smart, fun, enthusiastic, engaged in lots of interesting pursuits, but the faces kept reminding me, we are old. I shouldn't have been surprised. Most of us turned 68 this past year. But what we had come to celebrate was our youth. We surrounded ourselves with yearbook photos - classes, prom, band, the Sweet Shoppe, the junior class play. I could visualize those scenes; I knew how they played out, I could even feel the emotions - elation, disappointment, embarrassment, nervous excitement - that accompanied those days. It was amazing to be able to reach out and touch those times, and yet to have traveled so far from them.

The juxtaposition of then and now, young and old, has stayed in my head since that mid-July reunion. It reminds me that over the course of our lives, we are at once the same and different. The shy small-town girl is not so far from the surface. And if I deny that, if I think for example that I have become totally citified and sophisticated, then I am not being authentic. I've run into a few people like that at reunions over the years...people who have cultivated new manners of speaking and have seemed to consider themselves far more refined and cosmopolitan than the rest of us. Maybe they are, but I'd rather have it all - the cosmopolitan-ness and the roots in our working-class northern Minnesota town. In that sense, if we are lucky and wise, we are still young.

I mentioned to my hair stylist that I was going to my reunion. She had recently attended one in her tiny hometown. I said I thought that people going to their first reunions sometimes worried about how they would be perceived. "For some people, it's all about job status and success," I said. "Oh," she said. "At ours, it's all about the dance-off."

That seems like a good approach. What really matters at reunions is the same thing that matters in life: what kind of person are you in the here-and-now? At each of my reunions, I talked with dozens of people. I hit it off with some, and not so much with others. Beginning way back at our ten-year reunion, some of the best conversations have been with people I didn't know well in school. It surprised me then; it doesn't any more. A couple of people I did know well have turned out to be not all that interesting. But any disappointment has been more than offset by the delightful conversations, some lengthy and others relatively brief, in which a wide variety of classmates and I have discovered the things that connect us through the years and across the miles.

P.S. If you have a reunion coming up, go to it. You'll have fun. The best way to prepare is to contact people you'd really like to see there and arrange to spend time together. My friend Cynthia recruited me and our friend Nancy, and I was delighted that she did. It meant a lot to reconnect, and it was too important to leave to chance.

P.P.S. During our reunion, the planning committee asked whether we wanted to come back in five years or ten. We all raised our hands for five. And we all made a joke that we knew wasn't really a joke: Who knows whether we'll still be around ten years from now? (And silently I added, Who even knows about five years from now?)

I'm planning to be at my next reunion, feeling both old and young.

Goodbye, summer...Hello, September

2011-09-01T00:21:00.001-05:00

For me, no other month ends with as much finality as August. For one thing, June, July, and August are "the summer months." Even though summer officially extends another three weeks or so, it's not the same. Our long summer evenings, when it was light past 9 p.m., are gone. Temperatures are beginning to cool, or to transition to whatever craziness the next season brings. If garden tomatoes aren't ripe by now, they never will be. And of course school is back in session. Since I spent nearly my entire career working at colleges and universities, that sense of gearing up and getting serious every autumn is thoroughly incorporated into my biological rhythms. Actually, this serves me well, since our daycare with the grandkids corresponds to their parents' high school teaching schedules.

In fact, people around here began declaring "Summer's over" as soon as the State Fair opened a week ago. I steadfastly refuse to accept that line of thinking, just as I don't consider Christmas to be over on December 26. But somehow once the Fair started, I lost track of the days. When I looked at the calendar late this afternoon and realized that the date was August 31, it came as a bigger surprise than it should have. And when I opened the calendar to this month's firefighter photo, it was again oddly jarring to see, in capital letters: SEPTEMBER.

It's not that I dislike September. I love fall colors, sunny days that morph into cool nights, and even the transformation of the garden as the perennials begin to lie down for their winter naps. Last year's autumn was spectacular, and I'm hoping this year will be the same. But to step from August into September is to leave something behind. Our week at the lake. Trips to the ballpark. Long summer evenings with late sunsets. And maybe something else: maybe the myth of carefree summer days when anything is possible.

This sense of loss seems complicated this year by a cluster of significant dates. August 31 was my Mom and Dad's anniversary. She died in 1980 just a week before what would have been their 40th anniversary. I often don't even remember the date of her death; but I always remember their anniversary, followed closely by Dad's birthday on September 4 and Mom's on September 7. Ever since Dad died in June, they've both been on my mind.

I'm choosing to believe that my reaction to the calendar is an artifact of that process, and that September is going to be a fabulous month. And oh yes, here is Mr. September from the St. Paul Firefighters Calendar, proceeds from which support two children's health charities.

Lovely distractions

2011-08-27T16:00:00.000-05:00

Let's face it, since I retired I'm really not into goal-setting, scheduling, achieving, etc. Especially during the summer, which is my vacation from childcare for the grandkids. But Monday, they come back to begin a new season, and I am not ready.

I've had two months to finish painting my office. I still have two doors to do after the dreaded painting fiasco, and they're not going to get done by Monday. I have boxes of papers and knickknacks that I brought home from my workplace last December. And other boxes of papers and knickknacks that have been packed up since the painting project and need sorting. I do NOT want to just throw all this stuff back where it was; I want to sort and toss and recycle.

But I keep being distracted. One, I get drawn to the computer to read blogs. And two, there's this garden just outside my window. It calls to me in many ways.

It seems to be a banner year for phlox, and I have four different varieties all blooming their heads off. They are sending out a powerful scent, almost overwhelming. It makes me want to, I dunno, dance or daydream or gaze out at the flowers. Anything but paperwork.

Second, for the last couple of weeks I've been visited by butterflies, especially monarchs and tiger swallowtails and the little white ones whose name I never remember. With the window open I often hear their wings flap before I even see them. Then I am compelled to watch, and to pick up a camera and see whether I can capture some photos that top the ones I've already taken.

There also seems to be increased bird activity all around us. Goldfinches have been coming to the black-eyed susans that have volunteered themselves from the back yard into this pink-and-purple spot outside my window. Other finches follow, and I hear cardinals and other birds just out of sight. I'm forever pressing my face against the screen and craning my neck trying to spot the source of a tsk or a call. But they elude me, and my camera. Just as well. I have paperwork to do.

A rediscovered treasure

2011-08-22T15:54:00.001-05:00

Our daughter Abby has been making greeting cards since she was a kid. Using colored markers, glitter, stickers, and more recently photos, she creates cheerful, heart-warming messages for birthdays and various holidays. I sometimes come across one that I used as a bookmark, but mostly they are with the cache of cards that I've been consolidating, little by little, in my office.

In 1996, when she was a sophomore in college, she used her card-making skills to create a Christmas gift. It's a display piece that features cut-out illustrations of some of my favorite activities: gardening, baseball, art (or does that one represent lounging?), theater, fishing, and Christmas. It, too, has been in my office, but like everything else it was packed away while the ceiling was being repaired. I just pulled it from the box moments ago.

I love that the photos still represent my interests, except of course for the grandkids. But then I read and rediscovered the poem. It was lovely at the time. It's even greater now.

The Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe
by Joyce Johnson

There was an old woman who lived in a shoe,
And all her grandchildren played there too.

She laughed at their jokes (when they were funny)
And kept a green jar of bubblegum money.
She rode with them on the carousel
And played Monopoly very well.

She taught them to paint and how to bake bread.
She read them riddles and tucked them in bed.
She taught them to sing and how to climb trees.
She patched their jeans and bandaged their knees.

She remembered the way she'd felt as a child,
The dreams she'd had of lands that were wild,
Of mountains to climb, of villains to fight,
Of plays and poems she'd wanted to write.

She remembered all she'd wanted to do
Before she grew up and lived in a shoe.

There was an old woman who lived in a shoe
And lived in the dreams she'd had once too.
She told those she loved, "Children be bold.
Then you'll grow up but never grow old."

And that is exactly the message I want to give to those I love.

The most clever birthday gift ever

2011-08-18T17:43:00.002-05:00

One night last week as his family drove home from the baseball game, Augie announced that during the game he had thought of a great birthday gift for Pa. (His parents had been working on the idea of getting something the birthday person would like, not something you would like.)

"We should give him his own copy of Pretend Soup (a children's cookbook) and all the ingredients to make Number Salad." Augie has his own copy but had never made this recipe. He was sure Pa would enjoy it.

His parents and sister agreed that was a wonderful idea. (Mom and Dad also marveled that he'd kept this exciting secret to himself while we were all together at the game.)

He proudly presented the gift on Sunday, and on Tuesday Augie and Vi made two batches of Number Salad for lunch at our house, sharing with Pa, me, and their mom (Dad was working).

The recipe begins with one handful of coconut and two tablespoons of orange juice concentrate. "Handful" is a subjective term; Augie pulled out at least 1/3 cup while Vi daintily withdrew about a tablespoonful. The beautiful thing: It doesn't matter!

Then you cut, count, and drop in 3 orange sections, 4 apple slices, 5 cubes of cheese, 6 banana slices, 7 pieces of melon, and 8 grapes. (Having put in the specified number of pieces, or any number you like, you can eat the excess.)

As you stir ("9 times"), the coconut and orange juice concentrate form a dressing - a pretty clever idea if you like coconut (we liked it more than the kids did).

The kids dished up Number Salad for lunch. Two batches was more than enough (we were still full from breakfast) so Pa and I had the rest with dinner.

We have many other wonderful recipes to try, as we continue to enjoy Pa's birthday gift. Timing is perfect; Peter had just mentioned that he wanted to involve the kids more in meal preparation this year.

Pretend Soup, by the way, is by Mollie Katzen, author of Moosewood Cookbook, and Ann Henderson, a preschool teacher. All recipes are kid-tested. Grownups do the difficult steps; kids use table knives for any cutting they do. They participate in lots of cooking at home, and they are very proud of their efforts. I wish I'd had that opportunity as a kid, but more than that, I love that they do.

The guy who taught me to fight City Hall

2011-08-14T00:01:00.056-05:00

When people grow up in New York and then move to Minnesota, they sometimes can't avoid stepping on people's toes. New Yorkers are used to interrupting, moving fast, talking loud, and having a certain boldness that Minnesotans often perceive as pushy and arrogant.

If they use these traits well, they can get a lot of things done. In the recent past, two such men became mayor of St. Paul, one was chosen as president of the University of Minnesota, two went to the Senate, and one saved a historic carousel whose horses were already removed and scheduled to be sold at auction.

Peter and Augie at Cafesjian's Carousel, 4/2008

The latter is my husband, Peter. He used his New York skills, occasionally tempered by my "Minnesota nice," to negotiate the purchase on behalf of our nonprofit organization. Then he used his story-telling talents to raise nearly $3 million to pay for the carousel, restore it, and get it situated in St. Paul's Como Park. We were not rich, famous, or powerful. Instead, we did our research, made proposals, forged partnerships, drove the message through dozens of media interviews, and took on a huge amount of volunteer work while doing our regular jobs. I would have given up several times; his will-power kept us going.

Eventually, the New York-born mayor at the time tried to wrest control of the carousel and place it downtown, where it would have died a lonely death. We fought City Hall, and we won. Among the things that made us effective were Peter's vision, determination, intense preparation, hard work, and, oh yes, being willing to offend a few people along the way. He told people the truth as he saw it and did not worry about being liked. When the mayor summoned us to a meeting, rolled out maps of a revitalized downtown, and waxed poetic about his vision (for which he intended the carousel as a centerpiece), Peter said, "Well, Mr. Mayor, not everyone shares your vision." There were gasps around the table.

As a Minnesotan raised to be a people-pleaser, I learned from Peter to speak up for myself and to take a few risks to accomplish something important. As I became braver and more confident, he smoothed his rough edges and added new strategies to that of confrontation. Collaborating on one cause or another, we get a kick out of how well we work together. We call it "Being Peter and Nancy."

Augie learns to love stories 12/2007

Way back when we were getting to know one another, he told me, "Lots of adults don't like me much, but children love me." Well, lots of adults like him, too, but he was right about the children. At Saints' games, for example, children would regularly come to chat and ask him to read them a story. He always obliged, only pausing to mark each batter's activity in his scorebook.

Maybe all of that was practice for being a grandpa. He is a great one. It was his idea to provide daycare until the grandkids are in school. As with the carousel, I took my cue from him and now we are a great team. Peter and Nancy. Pa and Grandma.

In the summer, when the kids are not here every weekday, it's Pa that they ask to see. For example, just the other day ViMae was getting weepy at the breakfast table. "Mom," she said, "I miss your dad." (Yes, they've been working on figuring out extended relationships.) They called so Vi could talk with her grandpa, and then they came over for a play date.

Pa and ViMae swim together 8/2011

When Peter was 19, he was diagnosed with lymphoma. Doctors told his mother she'd better have his big "turning 21" party a year early because he wouldn't live to 21.

Today, August 14, 2011, he turns 63. Or, as he put it the other day, three times the age he wasn't supposed to see. It turns out he didn't have lymphoma at 19, although he did have it at 58. We were lucky; surgery took care of it. I'd like to say I hope we have at least another 21 years together, but we are a little superstitious about "watching what we wish for," so I won't say that.

Happy Birthday, Peter. I'm so glad I met and married you...glad we are Peter and Nancy, Pa and Grandma. I hope you and I have many more years together, and that we enjoy them all. It's because of you that I am a blissed-out grandma.

Deciding what we eat

2011-08-10T16:58:00.002-05:00

As I approached the grocerystore dairy case, I saw what appeared to be a mom and her teenage son, bothgazing at the yogurt shelves.

Their body languagespoke volumes. She had her feet planted and hands on her hips as she peered atevery carton on the shelf. He was a step behind her, bouncing on his toes like hereally wanted to leave.

“Face it, Mom,” Iheard him say. “That’s how they make it now.”

I didn't hear her response. What I want to knowis, who decided? Who decided that 95 percent of the space formerly given toperfectly good fruit-on-the-bottom yogurt is now devoted to (1) Activia and itsimitators and (2) something called “Greek” yogurt?

Activia Iunderstand, sort of. Jamie Lee Curtis is all over the airwaves promoting thestuff, so even though I don’t eat it, I am willing to believe that others havebeen persuaded to do so.

But Greek yogurt? Ihave yet to see a single ad telling me what it is and why I should eat it. I’mpretty sure I didn’t just happen to miss them. And I am oddly insulted by this.I feel as though it suited somebody’s business purposes to create this stuffand – what? People would just start buying it?

They may be right.After not being able to find our regular Dannon yogurt in flavors we wanted, oran acceptable substitute, I tried Greek yogurt. It was richer than Dannon, andI liked it. Peter did not. I tried another brand; same results. As I writethis, I’m trying a third brand, which I dislike intensely. I won't even suggest it to him.

Somewhere along theway, Peter and I Googled Greek yogurt. Wikipedia says the generic term is “strainedyogurt” and that it’s produced by straining out the whey, making the resultingproduct thicker, richer in protein, and lower in sugar and calories.

Also from Wikipedia:Most of the recent growth in the $4.1b yogurt industry has come from thestrained yogurt segment. The term "Greek yogurt" has becomesynonymous with strained yogurt due to successful marketing by the Greek Fage brand, thoughstrained yogurt is a staple in many countries besides Greece, and most yogurt in Greece is notstrained. "Greek-style" yogurts are similar to Greek strained yogurt,but may be thickened with thickening agents.

I wasn’t even goingto try this stuff, until my store included it in a promotion they’re doing and,ahem, by trying these new brands I could get more chances to win a prize in aso-called Monopoly game.

Bottom line, I like somebrands of Greek yogurt well enough (especially Chobani), and it seems that withmore protein and less sugar it’s better for me than the Dannon I had beeneating. But why did it just sneak up on us? Why are we inundated with Activia ads but had to use Google to learn about Greek yogurt? And what will Peter eat, now that nobody carries Dannon peach-on-the-bottom?

Like the teeager said to him mom, "That's how they make it now." And then he added, "You'll just have to get used to it."

P.S. I just found a story saying that Chobani has become the market leader thanks in large part to social media, and that they are hiring a new advertising agency, presumably to reach non-tweeters like us.

Fishing buddies

2011-08-06T00:59:00.002-05:00

Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after. - Henry David Thoreau

At age four, our grandson Augie sets his goals high. Before joining us at the lake, he announced that he wanted to catch a fish and eat it. He and ViMae know that butchers turn animals into meat, and Pa had told them that Grandma was the best fish-butcher he knew. So they decided that Grandma would clean the fish and Pa would cook it.

Belted kingfisher at Star Lake

To manage expectations, we talked about the notion that fishing is all about trying; you never know whether you'll catch anything good. We explained that while fishing you sometimes get to see animals and birds along the shore; that's how we had seen loons, herons, and just this week a belted kingfisher. (We wouldn't have known or cared about the kingfisher if it hadn't been for Augie and his Minnesota bird book.)

Right after lunch on the day they arrived, the four of us donned sunscreen and life jackets and climbed into the little fishing boat. (Mom, who doesn't enjoy fishing anyway, took a much-needed nap.) We introduced them to their fishing rods and spent a little time getting them to settle in. If you have fished with a kid, you know the "don'ts": don't wave the rod around, don't let out so much line, don't just set it down. We added as many "do's" as we could: hold it steady, move it slowly, let us know if you feel a little tug. They were excited, and they tried hard to cooperate, except for that part about letting out too much line thing. The release button is just too inviting and it was a great way to tease Pa.

Crappie

Star Lake is full of sunfish and crappies, most of them small but ambitious enough to nibble at whatever you dangle in front of them. Sure enough, within 10 minutes each child had caught a fish. Vi's was too small to keep and she didn't mind throwing it back; she was happy just to have caught one. Augie's was bigger; he was beaming as we offered to put it on the stringer. A shadow crossed his face, so I quickly added, "You can let it go if you want," and that's what he chose to do. My only regret: we neglected to bring the camera along to get pictures of their first fish.

Sunfish

The next day Augie and I went out, and this time he handled the rod like an experienced fisherman. We each caught a fish quickly; he reeled in his own and wanted to take out the tiny hook himself but it was caught a little awkwardly so I did it. Again we let the fish go, and with that he was ready to go back to the cabin.

"Do you want to go for a little ride to see whether we find any birds?" "No, I want to go to the cabin. Go fast."

We were using a 5-hp trolling motor. Fast doesn't really exist. But he'd seen bigger boats churn up the water with their wakes. "Turn on the waves and the bubbles," he said. I assured them that I had, and he was happy.

Small fish, but delicious

Peter and I had caught enough fish ahead of time so the kids could have a meal of fish even if they didn't catch any. They were perfectly happy to gobble up crappies and sunfish just like the ones they had caught and released. Even their mom tried some, and didn't mind the taste as long as there was tartar sauce.

At the end of our vacation, we asked the kids to name their favorite thing. ViMae loved swimming. Augie's answer: "Trying to catch a big fish." I have a feeling this boy is going to be a fisherman. (Not giving up on his sister, either. She has more patience for sitting still.)

Shared experiences

2011-08-03T18:16:00.000-05:00

Our deck view last week

When I was a kid, my dad designed and built a lake cabin about an hour's drive from our home in northern Minnesota. I learned to love fishing, picking blueberries, listening for loons, and just being in the woods and close to nature.

I discovered, or developed, an important part of myself there; I was relaxed, grounded, in the moment. I felt healthy. As an adult, I lived and worked hundreds of miles away, but I headed to that plain little cabin for summer vacations and left behind all the tensions and frustrations of my job. Peter, who had grown up in New York and spent family time at the ocean, came to love the north woods as well.

The cabin was sold in 1993, and that summer Peter and I became regulars at St. Paul Saints baseball games. We never revisited the lake experience until last summer, when I rented a cabin at a great little resort on Star Lake in north-central Minnesota. We loved the place, and I realized how much I had missed the part of me that spent hours and hours attuned to the gently lapping waves, the sound of wind in the trees, and the constant presence of birds and other critters, seen and unseen.

Knowing how our grandkids enjoy nature, we immediately wanted to share this lovely experience with them and their parents. So this year, we had a two-part vacation. The first three days Peter and I rested, fished, took a couple of hikes to check out potential kid activities, and entertained our friends Carol and Michael, who have retired to a lake home about 50 miles from "our" resort. It was wonderful to see them, and really fun showing them around our new favorite place.

On Wednesday, Abby arrived with the kids (their dad had a prior engagement, the week-long bicycle ride across Iowa). In short, they LOVED everything about it. Among the highlights: fishing, swimming, playing on the beach and at the little playground, hiking, helping row a boat, spotting an eagle and some deer, hearing loons day and night, sitting on the deck among the treetops, playing in the screened porch that Augie calls the Game Room, eating fresh-caught fish, and having sleepovers with Pa and Grandma. Oh, and playing with the computer and iPad. Hey, we all needed some down time. This is not my childhood no-water-no-electricity cabin.

Vi and I were lying on beach towels one afternoon, warming in the sun after swimming. "Grandma," she said, "Your cabin is better than your house." Why is that, ViolaMae? "Because it has bedrooms and a bathroom downstairs for me and my family to sleep."

I have more stories that will wait for another post. Suffice it to say that as we drove home, Peter and I were wearing broad smiles, enjoying our north woods experience doubly because we were able to share it with the youngsters and because they embraced it with so much enthusiasm.

When they visit Daddy's family in Montana, they love to visit a working farm. This year they also went to Yellowstone, where they learned to identify the scat and tracks of bison and other animals. They can't wait to go again, and Augie knows exactly which animals to look for out west. He knows his list of Minnesota animals (and birds), too, and we look forward to years of discovery and fun ahead.

Gosh, it's Josh

2011-07-30T18:50:00.001-05:00

I can't believe it's nearly August already, but that's what the calendar says. The St. Paul Firefighters 2011 calendar gives us Josh to remind us of the heat. Proceeds from this calendar support the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation and the Autism Society of Minnesota.

July in the sun garden

2011-07-23T00:55:00.001-05:00

At last, the sunny portion of my garden is bursting into bloom.

Purple coneflowers, which began with three tiny plantlets, run rampant along the fence. Gorgeous yellow daylilies just glow, even when the sun has moved to the other side of the house.

Spikes of liatris help attract butterflies...

as do the butterfly weed and milkweed, blooming in pink and white this season.

Phlox is just beginning to open, and its sweet smell never fails to remind me of my childhood.

I've seen a few butterflies enjoying the garden, and I hope slightly cooler temperatures bring even more of them in coming weeks.

Hot enough fer ya?

2011-07-18T13:43:00.005-05:00

We used to say in Minnesota if you don't like the weather, wait five minutes and it will change. This week, not so much. At 1 p.m. today, the temperature was 91 degrees Fahrenheit and the heat index was 107. The sun is out; it will get hotter. It will not cool off below about 80 at night, and this will last at least until the weekend. And the pattern covers what, about 40 states?

Yesterday I was driving home from northern Minnesota (where it was equally hot), and when I stepped out of my air-conditioned car my glasses fogged up. This morning the windows of our house were covered in condensation. And those are positives, because they mean we are able to be inside, in air-conditioned comfort.

Lots of people don't have that luxury. I think about the construction workers and police officers and others who have to work in the heat, and about the people living in hot houses that won't cool off, and about the people for whom this is not just an annoyance but a health threat. I worry about the damage we are causing by running all this air-conditioning, and I worry about brownouts and power failures (the power went out at my hotel for a couple of hours early Sunday morning, enough to serve as a warning).

Wherever you are, I hope you have at the very least some protective shade, excellent cross-breezes, and lots of cold water.

How are you keeping cool in all this heat?

(PS, DJan, this is a good time to be living in Bellingham, Washington!)

The myth of the 'little project'

2011-07-13T18:34:00.000-05:00

When I worked as a publications director, people sometimes came to our office requesting "just a quick little project." We always winced. "Little projects" are the worst. Everything that can go wrong, does.

I should have remembered that three weeks ago when I began a quick little home improvement project. I thought it would take a couple of days. I'm still not done. Like those pesky small projects at work, this one has gone wrong at several points, sometimes because of my choices and sometimes not.

It all started when we hired someone to repair the ceiling in my office, which had sustained water damage last winter. All I had to do was pack up my computer plus the papers and projects and clutter and bric-a-brac in my office, move the boxes out, and help Peter move the furniture into the dining room (having first moved the dining room furniture into the living room). When the ceiling guy was finished about four days later, we'd moving everything back in.

It was a tough four days without my computer, but I made do using Peter's laptop in the next room, plus my iPad. (Yes, I'm aware how spoiled that sounds.) Then we moved the desk, file cabinet, and sewing machine back in.

That's when I noticed that the paint on the window next to my desk was cracked and peeling. It could use a touch-up. Peter said he had the paint I'd used before, and of course it would be easy to do with much of my stuff still out of the room.

Well. Apparently I had taken the leftover paint and tried to mix a new color. It was hideous. But it reminded me that I had wanted to make the woodwork darker. Since we didn't have the matching paint, I might as well choose a new color and do all the trim: a double window frame, two doors and their frames, and the baseboards. Easy-peasy. A couple of days, max.

I got distracted choosing colors using a "paint your room" online feature. Eventually, I chose "persimmon," which looked like a nice terra cotta tone to accent the pale apricot-to-peach color of my walls. I checked the color chip at the store, bought some, and began to paint. Alas, persimmon turned out to be too bright and too pink. It should have been called geranium.

I went back to the color samples, seeking something deeper, more subtle, perfectly balanced between orange and pink. I was debating between "baked clay" and "cavern clay" when I noticed something: both were very close to the trim in our kitchen. We had most of a quart of that - Glidden's "amber coast" - in the basement. Peter had suggested it to me two days earlier. Now I decided it was perfect. This turned out to be a good decision.

Over the next three days I painted two coats over all the trim. (I could have done it faster, but I had gardening to do, blogs to read, baseball games to attend, sore muscles to rest.)

Leaky masking tape = fringe

Then I pulled off the blue masking tape that I had so carefully applied everywhere. Ouch! I discovered not one problem but two.

First, some of my lovely "amber coast" had leaked behind the masking tape, filling little depressions in the plaster wall. It looked like a frilly fringe along the baseboards and door frames. I tried scraping, but it wouldn't budge. Instead, Peter found some leftover paint that matched my walls, and with a tiny paint brush I went around all the edges, painting out the "fringe."

Second, and even more annoying, the special-blue-masking-tape-for-paint pulled off some of the underlying paint it was meant to protect. Paint from the center panel of each door, a light color that I wasn't planning to change, peeled off in strips with the masking tape, and so did some bits from the surrounding woodwork. That is not supposed to happen; this is precisely why we use the blue tape instead of the old beige stuff!

Meanwhile we needed our dining room back, so I've moved my boxes back into the office. And I needed some of what was in them, so they are partially unpacked. I'm trying to sort out and get rid of stuff as I do this, so at any given moment I have one garbage bag and one growing pile of figure-out-what-to-do-with-this-later.

Not perfect, but better!

I still have to finish the doors. But I'm nearly out of paint, so I have to go out and have another can mixed. The way things have gone, I am almost certain the new paint won't quite match. I'm stuck, or as I like to think of it, taking a little break. It's been more than a week now.

The good news is I'm happy with the new color and with how everything looks, or will when the doors are done. What began as a simple functional task - providing some protection for the wood of the window frames - became a small exercise in self-expression. That, of course, is how our clients felt about even the simplest poster or invitation, and it's part of the reason so many projects grew beyond their functional importance.

I'm happy not to be doing publications work any longer. I'm happy to make my own decisions on my own projects. And set my own deadlines. And meet them, or not.

We have Skyped, and it didn't hurt a bit

2011-07-08T14:11:00.005-05:00

I don't like talking on the telephone; it takes a lot of energy and doesn't give enough back. That's probably because I like to take in information through my eyes, not my ears.

At ages three and four, our grandkids will talk by phone for a little while, until suddenly they are gone and you find yourself talking with their mom, who is laughing at how abruptly they were distracted by something shiny.

All that was before Skype.

With the kids planning a three-week trip to Montana, we decided to join the Skype generation. Our computers have no working built-in cameras, so we bought a $30 combination camera-microphone at Target, installed the software that runs it, and downloaded the free version of Skype.

Our first couple of conversations were notable for their awkwardness.

Them: "Hello, are you there? We can't see you."

Us: "Hello, we see you but now we can't hear you."

Them: Mouths moving.

Us: "We're going to hang up and call again."

Once we re-established the connection, we could see and hear one another. But our camera periodically wandered so only one of us was visible. Easily fixed; I had set it to "follow my head," which does not work when two heads are involved. Occasionally our sound cut out...I would recommend not buying the cheapest equipment if you are going to use it often. The software controlling the camera and microphone popped up on our screen periodically, and Peter would frantically search for the right command while the rest of us kept a running commentary. "We can't see you any more!" "What did you do?" "Get the picture back!" "Hurry!"

As with any electronic equipment, once you get familiar with it, the technical aspects become almost invisible. The computers at each end of the conversation link up, happy people bound into view, and everyone starts talking.

We had extended, animated conversations about their trip - playing with their cousins, going to Yellowstone, visiting a museum. We saw ViMae's new gold sparkly shoes, admired whatever they were wearing, and laughed at their jokes. Augie has begun making up jokes of his own. Q: Why did the hippopotamus go to the watering hole? A: Because it was in Africa! Hahahahaha.

On their Daddy's birthday, we held up cards we had made. Peter went traditional, using stickers, stampers, markers, and crayons. I used virtual markers and paint, via a drawing program on my iPad.

Eventually the conversation dwindles, and it's time to say goodbye. The children lean in and kiss our images on the computer screen. I kiss the camera lens, and then make a funny face. The last thing we hear is Mommy saying, "Augie, you can turn it off now, Just click h...." Click.

And for the next couple of hours, we walk around with big smiles on our faces. I still don't like telephones, but I love Skype.

Meet Mr. July

2011-06-30T23:31:00.001-05:00

What a great photo for July, in the St. Paul Firefighters 2011 calendar. I love the composition, and the combination of strength and tenderness. Plus, you know....

Have a wonderful holiday weekend.

A Fathers Day Remembrance

2011-06-19T01:35:00.001-05:00

Dear Dad,

This is my first Fathers Day without you, and I can’t let it pass without sending a few notes your way, especially about your funeral service this past week. You would have enjoyed it.

Everyone who came had a story about what a very nice man you were, and how much they always enjoyed your company. Keith put together a great photo display so people of every generation could find photos of you as they remembered you.

1943, about to leave for WWII

You looked spiffy in your Knights of Columbus cutaway, as did those who served as honor guard at the funeral home (quite a surprise to any who hadn’t seen them before). (Darn, I have just searched for a photo of you in cutaway and chapeau, and I cannot find it.)

When I was the organist for funerals at Blessed Sacrament church all those years ago, we used some pretty trite hymns. I was glad that the church now has a really good soloist, and I liked all of the music (Al told me you chose two pieces and he and Keith augmented the list). This was especially good for me, because for days I’d had one stupid song running through my head: Lime in the Coconut. Oops, here it comes again.

You’d have been proud of all the arrangements Keith and Al made, of their heartfelt remarks that moved people to tears, and of Dave’s superb presentation of the readings.

1945

As we prepared to leave the church, a big wave of sadness came over me. Yes, we were lucky to have you until age 95-and-a-half, and yes, it was a gift to spend time with you in your final months. But now that time is over, and I will miss you. I can tell that I have some tears yet to be shed, and they will probably come unexpectedly.

We had a brilliant blue sky for the graveside service, and I was very moved by the military honor guard, complete with flag, taps, and rifle salute. It reminded everyone of your WW II service, and it united us with the families of those still giving their lives for their country. I thought about the fact that questions of war and peace are irrelevant at such a moment. When the burial service was over, I laid a flower on Mom’s grave.

Most of all, you’d have loved dinner at Sammy’s Pizza after the visitation Monday evening. It was a once-in-a-lifetime gathering of your children with all Kay’s daughters - your stepdaughters - plus various kids and grandkids and friends and cousins. Everyone was on their cheerful best behavior, and several of us wished this could have happened while you were alive.

1951, with Lynne, Bruce, and me

Your friend and neighbor Odin came to the visitation, on his 98^th birthday. A couple of Mom’s good friends came, and several relatives from her side drove up. Two of your former daughters-in-law were there. But the most celebrated guest was Jean, the woman who has cleaned your apartment at Talahi assisted living for the past year. I’d met her at the nursing home, and I’d seen her cry at finding you not doing well. She took vacation days and brought her two daughters to Hibbing for the funeral. Everyone welcomed her, included her in the dinner at Sammy’s, and couldn’t stop talking about what a wonderful thing it was that the staff could be so caring, and that you could make such a wonderful friend so quickly.

2010, clockwise Lynne, Dad, Keith, Al, Dave, me

I find that I am looking for my own words, my own rituals for saying farewell. The words and rituals of the church funeral, although I grew up with them, don’t console and uplift as they once might have. But in the people who came, the stories they told, the way they came together, there is great testimony to your life and your legacy. This brings comfort and inspiration. Rest in peace, Dad, and Happy Fathers Day.

My grandkids could have painted that....

2011-06-12T12:32:00.000-05:00

As a matter of fact, they did. As part of ViMae's birthday celebrations, we gave each of them large-grip paint brushes and spill-proof paint cups. We poured in modest amounts of washable tempera paint, fashioned smocks out of garbage bags, and stood by with paper towels and a wet cloth. They both had a great time. Correction: We all had a great time!

ViMae has been using circular strokes in her drawing and writing lately, and we were pleased to see her begin with bold ovals that filled the page. She filled them with thick swirls of color upon color (see above).

Augie loved the green paint (which we mixed from blue and yellow, to their great delight), and he used it to establish an initial shape for most of his paintings. He said he was making pizza, and he added layer after layer of new ingredients (right).

When I asked Vi what she was making, she said firmly, "A pattern." Personally, hers reminds me of a vase and his a salad. and I love them both.

How about one more pair. At left, Pattern II by ViMae. Below right, Augie's I Think it Looks Like a Shark.

Augie's preschool teacher compared his technique and style to abstract expressionist Jackson Pollock (1912-1956) (two of Pollock's works at left). She hopes to introduce Augie to this work, to give him a connection to the art world. At first, I thought, "Bad idea." But Augie lovingly "played" the piano after watching Dr. John. He watches drummers, from Gene Krupa to Keith Moon to Karen Carpenter, and then produces his own music, inspired by theirs. Looking at Jackson Pollock's work will not diminish his own.

That's something we love and admire about both kids. Their art - like their music and their lives - is bold and free and bursting with color. It fills the page - it doesn't cower in the corner the way my timid little drawings did. In fact, I'm thinking of buying the same tools for myself so I can newly explore my own artistic side.

If you're doing this at home, the oversized brushes and spill-proof cups help, and we will use the cups even if we switch to daintier brushes. Also, we are going to try pieces of cardboard instead of paper. It will give them a bit larger canvas and will stand up to the great globs of paint they like to apply! FYI, the brushes and cups are by Melissa and Doug and the washable tempera set is by Crayola.

P.S., Thank you to all who commented so beautifully on my post about my dad. I'll be away from computers for the next couple of days as we bid him a final farewell.

Rest in peace, Dad

2011-06-09T00:26:00.229-05:00

I wrote this yesterday in the hours after my Dad died. I was going to add family photos. But now I'm busy making and taking calls and placing obituary notices, and I just want this to be posted. Photos will have to wait for another day.

I was my Daddy's first-born little girl, and I was only eight months old when he was called to serve in World War II. He sent gifts--a little Scottish wool tam that I still have, and a china doll for which my mother sewed a bridal dress closely resembling the one she had worn just a few years before (still have the doll and dress, too). Eventually there would be six of us siblings (two girls and four boys), and he loved us all, but for the first three years of my life I was His Little Girl and I knew he loved me best. I think that's a special gift that many first-borns enjoy without ever realizing it.


Bud Peterson, gentle man and gentleman

Mom was the driving force in our family. She took the initiative, provided the discipline, gave the advice, wiped the tears, sewed the clothes, played catch, got involved in the youth organizations, made sure we got together regularly after we'd left the nest. Dad was mostly busy working. But he wasn't an absentee parent, and he got many things right. As a family friend said today on Facebook, "He was a gentleman, and a gentle man." He worked hard, but if there were complaints about his bosses we heard them from Mom, not from Dad. I don't remember him ever arguing with her, either - a mixed blessing, since most of us siblings never really learned to voice our feelings or argue constructively. On very rare occasions when he'd held his tongue as long as he could stand it, he would explode - sudden, fuming, maybe sputtering, but never violent.

He read to us children at bedtime. One of my favorites was a nonsense rhyme, Bobbily-Boo and Wallypotump (a sanitized version, I learned recently, but that's another post). He read it often enough that I memorized it...and now I recite it to the grandkids. He taught us to fish (and taught me to clean them) and he taught my brothers a little about working in his basement tool shop. He paid my sister a quarter every time she made his favorite crescent rolls from an old family recipe. He took my mother dancing and bowling, and he dressed up in his tails and chapeau to participate in Knights of Columbus activities at church. (I loved the dress-up aspects but never did figure out what the KC was all about.)

Probably the single greatest thing he did for us (aside from earning a living and being a nice man) was to build a cabin about an hour from where we lived. He designed it; he and Mom built it. Our family spent weekends and Augusts (his vacation month) there for more than 30 years. It's where we had our best times as a family, where we built the memories that flood the mind with sunshine, the smell of jackpine and blueberries, the tug of a crappie on the line as the waves lap and someone says, "Grab the net." We thought we had a 99-year lease on the land, but the state changed the law and we lost it. By then Mom was dead, Dad had remarried, we all took on other obligations, and opportunities to get together as a family greatly diminished.

Last year on the first of June, Dad and my stepmother moved to an assisted living facility just over an hour from my home. It was an excellent move; instantly they were surrounded by caring staff and new friends. They no longer had to haul laundry up and down the (dangerous) basement steps or negotiate icy sidewalks. No danger of him falling from a ladder again, and spending months in rehab (for a time he forgot his own name). No facing months of isolation because of cold temps and those same icy sidewalks. The facility organizes occasional trips for fishing and, at his request, to Dad's favorite casino, along with more sedate activities like bingo and tea time (I have seen my future and it includes jigsaw puzzles). In addition, it was easier for my siblings and I to visit and for Dad and Kay to "host" us without having to make special preparations.

In January, Dad got much weaker. He fell, had trouble breathing, landed in the hospital, was told he had pneumonia and colon cancer, and then congestive heart failure. We understood, if he didn't, that the colon cancer would not be the thing that killed him. I began driving up every Tuesday afternoon, spending several hours with him wherever he was...at the hospital, in their assisted living apartment, and for the last couple of months in the nursing home just upstairs from the apartment. I got to know their friends and the cheerful, caring, overworked staff. I pushed his wheelchair to the big glass finch cage, or outside for a breath of air, or to the dining room for malts or cookies (Tuesday afternoon at 3:30 is snack time; I'm no dummy). I saw how everyone greeted him and wished him well. I saw how he kept his sense of humor, even when he was clearly not feeling well. I rubbed his back, and I set him up with an iPod Shuffle onto which I'd loaded Sinatra, Perry Como, Tommy Dorsey, Ella Fitzgerald, and the like. Gradually he spent fewer hours awake and lucid, and by yesterday afternoon he was incommunicado, lulled by Ativan and Bing Crosby.

As we left yesterday afternoon, we knew he wouldn't last more than a couple of days. I whispered in his ear, "Dad, we love you. We'll miss you, but we'll be fine. If you're ready to go, you go. Be at peace." Sounds just like the lovely little speeches you hear in the movies, doesn't it? But it was probably more for me than him, since the earbuds were still in place. Anyway, he was ready. A hospice volunteer was sitting with him during the night; nobody thought there was any need to summon Kay from the apartment downstairs. At a few minutes before 2 a.m., Dad's roommate woke up and sauntered over to say a few words. A nurse checked in. Moments later, the volunteer saw that Dad had stopped breathing. (We know this because that wonderful volunteer actually came back this afternoon to tell our family about those last moments, to reassure Kay that her husband had slept away and had not been alone. Thank you, hospice volunteers.)

Someone from the facility called my brother, our family's designated contact, right away. He called another brother, and each posted a "rest in peace" message on Facebook. At about 9:30, as I was just getting up, a childhood friend saw one of the Facebook posts and called her 99-year-old mother (once my Mom's best friend), who called me. She said something about my Dad finding peace and what a nice man he always was, and I said thanks. I knew that she knew he was dying; that's how I took her message. Then I looked at Facebook. "Rest in peace, Robert F. Peterson" would seem fairly unambiguous. But it took a couple of calls before I could reach a brother who confirmed that Dad had died. It's only a tiny part of the story, but it's a comment on our times. When he got bad news in the middle of the night, my brother turned to Facebook to make a quick declaration of his feelings.And because Facebook really is a network, a friend called her mom, who called me. I can marvel over that, and even be amused by it, and it doesn't have any impact on the bigger story, the fact that my dad, who never expected to live to age 65, has died peacefully at 95 in a setting where he was loved and supported and so were we all.

Over the last 25 years or so, I've spent some time feeling sad that my father often found it easier to spend time with my stepmother's family than with ours. I've spent some time feeling that she didn't treat him very well. During my "Tuesdays with Dad," I saw a new side of her - of them. I watched her nurture and care for him, and I saw them sweetly tell one another, "I love you," and their faces showed they really meant it. I let go of my resentment. And I spent enough time with him that in the end I felt no urgency to tell one more story or say "I love you" one more time. Equally important, I'd heard him say those words to me often enough that I believed it, I knew it.

Rest in peace, Dad. And thank you for everything.

On Being Retired

2011-06-06T23:42:00.021-05:00

Just before I woke up this morning (Monday), I dreamed that I was telling my two grandkids, "At the end of today, I am retired."

When I awoke, I thought, "Well, that was wrong. I'm already retired."

If you've followed this blog for any length of time you know that I retired from my paying job in mid-December. But hubby and I have continued to provide daycare for Augie and Vi about 40 hours a week, so I haven't had the full "retirement experience."

Their parents are teachers, and today was their last day with us until the school year begins again.

So it's true: For the next few months, at least, I am retired.

I'd have posted this earlier but I was taking a nap.

Happy Birthday, Ballerina Princess Vi

2011-06-02T18:06:00.300-05:00

Miss ViolaMae, aka ViMae, aka Vi, is three years old today, and she's pretty excited about it. To her, it means she's a big girl now.

Some months ago, she decided she'd be potty trained when she was three (but not before, thank you). Over Memorial Day weekend she pretty much made the entire transition. At our house, she's been proudly self-sufficient with only a couple of accidents. As Peter points out, we may have acquired the last diaper we'll ever use in this house...until we need them ourselves.

Almost as big a deal as the potty training, she got to ride the carousel all by herself today. Our safety rules say kids must be 3 or older to ride alone, so until now she's always had a grownup standing next to her. It was a thrill for Peter to take her today (they went while I was driving Augie to preschool), and the nice thing is that she'll be just as excited when she returns with Mom, Dad, and Brother to share her new status.

We like to do a series of pre-birthday presents for both kids, partly as a way to freshen the daycare experience. This week's gifts have included a ballet/princess-style crown of flowers and a wand, more animals for the World's Largest Lego Zoo, and paints and paint brushes. We made cookies with pink sprinkles and held a tea party with the dolls. (Augie got a doll that he named Bob, who apparently plans a career as a Builder and who ViMae thinks she might marry.)

In our first couple of years together, Augie regularly made big demands on my attention. Not that I minded; I was (and am) head-over-heels for the guy. But we had all kinds of activities for which he wanted my undivided attention - and in which Vi didn't seem to care to participate. So instead, she spent lots of time with Pa. It was never all that one-sided; we always made a point of switching off so we could be sure to develop our relationships with both kids. And of course we do lots of things all together.

In the weeks and months, Vi and I have really deepened our relationship and have found all kinds of new things that we love doing together. She spends big parts of each day nestling with me as we read, color, do little crafty things, watch the eagle or loon camera, or just talk.

With no prompting from anyone, she emerged as a girlie-girl who loves pink, fairies, princesses, ballerinas, tutus, butterflies, etc. I never wanted to be guilty of nudging her in that direction, but now that she's gotten there on her own, I'm more than happy to indulge. (I heard a psychologist say that little girls go through a period in which the Princess helps them build their gender identity, and it's not really as insipid or threatening as it may seem)

And all the while, I'm praising her strength (she is an amazing climber and would be a good gymnast, I think) and her courage (she is fearless both physically and socially, so she holds her own even on a playground crowded with bigger kids). I'm not the only one to give her these messages, it's just that she and I seem to be finding more things that we like doing together, so I am finding new opportunities to give positive messages in my own way, in the context of our own relationship.

I find myself thinking of all sorts of new things we can do together to build on her interests. And suddenly I'm realizing, wow, it's about to be summer and we won't see her much, and next year she'll be in preschool three afternoons a week, and omigosh time is going by so quickly.....

I was saying that (about both kids) to my sister's husband yesterday, and he said, "Yes, and the year after that they'll be graduating from college." All I could think was, "I hope I'm around for a good long time yet, because there's so much for us to do together." I love you Viola Mae. Happy Birthday, Princess.

Presenting Mr. June

2011-05-31T17:00:00.001-05:00

Excuse me, sir, do you work out?

Seriously, if you're in a fire you want somebody strong enough to rescue you. So here's Will, a member of the St. Paul FD and the June photo in the firefighters' 2011 calendar.

Proof of spring

2011-05-29T18:29:00.000-05:00

I keep waiting for the warm sun they promised this weekend, but instead we have cold, clouds, and periodic rain. Just to prove that we do have spring blossoms (everything blooming two weeks later than last year), here are a few pictures.

I love this columbine, which has self-seeded around the back yard but is no longer found anywhere near where I originally planted it. While its face is wonderfully cheerful, I love the curved little spurs just as much.

The azaleas are especially wonderful this year, having withstood children playing, roofers roofing, and tree trimmers trimming all about them.

The lilacs looked a lot like this, though I never got a chance to photograph them. Instead, this and my header are from last year's bouquet.

Meanwhile, the bleeding hearts bloomed enthusiastically behind the ferns, heuchera, and sweet woodruff, but they sustained a lot of damage from all the aforementioned activity this year, so here's a picture from two years ago. I love this part of the garden in spring.

May You Stay Forever Young

2011-05-24T01:03:00.002-05:00

I've been steeping in Bob Dylan tunes the last few days. Bluesy old ones, mostly - some romantic, some caustic, all of them deeply moving to me. His voice is a distraction... until until you listen long enough, until you love the song and you sing it with your own flawed voice and full heart and you hear the music, not the voice.

I made a playlist to share today, on his 70th birthday, but it won't load so instead I'm giving you this amazing song I just discovered, Not Dark Yet, from his Time Out of Mind album. The top comment on YouTube: "I wanna hear this song the last 6 minutes of my life." My sentiments exactly.

Like so many of his songs, you might like it better if you hear a cover by someone with a smoother voice, and if you find a great one I'd like to know. (I love Joan Baez's cover of "Forever Young," but nobody can touch Bob's own versions of biting social commentary like "Desolation Row" and "Like a Rolling Stone.")

Minnesota Public Radio has produced a documentary to salute his birthday. "Boy from the North Country, Bob Dylan in Minnesota" can be found here. I was interviewed for it and my comments appear at 8:40 and 28:20 in the hour-long program.

If you're not a fan, no matter. But if you are, it's a good time to take another listen to some of his tunes. Rediscover the witty lines that make you grin, the sad and the romantic and the angry and the celebratory.

Bob, thanks for all the music. May you - and we - stay forever young.

Do you have a favorite Dylan song?

I want to thank the academy...

2011-05-17T00:47:00.000-05:00

I'm accepting an award from the thoughtful Thom Brown at To Gyre and Gambol, because of the nice things he said about me and because the first requirement - telling you 10 new things about me - might help pull together my thoughts, which have been very scattered lately. Here we go:

1. I've just received my first Social Security payment. It's nice to have some regular monthly income after being retired five months. I hope the same opportunity will be available for generations to come, and I worry that it won't.

2. This is our 19th year of season tickets for St. Paul Saints baseball. I can no longer sit through every kind of nasty weather, as I used to. We stayed for two innings of 50 degree wind and rain Thursday night, and nine innings Friday night. When the same weather turned up Saturday night, we stayed home. You might say we're finally smart enough to come in out of the rain.

3. I grew up in Hibbing, Minnesota, on the Mesabi iron range. In my teens I once went with some friends onto the grounds of an abandoned mining facility where we broke windows and then pushed an outhouse off a cliff into a flooded mine. It was my one act of juvenile delinquency; I quickly learned that a life of crime was not for me.

4. I was recently interviewed by a producer for Minnesota Public Radio about having beaten Bob Dylan in a talent contest (Hibbing Winter Frolic, 1959). They're doing a program for Bob's 70th birthday; I don't know whether I'll be included in it. It's a fun claim to fame, and I've already been featured in MPR and Minneapolis Star-Tribune stories a few years ago.

5. I love my iPad, but not because it makes me more productive. I use it for games (currently Scrabble, Snood, and Fish Pond) and a fun drawing-coloring program, and I look up things on the Internet (including blogs and comments) while watching television. It's an expensive toy, with the potential to be much more.

6. Speaking of games, I really do escape into games that require a little eye-hand coordination and reward me with sound effects and bright colors. If I didn't have my electronic devices, I suspect that I could easily get hooked on the machines at casinos.

7. Hubby said to me yesterday, "I just realized that I have never set foot in a Starbucks." I haven't, either. So who's out of step--us, or the people who pay those prices, sometimes several times a day?

8. Evidence that I am a procrastinator: In my wallet, I have unused cards entitling me to $10 at a local coffee shop (not Starbucks), a free loaf of bread, 15 percent off total purchase at Once Upon a Child, and free lunch at the college I retired from. I also have a $5 Target gift card and a $20 Visa gift card (sent by my HMO after I complained about an unwieldy aspect of their online prescription refill service). I hope they have not all expired!

9. For the last couple of months, I've been spending Tuesdays with my 95-year-old dad, who has just entered hospice care. Various factors limited our time together for several years, so I find our weekly visits a satisfying and healing process filled with little moments that I will remember fondly.

10. I keep thinking that I have become lazy and unfocused in retirement. I have unfinished projects everywhere, but I would rather read blogs, play games, or take a nap. Then I remember: I'm 68 years old and I'm caring for two toddlers 40 hours a week plus taking on new responsibilities for shopping and cooking, plus the long drives to see my dad. I like doing all these things, and I'll have the summer to do my projects. Right now, I deserve to relax, without feeling guilty.

I am also to pass along the award to others, and I'll do that another day. Meanwhile, stop over and visit Professor Brown; you'll be glad you did.

Catching up with the birds

2011-05-08T12:31:00.091-05:00

The birds outside our kitchen window have been keeping us entertained. Here are a few more photos from recent weeks.

On a windy, sunless day in late April, just before it snowed again, I spotted the neighborhood mourning doves in our buckeye tree. It was unusual to see them up there and to see their feathers so wind-blown.

It was calm and sunny when they returned a day or two later, foraging under the bird feeders. (This week we spotted them perched on the big feeder, something we also had not seen before.)

A migrating group of 15 or 20 white-throated sparrows spent several days scavenging for seed on the ground. They come in two varieties, white-striped and tan-striped, and they breed with their opposites. It rained much of the time they were here, but I managed to grab a shot of this white-striped one. (Later, a similar one flew against the window and fell dead; we and the children put plastic bags on our hands and had an impromptu closeup look which I did not photograph.)

On his way to Canada or Alaska is this American tree sparrow. I am so pleased that he and his friends stopped in for a day or two.

The male goldfinches have rather suddenly emerged in full summer finery...but they flee every time I get out my camera. Still, I love this shot of a tiny finch seemingly taking on a brown-headed cowbird.

How could I forget...robins have been back for a while. This makes it official: spring is here.

As if the real-life birds weren't enough, I keep watching eagle and loon cameras. Here's an update on the Hornby Island family: Alexandra and David, named for two British Columbia environmentalists, are 10 and 7 days old today. They have huge appetites and a bit of sibling rivalry, and their parents are already teaching them to get along.

King(let) of the forest

2011-05-04T17:54:00.131-05:00

Conversation a few days ago between hubby and our four-year-old grandson, Augie:

Click photo to read about this bird on BirdForum

Peter: Come look at the tiny bird on the suet feeder. It's a little like a finch, but it has a red streak on its head.

Augie: It's a ruby-crowned kinglet.

Peter: No, I think a kinglet is some kind of water bird.

Augie (emphatically): No, a ruby-crowned kinglet is a coniferous forest bird.

Peter (skeptically): Get your bird book; let's see what it says.

Augie: See, right here, it's a ruby-crowned kinglet.

And that's exactly what it was.

So now we've met a whole new variety of bird, a tad bigger than a hummingbird and less efficient at hovering. It is passing through on its migration northward. Males do have a reddish patch, but much of the time it is flat to their heads and cannot be seen.

I've been trying to get a shot of this active little guy, but so far he hasn't stayed around long enough. Photographing a ruby-crowned kinglet is now on my bucket list (I have simple wants). Meanwhile, I borrowed a photo from BirdForum.

Mayday, Mayday!

2011-05-01T23:24:00.002-05:00

Last year on May 1, we had apple blossoms. This year, the branches barely have little bumps where buds should be. So here's last year's May Day photo, for good luck. The past week has often felt more like the other meaning of mayday...a cry for help! Nothing horrendous, but a lot of annoying little things plus a really nasty and drawn-out illness for Peter.

Let's start with the weather: chilly, cloudy, rainy, even some snow. On the other hand (this will be a theme), we did have sun for parts of Sunday, Monday, and Friday, and on those days it was nice enough to be outside with the kids. Also on the other hand, it's hard to complain about our weather after what happened across the South this past week.

Here's another example of my week. I decided to make a nice Easter dinner for the two of us. Had ham in one oven and pear-and-walnut ginger upside-down cake in the other. The house smelled heavenly. Then the cake overflowed onto the oven floor, the ham glaze dripped into the roasting pan, and both began to burn. A week later we still can't get all the incinerated glaze off the roasting pan. When we turned the cake onto a plate it wasn't done, and it oozed out just like Peter's long-ago dessert fiasco known fondly as mocha slop. Meanwhile, I also undercooked the green beans, so they were a little tough. Peter said, "Wow, things really aren't going well for you, are they?" On the other hand, things tasted good, we enjoyed our dinner, and I made notes for next time.

The enjoyment was short-term. Peter was sick all night. (Something he ate?) I was awake, sympathetic but helpless to ease his discomfort. At 6 a.m. Monday, I took a headache pill and fell asleep. At 6:45 the phone rang and Abby said cheerfully, "We're on our way." Not usually a morning person, I jumped into action and took care of the children until she picked them up eight hours later. We were all a little worried about whether I could handle them alone all day. On the other hand, it went fine; we played outside and the kids let Pa rest. Abby made other arrangements for the next three days, which was good because it took Peter at least that long to start feeling human again. He's still not fully recovered. But again on the other hand, he seems to be on the mend and nobody else has gotten sick.

On Wednesday, I got dressed up for the first time in four months and went to a faculty-staff luncheon on campus. It took everything I had to climb into those clothes. On the other hand, I was glad I went. I enjoyed seeing former colleagues again, and the program included very nice testimonials to retiring faculty and staff, including me. In fact, the college president departed from his script to say, "Nancy is the person I have trusted most to write for me." He has said it before, but this was in front of 500 faculty and staff members. Heck, I even got to take home a centerpiece.

When I got home, I ripped the name tag off my suede jacket...and realized that about a fourth of the backing still clung to the suede. Grrr. I spent hours working at it with an art gum eraser (the tool of choice in Internet discussion boards). While no more paper adheres, there is a clear pattern of discoloration from the glue. Guess I have to find a dry cleaner that specializes in suede. On the other hand, these days I mostly wear denim and fleece and chase around with toddlers, so most clothing maintenance is much easier.

I've written about watching eagle cams. Midweek, I learned that the mother eagle at Norfolk, Virginia, died when she collided with a landing airplane. I was sad when experts concluded that the father probably could not feed three youngsters and protect them from intruders, so they removed the eaglets from the nest and took them to a rehab facility. On the other hand, the Hornby Island nest, which is nearest to my heart, has a strong and spirited hatchling (named Alexandra to honor a British Columbia naturalist) and a second on the way as I write this. (In this photo she's hours old, all eyes and fluff.)

So it wasn't a horrible week, just a trying one. On the other hand, I got to watch a royal wedding that I enjoyed quite a lot. Charles and Diana's wedding seemed romantic at the time, but she was a deer in the headlights and his heart wasn't in it. Kate and William seem well matched, both are mature enough to know what they are doing, and both seem to have good taste and a penchant for being real, down-to-earth folks. They put on a wedding that was regal but simple, suiting the times. I loved the ladies' hats (including those on folks watching in Hyde Park and at Minneapolis' Brits Pub), felt sorry for Fergie's girls (who seem to prove that being a princess does not guarantee looks, taste, or happiness) and actually Googled the woman in blue who made everybody's best- or worst-dressed lists. Turns out she's a British version of Paris Hilton, famous for being famous.

I'd really like the coming week to have fewer nasty surprises and more blissful moments. We're off to a rocky start with cold, gusty weather and Internet disruption. On the other hand, we were saying just yesterday that we are very happy with the life we've built for ourselves. So now that I'm back online, Happy May Day.

Two handsome guys...

2011-04-28T00:04:00.002-05:00

...for the month of May. The older one is named Marc. They are featured in the St. Paul Firefighters 2011 calendar, benefiting the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation and the Autism Society of Minnesota. Photos are credited to Kelli Wencl, www.gingersnapshots.com, and I have to say I think they are pretty wonderful. Love the lighting on this one.

Perching in eagles' nests

2011-04-26T10:12:00.002-05:00

A couple of weeks ago, a nesting eagle family in Decorah, Iowa, was nearly as ubiquitous in the national media as Charlie Sheen.

I don't know what it was about that particular nest that generated so much attention. It does have an excellent camera view and some experts who answer questions in a moderated chat. They have a big following in classrooms, and I'm guessing they also benefited from some excellent public relations contacts. They were already drawing tens of thousands of viewers while the parents incubated the eggs. From April 2 to April 6, when the first of three fluffy chicks began pecking its way out of its shell, as many as 150,000 viewers watched at any given time. On April 3, both NBC and CBS featured the nest and its popularity, and local stations across the country picked up the story.

White Rock eagle cam

In fact there are dozens of nest cams focused on eagles, peregrine falcons, owls, and other feathered friends. And there are people who watch day after day while young are in the nest. I've been known to watch a bit, myself.

My favorite few cams right now show a progression of baby-eagle growth.

Hornby Island (British Columbia) is in full expectant-parent mode; there should be new hatchlings by the end of this week. The site, which got me hooked on eagle-watching last season, is notable for free-flowing round-the-clock chat, and a cluster of local experts answer newcomers' questions.

If you're eager to see babies, White Rock (British Columbia) has three fluffballs that are just days old. This site also has exquisite camera quality, both closeup and wide-angle. Got time on your hands? They are looking for volunteers to record nest observations.

Stop in at Decorah, Iowa, to see how quickly eaglets grow. Three weeks after bursting on the scene, they are gaining size and strength, showing some sibling rivalry, and looking a bit like gawky little chickens with overgrown wings. Due to heavy traffic on the site, I never got into the chat room.

Norfolk, Virginia, had three fast-growing eaglets that hatched in mid-March. Sadly, just after I posted the original version of this entry, the mother was killed in a collision with an airplane landing nearby. The authorities concluded that the male could not rear these youngsters alone, so they have removed them from the nest and will raise and then release them. The site has news items and archives as well as a moderated discussion where experts answer selected questions.

Decorah, early April

There are lots more, of course, and each one has interesting - and sometimes dramatic - stories to show and tell. Eagles live a hard life, and watchers sometimes get their hearts broken when a much-loved eaglet (or parent) meets an early and tragic end. But in the meanwhile, there's a lot to enjoy, from eager peeps to healthy poop shots to the gentle way the parents tend their young.

A funny thing happened on the way to the movie

2011-04-24T01:06:00.002-05:00

We love old Fred Astaire movies. A few days ago Peter said, only half-joking, "We should watch Royal Wedding in the next week."

Knowing that there has already been a lot of William-and-Kate programming on US television, I said I was sure that one of the channels was enterprising enough to schedule it. So he checked the online guide, and sure enough, there it was. "Royal Wedding," starring Fred Astaire and Jane Powell, was listed on our public television channel Saturday, April 23, and Friday, April 29.

So on Saturday, I was surprised when I couldn't find it in the newspaper listings. I mentioned this to Peter, who rechecked the online guide. Aha! The listing now read "William and Kate: The Royal Wedding." We watched CSI: Miami instead.

It's not that I hate the royals. After all, we have a princess in the family. That would be ViMae, who at nearly three loves princesses, ballerinas, and fairies. She came in the other day declaring herself a princess and her brother a prince. "The princess wants to dance now," she said, by way of asking for help turning on the music.

I mentioned to her that a princess was about to marry a prince (not technically correct since she's a commoner, but that's beside the point); the wedding would be next week. Without missing a beat, ViMae said, "I can wear this dress!"

I plan to watch some coverage of the wedding. With any luck, the schedule will work out that ViiMae can watch a bit of it with me. And then we'll get a copy of Royal Wedding the move and watch Fred dance on the ceiling.

New visitors to the bird feeders

2011-04-21T17:10:00.003-05:00

Hooray, the birds are ignoring Minnesota's ridiculously late snowfalls and beginning to migrate to and through our neighborhood. Just moments ago, I saw my first-ever yellow-rumped warbler, who paused for one photo only. Hope he and some friends stop back here before moving on northward.

Meanwhile, we had a small group of black birds with almost no distinguishing features, and after studying them and the bird books (and the internet) we've concluded they must be brown-headed cowbirds. The cowbird is not an honorable creature--they lay eggs in the nests of other birds, who feed the babies. The sad part is that those babies soon are larger than the bird's own babies and eat way more than their share. Thus cowbirds diminish the population of the birds whose hospitality they abuse. I hope they move on quickly.

Meanwhile, many of our winter friends are dropping by in pairs. This includes cardinals, chickadees, mourning doves, finches, nuthatches, and woodpeckers. We hope there is lots of nest-building going on.

Online tax filing: not as slick as I'd hoped

2011-04-16T11:54:00.000-05:00

I've never minded filling out forms. When I was 6 or 7, I'd write my name and address into all the tiny coupons in the back pages of my mother's Good Housekeeping magazines. More recently, I got a kick out of filling out online forms and submitting them electronically rather than mailing off stacks of paper or standing in line to renew automobile license tabs. When I read that one could submit a federal income tax return electronically, I was more than happy to try it, especially because it promised a quick refund.

I should have curbed my enthusiasm.

As always, Peter did the calculations and handed me the draft. I went to the IRS web site and followed their instructions to use "Free Fillable Forms" provided, as I understand it, by a private firm under contract to the IRS. Things started out smoothly enough, but then I found some instructions cumbersome. And confusing. And tedious, like when I had to copy all the information from our W-2 forms. But I kept at it. I printed everything out so Peter could check it for me, and then with great satisfaction I clicked a button and submitted our tax return.

And got a notice saying it was rejected.

The helpful rejection notice said, "Here is the reason." But it didn't deliver. Instead, it listed the 10 or 12 most common reasons that tax returns get rejected. They included common-sense items, like misspelling a name or mis-typing a Social Security number. They also talked about forms and schedules that I hadn't even used. I went back over everything, changed an item on the transmittal cover form, and resubmitted. Rejected again. A third try, a third rejection.

I understand that computers look for exact information in the exact format they are programmed to expect. But instead of providing a generic list of the most frequent errors, the system could just as well tell me that the problem is in line 43, or that I needed to file Schedule B, or that I omitted something from the special submission form. Instead, I printed out the entire return and mailed it to an office where a human being will look at it. I predict that person will find it acceptable.

I have a brother who is volunteering through AARP, helping seniors prepare tax returns. He's heard quite a few people - not all of them elderly or confused - complain about the online system. So I hope the folks who want to eliminate lots of government jobs don't start with the people who process returns at the IRS, because the online system is not ready for prime time.

The voice of the teacher

2011-04-10T18:27:00.000-05:00

There are certain things that I cannot do without hearing, in my mind's ear, the voice of my mother teaching me to do them.

Ironing a shirt is a prime example. As I lay the collar on the ironing board, my mother's voice tells me collar, sleeves, back, front. I know the drill and have been using it for more than 50 years. Moreover, she's been gone for 30 years. Yet it comes to me in her voice, not mine.

I don't always stick to her dish-washing system, but I hear her telling me to wash glasses first, then silverware, then plates, and finally cookware. The glasses need clean, hot water, and besides, you first wash the things that actually go into your mouth, she said. Rinse by filling a couple of the biggest glasses and pouring from them into the smaller ones. (She conserved water all the way back in the 1950s.)

Mom taught me some basics of cooking, and now that I'm back in the kitchen many little things come back to me, like how to guesstimate the amount of salt and pepper using the palm of my hand. But many of the techniques I now use I learned from Peter. I cook chicken breasts and pork chops in olive oil and garlic, not peanut oil or bacon grease. (Seriously. We had a Pyrex dish on the stove with bacon grease to be used for eggs, and I think sometimes for meat.) I deglaze the pan with a bit of chicken stock and wine; I don't make gravy.

In fact, our whole way of eating is quite different from the way my mother cooked for our family. We mostly eat chicken and fish--and it's not breaded and fried. We steam some broccoli three or four nights a week in place of the canned peas and corn I grew up on. Our salads start with deep green and red lettuces and herbs rather than iceberg lettuce. The convenience of supermarket salads-in-a-bag is one of the wonders of the modern world, as far as I'm concerned. I like to think Mom would have loved them.

When I sit down to make a shopping list, I remember her reading all the ads and making lists for two or three different stores, to get the best prices. Somewhat to my surprise, I've begun to do the same. And although I've only been cooking since I retired four months ago, I also find myself complaining that I've run out of ideas. She often paged through cookbooks and magazines. I've done that, too, but I also have the Internet, where I can compare 100 recipes for lemon poppy-seed muffins.

There's another thing that happens sometimes, when I'm cooking something that delights me. When I'm doing fish or cutlets with fresh lemon slices and a handful of herbs, when I'm whisking a salad dressing into existence (a whisk is a truly elegant device that I've only now discovered), when I'm baking the world's best blueberry muffins (even better than my own mother's!), I think how pleased she'd be to see me moving beyond what I learned all those years ago. It's what she intended when she taught me how to grease a cookie sheet and how to make a buttermilk substitute (add a spoonful of vinegar into a cup of milk). She died 30 years ago and I've missed her often, but as I've taken up cooking again I find that she's good company.

Visiting the nature center

2011-04-06T23:22:00.000-05:00

Listening to Pa's heart

"Pa! Grandma! Look, it's two prairie chickens! And over here, two mallards and two woodducks!"

Today we made our first visit to the Harriet Alexander Nature Center in Roseville, Minnesota, and it was a big hit. The interpretive center is set up to engage the interest and imagination of kids. Augie and Vi, as well as five or six others who came in, clearly felt right at home.

Wearing anlers

It helps that our kids already love nature. For example, Augie knew nearly every bird on display in the interpretive center. He pointed out the great blue heron, the horned owl, the raven. By this time three other families had come in. "Is he right?" someone asked. "I don't know; he's the expert," Peter said. "How did he learn all that?" "He read his bird book." In fact, he has memorized his bird book, and he was thrilled to see so many specimens that we haven't spotted in nature yet.

He saw what he thought was a Cooper's Hawk. A mom said, "I don't think the Cooper's Hawk is so mottled." Peter found a tag that identified it as a red-tailed hawk. Instant group learning experience.

Figuring out a tricky toy

Vi made herself right at home playing a game with another child and his grandma, and both kids loved the medical kit which included a working stethoscope. We tried on various antlers, identified different fur pelts (is it wrong to want a coyote coat?), made hoof and paw prints in a sandbox, admired the delicacy of a small snake skeleton, looked at books in the nature library, watched birds at the feeders just outside the windows, and saw bright blue bags hanging from maple trees to collect sap.

The people at the nature center offer programs for preschool-age kids, and I had thought about signing up for one or two. But everything was so inviting and we had so much fun that I think we'll just continue on our own.

We'll be back soon to explore the walking trails and revisit our new friends, including the prairie chicken and the red-tailed hawk.

Hopeful signs of spring

2011-04-03T10:32:00.000-05:00

Last year I posted a photo of snowdrops on March 16. It's taken longer this year, but here they come. We especially admire the shoot that's pushing up right through some ice. The chives have started growing again, too. Makes me think spring really will come.

I think that guy's been here before

2011-04-02T06:00:00.000-05:00

I was reading the estimate for our new roof, when I came upon this line among the responsibilities of the construction company:

"We will provide a dumster."

I'm pretty sure we've had a dumster or two here before, as part of a painting crew or a tree-trimming crew. And then there was a guy I worked for....

April showers?

2011-03-31T06:00:00.001-05:00

Say hello to Bob, featured for April in the St. Paul Firefighters calendar. Proceeds from the calendar benefit the fights against cystic fibrosis and autism.

More wonders of technology

2011-03-30T06:00:00.000-05:00

Augie's mom explained to him that his four-year physical exam would include a vision test. The doctor would cover one eye and Augie would read with the other.

The morning of the exam, he told me about it. "The doctor is going to put iPads on my eyes to see if I can see."

Okay, he might have meant "eye pads." But I'd been showing him a video on my iPad, so that's how I heard it.

Sixteen Saturdays

2011-03-28T06:00:00.053-05:00

Peter and I have two weeks off from Wild Rumpus Daycare for Grandkids, because mommy and daddy, being teachers in two different school districts, have spring break at different times.

It's like having sixteen consecutive Saturdays.

Peter is using the time to get ahead of schedule with his work. I, on the other hand, am feeling the freedom of retirement... unstructured days, time on my hands, freedom.

I headed into this "vacation" with a long list of projects: clean out a couple of closets, write some letters, take care of several items of paperwork, set an appointment with the eye doctor, hem some jeans, practice some tap dance steps and drumming routines, get out and walk every day, and about a dozen more.

What I actually did in week one: read blogs, write blogs, watch the Hornby Island Eagle Cam, play Snood on my iPad, try out a new photo editing program called Picnik, and sleep late every morning. Oh, and shovel snow one day, and play with the kids a couple of times when they came to visit.

In fairness, full-time daycare is hard work and I needed the break. And I still have another week to do some of those projects. Besides, there's not much urgency; most could be done just as well this summer.

When I was working, I always had a long list of tasks, and during weekends and vacations I often felt as though I was supposed to spend my time doing them. Mind you, I frequently overrode that sense of obligation. But at the end of a string of self-indulgent days, I would be angry with myself. I'd focus on all the "priorities" that didn't get done, and fail to appreciate the satisfaction and enjoyment of moving at my own pace and doing unplanned things that grabbed my attention.

I do intend to address a few of those tasks in the coming week, the second half of our sixteen Saturdays. But I'm not beating myself up about them. I value the time I spend reading other people's blog offerings and thinking about the ideas, experiences, great quotations, and stunning art that people share here in blogland. I like being able to just relax, reflect, watch an eagle onscreen or a cardinal in the backyard. If I ever feel a twinge of guilt, I will remind myself: I'm retired now, and I've earned it.

Watching the eagles of Hornby Island

2011-03-24T18:33:00.001-05:00

Watching a pair of eagles raise a family is another of those cool experiences brought to us by the wonders of video cams and the Internet. I got hooked last spring after DJan posted a link to the Hornby Island Eagle Cam.

Mom laid her first egg of 2011 on Tuesday evening. She is likely to lay another by Saturday. Wednesday afternoon, more than 1,000 viewers were watching, and more than 300 were logged into the chat room. Some will be there from sunup until dark for the next several months. I won't be there quite that much, but it does get to be habit-forming, especially once the eaglet pokes its way out of the egg, about 35 days from now.

Last year's story didn't end well. The healthy and active eaglet called Phoenix (the only hatchling in the nest) died suddenly of a lung infection, probably from eating tainted roadkill lovingly provided by her parents. But the cycle has come around again, and if you are interested, you can check out the YouTube video below (and sign up for updates) or the Hornby site, or both.

Two or three minutes into this video, Mom begins to make birthing sounds (who knew?). Then voila, an egg.

P.S., I just discovered this eagle cam at Norfolk, Virginia, where three eaglets have already hatched. They don't provide sound, but the video quality is excellent.

I said it was a diphthong but he could just call it two letters

2011-03-23T06:00:00.001-05:00

Augie's preschool teachers take the children outdoors every day. A sign at the classroom door says "Inside Start" or "Outside Start," a signal to us (grand)parents to help the child dress accordingly. I had taught him to look for "I" or "O" on the sign, but one day he decided to sound out the whole word.

He was quiet for a minute and then he asked, "Grandma, is the 'O' silent?"

His teacher gave me a "He knows about silent letters?" look. He does, and he had realized that the word "outside" doesn't start with the traditional "O" sound. The next day I explained that there are pairs of letters that work together to make new sounds. The word "outside" is not pronounced "oat-side" or "oh-oot-side," because the two letters make a new sound. We found lots more "ou" words in stories we were reading, and I pointed out some other letter pairs. With his parents, he's been talking about "th," which also comes up a lot when you're sounding out words.

Some days he loves the sounding-out process. Other times he just wants to listen, to hear the story and let his imagination run and maybe snuggle close and hold somebody's hand while they read. It's all good.

Deep snow in Minne-snow-ta

2011-03-21T06:00:00.002-05:00

We have a small backyard, intruded upon by a garage and a big driveway.

During a winter of enormous snowfalls, as we've had this year, clearing the driveway means creating a huge mound of snow and ice on one side of the yard. The peak was about seven feet; it tapered down to about four feet near the house.

Last week, Augie and Vi enjoyed climbing atop the "snow mountain." He loved being so close to the crotch of the tree, which is usually far out of reach. He kept looking for a way to climb up, but the icy surface didn't allow it.

The photo at the right was taken in June 2009. The angle is all wrong for comparison, but last week he was standing at least a foot-and-a-half above the bench - and that was a low spot on the "mountain." Rain and warmish temps have melted much of the snow in the past few days, but that bench is still firmly buried.

The melt is slowed by the fact that everything refreezes at night (one reason much of the pile is ice rather than snow) and the sun hasn't been out yesterday or today. But that's a good thing, since a slow melt means less chance of flooding.

In any case, I'm so ready for spring!

Operating on the edge

2011-03-19T00:37:00.001-05:00

"Cutting-edge technology often works flawlessly. People are amazed...."

About a month ago, my computer had another meltdown, the third in two years. My husband's business partner, who helps with our computer issues, installed a new mumbojumbo board, or maybe it was a makemecrazy drive. Then he restored programs and data from my backup disks. It would be nice if that were the end of the (non-)story.

But it always takes more than that to get things operating again. Invariably, one or two programs no longer work and I have to upgrade or replace them. My photo database refuses to reconstitute itself without hours of manipulation. And this time, Photoshop has to be replaced. I've researched the less expensive Photoshop Elements, but I can't get the free trial version to run. As a result, I haven't been able to do much with my photos (including making a new header) for weeks now, and that's making me cranky.

As computer problems go, this one hardly counts. But it's a reminder of how these powerful, indispensable, magical gadgets complicate our lives.

A few weeks ago, I came across my ancient electric typewriter in the basement. When I bought it, I thought it was so slick. Little did I know that it was the first step toward dependency, like a gateway drug to the addicting world of instant look-ups, dazzling graphics, easy online shopping, and the crack cocaine of blogging.

It's not that I mind being hooked; I love the ways that computers enrich our lives. What I hate is being dependent on something I don't fully understand, can't control, can't fix on my own.

That, of course, is the frightening thing about life on this planet. Even in the best of times, control is an illusion. Under the spell of that illusion and in the name of progress, we humans have complicated our lives with systems and gadgets that are far too ambitious in their attempts to control and outsmart nature. We genetically modify crops. We divert rivers, drain wetlands, and build in the flood plain. We engineer oil rigs that are supposed to work just fine in deep water, and nuclear power plants sure to withstand local weather events. What could possibly go wrong? Well, other than miscalculations, carelessness, greed, bigger-than-expected natural disasters, and unintended consequences?

As individuals, we can shop at the farmers' market, try to reduce our carbon footprint, even try to talk sense into our policymakers. But there's always that risk, that something will go horribly wrong and there won't be an easy fix. There is more at stake than whether we can use some whiz-bang programs to keep ourselves informed and facilitate creative expression. No wonder we're nervous, or more than a little cranky.

"...At first, everyone worries about risk. Then people get lulled into complacency by success and they forget that they are operating on the edge, experts who study disasters say. Corners get cut, problems ignored. Then boom."

--from Technology’s disasters share long trail of hubris, by Seth Borenstein, on MSNBC.com

On my birthday, I wished for more birthdays

2011-03-12T17:07:00.000-06:00

The year I turned 19, my mom made my favorite birthday treat: spice cake with penuche icing (brown sugar, butter, etc.) with Bridgeman's butter brickle ice cream on the side. She didn't have 19 candles in a single color, so she used a whole variety of colors. I must have seemed unusually resolute as I blew out those multicolored candles, because she asked what I had wished for. I wouldn't answer, and I probably blushed.

An hour later, the sweet-faced young man who had been smiling at me all week called. We went out for coffee - the start of a lovely teenage romance - and I blushed again when I told him I'd wished on those candles for him to call. Mom and I had a running joke about multicolored candles after that, but I can't remember wishing for anything really special.

Yesterday, I had two opportunities to make a birthday wish. Peter put one pink candle in the yummy banana-chocolate chip-pecan muffin that Abby brought for my birthday breakfast. A second, in a candle holder artfully fashioned from an orange, was provided by the Chinese restaurant where we gathered for dinner. The kids helped me blow out both candles.

The wish that came to me both times was simple: Let the happiness that I feel this moment continue for a long time.

What it meant was, Let Peter and me be healthy. For a long time.

Seriously, I have everything I could want. I'm retired since December, Peter's business is both flourishing and manageable, we love being able to care for the grandkids, we have health care coverage, and we have plenty of interests and hobbies to keep ourselves amused.

Every day Peter talks about how delightful the children are, how lucky we are to be in their lives, and what good choices have brought us to this point. It's a useful habit, appreciating all the good things. But I can't silence the tiny voice in my head that says, "You'd better hope you both stay healthy so you can keep enjoying this."

As I turned 68 yesterday, that was the only thing I felt a need to wish for.

Clearly I'm not the only one thinking that way. This wonderful birthday gift should provide lots of ideas and information for eating wisely and well. It's by America's Test Kitchen, whose recipes and detailed instructions I've come to appreciate in my new role as she-who-cooks-dinner.

There are no guarantees. But with this and a little more exercise, I intend to try to help my birthday wish come true.

If you could do anything you want on your birthday...

2011-03-11T16:10:00.000-06:00

...could you think of anything better than this?

You can't always get what you want...

2011-03-05T16:24:00.001-06:00

Augie turned four last weekend.

Four is a great age, at least if you're a parent or caregiver. Kids are developing their personalities and their passions, they still have most of their innocence, and they are (mostly) getting past the tantrum stage so they can be reasoned with.

Augie had once told me, "Grandma, it's hard to be three." And it was. Suddenly he had to be thinking constantly about getting to the potty on time, no matter where he was or how much fun he was having. Also, his little sister, just 15 months younger, was graduating from baby toys to whatever he had at the moment. He had to learn to share, and to "Be nice to your sister."

This week, just after his birthday, I asked whether it was better being four, and he said, "Sure," which sometimes means, "I'm not wasting time thinking about that."

I'm no expert in psychology, but I know that at some point - and for me it was as a four-year-old - we realize that our parents cannot meet all our needs and wants, that the world is not perfect, that we are not guaranteed perfect love and success. How and when this hits us determines what our issues will be in later life. For example, some of us will crave unconditional love (love me for being who I am) while others will crave approval (love me for doing what I do). I don't know all the theory behind this, but I believe it. Peter says the trick is to help children come to grips with these realities without totally crushing their spirits.

Yesterday we were watching a few short videos on YouTube with Augie and Vi. As usual, Augie wanted more. We said no, it was time to go and play, and we started naming possibilities - play the drums, do some tap dancing, play with Legos, color, make sticker pictures, pound some nails, and on and on. He wasn't having any of it. He cried and carried on and buried his head in his hands. Then he looked up.

"Pa," he wailed, "Why can't we have whatever we want in life?"

There it was. The Question. Not just, "Why can't I do what I want to"? but "Why can't I have whatever I want in life?"

I gathered him into my lap and said that sometimes we want things that aren't good for us, and sometimes we want things that just aren't possible. I was on the verge of telling him the secret is finding happiness with what you have. And yes, we and his parents will all tell (and show) him that.

But I stopped talking, and for the next half-hour we just sat and cuddled. Eventually he got interested in something his sister was doing and went off to play.

Later, during quiet time, I heard him singing softly to himself. "It's hard to be three. It's hard to be four...five, six, seven...." He counted up to twenty-something before he trailed off. He didn't sound especially upset, just interested and processing a new idea.

I don't want it to be hard to be four. But we can't always get everything we want.

So we'll have to set about being happy with what we have. And that's a lot.

Coming in like a lion...

2011-02-28T22:45:00.004-06:00

Meet Dave, who represents St. Paul firefighters for the month of March. The calendar benefits the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation and the Autism Society of Minnesota.

I'm always pleased to turn the page to March. It's still winter in these parts, but new snow usually melts fairly quickly in March, the sun is noticeably warmer, and days are growing longer. It's also my birthday month, and spring training is underway in major league baseball. Life is good.

What's cooking?

2011-02-26T17:36:00.000-06:00

Ask me what's new since I've retired, and this is my first answer:

I'm cooking.

I've mentioned (or boasted) before that Peter has done all the cooking during our 25-year marriage. My mom taught me some of the basics and as a teen I baked cakes and cookies, but in the years that I lived alone I lived mostly on frozen dinners and popcorn. I used to joke that my most frequently used spice was popcorn salt.

Peter and I share equally in our full-time Wild Rumpus Daycare for Grandkids. Outside those 40-plus hours each week, he puts in another 40 hours for his business. It made sense that when I retired I would take over cooking dinner (he still does breakfast and lunch weekdays when the kids are here).

Nobody expected that I would be a good cook. In fact, I think we both expected that I'd hate every minute I spent in the kitchen and that I would rely heavily on prepared meals (we used the newer bagged ones as an interim solution and quickly began referring to them as bags-o-crap). And indeed, it took me a while to figure out where to look for inspiration. Our cookbooks had little appeal and my ancient box of recipe cards holds a wide and wild variety of things I'll never make. Time to build a new collection.

I was hungry for a couple of Peter's favorites, so I started with chili and chicken-vegetable soup. Then I tried a few recipes posted by people I follow, and I paged through a year's worth of a cooking magazine we no longer receive.

And guess what? I've managed to provide tasty, balanced meals that we both enjoy. Some of them - pork chops, pork loin, lemon chicken, salmon - have been downright delicious. I have enjoyed planning the menu, shopping for the ingredients, and preparing the food. I can usually manage to get the salad, vegetable, starch, and main course ready at the same time, although once in a while I ask Peter to drain the noodles or top off the salads while I finish a sauce. Dessert usually consists of fruit and a little ice cream - or Girl Scout cookies - though I did make pudding using one of the lovely vanilla beans I received in a giveaway from The Good Cook. I've also been making blueberry and lemon-poppyseed muffins, because Augie loves them.

In other words, I've been much more ambitious than I expected to be, and we've both been happy with the outcome. That's important - and a huge relief - because I only enjoy doing those things that I do well. If my early efforts had bombed, we'd be back to bags-o-crap and retired life wouldn't be nearly so much fun.

So, got any great recipes, cookbooks, food sites, or food bloggers to recommend?

Not just for ballet anymore

2011-02-13T19:10:00.000-06:00

Ballet tutus are all the rage. Little girls wear them everywhere, and makers of kids' clothes now fashion tutu skirts for daily wear. A year ago, I bought one for ViMae at Target for a dollar or two. Then I made an elaborate one (which, it turned out, was so poofy that it ends up a twisted mess). She got a couple of different ones for Christmas. And now, ta-da, a tutu swimsuit! Her mommy couldn't resist. If I'd seen it first, I couldn't have resisted, either.

So here she is, modeling it at swim class, accessorized with the cast she is wearing to immobilize a broken foot. Did that stop her from swimming? Not a bit. The cast is waterproof, and it doesn't slow her down much, in water or on dry land. And yes, she really does have a left arm; she's just reaching back to adjust her tutu. (I stole this photo from her mom's site because I couldn't resist.)

Swimming with the clownfish

2011-02-10T18:25:00.000-06:00

Nemo and his dad

Some weeks ago Peter and I watched Finding Nemo with the kids. I had forgotten how stressful the movie is, as a little ocean-dwelling clownfish takes on hostile species as well as natural and man-made barriers to find his tiny son.

But the successes of small fish against daunting obstacles have inspired imaginative play on the part of Augie and ViMae.

Today we were all sitting on the bed. At first the bed was a boat surrounded by water. We pretended to catch a series of fishy types.

Augie: "I'm reeling in a killer whale, better watch out."

Vi: "I'm reeling in a sting ray, don't let it sting you." (Throwing self on bed) "I'm crushing it."

Augie again: "I'm reeling in a clownfish. He's telling jokes." I burst out laughing. He continues: "Too many jokes. Throw him back." Clearly Nemo and his dad have no special privileges here.

After a while, the kids decided to "dive into the water." Augie gave instructions: "We'll swim through the jelly fish but stay on top so they can't sting us. Then swim through the wall of bubbles, then race to the...." By then he was talking faster than we could follow. And they were off, leaping off the bed and swim/crawling as fast as they could across the room, down the hall, and back. They'd clamber aboard the bed/boat and immediately scramble off again.

It's interesting to see how the struggles and successes of a couple of clownfish and their friends can empower children's imaginations.

Winter tales

2011-02-03T23:40:00.001-06:00

On a December night 20 or 25 years ago, Peter and I attended a performance of Handel's Messiah at the St. Paul Cathedral. With my winter coat I wore thin gloves and dressy boots which provided no real protection against the elements. He wore a suit jacket with a sweater underneath, and no topcoat. After the performance, we got a shock. The temperature had dropped to about -25F, and the winds had kicked up something fierce. We lowered our heads and struggled three blocks to our car, periodically gasping as another gust stopped us in our tracks. That was the coldest we've ever been, and the last time we've gone so unprepared.

Years before, when I worked in downtown St. Paul, I regularly walked about four blocks wearing those same boots. My toes froze every morning and evening for weeks on end; I'm surprised they didn't just break off.

I suppose I just took all that cold and discomfort for granted. After all, I grew up in Hibbing, Minnesota, which often registered the coldest temperature in the nation (until International Falls got itself a weather station). When I was five, my mother kept me home from school one day (a four-block walk), because it was 48 degrees below zero. And that was before they began to calculate wind chill. By the next day it was only 30 below, so she wrapped an extra wool scarf to cover most of my face and off I went.

A couple of years later, on a similarly brittle day, a neighbor offered to drive me to school. By then I was going to the Catholic school across town, and my mom was relieved that I wouldn't have to walk five blocks and then wait for a bus that might be delayed. But the neighbor's car broke down six or seven blocks from my school. "Sorry," he said, and soon I was trudging through the deep and swirling snow. By the time I got there, my face was so frozen I couldn't speak.

By high school, I insisted on wearing flat-heeled pumps and nylon stockings every day--rain, shine, or 10 inches of fresh snow. It was only a two-block walk, but we went home for lunch every day, guaranteeing that in bad weather my feet would be red and wet all day.

Today I'm wiser, and much less fashionable. When it's really cold, I wear boots with lovely pile linings and with flat soles that can grip the ice. I wear earmuffs, which minimize hat hair while keeping me relatively warm on all but the most bitter days. And after years of numb fingers, this year I finally found a lovely pair of wool mittens that keep my hands from freezing, even while I shovel snow.

Now that I'm retired, I can usually stay indoors when it's ridiculously cold. At the very least, I can dress for the cold without worrying how my hair or makeup will survive, or what kind of fashion statement I'm making. And because of that freedom, I don't seem to mind quite so much.

I was thinking about all of this the last few days. It was about zero here early in the week, and parts of the house were drafty. We'd had to clear snow two days in a row and deal with a leaky roof besides. In the back yard and across the boulevard, the snow is piled so high it's impossible to shovel new snow onto the piles. We haven't taken the kids out for a couple of weeks (except to take Augie to preschool) because all that winter gear is just so cumbersome. Even filling the bird feeders is more difficult.

So yes, I'm tired of winter. But our recent snow was nothing compared with what they got in Chicago and points east. Now the sun's been out for a couple of days, which never fails to brighten my mood, and they say it's going to warm up to thirty ABOVE on Friday. And the birds, like the dark-eyed juncos in these photos, continue to show us how to persist.

So things could be worse. In fact, once upon a time--and indeed, more than once--they were. That which does not kill us makes us stronger, yes?

February, anyone?

2011-01-31T23:27:00.002-06:00

Mr. February, aka Michael, from the St. Paul Firefighters 2011 calendar. Proceeds from the calendar help support the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation and Autism Society of Minnesota.

Feel free to provide your own caption celebrating strength and good looks!

Things could be worse....

2011-01-29T13:15:00.004-06:00

This hasn't been the greatest week. I've had a sore throat all week, my dad was in the hospital for several days, hubby hurt his one good knee, water is leaking through the roof as snow and ice melt, we are socked in with clouds that begin at ground level, the squirrels have figured out how to empty two bird feeders despite new baffles, and my computer conked out again. Plus a few more things I'm not even going to mention.

I have to stop and remind myself that we're all fine, and for that I must be grateful.

As far as we know, we have no major illnesses, just some kind of winter cold or flu that recycles among the grandkids, their parents, and Peter and me. Sore throats make me cranky, because (a) they hurt and (b)they represent failure. Hand-washing can't overcome all the sneezes and coughs, can't keep the kids from wiping their noses on my shirt, can't prevent them from taking food from their mouths and putting it on my plate. And really, I still want to cuddle them even when, in my mind's eye, they come to resemble those revolting germ images you see in ads for cold remedies.

For a man of 95, my dad has been in good health. Last summer he and my stepmother finally moved to an assisted living facility about 90 minutes from here (their home had been hours away). He was feeling weak and short of breath, so he was admitted to the hospital. His hemoglobin was low, so they gave him a couple of units of blood. After that, they began to adjust his medications. Each change created a new problem until things were properly balanced. He's been released to the nursing care wing of the same building where he lives, to rebuild his strength. His wife can be with him every day, and my siblings and I can see him much more readily than when they lived "up north." I drove up on Tuesday and spent time with him. He seems pretty happy and engaged, not at all ready to give up. I see this as both a warning and a gift.

Peter's knee injury is painful, but it seems to be a bruise that will heal. For his sake I hope so, because the other knee isn't reliable at all, and favoring the one just hurts the other one more. Meanwhile...

He's had to be up and down ladders indoors and out working to get snow and ice off the roof and manage the spots where water is seeping through, mostly in my office. Yesterday two aluminum mixing bowls filled with water drip-drip-dripping from the ceiling. At one point I leaned a few inches to my right to grab a document off my desk--and got two big plops of water on the forehead. News reports say just about every home in the region is getting some damage. The people next door had an entire room just ruined; a repair truck was there for two weeks straight. We are lucky to have minimal damage (right where we had some about 10 years ago). And we plan to have a new roof installed this spring, so we'll know exactly where attention must be paid.

We've made it to the end of January, which means the worst of the weather should be over, and even if not, February brings two birthdays and Valentine's Day. It can't be as drab and dreary as what I'm seeing today! And again, in the things-could-be-worse perspective, we are prepared for this stuff. Plus, as I like to say, this weather builds character.

My computer was out of commission for over a week. I have to spend some time restoring things to the way I want them, but the good news is I didn't lose any data. And this time, I had both an iPad and a borrowed laptop, so I could at least read mail and blogs, map my trip to see my dad, and such.

I was going to illustrate this post with a picture of nasty germs. Instead, I'm sharing a photo that Peter took not long ago. This is what it's all about.

I thought this wouldn't happen for another 10 years

2011-01-22T13:59:00.000-06:00

At breakfast the other day, Peter was recapping a conversation he'd just had with Augie. They'd been talking about Augie's favorite things to do.

These included a list of favorite activities with his mom, dad, and sister (zoo, museums, baseball games, other outings); preschool; and coming to Pa and Grandma's house. We all agreed he and ViMae had a very nice life.

I said I was glad they liked coming to our house. Peter and I told both children, again, how much we loving having them spend time with us. We said we loved sharing things with them, like music and bird-watching and stories. Then we took it a step too far.

Peter said something like, "We hope we can do this for a long time; we have lots more things we want to share with you."

Augie replied, "But Pa, I already know about everything."

Guests for lunch

2011-01-18T23:30:00.001-06:00

Yesterday I hung a nyjer seed sock just outside the kitchen window, hoping to attract goldfinches. Within an hour, I spotted one on the sock. It flew off to a neighbor's yard, and five minutes later, a half-dozen winter-hued goldfinches showed up. This morning they were back in force, and they timed their visits so we could watch them during breakfast and lunch.

While I was hanging the sock, I heard what seemed to be some calls of alarm from birds around the neighborhood. I looked up and saw a red-tailed hawk flying very high, directly above our house. It was a dramatic reminder of the wide variety of birds in our urban forest.

Meanwhile, Peter and I are wowed by the fact that these tiny birds found this little sock feeder so quickly. The kids are delighted to watch them, and we all look forward to seeing their summer colors... many months from now.

Warning: potty talk ahead

2011-01-16T15:11:00.000-06:00

We were driving to preschool on Thursday.

Augie: "I don't get my butt."

Me: "What is it that you don't understand?"

I took off my earmuffs to hear better, but his little voice couldn't entirely pierce the noise of the engine, the fan valiantly trying to warm the car, and the square tires galumphing over ice ruts and potholes. So what I heard sounded like, "Mfff nuddle shpin Pa said norple glang beezer." He continued for a while, and he seemed to be working through a confusing situation. Then, clarity.

Augie: "I didn't eat enough pressure."

Me: "Are you saying you're still hungry?"

Augie: "No, I'm not hungry. I'm talking about my butt. I didn't eat enough pressure."

Later, Pa helped me figure it out. Augie is a prodigious eater of fruits and vegetables, oat cereals, and other foods that make him a champion pooper. Everyone celebrates this.

But his first attempt that morning was a rare occurrence for him, involving an enormous struggle, a bit of pain, and a clot of nasty little marbles. Soon after, he was back to form, producing two excellent specimens. Pa explained once again about how the right foods produce easy, healthy poop. But during our drive, Augie was still puzzling over what had gone wrong.

In his experience, when you want to move something through a tube, you apply pressure. Hence his conclusion: "I didn't eat enough pressure."

As long as we can equate "pressure" with fiber, this kid's going to be a champion.

Saying farewell to the Christmas season

2011-01-08T17:41:00.000-06:00

The American Swedish Institute in Minneapolis this morning held a traditional Julgransplundring celebration. Translation: the plundering of the Christmas tree. Folks sang and danced around the julgran (Christmas tree) and made party hats and traditional ornaments. After a final dance, children “plundered” the tree of its edible decorations.

We happened to be taking down our tree while that party was underway. No singing and dancing here, thank you, but by our own tradition we did have the Christmas music playing. Each year on the Saturday after January 6, Peter takes off the ornaments and I pack them away along with other decorations. He hauls the tree outside and stands it in a snowbank near the bird feeders to provide a little shelter until the snow melts and the tree falls over (it will be months yet). We sweep up a bushel of needles and push the furniture back into place. I like that we do it together.

I used to be sad about putting away the trappings of Christmas. This year I'm okay with it, and quite satisfied to see what the next weeks and months will bring. As a newly retired person. I feel a kind of freedom I haven't known in many, many years. And a couple of loving and lovable children will continue to show up every morning eager to begin a new day with Pa and me. So farewell, Christmas season, and hello again, real life. Let's see what you've got.

One last thought. I've mentioned before that every ornament we use has meaning, and each year usually brings something to symbolize a new phase or activity. The lovely handmade ornament here came as a giveaway from the talented Jeanie at The Marmelade Gypsy, so now I have a beautiful symbol of my membership in the blogging community. Thanks, Jeanie!

Love and music

2011-01-05T21:49:00.000-06:00

The other day Pa, Augie, ViMae, and I were watching some dance numbers from Singin' in the Rain. We let the movie run to the end, so we saw Don (Gene Kelly) dramatically declare his love for Kathy (Debbie Reynolds), and then a final shot of the two gazing at a billboard advertising their first movie as co-stars.

Pa explained that Don and Kathy were in love, which I think the kids knew. But they were happy to hear that the problems keeping Don and Kathy apart were resolved, and now they were going to be together and star in movies together.

Augie seemed to want to join the celebration. He turned to us and announced, "I'm in love with Grandma." A little embarrassed, he came over and buried his head in my shoulder and then cuddled up next to me on the couch. Peter gave me a look that said, "You are the luckiest woman in the world." My look said, "I know."

***

Today during quiet time, Augie and I sat together and watched most of the old Disney movie Fantasia. He identified all the orchestral instruments that can be seen during the first piece. During The Nutcracker, he said, "I love this music."

Twice during later pieces, he said, "I've tried to play this music." I asked how, and he showed me some drumming moves, like playing tympani.

We watched all the visuals, commented on the dinosaurs and the fairies and Mickey Mouse as the Sorcerer's Apprentice and the "bat monster" on Bald Mountain. But what we were really doing was listening to every note. He gets it. And he's not even four years old.

I got to spend part of my day with someone who is just as transported by music as I am, and who loves to sit with me to hear it. I am the luckiest woman in the world.

One good calendar deserves another....

2011-01-02T08:00:00.001-06:00

Last year it was the Men of York (Maine). Welcome now to St. Paul Firefighters 2011, keeping my city safe from flames. Their calendar benefits the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation and the Autism Society of Minnesota. Here is Jeremy, Mr. January.

Happy New Year!

Happy 2011

2011-01-01T13:39:00.002-06:00

BLissed-Out Grandma and her birdy friends wish you a happy new year filled with discovery, plenty, and happiness.

I have a little new-year surprise for you, which I'll post soon, so I hope you'll come back.

My wish for you at Christmas

2010-12-27T17:13:00.000-06:00

I hope you are finding magic, warmth, and joy in this holiday season, and I hope the magic continues for many more days.

Our ornaments, like our holidays, mix old traditions and new experiences. For example, this very old green glass ornament comes from Peter's parents' tree. My mom embroidered the yellow bird shortly before she died about 30 years ago. A music-loving snowman purchased only a couple of years ago celebrates our delight in music, the heart came from a good friend, and the jester is a memento of a stay in a favorite city, New Orleans.

Over the years, my husband has greatly expanded my understanding of what a family Christmas can be. He spends enormous effort finding just the right gifts, and then wrapping and presenting them in ways designed to surprise and delight. We also developed many family rites and traditions, mostly focused on daughter Abby.

Now Abby and Eric are creating traditions for their children, centered in their own home. Instead of packing up the kids to come here or trek to Montana, they arranged Christmas Eve and Christmas Day at home, and we spent part of each with them. Everything was relaxed, flexible, responsive to toddler needs, and designed for maximum delight.

I played with Augie's expanded train set, read to both kids, and crawled under the bunk bed while we played bone-digging archaeologist. I wore my new pink crown, chosen by Augie and Vi who have dubbed me "Glinda" in their ongoing Wizard of Oz fantasy.

Speaking of which, Peter and I made these ornaments (from a kit) and used them as gift tags. Vi handed out the gifts based on the characters she has assigned. When Augie got his Scarecrow gift, he laughed with excitement. "Mom, mom, look! I got a present and it has ME on top!"

I hope that you will giggle with joy and delight during this holiday season and through the new year.

If my pill box says "T" it must be Tuesday

2010-12-21T14:07:00.000-06:00

When I was working, I always knew what day it was. Even during vacations, I retained a sense of time. Now that I'm retired (for a whole 11 days), my days are a daze.

We've had two snow storms that threw off everyone's schedules. And Abby and Eric have two weeks off from school, so the grandkids are home with them. I found myself checking the weather for Tuesday and Thursday, when I've been driving Augie to preschool, and then realizing that I won't be doing that again until January.

Here are a few other things I've noticed about my new life phase.

1. I figured I'd have lots of time to do Christmas stuff--bake cookies, decorate the house, write cards, etc. I have trimmed the tree--always a major undertaking. But we decided to simplify the decorating of the house, and I don't feel motivated to bake. The cards are definitely on my to-do-soon list. Along with gift-wrapping.

2. I'm now responsible for making dinner. I know how to sit down and come up with a concept for a brochure, but it's been years since I planned a meal. I need to read some cookbooks to kickstart that part of my brain, then make some choices and make up a grocery list. (I've seen a couple of nice recipes online that got me interested, so that's a place to start.)

3. I have some groovy new toys:

Peter's company bought a couple of iPads, and since he doesn't use his all the time, I get to borrow it. Wow... I never thought I'd want one until I sat down with it. I love it. It will definitely be the subject of a future post.
He bought me a new camera for Christmas. It's a Canon super-zoom, a compact camera with a powerful lens so I can take better photos of the birds in the backyard. I just had to open it early, because we had a yard full of birds. Then we got a ton of snow, which dramatically shortened the distance between the ground and the bird feeder. The squirrels realized they could jump right up, and they sent out the word to half the squirrels in the city. The birds disappeared until yesterday, when we raised the level of the feeder. So I'm back in business. Another subject for future posts!
Tap shoes! We found a great source of used shoes for the kids, and they love them. I ordered some for me, fearing that I'd never find a comfortable pair for my long narrow feet. They came yesterday, and I LOVE THEM. I still need to find a DVD or online source of tap lessons. I was searching a couple of weeks ago when zombies attacked my computer.

4. I'm spending a LOT of time doing paperwork to arrange health care coverage for Peter and me. Q: How many times do I need to submit the same information to different units of the same company? A. Four doesn't seem to be enough. Maybe five will do it.

5. I'm also spending tons of time changing my email address contact information for dozens of accounts. Yes, I should have used a personal account instead of my work account from the beginning. But I didn't. And yes, I should have started switching a couple of years ago. But I didn't. I was able to keep my work account for the next several months (because it provides access to information I may need in order to do some freelance work or just help my former colleagues figure things out). But I quickly realized that I don't want to spend a lot of time on that account, because it draws me back into the work world.

6. I need to reorganize all my spaces. Starting with my office. I have places for my fabric projects and my photo projects, and a lot of old papers from work and the carousel and whatnot. But I have a huge collection of electronic stuff--cameras, iPod, the iPad, a digital voice recorder, etc., and accompanying cables, batteries, manuals, cleaning materials, carrying cases, etc, mostly living on a messy shelf and in a box in the office closet, under a bunch of kids' toys. Not to mention that my bedroom closet is full of work clothes I won't wear again. That's a project for summer.

That's it for today. I have to go make some phone calls about health coverage. Wish me luck.

.

Time marches on.....

2010-12-14T00:08:00.000-06:00

I was privileged to be part of the life of Macalester College for 28 years as publications manager, writer, and editor. At my retirement party Wednesday, our current president told the guests that in many ways I've been Macalester's voice for all that time. That's high praise, because it's been a period of fairly remarkable achievement for the college. He and others said very nice things about my work. (When one of the higher-ups said some really nice and perceptive things, it flitted across my mind that a couple of years ago he wasn't nearly so generous in his assessment. But we've worked together well since then. In this moment, it sounded like he was the head of my fan club, and I chose to believe that he meant it.

When it was my turn to speak, I said that when you've worked on admissions materials for that long, you can't help taking pride in the students who enroll. When you've worked on three fund-raising campaigns, you look around at the new buildings, programs, and scholarship funds and think, "I helped make that happen."

For every student who chooses to enroll, and for every donor who makes a significant gift, hundreds of people have worked in thousands of ways to make it happen--not just to reach out to that individual but to create an institution worthy of their choice. That fact doesn't diminish the satisfaction we feel. It's shared work, and shared satisfaction. (When I said that, a lot of people were nodding and smiling in agreement.)

I went on to say that just as I've been part of the Macalester family, Mac has been part of my family, affecting three generations. While representing Macalester at a meeting in April 1985, I met the man I soon married. He continues to work for the college as a vendor and has participated with me in many college events. A generous tuition assistance program among a consortium of colleges enabled our daughter to attend a wonderful college where on her first day she met the young man she would marry 11 years later. And my bosses' willingness to let me work reduced and flexible schedules in order to provide daycare for the grandkids has benefited them, their parents, and us.

A colleague spoke up and thanked me for hiring her. That reminded me to make one more point: I think part of my legacy is the good people I hired over the years, including six who continue to work there. (I also served on advisory committees that played roles in hiring three others, including the president.) Finally, I reminded everyone that I live just three miles away and expect to stay in touch. (I know, everyone says it. But I will, with some of them.) I think I ended with something funny that got a good laugh, but I can't remember what it was.

There were gifts (a fancy international desk clock, some things to enjoy with the grandkids, a stash of chocolate, a bottle of lemoncello, and a lifetime supply of purple pens), and a book in which my colleagues had pasted messages from many people, and in which party guests wrote greetings of their own.

Several times during the party, I felt a little wave of relief and joy. "I'm done; I can relax now." I totally enjoyed talking with all the folks who came. Some were very special to me, including a former Macalester president and vice president, and one of our major donors. The grandkids behaved charmingly, and every time I was asked "What will you do now?" I could point to them. The Alumni House was decorated beautifully for the holidays, and the food looked elegant, though I didn't get around to eating any until the last few minutes. Eventually we packed up the gifts and cards and drove home, where I blogged about how tired and happy I was.

Thursday morning while reading the book of messages, I had my one twinge of nostalgia..It was gone in a flash.

Thursday afternoon I drove Augie to preschool and then showed up at the office at 1:15, as usual this past few months. I told everyone how much I had loved the party--every minute of it--and how good it made me feel. I participated in a couple of meetings to hand off continuing projects. I told my two bosses how glad I was to have worked with them the last couple of years, after some bad years with a previous boss, and they returned the compliment. I walked across campus to turn in my keys and trade a staff ID for a retired staff ID. Then I tossed my remaining possessions into a large box, took a big framed poster off the wall, and put on my coat. Several co-workers gathered around to say goodbye. I'd been nervous about this moment, but it was smiles and hugs all around and then two colleagues carried my stuff down to the front door. One last hug for the guy who helped me load things into my car, and I was behind the wheel.

I was smiling as I pulled away from the curb and noted that it was exactly 5 p.m. No twinges of sadness, no emotional welling up. Just immense satisfaction.

Peter and I went to dinner at Olive Garden so I could celebrate in the happy glow generated by my favorite cocktail, their strawberry lemoncello martini. He said, "I hope your retirement is everything you've hoped for."

I said, "It's here, and for now that's all I need!"

It's almost official...

2010-12-08T23:13:00.000-06:00

My retirement party was this afternoon. I enjoyed every minute, and tonight I'm tired and happy. It's that old introvert thing... talking to people for several hours leaves me exhausted. But my colleagues put together a lovely event. Lots of people came and said gracious things, the program was short and heartfelt, there were some nice gifts and some funny ones, I managed my remarks just fine, and the grandkids looked adorable and acted like angels.

Also, it hit me about halfway through the party: I'm essentially done! Tomorrow I'll pack up a box or two of stuff, say goodbye to my closest co-workers, and turn in my keys.Wow. I'll be back here to tell you lots more, but right now I need sleep. Cheers.

One week left...

2010-12-04T17:06:00.000-06:00

...as a Career Woman. Which is how I used to think of myself. For a long time, if I met you at a party the first thing you'd learn about me was what I did for a living. Eventually I married, and then Peter and I got into Saints baseball and saving a carousel, so you had an even chance of hearing about one of those activities first. For nearly four years now, I identify first and foremost as a grandma.

So I'm not losing my whole identity, as once would have been the case. And I've been retiring in stages, working less and less time and participating in fewer meetings, social events, and the like. In fact, they've invited me to say a few words at my retirement party on Wednesday, and I can't really think what to say. It's forcing me to examine my feelings instead of just slipping silently away.

I'll let you know what I come up with.

The last of the nekkid guys....

2010-11-30T08:00:00.002-06:00

In case you're new around here, this photo is from a fund-raising calendar produced by the York (Maine) Chamber of Commerce.

While other months featured realtors and insurance agents, etc., this one features representatives of a group fighting against the turnpike authority's plan to build several new toll plazas. Based on what I could find via Google, the battle rages on.

So ends the monthly Men of York feature. Thanks again to Eva, who held a giveaway of this calendar last year. It's been fun.

Countdown: Tea for Two...

2010-11-27T11:07:00.001-06:00

...and two for tea. Dum-dee-dum and dee-da-dee....

Two weeks to retirement. My brain is mush, except for toddlers and toys and Christmas. I can do a task for work, but I can't strategize even a little.

I do have new post-retirement goals: learning to tap dance and play drums. Just enough to enjoy. And maybe pass along a couple of tricks to the kids. They want to dance on the ceiling like Fred Astaire in Royal Wedding.

I was wondering how long we should let them keep being amazed and asking "How does he DO that?" One of these days, we're going to help them build a model so they can discover how he does it, and we'll make a little movie to awe their parents. Magic and wonder needn't be lost when it leads to experimentation and figuring something out and re-creating it.

I'm off to make some tiny furniture and find a Fred Astaire-like action figure.

Guess how many weeks until I retire!

2010-11-21T19:49:00.001-06:00

I'm not doing the countdown to make you jealous. Really, I'm not. I'm excited, I'm celebrating, I'm helping myself adjust to the idea. Last week the eminent Mr. London Street called me a "lucky sod," which has had me laughing all week. But it also made me think.

My response all along has been, "I've earned it." I've worked hard for 45 years. I've stayed at my current job 28 years, during which I often worked long hours, periodically put up with nasty politics, and made some fine and important contributions. I've worked longer than my father did, because we needed the medical insurance. I've continued to work even while working with my husband to provide daycare for our two toddler grandchildren. The daycare continues, full-time weekdays during the school year. It's great--and also a challenge. So yeah, I've earned the right to retire.

But I'm also a lucky sod. I've been able to work in my chosen field--call it public relations, publications, or communications--my whole life. Except for one regrettable experiment working for an insurance conglomerate, I've worked at colleges and universities--good ones, at that. I believe in the product, and the workplace is filled with interesting people, ideas, stories, possibilities. I've had a semi-decent retirement plan that didn't go belly-up. Our health is fine, except that we should exercise more. Social Security is still solvent. Our house is paid for; we have no debt. And Peter's business continues to be successful. So I can retire, and we should be fine. And that, when I think about it, makes me a lucky sod indeed.

The countdown continues....

2010-11-15T08:00:00.019-06:00

Just four short weeks until I'm retired. I'm beginning to believe it will really happen.

Sparrows and finches and woodpeckers, oh my!

2010-11-13T19:07:00.002-06:00

We woke up to a heavy, wet snowfall and a symphony of chirping in the back yard. Apparently our bird feeders are on the map. As we watched, dozens of birds were gathering in nearby trees and swooping in for a snack. They swarmed around all day, now and then scattering because of a passing vehicle or a sudden plop of show from the upper branches.

We had lots of finches and sparrows all day. The juncos put in an appearance for an hour or two. A couple of chickadees stopped by.

A downy woodpecker and a nuthatch took turns at the suet feeder.

A female cardinal graced us with her presence.

And our first-ever red-bellied woodpecker visited twice!

We introduced our feeders sometime last winter, and it takes a while for birds to find them, so today was an all-time high in popularity. Our feathered friends are definitely brightening up an otherwise blustery winter day!

And P.S., I want to thank Abe Lincoln for his advice about feeders and about creating a welcoming spot for birds. His photos take your breath away. I'm just taking snapshots through a snow-streaked window, but it's fun anyway.

One last picnic lunch

2010-11-13T00:09:00.000-06:00

"You know what, Pa?" said Augie last Monday, "It's a great day for a picnic!" It was in the 60s and sunny, and he was right. Tuesday was equally nice, and we did it again. The sun is low in the sky even at noon, and every few minutes another flock of geese flew over, announcing the end of summer. It turned colder Wednesday, and tonight it has begun to snow.

It was a fabulous October, and November opened without its usual bluster. I'm glad we celebrated the turning of the seasons. Any picnics will have to be indoors for the next six months or so.

Countdown to retirement

2010-11-06T14:06:00.000-05:00

WEEKS LEFT!

Five weeks left! That means ten more trips to the office before I'm officially done. I don't feel sad; it's a very positive change. But even positive change can be difficult. I'm finding it hard to focus, so writing anything - for work or my blog or any other purpose - takes much longer than it normally would. (That's why I've hardly written anything here for several weeks.)

I have three big projects to finish at work, and I keep encountering problems. It's as if I get all the buttons buttoned and then they begin to pop open, one after another.It gets more and more difficult to find the grit and determination to close them up again...and glue and nail them shut.

The fact that I'm doing some of my work from home, and that home is filled with grandkids so much of the time, certainly complicates things. But my colleagues are being extremely patient and understanding. After 28 years on the job, people are willing to cut me a little slack. Bless 'em. And me. I've earned it.

Trick or Treat, part 2...

2010-10-31T18:26:00.000-05:00

We've just been visited by a pair of adorable trick-or-treaters...a Unicorn and a Max Wearing His Wolf Suit. Augie's Grandma Anita made him a similar wolf suit two years ago, and he has loved it ever since, so she made a new, taller version this year. It does seem that Halloween goes well with the concept of Where the Wild Things Are! ViMae wanted to wear her Dorothy dress but it's too cold, so she made do by carrying her favorite Dorothy basket. Mommy is tough...she only allowed me to give them one candy bar each.

Trick or treat!

2010-10-30T18:53:00.001-05:00

Realtor Wes Cook is Mister November in the Men of York (Maine) calendar produced by the Chamber of Commerce to support local nonprofits. .

Halloween preparations? I bought two bags of candy in the past month and then ate nearly all of it. Not buying more! I did buy this little pumpkin, picked out by Augie. We'll probably draw designs on it tomorrow.. Happy Halloween!

Friendship is golden

2010-10-24T18:39:00.000-05:00

A month ago, we celebrated our silver anniversary with a golden weekend.

Golden because we drove to central Minnesota, where the trees were at peak fall color.

Golden also because we visited with old friends Carol and Michael, whom we hadn't seen for at least a couple of years (none of us could quite remember how long).

It was SO GOOD to see and spend time with them again.

For 13 years before I met Peter, Carol and Michael were like family to me. We met when I went to work in the office where she worked, and our friendship soon extended beyond working hours. We went to art fairs or hung out at their house talking about our lives, our families, our hopes and disappointments. Over time they added two adorable children to the mix, and I was included in quite a few family celebrations. I met their extended families, and they met mine. To this day, when Carol and Michael talk about their parents or siblings or nieces and nephews, I can picture them...just as they looked 30 years ago. Carol and I had season tickets for the ballet for about 30 years; often having dinner first so we could talk. Even when we no longer worked together (I left that office after 10 years), we could pick up on our conversations with the comfort than comes from a well-worn friendship.

They retired a few years ago and moved to their lake home, about 2.5 hours north. We could never understand how they could leave the city behind. But being there, with the golden light pouring in through the windows and with all the comfort and serenity they have built into their place, I began to understand the draw. I wouldn't want to commute as much as they do, but I get why they love it there. And while we were there we loved it, too.

It was in their living room that we were married 25 years earlier, so it was great fun to celebrate our anniversary with them. And we discovered that the resort where we stayed last summer...and where we plan to stay again next summer...is maybe an hour's drive from their place. The welcome mat will be out! Having finally gotten ourselves together again, we promised that we will not let years go by without seeing one another. Our friendship is too valuable....it's golden.

(I didn't take pictures, so these photos are not mine.)

Making soup

2010-10-17T19:45:00.000-05:00

Augie loves to cook. With his mom, he does it for real; other times he plays make-believe. Wouldn't some good hot alphabet soup hit the spot as the weather gets cooler?

'Nuf said...

2010-10-13T23:25:00.000-05:00

Wanna see something cute?

2010-10-09T23:31:00.000-05:00

How 'bout this girl, with Toto and her ruby slippers as always.