Category Archives: Family

Family, GeekWorld, Media

A Serial Watcher

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Spring                                                     Beltane Moon

A gorgeous day.  Sun, warm.  Daffodils in bloom.  Bees buzzing in the orchard.  Dogs playing in the woods.  Kate’s on her way home.  

Ruthie told Kate she was her favorite grandma.  I told her she was my favorite grandma, too.  She’s coming back a happy gal.

During the grey cold days of the weekend I did something I’ve not done before.  I wrote here sometime ago quitting Comcast cable tv.  Too damn expensive and a time suck.  In it’s place we have dvds, netflix and hulu.  Hulu (and Netflix, too for that matter) has whole TV series from beginning to end.  For instance, it has the entire Battlestar Galactica Sci-Fi channel series.  And many others.

 

That means you can do what I did on Saturday and Sunday.  I found a new series, Grimm, that tells the story of a descendant of the fairy-tale compiler.  Turns out the Grimms can see and hunt all manner of thought-to-be imaginary creatures like the big bad wolf, pied piper and a whole menagerie of others.

So I watched 1-12 of an 18 episode run.  That’s the thing I haven’t done before.  You can watch TV serials as if they are, in a sense, a video novel with each episode as a chapter.  Now I wouldn’t defend this as a way to increase your brain power, might have killed a few gray cells, but it sure was fun.  Felt very decadent though.

Dogs, Family

Dogs and Granddaughters

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Spring                                                         New Beltane Moon

Homes have needs.  This one needs Kate to feel full and she’s gone.  I’m lucky I have the dogs or I would feel lonely.

The dogs get up very early, thanks to Gertie, usually around 5:00-5:30 am.  Kate, with her residency experience of sudden waking, working and going back to sleep handles this if only because I sleep through it.  She gets up, feeds the dogs and comes back to sleep.  Most mornings all four dogs come inside after their meal and then wait quietly until we get up.

This morning Vega and Rigel, our two coon hound/Irish wolfhound dogs, decided, as they occasionally do, to stay outside.  Vega will bark, sometimes 30 minutes later, to come back inside and Kate will get up and let her in.  Well, I slept through it this morning, letting her back in.

When I finally got up, I let Vega and Rigel inside and Vega was so happy she came in, spun around, jumped up on the window seat (her place), back down and spun around again.

Talked to Kate last night and apparently Ruthie, 6 year old granddaughter, really liked her rhinestone studded belt I picked out for her at the Stock Show this January.  “Are those real diamonds?” she asked.  She has the hat, the vest and now needs only the boots to be a real Jewish cowgirl.

 

Bees, Family, Garden, Health

The Quotidian

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Spring                                                            New Beltane Moon

Kate has taken her still healing cellulitis off to Colorado for a weekend with the grandkids.  Gabe’s fourth birthday is tomorrow.  Her arm looks much better than it did on Monday, swelling much less pronounced and the area of red, heated skin has reduced considerably.  It took four doses of IV antibiotics and the follow-up oral meds to get this infection under control.  No fun at all.

(Gabe and Grandpop, January, 2012)

Meanwhile back at the apiary, I’m going to check the bees tomorrow for larvae, need for syrup and pollen patties.  A few garden chores tomorrow, too, notably digging up the potato patch and amending the soil.  I can’t plant potatoes in the main vegetable garden for a couple more years because the beetles found them last fall.  Too many to pick off and drown in soapy water.

Also, I really need to fix the tire on the Celica, get it started and get the tire repaired or buy a new one.  Then, I’m going to give it away one way or another.  Know anyone that needs a car?  I may have a taker, but I’m not sure.  If not, I’ll pass it on to someone for free.  It has 280,000 miles on it, but it runs well.  We’ve decided to go with one car for financial reasons and it’s the one with the most mileage, so it has to go.

Family, GeekWorld

Video Phone a Reality At Last!

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Spring                                                            Bee Hiving Moon

Technological victory today.  Mary (Singapore at 10:00pm), Mark (Ha’il, Saudi Arabia at 5:00 pm) and myself (Andover 9 am) on the same video call.  Three little screens with our talking heads beaming in real time (or whatever you call time in the instance where all of us are in different times).  Skype premium at $99.00 a year allows for up to ten individuals on one call with no additional charge.  Even when separated by thousands of miles and the International Date Line.

(screen looks something like the pic above)

That was my entire nuclear family on one video call.  Remember when video-phones were sci-fi what ifs?  Not any more.  And, there’s no phone.  Nothing but net.

Over the last year Mark and Mary and I have moved closer together, seeing each other in person last July and now communicating more regularly than we ever have before.

Mark describes Ha’il as like northern Arizona, Flagstaff/Dine homelands/Grand Canyon/polygamist Mormon country.  Come to think of it Islam allows 4 wives.  Maybe it’s the weather?

Mary says Singapore is hot.  When asked how hot, she said, “Oh, I never know.  But it’s really hot.  I know that.”  According to Weatherunderground the current temp in Singapore is 81 with a dewpoint of 77.  That last is the kicker.  By contrast it’s 84 in Ha’il with a dewpoint of 14.  Just to be complete it’s 54 here with a dewpoint of  48.   Of course that’s a daytime reading for Andover, a night time reading for Singapore and an early evening reading for Ha’il.

Both Mary and Mark are at the ends of their terms, with exams and grading and all that fun stuff on the other end of the teacher-student relationship.  Mark has a classroom full of cement workers.  Mary teaches students at Singapore’s National Teacher’s University.   Mom would have been proud.

Forgot to mention on the call, but I have a tour for ESL students tomorrow.  Both Mary and Mark have ESL backgrounds.

Cinema and Television, Cooking, Family, Health

Kate is Home!

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Spring                                                              Bee Hiving Moon

The home is full again.  Kate got home at 7:00 pm.  Four of us were wagging our tails and I hugged her.  She took off for the doctor yesterday and never came home until just now.

Her arm looks better, not well, but better.  Her spirits are good; though she says she’s “going to play the invalid tomorrow and Thursday.  We’ll see.  She’s not too good in that role.

We had grilled chicken, chard (from last year’s garden) and whole wheat spaghetti with olive oil and butter.  After the meal we both scratched our heads during Tree of Life.

It evoked the era of my childhood so well:  kick the can, swimming, roaming in the fields, running down alleys, getting into mischief.  I pulled back from understanding and went with the flow, the feel of things.  I liked it.  Don’t know that I’d want all the films I see to take that form, but in this case, well done.

Tomorrow.  Some errands.

Family, Health

Ah.

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Spring                                                          Bee Hiving Moon

A much better sounding Kate called a couple of times this AM.  The swelling has begun to recede which means she’s responding to the IV antibiotics.  Which, thank God, means it’s not one of the resistant strains of strep infections.  She will have her fourth IV infusion at 4 pm, then she’ll come home.

She ordered grilled chicken breast and vegetables for dinner tonight.  The chef is on duty.

She has to keep her arm elevated at or above her shoulder, will have oral antibiotics, but, and this is the really important part, she will be able to go to Denver.  She would not have been a happy camper if she had been unable to see Gabe and Ruth (grandkids).

So.  A big whew here.

Family, Health

In the Hospital

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Spring                                                        Bee Hiving Moon

Mentioned Kate’s cellulitis the other day.  Got worse.  She went to the doc today, her regular doc for over 30 years.  Kate called at noon, “I’m going to the hospital.  IV antibiotics.”  Oh.

This had me worried because not long after we were married Kate developed a very serious infection, it turned out to be her first ever herpes simplex to which her body way overreacted.  She damn near died with that one.

So, I’m relieved she’s getting full bore attention for this.

Only one problem.  She has our car.  We talked about my taking a cab in but decided it was too expensive.  I don’t have anything until Wednesday since I passed on the Woolly’s tonight.  If they can knock this back in a day or two, I’ll stay here and take care of the home front.

If she needs me, she’ll call and I’ll get in there.  I could take the Northstar in tomorrow or Wednesday morning.

An unforeseen occurrence in our one car plan.  Weird, huh?

She leaves Friday for Denver, at least that’s the current plan.  Hard to say now.

Bees, Family, Garden, permaculture

The Outdoor Season, Well and Truly Begun

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Spring                                                    Bee Hiving Moon

Kate got a nasty cellulitis on her left arm.  Probably from scratches incurred while vigorously pruning and weeding.  Spring clean up.  It swelled up, got hot and sent her to the urgent care last night, the doctor visiting her own clinic for treatment.  They gave her a couple of jabs of rocephin, prescribed some sulfa and sent her home.

After a restless night, she got up and drove out to the arboretum (today) for a class on fruit tree pruning.  She’s a Viking, moving past the pain, just as she has from the first days of our life together.  I’m no where near as stoic.

Later on today I’ll check on our new colleagues, making sure they’re clustered under the feeder pail, then I’ll leave them alone until next Friday.  Next Friday I’ll go in and check for larvae.  Finding larvae means the queen has gone to work laying eggs and the colonies will be queen right.  After that, it’s the normal hive checks, hive box rotations and following their life as the colony builds up to full strength.

The outdoor season is well and truly underway.  Got 2.5 pounds of potatoes from Seed Savers yesterday.  I’ll supplement them with sprouts from leftover potatoes of last year’s crop and, possibly, a few from Green Barn, up the road a piece near Isanti.  That bed has to be dug and amended.

Also on today’s docket.  Move the large limbs I pruned a month ago onto brush piles, clear out the work Kate did yesterday, clean off the AC and do some weed prevention.  That’s enough for today.

Aging, Family, Retirement, Third Phase, Travel

Go or Stay?

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Spring                                                     Bee Hiving Moon

“Each of us must confront our own fears, must come face to face with them. How we handle our fears will determine where we go with the rest of our lives. To experience adventure or to be limited by the fear of it.”   Judy Blume, Tiger Eyes

I have a friend, he knows who he is, who loves to pack up and go.  Stay a good while.  Then come back.  He has tales to tell, too.  That time in the Caribbean when he thought he was going to die in a bad storm.  Selling art in the Greek Islands to make money.  Learning Fiji and Hindi while in the Peace Corps.  Tai Chi while living in Shanghai.  Creating an exhibit on safe sex for Thai kids.  Tango in Buenos Aires.  Gunplay in Mexico.

I don’t know about fear, but he sure loves change.  “Change is good,” he said, “I look forward to it.”

Since he began the pick up and go live in a foreign city idea a few years back, I’ve often compared my life choices to his.  It goes like this.  Am I too timid?  Stuck in one place?

I try to answer this question honestly because the answer matters to me.  Travel is part of my soul, too, and I love foreign travel most of all.  His choices seem to maximize the experience of being in another culture, being there long enough to sink into the culture, be part of it.  At least for a while, not just as wanderer from one place to another.

My answer to these questions goes like this.  I moved so much after I left home at 17.  Off to college, to a different college, back home for a quarter, then out for good.   Continue reading Go or Stay? →

Aging, Art and Culture, Faith and Spirituality, Family, Garden, Writing

Creating Self

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Spring                                                              Bee Hiving Moon

“Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.” by George Bernard Shaw

Later today, beets blood, bull and golden and carrots, Nantes and one lone blueberry to replace a dead plant.  I think about it, this planting and nourishing, watching and waiting, then harvesting and preserving and eating, and I feel a part of my life being created.  This part gets its hands dirty, relishes the seasons and their graces, their vagaries.  This part looks at shades of green, knows this most important color as a friend and ally.

Another part, this one quiet and inward, wanders the halls of art museums, galleries, image collections on the internet and in books. Looking.  Seeing.  No dirty hands here.  Visual contact.  Delight in a curve, a color, an image, a remaking of tradition, new ways of perceiving.  This one knows the spread of art from Chauvet Caves to MOMA and delights in each creative moment.

Then the father.  And husband.  The family guy.  Cousins, aunts, uncles.  Grandpop.  One in a line.  A link between that great one-celled ancestor and the transformation of our species that is yet to come.  Love not abstract but concrete and timeless.  Walking with children and their children, walking on toward some unknown future.  Together.  That’s a part.

A noisy chunk, this one involved in struggle, voicing the cries of the poor, the victims, Continue reading Creating Self →