Category Archives: Family

Family, Translating Metamorphoses, Writing

TGIM

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Samhain                                                              Thanksgiving Moon

6 degrees this morning.  Looked out my study window yesterday evening and saw two deer walking in the street, taking in the lights and wondering about the neighbor with MS.  The dogs didn’t want to stay outside long.  Too cold.

My goal is to have Missing’s first revision done by January 1st.  The Mythology class ends this week and will free up some time.  It’s load has been manageable, but with the research for the Terra Cotta Warriors I’ve had little spare time.  Missing and Latin have suffered.

Still haven’t located anyone to do our snowplowing.  No notices up on the usual places, grocery store bulletin boards, no advertising.  Odd, but it may reflect the minimal snow fall we got last winter.

Kate comes home today and our house will once again have its full complement of mammals.  This is an inter-mammalian species residence and I’m not counting the mice, the chipmunks, the raccoons, the opossums, the woodchucks, the squirrels and the rabbits though they reside on this property, too.  Many of the latter live under our far shed.

Faith and Spirituality, Family, Friends, Great Work

An Important Message for a Season of Indulgence

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Samhain                                                               Thanksgiving Moon

source

A professor stood before his philosophy class and had some items in front of him. When the class began, he wordlessly picked up a very large and empty mayonnaise jar and proceeded to fill it with golf balls. He then asked the students if the jar was full. They agreed that it was.

The professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them into the jar. He shook the jar lightly. The pebbles roll

ed into the open areas between the golf balls. He then asked the students again if the jar was full. They agreed it was.

The professor next picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar. Of course, the sand filled up everything else. He asked once more if the jar was full.. The students responded with a unanimous ‘yes.’

The professor then produced two Beers from under the table and poured the entire contents into the jar effectively filling the empty space between the sand.The students laughed..

‘Now,’ said the professor as the laughter subsided, ‘I want you to recognize that this jar represents your life. The golf balls are the important things—-your family, your children, your health, your friends and your favorite passions—-and if everything else was lost and only they remained, your life would still be full. The pebbles are the other things that matter like your job, your house and your car.. The sand is everything else—-the small stuff.

‘If you put the sand into the jar first,’ he continued, ‘there is no room for the pebbles or the golf balls. The same goes for life.

If you spend all your time and energy on the small stuff you will never have room for the things that are important to you.

Pay attention to the things that are critical to your happiness.

Spend time with your children. Spend time with your parents. Visit with grandparents. Take your spouse out to dinner. Play another 18. There will always be time to clean the house and mow the lawn.

Take care of the golf balls first—-the things that really matter. Set your priorities. The rest is just sand.

One of the students raised her hand and inquired what the Beer represented. The professor smiled and said, ‘I’m glad you asked.’ The Beer just shows you that no matter how full your life may seem, there’s always room for a couple of Beers with a friend.

Family, Holidays

Back Home Again

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Samhain                                                             Thanksgiving Moon

Back in Minnesota where the house, still sans dogs and Kate, is even quieter.  A snow came during the time I was gone, barely 48 hours.  Not much, but enough to give the yard a coating of white and the driveway one of packed snow.

Thanksgiving at Jon and Jen’s, a family first, went well.  Turkey eaten.  Sweet potatoes and cheese and stuffing and quiche and artichoke and bread pudding with pecan pie and ice cream.  Still, not ramming it in, eating with restraint.

 

(1960 Chrysler Valiant)

When Kate went to pick-up the rental, they were all out of economy so she got upgraded to a Chrysler 200.  I can’t remember the last time I drove a piece of authentic Detroit iron.  A retro experience.  The cushiony ride, the clock in the dash that looked like a small clock for a desk, an interior designed to soothe.  Mostly though, it felt like a gunboat.  Like I should be engaging in some form of diplomacy.  Weird.

Kate worked hard on Thanksgiving and she likes it.  She came back to the hotel and said, “I work hard.”  As if maybe I hadn’t noticed.  She’s out there until Monday.  I pick up the dogs tomorrow and the house’s noise level will pick up again.  I’m looking forward to it.

Family, Holidays

Getting Ready

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Samhain                                                          Thanksgiving Moon

This is a two grandma thanksgiving.  Barb, Jen’s mother, and Kate, Jon’s mother motor around the renovated kitchen chopping, boiling, baking, smashing.  Other family members clean house.  Sponges, windex, vacuums, furniture moved in and out.  Smells of turkey and butter and squash and potatoes invade the house, bringing with them the ghosts of Thanksgiving’s past.

Gabe and Ruth help in various ways.  Gabe by taking a bath and sitting around in his bear costume.  Ruth brings down the little table and the little chairs. “This is where the kids will eat,” she says, throwing a tablecloth on made by another Grandma, Zelma, Jon’s dad’s mom.

Purpose and family.  Food and sunshine.  Tables with many places.  Renovated houses.  Traveling.  Listening to stories.

Romanian in-laws.  How Jon made the table, using tools at a custom woodworking shop.  The laying of the sod.  Gertie’s ACL surgery.  Sollies weight loss.  Again.  The sound of football.  Kids laughing.

Happy Holidays.  Happy Holiseason.

Family

Smiles and Grins

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Samhain                                                                Thanksgiving Moon

Kate took me out to dinner last night.  All smiles.  She had a check representing sales of her bags and microwave hotpad bowls.  It was so great to see.  She grinned and laughed.  A lot different from the moans and groans as Allina made medicine increasingly corporate, organization centered rather than patient and physician centered.  A joy.

 

Dogs, Family

Central Dog Time

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Samhain                                                      New (Thanksgiving) Moon

Kate introduced a new bit of nomenclature into our household:  Central Dog Time or CDT.  Dogs are creatures of habit, especially when it concerns getting up, going to bed and eating.

So are we, come to think of it.  Skype calls with my far-ranging sibs prove that point.  In order to connect on Riyadh time, 5:00 pm and Singapore time, 10:00 pm, I have to initiate our twice a month calls at 9:00 am Andover time.  Last week I came downstairs, fired up Skype and neither Mary nor Mark were online.  Why?  Because it was 6:00 pm in Riyadh and 11:00 pm in Singapore.  I hadn’t shifted my time back to Standard.

CDT operates on the same principle, but explaining the shifted time is much harder.  In effect the dogs have to be retrained to eat and go to bed an hour later.  Then, do the same thing again, backwards, in the spring.  Well, we decided to run our house on CDT, at least as it comes to canines.  We’re doing things on CDT year round now.  Much simpler for everybody.

 

Family

Kate Olson, Crafty

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Samhain                                                            Fallowturn Moon

Kate’s an entrepreneur!  Yesterday was the reopening of downtown Anoka after some street improvements, so she went down and took her market bags to several shops to see if she could interest anyone in buying them.  She sold one bag and got two nibbles for selling more, one that turned into a meeting next Thursday at 5:30 pm.  The look on her face when she got the call about the meeting was pure delight.

(Kate on the first day of going very part time)

She’s a skilled seamstress and quilter who works hours at her craft.  She seems to enjoy all facets of it from buying cloth to finished product. Kate also has a growing partnership of sorts with Ruth, our six year old granddaughter, who is something of a design prodigy.  Ruth sketches out dresses and identifies colors; then, Grandma buys the cloth and makes the dress.  Clothes by Ruth made by Grandma.

Family, Politics

A Global President

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Samhain                                                Fallowturn Moon

Got this from my sister, Mary, a long time resident of Singapore:

“Most Americans would not understand or appreciate Obama’s influence overseas-he is admired here in Asia & I have spoken to many Singaporeans who are very happy he has been reelected he’s like a global president.”

Somewhat by accident I was in Singapore in 2004 on election day.  Mary and I went to the American Club and watched the returns live over breakfast.  Dismal.  If you recall.

I still remember talking with a taxi-driver who worried out loud about the effect of a Bush presidency.  “You just can’t imagine how it feels to have your life so impacted by someone faraway, whom you don’t choose.”  No, but I can imagine how it feels close up when I do choose them.

Dogs, Family, Health, Latin

Friday

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Samhain                                                             Fallowturn Moon

Boy, my Latin was not working for me today.  Like I had elephants tugging to keep my thoughts from surfacing.  I failed to go back over it, to check my work.  Over confident, I guess. Anyhow, felt slow, thick.  Not a good feeling.  It does, however, make me want to double down, get more consistent with my work.

Kate’s been gone yesterday and today at a supportive care cme (continuing medical education).  She’s prepping for what we’ll need, hopefully a couple of decades from now.  She wants to renew her medical license when it comes up in three years and she has to have some number, I think 75, of hours of continuing ed to qualify.  Keeps her head in the world of medicine though she’s very happy that her body is out of it.

Gertie continues to improve, bouncing with a three-legged, then a tender fourth legged, gate.  She’s decided to ignore the plastic cone on her head so she just barrels into doors, gates, people, furniture.  This means she’s feeling better and that’s good; it also means she’s cranking her nuisance quotient up a notch.  Not so good.

Commentary on the news, Family

Storm Central

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Fall                                                                             Fallowturn Moon

Talked to BJ who lives in the Beacon Hotel at 74th and Broadway.  She says the grocery stores have begun to empty of inventory; mass transit is shutdown; many cabbies have gone to homes in Jersey or the Bouroughs; and, that Lower Manhattan–Wall Street, Battery Park and World Trade Center site for example-has flooded.  “It’s all landfill,” she said.  She also mentioned scaffolding and construction cranes.  “How well are they secured?”

Right now it’s only misty though she plans to head after things get rolling.  She’s a photographer as well as a violinist.

Tonight’s the night from what I read.  Storm surge intensified by full moon high tide.