Category Archives: Family

Cinema and Television, Family, Literature, Travel

1Q84, Girl With Dragon Tattoo and Dancing Horses

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Winter                                     First Moon of the New Year

Buddy Mark Odegard told me he just finished 1Q84.  Me, too.  Last night, in fact.  This is a good, maybe a great novel.  Time will tell on the evaluation.  It has a good mix of magic realism, Kafka, contemporary product placements, love story and a peak inside Japanese society at this point in the new millennium.

It affected me in a deep way, wondering about the nature of this reality and alternatives to it.  Wondering about the origin of religious beliefs.  Wondering if the Japanese appear as similar to us as they do in reading Murakami.  1Q84 will have to set with me for a while, perhaps a long while.

Also saw David Fincher’s Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.  Long and beautiful, it recreates the mood and jarring character of Lisbeth, the mystery of Harriet Vanger and the investigative tenacity of Mikhail Bloomfield.  We were part of a small crowd of gray haired folk, a quartet of women in front of us who had one woman explaining the ending to her friends.  Over and over.

We’ve also seen the Swedish version, a grittier piece with lower production values.  Naomi Rapace seemed to inhabit the angry side of Lisbeth better than Rooney Mara, though Mara exposed her gentle side.

We’re off to Dancing Horses tonight, for something completely different.  The last night here with the Denver Olsons.  Tomorrow we pack up and return home.

 

Family, Retirement, Travel

Free Time

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Winter                    First Moon of the New Year

The grandkids are back in school today;  Jon and Jen back in their classrooms, so we’re on free time.  I want to go to the Denver Art Museum and see a Pacific Northwest exhibit they were installing last time I was there.

Due to Kate’s impending retirement this may be the last time we travel out here together for a while.  Too expensive to board all the dogs.  While we won’t be on a fixed income, it will be less plastic than during Kate’s employment years.  Unless, of course, I finally push a novel over the transom.  Then we could a little extra cash.

Limitations are part of life so I don’t find that prospect daunting, only something new to take into account.

That’s all from the Mile High City for today.

Family, Travel

Jumping Horses

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Winter                            First Moon of the New Year

Sometimes you do something for one reason and have an unexpected outcome.  Tonight was like that for me.

The Great Western Stock Show, Colorado’s winter State Fair-like celebration of things Western, has become my time to visit with the grandkids.  I take the kids to a couple of shows, walk through the exhibition hall with them and get down into the stock barns, too.

This afternoon at 5 we boarded a shuttle here at the Best Western, making it out to the show around 5:15.  Gabe had his picture taken on a Clydesdale.  3 year old Gabe and this giant horse made quite the shot.  Very big horse, very small Gabe.

After a dinner of polish, briskets and chicken nuggets we wandered the merchandise and exhibition halls, seeing John Deere implements, cattle chutes, Western clothing, candy, baby chicks, several cages filled with chickens, a bee exhibit (I chatted with some Colorado bee keepers) and bought Ruth a lavender cowgirl hat.

Before going to the main event, we wandered through the horse barns, stopping to communicate with a few.  On the wall opposite the last of the horse stalls were some larger stalls.  In two of them  were Texas Longhorn cattle.  One came out of the stall while we watched, he had to angle his head to maneuver those huge horns through a three foot + opening.

Then we went to the event center for the Grand Prix, a $40,000 steeple chase, which pitted 27 horses and several riders against an 80 second clock and a series of jumps designed by the top steeple chase course designer in the US.

I’d never seen horse jumping live.  It amazed me.  These huge animals and their relatively small riders approached jumps of various heights, widths and construction.  One had water and another had a brick wall, both difficult for horses to cross.

The horse would gather itself in stride, then leap, stretching out those four legs, legs meant to have contact with the earth and follow their momentum across the obstacles.  This is an act of courage, skill, athleticism and beauty.  On the part of both rider and horse.

I would do this again.   Never occurred to me I might like it.

 

 

Family, Travel

The Triangle Hotel

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Winter                        First Moon of the New Year

Worked this morning on the novel.  Finally finished editing all the stuff I’d written before and got back to actual writing.  A bit of stop and go, flushing out the pipes, reorienting the fiction side of my brain, but a page or two got put into bytes before lunch time.

Kate was over at Jon and Jen’s helping Ruthie clean her room.  Lunch at the Renaissance Hotel, a ziggurat inside with open balconies narrowing as they get toward the top.  Plants dangle from a few planters, the paint is an egg shell gold.

Gabe and Ruth refer to the Renaissance as the triangle hotel, a landmark visible when returning from Ruth’s gymnastic practice.

In the gift shop you can buy Stetsons, belt buckles, items carved from deer antlers and many accessories decorated with large flared crosses, studded with rhinestones.  This is Great Western Stock Show memorabilia and disappears when the horse and cattle trailers pull out headed for Wyoming, Montana or Texas.

Family, Travel

Shopping in the Physical Universe Is So Last Millennium

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Winter                                       First Moon of the New Year

Off to Joann Fabrics with Ruth.  Kate and Ruth found fabric to make several dresses, some for Ruth and some for Elizabeth, her American Girl doll.  Granpop went off into the wilds of mall land, proving to himself once again that shopping in the physical universe is so last millennium.

Searching in real time for objects that can be in one of several locations takes a lot of time and, as happened to me this morning, is not always successful.  I did get a new battery for my watch…something that has to be done in the physical world since I don’t remove my own watch backs, though I could I suppose.

Finding a camera strap and a lens cap for my camera proved impossible in the amount of time I had.  Best Buy had neither one, but I did pick up some double A batteries.  The Wolf Camera, supposed to solve my remaining problem acted like the ivory pileated woodpecker.  It just wouldn’t appear.

By the time I got back to Joann Fabrics, an hour plus later, Ruth and Kate had made it to the cash register.  They paid, we hopped in the car and went to Panda Express.  Big fun all round.

Family, Travel

Zoo Interreptus

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Winter                            First Moon of the New Year

Gabe, Jen, Kate and I settled into the Nissan rental for our trip to the zoo.  We headed down the boulevarded Martin Luther King to Colorado, took a left, south, and followed the signs to the zoo, not far away, especially not far away compared to the zoo…

This entry was cut short by the call from Jen to go pick up Jon.  The zoo faded into the afternoon as Jen and I drove out Hwy 70 into the Rocky Mountains, crossed Loveland Pass and dropped down its far side to the Arapahoe Ski Area or A-Basin as skiers here call it.

The clouds had an unreal rose and gold tint and the mountains in front of them looked like a movie set.  We drove up Loveland Pass behind a gasoline tanker truck and descended in 2nd gear.

Denver traffic coming and going from the mountains during the snow months, especially on weekends, can resemble a good-old fashioned Chicago rush hour, but this particular evening the road had plenty of space.  Ruthie and I scooted home ahead of Jon and Jen.

On the way out I noticed several vehicles with Co-exist bumper stickers, a sure sign of paganism.  Made me feel good.

Kate says Jon’s head knock is a serious concussion, the kind that, if repeated, could result in brain trauma.  Nothing to play with.

Family, Travel

Family

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Winter                                      First Moon of the New Year

Got to drive into the mountains.  I hadn’t planned on it, but Jon fell today while skiing and bonked his head, didn’t feel good enough to drive home, so he called for support.  Jen and I drove out in the rental, then Jon and Jen drove back in their car and I brought Ruth home.

It had an oddly powerful effect on me, this drive.  It felt good to support family, very good, in a tangible hands on way.  Made me rethink our decision not to move out here.  A part of me wishes we could be here, be available for these kind of ordinary family incidents, a strong part.

The other part, the rooted emplaced part, says moving still makes no sense.  Selling the house in this market.  Leaving friends and health care providers behind.  Political connections.  The museums.  Our gardens, bees and the house we’ve adapted to our life.

These are difficult, no right answer dilemmas.  Wish we could be both places.  You know. They divide their life between Andover, Minnesota and the Rocky Mountains.  That sort of thing.  But, even though we have adequate funds for retirement, we don’t have enough to bi-locate.

I imagine we’ll stay where we are, not out of inertia, because it makes the most sense right now.

Family, Travel

Jon, Jen, Ruth and Gabe

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Winter                   First Moon of the New Year

Sunny and 54 here in Denver today.  Heading out to the zoo with grandson Gabe and daughter-in-law Jen.

Ruth and Jon drove into the mountains to A-basin at 5:30 this morning.  Ruth has an all day ski lesson while Jon will try to find runs not crowded with newbies.  Not much snow here so the existing runs have become clogged.

Jon moved out here ten years ago and has taken full advantage of the location.  He skis as often as he can, which means weekly at least in most cases.  He climbs mountains and skies down rugged terrain.

He’s no youngster, either, at 43. He’s stayed in good shape and manages his chronic illnesses with grace.  He has diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis and addison’s disease.  Any one of these would give most folks an excuse to sit in the easy chair, but not Jon.

He’s an artist, a teacher, a father, an athlete and a home renovator. Pretty impressive.

Dogs, Family, Travel

Travel Weary

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Winter                                    First Moon of the New Year

We’re off to Denver this afternoon.  Though I want to see the grandkids and the new addition to Jon and Jen’s house, I confess I’m travel weary and not looking forward to the airplane.  Also, I’ve just begun to ease into a new rhythm, working on my three major projects, doing the short burst training and going away for a week means I’ll have to reestablish all those things when we get back.

Once we’re in the air, on the ground and tucked into our hotel room, I’ll feel different, excited to be there, I know.  But right now.  Not so much.

The dogs are away at the kennel and the house has an empty, hollow feel.  Their energy, tussle and pull, keeps three year old inquisitiveness as part of our daily life.  I like it and miss it.

Though.  When we got to the kennel yesterday, Rigel, one of our big girls, right at 100 pounds, shook off the handler who had a leash ready for her and ran away from the truck.  Straight to the door into the kennel.  She likes the place.

Talk to you later from the mile high city.

 

Family, Friends, Weather +Climate

Playing Cards

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Winter                                 First Moon of the Winter Solstice

Oh.  The card gods had it in for me tonight.  And about time, too.  I got cards that were almost good enough, but not quite.  And I kept playing them.  And playing them.  And then some more.  I had a great time.  It’s fun playing with these guys, win or lose.

On the way back from the game I felt great.  Realized at this point that this feeling lifts me up and the serious, more work ahead feeling after political meetings, not so much, and I want more lift me up in my life.

Driving back there were snow flurries, the temperature was either 17–the truckometer, 12–the sign on 35W just after 694 going north or 28–HOM furniture, which always runs hot.  Around 13 by my educated ears.  Windy, too.  Downright chilly.

Felt great.

Off to Denver in the AM.  The Great Western Stock Show.  Grandkids.  Time with my honey.