Category Archives: Family

Aging, Family, Humanities, Literature, Our Land and Home, Weather +Climate

Heavy, Man, Heavy

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Samhain                                           Waxing Thanksgiving Moon

File under the things we do for love.  Kate asked me, as a big favor, if I would clear the sidewalk and a path to the mailbox.  I agreed albeit reluctantly. Never again.  This type of snow, laden with water, dense and prone to packing tight when moved, is just too hard for me to clear.  It clogs up the snowblower, so the snowblower’s out.  Lifting it is beyond my frame’s capacity.  I knew it, but I did it anyhow.  Ouch.

The snow took off the top of the cedar tree’s other trunk, too, so the whole thing will need to come down.  That means the chain saw, sometime soon.  That, I can do.

After pushing some snow around, I harvested the last of the leeks, fine looking vegetables.  The greens, kale and chard in particular, will continue growing until the ground freezes, so I’ll probably have one more harvest from them, too.

Most of the morning I tried to pack in some material not too different from the heavy snow:  Latin participles.  As participles, they share in the attributes of both the adjective–meaning declensions–and verbs–meaning tense and voice.  In addition the participles tense does not follow the verbs because the participle can cue action either concurrent, before or after the action of the verb.  In addition, just to confuse things, the present tense and the passive future tense use the verbs present tense stem to form the participle while the future tense and the passive perfect tense use the participle stem.  Yikes.

I know, I know.  I’m doing this on purpose.  I’m just venting.

Aging, Family, Retirement

Adult Activity

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Samhain                                                Waxing Thanksgiving Moon

Another meeting with Ruth Hayden, our cash flow and strategy money person.  She’s so sharp.

Kate has done so well with earning money and putting money away that we’re going to have an ok retirement.  We’re still calculating, but things look good.

The transition from Kate working full time to casual time, then to full retirement is something I anticipate with pleasure.  I have wanted to grow old with her and now we can get started.

Being adult, though, for a whole morning makes me want to run screaming into the streets, doing something crazy.  Gonna have to settle for handling the comcast installer.  That’s crazy, in it’s own demented way.

Art and Culture, Family

Haulin’ Art

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Samhain                                       Waxing Thanksgiving Moon

A U-Haul 10 foot truck and I went into Minneapolis around 9:30 this morning bound for the MIA.  The MIA’s loading dock anyhow.  The Midwest Center for Art Conservation finished work on Jerry’s painting, Fall Band.  It’s a big painting, fitting into the truck with about 1/2″ to spare.  Jon and I put cardboard boxes underneath it for stability and shoved it, gently, against the back wall.  I promised to drive carefully, with no sudden stops.  Just like the first time carrying a baby.

(a drawing of Jerry’s from his website)

That was AM.  Now I’m up from my nap and ready to construct my first tour for the Thaw exhibition which I give on Thursday for the Rochester Friends of the MIA.

Aging, Art and Culture, Faith and Spirituality, Family, Friends, GeekWorld, Humanities, Politics, Retirement

Gadget Obsessed? Moi?

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Samhain                                                          New (Thanksgiving) Moon

To call me gadget obsessed might take reality a tad too far, but not much.  I saved up some money and bought a TIVO.  It took me this afternoon to get it set up and working, putting the cables in the right places, getting the codes right, creating a few channels on Pandora, wondering at the limited Netflix options when the full menu is available on my new Play Station 3, (OK, maybe it’s not quite far enough.) and deciding whether or not to ditch the cable tv subscription from Comcast, my least favorite company of the week.

In spite of myself it looks like keeping the cable subscription is still the best way to get the most out of the TV.  I’m gonna keep checking though since new ways to watch movies and broadcast shows keep popping up.  Most of what’s on tv is low culture, but often compelling anyhow and even the stuff I like that’s not compelling entertains me. With streaming movies the content available at home on demand has increased a hundred fold.

As a general rule, I don’t watch tv to get educated and I’m rarely disappointed.

Even with the increased quality and options though, nothing on the tube–that phrase dates me like saying icebox–compares to the live music, open studios and visiting with friends at Art Attack last night.  Remember Alvin Toffler?  The futurist from a long time ago.  He talked about high tech, high touch and I’ve found him right on that score.  I use the internet, the facility of cable tv combined with the internet and software like WordPress and Microsoft Word to make me much more productive in the work I choose to do, but going in to the MIA and seeing my docent friends or over to Paul’s house for a Woolly meeting, a Sierra Club meeting on Franklin Avenue are equally important to me.  Without them I would be a hermit.

A lot in the hermit’s solitude appeals to me, so I’m happy Kate and I have created a place here where we can be alone and creative, just the two of us, but I need face to face time with others, too.

Family, Humanities

Let There Be Lights

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Fall                                               Waxing Harvest Moon

Speaking of money, I know about a good sale.  Lights on Broadway in Brooklyn Park is closing and they have really marked down their tremendous diversity of lighting products.  If you need any kind of lamp at all, it’s a good place and time to buy them.  Kate and I spent the morning there, finishing up some lighting choices we had left over from the remodel now some time ago.

After that, lunch at Khan’s Mongolian Barbecue.  Lunch with Kate is a date every time, dinner, too.  Our life together continues to unfold in new and positive ways.

No tour this week so I can hit the Latin hard.  I flagged off Greg last week because I just had too much to do, but I’ve finished Chapter 21 and will work tomorrow on Chapter 22.  Maybe get in a bit of work on the Metamorphosis.

I put this link in an e-mail to friends and I thought I’d add it here, too.  An amazing graphic presentation on scale from sizes below neutrinos all the way to local clusters of galaxies and beyond.  Scale of the Universe.

Family, Great Work, Minnesota, Our Land and Home

Grounded

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Fall                                    Waxing Harvest Moon

As many readers know, my sister and brother live in Southeast Asia, Mary in Singapore and Mark in Bangkok.  It’s different for me.  Kate and I have lived in Andover, in the same house with potato670050210the same land, for 16 years. I’ve driven the same car for 15 years and Kate’s driven the same truck for 10.  I’ve now been married to Kate much longer than the total of my first two marriages:  22 years versus 15.  I’ve lived in Andover longer than anywhere else:  Oklahoma-2 years, Alexandria-15 years.  I’ve lived in this house far longer than any other residence.

This came up today when Kate and I headed out to lunch.  I feel a part of this land, as if it’s part of me and I of it.  But.  I don’t feel the same about Andover.  There’s no here, here.  I have no memories of school here or my children in school.  My political involvement has been limited, recently to being an election judge.  Andover doesn’t feel like home to me, though 3122 153rd Ave NW does.

You might say I live a grounded life, if not close to the soil, certainly in partnership with it.  Perhaps the uncertainty and turmoil in my late high school and immediate post-high school years lead me to seek some stasis, I don’t know.  What I do know is that with Kate and with this land I have made a home.  And I’m glad.

Family, Weather +Climate

Oh, My.

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Fall                                       Waxing Harvest Moon

A glorious, beautiful day.  Who would imagine 81 on October 9th?  Tomorrow, for you numerologists is 10/10/10, one more and we’d arrive at the 1o,000 things.

Lions and tigers and bears.  Latin and Baroque and legislation, oh my.  Life’s back to full tilt boogie and I’m dancing fast to keep up.

Kate just back from learning more about the embroidery module on her Bernina.  She can make labels now and personalize other things she makes.  A Hanukkah label like a gift tag and an embroidered rose in red and green were the particular things she did today.

Back to the treadmill.  Next week, back to resistance work.

Aging, Bees, Family, Friends, Great Wheel, Memories, Travel

Harvest

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Fall                                      New (Harvest) Moon

Second round of apiguard in the parent and the divide.  The top box on the package colony has gotten heavier, but I plan to feed them some more as I will do to the parent once the apiguard comes off in two weeks.  Sometime in early November I’ll get out the cardboard wraps and cover the hives for winter.  That will pretty much finish bee work for the year until late February or early March.  I’ve given away honey and plan to give away more.  Part of the fun.

A quick walk through the vegetable garden shows kale and swiss chard looking good, a few rogue onions that escaped the harvest, plenty of carrots, beets and butternut squash.  The harvest is 2010-10-04_0351not yet over and will go on until the ground threatens to become hard.

While I drove through the countryside on my way back to Lafayette on Monday, I passed field after field of corn and beans, some harvested, some not, about half and half.  Seeing those scenes put me right back at home, especially the corn fields.  Here’s a field near Peru, Indiana with the combine spilling corn into a tractor trailer for transport either to a corn bin, grain dryer or even straight to the grain elevators, all depending on the price and moisture content of the corn.

Indiana is no longer home, Minnesota is, but Indiana has a large section of my heart, the chamber of childhood and early young adulthood, a room full of corn fields, basketball, small towns, a baby sister and brother, county fairs and James Whitcomb Riley poems.  I was glad to be there the last few days and to walk again in the part of my heart filled there so long ago.

We move now toward Samhain, Summer’s End.  Blessed be.

Family, Travel

Quite a Yarn

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Fall                                Waning Back to School Moon

October 5th, 2010 Union Station, Chicago, Room 4, Car 0730

Last night I found a Korean restaurant just off State Street in Lafayette. I ordered the Duk Man Guk, a spicy soup with egg, pot stickers, seasoned beef and sliced rice balls. After a quick glance over to t he young woman across the way who looked Korean and had ordered the same thing, I used the long spoon. The owner brought me another dish of kimchee after I finished off the first one fast. She seemed pleased I liked it. There were only Asian students eating there, just off the Purdue campus.

The Hilton Garden Inn had nowhere near the character of the Western Hotel at Camp Chesterfield, but it did have an internet connection. I finished some work I had to stop when I moved into the 19th century over the weekend.

This morning it was up at 6:30 am, shower, pack and walk across the pedestrian bridge over the Wabash to the Amtrak section just at its end. A lovely slice of Back to School moon hung in the dark blue sky while we huddled together in the morning coolness waiting for the train to come around the bend. A young man of 2 or 3 years screamed and hollered. He did not want to go on the train. His mom said he thought it was too big.

It wasn’t.

Three hours later we rolled into Union Station. Backwards. Don’t know why.2010-10-05_0323

Wandered around Chicago for a while, just looking, admiring building facades, enjoying the skyscrapers, blending in with the busy and the distracted. I decided to head down to Printer’s Row, the South Loop, hoping I could pick up a jazz related gift for 88.5 listening wife. There are jazz joints down there. No joy. All closed up at 10:45.

Having missed breakfast I went into an Italian restaurant and had an early lunch.

After lunch I discovered a fancy yarn shop and found a good gift for Kate. She’s a textiles and yarn artist, so I bought her some merino wool yarn. It’s a beautiful multi-colored pattern, 1800 feet worth. Seems like a lot to me.

Back to the Metropolitan Lounge in Union Station and now on the train.  Heading north.

Bees, Commentary on Religion, Cooking, Faith and Spirituality, Family, Garden, Sport

Grounded

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Lughnasa                               Waxing Back to School Moon

Finished digging the potatoes.  The crop seems smaller than last year’s, but I can’t tell for sure.  Still, we don’t eat potatoes often and we have enough to last us quite awhile.  Kate made an early autumn roast vegetable medley with onions, carrots, leaks, garlic, beets and one potato I pierced with the spading fork.  It was delicious.  So was the raspberry pie–of which we have two.  Our raspberry bushes have been exuberant.  We’ve still got leeks, greens, beets, carrots and squash in the ground.  Some of it will stay in the ground until the frost and freeze gets serious.  I made a mistake last year with the carrots and didn’t get them out before the ground froze.  They became organic matter for the soil.  We also left our entire potato crop out in our garage stair well.  When the temps dropped down, way down, the potatoes froze, then thawed.  Not good for potatoes.  We’re trying to not make those mistakes this year.  We’ll make new ones!

Working with Leslie today reminded me of the punch there is in ministry.  Yes, the institutional confines squeeze life out of faith, but the individuals, the people can put it back.  She asked me an interesting question.  We got to talking about Christianity and she wondered, “Do you miss it?”  I’m not sure anyone has asked just that question of me.  I don’t, not at a faith level.

I miss the thick web of relationships I once had there.  I miss the opportunity to do bible study.  That may sound strange, but higher criticism of the bible is a scholarly affair requiring history, language, knowledge of mythology and tradition, sensitivity to redactors (editors), an awareness of textual differences, as well as a knowledge of the bible as a whole.  I spent a lot of time learning biblical criticism and I enjoyed it.  Not much call for it in UU or humanist circles though.

By the time my nap finished it was too late to put the shims in the hives.  I hope there’s some clear, sunny time tomorrow.  Also need to put the feeder back on the package colony.

The Vikings.  Not sure.  Favre needs some better wide receivers, yes.  The defense played well.  Adrian Peterson did, too.  It felt as if we were outcoached the last two games.  Not sure about that, that’s a murky area to me, but something doesn’t feel quite right.