Tag Archives: Kate

Family, Great Wheel, Holidays, Humanities

While The Cyber River Closed

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Samhain                           New Winter Solstice Moon

Midnight  12/6/10

Writing this on Word since I’ve had no internet connection for a few hours.  My limited number of tricks have not produced a link and I don’t have the patience for navigating so-called “customer service.”  George Orwell would be proud of the internet and internet services industry.

Kate’s cold continues with little sign of progress.  She suffers, complains about not liking to be sick, but otherwise Norwegian’s through it all.  She takes illness as a personal insult, something to be shrugged off if possible, if not, to work through and last something that requires rest and chicken noodle soup.  She’s in the latter mode right now.  Good for her.

We skyped tonight.  It’s Hanukkah so the grandkids had various gifts from doting grandparents and uncles and aunts.  The literal hit of the evening was an inflatable t-ball set.  Ruth took swing after swing, often swinging from her right shoulder and leveling at the ball.  She’s co-ordinated for 4.  Or, rather 4 and ½.

Her blond hair swirls, ringlets tumbling every which way as she performs couchnastics, a living room form of gymnastics that replaces gym equipment with the normal living room furniture.

My Latin is still here spread out on the desk beside me.  This Ovid requires slow, laborious work.  Look up words.  Figure out forms.  Check usage possibilities, verb tenses, noun declensions.  A lot of back and forth with books and pages of help.  I realized tonight that it’s a hobby, something I’m doing for fun.  Weird, huh?

Winter has snugged us up in the house, the furnace and insulation our best friends just as the AC and the insulation are our best friends in the summer.  I like winter because it provides all this darkness for desk work, darkness in which there are no outdoor chores.  Therefore, no guilt.

General

Northern Nights

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Samhain                                  Waning Thanksgiving Moon

The night is great.   Still.  When you’re up at 2 am, back to bed around 5 and up at 11:00, then a nap at 2:30, up at 3:45 and its dark by 4.   This is an almost northern night kind of schedule.  Feels weird.

Kate’s gone to Fat Quarter Quilting for a Quilting Guild meeting.  I don’t know if they have secret handshakes and pass along occult sewing tips or not, but I do know Kate enjoys going.

Out of synch.  That’s what I feel.

Commentary on Religion, Faith and Spirituality

Up at the crack of 11

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Samhain                                          Waning Thanksgiving Moon

Up at the crack of 11.  Kate and I went down to Pappy’s cafe for breakfast/brunch.  Pappy’s has a blue collar clientele and we got there just as the post church crowd came in, folks wearing suits for one time in the week, women with that fancy bag and new sweater, everyone looking serious and relieved at the same time, serious that they’d done their duty, relieved that its was over for another week.  Faith is a complex network of acts and activities, some metaphysical and some purely physical.  Dressing up and showing others you both know how and can afford to falls on the physical side.  It reinforces, though, the critical importance of Sunday, of Christianity or Judaism or Islam.  That reinforcement continues in prayer, reading of holy books, considering religious prescriptions and proscriptions.  What we would call a closed hermeneutical circle, meaningful and profound from within, suspect and thin seen from without.

I’m about to head in for a nap, clear my thoughts with sleep.

Cinema and Television, Family, Health, Retirement

Up Again

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Samhain                                                  Waning Thanksgiving Moon

Here I am, at it again.  Don’t know why this damned tooth/jaw deal has interfered with my sleep this last two nights and not before, but there you are.

Got pretty serious there on the post below, so I’ll try to stay a bit lighter here in the dark.

Finished my Latin, english to Latin, yesterday, early, partly because I got up at 4 am or 5 or whatever.  Went back to bed at 9, got up at 11:30.  The whole day seemed off, sort of out of kilter.  Now I’m up again, an insomniac spurred on by the loss of wisdom.  Which, come to think of it, out to do it.

As Kate comes closer and closer to retirement, January 7th is her date, I can sense a change, a sort of gathering in, nesting beginning.  I just ordered a few books on movies, for example, thinking we might use our Netflix account to watch movies together one night a week, a date but at home.  We’ve also gotten Kate’s quilt operation set up in a sewing room, upstairs, her long arm quilter, downstairs where her sewing room used to be and her piecing table cum storage in the spot we once had a pool table.

We’ve spent a good bit of time, as I’m sure most do, on our retirement finances, a project not yet finished, with my pension numbers yet to come and Kate’s medicare part D, but we’ll finish before the end of December.

Given the adequate, but tight fit of our budget in the coming years, we’ll probably travel less, a thought that at one time would have jarred me, but that now I find manageable.  Short trips to visit family, perhaps longer ones up north or down to Chicago, not quite so far away, so much money.  We’ll save up for a trip or two to somewhere interesting:  Churchill, Ontario, the Southwest, but cruises and foreign travel will be difficult.

In the growing season, of course, we have the bees, the orchard, the vegetable gardens and the flower gardens that we care for together.  We’ll get into the city to the museums, theatre and music more than we have.

Mostly, though, we’ll enjoy each others company and live not a good deal differently from what we do right now.

Aging, Family, Holidays

Axel’s

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Samhain                                        Waning Thanksgiving Moon

Kate, Annie and I ate Thanksgiving dinner at Axel’s Woodroast in Roseville.  This was a major production, a huge buffet and seating for family size parties in the ballroom.  The food was good, not gourmet, but good.  I actually had breakfast, more or less, a crepe, bacon, scrambled eggs, some asparagus, watermelon and a mixed green salad followed by two creme brulee tarts.  Our waitress was an old hand who stayed mostly out of the picture, showing up just when we needed things for the most part.

I found the large number of people satisfying, as it mimicked the crowded Thanksgivings of my childhood.  I had the large number of people feeling without having to actually interact them.  Perfect.

Kate’s in for a nap, the dogs have toys to play with and I’m going back to reading my Chinese mystery novel.

Hope your afternoon is a good one, too.

Aging, Health, Retirement

Life

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Samhain                                       Waxing Thanksgiving Moon

Another morning spent worrying our post-retirement budget, trying to make it fit our post-retirement income.  We’ll be able to do it and we’ll be fine: enough to eat, space and place to do things we love, but, like most folks, we won’t have as much as we would like.  Fancy trips don’t look too likely anymore.   Instead we’ll be splurging on long term care insurance, medicare part d and automobile insurance.  See a theme here?

In this recession or technically post recessionary time those are huge pluses.  We’ll be able to contribute to the health of the planet, too, as well as sharing the arts with others, each in our own way.  Life continues and that, by itself, is good.

Family, Sport

Out, Out Damned Football

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Samhain                                                  Full Thanksgiving Moon

Like quitting smoking, which I did cold turkey, I have quit watching football.  I don’t need the aggravation, especially with the Vikes and I don’t see the gain, if any, as worth it anymore.  Leaves me with Sunday to clear up piles, do Latin, that sort of thing.  On the other hand the Gopher basketball team looks pretty good.

Kate’s home from her retreat with more stash and a few more projects.  She’s started on a Japanese quilt design that looks pretty interesting.

Aging, Family, Weather +Climate

Yak Trax

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Samhain                                                Waxing Thanksgiving Moon

We have a sloping, long drive way.  Most days no big deal.  On days like today, when rain has fallen, then frozen, it requires special equipment:  yak trax.  They slip on over the shoe or boot and the rope like wire keeps you upright.  I bought a pair of these after going out for the paper one morning, not real long after my achilles repair.  My feet went up and I fell just like one of those cartoon characters, head smacking the driveway with no restraint.  Blood pulsing down my head I went inside, woke Kate up and said, “I think I need some help here.”  These days I slip on the yaktrax and walk with a grip to the mailbox.

Kate called this morning from her quilt retreat bus, on her way to Eau Claire.  A truck pulling two trailers had upended near the spot of her call.  That part of Wisconsin can be treacherous in this kind of weather.  She said the bus driver had it handled.  I hope so.

I’m going through an episodic pile reduction, pitching or filing paper of one kind or another that seemed important at one point in the past.  I always the feel when I finish.  Clarity.

Aging, Bees, Family, Friends, Retirement

Sheepshead

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Samhain                                               Waxing Thanksgiving Moon

The card gods were pretty good to me.  I had some good hands, some good luck and a lot of fun tonight at sheepshead.  We had a great evening with a lot of laughter.  It’s nice to be with guys who can see the humor in their own lives.

The wisdom teeth began to throb tonight, a bit surprising after a calm period since the extraction.  I’ve felt fatigued and a bit spacy, but no real pain until today.

I will be happy when Kate’s work is done in early January and she goes on casual time.  Having her here will make our home feel more vital.

Over the weekend I plan to put the bees to rest for the winter and make some more soup with the last of the leeks.  Latin tomorrow.

Aging, Family, Retirement

Getting Closer

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Samhain                                          Waxing Thanksgiving Moon

Kate spent 3+ hours at a sewing workshop, creating place mats.  They’re beautiful.  She’s done a lot recently to kick her sewing up another notch, learning how to use the embroidery module on her Bernina, assembling her machine quilter, making more difficult quilts, turning out purses of her own design, going to classes, joining a quilting guild and signing up for road trips to various quilt shops.  She sews a lot, disappearing into her sewing room and working for hours at a stretch, often oblivious to time.  She gets in flow.

She’s a bare month and half + a few days from retirement and she’s ready.  Her casual time will be only 4 work units or so a month with plenty of flexibility.

Our day-to-day lives will probably change little, except Kate won’t be leaving for work at any point during the day.  Once she’s retired, I plan to drive the truck in the winter and let the red car ride out the icy season in the garage.  It’s not the best on snow and ice.  That sort of thing, otherwise we’ll cook, tend the garden, do our creative work, travel some, volunteer here and there.

Living, not retiring.