• Tag Archives party

  • The Hereford Queen

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Winter                                                               Full Moon of The Cold Month   0 degrees

    Here’s a picture I took with my cell phone at the Great Western Stock Show.  That’s the Hereford Queen in white, all white.    Hereford Queen

    Confusing.  Yesterday I had cold symptoms that I had to knock back for Kate’s party.  Thank you Dayquil.  Today most of the symptoms are gone except that nagging, worn out feeling, the sort you get when your body has other things to do than help you be alert.

    Today marks the end of Kate’s second full work week of retirement, one in Colorado and one in Minnesota.  We’re still sinking back into it, realizing the nuances.  Probably won’t be clear for a year or two.  We need a full garden and holiseason cycle, too.

    This has been a cold winter already and it will get yet colder tonight, though not as cold as last night.  A fire, a book, supper, TV and bed.  That’ll put this cold back in the bottle.

    This was a busy week with the Target tour on Monday, the Woolly Meeting at Scott’s in the evening of the same day, getting ready for the Legcom and holding the meeting, then the last minute prepping for Kate’s party, the Expressionist tour yesterday morning, then the party in the evening.  That’s a lot for this guy in terms of outside obligations.  Next week looks a bit more subdued, though Monday looks like a lot going on, again.  This means I can get back in the Latin groove, push myself toward finishing Vanished.  It’s a keeper and I’ve a good bit of it done already.


    📂This entry was posted in Aging Family Retirement 📎and tagged

  • Kate Has Other Things To Do

    Posted on by Charles 1 Comment

    Winter                                                                         Full Moon of the Cold Month      -18 outside right now

    Woolly Mammoths on parade.  The herd came to the event last night.  Docents came, too.  Tom and Allison and Kathleen and Wendy and Joy and Carreen and Grace and Jean-Ann 6702011-01-20_0607and Paul. Paula came.  John Pastorius came.  Suwy came, not once, but twice, at the beginning and at the end.  From Shoreview.  Before and after work.  Kate’s nail lady and hair dresser came.  The Perlichs came, Lydia and Pam.  Greg and Ana came.  Nurses and docs and lab techs from the Coon Rapids Clinic came.  Jane and Dobbie West.  Around 100 over the evening.  Lois and Hank came.  Jettie Ann, Jean Ann, Mingjen and a couple of other CIF folks came.  There was even a woman who wandered in, not sure what was going on.  Once she realized it was a retirement party she went to the gift shop and bought Kate a small beaded purse that matched her jacket.

    We gave away fabric bowls, a pillow, a purse and a pint of Artemis Honey.  Conversation ebbed and flowed.  Servers passed sparkling cider and champagne, appertifs, too.  One, a Kobe beef with shrimp in truffle aioli sauce got rave reviews.  The Turtle Island String Quartet played through the speakers and the buffet always had a few folks at the counter.

    Some wandered off into the museum and came back.  Many had not been to the museum before.  Many had.  Kate wanted the event to provide closure.  She said it did.

    Then we loaded up the truck and drove home, the temperature dropping degree by degree to -13 as we got home.


    📂This entry was posted in Aging Family Retirement 📎and tagged

  • Grab It, Now!

    Posted on by Charles Comment

     

    Winter                                                      Waning Moon of the Winter Solstice

    Just back from the former Kinko’s, printing the invitation for Kate’s retirement party, Coming of Age: the Art of Retirement.  We have entered the good-bye phase of life.  Good-bye to work.  Good-bye to cousins, aunts, uncles.  Good-bye to homes and states.  Good-bye to life.  Viewed from the vantage point of youth this must seem a dreadfully depressing, black life stage, in fact the opposite is true.  As death comes closer, most of us finally get the message:  live in the now.  Live today, not in regrets about yesterday or anxiety about the future.

    A calmness comes with this perspective, a realization that this life, this moment has the only juice you’ll ever get.  So, we try to ring as much as possible out of the day:  Ike’s funeral, Kate’s retirement, the days we have when we’re able to garden and tend the bees, the opportunities we have to work on environmental advocacy, to roam the museum and spend hours talking about art, to eat and talk with friends like the Woolly Mammoths.  These are life.

    Corny as it sounds, I always liked the very existential Schlitz ad:  You only go round once in life, grab all the gusto you can.  Laissez bon temps rouler!


    📂This entry was posted in Aging Family Friends Retirement 📎and tagged

  • You, Yes You, Are Invited

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Winter                                            Waning Moon of the Winter Solstice

    If you read ancientrails, you’ll likely get an invitation either by e-mail or snail mail or by hand.  But, if you don’t, and you see it here and can come,  please come.  The idea is the more the merrier. Kate’s retiring and we want to mark the occasion with friends of both of us.

    We’ve scheduled the party during the Third Thursday event at the MIA because the museum puts on a different face and has lot of extra activities.  We’ll have appetizers and beverages in the Wells Fargo Room.

    The art work here is a piece I commissioned from Chicago artist, Deb Yankowski, in honor of this transition.   More details to come.

    You’re Invited To An Event

    Coming of Age:  The Art of Retirement

    6702010-12-27_0548

    She opens her mouth with wisdom

    And the teaching of kindness is on her tongue

    Give her credit for the fruit of her labors

    And let her achievements praise her at the gates.

    (English translation)

    January 20th, 5-9 P.M.  Minneapolis Museum of Art


    📂This entry was posted in Aging Art and Culture Family Friends Retirement 📎and tagged

  • Men Always Need Help

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    61  bar steady 30.14  0mph N dew-point 57  sunrise 6:16  sunset 8:19

    Full Corn Moon  moonrise 2014    moonset  0554

    Whoa.  Did you see the 7th gold medal race for Phelps?  His long, long arms came out of an arcing stroke, reached for the touch pad and, by .01 of a second, arrived ahead of the silver medalist.  To the naked eye it looked like Phelps did not make it.  A later interview with Mark Spitz, also winner of 7 gold medals, showed Phelps a humble and more realistic viewer of his own accomplishments than others.  Others wanted to make him the greatest Olympian; he said he was happy to be among the ones considered great, like Jesse Owens.  All this and modesty, too?  A great American to represent us in a country which understands the value of modesty.

    With the Woollies here on Monday Kate and I have begun to get into preparation mode.  We don’t entertain often, hardly at all, but fortunately she’s an experienced suburbanite.  She can throw a party.  Best of all, she’s doing it on her birthday.  I’m lucky and the Woolly palate will be lucky.

    The garden will get a spruce up.  I’ll dead-head all the day lilies and pull the obvious weeds if there are any.  The weeds growing up between the patio bricks will come out, too.  They could have come out a while ago, but we’ve had other matters.  The fire-pit can hold a fire, though its not pretty, nor finished, but the pit itself exists.  A bit of shuffling papers upstairs,  some art to the living room, turning furniture in a group friendly circle and we’ll be ready.  I’m looking forward to having the guys over and discussing what it means to be an America.

    Kobe Bryant tonight on TV said he was proud to have USA on his team jersey. We’re the best, he said.  Not sure what that means, but that’s the question for Monday.

    Apropos of none of the above is a story from the last Sierra Club political committee meeting.  We decided the three Minnesota house races we would target and a male committee member looked at the list after we’d congratulated ourselves on sorting out a complicated task, “Yeah, except we picked all the guys.”  There had been six races, three with men and three with women.

    As his comment settled on the group, Katarina, the Sierra Club intern from Lentz, Germany looked up, smiled, and said, “That’s all right.  Men always need help anyway.”  Ooofff.


    📂This entry was posted in Friends Garden 📎and tagged