In not quite a decade, between meeting Richard (June 7, 1981) and June 1989, I went from watching races only sporadically to track side attendance at the inaugural Formula 1 street race in Phoenix. In my early days of race viewing, the challenge was simply finding a re-play of a race as only the “jewel” in the racing crown – Monaco – might, just might be aired in real time.
Six seasons of Drive to Survive has increased viewership and a variety of streaming services now ensures race coverage with experienced commentary. And, with more viewing my familiarity with tire degradation and slip stream passes also expands. The longest season ever run started this weekend in Bahrain and we will follow this most expensive motor sport from lights out starts to checkered flag finishes all the way to Abu Dhabi.
Bahrain podium finishers: 1- Max Verstappen, Red Bull; 2- Sergio Perez, Red Bull; 3- Carlos Sainz, Ferrari.
Photo details: Canadian Gran Prix, Montréal, Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, June 7, 1998. Last lap, with Michael Schumacher in the lead and winning the race for Ferrari.
This story began long ago, 100 years ago today, when Momma was born on December 29, 1923, in a little house on 8th Avenue in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. It had been the caretaker’s residence for the big house next door. It did not have running water and Grandpa had to go to the big house with a bucket. He always talked about how tiny she was and how cold it was that day – so cold that ice formed overnight on the water in the bucket.
The changes in those 100 years are so numerous as to be impossible to inventory. Momma remembers riding in Grandpa’s Model T and there is picture proof; their family got their first phone when she was eight, a party line when each household had its own set of rings. (Not unlike today’s customizable iPhone ringtones – the same but different.) A time when train travel was the norm, and it took 400 minutes from Chicago to St. Paul. Men on the moon and women in space.
A grand adventure took her to Washington, DC as a “war girl”. She lived with seven other young women all working for the war effort. It was while living at the 5506 House that she met a sailor from Alabama. Dad was stationed at Patuxant River, Maryland and while on switchboard duty he called the cousin of a friend. Instead of the cousin, Momma answered the phone and that serendipitous conversation became a lifetime.
If I give into the temptation to chronicle her life this will appear more like an obituary rather than a simple celebratory blog post – so just some highlights that will bring us to today.
Two children – My sister Mary Pat (1962) and me (1952); one grandchild, John Lac, a lovely assortment of nieces and nephews now counting into the greats, great-greats, and even the great-great-great generation.
Four houses – 1226 Vine, the red brick house on 14th Street, The 40 (now owned by good friends) and the lake house, Inseli.
Travel that took her to foreign places – Australia, Egypt, Greece, New Zealand, Switzerland, Venice, and the Virgin Islands. Visits from Swiss cousins brought family connections to Wisconsin. The first two to visit arrived in 1972, not speaking any English, and just last summer, we hosted ten cousins, all of whom spoke English which made easy laughter.
This weekend there will be a party but no ballons. The students at St. James School, where she volunteered in the library for 57 years, sang a birthday blessing; there are jars of Smuckers seedless raspberry jam customized with her picture; and there has even been TV coverage!
A Project Peace meditative nugget asked readers to ponder the color of peace. My immediate thought was blue – like dusty hydrangeas in Gloucester, crisp winter skies after a snowfall on a below zero day, or skeins and skeins of yarn. On deeper reflection, I must admit that I do not ever recall assigning color to such inherent values as peace, respect, or trust. Rather, my mind recalled those places, deeply imbued with color, when I felt peace.
Standing on the edge of a granite precipice jutting into Lake Superior and watching the waves far below shift from glittering copper to root-beer frothy to deep steel gray while pewter gray rain moved across that inland sea.
Sitting under a vibrant green canopy of leaves while John Lac read a book and I attempted to write poetry, albeit bad haikus.
Both Richard and I survived decades – he nearly eight and me (halfway through six) – without a broken bone. Now, both our medical histories include right foot fractures although different bones, five years apart but with the same hobbling.
My break was totally my fault as I focused on taking that perfect picture of the centuries old monastery, tucked high in the Moldovan hillside and visible across the deep valley; totally inattentive to the surface change from pavement to gravel with a drop significant enough to turn an ankle and (as discovered later) fracture a bone. With the support of my travel companions, one of which was a Mayo orthopedic nurse, I preserved. After all, what else is there to do 5,200 miles and eight time zones from home with a “transverse nondisplaced fracture at the distal aspect of the lateral malleolus”?
Fast forward from October 2018 to last week and a facture of Richard’s fifth metatarsal. The loud thump had me running from our computer room at the back of the house to the front TV room. At first, we both thought everything was just bruised, his left shoulder, elbow and hip and his right foot. After three days, his left side soreness had noticeably diminished but his right foot was still quite swollen, and walking was painful. Time for a Sunday morning visit to Acute Care. He walked in wearing both shoes and, just like the Diddle, Diddle Dumpling nursery rhyme, he left the clinic with one shoe on and one shoe off, wearing instead a short ortho air-pump walking boot. The doctor ordered a follow-up X-ray in four weeks to check progress. We anticipate he will be booted and hobbling for six to eight weeks. This is one of those shared experiences I wish he could have missed.
I was already upstairs and Richard had nearly finished brushing his teeth when he caught a moving shadow in the corner of his eye. A bat was making sweeping figure-8s from one end of our galley kitchen to other. While Richard stood in the open archway between kitchen and dining room, waving his arms to deflect possible sonar waves, I dashed to the garage for a snow shovel (in hindsight a broom might have been the better tool, but I admit to reactionary thinking.) Whether or not the arm and snow shovel waving created the desired interior air current, we were successful in directing the unwelcome visitor into the night. Thus began our most recent construction job which has included: bat extraction from the attic, remedying a damp basement with a WaterGuard® Below-Floor Drain system, and hiring an electrician to bring power to the sump pump.
Prep work for the new drain system required handling everything in the basement to create an 8-foot open corridor around the perimeter, including five trips to the county waste-to-energy center. Once the work was completed, (jack hammering, old concrete removed, and new concrete troweled into place) everything was handled a second time to remove the thin layer of concrete dust that coated every surface. We spent September getting ready for the contractors and it feels like we will need all of October to recover.
Even though certain fashion leaders have decreed brown (specifically chocolate brown) to be the new black, I had a hard time finding brown toned photographs to fit this month’s Colour Challenge. While some may think brown is dull, the rich hues can vary from chestnut to pecan or whiskey to fashionista chocolate.
My Dad very proudly decreed brown his favorite color. I always suspected his choice directly correlated to his amazing carpentry skills. There was nothing about wood he did not love. There is a family story that when discharged from the WWII Navy he bought a brown suit with a brown tie to contrast against a white dress shirt, matching brown shoes and socks and that even his new (just having arrived in Wisconsin) winter overcoat and hat were brown. (Lost in the re-telling is the style of the hat whether fedora, homburg, or porkpie.)
Photo details in the colour brown, left to right:
Caradori hand thrown, wood fired pottery
Lace detail of the Orage Shawl designed by Solène Le Roux and knit in Hedgehog colorway
Two copper pots: A 1982 purchase in the famous Khan el-Khalili of Cairo. This public bazaar / souk has provided market space for artisans and vendors since the 14th century.
As Richard swung the sledgehammer and pried old rusty 16penny nails, I thought about all the hard work we did in the late 1980s preparing for our first major renovation project. Today, his task was to dismantle a shelving unit that was in the basement when we bought the house in 1985. We can only guess its age by observing that the shelves were made of 2×6 tongue and groove at a time when boards were still milled at a full six inches. As with much in this nearly 100-year-old house, there are the odds-and-ends of earlier construction projects. As we wondered what such wood would have been used for, we both responded, simultaneously. “That’s a question for Dad.” “That’s a question for Ed.” We laughed and I got a bit teary eyed. While the ache of missing him has diminished after 16 years, it has not gone away; especially on a morning when we have carpentry questions.
There are times when reading a cookbook is like having a new novel in hand; the excitement builds recipe-by-recipe as I imagine preparing each savory entrée and delectable dessert. But, lately, I admit to being in a mental food desert. My menu planning prior to grocery shopping has been boring and littered with old standbys which then translates into irritation brought on by missing ingredients all because I relied on memory when shopping.
Then a friend shared her positive experience with HelloFresh and we subscribed. Last night we tried our first meal kit – Miso Peach Pork Chops with Ginger-Lime Rice & Green Beans. The kit included all the ingredients, in pre-measured portions, even down to supplying just one garlic clove. Just as Goldilocks found the little bear’s chair and bed, everything was just right. Not only was there less food waste (I composted the chopped green bean tips and zested-squeezed lime rind), the packaging is also recyclable.
We did laugh when we realized another of our selected meals, Alfredo-Styled Spaghetti, included a zucchini when our refrigerator vegetable bin is full of this versatile vegetable. Oh well, those beauties can always be transformed into Chocolate Chip Zucchini Bread.
When I worked with the architects (nearly 25 years ago) to design the SELCO building, I blended all that I knew about library operations, office flow, and the ILS (integrated library system) connecting over 70 libraries with the practicality garnered through decades of home renovation projects. While some features, such as the Novabrik™ exterior, were unique to the project, the construction was conventional enough that I never hesitated. Five years into retirement and having agreed to co-lead the Building Our Future team at church, I am a bit more realistic about my learning curve.
I had anticipated the need to study solar reverse metering or options for EV plug-ins but I was surprised when the first term I needed to check in the dictionary was charette –a meeting in which stakeholders attempt to resolve conflicts and map solutions. Our church architects suggested this opinion gathering process as a way to define key proximity questions.
With proportionally sized, color-coded wooden blocks, church members placed the blocks on a site map. They shared their rationale for each placement or shift as they discussed the spatial relationships for such questions as: One story or two? Where is the gathering space in relation to the sanctuary? Are the classrooms near the kitchen? How to keep the little ones near but still give parents “adult” time during coffee hour? While each of these questions (and many more) still needs resolution, the architects came away with insights into the everyday practical use of church space and the participants have a greater understanding of the challenges inherent in designing a new church building.
An interesting historical tidbit – Charette is derived from the French word for “little cart” & a time when beaux arts professors in Paris collected student drawings.
I am not sure if the hobby of collecting fine porcelain cups and saucers was limited to Midwestern women of a certain age during the 1950s and 60s or a pastime enjoyed over a greater geographical area, but my mother collected a lovely assortment of 12 cups and matching saucers. She used them when serving dessert and coffee to her friends making up the three card tables for 500. To showcase the cups, she set her table with complimentary clear glass plates.
In 1986, while on a trip to Toronto for the United Brotherhood of Carpenters’ quadrennial convention, she purchased a delicate cup graced with yellow coneflowers for me. For a short time, I used it for my morning coffee at work, but it was a bit small when I needed caffeination for the day and I carefully packed it away. I never acquired any more.
Then came an event at church – an English high tea complete with cucumber sandwiches, scones, clotted cream, and a delicious assortment of sweet and savory delectable treats. In striving for the proper ambiance, a call went out for pretty cups and Momma’s dishes went into service. They never made a return trip to Eau Claire and my collection of one grew to 13. I have considered adding to my selection, if only as insurance against breakage, but there is something special knowing all 13 cups and saucers came from Momma.
During World War II, she worked in Washington, DC as part of the war efforts. In 1943, she made the bold purchase of a complete set of dishes, which were shipped to Eau Claire for Mother’s Day. Throughout my childhood, these dishes were on Grandma’s table for every special dinner until she died in August 1970. They moved to my childhood home when my grandfather came to live with us in January 1971.
As she nears her 100th birthday, Momma has begun giving away items she no longer uses. Before Grandma’s good china is donated to the thrift store, I commandeered a cup and saucer which rounds up my collection of cups and saucers to 14, all gifts from Momma.
Knit+ Librarian 