About Gramma E.

As the Twelve Days of Christmas melt away and the New Year draws closer I am so frustrated with technology challenges that I am ready to turn the clock back to 1962 where the greatest challenge I faced was figuring out how to attach the hose to the portable hair dryer I got for Christmas!

On Christmas Day 2010 my cell phone crashed refusing to do anything.  As my grand-girls would say,  "you know anything like no phone calls, like no voice mail, like no text messages, like not even a picture would show on the screen."  No matter where or how I touched the keypad and nothing, nada, zippo.

So, Monday morning, I dashed off to the cell phone store and began a two day odyssey that included three more trips back to the store to determine why it would send and recieve phone calls, show me all my fabulous family and mountains of December 2010 snow pictures and take a voice message - yet refuse to send or receive any emails.  My first two days of vacation were consumed with this process which left me with little time for anything else like reading books or visiting friends or blogging or writing my Christmas cards.

Gramma, I know you died in August 1984 but I also know you have been listening to me complain, whine and cheer all these years, so plueezzee listen again.  I want you to know I remember your phone:  wall mount, crank on the side, black mouth piece sticking out of the middle, a receiver you picked up off the hook and tucked between your shoulder and ear - and a tilted platform you wrote notes on while on the phone.  It was such a wonderful simple thing.  One really really long ring meant trouble in the neighborhood so everyone on the party line needed to pick up their receiver and listen; a long and a short meant the call was for you; two longs was another neighbor's ring and two shorts was for the last neighbor on your line.  Yes Gramma, I remember you usually picked up and "rubber necked" on all the calls as did your neighbors.  But at least the phone always, ALWAYS, always worked!  Grurrahhh... ...

For the past 25 hours and 30 minutes I have had zero problems with any technology. I was surprised with a wonderful NOOK for Christmas.  It allows me to read books on this little pad thing thing about five inches wide and eight inches long and 1/4 inch thick.  Just charge it up and it lights up and connects to the internet wirelessly.  No more buying books, thousands of free (one of my favorite four-letter words) books are available via the NOOK.  I was so full of hope, directions and set up so simple.  Actually I was confident. 

So, I set up an account only to have the website announce that it was not active.  Not to be kept from the pursuit of the fruits of this gift, I set it up again only to have the website tell me "this account is already active!"  So I tried a third time only to be told I failed to accurately input the information (not true, I checked twice) resulting in the "system" locking out of my new NOOK unable to continue reading the 90 page orientation manual (online of course) or listen to Franz Schubert on PANDORA or download my first free book.  So to determine the solution, I sat on hold for 42 minutes listening to "a voice" telling me how much the "support team" appreciated me and my business."  What was the problem - there was an optional section on the account page that is in fact required!  Once I filled it out, I was up and running immediately.  Technology, grurrahhh!

Gramma I hope you area still there cause I am still whining.  It seems to me that one of your biggest problems after Christmas was keeping up with all the company who came to visit day after day through the Twelve Days of Christmas.  Can I have that problem pulleeze???? You used to cheerfully make coffee and meals and snacks, then help your guests find their hats and gloves and coats from the black/blue/brown pile on the bed and then hurry out to the entrance to match men and boys with their five buckle overshoes, the women their zip-up-the-front with fake fur at the ankle "dress boots" and the girls their red or brown rubber overshoes with one button closure.  I am looking now for some of your grace and good cheer.  Still not finding any, please Gramma, plueeze send some soon - my vacation is fast slipping away.

Oh yes, one more thing Gramma.  On top of the technology challenges I also need to learn how to keep the NOOK charger separate from the cell phone charger separate from the computer charger separate from the land-line phone charger separate from my Dremel tool charger from ... ...  Did I mention I am running out of outlets to plug all the chargers into? Striped gloves vs black or brown or navy ones were easier to match with matching coats then all these black chargers, each with different little end to fit in only one of the above named devices.

I know my attitude is far from Christmasy. Several times in the past three days I have heard Winnie the Pooh talking to me saying, "oh bother."  Perhaps what I really need is to take the night off from all forms of technology.  I am shutting this computer and the cell phone down right now!  I am going to settle down with my book, hardcover with paper pages.  I will deal with on/off switchs and chargers again tomorrow.

What a simple idea...SHUT DOWN.

Twleve Days of Christmas

I cherish the Twelve Days of Christmas!  This is the season in which I celebrate deeply.  Tonight I will open the Christmas cards I have received in recent weeks, savor the pictures, stories and lives of family and friends that unfold in each card and annual letter.  Then I will begin to write my Christmas cards and respond to each I received.  I will also send greetings to others for whom this annual tradition is unknown and simply thank them for the new gifts they bring to my life.

This year I have given myself an amazing gift too by taking the next week off from work.  This is SO BIG: I left the work laptop - at work; promised not to read any work emails or check voice mail because I changed both my email and voice mail to notify people that I am on vacation until 1/3/11 at 9:00 a.m. or read anything related to my work except the news.  This is taking some real diligence but I AM up to it.

The Krumkaka, Gramma Elsie's date bread, Snappy Ginger bars with crushed candy canes on top and cardamom cookies are in the walk-in freezer (front porch-inside the antique dry sink) to be savored over coffee or tea depending on who is here.  The "ice men" are coming tomorrow to remove the snow and ice dams from the house and garage.  This is the same crew that came last summer to cut down my beloved maple tree that succumbed to disease.  

What the rest of the week holds, I will know when it unfolds... ... ...  

Choices

Drifts to the bottom of the windows

A week ago today the snow was still whipping drifts that erased sidewalks and decks, brilliantly and beautifully dressed trees and shrubs while rendering movement on streets and sidewalks close to impossible. 
Virtually the entire city chose to come to a screeching hault with 1/3 of the buses stranded throughout the Twin Cities. Malls, shops, civic, theater, colleges and events forced to close or cancel.  It was beautiful and it was dangerous.

The sun rose this morning in crystal clear skies revealing that the street in front of my house is once again clear of ice and snow.  The snow "rocks" tossed on the boulevard by the city snow plows are still there though!  I keep waiting for it to warm up - you know to like windchill of 10 degrees above zero - so I can go out and begin to chop my way through to the street.  I know me well enough to know I would happily leave it alone until spring but the reality is that it is still fall and spring is four very long snowy cold months away. 

The hardest choice I made last week was to cancel going to my grandson's elementary Christmas Choir Concert.  I just couldn't get myself to go outside in sub-zero weather on streets/highways still laced with ice/black ice and drive the 70 miles around trip alone.  It was the first time I missed one of my "grands" concerts.  I felt is was a wise but hard choice.

In the week since "fall blizzard" two friends have sustained serious injury, both breaking their pelvis in very different circumstances.  One was going to a Christmas lunch with colleagues when three of them fell on the icy sidewalk.  Two got right up and the third was hospitalized with a broken pelvis.  The second was going out for a Friday Night Fish Fry with four other friends when their car slid off a rural road.  She called her son to come with the tractor to pull them out.  He chose instead to take his SUV to get everyone out of the vehicle and into a warm house before pulling the car out with his tractor.  Her friends all got out of the car with ease but she had trouble bearing weight.  Once at the emergency room it was determined that she too had a broken pelvis and will be hospitalized until Christmas with a six week recovery period once she is released. We make conscious choices hundreds of times a day.  No matter how careful we are, accidents simply happen some causing painful injuries. 

I have chosen all week to ignore the four foot high barrier between the sidewalk in front of my home and the street.  My choice was born in sub-zero windchills and the fact that the city had not yet been able to clear the street to the curb. The bright and warm sun this morning has me almost convinced that I can ditch denial and remove that monstrous barrier that prevents me from parking in front of my house and guests as well as emergency crews from getting to my home. 

I will bundle up in snow pants (still call them that after all these years) and coat and hat and gloves and face mask until I am  "sausaged" in a way very similar to the little brother in the Christmas Classic - "A Christmas Story.  Okay, I have talked about this long enough.  Going to do it now!

Path to street OPEN

10:30 Once again I magnified a problem well beyond its proportions.  With the aid of my ice scraper and a square nosed spade, it took only about 40 minutes open the path to the street.  The snow was for the most part "freeze dried" making lighter to remove that I imagined.  The unexpected challenge was that the "snow boulders" did not stay where I put them!  They rolled right off the top of the pile and landed on the already cleared sidewalk.  I quickly learned to slow down and aim my shovel carefully.

It feels really really good to have reduced this problem to its proper proportion allowing me to get the job done...done just in time for MORE SNOW due to arrive early tomorrow for rush hour.  And winter doesn't officially start until Tuesday, December 21st.  Ahhhhh, Minnesota...

Now it is time to bake vegan Snappy Ginger Cookies, put them in cookie tins and store them in the antique dry sink (aka walk-in cooler) on the porch for Christmas.  The aroma of Gramma's Date Bread I made yesterday still lingers wondrously. 

2010 Bubble Lights

Earlier I blogged about the year my gramma had Nova bubble lights on her Christmas tree and the joy they brought to me as a child.  Imagine my surprise when my friend, Jean, brought a package of bubble lights to work the following week.  We talked about childhood Christmas memories and she invited me to choose one the bubble lights for my 2010 Christmas.  I was amazed!  She said they are readily available and found hers at her neighborhood hardware store.

The next day I headed to my hardware store and learned they had sold out.  The salesperson called their sister store a little further down the avenue who had two packages and assured they would be put aside with my name on them.  When I arrived there "my bubble lights" were nowhere to be found.  Three people cheerfully and diligently looked to no avail.  One assured me that when they found them, he would personally drive them to my home.  I assured him that would not be necessary, I would be more than happy to return for them and gave him my cell phone number.

In the heart of our 17 1/2 inch blizzard last Saturday the call came assuring me that they found one package.  I thanked the caller joyfully and assured him that I'd be there as soon as it was safe to do so.  That was Saturday.  It was an evening mid-week when I ventured further than work and drove through the beautiful decadent snow covering pines and shrubs with Christmas lights glowing from under blankets of snow to the store.  Driving the streets required caution with huge snow banks creating visual barriers at every corner. And, the trip was more than worth every slow minute it took to get there!

I arrived at the hardware store in my little red "Lola Corolla" and played dodge-em with bobcats and dump trucks clearing the parking lot.  The moment a full truck pulled away yet another pulled in so its place.  I pulled into one of the few cleared spots and quick as a wink, I had the package of bubble lights with a note written by a black felt-tipped pen with my name and phone number taped to it was in my hot and happy hands! 

My home is almost decorated for Christmas 2010.  The first thing on my agenda this year was to put the bubble lights in a tri-candle holder in my den window - the room where I spend the most time - so I can savor them throughout the season.  They will remain lighted around the clock through the remaining days of Advent and the Twelve Days of Christmas.   

I no longer buy a Christmas tree choosing instead to open the antique family trunk that I have been assured my ancestors brought to the United States when they migrated from Scandinavia in the late 1800's; next I line the trunk with an old sheet to protect the century old patchwork quilt my Great-Gramma Mary made (d. 1913) and drape it carefully over the rough metal edges of the trunk ; and then one by one I add Christmas stockings for my family including pets my children loved when they were growing up and last but not least the Santa hats.  Wrapped gifts will be added right through Christmas day.  During the Twelve Days of Christmas the gifts I receive will remain in the trunk - reminders of the greatest gifts of all, family and friends who generously fill life with love, hope, joy and a peaceful heart made possible by the promise of Christmas given long ago - living abundantly in 2010.

More Snow Tomorrow

My "get up and go just got up and went."
After weekend snowfall totaling between 17 and 21 inches with winds whipping the snow into a blizzard, temperatures plummeted creating sub-zero windchillls.  No matter what I have done since Saturday, I just don't get warm!  I bundle.  I wrap.  I wear a hat in the house.  And I am still chilled!
Tonight my 10 year old grandson has his Christmas Concert.  It started three minutes ago. I decided not to go because I just could not get myself psyched up to driving 35 miles one way - alone in these subzero temperatures, arrive home around 10:00 and end the day chilled to the bone.  That great inner voice has been calling me names since I made the decision.  Whimp!  Frady Cat!  Lazy Lady! 

And yet when I told a friend about my decision she said I should congratulate myself for my wise decision.  That is hard.  I am so much better at beating myself up.

It is all about perspective.  And from my perspective it is better to ere on the side of caution in weather like this.  Having said that, I still wish I had just gotten in the car and drove down an hour ago. 

No, I made the right decision.  I am cold and I am tired and tonight I just need to be safely at home, tucked in, not trying to drive home alone on an icy cold night when I am tired.  Okay, I'm done with this.  I am glad to be in my toasty home wrapped in blankets.

We have another five inches of snow predicted for tomorrow.  I am not done cleaning up from last week and now we will get MORE!  I never thought I'd long to move south for the winter.  The snow we have had this fall - winter starts next Tuesday - has me longing for more temperate climes where shoveling, ice, bad roads, sub-zero temperatures are something I can read about and imagine rather than live with this intensity.

Snow-ing

I turned off the lamp next to my bed last night and opened the curtains on the patio doors so I could "see the blizzard" upon waking.  It was disappointing to wake at 5:00 a.m. to a mere 6 inches on the ground and visibility normal.

It is now 7:30 and I have to  give the weather forcasters their due.  The snow is falling heavily, the wind is whipping the holiday flag in the front yard across the street and tree tops are twisting furiously.  Next to the garage a drift is being sculpted and tranformed by the minute. 

The news scrolls at the bottom of the TV screen announcing the seemingly endless list of cancellations that include school activities, college classes, ACT tests, concerts and the list goes on and on and on.

I am now in the mood to decorate for Christmas and begin my baking.  It is the perfect time to hunker down, fill the house with wonderful aromas and fill the tins with Swedish Krumkaka, Swiss Bratzels, gingerbread cookies.  My new favorite recipe this year is cardamom cookies.  They are "no fuss."  Just mix everything together, form into "logs," wrap in wax paper, refrigerate, cut when chilled and bake.  I can already smell and taste them.

Outside my window overlooking Randolph Avenue, busses slowly climb the incline, contract snow plows are on the move.  It is incredibly quiet on the street.  Best of all, no ambulances, fire trucks or police cars rushing to emergencies.

7:55 a.m.: St. Paul declared a snow emergency and will begin removing snow tonight.  Now it is official.  We have a snowstorm!

About More Snow

The weather forcasters announced very early this morning that by this time tomorrow we are likely to well into another 8 and 12 inches of snow fall for this season.  My first reaction was not again!  It is only December 10th and we have had several snowfalls and an ice storm that left the streets glazed with ice in the past four weeks; my second thought was that I need to get more gas for the snowblower.

Life is all about perspective.  Kids must be ecstatic and likely disappointed that they will not get out of school for a "snow day"; Little Mariam who is coming in from Florida to spend Christmas with Omi will be thrilled; transportation departments and contract snow removal crews are in high gear preparing crews and trucks; and people like me are giving second thought to our driving plans for tomorrow; commuters are grateful it will not be on a work day and still others are celebrating we will have more snow for Christmas than we have had in years though it may impact their ability to go out Christmas shopping.

And then there is my perspective.  Last weekend I cancelled a 15 mile drive to see my granddaughter dance in her first competition as a member of the varsity dance team (she is in eigth grade) rather than fight the snow and drivers who make no adjustments for weather/road conditions.  Her team took first place.  I know I made the right decision and I REALLY missed being there with her and my daughter. Tomorrow she has another competition and again I want to be there!

I used to be willing to get in the car and keep commitments regardless of the snow and regardless of the distance.  Now I pause and I don't like it!  It feels different now.  I am a good driver, and there are so many more drivers on the road going faster than ever regardless of conditions.  I slow down for the conditions but this provides little comfort when trucks, SUVs, semis and cars of all sizes come up on my bumper swerving at the last moment into the other lane so they can maintain their speed - which seems to be their first priority rather than their own lives and the lives of others around them.

Most of my life I have driven mid to full size cars and for about five years drove an SUV.  Then came 2008 when gas prices soared to more than $4.00 per gallon costing over $70 to fill the gas tank rendering events and gatherings requiring 60 miles round trip costly at $16 to $20 for gas alone .

At the same time car sales were beginning to stagnate.  Dealers needing to move cars off their lots began offering very low interest rates on new compact cars (exceptional gas mileage).  So I traded in the SUV and bought a compact car which is SO much smaller and weighs much less than anything I have driven since the early eighties when I had a forest green Dodge Omni. I realize this morning that if I were still driving the mid to full size car or SUV, I wouldn't even consider cancelling my plans.  The security provided by size and weight is very real.

Guess I will go buy the snowblower gas so I too am ready.  Tomorrow I will decide on whether or not I will head out onto the freeway in my compact car.  I am having big car envy today! Still thinkin' ... ...

About Early Morning Television

I woke rested very early this morning.  It made sense to get up and get going. 

The weather forcast for overnight suggested the temperature would drop to minus five last night - the Early Show (Eyewitness News) reports it is actually 11 degrees (4:30 am). 

I am always amazed that television programming runs 24 hours a day.  When we got our first TV in the late 1950s programming signed off at midnight with a prayer and back on in the morning when the test pattern "warmed" up the TV.  It then went live with either Rev. Luther K. Youngdahl of Mount Olivet Lutheran Church in Minneapolis or Roman Catholic Bishop Fulton J. Sheen (I don't remember where he was from) praying us into the day.

The TODAY show was the first morning news and information program.  From New York it was hosted by Dave Garroway who used fewer words per minute than any TV host on television today.  His classic bow tie, wry humor, guy next door persona and the addition of the chimpanze, J. Fred Muggs and the audience outside the window pulled in this kid. 

The pace of the entire show was a study slow motion wrapped in "neighborly" tones.  He used relatively few words per minute compared to television personalities today.  The clocks on the set behind him showed the time in London, Tokyo and other exotic places around the world.  I had never heard of such places! So it is no wonder that it came as a complete surprise that the time in Zumbrota, Minnesota was not the same as the time in other places in the world.  And, the the world got bigger and bigger and bigger. 

50 years later the TODAY show is still going strong and now "takes the viewer" around the world - no wall of clocks in the New Millennium.  Just thinin'... ...

 

Just Thinkin' About Walking to Work



Casper & Runyon's NOOK

In 1998 I bought and moved into my home located less than two miles from my job.  It is the perfect location.  Within easy walking distance to my job and every day shopping needs - and the city bus stops on both ends of the block.   "My block" also includes a Kortes Grocery Store, PJ Murphy's Bakery, the Copper Dome, Dimitri's Pizza and
Casper and Runyon's NOOK & Ran-Ham Bowling Center now offering "bowling, burgers and beer", Laurel Street Flowers, two consignment stores and "Joe Mauer's Barbershop."  Love my home, love my neighbors and the MacGroveland Neighborhood in St. Paul!

Not me!  GOOGLE image

I also enjoy walking and recently bought "trekkers." The look like ski poles, but telescope and adjust to right hight for the walker, have cork hand grips and rubber treads to assist the walker in "gripping" the sidewalk. Yesterday as I walked to work in the morning, one of the trekkers slipped on the icy unshoveled sidewalk.  Without them I would likely have strained muscles or could have fallen down.  Instead I stayed upright and found myself remembering seeing dogs slip on icy surfaces and not fall because they still had at least two feet on the ground.  Me too!

However, trekkers do not protect me from cars!  Crossing the street with the street light is a dangerous prospect.  Yesterday I successfully crossed the street and had one foot on the sidewalk when a mid-sized SUV turning right whizzed so closely behind me that it sent a shiver up my spine.  Had I slipped and fallen backwards - as my grandchildren would say - I would have been toast.

Comedian Rodney Dangerfield made a career out of saying "I don't get no respect."  Well, Rodney, neither do people who walk.  I realize more and more that while the ice poses dangers which I minimize with the good walking boots, glowing green vest with reflective strips and trekkers there is little I can do to minimize the danger posed by many people driving cars who find speeding to their destination much more valuable than the life of any person in the cross walk. 

I will continue walking, continue to be vigilent and wave gratefully to those drivers who stop and allow me to reach the sidewalk before turing behind me.   It is time to head out for work ever vigilent and grateful for every successful crossing.