Archives

Set in Stone

Nov23

An hour after I arrived at the hospital, large, wet snowflakes began to fall. It was my turn to work the Thanksgiving holiday day shift. The patients assigned to me that day watched the snow fall and reminisced about past Thanksgivings. They mused about how good the snow was for the deer hunters, but bad for families traveling to Grandma’s house.

Our unit was quiet and relatively empty because not everyone elects to have surgery right before a holiday. By mid-afternoon I felt restless, frequently checking the time and peering out the window to see if the weather had changed. The last hour of the shift ticked by slowly. By then it was colder outside and the snowflakes were smaller. A stiff wind whirled them around the hospital parking lot.

My shift finally ended and I cautiously drove home to change into holiday clothing. I felt as excited as a child let out early from school. Refreshed, I got back into the car and headed to the farm where my husband grew up. Arnie would already be there, but out in the woods hunting until dark, unless he had already shot a deer! In any case, he and his brothers would be back in time to eat their Thanksgiving dinner together with the whole family. Continue reading →

Sumo Turkey

Nov16

The sun burned down on my skin as I walked through the crowd. My teenage daughters had gone off with friends as soon as I parked the car. Glancing around, it appeared that many people were heading towards a spot under the trees beside a park building. The minute I stepped into the shade, a lovely, cool breeze refreshed me.

A young boy ran to a couple walking nearby. He said, “Mom, Dad…you have to come with me to see this! They’re doing sumo wrestling.”

“Sumo wrestling in Wisconsin?” I thought with surprise. Without research, I knew two things. First, sumo was a Japanese grappling sport. Secondly, I knew it was done by extremely overweight men wearing nothing, but tiny loin coverings. Curious, I slipped this way and that through the crowd to get a front row view. Continue reading →

An Adultier Adult

Nov9

I sprinkled shredded cheddar-cheese over the pan of bright-green, freshly-steamed broccoli florets. The orange fragments melted quickly on the vegetables, but the pieces that made it to the pan began to sizzle. I slid this first course of my supper onto a plate and carried it into my office. As I set it down in front of the computer monitor, the phone rang. Caller ID showed that my daughter, Tammie, was on the line.

Switching the phone to speaker, I sat down at the desk and said, “Hi sweetie! How are you this evening?”

Tammie cheerfully answered, “Good, had a great day at work…got everything accomplished that I had planned to and, since the weather is so pleasant, I’m going to go for a bike ride along the Mississippi river before going up to my apartment.”

Swallowing a mouthful of broccoli, I said, “Great! Glad to hear you’ve had a good day and are going to get out for a bike ride. I’m ashamed to admit that my only exercise so far today was two or three trips up and down the stairs and thirteen minutes of quickly peddling to no where on my exercise bike!”

Laughing, my daughter gracefully conceded, “Well, at least you got some exercise!”

Nodding as if Tammie could see me, I said, “The rest of the stuff that I did today doesn’t count up much on my Fitbit. I did a few errands in Marshfield, visited my brother and baked some bread.”

Tammie quipped, “In other words, you were being a responsible adult. That reminds me of a meme that I saw on the computer today. It showed a terrified-looking young adult. The message under the picture said, “The horrifying moment when you’re looking for an adult, but then you realize that you’re an adult. So, you look for an older adult, someone successfully adulting…an adultier adult.” Continue reading →

The Other F Word

Nov2

Louie, my slowly-becoming-civilized, white and black cat, sat purring on the office futon. Just looking at the lanky feline at rest that evening made me feel peaceful. When he dozed, his eyes closed and there appeared to be a smile on his face.

Leaving my desk chair, I crossed the room and sat down on the futon next to him. I reached out and stroked his silky side. Louie stretched and looked even happier. Something tickled my forearm. I looked down and saw a small bug. When I reached to pinch it, the small bug sprung straight up into the air like it had been launched by NASA. A huge surge of adrenaline flushed through my veins. Simultaneously, I felt flashes of Saharan heat, icy blasts of Artic chill and the need to expend energy by slaying dragons while galloping the circumference of the world. MY CAT HAD FLEAS!

Fear and loathing made my mouth feel like it was full of dirty cotton balls. I jumped to my feet, reflecting that the fleas had probably been around for a while. Being oblivious to the signs, I’d ascribed the itchy bites on my ankles during the past week to mosquitoes. There was no way I could continue in this denial. My house was fully contaminated and it needed a good cleansing! Continue reading →

Halloween Slumber Party

Oct26

I studied the woodland as our car passed by. Last week the colorful fall leaves had been shone in the tree branches. Today they were on the ground. Still bright, they looked like drifts of sunshine. Sighing, I shifted restlessly around in our family car’s back seat. The sky beyond the bald tree-top-twigs was a beautiful, pure blue. Although I had run through leaves on the playground with my fourth grade classmates during recess, I felt like I hadn’t had enough time to enjoy the day.

Arriving at home, I dropped my books on the kitchen table and grabbed a warm cookie from the counter. As I turned to run out the back door with my treat, Mom looked up from a pan of cookies she’d just taken from the oven and said, “Change out of your school clothes before leaving the house.”

A mouthful of sweet, ginger snap cookie crumbs kept me from being able to do more than merely protest, “Awfuph!” Disobeying wasn’t an option. Doing as I was told, I ran up the stairs to the bedroom I shared with my big sister. Sloughing off my school clothes like cast-off fall leaves, I left them where they fell on the floor. Hopping and tripping, I pulled on my play clothes as I headed back down the steps. Continue reading →

Taking Flight

Oct19

A trio of white sea gulls with black-tipped wings wheeled in gliding circles beside the blue trussed bridge we were crossing. I commented to my daughter, “Seagulls are always hungry and looking for food. Those three probably belong to a huge colony. I’ve heard them described as ‘flying rats’, but unlike rats, they help clean up the environment. They aren’t picky about what they eat.”

Tammie said, “Despite their bad reputation, they’re pretty birds.” Taking a few short glances around, she added, “Wish I could look around a little, I’ve always liked the view from this bridge.”

“You’re not missing anything. Just keep your eyes on the road!” I nervously suggested, internally noting all the other cars ahead, behind and alongside us. I asked, “Will you tell me again about the place we will be visiting today?”

Dutifully, my daughter complied. “I found a beautiful website advertising an orchard tour in the La Crescent area. The place uses hoop houses. They grow grapes, apples, berries and make wine. It sounded interesting and I thought you’d be interested, since you have a hoop building greenhouse.”

The highway was built on the side of a bluff. Following a curve around the huge land form, we could look down at the farmland in the valley below. I said, “The view feels like we’re flying a small airplane at low altitude.” Continue reading →

Inspired

Oct12

After setting our breakfast plates next to the sink, I eagerly snatched my notebook from the table and curled up on the loveseat. I said to my daughter Tammie, “All right now, we wanted to do some writing while on this vacation. The time to get down to business has finally come. What shall we write about first?”

Still sitting at the table where only moments earlier we had shared an omelet, Tammie turned to look at me and said, “I have two books filled with writing exercises. What are you interested in, working on conversations, or building suspense?”

Uninspired, a sudden feeling of distaste for doing writing exercises washed over me. Looking at the kitchen counter, I said, “Oh look, I should have washed the breakfast dishes before sitting down to do any writing.”

Jumping to my feet I quickly began the cleaning chores. I thought to myself, “This is typical. I always have a hard time getting myself to actually sit down to write! Once I start, though, I love what I’m doing and don’t want to be interrupted.” Continue reading →

More Vacation Fun

Oct5

One evening while my daughter Tammie and I were returning to our vacation cottage after an outing I noticed that although the sun had not set, there were long, dusky shadows prematurely darkening the coulees. I said, “Night comes early to a shadowed valley.”

Tammie laughed and said, “That sounds like a pantoum topic.”

I knew she was right! The next day I sat down and wrote one about life in a coulee. Continue reading →

Treasure Hunters

Sep28

A warm, summer breeze ruffled our hair, but the sun burned our skin. Since we were half-way up the side of a bluff, I reasoned that the sun was hotter than usual because we were closer to it than when on flat land. My daughter Tammie and I had reached the middle of the vineyard. I stopped and turned to look at the grand view. I could see bluffs on the other side of the Mississippi, but they were shrouded by a curtain of blue haze. Closer, to the left, front and right of us, I counted three other tall, tree-covered bluffs. The coulee below was connected to a network of other valleys that curved around the base of each bluff.

A short way below us, bunkered into the bluff side and surrounded by these beautiful rows of grapevines, was our vacation cottage. I could see the small lawn, the electric grill, red table and chairs arranged by the back door. Greg, the owner of the property, had told us that the grapevines on the fence near the cottage were table grapes. He suggested, “You’re welcome to pick and eat them.” Next to the fence was a chiminea with dry wood stacked inside, waiting to be used.

I smiled to myself, remembering a conversation that I’d had with someone before coming here. When I told her about this place, she’d exclaimed, “Where does a person find a place like this?” It made me realize that an unusual vacation spot was truly a treasure. My daughter and I had been very fortunate to come upon it while ‘mining’ the internet one night. Continue reading →

Vacation Fun

Sep21

A streak of lightning zig-zagged from one end of the sky to the other end. I counted, “One-thousand-one, one-thousand-two, one-thousand-three.” A loud boom of thunder rattled our cottage.

My daughter Tammie said, “The storm is three miles from here.” Another streak of lighting was followed by thunder two seconds later.

“I said, “The thunder sounds like it bounces back and forth between all the bluffs around us like a ball in a pin-ball machine.”

While a thunderstorm would ruin some people’s vacation, I went to the cottage hoping that we would have a storm during our stay. It was beautiful and my daughter and I enjoyed it very much!

My daughter and I had decided to spend our vacation in a cottage surrounded by a vineyard on the side of a bluff in the driftless area of Wisconsin when we missed the enrollment date for a pilgrimage to Ireland. Untouched by the last glacier that had scoured most of Wisconsin flat, tall bluffs and deep coulees makes the driftless area seem like a beautiful foreign country. Continue reading →