Floating City

Oct15

As our taxi driver deftly maneuvered through Seattle traffic, I admired the iconic Seattle Space Needle standing tall among the city buildings. We were getting very close to our destination. I’d been told that cruise ships dock at pier 91, which is a bit north of Seattle’s downtown and the Space Needle. Finally, our taxi pulled to a stop near a large building that looked like an airport terminal. Handing over our luggage to a porter, we walked into the building where guests were ushered through customs.

Unlike at the airport, we moved through the check points quickly.  It didn’t take long before we walked out of the building onto the pier. I stared (gawked) like a farm girl from Wisconsin, which I must admit I am. Two cruise ships were docked on either side of the cruise terminal. They were so huge, they towered over us like tall buildings. The ship to our right, which we would be boarding, was the Eurodam of the Holland American Line. To our left, was The Royal Princess, a ship which appeared to be about the same size as ours.

Considered a smaller cruise ship, the Eurodam is 936 feet long and is equipped to carry 2,104 passengers and a crew of 800 to 900. Some large cruise ships, like the Icon of the Seas, carry 5,000 to 7,600 passengers and 2,300 to 2,400 passengers. I was glad that I had asked Tammie to book a smaller ship.

As we walked up the mid-ship ramp to begin our cruise, staff happily greeted us and used tablets to take our pictures for identification purposes.  Taking one of the six mid-ship elevators to the fourth deck where our cabin was located, Tammie and I wandered down three different hallways before finding our starboard side of the ship cabin, which was to be our home-away-from-home for the next seven days. We found a pair of room keycards and handouts in the small rack next to the door.

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My Two Vacations

Oct8
I eagerly jumped into doing vacation ‘work’

Niki pulled to a stop in front of her sister’s house. I took one look at the jungle growing on the front yard hillside along the sidewalk and exclaimed, “Oh my gosh!” A list of things I wanted to accomplish for Tammie before leaving on our scheduled vacation marched through my mind.  

I had figured that my vacation started three hours earlier, when Niki picked me up to drive me to Tammie’s house in the Twin Cities. But technically, the vacation Tammie and I had planned wouldn’t really start until Friday afternoon when we went to the airport. Until then, my daughter had at least 16 more work hours to complete. I wanted to spend that time being useful.

 Within an hour of arriving at her house, I’d changed into work clothes and found a shrub lopper behind a chair on Tammie’s porch. Earlier this summer, she had told me that wild grapevine, invasive saplings and weeds had overtaken the steep, rocky, and hard to manage incline in her front yard. She hadn’t exaggerated.   

I cut down sumac, oak and maple saplings, and tall weeds. Grapevines had reached up into the lower branches of a mature maple tree next to the house and were strangling everything growing nearby.  Niki pitched in and dragged away the unwanted brush.

Thanks to all the chores I did for Tammie, time passed quickly. Friday afternoon finally arrived. My daughter signed out of work, finished packing, and called for a cab. We moved our luggage in stages to the porch, to the front steps and finally to the sidewalk just in time for the punctual arrival of our ride to the airport.

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Silo Playhouse

Oct1
My silo was real, but my playhouse was pure imagination!

Every tree I saw along the way on my way home from school was a blazing red, orange or yellow. The air felt cool and breezy, a complete reversal from the hot and sticky weather we had when school started a month ago. Warm sunshine sparkled as it hit the car windows and warmed my relaxed shoulders. My school day routine felt comfortable now. First day of school jitters were now just a memory. I knew which classroom to go to, who my friends were, and felt resigned to who my teacher was.

Once I reached our farmyard, I sprinted into the farmhouse. Mom greeted me from the kitchen. I sniffed and asked, “Did you make cookies today?” Mom nodded and pointed to the cupboard next to the refrigerator where a decorative tin cookie box sat.

Prying the lid off, I found chocolate peanut cookies with chocolate frosting. Eating one in almost a single bite, I took a second for eating-on-the-go. With my mouth full of soft, sweet cookie crumbs, I explained as I headed for my bedroom, “I’m going to change out of my school clothes and go outside.”

Like a typical ten-year-old, I flung my discarded clothing onto the bedroom floor and hastily pulled on what Mom called ‘everyday’ clothing. The second cookie I’d taken was long gone by the time I ran out the back door of the house. When the screen door shut with a slam behind me, I stopped to consider my options. A plan instantly popped into my mind: get apples from the orchard and watch Daddy chop corn for silage in the field behind the barn.

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Mystery Furnace

Sep24

Snow underfoot squeaked with each step I took. It was a sound I learned the meaning of as a kid. It was too cold to play outdoors. Brutally cold breezes moved mist-fine snow particles from place to place in my backyard. Turning toward the woodshed where my husband’s outdoor furnace stood, my breath sent a column of mist into the air. The stovepipe above the furnace sent smoke into the wind as if mimicking the mist.

I didn’t like this furnace. When my husband built it, he promised to take care of its feeding and cleaning. And he did, except when he had to be away like today. Unlike the wood furnace we once had in the basement of our house, this one was large and took huge chunks of wood. I dragged three logs closer to the furnace door and struggled to lift them into the red ember-lined firebox. Having fed an entire tree to the monster, I returned to the house.

Arnie must have not liked the outdoor furnace either. We only used it for two winters. One day, I found him in the basement installing a new furnace. I hadn’t even known he was shopping for a new one! He never told me who he bought it from and unfortunately, I never asked. The brand new, shiny machine was unlike anything I’d ever seen. Arnie admitted, “With the outdoor furnace, we lost too many BTU between the fire and the heat converter in the house.”

This furnace, wherever it came from, burned wood pellets that came in forty-pound bags. A large hopper on the side of it could hold three and a half bags. That usually took care of heating the entire house for a day and a half, but when it was very cold, it needed to be refueled every 12 hours. Arnie took care of most of the refueling of the furnace, but he did all its cleaning and maintenance.

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Fumes

Sep17

Cicadas sighed long, hissing calls from the treetops. I stood a few moments on the back deck, listening to them on that hot, late summer afternoon. The sound of cicadas in August makes me think of bacon sizzling in a pan. When bacon fries, the fat is rendered. Cicadas announce that the fat days of summer are coming to an end.

            I heard Arnie working in the shed. A moment later I peeked in and saw him applying his welding torch to one side of a metal box he was constructing. Realizing I was standing in the doorway, my husband turned off the welder and flipped open his welding helmet. His ruddy face was beaded with sweat and smudged with soot. The acrid smell of hot metal filled the air. A radio in the back of the shed was playing a country western song.

Grinning, Arnie asked, “Have you heard this new song by Toby Keith?”

The voice on the radio sang, “I like talking about, you, you, you, usually. But occasionally, I wanna talk about me!”

I laughed, “That’s a cute song.”

Inspecting his weld seam, Arnie grumbled, “It’s clever, but it isn’t country western although they call it that. Country is starting to sound like pop music. I don’t like the change.”

Glancing around the workshop and seeing large metal plates of various sizes, I asked, “What are you working on?”

Arnie happily explained, “I’m making an outdoor furnace with a water jacket for us. The fire box will have several angles to its roof to efficiently heat the water. The hot water circulates underground into the house where it goes through a heat exchanger and then it comes back to the furnace to be reheated.”

I didn’t know we were getting a new furnace! Seeing my surprise, Arnie hastily explained, “We won’t have to put anymore wood into the basement. The wood can be kept outside in the shed next to the furnace.” I made a face, thinking about middle of the night furnace feedings when it was cold and snowy. As if reading my mind, Arnie added, “We would only have to stoke it once or twice a day. I’d do it before and after work.”

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Girl Meets Country

Sep10

The realtor placed two sheets of paper on the table in front of Arnie and me. He explained, “I’m going to take you to see these two houses this afternoon. Before we leave the office, you might want to look at the spec sheets. You’ll notice both houses are in the countryside, and both have the number of bedrooms, bathrooms and the backyard you want.”  

Each sheet bore the picture of a house for sale. Below the picture was information about the house. One had fifteen hundred square feet of living space, the other had two thousand. One house had a new roof and with the other a new water heater. The yearly property taxes listed for either property made my eyes water.  

Both houses looked nice, but I had trouble taking my eyes off the brick house. It looked inviting, warm, and friendly. My gut feeling was that it looked like a home…my home. When we toured it, Arnie and I liked what we saw, despite its many faults. The house was built over fifty years before I was born. Some remodeling had been done, some of it very poorly. It was branded with the colors and products of the 1970’s mobile home industry. Most shocking to me, was that the house had two furnaces! One was an oil furnace, and the other was a wood furnace.

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A Special Treat

Sep3

The alarm clock buzzed and progressively became louder until I slid out of bed to turn it off. Only the light of a waxing moon and a sprinkle of stars illuminated the darkness outside our bedroom window. Arnie turned on the bedside lamp and quickly slipped on blue jeans and a plaid shirt. He glanced at me, still in my nightgown and standing next to the bed, rubbing my eyes. He urgently advised, “Hurry up! Get dressed. Gene and Thelma will be here in half an hour.”

“Who are you?” I snapped grumpily. “You certainly can’t be my husband. He never gets up without a fight.”

Pinching me playfully, Arnie happily explained, “We’re not getting up for work. We’re getting up to start our vacation!”

Our two-truck caravan, each pulling boats, reached the north shore of Lake Superior just as the sun started to rise above the horizon. I spotted a breakfast diner and sighed, “Breakfast, at last!”

Seven hours later we stopped for lunch at a Canadian café. Poutine was on the menu, so of course we ordered some. Gene dug into the gravy drenched, cheese-curd-dotted, French fries and announced with a shrug, “It’s a weird way to eat French fries, but since we’re in Canada, we should give it a try.”

The next two days, Thelma and Gene fished from their boat while Arnie and I fished from our boat. They often quietly sat with bobbers floating on the water. Arnie preferred trawling through bays and inlets. We all caught fish.

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Tammie’s Sweet Lamb

Aug27

Tammie texted me, “When are you having your hair permed?”

I responded, “My appointment is in half an hour.”

My daughter messaged, “I’ll talk to you later, when you’re a curly-haired lamb.” I chuckled. Tammie liked to compare me to a lamb with curly fleece whenever I get a perm.

 Before leaving the house, I peeked into a mirror. What I saw fully displayed what I hate about my hair. Baby-fine strands were lying limp, flat against the forehead, sticking to sweat-beaded skin. I grumbled, “I hate my hair right before a perm, especially when the weather is hot and humid! It’s hard to believe that just yesterday, I washed, moussed, and set my hair.”

At the appointed time, Lisa, my hairdresser, greeted me cheerfully as she ushered me into her salon chair. Looking at our reflections in the mirror, I wanly smiled and admitted, “Not feeling good because you’re having bad hair day is a real thing. For the last two weeks, I’ve been counting the days till my perm. I feel messy and unattractive.”

Lisa professionally examined my flat tresses and commented, “Your hair is thick and healthy, but very fine and has very little body. The ends of your hair show that you had a perm four months ago.”

Shrugging, I said, “I’ve had my hair cut three times since the last perm. I thought all of it was gone. But it doesn’t matter, because today I’m having another perm!” With a chuckle, I confessed, “I like feeling like a curly-haired lamb.”

Expertly wrapping sections of my hair onto permanent rods, Lisa asked, “Aren’t you and Tammie leaving for an Alaskan cruise soon?”

I eagerly responded, “The cruise is in two weeks. I enjoy traveling with Tammie, so I’m looking forward to it.” With all my hair wrapped around the curler rods, Lisa applied the permanent solution. The next step was waiting for nearly half an hour before the hair wrapped curler rods were rinsed and the second solution applied to my hair.

During the wait time, I thought about the cruise, hoping I wouldn’t ruin our fun by being motion sick on the ship. To prevent this, Tammie made sure our cabin was in the middle of the ship, plus I’d asked my doctor for Scopolamine patches.

Why would a person who suffers motion sickness go on a cruise? For me the answer was easy. I want to do normal, fun activities. Once, while on vacation with my daughter, we stayed at a hotel with a water park. I enjoyed floating on the lazy river. Then Tammie suggested, “We should do the water slide.” I glanced up. The entrance to the slide was towering four stories above. Like a lamb being led to slaughter, I meekly agreed, “Okay.”

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Fishing For Memories

Aug20
The best fisherman guide…ever!

Placing a box filled with family photos on the floor next to my chair, I assured my daughter, Tammie, “The picture you want will be in this box.” Reaching in, I pulled out an envelope marked “2006”.

Looking over my shoulder, Tammie shook her head and declared, “It’s not in that envelope. Those are from the fishing trip that Daddy, you and I went on after I earned my master’s degree.”

Quickly shuffling through the first few pictures, I slowed down to study ones that were taken while on the boat, right after catching fish. I sighed, “Weren’t those fishing trips to Canada with your Daddy wonderful?”

Sitting on the footstool next to my chair, Tammie agreed, “I loved the fishing vacations I got to go on with you. The place we stayed at was so beautiful, and we always caught fish!”

Chuckling, I pointed out, “I think Arnie took great pride in his fishing guide abilities when his wife and daughter caught fish.”

Studying a picture of herself holding a walleye she’d caught, Tammie asked, “What ever happened to that resort we stayed at?”

I shrugged and admitted, “I don’t know. The man who owned the resort was a bricklayer from Minnesota. Terry worked at home during the winters and then spent the summers in Canada at Moose Tracks Cottages. Around the time your Daddy died, I heard that Terry had sold the place.”

“Wouldn’t it be fun to go fishing again?” Tammie asked wistfully.

I nodded and admitted, “When I was younger, fishing seemed so boring. But the fishing trips we took to Canada were fun once I learned how to fish.”

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Elderberry Bush Gifts

Aug13

 Seeing Casper stand up to leave the table, Mom suggested, “If you’re going to walk down to the woods this afternoon, check the elderberry bushes for blossoms. They always blossom by the end of June. If they are, pick enough for me to fry for our supper tonight.”

I had already planned on spending that Saturday afternoon tagging after my big brother, but now I certainly didn’t want to miss the chance to help him pick elderberry blossoms! I jumped to my feet and announced, “I’m coming with you.”

Casper gruffly instructed, “Be sure to keep up with me.” As I followed him out the back door of our farmhouse, Mom handed me a brown paper bag to put the blossoms in. I had to run to keep up with Casper’s longer legs. We crossed the cow yard and started down the cow lane towards the woodlot and the small creek that ran through the back forty acres on our farm. I rested whenever Casper stopped to check who was using the birdhouses that were nailed to some of the cow lane fence posts.

Our hurried pace slowed as we came closer to the cow pasture near the creek. Birds I never saw near the house sat on reeds bobbing in the breeze. Butterflies flitted around wildflowers. Casper examined paw tracks in the mud. “Racoon,” he muttered for my benefit.

Mom was right. The elderberries were in full bloom. As we approached the bushes, a slight breeze made the delicate flowers flutter, reminding me of lacy handkerchiefs waved by a flirtatious, medieval damsel. We spent an enjoyable hour or more checking bird houses by the trees, seeing squirrel tracks while we walked through the woods, watching minnows and frogs in the creek. We returned to the elderberry bushes to pick the flowers on our way back home.

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