Bambi come home

The most recent issue of Notes From Toad Hall and Critique should be in the mail to people on our mailing list (getting on is no more than a click away)

On the last page I said I would post some photos Anita and I have taken of lawn ornaments around Minnesota this fall and winter. But I’m not sure how to post them here along with my rambling comments, so if you care to see more you’ll need to go to Facebook.

Here’s one pic along with my remarks from the last page of Notes:

Final Notes (Holiday Issue 2009)

If you exit a city or town anywhere in Minnesota and drive through the countryside on a slow road in minutes you’ll spot cement cows lounging in a front yard, or deer poised watching the field, or black silhouettes of bears climbing trees. I guess I’ve seen some in town, too. I ridicule lawn ornaments: What? You need to be reminded of what lives in your back yard with tasteless inferior imitations? The same with Christmas decorations. That aesthetic violation is everywhere. Blow up Santas and elves, garish flashing, pulsing lights. While I’m in full-lung cry, I ignore the small exceptions I make for myself: Margie, why the white terns in your garden? Where’s the shore, anyway? And what of that concrete toad sitting among your hostas?

While reading The Architecture of Happiness (see Gift List) I recomposed myself in a way I hope leads to more generous acceptance of rampant yard ornamentation.

Botton thoughtfully observes: “…at its most genuine, the architectural impulse seems connected to a longing for communication and commemoration, a longing to declare ourselves to the world through a register other than words, through the language of objects, colours and bricks: an ambition to let others know who we are – and, in the process, to remind ourselves.” “Breadth of choice leaves us free to determine that particular works of architecture are more or less adequate responses to our genuine psychological needs. We can accept the legitimacy of the rustic style, even if we question the way [tenants of a certain complex] attempted to inject it into their homes. We can condemn the gnomes while respecting the longings which inspired them.”

Applied more broadly, don’t these embellishments tell us that people want to remember that deer are graceful and cows nourish, that they’d like to believe and celebrate a story with a happy ending?

I think I know what’s wanted – the real story with true connections. So this year I’m gonna let my neighbors be and not say a word against their cows or lights. So Peace, Come Emmanuel, Glory and all that beautiful lasting stuff. You’re welcome.

In the spirit of the season

I was shopping the other day and overheard a woman on her cell. I was intrigued enough to listen for a minute:

"…you should lock them in the bathroom. Chain both of them to the toilet until they’re potty trained.”

"… TORTURE! They’re torturing you. What goes around comes around.”

Okay.

I was in a fabric store.

I live in Minnesota.

I don't think this is related to anything specific?

2009 Gift List from Toad Hall

This just went up today. It's a tough job picking the books (mostly) that meant most to me in 2009. Lots of good ones left out. I AGONIZE over choice. Denis always tells me to keep a list and work on them throughout the year. Much easier, he says. But I say, why do that when you can leave it until mid-November and then stagger to the office with a mile high stack, and be frantic about scanning covers and writing succinct helpful summaries that aren't pathetic repros of jacket blurbs and give yourself migraines?? No question there.

http://www.ransomfellowship.org/

What?!

Am wondering why I’ve broken or damaged so many things lately and when this unusual trend is going to stop. When we were in Chicago on one of our last days there, I went to see Aunt Ruth who was only three days into her new life at the memory care center. (see a previous post) It was dark by the time I drove home through rush hour traffic. And in my defense, I think I was a little teary and a little dreamy thinking about old age and all, and probably not paying as much attention as I should. At one point everyone was gridlocked and stopped at a railroad crossing, I was about three cars back from the track, but still behind the yellow line. Suddenly they all rushed forward and the red lights started flashing and the bell started ding-dinging and you could see a commuter train coming and there I was sitting alone at the head of the line. I thought, “Okay, I’m safe, I think. I’m okay. I’m okay. I’ll just sit here” when I heard a thunk - the gate had come down on my rear and I swear I was BEHIND the yellow line. So what corrupt little official from the IDOT thought up THAT little traffic plan? I sat there and sat there, sweating and writhing, expecting some brutal cop to arrive any second, with the gate resting on my trunk afraid to do ANYthing and thousands of people behind me laughing and looking at my license plates. “Ooooo, she’s from Minnesota. What a moron! Don’t they have TRAINS in Minn-eh-so-da? Could that be Brett FAVRE!” The train looked like it had stopped and I couldn’t stand it any longer so I hit the accelerator and rocketed across in front of it. So, okay, there was a little bump and a scrape. But I didn’t care. I fled hoping I could turn the corner and never see that stupid track or all those stupid people again. When I got back to Marsena’s I snuck out with the flashlight to check the damage. Is it soooo bad if all you did was put a scratch down to the metal that’s maybe, oh, eighteen inches long that can easily be repaired with a little clear nail polish, plus it’s the only scratch you’ve ever put in your fairly new car, not counting the time I backed into a cement girder and tore off the front fender? I don’t think so. And besides, the LAST person to do damage was someone ELSE who won’t be named who backed out of the garage and BROKE OFF the side view mirror. I haven’t done that. I rest my case. And although I was going to confess other things in this post, I’ll just say that I did break my new glass teakettle, which I only had four days, and which I secretly spent a lot of time finding online but not THAT much money, and which looks like I shot it with a tiny bullet, because it’s getting late and I need to go to bed.

Held tight

Sunday afternoon. A fir tree is in the stand relaxing its branches and filling the living room with so much fresh pine resin I’m almost comatose. We ran out to a tree lot after church and I chose the second one we banged on the ground. Walked around it and I said, that’s it. I usually take so long looking at so many and I get so tense and confused by this silly little decision that I give up and grab the next one and don’t even notice it is worm-eaten on one side, with a broken tip and crooked trunk. But this one is perfect. The Vikings are kicking Chicago. And so, ya, I complained loudly last August when He signed. Being a capricious, adulterous fan, I now consider Favre my own. I can’t even remember, did he play for the Packers? Anita and I have put candles in all the windows. Denis is unusually chatty. A good day.

In all, a good weekend. We drove those eight hours north to the Canadian border and spent Thanksgiving with our son and daughter-in-law. Love them and their little house bursting with color, canned goods, and the sounds of children. (True, the sounds could be a collapse of desperate howling as easily as laughing. Not unique, hey?) They have a new little one – Ava Lou. She’s only two months old but already knows the most important maxim of life – it is much nicer to be held close in someone’s arms for hours on end than to lie cold and unprotected in a crib. Much nicer.

On Wednesday night we arrived in time to watch Anson at hockey practice, which is serious business up there. Although he can’t manage an upright side-scrape stop, (falling down and hitting the boards works for now) he skates with such fierce enthusiasm

it’s scary.

We didn’t eat the turkey on the big day. The only turkeys were the decorated cupcakes Micah made for the kids. It was pig and fish for us. Jerem deep-fried fresh walleye – nothing like it - and grilled a porketta roast. It’s an odd thing that the few Italians who settled up there long ago and are almost extinct now left behind a tradition of deboning and rolling a pork roast in so much garlic and spice you could smell my breath from the far end of the Metrodome. Micah made the rest of the meal – all good, but her bread. Give her flour and yeast and she will turn it to gold. I guess I did do the apple cranberry pie. Oh. And Denis did the olive cheese plate. All good.

Got home last night and we plan to stay put forever. Not leaving home again. Ever.

Where am I

Past three weeks. For five years Marsena’s been caring for The Great Aunt, almost 89, and she can’t do it anymore. Her margins are gone. Plus she needs to find work. Denis and I have been here now almost a month. Helping make decisions. We’re so grateful there’s a beautiful memory care place The Aunt loves – she’s been there for respite care and can’t say enough good about it. The food! The comfort! The staff! Alzheimer’s makes you look at someone you know and love and even though you tell yourself this is not the person she used to be, nor is it the person she will be someday, you still get heart-sick, worried, even annoyed and you hate like anything to get drawn into petty arguments and corrections about whatever and yet you do. Or at least, I have. In my head, anyway, I’ve told her off. Sorry.

Day before yesterday. It’s time to move to assisted care. AR is angry and terrified. Any kind of change has always been a phobic catalyst. In these later stages of Alzheimer’s it’s worse. She’s lost the ground of who she is and what she can do. She’s saying dreadful things about Marsena. Doesn’t want to see her again. Threatening to have her “agents” on the east coast rescue her. She wants to go back to Mass. She HATES Autumn Leaves. She doesn’t want to see anyone. Her heart is broken, ours, too. We haven’t found ways to comfort her. Sorting through the remainder of her things is sad. The accumulation of possessions – how they’re too much at the end of life. But perhaps this is inevitable even when you clarify and eliminate, there’s still stuff. The staff at Autumn Leaves are saying give time, give time. Transition sometimes takes a few weeks. We hope so, we hope so.

Yesterday. Watching the Vikings play. Ah, love that Brett. Denis is under an afghan and drinking coffee. Marsena is downstairs doing a little work on the apartment, it helps her to be busy. We’ll be helping with more of that tomorrow. Denis is feeling worse today, sadder. I’m better, so that’s good.

Today. When I’m sick with a bad cold I drown in hot lemon tea with honey, so soothing. Today Psalm 103 is lemon honey. God’s love: forgives, heals, redeems, crowns with love and compassion, satisfies, works righteousness, justice, is great, from everlasting to everlasting. Praise for the soul. Praise for God. Haven’t seen The Aunt for three days, the staff advised letting her settle in first. We pray and pray.

Later. I went for the first visit. I'm scared. I observed her a moment, watching her in a comfy chair, her feet up, watching TV with others, (something none of us could do all day, which annoyed her no end). I saw her laugh. When I touched her, she looked up and beamed, “I was praying someone would come by to cheer me, and here you are! Where’s Marsena?!”

Port Grim, Tasmania

I was deeply interested by the contrasts in this BBC news report, and the inexplicable, unpredictable response of humans. It seems there is a question to be asked: what explains or predicts human happiness? Can one be “happy” in a poisonous environment? Obviously, yes. I love clean air and pure water and think I can’t live without it, but perhaps we need exuberance, human laughter, shared community more than a perfect atmosphere?