Textures of...

..Father Hennepin State Park

or Mary's alone time during a long weekend getaway.

Throw Back Thursday

Or as Zoe said "why does that girl have Roman's face?"

I thought the tag line 'its never to early for wine" was clever, but sometimes thinking you are clever well bit you in the bu##.

Who do you, who do you think you are*

Watching this _so_ reminded me of my brother (your Uncle) Dave.  Since my Dad was a video editor as a profession he always had high quality cameras available and put together home movies that we'd watch. Not sure if I remember watching them as actual "film", but videos for sure. Always nicely edited and with music. There's a scene in one where your Uncle David is doing a dance in our backyard, out by the big ol' tree and Roman's got the same moves. I think it's the dancing shoulders. Little boy.  About a month ago your Dad was at the mall with you two and a song came on and Roman starting dancing. Not a normal thing. It took a couple of weeks for your Dad to figure out the song - Crazy by Gnarls Barkley. And another few weeks for your mom to get it from the library...Good song, and the disco in the video above had some great adult songs that kids would love.

So...the home 'videos" - we must have watched them as a real film. We got our first video cassette player around 3rd or 4th grade (I bragged that I had watched 'Poltergeist'- and it scared the heck out of me) and we were on the vanguard of that trend. Nowadays things move so much faster (so fast that now I just wait...). We did have an actual projector and I do remember watching films in the basement. We had a few Laurel and Hardy movies (the Piano Movers comes to mind) and of course Grandpa Jon's work. Ktel and Farm Stuff and other... You gotta be exposed to stuff outside your generation, kiddos. It's good for you.

Lately you two are rather taken with the big book of nursery rhymes that you got for Christmas (thanks Jannie and Gordon!). We'll read half of it at a time and you guys are pretty good about finishing rhymes when I stop mid verse.

Humpty Dumpty sat on a

    WALL!

Humpty Dumpty had a great

    FALL!

There is something magical about being a kid.

*Crazy by Gnarls Barkley. 

Aug 9

 Today is my Grandpa Roman's birthday - probably the only grandparent birthday I remember because it's so close to my own!

If you were here, Grandpa B, I bet little Roman would give you a big hug and help you blow out your birthday candles. When I was looking thru pictures, this was the one that stood out. Why? Because it's how I remember my Dad's parents -at their house (in their kitchen to be exact). Grandma B (Catherine) sometime before she had the stroke that slowed down her mobility. 

It brings up weird memories. Warm applesauce and a look to my mom like "what is this" and "do I have to eat it....it's WARM?" Like I said, random memories.  And 7up. They always had 7up at the ready, which was a treat. And we must have spent some overnights there because I do remember spending time with grandma, who'd take us outside and down to the park by the lake to that giant slide (still there, last I checked). I remember being so proud of myself for going down alone. She was also fond of books. I think I picked up on that.
And grandpa with his rides on the lawnmower. We couldn't get enough. We liked to "play" on the organ too, but that time was limited as well. I can kind of empathize with how you two must feel when we tell you "no", which admittedly is probably not enough. Roman was an artist and had what appeared to me an elaborate and professional working space in the basement. So many markers! I always wanted to draw there, but knew enough to know that was grown up space.  But I did draw. 4th grade seems to be the pinnacle for that activity, sometime around when Grandma had the stroke. I remember being told the compliments the hospital nurses gave her about her granddaughter's artwork (Snoopy, I would guess) That felt good (praise!). Maybe she'll be like her grandpa. Maybe.
And what I want to say kidlets is that I wasn't old enough or wise enough or mature enough to let my grandparents know I cared. But I forgive myself that. I don't think I really had my head screwed on right until I hit 30 and by then, they were gone. But I think they knew. I hope they knew. So here's my lesson for you two: it's never too late. Don't forget those that loved you. Never too late. Really.

You two! U2.

Thanks to a VERY generous Grandma Candy, your Dad and I got to go see U2 at TCF Stadium last week. I had said awhile back that this is one of the only concerts I'd pay big money to see. Well, apparently I was partially wrong on that one (thanks again, Candy!).

We sat right near the place the band came out, so we got to see them up close. Made me realize once again what a weird job they have. What a weird response we have (i.e. cheering at their very presence). I mean just walking in the room elicits a response.  I was right there with the rest of the crowd. Awesome show.

Supplemented by the rain.
Doesn't seem possible, but it made for an interesting experience. But your Dad told me to put the camera away or I'd regret it. Probably true, we got drenched.

And nice to see them again. And with your Dad.

The Joshua Tree tour in 1987 (24 years ago! Oy!) was my first concert experience. 7th row or so (thanks to my paid membership to the U2 fan club....yes, ardent fan was I). They still put on a good show. I still like their music. Good Times.

http://jane-inthemiddlelane.blogspot.com/2007/05/book-princess-in-blue-jeans.html

This is very funny to read in light of what's happened since it was posted. :)

Thank God for the information desk.

After clearing customs and spending some time searching for my boss, who was scheduled to arrive before me from a different town, I inquired and was informed that her flight had been cancelled. So much for sharing a taxi into town. I could have taken one myself, but if the mantra is “travel as you would if you were traveling on your own” then taking a taxi into town would not be the answer. Not for me. I’m WAY too cheap for that. And this is Toronto. Not Delhi, not Beijing, not even New York. My impression of Toronto (well of Canada and, by extension, Toronto) is friendliness, so setting off a mini adventure didn’t seem too dangerous.

My emotional memory went straight back to the times I landed in Europe and had no detailed plans for getting from point A to point B. There’s terror in that, but there is also a thrill. And I can’t believe I used to do that. But without a mode of connecting to the outside world (all the technology in the world can only save you if you have access, and I wasn’t going to be paying $1 a minute on my cellphone) and not one penny of local currency I had some small obstacles to overcome.

The nice gentleman sitting behind the information desk was able to help me figure out how to use public transportation to get to my destination. For only 3 dollars Canadian I could take a bus from outside the terminal that would bring me to a subway station where I could make one transfer that would get me to a subway station within 2 blocks of my hotel. Zing! And apparently I could get a bus/subway ticket at the exchange counter down the hall. Ok, that sounds promising. And, it turned out I could buy the ticket with US dollars and not have to exchange any funds. Turns out I could buy a return ticket with US dollars as well, right there in central Toronto. The things you learn when you have to learn them.
So off I went.

I got to the subway with no issues, except a packed bus. It isn’t that fun to travel on a bus with luggage. But for $3, I’ll “suffer”. On the subway I heard the name of the next stop and figured I’d better get out and take a picture.

Jane – the comfort of mom. I looked around for the comfort of an empty bladder, but there was no Jon to be found.


I got to my stop (Queen), which ended up being at the end of huge mall. I ended up walking the length of the mall (2 blocks?) before I could figure out how to get the heck out…and when I did I was glad I had printed the map of my hotel’s location “just in case”. Since my boss wasn’t going to be arriving for awhile, I decided a walk was in order. There wasn’t going to be a lot of sightseeing time – this was probably it.

So, I got to go Roman for a couple of hours. I did a loop and ended up down by the CN Tower and it was Zo tall!



Circling back to my hotel for the night, I passed a building. What was this Kitty -corner from my temporary home? St Michael’s Hospital.



I just grinned. Signs all around that I was safe and sound.



BTW on the way out of town a few days later I bought myself a Candy bar – Cadbury’s caramel. I’ve found the Canadian and UK versions of Cadbury’s are WAY better than the US version. The chocolate is creamier and much, much better!

Mamapalooza

Center stage: me (your mom). To the left: your Great Great Grandma (Pipaw Jon's side...is that right?) and holding me, my ex-uncle Dave. Is that right, do relatives become exes with divorce too? I'm going to say since I've only seen him once or twice since that occurance, than yes.

Your uncle Dan, Sister Helenette and me in our living room in South Minneapolis. That carpet! The couch! I remember it. You guys have met Sister Helenette...which reminds me that we need to go visit again!

Grandma Jane and me. Hard to believe we all start so little.

Hanging out on a ship up in Duluth harbor. When I verified this with your Grandpa Jon he wrote back that it was true, and a foreign sailor offered $50 for me. Yeah, that's your grandpa. My family would go up to Duluth fairly frequently, I'd guess at least once a summer. Lake Superior is as close to the ocean as we're going to get!

For the record Zoe, "I feel pretty" too.  I was one of few girls in the neighborhood.  Here we are seated on the front stairs of the house I grew up in (mostly, and still dream about).

Top row: Scott (friend) , my cousin Pete, your uncle Dan, your uncle Dave. Next to me is my cousin Joe. Pete and Joe lived two houses down for almost the first 10 years of my life. I guess I didn't realize how unique that was until much later.  

Oh boy. look at that outfit. I do appreciate the sneakers though. My out-of-state boss thinks it's funny that I call my athletic shoes "tennis shoes". I just do. No, I don't play tennis. But when I saw these I didn't think of them as tennis shoes. So there.

I'm standing in the yard of my aunt Carolyn and uncle Mike's cabin in Wisconsin (parents of Pete and Joe, above).  We had some fun times up there.  But it's funny the memories that pop in my head. One in particular: I went up without the rest of my family. It was me with Carolyn, Mike, Pete, Joe and Laura (who was adopted later on and closer to my age), my Grandma Vivian and Grandpa Cliff (Carolyn and Grandma Jane's parents).  We were sitting at dinner and I was served chili. Let's just say the kids in my family (not in tow) were not known for being adventurous eaters. If, or when, we had chili it didn't have much (any?!) spice to it. My aunt Carolyn didn't play that way. I'm not exactly sure how it went down, but my memory is of everyone at the table staring at me and laughing because the chili wasn't to my liking. I'm guessing it was one of those "taste it" scenarios. Yep. Nope.  And probably one of those moments when I missed my mom. :) Because that's the way it is. Your mom knows you. Your mom will put up with some of your...oddities. Or make your chili so bland that it doesn't cause a 4 alarm fire going down.

So having said that, I now like my chili with a little spice. Granted, it's still Minnesota variety spice, but hey... that's better than 57 varieties, no? :)

I just about fell out of my chair when I saw this one that Grandpa Jon emailed. Seeing the resemblances...

Two

Grandpa Jon sent this one to me at work this past week and my first reaction was to laugh. Then I thought of Roman. It's the same agonized look.
Zoe, I think, has mastered the art of producing tears to elicit sympathy. It works.

I feel like I've been negligent of the blog and it's not because nothing is happening, it's just gotten more exhausting! You guys! You are exhibiting two year old developmental behavior. Let's say that. And make the face above.

photographic proof of familial relations

Pipaw Jon is coming up with some fun pictures; some really high quality ones.
full post here
http://jonniebegood.blogspot.com/2011/01/changing-negative-into-positive.html

 Your Great Grandma Catherine (Grandpa Jon's Mom)

Your Grandma Jane (my mom)

Uncle Dave, Me and neighbor Scott W.

When I first saw this picture I couldn't look away, I had to study it. I hadn't seen it before. I was surprised at seeing a picture I hadn't seen before, as I think I had our picture albums memorized. I used to like to look thru them when I was a kid
But studying this picture brought back some memories of the house at 5713 where I spent the first 11 years of my life. The artwork on the wall - I remember that! It makes an impression when you're little.  I think it was done by a friend of my parents. There was another one in that room - a country scene with a really dark background, maybe even on a black background...My memory is hazy when I try to describe it.

The tv (!).  Before we got the big old console one (Curtis Mathes, with push buttons on the front to select a channel). Or maybe this was the 2nd tv. That seems unlikely, but it's possible. I wonder if this is the tv that I kissed when Dennis Feltgen came on to do the weather. I remember doing that (I had to be preschool age) and getting a shock. My mom thought it was funny.

I remember that couch, and the green shaggy carpet. This is the house of my earliest memories, a house that has kind of remained in my memory as "home". We moved when I was 11 and that became a big adjustment.  Your Grandma Jane has even said she used to dream about that house.  And maybe because that's where she spent the early years of her kids life (self centered, aren't I?). I've thought of that a lot with the house we're in now. I couldn't wait to get out of here for the longest time, but since you've come in our lives I realize it's going to be more difficult to leave. There are memories here, from the first days we had you home, learning to walk, learning to eat (still working on perfectly the art of eating tidily!), playing in the backyard....oy. What they say about real estate is true. Location. Oh well.

and what a start

You guys are busy, busy, busy and I'm at the point where I really feel like we need an effective "no you can't do that...no you REALLY can't do that" strategy. Not sure I've figured it out yet.
But I'm getting behind on posts...
Because I'm cleaning up the little messes you leave behind (!!!).

Embracing the mess, embracing the mess. Just can't do that. Here's another scan from grandpa.

 Band-aided knees and all.
And another picture of your Grandpa Jon (left) and his good friend Dave. Dave posted this on Facebook a few weeks back - I'd never seen it.

Time machine back to the early 70's

Your Grandpa Jon has been hard at work going thru scanning, touching up and saving piles of negatives and slides that he's got laying around. "So you kids don't have to do it when I'm gone". Yeah, this is how Grandparents start to talk (I'm sure - I'm hoping - I will one day too). Here and there we get a picture. Here's what was in my inbox this morning.

A bit a of a resemblence to Roman?! The eyes have it.

I'm still astounded sometimes at how much Zoe looks like Mike (again, the eyes or more accurately the eyebrows). Very dramatic arch on that girl!  It's so funny how we've kind of crossed genders on some of the resemblances.  Although I guess I was told by my oldest brother Dan's friends that I reminded them of him too. Maybe in the gestures and things. It gets tough to see resemblences in your own family.

By the way, Grandpa Jon is looking for more traffic on his newly updated blog (a new years resolution perhaps), so give it a view:
http://jonniebegood.blogspot.com/

simple pleasures

Last night Zoe really didn't want to go to bed, which is a switch. Normally little Miss goes thru the nigh-nigh routine fairly well. Blanket in hand, thumb firmly planted in mouth...maybe a book tucked in strategically with that blanket. She says nigh nigh to the tv if she's just been watching it (Min-Min Tuck!), or lately to Daddy's drawing of Bert and Ernie on the whiteboard in the hall (not so long ago we used it to keep track of who had their bottle and when).

At any rate after a good 20 minutes of screaming, crying and a heart breaking repetition of "momma!", I went to take a look. Nothing really out of sorts (except Roman wasn't crying as well, just watching Zoe). I got Zoe up, then Roman (to be fair - one sibling out = get out of jail free card). I stayed in the room but shut the door. I let them wiggle, climb, disassemble and re-sort the nicely stacked stuffed animals. Zoe still wasn't happy, but it was the I'm-so-tired-no-matter-what-you-do-I'm-going-to-scream kind of thing. So I let her. But at some point she settled on my lap. She even let her brother come on up. Upside down world: normally she doesn't go for sharing a lap. But she did (well to be truthful, this was about time #20 up on my lap in the last 20-30 minutes).

We had the windows open - the first time in I don't know how many weeks. It's been hot, or sticky or the double whammy hot and sticky. But yesterday was pretty nice. I started asking them if they heard any of the noises outside. Birds. Cars and buses too. Pretty soon the crickets started. Roman was calmly staring out the window, Zoe was laying across my arm. Relaxed. We did it! We took a messy, noisy path getting there, but we got to the calm nigh nigh place.

Very often I go check on you two before bed and I think of how angelic you look when you sleep. It's the calm quiet I think (butts in the air is just funny). But this moment, sitting on a chair in your room, peering out the window and listening for all the sounds that we normally miss, this was one of those moments I love. It's sometimes hard to get there. I started thinking about that living in the moment philosophy again. I think I've forgotten it. Gotta get back there. I love you guys.
I promise to attempt to be calm, loving and patient. You deserve it.

Is it wrong to put the kids to bed before or 8 because they "look" tired? Or because I want some time to update the blog AND read or watch some tv (the latest we're streaming off netflix: The IT Crowd)?

I hear them in their bedroom now, talking, nay, yelling at each other. They're not yet climbing out of their cribs, so we do still have that "jail", but Zoe apparently now can open doors. She got into our room while Daddy was in the shower the other day. Dad had left a glass of soda on his desk (Pop! it's called pop!) and it took a dive as she explored. Apparently she emptied the drawers as well - credit cards all over the place. Not the last time she'll go after those, Daddy. Ah, just the beginning!

I guess I did get to an overload point not too long ago, but not so much that I felt dreadfully overwhelmed (as has been the case at earlier times in my life). Instead it was time to strip away some of the responsibilities. Clean house? Nah. You know how you have snippets of conversations that bounce up to the surface now and then? I recall a teacher at St Kate's talking about how her mom was coming to visit and having to deal with her mom's complaints about the cleanliness of her house. Or, maybe more realistically about KNOWING her mom thought she wasn't a "good" housekeeper even if she didn't say it out loud. And what the teacher said was "too bad". She couldn't do it all (job, kids, ETC) and something had to give. I understand that. Then I think about someone else in a magazine who said she hadn't cleaned her kitchen floor in months - that's what the dog was for. And after having (and losing) Sam (he was a dog at heart, despite the feline DNa) I understand this. I didn't realize it at the time, but he did his share of the housework!

The last week or two has allowed me to get back into reading. I'm totally indulging it and don't feel guilty one bit (well, except that little bit that is prompting me to check in here).

I do want to update your blog, kids.
I might wander, but I won't disappear. Onward.