Category Archives: Whimsies

Saturday Smile: I Don’t Hate Nature

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This past weekend, Court took his family into the foothills of Denver, where they fished and hiked splashed around in Bear Creek, and had a great time. Their joy at being active in nature makes me particularly happy because when Court was a kid, I would try to get him to hike. He would almost always refuse. One time I asked him why he didn’t like to hike. “It’s good to get back into nature,” I told him. His response? “I hate nature.”

Well, apparently now that he has a wife and three kids who don’t hate nature, he has come to grips with being outdoors…..

I guess nature ain’t so bad after all.

Have a great weekend.

Friday Book Whimsy: Westering Women

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Author Sandra Dallas is a favorite of mine for two reasons: a) She writes many novels About the Old a West; and b) She lives in my hometown of Denver. Well, really three reasons, the third being that she tells a hell of a yarn that almost always feature strong women who work together to care for one another.

Westering Women begins with an advertisement for adventuresome women of good moral character to join two ministers on a cross-country trip from Chicago to the gold mining community of Goosetown, California. It’s 1852, so the trip will not be easy. All manner of women with all sorts of backgrounds volunteer to undertake the journey, which will undoubtedly be difficult. Each one has their own reason for looking for escape.

And difficult it is, as the women face extremely dire circumstances from abusive men to challenging terrain to extreme weather conditions. Over the months it takes to complete the journey, the women grow stronger, more self-reliant, closer to one another and more trusting.

Maggie is escaping from an abusive husband, whom she thinks she killed in self-defense. She brings her daughter, who is shy at first, but learns to trust the women. She grows most fond of the woman named Mary, who is as strong as a man, unattractive, but loved by all.

I enjoyed seeing how the women went from being strangers to being sisters. Seeing how they gained confidence and a sense of worth made the novel a great read.

I have enjoyed all of Dallas’ books, and this is one of my favorites.

Here is a link to the book.

Thursday Thoughts

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An Apple a Day 
After many, many months of listening to me nag him, Bill finally agreed to go Apple all the way. I finally gave him an ultimatum: either you get an iPhone and an Apple watch, or I will make you wear an I’ve Fallen and I Can’t Get Up necklace. As Apple watch users know, there is a button on the side of the watch with which you can call 911. His new watch also one ups mine by having a feature that alerts authorities if you fall down and can’t press the button for some reason. I don’t know how it works; probably magic. Now we just have to get him set up…..

A+ Student 
Bill had his quarterly movement disorder doctor’s appointment yesterday, and they were pleased with how well he’s doing with the pump. It was good to hear, because he had a tough day on Sunday while we were in Estes Park. While I brought his meds and most of his paraphernalia to hook him up, I forgot one important piece, making hook-up impossible. We called the doctor, who told us how many more of his oral meds to take to make up for the lack of the meds coming from the pump. The doctor apparently forgot to carry the 1 (or something), because he figured wrong. Bill was a mess for most of the rest of the day. Once he got back on schedule, he was fine.

Far Away Places
The latest on our two granddaughters who apparently are going to live forever with their Aunt Julie is that they spent the week camping in the mountains around Bozeman in Julie’s little camper. They look like they’re having fun and not missing Denver at all…..

 

Puzzled 
I have figured out that one of my grandchildren takes after me in at least one way. The other day, Kaiya, Mylee, and Cole came to play. I had purchased a 300-piece puzzle for them to work on. Kaiya spent the day drawing, and Cole played with Play Doh. Mylee quietly worked away, and in a couple of hours, she had put the puzzle together by herself…..

A girl after my own heart.

Ciao!

Sparking Joy

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It seems many people are/have been taking advantage of the quarantine to clean out household items they have been meaning to get rid of for years, but never had the time. I always like to use that as an excuse for not tackling our storage places, but it gets more and more difficult as I watch more and more British mystery programs. After all, I don’t see Inspector Morse working on his storage closets. He’s too busy swilling beer and whiskey and solving mysteries. That’s what I want to do instead of cleaning — swill beer and whiskey.

Jen and I were talking about our need to downsize our possessions. She has been way better than I have about cleaning out her house. For one thing, she has given herself permission to tossing items instead of dragging to Goodwill where they will be subsequently tossEd because they’re, well, nothing but crap.

“What you have to ask yourself,” she explained, “is does this spark joy?.” Listen, I watch Marie Kondo too. I think that’s a worthwhile question to ask oneself as we’re cleaning out closets and storage rooms. I assure you that the Chinese dumpling steamer baskets that I have used exactly once do not spark joy. Nor does the Fry Daddy or the Food Saver, both only used a very few times. Other things sparked joy at one time (I’m looking at you Cuisinart Double Ice Cream Freezer), but now it just gathers dust and sparks very little joy.

Those are easy problems to solve. If I can just get myself motivated to go down to the storage area and shove the sticky paper with all of the spiders under the shelf, I can easily figure out what I might use and what I will never use again. I don’t even mind taking the Never-Use-Again items that are in working order over to Goodwill.

The problems arise with those things that actually do spark joy. Like my dad’s clarinet. Like my mom’s fur coat. Like the baby sweaters and booties my grandmother knitted for me that Court never wore, not once. I love them, but the arms were excessively long and the booties were excessively big. But how could I possibly throw them away? My mind clearly sees Grammie sitting on the red velvet sofa in her and Gramps’ little apartment above the bakery knitting items for their grandchildren’s hope chest with her Swiss friends.

As for the clarinet, I tried to put it to use when Addie was playing clarinet in her middle school band. She took it to her band instructor and asked him what would be needed to get it in working order. A lot, it turned out. Not worth it, he said. So it continues to gather dust in my basement. And you can imagine the number of times I could wear Mom’s fur.

So they don’t get tossed. I assure you, however, that there will be no joy sparked when our children inherit the mess. Take my china cabinet…..

A few years ago when we redid our floors, I went through all of the stuff contained therein, and Goodwill got several boxes of china cabinet type stuff. When I was finished, I put what was left back into the cabinet. I can say with all honesty two things: 1) every single item contained in my china cabinet sparks joy for me; but 2) there will be not a single, solitary spark of joy for our kids. Who today wants 12 place settings of Royal Dalton fine china? Who wants the porcelain rose that Court gave me for Mother’s Day a million years ago? Who wants the cranberry serving tray that Bill’s mother gave me? Who wants the 12 teacups with different flowers for each month that Bill bought me early in our marriage?

No one. That’s who.

Sparking joy, indeed.

Elk Lodge

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As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, Bill and I spent the weekend in Estes Park to celebrate our 28th anniversary. I have posted a blog about Estes Park so many times that the Chamber of Commerce should give me an award for tourism promotion. But despite how many times I’ve written about our adventures, I have to write at least one more E.P. post.

We approached this trip with a bit of uncertainty given COVID-19. Bill and I always stay at the same place — the Deer Crest Resort. We love this particular resort out of the probably hundreds of other lovely lodges, and have come here for years. The worst thing about the Deer Crest is that it is adults only. The best thing about the Deer Crest is that it is adults only.

Now, you know I love kids. I love the sounds of kids — the laughter, the excitement, the energy. And I’m always sad that I can’t bring my grandkids to the Deer Crest because of the adults-only rule. But on the other hand, the grounds are immaculately kept, there isn’t a noisy swimming pool, and the fire pit is limited to adults sitting around with their glasses of wine or cordials after dinner. It’s very relaxing…..

This visit, we didn’t even make it into downtown. Some argue that the downtown area is too commercialized, and I can hardly argue that fact. Taffy shops, souvenir shops, and candy shops galore. Still, who doesn’t love a good caramel apple? But the number of people walking the streets seemed a bit excessive for my comfort level, masks or not.

So we limited our visit to nature. Jen drove up on Sunday to spend the day with us. She and I drove into the park. We had to have a timed reservation in order to be allowed to enter. We drove to Bear Lake, anticipating that the limited numbers of people would result in only a few folks at this always-popular spot. We were wrong, as the parking lot was entirely full. We were thankful to have a handicapped placard (which Jen got when she had her knee surgery) because it allowed us to get past the park rangers. We had a lovely walk around Bear Lake, and reminisced about Mom, who loved that walk…..

When we got back to the Deer Crest, we talked Bill into driving into town to see the new Estes Park Resort. The new resort is gorgeous, sitting right on Lake Estes, with spectacular views of the mountains and the lake.

These two tourists were taking proper precautions.

We were excited to learn that our old favorite restaurant — the Dunraven Inn — has moved from its rather dark and crowded original environs to the new resort…..

We didn’t have the chance to eat there, but we will certainly do so very soon. Look at that view!

But our real excitement came when we returned home to the Deer Crest, and were greeted by this fellow right in our parking lot…..

And it wasn’t just a drop-in visit. This 12-point buck spent the entire evening at the resort, munching on the trees and trying to munch on the beautiful flowers until the proprietor gave a firm no-go…..

Eventually he was joined by a younger friend….

That evening after we ate our steaks, we sat at the fire pit and watched the Elk Show. The big one was no more than 50 feet away from us, and not a bit worried about it.

By the way, about 10 minutes after Jen left yesterday morning to return to her home, my phone rang. “I’m in a traffic jam,” she said. I couldn’t imagine such a traffic jam, especially at 7:30 in the morning. “Oh, it’s not people,” she said. “It’s a herd of elk blocking the intersection!”

And that, folks, is why I love Estes Park, Colorado.

Unlikely Shopping Again

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Bill and I celebrated our 28th anniversary this weekend in Estes Park. It is one of our favorite spots, and the location of many celebrations. In honor of Estes Park, I am reposting one of my favorite stories about this mountain community. It originally posted in September 2017.

I always tell people I grew up in a small town in Nebraska. The truth is (and I actually checked the figures on the internet, so you know it’s right) that when I was born in 1953, there were probably close to 10,000 people living in the Midwestern town of Columbus. When I left for college in 1972, there were over 15,000 happy Columbus residents. Well, I don’t know if all 15,000 were happy. I’m overthinking….

Size is relative, my friends. I continue to maintain I lived in a small town. Still, that town had a J.C. Penney store, a Montgomery Wards, a couple of dime stores, a great drug store, and, of course, a fabulous bakery. My point is that if I needed to buy underwear, I knew exactly where to go.

Last weekend, I spent a few days in Estes Park, Colorado, with my two sisters. Estes Park, for those who might not know, is a small resort town of just over 6,000 located near Rocky Mountain National Park. There are lots of restaurants, two – count ‘em – two taffy stores, and shops selling all manner of chatzkies.  We have wonderful memories of Estes, and its proximity to the beautiful national park makes it one of our favorite places to visit.

Bec arrived first, driving in from Fort Collins, and I met her there. I had packed my bag quite hastily, and had included a picnic bag full of items for a cook-out that evening. At some point later in the afternoon, it occurred to me that, while I had remembered the steaks,  I had forgotten to pack pajamas.

No worries, Bec said. I have a spare pair.

Great news, except by that time I realized I had also forgotten to pack a toothbrush and, worse, underwear. (I did, however, have three corkscrews.)

Bec and I put our heads together to try to come up with a place that sold underwear. Had I been looking for a t-shirt that said My Mom and Dad Went to Estes Park and All I Got Was This Stupid T-Shirt, or a coffee cup with a cross-eyed bear saying I Can BEARly Think Before Coffee or a lifetime supply of petrified wood, I would have been set. But we simply couldn’t imagine where one would find ladies’ underwear in this tourist spot. No Walmart. No Target. Amazon can’t make one-hour deliveries.

So I set off to the motel office, hoping against hope that the proprietor – Fred – wouldn’t be attending the desk, and that instead a woman would be sitting there. No such luck. There was Fred, looking cheerful.

Can I help you? he asked happily.

In a voice that was truly sotto voce, I said Hello Fred. This is really embarrassing, but can you tell me where I can buy women’s underwear in this town?

Fred gives it a moment’s thought, turns towards the back room, and hollars – HOLLARS – Hey Joe! Where can this lady buy women’s underwear?

Help me Lord.

Joe comes out, and you can see he’s giving it a lot of thought. After a moment or two, Joe says, Try True Value Hardware. It’s in the Safeway Shopping Center.

True Value Hardware. Men are from Mars.  If only I had three pairs of underwear and no corkscrews. But I knew that there was a pharmacy in that same shopping center, and I had high hopes that perhaps they sold women’s underwear.

I walk into the pharmacy, and there is, of course, only a man working there. I take a deep breath and ask him if they by any chance sell ladies’ underwear.

No Ma’am, we sure don’t, he said. Try True Value. It’s just across the parking lot.

Again with the hardware store. I was successful, however, at finding a toothbrush at the pharmacy.

As I left the store, I saw the True Value Hardware Store. What do I have to lose, I thought.

I walk into the hardware store, and there is, of course, a man at the front counter. Big man. Three-day growth of beard. Chewing on a toothpick. Do you by any chance sell women’s underwear? I ask him.

You’ve probably guessed his answer by now.

Yes, Ma’am. They’re on Aisle 16, just across from the ammo.

Well, I made up the part about the ammo, but I’m not making up the part about True Value Hardware selling ladies’ underwear.  I also found a Size 2XL t-shirt that with a picture of an elk and ESTES PARK, COLORADO in big letters. AKA, a nightgown….

Ace might be the place with the helpful hardware man, but True Value has the best selection of women’s cotton briefs in Estes Park. Well, the only selection, it seems.

Saturday Smile: Goin’ to the Chapel

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Twenty-eight years ago today, I walked down the aisle at St. Vincent Catholic Church where Bill was waiting for me. We said our vows, and the fun/chaos/drama/romance began. Happy anniversary to my husband, who has made me smile for 28 years and more…..

Have a great weekend.

 

Thursday Thoughts

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Tick Tock
The summer is ticking away. (Now I sound like my mother.) Every year about this time, the columbine in the berm in the front yard look spectacular. This year, however, all of my columbine — both front and back yard — have been meh. Instead, the flowers that have really looked pretty are my lilies. Unfortunately, they don’t last that long. But I planted some Black-eyed Susans that I’m hoping will bloom this year into the fall…..

There’s No Place Like Home (Not) 
Dagny and Maggie Faith continue to stay with their Aunt Julie in Bozeman. They call it Camp Julie, and for good reason. She’s a lot of fun, but also keeps them on the straight narrow. Their mother told me they are in no hurry to come back to Denver. Well, Dagny admitted she missed her bees…..

She didn’t say anything, however, about missing her Nana.

Front Porch 
Last evening after we finished our dinner, we took a walk. We ended up at Dave and Jll’s house. Addie was off somewhere with her boyfriend. Alastair was cooking dinner for his new girlfriend (young love, first love) who seems very nice. Dave was playing poker with some buddies for the first time in months. So Bill, Jll, and I sat on the front porch with a glass of white wine, and solved the problems of the world. Soon we were joined by Jll’s mother, who lives across the street, and her dog Piper. We yakked, and Piper kept all the dogs walking by at bay. Well, at least until he started shaking so much from fear that he had to go home. It was a lovely evening and was nice and cool as we made our way home.

Get Off My Property 
Bec rented a VRBO last year in Fort Collins, and since then has been getting fed Larimer County news. She’s more aware of whose running for mayor than Jen, who has lived there for 30 or more years. Yesterday she sent me a copy of a news article she received that told of someone in Estes Park placing nasty notes on the windshields of cars with out-of-state license plates. GO HOME is basically what they said. In the meantime, the businesspeople are apologizing their butts off and assuring people they are welcome to come and spend their money in this town that depends on summer businesses. Since we will be going to Estes Park this weekend to celebrate our anniversary, I will have to check things out and let Bec know if she has to cover up her license plate when she enters Larimer County.

Ciao.

Swampland For Sale

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I read recently in an AARP publication, and then again on Next Door, that there are bad people who are taking advantage of us in new and inventive ways. I think scammers are kind of like the people who sell umbrellas in metropolitan areas like New York City and Rome. A few drops of rain, and within minutes, the streets are full of people offering umbrellas at a ridiculously high price.

Scammers, like umbrella salespeople, react quickly to whatever tragedy is happening in the world. As soon as the word PANDEMIC hit the air waves, people were apparently getting phone calls or email messages about the coronavirus. We have a cure. We have masks for sale. We have an herbal vaccine. We have toilet paper. I’m happy that I never got such a call. Not because I would have fallen for it, but because it would have made me so angry.

The ink wasn’t even dry on the legislation that created the economic stimulus package, whereby many Americans received loot to use to stimulate the economy, before the scammers were making phone calls again. Give us your account number and we’ll invest your money and make you a millionaire. Someone got your check instead of you, but we can fix it if you give us all of your personal banking information. I’ve got some swamp land in Florida I will sell you.

I am very careful about texts and emails that I get. In fact, I don’t answer my telephone if it’s a number I don’t recognize. I always figure if it’s legit, they will leave a message and I can call them back. Also, my email provider does a cracker jack job at recognizing spam. Oh, they get it wrong once in a while. Poor Café Rio can’t get a break from Comcast. But mostly they get it right.

I checked my spam folder yesterday, and learned that someone named Daniel Sullivan was alerting me to the fact that the government discovered they owe me $4.7 million dollars. What a boo-boo. Unfortunately for me, a woman named Annette Stillman was masquerading as me and trying to get my money. The nerve. However, Mr. Sullivan smelled a rat and was going to foil Ms. Stillman’s efforts. He wanted me to give him my bank information so that they can deposit my riches into my account leaving poor old Annette penniless.

Here was the first paragraph of the email, verbatim:

Dear Beneficiary,

We apologies for the delay of your payment and all the inconveniences we might put you through, while we were having some minor problems with our payment system which in all case not meeting up with fund beneficiary payments, we apologize once again.

Obviously, I was totally unconcerned about the fact that the sentence made no sense, nor did it contain any punctuation at all. Bankers, after all, are left-brained and worry about dollars and cents and not commas and correctly spelled words. Ha!

Seriously, these people are evil. But they are also stupid. I know there are, sadly, people who fall for these scams. But I am puzzled by anyone who can read the above paragraph and not stop and wonder.

I’m letting my $4.7 million go unclaimed.

Kick the Bucket

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I don’t have a bucket list. In fact, nobody had a bucket list before 2007 when the movie The Bucket List starring Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman was released. Suddenly everybody has a bucket list.

But not me, because most of the things I would put on a bucket list are things I will never do in a million years. I might offhandedly say, “Wait, what? You’re going to safari in Africa? That’s on my bucket list.” The truth, however, is that I will never go to Africa. I’m not saying that with any kind of sadness; however, the way my life has laid itself out almost certainly precludes a trip to Africa.

Late last year, I watched a series on PBS about the development of country music. One of the episodes featured in the series focused on bluegrass music. I love bluegrass music. In that episode, they showed a number of people — mostly women — playing the dulcimer. I believe I said out loud to myself, “Learning to play the mountain dulcimer is on my bucket list.”

Learning to play the dulcimer, my friends, is another thing that I can’t actually put on a bucket list. I will never learn to play the mountain dulcimer, for a number of reasons. When I looked up dulcimer on Wikipedia, it described it as a fretted string instrument of the zither family. Well, I had no idea what the zither family is, so I looked that up on Wikipedia. According to Wikipedia, the word zither has historically been applied to any instrument of the cittern family.

At that point, I stopped. I didn’t bother to investigate what in the hell the cittern family is. Especially when I read that the word guitar is derived from the word cittern. Huh?

Not knowing where to even find a mountain dulcimer, or someone who provides dulcimer lessons, sealed the deal. I will have to be satisfied with five years of piano lessons. I don’t think the piano is in either the cittern or the zither family.

Another activity that I believe I have thought might be on my bucket list is learning to water ski. Let’s analyze this bucket list item. I can’t swim. I can’t even tread water. My niece Jessie told me that her dog EDI can’t swim. Seriously, I thought all dogs could instinctively swim. Not EDI. Jessie says EDI isn’t buoyant and promptly sinks. EDI and I have that in common. I, too, promptly sink. It isn’t that people haven’t tried to convince me to learn to swim. Many have, and many have failed. I’m not buoyant.

Nevertheless, I think it would be fun to water ski. I tried once, when I was in high school. We had a cabin on a lake, and our neighbors had a speed boat. They spent weekends water skiing. One Sunday, they asked me if I wanted to learn to water ski. Inexplicably, I said yes. Even more inexplicably, my parents — both who knew I couldn’t swim — said, “Great idea! Have at it.”

The neighbors put a life jacket on me, dropped me in the water on a pair of water skis, and took off. It should come as no surprise that I fell within seconds. Unexpectedly, however, the life jacket slipped off of me immediately, and I began to sink, just like EDI. Thank you to God, who gave me the good sense to grab onto a ski which held me up until the neighbors swung around and picked me up.

“Want to try again?” they asked cheerfully. Oh. Hell. No. Mom and Dad didn’t even get up from their lawn chairs.

Perhaps if I ever decide to have a bucket list, it should contain activities at which I might actually succeed. Making the best whiskey sour. Baking the perfect loaf of bread. Making a lasagna without looking at a recipe.

It’s all a matter of perspective.