Abby

While I was in North Carolina this weekend, I learned that my cousin Abby died unexpectedly from complications from a surgery she'd had back in January. 

Abby is a year younger than me.

We were close growing up.

I hadn't seen her in several years, but was planning(?) to visit her and her husband Jeremy in Arizona "one of these days."

Abby stands out as a sweet woman, with many qualities I wish I had...

Abby had some terrible struggles. She dealt with them openly and with vulnerability. Her strength and courage were hard-won and beautiful on her.

I spent tonight looking for glimpses of her through old photo albums. None of my pictures came close to capturing what she is like, what she meant to me.

I know my grief is tiny compared with that of Jeremy and her siblings and parents - but oh, Abby, how I will miss you.

Why I'd Rather Not Blog about December

I wrote most of this when I first got back Sunday night - but have been having a brain block about finishing it.
December was a whirl. There's been gorgeous snow this year already, so there's also been plenty o' x-c skiing. Yippee! The month ended with a 1 1/2 week road trip, from which I just returned. I had a great time - and am even a tiny bit unpacked - but still not QUITE ready for the start of the work week tomorrow. I'll work on composing my "game face" even as I work on this update!

I've had people tweak me about what I've been up to and why I've been so silent.
Sometime in December: had really good hang out/connect/catch-up/present-swapping times with Paula, Katie and Linda. Game nights have been fun, and have mostly featured Javier, Tammy, Jim, Marc, Ray & Becky. I had an amazing time catching both a Badger basketball game in Madison and a chamber orchestra concert in a Green Bay cathedral. Since August or so, I've been hosting/attending a Bible study-small group with Alan, Jean, Matt, Mariel, Erica, Jim, Paul and Liz. I also got to sing in a mini-choir & play bongos for one of the December church services. Hooray for good times with good friends.

But there are several reasons it's hard to blog about an entire month - or really any series of events that include lots of details and people.
Dec. 23: Patrick was in town! We got a good ski in, and then he and Tammy helped me madly make tons of my favorite cookies (a recipe I got from Dave Rosene - here's a "close enough" version), before we all headed over to game night at Tammy's.

For one thing, I have a hard time believing that the folks reading this would have interest to the same level of detail that I have in recounting events.
Dec. 24: Headed to Eau Claire for an evening with Mom, Harley & Jode. We sang carols, read the Christmas story, and did some gift-swapping. Really a sweet, fun time.

How do I summarize, keep things interesting, and yet give attention to the things that meant the most?
Dec. 25: Tony & Mindy had a brand-new baby, Julia Rose on the 23rd, so they invited us all over to meet her & hang out for brunch Christmas Day. She's precious, and it was a blast hanging out with Dahlia, Joey & Anthony for a bunch of the day. Anthony, at 6, plays Boggle with the 'grown-ups' and proudly takes the 2-5 words he gets each round. He can get 3-letter words, while we have to get a minimum of 4-letter words, but every so often he gets one that no one else sees. Nathaniel Joe at 4 is full of stories and takes the time to tell each one. He kept time for us while we played Boggle. Dahlia (2) looked adorable in white pantaloons and a bright-red velvet Christmas dress with matching hat. She loves shoes and playing with her brothers. She's putting words together, and trying to figure out her place now that there's a new sister around.

And what happens if I actually have an incredible time at five places in a row? How do I keep my tone from sing-songy-ness and my adjectives from becoming tinny after a while?
Christmas evening, I headed to college-roomie-Joce's place and hung out with her & her family. We had a great time hanging out, watching movies, playing games, talking, and eating. It's so fun to feel so welcome and at home at her place, and Ed, Annabelle and Brooke all make me laugh - they're all just so fun to be with.

Worse yet - what if I forget or inadequately recount something? I was the recipient of so much kindness and hospitality throughout the holidays. My cousin Abby recently blogged about unconditional love and it made me think about this more. It's hard to receive!
Dec. 26th I headed through some rather scary weather to the Hanks residence in the Quad Cities (between Illinois & Iowa). Tom had gotten there Christmas Eve; Mary, Matt & Kalina (hooray!) had gotten there earlier that day, and Nancy and Tom Sr. had everything all set to host a marvelous weekend. After a fun Christmas celebration Sat. morning at Nancy's (she's renting a very cool house in a tiny town called Preemption), we headed back to meet up with the extended family. Food, games, food, swimming, games, and more food - what could be better?! I ended up getting permission from work to work from "home", so I stayed in the Quad Cities & worked from there in the early part of the week. We had a blast playing more board games, discussing things, listening to bits of Tom playing piano, and holding Kalina.

On a lighter note, I like to blog when I have pictures to go with the text. For this trip I stopped taking pictures after we left the Quad Cities, since Tom and others were doing so. Gosh-darn-it anyhow!
Tuesday, Tom and I headed up to Waterloo where we met/hung out with Michael - his good friend since elementary school - and his family. I really liked getting to know Michael, his wife Laura, and their son Isaac. We talked and ate pizza and played Power Grid, and I got to hear all sorts of stories! They're the kind of people that you just want to get to know better.

And then there's the concern - particularly when I'm talking about a series of events like this - whether my excitement at various opportunities and joy in the moments I share will sound like bragging or an endless litany?
Then we headed to Jen & Mustafa's place in the Twin Cities. They had invited friends to a house/birthday party, and Jonathan, Becky, Ray, Ben, Andrea, Tom and I were able to make it. We bummed around, ate amazing quantities of marvelous food (no idea how Jen pulls it off), karaoked, skiied, winter hiked, wandered a bit downtown, and generally had a stellar time. Oh - and we played board games!

And of course, a Christian's blog about December had better include something about the birth of Christ and how much it means to her - right? Hmmm. I think on that one, I'll simply follow a good role model this time around, and "treasure all these things up quietly" in my heart.
Saturday brought the final holiday gathering: Christmas with Amy's family at Augusta's house. Amy and Tim and Augusta and Chris and Sherman were there, of course. But also, Amy's mom Beth flew out, as did her daughter Katie, and then Grant, his girlfriend Christy, and daughter Margo were also able to drive in. It was great that it worked out for all of us to be there, and we had a lovely time. We had an outstanding Christmas dinner, and great fun exchanging gifts (I got Bohnanza - uh oh!!).

Finally, there's the fact that putting words together takes TIME. Time that could be spent packing up ornaments. Or sleeping.
Sunday I got to meet up with Jody for a quick ski in Eau Claire, and then got back safely to Appleton. Hooray!

Speaking of inadequately expressing appreciation, I got to listen to some great stuff on the car ride home. One such "stuff" was a podcast of the Dec. 7 teaching from Rob Bell: "Who Doesn't Want In On That?" - there were some really great thoughts in it that I may try to blog about in the future. Take a listen, if you get a chance, and we can compare notes - and I can maybe depart a bit from this monologue format and go toward conversation! Phwew!

Vermi-sqvirmy

On Thursday, Ray & Becky brought over the frame and "catchy" bucket for the vermicomposter - hooray! I picked up some red worms from Gander Mountain, and shredded some paper, so when they got here to drop it off, we were close to being all set. Becky and I dumped 'em in, and we moved them into the coat closet. Guess we'll see how this goes! I've since dumped water, part of a cookie and an apple core in there - not a stellar start, but here goes, hey? Amy (or anybody!) - any advice on how to make sure they're alive without needing to touch them?

a Katie contest

OK, let's have a Katie contest. How many Katies do you have in your life, and how proportional is it to your level of life fulfillment and happiness at any given time? I have a (step)sister Katie, a boss Katie (a most superior person), a good-friend-from-high school Katie, and two former Katie-roommates. All lovely people - do I win? :) OK, so maybe it is just a series of circumstances there to confuse the people I talk with (which Katie?), but it's kinda fun.

The first of the Katie-roommates is one of my bestest-ever friends - and she just got married last weekend! Hooray! [very cool photo slide show]. We had a great weekend - Jen, Mustafa, Tom and Serena were in from out of town, and there were all sorts of wedding activities going on (bachelorette party [complete with painting pottery, a tapas restaurant, and salsa lessons!], kickball with Katie & Joel's extended family [including Joel's grandparents!], rehearsal, getting all "duded up" and so on). It was a bit of a whirlwind, but overall great fun. Hooray!

vermi-what?!

So when I tell people I'm on the verge of giving vermicomposting a try, they get sort of a greenish tinge to their faces and start edging away (well, really, they shake their heads and wonder if I have it out for rats, mice, and other rodents that cross my path, but it's probably close to the same thing). Here's the full explanation.
Our story begins in our heroine's childhood: she has dark memories of nasty-smelling containers that she would have to take out to the compost pile... there would ALWAYS be a potato peeling or another evil something of some sort sticking vehemently to the container's side. Ewwww - it gives me shivers just reporting it!
But as a "grown-up" she was troubled. She thought the idea of composting was actually a good one, "Composting recycles or 'downcycles' organic household and yard waste and manures into an extremely useful humus-like, soil end-product called compost. Examples are fruits, vegetables and yard clippings. Ultimately this permits the return of needed organic matter and nutrients into the foodchain and reduces the amount of "green" waste going into landfills." (Wikipedia) but couldn't think of a way to make it practical in her garden- and yard-free apartment-dwelling life.
To make matters worse, a friend of hers told her that manufacturing companies are actually starting to work less on biodegradable stuff, and more on "compactable" stuff, because we seal off landfills - so the biodegradable things take up space and never (well, you know, not for a long time) get to actually do what they were designed to do: biodegrade.
Our heroine started thinking about all the biodegradable things that she throws away or sends down the garbage disposal, and she was not happy with herself. Not happy at all.
Enter the hero! No, it was not a knight in shining armor. It was a web site. This one, as a matter of fact. It's cool, right?! Can you see why it replaced the despair in the heart of our heroine with a faint but unmistakeable ray of hope?
So this past Saturday, her oh-so-rockin' friends Ray and Becky helped her make one. For real. Ray worked on the frame, our heroine worked on the bag, and Becky helped both! There's still a smidgen more work needed on the frame, and the much-anticipated purchase of the worms, but it's a start!
Pic 1: Trying to cut out the pattern on super-slidey nylon.
Pic 2: Trying to sew super-slidey nylon.
Pic 3: Doing cool things with wood.
Pic 4: Progress So Far (the frame's drying, but at least it's a hint at what it might look like when finished!)
Tune in next time for an update on how our heroine fares on this bold new adventure!

some few updates

Do you ever feel like it's hard to keep up with yourself? Not as straightforward as pure busy-ness, really, but because there's more stuff going on than time to reflect on it?! It sure happens to me! Here's what I've been up to:

The Weekend Before Labor Day Weekend
After getting back from Colorado, I was a bit overwhelmed with... everything, and it actually sounded the most restful to hop in the car and take the 5-hour drive to visit Amy and Tim. So I did! I had a wonderful, relaxing weekend - no pictures... I was in too chill a mood for that! - but they sent me back with the best-ever sweetcorn and feeling on much better terms with myself and the world. We mostly just hung out, but we DID get to Delta Diner for breakfast on Saturday - HOORAY! - and just had a nice time before Amy's school year starts up again.

Labor Day Weekend
For Labor Day Weekend, I drove to the Twin Cities and hung out with my friends Jen & Mustafa. We had a jolly time, checking out the Minnesota State Fair, watching movies, meeting up with Chris & Augusta, going to the beach, painting the deck, and (for Jen and me) getting pedicures! For some reason I spaced & didn't bring a camera, but here's a pic I love of them from when we were browsing through this crazy clothing store in Nebraska.

The Next Weekend
My friend Tracy got married - hooray! Jen & Mustafa were my "date" for that one, and we had a great time. Tracy looked marvelous, the wedding was beautiful, and the reception was great fun.

The Weekend After That
Chris and Augusta, who hadn't been camping for like 10 years, met me at Devil's Lake State Park. It rained! So the fact that we were still friends at the end is a pretty decent accomplishment, right? It sure helped that we ate awesomely and our tent didn't get wet (unlike our neighbors - who ended up sleeping in the car the second night!). We had fun exploring around the park and thinking about what we would do if it weren't raining. Oh, and buying wet wood from the state park that we were assured was dry... and then trying unsuccessfully for a couple hours to get it going! (It wasn't just us - the night before we'd had a great fire and s'mores and everything). Luckily, we had gummi bears to get us through. I think we got through 2 1/2 pounds between the three of us throughout the weekend - Chris even took them into the tent with us Sat. night, "just in case"!

The past two weekends
have been much less gasoline-intensive. I've spent time reacquainting myself with my apartment (rather a nice place, really), and hanging a bit more with Appleton friends. There are definitely some fun things to do around here: going on walks, indoor climbing, disc golf, checking out the car show at Oktoberfest, watching movies, rambling doing PowerPoint for church, and so on. Oh, and reading like a maniac! I also took on a couple of projects, which I think I'll post about separately!

Clues to a Vanished July

Not exactly sure what happened here, but unless I'm mistaken July has come and gone. I would suspect it of not having happened at all, but I believe that July made a few clumsy mistakes that left evidence of its presence, and for which it has yet to produce a good alibi.

Strongest evidence: weddings. If you are a month who wishes to come and go unobtrusively, do not allow weddings! People have interesting habits of adding rings to their fingers and sometimes changing their names - VERY hard to explain away!

I, for one, am onto the trick: my stepmom Amy is now a Richardson, and has a lovely new ring on her finger. And I remember distinctly going up there early, hanging with her mom, Beth, wandering through shops in Bayfield, picking hundreds of daisies on the roadsides with her and strawberries for shortcake with Gus and Chris, playing with her granddaughter Margo, helping Amy get ready, watching (and singing in!) the wedding, and catching up with lots people at the reception.
But that's not all: my friends Terry and Anna are now BOTH Shermans!
Very suspicious, and the odds of it happening completely at random are practically nil. In fact, I will state for the record that I could produce distinct evidence as follows: Patrick and Aaron will have dated plane tickets that will show the to have flown to Wisconsin during this time. We have pictures of an overnight camping trip that Aaron, Patrick, Tammy, Serena, Javier and I took to Point Beach State Park the night before the wedding, and then more photos of the wedding celebration itself.
And now that I have July on the run, for further corroboratory evidence, I will also state for the record that I have memories both June AND July ending with bouldering/climbing trips to Devil's Lake. Now, this may seem a tad suspicious to you (perhaps a little TOO coincidental?), but really - who could make up a story like that? If you were trying to cook up a plausible record, wouldn't you mix it up a little bit to add believability? No, "for real", Javier, Tammy, Serena and I met up in Devil's Lake the weekend after S coolly moved to Chicago, and had fun exploring the flood-ravaged area. We got rained out not too long after lunch, but had a great morning of boulder hopping, rail walking, and swimming on a no-longer-existent beach.

Not content to leave it at that, Tom (who was here for work for the week), Ray, Becky, Tammy and I met Tom's sister Nancy and her puppy Poky last weekend. This time around we found that bouldering with a Poky makes it an entirely different sort of adventure, and that the flooded area on the south end of the lake was now "wadeable". We also got to top rope in the afternoon, and all of us got a good chance to challenge ourselves on the rock face. Unfortunately for the purposes of this post, I do NOT have photos documenting that second trip - I believe Becky and Nancy were the photographers for that expedition - so I will rely on them to back me up on this one. Becky may also be able to produce photos of geocaching last Sunday which would certainly help the case.

While the rest of my memories of July are somewhat blurred, I really do think the above at least yields enough evidence to prevent the month from squirming its way out of the calendar's clutches altogether. If you have items to add that I've missed, please do so - we really can't let this one get away!

propinquity and the cursed bean game

In the picture: (back) Rachel, Anna, Terry, me, Javier, (front) Katie, Joel, Serena, Tammy, Becky, Ray.
Sure enough, as predicted, Serena did move away. This is getting a tad ridiculous - I've had that game on my wish list for a while, but now I'm not so sure I want it anywhere near me!

One up side to friends moving away is the send-off party. We ended up at High Cliff State Park, throwing and losing boomerangs, smoking cigars, making s'mores, and tweaking Serena about ditching us.

On the seriously un-up side, it came up kind of quickly, and now she's GONE! She got a job with her company in Chicago, so we of course all wish her well. :-P To give her full credit, she has been pursuing multiple options outside of this area pretty much ever since I've known her, so I really am excited for her as this time it's really happened.

We will get to see "old" game night members in fits and starts over the next month or two - I just found out that Aaron and Patrick are going to make it for Terry's wedding the weekend of July 4 (hooray!), and then Serena, Javier, Tammy, Tom and I are flying out to Colorado for a backpacking trip/game night reunion in the Rockies! Zah hoo! We'll get see for ourselves if all the stories that Bill, Aaron, Patrick and Justin have been telling us are true (I have my doubts).

I read an article today that talked about "propinquity":

"that is, physical distance and frequency of interaction. It turns out proximity and interaction have a greater effect on likeability, collaboration, respect, and inclusion than virtually any other variable. When you examine social patterns or conduct surveys that surface friendship patterns, distance and the subsequent frequency of interaction account for a great deal (often almost all) of the variance. You like people you see all the time. People you don’t see, you don’t care for as much. In more common relationship terms, “Absence doesn’t make the heart grow fonder.” The more likely outcome is “Out of sight, out of mind.”" full, unrelated article here.

If you're well familiar with the concept, my apologies for canvassing it here; I just hadn't run across it before as a packaged concept. I'm not sure how I feel about this one. Propinquity IS absolutely a key component of relationships as they're forming , and I think has a real effect on how close you feel to someone. But there are definitely people that I feel closer to, even when I don't see them for a long time, than I do with people with whom I have much greater propinquity (co-workers that I have to "work hard to like" - continually! - for example).

If I have a point, I probably can't start threatening all my moved-away friends to move back immediately if they want to maintain the friendship, gosh-darn-it-any-how. I hate it when manipulation and coercion fail to deliver. Am I the only one who's new to the propinquity concept, though?

burninating

It's kind of weird: there are several things "burninating" in my life right now. In no particular order:

burninatey thing 1: esophagus. So I went in Friday to get a follow-up endoscopy. Apparently I have a fairly screwed up esophagus and should really be on antacids the rest of my life, along with needing more tests for sprue and allergies to try to lessen the bad things that somethin is doing to me. I'm supposed to call in Thursday for the results of some more biopsies they did. Oh, and I have a hiatal hernia which I forgot that they had told me on my first endoscopy. I just found out my Grandma had one of those too, so I guess I'm in good company! Endoscopies: not recommended.

burninatey thing 2: soles. As in the Sole Burner! I did it. I didn't do outstandingly or anything, but I did manage to run most of the way! Zah hoo. I had fun hanging out with Barb & Marie before-hand, and - most importantly - we raised nearly $300 for the American Cancer Society. It was weird to be running/walking with 6000 other people... completely new experience for me. Newbie/outsider observation: you never see people's faces in such events. Just their backsides. This was only 5k; after a marathon you probably have to ask people to turn around so you can recognize 'em!

3: love. Have I mentioned Katie and Joel are ENGAGED?! I went wedding dress shopping with Katie and her mom Saturday afternoon and we had a great time. Will probably go again Friday afternoon.

4: backpacking stoves. I've been transitioning from reading up on backpacking in general to figuring out food/recipes. As of last count, there are six of us, and I'm kind of crazy about having good AND quick food in the middle of the wilderness. I've been dehydrating purple rice and venison burger so far, still need to do more rice and apples. Because I'm a geek - and we really were shooting around substantial amounts of e-mail to figure out the various details - I did throw out a shell of a wiki to help us coordinate it. We used one of these to help us coordinate the New Zealand trip, and that was helpful, and it's looking like this one will be too.

burninatey thing 5: need to finish class. I'd like to have it done by next Wednesday - an extremely aggressive goal considering all of the things going on that besides what's been mentioned above. *crossing fingers!*

And on a different note:

My beautiful cousin Abby was finally able to leave the hospital today. It's been a h***ish journey for her and her husband; they lost baby Harper Lee, and then Abby still had to get her colon removed last week. They're home now, and hopefully the recovery and healing will now take place. Please pray for them...

to pray

And on a completely different note: your thoughts and prayers for some friends who are struggling would be greatly appreciated right now:
- my friend Jen slipped a disk in her back a few weeks ago and is still recovering; she's also got permanent knee issues that affect her doing things she's always loved to do, like run.
- my friend Katie's grandma is dying of cancer (she's an awesome woman and I already miss her - how much harder it is for the family)
- my friend Tracy is having weird health issues that are affecting her significantly
- Grant and Jen (bro/sis-in law) are heading toward divorce - very rough on the whole family.

Thank you....

BOW and scrape!

One day Jen and Joce and their friend Angela headed up north to Become Outdoorswomen. And that's what they did. After all, if a woman can winter camp/scrape herself out sleeping quarters from a snow bank, use a map & compass to find her way from one end of a parking lot to another, dogsled, skijor, and cook in a Dutch oven, what would you call her?!

Jen - a friend from Appleton who now lives with her hubby in Minneapolis area, and Joce - my college roommate - are fabulous people. Spending a weekend with them - in the context of such fun and interesting and DIFFERENT stuff, was just good ol' fashioned plain ol' northwoods fun. Can't say how well we'd (or at any rate I'd) do at any of those things without lots of coaching and help, but gee whiz pop how fun to give them a shot!

Pics | BOW

how to have a girls weekend

So last fall my friends Katie and Jen, my sis Augusta, and Amy decided it might be fun to have a girls winter weekend up in the north woods - and this weekend it happened! Unfortunately Jen couldn't make it, but Katie, Gus, Sherman (Gus's dog - and he's an "it" so the extreme girl-ness of it all didn't completely knock him out) and I got up to Amy's place in Iron River late Thursday night.
So much fun. To have a girls weekend, all you need are great girls to hang out with, great food options, one English bull dog, and plenty of things to do!
The people in this case are a given, as far as awesomeness goes.
Food: besides Katie making homemade pizza and Amy making to-order omelettes, we also made it to the Delta Diner where I just have to say the food is outstanding, and an amazing Thai place, Thai Krathong, in Duluth.
Things to do: well, we made it out nordic skiing twice (hooray!! Katie had never done it before, and took on the challenge like a pro. Gus hadn't been since she was a kid but you never would have known it! Amy hadn't been on classic trails for a long time, and got a whammy of a blister situation :( but had fun getting out there too). We watched tv, bummed around, slept, talked (of course!!), and went to Duluth to see 27 Dresses (definitely a chick flick, but definitely recommended), visit the co-op (hooray!), and eat Thai food.

All in all, quite lovely!

Also - I got the blood work results back on Thursday before I left - and the results for Celiac Disease are negative. *phwew! and thank you Lord!* So I go back for another endoscopy at the end of February (*much scrunching*), and hopefully the doc will have good things to say at that point.

Señor Hanks

Today wrapped up a 2-week work trip to the Neenah location for Thomas the North Carolinian. If I get pics from him, I'll post them, but I think he had a great time. His dad & Nancy and Poky-the-puppy came up from Illinois last weekend - Nancy went to the Packer game last Saturday (thank goodness it was that one, and not today's!). He also hung out with the game night crew, started getting me addicted to the miniseries House, went with me, Javier and Katie to a Badger basketball game, went cross-country skiing, sent Ray & Becky off on their honeymoon, helped me find a car, and took me with him to meet his friends the Falks in Milwaukee on Friday night.
Michael Falk is a school buddy of Tom's who also was the 2006 winner of the Jeopardy tournament of champions! We had a great evening of playing Outburst, Pictionary (that had been a long time!), and Catchphrase. Michael & Courtney were great fun; very down-to-earth and interesting to talk with. A highlight of the evening was watching Tom and Michael play an intense version of Trivial Pursuit of their very own: 15 minutes for the whole game, no turn can last more than 5 seconds or it's forfeited, and Courtney read all the questions. Tom had a huge lead on Michael for the first half, but choked on the last pie piece while Michael bounced around the board filling his. When the timer went off, Tom still had not filled the last pink piece, while Michael had his filled and was just trying to land on the center space - so he won. I've never seen anything like it!
Saturday we hung out with Katie & her brand-spankin' new boyfriend Joel (ok, he's not that new - but she met him not long before the holidays, so I'm still getting to know him!). We had a great time, eating, chilling, and playing Rook and Dutch Blitz. Overall, I think we convinced him that Wisconsin isn't quite as bad as he remembered it being! Now to talk him into moving back!!
After taking Tom to the airport, I met Dave & Paula for lunch (hooray!), and I wrapped up the evening watching the Packers tank with my friend Linda. Ooh-da-lally. Somebody prescribe Prozac for the state!

somewhat of a summary

Somehow I have managed for the last few weeks and weekends to keep myself fairly occupied! As planned, I headed south to Chicago for November's second weekend, after two fun-crazy exhibition basketball games between Division I and Division III teams.

I had an awesome time with my buddy Alex. We talked about doing several things... and even stood in line for a while to try to get last-minute tickets for Wicked (I'd never done that whole stand-in-line-and-hope-for-scalped-tickets schtick before; and, so far, can't recommend it!), but what with the Blue Man group having only view-obstructed balcony seats available, and most other interesting things shows & plays being sold out, we ended up just bumming around and eating great food. Alex took me to my favorite: authentic Mexican at a place called La Pasadita. Kind of a low-key hole-in-the-wall with the best food. Saturday night it was some of the best Indian I've ever had, and we mixed it in with various visits to yuppy yummy Old Town restaurants. Alex is one of those best-ever kinds of friends who you might not talk to in forever, but when you do, you just pick up right where you left off. I even got to see him dance!

The following weekend was deer hunting! Uncle Dean and I headed out to the stands Saturday and Sunday mornings, bellies loaded with yummy breakfasty things Dar had made, and pockets packed with chocolate. Saturday night cousin Scott joined Dean & Dar & I at a game of smear. The good guys won, if I recall correctly, and we had a great time. Talk ranged from everything to Dad and Grandpa & Grandma, to neighbors and old stories and catch-ups on our current lives. I got a doe on Sunday; unfortunately it wasn't a clean kill so Dean helped me track it. I was really glad we found it because the trail was sketchy and hard to follow in the leaves, and I would have felt terrible if we had left it to suffer. Dean's a great tracker, so it was a really good thing he was willing to help me with it. I don't like the killing part of hunting necessarily, but it's great fun to be out in the woods; standing, sitting, listening to a whole world that we normally just drive quickly by.

Last week was Thanksgiving week, and a bit of a whirlwind. One of the gamenight crew and my rambling buddy/former neighbor Justin moved to Colorado on Saturday, so Tuesday was our last game night with him still living here. It was actually pretty neat because Patrick (another gamenight dude) was home again from Boulder for the holiday, so he got to be there too. Justin's girlfriend from Boulder also made it to town that night so she got to meet a few of the legendary game night folks at the lovely establishment of The 10th Frame - an old style bowling alley where you still keep your own score! We had fun; the music was fun and some of us actually bowled quite well. (uh, I wasn't one of them!).

Wednesday I headed down to the quad cities, on the border of Iowa/Illinois, to spend Thanksgiving with my friend Tom and his family. I blogged earlier about Debbie, his mom, so I felt priveleged to be invited to spend the holiday with them. We ended up having a really neat time; Tom's sisters and his Uncle David really pulled an awesome meal together, and the rest of us helped! I was in charge of making rolls, and had remembered that Lisa from my church (this wonderful, grandmotherly, German lady) had made amazing crescent rolls for a group of us when I was in college. I called her, and she actually wrote her recipe out for me so I took a stab at making those for the holiday (Patrick helped!). They did not turn out as well as hers, but they were good, so that was definitely fun. The weekend had several highlights, including Tom playing the Titanic theme song (seriously one of my LEAST favorite songs) for his 13-year-old cousins, and cracking them up completely with his insane vocal rendition of it. It was amazing. Besides that, there were other great spots of football, learning to play "pepper" a great bidding card game, playing with Pokey, Nancy's dog, watching the birds, listening to Tom play (for real!), and heading with the family to get and decorate a Christmas tree. And - it has to be included in this list - Bill Callahan was finally fired!

One non-highlight: I found out that my car is worthless. It's been eating obscene amounts of oil and then spewing them over the paint on the back side... and apparently it's a problem with my car's make and model and there's really nothing that can be done about it. It's actually lasted 120,000 miles instead of the 50-70,000 others were getting out of it. I like my car! And had just gotten new brakes and tires for it! I think I'll try to make it through Christmas/Germany and get serious about car shopping after that. I scrunch my face at the general situation.

I've been listening to Guns, Germs & Steel and am nearly done (16+ hours worth! - but good for these long car drives!), my friend Katie has a brand-new boy-friend-person, my friends the Dunhams and Camerons are heading to New Zealand, and I've taken a fair whack out of Christmas shopping. Have heaps o' homework to get done, though, and it's not... :( And for book club we'll be reading Shepherds Abiding - and I haven't yet started! Ah life! I do have several friends going through pretty rough times right now... so if you're the type, please pray for them!

weekends west

so! for the last two weekends I ventured west... whether to seek my fortune, adventure and glory, or simply fun, friends and good food I will leave it to you to conclude.

The first was to the Twin Cities: a work trip/retreat with the high schoolers at my church. Definitely a sweet time. I got to know a VCP (very cool person) Caleb, and his four friends fairly well as I was their chauffeur there, back and in between. We got a jolly smattering of church experiences throughout: starting at St. Paul's Cathedral (yeah THE St. Paul's Cathedral), staying at First Baptist (a big creepy old cool building downtown on Hennepin) both nights, helping with hanging drywall at a artist community church-type thing (I'm helping Tony, another VCP, in the picture), the Fallout on Saturday, heading to Wooddale (a wealthier mega-church) for church service Sat. night where The End of the Spear guy shared bits of his story. Oh, and there was excellent pizza and a jazz quartet after that, REALLY GOOD, for which I somehow felt responsible to bring down by having something in my teeth. Mike also had us start the devotional My 30 Days Under the Overpass as part of the weekend. Good stuff! I think we all had a pretty good time - there was other activity in there - we hung out at Club 3 Degrees Friday night, and the kids played Catacombs Saturday (they're the "Christians" hiding pretty much anywhere in the huge mostly-dark church, and Roman "guards" track them down and imprison them. Great fun.). [photos]This weekend was a great follow-up! This time my westward wandering took me near Shell Lake, Wisconsin. Aside from a slight incident with local law enforcement, I arrived without problem late Friday at my Uncle Dean & Aunt Dar's house. They live on "the farm" - the place where my grandparents lived until I was in my early 20s. So it's always great to get back there, see what's changed, appreciate what hasn't, and remember. Sat. morning Dean and I went deer stand scouting. We kicked up heaps of grouse, and found several good options for stands, so I think I'm set (opening day of rifle season is less than 2 weeks away!). Then we headed back, and went with Dar up to the Flottum cabin. Aunt Lynnette, Cousin Shellee, Aunt Corrine and Uncle Ron had all come over for the afternoon! We had marvelous food, then headed out on a walk around the place. Lynnette, Jim, Naomi and Ray (aunts & uncles) had put up a memorial bridge for my dad earlier this fall and we wanted to take a look. Well - the rains had been hard on it - Dean had had to rescue it a couple of times - but it was still there! We had a great afternoon ambling about in the fall sunshine and "discovering" all sorts of things. When we came back to the farm, I climbed the old silo just for the fun of it - they don't make 'em like that any more! It's been used to house everything from foxes (to see if they could be tamed) to snapping turtles (to be sold for soup), but I don't know that it was ever used to store grain Anyway, not since the mid-50s! After a brief stop at Brickyard Pottery, and the cemetary, I headed down to Bloomer where my college roommate Jocelyn and her family live. I didn't get many pictures, but we had great fun, really good food, and the kids were a blast to get to know. Ed also gave me pointers on gun care. I hadn't seen them for quite a while, and hadn't actually visited in Bloomer since Brook was an infant, so it was about time! After great thought and pondering, I feel confident to recommend "West" to anyone considering it. [photos for this weekend]

I'm heading south - to Chicago - to hang out with another college buddy Alex this weekend, so we'll see if my recommendation changes! In the meantime, I'm headed to two biggish (for me) sporting events this week (one at the Resch center in Green Bay, one in Madison), work will be a bit nuts, and my classes are in full swing! Wish me luck!