?`s and ANNEswers

Ten minutes to write. Less time to read.

Time to Move?

Posted on August 11, 2005

“I want to take an elevator to our next home,” Earl told me yesterday. It’s an ongoing joke between us, but the circumstances of the past week have made us realize how convenient condo living can be.

You don’t have to worry when your sprinkler system is on the fritz. Nor do you mow your own lawn. Or worry about snow removal in the opposite season. You have a property manager who helps when things go wrong. It’s a great way to have a no hassle home that you can leave in the winter if you choose.

We have none of those advantages now. We have a large home, a large yard, a large garage, and a large complement of people who help keep the whole thing going. Without the latter, we would be up the proverbial creek; because Earl and I moved to pastoral St. Joseph from the city where we actually took an elevator to our home. It’s been a learning experience, to say the least.

At the same time, I love our home; so when the cost of maintaining it gets to me I try to remember what I didn’t like about condo living. It’s only fair.

I didn’t like having 340 other neighbors with varying degrees of manners and opinions. I didn’t like paying that association fee for services I couldn’t control myself. I didn’t like the rules about noise or garbage or security or parking. And truthfully I didn’t like the elevator concept as much as Earl seemed to.

I guess both types of homes have their advantages and their drawbacks. But on the face of it, I’m not willing to give up my home on the St. Joseph River just yet.

See more 10 Minutes in category | Leave a comment

Water Woes

Posted on August 10, 2005

The day got away from me, which accounts for my doing my morning walk at eight o’clock tonight. I almost didn’t go at all, but I knew tomorrow would get away from me too; so I forced myself out the door and down the road along the river.

About half way, I noticed a man standing in the river with the water barely reaching his knees. He stared at a small motor boat that seemed to be grounded in the very same shallow spot where he stood. I watched as he walked around his humble boat and then tried to push it out of whatever muck had caught his motor. When that didn’t work, he finally managed to tip the motor out of the water so that it was horizontal. (You can see I know nothing about boat terminology.) The last I saw, the man had tied a rope to the back end of his craft and was walking down river pulling it behind him. He looked quite dejected.

I have no idea where he put in or how he was going to get home. I saw another boat slowly moving toward him, so I figured I didn’t need to stick around. But I was amused by the scene, probably more than he was.

I doubt he reads my blog, but if he does this message is for him: I smiled at your predicament because I have my own water woes right now. I have a leak in my basement that currently gives me more water than I’d like. I have a septic system with chronic problems which also leaves more water than I’d like. So if I could have shared some of my excess H2O with you, I would have done so gladly.

See more 10 Minutes in category | Leave a comment

Birthdays

Posted on August 8, 2005

Today is Earl’s seventieth birthday; and, if you’re a regular reader, you know my gift to him is an office makeover, a la reality TV. I hired strong men to help me move things around. I purchased a new monitor and a new TV. I even rewired the office so that it was up to speed with current technology. I was glad to do it, and Earl was most appreciative.

But what I liked most about the entire day – from an observer’s point of view — was going out to dinner and reminiscing.about Earl’s life. He is not one for particular introspection, so when the occasion arises I glom onto it. And, as we sat in Tosi’s (St. Joseph’s premier restaurant), he recalled a variety of events in his life that possibly enabled him to be where he is today.

There were marital choices, professional business choices, and location choices – just like anyone who has reached this age has experienced. But Earl’s choices were Earl’s and nobody else’s. They make him who he is.

And who is that?

Well, I can’t say for others. But for me, the choices he’s made have led him to be in St. Joseph, Michigan, with me, in a house that is far larger than we need but of which we use every square inch. His choices also led him to be revving up a real estate career in St. Joseph, instead of downshifting. Which means our life could get crazy in the next couple years.

It’s okay. He needs to be busy, and I can amuse myself. So I say Happy Birthday Earl and whatever you want to do in the year ahead is okay with me.

See more 10 Minutes in category , | Leave a comment

Sunday

Posted on August 7, 2005

As a child I never liked Sunday because there wasn’t enough action going on to meet my interests. Stores were closed, restaurants had shorter hours, and nobody ever called to make plans. It was truly a day of rest, just as serious as if it were the original seventh day where God himself rested.

I don’t think it’s that way anymore. Malls and big box stores are open 24/7. Movie theaters have multiple screens for multiple movies, all shown at the same time. Supermarkets never sleep.

What’s also different, however, is my feelings toward Sunday. Now I relish that I can relax, do nothing, ignore the phone, and stay home. Today was a perfect example.

We rose late because we’d been to a party last night. No big deal. We decided to forego our usual breakfast out; instead we foraged for ourselves. I cleaned the house with the lick-and-a-promise method, since the cleaning lady isn’t coming for another week. I also played piano, washed my hair, read the paper, and didn’t wonder why the phone never rang. It was glorious.


It’s interesting that today the world is busy on Sunday and I am not, while years ago it was the other way around. I longed to be involved and couldn’t wait until Monday morning to get back in the swing of things. Sundays were drones. I’m the drone now.

See more 10 Minutes in category , , | Leave a comment

Potatoes

Posted on August 6, 2005

Maybe it’s my Irish heritage, but I never met a potato I didn’t like. And I search all the time. In super markets and restaurants and fast food stopovers.

I love baked potatoes, plain and twice-baked, sweet or Idaho. I love potatoes au gratin and scalloped. Hash browns, French fries, O’Brien, mashed, and pancaked. I love potato salad, with and without the skins. I even love potato bread.

When I was a child, my Mother served potatoes at every major meal. That and an iceberg lettuce salad were a sure thing, while the meat of choice changed from night to night. So I latched on to potatoes as a staple, something that was always around and always filling. Sure, iceberg salad has something to say for it, but it’s not as hearty as a potato.

Smother it with butter or cheese or bacon or all three. It’s the potato that comes through to the taste buds. Fry it or bake it or casserole it, it’s still the potato that is the essence of the dish.

I’ve even extended my passion to all things potato beyond the edible variety. I play “One potato, two potato” and “Mr. Potato Head” whenever the opportunity arises. Which isn’t really very often, and maybe this is a sad commentary on the state of potatoes in today’s society. They’re not as trendy as they used to be, especially with carb-less diets consuming public attention.

Regardless, I urge potato lovers everywhere to please unite and rise up to defend one of the world’s greatest treats. I don’t care what Dr. Atkins said, it’s even better than ice cream.

See more 10 Minutes in category , | Leave a comment

Blogging

Posted on August 5, 2005

Blogging has its advantages and disadvantages, actually, they’re just two sides of the same coin. Knowing that anyone and everyone might read what I write makes me careful not to say anything I wouldn’t stand on a street corner and shout. In a way, this makes for honesty. When you read about my doubts regarding our current president, you know I would own up to them in public.

I never sign my name as Anonymous.

At the same time, when I’m really discouraged or upset or angry, I can’t go to my blog and pretend it’s a private journal. I can’t spew my feelings and recant them tomorrow in the light of a new day. Which means I sometimes don’t write about what’s really going on in my world like I would in a truly private place.

If there’s a family issue, it probably won’t be resolved here. If there’s someone close to me with whom I’m angry, you’ll never know.

So does that make me less honest as a writer? I don’t know. What I do know is that it makes for filtering what will be poured into the blogging universe. Certainly, I write about my family and friends and my own experiences, but it’s becoming more like a newspaper column than a record of where I am personally at any given point in time.

I wonder how other bloggers feel about this.

See more 10 Minutes in category | Leave a comment

Office Decor

Posted on August 3, 2005

Next Monday is Earl’s birthday; and, for a special gift, I’m giving him an office makeover. It’s inspired by the plethora of reality TV shows I’ve tried to avoid this past season. You know the type: extreme makeover of body parts, extreme makeover of a room in your house, extreme makeover of wannabes to American Idols.

I doubt my gift qualifies as fodder for a season’s worth of entertainment. At the same time, I think rearranging his furniture, purchasing a flat panel monitor to give him what is called more desktop real estate, and adding cable capabilities to his television set will feel like a real facelift. I’m sending him away for the time it takes for two men and me to get everything reassembled.

Together Earl and I made a list of “must keeps,” “would like to keep,” and “can definitely go” items, so that I don’t discard the favored replica of a Chicago police car that is near and dear to his heart. His furniture is huge, so there’s not a lot that can be done in a small room, other than remove a piece or two. Which I plan to do. I also plan to rearrange the art on the walls and the artifacts on his desk. But I promise the Chicago police car stays.

It’s a new idea in gift giving – making something someone has more functional for that person – but I’m hoping it takes off, at least between us. We have plenty of stuff; what we need is someone who can display it better, use it more functionally, or simply say, “That has got to go . . . “

Maybe there is a kernel of an idea here for the next reality show.

See more 10 Minutes in category , | Leave a comment

Parade of Homes

Posted on August 2, 2005

Earl and I recently attended the local Parade of Homes sponsored by various developers and builders in our community. It’s an annual opportunity to visit approximately fifteen newly constructed homes and learn about the latest trends in building and decorating. And it’s always an eye opener.

Big is the word for bathrooms these days. Regardless of whether we visited a condo development or an 8,000 square foot house (No, that’s not a typo), we saw bathrooms that formerly would have housed extra bedrooms. In many instances, the commode had a little room all to itself.

I also noticed that access to closets was frequently through the bathroom, instead of on a wall by themselves. While I think super-large bathrooms are silly not just because they require more maintenance, I like the idea of having my closet be part of the bathroom area. In fact, my current home is on the cutting edge even though it was built over thirty years ago, because you actually enter the closet from the bathroom. I guess what goes around comes around.

Three- and four-car garages have come into their own, while coat closets near the front door have almost disappeared. Mudrooms are becoming fashionable; formal living rooms are leaving the scene in favor of master bedroom suites on the first floor. And the phrase “master bedroom suite” is being replaced with “owner’s suite,” although I’m not sure what the psychological value in that is.

Many people who attend the Parade of Homes already own a home and have little intention of moving. They’re out there to see what’s going on, what makes their house old-fashioned, and what they can criticize as unnecessary. Thinking about it, I fit that category.

See more 10 Minutes in category , | Leave a comment

Indian No Place

Posted on August 1, 2005

Forty years ago this week I moved to Indianapolis, Indiana. I remembered this as Earl and I drove home from our weekend visit to that city.

Forty years is a long time, and both the city and I have changed in the interim. I’m no longer the new bride of a second lieutenant stationed at Indianapolis’s Fort Benjamin Harrison. I’m no longer even married to that man, and the children we had together are now in their thirties. I have wrinkles, which I prefer to call smile lines. I have gray hair, although it’s not too prominent yet. And I lead a more quiet life than I did back then.

When I lived in Indianapolis, the city’s downtown had disintegrated into a block or two of retail stores with shambling buildings and a variety of monuments for neighbors. Malls and big box stores were just becoming fashionable, so fewer and fewer people ventured downtown. I went only to shop at L. S. Ayres, the local fashionable department store. And, on a soldier’s salary, I didn’t go often. We used to refer to the city as Indian No Place.

But while I’ve grown older, Indianapolis has grown younger. A variety of developers took the city under their collective wings in the 1970s and transformed it into a veritable beehive of activity. The downtown of my memory no longer exists. Instead, the city is alive with restaurants, two stadiums – one for a professional basketball team and the other for a professional football team, various museums, large office complexes, hotels, retail activity, restaurants, and more. The monuments are still there, but they have received a facelift, as if to be worthy of the renaissance that’s happening.

Friday and Saturday nights were filled with people of all ages and colors in the downtown district. It was as if someone were throwing a party and invited everyone within driving distance to come. And everyone did. The only sad note the entire time I was there was that L. S. Ayres announced it was closing its doors.

Even so, I believe Indianapolis and I are both happy to be where we are. I’m slowing down; the city isn’t. It was the other way around forty years ago.

See more 10 Minutes in category | Leave a comment

The Cavaliers

Posted on July 30, 2005

We’re in Indianapolis, Indiana, for the weekend even though the festivities of the Indy 500 aren’t anywhere to be seen. Rather, we’re here for The Cavaliers, Earl’s old drum corps, who are competing for the midwest regional championship along with twenty-two other drum corps. I bet The Cavaliers will do well in the end.

Earl has told me more than once that The Cavaliers were the defining activity of his life, and I believe him. Even though he mustered out of the corps just shy of fifty years ago.

The corps taught him to be on time, to do his best, to look the part no matter what it took, and to work as a team member (something that an only child must learn outside the home). Whenever Earl remembers The Cavaliers, it’s with a great pride in his voice.

We haven’t gone to the competition yet, so I can’t say if his former team won or not. And, frankly, it doesn’t matter. What does matter is that young men and young women (because some of the competition teams include women) learn the same things that Earl learned.

Even though winning is the greatest thing, it really isn’t whether you win or lose. It’s what you take from the game into real life. Earl, for one, took a lot.

See more 10 Minutes in category , | Leave a comment