Love is Like a Butterfly, or Familial Puking Causes Brain Cloud in Minnesota Woman

Last night, shortly after midnight, I was roused by some sort of commotion. 

No, let me back up.  Remember how I've been working on changing around all the rooms in my house.  Yeah.  Well.  Let's just say, I've run into a few delays. 

Delays which cause kids to sleep in strange locations for extended periods of time.

Stella, for instance has been sleeping on a mattress on the floor of the room formerly known as our family room and currently serving as kind of the walkway on the way to the room formerly known as Louisa's and hopefully soon to be completely ready to be called Louisa and Elsie's.  Got that all straight?

Inge and Donna have been similarly displaced.  They had been on a mattress in the room formerly known as Elsie's and currently a sort of No Man's Land.   So now they've been sleeping on piled up blankets in the middle of our living room.

Except for when Inge decides to make a tent out of the gate leg table that sits folded up in the corner of the room.  On those nights, she moves all her heaps of blankets and pillows and stuffed animals into the tent.

And sleeps there.

And sometimes she vomits aggressively all over all of it in the middle of the night.

Like last night, for instance.

And in one of those minutes when I, ... well, ... I must confess to being just a little bit happy to be a deep sleeper, I slept through most of the yucky stuff and Joe took care of it all.  I stumbled sleepily into the bathroom just in time to find Joe rinsing the residual flotsam and jetsam from Inge's hair.

I helped get her dressed in clean jammies and made up a sleeping pallet for her on the bathroom floor.  Placed a bucket beside her.  Comforted her as best I could.

And stumbled back to bed. 

For twenty minutes or so until the next episode.

And this pattern continued like clockwork throughout the duration of the night.  Since Joe had so willingly dealt with the initial fallout of tossed cookies within blanket tent and amidst piles of pillows and stuffed animals, I tried to be very willing and eager to handle the repeated ups and downs of the night.

But finally about five, after being up perhaps eight times in the preceding three hours, I asked Joe to take two of the interludes.  After about an hour of only moderately interrupted rest which felt heavenly at the time, I was able to volunteer for the final call to duty at about 4:30.. 

When I woke the other kids up for school at 6:30, they all felt sick.  Sophie with the chronic headache from which she often suffers, John with a residual and less intense stomach issue, and Stella and Donna with all out belly aches.  I called the school and told them not to stop for an Abrahamson bus pick-up this morning.

Joe had an appointment in town to get up for.  He took Sophie along to see the chiropractor and give him a crack at her headache.  (Har, har, chiropractor humor....) 

I was so out of it by that time that I returned to bed and really and truly crashed.  Inge seemed to be past the worst of her ailment.  So I made sure everyone had buckets and I fell into bed.  And slept.  Hard.  And long.

When I woke up at ten, I found that the other girls had been sick, too.  Repetitively.  And dear little John had taken care of all their buckets and comforted them sweetly during their numerous multi-colored yawnings. 

My Mama-Heart was so deeply touched by that.   Not the multi-colored yawnings, but John's patient care for his sisters.  What a little sweetie!

And what a Bad Mama!

I know that's not really true, but it's how I felt at the time. 

And I've felt crummy all day.  I woke up with a splitting headache that didn't even subside with the one-two punch of a tylenol/ibuprophen combo.

Suffice it to say it was one of those days to simply get through.  I did have a nice visit with my Mom on the phone, though.  So that helped pass a nice chunk of time. 

I did much crochet and TV watching.

I worked on cleaning the living room carpet and I scrubbed the splatter pattern from the underside of the gate leg table and all of said legs' nooks and crannies. 

Although we don't keep much bread on hand, being a mostly gluten free home, I did find a loaf in the freezer and dug out the toaster.  I set out butter and honey and made toast throughout the morning and early afternoon as the kids were ready for it.

When Joe and Sophie came home in the afternoon, they brought ramen noodles.  A life saver.

Joe also brought home ingredients for a Thai soup that he made us later for supper.

For his birthday dinner.  Which I forgot.  Totally forgot.  Totally, totally forgot.  At least while he was here.

The soup was wonderful, but boy, Mary, brain cloud much?

I remembered off and on throughout the day that it was my dear Joe's birthday.  I even mentioned it on the phone to Mom.  Elsie called while he was gone to wish him a happy birthday.  But can you believe I never remembered to tell him when he was here?  He was only home a few minutes in the afternoon before heading down to his office.  And then after we got the kids to bed he headed back to church to work again.  So he wasn't really home very long at any one time.  But certainly long enough I ought to have remembered.

Elsie called again in the evening and they talked for quite awhile.  But by the time he was off the phone, I had once more forgotten about his birthday.

Not until just before I went to bed, after Joe was already sleeping soundly, when I checked my facebook and saw his post about the soup he made for his birthday dinner, did I realize what a dunce I had been.  I feel so stupid. 

And selfish.  As if my sick-kid-day and headache excuses me from showing proper love and attention to my husband on his birthday.

Oh, Joe, I love you.  I love you dearly.  Throughout thick and thicker. 

And sickness and health.  

And splatter patterns.  And fifteen minutes sleep-puke intervals.

I can't believe I forgot to wish you happy birthday.  I forgot to bake your cake.  I forgot to give you the gift I've had hidden inconveniently among my pajamas for the last six months and couldn't wait for your birthday so I could get it our of my way.  I forgot it all. 

I'm so sorry.

So, here's to you, my love.   Thanks for all the butterflies.

You might be a Northern Minnesotan if, ...

... your big Black Friday shopping adventure is waiting in line at Cabela's ...
                         ...     overnight
                                ...      at 8°F
                                    ...      in an ice fishing house!

Louisa and her good friend, Whitney chose to spend their Thanksgiving night that way with a group of friends.  There were only two people before them, so they got $50 gift cards for being among the first 25 patrons in line.  

They ran into Caleb L., who was with a group further back.  

By the time the store opened, there were two other groups who had put up ice houses.  

At some point in the evening, the employees came out again and gave out more prizes and awards.   Louisa ended up with another gift card, this one for $10.  She was able to order a nice fleece jacket when she got home that day. 

But besides that, she made some fun memories and has a great story to tell!  

Louisa, Whitney, Shawn, and the others in front of the ice house.

Louisa, Whitney, and Shawn

Louisa and Whitney

By the end of the night
they were all staying pretty bundled up,
 even with the propane heater going.

What's on the counter?

Any guesses?

Images of Autumn: Costumes

Captain Underpants

Sophie and Clara all dressed up for the Halloween dance at school

Whatever you do, don't turn around!

Rock Star

Scary Sister

Tat and piercing

Zip your lips, girl!

Images of Autumn: Harvest Time

Joe digs, the girls find the treasures

What do we have here?

Donna shows us one of the teeny-tinies

Stella shows off three nice ones

Inge displays one of the larger potatoes

Not a great harvest, but it will make a few meals anyway

L to R  Donna shows our seconds, small, medium, and large potatoes

I boiled up the tiny ones for supper that night.

Mint leaves to dry for herbal tea

Images of Autumn: An Autumn Drive

A View to the East, along Cty Hwy 2, North of Itasca State Park

Between Elsie and Jeremy being in Mankato and Joe's Grandfather ailing in Redwood Falls, and of course the youth group trip to the corn maze in Warroad, I have had opportunity to enjoy the beauty of this falls colors more than I do most years.  But, alas, I haven't had the camera along.

On the way home from our trip to Mankato in September the maples between Sauk Centre and Park Rapids were in a full blaze of a deep and blazing red.  It was absolutely stunning.  The kind of stunning that causes that sharp intake of breath with each new prospect.  I so wished for the camera, but instead I had to drink in the moments with deep breaths of the fall air and lengthy gazing at the glorious colors and textures as I drove along the twists and hills of US 71.

A few weeks later into the season, as we traveled to the further-north of Warroad, the yellows and tawny colors of the ripened corn and beans opened before us.  In the marshier areas, the golden birches and poplars and the deep green of the pines and spruce lined our route.  The sumac and other ground covers were starting to turn, for a lower layer of reds and yellows.

And then when we traveled to Redwood Falls the other week, we enjoyed a yet different set of shades and colors with the burning gold of the tamarac swamps.   Apparently, although we've travel this route to Joe's parents quite often throughout the years, we've never yet had the privilege to see the tarmacs in their most stunning color.  I couldn't believe the richness of the orangey-gold between Deer Creek and Wadena.  One the way home, I was traveling with Cameraman Joe, since Louisa had headed home a day early with the car.  But he was sleeping so soundly during that stretch of road, I didn't dare wake him.

He did try to capture some of the later tamaracks along our route.  They, too were marvelous, with the sharp golds of the tamaracks contrasting amongst the deep greens of the pines.  But now nearly so intensely vivid as the broad swaths of gold further south.

Pine and Spruce on the left and Tamarac and Birch on the right

A roadside cluster of gold and green

Colors along the telephone wire cut

The tamaracks at the curve in the road makes one wonder what awaits

Enjoying an Old Favorite

I'm reading again!  What bliss!  What comfort!  (What temptation to read too often!)

Some of you may know that with this stupid depression thing through which I've been floundering this several years, I have had little or no concentration to read.  And some of you may remember the days when I was a two-or-three-book-a-week kind of gal.  When I was a reader of both fiction and nonfiction.  When I liked to learn things from reading about something new, or a new take on old knowledge.

Those of you especially who remember those days will rejoice with me, and totally understand my deep, deep joy, when I say I can read again.  Nothing very heavy.  Nothing scary or intense.  Still not much nonfiction.  But I read.  Read.  Read!  I love it!

I've been picking up cheapo books at my second hand stores.  I whip through them and then send them back where I got them.  Or at least that's the plan.  Mostly they just sit in stacks on my dressers because I forget to put them in the second hand bins.

I've read three Zane Gray novels in the last month or so.  Although those white covers with the red spines and the Texas Longhorn imprint were a staple of just about every home when I grew up out west, I had never read any Zane Gray.  I find them appealing.  Not great writing, but somehow, appealing.  I love the descriptions of the colors and light and sounds of the wide open spaces.   I  love the cowboy type settings and characters.  The West.  And I like that there's always a little love story.  A clean love story, too—something that's not found in much of today's fiction.

I've read some fantasy by Raymond Feist, Magician: Apprentice, the first book of the Riftwar Saga.  It was an average book, or perhaps a little above average, but it brought me a disappointment.  The Ranger's Apprentice series of children's novels is a favorite of our family's.  It saddened me to find that the plot of the first book in the Ranger's Apprentice series, The Ruins of Gorlon, is very similar to this other title written for adults some twenty years earlier.  In general, the bigger plot of the fantasy world is not identical, but the character histories and sketches and much of the interpersonal relationships are very like.  

I recently picked up a copy of A Room with a View by E.M. Forster.  Ahhh, this book remains one of my all-time favorites.  Like Jane Austen, I love how Forster plays on the societal foibles of the time.  The book is a love story, full of passion, discontent, confusion, deceit.  But it so well portrays some of the silly things we all do as we navigate our lives.

The time setting of A Room with a View, being early Edwardian, gives Forster fertile ground to set up fun scenarios involving the clash between the prim and proper tail of the Victorian sensibilities and the free-thinking modern ideals.  The Honeychurches are the normal family, stable, proper, loving, and real. Aunt Charlotte, or Miss Bartlett, is the poorer spinster aunt who is prudish; prim to the point of judgmental; and proper to the point of perpetual martyrdom.  Mr. Beebe is the perfect universalist parson who sees the good in everyone.  Cecil is über prim and proper, and vacuous.  The Misses Alan are two elderly spinsters, also prim and proper, but disposed to think well of those who are not altogether so.  Eleanor Lavish is the daring modern woman.  An author.  And of course the counter-culture Emersons are kind-hearted. Mr. Emerson, the father, is portrayed as a kindly socialist buffoon; while his son, George is the brooding introvert, fixated on the meaning of "it all."

When Forster right at the beginning of the story, places these characters in the Pension Bertolini, in Florance, Italy, he shows his mastery of the art of satire in the behavior and dialog of the diverse personalities.  Before the end of the first chapter Forster has readers first chuckling, and then even hooting in mirth, as we get to know the characters.  And although I've read the book numerous times, I still laugh.  I still find new insights into the humor.  And I enjoy once more the old favorite dialogs and mannerisms.

Here are a few of my favorites.

Miss Bartlett is telling Mr. Beebe about their unfortunate beginning, without really want to gossip, of course.

     "The first evening means so much. When you arrived, we were in for a perculiarly mauvais quart d'heure."
     He expressed his regret.
     "Do you, by any chance, know the name of an old man who sat opposite us at dinner."
     "Emerson."
     "Is he a friend of yours?"
     "We are friendly, as one is in pensions."
     "Then I will say no more."
     He pressed her very slightly, and she said more.

Mr. Beebe continues a few minutes later with a more in depth sketch of Mr. Emerson's character.

     "I think he is [nice]; nice and tiresome.  I differ from him on almost every point of any importance, and so, I expect—I may say I rather hope—you will differ.  But his is a type one disagrees with rather than deplores.  When he first came here he not unnaturally put people's backs up.  He has no tact and no manners—I don't mean by that that he has bad manners—and he will not keep his opinions to himself.  We nearly complained about him to our depressing Signora, but I am glad to say we thought better of it.
     "Am I to conclude," said Miss Bartlett, "that he is a Socialist?"
     Mr. Beebe accepted the convenient word, not without a slight twitching of the lips.

And finally, as young George Emerson agrees to offer once more, his and his father's rooms with a view in exchange for those of Miss Bartlett and Miss Lucy Honeychurch, who have no view.  He scores a great coup that leaves us cheering and laughing.

     The young man gazed down on the three ladies, who felt seated on the floor, so low were their chairs.   "My father," he said, "is in his bath, so you cannot thank him personally.  But any message given by you to me will be given by me to him as soon as he comes out."
     Miss Bartlett was unequal to the bath.  All her barbed civilities came out wrong end first.  Young Mr. Emerson scored a notable triumph to the delight of Mr. Beebe and to the secret delight of Lucy.

But these little snippets, as much as they are enjoyed by those familiar with all the personalities, barely scratch the surface of the pleasure of this book.  You must read it yourself.  

Enjoy.