Mid-May – Got a completely new king-size bed and nightstands in the bedroom, and got rid of all the old stuff on Craig’s List. Sometimes you just have to start over. All the pieces showed up at our doorstep, unassembled, in boxes, and we had a few evenings of assembly before it was all useable. While Liz was off studying, I put together the bed to the accompaniment of Level 42’s greatest hits CD, played twice in full, which I will now forever associate with my bed.
Late May – We had to put my really old cat, Stinky, to sleep. She was 17, by my best guess, and had had a pretty good life lying around in the sun and beating up on the younger cats. We’re now down to two cats – Poohead and Noodge.Early June – Liz’s school had their commencement ceremony, almost three months before the students actually finished their clinical commitments. I think the logic is that at the very end of clinical in late August, the students will be transitioning into their jobs, and may be off in other cities by then. Still, it’s a little weird celebrating while you still have some major, major exams to pass.
Mid-June – The city of Richfield briefly put a traffic counter in front of our house. I drove over it repeatedly for a few hours, hoping for a cloverleaf.Late June – Our annual camping trip with friends was at Crow Wing State Park, about two and a half hours north of Minneapolis. The park was just north of Camp Ripley, a military installation that does some sort of training. While we were setting up the tent, we heard rumbling that I thought was thunder. This caused more than a bit of panic, since it’s no fun setting up in the rain. I found out that it wasn’t thunder but the activity from Camp Ripley, and thusly contributed the weekend’s most memorable quote, “Thank God it’s artillery!”
I also overturned a canoe right next to the dock on the Crow Wing River. Liz and I ended up soaked in the river, but we didn’t lose or ruin any of our possessions. Stupid city boy...
Early July – And this was where our summer got a little more difficult. My uncle Arthur died of cancer in early July. This was the same uncle who we’d just seen in January at my grandmother’s 99th birthday party, where he seemed perfectly healthy to us, except for a cough. The diagnosis came in early March, and the disease moved swiftly. Arthur’s side of the family had a history with cancer; he’d lost his sister at a very young age to it.
This was the same uncle who’d worked for years in the health insurance industry, who’d appeared in the Michael Moore film “Sicko” (Art was not a fan), and who in January was able to recite off the top of his head a detailed history of the Wisconsin clinic where Liz was about to do a clinical rotation. He was a formidable presence in the field of health care, to the point where I think he was Bob Dole’s health care advisor when he ran for president in 1996.
He underwent one unsuccessful round of treatment, then participated in a study at the National Institute of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, just a few miles from Amy and Arthur’s condo. From what I heard from the family, the NIH facility was magnificent from top to bottom, with a level of talent unequaled by anything they’d encountered before.
But in the end, the cruel, arbitrary disease won. Liz and I flew out to DC to visit him near the end, and we met up with my brother and his wife, and my cousins. He opted for in-house hospice, where he’d spend his last days at home, in his own bed, surrounded by his family and made comfortable by a nurse that stayed with them. My cousin, Beth, and I had commented that despite the overwhelming sadness of the household, there was a strange beauty and grace to his situation. He was leaving this earth, but leaving it on his own terms, in his own home, surrounded by the people who loved him most.
Fortunately, we got to say goodbye to him in person. The only other time I’d done something like this was in 1998, when my stepfather Phil was about to enter the hospital for treatment for leukemia. I wasn’t one for big speeches back then, and I just told Phil that he’d been a good dad all these years. It was just an off-the-cuff remark as I was walking out the door, but I’m glad I said it, and it still resonates with me after all these years.
My final words to Art were that he’d been a good role model and father figure for Kenny and me in the years since Phil’s been gone. It was only afterward that I realized that the whole family was in the room with us the whole time, and heard us say our goodbyes. I’m touched that my words found their way into my cousin Beth’s eulogy for her father. She teaches college-level English, and we are lucky to have such a skilled wordsmith in the family. Beth composed the sweetest tribute to a loved one that I’ve ever heard, which included some great stories about the family dynamics. Art had a very sharp, and very dry, sense of humor. He’d once told a complaining Beth that “Life is cruel and unfair”, which then became the family motto.
We came back to Minnesota, and Art died about two days later. The funeral was in New York, where Art had grown up and lived before he moved to DC.
Liz and I ended up flying in and out of Kennedy Airport in Queens, so I got to show her my old neighborhood where we lived until I was 7. Our old 6-story apartment building was still there on 137th Street, my old kindergarten/first grade elementary school was still there a few blocks away, and Liz was pretty impressed that I could still weave my way through the side streets with such ease, after not having lived there for nearly 35 years. We then drove up to Rockland County, and I showed her my other elementary, junior high and high schools. She is now the only person on earth who has now seen all the schools I attended, all on the same day.
After the funeral and meeting with the family, we came back home. Our lives out here slowly came back to normal, although it took the rest of the summer. For my aunt Amy, my cousins Heidi and Beth and my grandmother, life slowly began to settle into a new normal, without Art. Liz and I look forward to seeing all of them in January for my grandmother’s 100th birthday party. (100!!)
Mid-July – The city of Richfield told me that one of the trees in my front yard was sick, that they’d cut it down for free and replace in the spring. Free? I asked just to be sure. Free indeed. So the next day, I came home to a stump in the front yard where the big tree was, and we’ll see what ends up there in the spring.
Early August – During my routine dental cleaning, they found a cavity. I had it filled then and there, which was no big deal, but that was my very first cavity, ever, and I was annoyed that my 41-year cavity-free streak had ended. Fooey. (I’m not counting my one root canal, although Liz seems to think that it counts as one BIG cavity.)
Early August – Got new sunglasses, thereby replacing the ones I’d worn since the mid-’90s. The new ones were polarized sunglasses. And for an optics guy, what could be cooler than walking around with linear polarizers on your eyes?
The polarizers in sunglasses have their pass axis being vertical, so that light reflecting off a rain-slicked road or off the surface of a lake (which ends up having its polarization being mostly horizontal) is largely blocked. There are a couple of very interesting properties that go along with polarizing sunglasses, which I’d never thought about until I got a pair of them.
By tilting your head side-to-side, you can get linearly polarized light to appear darker or lighter, while unpolarized light maintains the same apparent brightness. From a simple head tilt, it becomes really easy to tell which objects give polarized or somewhat polarized reflections. Not surprisingly, smooth surfaces tend to polarize a lot, like building exteriors, windows, and manhole covers. Even moreseo, wet surfaces polarize the reflected light a great deal, so that it becomes really easy to tell if a road or sidewalk surface is wet just from the degree of polarization from the reflections. It turns out that rainbows are polarized, as are the sky and clouds at certain orientations. The novelty wore off, but it took a month.
Mid-August – Played my very first round of golf, at a firm-wide outing. I wasn’t very good, by any means, but I enjoyed it quite a bit. It was a little warm that day, with a high temperature of 93°F and a dew point of 75°F. Bleh!
Mid-August – Saw “The Kids Are All Right”, then sneaked into “Inception” and “The Other Guys”, in that order. That’s right: the sneakin’-into-the-movies trifecta! We spent over eight hours at the movie theater, thanks to some careful planning from Liz. She’s the best.
August 20th – Liz’s last day of clinical for grad school. She’d been dreaming of this day for over two years, since they gave her the date of August 20th, 2010 during her orientation.
Late August – Went to a performance of Rifftrax Live. Basically, the guys from Mystery Science Theater 3000 are still making fun of movies, only now they do it in real time in a live performance in a movie theater, which is broadcast to other theaters nationwide. It was pretty excellent, and I recommend it to other MST’s who miss the silliness. The August film was “Reefer Madness”, which is almost too ripe a target. They do these about every two months – you can find a schedule online.
Early September – Played hooky and went to the State Fair. We attended one particularly terrific event – the llama judging, in the field of costumes. Yes, the llama costume contest, which basically amounts to “Tie some stuff to your llama.” It was a funnier than it sounds. My suggestion for next year’s State Fair is The Miracle Of Bacon barn. We’ll see how it goes...Also saw Weird Al Yankovic perform at the fair (as a concert, not as a costumed animal). After thirty years of performing, he’s still got it, and he’s outlasted literally every recording act he’s made fun of. Nicely done, Mr. Yankovic!
Mid-September – Saw Aimee Mann play at the Dakota Jazz Club in Minne-apolis. A very small, intimate club, with very good food. We got to talk to the band members afterward, and I got an autograph. An excellent experience; I hope she comes back soon.Mid-September – Liz passed her board certification exam, making her a Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist (CRNA). She worked her tail off for this, and it took a few days for the realization to set in that she’s actually done with the program. I am so proud of her!
Late September – Sold our old couch on Craig’s List, so we could buy a new couch and a recliner chair. Now I can sleep in the recliner when I’m sick, and I won’t keep Liz awake from my coughing. Got a cold right after the recliner showed up, and ended up sleeping in it for a few nights. Works like a charm!Late September – Now that she was done with school, Liz had time to devote to building up her two saltwater aquarium tanks. She put together the plumbing, the lights, the special rocks you need to mount coral on, and finally the living things – coral, anemonies, two clownfish, a stripey fish (can’t remember what species it is), and a goby fish. The goby was my favorite, and Liz even let me name him: Goby-Wan Kenobi.
It’s been great to watch Liz work on all the aquarium stuff with such enthusiasm. I know how rewarding my own music hobby has been, and it’s been wonderful to watch Liz pursue her hobby with the zeal that I have for my own music stuff. She subscribes to Aquarium Fish International magazine, she participates in online forums, and she’s gotten friendly with the folks at her favorite saltwater fish store in Bloomington. If it’s knowable, she knows it. I try not to embarrass her by asking dumb questions in the fish store (I only did that once).Early October – Liz isn’t working yet, so she’s been directing her attention to the aquarium work and to cooking. She’s been cooking like crazy! It’s fantastic! Our favorite recipes, by far, have all come from a book/magazine series by America’s Test Kitchen. Aside from just one misstep (an Asian-style recipe that was a little heavy on the fish sauce), everything else has been out-of-this-world spectacular. After a while Liz starting taking pictures, because they turned out so good.
Oct 8 - Grilled pork loin with radicchio:
Oct 12 - Argentinian grilled beef short ribs:
Oct 12 - Strawberry shortcake:
Oct 16 - Carrot cake:
Oct 18 - Spaghetti and meatballs:
Oct 21 - Baked chicken with fennel tomatoes and olives, side of smashed potatoes (probably my favorite so far):
Oct 26 - Beef curry with cilantro chutney:
Nov 3 - Beef stew:
Mid-October – My friend, John, who will be getting married in Boston in November, had his bachelor party in Las Vegas. So 11 of us spent a weekend in Sin City. If you’ve seen the movie “The Hangover”, it was exactly like…almost just like… not quite exactly like that at all.We stayed at the Monte Carlo at the southern end of the strip. Surprisingly excellent food at the buffet – I wholeheartedly recommend it if you stay there. The casinos on the strip all look pretty much the same on the inside, all having the same slot machines from the same vendors and similar-looking card tables. I’m sure a more discriminating eye could have made out some differences, but I didn’t try all that hard.
Early on, I told my friend Kris that I didn’t understand the appeal of the slot machines. I noticed that the machine next to me took $1 bills. So I fed it a $1 bill and pulled the lever. It did its business, came up BAR / BAR / BAR, and flashed a “5” at me. Apparently I won something. I had it print out a little paper card, then took the card to an automated kiosk that read the card and turned it into a shiny new $5 bill. The 5x return on my slot machine investment was a good deal.
Later, we headed downtown to Fremont Street for some of the older casinos and for some partyin’ in the street. We went for dinner at the Golden Nugget – someone said that their buffet was the best one downtown. It was pretty terrible, so I shudder to think what the others are like. The casino dates back to the 1940s, but seems to have received a facelift in the ‘70s that gives it much of its current look. Much can be learned from one of the men’s rooms there: two dozen urinals, each one with its own ashtray. I saw a young guy walking around with a T-shirt that read “I turned 21 in Las Vegas”, and had to laugh, since I turned 42 in Las Vegas on that very day.
There was a zipline set up along Fremont Street. I guess it’s a company that does this sort of zipline thing in different locations – their temporary 90-day business permit had gone into effect only 8 days earlier. You took an elevator in a parking ramp up to the 5th floor, where a scaffold was set up. Then they hooked you up in a harness and sent you down the street to another scaffold a block or two away at a lower height. You wave and holler, and the crowd below you waves and hollers. It was most excellent. We got a great picture of Kris, Shane, me and John (left-to-right) high overhead as we zipped along over Fremont Street.Later that night, we took over one of the craps tables at one of the smaller casinos downtown. The smaller casinos have a much more intimate vibe than the big ones along the strip, and I found them to be much more enjoyable. I’d never played craps before, but that wasn’t much of an issue. A few in our group had played before and explained it, and we picked up what we needed as we went along. Ultimately, we had some amazing rolls at the table, and all but one of us finished way, way up for the evening. I bought $20 worth of chips, and cashed out at $99 – another 5x return on my investment!
The next day, a little subgroup of the 11 wandered north on the strip all the way to the Stratosphere – about four miles. Some verrrrrry interesting people-watching along the strip, as you might imagine. And finally, we went to see Penn & Teller at the Rio, and flew home on the redeye afterwards.
October 26-27 – Big wind/rain storm marched through the Twin Cities, with a wind gust of 62 miles per hour recorded in Minneapolis. According to our weather guy, it’s the largest storm that has ever been recorded in the United States, and an upper Minnesota town now has the distinction of having the lowest barometric pressure ever recorded in the U.S. Weather guy said that if this storm were over water instead of land, it would be a Category 3 hurricane. Storms like this only happen in the Midwest about once a decade, so it was pretty odd for us.
Halloween - Costumes for both Liz and me: witch's hats, business suits, USA flag pins. Sign on Liz: "I'm not a witch. I'm you." Sign on Ron: "I'm not a witch's husband. I'm your husband." I realize this may make no sense to future readers, so if you're wondering, look up Christine O'Donnell, and thank the good people of Delaware for not electing her to the U.S. Senate.Mandatory cat pictures!
Noodge enjoying a giant pile of catnip.
Poohead sitting next to a paper bag, with perfect lighting.Stay warm!
Ron & Liz
