Category: Banalities & Journaling

My sister had a giant Christmas cookie party today.
I liked being there, and finally meeting (or meeting after such a long time) many of the friends she talks about.
Plus, there were a lot of cookies.
The Arizona lifestyle requires a backyard pool, and, perhaps, Christmas sweaters for the dogs.

Earlier, my nephews Dylan and Jameson were put to work as slaves raking the lawn (because this is Phoenix, and the leaves are only now falling from the trees).

Later, we went by a store where Jameson is working as a cashier. He is a very chill dude. When I lived in Korea, it was hard to explain to kids that most teenagers get part-time jobs in the US, but it’s true – this is the proof.
Personally, I think he could pretend to be a k-pop star and get away with it.

We had pizza for dinner. Around the table counterclockwise you can see Mark (Todd’s brother), my sister in a santa hat, Dylan, Todd and, of course, the gruncle.

Tomorrow, we drive to Indio.
[daily log: walking, 1km]

Another day on the farm. Just kinda hanging out. I made my chupe de pescado – Arthur’s suggestion. Apparently he somewhat likes, within the scope of his laconicity. I think it was at least deemed edible by Dean and Pam.
The farm.

A pretty good tree on the side of the road with Ozarks in the background.

Tomorrow, we depart for Phoenix.
[daily log: walking, 4km]

Bob and Sarah had to throw out a broken toilet and ancient chair, so I helped carry them to the curb last night. This morning they awaited their fate, collecting frost.

I would entitle this photograph “Dialogues at Dawn” because of the way there are two places to sit, side by side. But it’s humorous.

Later I took a medium-length walk around the pond in the center of the town of Whitewater, since Bob and Sarah had to work, of course.
I saw these guys standing on the pond, ice-fishing.

[daily log: walking, 3km]

I spent my last day in Minneapolis running a few errands and driving around a bit, among my memories. I’ve lived in Minneapolis/Saint Paul, on and off, for almost a quarter of my life, including very formative years of young adulthood.
This is the house on Elliott Avenue where I met Michelle and Jeffrey. Bob and I were roommates, upstairs, while Michelle lived in the downstairs unit. Jeffrey was 5 years old, then. The house’s appearance is almost unchanged.

Here is the Minneapolis skyline as seen from 14th Street at the University of Minnesota campus, at sunset.

No visit to Minneapolis is complete without a meal at an Ethiopian restaurant. Mark, Amy and I went to a restaurant on 4th Avenue South, just south of Lake Street, a few blocks northwest of the Elliott Avenue house shown above.

[daily log: walking, 3km]

Wendy found some more interesting old pictures in some boxes. I scanned a few.
In 1994, Michelle (my wife, who died in 2000), Jeffrey (my stepson, who is now 31 and lives in Seattle) and I drove from Minnesota out to California, and stayed with my dad (Phil), Wendy (my stepmom), Andrew (my brother) and Eugene (an exchange student living with them at that time).
We spent Christmas in Temple City, California.
Here is Jeffrey (my stepson) at age 7.

Here is Jeffrey with his favorite present, an infamous air hockey table.

Here is a picture of me, Jeffrey and Michelle, looking pretty happy.

[daily log: walking, 2km]

I have spent the day visiting with my stepmother Wendy. I met her current significant other, Larry, and we had a late lunch at a restaurant they like, where Brenda (my stepsister) also came.
One thing we did was spend some time going through some old photo collections. I scanned a few of them – so now I have digital versions of some old photos of my siblings and me.
Here is a rare and implausible “family portrait” from 1990, when I had just finished the training phase of my brief Army career.

Here is a picture of my father, looking rakish, and me, looking awkward. I was 13 years old, and we were taking a trip in Europe, in late 1978.

Here is a picture of me when I was 11 years old, at Phil and Wendy’s McKinleyville house. I think it might have been my birthday.

Here is a picture of my sister Brenda, age 5, pulling a go-cart that my father had made up the hill.

Here is a slightly damaged picture from my sister Samara’s wedding, in 1996: the four siblings.

Here is a picture of me with Lucy the Dog from a camping trip to northern Minnesota in 1993 – the dog belonged to my friend Kristen in that era.

Here is a picture of Samara, Wendy, me, and my father’s parents Alice and John, from around 1975.

Wendy and I took a short walk around her neighborhood and I took this panorama of Colorado’s Front Range looking west (you can “click to embiggen” this picture, you know).

My stepmother has artistic talent. She made this kokopelli that is in her back yard.

[daily log: walking, 2km]

I think I’ve mentioned that I dubbed Arthur’s Chevy Tahoe SUV “the blueberry tank.” That’s the car I’m driving all over during the holidays, and tomorrow, I set out on my next leg. I’ll drive to just north of Denver, where my stepmother Wendy and stepsister Brenda lives with her family.
Today, Arthur and I had another VA appointment, and we ran some other errands and Arthur surprised me somewhat by deciding it was finally time to wash the car. So we took it to one of those fancy “hands on” carwash places and got it cleaned. It was quite dirty – the dust was caked so thickly that an ecosystem of moss was forming on the sides of the car.

Now it’s clean.

Tomorrow I drive.
[daily log: walking, 3km]

Today was a hard day. I was at the dentist in the morning. A horrible dentist experience, as they always are for me. Pain and discomfort and feeling of being complicit in my own torture, and then having the privilege of paying for it.
Sigh.
I had a frustrating time with trying to get my computer (HP laptop) serviced too. If I want it to be serviced, I have to send it to the manufacturer. Which means being without a computer during that time – plus, it’s a bit complicated since I’m currently traveling around. I’ll probably just not bother. And that means the manufacturer has “won” – they’ve made the issue of warranty service sufficiently difficult and complicated such that I simply don’t bother, which of course is their money-saving objective.
Sigh.
On a good side, I got my tax returns for 2012-2017. That’s a feeling of accomplishment.
I have a lot of pain in my mouth. They had to puncture and drain an abscess above my molar. Ow.
When I got back, I told Juli I felt dead.
She gave me some “Dead Guy Ale” to go with my dinner, which seemed super appropriate.

Life goes on. Tomorrow will be better.
[daily log: walking, 2km]

We observed Thanksgiving on Saturday, because for various reasons not everyone was able to make it on Thursday.
In the morning, Wayne and I took a long walk up through the tree farm – I went quite a ways farther up than I’d gone before. We took Walter, the dog, who posed for a picture, too.




Thanksgiving was a great feast in the tradition I’ve associated with the Brosing-Lecomte extended family since my own childhood in the early 1970s, when both families were based in rural San Mateo County south of San Francisco (which was truly rural at that time, and not the collection of high-tech-entrepreneurs’ mansions that it is these days).
Arthur did his small duty relative to the event, by roasting the turkey in the style he developed in Arcata in the 1970s too, using his self-designed rotisserie barbecuer.
There is no table at these gatherings – never has been one, because the number of people is too great. People stand or sit wherever, and eat.

Juli and Keith’s neighbor, who has horses, generously offered to let some the kids (and adults too) ride one of her horses. It was a first horse ride for some of the kids.


It was a good thanksgiving.
[daily log: walking, 5km]

When Arthur goes down to the lower 48 for the holidays each year, he has a routine to “winterize” the house. One issue: since power is unreliable (and therefore heat), he has to anticipate the possibility that temperatures will be below freezing inside the house. That means the water system in the house has to be drained, and the water turned off. He puts antifreeze down all the drains.
It’s a pretty complicated process, starting with turning off the water supply up at the water tank, and draining the house, and then opening all the spigots, emptying the toilet tanks and bowls…
I remember doing this once by myself when I stayed here in 2009 and left in November. It was a bit simpler, then, because it was before he built the main part of the house, so it was only the two “sheds” – but these had fully functional toilets and plumbing, so the concept was the same.
We got this done today. And now it’s like camping, because we have no running water. Tomorrow we leave for Ketchikan.
Last night, we had dinner with Arthur’s friends / neighbors, Jeri and Karl. They live down the road, and came up here and Arthur prepared his famous chiles rellenos.
Here is a pretty good picture of the three of them, in the kitchen here.

[daily log: walking, 3km]

I may not have mentioned this yet. I am preparing to drive down to Portland for Thanksgiving. Yes: drive.
Arthur and I will take the ferry with the car to Ketchikan. There, he will get on an airplane, and meet Juli and Keith in Portland.
Meanwhile, I’ll put the car on another ferry from Ketchikan to Prince Rupert, BC. Then from there I can drive down to Portland for Thanksgiving.
Why are we doing this? Because that way, we’ll have the car down there. We evaluated the comparative cost of renting a car over the holidays down there, versus driving Arthur’s car down, and even accounting for the ferry tolls, the low gas mileage on his SUV, and the extra 1500 miles of driving, it’s still much cheaper.
And I used to do a lot of road trips. I think I’ll handle it fine. Once down in the lower 48 with Arthur’s car, we’ll be able to make use of it for our various intended visitings.
One thing I wanted to do to get ready to drive is make sure the car has snow chains and that I know how to attach them. That’s not because I expect to have to use them, but driving in the winter, some western states and Canada will sometimes require snow chains on vehicles for snowy weather, especially over mountain passes.
So I spent the morning practicing putting snow chains on Arthur’s car. It’s kind of unpleasant, in the rain on the gravel. But I got it done.

[daily log: walking, 4km]