Wonderful News

The WT's heard wonderful news for the new year. Mary is engaged to be married to her friend, Doug. They are a successful blind date. We are very happy for Mary but told her that she can't leave the neighborhood. No plans have been made yet, but we will keep you posted. Congratulations to them!

Our morning coffee group is quite small, lately. WT's are slowly coming back from Christmas trips and guests. We are looking forward to the new year, 2010. It was totally amazing when we turned the calenders to the year 2000 and now we will be ten years into it--more amazing. We have not talked about any big plans anyone has for celebrating. Watching the New Year's ball come down, sitting in a warm robe with a cup of hot chocolate sounds very festive. That would work well for watching the Rose Bowl parade, as well.

May you find warmth, comfort, health, love and happiness in the New Year!

WT's at Christmas

There are many Christmas festivities for the WT's to take part in as the days go by to Christmas Day. One evening, an old Finnish custom is taking place at a cemetery. Ice candles are made and candles placed at the graves. They glow warmly in the winter night. There is a feeling of family gathered around through the ages, a peacefulness.

Churches are hosting children's Christmas programs. The Lutherans had a hint of what's to come as they enjoyed the song, "Go Tell it on the Mountain" sung by the little ones last Sunday. A four year old young man used his hands as a megaphone and really told it on the the mountain. Eyes were watering from muffled laughter. Children bring us to the joy of Christmas.

There are community children's Christmas parties with Santa and treats. "Polar Express" is showing at a local library. You may feel free to wear your pajamas and bring a pillow and a blanket.

The schools are open until 12:30 p.m. on December 23rd. The teachers may have a time keeping the students focused. Gone are the two week breaks during the holidays.

The Chamber of Commerce is having drawings at local stores for holiday hams.

WT's are in various stages of Christmas preparations--some bake many goodies and some not any. Children are coming home and other WT's are going to their children's' homes. We will have candlelight services to attend, carols to sing and the sharing of Christmas warmth and love.

Have a Merry Christmas!

Hunting and Gathering

The hunting ritual has begun. Deer hunting season has arrived. In our part of the world, there are blaze orange covered people in the woods, up in trees, driving by in various vehicles pulling trailers or not, gathering in groups along the roads and filling small shacks. Some orange clothing is hanging outside on hooks, airing out the human smells.

This age of hunting and gathering is unrecognizable to the rustic ages. The tree stands have walls and a window, carpeting, heaters and probably the latest in I-pods. One is not surprised to get a phone call from someone sitting in a tree. A difficult job of this "mighty hunter time" is to stay awake while watching for deer. Then there are the hunting shacks. The men gather to discuss the one that got away and catch some sleep before the next hunt begins. Some misdirected wives cook up stockpiles of food for the poor boys out in the woods. We heard of one shack that was serving lobster, steak and asparagus the night before the big hunt--with no help from a woman.

The gatherers are busy, also. There are craft shows, lunches, a purse party and stores have special sales. Our local florist gives notice to hunters to pick up flowers for their "deer", only a "buck". (Their Halloween notice advised husbands to bring home flowers and scare their wives.) Only a few WT's have someone out hunting. If the hunter comes home "deerless", there are turkey give-a-ways through out the area.

The WT's have been busy being patched up. We are glad to have Irene back, in great shape, after an electrical system glitch in her heart was repaired. Naomi is recovering from knee surgery. Joan is having more chemo and radiation for her esophageal cancer. We were glad to have her with us this summer.

We are happy that our lady mayor ran for office again. She has done an excellent job in these difficult times. Our city is getting ready for the holidays. There will be a Heritage Celebration with a dinner, fun things for the kids and adults. Mary designed a gingerbread postmark for the occasion. If we are industrious and get our cards done we can have them stamped with the collectible postmark.

Have a very Happy Thanksgiving!

Fall Fun

"When the kids moved out, my husband and I weren't going to eat anymore; we were going to dine. Then I discovered that there are no escargot helpers and no stovetop bearnaise sauces." Erma Bombeck

The WT's had a date with fine dining on their outing to our local theater to see, "Julie and Julia". We enjoyed our "dinner theater" experience, eating our light lunches at the bistro tables in the theater. The consensus was that the movie was very good. Helen enjoyed the history of Julia Child's era. We didn't mind that butter was promoted--better than margarine for our health, we decided.

Jodie came by one day and WT's joined her for lunch at our coffee stop. Jo made it over so we had a good time catching up. We extend our sympathies to Jodie in the loss of her sister.

Our city Pumpkin Fest was held after an overnight snowfall with icy roads. Our Northern people are a hardy bunch. They turned out in good numbers, walking carefully, for games for children, pumpkin painting, decorating cookies, crafts and most important, pumpkin pie. The quilt show at the library had the usual display of beautiful creative sewing. The new Methodist pastor, Pastor Barb, displayed a lovely quilt with embroidered snowflakes. She joins us for coffee once-a-week. A great addition to the WT's. Sharon displayed a wall hanging with beautiful colors.

Our local "Shopper" is bursting with Fall things to do. Community Education is offering classes in Mandarin Chinese, ballroom dancing, judo, pilates, crafts, computer skills and many other interesting topics. Fall needlecraft classes include knitting lined mittens and felted slippers. It's time to get ready for the Weihnachtsfest, there is an American All Slav Festival, Mulligan stew feed, and the annual Scout Food Drive. The churches are busy with bazaars and bake sales. The Lutheran Holy Rollers are getting ready for their lefse sale.

The high school fall sports are at their peak. The teams are doing well. On a recent Saturday, one could attend a soccer game out of town and on the way stop at a cross country meet and get back for the end of the girls' swimming invitational. Lorraine has grandchildren in all of these sports. A small town creates busy people.

North woods Visit

The WT's enjoyed a summery fall outing to Emily and Elton's retirement home in the North woods. Of course, we visited over lunch, on their deck, in September! (We keep looking over our shoulders for the cold winter.) Emily prepared an interesting coffee Jello in whipped cream. The comments were positive--a great surprise flavor to give to guests.

Mary, Irene, Sharon and Emily

Mary, Linda, Elsie, Naomi, Laurie and Emily
(Lorraine is taking the pictures.)

Pastor Elton and Pastor Ruth enjoying conversation and sunshine.

A GARDEN GATHERING

The WT's were invited to Nancy's beautiful garden and

screen house one afternoon. The screen house is built

by tall old trees. The wind was blowing. We were sitting

in the woods with flowers every where, a soothing time

Mary, Sharon, Naomi, Elsie and Lorraine

(Tee took the picture.)

Nancy, our hostess.

Summer is slowly winding down. Students are back to their school sports, some grand kids are back to college and we have a tree turning into red and orange, here and there. Sitting in a beautiful garden, we were still in summer, no rush to anywhere.

Coming and Going

left to rt. Helen, Irene, Joan, Linda, Sharon and Mary

left to rt. Dorothy, Laurie, Darlene, Naomi, Mary, Elsie, Helen, Sharon, Irene and Linda

Emily wearing "our" Relay for Life shirt.

Emily and Joan

We are happy to have Joan back with us for a few months. She will be leaving for surgical repair work later on. Some Wt's enjoyed visiting with Jodie a few times at our local coffee stop.


We gathered by a lovely lake for a farewell lunch for Emily. She moved to her and her husband's retirement home a few miles away. We hope to see her now and then.

MARY GOES TO THE INAUGURATION!

As recorded by Mary on January 22, 2009:

While my memory still holds the facts of an exciting trip to see Barack Obama’s inauguration, I have this report to write. Thanks for your interest in my trip and experiences. If you can make the sentence “I know someone who was there” work for you, please go ahead and use it!
On Saturday, January 17, I left Minneapolis, flying to Philadelphia with my friend Doug and his 16 year old daughter Luci. We met people on the plane who were also traveling to the inauguration; one of my seat mates was a young man from England who has lived in Boise, ID, for several years. He was excited to witness the event and no longer have to apologize to people in England for his decision to live in the U.S. We rented a car in Philadelphia and drove through parts of Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, the District of Columbia, and Virginia to arrive at the home of Doug’s sister and brother-in-law, Janet and Jerry, in Alexandria VA. Having a place to stay made it possible for us to make this trip.
Janet gave us commemorative inauguration Metro cards and we used them on Sunday to go to the National Mall for the “We Are One” concert. It was a trial run for Inauguration Day for us and for the Metro system and all went well, at least in our view. One of the first things we noticed on the Mall was that it was lined with portable toilets on both sides, as far as the eye could see. We worked our way to stand somewhere between the Washington Monument and the Reflecting Pool. (They say the pool was frozen over but after my experience of my snowshoe going through the ice on Doug’s lake, I went nowhere near the pool!) The concert was performed at the Lincoln Memorial. I had a fairly good view of the JumboTrons (large video screens--a new word for us) especially if I stood in just the right spot and taller people didn’t move around too much. Denzel Washington was one of the first celebrities to appear on screen. He and Tom Hanks, Jack Black, Tiger Woods, Queen Latifah, and other famous people who don’t sing read the words of people from past history. Abraham Lincoln was quoted several times. The singers included Bruce Springsteen, Usher, Shakira, Mary J. Blige, Stevie Wonder, Beyoncé, Bono, Josh Groban--plus many others. Garth Brooks really got the crowd participating when he came out singing “American Pie.” Beyoncé ended the concert with “America the Beautiful.” On our walk back toward the Metro stop, we paid $5 to have our pictures taken with a cardboard Barack, with the Washington Memorial in the background.
On Monday, we returned to the District, feeling like old pros on the Metro. Luci was especially good at figuring out where we needed to be and where to get off. In our Metro car were three women who were selling Inauguration pins. They had them pinned all over their black coats. I bought one and then asked to take their picture. We saw many innovative ways to make money: hand warmers I bought in Minnesota for $1 were selling briskly at $5, Inauguration postcards with proceeds going to the American Cancer Society, Inauguration programs with Obama’s Victory Rally speech at Grant Park in Chicago in November. Our destination on Monday was Senator Amy Klobuchar’s office in the Hart Office Building. We stood in line for at least half an hour to go through security to get into the building. Many of the others in line were there to pick up Inauguration Day tickets. We felt fortunate knowing that we had tickets from Senator Nelson of Nebraska, through Jerry’s connections and efforts. Amy’s offices were packed and there was food with the theme of “Minnesota Morning.” We managed to find a few pieces of potica, cinnamon bread, and apple chunks, all of the food coming from Minnesota. We weren’t able to see our senator as she was taking a break from talking to people and having her picture taken with them.
We stopped at the National Gallery of Art and walked through the Modern Art wing, had lunch at the cafe where we could sit down, and then returned to Alexandria and our Metro stop at Pentagon City where the car was parked.
Jerry and Janet spent the evening and night in the District so we were on our own and in charge of feeding their cats. Jerry’s sister Elaine arrived from San Francisco and we shared a delivered pizza with her. Elaine came to be a hostess at an Inaugural Ball at the Corcoran Gallery on Tuesday night. She showed us her ball gown and the vintage mink jacket she borrowed from a friend. We had a great time with her. After raiding our absent hosts’ wine cellar, we may not get invited back!
We woke up at 6 a.m. on Tuesday, Inauguration Day, and dressed in our warmest Minnesota clothes. I had wool underwear, lined wool pants, a Cuddle Duds underwear top, cashmere sweater, boiled wool jacket, wool scarf, SmartWool socks, Merrell shoes, and a winter coat into which I sewed extra pockets to carry mittens, a hat, binoculars, hand warmers, toilet paper etc. We took the Dash bus to the Metro station at Braddock Road and managed to squeeze into a blue line Metro car. We immediately lost all our personal space and it proceeded to get even more packed. A person in a wheelchair was in the car so it was impossible to move much. A ride that would have taken 20 minutes took 1-1/2 hours. The Metro conductor was on the microphone often to announce delays due to other trains being slow, sick passengers, closed Metro stops, and other problems. He seemed to appreciate that he had a truly captive audience so he reminded us that it was a celebration. We figured out that in the 8 cars of that Metro train was the equivalent of the entire population of Aurora.
The train emptied out at Federal Center and then we got into a massive crowd streaming toward the Blue Gate and the area where our tickets would allow us to stand for the Inauguration ceremony. There was movement in the line, but many, many people in front of us. Heard in line: the Texas Ball the night before had 11,000 attendees and one of the bands was the Amish Outlaws, former Amish men who still dressed like the Amish. About 15 minutes before the ceremony was to begin, we learned that we would not be able to get through security and the line was closed due to the area being filled. We actually heard many other stories about why we couldn’t use our tickets and stand in that area. You may have heard and read about the problems and delays that many ticket holders experienced.
Our solution was to go to the Rayburn Office Building for a reception sponsored by the Minnesota legislators. We raced to the building and stood in a short line for security. We managed to get to the reception room in time for Joe Biden’s oath and the remainder of the ceremony. So, leaning against the back wall of the committee room for Transportation and Infrastructure (MN representative Jim Oberstar’s committee) we watched the inauguration on CNN. On the up side, we were glad to be with a group of fellow Minnesotans and, as the crow flies, we were closer to the Inaugural platform (just across the street from the Rayburn Building) than we would have been with our Blue area tickets, there was free food, and accessible restrooms with toilet paper. Al Franken, Minnesota’s newest senator, we think, came to the reception so I got a picture of him with Doug and Luci.
We didn’t plan to stay in the District to watch the parade, so we started our walk back to the Metro stop at Federal Center. We saw that the line to the escalator down to the platform was several blocks long, so we chose to walk to Union Station to take the Metro from there. Along the way we watched the Army marching band and military marching groups form for the start of the parade. The Fife and Drum Corps in their George Washington style uniforms was very impressive. Luci noticed that the men wore hairnets over their gray wigs!
By the time we got to Union Station some of the crowds had decreased and we were able to get on the Metro and sit on seats. We saw Elaine all dressed up to leave for the Inaugural Ball and we put on our Obama t-shirts for Janet to take our picture. To make it easier to get back to the Philadelphia airport, we left Alexandria on Tuesday evening and drove to Delaware, stayed overnight with Howard Johnson, and then drove to the airport on Wednesday morning. We didn’t have any airport delays but did have to run in the Atlanta airport to catch our Minneapolis flight. On the way home, we stopped for dinner in Forest Lake and had our photos developed at Walgreens while we ate. I arrived back home in Aurora shortly after 10 p.m.
In a column in the WASHINGTON POST on January 19, Marc Fisher debates the advantages of staying home in front of the television to watch the Inauguration and of going there to be in attendance. He wrote, “ But if you go, you will absorb into the marrow of your soul the multitude paying tribute to the personification of the nation...The Brits have their coronations, we have this curious business of electing not only our head of government but also our head of state, then crowning him not in a palace but out on the street, before anyone and everyone...So you get this immense solemnity and the joy of the circus...this remarkably American blend of hallowed moment and laughter and gaiety. Hear the bands, smell the horses, stare at the faces, eavesdrop like there’s no tomorrow. History is happening. And however far back in the crowd you may be, you are living it, but only if you go.”
I bore witness to this exciting moment in history.