Category: Family

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Iowa, Summer 2006




Nowhere, IA

Originally uploaded by steven_d_krause.

On the road again, here’s Iowa somewhere between Iowa City and Des Moines. I’d like to say Iowa is more exciting than this, but that might be an exaggeration.

I took a walk around the Cedar Falls neighborhood this morning, and I noticed a crew starting to strip off the shingles on the roof. The thing that struck me was they were wearing old-fashioned jeans and shirts, and they all had those Abe Lincoln beards. And they were all white, which is more common in Iowa, I suppose. Amish? I wondered….

Amish it apparently was. My dad told me that it’s pretty common to get Amish folk around here to do projects like roofing, siding, floors, etc. To quote my father: “They do good work and they work for cheap. Some of them don’t drive though, so you have to pick them up. They sing hymns while they work.”

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The Point, part 2 (and then some)

To tell you the truth, I don’t have a whole lot of interesting things to add to my previous post on this family trip/reunion. But since I started with “part 1,” I figure I ought to have a “part 2.” So here’s what happened:

  • Hung out Friday morning at the hotel, mostly recovering from the drive. The Stevens Point La Quinta Inn was pretty so-so. Their web site claims “La Quinta” is Spanish for high-speed Internet. Ha. More like “Spanish for spotty Internet,” or “Spanish for ‘next to Denny’s'” (that’s my sister Jill’s line) or “Spanish for ‘just kinda crappy hotel.'” But it was conveniently located, right next to the country club, even if people at the hotel didn’t know where the country club is.
  • Went to the Stevens Point Country Club on that Friday afternoon, which was where many of the events were. I played golf that afternoon with my cousin/our host Scott, and my Uncle Paul, and my gimpy father rode along. Anyway, while we played on the course, Will played by the pool and Annette, still gimpy herself of course, sat and read. A good time seemed to have been had.
  • The course was great– very well-kept, challenging but not crazy-hard, etc. I played like shit, hitting it into the woods on just about every hole, but, because the trees were all pine and they kept it pretty clean underneath those trees, I didn’t lose a ball all day. And I got good at the punch-out shot. I also bought a cool hat. Along with my Point beer, I now have two official SP memories. Sadly, no snow globes were available.
  • Got up first thing Saturday morning, basically before anyone else, and decided to take a bit of a brief driving tour of Stevens Point. Now I understand why there aren’t a lot of other SP souvenirs. I did find out they have a Starbucks, and even one with a drive-thru.
  • I actually spent a fair amount of time on Saturday morning grading, which helped me get a bit caught up from this week of events.
  • I tried to play golf on Saturday afternoon with my uncle Paul again and some other far-flung relatives, but we ended up behind the slowest foursome in the history of the universe and then we got poured on about the 6th hole. Oh well… Anyway, while I was trying to golf, Annette and Will were once again by the pool.
  • I’d write more about the various family events, but, well, those are probably even less interesting to anyone who wasn’t there than what I’ve written already. It was a good time, but it was fairly typical reunion stuff– talk, food, drink, etc. I like all of these folks, but of course, even though my cousins are technically my “family,” I don’t really know them that well. By the way, what’s the spouse of a cousin to me? What about my cousins’ kids– are those second cousins? And what’s the relationship between my kid and my cousins’ kids? It’s all very confusing.
  • Annette and I high-tailed it out of there at 6 am Sunday morning, leaving Will with the grandparents. This week is “Krause kid camp,” where my Ps take their grandkids (the ones out of diapers, at least) for a few days. I’m sure I’ll have a post or so on that next week.
  • And now the “and then some” part: We were home for all of 30 minutes when we went out to pick up Laura (who Annette has known for like 20 years now) from (of all things!) a Scrabble tournament in Hazel Park, MI. The whole Scrabble thing is its own long and (to me, at least) strange story I won’t tell now, but basically, she was here from Viriginia for it, and we had a pleasant, less than 24 hour visit with her: hanging about, dinner last night, and breakfast this morning. Here’s the picture of these two I threatened at breakfast to put on my blog:
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The Point, part 1

Greetings from Stevens Point, Wisconsin, where we’re at right now for a smallish family reunion type event– on my mom’s side. Why Stevens Point, you ask? Because this was one of my cousin’s ideas in the first place, he lives in Stevens Point, he’s the manager of a country club (the site of many of the events), and it’s a good location for most of the family, most of whom are from Wisconsin.

We had the trip from hell yesterday getting her in the first place. A late start, getting stuck for an hour before we even left town, rush hour traffic in Chicago, construction, accidents, etc., etc., turned an 8 hour trip into an 11 hour one. Given that Annette rode in the back of a rented mini-van with her leg propped up the whole way, you can imagine how thrilled she is with it all.

The hotel is fine, though my wireless access is sketchy. Got up this morning for a little grocery and wine/beer shopping, and I was struck by two things. First, even out here, in the relative middle of nowhere, you can pretty much get anything you want in terms of food items, decent coffee, decent wine, etc. You might be saying “well, duh,” but I can remember a time in Iowa and Wisconsin where that wasn’t the case.

Second, I was reminded of the local beverage, Point Beer. It’s good but nothing remarkable– kind of like Leinenkugel, but I’ve never seen it for sale anywhere outside of Wisconsin. I remember when a friend of mine way way back when collected beer cans, the Point “blue bullet” was a sought-after item. Point appears to have gone a bit more up-scale. Pictured above are examples from the “sampler pack” of beer I bought, along with one of the root beers I bought.

Anyway, things with this reunion (as is the case with all things with this side of the family) are pretty casual. Played golf with my cousin and one of my uncles while my injured father rode along and my injured wife sat by the pool watching Will as he played in the water for about three hours. So far, so good.

Now it’s time to enjoy a Point!

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Annette’s broken (okay, sprained) leg

So….

This morning, I was minding my own business in the basement, working away at my desk while Sophie was hiding underneath it because of the cleaning people, whom Sophie is afraid of, were busy upstairs. I was trying to settle in to a day of getting caught up on various projects. While sorting through various blog readings, I heard the distinctive noise of Annette and crashing bottles, followed shortly by her obviously crying out in pain.

Basically, what happened was she was taking out trash and bottles out to the garage, something that she’s done 1,000 times before, when she tripped and fell on the steps out the back door. Now, I’ve tripped on these steps before myself– even fell. The steps are kind of crooked and cock-eyed. But this time, Annette somehow managed to trip and fall and twist her whole leg under her. “God DAMN it!” she yelled,” which immediately attracted the attention of our nice but very religious neighbor.

When I came out, she was on the ground and certainly not happy about it. At first, I thought she had hurt her back or something, largely because of the way she was laying there and also because it just seemed to me that hurting her back was more likely. But no, it was her knee and leg and ankle.

So, after a small conference between myself, the cleaning ladies, and our religious neighbor, Annette and I were off to the emergency room. Fortunately, especially in light of recent news stories about how ill-prepared the US emergency rooms are, things weren’t that busy and Annette got cared for quickly. Ultimately, the verdict was not a break but a badly sprained leg– not just a kneee, not just an ankle, the whole damn leg.

They put on this strange quickly hardening cast thing and wrapped it all up so she has, basically, a “half cast,” which she’ll have for about a week. Ah yes, the fun of showering with a bag on your leg.

Here’s a picture of the damage:

sprained leg

She’s obviously unhappy and in pain about all of this, but I’m guessing that by the end of this week or so, she’ll be okay. It has already required quite a bit of rescheduling of various events both present (including a Steve visit to her graduate class– what a hoot) and near future (Annette will now be accompanying Will and me for a family trip to Wisconsin this weekend since it’s clear that she’s not going to be able to take care of herself with this thing).

And for me, it’s required many errands and some nursing. For example, while Annette was being x-rayed, I was trying to hunt down some crutches. I ask my honey what she wants for dinner, and when she says “lasagna,” I spring into action. And don’t get me started with dealing with dog care for the weekend, car repair, transportation for Will, etc., etc.

But even though it’s my blog, it’s still about Annette here. For example, take a look at this card from Will– click on the images to get some more details:

Will's card, #1

and…

Will's card, #2

Follow the links– they are worth it.

Anyway, get well Annette!

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New Hammock!




Hammock 1

Originally uploaded by steven_d_krause.

In our backyard, we have two enormous pine trees– I mean like 5 stories tall– that are just the right distance appart for a hammock. In fact, we did have a hammock back there a couple years ago, but it was inexplicably destroyed in freak fight between squirrels and possibly a raccoon. But that’s a different story.

This story is, partly in honor of Father’s day, Annette and Will bought a new hammock. After the weeding this weekend, perhaps I’ll take a nap back there.


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The last day of school is the best ever

Per my out of town’s wife command to blog about the Estabrook carnival, here are some pictures and comments. Though yesterday was about much more than the annual Estabrook Elementary carnival; oh, so much more than that…

Annette has been in California since Wednesday for a conference, so it’s been just me and Will around here and it’s pretty much going to be like that until Sunday night. I know Annette’s had a lot of fun out in LA, and while we miss her of course, we’re actually having fun of sorts, too.

Thursday was Will’s last soccer practice of the season (his last game is today– more photos etc. to come of that), and the coach asked parents to come to practice ready to play. Considering the fact that I’ve never played soccer before and I was playing against of eight-year-olds, I think I was able to move my fat-assed body around the field pretty well. And it’s something we should have been doing all year– the kids played harder than ever, I think because of the motivation to beat the parents.

Yesterday, Friday, was the last day of school. It started with a rocket launch in the morning. Will knew that as a kid I had done some stuff with model rockets, and so he wanted me to come. Long story short: some faculty from EMU came and did a demo with tiny but still impressive Estes rockets. I hadn’t really been a part of rocket launch in about 25 or 28 years, but what struck me was the “current” model rocket technology is pretty much identical to what I used way back when– same engines, same launch pad, same igniters, same quick and dramatic effect. Go figure.

Anyway, school was out early, so we went out for a special lunch typical of all rising fourth graders, I assume: we had sushi at Yotsuba.

And then, of course, the capper of the greatest day ever, the Estabrook Carnival.

Will Wall ClimbingTo be honest, I have loathed the carnival in the past, and still kinda found it unpleasant this year. But since Will is older (yes, a year makes a big difference at this stage), he doesn’t require a whole lot of supervision. So I spent much of my time chatting with friends and/or the parents of Will’s friends, including my friend and work colleague Jim K. who “volunteered” to work the carnival this year. (Interestingly, he was “bumped” from his presumed role at the duck pond to the much more lame job of supervising the shooting of basketballs in the gym.)

Water WarHighlights included the minigolf (pictured above); a win at the cakewalk (and where Will seemed to exhibit some of the characteristics of gambling addiction since he kept going back and wanting it more after each loss); a less than successful climb on the wall thing, and an exciting water war with friend Gage. For me, the moment that kind of summed it up was Will’s mishap in the “Water War,” captured here as a 2.3 MB mov file. You gotta love a kid who loves having a water balloon blow up in his face….

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This Week at the Movies

I don’t normally write movie review-type posts, but we had the experience of seeing the X-Men: The Last Stand in the theater and The Squid and The Whale at home the other night. Here are some thoughts, complete with spoilers, so if you don’t want to be, ah, spoiled, quit reading.

First, an extra credit question: name the Academy Award winning actress who is in both movies (see the end for the answer).

Okay, first the biggie, the X-Men movie:

  • This was a “family movie night” since we had rented the first two earlier in the winter and they seemed to go over well. I think this third one was perhaps a little more intense than the other two, but Will seems to have survived.
  • On the plus side: the effects are cool, shit blows up real good, it’s damn loud, etc. In other words, it’s certainly a big theater movie, which is perhaps why the box office has been so big. But I was once again reminded of just how unpleasant it can be to go see a movie like this in the theater. The place was packed and so, of course, sitting behind us was a family of idiots narrating the film to each other. It wasn’t so bad during the loud parts, but the quiet parts could have been a bit more, well, quiet. Anyway, if I were to do it over, I would have seen this at about 11 am on a Tuesday instead.
  • I’m sorry, but I could never get over the fact that Kelsey “Fraiser Crane” Grammer is in this one. Fraiser I mean Grammer plays Dr. Hank McCoy (what does this say about mutants and/or the likes of me that about half of the mutants are doctors or professors?) who is the U.S. Secretary of Mutant Affairs (or some dumb title) and whose mutation is that he looks like a big blue gorilla— though, I will grant you, he does turn out to be a bad-ass fighter. The voice is bad enough; what makes matters worse is that Fraiser –oops, I mean Hank– spends much of the movie wearing a suit and tie and even reading glasses. So basically, Grammer’s portrayal here is exactly like a big hairy blue Fraiser. I half expected to see David Hyde Pierce make a screen appearance as a mutant who looks like a yellow turtle or something.
  • There are more mixed metaphors here than an eskimo fire fighter watching a rattlesnake convention in St. Peter’s Basilica. You’ve got the whole mutant=terrorist kind of thing, the idea of viruses, diseases/disabilities that aren’t really diseases/disabilities, etc., etc., etc. Best not to think about these things too much and just enjoy shit blowing up and Fraiser as a blue gorilla.
  • An example of a bad metaphor: I heard some NPR report where one of the writers was claiming they were trying to make the mutant’s right/choice to a decision to being “cured” analogous to women’s rights/choice to have the choice of abortion. Which is why, said this writer, there were protests outside the clinics where mutants were being vaccinated. This just doesn’t work for me. I mean, it seems obvious to me that if you’re a mutant and you have a cool mutation (you can control the weather, fly, shoot flames, turn stuff to ice, make the world blow up, etc.), then you don’t want to be cured. On the other hand, if you have a mutation that sucks (you kill anyone you touch, you’re a big blue gorilla, etc.), then you’d want the cure. I don’t see how this is a metaphor for the more complex decision about abortion.
  • Given that about half the characters get killed off (the professor, Scott, Mystique, in the end Jean, etc.), it seems to me that there must have been some sort of contract negotiation where the actors and the suits got together and the actors said something like “Okay, okay, OKAY already. We’ll do one more. But JUST one!”

I have much less to say about The Squid and The Whale. This is most certainly not a family film– we watched this the other night after Will went to bed. It’s a very good movie about a washed-up novelist who is in the midst of an ugly divorce from his wife, who just happens to be an up and coming writer herself, and also about their two sons who have quite different perspectives on the whole business. It’s one of those comedy/drama flicks– a dramedy? a comrama?– that really was kind of “Oscar bait” in the way it was performed and filmed and paced. Now that I’ve seen it, I’m kind of surprised it didn’t get any nominations– at least I don’t think it did.

And, once again, it’s an example of a movie not to see in the theater. Since it isn’t damn loud and since shit does not blow up real good, this is the kind of movie that can really only be ruined by a family of idiots seated behind you. Unless seen at a more “serious” movie venue like the Michigan Theater, this is the kind of movie best experienced on DVD in the comfort of one’s home. Go rent it if you haven’t seen it yet.

Extra credit answer: Why, it’s none other than Anna Paquin, all grown up.

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The latest version of my home office

The new home office

Millions of unofficial and loyal readers may recall that back in December 2005, I set up a basement office space with the ping-pong table. It worked pretty well, but it had a few disadvantages, not the least of which is that this set-up ruled out playing ping-pong.

A few weeks ago, Will was complaining to me about the lack of ping-pong table. I said to him “if you give up the play area you have in the basement, then I’ll move my desk stuff and set up the ping-pong table again.” This was an easy deal for Will because the play area consisted of stuff he hasn’t played with in years.

Anyway, after much rearrangement, I am back to the arrangement you see above. It’s a throw-back all the way to my Ph.D. days, a door desk set up on milk crates. It’s cheap, it’s simple, and it has a lot of space.

There are other features not pictured here. In the foreground is the treadmill (I think I stood on it to take this picture) and to the left is a filing cabinet with a DVD and TV on it, mostly for viewing while on the treadmill. Be sure to click here to get the whole tour with the notes I left on Flickr.

So far, I think I like this set-up quite a bit. It has some advantages over the ping-pong table, and besides that, we’ve actually been able to play some ping-pong. Will has a long ways to go to be competitive with me, but he’s a lot better at it now than he was when we first got this table a few years ago.

I don’t know if I’d win this Lifehacker contest for “coolest workspace,” but it’s pretty nice. Of course, while I think the contest winner is nice enough, the workspace I really think is interesting is the “Treadputer” set-up, something I could kinda/sorta do here on the fly if I moved a few things around….

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Computer woes, sickness, and Holland

I haven’t been posting much lately, mainly because my computer is visiting the great Apple store in the sky. Actually, I think it’s either in Memphis or Houston, two cities I personally haven’t visited. Long story short, I am getting a long-standing problem with my computer fixed. My basic thinking here is that if I can get my current computer to last another year or two for the $300 I am paying for repair, it’ll be worth it. I write about this on my official blog in more detail here.

But what’s killing me here is that my repair has been delayed. I thought that this would be a quick enough turn-around, maybe as long as five days, tops. But it is looking like it could be much longer than that. This sucks. With Annette’s computer, Will’s PC, and two computers in my office at school, I certainly have adequate access. But not having my computer with my stuff is really killing me here. For one thing, I’m not able to use my computer with my stuff on it. Not right. For another, Will’s computer is a somewhat old PC and the keyboard on Annette’s laptop drives me nuts– a sticky space key makes all the words run together.

Anyway. Hopefully I’ll get some word on my missing iBook in a few days.

(Slight Update: Apple emailed me and informed me that my iBook is repaired and ought to be back this (Friday, May 12) afternoon!)

In other news, I have a cold that simply will not go away. I am relatively sure that it is not allergies, though that may be a factor. In any event, it’s something all of us around here have, and there is not a whole lot in this world than the feeling of being sick in the spring/summer time. The only plus of it all is I haven’t been eating much lately because of it and I’m down another pound or so.

So, all of this combined has delayed my posting about our road-trip last Sunday to Holland, MI as part of their annual “Tulip Time” festival. I spoke with my parents about all this a bit on Tuesday, and they kept saying “oh, that’s just like the tulip thing they do in Pella, Iowa. Oh, you wish, Pella. The Holland festival is THE place for tulip and Dutch celebrating in this country, my friend.

Actually, most of the “big” events are going on this week and this coming weekend, including appearances by (I shit you not) Three Dog Night, Frankie Avalon and The Oak Ridge Boys. Not together, of course, on different nights. Anyway, we were in town on the somewhat quiet opening weekend.

After a kind of crappy lunch where we couldn’t even enjoy a beer because of the area’s overly strict Sunday alcohol laws (Annette was right– we should have just grabbed some corn dogs and went with it), we got into the spirit of things by wandering around a very nice little downtown area.

Gimme candy!
One of Will’s favorite stores was an old-time candy store, the kind of place that had pretty much everything you could imagine in bins that you could buy by the pound. Here’s Will supervising the weighing of some jelly beans.

Then we found our way to the very nice Windmill Island Park. Here are a few pictures:

Big ol' Windmill
Here’s the reading why they call this “Windmill Island,” a mondo-gigantic 240+ year old windmill. Though we never figured out why they called it an “island.”

Tulips everywhere!
And here’s why they call it “tulip time.”

Black tulips
Here’s Will in front of some pretty cool black tulips. Really, they were a very very dark purple, but close enough to black.

In any event, a good time was had by one and all, though I have to say that the whole fascination with tulips in general escapes me.

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E-I-E-I-O

On Friday, I had the pleasure of being a parental chaperone-type with Will on his latest field trip, which was to “Rural Education Days” at the Washtenaw County Fairgrounds. Will’s teacher told me that this is an annual event that involves pretty much all of the third graders in the county to learn about agriculture and such. Here are a few highlights, complete with photos:

No parking in front of the cow

I drove myself out to the event– because I had plans after it was over, because there was no room on the bus, and because who really wants to ride on a bus with a bunch of third graders anyway?– and was quickly instructed where not to park.

Lincoln?

The program began with an Abraham Lincoln impersonator giving a talk about agriculture and related products and industries in Michigan (sorry about the photo– I guess it was dusty in there). Given the fact that Lincoln didn’t have any connection to the farm economy of Michigan (unless I’m missing something), I have no idea why it was this guy doing the talking. I guess because this guy likes to dress up like Lincoln and because everyone thinks Abe Lincoln is cool.

Petting cow

Here is a picture of my charges petting a cow of some sort; you can’t see the cow since it’s behind the kids, but believe me it was there.

Turkey petting

As you can imagine, there were many other animals that could be petted and held and admired by the kids. Here’s Will and a friend with a turkey. There was a stall that was letting the kids hold a chicken, but Will would have none of that. Of course, there was little attention paid to the fact that these cute and fuzzy animals are darn good eating.

Samples!More samples!

There were many interesting talks and presentations at Rural Education Daze, including one on corn, soil erosion (I kid you not– both of these were interesting), and on dairy. But Will’s favorite was the barn where the kids walked around and sampled different Michigan agricultural products.

One more funny thing, sans photo. The dairy exhibit consisted of a college kid who talked about how cows are milked and how milk is processed. He stood behind a table with various dairy cow things (the do-hickey they use for milking, for example), and in front of a pen which held– surprise, surpise– a dairy cow. Just as our group 75+ third graders was filing in and finding places in the bleachers, the cow took the opportunity to pee. And when a cow pees, it is like a freaking fire hose of pee coming out of the back end. There was a loud and collective “EEEWWWW!!!” that simultaneously expressed horror and fascination and approval at the act. The cow appeared unmoved. I thought she was going to cap it off by taking a shit, but no such luck.

Anyway, it was a pretty cool field trip– very well done, interesting, entertaining, and incredibly efficient. The handout I received as a parental chaperone-type said students would be getting back on the buses at 12:06 and damned if the kids weren’t loading up right on time.