Buffalo Gal

There is a hymn in one of my very old hymnbooks that has that has this as a beginning line: "The old year now hath passed away, we thank thee O, our God today…."  and it goes on. I have a memory from about 1955 of spending New Years’ Eve at a "Luther League" Watch Service….we played games, ate lunch and watched in the church basement "parlors"  til it was about 10 minutes before twelve; then went upstairs to have a candlelight New Year’s worship service.  Quite a tame start for a bunch of teenagers, huh?  But times were so different then.  None of us thought about doing anything other than going to that Watch Service….we thought it was the most marvelous thing any of our adult leaders had ever thought up.  It was lots better than our "newspaper drives" done usually on dry, windy, dirt-filled-air days in early spring; it was better than our fall hayride and bonfire.  We were never bored and never thought we had it bad if there was not "something going on" every minute of our lives.  We entertained ourselves by having "house parties" nearly every night during our 2 week Christmas vacations and played innocent parlor games such as "Go To Show" or "New Years’ Resolutions" where we would write "resolutions" for each other to have read aloud to great guffaws of laughter at others’ expense but we were not bothered by it….the humor was pretty innocent also.

Tonight as my husband and I approach a "new decade" in 2008we have two of our grandkids with us; we are planning to play a little "Quiddler", a little "Apples To Apples" and maybe some "Uno".  We have some sparkling grape juice to drink, some chip dip and chips and cheese and crackers.  We all hope to see the ball drop in New York at 11 p.m. our time. I promised Alec I would stay up with him til midnight but I might have to do it lying down on the couch and he can wake me up and make me go upstairs to bed when midnight has arrived.

I just passed my 400th entry on my Buffalogal blog….Happy New Year with many blessings and joys to all of you in 2008!   The old year now IS passing.

The year is 5007 A.D.   Civilizations have risen and fallen and Archeologists are digging in a huge "mound" not unlike the mounds in central Ohio that ancient archeologists of another ancient civilization found to be so fruitful in studying an even more ancient civilization.  These present day archeologists of the year 5007 have also studied the accounts of ancient mounds found in Europe and in England near a monument called "Stonehenge".   The scholars are digging in a mound in eastern North Dakota and have unearthed some puzzling relics and artifacts which they are busily cleaning with brushes and sorting in preparation for cataloging and being moved to a modern museum near what used to be the ancient city of Chicago, long gone but its ruins have been excavated and it is now a tourist site in the ancient midwestern part of what used to be the United States of America.   The USA has been long gone as is ancient Europe…victims of socialist societies that went way too far and the nations fell into financial, social,and cultural ruin.  Only the spotted owls and a genus of newts has survived the disasters which befell the USA about 1500 years ago.  Now the archeologists are trying to find the secret to the ancient civilization in the huge mound in eastern North Dakota.   The archeologists are sitting amid a pile of white bottles and some mysterious objects which resemble cloth but are definitely NOT cloth. The Diggers are discussing their recent finds in the ancient mound.

"This white bottle says ‘c-a-s-s-c-l-a-y-2-%-milk’.  Do any of you know what milk is?"

"I have read of ‘milk’ in some of my archeological journals; it was a drink made from liquids of large mammals but it was abandoned as a drink long ago in both the United States and European civilizations"

"Why was this given up?"

"None of the scientists have been able to determine the reason but some have speculated that the people of the ancient United States became too large to walk from drinking and eating such things as this thing called ‘milk’  ".

"Ah, yes…I remember studying this cultural phenemenon also;  many other ancient societies changed their food choices also such as the ancient civilization in what was once the Kingdom of Pakistan…their civilization became powerful when they began eating pork, ham and bacon but the civilization died when too many of them got trampled by the swine they had to nurture in order to satisfy their appetites for the meat called pork."

Another member of the archeological "dig" is studying the large pile of the cloth like objects.

"I think these cloth-like garments must have been part of the ancient religion…probably they were used as prayer shawls or in some similar worshipful manner."

"Why can I smell ammonia emanating from them?"

One scientist puts the cloth-like object closer to his nose and takes a deep breath.

"The ammonia smell is extremely strong from one particular area  of this cloth"

"Look!  They must have used the powder of the cocoa bean in their worship as the Ancient Mayan Civilization did…there are brown stains within the cloth-like object"

The "Sniffer" in the group puts the brown stained cloth like object near his nose  and exclaims,       "This is NOT cocoa powder!"

"Here, let me smell the object"……………."Peee-hew!  This is definitely not Cocoa Bean Powder….this smells like human………I hate to say the word but it smells like S – - – !

What kind of Savages would use THAT in their worship ceremonies…..but they must have done it!  There are masses of these cloth-like objects in this mound…the whole mound is almost totally made up of the cloth- like objects and all of them are……..polluted."

"I think we shall end this dig of these mounds;  the relics have been very disappointing and this civilization was definitely not a sophisticated or cultured one.  Imagine, using ………I cannot say it……in their religious rites."

There are more mounds like this one to the south.  Let us go there and see if those ancient people had better cultural patterns than this one did."

The archeologists pick up their digging tools and leave the area, still puzzled by the strange white bottles made of an unknown substance and the very strange cloth-like relics stained with………..never mind.

The 24-7 news outlets have been covering the assassination of Ms. Bhutto for 24 or more hours now and what strikes me is the reaction to her violent death among the people of that nation.   Almost immediately other violence erupted, brought on by the grieving crowds and others…I am sure that Pakistan has its hoodlums who take advantage of a national catastrophe just as we and other countries have.   I am struck by the terrible destruction of property as a way of expressing grief or venting anger.  I remember well the days after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King.  Americans, who were numb with grief, did not erupt into violence although I do remember some riots in certain cities after the ML King killing.  I remember dignified funeral processions for all three of these men but I cannot help but notice the turmoil and riotous crowds in the streets of Pakistani cities, especially in the city where Ms. Bhutto’s funeral was held today.   There is a huge cultural difference between the U.S. and Pakistan as well as other countries in that region of Asia.  I have also seen near riots in India at funeral processions of famous people there.  

Are we taught to suppress our deep grief to the point of choosing great dignity over riotous grief and anger?   I prefer the behavior of the U.S. culture to that of what I have observed over the past 24 hours in Pakistan.  I still remember the dignified national funeral that was most recently held in our nation….that of President Reagan.  That went on for about 3 days counting all the ceremonies in Washington and finally,  the journey to California for his  burial.

On a much lighter note, I must share my latest cooking boo-boo that happened last night as I hurriedly put a pot of chili together in anticipation of the arrival of two of our families on Saturday.   I grabbed the bottle of brown powder…chili powder I thought…and put a generous amount into the crockpot.  I suddenly noticed the chili powder container sitting on the counter and realized that I had added cinnamon to the chili.  I tasted it after adding the chili powder as well and it has an interesting flavor, I must say. I am not saying a word to the kids and the "grands" and I will wait to see if they comment on the unusual chili.  Maybe I have created a new and sensational recipe for a chili cookoff…hmmmmm, what shall I call it?    Please give me a name for this cinnamon chili recipe.

We got our DSL installed yesterday and also found out that we do not need to buy a new computer!   There are still a few adjustments to make as we enter the world of Qwest as our new server.  I am sure I will have a new moniker on Qwest and I have thought up a few that I like…will have to see what works on that network.

It is a foggy morning again and I was reminded when I read HIGHLIGHT OF MY DAY by High Gail of a time in December 1979 when we had almost two straight weeks of fog all day long.  I recall the trees being covered in fog-frost for days and days and we have a remarkable picture of our home taken from the river below our house of the trees covered in frost…it was taken on a rare day when the sun broke through for a few minutes before it went back to total, enclosing fog all day long.  After many days it did get oppressive and when we drove into a clear sky condidtion one night west on highway 10, it made me feel almost vulnerable after the many days of being "closed in".

For now the fog frost on the landscape is pretty and satisfying.  I could use  day of bright sunshine and the blue and white day I blogged about a few blogs back.

BG is making great progress and is ready to leave his clear liquid diet behind in favor of a soft food diet….mashed potatoes, puddings, applesauce….the world will be his oyster tomorrow!

I am blogging on a computer at a wonderful public library near my rural Buffalo Bluff home in the country.  Libraries are the greatest places…just ask me…I spent over 25 years working in two of them.   Now they have computers, CDs,DVDs, talking books, and other amazing services as well as the marvelous printed reading materials they have always had.

We are hoping for the promised visit from the Qwest Dudes today to install DSL and also possibly revive our "dead" computer which may appear dead due to a modem problem. If it isn’t that we are prepared to get a new laptop with the help of our good friend Randy who is a computer guru of great excellence.

Message to Puppy Sitter in DL:   I mailed you a REAL handwritten letter today!  This has been unheard of since e mail and word processing but I did it!   You better be available for belated Christmas over the New Year’s weekend….weather permitting, of course. We shall get out the meatballs and lefse and the other good stuff that had to be set aside for our unexpected hiatus in Rochester MN.

Buffaloguy is indeed a fast healer-upper; we attribute his amazing spontaneous recovery in just two days to his outstanding physical condition by good clean living for nearly 7 decades and the taking of a lot of good nutritional advice and supplements.  It really has paid off in his case.  We are so thankful for it all!

Today my husband pointed out a short obituary in the FORUM; it appeared in the "newsmakers" obits so it was not a local one.  I won’t name the lady but her picture looked a lot like she was emulating the late blonde bombshell, Jean Harlow.  She had gone to Hollywood early in her life (born in 1930) and had acted in some "B" movies but the final line of the obituary was that she claimed to have had affairs with Frank Sinatra as well as other famous men…..or something to that effect.  Now I am not one to think that such a claim is anything to boast about but apparently it was a Big Deal to her in her earthly life. Somehow this sort of behavior does not strike me as being recorded in the "Book Of Life" which will be opened in due time at the Great White Throne spoken of in Revelation.  I know, I know….don’t go quoting the Bible….lots of others do not give a fig about that book and its prophecies and other messages.  However this does not mitigate what the "book" says to all of us and I have a firm belief that ALL of us will be ultimately judged by what its pages have said for ages and ages. 

I could not help but think of another obituary I read in late September just past.  That one was for a dear friend who died at the age of 84 after a very different life than the one written about in today’s bizarre obituary for the lady who thought having affairs with Frank Sinatra was a big accomplishment.  The lady’s obituary in late September also had claims about her life:  she spent her years mothering her 6 children faithfully; staying married to the husband she met during the world war 2 years until he preceded her in death;  working hard on a farm in rural North Dakota; entering into the life of her adult children and spending great amounts of time with grandchildren as they were born.  She never "starred" in anything worth mentioning by the worldly "media"…her deeds were recorded in church publications and at Bible studies she faithfully attended. Her deeds are remembered by those who loved her…her family and her friends and especially those she gifted so often with her home-made "potato cake" a.k.a. Lefse!  Her entire life was one of humble service and at the end of her life the only thing she boasted about was that she was so thankful that Jesus had covered all her sins and that she would soon seen Him when she left her early life and entered His heavenly one. 

Maybe Sinatra’s old Rat Pack (if any are left after lives of selfish damaging indulgences) will not the passing of the B-movie lady who looked like Jean Harlow in her picture. I know that my Special Friend is missed terribly by all those whose lives she so enriched in her 84 years on earth. 

First off, understand that I am in NO WAY…making fun of the person I am about to write about!   "The Telephone Man" is how I will always think of him.   He was a youngish (25-35) man who was obviously of an "Old Order" religious culture…probably Amish.   He was in the hospital cafeteria while I was eating my Christmas Eve supper of chicken noodle soup.  He was there in another booth—the only booth, I later discovered, that has a real telephone hook-up there for family members of hospital patients to use freely apparently. (probably no long distance calls)

The Telephone Man had a very long beard;  his hair was cut in the typical bowl-fashion I have seen on other Old Order men and boys.  He was wearing pants and a vest with a shirt and I could see the "hat line" on his curly hair.  Normally they wear their black hats, but unlike ordinary American men, the Old Order men have enough manners instilled to remove their hats inside of buildings!!!   ( "New Order" men should take a lesson from these fellows! I am so sick and tired of seeing stupid males with baseball caps and cowboy hats and other headwear worn everywhere including in church services….we badly need a return to Old World Manners)  But I am following a rabbit trail…back to the St Mary’s cafeteria on Christmas Eve……

The youngish Amishman was almost giddily clutching the telephone to himself; he could not stop grinning although he was trying to stop it.  He was clearly smitten with the modern convenience of a telephone.  Old Order cultures such as the Old Order Amish do NOT use telephones, radios, television sets, automobiles, pickups, gas powered farm machinery, indoor plumbing or electricity for anything at all.  Stepping into an Old Order Amish home would be like entering the early 19th century in the United States.  This young man was calling others almost constantly…sometimes he got an answer and other times he did not….but he never relented, stopping only to go get a coffee refill from someplace in the area. It looked like a cup of gourmet coffee to me and I suppose that was an other-worldly treat for him also.  He continued to punch in numbers on the telephone and hold it, sometimes propped under his chin as you often see young children do when they imitate phone behavior observed in adults in their lives.  He had a pencil and a notebook and probably imagined himself to be an important CEO conducting very important business by telephone.  The slight satisfied smile never left his countenance.   I have never eaten a bowl of soup so slowly….I could not pull myself away from watching this pleasant little bit of human drama that tickled me on an otherwise very lonely and strange Christmas Evening spent in a hospital far away from our home.    I am glad I got the chance to watch this bit of human comedy play out til the end.  Apparently he had to return to his family member who was hospitalized also, just as I did.                                                                         

But I must stop…. after blogging more in about 36 hours than I have ever blogged before!  We are going home today and I must begin to make the necessary preparations to do so.    My husband will soon be officially released with all the necessary instructions and things to take home with him.  He is "eating"    from the liquid diet menu as I type and his stomach is grumbling , probably saying to itself, "Hey Stomach!  What is this in you?   What do I do         now?  I have had nothing in me for four long days and now there  is some jello, broth and lemon ice in me….what do I do now? (rumble, rumble)"   Home Sweet Home….we are coming back today!  I hope the Kitty Princess will not act too aloof when we get there but she will probably do so….at least for a few minutes til she hops into one of our laps for some much needed petting and kitty-kitty-ing.                                                                                                                  

I just read the fruitcake story on page one in today’s FORUM and I laughed out loud at the families who play "pass the fruitcake" each Christmas for the past 20+ years.  There are so many fruitcake jokes about doorstoppers, etc. that any time I see "fruitcake" in a story I have to read it.  This is as good as the "moleskin pants" story about the two brothers in law (somewhere) who gave each other a pair of moleskin pants at Christmas for years and years…the same pants of course.  But they were creative and did all they could to make it impossible for each other (they hoped) to get at the moleskin pants.  The tradition continued until one of them put the pants inside an old junker car and sealed the entire thing in concrete.  I think the tradition may have had to end that year.  I have not read any more tales of the moleskin pants since that year.

The fruitcake story today triggers some other remembrances of odd bits of food that has survived for a long length of time…surely not for 20 years or more but for long periods when most of us would not expect food to last.   The advent of food preservatives has enabled food to stay "fresh"…or at least look like it is fresh…for amazing lengths of time.

Years ago when our youngest son was in his preteen years, he loved "Twinkies" and would actually save up his money so he could buy a double pack!  He always feared leaving his Twinkies around the kitchen because a couple of times, one of his older brothers found them and ate them before he could get at them himself.  So once after buying the double pack of Twinkies, he found the best possible place to hide them from the brothers….in the shelf space under the bathroom sink in our first floor bathroom.  This would be akin to my friend Norma hiding the TV remote from Rollie her husband in the family freezer so she did not have to endure his TV channel flipping every night!  At any rate, our youngest son KNEW his rat-fink brothers would not find his Twinkies.  About 2 years later I was in a housecleaning frenzy and was attacking the first floor bathroom with zeal, emptying out the linen closet, the drawers, the shelves under the sink……..when LO and Behold!  I found the Twinkies which had been forgotten long ago and were still lying in their hiding place.  I took them out and upon inspection I discovered they were in a state of preservation not unlike an Egyptian Mummy which had been entombed in the last Egyptian Dynasty!!!   Preservatives rule and reign!   It was a good lesson because we all swore off baked goods that had been mummified with preservatives. (maybe they would make us live longer by preserving US…. but we were not taking any chances after the Twinkie incident!)

Another experiment with preserved baked goods was conducted in our faculty lounge on top of our pop machine a few years before I retired.  One day one of my colleagues told a true tale about her mother having put a loaf of Sara Lee bread some place where she forgot about it and after a long period of time passed, she found it, totally fresh and soft as if it had been baked that day!   So inspired by scientific zeal, and a desire to conduct a legitimate "experiment" we assigned one of the lunch bunch to buy a loaf of Sara Lee bread and bring it to our faculty dining lounge where we could do all 7 steps we remembered in using the "scientific method" of discovery.  The loaf of bread was placed in a warm place–atop the pop machine which generated a good bit of heat from its electrical fan dispelling the pop machine motor’s heat.   We watched and waited and watched and waited some more and finally after our agreed – upon time span we opened the Sara Lee bread wrapper and discovered that it was also filled with baking preservatives that had kept it mold-free, soft, fresh and appearing to have just come out of the oven.  We all swore off Sara Lee bread and I might advise you, Dear Readers, to do the same, unless you want to conduct another scientific experiment on the possibility of bread preservatives allowing you to live into your high 100′s years of life!    Personally, I am unwilling to make myself into a human guinea pig.

I have two home made fruitcakes waiting for me in our "cold room".  They have absolutely no preservatives in them unless raisins, cranberries and gumdrops are preservatives.  I LOVE fruitcake (my recipe) and can barely wait to sink my teeth into one of them after we get home today.

In the December 24 STAR/TRIBUNE I read of the death of Minnesota writer Carol Bly.  Many years ago I read "Letters From the Country" and was hooked on Bly’s writing.  In 1985 or 1986 I remember traveling to Moorhead State University one night for a personal appearance by Carol….she read from her latest book at that time, "Backbone" and it was a mix of humor, pathos, sadness, joy and hilarious knee-slapping scenes from a small town perspective.

I have never gotten around to reading "The Tomcat’s Wife" but now after reading of her death from ovarian cancer at age 77, I think I will be looking for more of her books that I missed when I became an elementary librarian and concentrated heavily on childrens’ and young adult books.

  She was born on April 16, 1930….just 30 years before my wedding day in 1960. Of course I did not know that til I read her obituary.  Her death is a loss to literature and more so to her family of 4 children and her grandchildren, I am sure. According to those who were near her in her final weeks and days, she faced death bravely, even curiously as she went through the dying process.

She is one of the most well known of Minnesota’s many authors.   

It is quiet and peaceful on the 6th floor of the Domitilla building tonight.  Carolers were here earlier singing in the hospital halls…sweet voices of adults and children…seemed to be families that were doing the caroling.  How nice of them!   We also walked down to the Chapel that is now part of the hospital after it was a separate building for many years I think…built early on in the first years of the Sisters of St Francis order who established St.Mary’s Hospital in the 1880′s.  The history of the hospital’s beginnings is closely linked to a deadly tornado that hit Rochester in the late 1880s when the Sisters nursed victims in their small hospital and the Mayos…. William Worral Mayo and his sons Charles and William…were the earliest physicians of the future Mayo Medical Center.  Humble beginnings have lead to one of the prime medical care centers in the world…located in Rochester MN of all places!  People come from all over the nation and even from other countries to be helped by the doctors at Mayo Clinic.

When I was a young girl and sang heartily in Christmas programs at both church and school, my favorite Carol was "Angels We Have Heard On High" and I especially loved the chorus of "Gloria in Excelsis Deo".  Before I learned what the words truly meant, I wondered why "eggshells" were part of the Christmas Carol!

Today, December 24 2007…. we are rejoicing with angels singing in our hearts after getting the good news that my precious BG’s surgical "error" has healed up and he is starting on clear liquids and we are probably going to go home tomorrow!  Hallelujah!  Gloria!  What a marvelous gift on Dec. 24-25.  Being in this unexpected and stressful situation for the past 4 days truly gives one an entirely new perspective on what is important and what is not.

Yesterday my son and I moved to a small family owned motel across the street from St. Mary’s Hospital to enable us to park the car and walk to the hospital.  The motel has been here for years and years and is a homey, comfortable-feeling home- away- from home.  I wish we had started out there but we did not know all this was going to happen when we came here expecting a simple procedure (same day) with an uneventful return home on Saturday.

I noticed a lot of Scandinavian-looking decor and obviously straight- from- the- Old Country pieces of furniture and displayed native costumes. I thought about the name of the motel (Blondell) and realized that the "dell" is a common Swedish name ending; after asking about it, I learned that indeed the family has Swedish roots and has traveled to Sweden many times to collect the "real stuff".  No wonder I feel so at home—being a Norsewoman descended from several ancestors from different parts of Norway who emigrated in the 1860-1870 decades.   The rosemaling on furniture, the antique furniture, the native clothing on display makes me feel so "at home" for whatever reason…maybe genetic???   It must be in my DNA.

Yesterday at this time it was storming and looking very gloomy.  Today it is sunshiney- bright and glowing with light!! What a glorious reflection of what has happened in our hearts and minds!

Merry Christmas to all of you!  May you experience the blessings of family love and fellowship on these next two days of holiday celebration!

I shall return when we get our new computer and get hooked up to the FAST internet service! (and get our hot water heater fixed too but I prefer the computer first!!)

Buffalogal