Sunday, November 25, 2018

Annual Holiday Hang-Ups Have Begun


What is it about Christians that makes them want to suck the fun out of everything?


The Thanksgiving leftovers are barely in the fridge and more than one of my theologically educated friends have already self-righteously declared that one mustn't celebrate Christmas until December 25. Or is it December 24? In case you are about to let me know which of these it is, let me assure you with utmost emphasis, that I don't care.

This is arguably the most celebrated time of year. Families gather, houses are festively decorated, we bring out our favorite traditional recipes, and we give each other gifts to express our love. 

We should be attending parties and enjoying concerts and watching TV specials. So why are so many determined to stamp the fun out of the holidays by shoving their particular hang-ups down everyone else's throat?

The one that is particularly bothering me this year is the idea from religiously correct, Christian purists that we shouldn't enjoy Christmas until it is officially, liturgically Christmas - that is, until tradition says Baby Jesus is actually born. Up until then, it's only Advent, a time of expectation and waiting. God forbid we should enjoy a little Christmas caroling or set up our manger set too early.

Don't worry, the hangups of past years continue to bother me. There are many other ways people are determined to take the joy out of the holidays this year as well:

- The war on Christmas. Whether you say an innocent "Merry Christmas" to a coworker or wish your neighbor a casual, "Happy Holidays," it's the same as declaring whether you vote Republican or Democrat. I'd prefer not to be attacked for they way I sincerely wish a fellow human being a happy season. Can we just express friendly tidings to each other without getting into a "war" about it?
- Don't take the Christ out of Christmas. The people who make this plea are particularly galling. Whether you like it or not, there is a lot more to the holiday season than the traditional story of the birth of Christ.  Winter Solstice celebrations long predate Christmas. It's the darkest time of the year and we need something to lighten things up. If someone wants to go to the holiday parade and decorate a tree, drink eggnog, or take their kid to see Santa at the mall, why isn't that ok? If you want to go to Christmas mass and worship Baby Jesus and all that stuff, by all means go ahead and do so. But leave everyone else alone. I believe the story of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer has moral relevance even though it isn't from the Bible. What is it about Christians that makes them want to suck the fun out of everything?
- Christmas is too commercial. Yes, yes, yes, this complaint is as old as Christmas itself. Can I make a suggestion? Get over it. That is something which is simply not going to change. If the commercialism bothers you, don't participate in it. If gift giving is too much of a greed-fest for you, give non-commercialized gifts such as donations to a charity, or give time to a cause that's important to you. Your loved ones will appreciate the effort to help others, and they don't have to lug a bunch of junk home that they may not really want.

I realize my rantings are very Christmas/Christian centered. That's because I'm a Christian (who happens to enjoy secular Christmas as well). I'm perfectly ok with it if you disagree with me or have a different point of view, or would rather talk about Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, New Years, or another holiday. Celebrate this season however you want. I plan to do the same. I'll leave you alone if you will do me the same courtesy. Just don't suck all the fun out of my December because of your hang ups.

Monday, November 19, 2018

PostBlog: Taking in Tokyo

The biggest metropolitan area in the world at 40 million people is amazing and exhausting. I can't write anything coherent today, so I'm resorting to some random observations in no particular order.

  • Tokyo is huge. Huge. No kidding. This is a big city.
  • There is no "Tokyo skyline." There are several of them. They are scattered all over the endless 360 degree horizon. Tokyo is sprawling.
  • This is an old city. It was not built on a grid. There is no logic to the way the streets are organized. If you were given an address, I don't know how you'd find it.
  • Subways: there are at least two separate but overlapping subway systems and never do the two meet. When I tried to use a ticket for one on the other one, I was quickly corrected by a very helpful transit official.
  • I was nervous about the language barrier. Unlike other places I've visited, I can't even sound out the words on signs. I needn't have worried. Without understanding a word, a lady who saw us undecided which train to take pointed out the nearby tourist information center. Without saying anything but the place we wanted to go, a police officer showed us on a map how to get there. The officious subway official smiled as he took the correct amount of money out of my hand when I struggled with a mess of unfamiliar currency. An older woman on a crowded subway car pointed with concern at my foot. I looked down and my shoestring was untied. A younger woman traded seats with me so I could sit by Clyde on the crowded train. What language barrier?
  • You think Londoners like lining up? They have nothing on the Japanese. Everywhere else in the world, boarding a subway is a free for all. In Tokyo, hundreds of people line up single file, even at rush hour, and wait their turn.
  • No one jaywalks here. It doesn't matter if there is any traffic. You do not cross the street until the signal indicates that you may do so. 
  • There are very few fat people in Tokyo. 
  • Most people talk quietly here. For a huge city, it's a very quiet place. The loudest people in Tokyo are either American or Australian. You can tell the second they open their stupid mouths. 
  • Back to the subway - we spent a lot of time on the subway. No one talks on the subway, and if they do, they do it quietly. It is considered very rude to talk on your phone in public, especially on the subway. Everyone, however, is using their phones for other things like texting or playing games. Quietly.
  • Lest you think I'm idealizing Tokyo, let me share another observation. I watched a "salary man" eat his lunch today. We were also eating lunch so it wasn't too weird. He looked like he was in his 20s, wore a business suit like millions of others, and he looked absolutely exhausted. There are hundreds and hundreds of these men. They are everywhere. They all wear the same suit. I like the quiet, but I'm a little uncomfortable with the conformity. I hear that these men often work from 8:00 in the morning until 11:00 at night, miss the last train home, and start all over the next day.  How many of those guys are miserable their whole lives? And yes, it's men. Japanese women have other problems. 
Tomorrow we leave the city to see another part of Japan. Tune in next time for another PostBlog from Asia.

Saturday, November 17, 2018

On Pushy Mainlanders and Other Random Notes from Hong Kong




  • I love the J.W. Marriott in Hong Kong. We could stay in the hotel and have a perfectly lovely vacation without ever going out. Just be careful to follow the rules. We got in trouble once for not taking our shoes off before putting our feet up on the folding recliners by the pool.
  • The passion fruit tea at Starbucks tastes the same here, but instead of an iced tea, it's more of a crushed ice smoothie. I'm going to suggest it to the Starbucks at home.
  • We've eaten at two French restaurants on this trip to Hong Kong. 
  • Food figures prominently in these bullet points.
  • There are a lot of "pointers" in Hong Kong that we didn't notice before. These are people who, no matter where you are, politely point where you should go. The museum was full of them. Though the next exhibit was clearly marked, a person in a uniform would be standing there pointing to it. When we bought our octopus cards in the subway station (the card that allows you to use transit), we encountered an official pointer. As we came to the front of the line, she pointed to the counter so we'd know when and where to go though it couldn't have been more obvious. Clyde and I theorized that this may be a response to all the mainlanders. Which brings me to the next bullet.
  • Chinese mainlanders have a reputation for being pushy and rude. Hong Kongers are especially annoyed at their bad manners. Clyde and I have noticed it in other places as well, such as in Yellowstone National Park and at the Louvre museum in  Paris. Busloads of Chinese descend en mass. They talk loudly no matter where they are. They sometimes cut in line. Occasionally they're just clueless. I'll never forget the Chinese lady who took a picture of a picture of the Mona Lisa. Though it was in the next room, she took a photo of the directions to the real thing. Perhaps a pointer would have been helpful. I've heard one theory by way of explanation. It might be that the Chinese were so isolated and broken down by the cultural revolution, that the entire population never traveled or saw the rest of the world. A couple of generations went by where survival was the only goal. No one visited museums or national parks. Now they have the money and freedom to go to places, but having money doesn't automatically mean you know social etiquette. 
  • The best thing about the J.W. Marriott in Hong Kong is the breakfast buffet. They're usually good at Marriotts, but this one is over the top. Everything from traditional Chinese noodles and dumplings (see photo below) to fresh pastries, salmon, fruit, French toast, omelettes to order, and everything else you could possibly want. Yes, I even found the "frosties flakes."


    • Clyde is very good at spotting the difference between local Hong Kongers and mainlanders. Of course, he can hear the difference between Cantonese, the language of Hong Kong, and Mandarin, what most mainlanders speak. My husband is very smart. (In case you haven't noticed, I didn't bother to put these in any particular order.)
    • The coffee at the J.W. Marriott is the best in the world. I don't know why. It just is. Last time we were here we asked what they use and they told us it was Starbucks Pikes blend. So we started using it at home. But it's not the same. I don't know what they do to it here, but it's so smooth, rich, dark, and non-bitter at the same time. It's almost worth the entire visit. 
    • This blog is brought to you by J.W. Marriott (just kidding - I wish). 
    • Hotel sex is always better. I don't know why. It just is.
    • There are some large shopping malls here in Hong Kong. You'd think a vertical city with no extra room wouldn't have malls, which we Americans associate with vast parking lots and suburban sprawl. There are, however, large, multi-level malls with giant atriums in Hong Kong, complete with nice restaurants and gigantic Christmas  decorations hanging from the ceiling. They are underground. They often connect one subway line to another. We're talking high end stuff too, like Versace and  Yves Saint Laurent - not a Walmart or Sears in sight.
    • Speaking of Christmas, they advertise for it here, complete with snow scenes and reindeer. It's odd to see kids throwing snowballs and sledding on a billboard in a place where I'm sure most people never see snow.
    • The subway is great: clean, modern, fast ... I love a good subway.
    • Tomorrow we are off to Japan for a quick visit. Stay tuned.

    Friday, November 16, 2018

    Another PostBlog from Hong Kong

    From the formation of the earth to the People's Republic taking control of a chaotic British ward, Hong Kong has a rich and varied history.

    Today was educational. We took the Star Ferry across Victoria Harbor to go to the Hong Kong Museum of History.

    The most interesting thing that I'd never known anything about was the Japanese occupation during World War II.

    It's no secret that Japan invaded China and subjected its people to the most terrible occupation. Hong Kong was no exception. Britain put up a fight but was no match for the formidable Japanese who attacked on December 8, 1941, the day after Pearl Harbor.

    Not only did the people of Hong Kong suffer the humiliation of being occupied, they were subject to conditions which resulted in shortages, dissolution of institutions like the educational system, cholera, and starvation.

    While the Brits seemed like the good guys at that point, it wasn't always so. The way they got Hong Kong in the first place is arguably as disgraceful and underhanded as probably anything they ever did during their sketchy empirical past. Basically, the Chinese wouldn't do international trade with Britain, so those wily Brits flooded the area with opium, getting the population so addicted that the locals would agree to anything.

    On a side note, because it was a weekday, we were surrounded by school groups. Most of the children looked to be in kindergarten or first grade. Clyde pointed out in contrast to what you might see at home, the adults supervising these groups weren't engaged in crisis management, yelling at the kids to pay attention or stay together. They were, instead, interacting with the children about the exhibits. All of the children were writing on worksheets presumably answering questions about what they were seeing. And though there were hundreds of them, I at no point felt stressed or inconvenienced by their presence. In fact, they were just cute as could be.

    So back to the exhibits ...

    Fortunately, according to the museum, Hong Kong is no longer ruled by Britain. You see, during the second half of the 20th century, after WWII, Hong Kong was a chaotic place of floods, fires, and riots. Thanks to the wise negotiations of the People's leaders with the rulers of the UK, Hong Kong was ceded back to China in 1997.  The very last exhibit in the museum is a movie describing all of this, ending with a great show of celebratory fireworks.

    I had no quibble with any of the history presented up through WWII. In fact, it reminded me of how much I don't know about the world. Even the point of view describing the post war years was important to see. This is why it's important to travel. Seeing first hand how others see the world, learning what they value, and learning what they're taught, helps us understand each other better. When you get right down to it, it's harder to go to war  (or justify a stupid, unnecessary, counterproductive trade war, which yes, is affecting Hong Kong) with people that you've met in person.


    Thursday, November 15, 2018

    Post Blog from Hong Kong

    Today we took the subway out to Tung Chung, on an island out in the boonies, basically in the South China Sea. From the town center, we took a bus up to one of the largest Buddas in the world, the Tian Tan Budda at the Po Lin monastery. To be accurate, the bus took us nearly to the top of a mountain. We had to climb approximately 1 million steps to get to the actual Budda.

    The Budda itself is very spiritual and very ancient, having been constructed in the late 20th century - 1990-1993 to be exact.

    Although I suffered terrible motion sickness, the bus trip up was interesting. I always thought of Hong Kong as just this big city. But there's a rural part too - complete with water buffalo hanging out. And cattle of course. Free ranging it on the road. There are signs that say, "Don't feed the animals."

    The mountains are lush and beautiful. There are houses, not particularly fancy, with large gardens and I imagine they have something to do with the cattle. I wanted to take pictures of the scenery but the bus (and on the way down, the taxi) was going too fast - and I was concentrating on not tossing my cookies.

    This is my second trip to Hong Kong. Clyde has been here many times. It's a a hard working city. It's truly one of a kind, world class in the truest sense. It's one those cities I want to require provincial New Yorkers to visit when they act like New York is the only city in the world. I remember how small Denver seemed after my last trip here. Imagine the organization and engineering it takes to cram 7 million people on this little island much of which, by the way, is made up of mountains to steep to build on.

    I wonder what the future will be like here as the People's Republic continues to gradually tighten the noose. Can I write that? "Someone" is probably reading this. No joke. I've heard that no one, not even tourists, can take privacy for granted anymore.

    It has occurred to me that the British turned Hong Kong over to the People's Republic in 1997. That was 21 years ago. The agreement was that they'd let Hong Kong remain autonomous for 50 years. We're almost half way there already.

    As the subway made an appearance above ground, we passed one of the largest ports in the world. Noting thousands of of those freight containers that they pile onto those large container ships, I couldn't help but wonder: is our new washer over there? It's supposed to be delivered in December.

    Wednesday, November 14, 2018

    Random Thoughts on Travel to Hong Kong


    • Time is a fluid concept. We had breakfast on the plane (it was Central Time on board I guess) and an hour later we were on the ground at 7:30 p.m. local time. I asked Clyde about dinner, naturally.
    • The Arctic Ocean. It's the only way Chicago could conceivably be on the way to Hong Kong. San Francisco seems like it's on the way to Hong Kong but not Chicago. United Airlines had suggested we change our connection from San Francisco to avoid delays due to the terrible California wildfires. So instead of flying over the Pacific Ocean, we flew over the Arctic Ocean. And by going through Chicago, we actually got there an hour earlier. It makes my head spin.
    • Hong Kong is a tiny little city by Chinese standards. A mere 7 million inhabitants, it is dwarfed by many other Chinese cities that are home to 25 to 40 million. 
    • The Arctic for a second bullet point. Does anyone else think it's mind blowing to be  going on a flight that goes inside the Arctic Circle? I understand in my head that the Earth is round and this is the most direct route. But my mind still can't quite grasp it. 
    • It is yesterday at home. 
    • In the taxi from the airport train to the hotel, I freaked a little because the driver drove on the left side of the road. I'd temporarily forgotten that in this former British colony, people drive on the left. I thought for sure we were going to crash into oncoming traffic.
    • Back to the Arctic, people aren't meant to travel so far north. It isn't natural. Nor is it natural to fly at 30,000 feet. The only natural way to go to China is to travel for several months on foot to the ocean, the Pacific Ocean, take a ship for several more months, and never return. It only took us 15 hours to get here from Chicago. And that's a long travel day by 21st century standards.
    • 18th century pioneers went great distances and never returned, but they also never had to make a connection at O'Hare.

    Tuesday, November 6, 2018

    The Best and the Worst of the US of A

    If you want to see America at our best and at our worst, go to Costco.

    Clyde got a household membership through work so he took advantage.

    "Do you want to go on Saturday?" he asked.

    "Let's go before lunch," I said naively, "we have to meet L___ at 11:00 so why don't we leave here at 9:30."

    Now I always allow for way too much time. We both realized that we would be puttering around the store for a whole hour if we did that, so we agreed to leave at 10:00. 30 minutes would be plenty of time to see what this new store was all about.

    We couldn't have been more wrong. 30 minutes didn't even cover the food section. If you've never been to Costco before, allow a good two hours to get acquainted. The new member orientation takes 15 minutes, and that's just to get your card with photo ID and to understand all the benefits and discounts.

    USA: land of abundance, where there is plenty of everything, much of it affordable and available immediately. At Costco, you can buy a pretty good apple pie and a new washing machine in the same trip.

    I'll never forget years ago when a friend visited from Eastern Europe. I had no idea what he'd want to eat, so I waited until he arrived and we went to the supermarket together. His reaction to King Soopers was one of amazement. First of all, it was huge. Not only were there millions of products, but several brands of each product to choose from. In his country, there might be one brand of everything, if it was there at all. And I was worried about how to entertain this guy.

    USA: land of unfettered waste and addictive consumerism. We take convenience and immediate gratification so for granted that we're angry when we don't get it.

    I recently ordered a washer through another big box retailer and found out I'd have to wait nearly two months for the exact model we wanted. I was livid. When I stop to think about it now, I realize that it's an unusual model that fits in our weird kitchen.  They don't sell that many. It's probably shipped from China on one of those gigantic container ships. It's amazing that it only takes two months.

    We completely disregard the resources used and the people whose labor it takes to get those products here. Our biggest worry is where to park the Range Rover on Saturday morning because have you seen that Costco parking lot? I give little thought to where that apple pie is made, where the apples come from, who trucks it in. 

    At Costco four pounds of chicken costs the same as one pound at King Soopers. Granted, at King Soopers, I buy the free range organic kind. At Costco, I am so blinded by low prices, I temporarily forget about my free range organic principles.

    For all our worldliness, Clyde and I are about as American as you can get. Now we go to Costco. Is a Range Rover in our future? I don't think so. You have to draw the line somewhere.

    Saturday, October 20, 2018

    U.S. Continues to Go Downhill

    You think the jackass in the White House and the Republicans in congress can't go any lower, but every day they prove us wrong.

    I know Michelle Obama said we're supposed to go high when they go low, but come on. How high can we get?

    The recent circus around the confirmation of that blustering pig, Brett Kavanaugh, to the now right wing Supreme Court set me on course to yet another depression about the direction of this country.

    I grieved, along with more than half of the rest of the U.S., and the rest of the civilized world, about President Dumb Ass's election two years ago and all of the implications of that. Now some of the worst implications are coming to pass with the confirmation of said blustering pig. Added to that, this week's stark news that we have a decade, more or less, to change our ways before global warming is completely irreversible. Meanwhile Donald Dumbo and the Republicants are actually throwing any progress we've made into reverse.

    We look with hope to the rest of the world to take the lead on climate. But things are pretty grim out there too. Brexit is a huge distraction for the UK and was brought about by the same problems that brought us President Turd. And Brexit is more irreversible. Germany, a leader in green, is dealing with a growing right wing. The most environmental progress in the world today is being made in, wait, it can't be, China?

    Don't think I've spent the past two years just wallowing in depression. I've redirected more of my energy to social justice. We've all but stopped eating red meat. I got myself appointed to my employer's diversity committee. I give to the ACLU. I'm better about speaking up when I see bigotry in action. I'm more aware of my white privilege. I'm not sure how that helps, but it seems important. I'm doing the best I can.

    The country is so divided. And one side is so obviously right and the other so clearly wrong. Even after Dumbo is gone, we will still be a divided nation. With a hot world to live in.

    There is one thing that can make a big difference. Now. One thing. And that is to change the direction of the congress, and send a message to state and local governments that we the people have had enough. We are in charge. If this is going to be a democracy, then this is how we take our government back. The way to do it is to vote. Vote. Vote. Vote. I can't say it enough.

    A lot of damage has been done, but we can reverse the red tide. A blue congress can put the brakes on the dump administration and even make some good things happen. Let's make a difference now. Let's vote.

    And in case you're wondering, I endorse the Democrat side of the ticket.

    Tuesday, October 2, 2018

    All You Have to Do is Buy a Ticket

    A co-worker asked where Clyde and I were going on our next big trip. When I told him we were going to Hong Kong and Tokyo right before Thanksgiving, his eyes opened wide and he shook his head with disgust.

    "You ... jet setter!" he said.

    He didn't mean anything bad, I don't think. But it amazes me how most people think that world travel is beyond them. I used to be that way until I met Clyde.

    My annual trips to San Diego were the extent of my travels. I bought the least expensive plane tickets - the ones with a stop in Houston (a thousand miles out of the way) in the middle of the night. I rented cars from the low cost places where they often ran out of the economy model I reserved. So they bumped me up to something huge like a Yukon which I had to fit into the tiny parking spot at the cheap hotel, where the shampoo comes in a paper envelope.

    Then I started hanging out with Clyde and realized, and I said this to my co-worker, that it's easy to go to Hong Kong. All you have to do is buy a ticket and go.

    The world is so small now. You can go anywhere. All it takes is money. Then again, my perspective may be that of a relatively financially well off old white man. My dental hygienist, Chris, who I also saw this week (my teeth are fine thank you) is young, I would guess in his 20s. He went on a "once in a lifetime" trip to Japan last spring. Chris is still paying off the credit cards he maxed out to go and he says he won't be going anywhere again for a while.

    I remember travel in my 20s. I never saved up to go anywhere. All of it went on credit cards. I never stayed in hotels, always with friends or relatives. Or friends of friends or relatives. I slept on a dining room floor on my first visit to San Francisco. I got around on BART and the public bus, not in a rental car. I hung out with lots of other young people, including some sailors I met who were on leave. It's not what it sounds like, but I did become acquainted with someone under that dining room table.

    Anyway, back to the present. Clyde and I put travel at the top of our priorities. We live in a modest home. We drive ordinary cars. We have no debt except a small mortgage, so we can afford two big trips a year and a couple of small ones.

    We do get around. But jet setters? I guess I've been called worse.

    And with Clyde, I no longer stay in cheap hotels. He has years of corporate travel under his belt with all the benefits. So we rarely stay anywhere but the Marriott. I love the Marriott with its all you can eat breakfast buffets and wonderful coffee. Even in the most humid cities (Hong Kong, Rio), our room is chilly with air conditioning.

    That's how grownups travel.

    My poor co-worker just bought a house in Arvada. As Clyde and I watch YouTube videos about Japan in order to make plans for our trip, he's probably scraping together his next house payment and college tuition for the kids.

    It was fun all those years ago, but I prefer traveling in my 50s with Clyde to crashing under furniture even with, um, temporary travel acquaintences.


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    Saturday, September 15, 2018

    Time to Take Down Those Welcome Signs?

    "Yep, this is Colorado. Just keep on moving." 

    Clyde and I left the unusually hot temperatures of Denver to view the changing aspen in the high country today. Kenosha pass was particularly colorful - and crowded.

    We've never seen so many people up there. The traffic was terrible and parking lots were packed at every trailhead with cars parked along the sides of the roads for miles.

    There are too many people in this state. It might be time to take down those "Welcome to Colorful Colorado" signs at the border and replace them with something like, "Yep, this is Colorado. Just keep on moving."

     They say that you can't hike any trail, even in the most remote corners of the state, without running into hordes of other hikers. So many people want to climb every fourteener (mountain over 14,000 feet) that they're like city parks up there.

     I have to confess, I've become kind of indifferent to the mountains in the past few years. Yes, I "oooed" and "ahhhed" at the aspen today, and there were some spectacular views if you could see over the roofs of the SUVs parked along the roadsides. But I hardly ever go to the mountains anymore. I've seen more of the Pacific Ocean in the past few years, more than 1,000 miles away, than the Rockies in my own back yard.

    It's not that I don't like the mountains. They are very pretty. When I'm driving around the city, I admire them from afar. When I'm driving around a city where there are no mountains, like Houston, I wonder how people can live without any mountains nearby.

     It's just become a pain to actually go to the mountains. Today, for example. On Highway 285, the alternative to busy I-70, we were in two major traffic jams before noon, on Saturday. I'd rather go to, say, downtown Denver, where the crowds aren't so bad.

    Thursday, August 23, 2018

    Connected by Stories


    ... her skillet is a tangible reminder that there really were people then, as now, who came to this country looking for a better life.

    While visiting my sister recently, we came across an old cast iron specialty skillet used for making ebelskivers, a kind of pancake, muffin thing with fruit (or chocolate or cheese) inside. We remembered that our mother made these every July 4th holiday while we were growing up. Seeing the skillet conjured images of July 4th breakfast parties in our back yard with dozens of people sitting around in lawn chairs eating home made ice cream and playing in the pool.

    The skillet originally belonged to Mom's grandmother who came to this country from Germany more than a century ago. For all we know, it was passed to Grandma Rickertsen from a previous generation. It could be older than we think. It's black and heavy and indestructible.

    I never knew Grandma Rickertsen. She died before I was born. But I knew her son, my grandfather, who, when encouraged, would tell stories. Mom would occasionally chime in with details and editorial.

    Having arrived in Nebraska shortly before World War I, Grandpa's family had to keep pretty close to the farm for their own safety. Americans at that time didn't take kindly to people with German accents. They could be agents for "the Hun."

    100 years ago, just like now, immigrants were welcomed with prejudice and ridiculous ignorance. Why would there be German spies in Lexington, Nebraska?

    Grandpa told me other stories from his youth: about mischievously digging up hidden beer buried by bootleggers during prohibition in the 1920s - he claimed he emptied the bottles and used them for rootbeer; and about waking up in the 1930s to see his new wife covered in dirt because during the drought induced dust bowl it literally blew through the walls overnight.

    Without those stories, the dust bowl would only be a black and white photo. Prohibition would be nothing more than a cartoon. But because someone I know lived though and described them, I see those events as real, happening to living, breathing people.

    And even though I never knew Grandma Rickertsen, her skillet is a tangible reminder that there really were people then, as now, who came to this country looking for a better life.  And they weren't just crowds waving on a ship in a crackly old newsreel. They were human beings who carried personal items, like skillets and recipes, with them.

    Now we tell countless stories about my mother. There's the time a neighbor shot at her while she walked the dog; and the time she packed a lunch for me and my friends for a day of skiing. When we opened it at noon, we found a note that said, "Keep cold or die," a subtle warning that the mayonnaise might spoil and make us sick. The sandwiches were frozen solid.

    Stories about Mom help us to remember her.

    On the way home, Clyde and I stopped to see my niece, who I can't quite believe is all grown up and has a child of her own. My great-niece is not yet a year old, but has a winning smile and charming personality. Naturally, the entire world revolves around her. I was eager to hold Kaycee and couldn't help but think about how pleased Mom would be to meet her.

    My mother is Kaycee's Grandma Rickertsen. I hope Kaycee gets to enjoy the stories about her great grandmother. Perhaps one day she'll inherit the ebelskiver skillet. I hope she knows it was Grandma Rickertsen's and what a treasure it is.

    In case you're wondering, we made ebelskivers for July 4th,  using the recipe Mom attached to the skillet years ago before wrapping it up for posterity. They were delicious.

    Thursday, June 21, 2018

    Enough! I'm Not Sharing My Email Address

    It doesn't matter that every other company in the world, from Microsoft to the neighborhood ice cream shop, already has my email address. I'm not giving it to PetSmart.

    Way back in the 1970s I went to Radio Shack for an adapter to hook my tape recorder up to my LP stereo so I could play cassettes through the big speakers. I was very high tech back then, and Radio Shack was the place to go for odd little things that nobody else had, such as adapters to hook things up to other things.

    Radio Shack was the first place I remember that always asked for your phone number whenever you bought something.  At first it seemed odd, then it became annoying. All I wanted was an adapter. Why did they need my phone number? Even then, I suspected some sort of vast conspiracy though I wasn't sure what it was.

    In fact, it was the beginning of the data megastorm that now characterizes the 21st century.

    What started as Radio Shack attempting to keep track of individual customer spending is now every company keeping track of everything you do, buy, look up online, and watch on TV.

    Our world now runs on data - bits of information you can't even see that fill warehouses full of computers all over the world.

    It's so pervasive we don't even think about it. Every rewards program is just a way to keep track of your spending habits so they can figure out how to sell you more. Every click of your mouse is tracked. Every web site you visit is tallied. Department stores know from tracking your cell phone when you walk through their doors. They even know what section you're shopping in. Based on your age, zip code, marital status, and lots of data that doesn't even seem relevant, they can estimate the probability of your buying a particular item. Have you seen the little TVs in some store aisles? They might be programmed to advertise a particular product to you, personally.

    And companies don't just collect and use data. They sell it to each other. That's why when minutes after I look up prices for tickets to Hong Kong on the United Airlines web site, I see ads for Hong Kong hotels on Facebook.

    The main thing that George Orwell, author of the book, 1984, got wrong is this: it's not the government that tracks your every move with the intention of controlling everything you do, it's big business. Corporations monitor everything you do with the intention of controlling everything you buy. 

    I'm sometimes disappointed when the data gods don't work better than they do. Last year after we purchased a brand new TIVO system online, TIVO started sending me advertisements for TIVO systems. Wasn't it smart enough to figure out I'd just bought one? Why would I buy another one so soon? TIVO should wait a year and then push out the new ads.

    But then the data harvest gets annoying. It's not enough that businesses passively collect our personal information and then swap and sell it to each other. Sometimes, they mandate it, as if they have a right to it.

    PetSmart demands my email address every time I make a purchase. They already have my phone number. I use my credit card every time I shop there. What more do they need? But when I buy cat food, the check out clerk doesn't politely ask for my email address, she commands me to give it to her. The system actually won't process my purchase until she enters an email address.

    I don't think it's the clerk's fault. She's just taking orders from above. Yet she must suffer my ire when I continue to refuse to give my email to her. I imagine "Corporate" thinks I'll just give in and surrender it, but at this point I'm feeling stubborn. I'll be damned if I'm going to be pressured into giving up any more personal information. It doesn't matter that every other company in the world, from Microsoft to the neighborhood ice cream shop, already has my email address. I'm not giving it to PetSmart.

    To complete the transaction, both of us near tears and all of the people behind me in line getting agitated, the PetSmart clerk finally types in a fake email address (noname@noname.com) so the transaction will complete and I can take my cat food home.

    I've shopped at PetSmart for years. I am a loyal customer. I appreciate their partnership with shelters to promote adoption of homeless animals. But this is ridiculous. I wonder if PetCo requires an email address when you make a purchase.

    Your data is out there no matter what. To fight it is exhausting and probably futile. In addition to the physical "you" there's a data "you" and there's not a thing either of you can do about it.

    Tuesday, May 22, 2018

    The Cost of Clean Clothing

    It holds about a third of what the old washer did. So we have to do smaller loads. Clyde thinks it's cute. It looks like R2D2.


    Our washer died.

    It was a cute little European model, a combination washer and dryer. It was a good washer. A terrible dryer. But it got the clothes clean.

    It looked smart and efficient tucked under the counter in our kitchen.

    It came with the house. It was in fact, one of the few things that didn't contribute to that bottomless money pit.

    There are some things I've refused to do in my adulthood: mow the lawn, shovel snow, and drag my dirty clothes out to a public place where I have to shove quarters into a machine that God only knows in who has washed God only knows what.  So naturally, when the washer died, I jumped on line to see what new washers were available that would fit under our counter.

    Buying the same model we had before turned out to be a little on the pricey side, so I looked around and settled on a less expensive portable washer.

    Clyde and I live modestly but comfortably. We don't have a lot of debt. We eat out and travel. But our house is small. We don't drive fancy cars. And we don't waste money on deluxe washers.

    Turns out this new little washer is too small to to reach the kitchen plumbing. It has to be dragged into the bathroom, hooked up to that sink, and drained into the bathtub. But it fits under the counter and it was cheap.

    It is a lot smaller than I expected. It holds about a third of what the old washer did. So we have to do smaller loads. Clyde thinks it's cute. It looks like R2D2. It took a few days to figure out exactly how to hook it to the sink - turns out we didn't have the right attachment for the faucet. I went to Home Depot and came home with the wrong size. Don't ever send me to Home Depot. I'm a disaster at Home Depot.

    The laundry was piling up.

    Clyde managed to find the right size faucet attachment at McGuckin's Hardware in Boulder.

    After much trial and error, I was finally able to hook up the new machine. I plugged it in. I attached one end of the hose to the sink and the other end to the little washer. I set the program to wash, rinse, and spin. I turned on the faucet. Water shot me in the face, blasted the wall, the shower curtain, and the floor.

    I tightened the hose. Tighter. Tighter. Finally, a little water dribbled into the washer. My shirt was soaked.

    Tighter, tighter.  My finger started to bleed.

    So it turns out the laundromat isn't so bad. You can put a 20 into a machine that churns out a whole bunch of quarters. The washers and dryers are huge so you can do a lot of clothes at once. The other customers are mostly nice. For extra convenience, there's an "all natural 'green' medicinal and recreational health clinic" next door. For those of you who don't live in Colorado, that means it's a marijuana shop.

    R2D2 remains under the counter for emergencies. If you cover the sink and the hose with a towel while you use it, water doesn't spray all over the place. I'm still looking for ways to make it better. I might go over to Home Depot and see if they have a better hose.

    Friday, March 9, 2018

    I Had a Casa Bonita Poster Over My Bed

    When 90% of all the other boys my age had Farrah Fawcett above their beds, I had a poster of the divers at Casa Bonita.

    My family thought I was interested in diving.

    For you readers who may be too young, Farrah Fawcett was the arguably the most famous sex symbol of the 1970s. The poster of Farrah lounging in her red one piece graced the bedroom wall of every (straight) pubescent teenage boy of that era.  With her nipple so quietly poking out, her famously feathered blond hair (many girls at my school had that same style), enormous white smile, one leg up and the other down, Farrah no doubt caused a lot bedroom doors to close tight for a few minutes every evening in those days.

    I, on the other hand, had a poster of the perfectly toned, speedo clad male divers poised over the waterfall at Denver's famous Casa Bonita.

    I had nothing against Farrah.  I watched Charlies Angels, the TV show that made her famous. But I preferred Kate Jackson - the smarter angel. I have to admit, I was more into the cars they were driving.

    To call Casa Bonita a restaurant is misleading. It's more of a theme park. To walk inside the old-world
    Spanish colonial style tower topped villa on West Colfax is to enter another world. You find yourself in a "Mexican" village festooned with palm trees, caves, walking paths, and right in the middle, a huge waterfall plunging into a deep green pool. It's really quite amazing.

    Locals look down their noses at Casa Bonita. It's true - the food isn't very good. There are approximately 1 million places in metro Denver where you can go for better Mexican food.

    The exception is the sopapillas at the end of the meal. When you put the flag up at your table, a basket of hot, fresh, doughy, slightly sweetened pastries appears. You take one, tear it in half, pour honey inside, and let it melt in your mouth. When you want more, just raise the flag - it's all you can eat.

    But you don't go to Casa Bonita for the food. You go to see the waterfall, Black Bart's cave, the roving mariachi singers, and of course, the divers.

    When Casa Bonita opened in the mid 1970s, I was just becoming aware of my sexuality. While I
    didn't self-identify as gay until 1980, I REALLY liked the divers at Casa Bonita years before. Back then, they were all male and because it was the 70s, they all wore skimpy speedos. During one of my family's occasional trips to Denver, after I observed their perfect forms fly gracefully into the emerald water, I made a beeline for the gift shop to purchase the poster, and my interest in diving commenced.

    On a visit years later, I noted that young women had joined the ranks of divers. The grace and skill were the same, but something was missing - a little charge, a bit of fantasy.  Plus, I realized the divers were all probably 16 years old. No thanks! At least I could put the flag up for more sopapillas.

    Thursday, January 4, 2018

    Surviving the Diet of the 1970s

    I thought orange juice and Tang, a sugary drink made from dusty yellow powder, were the same thing until I was in high school. Of course Tang was marketed as what the astronauts drank, so that made it ok.

    A New York Strip, perfectly grilled, delicately sliced into a bite sized morsel with a sharp knife, a tiny drop of peppercorn sauce quivering on the surface as I lift it to my mouth with a fork, juicy flavor flowing around my tongue, making me reluctant to swallow as it melts away.

    That was the 50 dollar steak I had the other night. It was fantastic.

    I didn't have a good steak until well into my 20s. In my experience, steak was always fatty and required endless chewing before you could swallow it. I'd heard it could be grilled, but my mother always prepared it in a frying pan. I don't think we even had a grill in my childhood home.

    My family was pretty well off. We had the biggest house on the street. We had 3 cars. We  took nice vacations with our motor home and spent culturally uplifting weekends in the city. We had a swimming pool in the back yard. My siblings and I expected to be sent to college. We didn't show off, but we were clearly not poor.

    So it baffled us that Mom scrimped and saved pennies as if we were still in the Great Depression. We existed on the cheapest cuts of meat and the lowest quality store brand instant foods. The milk we drank as children was made from powder in a box. It was terrible. I hate drinking milk to this day, and will only put Vitamin D whole milk on my cereal. I thought orange juice and Tang, a sugary drink made from dusty yellow powder, were the same thing until I was in high school. Of course Tang was marketed as what the astronauts drank, so that made it ok.

    I don't think it was just my mom. In the 1970s, between inflation and middle class mothers going to work outside the home, nutrition was a secondary consideration compared to saving money and saving time.

    Vegetables? Always canned. I didn't set my eyes upon fresh asparagus until I was in college. Green beans were soft and squishy as were peas. Exotic vegetables were the mushy "Chinese" variety in the can of chow mien purchased from the ethnic shelf at the grocery store.  I'll never forget my first water chestnut.

    Today's moms would shudder at the nutritional value of what we ate as children: sugar coated cereals (preferably generic), lifeless white iceberg lettuce dressed up with fake bacon bits and Nebraska's famous Dorothy Lynch salad dressing, as much Kool-Aid as we could drink (in place of expensive carbonated sodas), dry Hydrox cookies (cheaper than Oreos), and sandwiches made from big yellow blocks of Velveeta imitation cheese-like substance along with Miracle Whip spread (not mayonnaise) and the store's cheapest (whitest) bread.

    For the record, there was no such thing as "gluten free." We'd never heard of a Vegan. Vegetarians were hippies that lived out in far away California.

    It's not like we weren't cared for. Mom made sure we had 3 solid meals a day. We never missed a breakfast, lunch, or dinner. We'd even get a special treat every now and then. For example, we'd occasionally get a Tony's frozen pizza with bits of pepperoni or something that passed for sausage on top.

    If Mom needed a break, Dad would pick up a bag of McDonalds hamburgers and fries. He never got cokes though - we saved money by washing those fries down with Kool-Aid or Tang.

    I'm a little surprised that obesity rates are higher now. That probably has to do with the amount of moving around that kids did then compared to now. There were only 3 channels on the TV. We didn't have computers and iPhones so we had time to go outside and run off all that fat and sugar.