October 10, 2010

Dear family –

Dad and I continue to settle into our little Townhouse on the Prairie. Dad has been spending many happy, entertained (via audiobook) hours in the garage turning it into his workshop space which, with an hour’s notice, can magically change back into a slim-fitting garage space for our two cars. We take good advantage of the plentiful available on-street parking right in front of the house so this works out well.

We now have our new couches in the living room and a new rug between them. We also have the piano back from the Durans. The living room area is taking shape nicely. This is thanks to the “squeezing the toothpaste” approach mentioned in last month’s letter. The family room is now feeling tight with the addition of the monitors, extra pole lamps & lamp shades, end tables and unhung artwork which used to be in the living room. We have enough bins and boxes of unsorted electronics and cords that we that we could wire the country of Zaire.

I have scheduled the Empire people to come on Wednesday to give us an estimate for swapping out the faux wood blinds on many windows. They get in the way whenever we want to open the door to the back porch and open only from the bottom up. As friendly as the neighbors are to our north, I’d just as soon not have to look into their house in order to get some natural light in the house. I have a feeling that these faux wood blinds are all the rage now but, as I have just enumerated, I have my reasons for getting rid of them. Shag carpeting was all the rage in the 70’s and fell out of favor for its unsavory bacterial retention qualities (and its dayglo color options). Now, of course, all the designers are installing shag carpets and rugs again. While it may feel good under foot, I would still be creeped out by the crumbs and French fries and salsa bits that would be commingling at the roots.

Continuing the settling-in theme, tomorrow we are getting a new washing machine delivered. The one that came with the house technically “works” but it is catastrophically noisy during the spin cycle, and Dad is sure it will damage itself and the house and plumbing by traveling all over the laundry room floor in one of its frenzies. While it may have something to do with the clothes not being balanced throughout the cycle, it can’t seem to manage more than a minimal load without throwing an alarming tantrum. We are looking forward to welcoming a brand new Samsung front loader (with sanitation cycle and vibration control!) on sale from Best Buy for which we also used a $65 off coupon we’d earned from buying our Illinois TV’s from Best Buy.

In September Dad and I returned to Aspenhof for a long weekend. Dad went out a little earlier than I to spend more time at Aspenhof and to be on site to wish Grandpa a happy 80^th birthday on Sept. 23^rd. For his birthday Grandpa wanted to have pictures of all his children and their spouses. Rebecca (England Kimball) coordinated the Herculean task of getting individual photos of all 14 – as well as 7 shots of each couple together. She managed to pull it off – complete with frames.

To accomplish this, early in September all the Utah Kimballs got together on the east side of the Salt Lake Temple for their photo op (although the temple is nowhere to be seen; all the photos have a blank neutral background.) Picture them using Mary’s cookie sheets for reflectors and the wind wreaking a little havoc with hairdos.

Those of us who live elsewhere had to come up with our own pix and send them to Rebecca to tweak a bit. We had Stip come and take pictures of us against the blank walls of our Illinois house. Miles and Gail had their photo taken in Michigan. It looks like it could have been at a studio but perhaps they winged it like we did. Rebecca sent us the photos of all the individuals by email. Seeing all those Kimballs in close up head shots is both wonderful and a little frightening.

Back to our brief stay in Utah. The event I came out in time to enjoy was the Wolf Creek Ranch Home Owners Association dinner and the Elk Bugling event that followed. The meal was excellent (roast beef, BBQed ribs, grilled chicken, mashed potatoes Caesar salad, asparagus) and catered by the Gateway Grille (who catered BCKI & EBKI’s open house in the barn in July of ’08). They also had an 82-year-old frisky Indian dancer and storyteller perform for us. He looked about as Native American as my German Hoffman relatives, but he at least dressed the part. (His grandmother was half native. They don’t know which tribe, but he picked Crow to become proficient in.) That was entertaining, educational and amusing.

After dinner, Dad headed back to the house since being out in the woods (and away from plumbing) to listen for the bugling of elk for an hour didn’t seem like a wise choice for him at that time of night. I went with a small and somewhat rowdy group of strangers to try to hear and possibly see the elk. I rode in the truck with the young caller and his wife. They seemed like real people (where the tipsy city slickers and the rambunctious teenagers seemed ridiculously out of their element.) As you might have guessed our group was too loud for even hearing impaired elk to want to try to approach. So, while we heard some bugling, we didn’t see any elk.

The caller and his wife had just returned from an antelope hunt in the Utah desert. It was the wife’s hunt and she was pleased that she got her animal. She’s been hunting since she was about 5 so it wasn’t a huge surprise. She now has the task of preparing it for their freezer – which seemed like all in a day’s work for her. She also works at the Summit County Clerk’s Office so she’s a busy gal, in a rugged Utah kind of way. She’s due with their first baby in January.

So, Lilla, when you’re not juggling all the MIT/Harvard/Vermont tasks you already have, why not take Evan out on an antelope hunting expedition to save some grocery bucks (pun intended, of course)?

When I got back to Aspenhof after the “official” elk bugling, I stood silently on the back deck and heard elk bugling in surround sound. Dad and I even heard antlers bashing. (Since we couldn’t see them I don’t know if the antlers were bashing tree trunks or bashing another set of antlers.) It was primal and surreal and soothing and like-unto seeing the great migration of the wildebeest in Tanzania. Very majestic.

Other highlights of the month? Dad’s colonoscopy! Once again he is blessedly “unremarkable.” Therefore, I will remark no further on this.

Last weekend I spent another creatively exhilarating weekend at Ragdale in Lake Forest. This time it was a workshop with novelist (and Carletonian) Jane Hamilton on aspects of writing novels. We did a lot of exercises which reminded me that I really DO like to write – and also (given the feedback from the others) that I have a little knack. As it turned out one of the women from my children’s writing critique group here was also in attendance which made it even better. I met a woman whose family has been in Concord, MA, since the 1840’s. Her g-g-g (?)grandfather’s property abutted the Emerson’s land, and he (Irish Catholic) worked in their orchards. She was full of wonderful stories. Jane Hamilton was terrific - very perceptive, an attentive listener and a great, supportive teacher. And just a regular Mensch. Or Frau? Menscha? I enjoyed playing out all our Carleton connections and bragging about my offspring. Don’t fret, Pete, I managed to brag about you, too. Not hard to do.

Besides my church work at the temple on Fridays and my (lately neglected) responsibilities to write up a short ward history every year, I have a new calling. This one has the unusual perk for a calling of providing two hours of kissing and hugging at church. I’ve been called as a nursery worker! Our ward has 36 kids between the ages of 18 months and 3 yrs. They have divided them into “older” and “younger” nurseries and I’m assigned to the 18 young ones. Today there were 3 men workers in there plus Khania Lund (the younger nursery leader) and one other woman just for the day. Khania explained that as nursery workers our job primarily consists of 1) being a mediator (to intervene, redirect energies or nip problems in the bud) and 2) being a soother. For some reason the little lambs tend to choose women to run to for cuddling, consoling, hugging or lifting up. Before we get into sexist stereotyping, I will also add that most of the girls spent good chunks of time hammering at the tool bench with hard hats on and almost all the boys were dazzled by the Fischer Price Vanity Counter with rotating mirror.

I spent most of my time holding the chunky little dynamo, Heleena Downs, the bishop’s youngest child. It looks like she has distilled all the Italian genes from Matt’s side of the family. She has olive skin, adorable black curls and bright blue eyes (mostly watery with tears today) and is one plump presence. She’s the youngest of the young nursery bunch and is still transitioning. At one point, she was clinging to my neck while I stooped down to pick up another crying tyke. I have a hard enough time getting up from stooping with my increasingly arthritic knees that standing up from a squat with two 25 pound weeping weights on each hip was more than I could balance so the other nursery workers helped the unit of us three up and all was well. Both kids stopped crying, and I felt like I was channeling mother goddess power of the most blessed sort. I can tell I’m going to really like this assignment! And little Simon and his eventual cousins will benefit from all the action songs I’ll know.

Much love to you each and to you all as October progresses. Keep us informed about whatever highs or lows you’re willing to divulge. Congratulations to Peter and Anne on becoming an uncle and aunt this past week! Whohooo! I hope Emily et al are doing well and getting as much sleep as they can.

Tsumanis of love –

Mama/Mut/Mutti/Linda