For people who are supposed to be retired, life just goes whizzing by us. Daily life gets in the way of things we intend to do. Too much of our time lately has been spent with the medical community while we have been dealing with Marina’s heart attack and its aftermath. Marina is coming along well, especially after jettisoning some of her over-medications. So now she no longer suffers from a very uncomfortable full body rash and shortness of breath when we walk with Andy, her Seeing Eye Dog.
It is Spring, however, and things are greening up nicely. As I write this, we experienced 80 degrees today and temperatures are supposed to bounce around in the 70’s, with the upper 40’s at night all week. It’s just me, I know, but I still have the woodstove loaded in case I need some warmth in my office and the Mexican Room that are in our home’s lower walkout level. Our dock is in the lake, facilitated by Tim and Don Eck. I’ve invited Tim to share our dock because the sale of outlots with lake ownership like ours has meant there is no room for another dock. Tim bought another dock section to match ours so now he not only has a say in our shared dock but also room for his hot Malibu ski boat. (Last season he opened the hood of the boat’s engine compartment. If there was a speck of dust on that engine, I couldn’t see it.) I think our arrangement will work out well.
In the “so far, so good” department, the old batteries in the golf cart I use to bring heavy things and people who have difficulty climbing up the hill from the lake to date have reliably gotten us up the hill to home. Not bad for batteries on their last legs!
For family stuff, granddaughter Klara, whom I’ve dubbed The Queen Of The Dean’s List, graduates with the aim of working to generate audiences for some theater group in the Twin Cities. She knows and has done all aspects of theater and is skilled in technology and in using social media. Kaija, another granddaughter who lives outside Boston now, will marry Forrest Major in a Grant, Minnesota wedding barn ceremony two weeks from now. Kaija works in the fashion industry while Forrest is living his dream of working in computer animation. Forrest is a guy with a few corners to him. I discovered that when he grabbed a guitar and jammed with our son, Aaron, who’s a very good guitarist. Forrest easily held his own. They made great sounds together and I knew Forrest would fit right in to our family. Alice intends to get here for Kaija’s wedding; we have not seen Alice since Marina’s hospitalization. Grandson Erik will spend his summer on campus at St.Olaf to work with two professors on some political research and analysis. His brother, Hans, already plays an integral role in a small manufacturer in Osceola and Dresser, Wisconsin. Finally, Kaija’s wedding will see people coming from Denmark, New York, Montana, and New Ulm, Minnesota. It should be great fun.
Something that may not be great fun but full of meaning instead will be my brother’s sharing a celebration of life of his late wife, Dr. Bunny Vreeland. It will be shared later this month via Zoom.
Marina’s book, Gretel and Andy, God’s Gift; The Lives Of Two Seeing Eye Dogs, is selling on Amazon.com, as are my four paperbacks. I received a nice note from Sarah Rodomsky, the very hard working reporter for the Inter County Leader. She’d picked up my Some Mangled Fairy Tales at the Frederic St.Croix Health Clinic pharmacy and gift shop and found herself giggling and laughing as she read it in the clinic waiting room. Nice words from another professional writer carry extra meaning.
In addition to St.Croix Health’s stocking of my mangled fairy tales, Amery’s Pure & Simple also carries those books, while Amery’s Bowman Collective, Luck’s Kenneth Larson, and the Polk County Information Center all have my four short story paperbacks. I write fiction as Mark Hayes Peacock.