Category Archives: family

About this pumpkin…

agriculture, family

This very day a record-breaking pumpkin weighed in atpumpkin 1 ton + Half Moon Bay 14 the contest in Half Moon Bay in Northern California. It weighed 2,058 pounds, which is not even as big as the world record set yesterday in Germany. But it currently holds the record for the heaviest pumpkin in North America.

Mr. Glad and I certainly haven’t been keeping up with the pumpkin competitions. I only heard about this one on the classical radio station on the way home from the dentist this afternoon, and I don’t recall news of another pumpkin recently. But now I have learned that until last year no one had broken the one-ton barrier, and about 15 years ago 1,000 pounds was the biggest you could expect in a prize pumpkin. What can they be feeding them nowadays? Or maybe it’s the hybridizing of the seed.

K pumpkin 1998Only once did anyone in our family enter a contest like this; it was Kate in ’98, and in this picture she is smiling in spite of the fact that I had stupidly broken the stem of her potential prize before it was half-grown. You are supposed to move the fruit to a pallet when it is small, and let it grow huge there, so it will still be easy to transport if it gets to be a few hundred pounds.

What I didn’t anticipate was the way the stem when lying on the damp soil is likely to send down roots, and Kate’s had done just that. The roots were stronger than the stem, so Snap! it went, and “Oh, no!” I went. I never could figure out how she could be so philosophical about it. She loved her pumpkin anyway, even if it wasn’t any good for entering the local contest. Probably it never turned orange.

These giant pumpkins are all very well and good — I guess. They are freaks, though, aren’t they? That prize-winner in the photo reminds me of Jabba the Hutt. They must be good for feeding to livestock, but in general I think that smaller is better. No tasty sugar-pie pumpkin would care about getting so big it couldn’t even squeeze into the kitchen.

Maggie and Her Grandma

family, ,

P1110167 maggie wash car 14After the hubbub of the wedding and the excitement of being a bridesmaid, after playing with cousins and chatting with numerous aunts and uncles, after her dad and brothers departed for home and school, our granddaughter Maggie and her mom Pearl stayed on for another week.

It had been close to two years since I’d even seen this girl, and the change from nine to eleven years is a big one. I’m so thankful it worked out for her to be around all those lazy summery days, so we could enjoy just living our lives together. It didn’t seem necessary to plan interesting outings — Maggie had plenty of ideas in her head and resources at hand, for creative and homey things.

charles hedgehog This hedgehog that had been given to her grandpa had not been named, so Maggie created a contest to choose a name for him. She gathered suggestions from all the family into a teapot and after a few days she had Grandpa choose his favorite. He picked Charles, but Maggie calls him Charlie.  He looked on during many of our fun times.thedollshouse

The first thing the two of us did in the relative quietness was to start reading The Doll’s House by Rumer Godden. I read aloud to her as we snuggled on the couch or on her bed in my sewing/prayer room. It seemed to be the perfect book for our limited time — just long enough, and with a dramatic plot. The doll characters were very well drawn and complex – not fluffy.

We went to the craft store where Maggie bought a big pad of paper to go with ribbons and bows I had on hand, and she created some pretty cards for her grandpa and me.

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I mostly forgot about my chores that week. I could do that because Pearl was always loading and unloading the dishwasher and clothes washer. She climbed a ladder to prune the unruly and invasive wisteria, and one morning she and Maggie washed both of our very dirty cars till they were shining.

Maggie did a lot of flipping, diving and acrobatics in the pool. She had the idea of baking some brownies, but “only if your recipe is the same as my mom’s…?”  Our family has made “Anne’s Brownies” for so many decades, I thought it likely that Pearl was still using the same, and when I handed Maggie the card she said it was the Right One. (Anne, when you read this, you will know who you are.)

She added the peppermint extract and a buttercream icing she makes kind of free-form, and Voilà! we were blessed with mint brownies that she decorated with findings from the garden. Mr. Glad thought he didn’t like something chocolate mint, but he gave them a try and said they were yummy like Thin Mints, so he is still finishing the leftovers.P1110178 mint brownies

At the time of The Brownies, we were getting down to the last day or two of our extended reunion, and Maggie and I both were feeling some anticipatory pain of separation. We started watching more episodes of “Bleak House” with Grandpa — even though Maggie hadn’t been around to see the beginning of the series — and playing marathons of Bananagrams, which we both love.

Maggie makes us word-lovers proud with her skill at discovering words among the tiles. For those of you unfamiliar with the game, words may be formed going up as well as down, and from right to left as well as in the usual direction. This was one of Maggie’s crossword arrangements, and I think it was for a game that she ended up winning.

P1110189 b-grams Maggie

I have a dream of someday offering my services to families as a spelling tutor for young readers. I would go to their houses with nothing but my bag of Bananagram tiles and a dictionary, and just play this game side-by-side with the kids. It’s excellent for a broad range of ages, because each player is doing her own thing, competing against herself, and winning a game has nothing to do with how many words you’ve formed by the end.

I won’t be playing with Maggie anytime soon, though, and we will go back to writing e-mails or talking on the phone about our gardens and books and cooking projects, and about her busy 6th-grade life. I love being a grandma!

We find old book and doll friends.

books, family, ,

P1100825 dolls one box

When Kate was here last month she did a lot of plowing through her childhood stuff — Well, to be truthful, that doesn’t really describe what happened. She lovingly looked through boxes of books and toys she’d collected in her first 18 years, and household items like linen napkins and unP1100683used potholders that had been passed down to her from her grandmother. She had in mind the usual sorting categories of Keep, Give, and Toss.

With her wedding fast approaching, it blessed me that she took the time to enjoy the task. She hasn’t lived in our house for many years, but she was remembering what she said was a very rich childhood, surrounded with so many books which she always knew were part of the household because they had some value. This made the finding of a book worth reading much more likely than if she looked in a bookstore or library.

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Of course I find my children fascinating, and this peek into Kate’s memories interested me because it revealed that the development of her love for books and reading had an aspect I hadn’t even thought about. I was also pleased because it was a part of a success story. (I’m thankful that my kids don’t tell me about all the failings that I can’t change at this point.)P1100674

Kate used to collect dual-language dictionaries, even for languages she didn’t plan to study anytime soon, like this Japanese one above. And she had an assortment of dolls, most of which she has now bestowed on me to do with what I like.

I’ve been trying to figure out why grown women often like dolls and play with them, in adultish ways of course. Is it because we miss our children who have grown up? I find it hard to turn down a doll who needs a home, the way some people can’t say no to cats or dogs. I have a drawer full of dolls that I want to make new clothes for or mend in some way, and a suitcase full of really old broken dolls that belonged to our mothers and which I am even now gathering the will power and good sense to get rid of.

But I am quite thrilled to suddenly have so many new doll children who still have a lot of life in them. Before I decide how to distribute them, which ones to let the grandchildren play with, etc., I had to do something about the stink they had acquired by sitting in a plastic container for years.

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I set them out in the hot sun for a couple of days, and that did the trick. Maybe they didn’t even need the sunshine; perhaps the fresh air would have been enough therapy. But the ones with faces look happy enough to get the full outdoor experience.

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I used to love to read the Raggedy Ann and Andy stories to my children. Probably getting to know the personalities of the storybook dolls and following their secret adventures has contributed to my feelings about dolls generally. I can imagine that Kate’s dolls, over the years that they were ignored in that corner of the house, were sneaking out of their box and into the book boxes nearby to have fun improving their little minds. It sounds like something my children would do.

Bearish boy slays Tablespoon.

family, humor, poetry

When Nikkipolani made a comment on a recent post about the humor of computer-generated translations, I was reminded of a goofy homeschooling “project” of 20+ years ago. It was nothing assigned, but we were all centered around the home for our learning at the time, providing time for this sort of activity.

Some of our kids were memorizing Lewis Carroll’s “Jabberwocky” just for fun when we bought our first computer and discovered the inadequacy of spelling-checkers. Soon the children submitted the rhyme of the hour to the built-in program for analysis, and then they memorized that wacky “corrected” version.

Eventually a second run through Spell Checker produced another funny nonsense poem. And I later found one derived from “Jabberwocky” by someone else’s computer, which was renamed as well, as “Tablespoons” ! All of them have their charming lines, so I will be extravagant and self-indulgent and put them all here. Just not the original — you can find that easily enough if you didn’t ever commit it to memory yourself.

Jabberwocky by Spell Checker No. 1

‘Twas brisling, and the stilly toes
Did gyre and gamble in the wade;
All missy were the borogoves,
And the mom rates outreach.

“Beware the Jabberwocky, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jujube bird, and shun
The furious Band director!”

He took his volume sword in hand:
Long time the Manxmen foe he fought,–
So rested he by the Hum hum tree,
And stood a while in thought.

And as in offish thought he stood,
The Jabberwocky, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffing through the bulgy wood,
And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through
The volume blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with his head
He went galloping back.

“And hast thou slain the Jabberwocky?
Come to my arms, my bearish boy!
O fabulous day! Callow! Chalet!”
He chortled in his joy.

‘Twas brisling, and the stilly toes
Did gyre and gamble in the wade;
All missy were the borogoves,
And the mom rates outreach.

Next, the version that Robert McNally wrote on his Newton comJabberwocky17.inddputer. The Newton helpfully deciphered it as follows. Jabberwocky a la Newton: [with totally unrelated illustration from the defunct Jabberwocky Magazine]

TABLESPOONS

Teas Willis, and the sticky tours
Did gym and Gibbs in the wake.
All mimes were the borrowers,
And the moderate Belgrade.

“Beware the tablespoon my son,
The teeth that bite, the Claus that catch.
Beware the Subjects bird, and shred
The serious Bandwidth!”

He took his Verbal sword in hand:
Long time the monitors fog he sought,
So rested he by the Tumbled tree,
And stood a while in thought.

And as in selfish thought he stood,
The tablespoon, with eyes of Flame,
Came stifling through the trigger wood,
And troubled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and though,
The Verbal blade went thicker shade.
He left it dead, and with its head,
He went gambling back.

“And host Thai slash the tablespoon?
Come to my arms my bearish boy.
Oh various day! Cartoon! Cathay!”
He charted in his joy.

Teas Willis, and the sticky tours
Did gym and Gibbs in the wake.
All mimes were the borrowers,
And the moderate Belgrade.

Lewis Carroll’s JABBERWOCKY as “recognized” by the Apple Newton, (c) 1993 Robert McNally. Permission is granted to reproduce this if the copyright remains intact.

Finally, our own spell-checker’s second attempt, which seems to me to have the most culinary and homey perspective. (This fellow’s cartoon seems to catch that mood even from the original.)

Jabberwocky by Spell Checker No. 2

Twos broiling, and the slaty stoves
Did gyre and gimbal in the be;
All mimes were the Porridges,
And the mom rats outrace.

“Beware the Jabberwocky, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jujube bird, and shun
The frumpish Bandersnatch!”

He took his formula sword in hand:
Long time the manhole foe he sought,–
So rested he by the Dumdum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.

And as in offish thought he stood,
The Jabberwocky, with eyes of flame,
Came wheeling through the tulle wood,
And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through
The formula blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with his head
He went galumphing back.

“And haft thou slain the Jabberwocky?
Come to my arms, my bearish boy!
O fractious day! Calla! !”
He chortled in his joy.

Twos broiling, and the slaty stoves
Did gyre and gimbal in the be;
All mimes were the porridges,
And the mom rats outrace.

Now tell me, was this a common recreation for a time back in the 90’s? Perhaps children are still having this kind of fun with their technology, but mine barely remember the project. They definitely moved on, but I’m glad I have the mementos of happy and occasionally silly days.