Miser family pumpkin update

 Life continues to be rich and full in the Miser Family household, and this week we're particularly rich with pumpkins.  And muffins!  And pumpkin muffins!

Can you "spot" Cruella DeVille and her little Dalmatian?  (At first, I thought they were cows, but the grandkids set me straight).  

Last year, our next door neighbors decorated the heck out of their front porch with scary screaming things.   I (a) love their exuberance and (b) am glad they didn't do the same this year.  Instead -- out of deference to the fact that our small city has had 1/10 the number of Covid deaths that China has, even though China has a heck of a lot more than 10 times as many people as our city -- they put up "Do Not Cross" police tape up to block off their front porch, and they erected giant inflatable spiders and other spooks in the backyard, where they've created an awesome maze and adventure park for their grandkids. 

I like this approach: don't scale back on the usual traditions; instead go creative and make a new kind of experience,  one that'll bring a new kind of memory.  Our family is planning to do a similar kind of experience-swap-out for Thanksgiving this year.   We're trading the traditional feast that feeds extended family and as many students we can cram in the house, with something other-thankful.  We're not 100% sure what this will mean:  tentative ideas are that we'll learn to bake pies together; go for a Thanksgiving family bike ride; learn about the history of the indigenous people who used to populate this area, and maybe even undertake a chalk-art installation in the parking lot across the street. 

The cold weather and leaves mean that the gutter business is raining down dividends, and N-son (who occasionally works with his friend's gutter business) has spent part of this weekend helping his friend scope out I-daughter's gutters, which need replacing.  It's nice to see these connections and interconnections!

Okay, let's turn to this week's interview.  Of all my many kids, the one who has always been the most laser focused on whatever is in front of her is L2.   When she was in middle school, she was so intent on being the very most perfectest on all her homework, that her dad offered to pay her on the following scale:  5¢ for an A, 10¢ for a B, 25¢ for a C, and $50 for a D or F.  L2 never earned more than spare change, needless to say.   And she hung out with people who kind of magically showered her with amazingly non-Miser gifts.   My guy and I used to joke that L2 was destined to marry either a multimillionaire, or a missionary.   That being said, let's see what L2's most recent adventures have been like.

What things were you doing a year ago that you're not doing now?

• First and foremost, I was drinking alcohol – now sober since June 1, 2020.

• I was dating a guy who was totally wrong for me.

• I was living and working in Chicago at Northwestern Feinberg School of Medicine. I am now doing that postdoctoral fellowship remotely from Minneapolis – who would have ever thought I would willfully move back to Minnesota back when I first moved here for grad school??

What occupies your days, nowadays?  (Sometimes people ask, "what do you do?", meaning, "what's your job?", but many people in our family don't have traditional jobs or paid employment at all, so this is a more general question).

• I am on the academic job market, so writing and applying to various jobs from liberal arts professor to research professor in a cancer center takes up much of my time. 

• I am also teaching a class in the Master’s of Public health program at Northwestern (on zoom -- picture to the right says "First day of teaching! 2020, MPH classes taught from the floor of my bedroom".)

• Working at a new job Saturdays and Monday afternoon/evening at a weight management clinic in Burnsville, MN.

Tell me a bit about your hobbies

 

• I have gotten really into Pilates during quarantine. I am currently doing a 30-day October Pilates challenge with two other friends that has been a lovely accountability and abs(olutely) fun challenge.

Five years from now, what kinds of things do you hope you'll be doing that you haven't done yet or aren't doing now? 

• Volunteering at my new church...surprise, I go to church now, and I have started volunteering at the food-handing-out associated non-profit situation called Manna Market.

• Alcoholics Anonymous – I am not sure if this is considered a hobby, but I spend a lot of time doing it between my own program, meetings, helping and supporting other people getting sober. As of mid-October, I am also officially on the leadership team of Hollywood Young People’s Alcoholics Anonymous (HYPAA; yes, you read that right, in Los Angeles because everyone just does zoom anyway). I went to one of their zoom meetings because I wanted a 10pm meeting…and time zones made that possible…and fell in love with the LA energy and the fact that there are just so many sober young people – just a different vibe than a room full of old men chain smoking in the Minnesota suburbs. Of note, there are also many awesome meetings in Minnesota, not all just elderly chain-smokers – although I shouldn’t knock those because those dudes often offer some great wisdom.

When you treat yourself to a bit of "me" time or special indulgences, what does that involve for you?

• I bought an infrared sauna during quarantine so doing a session in my infrared sauna.

• My new apartment (more info below) also came with an electromagnetic meditation chair so a quick meditation session in the chair – or just in general.

• Making morning beverages…mate (was obsessed with mate cups in Argentina 20 years ago – so came full circle on that) mixed with some coffee, almond milk, and some vanilla stevia has been my morning drink of choice of late – sounds weird, but I am in love with it.

Five years from now, what kinds of things do you hope you'll be doing that you haven't done yet or aren't doing now? 

• Preparing tenure materials…or thinking about doing so

• Dealing with balancing children (or thinking about them) with my own work and my husband’s (see what I did there…yeah I’d have to meet someone I want to marry first, but five years is a long time)

• Sponsoring newly sober people like myself…or perhaps even people have been sober 4 years…to my then 5+ years of sobriety

Describe some of your favorite household gadgets or treasures. 

• I am so grateful for all my gadgets and treasures!!! 

My living situation is pretty darn crazy and must be some kind of act of God…I was renting a bedroom where I had a mattress on the floor from a guy from Craigslist looking for apartments to officially move back to Minneapolis…Then a guy from my Alcoholics Anonymous home group who also happens to be an interior designer (so the place is BEAUTIFUL) decided to move back to Michigan to work things out with his husband. He sent a group text telling us to come please take anything we wanted…I came that afternoon because I wanted this lovely meditation chair he had, learned that he and his roommate were both moving out…and when I told him I had been looking for an apartment in this neighborhood he told me if I took over his lease I could keep EVERYTHING. I now have an apartment full of beautiful art and statues and furniture and china dishes and silverware made of silver that I never would have bought myself. I feel so grateful every day when I wake up in my remote control king bed. I don’t feel like I deserve any of it, but I know it was the first of many signs that I am finally on the right path with work, volunteering, sobriety, and everything I am putting my energy into. I also actually keep my room and home clean!! (If you know me well, you know that is a big deal).

Are there any questions I should have asked you, but didn't?

???

*******

And that's the news from our family, which continues to be pumpkin in our adventures.  May you and yours be similarly muffin.

Miser Family, thoughtful faces update

Well, life continues to be rich and full (and in particular, thoughtful) in the Miser Family household this week.  This week, we put on our best thoughtful faces.

Y reminds us to be thoughtful about not touching our faces; if you want to put hands on a face, I-daughter reminds us you can do so on a cool math clock.  Amelia the dog is thinking about how to invent a hamburger dispenser, I think.  A while back L1 got to go visit her aunt, who says, "We took them to see our favorite rock and roll show. That’s my man in the black shirt......oh my. "  L1 confirms, "That show was amazing".   I don't know what I-daughter, B-child, and N-son are thinking hard about, but I'm concluding that the answer might be "12".  And my guy was photographed reading Les Trois Mousquetaires while on base a few years back.  

What else is happening this week?  I'm hereby sending good vibes out to my niece (and all those with her), who today participated in the Suicide Prevention Out of the Darkness Walk.  

I also got praised for "balancing accountability with compassion" in the letter I sent to four of my students who I had to dress down for cheating on their online math quizzes. (I can't tell you just how much I dread giving exams online. I just have not been able to figure out a way to do so without students getting into trouble. I so wish I could put my students in a structured environment where they can't wander astray, like putting a puppy in a dog crate. Sigh).   So, yay for dressing down my students in a praise-worthy way?   

And in a moment of vicarious plumbing success, I am super pleased to announce that N-son de-clogged his very own sink (without drano) by following my suggestions about plungers followed by boiling water.   Another milestone in self-sufficiency has been achieved!

And now, we turn to this week's interview.  K-daughter joined our family at age 6, or 8, or 18 or 19 or 23, depending on how you figure these things.  Her life is always full of interesting stuff, kind of like that of her mother (me).   And to get a sense of just how interesting it is, just jump right into these questions and answers.

What things were you doing a year ago that you're not doing now?

This time last year, we were backpacking through Yellowstone for our three-day backpack camping adventure. I'm sad to say, that wasn't a possibility this year. 

Wait:  that's the difference?  Any changes in, say, family, or jobs, or living arrangements?

K-daughter, prodded via a phone call, remembered, oh yeah:  This past year she also got married to an awesome guy, had a daughter, bought a new house [so far away!  4 miles away from me!  no fair!], applied for and got a new job within her company, applied to schools to finish her college degree and got in, and then go furloughed from her job thank-you-covid.   

But yeah, also she was backpacking and now she's not. So that's different, too.

What occupies your days, nowadays?  

Lately, school work and if I'm not mommying or adulting, I'm making wooden toys!!!! It's been so fun learning how to use tools and cutting them out to paint after! I just got furloughed, and I'm SO excited about it! I'll be starting my internship at [community program] this month!

Could you unpack the "school work" description for us?  What classes are you taking and where?

[Again, via phone interrogation/interview:]  K-daughter is back at the college where she'd been enrolled before the birth of A-child.   She's taking four classes on-line and doing an internship, with a goal of finishing her degree maybe in the next three semesters.   Her classes are

• soc Psych + lab, 
• hidden logic of human imagination (she really likes it), 
• art therapy 3, and 
• senior seminar 

Her internship is with a community-based program, where she helps people who are transitioning out of prison or the psychiatric hospital; she's a residential counsellor for people who live there (8 hr/week, Sat & Sun every other weekend).

Tell me a bit about your hobbies
in theme with the question above :)   Moving from plastic to wood, painting wooden toys. Not a lot of toys.

When you treat yourself to a bit of "me" time or special indulgences, what does that involve for you?
treating myself = a nice, hot bath.... In silence. 

Hmm . . . for people who are thinking of x-mas gifts for you, does this mean you'd like bath items?

   No, please avoid bath bombs and bubble baths, because these stained the tub the last time I tried them.

Five years from now, what kinds of things do you hope you'll be doing that you haven't done yet or aren't doing now? 
more traveling!   Seeing the west coast, see the Northern lights, see Niagara Falls, hiking, camping

post-degree: not sure what I'll do with that. Maybe start counseling? Social work? Up in the air.


Describe some of your favorite household gadgets or treasures. 
Some of my favorite treasures- I love the kiddos wooden toys 💜 and my desk that I do schoolwork on :)

Tell me more about the desk?  Why do you like it?

I hadn't planned to have one, but D suggested it, and it's nice to have my own space to focus.  It's in the room that's supposed to be the dining room,  but we don't use it for that.  The desk is facing the window, lots of natural light.

Are there any questions I should have asked you, but didn't? 

I'd love to hear what how other people are doing in the pandemic and  what they're doing to keep mentally well. I'm glad to be able to go outside; there's a trail in our back yard that goes up a mountain, or go to a local park with a path around housing development.

****

And that's the news from our family, which continues to be wealthy (and thoughtful) in our adventures.  May you and yours be similarly prosperous.

My grandchild wields a kitchen knife

She's only 5 years old, but of her own volition, she fetches the step-ladder (taller than she is) that can get her up to counter height.

We practice this:  when you cut, you put your hand on top of the knife, not under it.

And then you can push down.

Because if you put your hand under the knife, we'd have to stop chopping apples to go get bandaids.   No one wants to do that.  We just chop apples. 

 And so the next generation begins the journey to self-sufficiency in the kitchen, stepladders and knives and all.

Miser family update: Old but functional

Life continues to be rich and full in the Miser Family.  This week, we celebrated some of our oldest, yet still functional, items.  

 For example, 

• in that first photo, notice the old-yet-functional foot locker.  (It's about the foot locker, guys!).  That foot locker served in WWII with my father-in-law.  Now, with a fresh coat of lacquer and some wheels under it, it sees a more peaceable kind of use as our coffee table.  
• A gift from the same father-in-law is in my sister-in-law's photo:  "My dad gave me this electric pencil sharpener over 40 years ago when pencils were a thing!   When your pencil was sharp a light would come on. So very state of the art.  It still comes in handy."    (I'm not sure what she means by "when pencils were a thing"; in my household, pencils and pencil sharpeners get pretty much daily use!)   
• And L1 continues the furniture theme with a cedar chest from an antique shop that holds "so many blankets".   I asked if it holds dogs; she said no.

Our family also has some impressively old kitchen gadgets.  

• L2 kind of lucked into an amazing apartment that came furnished with all sorts of amazing things, including these "Irish leaded crystal and hand painted China".   I swoon.
• I-daughter uses hand-painted dishes that got passed down from two generations before mine, but neither of us can remember the original owner:  Nana?  Great Aunt Ruth?  her father's side of the family?   (Sisters: do you have a clue about this?)
• I "store" a pressure canner that a matriarch of our church got from her mother-in-law.  It's an amazingly durable thing.  She hasn't asked to use it in, oh, about a decade, but I haul it out several times a year to can turkey stock.   I also use the wooden springerle molds that my Nana got from her mother-in-law, so there's more than a century of use on those babies.
• Somewhat more recent, but still beloved, is Y's handy sidekick: "Started using 1L Nalgene bottles when my college gave them to every freshman. Although this isn't the original (one fell in a hospital toilet and then melted in the dishwasher when I tried to sterilize it), I don't go anywhere without it!"
• And of course, we can't forget Snakey and Baby, who get constant use as pillows, companions, and photo props. 

K-daughter is living a life with pretty much all-new stuff, so she didn't add a photo, but she did share the good news that, "I passed my crisis intervention test!!!  97%! Now working on restraints. Super fun".  Yay, K!

Speaking of functional, my guy went to the doc this week to check on how well his broken arm is healing up: does it need more fixing?  The verdict, "No surgery. No restrictions. No therapy."  My guy continues to fall in love with Strava, a bike riding app that gives him extremely useful information such as, on a recent uphill ride, "my best effort put me in 14,609th place of 17,836 riders", whereas going down the hill he moved up (down?) to 1,238th place.  

Another old-but-functional tool we've been putting to use is our democracy; N-son, my guy, and I took a short mid-week break to walk downtown and vote.  We cast our absentee ballots in a dropbox at the courthouse -- essentially no lines, and very very easy.  Yay!  Here's a photo of us on the way home (already well away from crowds, which is why my guy had removed his mask).  

And now for this week's interview, featuring not my oldest, but my first, child: the only homemade one.  Take it away, I-daughter.

What things were you doing a year ago that you're not doing now?

A year ago I was doing a lot more things with groups of people. I was working at the yarn store and teaching classes there (and using public transit to get there.) I was singing together with my chorus (we meet on zoom now, but it's not the same.) I was traveling for square dances, fiber festivals, and sometimes just because I felt like it. I was going to the theater all the time--in 2019 I saw more than 30 different live performances!

musical theater in the pre-pandemic 2018

A year ago my schedule was shaped by other people, so I was keeping a more traditional/expected sleep schedule. Now I sleep when I feel like it and I'm effectively nocturnal ;-)

What occupies your days, nowadays?  (Sometimes people ask, "what do you do?", meaning, "what's your job?", but many people in our family don't have traditional jobs or paid employment at all, so this is a more general question).

On a typical day, I'll sleep all morning (see above re: nocturnal). Then I'll do something to further my antiracist education and activism. I'm currently working through Rachel Cargle's "The Great Unlearn" and Monique Melton's 21-day Pursue Black Liberation Challenge.

Sometimes I get to do a social thing (zoom chorus, zoom Spinning guild, the occasional social-distanced knitting in the park.) On Sundays I walk with Mama. On Tuesdays I go to the library. I've joined 3 book clubs (Shelbey and the Bookclub on instagram, Dorothy Height bookclub with the YWCA, and Privilege to Progress' antiracist bookclub.) I've been doing a lot of reading.

 

And of course I spend a lot of time playing/creating with yarn.

 

Tell me a bit about your hobbies

I love to knit. (Big surprise, I know.) I knit all the time. I just made a new sweater (in 3 weeks and 2 days!) Sometimes I crochet. And I spin yarn. Covid scheduling meant that the Tour De Fleece* was held twice this year--once during the original Tour dates, then again when the race was actually held. I love to read. Sometimes I get too caught up in my knitting to take time to read, but if I'm knitting something simple and reading an ebook I can do both at the same time! This year I've been more intentional about seeking out books by non-white authors. Two of my favorite recent reads are Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi and The City We Became by N.K. Jemisin. 

I also love to sing. And go to the theater (especially musical theater.)

*Tour de Fleece is a (yarn) spinning event inspired by the Tour de France. It's not a race; the aim is to challenge yourself. Spin every day of the tour, try a new technique, push yourself somehow.

When you treat yourself to a bit of "me" time or special indulgences, what does that involve for you?

Musical theatre with a friend. New yarn or spinning fiber, starting a new project. Cheesecake. Hugs. Presents. Chocolate covered cherries.

Five years from now, what kinds of things do you hope you'll be doing that you haven't done yet or aren't doing now? 

I hope I'll have gotten to meet my niece Alanna (and however many more niblings I'll have by then. Iolanthe would be a lovely middle name, ya know?)

I hope I'll have gotten my second tattoo.

I hope I'll be involved in the yarn industry again. (I don't miss Ewebiquitous, but I miss teaching and solving other people's yarn-y problems.)

I hope I'll be more hopeful about the state of the country.

Describe some of your favorite household gadgets or treasures. 

I have a bunch of very cool and useful yarn-related gadgets (like the scale for weighing my yarn to see how much I have left--which I use all the time! Thank you, cousins <3)

This year I've been especially pleased with my phone stand--hands-free Zooming, plus it holds the phone at a good angle for ebook reading (so I can knit and read!)

My sticker and stationery collection is a treasure. I love covering things in stickers! (Things like water bottles, letters to loved ones*, and my spinning wheel.)

*I promise I'm gonna write back soon, L1!

Are there any questions I should have asked you, but didn't? 

"What's a small thing you miss from pre-pandemic times? "

Earrings. I really enjoyed coordinating my earrings to my outfit. Now I mostly wear the same 2 pairs in my zoom meetings. (I have a pair that matches the rainbow birthday decor on the wall behind me when I zoom!)

And often don't wear them out and about because they tangle in my mask.  But I'm building a mask collection so I can coordinate my mask to my outfit instead. So stylish!

And that's the news (olds?) from our family, which continues to be wealthy in our functions.  May you and yours be similarly prosperous.

Miser Family update: Pajama party

Life continues to be rich and full in the Miser Family household.   This week, we hosted a virtual, asynchronous slumber party.   Hey you upstairs!  Quiet down!  People downstairs are trying to sleep! 

In hosting this party, we learned . . . 

• The dog "doesn't wear pajamas; he is just naturally ready for any naps"
• "For the record: it's not easy to get a good pajama selfie..."
• A pajama party can create great memories.  My sister-on-law writes, "This is from the last pajama party I went to. That’s my late mother in law with me and we were watching the stunning season finale of her favorite show, Dancing with the Stars. I still have the PJ’s."
• L2, having heard the good news that she made it into round 2 of interviews at [prestigious job] is "Flying high in my new apartment in my silk kimono blazer "
• Y wakes up refreshed; "Sleepover in Arizona for 2 months..."
• And cows are not allowed on the furniture, silly.

This was a great week to host a pajama party, at least for me, because my college is in between modules.  So for two days in a row I got to sleep in late.  On Thursday, I slept until 7 a.m., and on Friday, I slept until 6:45.   It felt truly luxurious, which I know sounds strange for most people, but for me it was heavenly.  From now until almost Thanksgiving, though I'll be waking up in the dark and seeing the sun rise as I teach my Shanghai students from the comfort of my Command Center.  

And now, on to the second interview in our family interview series.  

When L1 was a young child, because of her persistent requests, her parents promised her she could have a dog when she turned 8 -- even though neither of her parents was particularly fond of dogs.   I'm quite sure her parents didn't divorce just for the sake of getting their daughter a dog, but somehow it turned out that shortly before her 8th birthday, L1 became my step-daughter, . . . and I am a dog lover, so they kept their promise to her after all.  Since then, she has far eclipsed me in terms of doggy devotion.   From here, I'll let L1 describe her current life in her own words.  

What things were you doing a year ago that you're not doing now?

A year ago, I was letting the VA’s nonsense bring me down and really struggling over our director’s decision not to move forward with a service dog program on the mental health unit where I work. Today, I have let that anger and frustration float off into space and forged a strong relationship with my supervisor, which has lead to additional exciting opportunities, including having a masters-level social work intern for the fall and spring semester, who I am really enjoying teaching. It’s also kind of reinvigorated my love for social work in general. 

I am also going to church more now (in person and virtual, depending on the week and month) than I was a year ago. Growing in my faith, slowly but surely. 

What occupies your days, nowadays? 

My days are occupied by work [L1 is a licensed clinical social worker (LCSW), who works as an inpatient psychiatric social worker in a VA hospital], three dogs, my husband, exercise, time with friends, working on a children’s book, spending time outside and getting set up for a second part-time job doing some consulting work.  

Tell me a bit about your hobbies

• Fostering dogs for Lu’s Labs, which has lead to our first forever foster, Amelia. She is a spunky, 14 yr old chocolate lab who has limited time due to a tumor on the side of her head with no treatment options. We are enjoying spoiling her for whatever time she has left.  To that end, Amelia and our two boys have quite the social media following on Facebook and Instagram, their Instagram handle is: Guinness_Watson_and_friends, if you want to follow them, too. Ensuring their social media and the Lu’s Labs Facebook pages are filled with posts about all their loveliness may be a part time job in itself. They write as themselves, if you start to follow along, and discuss the difficulties they often face in training the humans . 

Here is a sample post:

Rolling into Wednesday ready to share some wisdom with my pup friends #wednesdaywisdom . As we’ve discussed, training humans is not always easy, in fact, it takes diligence and finesse to truly succeed. Pictured here is my three-step tutorial on faces you can make to both get, and continue to receive treats. 

Step 1: when the human is far away and considering giving you a treat, look at them longingly.

Step 2: as the human nears, give a slightly perturbed but still adorable look, as if to tell them, I’m adorable, but could get angry if it takes too long to get this treat in my belly.

Step 3: after getting the treat from the human, give a smile. This is the positive reinforcement they need so they want to keep giving you treats.  

Let me know how my three-step plan works out for you, guys! 

Love 

Amelia

In addition, Amelia has a senior suitor, a 14 yr old black lab named Frederick, and there are a litany of people invested in their budding long distance relationship, which is taking place all through posts on the rescue’s alumni page. Fremelia is their couple name and maybe there will be bow wow vows one day .

• Through all these posts, a new hobby emerged, Amelia (or me lol) wrote her first children’s book. The manuscript is complete and I am working with an illustrator named Ruth; who is doing the illustrations for the whole book for nearly nothing, because she loves the story and rescue animals, and then I’ll be exploring the world of publishing. It’s been an exciting unplanned adventure. 

• Exercise, i think it’s the only reason I didn’t gain the COVID 20. But exercise has been and I think will always be a major part of my health and well-being. The dogs join in too sometimes 
  

• Writing / penpal-ing with friends and family. It began with just letters back and forth with I-daughter, and now there are a few people I keep in touch with with old fashioned snail mail. I also continue Miser Mom's tradition of writing thank you cards for gifts. Thanks for teaching me well .

When you treat yourself to a bit of "me" time or special indulgences, what does that involve for you?  

Me time: painting my nails, a nice glass of red wine, watching episodes of some show I’ve been into, a sweet treat, a walk on a nice day. 

Five years from now, what kinds of things do you hope you'll be doing that you haven't done yet or aren't doing now? 

There is consideration for children to emerge in the next 5 years, but I also hope I’m doing a lot of the same things too, I’ve been feeling quite happy and blessed and I hope it all continues! 

Describe some of your favorite household gadgets or treasures.

Our coffee maker; it isn’t fancy, but I sure do love my time in the morning with the pups and a cup of coffee. 

Are there any questions I should have asked you, but didn't? 

"Any new tattoos?"

Yes, sorry Aunt J, don’t hate me too much; back in Jan of this year I got my first and only tattoo. But Aunt J, see I’m wearing the Vegas dress you gave me in the pic with it... does that help? It’s Watson reaching out touching his paw to my hand ️.

***

And that's the news from our family, which continues to be wealthy in our adventures.  May you and yours be similarly prosperous. 

Fall, not autumn.

Life continues to be rich and fall . . . er, rich and full, . . . in the Miser Family household.  The calendar says we've come into autumn, but the trees in our neighborhood are still a vibrant green, and so our Family Fun Foto theme this week is "Fall, not Autumn".

So, as you see in the top row, if you fall, you get squash(ed).  (Amelia, on her way to the vet, sports a pumpkin-themed bandana; warm wishes, Amelia!).   We've got waterfalls . . . .  including a knitted sock taking a selfie by a waterfall, and also including a waterfall into which somebody's phone did fall, right after taking the photo.  Whoops!

The middle row kind-of-shows "don't fall".  Y writes, "It feels bizarre to know that it's technically Fall but everything about Sedona Desert look like high summer- from native flowers blooming, olive trees fruiting, and transplanted palms challenging the sky scrapers of downtown Phoenix."   A-child demonstrates not-falling in a variety of adventurous activities, and L2 hopes the pins will fall.  

And in the final row:  B-child demonstrates "fall asleep"; we feature matching "hers-and-his" elbow x-rays from different bicycle falls.  And of course, there's The Fall (with thanks to N-son for loaning us his beloved stuffed "Snakey" as a prop).

The national news is full of stories about illness; in a somewhat more obscure corner of the hullabaloo, my main running buddy texted me one night this week to say,

I am not going to run tomorrow. I have shingles which is seems like such an old persons disease

In my usual sympathetic way I wrote back,

I wish you had bad acne instead, because at least that would feel like a YOUNG person's disease.

But the exchange reminded me that I'd gotten round 1 of the Shingles vaccine back in December, and still needed round 2.  I popped over to our local pharmacy, with loaded me up with both shingles and flu sera, and now I'm a tad achy and feeling a little more invincible.  

Between (a) the ritual of 285 questions that precede giving blood, (b) the daily COVID-era check-in criteria my College asks me to monitor daily, and (c) the list of questions I had to answer to get my vaccines, I've been reminded constantly of all the terrible maladies which have not beset me.  Stoics talk about negative visualization; I'm reminded of my incredibly good fortune, health-wise, by an abundance of negative interrogation.

And on another topic entirely,  below I introduce the first in a series of "what are they doing now?" interviews with the Cast and Characters of the Miser Family.  We kick off with a guy who, 24 years ago this week, I agreed to marry.  My sister very reasonably worried that I was rushing into things and wondered about professional intervention; she told me that her psychiatrist told her, "Miser Mom is too happy for counseling".  I've treasured that whole story: that my sister worried for me; that she decided to support me anyway . . . and that the story has turned out to have an almost Fairy-tale-like happiness to it ever after.   Here's a bit of what my guy is up to these days.  

Interview with Mr. Miser Mom (who is not a Miser).

What things were you doing a year ago that you're not doing now?

 The daily training [bicycle] ride led by Scott [BikeRider], five days a week since 1981. The only other time it stopped was for five weeks in 2003 when Scott was recovering from a broken hip. When I got back from my last trip [to Israel, in early 2020], Scott stopped riding two days later because of COVID. Now he does not come to the city regularly, so riding with him means riding nine miles just to meet up. He may come into town a couple of times a week and ride the daily 35-mile route, but the tradition of daily riding ended with COVID. 

What occupies your days, nowadays?  (Sometimes people ask, "what do you do?", meaning, "what's your job?", but many people in our family don't have traditional jobs or paid employment at all, so this is a more general question).  

Four book discussion groups: 

a.     The ESL group that reads about anything related to human nature and spirituality;

b.     The World Conquest Book Club;

c.     The Evolution Roundtable, and

d.     Brother Timotheus (my best friend Cliff—we were roommates in Cold War Germany in the 70s. He stayed in Germany and is a monk at the Land of Kanaan monastery), and Dmitri (a resident of Kanaan but not a Kanaan Brother) and I are reading a book about Evangelicals supporting Trump.

Tell me a bit about your hobbies

books, bikes, writing, protesting.

When you treat yourself to a bit of "me" time or special indulgences, what does that involve for you?  

since riding is now alone, riding in fantastic places and eating wonderful food. New York City bridges and restaurants, upstate New York and Mid-State Pa mountains.

Five years from now, what kinds of things do you hope you'll be doing that you haven't done yet or aren't doing now? 

Riding in Africa and Asia. Leaving protesting behind because of the boring, competent leadership of America at every level.  Going to Synagogue and not even thinking about social distancing! Once I ride in Africa I want to write a book about riding all over the world. And maybe write a book about my love/hate relationship with the Army.

Describe some of your favorite household gadgets or treasures. 

• Instant Pot Air Fryer, 
• silent dishwasher, 
• the enormous mirror in the living room that I look into after I meditate and particularly contemplate the colors I see: the yellow walls the shiny wood floor and stair railings, the funny and beautiful purple bicycle chandelier and how Miser Mom has made our very ordinary row house into something unique and charming.

Are there any questions I should have asked you, but didn't? 

1.  "What products do you use to get that perfect, radiant hair color?"

2.  I get asked almost weekly how I can be so happy with my life in the midst of all that is wrong with the world.  In the midst of the turbulent world that spins at an increasing speed possibly toward the ruin of a stolen election, I do not live at the edge of the wheel, but with Miser Mom right at the hub of the wheel. No matter how fast the world spins, our home is a place of peace and quiet and love. Unlike so many people, I am not living in constant stress. It is a blessing I would wish for everyone—but at their own place, not at our house. 

And that's the news from our family, which continues to be wealthy in our adventures. May you and yours be similarly prosperous.