So This is Christmas...

...and what have I done? (Besides not update my blog in six months?)

I am enjoying reading all of the Christmas missives that come to me from around the globe, and apparently I haven’t done a Christmas update for a while. It seems I’ve set the bar pretty high a few years ago, and now that I’m back in the United States, back in my home state, hometown, and very nearly the home I grew up in, there’s almost a sense of “nothing to report.” All systems are normal.

Two years ago this coming February I began my new career as what I like to think of as a “paid Peace Corps volunteer” in my hometown. I am a faculty member with the University of Wisconsin Cooperative Extension system, a university “agent” or “Extension educator” in the Department of Family Living. Perhaps best known for the nation-wide 4-H or agricultural agent program, the university extension system has long (100 years in 2012 in Wisconsin) served as the university’s outreach arm from the campuses to the everyman around the State. Cooperative Extension has gone through a lot of changes over the last century, not in the least thanks to the emergence of the Internet and Google. My role a few years ago would have been as a “home economist” helping housewives select the best stove for their kitchen or explain the best way to get ring-around-the-collar out of shirts. We don’t do that anymore (and thank goodness, because I wouldn’t have lasted long!). Now my job is almost as difficult to explain as a Peace Corps volunteer’s. So, I won’t even try.

But, it has given me the opportunity for several firsts in this last year. It began in January with my first time teaching parenting classes. I guess this could be considered a promotion over teaching sex ed and HIV prevention to teenagers in Africa and Asia, but no less ironic. The Raising a Thinking Child curriculum is very interesting and almost – almost – makes me think it would be fun to have a kid to try some of this stuff out on.

Another first is live radio. Twice during this last year I had the opportunity to sit on a panel for an hour-long live radio forum…which then got me roped into joining the host of our local independent public radio station in pitching for their pledge drives. Now there’s something I never thought I’d ever do. I have yet to pitch for the polka show, however!

The next first was becoming a Master Food Preserver and exploring the big world of canning and dehydrating. One part of the “home economist” part of my job that does remain – and is gaining interest rapidly – is the art of home canning and food preserving. So, in order to be able to field the questions that come into our office about canned foods, I took the Master Food Preserver training taught by our state food safety specialist. It was a fabulous training, and enough to get a staunch anti-home economist like me to go out and buy a waterbath canner, pressure canner and food dehydrator all of my own (and inspire me to clean out a part of the basement to create a pantry). So, thanks to farmer friends, a good year for blackberries, and the UWEX food preservation publications, I put up tomato sauce, tomatoes, jams, zucchini everything, pickled watermelon rind, random vegetables, and chocolate raspberry ice cream sauce that I’m now enjoying all winter long.

Some of this year’s firsts have nothing at all to do with work. When I’m not working (and I’m still careful to not do too much of that), I’m usually busy making musical noises with various groups. I still play French horn, and now play in two community bands, two brass quintets (one in the winter only), an occasional community big band, and, this last year, a old silver cornet brass band. So my first for this year was learning to play (and transpose for, when necessary) the Eb alto upright horn, also known as a peck horn.

But French horn is still my first instrument, and this year I was blessed with the miraculous arrival of two more amazing horn players in our area. Our community band is now up to five (count them, five!) horns. Then, as another first, three of us got together to “ring the bells” for the Salvation Army Kettle, performing Christmas duets in the entry way to Shopko – much to the amusement of a large number of shoppers.

Also in musical firsts this year was my first Luther College reunion, which was also the first Luther College Concert Band reunion. Over 250 Concert Band alumni filled the stage to perform once again under the direction of the retired Weston Nobel and retiring Frederick Nyline. It was a sheer thrill to be smack in the middle of a 25 member horn section and to see so many faces from my college days – and to get to almost room with my college roommate of four years – again. (And yes, Callista Gingrich, wife of Newt Gingrich, was there in our horn section, and then, by extremely random chance, I encountered them afterwards coming out of a McDonalds in a town a hundred miles north where I stopped to steal free wi-fi - you can read about her take on the event here.)

Another first came when I took time off of work and flew out to San Francisco. Fellow Madagascar RPCV Kelsey Lynd picked me up from the airport and wisked me off deep into the glorious redwoods and took me on the longest HASH I’ve ever experienced – my first official half-marathon, and my first time doing a half marathon covering more than 3500 feet in elevation gain. Yeah, I hurt for the rest of my time in San Fran, but that didn’t stop me from doing a second half-marathon around the city from Golden Gate Park, to the bridge, down the warf, through the financial district and on. Perfect weather, amazing trip.

Wow, rereading all that amazes me. It seems I haven’t done much simply because I have been “home” all this time, but I am still managing to find firsts around most corners. And 2012 holds promise for even more firsts that I look forward to reflecting on next year.

In the meantime, I hope 2011 has brought you much to learn from and explore, and you have my best wishes for a 2012 full of happy firsts. May your life in the next year be full and satisfying, and may you find riches in all that comes your way and in all that you do.

That's disturbing...

Anybody who has been to the house I currently live in knows about the patch of rather unsightly, well-tracked, mangy gold-colored carpet in the middle of the house. That patch of carpet that, for reasons of asbestos and other things apparently more hazardous than noxious 30-year-old shag, can't be removed at this time. You also know that really, I couldn't care less what happens to it, other than doing what is necessary to prevent it from becoming a complete biohazard.

So when these tracks appeared on the carpet, I was hardly motivated to race off for the bleach bucket and rags to deal with them.

A week ago, my parents showed up at my place with an ice cream cake to celebrate the 4th of July. The cake was your standard Dairy Queen variety with chocolate and vanilla ice cream, some chocolate crunchies inside, and decorated with some appropriate red-white-and-blue-yay-for-freedom design. We sat and ate our cake under the watchful eye of our 8-year-old Labradoodle, who was determined he wasn't going to let a plate go without a proper cleaning to ensure complete consumption of all served ice cream.

He completed his own patriotic duty well enough, but we didn't notice that in the process of getting every last lick, he had placed his paw on one or more plates now covered in melted blue frosting. Then he trekked off across the gold carpet shag.

As I said, I wasn't disturbed. Frosting, whatever.

But today I made an attempt to decontaminate the carpet, and the blue paw-print stayed. Even after some extra rubbing, they didn't so much as smear. Now, I couldn't care less what happens to this carpet, and no, I did not run off for the toxic cleaning chemicals. The point is: what on earth are they putting in this blue frosting and where is it in my body now? Do I need to drink some bleach in order to get it unstuck from my own insides? If it permanently stains a carpet, do I want to be putting this stuff in my body?

I'm filing this under Things I Don't Want To Think About, except that now every time I walk through the house, I think about it.

A Silver Screen Peeve

Last night I went to see the movie, "Water for Elephants." I had enjoyed the book, and heard that the movie followed it fairly well. I will not be making any sort of movie review other than to say I'm glad I saw it, but it's not going on my "buy to keep" DVD list.

However, it did again highlight two peeves about movies, especially movies of late.

1. What's up with the mumbling? Either my hearing is going already, the sound system in the theaters I attend sucks/I'm getting spoiled by watching DVDs on my laptop with headphones in, or, more likely, I think, actors and directors seem to think that speaking quickly in an monotone while there's a noisy soundtrack underneath is somehow more dramatic. Instead, I spend my whole time straining to understand half of the more informative conversations, especially those critical to the storyline.

2. Details, folks. Water for Elephants is set in a Depression-era fictional circus that aimed to outdo the infamous Ringling Brothers Greatest Show on Earth. At least two major scenes in the second half of the movie featured the grand entry and spectacular of the Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth, with all the big acts parading into the big top to the accompaniment of the circus band playing the entrance march. The march used in the movie is the immediately recognizable, Barnum and Bailey's Favorite. Well, except Barnum and Bailey's circus was by that time merged into the Ringling Bros.

The venomous attitude of the owner of the fictional Benzini Bros. would have never have allowed that march to be played in his circus, even if it was out of fashion with Ringling Brothers at that time. How simple would it have been to create a new fictional circus march instead of stealing one that is so recognizable and so completely and totally wrong? Yes, it's a small thing, but the devil is in the details.

Perhaps that small inattention to such details is an indication of why this movie is not going on my all-time favorites list.