I have been very bad about updating regularly, and I'm sorry about that. There have been a lot of things happening in my head recently, but I'm going to save them and tell you about some things that have happened in reality. I will start by getting this out of the way: I have been watching a stupid amount of "The West Wing." I am deeply, deeply invested in this show and have been neglecting nearly everything that is not immediately important for it. As I approach the end, though, I have to say that I don't care if this fictional world ends in nuclear holocaust, I just want Josh and Donna to get together. Ok, that's enough about that.
I'll do some school updates in a post later, but for tonight, the past couple of weekends. So, last weekend, I drove down to Minneapolis to pass judgment on several hundred children for Minnesota Odyssey of the Mind/Julia/Julia's mom. At the risk of both sounding like an advertisement for OotM and telling you how to raise your children, folks, get your kids involved in Odyssey of the Mind, it's awesome. And by awesome, I mean it's 85% totally incomprehensible but it looks like a ton of fun for the kids themselves. In addition to the judging/competition, there was a lot of eating and chatting that weekend, which was a great time. The way home was not such a great time. I don't know if you've seen Michael Clayton (you should if you haven't, great movie), but there's this part where some hit men from a big agricultural company (sort of) put a bomb in George Clooney's car and it makes his navigation system flukey (and then his car blows up) (it's ok, though, he lives). My navigation was fine, but very few other things were working properly on that drive. The cruise control started shutting off at random, all the instrument panel lights went on, the fuel gauge wasn't working, and, to add insult to injury, my right blinker stopped working. Now, I'm not exactly sure what's going on, I've done very little substantive research on corporate misdeeds, plus I've been driving it a lot in the past week and it hasn't blown up, so there's probably something a bit less sinister going on. Still, not the most fun to drive.
Did a bit more driving Thursday afternoon, when I went down to Northfield to stay at Teddy's for a night before heading to Cleveland. Teddy and I spent some time at the Cow reminiscing about college (as per usual), and as a result I've learned something valuable about travel: it's a good idea not to fly hungover. I didn't throw up on my flight, but I did think about it pretty seriously. My parents picked me up at the airport and drove me to Grandma's house, where everyone was congregating in sort of a pre-90th birthday party. We spent most of that night comparing cousins' hair, discussing lost teeth and remembering informal family reunions of yore. I spent Friday and Saturday nights with my aunt and uncle and my two youngest cousins, who are brilliant and adorable. The next morning, my parents and my mom's friend took me to the Cleveland Museum of Art. My great-uncle Norm was a big deal at the Museum and had donated a lot of artwork, but he passed away last year, and this was possibly my first trip where I didn't hear any stories about the illicit origins of some of the artwork, or about the Frans Hals painting Uncle Norm demanded the Museum purchase. So that was sad. Still, it's one of my favorite things to do in Cleveland, and after a renovation recently, the Museum looks great. We poked around for a few hours, had a snack, and then went to my parents' hotel to change for the party.
Few things make me happier than spending time with my cousins. They're just a great, weird group of people, and so many of my memories from childhood involve watching James Bond movies with them, or deep frying turkey, or singing "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" in as many musical genres as we could think of. It doesn't hurt that they're pretty much all a few years older than me and I've been looking up to them forever, and they haven't done anything so terrible that I've stopped looking up to them. Anyway, there weren't seating assignments so we all sat together, and I had the best time. During the toasts, Grandma had me sing for the whole party, which happens from time to time at family gatherings. Mercifully, I don't believe any video recordings exist (ETA: apparently there is a recording, and if it surfaces on Facebook I would appreciate if no one who speaks German could listen to it). Other than that, it wasn't a particularly noteworthy experience for anyone other than the Waltons. We all went back to Grandma's house afterward and told scatological stories about animals. Miraculously, we all managed to observe the moratorium Grandma put on discussing politics, so apart from a little racism at the end there, there was very little fighting.
I flew back to Minneapolis yesterday, and drove back to Teddy's. We hung out with one of his coworkers and another Carleton alum, had some great dinner, talked about books, watched Inside Llewyn Davis (yup, still sad), and, when everyone else had left, an episode of "House of Cards." After breakfast I hit the road, and several cycles of the Rosary later (there was some freezing rain until I got to 94), I made it back to Fargo. It was a great weekend, and I'm ready to see my cousins and Teddy again as soon as possible.
No comments:
Post a Comment