Peg Kerr's Journal

The winter solstice, which took place this week on Thursday, December 21, is known as the 'hibernal solstice.'

That is also what I did this week because, as I noted in last week's entry, I caught Covid for the first time.

I've dreaded getting infected for the past three years, not just because, you know, it's a disease that has killed millions of people in a worldwide pandemic, but because I fretted how I would handle it, living alone. There was a worrisome event when I fainted in the middle of the night, and my home monitoring suggested my oxygen levels might be dropping too low. I reluctantly ended up going to the ER the next day (many thanks to naomikritzer who drove me), but everything checked out fine and I was sent home again.

So I hibernated this week. I took my Paxlovid and tolerated it relatively well. I was quiet and lay in bed and concentrated on healing.

I thought about that juxtaposition, between the winter solstice, and getting Covid.

Throughout a not insignificant part of human history, this time of year was a time of fear. People lit fires and beat drums because they honestly feared that the sun might not come back. Later, perhaps, when there was knowledge that the sun would return, they might fear that food stores might not last enough to get them through the winter.

And when this epidemic first emerged, that was a time of fear, too. We were facing this strange mystery, this time of darkness, and who knew if we would safely emerge out the other side? When a person saw that positive test result, they knew they were in for it. How bad would it get? How sick would they get? Would they have to be hospitalized? Would they have to be intubated? Could they possibly emerge safely out the other side of that descent into uncertainty and danger and darkness, that brush with death?

I remember that I cried out of sheer joy and relief, the day I was vaccinated. I felt then that getting Covid now would not necessarily mean the end of everything.

The shortest day of the year is over, and we've lived through the longest night. I've lived through Covid and I’m going to be okay. Thank you to the people who dropped off care packages and checked up on me. Thank you to the people who invented and distributed the vaccine and the boosters that kept me safe.

I'm grateful to you all.

Image description: An image of a stone circle (Stone Henge) with the sun showing between two rocks, low in the sky. Overlaid over the sun: a plastic Covid test with a positive reading. Above the sun, arranged in a semi-circle: five Paxlovid packs. Lower left: a woman's face, masked (Peg). Lower right: several fingers of a woman's hand, the middle one with an oximeter affixed. The reading on the oximeter reads '90.'

Hibernal



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This is one of the weeks that has convinced me that next year I will loosen the rule I'd set for myself of titling each card with just one word. In reality, the trip I made this past weekend wasn't to a market.

It was to the European Christmas Market, an annual event at the St. Paul Union Depot.

I had tried to get several different people to go with me, but I ended up going alone. It was cold, and it was expensive (a cup of French Onion Soup cost $11), but I still thoroughly enjoyed myself and was glad that I went.

This was my favorite picture taken that day:



I tried to fit it into the collage, but it was too different thematically. But I liked what I came up with, which was an amalgamation of the various things I found hanging in the front of the market booths.

Image description: Upper center: A lit paper multirayed star. Upper left: a stylized snowflake. Hanging around the star and the snowflake are various ornate Christmas ornaments. Lower left corner: a mug with the words "European Christmas Market - 10th Anniversary." A chalk sign, lower right corner, reads "European Christmas Market."

Market



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The last two years of this collage project, I have produced cards commemorating the Thanksgiving celebrations I've had with my family. The card for this week is, in a way, a Thanksgiving card, too, only it comes at the concept from a slightly different angle.

First of all, we received word on Wednesday that Fiona has been accepted into the St. Paul plumber's apprenticeship program. She has been working faithfully in her employer's warehouse since May, pulling plumbing fittings, throughout the 100-degree heat this summer. Had she not been picked (they only accept one candidate out of three) she would have had to wait a whole more year to apply again (unless she were to try her luck with a different city's union). Now she will get a raise and begin combining classes with her job. The program will take five years for her to finish. This is wonderful news and we are all absolutely overjoyed for her.

The other wonderful happening this past Wednesday is a longer story, but trust me, it's worth it.

Rob and I got married in 1986. We picked out our wedding rings on Valentine's Day of that year. My ring had a brilliant cut diamond of modest size, about a third of a carat. I loved my ring and wore it proudly.

About fifteen or twenty years into our marriage, I happened to look down at my hand while I was in the shower, only to find that the diamond in the ring was missing. My heart plummeted. I shut off the water immediately and searched the tub, but I feared that the stone had washed down the drain. Anyway, the diamond was gone.

Now as it happened, Rob and I had been going through a rough patch. We were really strapped for money. But I didn't hesitate a moment. I had all the information on the stone and went back to the jeweler. They said that the ring was insured and for a nominal deductible, I could get the diamond replaced. So I did, getting another brilliant cut diamond of a similar grade. Rob told me later how much hope and comfort it gave him, that despite our troubles, my response was to immediately replace the diamond in my ring. It showed him my commitment to the two of us, knowledge he badly needed at the time.

About a month later, Delia came to me in great excitement. "Mom, you're not going to believe this. I found the diamond from your ring."

The girls' room was incredibly cluttered at this point in our family life. But one day as she was shifting piles of stuff from one part of the floor to the other, she spied a glint and immediately picked up the diamond.

It seemed like such a miracle. I thought hard about it, and then took both the diamond and the ring back to the jeweler and explained the situation. "If you want me to give the new diamond back, I understand. I put in the claim in all good faith, thinking it was lost."

"Nah," the jeweler said. "The claim has been processed by our insurance company, and you're clearly not trying to pull anything over on us. You paid the deductible. The new diamond is yours."

So I put my wedding ring back on, and I put the original stone in a plastic bag and placed it in one of my jewelry storage trays.

When Rob passed away, I wore my wedding ring for almost a year, but eventually, when I started seeing Eric, I took it off and stored it in the jewelry trays. "I have two diamonds now," I told the girls. "Each of you can have one now if you like when you marry."

Several months later, I found a plastic bag on the floor of my bedroom. I discerned at a glance that it was empty, and I threw it away.

Fast forward to last year when Fiona announced that she was engaged. "Would you like one of the diamonds for your ring?" I asked. "Or you can put it in a ring to give to Alona." I went to my jewelry box--but the plastic bag with the diamond in it was gone. I suddenly remembered that plastic bag I had so thoughtlessly thrown away. Surely I hadn't carelessly discarded the miraculously rediscovered diamond--had I? I had thought the bag was empty! I dug through the trash basket, despite knowing that I had already taken that batch of trash out, and I combed over and over through the carpet.

I felt sick. I felt, absurdly, that I had let Rob down, losing the diamond he had given me not just once but twice. Now only one of my girls would get a diamond from me. Fiona tried to comfort me: "The ring I’ve picked out already has a diamond, and Alona doesn't even want a stone. It's okay, Mommy. Let Delia have the remaining diamond." I tried to let it go, but it just added to all the grief I felt at losing Rob.

Now we come to the events of this week. The carpets in my house looked awful--the wall-to-wall carpet upstairs is over thirty years old. So I asked my sister if I could borrow her carpet cleaner.

I spent hours Wednesday shifting stuff from the corners of the rooms and thoroughly vacuuming everything, using the attachment to get into the weird angles and along the baseboard. Then I went over everything again with the carpet cleaner. The water, when I emptied it into the toilet, was black and filthy.

Altogether, I worked at it for over four hours. Finally, exhausted, I sat down on my bed and gave a deep sigh. And then I happened to glance down at the floor.

There, glinting in reflection from the overhead light, was the diamond. Right between my feet.

I thought it had washed down the drain. Then I thought I had thrown it away. By all rights, I should have swept it up with either the vacuum cleaner or the carpet cleaner. But somehow or other, here it was again, back in my trembling hand: the diamond that had been in the ring that Rob had put on my finger on our wedding day. The bag HAD fallen out of the jewelry tray, but somehow, the diamond had fallen out of the bag and then hidden itself in the carpet until I found it again. Maybe running the vacuum cleaner and carpet cleaner over it had merely polished it up so that I could see it again.

That diamond has more damned lives than a cat.

My wish for you this Thanksgiving is that you have the moments of transcendent joy that I have had this week.

Background: a beige carpet. Center top: a carpet cleaning machine. Underneath is the logo for the St. Paul Local 34 Plumber and Gasfitters Union. A woman's hand hovers over the words "Local 34," reaching for a brilliant-cut diamond superimposed over the bottom of the logo. Underneath the diamond is a woman's gold wedding ring, set with another diamond.

Euphoria



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There's a fine word that I've loved for years: 'crepuscular.' It means of, resembling, or relating to twilight. I learned it when I was ten years old, and I've remembered it ever since.

When I posted on Facebook that I had gone for a crepuscular walk (and posted some pictures), my former high school English teacher admitted that I'd sent him to the dictionary (and he got some teasing as a result).

I went on a walk last year in the same area, the Roberts Bird Sanctuary, that also prompted that week's collage. That walk last year was in October, and the light was crisp and brilliant, painting everything with a gilded edge.

This year, the light was softer and darker, muted and autumnal, due to the lateness of the afternoon and the lowering clouds. Entirely dissimilar, but again, it cast a magical feeling on me, although of a different sort of feeling.

I had been walking about fifteen minutes through the forest when I stopped dead in my tracks at the sight of a deer, just off the path, barely ten feet away. It was splendidly camouflaged by the coloring of the leaves all around. It wasn't fussed by my presence in the least but continued unhurriedly stripping leaves off the nearby shrubs to eat. Eventually, it delicately lowered itself to the forest floor to rest and looked at me with tranquil ease.

I heard (but could not see) the hooting of a pair of great horned owls nearby.

I passed a stone bench, surrounded by fallen leaves. It felt as though something invisible sat upon it, calmly watching me. Something fae.



In the dimming light, the crimson leaves of the nearby shrubs seemed to glow.



Further on, I saw several deer bounding across the path. And when I finally emerged from the sanctuary, I saw another group of three deer, serenely eating right beside the path on the way back to my car.

I have carried that little ember of dark tranquility inside me ever since.

Background: semi-transparent image of leaves on the ground. Foreground lower left: a large rock carved with the words "Roberts Bird Sanctuary in Memory of Thomas Sadler Roberts." Foreground lower right: a shrub with leaves turned a brilliant crimson. Behind the rock and shrub: a stone bench. Behind that, center, a deer reclining on a forest floor, looking at the viewer. Behind the deer, bare autumnal branches stretch into the 'sky' (the fallen leaf background). A semi-transparent great horned owl is superimposed over the bare branches, looking at the viewer.

Crepuscular



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I had taken the week after work, but as always, I don't realistically have the money to get out of town for my vacation. Despite the issue with my foot, I wasn't willing to spend the week parked on my couch and so I decided I was going to get out of the house every day. Explore the city. See things I've not had a chance to see before.

I'd had such fun visiting the Minneapolis Art Institute a few weeks ago that I hit upon the idea of checking out museums every day (there are a lot of them in the Twin Cities), particularly ones I hadn't seen before. I was particularly interested in looking into ones that would teach me about other cultures. My foot is getting better, and I figured I would be probably up for exploring museum galleries at a slow walk, and I would be able to sit down on a bench if I got tired.

This turned out to be a great idea. I've had a wonderful week.

I went to:

The Weisman Art Museum, where I was delighted to discover the glass fish statue that was one of the inspirations for my (unfinished) ice palace book ("The museum presents and interprets works of art, offering exhibitions that place art within relevant cultural, social and historical contexts.")



The Pavek Museum ("The mission of the Pavek Museum is to share how pioneers in electronic communications created enormous impacts on the evolution of society, to inspire in people a passion to make contributions to our quality of life through science and the communication arts, and to preserve the rich mosaic of the development of electronic communications through a historically significant, permanent, and living repository.")

The American Swedish Institute (free on Thursday afternoons) ("The American Swedish Institute is a gathering place for all people to explore diverse experiences of migration, identity, belonging and the environment through arts and culture, informed by enduring links to Sweden.")

The Minnesota African American Heritage Museum and Gallery ("The Minnesota African American Heritage Museum and Gallery (MAAHMG) preserves, documents and highlights the achievements, contributions and experiences of African Americans in Minnesota. ")

The Hmong Cultural Center ("HCC's Mission is to promote the personal development of children, youth, and adults through education while providing resources that enhance cross-cultural awareness between Hmong and non-Hmong.")

I have further plans to visit other places before I start work again on Monday.

I fit in a few other fun things, stopping at the Humane Society to hang out with some cats (I'm dreadfully allergic, but oh how I would love to have one), the Alliance Française to pick up information about their French conversation groups, which I may check out soon, and a few ethnic restaurants I've never tried before.



Here are some of the things I saw this week:

Image description: semi-transparent background: a Hmong story quilt. Lower right: a sculpture of a curve-necked bird made out of gourds. Lower center: black feet made from molds. Lower left: an abstract sculpture of angular wire shapes. Just above that: a wooden sculpture of three Swedish women gathered at a table for gossip and tea. Upper left: a wooden fork and spoon decorated with carved wooden flowers. To the right: a sculpture of a fish fashioned from plates of clear glass over a wooden skeleton. Overlaid over the fish sculpture is a qeeg, a traditional Hmong wooden musical instrument. Upper right: a carved wooden Swedish butter mold.

Edited to add: Discovered something in a book I'm reading about racial reconciliation about the statue of the bird I included in the card: Sankofa, from the Akan language of Ghana, translates in English as "to reach back and get it." The symbol of a bird with its head turned backward taking an egg off its back is often used to illustrate this concept. The word is also associated with an African proverb: "It is not wrong to go back for that which you have forgotten."

Exploration



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How to put this delicately...

I've felt like absolute crap pretty awful this week.

I've already talked about some of it: I'm wearing a surgical boot, and that has thrown off my usual routine to keep myself healthy. With the boot and foot problems, I've been using a cane on the stairs. I'm not able to do my usual walks. I am having a problem with my wrist which precludes doing yoga (can't do downward dog). So I've done very little exercise at all. Okay, none.

I've had some other medical tests in the last month with results that I didn't like to hear. My cholesterol is edging higher. I've now been diagnosed as having osteopenia--thinning bones.

It's getting colder and darker. I'm starting to feel the effects of seasonal affective disorder, and I discovered this week when I pulled it out that my SAD light is broken. I have to buy another. And those suckers are expensive.

Sleep disorder continues--I had one night this week when I managed only a half and an hour of sleep. The next night's sleep was disrupted by a trip to the emergency room in the middle of the night (don't panic--I was having symptoms which might have been indications that I could be having heart problems, but turned out to be a false alarm. Muscle spasm, possibly, the ER doctor thought.). So that was another night of very short sleep, and I can expect a very big bill in the mail.

It just so happens that the same day I went to the ER, I got three vaccines in one day: Covid, flu, and RSV. I mean, yay for modern medicine, but I was just FLATTENED for the next 36 hours.

So I've been thinking about getting older and about how the body starts to not be able to do everything you want it to do. This week, I've felt sluggish and dull even on my good days. Especially on the day I was so short on sleep and dealing with post-vaccine symptoms, I felt about twenty years older than my actual age. I couldn't even read because of the headache.

This was all very unpleasant and daunting. There was the added issue that I live alone, which just made everything more difficult. When I called about my symptoms, the clinic told me (at 11 p.m.) that I really should go immediately to the ER, and I shouldn't drive myself.

Well, that wasn't going to happen: Fiona and Eric each live about twenty minutes away, my next-door neighbor I might have asked had Covid, and I just felt I couldn't call any of them at 11:00 at night and ask them to pick me up, take me to the ER, and sit around for four hours. And I couldn't afford the ambulance ride.

So that meant I drove myself, in a fog of self-pity.

The next day, as I lay in bed so miserably ill from the vaccines, oh, how I wanted someone there to do the dishes, to fetch me some tea, to run out and get some pho (the ultimate I'm-feeling-sick comfort food) and bring it back to me.

But Rob is gone.

The whole week felt like a fast-forward VCR tape of the process of decline. (I had originally thought to call this card 'Nadir,' but then reasoned, 'No. This isn't the bottom yet." So I hit upon the word 'Ebb.')

I ran across a post on Facebook this week that I've been thinking about, in connection with all this:

The problem in middle life, when the body has reached its climax of power and begins to decline, is to identify yourself not with the body, which is falling away, but with the consciousness of which it is a vehicle. This is something I learned from myths. What am I? Am I the bulb that carries the light? Or am the light of which the bulb is a vehicle?

One of the psychological problems in growing old is the fear of death. People resist the door of death. But the body is a vehicle of consciousness, and if you can identify with the consciousness, you can watch the body go like an old car. There goes the fender, there goes the tire, one thing after another--but it's predictable. And then, gradually, the whole thing drops off, and consciousness, rejoins consciousness. It is no longer in this particular environment."

Image description: Background: a star-filled night sky. Right lower corner: a framed sign reading "nope. NOT ADULTING TODAY." Above it sits a lit kerosene lantern, sitting on the pillow on which a haggard-looking woman (Peg) rests in bed with her eyes closed. Above her (center left of the collage): a rusted-out old truck.

Ebb



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Fiona and I sallied forth to the Minnesota Renaissance Festival this past Saturday and we had a marvelous time.

We were both in splendid moods, which helped, of course, and the weather was perfect--not too hot, not too cold, and there had been a little rain the previous day that kept the dust down.

We have various rituals every time we go to the Festival. There is a particular song that I play on my phone as we approach the parking area: Renaissance Faire by Blackmore's Night. I usually stop for a popover when we arrive, and we always get an apple dumpling right before leaving.

Both of us got multiple compliments on our costumes, which was fun. Fiona had received the chain mail shirt for Christmas last year, and she looked for and found a green tabard to put over it. She also bought a tiara, because she, of course, deserved it.

I'd hesitated over some pouches when I'd visited last year. I'd bought one and walked away from two others, and I regretted it all year. This year, I walked directly to the booth and bought four without hesitation. These beautiful little pouches can be clipped to a simple strap to make a purse. I also realized that clipping two back-to-back made a slightly larger purse (very convenient).

We walked around until we'd seen everything we'd wanted to see and were tired. We ate our apple dumpling and then went home, tired but entirely satisfied.

Image description: Lower center: four embroidered pouches (a tree with fruit, a Celtic cross, a rabbit, a leaf). Behind that: a sign reading 'Baked Apple Dumplings with Vanilla or Cinnamon Ice Cream.' Behind that, a human figure in an ornate unicorn mask and Renaissance tunic. To the left of the figure: a Welcome sign with the silhouette of a rearing unicorn. Center left: a woman (Peg) in Renaissance garb. Center right: a woman (Fiona) in a chain mail tunic with a neck gorget, a green tabard, and a tiara. Both are smiling. To the left of Peg: a carved wooden bear statue. To the right of Fiona: a cloth tabard that reads 'Mead.' Upper part of the card: the roof line of a number of wooden buildings.

Renaissance



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I've had a number of conversations over the past year with friends who are using Duolingo to learn foreign languages. I had used Duolingo before, getting all the way to the end of the French program, but I'd always used the free version before. As a result of these recent conversations, however, I decided to take the plunge and pay for a year's membership for Super Duolingo. (Friend me if you'd like: my member name is Pegbluesox4113).

The paid version has a number of tricks to get you hooked on using the app, but I don't mind, because that exactly suits my purpose. Yes, I'd like to get more fluent in French. I've used Duolingo to dabble in other languages, too (I'd particularly like to learn Scottish Gaelic, but the spelling is CRAZY). I have the most experience with French, however, and so that is what I've picked up for the time being.

Right now, I'm studying about a half hour to an hour a day. It's fun. I'm not quite at the point where I'm ready to go back to the Meetup French conversation, but perhaps within the next six months?

Lower left corner: a woman wearing a French beret (Peg) smiles at the viewer. Lower right corner: a basket of French baguettes, overlaid by the Eiffel Tower. Upper left: the words "I'm on a 75-day learning streak" overlay a red white and blue map of France. Upper right: the Duolingo logo (owl) with spread wings. Background of the collage is orange, with French words scattered throughout the center.

French



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At the beginning of this week, instead of going back to work after my one-week stay-cation, I ended up taking two additional days off to go to the visitation for my cousin's wife in Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin.

My two sisters and my Mom were unable to attend, which, if anything, increased my desire to go myself to represent the family and pass along their condolences. I was also keenly aware that my cousin is now a widower, and since I know what that is like, I particularly wanted to show up to support him.

I carpooled with another cousin who lives here in Minneapolis, Jill, and her partner Jack. We traveled very comfortably together, and we all agreed that we were happy that we had gone, seeing our cousin and his family and other relatives who came from Milwaukee and Chicago.

But that is not what this week's collage is about.

On the way home, Jack and Jill suggested making a stop at the National Mustard Museum in Middleton, Wisconsin.

Now it has never occurred to me that there might be a National Mustard Museum, nor that I would be pleased to have experienced it. But I have been thinking about it ever since.

The museum was founded by an attorney (and former Assistant Attorney General of the State of Wisconsin) Barry Levenson, who refers to himself as the museum's founder, curator, and CMO (“chief mustard officer”). According to the story, he went to the grocery store one day, bummed that his favorite baseball team the Red Sox had lost (again) in the World Series in 1986, and his attention got drawn to the variety of mustards on the shelf. He got fascinated and started collecting different varieties. And it snowballed from there until he switched his career to found the museum.

The Museum displays more than 6,090 mustards from all 50 states and more than 70 countries. You can see a wide variety of mustard pots, taste different varieties at the tasting bar, and buy different gourmet varieties to take home. Here is their mission statement:

.

In keeping with one of their mission goals, having fun, there are touches of humor throughout the museum, like the bust of Michelangelo's David with a yellow mustard mustache with a sign underneath that says 'Got Mustard?'

Or the vending machine which dispenses...nothing but mustard.



I tried about ten or fifteen different varieties at the tasting bar, and it was a revelation. Who knew there could be so many flavors, so many different textures? My favorite, naturally, was the most expensive one, mustard flavored with truffles, which cost $25.00 a jar. I ended up taking home two different sweet varieties: chardonnay cranberry and honey dill. And I wanted to buy plenty more.

Every year, Middleton hosts a National Mustard Day festival which draws tens of thousands of people.

The whole experience made me think about passion projects, about building one's career around an incredibly small, mundane thing that somehow captures your interest (having one's life revolve around mustard? Who knew??) and succeeding to such an incredible extent that you start getting other people interested in it, too. Imagine getting so excited about mustard that ten or fifteen years later you're drawing thousands of people to your city so that they can taste mustard ice cream and crème brûlée.

My hat's off to you, Barry. Congratulations on finding your passion in something small and ordinary, running with it, and turning it into something extraordinary.

If you ever have the chance, definitely stop to check this place out. It's well worth the visit.

Image description: Lower right: an open-mouthed man with yellow mustard coating his cupped hands (Barry Levenson, founder, curator, and CMO (“chief mustard officer”) of the National Mustard Museum in Middleton, Wisconsin) Lower left: the marble head of Michelangelo's statue "David" with a yellow mustard coated upper lip. A sign below the bust reads "Got mustard?" Lower center - a smiling man in a yellow t-shirt and a purple apron extends a tasting spoon below a sign that reads "Ultimate Mustard Tasting Bar." Right, center and upper: dozens of varieties of mustard jars on a shelf. The logo sign for the National Mustard Sign (a yellow jar with a spoon inside) is overlaid over the shelves. Upper center: a gift basket with an assortment of gourmet mustards. Upper left: a display case with china mustard pots for the formal table.

Mustard



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In the past several years, I've been cautiously exploring cocktails. I am very ignorant about them, and I can't indulge very much or very often, because it has a deleterious effect on my sleep, which is bad enough as it is. In addition, since I drink so rarely on the whole, I REALLY feel the effects after just one cocktail. But still, I've started assembling a modest collection of bottles, and I've had fun learning about them and trying different potations. I'll occasionally do some exploring online and try concocting something when I have several ingredients that I think will work together. I experimented with a watermelon gin drink last week.

Eric and I have also enjoyed going out to Nighthawks Bar and Grill in south Minneapolis several times for cocktails. This week, bless him, he suggested going again. For the first time, we sat out on the back patio. I impulsively ordered a batch of truffle fries, and they were greasy and generously flavored with grated cheese and tasted heavenly. I ordered something with Elderflower liqueur, St. Germaine, and prosecco. Eric got a White Russian.

We kicked back and relaxed, enjoying the ambiance of the patio as we scarfed our fries and sipped our drinks. I happily sighed and said, "This has been an excellent life choice."

Image description: Background: semi-transparent view of Nighthawks Bar and Grill's patio in South Minneapolis, with the words "Patio Open" superimposed over it. Lower left: Happy Hour sandwich board: "Nighthawks Happy Hour Every Day on Back Patio." Upper left corner: the logo for Nighthawks Bar and Grill, a cast-iron skillet with the words "Nighthawks Bar Grill" written on it. Lower right: truffle french fries. Center: three glasses with cocktails: a watermelon gin drink, a White Russian, and an Elderflower liqueur cocktail.

Cocktails



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