Peg Kerr's Journal

I like coffee. No, I love it.

I was thinking this week that not only do I drink it every day, but it is also a common element in almost all of my most important social interactions. I get together regularly to walk with a couple of friends each week, and we always follow our walk by buying coffee together (lately, I've been adding a half shot of lavender syrup to mine). I get together regularly with my mom and sisters for coffee and scones. Every Friday, I get together remotely with several writing friends--we originally met in a coffee shop until the pandemic. Eric and I usually meet on Saturday mornings at my house for coffee and pastries. (He uses the Brontë mug and I use the Jane Austen mug). I have taught him all about the delight of adding molasses to enrich the flavor.

I didn't drink coffee until I was in my thirties, but teaching writing composition at the University to hungover freshman at 8:00 am made it eventually seem necessary.

Oddly enough, neither Delia nor Fiona ever developed a taste for it. I would love to go out for coffee with them, but we have to console ourselves with brunch instead.

Against a semi-transparent background of coffee beans, a smiling woman (Peg) holds a cup of coffee. Bottom: two coffee mugs (Jane Austen mug and Brontë mug), with a sprig of lavender. Lower left: a jar of molasses. Upper left corner: a latte with latte art in the foam and a scone with jam and clotted cream.

Coffee



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I attended an ordination last weekend, and the pastor explained during the announcement portion of the services that out in the narthex, there was a table containing bags with sticks of chalk and a piece of paper explaining the tradition of doing a house blessing at Epiphany. We were all encouraged to take them home. I was intrigued, as I had never heard of this custom before, and I took home the bag with the chalk and read the paper.

It said:

For centuries, Christians have celebrated the season of Epiphany by chalking their outside front door with a blessing. You are invited to try it at your home.

The Traditional Chalk Blessing:

20 † C † M † B † 25

Surrounding the blessing is the date of the new year (2025). The crosses between the letters symbolize Christ.

CMB has two meanings. It signifies the traditional names of the three magi who visited Jesus (Caspar, Melchior, and Balthazar), and it stands for the Latin phrase "Christus mansionem benedictat," meaning "May Christ bless this house."

Reading about this tradition got me thinking about my house.

Rob and I moved into this house in December 1992. I realized, counting back, that I am almost at the exact point where I have lived half my life in this house.

I thought of a song I've loved for years by one of my favorite artists, Peter Mayer, "Houses of Winter," which imagines homes as almost sentient entities, watching over the people in their keeping. ( The Houses of Winter )



When we moved into this house, I was seven months pregnant with Fiona (convenient, because I wasn't expected to lift anything heavier than a waste basket on moving day). I brought my babies home to this house and raised them here. Rob and I loved each other here, and it was my anchor when he died.

This home has sheltered a family. Now it is just me.

I have often wished I come up with a proper name for the house, as some of my friends have for their own homes, but nothing ever quite seemed to fit. Yet it has a personality. It was built in 1916 and has beautiful bones, but it is whimsical and sometimes temperamental, too. The furnace in the basement is original to the house, an octopus monstrosity that crouches in the darkness, tentacles reaching in all directions, hemmed in by asbestos, greedy as hell for natural gas, yet as reliable as could be desired. The electrical system is barely adequate. The floors slope toward the midline, the tile floor in the bathroom is cold, and the light switch in the bedroom says 'NO' instead of 'ON' because it was installed upside down. The less said about the paneling installed in the hallway and two of the bedrooms, the better.

The house regularly demands tribute in expensive repairs: a new roof. Drain tile in the basement. Regular repainting. The walls are threaded through with cracks in the plaster.

I have tried to make my home more my own as I have been slowly cleaning out Rob's stuff. I have never had a pet while living here (allergies make it impossible). It is just me. And the house.

I've eaten tomatoes and Swiss chard grown in the backyard and cooked thousands of meals in the kitchen. I've probably cried in just about every room in the house. The walls have soaked up so much laughter, the yells from so many fights, the joy of so many celebrations (perhaps that's why they are cracking so much).

It feels almost like...like it's the two of us now, the house and me. It is almost anthropomorphic, in other words, as in the Peter Mayer song. This house has watched over and sheltered my family, been my comfort and haven in times of struggle and grief. Now it watches over me. It seems more personal. Just as it has been a blessing to me, it seems only fitting to bless and thank the house in return.

Background: a dark wooden front door, overlaid at the top with a stitched sampler reading 'Bless This House." The top of the door has an inscription in white letters "20 † C † B † M † 25." Lower center: a mesh bag containing a piece of chalk hovers over three porcelain figurines of the three wise men. A pair of hands reaches up from the bottom, cupping the sampler in blessing.

Blessing



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I drove to Eau Claire on Saturday and joined Fiona, Alona, Chris (Delia's boyfriend), and Lisa (Chris's mom) in the roasting gymnasium (the air conditioner was broken) to watch Delia's college commencement. Of course, I cried when the announcement was made that all the students should switch their tassels to the other side because they had officially graduated. It was bittersweet, because Rob had wanted so badly to live long enough to see his little girl walk at her commencement. But there was a lot of joy, too.

I stayed overnight at Chris's family home, and we had a leisurely breakfast and then set up a taco bar for the graduation party that we held for Delia and Chris (who graduated last December).



It was a wonderful weekend. Delia's aunts (Rob's sisters) came in from Seattle and Phoenix to join us for the party, and her uncle (Rob's brother) and his wife, both professors at Eau Claire, were there, too, to celebrate.

Image description: Three women (from left to right: Fiona, Delia, and Peg) stand under a tree and smile at the camera. The center woman (Delia) is wearing an academic mortarboard and graduation gown, draped with a multi-colored feather boa. lower center: smiling woman (Delia) holds up a mortarboard that reads 'IT'S ABOUT DAMN TIME: I'm done with this BS.' Upper center: Lettering reads "Congratulations" with a mortarboard and diploma.

Graduation



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When I came downstairs this morning, this was the picture that was on display in the digital frame that Fiona and Alona gave me for Christmas. Seeing it gave me a great deal of comfort, as if it were a sign that Rob was sending his love.



I was pretty pleased with my appearance. I think I polished up pretty well.





The wedding was in a lovely private club in Summit Avenue in St. Paul. Delia was Fiona’s attendant and in fact walked with her down the aisle.



I didn’t take very many pictures during the ceremony because I was using my phone to record the ceremony. Fiona and Alona wrote their own very moving vows. They incorporated a hand fasting braided cord (blue, green, and brown), and seven meditations on love from various writers. At the end, they both stomped on a cloth-covered glass and we all cried ‘Mazel Tov!’



There were hors d'oeuvres and cake and champagne, music and conversation and dancing. There was a lot of joy. Alona’s sister Mary and Delia gave moving speeches.

It was a wonderful day. I am delighted with my new daughter-in-law and overjoyed by this new addition to our family.





Edited to add: Check out the mood icon. For once, this line from Pride and Prejudice is absolutely perfect.

Two things happened this week that struck me as particularly significant, signs of life passage for me as a parent.

I gave the instructions to the Minnesota 529 College Savings plan to send the last payment to Delia's university and then to close the account. We started making these payments in, what, 2011, when Fiona started college. And it has taken eight years for Delia to get through, but she will be graduating this May.

Secondly, I ordered my mother-of-the-bride dress for Fiona's wedding, which will be taking place next month (it's pictured in the collage below).

I wish that Rob was here to celebrate with me, but nevertheless, I am so, so happy to have arrived at this point.

I like this card, and I think that I have really improved in making these collages over the past three years. I have used some layering techniques in this one (like the one that gives the interior of the room a glow) that I think elevate this card above the ordinary.

An open door shows a room interior with another open door showing beyond. Inside the room, just inside the door, stands a woman's figure wearing a navy blue long gown with a beaded yoke. Superimposed over the woman's head are a pair of hands holding a heart shape from which a bright light emerges that illuminates the room. Toward the top of the doorway are the words "MN Saves Minnesota 529 College Savings Plan.” Superimposed over the woman's feet are the words "University of Wisconsin Eau Claire." 2024 52 Card Project: Week 3: Passages

Passages



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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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I'm going to be a little bit cryptic about this one, because it involves something I'm not quite ready to talk about yet (note the Elinor Dashwood tag, which I use when I want to be reserved about something). But this collage is about a conversation I had this week with someone I really trust to give me solid life advice. What this trusted person told me is that it is time for me to make a specific life change. A big one. Huge. It will mean a lot of life upheaval. And while what she was advising to do is something that has crossed my mind for several years (since the pandemic started), I think that she made her case so well that I am seriously reassessing things. I think I am going to do it.

If I can.

The first card in the tarot deck is the Fool. The zero card. The Fool is usually depicted as a beggar or a vagabond, wearing ragged clothes & stockings. He is gazing upwards toward the sky (and the Universe) and is seemingly unaware that he is about to skip off a precipice into the unknown. Over his shoulder rests a modest knapsack containing everything he needs – which isn’t much (let’s say he’s a minimalist). The white rose in his left hand represents his purity and innocence. And at his feet is a small white dog, representing loyalty and protection, that encourages him to charge forward and learn the lessons he came to learn. The Fool represents new beginnings, having faith in the future, being inexperienced, not knowing what to expect, having beginner's luck, improvisation, and believing in the universe.

This is the Fool as depicted in the Rider–Waite deck:



I've sometimes told people that I'm a Gryffindor, but one with high-security needs. What I am thinking of doing, what I am actually going to start trying to do will definitely take courage. But--if I am lucky, if my faith in the future is justified--it might address some of those needs that have been unmet for so long.

The background of this collage is a card that my kind mentor gave me when we ended our session. Although you can't see it, I posed for the picture on my back stoop (where I fell and got my concussion last year). The stick on which I hung my sack is my karate bo. I used a picture of my daughter Delia's dog Violet for the dog at my heels.

(See this earlier post I made about The Fool).

Image description: Against a background of words of life advice, Peg stands in the pose of the Tarot Fool: looking at the sky, holding a stick with a sack of possessions in one hand and a stem of flowers in the other (didn’t have a white rose and so used a bunch of silk peonies). A dog capers at her feet.

Reassessment



Click here to see the 2023 52 Card Project gallery.

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This past Sunday at church, the first Sunday of Epiphany, our pastor handed out stickers with stars, each with a word superimposed over it. "These are Epiphany star words, which is a new tradition that some churches are beginning to do during this season. Take this word and meditate upon it this week. What does it mean to you?"

I perked up as I accepted my star sticker, 'Loyal.' Oh, cool, I thought, pleased. I won't have to struggle to come up with something for my digital collage theme for the week.



You will note, however, that this didn't turn out to be the theme of the week that I chose. Instead I chose the word 'Rumphy.'

Please note: This post will be slightly longer than usual and perhaps a touch whiny. You have been warned.

'Rumphy' is a family neologism that Rob, the girls, and I have used for years. Eric looked extremely baffled the first time I told him that I was feeling rumphy. "What on earth does THAT mean?"

I had to think back hard to re-uncover the meaning.

Here's the dictionary definition of the word 'harrumph':

verb: harrumph; 3rd person present: harrumphs; past tense: harrumphed; past participle: harrumphed; gerund or present participle: harrumphing

1) clear the throat noisily.
"he harrumphed and said, 'I am deeply obliged.'"

2) grumpily express dissatisfaction or disapproval.
"skeptics tend to harrumph at case histories like this"

Whenever Rob was in a certain mood where he got disgruntled about something, he would put on an old codger aspect and grumble 'harrumph.' Have to do too many phone calls to fix a problem? Harrumph. Stuck in traffic? Harrumph! Did your dinner get burned? Harrumph!

Eventually (as best as I can remember) we identified the underlying mood that makes you say the word 'harrumph' as 'rumphy.' It became an exceedingly useful word that we all used. When someone said they were feeling rumphy, everyone knew that some sympathy, kindness, and coddling (and perhaps gentle teasing) was the best response.

These are the reasons I'm feeling rumphy this week:

• Immediately after that church service, I went home expecting to see Fiona for her weekly visit. But she called to let me know that she had come down with the flu (with gross digestive symptoms). So instead of a pleasant visit with my beloved daughter, I just got a fleeting glimpse of her looking pale and miserable as I handed off some Gatorade to her on her front porch.

This only served to remind me that I was missing seeing Delia, too. Delia had not come to see me over the Christmas holidays because someone had hit her car during the snowstorm the week before, and she can't drive to the Cities until she gets it repaired.

• I've just discovered that apparently, I've developed high blood pressure. I was surprised by a high reading taken by the dental hygienist when I went in to have my teeth cleaned in October. I went into a CVS this week to check my blood pressure at the machine near the pharmacy, only to discover that apparently, the October reading was not a fluke. As I have been working hard to get healthier and have in fact lost fifteen pounds since July, this seems especially aggravating. It feels like my body is doing something that is totally uncalled for, not to mention unauthorized. I will have to go to the doctor and perhaps go on medication. My sister, brother, and both of my parents have a history of high blood pressure, too. Apparently, it's something probably genetically based that just shows up at this age.

• My sleep disorder has been acting up horribly. I am so groggy in the evening, but after I go to bed, I will wake up in the middle of the night and stare at the ceiling, unable to sleep, for hours. On top of that, I'm getting really fed up with using the CPAP machine. If I'm going to have to put up with the thing, at least it should WORK to make me sleep better, you know?

• I'm keeping my house extra cold this year, to try to lower my heating costs. I'm keeping the thermostat at 65 degrees during the day and turning it down to 60 at night. I find that keeping the house so cold puts me into a sort of torpor--I sit huddled up in blankets on the couch and don't want to do much of anything.

• Scam phone calls and scam emails--I wasted time dealing with both this week. People, just leave me ALONE.

• My employer gets its money from donations, and donations are down. There is a lot of worried talk at the office that the churches that pay our salaries with mission support have not sent in their pledged contributions. Understandable, because people are cutting back their charitable giving due to inflation--but conversely, inflation makes the prospect of not getting a raise this year even more appalling.

• The weather has been cold, gray, and miserable. The air quality was terrible this week, and the streets are badly plowed. The snow melted partially and then refroze, leaving a thick layer of ice over everything. This was worsened by freezing rain that fell Wednesday morning.

• On Wednesday, I fell on the icy steps trying to walk down three steps to get my newspaper. I wasn’t in any kind of hurry, and I was even holding the railing. I didn’t hit my head, thank god, so I don’t have another concussion. But I banged up my back and arm pretty good, and I am sure I will have bruises tomorrow.

And then, even more startling, I could actually feel myself going into traumatic shock after crawling back up to the porch. It was ten minutes in the cold on the porch, unable to move, trying not to faint, before I could get back into the house.

It’s my great fear about living alone, that I somehow get hurt or incapacitated and am unable to get help. I’m okay…but those were an awfully long ten minutes.

This is the fourth serious fall I've had in the past five years.

• I've been in a lot of pain the last couple of days from the bruises and from having my muscles wrenched so badly. Painkillers haven't been quite effective enough.

• In an attempt to make myself feel better, I took a long bath with Epsom salts yesterday. I went down to the kitchen and discovered water all over my kitchen island and floor that had apparently poured through the light fixture in the ceiling from the bathtub upstairs. So now I have to call a plumber.

• I can be prone to seasonal affective disorder in January. What's more, at the end of the month, it'll be the five-year anniversary of Rob's death. And I've been missing him. I've been missing him terribly. When I was out there lying on the porch, afraid and trying not to pass out, I just wanted to have him there beside me so desperately. And I've been missing having Eric with me, too. This week has made me all the more aware of how much I hate living alone. My relationship with Eric gives me a lot of joy--in so many ways, he's even a better match for me than Rob was--but we each have our own house, and so we're not living together. And so I'm lonely when I'm home by myself. As I've said before, I'm not meant to live alone.

It's funny--I remarked to Fiona once that being a widow and then falling in love again has helped me, a lifelong monogamist, really get polyamory in a way I never could before. I'm in love with two men at the same time--one of whom is my husband, who just happens to be dead. Eric is extraordinarily kind, gracious, and non-threatened about the fact that I still miss Rob--but I am not living with Eric either. I'm alone.

And that just sucks.

It's been a really hard week.

Background: a misty winter background of snow-covered tree branches. Over this background are a series of words in blue text: From the bottom, going up: 'Missing my boyfriend. Pain. Plumbing. Elevated blood pressure. Gloomy weather. Sleep disorder. Cold. Missing my daughters. Ice. Money worries. Taking a fall. Scammers.' Top, in semi-transparent text: 'Missing my husband.' Diagonally across the card in larger text, is the semi-transparent word 'Harrumph.'

Rumphy



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I took the week off of work and have had some fun things planned. Eric and I took a trip to Sioux Falls, South Dakota to visit some dear friends of his. We stayed at Steever House Bed and Breakfast for a couple of days. Very nice place, with friendly hosts and delicious breakfasts. Relaxing there was a great way to start off the week. Eric and I had a pleasant time reading, doing a tarot reading or two, and going out to dinner with Jack and Mary.

I also took a day trip to visit Delia in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, where her dog Violet, actually tolerated my presence better than the last time I was there (although she still gives me the occasional stink-eye).

Yesterday, Mom and I drove out to the Arboretum to see the fall displays, including the giant pumpkins.

This card has some of these elements, although I am not quite satisfied with the design. Just seems a little hodge podge/lackluster. I've been struggling with my sleep disorder lately and perhaps my creative edge is a bit blunted.

Image description: Upper center: a Victorian house silhouetted against a sky at twilight (Steever Bed and Breakfast in Sioux Falls, SD). Upper right: the logo for a restaurant in Sioux Falls (Minerva's). Center left, a white dog (Violet) lies with her head on her paws, eyeing the viewer. Center right: a bronze dragon statue (taken from the cover of R.A. MacAvoy's book Tea With the Black Dragon, which I read aloud to Eric on the trip). Lower left: a giant pumpkin, lying on its side. The sign in front of the dragon statue reads "Seymour, the giant pumpkins. 744.5 lbs at the 2022 giant pumpkin weigh-off." Lower right: the cover and three tarot cards from the Jane Austen tarot deck by Diane Wilkes.

Vacation



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I went alone to the Renaissance Festival. It wasn't quite the same as when I go with Fiona (the other RenFest fan in our family), although I stuck to the expected rituals--I started the day with a popover with cinnamon butter, visited some of our favorite booths, and swung by the vendor selling apple dumplings when I was ready to leave.

It felt both familiar and unfamiliar. It felt as if it has been so long since I did something like that. Something purely for fun.

As I was pondering this, I ran across a New York Times article "What Is Fun? Can I Have It? Will We Ever Have It Again?" (you can also read it here, where it isn't behind a paywall). I found this to be the food for much interesting reflection:

In his book Fun!: What Entertainment Tells Us About Living a Good Life, Alan McKee, an Australian media studies professor, defines fun thus: “Fun is pleasure without purpose.” In other words, the same qualities that seem to make it so hard for me to have pure fun — I need purpose! — make it hard to optimize for; put it under a brain scanner, and it has a tendency to disappear.

My experiment, in other words, was fundamentally flawed. Fun is supposed to get you out of your head. I was trying to think my way into fun.

In researching this story, I spent weeks cataloging different ways that people in my city had fun — barbecuing, block partying, riding motorbikes, playing dominoes in the park, dancing, hula hooping, stargazing, picnicking in the nude. All of these people were just out living their lives and having fun while I sat at home reading essays and self-help books, dissecting how to have it.

She has some thoughts about the impact of the pandemic on fun, as well as the squelching effect of the constant cavalcade of unsettling news (she noted that her attempt to keep a fun diary fell apart when Roe vs. Wade was overturned).

While pondering this, I thought back to a couple of Christmas gifts exchanged in our family right before the pandemic started: Fiona and Delia and I gave each other the Adventure Challenge Friends edition and I gave Eric the Couples edition. We'd looked forward working our way through the books, laughing a lot, and experiencing tons of fun.

Then Covid hit. The books are still in their shrink wrap.

I want to get back to having fun. Figuring out how to accomplish it. Doing it with other people.

Fiona and I plan to go to the Renaissance Festival together, sometime in September. And I am going to be traveling soon to Eau Claire to pick up Delia and her boyfriend Chris. From there, in company of a bunch of twenty-somethings (they are graciously allowing this sixtyish mom to tag along), we are going to spend a day at Wisconsin Dells, where we'll ride the Duck Boats and look in on Wizard's Quest, something that our family did together years ago. It's a cooperative quest/exploration game, and it was one of the most fun days we ever had together as a family.

What are some of your favorite things to do for fun? How has that changed with the pandemic? Has fun been missing from your life? What are you doing to get it back?

Image description: Background: semi-opaque pink confetti. upper center: a swing carousel carnival ride (people suspended from chairs on chains). Lower right: Peg in Renaissance Festival costume. Left center: apple dumpling. Lower right: the word 'Squee!' in hot pink.

Fun



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