So many great things in 2013!!

Hi, again, everybody!  Luke, thank you for creating this blog long ago.  I hope our expanded crew can, from time to time, add to it! 

In my opinion, 2013 has been and continues to be such a special year for the Rogers Street Crew!  Big Birthdays (e.g., 6, two 40's, two 65's, a 16, and a 13) and Big Travels & Meet-Ups!! My goodness! My head is spinning (happily)! 

Here's a totally abbreviated, sorta concise mixed prospective and retrospective:

Talked to Luke and Georgy last night (Aug. 28) on their happy "First Week Anniversary" of their Marriage.  Used Facetime on Dad's laptop (and Luke & Georgy's laptop). Saw them both with their rings on.  They looked so happy and relaxed.  We are so thrilled that you guys found each other 5 years ago and have now made the commitment to be together for life!  Welcome to the Rogers Street Crew & Beyond with all of us, Georgy!

The Delano Stewart-Gilmers and the Western Springs Stewarts are getting together this weekend for Labor Day at Ben and Beth's house!  Wonderful!!  Have a blast with the 9 of you together!  

During September and October we have an extended trip planned for Minneapolis, Chicago, Atlanta, and Union!  Jake and Wendy, we'll arrive at your house about three days after you get back home from Ben and Beth's!
   
We're also looking forward to seeing Forrest and Justin's fall soccer games, helping out in Delano and Western Springs in whatever ways we can, worshiping with the Chicago Stewarts at Holy Trinity a couple of times and going to the Old Town School of Music with y'all to hear the Brock McGuire Band. : )

Also included in that 8-week trip are three different occasions we'll be with Jake, Wendy, and boys in Delano--at the beginning, the middle, and the end of the 8 weeks!  Yay!! 

Looking retrospectively, in mid-August we were able to pick up Forrest and Justin in Chelan, WA, drive them to Wenatchee, and eat breakfast with them before taking them to the airport so they could fly home from Holden.  : )

Jake and Wendy, thanks for visiting us here in Moscow with the boys in late July and early August. We had such a great time with all of you (and the horsies, tents, campfires, bikes, and racing pedal car)! 

Our recent time together in Scotland was the thrill of a lifetime for Daddio/Dean/PaPa/Grandpa Stewie and me.  So glad you all could be there and made the effort!  Next time, Georgy, you will be there, too!!  We missed you! Don't you all love that Scott made the photo-sharing site for all of us?   http://scottstewart.smugmug.com/Travel/Scotland-Reunion-SR3/30214088_pNX8mS

Dean and I loved our 5 days in Delano in late May with T-Ball, Baseball, Birthday Horsie Rides and Lessons, and a few days and nights at Nature's Nest B and B with the boys!!

Grandmother Graywolf and Forrest met several times during a soccer tournament in St. Louis in April and even went to Aunt Neola and Uncle Emil's together overnight!!  Gret also was able to spend about 4 fun days in Western Springs!! 

In March, Dean and I celebrated our 65th Birthdays in San Francisco with Luke and Georgy on Palm Sunday Weekend and Easter Weekend!  Wonderful, as always!

And, the year started out with the gift of a memorable visit from Luke and Georgy over New Year's weekend during our 9-week winter sojourn at Wilson Park Towers in downtown Minneapolis.  

Those 9 weeks were amazing, too, in helping us get to know Theo, Bjorn, and Jackson so much better through days of childcare and many fun festivities in the always-celebrating-something Minnesota months of December and January!

So, closing with love and gratitude for all our times together--
Mom/Gretchen/MaMa/Grandma Stewie/Grandmother Graywolf
Dad/Dean/PaPa/Grandpa Stewie
   

Nan's Fas Nachts Recipe

Fas Nachts

1 box hot roll mix. 1 egg. 1 cup hot water. Sugar. Cinnamon (optional)

Mix in the yeast packet well. Mix in 1/3 c. sugar. Beat 1 egg and add. Add the 1 c. hot water. Let the dough rise. Then knead it "pretty good." Roll it into a fat "cigar" (or cigars) and cut into balls (12--or many more, if you want smaller-size fas nachts). Roll each one with a rolling pin to 1/8" or so and score with a knife, making 3 or 4 or 5 slits parallel slits. Then weave loosely like a pretzel, over and under a time or two. Allow to rise a bit again. Gently drop into hot vegetable oil, one or two at a time. The oil should be hot enough to make the dough sizzle a bit and also for the fas nachts to float fairly quickly to the surface. Flip over when underside has turned golden brown. When second side has turned golden brown, remove from the pan with slotted spoon and drain on paper towels or newspaper. While still warm, drop into a paper bag that contains sugar (and cinnamon, if you wish) and shake. Take out, eat, and enjoy!

Remember do NOT eat any that still have uncooked, live yeast dough inside (from undercooking). : )

Love, GRET/MOM/MaMa/Grandma Stewie

Testing a blog post from my phone.. Tap tap tap hello? Is this thing on?

"A Dated Poem"

Yep, that's the actual name I gave it back in 1980 or 1981 when I was taking recertification courses at Wright State in Dayton and the prof was a poet. He "taught" us poetry instead of the "Composition for Teachers" that we all had signed up for. I'm really glad he took that risk even though he made a lot of us mad (and panicked) at first!

Here's the poem:

The solid-green hulk

of the Olds 88

Roars up Spring Hill

(where one salary still

will buy an old home

with a small backyard.)

Like an old army tank

it crawls up the drive,

shaking the walls of

the two-story home where

white aluminum hides the old wood

from the thirties.

No ferns green the air

by the bare front windows

where a few purple-red bricks

make a shady roofed porch

big enough for a summer swing.

In the back of the house

Three brothers pile out

of the car while

it backfires and coughs to a stop.

One car door yawns wide

exposing the arm rest

taped to the door--

there's trash on the floor.

"We've got nothing to hide!

'The Bomb' is the best

car on the road!"

(These thoughts, like pride,

more felt inside

than expressed.)

Their summer-pale mother

steps out of the car

(which has gone too far:

one hundred twenty-five thousand

miles).

She climbs steps

that are peeling

off paint from a can

in the "one-car detached"

garage that is darkly jumbled

with bikes and wet leaves and trash

bags waiting for Tuesday.

She wades through the mildew

of the mud porch, tenderly touching

the small coats

with her eyes. She cries.

Feeling the pounds that are

extra and years over thirty,

she briefly laments

and then laughs at the fact:

She's not "vogue!"

With no tape deck

or trips to Bermuda--

Just books on the shelf,

a degree in a box

and quite happily

married

the first time around--

She's not Jewish

Or Black (or tan enough),

And her subscription to Ms.

Ran out over two years ago.

MTV Moscow

Thanksgiving came early this year for me. I was in Moscow 11/20-23, and of course, it was a fantastic weekend. I may have mentioned all this in a previous post -- enormous amounts of delicious food, good times with Mom and Dad by the fire, even some snow.  ...And all of that is wonderful, yeah, sure, but kind of par for the course as far as Thanksgivings go. But make no mistake: this wasn't just your run-of-the-mill 'early Thanksgiving' weekend. It was also an extraordinary weekend-long cultural celebration of elaborate song and dance rituals. 

Thanksgiving in Moscow 2009

Three poems

Hi, all! Wanted to share three pretty cool poems (I thought) from our November poetry gathering. A friend brought the first two. I brought the third one (read it in Jan. '08 "New Yorker"). I tried to post the poems here in a different form--like an embedded attachment you could open or a link, but no luck--this will have to do. Sort of unwieldy. Any suggestions? I guess these would be better sent as attachments to an email.

If you care to, I would enjoy hearing your comments on both/either the form and/or the content. I really like the first two--whether or not the "news" story is factual or mythical . . .

FIRST POEM:

FROM UNDERNEATH by STEPHEN DUNN

A giant sea turtle saved the life of a 52 year-old woman lost at sea 
for two days after a shipwreck in the Southern Phillipines. She rode on the turtle's back. 
–Syracuse Post-Standard





When her arms were no longer 


strong enough to tread water 


it came up beneath her, hard

and immense, and she thought 


this is how death comes, 


something large between your legs


and then the plunge. 


She dived off instinctively, 


but it got beneath her again 


and when she realized what it was

she soiled herself, held on.

God would have sent something winged, 


she thought. This came from beneath, 


a piece of hell that killed a turtle 


on the way and took its shape. 


How many hours passed? 


She didn't know, but it was night 


and the waves were higher. 


The thing swam easily in the dark. 


She swooned into sleep. 


When she woke in the morning,


the sea calm, her strange raft 


still moving. She noticed the elaborate 


pattern of its shell, map-like,


the leathery neck and head 


as if she'd come up behind 


an old longshoreman 
in a hard-backed chair. 


She wanted and was afraid to touch 


the head – one finger 
just above the eyes –


the way she would touch her cat 


and make it hers.

The more it swam a steady course 


the more she spoke to it 


the jibberish of the lost. 


And then the laughter 


located at the bottom 
of oneself, unstoppable.

The call went from sailor to sailor 


on the fishing boat: A woman 


riding an "oil drum" 


off the starboard side. 


But the turtle was already swimming


toward the prow 


with its hysterical, foreign cargo 


and when it came up alongside


it stopped 
until she could be hoisted off. 


Then it circled three times 


and went down. 


The woman was beyond all language, 


the captain reported: 


the crew was afraid of her 


for a long, long time.

SECOND POEM:

ESSAY ON COMPASSION

After Stephen Dunn's "From Underneath"

The cat wound tight against my foot idles himself

to sleep

I tell myself he loves me past food and shelter

past my fingers' rough massage

I think I know this to be true but I say I tell myself

to show how carefully I assume nothing

to prove I am no sentimental fool

When I cut my hand this same cat lapped

the blood that pooled like cooling grease

but when I cried for what I thought was loss

of what again I'd thought was love

he touched my cheek with one dry paw

stared into my eyes until I looked away

The newspaper says a giant sea turtle

carried a shipwrecked woman most of two days

before delivering her up to a fishing boat

How to explain the turtle's choice

that it rose beneath the woman twice

before she let herself ride that cold back

that in two days the turtle did not once dive

How would a biologist dismiss this as

some odd coincidence of instincts

the woman saved without the turtle caring

I say and mostly do not trust that the turtle

saved her life because it wanted to

I say too with all the certainty of one

who never made or saved a life

this must have been compassion

that well fed in calm salt water one turtle

had no stronger thirst that day than to try on

a cast off human goodness to see if it would float

When this deaf and aged slack ribbed cat

gets up to walk his bones across the room

stops and seems to slowly reconsider

then limps back to where he'd started

I think it better for us all that I assume

that when he seems to think he thinks

that when he seems to love he loves

that the turtle knew exactly what it did

and what would happen if it didn't

-Richard Lehnert

THIRD POEM:

SCIENCE FICTION

I can travel

faster than light

so can you

the speed of thought

the only trouble

is at destinations

our thought balloons

are coated invisible

no one there sees us

and we can't get out

to be real or present

phone and videophone

are almost worse

we don't see a journey

but stay in our space

just talking and joking

with those we reach

but can never touch

the nothing that can hurt us

how lovely and terrible

and lonely is this

-- Les Murray

So glad I am able to travel by plane (and train?) to come see you all sometimes, and that you all are able to travel sometimes to Moscow or a mutual meeting place so we all can be real and present! : ) --Love, Mom, MaMa, Gret