FlipSide:Starting April 2nd, 2001

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A journal of the trials, tribulations, and triumphs in the life of a woman in the 21st century.

Last Updated : Saturday, April 14, 2001 11:32:50 PM -0500

Monday, April 9, 2001

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Today was a more laid back day. The weather was grey and cool, highs around the low 60's, I'd say. Gee, last week I would have jumped for joy for 60, but 2 days of 70's spoiled me but good.

Last night had some thunderstorms rumble through about 3:00 am. When it started to hail on the aluminum carport roof, the kids work up and were frightened. Jack woke up first and I went and sat by him, rubbing his back. Then Rhiannon woke up, saw me and attempted to get close to cuddle. Unfortunately, her brother was in her way, so she just laid on top of him. He doesn't remember it today, but she does. As you can probably tell, I didn't sleep real well last night. Not sure why, at least other than the storms. (Unless it had something to do with the the loud noises and vile odors that emanated from my beloved. Since the kids were sleeping on the floor, they got the worst of the odors, they seemed to kinda settle over the kids sleeping bags, probably because of the ceiling fan. I don't know how they slept through that, but they did. What did the man eat???) And of course, it was my morning to get up with the kids. As usual, they were up at 7:30 am. I let John sleep in until 10:30.

While I was trying to sleep last night, several thoughts went through my mind. One of them was the fact that, despite the crowded conditions, there is something comforting about your entire family sleeping in one room. Being able to just open my eyes and see their peacefully sleeping faces (well, okay, I open my eyes and see the blurry blobs that I take to be their peacefully sleeping faces) is very warm and comforting. However, by the end of the week, it will be less warm and fuzzy and more close and confining. But such is life.

The other thought that was going through my mind will take a little more articulating, so bare with me a moment. (And a fresh cup of coffee, hang on a minute.) I like to read romance novels. The kind with good character development, often with a great deal of historical content, not the bodice rippers, mind you, where the guy is nasty to the heroine for 200 pages and suddenly in the last 20 pages, they are in love. Yeah right. Sorry, folks, that sounds a lot more like good, old-fashioned lust to me. Love is not an immediate, smack-you-upside-the-head emotion, it is something that builds over time, with friendship, shared experiences, and daily life.

Anyway, as much as I like my romance novels, they are escapism, pure and simple, with no real relation to real life. As much as I make fun of him, I have a wonderful husband. I know he loves me, cherishes me, actually, by the little things he does all the time. Like making sure this page is set up for me to work on it. Like sending me to bed and making supper when I have a really bad headache. Like running out to get the car and pull it closer when it is pouring rain or freezing cold. When I was in the hospital with Pancreatitis this fall, he spent all the time he could with me at the hospital, especially in those first few hours when we didn't know what was going on. Then, he went home, late as it was, and looked up all the information he could on the internet about Pancreatitis. I remember reading a short story in a women's magazine when I was about 16 or 17 about a woman who went to a friend's wedding with her husband. As she was listening to the bride and groom exchange their vows, the words "love, honor, and cherish" stood out to her. After the ceremony, she turned to her husband and asked, "Do you cherish me?" Now, most men will tell you, this is a no-win question, right up there with "Do I look fat in this?" So, like most guys, he has no clue how to respond to this and just kinda mumbles, "Yeah, I guess so." The wife is left feeling kinda lost and sorry for herself after this exchange. However, as they are walking to their car, her husband notices a large puddle just outside his wife's car door. He picks her up and walks into the puddle himself, and puts her in the car, so her feet don't get wet. At that moment, she knew she was cherished. It is those little things they do every day that show how much our men love us. He may not say it in the way I'd like, or maybe he only sends me flowers when I have major surgery, but I know, my husband loves me more than anything.

As for today, we played it kinda quiet. Took Jack to get his stitches taken out. I was really glad we went to the doctor's office. Apparently the doctor who put in the stitches put them in very small and tight, so the doctor had a little trouble getting them out. And it only cost me $29. Cool. Then, we went to Dyersville, which a nice 45 minute drive north of here. Dyersville is where the movie Field of Dreams was filmed. The ball field is still there, and attracts thousands of tourists a year. They even have old-timer games where the ball players come out of the corn, just like in the movie. Anyway, the point of the trip today was not the movie set, but my husband's holy grail, Ertl toys. Ertl has a subsidiary called AMT that manufactures Star Trek and Star Wars models. So John wanted to get some Star War models for Jack. (Hmmm . . . I'm not sure I buy that they are for Jack, do you? When is the last time you saw a 4 year old put together a model.) Anyway, after we purchases toys for all 3 of the "children", we stopped for lunch at a nearby McDonalds with the largest playland I have ever seen. We let the kids run off some energy there, since it was too soggy for them to go out and run outside.

"Hey, man, it wasn't me!"

"Damn, I'm cute!"

"Oh, oh. Busted!"

"Yup, I'm Mommy's girl."

Tuesday, April 10, 2001

Another grey cooler day, high around 57 degrees. I actually got to sleep in until 10:30 today. Yippee. The kids didn't awaken until almost 8:30, so they are starting to sleep later too. After dinner at the Sunrise Cafe last night (rather uninspiring fare, I'm afraid. Last time we were there, Rhiannon threw up, but we thought we would give it another try.) John and I actually got to go out alone. To the grocery store. Anyway, while there, we found a sparkling wine called "A Touch of Raspberry" that sounded good. For $6 a bottle, we figured, what the heck, and bought it. It was actually quite good, both of us liked it. I had two glasses and was feeling very "content" with life. Hey, give me a break, I only drink about twice a year, so it doesn't take much. When I was much younger and more practiced in the art of alcohol, my rule of thumb for stopping was when I turned my head and the world had to catch up, it was time to stop. It usually took me quite some time to reach that point. No more. 2 glasses of wine and I am mellow. So sad. We still haven't broken into the wines from the Tabor Home winery, we are saving those for when we remember to pick up one of those re-corking contraptions, so if it all doesn't get drunk at once, it will still be good.

When we finally left the house around 1:30 today, we headed to the local bakery. They have really good treats and we like to stop whenever we are in town. Then we headed over to the park. Since it didn't rain yesterday and it is forecast to rain tonight, I figured today would be the day to go. First ward park has added some new equipment from when I used to go there, but there were still a couple of slides and a merry-go-round from when I used to play there. When you are out running around playing kickball and chasing children, 57 doesn't seem too cool at all. Jack tried to play catch with the kids, but it turned out to be more of a game of fetch, instead.

Took my mom and Sharon to the Olive Garden in Dubuque for Mom's birthday. We had a lovely dinner. The kids (and my mother) greatly enjoyed the singing waiters, not that any of us could understand what they were singing, they said it so fast.

On our way back to Maquoketa, my car started to lose power, luckily, right in front of the Otter Creek Station, so I was able to get off the highway and into a parking lot. The car was on cruise control at about 68 miles per hour. Suddenly the engine revved up, then started to lose power. By the time the car stopped completely, the lights had started to dim and I had lost power steering. John pushed the car half-way across the parking lot into a spot. We tried to start it again, it turned over, but wouldn't stay started, so we didn't try again.

I have a service called "Mr. Rescue" on my cell phone, which is basically an emergency towing service. Called them on my cell phone. After about a 5-10 minute wait on hold, I explained the situation to Kim and where I was. Then I called my mom, who answered the phone with "Where are you?" Told her what was going on and she dispatched Sharon to go pick us up. By the time Sharon had gotten there, Mr. Rescue still had not called back. When I called them back, they told me they were having trouble finding a towing service for us. So I told them we would leave the car where it was and call them in the morning.

So, here I sit, glass of wine in hand, contemplating what part of my engine blew and how much it is going to cost me to get it repaired. (Of course, it has to be the new car, the Eagle Vision TSI, a six-cylinder with about 115,000 miles that I am still paying for. Ouch.) Now, I realize that this could be far worse, it could have happened on the way back to Minnesota, necessitating a hotel stay and possibly a missed day of work. Or on some back-ass country road we travel around here. However, my husband has a sneaking suspicion that the problem could be a blown transmission, a costly repair. I am trying not to borrow trouble, but, if it is a costly repair, I may be calling my credit card company, begging for an emergency credit increase. I really don't want to do that, I am trying to keep us out of a lot of credit card debt, but, that is better than bouncing a check, I suppose. Just when you think you may be getting ahead of the money game, something like this happens.

Well, hopefully it will be a relatively inexpensive repair and we can continue. I have to just hope for the best and remind myself that it could have been so much worse. Here's hoping I can get some sleep tonight. Ta for now.

Wednesday, April 11, 2001

It is amazing how quiet a day you can have when you couple stress with the fact you don't have a car. John ran the car keys to the service outfit, who ran out and got the car from the Otter Creek station. (Otter Creek is a little town north of Maquoketa on Highway 61 where my grandfather's family is from.)

After spending most of the day wondering how much of my next paycheck was going to be paying for car repairs, we got the news. The good news on the car - it is fixed. The bad news - it was only out of gas. Apparently, my gas gauge is no longer accurate. However, all it cost me was $10 for gas and a good deal of John's masculine pride. Being female, I really don't care if mechanics think I am dumb when it comes to cars. Oh well, as I said to a friend who was telling me I would feel really dumb if the car was just out of gas, "Okay, so I am happily stupid or stupidly happy." Oh, did I forget to mention the ultimate irony of the situation? The Otter Creek station is a gas station and mini mart.

Due to the warm weather we have been having here, we are now in the midst of what comes with that weather, severe weather. Most of Iowa is under some sort or another of severe weather warning. We, in Jackson County are currently only under a Tornado Watch, which simply means that conditions are ripe for severe storms and tornados. They have already said one person is dead in the state from a tornado in Agency, Iowa. Looks like it will be a long evening here. Maquoketa is in an area that seems to be missed by the most severe storms. Historically, this was an Indian camp ground, partially because of that fact.

Speaking of history of this area, I found a cool book written by the wife of a high school teacher of mine called The Charm of the Road, Drives in Jackson County. My grandparents used to take me on drives past the landmarks of their youth. The book lists some of those areas.

My grandmother grew up near LaMotte, close to St. Donatus. My grandfather grew up also near LaMotte, but on the other side, closer to Otter Creek. St. Donatus (where my grandmother's "people", as she used say, were from) is a beautiful village on high hills and bluffs. The people that settled that area are from Luxembourg, and they say with pride that St. Donatus is "a little bit of Luxembourg in America". (In fact, they have regularly hosted delegations from Luxembourg.) There is a little stream under a bluff called Tete Des Morts. Roughly translated, Heads of Death. One story says that Father Hennepin, an early missionary and explorer of the upper Midwest who later headed up to Minnesota, stumbled upon the remains of an Indian battle finding many skulls of the defeated tribe. Anyway, I remember my grandmother telling me that as we drove through the area. We would stop at the Kalmes Store and Restaurant for lunch. Wendy Kalmes always created my grandparents by name. I always felt so important when I was with them. I always got my soda pop served in 12 ounce bottles and a "pizza burger".

Tomorrow, we hope to take a car trip through those places with my mom, who remembers many of those places, so John and I can write down the road names and places, so we can find them on our own. It just is very important to me to be able to find the Even homestead and the old Cahill farm. I also want to do a little looking around in the cemeteries there for some of John's relatives. John's great grandmother was a Lieser from Dubuque. However, John's father, who does a lot of genealogy work, has not been able to find any baptismal records for her in the churches in Dubuque. I pointed out to him that she may not have been from the city of Dubuque but the county of Dubuque. There are many many small communities around Dubuque. I also hope to take a side trip to the Trappist Monastery in New Mallory that my grandparents also took us too. Maybe we will even stop for lunch at Kalmes in St. Donatus.

Tonight, weather permitting, we will go to Happy Joe's, a pizza and ice cream parlor.

AND THERE'S MORE!!!

Went to Happy Joe's with an old high school friend and her two sons. Her oldest boy is in 8th grade and sounds like he is about 30 on the phone. We had a good time, talking about what was going on in our lives. Her oldest son was suspended from school for 3 days for pulling up a pornographic internet site at school. Considering this is a kid who has never been in trouble before and it was a first offense, it seemed like a pretty excessive punishment to me. Come on, he is a fourteen year old boy and fourteen year old boys look at that kind of thing.

Since the storms never materialized here, we walked to the grocery store after dinner to get a Powerball ticket (hey, the jackpot is $70 million, I think it is worth an investment of a buck or two). And, of course, you always end up with a couple of more items. The high school kid bagging my groceries was a cousin of mine I used to babysit. I knew his parents were divorced and asked how his mother (my cousin) was doing. I was unprepared for his answer. It seems one weekend his mother got married and up and moved to Kansas City without telling any of her kids until the deed was done. Wow! How can you do that to your high school and younger kids. Not to mention a smaller wow, I knew something that happened in town BEFORE my mother did!!! I felt sorry for the kid, he said he hadn't really spoken to her since. I don't blame him.

When I got home and told my mother this, she let me know about the mother of another high school friend of mine, who's marriage had broken up because her husband, my friend's dad, was cheating on her. Anyway, apparently, this woman started seeing a married man and eventually that marriage broke up too. My my, Maquoketa is just a little Peyton Place!

Well, John wants to get this posted so he can get to bed prior to 10pm tonight. Me, I will probably stay up later. My late night tendencies are reasserting themselves now that I don't have to be up at 5:45 every morning. So, tata!

Thursday, April 12, 2001

It is amazing how out of touch you can get when you are in the "wilds" of Iowa. As we did not have access to John's main home email, he was out of touch with the Daynoter's private line of communication, referred to as the "backchannel". Apparently a disagreement between some of the members regarding environmental issues, I believe, escalated into a "flame" where one individual told another, who my husband and I consider a friend, he looked forward daily to reading that person's obituary.

Now, since we didn't have access to the backchannel, we spent a good part of last night trying to piece together through various Daynoter and Netwidow websites just what had happened. John was terribly upset, more that he was about our car issues of Tuesday night. He partially felt responsible, as he had proposed the "flamer" for inclusion on the backchannel. It is hard when you see friends hurt and an entire group of friends upset and you are trying to figure out just what happened. As I see it, someone was just not capable of handling adult discourse and when their arguments were not taken with the weight they felt was warranted, he resorted to they playground response of name-calling. I hope everyone if able to get over this and that the "flamer" can just, forgive my language, GROW THE HELL UP. As a result, Tom Syroid, in essence, sent everyone to their rooms for a time-out and shut down the backchannel. Now, at least one daynoter I know of took exception to this as a fundamental violation of his free speech rights. However, in my opinion, when adults are acting like children, they need to be treated like children and forced to reflect on their actions. And that is exactly what Tom did by shutting off the backchannel. Now the soul-searching and recriminations have begun. Hopefully, we can all learn and be better people for it.

Now, back to your regularly scheduled programming. . .

Went up to the Trappist Monastery today at New Malleray. It is a very peaceful place. My grandparents always used to take us there. Unfortunately, all the monks we knew there are gone. There used to be an Irish monk by the name of Father Pius, who was just a stitch. He would tell such stories, in that Irish accent. He especially got on with my Irish grandfather. Picked up some good caramels, Rhiannon picked out a children's Saints book and a crucifix, Jack picked out a Jesus puzzle and a Shroud of Turin card that changes between a picture of the shroud and an image of Jesus' face. And mommy got the teeshirt. Yes, you read right, the New Malleray Abbey teeshirt. Seems rather, well, strange doesn't it? Now all they need is one that says, "Someone went to the Trappist monastery and all I got was this lousy tee-shirt".

After the Abbey, we went on a pilgrimage of sorts, attempting to find my grandmother's parents farm and my grandfather's farm that he lost in the Depression. We ate lunch in St. Donatus, at Kalmes restaurant. The Kalmes family went into business in St. Donatus in the 1840s. Windy Kalmes is the 4th generation running a restaurant in St. Donatus. Most of the buildings in St. Donatus were there when my grandmother was a girl. While at the Catholic cemetery, we found what is probably my grandmother's grandfather's grave. Apparently the original headstone was destroyed at some point and someone erected a new one, with part of the old one attached to the back. It was in German. If I read it right, he was born in Luxembourg in 1852. I didn't see a death date.

We found the Even homestead (my grandmother's people) not far from St. Donatus. My mother was kinda excited and impressed, I think. We never did manage to find the Cahill farm. I remember being told that my grandfather's farm had once been part of a larger farm. My grandfather's grandfather had three sons, and rather than leave the farm to just one son, he split the farm into three. My grandfather's father got, the farm on one end, I believe. My grandmother would tell the story about how one time, my Uncle Tom decided to follow my grandfather down the road after he left for work. He was all of about 4 at the time. Grandpa Tom (my grandfather's father) was so upset and in such a hurry to go fetch him, he put the car right through the garage door.

John took careful notes of where to turn, etc., so we could find the Even homestead again. We will have to look at some maps and the book I bought about scenic drives through Jackson County and try again another time. The weather was too windy and cold to do too much exploring today. I had wanted to wander a couple of the graveyards, looking for family, but with winds gusting to 50 mph and temperatures only in the low 50s, today was not the day for it.

Friday, April 13, 2001

What is the fascination little boys have with mud puddles? No matter how many times I tell Jack to stay out of the puddles, I turn around and there he is. At least today he stayed on the edge of the puddle rather than tromping right through it. Of course, it probably helps that this puddle was big enough for him to drown in. Perhaps he is starting to show some common sense. Nah.

Anyway, just a quick post today. As I am currently on my fourth glass of sparkling wine, I think it's best if I don't say too much. First off, Happy 10th Anniversary to our friends Kyle and Gette Jones in Montevideo, Minnesota.

Second, thank you to Bob Thompson, who translated the German/Luxembourg dialect from my great great great great grandfather's (I think) tombstone, "Our beloved father, Nikolaus Even, from Altrier, Luxembourg. Died August 10, 1852. Aged 51 years." This translation makes me wonder if he was my grandmother's grandfather or great grandfather.

Finally, another sunny day. Not overly warm, only about 60 degrees. Made another trip to the winery and the dam with Jack while Rhiannon was off gallivanting with Grandma. Then, we dyed easter eggs, made a steamed chocolate pudding (very tasty, who knew you could make a lovely chocolate cake without an oven?) and a trip to the park.

John and I had the opportunity to go out on our own tonight. However, after we had gone to Walmart to play Easter Bunny, we were just too tired to do anything. So sad to get old. Maybe tomorrow night. Man, Easter is getting to be an expensive holiday. We spent about $85 on stuff for the kids. Granted a lot of it was clothes, but still, I doubt my parents spend more than $25.

The kids stayed home and watched Return to Witch Mountain with Grandma. I saw that when I was about Rhiannon's age. The kids really liked it. It is really weird to see your kids enjoy a movie you watched as a child.

Tomorrow is our last day here. I always feel very sad as the end of my time in Maquoketa rolls around. As much as John probably hates to admit it, he does too. Since we will be traveling back home on Easter Sunday, I will probably not post that day. We will be avoiding highway 61, which runs right along the Mississippi. A very pretty drive, but not a prudent one, considering the Mississippi and all it's tributaries are at or above flood stage.

Anyway, Happy Easter to all and to all a good night.

(ed. - Due to factors beyond our control, most notably a pretty piss-poor local ISP named Willinet, this page was written last night and finally, after midnight, the geek member of the household gave up and went to bed because the damned ISP wouldn't accept any sort of reliable connection to their servers. Sheesh.)

Saturday, April 14, 2001

This is how you know when you have become the grown-up. We had Easter dinner today, a day earlier, as we are driving back to Minnesota tomorrow morning after 10am Mass. Start to finish, it was my deal. In my mother's kitchen. I made baked ham with pineapple/mustard glaze, scalloped corn (okay, Mom did make that), mashed potatoes, cheddar garlic biscuits, and sundae cake. We also had some of the leftover steamed chocolate pudding for dessert as well.

Since we were planning to eat dinner around 2pm, I started cooking around 11am. Around 1, I sent John to the park with the kids. He was more help that way. After dinner, we took the kids to the 7pm showing of Spy Kids. It was a really cute movie. I would have enjoyed it without the kids. (And, of course, there was the added bonus of getting to look at Antonio Bandaras for a couple of hours. Even my 7 year old thinks he's cute.) For adults, it would make a really great double feature with True Lies.

After the movie, we did the thing that all good little capitalists should do, we went to McDonalds and got the Happy Meal toys from the movie. And my youngest child was nearly run down by some kids going 30 miles per hour through the McDonalds parking lot. I told John if that kid would have hit Jack, one of us would have gone to Jack and one of us would have gone to pound that kid. John said, Nah, he would just have overturned the kid's Festiva. What is it about young kids driving cars recklessly? You would think that, of all places, a McDonalds parking lot would be the place you would expect there to be small children running around.

Now I am waiting for one of my high school girl friends to pick me up to go have a drink. Sans spouse. Watch out.

Probably no post tomorrow, as we will spend most of the day on the road. We hope to be home in the early evening. Kinda sad and nostalgic to leave town, but I will be happy once I am home.

Sunday, April 15, 2001

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Copyright © 2001 Ann Dominik. All rights reserved. Complaints about the technical details of this page can be directed to the abused geek who takes care of it for me, and is grossly underpaid for what he does, he thinks. No reproduction without written permission. The opinions and content of this site are my own, and not the responsibility of this site's host, my employer, my pets, my parents or anyone else you may care to blame. Please respect my opinions and I will do the same for you. I may on occasion publish e-mail to me; if you do not wish your mail to be published, please write CONFIDENTIAL or DO NOT PUBLISH at the top of the e-mail. If you would prefer to remain anonymous, please note that as well. If you're incapable of reasoned civilized discourse but feel compelled to correspond with me, I'll be happy to filter your mail out after a few choice comments regarding your ancestors, upbringing, and the likelihood of your family tree not

	"Hey, man, it wasn't me!"
"Damn, I'm cute!"
	"Oh, oh. Busted!"
"Yup, I'm Mommy's girl."