"He Didn't Do His Farming at the Tavern"

Earlier this week I dug into the box of family history salvaged from my mother's place when she died nearly five years ago. I'd never bothered to look at it before Wednesday, the day before my 4th-grader's Ellis Island project was due. 

I always work better with a deadline.

My favorite line from a letter written by my Grandma Anderson, when my Mom and I were compiling the histories more than two decades ago, was the one about my Great Uncle Jack Martin, who, according to his niece-in-law, my Grandma A., "never lost any money farming because he didn't do his farming at the tavern." I'm not sure if that was supposed to be a compliment or simply a slam on the relatives who lost their farms in the Depression and the years following, all who and ended up becoming successful railroad men.

The box is rich with history, although there are a lot of holes I need to fill. I'm hoping an uncle on my Dad's side can fill in the details for the Bennetts, but it'll be a little more difficult for the Thompson/Anderson/Hogle side of the family, as my mother was an only child; her mother had been adopted (although we do have stories of her biological mother, including the one of her stealing my grandmother, forcing my great grandparents to move from Minnesota to North Dakota to try get away from her!); and my grandfather was also adopted, but never legally, after his biological mother died a few month after giving birth to him, her 10th child, in the flu pandemic in 1914; so things are a bit of a mess here).

For Luke's project, I sent him to school with a picture of the trunk, pictured here, that my Great Grandmother Anderson (then a Hansen) brought with her on her voyage, alone, from Norway to America at the tender age of 17. She came in steerage and went through Ellis Island, according to the notes I've discovered.

I also sent with him the same woman's wedding dress. Her actual wedding dress! Why was that in a Sharper Image paper sack in my flood-friendly basement?! Horrors! (I am now in the market for a dress dummy I can use to display this simple but beautiful $6 JCPenny dress worn in 1910 in Ransom County, ND.)

Luke was required to include 'three interesting facts' about his ancestors in his report. He included a story of his great, great, great grandfather (Thompson) who was shot to death and robbed of $300 of gold he'd withdrawn from his bank before walking 28 miles to Fargo, ND, with the intention of buying farming supplies. He included a story of my great great grandfather Anderson, who is said to not even be an Anderson ... that his name was likely a form of Buvick when he came to America but was allegedly told there were too many people already with that name, so he had to change it. We don't know if this is true, but I've heard of similar stories of immigrants having to change their names upon entering the country. And he included the story of my Nora (Hansen) Anderson's emigration from Norway, with said trunk, with a job lined up as a farmer's wife's helper in North Dakota.

So a routine 4th grade project has reignited my interest in my ancestry. Of course, this family tree project will have to get in line, right after pulling together my boys' baby books, cleaning out my linen closet and learning to knit.

Wish me luck. I might just be successful, if I can keep away from the tavern.

Cheers!

Memory Road Trip

Of my most vivid, positive memories of growing up the only daughter and middle (favorite) child of John & Luella, our weeks-long, summer road trips are among my favorites.  Granted, I'm not sure I thought so at the time. My father didn't meet a roadside historical marker he didn't want to stop to see. My mother wouldn't let my father pass a greasy, local diner where she might find a reputable BLT or piece of cherry pie. (This picture is from one of those trips, but none of my folks' slides -- which I recently had digitized -- were dated or marked in any helpful way, so I have no recollection of where we might be.)

These were the days before straight-jacket-styled car seats and booster seats, so my two brothers and I were free to annoy one another in the back seat of our purple-ish Ford LTD (complete with "UffDa" license plates and stickers in the back window of every state we'd visited). Lines were drawn dividing the back seat into three parts, but, with a brother younger than me by nearly eight years, difficult to enforce. We enjoyed the requisite road trip games, including trying to spot license plates from the most 'foreign' state, or, even, crazy as it seemed then, from a province of Canada. Ninety-nine bottles of beer on the wall was sung. A lot. (And no one thought it might be inappropriate at the time.) No hand-held computer games, no cell phones, no I-Pods. Not even much radio, considering all of our trips started in Chicago and ventured west. Lots of dead air there. 

Central Kansas was always on the route, given that's where my father's family was. North Dakota was usually on the itinerary, to visit with the few members of my mother's family. In between these requisite family visits we saw the Badlands, the Rockies, Yellowstone, Mt. Rushmore. I didn't appreciate any of it at the time (just being honest here), but I do now.

What I do remember valuing was staying at various Holiday Inns and Howard Johnsons, where we would eat puffed Cheetos and drink root beer poolside with my Dad. My mother didn't like the water. She'd spent too much time, and money, on her hair to want to ruin it. But my Dad was all about the end-of-the-day swim with my brothers and me. Like most dads of that era, he spent a lot of time at work and not a lot of time doing dad things, non-disciplining dad things, that is. 

Monday would have been his 78th birthday, if he hadn't died too soon at 69. I'm not terribly sentimental, but I am very sorry my sons didn't know him. And I do miss him.

So, to John R., cheers.

A Simple Lesson in Humanity, Or is it Insanity?



Mrs. Mouse, before her parole.

I've come to accept that the occasional mouse in my 100-year-old house is to be expected. I'm even able to swallow my initial scream at the sight of such vermin if my boys are nearby, with the intention of not making them scaredy cats, too.

However, while I've accepted that rodents will find their way in to our home, I will not provide them with unlimited room and board. When identified, they must be, well, evicted.

Which brings us to our recent removal/replacement of a 30-year-old, over-sized basement fridge that led to the discovery of a mouse, of the dead variety. The kind delivery man calmly asked me for a plastic bag, and he disposed of the corpse. I didn't give it another thought.

... Until later that day when I started down the basement stairs only to be met with an excited, confused, grieving Mrs. Mouse. I called to Toby, my middle guy, who was nearby, to share my excitement.

"She's soooo cuuuuute," he responded, "can we keep her, you know, as a pet." [read: because Dad won't let us get a dog.]

Me, "Oh, yah, she is cute, you know, but, I really don't think she'd be happy in a cage. Why don't we help her get home, to her mouse friends?"

To the garage I went, where, miraculously, I remembered we'd left the Live Mouse Trap, given to me a decade ago by the woman after which my parents named me, when we were plagued by mice at a previous home. Karen died many years ago, and we'd moved many times since the original mouse problem. Never had the heart to tell her that we poisoned the life out of those mice, but I also never had the heart to get rid of the "Humane Mouse Kit."

Seriously. The packaging on this contraption includes, "Teach peace. Be Nice to Mice!" Also fun is the illustration of a mouse peeking out of a traditional mouse door and the words, "Mommy, must we kill the mouse?" ... "No, Honey. The world is big enough for all of us."

So I recently made a trip to an undisclosed location just outside my sleepy suburb, where we released Mrs. Mouse.

Live long and prosper, Mrs. Mouse. Just don't come home to visit any time soon.

Returning for a Bite of the Big Apple

Somehow I had managed to not return to New York City, a city I 'heart,' but a city I fled just as soon as my employer could get me a rental car after the horrific events of 9/11 ten years ago. 

At first I simply couldn't. I didn't want to leave the safety of my townhouse, which we were readying for the birth of our first child. I didn't want to travel anywhere, much less to the epicenter of the nation's worst (current generations') nightmare. I was scared. And like everyone else, I was sad and even a little shell-shocked from what I witnessed that otherwise-perfect fall Tuesday morning.

Like most of us, I got over it. When conversations turned to the attacks, sometimes I shared my story, but sometimes I was just so bored of it I couldn't imagine anyone would want to hear it. I still tear up or worse when I catch news coverage or when I quietly and truly reflect about all our country and our world lost that morning.

But still I didn't go back. It started to become a 'thing.' Kevin would suggest I join him on many of his NYC trips for work, and I always had a good reason why I couldn't (starting with one, then two, then three children).

As this much-hyped 10th anniversary approached, I decided I would return. Whether it would be an emotional, gut-wrenching journey or simply a great couple of days and nights in the Big apple, it would be done.

So last month, with the boys under the loving care of my generous in-laws, we caught an early morning flight. I spent my time in the air reading a Fodor's history of Manhattan, which gave me wonderful perspective of my walking tours the next few days. While I'd been to NYC many times prior to September 2001, mostly for work commitments, I never approached it like I did this time, with eyes, arms and heart wide open.

The morning started with a walk to The City Bakery for pretzel croissants (the maple-bacon biscuits were sold out) and gazpacho. Yummy. I was back in love already. Kevin left for his meetings, and I started my journey uptown, to the Museum of Modern Art. Six floors of art! Looking out the windows was a feast for eyes alone. 

So far, all I felt was excitement and gleefulness for my good fortune to be out-and-about in NYC. I started to walk back toward Gramercy Park, where we were staying, but stopped at the Lego Shop at Rockefeller Center. I asked the clerk why they were cordoning off the plaza. Was someone really famous coming to NBC? No, in fact, he explained, there was 'a jumper.' Someone was about to jump off the building. Why, I asked were thousands of people standing around with their cameras, then? Sick! Just 10 years ago people were jumping to avoid being burned alive, and now this sad soul was jumping, and worse, people were standing around waiting to capture it on the cell phone cameras? (A New Yorker friend of mine said that things weren't so bad, that before 9/11, people would have been shouting "jump!")*

I moved on, enjoyed a great evening of drinks, dinner and grown-up conversation with Kevin and his team, then started our next morning with a run to and around Central Park, wondering why we didn't live there. We stood at the bar at Antica Bottega del Vino for a creamy, very traditional cappuccino, then a little bit later enjoyed lunch, if you can call it that, at Doughnut Plant in Chelsea. Carrot cake, coconut creme, creme brulee, chocolate chip cookie. This was no Dunkin'.

Then it was time to visit Ground Zero. To take in as much of the city in as short of time as we had, I insisted we walk from our hotel to Ground Zero. It was also because I was very intimidated by the subway system. Above ground, I don't get lost. So we managed to take in most of Mid and Lower Manhattan's highlights as we strolled to the memorial site.

At the memorial preview site, we read individuals' stories and viewed a chronological photo and video essay of the morning's events. I cried, just a little cry. We made a modest contribution to the memorial fund, peaked at the beautiful fountains, still under construction then, and it was done. It was moving and cathartic to stand on those streets and bump elbows with a menagerie of the human race. But it was done.

It is done. New York City is as wonderful as its advertising claims. I look forward to many happy returns.

Peace.

*The man did jump, but I'm happy to report that NYC's rock star firefighters caught him.

Camp Mom Closes for Season

Whew. Summer's over.

I know there's an entire month of meteorological summer ahead of us, but as my only school-aged child left to meet his 4th grade teacher this afternoon (and the preschooler started last week), summer is over at our house. This means that Camp Mom is now officially closed.

Like parents everywhere, I have mixed emotions about the start of another school year. I'm sad to see go the lazy days when we had no particular place to be at any particular hour. The sometimes impromptu, often loosely pre-planned, picnics, playground outings, museum visits, swimming excursions, bike rides to DQ, train rides to nowhere in particular ... I will miss those.

I'm also not sad to see them go. Because at my core, despite my desire to embrace this chaos that is my life, breathes a woman who thrives on structure.

And the school year, with its four Rs -- reading, 'riting, 'rithmitic and rules, gives us structure.

And, honestly, it gives me a break for a few hours. Because the thing with three boys at home, if you take one of them out of the equation (we're back to 'rithmitic), the two remaining boys get along so much better. It does not matter which boy, or factor, if you will, is removed, the outcome remains the same. A little bit of sanity. Of peace ... no quiet, but peace.

Which is good, because while I was running (and enjoying) Camp Mom this summer, I woefully neglected a few responsibilities around here. So I'd better get back to them now.

Cheers to a happy and productive school year for children and parents (and all of you who put up with us)!

Celebrate Good Times, C'Mon!

So it's my birthday and the 1st anniversary of my blog.

TJ & Luke get along, if only for my birthday.

I started Chaos is the New Calm to meet a need I had for a certain creative release, even a level of mental discipline, lacking in my life. Days filled with laundry, meal planning, prep and cooking, cleaning, and, ultimately, caring for three small boys was making me a bit cranky, and I did not want to be a cranky person. So this blog was born to help me embrace the life I was leading, not the life I thought I should be living.

Though I sought order in my life, chaos was the norm. I gave up fighting it, embraced it and made it my calling card.

Andy enjoys today's picnic.

Today was no exception. Years ago I might have pouted or whined about not being wined, dined and otherwise catered to on my birthday. I think birthdays are a big freekin' deal, whoever is celebrating, and whatever birthday is being celebrated.

My day was chaotically awesome. The boys and I hit the gym early (where I got a workout and an awesome massage, just what the doctor ordered after a 3-week-long respiratory infection); we had a picnic at a local park, created DQ-enviable sundaes at home (on a Tuesdae, TJ pointed out), napped, hit the pool with our long-term b-sitter, Christine, followed by dinner at Noodles & Co., found a flower arrangement at home, left by my husband who was busy with in-town board meetings, dinner and other work chaos all week and read numerous text and FB messages from friends far and wide. After the little guys' baths and stories and bedtimes, Luke & I enjoyed the first hour of the sixth Harry Potter film (we've never seen them but are trying to get them all in before Friday's big game).

Life, and this birthday, are good and worth celebrating.

Cheers!

Surrender, Dorothy!

Back when I was a *Perfect Mother,* that is, before I had any children, I had several rules by which I planned to live my life when I did become a mother.

1. I would lose my baby weight within three months after delivering baby.
2. I would not yell at my children.
3. I would not wear sweat pants outside my home.
4. Only PBS would be allowed on the TV.
5. Snot would not be left hanging from my childrens' noses.
6. My children would not leave the house in dirty clothes, wearing their PJs or without shoes.
7. Toys would be relegated to a play room and/or the childrens' bedrooms.

That first one has become "I would lose my baby weight before my 25th high school reunion (coming up in two short months)."

I did ok with the second rule until the bonus baby showed up; yelling has since become the only way I can cut through the noise clutter around here.

Numbers 3-6 were dropped somewhere along the way.

I held fast to #7. I bunked two of the three boys together so that in our 100-year-old house, whose basement is simply that -- a basement, not a usable space for a kids' play -- we could use a large bedroom as a 'play room.'

But bunking together two boys, nearly five years apart, and centuries apart in personality, has proven, after two years of trying, to be a failed experiment in social science.

So a toy purge began in the play room. Toys and books were divided among the three boys' bedrooms, the family room, the living room, the dining room, the porch, the backyard, even the basement took a few donations. So now I have toys everywhere throughout out my house. Yes, they're in pretty baskets and behind frosted glass cabinet doors, but they are everywhere.

And as the middle guy, the guy who has moved happily into the former play room, said, "Now only you and Daddy have to share a room."