Sophie's Story

   The climbing number of men in various walks of public life being accused of sexual harassment, misconduct and crimes has me a bit mystified. Why is this happening now? Is it because we are now in a place in time where this can be taken seriously? (Bullying was not taken seriously until after the Columbine shootings.) Is it just happening more often now than before?   I've read a few statements by people famous and not that if women would stop dressing provocatively and act more like ladies men would behave themselves. This attitude has been roundly condemned and is considered to be victim blaming. As someone who has dealt with minor harassment and fifth-degree assault, I can say in my experience that clothes do not matter. I have always dressed conservatively. In some cases, I was harassed by customers at work while wearing a lab coat. As I prefer comfort over style these lab coats tend to be pretty baggy. Nothing even remotely provocative.   A week or so ago I read an inte

   Yule Log is on the TV. The turkey is in the crockpot. The Christmas music is turned on. (because I don't like the music on Yule Log) The Christmas celebration has started at our house.    There is no Christmas tree, we would have got that last week, but I had to work most of the days. It was too late to buy one. We have very few Christmas cookies for the same reason. Most of the baking was done on the 23 and 24 of December. There are a few decorations. We have a wreath in our kitchen, there is a small nativity on the top of a bookcase. We have a statue of Santa kneeling at the manger of Jesus on our coffee table.    There were no presents to unwrap. We have so much stuff. In fact, we've spent many hours the past few months getting rid of stuff. Neither of us really needs or wants anything. We've got everything that we need.    It's going to be a quiet Christmas. No company coming over. No calls from friends or relatives. They mostly text or send Facebook message

      Today Small Town Toastmasters held their final meeting for 2017. Dana, my knitting/crochet/beading teacher, was the Toastmaster. Since this meeting was so close to Christmas, she decided to have a Christmas theme and encouraged people to dress up in holiday clothes. A prize would be given for the best outfit.      I wasn't sure what to wear. I have a decent amount of clothing, but not much that is holiday specific. (I do own two sweaters that have hearts on them.) Back when I was single and cared more about clothes, I would buy a new Christmas outfit every year. It was usually something to wear to church, usually a skirt or dress. As I've always been more conservative clothes wise, these outfits never included trees, Santas, reindeer or any other secular Christmas decoration. I once was daring enough to buy a skirt that had a little metallic thread on it. (It also has a hemline slightly above the knee, very unusual for me.)    For some reason, I never got into the Ch

   In the course of reorganizing and cleaning I have discovered many things. In some ways, it's a little like Christmas as I've found things I didn't know I had. I've been finding a lot of small kitchen appliances that I didn't know we owned.    For instance, I have a food processor. Once I saw it I knew where it came from. It was a wedding present from a co-worker of mine. He liked to cook and we would sometimes discuss how to make various recipes during our downtime at work. I'm pretty sure it has been used at least once. When we moved it was packed away. Once we got our house I put it on a shelf downstairs and promptly forgot about it.   I have two waffle makers. One of them is a normal one. The other makes small heart-shaped waffles. I know I've used the normal one. I have never used the heart-shaped one. The heart-shaped waffles are pretty small. There is limited demand for small heart-shaped waffles. I'm guessing it was another wedding present.

  We are going to have a mini-war at our house this weekend.  The NCAA Division 1 playoffs are upon us. This weekend the North Dakota State Bison will be playing the Wofford Terriers. As most of you know I am a graduate of NDSU and a big Bison fan. What you may not know is that C attended Wofford.   C does like the Bison and roots for them whenever they play. There's only one exception. If NDSU plays Wofford, then he roots, loudly and with great enthusiasm, for the Terriers.   I think you see what's coming.   For the second time in our marriage, our two teams will be pitted against each other.   The first time it happened, several years ago, both of us were taken off guard. What were the chances of my small college in North Dakota playing his small college in South Carolina?   We were not able to get the game on TV the first time it happened, but we could tune in on a laptop computer. I remember the two of us sitting in the kitchen. Both of us had Sunday School lessons

   It happened this week. We knew it was coming. Ever since July, we knew this was going to happen. We hoped that maybe it would happen later. Perhaps sometime next year. Sometime after our usual spring trip into the Carolinas.   It was a vain hope. Dean had been diagnosed with an aggressive form of lung cancer. It was a strange sort of cancer for a man who, as far as I know, had never smoked.   On Wednesday, Dean climbed into that golden canoe that C teased him about and rowed over to the other side. Waiting for him would be his mother, brother and many others he cared about including a few dogs.    I feel very blessed to have shared one special last experience with him and his wife, Sarah.    Last spring in South Carolina we planned a trip. Dean decided that C and I needed to experience the North Shore in Minnesota. It was time that we went past Duluth to see the real beauty of northern Minnesota. We were going to spend a long weekend in Grand Marais. We found a place to stay