Sophie's Story

C has discovered a comedy channel on Pandora radio. We have been listening to Bob Newhart, Steve Martin, one routine from Andy Griffith,Jonathan Winters, Bill Cosby and a few other older comedy skits. Most of them were new to me and are pretty funny. There was one thing very noticeable about all these comedians. (besides the fact that they are all male) None of them used bad language,sexual humour,scatological humour,ethnic humour or were mean. Somehow these men managed to be funny. Is it just me, or has that become a lost art? A long time ago I knew a guy that was really into "South Park". He would tape all the shows and watch them as well. I had to know when it was on so I would know not to call him while he was watching. He loaned me an episode because he was certain that I would enjoy it. It was called "The Hunting Episode". I know that deer and other forest critters need natural predators to keep their numbers at a good level. Still,I dislike hunting. Hunters d...

I used to watch football with my Dad on Sunday afternoons. On winter days in Minnesota there really wasn't much else to do. This was in the days before cable, though it wouldn't matter since there was only one TV in the house anyway. I did enjoy those afternoons, but I wasn't really a fan. It was something to watch if I didn't have a good book to read. I didn't start paying attention to football until after I got out of college. I knew that I would be working mostly with male pharmacists. I felt that it would be a good idea to have a working knowledge of some major sport so that I could start a conversation with a colleague if needed. The two sports I'd watched a lot of were football and hockey. I like hockey a lot,but prefer to watch club hockey. That left football. When visiting my parents I would watch games with my Dad and he would explain things as best he could. He had never played the game but he'd watched it for many years. I learned the basics from ...

It all started with a sore throat on Thursday. I assumed that it was sore because I hadn't been drinking enough water. I kept my water bottle near me at work and drank out of it as much as I could. By about six in the evening it was becoming obvious that my throat wasn't dry. It was sore and getting sorer. (Is that even a word?) That isn't usually a good sign. It looked like I had probably caught whatever bug is going around now. Fortunately I had the weekend off. I would rather be sick at home that at work. That was the good news. The bad news was that we had several things planned for that weekend. I wasn't going to be able to just stay home and be sick. Friday I had planned to have lunch with my Dad and then we were going to meet Sarah and Dean in the afternoon. We had tickets for the Minnesota Renaissance Festival on Saturday. We had planned to attend the Feast of Fantasy. All of these things had been planned in advance and I really couldn't get out of them, esp...

My big sister, Sarah and her husband, Dean, were making their yearly trip to the Boundary Waters this past week. The term, "big sister" is something of an affectionate joke as Sarah is about five feet tall. I always feel like I tower over her. She's not my sister in the sense that we were born into the same family. However she is one of those friends who has become close enough that it simply doesn't matter. She is my sister, period. They live in North Carolina not too far away from the Blue Ridge Mountains. I'm told that is the most beautiful part of the country to live in. Once a year or so they travel back to Minnesota with one or more of their pack of dogs to visit Dean's family. We always try to spend at least part of a day together. We'd been texting back and forth and wondering if we would be able to see each other this year. Finally a date, time and place were found. Yesterday afternoon, C and I got into the car and went to Red Wing to meet them. I...

Is there ever a time when some representatives are not busy and can take your call right away? I don't know about you, but every time I've ever tried to call any large organization (insurance company,credit card company,catalog,medical clinic) I'm always put on hold. Even when someone does answer the phone right away they ask me to hold. Why bother to ask? I'm going to be put on hold regardless of my answer. Just say "Hold Please" and do what you are going to do anyway. While you are hold, if you are lucky, you are treated to "hold music". I've become quite a connoisseur of hold music. I don't mind most of it. There is one place I call that has what I'm sure it considers soothing piano hold music. I don't find it soothing, because it is the same two minutes of sound repeated over and over again. I would rather have that then listening to ads for the place that is keeping me on hold. If my business is so important to you then why won...

   "Does the dulcimer have a name?" asked C.       "No," I answered, "There's really no need. We only have one."    Actually, that isn't quite true. I've called the dulcimer 'Masterwork' before after the company that made her. Most of the time I just say dulcimer. I have two harps, Eve and Margaret. We also have four guitars. They are Alvarez,Gibson, and two Yamahas. (We had a Epiphone, but gave that to Carmen.) The two Yamahas are differentiated by owner. One is Carrie's and the other belongs to C.    It never really occurred to me to give the dulcimer a "proper" name.    "How about Dulsey?" C said. I scrunched up my nose. Dulsey the dulcimer sounded like a bad children's book. Then he suggested Dulcimaya. That was worse.    The word 'dulcimer' comes from the Latin "dulcis" (sweet) and the Greek word for song "melos". Personally, I think that it a perfectly good name....

I didn't take my cup of tea into the living room like I said I was going to do at the end of the last column. I was curious. I always write a column on my birthday and I wanted to see what I wrote about last year. I went into the archives and found 'Taking Sun on the Terrace' (I think that was what it was called). It was written by Scamp who was talking about how we were all sitting out on the deck enjoying the sunshine. He also mentioned that he prevented Colby from giving me a squirrel as a birthday present. I enjoyed reading it. I looked at the archives and saw some other things with titles that sounded interesting. I began to read going from July to June to May. This is really good stuff, I thought. Really good. Then I froze. Wait a minute! What am I saying?! Even worse, what am I thinking?!!! I live in the north for crying out loud! I was raised Lutheran! Northern women from Lutheran backgrounds are NOT supposed to admire anything they do or make. Ever. You can...