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 provoca...

   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...

      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.) ...

   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...

   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 w...

   A few months ago I met a nice older couple, Sister and Elder Phillips. They are service missionaries for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Thier job is to photograph records from the Minnesota Historical Society archives. One copy of the records goes to the LDS Church for those who want to use it for genealogical research. The other copy is given to the state for their archives.    I was talking to Sister Phillips about their work and she brought up indexing. Indexing is the process of transcribing records to a digital database to make searching for documents easier. I had mentioned that I had studied the German language for six years (four in high school and two years in college) She encouraged me to do indexing work. She explained that there are a lot of records and not a lot of people with foreign languages skills to index them.   This seemed like a good idea. I was looking for volunteer work to do now that ...

      I'm going to start doing some volunteer work for the church. Last weekend I had an interview to discuss this matter. During the interview, I was told that the Bishop had said some very nice things about me. In the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a man is Bishop ( similar to pastor or leader of a congregation of members) for a period of about 5 years or so. Our ward recently got a new Bishop. I asked, "Which Bishop?"  "Bishop Moore", was the reply.    I was a little confused. Bishop Moore doesn't know me very well.  We did have a few conversations in the past. He was asked to teach the adult Sunday school class. I was so pleased that when the ward was asked to raise our hands to sustain him, I wanted to raise both my hands. (I didn't.) He was an excellent teacher who had a way of making the Scriptures applicable to daily life. He was and still is a dynamic teacher. Still, I was just one member of a large class and one who did...

   The week before last I got an email. It informed me that I was going to be toastmaster for next week's meeting of the Small Town Toastmaster's club. What this means is that I am the person who leads the meeting for that week.   The person who sent it wanted to know if she should announce that we would need someone else to lead the meeting. Being toastmaster is a club role that I have successfully ducked for the last 15 or so years. Well, that's not quite true. I have been a co-toastmaster along with another person a couple of times. I thought about it for a minute. Then I answered her. I told her that I would lead the meeting.    This news came as a great surprise to just about everyone. I'm well known for my aversion to be ing the Toastmaster.    I decided it would be a themed meeting. The theme would be "facing your fears". Alternatively, members could talk about courage or overcoming adversity. I thought it was a good topic co...

   Except for the occasional washcloth, I am taking a hiatus from knitting. It's not that I don't like knitting. It's not that I am tired of it. In the process of cleaning and reorganizing, I have found some unfinished business.    Unfinished business for the purposes of this column refers to craft projects that I have started and have not finished.    I already knew that I had two needlepoint projects. I did start to work on one a few months ago. The challenge I was running into was being able to see what I was doing. Unless I'm working in bright sunlight, it is difficult to see where to put the stitches. I put the needlepoint away and went back to knitting.   Then I found two counted cross stitch projects that I had not finished. One is a wedding sampler. I think I was going to make it for us. The other is a picture of an angel. There was more. I also found three counted cross stitch kits complete with all the needed thread that I had not starte...

      Earlier this week, my friend Mickey, turned 50 years old. I have known her all my life. I know this because I have seen pictures of the two of us. I was in an infant seat and Mickey was sitting next to me. I cannot remember a time when I didn't know who she was.    After graduation, we parted ways. I went to North Dakota and she went to a small tech school a few hours away. We sometimes wrote to each other and if we were in town at the same time we would spend some time together.   Over the years our paths continued to diverge. Mickey got married to an abusive man with whom she had a child. That marriage quickly ended. She moved back to the town we grew up in. I saw her and her daughter whenever I was in town visiting my parents. Sometimes we would go out and do something. Sometimes we'd visit at her apartment and play with little Ellie.   Once her parents retired to South Dakota, she moved out there too. We wrote le...

   Last week I wrote about how I had been sexually assaulted when I was in junior high school. While I admit that the many women finally reporting their experiences did influence my decision to write about something only a very few knew about, I did not want to seem like I was jumping on a bandwagon. I wanted to write about how I once shielded someone who should have been reported despite the fact that I had once been a victim myself.   Today I want to write about how I dealt with my assault. I believe it's important. I feel like most of the focus is on the offender and punishment of the offender. There should be more on how to survive and make something good out of what happened.   I'm sure that many people will read this and marvel at the fact that I'm suggesting that anything positive can come out of a sexual assault. They might think that the only positive thing that could happen is an offender being put in pr...

   A few days ago I was cutting up a tomato. C was making an egg quesadilla for us and wanted to put tomatoes on it. While I was chopping the tomato, I remembered something. When I was a kid, I didn't like tomatoes. I would eat tomato sauce on a pizza or on pasta, but I would not eat a raw tomato. If I encountered a chunk of tomato in chili, I would pick it out.   I thought about other foods that I didn't like but now do. I also thought about things that I used to eat that I now wonder why I did.   One food I would never eat was fish. The only fish that I would eat would be a fish sandwich at either McDonald's or Hardees. I always ordered it with tartar sauce only as I didn't like the nasty orange cheese thing that they put in the sandwich. Now I like fish. It doesn't have to be fired in batter. It does have to have the head, bones and skin removed.  I don't want my dinner to stare at me.    C steamed brussel sprouts for me on...

   I was brushing my teeth a week or so ago. while I brushed I was watching a scroll of trending news on my Ipad.  A couple of the news items mentioned a certain movie producer who was sexually harassing women for many years.  I stopped one of the stories to read the entire article. It was an article about a director who worked with the producer. He had known about the misdeeds of this man for many years. He had heard first-hand accounts of the some of what this producer did to women he came in contact with. At the time, the director did nothing. The article talked about how he regretted his inaction and had pledged to donate money to a women's organization to make up for it.   I was instantly furious. Why did he speak out now? It was a little too late. Why couldn't he have spoken up a little sooner when it actually could have done some good and maybe spared a few women from having to become victims.    Unfortunately, I know both sid...

   A week before we left on vacation, C and I found a box of clothes. They were sweaters and sweatshirts that I knew I had, but could never find them. Some of the sweaters were ones that I liked to wear while we are in Door County. They look good and pack well. The weather reports all said it was going to be warmer than normal. I only brought one sweater.    The day before we left I packed my suitcase as I usually do.  My suitcase was loaded. I had to put a couple of things into C's large suitcase. We loaded the suitcase in the back of the car along with the rest of the things we were going to take with us and left.    When we got to the B&B we unloaded our suitcases and settled in. Later that night I went to get something out of the front pocket of my suitcase. The pocket seemed a little full. I reached in to see what was in there. I pulled out a hoodie that I hadn't seen in a very long time. I was glad to see it. It's a cute hoodie white wit...

   We are on our usual pilgrimage to Door County. This trip is a little different. The bed and breakfast that we usually stay at was sold this past spring. That means that the innkeeper that we've come to know for the last 13 trips was no longer going to be here.   We had known that the innkeeper was going to sell. He had told us his plans a couple years before. (We had become good friends over the years.) We hoped that whoever bought the inn would continue to run it as a bed and breakfast. As sad as it was to know that we would no longer get to see our friend the innkeeper, we were happy that the bed and breakfast was going to remain in business.   We wondered what changes the new owners were going to make to the inn. We saw the first change on the inn's Facebook page. They were changing the breakfast. We were both happy about that. No more muffins and stewed fruit. No more cold cereal and grapes. The new owners were going to serve things like pancakes and eggs....

   One of the presents that C gave me for Christmas last year was a swift. It isn't something that moves fast. (Well, maybe it can...) It doesn't sing country music. It can't fly. What it can do is make my life a little easier.    What he gave me is a yarn swift. A yarn swift is a device used by knitters and those who crochet. It holds a hank of yarn and allows the hank to be wound into a ball. I have no idea how old swifts are. Wikipedia says that there are some from the 18th and 19th that are valuable antiques.   Most good quality yarn comes in a hank. A hank, according to Wikipedia, is a coiled or twisted unit of yarn. When you untwist a hank it looks like a giant circle. It is impossible to use the yarn when it is like this. It has to be wound into a ball.   In order to wind the ball, you need something to hold the hank. Otherwise, it gets twisted and tangled. You can recruit someone to hold the hank, but that requires another person to take t...

   I've been wracking my brain all day trying to think of something to write about. I have several topics to choose from. I could write about how much I like my new spell/grammar check program. I'm sure it's saved me from several spelling and grammatical errors. I could write about our upcoming trip to Door County. The problem is that none of them are really enough for a full column. I decided that when I have days like this I am going to write a RAT column. RAT stands for random assorted things.  Today you'll see what I mean.    I am discovering one of the benefits of my new workplace. I worked yesterday and can honestly say that I had a good time. I did half of the monthly Class II controlled substance count. I dealt with several insurance problems for customers. (I love that our software has all the information I need in one spot. Makes it much easier when I have to make those calls.) I helped the tech put away the store order. I vacuume...

   "How's the job search going?" "Have you found a job yet?" "Have you found something full-time yet?"      I'm not quite sure how to answer these questions. Part of the problem is that I'm not actively looking. While I do have a part-time job at a place where I am very happy, I am keeping an eye out in case I find another part-time job in a good place.     I'm afraid what people will say or think if I tell them this. I wonder if  I'll be branded as lazy, not ambitious or being too picky. I'm worried that if I'm not seen to be looking really hard for something full time that people might think less of me.    When I left my job I assessed the job market and realized something. The full-time jobs were in corporate pharmacies. They were jobs in companies that have reputations for burning out their employees and them dumping them. I really don't want to be a part of that. I wanted to work for a place that was smaller...

   In about five hours the Semiannual General Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints will begin. Church members from all over the world will gather in the Conference Center in Salt Lake City, chapels,houses and sometimes outdoors. They will tune into the conference on televisions, radios, the internet and from satellite feeds coming from the Conference Center. The Conference will be translated into 93 different languages.    At General Conference, Church leaders give talks (could also be called speeches or sermons) on a variety of topics. According to speakers at the Conference, these topics are not assigned. Those asked to speak at the conference fast, pray and seek spiritual guidance from our Heavenly Father on what topic they should choose. The result is a variety of topics at least one of which applies personally.   This is the first time in nearly five years that I am able to watch the Conference. I have been looking forward to it...

   When I was dating my exboyfriend, he loved to watch the TV show, South Park. It is an adult cartoon show. I once read that the goal of the creators of the show is to offend as many people as possible. The characters are a group of children. In addition to being offensive they use bad language and at the end of every episode one of them, Kenny, gets killed.   My exboyfriend recorded every episode on his VCR. One time when he was visiting me, he brought over a tape for us to watch. I watched it in complete disgust. I was even more disgusted when Kenny died at the end. What sick person thinks that a child dying, even in a cartoon, is funny? I took the tape out of my VCR and told him that while he was perfectly free to watch this garbage in his own home, he will not be watching it in mine.   He didn't understand. It was such a funny show. The writing was genius. How could I possibly not like it? He continued to record episodes. When the show came out as...

   The ongoing project of cleaning the storeroom continues. I'm taking a break from sorting through books to go through the boxes of papers that have sat on selves for ten years. I have come to a couple of conclusions which I would like to share with you. They are in no particular order.   I wrote a lot of letters over the years. When did I have time to do this? Most of these letters were written when I first got out of college. My first job was in southern Minnesota at Snyders. It was a busy pharmacy and I worked a lot of hours. It was not uncommon for me to finish my shift, go home, call a local restaurant and order an appetizer platter. I would drive back to work stopping by the restaurant to pick up my food. Then I would work for a couple more hours and eat my meal at work. On the weekends, I would drive back to my parent's house. My grandfather was living with them and I would help them out by taking care of him. After 3 years I tran...

   We are in the process of tackling the mess in the storeroom. I use the word process because it is very clear to us that this is not a weekend project. It's going to take much longer than that to go through every thing and decide what to keep, what can be donated, what should be thrown away and what can be recycled.  Doing things like this is more complicated now. It used to be that you got a big dumpster and everything you didn't want went in it. Now that I'm older and environmentally conscious, I have to sort things.    Most of the stuff is mine accumulated through years of living in one place, then moving and not having time to sort things out before moving. What happens is that everything gets moved. As a result I'm finding things I didn't know I had. I'm not quite sure what to do with this stuff.   I have notebooks from when I was in high school. Yes, high school. That was 30 years ago. I have no idea why I have those notebooks. That d...

   I have a rule when it comes to plays, movies and TV shows. I will not watch anything where someone dies in the end. There are a few exceptions to this rule. If I watch something about  Abraham Lincoln or John F. Kennedy, I know there will be a death at the end. That's all right. It's history. I don't have a problem with the bad guy getting killed off in the end, although I feel a twinge of guilt because people who do bad things are not always bad people.   It would probably be more accurate to say that I don't like it when I watch a TV show or a movie, get to really like a character and then that character is ruthlessly killed off. That's not fair.   I first encountered this dislike many years ago when I watched to movie 'Beaches'. At the end of the movie one of the main characters dies at a fairly young age from a heart condition. I was all right when I left the theatre. A few hours later I was sitting with my head down on my desk sobbing uncontrolla...

   C and I got rid of our cable TV two months ago. We decided that it simply wasn't worth it to spend the amount of money we were spending on something we weren't using. In addition there simply wasn't much to watch. We got an antenna. I didn't even know they made those for TVs anymore. Then we got a digital box because our TV predates the digital signal switch.   The funny part is that there are a lot more channels than there were before. One of them has old TV shows on. One of them shows movies. There is also a channel that shows police shows and Star Trek. The Star trek episodes are on in the evening. The first show is Next Generation. ( That's the one where Picard is the captain.) After that is Deep Space Nine.   I did watch a little Star Trek  when I was younger. I was acting pharmacy manager for the first time and was looking for a role model. Fortunately Star Trek Voyager was on TV. That is the one with Captain Janeway, who is the first female captai...