Author: Tchad

And Here We Go Again

Tchad

So the Summer is almost officially over and I am back at the Workroom trying to make things happen.
I sat down last night and very loosely cobbled together a set of numbers that need to happen between now and the end of the Spring classes 2012.  It is A LOT, especially for what I do here. So I need to get on the ball and not just wait for my MacArthur genius grant to come through.

There won’t be any clothing made this year – at least not until the late Spring – I am thoroughly burnt out on making clothing for the time being and the idea of making a dress sends me into paroxysms of anxiety.  I am thinking of coming up with more designs and extending/developing the way they would be produced, but that is IT.

Instead I am going to try to develop the classes and other facets of the business.  This is going to include some instructional video work,  some language instruction, and more than a little high-end agricultural development in both Wisconsin and Indiana.
Today I have two girls coming up to work for a bit and then it is on to getting the Workroom up and running.  With Greg’s estate, the extended Summer vacation, and my general malaise since March… Well, the place could use some tending-to.

But I feel more put together than I have for a very long time.  It is funny how that works.

 

 

R.I.P. Homie, R.I.P.

Tchad

One of the dogs up at Getaway Farms died today.

Homer on a Stroll

Homer was one of those good old mixed breed 14 year old dogs that every farm needs.

This Summer Cyndi decided was going to be the “Summer of Homie”.  She didn’t put any restrictions on him and let him do his thing.  Luckily he went before the cold set in and the ground froze solid.  It sounds morbid, but you have to think about these kinds of things when you are in zone 4.

RIP Homer.

 

 

I Am… SUPERMAN!

Tchad

I have a Superpower.  I don’t talk about it much in the city because I don’t get to use it very much in town.

But it really is a Superpower.

I have no dermatological response to this:

Poison Oak

Nah-Nah-Na-Na-Nah

That, my friends, is Poison Oak and Poison Ivy. Plants I am not allergic to.  It may not seem like much to brag about, but when you are in the woods with people who are allergic to it (and most people are, I have found) you may as well be bullet-proof and trying to catch rounds coming from the end of a 357.  The reactions you get are the same.

So while anyone with me cowers and covers and runs from anything vaguely vine-y with three to five leaves, I am swinging from vines that would make them turn into oozing pustules of despair and regret.

Chiggers, on the other hand, are my kryptonite.

Too Bad Potato Soup Doesn’t Age As Well As Burgundy

Tchad

I was so hungry.

I am in Elliott, IN and wanted to go to our place in Spencer County.  It is right next to where Abraham Lincoln grew up and I have always felt a connection to it.  My Dad says it is because the Spencer County farm is where I was conceived.

In any case, I wanted to go up there and so got a ride.  It is about 45 minutes away on highway 162.  On the way, I bought a bag of ice and a bottle of Port.  One can’t have a nice evening at one’s country place without a nice Port, you know… I did not, however, buy any food because I know that my Dad and his friends hunt deer up there and there is always lots of canned goods.

So I get to the farm after a comedy of errors and realize I didn’t bring the right key.  No problem.  I took the door off the hinges by removing the pins.

Once I get inside I realize that no one has been here for at least 7 years.  SEVEN YEARS.

The inside is a mess of mouse nests and snakes have shed their skins in every tight crevice possible. Also: Raccoons.  Turns out I will have guests with my Port for my country evening.  No problem.

I start clearing away the fire-pit that had been overgrown by Sassafras trees and got my firewood together for the night.  I looked at the cupboard and saw two shelves of canned goods.  Cupboard

Jackpot.

I got a fire going and opened a can of potato soup.  As it plopped into the pan I thought it looked odd.  I chalked it up to the freeze-thaw cycles that have happened over the seasons, but then hesitated and thought it was a good idea that I should look at the expiration dates. Oh, my.  My potato soup had a best if used by date of 2002.

I was so hungry I thought about taking the chance – the nearest grocery or gas station is miles away. But then I thought better of it and started looking through the cans…

I didn’t get a chance to eat much tonight.  All of the food is expired by at least 6 years and the only thing viable in the past five is the coffee.  Instead, I cracked open the Port and went out into the treeline to gather a local wild green: Lambsquarter. I boiled it up and had a couple of cups of it. If you have never eaten it, let me tell you it is quite good – milder than spinach with just the slightest pecan-ish nutty flavor.

As soon as I ate my wild-man dinner I started making really bad decisions.

As it turns out, if you haven’t been on an abandoned farm that has two unmarked and overgrown cisterns, four dilapidated outbuildings, and enough wildlife to stock four counties in more than seven years, you should probably not go wandering around in the dark looking for big dead trees to knock down and burn after having had a little more than half a bottle of Port.  At the very least take a flashlight.

Also: Once you find the cistern that hasn’t been used in 40+ years, best practice is that you should 1. Not try to draw water when drunk and 2. Not drink or use said water before boiling.

Breaking all the rules!

(I am lucky I didn’t 1. fall in and 2. Get Typhoid.)

 

Bacchic Delights

Tchad

My brother and his 7th Adventist wife named their second child Bacchus.  Yes, you read that right.  The woman who doesn’t give her children medicine and believes that demons were haunting her named her son Bacchus.  Irony abounds at the Elliott estate.

In any case, you can’t name your son Bacchus and NOT have pictures of him picking grapes, now can you?  There would be something very not right about that.

And this makes me very happy:

Bobby and Bacchus picking grapes

My brother is the father of a GOD!

 

It Is Funny You Mention Demons…

Tchad

After the Fire Demon that got his poor dimensional portal burnt up happened, I thought I would be done with demons for this trip.

Nope.

I was riding with my brother and his wife today.  They had just picked me up from the coal cabin I was staying at and were taking me to Grandma Schlachter’s house to spend the rest of the afternoon before either of them had to go to work. We drove down Hwy 245 past the small house they used to live in on our way.
It is a neat little farmhouse with a garage, outbuildings, and barn.  It is a very sweet little setup.  I liked it.

But then Bobby (that’s my brother) said: “I am so glad we moved.  The old lady was getting to be too much for me.”  I pressed him a little and he told me that they thought the place was haunted.  He said something about being driven crazy by ghosts when my sister-in-law piped up and said “It wasn’t a ghost, it was a DEMON”

Now, let’s do a little setting-of-scene here.  It will help you understand what is going on as we drive through Santa Claus (yes, that is really a town), Indiana.

My sister-in-law wants desperatly to be a good 7th Day Adventist-slash-fundamentalist.  Nevermind the fact that she has a mouth like a sailor, married a muslim in her first marriage, a rabid atheist (that would be my brother) in her second, or can’t distinguish any particular version of the bible.  Forget that she has only the loosest grip on any theology whatsoever. She knows what she wants to be and grasps at straws blindly to get there.  It makes for some interesting (if uncomfortable) family dinners to say the least.

So I look at her and say “Demon?”. “Yeah, a Demon!  Amir (that is her son by her first marriage) said that it would blow in his ear!  And I felt it too!”

Now.  I grew up around a LOT of fundamentalists.  The world was always ending, the end was coming, the coming was at hand, the end is nigh, et-cetera, et-cetera, et-fucking-cetera.  I am used to this kind of talk.

As an adult, I have found that it doesn’t work to directly counter what the person is saying.  What you have to do is engage them without insulting them or discounting the ridiculous thing that JUST CAME OUT OF THEIR MOUTH.

Needless to say, it is a battle.

So she mentions that she both believes in demons and thinks one was haunting her at the place in Spencer county.

Another aside: This is the same sister-in-law who told me that she doesn’t believe in medicine or pharmacology because “You know where we get the word “phamacology” and “pharmacy” don’t you?  We get it from the Latin word for evil magic.* Why would you want to give your children evil magic?”  Did I mention that she is an RN and is going for her PA?  Yeah. That.

So knowing that she had a love of etymology and that it was important to her in making theological decisions,  I thought it would be a good time to say:

“You know where we get the word ‘demon’?  It comes from the Greek word ‘Dæmones!’ (‘ΔΑΙΜΟΝΕΣ’); which were not evil spirits, but rather neutral or positive spirits. In fact, Plato said that at Socrates’ trial he [Socrates] attributed his inspiration to his daemones.” {You, as a reader, can read more about Socrates’ trial here.}

She said: “Well, they must have been wrong or not know what they are talkin about!” She believes that the English language has been around “at least since the Romans”.

I said that it wasn’t until the Christian era we came to understand demons as malevolent or dark.  Well, she wasn’t having any of it.  She looked at me as if I had just said:  “Follow me to the dark side and let me rape your children while you eat the flesh of your mother. ” For. Serious.

And that was where demons in the real sense came into my sabbatical for a second time in as many weeks. Personal demons?  Well, that is a totally different story.  They are an everyday occurrence.

*We really don’t.  Here is the etymology for the word pharmacology/pharma derivatives.  They are Greek in origin. Considering it comes from the period after Christians destroyed nearly ALL of the world’s learning, well, I am surprised that we got this far <insert more rant here>.

And just for fun:

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=Algol

Um… That’s Weird…

Tchad

After we got done clearing out the old garden and hauling tires into Kiel, WI for disposal, we took all of our scrap dry wood and tree branches and made a nice burning pile.
I stacked it so that it wouldn’t get out of hand and because it was so close to the garage and house, we had two water sources to keep it down if things got too crazy.

So we finished up this HARD day of work with three pitchers of Sangria and a big-ass fire.  You really can’t do too much better than that.

THAT would be Cyndi saluting our work after our first glass of sangria!

So we drank a second pitcher and thought it seemed like a really, really good idea to start scavenging the barn and farm for more dry lumber that wasn’t firewood she would need this winter.  We found an old door in the second storey of the barn extension.  I was hesitant, but when I saw that it had been cut down a couple of times and wasn’t restorable, in it went… along with some old rotten 2x4s and more than a couple of split pieces of real firewood that we decided to sacrifice.

It is always neat to watch structural things burn – things that have panels and edges.  The fire consumes them at the weirdest points and in some of the thinner spots they burn from the middle out.  In the case of the door, it caught fire first where the panels join the frame.
We just watched it from there…

As we watched it burn down we decided to open a third bottle of wine and make a third pitcher of fortified sangria.  This too seemed like a good idea.

We began to drink it and talked about how we may be burning some kind of a portal door.

So then the party came to an end, as these things often do, by a little kick and over pitcher #3 goes…  So sad.  We thought (briefly) about pulling out the whiskey, but then decided that would be too much and got ready for bed after digging out and muting the fire a bit.  It had started to drizzle a little and we felt safe that everything was under control.

Fast forward to the next morning and I am uploading images from the camera to the Mac.  Everything is clipping along until I get this series:

And so there you go.  We shouldn’t have burnt the ghostly monster portal door.  THAT, my friends, is what too much sangria fortified with vodka will do.

 

 

I’ve… Been Working On The Railroad…

Tchad

Pretty soon the website for Rural Pursuits will be up and running, but in the meantime, I am helping my friend’s sister around her place.

Getaway farms is a great place that Greg’s sister runs by herself.  Try managing 15 acres, 7 horses, a huge barn and a track and see how far behind you get.

One of the jobs we tackled yesterday was getting old railroad ties up and out of the ground in a corner of the yard that used to be garden and grading it back into lawn.

Hauling Railroad Ties

There were 15 of these damn things!

Here is the thing:  When you tell me there is work to be done, I turn into a Real German®.  Not the happy lederhosen wearing beer drinking German that you see at the Bierstube, but a hardcore task master that stays on task and WILL complete the job.
We were laughing together as we dug out chinese elms and maple trees.  There was a little whining halfway through, but we powered through.  At one point, she was ready to give up and go eat.  I said: “Let’s finish this and then we can eat.  Let’s power through.  We get no comfort until the work is DONE!”  To which she replied: “OK! OK!  I know what happens to us Poles when we get under the thumb of a German!”

So the day went well – we worked in really humid windless conditions, changing clothes 2x because we couldn’t stay cool or dry, but we. got. it. done.

Needless to say, I don’t normally look like this after a day of work:

After pulling railroad ties for 7 hours.

Done.

 

 

Come To My Window

Tchad

Well, it is probably a good thing I am going back to Wisconsin and then down to Elliott, IN for a bit.

I have a cute neighbor across the alley behind the offices… I have noticed him before, he has lived there a couple of years, but he recently started talking to me across the alley from his window.  In his boxer shorts. Talking about horses and sailing.  POW.  Right in the jaw. Then tells me that “You know where to find me!  Just yell over!”

Now, I know as an adult when to let things be.  I know that mild flirtation is just that.  But when I start sitting in that window just on larks all of the sudden… well… Houston we have a problem.  The same problem a lot of smitten 12 year old girls have.

So we shall see what happens but I really need to put a lid on it.

Spartacus, Jesus, And The Lack of a Fourth Servile War

Tchad

I would like to read about this, so if this is your line of work and you want to steal this for a paper of some kind, please do.

I was thinking that there is some tie between Christianity and the lack of a fourth Servile War in Rome.

I don’t have any more for you than that, but you are welcome to it.

Thanks.

Gaul Reiten V. Riding Gauls

Tchad

As I was riding today, I remembered part of an old WWII era joke I heard one of the old men at the VFW tell.

I always understood the German for horse as Pferd.  I was doing something online and came across Gaul as an alternative.
And all of the sudden the half-remembered punchline of this forgotten joke made sense.  It had to do with riding a Gaul (Frenchie) as if she were a Gaul (horse).

And there you have it.  A joke I don’t really remember that I just figured out after a 20 year comic pause.

 

 

Reite Das Pferd /Nicht/ Das Pferd Wird Von Mir Geritten

Tchad

I rode again today for the first time in a while…

Here we go!

My horse was Kayla, a chestnut Quarter Horse with (what seemed like) an even disposition.  Even until we got out on the track, that is.  She was pulling me this way and that and then started cantering to the barn.

View to the North as I got dragged along the track.

View to the North as I got dragged along the track.

We eventually came to an understanding, but not before a couple of scares.  Once we began to understand each other, we really had a nice time.

Riding in the practice field.

Riding in the practice field.

Like Cyndi was saying: Horses just want a leader.  The herd mentality is strong and they need that direction.  If they don’t get it, they assume it for themselves.

Out of the Gate!

Out of the Gate!

So we rode for a while in the heat and it was really nice.

A lot of the time I will talk to myself in a kind of broken piginy German.  In this case, I kept repeating “Reite Das Pferd! Nichts Das Pferd Wird Von Mir Geritten!”  A real German would laugh at that, I think… They would rather see something like: “Gerittente Pferd” or something, but whatever.  I use the word Tagleuchter too, so what do you want?

I know what you want.  You want more pictures from Getaway Farms.

Well, here you go:

 

 

The Champagne of Beers Tastes Like Child Abuse to Me

Tchad

I think I made my Uncle Roger mad.

He is the beer expert in the family and I asked him what made Miller High Life beer taste so specific.  There is this kind of astringent peak-i-ness to it that I can taste and smell from a mile away.

My Uncle Gary (his brother) used to drink it all the time.  He was not a very nice person and was pretty hard on me and my brothers in the name of “manly fun”. This included being picked up by the ears, being thrown around, and any number of other fun things… all while surrounded by the distinct bouquet of MHL.

So I asked Uncle Roger what made the flavor so different so that when I am talking about Miller High Life beer I can say “oh, it is the yeasts” instead of “it tastes like child abuse”. In my mind, the smell of child abuse isn’t whiskey and cigarettes or leather or rope.  It isn’t duct tape or the basement closet with its mold and slightly damp air… it is MHL.

Roger said that it probably IS the yeasts.  He did not comment on the child abuse.

 

Just FYI For Your Next Trip To Wisconsin

Tchad

These people can DRINK.

I mean they DRINK.

For real.  I grew up with rabid teetotalers on one side and just as rabid alcoholics on the other* and have NEVER seen this much booze consumed.

So prep your liver before you come, cause they start early and run late.

*Why yes, extended family gatherings were very interesting, thank you.

Like being punched in the stomach…

Tchad

I wrote before that this kind of full-body grief is like being punched in the stomach.

You know what else is like being punched in the stomach?

Love.

The record producer and his wife across the hall from the workroom have a little girl, Elizabeth.

Baby wrangling

This was nice.

Wow.

Besides being just about the best baby EVER, I find myself being super protective of her.  She just turned one in April and has been walking and trying to talk for a while.  So I walk her around the neighborhood and help out when I can.

So she is starting to get into things here and there and today I helped Mary, her mother, clean a cut on her finger from a pair of scissors.  Elizabeth wasn’t happy about it, but she stood still while I talked to her and cleaned it out and put a bandage on it.  She still wasn’t thrilled, but stopped fussing and met my eye solidly the entire time.  When we were done and she smiled and started dancing.

My little heart just sang.

It is odd to feel so strongly about a child who isn’t yours, but there you go: It takes a village and all that…

Here is a pic of us when I was best man at her parents’ wedding:

Tchad and Elizabeth

Now this, THIS will brighten your day!

They came over and got me (I had been in pretty bad shape for a while – you can see my face and how beat up it was from all of the crying and emotional stress lately) and I was best man and head-baby-wrangler for the afternoon.

Wow.  You have to remember what makes your life really sing sometimes.

Snap. Snap. Snap.

Tchad

Hundreds of pictures.  Hundreds.

Not even 30% of the way through the tables of stuff from Greg’s and am getting tired.

I really want to get everything except the antique glassware, books, albums, and cds done tonight.

If I can get those listed, then I can list the rest of the things over the course of the next two days.

Aiming to have the whole workroom empty by 6 July.  A tall order, but I think it can work.

The nice thing about this much mindless focus is that it really takes you out of yourself.  It is the one thing I liked about a corporate job – you are called on just to do.  Format, template, rules, just do. Do. Do. Do.  So this kind of thing is not making me tear up like something that forces my creative side.

OK.  If you want to look at the mess I am in, check out my Ebay profile.

No crying today.  THAT, my friends, is a very good thing.

 

And Then There is This One Ray That Shines Down…

Tchad

And you bask in the cliché of it and realize…

Sometimes things are going along and then something happens out of the blue that completely changes your tone for a while.

It happened to me today.  I was re-hashing all of my (very) first-world worries with a student* who dropped by for a bit and then my email pings and I get this:

Hi there!

I LOVE everything I’m seeing about your life. If I were  in Chicago, I would be taking your classes! And I drool over the  culture you’ve created in your workroom.

I know the years in  between are overflowing with joys and sorrows that make us who we are  today. But I look at pics of your workroom and I am transported back to  that slow moving train from Italy, walking through tunnels of  hydrangeas, and a place and time where critical thinking and classic  theoretical exploration were encouraged. And I miss it.

I’m  starting my European job search because it’s time to get out of the  desert. My brain dries up a little more with every passing year.  THANK  YOU for keeping me focused! Please keep the blogs and pics coming.

Macht’s Gut!

Erin

I kept re-reading that first line again and again.

“I LOVE everything I see about your life…”

“I LOVE everything I see about your life…”

“I LOVE everything I see about your life…”

Let me copy that again…

“I LOVE everything I see about your life…”

Because really, I haven’t been loving my life.

In fact, there has been very little about it lately that gives me any joy at all.

Erin and I went to college together and then spent time in Switzerland at Franklin College in Lugano. We have lost touch (almost) completely over the years, but she saw the class blog I just revived and felt compelled to send that note. And what a difference it made in my day.

And that did it. I have been able to create this thing – with my own hands – and make it work. Sometimes it hasn’t been pretty, but there is something to this.

Something real. Something outside of our ridiculous consumerist culture. Something that makes a difference. Something that teaches people and makes them think!

AND I DID IT.

MYSELF**

And it was hard and I suffered and had setbacks and thought I would lose it and that it didn’t matter.*** But it does and was really good to hear.

* Who is turning out to be a friend – who knew?
** Not really, but it is a nice illusion when you are trying to pump yourself up.
*** To get the proper cadence of that sentence going through my mind you should really read it:

“AnditwashardandIsufferedandhadsetbacks
(and inhale)
andthoughtIwouldloseitandthatitdidn’tmatter.”

Up. Up. Up. Move.

Tchad

That is how I talk to myself in the morning.

Short and simple commands.  Like a German shepherd.

If I am tempted to linger in bed past 4 or 4:30: UP!

If I am tempted to dawdle and wait for the next bus: MOVE!

I get to the workroom this morning and force myself to open email: OPEN!

I’m functioning, but in the simplest way possible.

More Ebay today, then resurrecting the blogs, then a former student is coming by for a bit.

I can’t wait for September.  I have always wanted a Summer off.  I haven’t had one – ever – because I was always being forced to play baseball or I had a job.  I did not, however, want a Summer off under these circumstances.

Be careful what you wish for when the genie asks you what you want, I guess.

Have been video recording blog entries, but they are so dark and involve a lot of crying and fear.  Maybe I’ll post them once this all passes over.  Maybe.

MOVE.  OK, time to try to get stuff done.

A Little Taste of What’s to Come…

Tchad

As I emptied Greg’s apartment I was having to, for the first time in my life, say goodbye to someone with whom I have no romantic relationship and to whom I am not related.

Try explaining that to a client while you are falling apart and can’t do the work you need to do.  They have no reference point for it and end up thinking that you are just screwing with them.

In any case, as I was having to decide a week or two ago exactly what I was going to do with the things that were important to him.  I had promised him as he died that I would do things right and that I would try to make it all as right as I could.

When I said that to my mother she said “What the hell does that even MEAN?”.  She was right, of course.  Making things right is such a weird way of putting it.  For me it has more to do with a lot of post-death apology than it has to do with any Platonic sense of Rightness.

In any case, the piano.  I put the ad up and waited.  No one bit.  I wanted to see $300 out of it, but it wasn’t forthcoming…

Then out of the blue I get an email from a woman who wants it for her son.  He is three and his father is a composer.  There really was no better customer than that.

Greg had gotten the piano for his high school graduation and it just seemed right that his life-long passion should be passed down.

They came and picked up the piano and I was thrilled.  The little boy was SO EXCITED.  It was great.  They sent me a video of him playing, but he was so excited that his dad played while he just hit every key.
So before they got there, I was feeling a little maudlin like I have been since the 8th of March, and so I recorded a video of me playing the piano.  I am not very good.  I only remember a few things here and there from childhood.  But it will be nice to click on this link and see it on Youtube as long as they are around.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QMU3wd9FMM0

And here is the video that she sent me the day they came and picked it up:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muSQJv3nH00
The piano held its tune pretty well through the move.
Ok.  That is two posts in one day and I think I am done until tomorrow.

More Ebay fun awaits.

T