don sees the world: December 2012

I cannot believe I have been in Minnesota a week already! HOW could this be possible!? Can a surfeit of cards, games, and food – taken in the presence of friends and family, really constrict time so markedly as to make an entire week disappear that quickly!?

Boxing Day In Minnesota

Boxing Day

noun

(in Britain) the first weekday after Christmas, when Christmas gifts orboxes are given to employees, letter carriers, etc.

Origin:

1825–35

Disclaimer:

In the interest of complete clarity – I must admit that this post is being delayed until after Christmas so as not to spoil the surprise gift mentioned below. This was written on the morning of December 16, 2012 and is an accurate depiction of actual events.

Dictionary.com defines karma like this:

kar•ma [kahr-muh]

noun

1. Hinduism, Buddhism. action, seen as bringing upon oneself inevitable results, good or bad, either inthis life or in a reincarnation: in Hinduism one of the means of reaching Brahman. Compare bhakti ( def 1 ) , jnana.

Boxing Day

Tuesday, December 25, 2012

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas

Happy New Year!

Christmas Day

The gifts are all given; the mess has all been managed; and after all is said and done, what remains is the love the family has for each other to bask in. The glow from the heart out-warms the glow from the hearth.

Christmas Day

Monday, December 24, 2012

Christmas Eve

When we were children my siblings and I would eagerly await the arrival of Santa on Christmas Eve. As midnight neared Miami, the Bergquist children would eagerly await the mysterious multiplication of the mound of presents under the tree.

Christmas Eve

Happy birthday to my cousin Elizabeth

Happy birthday to my cousin Abigail

Sunday, December 23, 2012

The Vortex

I have yet to understand it; but this place, more than any other home I have ever spent significant time in, seem to emanate pure relaxation. There seems to be some vortex here that serves to suck the desire to do anything active out of one. Unless you bring work with you to do, it seems that the time of day has no meaning here.

A Lovely Day Draws On

Santa’s Elves must have come along between the time I wrote that and the time I finished getting ready to head into town. Nearly everything is back in its place. The wrappings have all been tidied into their box in the corner of the office; the table as been reclaimed by Flo’s sewing. My step-mom, last seen wrapping-up-a-storm is nowhere to be seen. I hear snores emanating from other rooms, it is as if the previous flurry of activity was all a dream.

Three-Days-And-Counting

It looks as if one of Santa’s elves exploded in here! There are bows, bags, and gift wrap all over my dad’s office.

For weeks my step-mom has been putting aside things for wrapping. Gifts for cousins, siblings, in-laws, and assorted friends are strewn all over the room in various stages of decoration. A few stocking-stuffers that I had sent here to be wrapped are set to one side; they were sheathed in brightly colored paper earlier today.

We have boxes of ornaments off to one side, we’ll be trimming the tree in the living room a little later-on and then we can pile all the tinsel-covered packages around the base; the apparent aftermath of a tragic sleigh accident.

The mess in this room will be clear, the present strewn, tree-festooned corner of the living room will be all lovely for a few days and then the mess that I am surveying here will be a pale presage of the chaos that will be all over the living room. But what fun we will have on Christmas morning, sharing time with each other, like red-and-green pirates surveying the booty that Old St. Nick has left for us.

It truly is a magical time of the year – even if, it at times looks a bit like elf-barf!

Wherever you are today, I home your holiday prep is… uh…

Don Bergquist – December 22, 2012 – Kensington, Minnesota, USA

Happy birthday to my cousin Rebecca

Friday, December 21, 2012

Busy Day (Part II)

Dad’s procedure went well! We are all relieved.

Busy Day

My folks were waiting when the shuttle arrived. I think I may have dropped off a couple times but I really got no significant sleep on the shuttle. We had a bite to eat and it occurred to me that the reason that I was so hungry was that other than a buttered and toasted roll in the Butt-Ugly morning before I had left for the airport, I had not had anything to eat all day. That Rueben was delicious!

Coffee ≠ Sleep

Once again I am led to the inescapable conclusion that I am no longer young. As if the creak in my bones that never used to be there, or the tendency to become upset with people doing patently stupid things – especially if they are young people – weren’t enough to tell me that I am no longer young, the fact that I am no longer impervious to pain and occasionally require sleep certainly clinches it.

Flying Coach

I am sitting on the plane in more layers than is absolutely necessary because all I three of the morning newscasts I watched this morning as I was getting ready to leave warned of the bitterly cold temperatures and suggested dressing in layers. Oh well, perhaps I will need these layers in Minnesota!

Departure

Well! THAT was fun!

It is a good thing that I was watching the news last night and was prepared for this morning. The weathercasts and traffic forecasts for this morning as well as the updates on two of the local channels, which I checked before I left, all called for it being a difficult time this morning.

Happy birthday to my friend Christine

Wednesday, December 19, 2012

Happy birthday to my cousin Christine

Tuesday, December 18, 2012

The Oakland, California school board passes a resolution officially declaring "Ebonics" a language or dialect.

Monday, December 17, 2012

Gun Rights

I was talking to a conservative friend of mine this weekend. This is a real right-wing "A Corporation Is A Person" Kool-Aid drinking republican. We were talking about last week's tragic events at the mall, at the school, at the mall again. There were three different incidents of gun violence and he was just sure that – as a bleeding-heart liberal – I would want to immediately ban all guns.