The Family *roll

We started this blog a little over two years ago, mainly as a way to stay in touch with friends and family as our lives went through simultaneous dramatic changes: the birth of Eleanor and our move to Northfield. The time has come to wrap up the blog. You might have noticed that posting is [...]

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Eleanor, Daniel and I marched with Carleton in the Twin Cities Gay Pride parade on Sunday. Eleanor had a blast waving to her throng of adoring fans. Dan and I enjoyed the view. Here are a couple of highlights. 1) I laughed: Great sign, no? 2) I cried: This little boy is wearing a shirt [...]

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I’ve just typed the following dreadful sentences while figuring out how to start this posting: “It’s been a touching summer so far….”, “I’ve been pretty touchy lately….” “Practice makes pervert!” and “I’m having a ball this summer!” (I think I might actually have more in me, but I’ll stop there). You see, this summer I [...]

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Finally, summer (leaving aside the fact that today it’s 60 degrees). With summer, comes summer activities: the pool, the pizza farm, the dunk tank. What’s that now? Oh yes, I agreed to sit in the dunk tank as part of senior week (as did Dan H.). By the time it was my turn, there weren’t [...]

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NPR is asking listeners to submit their “summer sound”. I know exactly what my summer sound is here in Northfield: the damned train. There are two sets of train tracks that run through town. I think the trains mostly ferry grain and materials to the Malt-O-Meal factory.  The tracks run through several non-gated crossings and have [...]

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This Internet has a long history of fruitfully and hilariously exploring the connections between drunk people and small children (take this, for example). I’ve read that living with a toddler is like living with a tiny, angry drunk. They’re irascible, unpredictable and they don’t think twice before throwing punches. There is no doubt that this [...]

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OK Spring is really here. I know this because I had to mow the lawn today. Halfway through the lawn mowing, I ran out of gas. My newfound, Minnesota-cultivated guilt from a half-mowed (and a very dandelion-y) lawn compelled me to dig out the push mower from the shed and I finished the rest of [...]

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The last post was a complete lie. Spring did not come, after all. Whatever progress we made in the garden was quickly halted by snow, sleet, snow, rain and temperatures that hovered around crap. This time last year we had tulips and lilacs and picnics. This year we have a whole lot of whining. But [...]

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Oh my word Spring is finally here. We (finally) have no snow. We now have grass and crocuses and daffodils abound. Dan and I are back at work in the garden and have high hopes for not disgracing our neighbors this year. Eleanor loves being outside and we had a great weekend doing yard work. [...]

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The Counterfactuals are in the studio! The studio just so happens to be the basement of our house. Even so, we have very high hopes for the recording: Jason really knows what he’s doing and early results are super promising. Hopefully we’ll be done before the summer is over, but things are going slowly, in [...]

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