Margy came to town last week, joined by her son BJ and his buddy, Randy. The guys were here to see a band they love. Margy was here for Mom’s 81st birthday.
Instead of a free for all party that stuffed the house, Mom wanted a nice, quiet, grown up party. She requested dinner with her kids and in laws but no grand kids. A nice, intimate party for 20.
It turned out to be not quite that big. Jay and Kent couldn’t make it due to their work schedules and JP and Royana couldn’t make it due to living two thousand miles away.
Margy flew into town on Tuesday. The big party was Wednesday night. Before they even dropped their bags off, Margy and the boys wanted to stop at MJs house to meet Tater tot, who was born after their last visit to town. BJ is one of those young men who loves babies. He says he can’t see one without wanting to pick it up. You and me both, kid.
Like most humans, Tot was born with the ability to tell men from women and like most boys, he is drawn to males. He doesn’t know exactly what it is yet but he can already tell that they’re more like him than women are. He adored BJ.
I had been at the show Newsies the previous Saturday night and Sunday was Valentine’s Day. Jay and I celebrated by going to Mass downtown at the Basilica. It was gorgeous and our old friend, Fr. Mike said Mass. We had a nice little chat with him afterwards then went down to Hoyt’s for brunch. We’d gone to the late Mass so we missed the breakfast crowd. It was a smashing Valentine’s Day.
We don’t really celebrate fake Holidays around here. I consider Valentine’s Day a fake one. If you need the calendar to force your sweetie to buy you flowers, you’ve got problems.
Lincoln’s birthday is a bigger deal, if you ask me. That was last Friday.
I like to celebrate Lincoln’s on the 12 and Washington’s on the 22nd. None of this stupid President’s Day crap. Most of the presidents don’t deserve a day. I think its beyond stupid and actually disgraceful that we changed the Holiday from honoring the two men without whom there would be no United States of America and diluted it to celebrating every nonentity who ever got elected. It’s nonjudgmental bullshit!
I refuse to celebrate the likes of Wilson, Carter, Nixon or anyone named Bush.
My point is just that the last ten days were jam packed with events.
Whenever Margy comes to town, I set work aside so we can hang out and play. This brief trip was no different. The weather has continued it long mild streak so Margy, MJ and I took a long walk, pushing both Tot and Bean in strollers. We wound our way through our new favorite neighborhood, up and down some major hills to see our favorite houses and the view from the old watertower.
Mom’s birthday dinner was great. She bought two full beef tenderloins at her favorite butcher shop and we supplied the rest of the fixin’s. Since there were no kids along, we decided to dress up. Our versions of dressing up differ wildly. My brother Joe, who profited greatly from Uncle Bruce’s closet a year ago, wore a gorgeous suit with a cashmere jacket. I was paint free. Everyone looked pretty good!
I had brought along an envelope I found at Uncle Mickey’s house full of reprints of a story that ran in the local newspaper back in 1974 in which my Mom’s third brother, Uncle Pat, was a hero.
Mom’s brother Pat was a police officer who diffused a hostage situation, ending a stand off with no casualties. I gave each of my siblings a copy of the article.
This naturally spawned a long litany of Uncle Pat stories.
Pat was a big man with a grim countenance. At church, he was known simply as “that grumpy guy who always leaves early.” He never actually left early. He stood at the back of the church waiting for his younger brother, Mickey, who was an usher, to finish his work. But with his steady stride and his eyes fixed firmly on the door, never looking left or right, he looked like the biggest bad ass in town while he walked down that isle.
He was a cop for 40 years and never drew his weapon. Robbers holding hostages refused to talk to anyone but Pat, whom they knew by name. Even though the robbery was taking place in Richfield and so out of Pat’s jurisdiction, he showed up and brokered an end to the standoff. He was the biggest bad ass in more than just one town.
He also had a gorgeous smile, a talent for story telling, loved babies and collected fine, hand painted porcelain. He was an amateur magician and any kid in the neighborhood who found a penny (or rock) could ring his doorbell and watch as Pat magically transformed the penny (or rock. He was an equal opportunity magician) into a piece of bubblegum. He was my God Father and over the years gave me the coolest Christmas presents ever. In fact, I have four different cowboy statuettes that all came from him. The other day, snuggling with me in the recliner, Babalouie pointed at a figure of a confederate officer with blond hair showing beneath his Stetson.
“Grampa!” Babalouie yelled.
Yes, it does look remarkably like Babalouie’s cowboy grandpa.
From Pat stories it was a small step to Uncle Bruce stories and from there it was only natural to proceed to Kevin stories. My Mom has three brothers, all of whom were legendary in their fields but no one can touch our cousin Kevin. Long story short, I have a photo of Kevin with the Pope in my kitchen right now that was taken a few months back.
For dessert we had my Mom’s favorite: white cake with burnt almond frosting. It’s an acquired taste.
The next day, my sisters and sisters-in-law were my Dad’s lunch guests at his men’s club. To celebrate Valentine’s Day, they all brought their sweet hearts. Dad filled a table for ten. After a spectacular lunch, the chef (who looked like he was 17) came out and spoke about his education and experience with food. It was fascinating. All the ladies in attendance got long stemmed red roses to take home.
I went back to Mom’s later to hang out with Margy. After dinner, she and Mom and I unpacked the five boxes of Pat’s old collection that Mom had taken out of Mickey’s apartment. We spent several hours cleaning decades worth of smoke and dust off dozens of treasures big and small. Margy pulled out her IPad and we looked up as many of them as we could. A few items we were actually able to find exact replicas available on eBay but most we could only find similar things. Nothing was worth so much that we wanted to rush right out to the nearest antique dealer and cash in. I wasn’t surprised: Pat was never rich, he bought things he loved that he could afford.
It was really fun cleaning them up and revealing the true beauty of all those pieces that had been hidden in the murk of Micky’s apartment.
It’s a good thing he’s moving: it’s forced him to get rid of everything he doesn’t need, toss out decades of accumulated stuff, give away all the furniture he doesn’t use and clean everything he does use. It could very well turn out that he’s not really blind at all, he just couldn’t see through the dust in his apartment.
My Mom scrubbed off a pair of dingy old candlesticks. They glitter like the Waterford crystal they are, now. Her Mom brought them back from a trip to Ireland in the ‘70s. I’ll bet they hadn’t been cleaned since she died in ’85.
Friday, we made a field trip I’ve been meaning to take for years but never got around to it: W visited the Russian Museum on Diamond Lake road.
I’d heard nothing but raves about the place and its right here in our neighborhood. It’s insane that I hadn’t been there before.
The current show is Russia in WWI; two stories of photos, film and artifacts. Fascinating stuff. The Gift shop is packed with gorgeous things. Jewelry, scarves, hand carved boxes, prints, hand painted eggs of every size, color and description! I was very tempted by a print of a painting of a monastery. Everything in that gift shop spoke of a culture that was overflowing with whimsy, personality and an appreciation for nature, beauty and art.
Back in the early ‘90s, just a few years after the fall of the Iron Curtain, Jay hosted a team from the Ukraine at MCTC. In appreciation, the team gave him some little gifts. These included a booklet of postcards from their home; pictures of parks, boulevards, public buildings: the sort of thing you’d bring to a foreign country to show off your home town.
In such a situation, you’d want to bring the best of the best, wouldn’t you? For instance, I’d bring shots of Minnehaha Falls, Lake Harriet, the Sculpture Garden, the Rose Gardens, the Arboretum, the downtown skyline, etc.
What struck me about the photos in the booklet they gave us was how drab, unimaginative and downright ugly everything in it was.
Standing in the gift shop at the Russian Museum, I couldn’t help but contrast the wonderful things representing pre-revolutionary Russia with that stack of ugly photographs out of the USSR.
That’s what communism does to a nation.
As I wrote about Penny, the socialist from the show the House of Elliott, beauty and art are nonstarters to the true believers. To them, life is better when everyone is ground down to the common denominator of poverty. Better we all starve in equality than allow some to have more than others. In such a society there is no room for art, artists or anything that elevates the human soul. Its not a coincidence that communist nations outlaw the Church.
Then we went down to the basement to see the paintings there.
I nearly melted when I stepped off the elevator.
The exhibition was Olexa Bulavitzky, who had emigrated from the Ukraine to the US just after WWII. He spent the rest of his career painting here in the twin cities.
They are simply the most amazing things I’ve ever seen and I’ve seen Sergeants and Monets up close. None of the images online come close to doing the paintings justice.
Why have I never heard of Bulavitsky??
It’s even more amazing since he lived and worked right here in my neighborhood.
Best nine bucks I ever spent and I must get back while that exhibit is there.
Saturday, Ty, his kids and I went to see the Tommies last regular season game. Both kids thoroughly enjoyed it. Afterwards, they came to my house for dinner and I set up the over the door basketball hoop I bought for Babalouie. We hung it on a drawer in the kitchen so it was low enough for him to slam dunk on. He played for four hours.
Sunday, I finally got a little bit of work done. I had planned on working until Jay called me down for dinner but instead, we were invited out to Ty’s house for dinner. Megan had spent the day before acing her teacher’s certification tests and it was time to celebrate. So…out we headed.
At home, Babalouie showed me the hoop his dad had hung on his crib. He insisted I watch him play ball in his bedroom. In fact, Babydoll told me he was “Taylor”, his favorite player on coach’s team and we had to chant “Offence” and clap in time, just like we did at the game.
We did that until dinner was on the table.
It was the best day ever!
Monday was my last chance to actually get some work done. Then MJ called. I had promised her months ago that when she and Kent had a chance to see Star Wars, I’d babysit. They finally had a chance.
I worked till midafternoon, then went over and played with the kids while they went to the show. I was home by seven and I could have gone back to work but by then, the week was pretty much shot.
You can’t really play all week and make money. Sometimes you just have to take some time off.