The Colors of Autumn

Grumpy's Castle; On a Rainy, Windy Monday --

Grumpy took special note of the beauty of the leaves turning red and yellow and orange and purplish-brown and ...

All this surged up in his artistic heart and inspired the following "poor man's poetry":

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2883923/Autumn%20Colors.docx

Your comments are enthusiastically welcomed. Grr-rr!!

Oh, What Trouble a Senile -- er, Senior Citizen Wroughteth!

Grumpy's Castle; Last Days of October 2010 --

As some of the more knowledgeable members of the Clan are already aware, the Grumpy One really got himself in deep "doo-doo" with his desk-top computer this past couple of weeks. It all started with the irresistible temptation to Upgrade his desktop to Windows 7 operating system. Let me start at the beginning of the process.

First, after carefully reading the instructions (ha! ha! you all thought I would skip them, didn't you!?), and purchasing and installing a brand new half-Terabyte SATA hard-drive, Grumpy gently placed the legal MS CD in the DVD drive and pushed "GO", intending that the upgrade would be installed on the new drive.

Somewhere, I apparently missed the clue that the upgrade was being installed on the same drive as the EOM Windows XP operating system. The first time this was noticed was when I rebooted the computer, expecting to start enjoying the exciting, new Windows 7 operating system. To my surprise, I was greeted with a choice of two operating systems. Fine; either one worked just great at this point.

Next, I proceeded to MOVE (not COPY!) several of my most prized folders of data from the IDE drive to the SATA drive. At some point, not being content with my new OS installed on the same IDE drive as my XP OS, I then decided to reinstall the Windows 7 operating system onto the SATA drive. [At this point, Grumpy neglected to heed the warning label on the Windows 7 upgrade package about SAVEing all your data on a different drive before installing Windows 7. Alas, when all was said and one, my most prized folders were no where to be seen!!

What is even worse, suddenly Grumpy found that he couldn't even access the IDE drive!! An UNERASE program was downloaded (onto the SATA drive), but not being able to "see" the IDE drive rendered the unerase program useless. After much council with Number One Son, gnashing of teeth and sweating  blood over Grumpy's carelessness, the #1 Son suggested a data recovery outfit who might be able to salvage Grumpy's self-made disaster.

After a detailed communication with the data recovery person via telephone, Grumpy shipped off his deaf, blind and dumb hard-drive to this outfit for their diagnosis, investigation of what (if any) data was recoverable, and an estimate as to how much said recovery would cost. I await their e-mail some time this week.

Stay tuned for follow-on -- "smoke" and tears, or cheers of joy!!

Gosh a'Mighty, Grandma turns Eighty!!

Best Chinese Restaurant; 18 October 2010 --

The years have rolled by and the Grand Mother and Grumpy have grown older [and wiser?]. The Grand Mother's 80th birthday happened this day; Grumpy, wanting for it to be extra special, invited all members of the family who live in the State. They were the only ones who could practically come to the site of the celebration: the Best Chinese Restaurant this side of San Francisco -- or Boston.

And it was to be a surprise! In this, Grumpy was completely successful. You see, the reservations were made for six o'clock and everyone was told that it was to be a surprise. Grumpy waited until late Monday afternoon when he casually invited the Grand Mother for a date to eat out. [Leaving home to go to  the restaurant at six o'clock!] Fortunately, she accepted!! [Grumpy had no "plan B", in case she had refused the invitation. Talk about taking one's wife for granted!]

As Grumpy entered the restaurant, he was greeted by the usual question of "just two?", to which Grumpy lied, "Yes, just two." The matre d' offered a table close to the front, convenient for Grandma, who was wielding a cane. Grumpy ignored the offer, of course, as he spotted the invited crowd at the far end of the dining area. As soon as we were spotted, they began to sing, "Happy Birthday to you ... " and Grandma looked like the proverbial "deer in the headlights".

After gorging ourselves on a wide variety of Chinese dishes, a birthday cake, baked by the oldest Granddaughter, was revealed complete with ice cream spirited in by the oldest daughter. Two large candles ["8" and "0"] on the cake showed the true age of this Matriarch of our family. [Were we actually responsible for this great group!?]

Eight Great Grandchildren (evenly divided between girls and boys) and four Grandchildren were counted, making for a lively -- even joyously raucous at times! -- time for all. [Anyone notice that the dining area had cleared out sometime before we left?]

To Monya goes the credit for all photos included in this POST. As is becoming more usual these days, Grumpy forgot to bring his camera to record this historic milestone.

Thanks Monya! And thanks to everybody who came and to those who, not being able to come, nevertheless sent their greetings to the Great, Grand Mother. Our oldest, living in Florida, called the Grand Mother shortly after we had come in and sat down.

Pure Gold ... Sun Gold Tomatoes, that is!!

Grumpy's Castle; 7 October 2010 --

I have been alternatively boasting and bemoaning my Upside Down Tomatoes for about four months now. Some readers may have tired of this incessant braggadocio and/or crying in my beer*. But a recent inspection of the one tomato plant that has really "put out" this season begs for one more showing of something worth talking about. At least for Grumpy.

Grumpy planted four different varieties of tomatoes: Fantastic (Grandma's favorite), Hybrid Beefsteak (good when raised by Carpinito's), Early Girl (should be a winner, right?), and Sun Gold (the one last year did pretty well). Today's POST is all about the little (fruit size, not plant size) "cherry" tomato called Sun Gold.

In an earlier preview of the promises of this little gem, Grumpy pictured a blossoming branch with 26 yellow flowers. Well, Grumpy might have exaggerated a bit because here is that same branch, cut from the main vine just this day. The empty stems are ones that Grumpy plucked in previous days as they ripened on the vine. The reader can count 13 fruit (or empty stems) on one side and 12 on the other.

The Sun Gold is definitely one that Grumpy will plant next year -- maybe two or three plants instead of just one! I would also recommend it to anyone considering their own grow it-yourself tomato.

Six Cousins Meet in Central Illinois

Central Illinois; 1 October 2010 --

One of the things that happen when family relatives congregate to remember a fallen member, is that there is a meeting of a group of relatives who too-seldom see each other in happier times. Such meetings, while motivated by a sad event, give a breath of happiness to the occassion. Such was the scene when these six individuals got together in Central Illinois:

Left to right: Paul, Jeff, Kay, Kathy, Carl, Jim

This group represent cousins from three branches of the Zimmerman ancestory (Hazel, Donagene and Ward) who were present. It would have been even more memorable if the two ancestors who were present (Hazel and Ward) could have also been in the picture. Unfortunately, Hazel suffered a temporary health problem and so could not stand for the picture; this fact dis-motivated Ward from being the only "old" person in the picture.

Other memorable people, whose photos would be deserving of showing, include the members of the family who invited a bunch of us in for supper the first full day we were there, and who offered sleeping quarters for several of us. Their hospitality will be long remembered, and any opportunity to reciprocate will be anticipated.

Fred Schwink [1962-2010] -- Husband, Father, Nephew, Friend

Central Illinois; 29 September to 1 October, 2010 --

Sad news came to Grumpy's family, that Frederick Ward Schwink had passed away at the young age of 48. He is survived by his wife, two daughters and one son, all of whom live in Central Illinois. Our condolences and prayers of comfort go out to this young family.

Grumpy booked his flight to Chicago via Southwest Airlines without coordinating with the Kayaker Son, who booked his flight with United; both flights were scheduled to arrive Chicago at noon or a little after. All would have been well with this independence except that United flew into Chicago O'Hare and Southwest flew into Chicago Midway. Kayaker rented a car and found his way from O'Hare down to Midway where he had to wait half and hour or so for Grumpy to arrive.

Grumpy had lent Kayaker his Marine/Auto Garmin GPS for use in navigating the devious (and sometimes dangerous!) streets of Chicago. After picking up Grumpy at Midway, Kayaker allowed Grumpy to manage the pesky GPS -- which Grumpy promptly decided to ignore her plaintive pleadings to "turn right, turn right, turn right" -- all for the purpose of making a U-turn to get us going in the right direction for the shortest/fastest route to Champaign, our interim destination.



A "Tailgate Lunch" in a Chicago Suburb



Fortunately, Grumpy's misguided attempts to navigate a "better route" resulted in our coming upon a grocery store where a variety of edibles (well, most of it was edible!) were purchased for an immediate lunch and then bedtime snacks later on. We got some apples, some grape juice, some breakfast cereal, some rice cakes (hereinafter referred to as "Styrofoam"!) and some peanut butter. The last item was intended to be used in an attempt to make the Styrofoam "edible".

Rice Cake, with peanut butter

Putting peanut butter on a rice cake results in a "food" which chews exactly like one would expect of a clean piece of pure Styrofoam, and tastes exactly like one would expect of a table-knife full of peanut butter. With some trepidations concerning whether the Styrofoam would lurk in our digestive systems for a few decades -- Grumpy had read that Styrofoam bio-degrades ve-er-ry slowly! -- we each consumed a couple of these peanut butter-laced "treats". In fact, this item of our diet fulfilled one very useful function: we now felt full!

We arrived in Champaign about 5 p.m. and, after finding one of the three Indian cuisine restaurants, had a delicious dinner of some kind of chicken and a spinach dish with Roti paan.

Hickory Tree bark



Wednesday morning, we went for a short walk in a park, listening to crickets chirping, birds singing and scolding; squirrels complaining and freight trains hooting. A large, old hickory tree was fascinating, in that its loose, deeply-striated bark is very different from any trees we see out here on the Wet Coast.

 

Hickory Leaves and Nut (in husk)

The hickory nuts from this giant old tree are formed in a pithy husk which splits open to reveal the quarter-sized, three-corner shaped hickory nut inside (click on photo to right and note nut in partially-opened husk just left of center). Grumpy remembers breaking open a hickory nut when he was about 6-8 years old; the hickory nut was sent to us by our Grandfather in Illinois. Hickory nuts yield very little nut-meat with a great deal of effort; Grumpy would advise the readers not to waste their efforts.




A Blue Wild Flower

 

Grumpy spotted this brilliant blue flower, growing in amongst some tall weeds near the creek. Its brilliance contrasted with the sad purpose for which we were here: to memorialize my Nephew, and Jim's Cousin, Fred. This afternoon was spent in relative solitude, sharing sad and happy memories among Fred's family and relatives. Fred left a priceless legacy of pursuit of knowledge of the Germanic languages, which he tirelessly shared with graduate students at the University of Illinois. But he also left a legacy in the little family he loved and headed.

Interspersed with the grief was the pleasure we had in meeting many of Fred's friends and neighbors, not the least of which was the family who invited many of us to stay in their home, and who prepared a fine meal for us. The friendly hospitality and the meal, we especially enjoyed -- an incomparable relief from the previous day's lunch of "Styrofoam".