Election Week

Well that didn't go to plan. Less said, the better.

I filled my mind with work, and a visit to The Club Of My People, where I ate meatballs during a presentation about Norwegian Black Metal. One young man blurted out "My uncle was in that band but he wasn't good enough at singing or explosives," which was pretty funny. I sat next to a woman who showed us photos of her son mowing the grass on the ship burial mound in the backyard of their family property in Norway. A lot of us were people of a certain age coming full circle at this point in life. I met the secretary of the club who had been there ten years ago and felt too young for the scene. He now fits in. His sister dated someone in the Black Metal scene. I ate vegetarian meatballs and one of the best creme caramel of my life. The person who gave the presentation brought his own akvavit. We sang skol a lot. It's kinda like "the wave". You don't know who starts it or why, but once it's happening you have to go with it.

And here we are. New on the horizon is an examination of whether ADHD might frame some of my life's more special / least favorite moments. I don't think that this thought of would be surprising to the people who know me well. More on this as it develops. In the meantime, it's time to go grocery shopping and prepare for sumo tonight. Maybe I'll make some clam dip in celebration.

UPDATE: I looked up the ship burial. The site is recently being re-excavated. I thought the unusual name of the ship sounded familiar and realized that my 3rd ggfather had lived there on that farm in the 1860s.

Kinda cool.

Kenau Simonsdochter Hasselaer

Readers of mrsguy are aware of how much I like an auction. Shopping makes me happy, and by reviewing material at auction you learn about so much weird historical stuff that you wouldn't know about otherwise.

If you're me.

Today I got an email from Dorotheum. It's an auction house in Vienna. We stayed a few blocks from it in 2014, and were able to visit on a day when they had all of the items in an amazing auction of household items (furniture, lighting, hat stands, you name it) all laid out like dozens of rooms in a museum exhibition. And now I'm on their mailing list. I especially enjoy looking at their Old Masters auctions.

Today there was a good and small auction. One painting in particular was super compelling. I love paintings that also contain writing. Anyhoo, here you go:

Witness Kenau Simonsdochter Hasselaer. She was a wood merchant in the Netherlands who became a folk hero for helping defend the city of Haarlem against the Spanish. Hard to tell but the guy represented on the left (wearing a Spanish helmet) may have left his body elsewhere. Like it might just be a head. 

I hope you enjoy it as much as I do. If someone hadn't already bid 5000 USD I might have been tempted. For more reading on Kenau, here is the Wikipedia article.

Pineapples

I kinda have a thing for pineapples. Mostly ever since we came home from family vacation with a pineapple and I forgot it in the beer fridge for two weeks and then opened the fridge and smelled the heavenly aroma. Best pineapple of my life.

I always thought they were a real pain. I don't know where I got this notion. They are no more difficult to prepare than a cabbage. I even got lucky at the thrift store and got an Oxo pineapple corer, not really thinking about the fact that I wasn't in the habit of buying pineapples in the first place. Or that they were expensive, and we were broke and that I routinely chanted "Put the mango dollar in Fred (our Fred Flintstone bank)!!" when mrguy would buy a mango. Who was *I* to chant when I was spending dollars myself on pineapples and pineapple tools?

We're in our pineapple years, now. I will buy and eat the occasional pineapple. 

Adding to my pineapple interest, five or so years ago I was watching an episode of "Who Do You Think You Are (UK)?" when a subject, on air announcer of the Chelsea Flower Show, was told about an ancestor of hers who grew pineapples in a greenhouse in England. This was during the Georgian era, and the ancestor would *rent* pineapples to people for use on fancy occasions. Fascinating! I didn't spend a lot of time thinking about them as an ornament in architecture,  furniture and decorative items, but once you see it you can't unsee it. A really great article about the glory days of pineapple can be found here.

My further interest in the pineapple comes from, of course, a genealogical connection. I have been trying to trace my ancestry back one generation further than my 5th great grandmother, whose last name was Touchy/Touchi/Touche. The only person I can find who is even a possible candidate is a guy named Ferdinand Christian Touchy. He was a farmer and author, and even descendants who lived in the early 1900s weren't able to figure out who he was or where he came from. He wrote under dozens of pseudonyms, which really doesn't help very much, but made him a little more fascinating. One of his books, written in 1801, purports to instruct ordinary people how they can raise fancy fruits and veg in a portable greenhouse (I think), even in winter (I also think). His pseudonyms boil down to variations on these names:

Anton, Karl Friedrich

Baer, C. F. 1736-1808

Blotz, J.F. 1736-1808

Claß, D. F. 1736-1808

Dietrich, Christian Heinrich 1736-1808

Düchänie 1736-1808

G., C. B. M., 1736-1808

Gaschütz, G. 1736-1808

Gaudich, C.F. 1736-1808

Goetz, Johann Friedrich 1736-1808

Meißner, C. H. 1736-1808

Tiessen, Christian 1736-1808

Touchy, F. C. (Ferdinand Christian)

W., C. F. 1736-1808

So when I see a pineapple, I often think of this family mystery. Nobody in my family cares about this, and that's ok. I can't really move the needle on what my family cares about. I think it's fascinating, but the thing about genealogy is that if you are into it, it lets everybody else think that they don't need to know about it because we're all going to live forever and you can just ask. Right?

Anyhoo, two days ago I saw a pickup truck full of pineapples on the way to work. A gigantic pile of loose pineapples in an old truck. Nothing to protect them. All of them bearing a hang tag saying "SWEET" in bold red type. I snapped this photo at a stoplight. Instead of turning right, in the direction of a famous tiki restaurant and bar, it turned away from the bay and into the hills.

I have so many questions.

Limpics 2016

It's time for the Limpics again, and crotchety mrsguy is not feeling it.

I can only think of pestilence, pollution, and how the billions of dollars they spent on the spectacle would have been better spent on the people of Rio. I predict that by the time the Limpics are over, that place is going to be like a Superfund site.

When I was little, the Limpics were on a high, from a PR perspective. It seemed the purest and best expression of athletics. I could not *wait* to see my favorite sports. I was super into track and field, which is hard to believe now, since I am such an advocate and practitioner of sloth.

Anyway, after reading up on the 1936 Limpics earlier this year I did a deep dive into the life of Avery Brundage. For a good old slimy time, read his Wikipedia entry. Given his ties to our fair city, I am extra horrified by his thoughts and deeds.

I will be loving the empty aisles of the grocery store this next few weeks.