“Remoted” – Workday 161 / Day 235 (Friday)

Earlier this week, six new bottles of wine arrived from the Firstleaf wine delivery club. It should have been 12, but I forgot to double the order as I had intended for the free shipping. Since June, the delivery date had been pushed out several times as my existing stock of wine is ever so slowly savored and  enjoyed, and I loosely follow Mummu’s drinking rules when I even bother to drink. Yes, just like Mom has puzzle rules, Mummu had drinking rules.

Mummu’s first rule was that there was no drinking on a night when there was work the next day, which eliminated Sunday through Thursday nights. Knowing she got up at 5:00 am Monday through Friday for decades of her life to work in a factory operating potentially dangerous equipment, the rule made sense. Sundays weren't totally off limits -- drinking was allowed until supper. She would kiddingly say she was a “weekend alcoholic” because she only drank on weekends.

Mummu's beer for years.

The second rule was that there was no drinking before noon. This rule resulted in many, many Saturday and Sunday mornings spent with Mummu where she sat in the wooden captain’s chair at her kitchen table, glaring at the clock on the wall as if the fire in her eyes could make if go faster. Each second that ticked by was met by her index finger flicking the pull tab on the beer can. Click, click, click. When the clock finally hit noon, and never a moment earlier, the can was popped open and the contents poured into a glass mug, which I now have. In the years in my custody, the set of beer mugs more often holds hot cocoa and coffee with a the occasional dash of whiskey. 

Mummu’s beer choices evolved over the years from Schaefer to Miller Lite. When I was very young, Mummu and I would sing the Schaefer theme song with great enthusiasm. I still know it. When I was older, Mummu gained infamy with my brother and his friends as she drank them all under the table. 

After she was diagnosed with breast cancer, Mummu's third drinking rule was enacted: no drinking. And just like that, she stopped. That is how she had quit smoking decades earlier. One day she decided to quit and then she was done. 

My current version of Mummu’s rules is a bit loose. Or maybe it’s variable. Drinking before noon is completely out of the question for me and drinking during daylight hours is avoided unless I can build in a nap. For whatever reason, daylight mixed with alcohol knocks me out, which, like all the best lessons,  was learned the hard and embarrassing way. Once upon a social life, Thursday night, or as I prefer to think of it, Friday Eve, was the preferred night out. 

College was a different story. There was no room for rules when Monday night featured two-for-one drinks at the Holiday Inn, disco night happened every Tuesday at Cathay Island, and the Wine Cellar was the place to be every night of  the week. The stamina was more robust then, as was the disdain for rules.

For now, during the pandemic times, it’s wine at home with Netflix and Prime and a computer and a cell phone and two dogs. Tonight also included the Lowell Humane Society Paws for Celebration virtual event. In addition to spoiling my own pups in person, I watched the live feed with tales of foster pets and successful adoptions and ate cheese with crackers and sipped wine. After that, it was the remainder of a show about Dolly Parton started the other night, followed by a Christmas themed romantic comedy to avoid the drama of the political news. Survival tactics for a modern world. 

“Remoted” – Workday 160 / Day 234 (Thursday)

The new after work hobby already feels like a part-time job. Tonight involved another three-hour research journey. Holy moley. Add one record to a family tree and then there are dozens and dozens of potential records matches. Okay, more accurately, after the ten children in the family and a couple spouses were added, and there were 210 new “hints.” Modern technology is amazing. And exhausting.

In six hours of research I have learned that practically everything I thought I knew about Mummu’s family was not quite right. For example, I thought my grandmother, the youngest of ten kids, was the only child born in America but it turns out that all of the children in the family were born here. She was truly the only one to finish high school and the brothers and sisters made it through eighth grade. 

Suomi, land of my
 Holy Grail of info.

Learning about the occupations of the past is interesting. On the census records, my great grandfather John had jobs including “Driver - Ice Crew” (1910); “Teamster – Coal Industry,” (1920); “Paper Maker – Paper Mill” (1930); and “Washer – Paper Mill” (1940). 

Two newspaper stories may involve my ancestor, but with more than one John Maki in the same city at the same time, it’s hard to know for sure. A newspaper story in July of 1943 has a John Maki of Falulah Paper falling during a power blackout and suffering a head injury. Another news story has a John Maki who was assaulted by three men on the same street where my John Maki lived, and brought to the police station for assistance by four other young men. I’m fairly certain my John Maki is not the one who was part of a murder investigation, who may be the same one who served time in Shirley Prison.

The Holy Grail is the missing key of how and into what port John Jaakko Maki and Wilhelmina Ollila arrived in the US from Finland in 1893, and every scrap of info from Finland. Right now, John and Minnie seem to have sprung into the world without benefit of parents. Sweden is listed on the country list in Ancestry, but not Finland. I wonder how many more Finnish lessons it will take before I can read documents in Finn, assuming I find any to read. Things to aspire to!

“Remoted” – Workday 159 / Day 233 (Wednesday)

When work-work ended at 5:00, more work began when I signed up and then fell down the rabbit hole of Ancestry.com. For three hours I was glued to the desk and chair and screen.

The genealogical mission is to research my grandmother Ruth's (Mummu!) family, starting with her mother. Through a brief subscription to Newspapers.com a while ago, there is a file of newspaper clippings of marriage, birth, and death announcements along with the assorted news items about hospital stays, crime reports, and property taxes. Through the marriage notice, I have a full description of the brown velvet suit my grandmother was married in, as well as the "yellow organza gown with matching picture hat" she wore as matron of honor in her friend Verna's wedding. On the Apple desktop computer I haven’t even turned on in about 18 months, there are various census records, and a file folder lives in a box in the abyss of the spare room with handwritten notes from even earlier research attempts.

None of this previous work prepared me for the magic that is Ancestry.com. The leaves with hints! Somehow, my great grandparents are already filed on three family trees. I recognized the names of two cousins of my Mom with trees, but the third tree, from someone in Kentucky with a completely unrecognizable name is a surprise/mystery.

Ruth Maki in high school, 
 long before becoming
Mummu.

With all the handwritten records, I have seen so many versions of the family name I no longer know what the real name is anymore. Mummu’s family name as we have always known it is Maki, but in the various years of handwritten census records, it has been listed at times as Makin, Mackey and Mackie. Great-grandma’s name was Wilhelmina, but she was known by Minnie, which is spelled in some records as Minnie, Mina, Miina, and once even as Muna. At least the home address and all the children’s names (in various misspellings) are constant in the records. 

Speaking of the children, the great-uncles had formal names and nicknames. Niilo was always referred to by family as “Nibby.” Depending upon the source, the formal name of the great-uncle we always knew as “Cully” is either Carl, Charles, Carlo, or Kalle.

Sources I found earlier show Minnie’s family name as Ollila, but I keep finding records for Ollikkala. I thought my great grandparents were married in Finland, but there is a marriage record in New Hampshire that may or may not be theirs. And My grandmother’s high school photo popped up. Such an adventure!

“Remoted” – Workday 158 / Day 232 (Tuesday)

It may have been a busy day out in the world, including a brief snow flurry at 9:00 am, and oh, Election Day, but within the walls of the BungaLowell, it was business as usual. Voting was done last week, so today, work was done, food was eaten, and the Canine Overlords were coddled. Two boxes were expected from Amazon today, and late in the morning, the first of the boxes landed with a gentle thud on the open deck.

Don't tell the dogs their 
snacks are just more food.

As I peeked out the window and wondered if it was the ramen or the dog food, there was confusion. The box was neither the usual plain packaging nor emblazoned with the Prime smiley arrow. The box on the deck was festooned with blue ink proclaiming WalMart. There was a momentary temptation to run outside in pursuit of the delivery truck to declare a mistake, because I almost never shop WalMart online or in person, and I definitely did not do so in the past few days. 

It’s a good thing I refrained from sprinting after the delivery driver. Even though the outside of the box said WalMart, the inside contained the bricks of creamy chicken flavor ramen ordered from Amazon. All 48 of them, and it turns out they occupy more space than calculated or imagined. Oops. Why Walmart is shipping orders through Amazon is a mystery for another day. I even checked the order listing in my Amazon account, where the "ships from" name is definitely not WalMart.

Later in the day the 14-pound bag of dog food crash landed in the enclosed front porch and set the dogs barking. With the freshly restocked ramen and kibble, the household will not starve, for a little while anyway. Because the dog food arrived, there was a case successfully argued against going to Family Dollar for dog biscuits. This task has been avoided for several days and the biscuit reserves are dwindling rapidly. 

This week's favorite snack for humans.

It’s already dark now when work ends, so when 5:00 finally arrived I just didn’t feel like going out, even with the self-promise of a box of Milk Duds or Raisinets to reward the half mile trip. The clever and successful workaround to delay the journey was to transfer some of the new dry food into the treats bucket. Don't tell the dogs that their treats are really just more of their food. It seems that as long as something comes out of the treat bucket and is given to the boys they are happy. For now, that something is more of the same food they already eat twice a day. But they also eat poop, so the level of refinement of their palates seems questionable, at best. As a testament to my own refined palate, the current favorite snack on my plate is Town House crackers with peanut butter and Fluff. 

“Remoted” – Workday 157 / Day 231 (Monday)

This morning rolled in on the back of night three of the new “no dogs on the people bed” mandate. The night had a rough start. Shortly after settling into bed, while I was still trying to conquer Candy Crush and had not put the light out yet, Winston began barking next to the bed where I lay. He wouldn’t stop. I told him “go lay down in your bed.” He didn’t. Then Moose chimed in with the barking to create a full-blown stereophonic duet. I asked him, “Out?” and he responded completely on brand with his bark that sounds exactly like “out, out.”

The dynamic duo. 

I grudgingly hauled myself out of the bed I had been in for mere minutes to let them out. It was an impressive and uncommon display of teamwork with Moose chiming in to help Winston. Usually they team up only when attempting to scam me for snacks. They stare at me with their gentle and beautiful eyes and if I am standing, they will gently herd me over to the snack bin. But Moose coming to Winston’s defense to get me to understand that the poor guy needed to go out was unprecedented. It was remarkable. And I instantly felt bad for ignoring Winston and then responding when Moose piped up. 

Once outside, Winston had a good long pee, which has been the case since about ten days before the diabetes diagnosis. This gave me plenty of time to reflect on what had just happened. I imagined that Winston felt the way I have felt in a group setting while trying to present an idea, and then someone else says the same thing and is lauded, heaped with glory, and credited with the great idea. The very same idea I said out loud not two seconds earlier and that they just echoed. That feeling stinks. And I had made Winston experience that.

After another night of many sleep interruptions, it was time to get up, and with the time change it was lighter out than last week. One of the early steps in preparing for each day is checking the weather. It is important to know how many layers to pile on. The temps for today, according to Google, were a high of 39 and a low of 31. The frigging 30s. Like in the dead of winter. The leaves on the nearby trees didn’t even finish turning colors but the big winds of today blew most of them off. We had a few inches of snow on Friday back when it was still October, and now there were more winter temperatures. Any time I checked the phone, there was an alert about snow, but it never really happened. I was dressed for it, though, with CuddleDuds base layers under my pants and cashmere sweater chosen for warmth. It turns out the home-office area is chilly, much like my cubicle at the office-office.

At least work was calm today. It was the kind of calm that felt unnerving after the frenetic pace of recent work days and I kept waiting for something bad to happen. The bad didn’t happen, so it was wasted nervous energy.

Jambalaya mixed
with mac and cheese.

To top off the calm day, supper was stupendous. For years I’ve harbored annoyance over the disappearance of boxed red beans and rice with cheese from grocery store shelves and online sources. The memory of it haunts me like a delicious ghost. The kit had rice and red beans with spices and a packet of powdered cheese like in the Kraft macaroni and cheese. It was by Zatarain’s and I used to buy it in Tennessee all the time until suddenly it couldn’t be found anymore. It just disappeared without a trace, leaving me wondering if I had imagined it. 

Tonight, I made the box of Zatarain’s jambalaya with Gardein meatless crumbles, and the box of Macaroni and cheese that has been in the pantry for ages. Then, I mixed some of the mac and cheese and the jambalaya in a bowl and it was really, really good. So good. It was worth the two dirty saucepans with lids and the sink full of dishes. And there are leftovers.

“Remoted” – Day 230 (Sunday)

Over in the stove time zone ...

It is Day One of the autumnal return to Standard Time with the clocks manipulated to “fall back” one hour. The farewell to Daylight Saving Time is met with the semi-annual mental gymnastics tournament where all time is temporarily noted as “new” and “old.” For example, upon arising this morning, the time on the automatically adjusted cell phone/camera/pocket computer was checked and revealed to be 6:50 am, which was mentally logged as “new 6:50, old 7:50” and also, "damn, the dogs slept late." This little game will run its course until routines and appetites are finally readjusted, then will be set aside until it is resurrected in the spring with the regularly scheduled return of Daylight Saving Time and the accompanying spring upheaval. 

While the cell phone magically adjusts its displayed time to the correct hour, the clocks are manually adjusted and resynchronized in the various household time zones. The battery operated wall clocks in the kitchen zone and bathroom zone and the digital stove and microwave clocks all needed adjusting and provided the morning’s entertainment. The thermostat in the dining room zone was dealt with, which requires pulling out the manual and referring to page 7 for the refresher on Honeywell engineering skills. Over in the driveway time zone, the car clock will remain incorrect until it is next driven, but at least the setting of that one was finally mastered, it just took from 2004 until 2014 to figure it out. Though it was still so early in the day that the coffee wasn't even made yet, the dread over the “new” earlier hour when darkness would fall was already seeping in like fog. 

Moose rests after a
successful protest over
the time of dinner. 

It seems it would be so much easier to just let the time be the time and stop dicking around with it twice a year. According to livescience.com, Benjamin Franklin came up with the Daylight Saving Time idea, and it took about a hundred years for it to officially begin. The timing of the time change has been shifted over the years, and in some years didn’t even happen, such as after World War I until World War II. There are some counties in the U.S. and around 60% of the the rest of the world that don’t even bother with this clock changing nonsense. Why not just do a one-time shift of 30 minutes to split the difference between Standard and Daylight Saving and then let it be? Or is this some American rebellion like our holding out against the metric system?

There is an argument (with slim evidence, according to livescience.com) that Daylight Saving Time conserves energy. Maybe in the lightbulb sense, but is it offset by the return to Standard Time? And the semi-annual punishment and mental drain on the population and the accompanying lost productivity don't seem like huge benefits. How many workers drag butt through the workday for a couple weeks while readjusting to the physical effects of the time change? I know I do. And the dogs? They don’t know nor do they care about clocks. They know routine, and at yesterday's old 5:00 pm, today's new 4:00 pm, the two of them were staring at me while Moose, the  Official Spokesdog of the Canine Overlords, was barking to protest the tardiness of dinner. Telling him “it’s not time” didn’t cut it and they were served victory bowls of food at old dinnertime, which is suddenly today's "too early" for dinnertime. What is this human concept of time, anyway? Isn't it just a means to control the masses and maintain order? 

Soup time!

At least my dinner was easy. The dreary weather made for a soup day, and a pot was on the stove, having been started at new 2:15/old 3:15 pm. It was a fun freezer raid that resulted in a hearty soup (maybe even a stew, what is the difference exactly?) of roasted squash, onions, carrots, celery, mixed frozen vegetables, a can of red kidney beans, the comical crop of itty bitty potatoes from the deck planter, and a packet of Lipton Onion and Mushroom soup mix plus the package recommended amount of water. After feeding the dogs at old 5:15, I ladled a bowl of soup for myself and buttered a piece of bread found in the freezer during the earlier treasure hunt for ingredients. It was soup time. 

“Remoted” – Day 229 (Saturday)

It was another exhausting overnight. After the multiple pee spots in the bed of the Thursday overnight shift and additional laundry duties of Friday, the dogs were, indeed banished from the queendom of my  bed. They were presented with their own beds for the night for possibly the first time in a decade. During the workday, the dog beds are in the kitchen, then after work, they sometimes move to the living room, but this is possibly the first time the beds were brought upstairs, and the boys were understandably confused. 

Pretty morning.

There was barking when I was settled under the freshly laundered bed linens and the pups were still on the floor. They eventually settled into their own beds, but unfortunately, the peaceful slumber did not last for very long. I was awakened by low level, polite growling from Winston around 1:00-ish. The adventures continued as the boys alternated the wake-up and potty activities at 3:15-ish and 4:30-ish in a brilliant display of coordinated teamwork. When Winston did the waking up, Moose remained in the bedroom until we returned, at which time he decided he wanted to go out, and vice versa. After the 4:30 potty break hijinks, there was finally a beautiful, blissful stretch of uninterrupted sleep until 7:30. They were probably as worn out as I was by the early morning puppy protest.

Winston had a visit scheduled with a veterinary technician for a blood test, so there was the pre-travel adventure of getting into the snow-covered vehicle to access the tools with which to clear the snow from the vehicle. As the snow fell on Friday, there was a sense of denial about the total accumulation, combined with the misguided notion that the Saturday morning sun would warm and melt the snow from the car before departure time. It seemed I had forgotten the lessons of the previous three winters that the early morning sun does not actually shine upon the driveway. By the time the sun rises high enough to clear the much taller house next door, it is closer to noon. 

Resting after a night
of protest and
morning blood test.

There was a thin coating of slick ice in parts of the driveway around the car, so the snow clearing operation involved clownish acrobatic balancing escapades and mild swearing. The dogs and their beds were loaded in the back seat and the ride to Fitchburg under a brilliant blue sky commenced. The trees along the roadways were still decked in colorful leaves topped with a coat of snow that was picturesque. The dogs lay in their beds and missed it all. They were probably recharging their batteries for another protest tonight. 

The results of Winston’s vet visit for blood work showed his sugar in the 400s, which is lower than last week’s 600s, but not quite the desired level in the 100s. The vet will call on Monday to discuss the new level for the daily insulin shot.

Once back home, it was lunch and Netflix. The dogs slumbered on the couch, and I eventually joined them in the napping, because naps are awesome. My battery needed recharging, too, after the night of scrambled sleep.