The Curtis Clan - Fall 2011

Fall Equinox to Winter Solstice

Last Thanksgiving, Uncle Don gave Randy his canoe that he had languishing at his brother in laws house for awhile. It is 1982 Coleman 17 footer green RAM-X canoe (polyethylene) that was in great shape. Despite visions of spring or summer floats, we didn’t actually get it wet until the first weekend of the fall. Part of the wait was addressing the lack of roof rack on top of our 1995 Suzuki Sidekick to schlep it. The $300 Thule rack system seemed like a good idea but with $1000 in repairs to get it to pass inspection (new exhaust and reattaching the driver’s window lift), was a bit of a hit for a car worth $2500 according to Kelly Blue Book. For the maiden voyage with the Curti, Randy and the girls took it up to Creve Coeur Lake and paddle around a bit on Sunday afternoon. The girl’s thought we should give it a name like the Curtis Cruiser but Randy is kind of leaning towards William Harry Harrison because in comparison to a kayak, it is an “Ole Tippecanoe”.

Jane and Cate Paddling at Creve Couer Lake

2011-09-25 Paddling Creve Couer Lake.jpg

Maramec Springs Camping

As is our ritual, the first weekend of October, we made our annual pilgrimage to Maramec Springs to go camping, taking the girls out of school early on Friday. The roughing it started with getting lunch at Subway and McDonald’s in St. James and munching on the XL fries on the for the rest of the trip down the valley. We set up the tent and proceeded to do a lot of nothing the rest of the day. The others that joined us included the main fulcrum of the trip Uncle Charlie and JoAnne, our Columbia friends the Holmes, Bob, Elisabeth, Bill, Carol, the Rollos and a few of Charlie’s Alton neighbors Pat, Steve, Mary Lou.

Curti at Maramec Springs

Jane and Cate in the tent

2011-09-30 Maramec Springs Tent Jane and Cate.jpg

On Saturday Randy and the girls took our canoe on a float from our camp site down to Scott’s Ford. The river was even lower that the previous year so there was some bottom scrapping and Randy got out a couple of times to just drag the boat to deeper water. There were some snags to challenge us in the narrows, but we stayed dry and upright the whole trip but did help some other who got swamped for a bit of excitement and lesson about not panicking. After a while we had run through most of the songs the girls know, so we started making up additional lyrics for the enjoyment(?) of our fellow travelers. In particular was the oft repeated gem that Randy quickly regretted penning:

Scooby-Dooby-Doo, Where Are You?
You pooped in our canoe now.
Scooby-Dooby-Doo, Shame on You.
We got a pooped canoe now

Jane and Randy float the Maramec River

2011-10-01 Maramec River float Jane and Randy.jpg

Bethany and Elisabeth skipped the river and explored and had lunch in Steelville.

Cate, Bethany and Jane enjoying the fire

As before, each night the group communed around the campfires for the annual meeting of the Beneficent and Pyroific Order of Hollow Logs (BPOHL). It will be hard to top the double fork excitement of the 2011 Saturday log. The BPOHL remains dedicated to putting hollow trees to good use in creating terrific camp fires. Tossing in a year’s supply of soda and beer boxes was fabulous fun too.

Beneficent and Pyroific Order of Hollow Logs (BPOHL)

On Sunday morning, the kids went “fishing” having acquired a $2 day tag that was shared amongst 4 girls as they took turns pulling a hunk of algae or grass. There was next to no chance of actually catching anything as we weren’t using any bait but then again I don’t think we wanted to deal with the implications of hurting a fish much less eating one.

October

The weekends of October were sprinkled with many moments of delight. While watching the Shaw cousins, we made an impromptu visit to Laumeier Sculpture Park in Sunset Hills with the kids enjoying the thrills of interacting with the sculptures such as the cat mosaic (Ricardo Cat), the 12 foot eyeball or playing chase and a screaming game of their own immediate invention through the maze of primary colored panels (House of the Minotaur and yes I had to look up the names). We weren’t there long but it was the sort of moment of joy with children that lingers in one’s mind long afterwards that more than makes up for the too frequent petty dramas of living with grade-school girls.

Cousins at Lauriemier Park

For a couple hours on World Food Day 2011, we helped out at the Danforth Center by packaging dried food for shipment to Africa. The engineer in me knows that it would have been cheaper and more efficient to do it with automatic machinery but there is much to be said for getting people to interact with it themselves. It was also gratifying to see the girls immediately seek to do their tasks in the assembling line as quickly and as well as possible, including weighing each package and getting it to within 300 grams +/-1 within a very short period of time. They definitely did as well as many of the adults and were more focused than the teenagers putting in hours to meet high school service requirements and burnish their college applications (and flirt with the other teens).

World Food Day at Danforth Center

(everyone looking good in their hair nets)

Fall Sports

Jane returned to the YMCA Kicksters for a third season. This time her team was all girls, as the Y divides them into single-sex league at the 3rd grade. The lack of boys did seem to let the girls flourish and Jane clearly made progress over the season. Their team, the Electric Cobras, was undefeated playing against 3rd and 4th graders. The success of the team encouraged many of the parents to sign the girls up for indoor soccer at the Vetta sports Soccerdome within easy walking distance of us for a late fall session (not that we walked in the dark with bed time becconing). Cate joined that group (having earlier decided to forego another season of Y soccer, opting to try gymnastics instead at St. Louis Gym Centre in Webster. She has really enjoyed it and appeared to relish having something that Jane wasn’t part of or doing as well. Not that she’s complained of tagging along with Jane but it really pleases her when she is able to do things better than her older sister like climbing trees, rocks, or playground equipment.

Jane moves it down field

Gymnist Cate

Jane and Cate helping Nana celebrate her 73rd Birthday

Innsbrook

We made our annual pilgrimage to the Hammonds place at Innsbrook for an autumnal wine and garlic celebration. As usual the fall foliage was terrific and the kids had a wonderful time trying out the different boats (paddle, kayak, and canoe) in the safety of the placid lake. This year some of the girls went on an hour-long horse trail ride, which they enjoyed.

Jane and Cate prepare to ride

Jane on Onyx

Cate on Scotty

Cardinals Win 11th World Series (aka “11 in ’11!”)

The baseball history books will long recall the Cardinals improbable entry into the postseason after being 10 ½ games back on in a likely bid for the National League Wild Card at the end of August, to go on a win the World Series. It is a story even Hollywood/Broadway would couch with the explanation that the protagonist sold his soul to achieve it in Damn Yankees (which also brings to mind the grocery store worker turned 1999 Rams Super Bowl winning quarterback Kurt Warner. How else do you explain that except but with a Faustian deal?). The roller coaster of Game 6 with the Cards being one strike away from elimination in two separate innings and coming back to win was amazing. David Freeze realizing every child’s fantasy of playing for the hometown team, and leading them to winning the championship and gaining the MVP, which he did for the World Series and the National League playoffs (will he ever have to buy a drink in this town again?!). We can’ claim to be the biggest Cardinals fans but did enjoy the World Series games. Of the two of us Bethany is the bigger fan as for a couple seasons in college she got to go to 2-3 games a week when they were in town, as she and her friends were always open to taking her dad’s company’s extra tickets at the last minute. Randy ranks a bit lower (maybe the Cardinals 849,237th biggest fan), but through some friends never-the-less got a real treat as he got to be a parade volunteer/crowd control lackey for the Cardinals Victory parade on Sunday the 30th. He worked the block in front of the Peabody (Kiel) Opera House. It was an undeserved honor to be a dozen or so feet from the players and staff as they drove by. It was terrific to be amongst everyone in such grand spirit and camaraderie. He also got a florescent yellow wind breaker that will be perfect for wearing in the dark on the walk to Metrolink in the early morning hours.

Randy as Parade marshall lackey

Halloween

After watching episodes of the old TV show the Addams Family on Netflix under their father’s guise of cultural awareness, we watched the two films made three decades later as well. Christina Ricci’s scene stealing portrayal of Wednesday Addams inspired Jane’s Halloween costume choice of that character. Cate went with the classic witch, sprucing it up with a purple wig and green makeup (she really does look good green if you compare this Halloween picture with last year’s Shrek Forever After (4) premier). She used Jane’s joke from last year:
What is a witch’s favorite subject in school? Spelling.
Jane went with a dead pan one in keeping with her character and one of her dad’s favorites: What do you a call a boomerang that doesn’t come back? A stick.

Jane as Wednesday Adams	Witchy Woman Cate

We’re not sure what a costume choice says about a person’s personality but it’s always interesting. Particularly with the talkative Jane who loves bright colors, silly jokes and cheerful things selecting the dark and brooding girl of few words with an embrace of the macabre and has a pet spider Homer. Perhaps it has something to do with a character we have little in common but secretly would like to be more like. Which ironically segues to the picture of the girls dressing up as their name sake saints for the PSR class before Halloween in honor of attend an All Saint’s Mass, as they are hardly saints…

Saints Jane and Catherine

Caribbean Cruise - “So good, So good”

On 11/11/11 or the 93rd Armistice Day or simply Veteran’s Day, Bethany and Randy left for an 8-day Caribbean Cruise from Fort Lauderdale to celebrate our 10th Wedding Anniversary which was in September. We waited a month for a more convenient time, which kind of made it as much of a 12th Anniversary of our 1st date in December. Sure we were looking forward to a week in the tropics as the leaves had essentially fallen except for a few stubborn hold outs among the oaks. Still it was perhaps more important to us to have a week planned together with no work, no phone, no email, no internet and no children. In short no responsibilities of our real world. The itinerary didn’t matter much and Randy took pride in remaining oblivious as to where the shore destinations were prior to leaving. Once we planned on going, Bethany’s folks (Amy and Alvan), her brother Van and his fiancée Gwen, and Gwen’s mom Ginny decided to join us too. We’re convinced the deciding factor in Ginny going was to make sure her only daughter didn’t elope on the boat or on an island without her! It was our second cruise, the first being in January 2006 when Amy and Alvan treated all their kids and spouses on a similar trip and a boat that was essentially a twin of the other.

Although the boat, the Crown Princess, left at 4pm on Saturday, we left St. Louis the day before to alleviate any stress about getting there on board before it set sail. Besides, it gave us a good excuse to visit the Bass Pro Shop within walking distance of our hotel on Friday night. We boarded the ship around 2pm and like most others made our way to the buffet line for a late lunch. The platters encouraged taking more than we needed but for the most part we weren’t overly gluttonous for the week. While the buffet food was fine with a good variety, its luster dwindled a bit each visit. The formal dinners were another matter as the food and service was fabulous with abundant gourmet choices for the four courses. Dinning with people we knew and loved was also very pleasant and a plus for the others coming with us on our anniversary trip. While it might sound anti-social, we had little desire for making evening small talk with the Metzlers from Milwaukee, the Taylors from Tulsa, or the Whos from Hooterville. It’s hard enough keeping up with all the friends we’ve already got without adding to the mix.

Bon Voyage!

Our first day out, we arrived at the Princess Cays, a few thousand feet of beach owned by the Princess cruise line at the end of much larger island in the Bahamas. There were no shore excursions as such but one could have rented a catamaran, flippers and the like if you were so inclined but we weren’t. We waded in the ocean for a bit but spent most of the day lounging in the sun (Bethany) or shade (Randy), reading or napping. In fact reading was the main past-time on our voyage, particularly on the “at sea” days. Randy knocked out several books (The Help, Unbroken, The Hunger Games, Catching Fire, and finishing off the evolutionary psychology tomb The Blank Slate) in the shade of a deck chair on the Promenade deck. Bethany hung out on the sun decks with the others, reading Poisonwood Bible, London Holiday, and a large stack of magazines that had been lingering.

Randy reading as the world goes by

After dinner, we entertained ourselves by going to the song and dance revue shows, watching recent-run Movies under the Stars (Captain America, Larry Crowne), hearing a comedian, playing games with the others (Scategories, Farkel) or just talking with the others. While chatting in one the bars, the piano player introduced himself before starting his set, leading off with Neil Diamond’s Sweet Caroline. This brought up Van’s tale of going to see Neil in concert and with him ending the show with a rousing and long-extended rendition of Sweet Caroline. Van thoroughly enjoyed it, until the point that Neil said that it felt “so good” singing that, he wanted to do it again and proceeded to do it all over again, inciting Van to speculate about too much of a good thing. No sooner had Van finished his tale, with the dozen or two other bar patrons shouting “So good So good” to the chorus, than our piano entertainer finished the song, and announced that that felt “so good”, that he was going to sing it again. This left Randy no longer speculating about too much of a good thing, and deciding if he never heard the song again it would be OK by him. Latter in the week, we heard a Brooklyn comic with dated material do a version with new “clever” words, which pleased most of the audience joining in for “So good So good”. The week ended with the Princess Passengers Choir (including our own Alvan) doing a selection of songs, ending with…do I even need to say it? Of course when they were done, it felt “so good”, that they sang it again for their encore. Two is the new one when it comes to that song. In case you need to have additional reasons to dislike Sweet Caroline, here is another: in 2007, Diamond revealed the inspiration was President John F. Kennedy's daughter, Caroline Kennedy, who was eleven years old at the time. How creepy is that?

Going cold turkey of the instant information of the internet, proved a bit trying in regards to settling questions of cultural trivia. We had to wait until we got back home to find the answers to such questions as:

How deep is the ocean? (average depth ~14,000 feet with the deepest part, the Challenger Deep ~36,200 feet deep)

When did the song Twilight Time come out and by whom? (The Platters had the big hit in 1958)

Who wrote Proud Mary and was there any Detroit connection (John Fogarty and no)

Which of Stevie Wonder’s hits did he write by being inspired by the birth of his child: For Once in My Life, "You are the Sunshine of My Life" or "Isn't She Lovely?" (only the last one)

Is Monrovia the capital city of anything (yes, Liberia).

It would have also been nice to read up on the A-B-C islands of Dutch Antilles as we visited them (yes, yes they were on the itinerary but that didn’t matter in advance of the trip). The Princess cruise line flyer left off the significance about the Venezuelan oil and the refineries being placed on the Dutch controlled island of Aruba and Curaçao. They also left off that prostitution is legal on Curaçao nor did they offer a shore excursion to large open-air brothel called "Le Mirage". No, we weren’t interested in partaking but it is certainly with noting, if nothing else to show our moral disdain for human trafficking of the sex trade.

Bethany by moonlight

On the third day out, we landed on Curaçao. One of the Princess sponsored shore excursion options was a tour of the Curaçao Liqueur distillery and a local art gallery. This sounded pretty good, and Van, Gwen and Ginny decided join us. The bus left the docks at Willemstad and we got a mini-tour of the island en route to the “art gallery.”We drove by a Burger King advertising an “Angry Whopper” and an aloe farm that seemed to consist of only a few acres (another shore excursion option). The art gallery turned out to be a single artist studio devoted to making “Chi Chi” figurines, a full bodied very buxom black woman with colorful outfits. According to the tour guide, ChiChi is the term for the 1st born daughter / eldest sister / second mother as it applies to Curaçao women. The figurines were fun but pricey. The molded paper machete ChiChis came in a variety of sizes with the two inch size running $16 US. It seemed a bit of a scam for free-spending cruise ship tourists who were going through shopping withdrawal. The inauthentic feeling rose after seeing the red-headed Dutch Jewish artist who makes them. We WERE really impressed with the bus driver backing into the drive way along the very narrow, steep road coming within in a couple inches of the wall without a scratch on the nice air conditioned bus. The distillery tour portion was also much less than expected. The “tour” took place in a 25 by 40 foot room, where they showed us a serious of old bottles, a hand-painted 3-by-6 foot schematic of how they take the peels of an orange-like fruit and distill it into liquor (think junior high science fair), a tasting table of the various flavors and then a purchase bar to buy the product (no actual machinery or “distillery” processing equipment in view). It took 15 minutes with most of it devoted to tasting shots of the various flavors of the orange-ish liquor, which didn’t taste all that great. We skipped buying any but Van bought a couple rounds of the local favorite Venezuelan “Polar” beers instead (Bethany really liked drinking them AND saying “Polar”). We did have fun at the silliness of it all. Afterwards we followed the tour guide’s suggestion and visited the swimming pool at the local Renaissance hotel which was a mock beach attached to an infinity pool on the 2nd floor that looked fantastic. Wandering around the shops off the docks was a bit painful for Randy as he saw that instead of preserving their old coastal defense fort as a park, they turned it into a strip mall of touristy shops and restaurants. Then again, we didn’t see a hunger for higher levels of culture being sought by our fellow cruise passengers as a much as a desire to consume via eating and shopping. Then again, perhaps the preservation and glorification of a country’s military past is misguided. Something to ponder.

The next day, we landed at Oranjestad, Aruba but didn’t plan or purchase any shore excursions figuring there would be features of interest within walking distance. This turned out to be a mistake, as all the nearby stuff was related to shopping at either high end retail shops or T-shirt etc. shops and stands. We bought some souvenirs for the girls and some champagne at a local grocery store to smuggle back on board, but it was rather empty and we regretted not setting out to do more of an island experience. We did get an incredible deal of $3 beautiful embroidered cardigan sweaters for the girls and buying them in different colors at a stand right outside the gangway, which was unexpected figuring these would have the worst prices.

At Dinner

On the at sea days, there were several “limited time only shopping” opportunities held in one of the dining rooms. Surprisingly it packed in the crowds whose hungered for the advertised bargains of 50-75% off. These included $10 watches, ties and scarves as well as their “name brand outlet” sale where they sold jackets, T-Shirts and other paraphernalia from ports that Princess used to go too but no longer did. It was amazing how much of this stuff people gathered up. The vodka on the duty free extravaganza, the day before the cruise ended was a good deal and represented the extent of our booze purchases on the boat.

While we were gone, Jane and Cate stayed with Aunt Rosemary, cousins George and Henry and Uncle Patrick, who summed it up as “On top of the tears and yelling we also had screaming, lying, pushing, hitting, pulling, and hunger strikes! And then there were the Curtis girls…..” Actually we’re under no delusions that our offspring were angels and are certain that the girls did more than their share of annoying behavior but it’s also clear they had a great time with their two younger cousins. Also during the week, Cate had her first Reconciliation (confession) at Holy Redeemer (we had already booked the cruise when the date was announced).

Cate prepared for her 1st Penance	Cousins at Faust Park

Thanksgiving

We got back in town just before the week of Thanksgiving. On Wednesday, the girls got decked out in Orange and Black for Spirit Day in anticipation of the High School’s Turkey Day football game against Kirkwood. They got extra “Neat Notes” at school for doing this. Neat Notes are points they can redeem for trinkets from the Treasure Chest in the Principal’s office. It’s a materialistic positive behavior reinforcement model that we have mixed feelings about. As a former Statesman, Randy joined in by wearing the colors but didn’t get any Neat Notes for doing it. The school spirit hype is a little forced and all a much bigger production than it was 4 decades ago but then again isn’t everything? We hosted Thanksgiving for Randy’s family on Thursday with the usual menu: Turkey (cooked in a bag for the first time, which made for super gravy); both the Curtis and Sage family Stuffings, Carrots, Mashed Potatoes, Cranberries (fresh), Green Bean Casserole, and Pumpkin Pie (Bethany finally got the “secret ingredient” from her mom).

WG Spirit Day

The next day saw the 10th Anniversary of celebrating Sage-giving on Friday. Switching the Sage gathering to Friday was a stroke of genius on the part of Bethany’s mom that eliminated the annual tug-of-war for the siblings and their spouses/significant others about whose family got dibbies for the food gathering. Uncle Van and Gwen taught the nieces and nephews how to play Farkel, further cementing his reputation as the Fun Uncle. Saturday afternoon, the Curti, Shaws and Indy Sage families all headed to see the new “The Muppets” movie, which was a hit across all ages.

Farkeling

Then the Sage gathering continued on Saturday night with Sage pizza before the Notre Dame game. This marked Bethany’s first time “officially” assisting her dad in the preparation, having skirted getting the paternal tutorial and blessing for the sacred recipe for 2 decades. She figured having watched him do it nearly every Friday night growing up was apprenticeship enough, but it was never the formal transfer mentoring, so she wasn’t part of the Sage Pizza Guild that kept the secret recipe (she got the recipe from a careless sibling and has been making mutinous pizzas as the mood hit her or Randy). The grandkids also got to help but not officially. The pizza and family gathering was fun but there are those who take their football watching a tad seriously and let the Irish’s loss to Stanford get them down.

The Pizza Apprenticies

Holiday Recitals

The 3rd-5th graders at the WGCS held their first semester music concert the first week of December. As a public school of the 21st Century, the music teacher didn’t even go near the Christmas programming controversy and went for a clearly secular “Jazz Extravaganza” with no holiday themed programming at all. Four decades ago there was no question at all about this, as I recall singing all Christian tunes with abandon with nary a “Dreidel, dreidel, dreidel - I made it out of clay…” for a crumb of cultural sensitivity. They did a selection of jazz hits of the mid-20th century, including Duke Ellington’s “It Don’t Mean a Thing If It Ain’t Got That Swing” and Irving Berlin’s “Alexander’s Rag Time Band” and “Blue Skies”. Jane got to recite an intro on George Gershwin for “Summertime” (further avoiding any seasonal topicality). One could complain that there was no Porter or Mercer on the docket but can understand that having them do Louis Prima’s “Sing, Sing, Sing” and tying him to King Louie in Disney’s Jungle Book helps provide some context that the kids could relate to.

Jane Cate sing

That weekend the girls had their Christmas piano recital, which was the third time for Jane and the second one for Cate. Cate played “Jolly Old Saint Nicolas” and Jane played “Hark the Herald Angel Sing”. They also got to join together (a Sister Act) to sing a duet of Johnny Marks’ “Holly Jolly Christmas”. Not as polished as you’d expect at the Mormon Ward’s monthly talent show but we were proud parents none-the-less.

More than once in the weeks before hand while Jane was practicing “Hark the Herald…” in the minor chaos and noise of the pre-dinner shuffle, Randy felt like George Bailey listening to his own daughter “Janie” playing the same song and Randy had to stop himself from snapping a “Must she keep playing that?”. Of course the thought made him melt a little, especially since Jane picked out the tune knowing it is his favorite holiday song, not for the religious aspects but because it plays at the end of both his favorites: It’s a Wonderful Life and A Charlie Brown Christmas.

Jane's 1st Violin concert

This fall saw Jane also start violin with a handful of her fellow 3rd graders in the WG Strings program. On a Thursday afternoon, 15 December, they held a holiday “concert” which lasted about 12 minutes. The group plucked out “Jingle Bells” a pizzicato, and then played Jolly Old Saint Nicolas, a non-standard Dreidel song and "Good King Wenceslas". Apparently, as an extracurricular activity, strict adherence to secularism isn’t a requirement. Jane’s violin practicing hasn’t been as annoying as one would imagine given the pain a misplaced note on a violin can cause.

The concert was held in the Hudson music room in the basement. The room has a dropped ceiling but Randy reminisced about playing dodge ball in it while he was in grade school, when the room was a gym. He was also haunted by less fond memories of hopelessness and dread relating to the attempted rope climbs to the ceiling that also occurred there (and cemented a lifelong kinship with Funky Winkerbean’s Les Moore).

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