The Curtis Clan - Winter 2020

Winter Solstice to Spring Equinox

Winter Solstice marked the start of the Curti two-week celebration of the end of dark days and new beginnings with the kids and dad all home.

Curti Christmas Checklist Item # 1 - Argue for 10-15 minutes about which Christmas movies still HAVE to be watched even though we already watched Christmas Vacation and It's a Wonderful Life (Bethany: Family Stone, Love Actually, Meet Me in St. Louis and...Rest of us: no these are not necessarily every year movies). The discussion ends with the 3-1 vote that White Christmas is required viewing no matter how many times you've seen, "ESPECIALLY if you don't know ALL the words to the Best Things Happen While You're Dancing Randy". At least it didn't happen that night and the family caught the light comic English Country side murder who dunnit "Knives Out" at the Hi-Pointe Backlot.

20 years together	Krispy Kreme Time

On Monday, December 23, Jane and Cate hosted the WGHS History Club while the parents hid upstairs out of the way. It went off fairly well though we kept finding cheap toys stashed throughout the first floor for the next couple months as is the club's tradition. Those Darned History Club Kids!

Last minute package run	Lucky day drinking with Jane

Sagemis

Christmas Eve was very unseasonably warm allowing us to make last minute trips to the Post office in the convertible and use it to catch Christmas services. There was a change to family traditions with Bethany's parents' sale of their large home in U-City that has hosted most of the large family gatherings in the 21st Century. We hosted the Sagemas Eve party at our house and exercised the power of the host to change the decades old Safe family menu by skipping soup, opting instead having mini sandwiches and other finger appetizers instead. The post meal traditions shifted too with Bethany reading the Christmas story from Matthew and we sang carols without song sheets, instead using YouTube broadcast to the flat screen TV (without grammar or spell-checked lyrics; no one seemed so thrilled with that change).

Moment of Grace

Sagemas Eve dinner

The cousins in front of the tree

Tracking Santa

Rosemary Bethany & Van	Sisters

The Gospel of Mark never gets old

2019-12-24 Sagemas Eve Bible reading.jpg

Hanging the stockings

Christmas Day

Christmas Day was very laid back amongst only the four Curti. In the afternoon, we went to the movies, seeing Greta Gerwig's version of Little Women at the Hi-Pointe. Later in the at the end of the holiday break, we caught Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (collective Meh). Later in the quarter, we rewatched His Girl Friday and Cate watched Brazil.

Waiting at the top of the stairs	At the Hi-Pointe

On Boxing Day, Jane gave blood as Randy's mighty platelets clogged the needle within seconds. After dark, the family went to see the Winter Wonderland light displays at Tillies Park, in the convertible under blankets. Gussie and Pepper enjoyed the outing too.

Jane's Blood Donation #2	Winter Wonderland lights

The whole gang in our open sleigh	Driving in the a winter wonderland

Friday's highlight was at the St. Peters Sages and the annual good rob your neighbor gift exchange game and usual fun and warm gathering of family.

St Peters Sages

On Saturday, we hosted the 12 hours of Sage FFF for the main events of Sagemas including: Lunch & dinner of meat and vegie ball sandwiches and other pot luck dishes; gift exchange; game playing (card games of Unstable Unicorns for a couple hours and Hearts) and ending with two rounds of Celebrity with the family and the kids over 10. It was another good day for Gussie and Pepper (i.e., no bark collar) with lots of kids and people.

13 Days of Sagemis – 2019 Edition https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONksmbeljsc&feature=youtu.be

Another Krispy Kreme run

(The default destinantion when looking for a reason to drive with the top down)

Sunday, the 29th of December was a gentle and soft landing to Sagemass 2019 with brunch at Rosemary's before people all began dispersing. That evening we went to see Pride and Prejudice at the Rep with Cate bringing her girlfriend Katie on the student rush tickets. The favorite play of the year at the Rep by a long shot.

At the Rep's Pride and Predjudice

Pittsburgh

Monday, we departed for Pittsburgh getting on the road at 0720 am. Good driving weather and vibes all along the way. We got in earlier enough to spend 5 hours talking with Katie and Don before leaving for our Pittsburgh home away from home: the Neville Island Fairfield Inn.

The next day Katie took us into her office in the One PPG Place building in downtown Pittsburgh and getting to meet her boss Andrew with Farell Finch. We enjoyed the noshing on the shared office space pastries, coffee and fabulous view of the three rivers and Fort Point. After grabbing some Blaze Pizza take out for dinner, we spent the rest of the day talking, snacking, staying up to midnight out of cultural obligation but observing very little other standard practices of the evening.

Katie and Don on the 31st floor of PPG1

a nice breakfast visit

The Curti with the three rivers:

Alleghany, Monongahela and Ohio

PPG Place decked out for Christmas - Curti and Katie

2019-12-31 Curti Pittsburgh with Katie.jpg

Cate and Jane getting their Shakespere on

New Year's Day started with false fire alarms in the hotel at 2:40 am waking us all up. We all got clothed and got out the door in minutes, as opposed to most everyone else in the hotel. It turned out to be someone smoking in their room on anther floor. Grrr. We got up at 10:30 am the next morning as Dad decided people getting good sleep was more important that the complimentary breakfast. Happily, they did still have some banana nut muffins out and coffee 45 minutes later at 11:15. We had a lovely afternoon and evening, Bethany's Godfather Bishop Mark of West Virginia (Katie and Amy's Cousin) came to visit and share dinner, along with Don's sister Barbie for a couple hours too. Kattie's sauerkraut, apple, potato and turkey kielbasa casserole was much better than it sounds. The evening was spent hearing family stories heard many times before including a couple new ones (how Van found his name was really Alvan).

Bishop Mark, Katie, Don and the Curti Women

On out last day PA with no agenda, we made a visit to Beaver PA to see the Sage's last PA home before leaving for St. Louis in 1977. Walking along the Ohio River bluff park a block away several of us revealed in the history of where the 1785 Treaty of Fort McIntosh was signed (the treaty between the US and a half a dozen native American tribes was one of many land treaties eventually ignored by white settlers and of marginal long term significance, which is why it isn't really part of the American History curriculum outside of Beaver, PA ). Beaver had a Stars Hollow vibe that the group all found appealing.

Fort McIntosh Park on the Ohio River	Doughnuts in Beaver (We may have a doughnut problem)

Last Sage home in Beaver	Bethany hates cats..or does she?

Probably the last reposting of a Pajama Diaries strip as the author retired the stirp with the beginning of the New Year. Feeling melancholy to see the end to a comic that often paralleled our life in an eerily familiar way. They're reposting the strips from the beginning but the kids no longer align age wise and its just not the same.

Our Holiday Fortnight ended with dinner out with Bethany and her friends Maria and Elisabeth plus boyfriends a Pastaria in Clayton.

Bethany, Elisabeth, & Maria

Rest of January

On Saturday in mid-January our team got the 2nd highest score at the large Peter and Paul Community Services Trivia Night. Guessed low on our final score of 95 and came in 4th, out of the money. Lots of fun though and nice to know we can still bring the heat on.

4th place at trivia night

Knoodling dogs...because it's COLD

The internet came through with finding a copy of a favorite The Far Side cartoon Randy. An favorite was easier to find reflecting his spirit animal / patronus: a Border Collie

Well, there he goes again. Y'know, Randy just isn't a team player

Goodbye to $2 pints at Luckys in Rock Hill

Typcal scene of Cate during the winter

Cate makes the Krispy Kreme run (...in under 12 parsecs?)	Tod Parrs's Dading guidelines

Joe, Lucy and Jane at Moe's as the Townie Sages bid

Amy and Alvan ado as they head south for the rest of the winter

Jane showed improvement on her 3rd year on swim team, particularly at the City of Roses Invitational in Cape Girardeau, she lowered her 200 Free by 8.74 seconds her 100 Breast by 4.91 seconds.

Jane swimming

or is it another girl?

February

February began with the family celebrating Ice cream for breakfast at Serendipity

2020-02-01 Ice Creme Breakfast Boyington.jpg

Afterwards, we arguably had a bigger celebration at the Brentwood paper recycling day getting rid of over 100 "gallons" of paper (four 2/3s full yard waste bags) from the last few years and only having to wait in line 5 seconds. Saved up $70 for having to pay for it directly. Paper shredding recycling drives bring happiness.

In mid-February, we attended the Metrolines 2019 poetry contest sponsored by Arts in Transit as Cate was 1 of 15 winners from 103 entrants of 309 poems. She was the oldest of three teens with the other winners being adults. We're biased but her poem "Not Stone" was the best of the bunch.

Not Stone	Having to recite the poem was part of winning?

The next day was the WGHS Strings Pops concert. The Nirvana, Guns and Roses, etc. song picks with strong drum and guitar accompaniment made us appreciate that the girls had a wonderful Strings teacher for most of their time in school (Mrs. Poe who left last year). The playing by the 5th and 6th made me appreciate that we were past that point in their playing to (and that Mrs. Poe had been their teacher back then too).

On Valentine's Day eve, the family took in a special program of educational dating and relationship videos from the 1950s at the Missouri Historical Society. Definitely dated in their naive, sexist, and corny presentation of the roles of men and women. As many of the films were aimed at a college audience, it makes one question the academic rigor of the past. For Valentine's Day itself we got heart shaped pizza at Fortel's in Afton- their busiest night of the year. Their tomato slice pizza is one of the best.

Fortel's cheese	Valentine's Pie

For President's Day, the family made a college visit Open House visit to Missouri University of Science and Technology (MS&T) in Rolla. Dad has strongly pushed for the girls to consider STEM and particularly engineering for college all of their lives (e.g. the colloquial term is brain-washing). Despite some back peddling of late, he felt as he has become clear he may have over played his hand and was driving them into something they might hate and hate him forever accordingly. Anyway, there was resigned trepidation and low expectations by the women in the car for the first family visit to Randy's Alma Mater. Dunkin Doughnuts helped set a positive tone on a dreary rainy but unseasonably warm day. The low expectations helped the women appreciate the positives of Rolla:

* lots of poorly dressed students that seemed like peers, more than the high school or movie stereotypes
* Hearing others repeat the mantra of best education value
* hearing that they both would qualify for partial merit scholarships base on their initial pre-ACT scores, convincing them they could meet the rigor of the school.
* Over representation from girls in the presentation and among the tour guides, giving a false impression that women were more than a quarter of the campus population
* A really engaging presentation from the Architectural Engineering group that also included Civil and Environmental Engineering and tours of multiples labs

We'll see what happens.

Randy, Jane and Joe Miner

222 - Celebrating Margarita Day with Bethany at Fuzzy's Tacos in the afternoon and doing a Walmart run afterwards.

Cate showing it's not that hard being green

Mardi Gras at Ami's in Rock Hill

The Kenyon/ Boulder Kite Eating Tree stirkes again	(Randy lost many to that same tree 4-5 decades ago)

March

The first week of March 2020, Randy had a trip to Anchorage to meet with his colleagues in the Pacific Ocean Division and Headquarters. There was healthy amount of snow on the ground, giving the first real taste of winter this year. Randy was chagrined with clear skies, he was able to see Mount Denali from his window from the Marriott when this wasn't possible for the several days when he and the girls visited last summer ("No, that's not Denali. I was there last summer and couldn't see it" – nice meal of eating one's words). Tuesday night he spent the with FIRE (Finn, Iris, Roman and Erin) staying until after midnight sharing stories of family, work and life. The last night there Randy and his colleagues enjoyed a beautiful sunset overlooking the Cook Inlet at Simon and Seaports. A late-night road trip north of town to see the Aurora Borealis with a sober driver was a bust only in the sense we didn't see it (silly team building fun – yes).

Snowy Anchorage looking north from the Marriott	Sunset on the Cook Inlet

Jane and Pepper snoozing on the couch

On Saturday, March 7, Jane and Randy joined Uncle Charlie and Dr. Maggie Rallo on a 10 miles kayak float trip from Onondaga Cave SP canoe launch to Blue Springs Creek on the Meramec River. Maggie was looking for a nice spring float and overnight camping trip before she got slammed as the ER doc at Phelps County Hospital. The slam she was expecting was having to work the following week and weekend during the MS&T St. Pat's celebration, which didn't happen as she was slammed instead by a larger crisis that affected everyone.

Wooo! Meramec Float Trip!

Maggie, Jane and Charlie waiting for the slow poke	Relaxing on the Meramec

Group selfie	We counted over 100 turtles sunning themselves

COVID-19

News reports had been seeping into the national consciousness for a couple months for a virus the first appeared in Wuhan China but gave many indications of being a global pandemic. COVID 19 corona virus is a severe acute respiratory (SARS) disease spread between people during close contact, often via small droplets produced when talking, sneezing or coughing. February ended with the first death in the United States in Seattle, where a nursing home had also been hit very hard at the time. On Thursday 5 March, the National Archives Records Administration (NARA) in Seattle announced they were closing indefinitely as of the next day. NARA Seattle was one of the first elements of the Federal Government to close with a couple others (Chicago and New York) closing in the days that followed. This was a bit of a surprise because there was evidently no direct exposures in the work force identified and the number of people that use the research room at the NARA regionals is extremely limited (5 people in a day is a busy day). In other words, closing them is a drop in the bucket of social interactions within government offices. This foretold the closing of other regionals, including the one in San Francisco where Randy and Cate planned on spending her Spring Break week there researching, leaving on the 15th. It wasn't until Thursday 12 March that NARA annouced closing ALL the elements of the National Archives and our trip had to be canceled.

2020-03-12 National Archives Closing.jpg

It was nice to have clarity, ending a week and a half of speculation and anxiety that it would be canceled. Still I got negative vibes for saying that the research trip wasn't going to happen in the office. Comments from management made it clear they did not agree with such negative defeatism and embrace of the situation, so I waited to let the decision be made for me. On the next day, Friday, the 13th I was acting Branch Chief and told my team they could telework indefinitely starting on Monday. I felt guilty that I didn't do it earlier that week, like on Monday the 9th when it was clear to me this was coming down. Lots of peer pressure to not do that in a military organization where directives come from the top down and we're expected to achieve the mission despite obstacles. Upper management's directives are not directives one is supposed to ignore. (Heck, I couldn't even cancel travel for myself that I knew was a bad idea). As these were actions against the policy of the Commander in Chief, they were not embraced and basically the entire DOD was halted from taking action that the leaders I'm certain wanted to take.

Pi Day Disappointment - No $3.14 Blaze Pizza

(in fact our Blaze outlet closed for the duration)

Later in the day, the President declared a National Emergency and the next day issued an order to halt all non-mission essential TDY for the Federal government. This was the first real indication that President was taking the scope of the looming pandemic crisis seriously as Saturday, March 14 became Day 1 of the Curti COVID Shelter in Place /Social Distancing according to Randy. Bethany would start the count on Sunday when our Rep Tickets were canceled. Jane would start the count on Monday, when her Red Cross Life Guard training got cancel at the 2/3 point (the fees were refunded). Cate would start the count on Tuesday, after spending Monday with her girlfriend.

Week 1 of COVID Shelter in Place /Social Distancing was Spring Break for Webster Groves School District and since we take a family trip as we usual did (typically by the family joining dad on a research trip) it was the "worst spring break ever". Beyond that it was mostly like an extended rainy weekend with limited plans, though we saw much less of the girls as they holed up in their rooms like a Hollywood teen stereotype.

A portion of the Curti Strategic Reserves of TP

The politization of reacting to the COVID pandemic was particularly disheartening. While overly simplistic, you could fairly accurately determine how one voted by their feelings of reacting to the COVID as being overhyped hysteria or head-in-the sand ignorance.

St Pats 2020 - beer just didn't seem like enough

Teleworking for the Corps in the basement was a little rough the first week with Tuesday, St. Patrick's Day be particularly bad as suddenly having 35,000 of my colleagues all teleworking, clogged the VPN system with an upper capacity of 5,000 a day to the point that the only way to get email was during non-work hours. Mild frustrations compared to what most people had to deal as I continued to get a paycheck and will continue to have a job, even if we aren't as efficient and effective as I want to be.

Jane and the dogs at Eden Seminary

Jane and I started the practice of walking the dogs most days after work. She gave whole blood, her third time. We ended Winter 2020, hunkered down for the 6-hour BBC 1995 version of Pride and Prejudice. Randy found a Bingo card and hit Bingo but didn't win anything. He considered a whiskey variation of the "Hi Bob" drinking game using the term "Mr. Darcy" but was afraid he didn't have the stamina for it nor enough whiskey for it.