News For and From Our Family
January 2010 News
Mom and Dad .jpg)
The snowy weather which harassed us most of December (three plowings of Goldenrod Lane) continued on for about a week in January (one plowing). Roads remained slippery and I skipped the Friends Board meeting on Monday the 11th. From then on no more snow, and much sunlight. There were raw, windy, bone chilling days and nights but also there were some in the upper 20s and even lower 30s; so by the end of the month the roads and open fields were clear of snow.
Margaret is taking a variety of classes which, added to her bridge games, gave her a pretty full schedule for the month. One class involved reading and discussing Willa Cather’s “My Antonia”, the Big Read for our community. Each year organizers of The Big Read select a classic from a list supplied by the U.S. Endowment for the Arts which funds the Big Read. Past selections have been “The Grapes of Wrath”, “Huckleberry Finn”, and “The Maltese Falcon”. The Friends of the Library buy paperbound copies and distribute them free to interested participants. The public is encouraged to read the chosen book and discuss it; a number of events related to the book are held throughout the county.
Margaret and I read the book, attended a lecture on it by a student of Willa Cather’s work and we went to a showing of a 1995 TV movie based on the book. The story concerns an immigrant Czech girl on an 1880s Nebraska farm and is well worth reading. We enjoyed it; it gives you some insight into what it meant to uproot yourself from a European culture in which you were comfortable to move to a lonely farm, surrounded by neighbors who spoke a different language.
We recommend Avatar and The Book of Eli. Joe is particularly enthusiastic about the 3-d version of Avatar which he saw after having seen the 2-d. He recommends that even if you have already seen the 2-d version, you go see the 3-d version if you can. The Book of Eli, an apocalyptic movie, has gripping plot interest, superb sets and photography. Avoid Sherlock Holmes, a noisy distasteful movie.
We spoke to Joe on the 31st, his 55th birthday. He had stopped the old treatment for cancer early in December. He is now waiting for painful side effects (swollen, burning feet) to subside before starting a new treatment. So far, the spread of cancer has been halted and there is some remission. Joe and Theresa are happy that the new treatment will only be done every three weeks and can be done locally. The old treatment required driving to St. Louis every week and this interfered with their work schedules.
We were concerned about Christine. The Christmas card we sent to her post office box in Arizona was returned with “no forwarding address” stamped on it. An email to her internet address was not answered. Margaret called a phone number she had; a man answered who said he had never heard of her. I googled her name and got another address for her; sent an inquiring letter but the second letter was also returned. Finally Christine called us on the same day the second letter was returned. She had been sick for weeks, had not renewed her PO box and had not been able to use an internet connection. The Friedels, her other grandparents, had been so worried they drove from Phoenix to Cottonwood to see what was wrong. She has now recovered.
Mark writes that he and Parker have reconciled and
he will visit her in Charleston or L.A. in late February.
On January 29, Angie gave birth to Sadie Louisiane
Power; mother and child doing fine. Maureen would have been happy and proud: her
first grandchild.
Jean and Doug
Jean and I went to art galleries openings on a very frigid January 8th Friday night. We stopped in to say hi to Trevor at the Edelman photo gallery.
On the 17th Jean and I enjoyed our Christmas gift to each other, going to the Noel Coward play Private Lives at the Shakespeare theatre on Navy Pier. Enjoyable theatre in the round done on a slowly revolving stage about a divorced couple who accidently meet while on their respective honeymoons with new spouses and reunite. We watch the cold dusk descend on the city skyline from the Navy Pier restaurant Riva.
On a phone call to Comcast our Internet and cable provider, they suggested that we switch our phone service to them. The way it was presented was that for a year our overall Comcast bill would go down a few dollars with the addition of the phone service (and we no longer would have a $17 monthly ATT bill). After a year it would go back up to about where the bill is now without the phone service.
They arrived on the 16th to install the new ‘modem’ and everything was up and running fairly smoothly. However a day or two latter I realized that we were no longer receiving all of the same cable stations we were receiving before the change. With a couple of phone calls I discovered that Comcast, without telling us, had downgraded our cable package to give us the ‘deal’ that we got.
I spoke to two different representatives both of whom offered different packages but in either one the immediate effect was that we paid more and that our total monthly bill would increase by $20 per month for each of the next 3 years ($20 the first year, $40 the 2nd, etc off the base rate) $1440 more over the next 3 years.
After getting nowhere with representatives, I wrote a letter to the COO at Comcast in Philadelphia and filed a complaint with the Illinois Attorney General. The jury is still out on what will happen. We either receive the original pricing that they gave us or we go back to phone service with ATT (who is sending us enticing letters every other day asking us to return to them).
On the 23rd Gail Crantz, who is not working these days, had dinner at her house. We saw Shel and Gail for the first time since October due to her father’s illness. It was also the first time we saw Helen and Tom since before Christmas. The next week Gail returned to Florida and her dad passed away.
Finn had surgery on the 29th to replace the tubes in his ears. As a result Jean and I took Jack Thursday night so that we could take him t o school Friday morning while Bek and Pat left early morning for Children’s Memorial.
On the 30th we left for our 1 week trip to Acapulco.
Thank
you for your thoughts. By the way, I put together a short video and uploaded it
to YouTube. If it's not too late, maybe you can include the link in the next
family news.
Photos are here