Happy Thanksgiving!

Hope everyone has a great holiday! We're waiting for Angie, Ben and Geneva's arrival at 4 p.m. so our festivities can begin!

Dells

We had a great time with the Winklers at the Wisconsin Dells this weekend. And, as a bonus, Jay didn't even lose his shorts in the wave pool this year!

We'll post pictures soon...

Jen's Column / Grandpa

Hello there,

The post I wrote recently about my grandpa morphed into one of my weekly columns... and here it is, below! This ran Wednesday.

I had a really, really nice time in Sun City with my grandma, my parents and my sisters. It was really cool for us to be together. There were a lot of "grandpa stories" told -- and a fair share of giggling. (And one particular moment of hysterics in the Dairy Queen. Damn Jay and how his "That's what she said" jokes have infiltrated my psyche.)

My parents and grandma are on their way back to Minnesota. My grandma will stay for the holidays and then return to Sun City. She has a big transition ahead of her; she has been living with my grandfather for 59 years, after all. But she's a strong woman -- and says that she will learn to live alone -- and will be OK. I know she will.

OK. My column...

* * *

I'm in Arizona. I try to get here at least once a winter to visit my grandparents. Sometimes I take one of my boys with me. Sometimes we all go. Every so often, like this time, I indulge in the trip alone.

I've been planning this visit since my grandparents left Minnesota earlier this fall. When I talked to my grandpa last week, he asked what I wanted to do when I got here.

"I don't know," I said. "Just hang out with you guys."

"We'd like to take you out to dinner one night," he said.

"I have a better idea," I told him. "Let's order in and watch Marlene Dietrich movies."

"Oh, that sounds good," he said. "I haven't watched Marlene Dietrich in a long time. She's my favorite, you know."

The next morning, my grandpa died. His aortic aneurysm was the cause, as he knew it would be. It began leaking and there was nothing to be done. My grandma was by his side.

You think about funny things when a loved one dies. I've been thinking about his obituary. I imagine my grandmother or my mother will write it and I imagine it will say that he enjoyed crossword puzzles and watching Jeopardy. That he liked to read the paper and eat those marshmallow chocolate pinwheel things and meet his friends for coffee. That from his only child, an adored daughter, he managed to land three granddaughters and a gaggle of great-grandchildren.

That's all true. But it's also just part of his story. I wish it could also tell about his strong mother and his kind father. About his days in the fraternity and how he took fencing lessons. About being a doctor in the war and treating soldiers in India. How he went to parties in New York City when he was on leave. How he could swim across Lake Calhoun, eat lunch and swim back. I wish it could tell of all the house calls he made, leaving in the middle of the night to care for a sick child. How he had no sympathy for my screaming when he pulled slivers out of my foot. How he made tiny, framed pictures of my grandma to put in the dollhouse he built for my twelfth birthday. How he was a stickler for grammar. ("That's me!" I'd say, showing him a photograph. "That is I," he'd correct.) How he put tremendous stock in education, literature and the pursuit of fun. How he liked a good martini maybe even more than he liked fresh raspberries on his ice cream. How he recited poetry at will, enjoyed art and remembered the authors of all the books he'd read.

He and I have always had this thing; we stole it from Alan Paton's, Cry the Beloved Country: "Stay well, granddaughter," he'd say whenever we left each other. "Go well, grandfather," I'd answer.
I'm going to miss that.

At the same time, I am filled with relief to have no regrets about the time we spent together. I have no doubt that he knew exactly how much I looked up to him, how much I respected him, how much I loved him. I never left him without a hug, a kiss and an "I love you." I never let a visit go by without touching him — whether it was just sitting and holding his hand or standing behind him and rubbing his neck. ("Ooh… you're sure good at that," he'd say as he drifted off.)

Though he lost confidence in himself as aging became increasingly difficult, I never quit seeing the intelligent, strong, able man he was for most of his life.

Tonight, with my grandmother and parents and sisters gathered together, I'm going to eat my dinner in the living room and watch Morocco and maybe even try one of those marshmallow chocolate pinwheel things. And honor this man who meant the world to me.

Go well, grandfather. I love you.

Our crazy week

As many of you may know, Jen is down in AZ with family. The boys and I are lucky enough to have Grandma Wanda in town to visit us and to help with the kids day to day activities.

Here are some of the highlights.
1) Christian passed his tests and received his bobcat badge.
2) The boys got new PJs (Christian got to wear his to school for spirit week). The PJs came with matching robes. The boys look handsome.
3) Christian and I have our first Squirt level hockey practice. I will be assistant coach this year. Head coach was too much for me last year.
4) Grandma Wanda is looking around town for short term housing (super cool).
5) Grandma Wanda made us an early Thanksgiving dinner Monday night (super duper cool).

Th boys and I miss Jen and wish her a safe trip home.

- Jay

Jen's Column / Chemical Peels

Last week, my Adventure Club embarked on our scariest, most nerve-wracking adventure yet: chemical peels.

Getting a chemical peel — a procedure that involves putting acid on one's face — wasn't exactly on my to-do list. I mean, I'm such a wimp that I've never even gotten my ears pierced and I refuse to have my eyebrows waxed.

But when Heidi Horstmann-Novak of The Element Hair Studio contacted me, her enthusiasm was contagious. "I have a great idea for your next girls' night out," she wrote. "Chemical peels! They'll make you look younger, and you would have a blast with them!"

I pictured steaming chemical burns all over my face. "Yah, I don't know…" I thought.
But then Heidi mentioned she'd provide snacks and sangria. "Well, why not?" I said.

Eight of us showed up at The Element that night for the Peel-A-Palooza. (There was one noticeable absence. Stephanie, who hadn't missed an adventure yet, stayed home. Her reaction to getting a chemical peel was, and I quote, "Hell no.")

Heidi and her fellow peeler, Jayne Schulte, greeted us at the door and gave us the lowdown on the night's adventure. They explained how chemical peels reduce wrinkles and fine lines by removing several layers of skin. "First, we'll cleanse your skin," Heidi said. "And then you can opt to use the microderm blade."

"Bleed?" shrieked Theresa. "A microderm bleed?"

"Blade," corrected Heidi. "It removes layers of skin. After the blade, we apply glycolic acid to your face. It's kind of like a curling iron burn — but without the redness. It removes more layers of skin, promotes cell turnover and fuller, plumper skin."

We stared at her.

"It doesn't hurt," Jayne piped in. "It might sting a little. But at its worst, it's like a rug burn."

Their little talk did nothing to calm my nerves.

"So who's first?" Heidi asked.

I took a step backward and looked at my shoes. Lisa, the only one of us to have been peeled before, volunteered. We huddled around the door and watched as Heidi ran the microderm blade over her face.

"Wait, I think it's smoking!" Jennifer hissed to us. "Is it smoking?"

Heidi assured us that what we were seeing wasn't smoke. It might've been mist, I suppose. Or even layers of skin evaporating into the air. I don't know. It looked like smoke to me.

I was the last one to crawl up on the table and expose my face at the end of the night. "Did you want to do the blade?" Heidi asked.

"Yes," I said. "If I'm going to do this, I'm going to do it all!" But I only said that because everyone was watching.

The process was actually quite comfortable until Heidi started applying the glycolic acid with her basting brush-like tool.

"How do you feel?" she asked.

"I'm OK," I said. "I mean, I can feel it… it's tingly… it's just feels like astringent… it's OH MY CHIN, MY CHIN!"

"Your chin stings?" she asked. "Right here?" And then ran her sponge below my lip to remove the acid.

"Oh… that's better," I sighed. "Thanks."

"You have an angry chin," Heidi said. "It's pretty red and rough. You're going to feel the acid a little more on those areas."

No kidding.

She left the rest of the acid — which felt just fine — for about 30 seconds longer, then removed it and added moisturizer.

I ran to the mirror when I was done. My skin was blotchy at first, but it was evening out fast — and it felt moist and healthy and full. I couldn't quit touching it. "It's so soft," I repeated every three seconds. "It feels so smooth."

Before we left, we stood around the lobby asking questions and getting sample sprays of DMAE on our faces. (DMAE, it seems, is the next big thing in wrinkle removal. It also happens to smell like dead, rotting fish.)

"For your next adventure, we'll have to do a big waxing party," Heidi suggested playfully.

But I don't think so. I'm all for doing another Peel-A-Palooza. Heidi and Jayne were as fun as they were skilled — and I can still tell the difference in my face. But really. I draw the line at group waxing.

My Grandpa Farm

I don't want to write this post. But I do want to honor a great man. My Grandpa Farm (aka "Grandpa VanRooy" or "Grandpa George") passed away yesterday with my grandmother by his side.

We had a special relationship; I'm going to miss him so much more than even I probably realize right now. But I am -- and will be -- comforted by the thought that he is very much with us still... and able to do all the things he hasn't been able to do in so long, like run and swim and have a martini with his friend Norm.

I last talked to my grandpa two days ago, when he and my grandma called for my birthday. We made plans for my trip out there next week. He mentioned that they wanted to take me out to dinner one night. I told him that we should order in instead, and eat on TV trays in the living room while watching Marlene Dietrich movies. (He had a six- or seven-decade crush on that woman!) He thought that sounded like a good idea. :)

I was telling Jay yesterday that despite how hard it is to lose my grandfather, I have no doubts that he knew how much I looked up to him, respected him and loved him. I never left him without a hug, a kiss and an "I love you." I never let a visit go by without touching him often -- whether it was just sitting and holding his hand or standing behind him and rubbing his neck. Though he might've lost confidence in himself as aging became more and more difficult, I never quit seeing the intelligent, strong, able man that he was for most of his life.

I feel lucky and proud to be George VanRooy's granddaughter.

Here's a column I wrote some time ago, for my grandfather's 90th birthday. Go well, grandfather.

* *

My grandfather is the oldest man in the world. Or, at least that’s what he’s been telling me for the last 20 years.

Every fall, when he and my grandmother would load up their sedan to make their annual trek south, he’d say, “See you in the spring, Jenny”— then add, dryly, “God willing.”
He was only half kidding — which drove me crazy. He was always certain he was too old to make it another year.

And so every year I’d tell him in exasperation that he’d be back. And every year he was. Still is. He celebrated his 90th birthday in April.

Except maybe “celebrated” is the wrong word. He thinks it’s ridiculous to reach 90. “That’s just too damn old,” he told me a few weeks ago. “Nobody should live this long.”

And I don’t blame him. The ailments that have accompanied his aging — emphysema, prostate cancer, a growing aneurysm — aren’t fun. Most of his friends have died. His failing memory angers him and his hearing loss is frustrating. A broken hip — the result of a fall when he reached down to retrieve a newspaper from his driveway a few years ago — has relegated him to regular use of a walker.

Life is not as fun as it used to be. And it used to be fun.

When he was young, he tells us, he’d swim across Minneapolis’ Lake Calhoun to buy a hot dog. He got into medical school after two years of undergraduate work. Learned Latin from his mother. Drank cocktails and smoked cigarettes and wore tuxedoes. Dated a gaggle of co-eds. Traveled India as an Army doctor. Fell in love with Marlene Dietrich. Spent time in Greenwich Village — attending parties he couldn’t tell me about until I was an adult. Met his future wife — my grandmother — as she was being wheeled into surgery for an appendectomy.

He’s the impetus of many of my stories, as well. How he’d eat the curl from the top of my ice cream cone during our trips to Dairy Queen. How he’d tip his La-Z-Boy over so I could lay claim to the change he’d lost underneath. How he built me a dollhouse decorated with tiny, framed pictures of my grandmother. How he’d say, “Stay well, granddaughter” when he’d leave me. And how I’d answer, “Go well, grandfather.” Our own little tradition.

Most memorably, he shared his love of words.

On road trips, he’d quiz my spelling prowess. (“Here’s a good one for you, Jenny! Spell ‘pestilence’.”) He’d recite nonsense poems to make me giggle. He’d quote authors and cite books —both famous and obscure — during conversation.

When I was in grade school, he gave me a narrow, leather-bound book of poetry. Next to the passages he deemed important, he penciled, “25 cents,” “50 cents” or, rarely, “$1” in his familiar, blocked script. When I could recite the passage from memory, he’d pay me.

I learned Donne’s No Man Is an Island. Coleridge’s Kubla Kahn. Whittier’s The Ballad of Barbara Fritchie. For an unprecedented $5, I even memorized the Greek alphabet. (A parlor trick he still calls on me to perform from time to time.)

I’m not sure it was an enviable skill at the time. In fact, it probably made me a bit of a weirdo. When I was nine years old, I attended a summer camp at which students had to sing a song or recite a poem to be excused for lunch. Other kids sang, “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” or delivered a variation of “Roses Are Red….” I recited Leigh Hunt’s Jenny Kissed Me.

In high school, my grandfather sent me a dictionary for Christmas — and told me I should get a stand to put it on. (“You can tell something about a person who has a dictionary stand,” he said.) When I was in college, he sent me a copy of Cry the Beloved Country because, he claimed, it contained the most beautiful first page of any novel, ever. (He added, incidentally, that if I didn’t agree, I shouldn’t be an English major. Humility was never his strong point.)

My grandfather still ends our visits with his customary, “God willing.” Only now, there’s more truth in those words than I let myself believe.

I want him to live forever — this man who can finish the New York Times crossword puzzle but who forgets my son’s name. I want to be able to say, “Stay well, Grandfather” and have it mean something. But mostly, I want to find some solace in the fact that the oldest man in the world has lived long enough to see his love of words continue in me.

THE BIG 3-7

It was yesterday. If you didn't at least give her a call... shame.

Jay

Jen's Column / Birthday

I don't know how old I am. My birthday is tomorrow, and sometime in the last year I completely forgot which birthday it is.

I mean, I've figured it out now. But when I sat down to write this column 30 seconds ago, I thought, "I'll write about turning 38." And then, suddenly, I thought: "No, wait. Am I turning 38? Or is Jay turning 38? Am I 37? 36? How old am I?"

I couldn't remember — which is, maybe, one sign of my aging. I had to do the math: Let's see… born in 1971… which means I'm turning… 37.

Whew. I just gained a year.

My brain lapse could do with the fact that I lied about my age for years. But not in the way you'd think. When I was in my twenties, I had to spend a lot of time on the phone for my job — conducting interviews with article sources, verifying information with PR people, that kind of stuff.

Across the board, they'd get me on the phone and say: "You sound so young." (They'd also say, "Are you in Canada? You sound Canadian…" but that's another article — on the joys of being raised within spitting distance of the border.)

Anyway. I thought that if my colleagues thought I was young, they wouldn't take me seriously. So I started telling people that I was 30 — a much more mature and somber age, I thought. An age at which to be taken seriously.

I was 30 for nearly six years before I finally celebrated my 31st birthday. So you can understand why it would be hard to keep track. But, now, it turns out, I'm turning 37. Tomorrow.

So, how does it feel? Well, it's a lot closer to 40 than to 30. But I'm OK with that.
There was a time when I thought that as you got older, you automatically got stodgy. Grumpy. Dour.

But I have to say that I'm actually having more fun — am maybe even more adventurous — than I was in my 20s. I'm more secure, more confident, more… myself. I don't feel like I have to impress anyone anymore. I understand the importance of time for myself — and how unimportant a big house and a fancy car are. And I'm realizing with increasing confidence that laundry and housecleaning fall at the bottom of a very long list of priorities. (Well, actually, I've always felt that way… but it wasn't so much a worldview then as procrastination.)

This all sounds great, doesn't it? ("Woohoo! Aging is fun!") But there are definitely downsides — things I have to work on. For instance, I'm still not so secure that I don't get embarrassed when I'm caught jamming in my minivan. And, oh yah, I drive a minivan. Wouldn't have done that at 21. And sometimes I wonder if it's appropriate for a 38-year-old (oops! 37-year-old) to like Kid Rock as much as I do lately.

I always thought I'd have it more together, too, at this age. That I'd be officially grown up — you know, remembering everybody's birthdays and knowing how to make gracious introductions. But I never remember to send birthday cards and I usually forget my friend's name just as I'm about to introduce her to someone whose name I'm supposed to know but never have and now it's too late to ask.

And the hair. Oh, the hair. I was told once that hair thins as you age, but that was a lie. Hair is cropping up all over my body — but mostly on my face. What's up with that?

All in all, it's a fair trade. I can give up some things — a smooth face, a vehicle that doesn't seat seven — for the peace of mind and growing wisdom that age is delivering.

But really. Did it have to come with a mustache?

I'm proud to be an American

There are not words to tell you how filled with hope and happiness I am today.

I am proud of our country for voting for Barack Obama and Joe Biden. I am filled with awe for what this means for our nation and our world.

I am proud of the example we have set for my children -- and for all children, especially children of color who now can believe, unequivocally, that anything is possible.

I am proud of John McCain for delivering an honorable and gracious speech last night. And I am proud of Barack Obama for speaking to everyone -- his supporters, his detractors ("I will be your president..."), and the citizens of the world.

I am happy. Life is good. :), Jen

Election Day!

I'm so excited; I literally spent the morning jumping in place and squealing. Today we make history, people!

Jay and I pulled Christian out of class to vote with us -- and I let him fill in the Obama/Biden oval on my ballot.

And now it's a waiting game...

I don't know how I'm supposed to concentrate on work today. :), Jen

I have a sickness

I told Jay last night, "Only hand out the chocolate as a last resort. Give out the Dots and Gummy Life Savers first."

Just reflecting... Jen