Category Archives: Family

Unknown's avatar

Weekly Photo Challenge: Happy

by

How ironic.  Today is definitely a day of SAD.  Last night, Steve & I had another epic “relationship discussion” that left me with swollen eyes.  I simply could not stop crying.  This morning, I got my period.  So typical.  This week’s pert little challenge topic just made me laugh.  What does it mean to be happy?  “May all beings be happy.”  Even with puffy bags and stinging eyes, I believe that I am happy.  Even clinging like a wreck for survival, I believe that I am happy.  Maybe that’s my grossest delusion.  I willfully believe that I am happy, no matter what. 

So what makes me happy?  Sunshine.  Family.  Christmas.  Here’s a photo of my kids on Christmas Day last year. 

Unknown's avatar

Becca’s Bistro

by

Last Tuesday, I went to visit my daughter and son at their new house in Batavia.  I brought along a box of mixed photos from storage to sort, and I got the opportunity to meet Becca’s boyfriend’s parents.  Becca and I made a simple supper out of what was on hand in their garden and from their purchases from the Farmer’s Market that week.  I find it a challenge and a victory when I can figure out how to put a meal on the table without having to go out to pick up any more ingredients!   We made a corn/potato/bacon chowder, a loaf of Challah bread, and a salad.  It was great fun planning and cooking with her in her new kitchen, and of course, I had to show off my new camera, too!  Here’s a shot:

Unknown's avatar

“Chainsaw Diabetes in the Face!”

by

Kind of an over-the-top battle cry, but that’s the level of absurdity to which you sometimes have to rise when taking on an epic task.  Yes, Team Galasso stepped out to Stop Diabetes on Sunday…perhaps we should simply have made it a swim-a-thon.  So much moisture in the air!  Thank you to all of our sponsors and supporters!  We had a pre-walk huddle to remember Jim and other friends and family who have experienced the disease first-hand and dedicated our efforts to them.  Here are some photos:

Team Galasso/Seleen/Wiencek/Floeter-Bush/Griessler

…why spell checkers were invented…

Have a great week, folks!  Don’t be afraid to tackle something big; just be sure to come up with a matching pep slogan!

Unknown's avatar

You Can’t Dia-Beat-Us!

by

Team Galasso will be stepping out at a walkathon on Sunday to raise money for the American Diabetes Association, funding programs and research aimed at relieving the suffering of 26 million Americans with the disease.  This is the fourth year that we have done this as a family, and this year, the event falls on the birthday of my husband, Jim, who died of diabetes-related coronary artery disease in 2008.  This event gives us an opportunity to do something positive in the search for a cure as well as the occasion to gather as family and celebrate Jim’s birthday (and mine, last Tuesday!) and his life.  I will be heading out to Madison after work tomorrow, bustle dress in the back seat, eager to meet up with the rest of the Midwest Galasso Women.  My son, unfortunately, won’t be able to make it.  If you would like to support us in this effort, please click here to make a donation.

Here are some photos of last year’s walk:

We’re heading out to a full-on Italian lunch after the walk.  Happy Birthday to Jim!

Unknown's avatar

Couple-ness

by

Steve and I have been together just shy of 4 years, now.  Lately, I’ve been noticing how my thinking about ‘Us’ has evolved.  I keep my late husband’s last name, always, to retain that common bond with my children.  I have internalized Jim in many ways, as my sister pointed out in a recent comment.  I am adding a sense of past, present and future with Steve.  I wrote last about celebrating birthdays with his sister and brother-in-law.  I do feel like I’ve joined his family throughout a year’s worth of life events now: holiday dinners, post-surgery visits, weekly breakfasts, etc.  Now I’m feeling the reflected perspective of work colleagues who met us as a couple.  We’ve been invited to our first party!  Totally un-family, totally unofficial (although with friends from work), like a real social engagement based on what we do as partners.  That’s a new thing for us. 

A visitor to the museum met us while my daughter was touring the facility for the first time.  I took Emily into the wagon shop to surprise Steve (neither of us knew she was coming).  The visitor thought we made such a happy little family reuniting, that she asked if she could take photos.   After her visit, she sent this photo to the Historic Society and asked if they’d forward it to us.  She included some very nice comments about how delightful and kind we were.   I look at it and think of Emily behind her, making me crack up.

photo credit: Carol Toepke

We are eager to go off on our next adventure – a 3-week road trip to “Metaphorical Montreal & Maine”.  Where we actually end up is immaterial.  The adventure is continuing to forge our partnership, responding to new situations like dancers in tango.  We are becoming more graceful, more complementary, even though we have many more decisions to make. 

 

Unknown's avatar

At Table

by

My mother quoted something to me over the phone this morning: “At table, we never grow old,” I think it goes.  I am savoring this idea, thinking of birthdays and family members, extended in geography and generation.  Steve’s sister had a birthday wish in April to dine at a French restaurant here in Wauwatosa.  That finally was accomplished last Saturday night, but as her husband’s 50th and my 50th are coming up next week, we decided that we were also celebrating our birthdays…and then we included Steve’s so he wouldn’t feel left out, even though his is 3 months away.  We spent over 3 hours at a table in the front window of the restaurant, sampling cheeses, drinking French wine, dining on lamb and pheasant and dissolving chocolate pastries on our eager tongues.  We laughed a lot.  We talked about philosophy and aging and Mars and mold allergies.  I was welcomed into this threesome who have been best friends for 30-47 years as a 10%-er…meaning I’ve only known them for 3.  But they like me!  They really like me!  That feels good.  My mother will be hosting my siblings and niece for dinner on Sunday.  My brother’s birthday is Saturday.  My brother-in-law’s birthday is the following Saturday.  I’m sure they will be dining for a good three hours or more, too, talking about philosophy and music and zoology and whatnot.  I wish I could be there in body and tastebuds, but I will be there simply in spirit. 

When a bottle is poured and glasses are raised, when family gathers in the same place year after year, when we face each other in candle light, Time in its immaterial essence becomes irrelevant as well.  Am I 10, learning to sip a drink and taste its fragrance for the first time?  Am I 20, listening to my beloved ask my father for my hand?  Am I 30, looking at my four children settling in next to their grandparents?  Am I 40, appreciating my parents through my own experience as a parent?  Am I 50, holding my husband and father in a deep, inward place as I use my hands, my voice, my mind to embody all of us?  I am all of these ages, and others besides, when I sit at table and nourish myself, body and soul, in this banquet of love.

Unknown's avatar

Team Spirit

by

The world is gearing up for another Olympic Games.  National pride, sportsmanship, individual performance, athleticism, courage, and victory will be concepts that will get much press in the near future, I suspect.  I like to push out the boundaries of concepts and see how they all interconnect and create a bigger picture.  In this arena, I’m going to put all of those issues under one large banner: humanity.  The Olympics give us an opportunity to look at humanity, albeit through a particular lens, and witness ourselves.  What do we have in common?  What are the responses available to us in certain circumstances?  How do role models give us a glimpse into the possibilities we carry in ourselves?  When I was growing up in the 70s, I would glue myself to the TV and soak in all those “up close and personal” stories.  I found them fascinating and inspiring.  Now that I have lived to be (almost) 50, I have lived some stories of my own that have taught me about being human.  One of those is the story of watching my husband die of diabetes.

Human beings experience suffering; that’s one thing we all have in common.  We can learn information and we can gain understanding and compassion by looking into that suffering and asking questions.  What is causing this suffering?  How does it feel?  How can I help?  The Galasso family looked into diabetes for the first time in 1991, when Jim was diagnosed.  After he died in 2008, my oldest, Susan, came up with a way that we could help those who suffer from it.  She organized the first Team Galasso and walked with 2 of her siblings in a fund-raiser event in Urbana, IL sponsored by the American Diabetes Association.  The next year, she moved to Madison and Steve and I walked with her.  Last year, the entire family gathered in Madison (including Susan’s fiance, Andy) to continue the effort.  This year, the walk is being held on Jim’s birthday, August 26.  How fitting is that?!

Team Galasso 2011

I invite you all to participate in this Team effort by making a donation to the ADA via my sponsor page here.  I also invite you to spend some time considering your part in Team Humanity, asking your own questions about being human, about suffering, about living in a body.  Who do you want to be?  How do you want to live?  What will your life model and inspire?  My youngest daughter got her first tattoo a few months ago.  She chose a typewriter font over her left shoulder, above her heart, to illustrate one of her dad’s most memorable maxims: “Pain is inevitable; misery is optional.”  I am honored to be part of this team, this family of humanity.  I want to acknowledge and include every member and recognize that each one is trying to work out the answers to those questions, even though there are destructive results in the process.   I’ve had mine, you’ve had yours.   We can learn and do better.  I believe that.  Thank you for your participation!

Unknown's avatar

Family Milestone

by

I have been absent from the blogosphere for a few days in order to be present at a family event.  My oldest, Susan, and her First Mate, Andy, invited a small contingent of family and friends to support them in a Handfasting ceremony.  We gathered in a woodland setting to witness their vows and verbalize our advice and wishes in a ritual with varied symbolism.  The result is, finally, that they are engaged.  They will now begin to plan the final steps toward Marriage, which for my daughter has been a big, scary journey into never-ending adulthood that has made her skittish for years.  This social event has her two sisters and at least one future sister-in-law completely ecstatic, and sent them into a frenzy of beautifying and picture-taking that reminded me of their school days on the cheerleading and pom-pom squads…

Girls will be girls

My son was much more restrained and tired from his night shift job and travel, but he surprised me by looking more like his dad than ever before. 

For Susan, the event put her in the spotlight in a way that made her very nervous and vulnerable, but to her credit, she was aware of the neurotic nature of that anxiety and owned it with humor.  Which only made her more adorable to Andy.

During the ceremony itself, I really wanted to pay attention to the real time emotion and meaning of the moment.  While others snapped pictures, I put my camera down and watched the expressions of my daughter intently as her beloved read his vows and she read hers.  Together they fashioned a three-stranded cord and allowed themselves to be bound together.  I was in tears watching and hearing and feeling and believing right along with them. 

Afterwards, of course, we had feasting and drinking and gifting at a Chinese restaurant.

If we all look like we are glowing and flushed, I can assure you it’s not because of quantity of drink so much as the fact that it was almost 100 degrees Fahrenheit outside, and it was, after all, an outdoor event. 

The heat wave continues, and the wave of good feelings does, too.  My daughter is grown and growing; she is building a very strong, very loving, very supportive relationship with a person she has admired since she was 11 years old.  And it is very good.  I suppose I can now take a sabbath rest for a day…I’ve been given tomorrow off from work because of the hot weather.

Unknown's avatar

Pointing Your Canoe

by

Who do you want to be?  How do you want to live?  What do you want to do with your life?  Where do you want to point your canoe? 

Doesn’t matter where your canoe came from…Steve found this one at a garage sale

Strap it down and get ready to roll…

Set a course for your adventure and enjoy the ride!

Unknown's avatar

Things I Learned on Mother’s Knee (or some other joint)

by

Steve’s mom had knee replacement surgery yesterday.  He called his sister after work to see how the procedure went (all well), and then asked, “So, did you get the old knee?”  She laughed, of course, but I was thinking it would be a great addition to our museum cupboard in the dining room.  Then Steve asked if it was legal to keep human bones.  Huh?  Hmmm.   I’ve discovered that there are no federal laws prohibiting the ownership or sale of human bones.  Prior to 1987, most bones were imported from India, and until 2008, China also exported human bones.  No more.  There are some state laws restricting the import and export of human remains across state lines, and Native American material is very much protected under the Graves Protection and Repatriation Act.   So we have a right to bear arms and bare bones.

She had her hip replaced a few years ago.   I wonder what they did with that?

The Museum