PrACtiCaL JoKEs

Having just spent time at the ultra-fun Nachtigal Family Reunion, I was reminded of how much all the Nachtigals enjoy practical jokes! So, it was appropriate that we kicked off the reunion weekend playing a joke on someone.

The challenge was that five relatives would share a ride from Sioux Falls to Platte. In addition to all the luggage there were also two sets of golf clubs. The Aunties suggested taking two cars, but encouraged the group to try to fit everything into one vehicle so as not to miss any stories on the drive.

Uncle Roger, known for being quite meticulous, took charge of packing the car. He arranged, then rearranged, positioned then repositioned luggage until all the items just fit with no room to spare.
Aunt Irma and I waited until everyone and everything was all packed into the car - then we brought out another piece of luggage for our joke. As soon as Uncle Roger saw us with one more suitcase, he started sputtering "Oh No! Who's bag is that? That luggage is not going to fit!".
Aunt Irma and I were tickled pink, having kicked off the reunion with a practical joke at UncleRoger's expense.

happy father's day or the one which ends up being about fish

it's father's day and that has me thinking of what it was like growing up with my father. the last time, i wrote about how we used to leave him at home alone on father's day while we went to the big paint-o-rama in huron. a bit of peace and quiet at home, a round of golf and a few beers with his friends was undoubtedly the best father's day present we could give him.

i thought that in honor of father's day, i'd share a few of my memories of growing up with a dad like ralph:

~ as some of you know, ralph isn't the most patient person in the world. i remember on one occasion when he attempted to teach me and a friend a bit about golf over in the swimming pool park. and i recall him rather quickly putting up his hands in frustration and wandering away. i never did really learn to golf.

~ he used to encourage monica and i to get on our horses and race. we had susie and BJ so trained for a particular race track up the second row of the shelter belt (couldn't do that today, the trees are too big!), that as soon as we turned the corner, they took off. and i always won.

~ fishing in the little green boat. i recall a storm where we were across the river. my friend was along and  we were way up in the front of the boat. dad crossed in really bad conditions and on an unreliable motor. he later admitted what a white knuckle trip it had been and there were my friend and i, giggling away with each slam down into the waves, all the way across the missouri to wheeler. we're probably quite lucky to have survived the trip.

~ when we went fishing, i was constantly being cussed out for not paying enough attention. i always had a book along and would devote most of my attention to it. i'd put the fishing pole between my big toe and my second toe, so i could feel if there was a bite and i always put the book down when there was.

~ there was a lot of talk on fishing trips about setting the hook when you got a bite. after particularly violent hook settings, there was a lot of talk about fish lips, but i never did see any that had been detached from the fish.

~ when monica was really little, we were out on a particularly cold, windy day and she had on a coat with a string through the hood. she got a fish on her line and set the hook and began to reel it in. being rather little (i picture her as very little, but she was that for years, so she could very well have been 10), she would reel the correct direction for awhile and then her arm would get tired, so she'd reel for awhile in the other direction. at one point, the strings from her hood got wound onto the reel along with her line. i recall quite a lot of cussing on that occasion as well, tho' i also recall that that fish, while tired when it was finally landed, was the biggest one of the day.

so i hope my dad got to go fishing today if that's what he wanted to do. or golfing. or whatever. but i wish him a happy father's day. we'll see you in a week!

friday confession - i'm a little worried about the upcoming nachtigal family reunion

i'll admit i look upon the upcoming nachtigal family reunion with a mixture of excitement and apprehension (and it's not only that no alcohol is allowed in north park). it's been several years since i was in platte. and i know that as a nachtigal, i have a lot of accounting to do for the air i've been breathing since you all last saw me.

on my real blog, i do the occasional friday confession and that seems to fit this situation. i think i'll do a bit of confessing so you all don't feel compelled to tie me to a chair under the bright lights of interrogation to see if i've been worthy of all that air i've been using since you last saw me....

~ i confess that i left a perfectly good job in the world's largest container shipping company and denmark's largest company at the end of 2007. i also confess that i couldn't face breaking in my fourth new boss in as many years and the fact that i'd traveled 180 days of 2007, so that's why i left. sometimes you just get burned out.

~ i confess that i spent the next two years working in a company that wasn't in the same country i lived in (totally indefensible in light of climate change). and i confess that that was tiring, tho' i got to indulge my inner writer for the last year in that company and that was a good thing.

~ we moved recently to a 17-acre decommissioned farm on the other side of denmark, which is a lot like moving from one side of wisconsin to the other. in the process, we totally bought the complicity of our 9-year-old child - she got an iPhone, an iPad, a season pass to Legoland and a horse. she totally scored. we should be nominated for parents of the year. totally.

~ i confess that i've lost my gold status on KLM and am now only silver. same on SAS.

~ i confess that after Uncle Red once said to me after i left SDSU after only one year, "good thing you dropped out before you flunked out," that i went on to get my BA and two Master's degrees, a Fulbright scholarship and most of a Ph.D. pretty much just because he said that. and because i hated Ronald Reagan (tho' he seems pretty harmless in retrospect).

~ i still don't know what i want to be when i grow up. but now i'm working in the renewable energy sector. and that seems like a good thing. tho' please don't ask me what the company i'm working for did during WWII....

~ my husband really is The Great Dane. he's a keeper. but he sounds a bit like a brit (which is way better than sounding like a dane). the child, however, is danish. and sounds like it. so go easy on her.

and please go easy on me when you see me in july. it's not easy being a nachtigal.