Scrapblog Basics 101

Every once in a while, we'll stop and offer tidbits on how to use the scrapblog. Let's say you're tired of most of the stuff on the blog and only want to look at specific photos without going through 700 photos of cousin Chris as a bullet-headed tot or of the scrapblog editor's spoiled cats. All you have to do is type whatever you want to see into the SEARCH BLOG box at the top of the page, and voila, those scrapblog entries will come up. (Though you may have to vary the search words a little bit to account for the scrapblog editor's erratic spellings and commentary.) For instance, you could type in: SEARCH BLOG: Aunt Katie SEARCH BLOG: cousin Tuk SEARCH BLOG: knuckleheads SEARCH BLOG: fishing SEARCH BLOG: ChrisMiller! ChrisMiller! SEARCH BLOG: rosettes SEARCH BLOG: Stump-in SEARCH BLOG: delicious food SEARCH BLOG: L-shaped farmhouse SEARCH BLOG: strange rituals SEARCH BLOG: funny outfits SEARCH BLOG: Alle Augen SEARCH BLOG: priceless blue plates ... and so forth. Also, if you want to save a scrapblog photo in your own computer or e-mail it to someone, all you have to do it right-click on it, and it's yours, baby.

We brake for good literature

The scrapblog's senior research associate and principal literary essayist, E.W. Sprick, recently submitted a wonderful piece that you can now find in the scrapblog reading room. Said E.W., who is 80 years young, of his writing plans: When I took early retirement, I had lots of hobbies, did things with my grandchildren and provided some elder care. I wrote some stories along the way, some good and some not so good. They are all in some form of booklet or newspaper column. Now that I am getting less mobile, I have had to give up some of my more strenuous activities and can foresee the day when I still may fish a little but will spend more time indoors, especially in winter. My current thinking is to take all of my stories, rewrite them and put them in chronological order for one booklet. The stories might have to be massaged a bit to make them more interesting. We have a new computer, and it may be a long winter. I want to include more about Mavis if she will let me. The scrapblog editor, and indeed all the cousins, are thrilled to hear this. We want more E.W. essays! (You can read several good ones at the aforementioned archives site.) By the way, we've run out of old family photos again, at least until we stumble over the next treasure trove of them. So modern photos and essays of all kinds are WANTED for the scrapblog!

Millers make merry

Friend of the family Sarah Ringdal recently forwarded these photos of some people we know: Sarah with Izzbee, H.B. and Mo. H.B., Sarah, Zachary, Mo and Izz go all urban. Zachary in large shades.

More from the Miller family Thanksgiving

Thanks to Sarah Ringdal, friend of cousin-nephew Zackaroony Miller, for these snapshots from our Miller family Thanksgiving: Noah (who has since shaved off the red beard), imparted some Noahesque wisdom to his little cousin Izzbee, who is now 4 going on 18. Noahesque wisdom would include Hermann Hesse quotes; a rapid-fire list of American presidents (and again, backwards); vegetarian recipes; Bob Dylan trivia; obscure facts about European history and 1970s fashion tips. Izzbee looks impressed! What's the first thing you think when you see this photo of cousins Zachary and Noah lounging on Zack's bed with friends Sarah and Tara? We know, we thought exactly the same thing -- that their feet are really big!! Princessa H.B. and Sarah smiled for the paparazzi.

What to get your cousins for Christmas

On the day after Thanksgiving, we should be eating leftovers, taking walks and naps, watching football and reading good books. But instead, we are out shopping, wondering, what in the Sam-Broberg-Hill am I going to get the cousins for Christmas? Well, cousins, the answer, frankly, is NOTHING, because all of us have way too much stuff. Our houses are fuller than a Sprick stomach after second lunch at a Stump-in! But let's say you just can't resist -- you have to get Elmer, or Chris, or Leah, or Tuk, a little something. Never fear, because today we present the Official Scrapblog Cousins' Christmas Gift Guide! Did the aunts and uncles ever have trouble picking out Christmas gifts for each other? Heck, no! We've taken a cue from them to create our list. Here then, in ascending order, are the TOP 10 THINGS TO GET YOUR COUSINS FOR CHRISTMAS: No. 10: Yes, cousins, fruitcakes are versatile, durable and pretty. The only problem is, they tend to get dry. We suggest pouring a bottle of rum over yours before giving one to, say, cousin Dave. No. 9: Hard sausage or braunschweiger! Ed, Hart, Gus and Bill always looked so happy when they got theirs! Back then, they had to go down to Huettel's to get their festive meats. Now you can just go to the mall, to one of those little booths festooned with pretty boxes of sausage, cheese-food and jelly to get your gift for Tuk or Dan! No. 8: When presenting the ever-popular can of peanuts to cousin Sam or Sarah, be sure to say, "You are what you eat!" No. 7: Here's something for you cousins who have an artistic streak. There's nothing that says, "I appreciate you, cousin [Bridget, Chats, whoever]," better than a homemade gift, and what better homemade gift than this festive ... uh ... thing made out of old ice-cream buckets? We know you have 40-50 of those buckets in your basement. No. 6: Who cares if every Sprick already has about 100 decks of playing cards? Everyone, especially cribbage-playing cousins Zack and Chris, can always use a fresh, unmarked deck. No. 5: You can't ever have too many lawn chairs, cousins. The scrapblog editor has several that look just like this one, so she wasn't pleased to find when she went to Google a photo of one that the photos were attached to an URGENT RECALL of said lawn chairs. Apparently they can fold up and trap you! Anything that dangerous is bound to be marked down. Just the thing for cousin Pam, who likes nothing better than to sit around. No. 4: Chh-chh-Chia! You know you've always wanted a Chia Pet. They come in a number of creative varieties this year. We like this "Chia Al Gore." Just the thing for Aunt Anna or cousin Noah, who looks a little like a Chia cousin just now. No. 3: This is a little high-end for us, cousins, but isn't The Clapper cool? We can just see cousin Sandra using this smooth machine to turn the lights on and off at her Nacogdoches estate! No. 2: What Sprick cousin hasn't wanted a perfectly round hairdo, the hallmark of the aunts in the generation before us? And yet none of us has been able to achieve it. Now we can, with this lifelike wig of perfect spheredom! Just the thing for Chats, Jane, Sheila and Barb! And finally, the No. 1 gift for your cousin: Ah, naturally -- a priceless blue plate! However, don't spend your whole inheritance on one of these! Just check your basement -- there are probably some there. Dust off the box and give it to a cousin. If you're lucky, your cousin will give you one, too!

Spricks get together to dig holes, act solemn

Like a Stump-in, this 1975 cabin ground-breaking party at the Brobergs' land in Old Frontenac, Minn., was one of those you-had-to-be-there events (or, you had to be a Sprick) to really understand it. Before the Spricks began their hole-digging frenzy, they had a ceremony involving gunfire, funny hats, live music, wisecracks and Lord knows what else. Why? Ask not why; ask, rather, why not? Grandma Sprick donned a hardhat as she dug in. Seems like Florence, Joe, JoAnne, Marion, Alma and Tuk could have helped her, since she was 88 years old and all, but noooo, they just stood there and offered commentary. Cousin Sam had just the right dead-serious, no-irony attitude, and just the right hat, for this gala event. Behind him were Wally, Marion, Annette, Alverna, Vi, Grandma and Joe. Sam and Dan stood at attention ... ... and fired! Criminy! Hope they didn't hit anything. This event also featured music by Chats Miller, who played a hot jazz flute. Pam stood by, offering commentary and being generally annoying.

Why, you little .... Kirkwoods

Cousins Sandy, Joe and Janie played outside their rural Lake City home in these 1960s-era photos.

Beam her up!

We always knew Anna was a world traveler, but this 1993 photo, taken at Cape Canaveral, Fla., appears to show her ready to board a rocket. We wonder if they let her take her purse?

Another day, another party

Ed and Katie helped Anna celebrate her birthday in October 1978. Hope she got some good loot.

The last photo of Adelaide

Alverna always said this was the last photo taken of Adelaide, the oldest Sprick child. Adelaide Sprick Detlefsen was killed in a car accident in Red Wing, Minn., on Aug. 23, 1973. Here she was with Florence and cousin Danny. Not sure whose house this was.

A visit to Castle Haven

Anna visited with Mark Lind, proprietor emeritus of Castle Haven resort along the North Shore, in 1991. The bench overlooking Lake Superior was always a favorite spot at this beloved vacation getaway place. The Millers and other Sprick relatives often camped or got a cabin there. Annette and Hart discovered the place in the 1940s, when Mark and his brother, Edgar ("By-golly, the pressure's really on!") Lind were Norwegian immigrant fishermen who ran the resort on the side.

A great grandma

Grandma Sprick posed with her first grandchild, Leah Sprick Davidson, and her great-grandson, Richard Davidson, in 1980. That's Ed, in his loud shirt, in the background. No, that's not a giant curl coming out of Leah's beehive hairdo, it's a spot on the photo where the scrapbog editor spilled some Tab. (Quality control is not Job One at Scrapblog Central.)

It's those cute, smart cousins again

Cousins Paul and Kelly Turner posed nicely for their mom, cousin Sandy, in 1995.

Y'all are everywhere

Occasionally the Miller family would travel to North Carolina to visit their other relatives, the Scottish-Appalachian Millers, a fascinating bunch in their own right. But somehow, a Minnesota cousin or two always seemed to pop up right in the middle of the Millerfest. Very eerie! For instance, check out this photo taken in Winston-Salem, N.C., in the 1980s of Alverna, Bill and Chris Miller with Bill's cousins, Virginia and Everette Harris; their grandson, Ryan Harris; Bill's twin sister, Cissie Edwards, and her husband, Bill. But wait! There's more. Isn't that Anna right smack in the middle? And there's cousin Dan, too!

Scenes from our Thanksgiving

Aunt Mary and Uncle Chris put on a stunning Thanksgiving spread for a few gathered folks, some of whom we've known since we were born, some of whom we just met. Some scenes: Cousin Danny, the only one in this crew who can be trusted with a large knife, put his engineering skills to work with expert turkey-carving. The Countessa, Princessa and E-Bee took this self-portrait. Ohhhh, that zany, madcap Mo! Melanie (mom of Noah's girlfriend, Tara) and cousin Pam played a traditional game of Memory. Cousin Pam's memory is not very good, which, as cousin Chris likes to point out, makes it almost frightening that she's the self-appointed keeper of the family history. However, she didn't completely bomb at Memory, mainly because she recognizes some of the old German Memory cards from subtle markings on the back made by none other than cousin Chris when he was a lad. Cousin N. didn't have to cheat to excel at Memory. He's very, very good at a lot of things. Later in the evening, during the Olympic trials portion of the program, when young M. had demonstrated his strength and the girls had done some gymnastics, N. casually popped into a full lotus and walked on his hands around the room. Wow! Never saw anyone do that! In a shocking reversal of roles, M. became the pummelee, rather than the pummeler. He didn't look too concerned. Cousin Dan and his boys showed off some very impressive dental work. The Countessa and Princessa lit up the gathering with their smiles. Auntie Pam always gets spoiled by her nieces. That's one of the many reasons she loves them so much. Here she and H. confabbed about how they can get H.'s parents to let her out of school for three days so they can go visit Auntie Chats in Kansas. Pam and UMD student Noah, who's still in his red-beard stage, posed in Mary-Bear's home photography studio. Special guests Melanie, Tara and Eric were declared honorary cousins. Others present who managed to escape the paparazzi were Auntie Mary (she was working so hard she was just a blur), cousin Zachary and his friend Sarah, and Lavone Broberg, paternal aunt of cousins Dan, Sam and Sarah. Happy Thanksgiving to all from the staff of the scrapblog!

Flex time

When the scrapblog editor says, "I can be flexible," what she means is, she likes to get up at 10:30 a.m., but if you really need her to, she can get up at 9:30 a.m., or, that she prefers Tab, but she can be magnanimous enough, for your sake, darling, to tolerate Diet Coke. But when her lovely nieces talk about flexibility, THIS is what they mean. Check out these little videos of Countessa M., Princessa H. and even Wee 'Bee doing some gymnastics. Then Noah's lovely girlfriend, Tara, does some, too. As cousin Dan, watching them, exclaimed, "And the really amazing thing is, they'd just eaten a huge Thanksgiving meal!"

The walking woman

Before last year's stroke, Anna walked several miles every day. You had to get up pretty early and walk pretty fast to keep up with Anna. Here she hightailed it across the Hawaiian island of Kauai in March 1997.

Now, this was not an aimless walk. Anna was walking toward ... bananas of course! Anna Banana! (Bet she never heard that one before.)

Sending good thoughts to Michael

Our brother-in-law Michael left a hospital in Wichita, Kan., Monday night after being monitored for a racing, irregular heartbeat. (My friend Totos describes Michael as "your handsome, dashing, athletic brother-in-law.") We love you, Michael, and hope your big heart is doing OK! (It's been a hard week for Michael and Cathy, who lost their beloved dog Trixie.) Dr. Scrapblog Editor's prescription: Rest, keep those great jokes coming and don't take on the world's worries. We trust Chats will take as good care of you as you take of her.

A cat tale

The scrapblog editor had an awful, abysmal, unbearable day, so naturally her first impulse was to share it with you-all. Noah and I have two cats. Lucy, 11, is slender, fastidious, brilliant and highly social (unless you're a toddler -- sorry, Izzbee). Turtle, 10, is fat, sloppy, goofy and erratic. Despite her faults, she has a harmless, sweet, fat-Buddha-like nature. (She's pictured above as a kitten, back when she and the scrapblog editor were smaller. I had just rescued her from a ball of twine, and about an hour before that had rescued her from a large crow that was trying to pick her up and fly away with her. Even as a kitten, Turtle used up a few of her nine lives.) This past month, Turtle has been sick and sloppier than usual. Part of it is she's obese, but something else was clearly wrong. Last week, our vet did lab tests that found abnormal liver and pancreas numbers. Fearing cancer, I made another appointment for Monday, this time for X-rays. I had decided that if the X-rays showed cancer, I would have Turtle put to sleep instead of watching a long decline. So it was an excruciatingly anxious morning. But the X-rays showed no cancer. They did show some intestinal irritation (Sprick-style diverticulitis??). The vet did "a procedure" I won't go into and prescribed some medicine and special food. Elated to have another chance for newly spiffy, extremely traumatized Turtle, I wrapped her in a blanket and took her out to my car. Put her in the car, walked around to open my door, opened it and -- Turtle bolted out. No biggie, I thought. She was under the car. I started the engine briefly to scare her out. When I got out and looked under the car again, she was gone -- and nowhere to be found. To make a long story not too long, I looked for her for hours and hours, with the help of the vet's technicians and various kind residents of the rather rough neighborhood around the vet's, which is at W. Broadway and 27th Avenue N. in north Minneapolis. No Turtle. I looked at the two busy highways running past the vet's, the tangled nearby neighborhoods, the pit bulls I had seen being walked by, the drizzly, cold skies, and thought, I will never see my old cat again, and she is going to die a terrible death. I felt very, very bad. I went home and made some "Lost cat!" posters and tacked them up everywhere. Then I went to work, where I moped to cousin Chris and all my work friends, called Noah in Duluth (he was very buoying), almost cried at the news huddle presenting the day's local news and put several things in the Tuesday paper upside-down. On my dinner break, I rushed back to north Minneapolis and wandered around, hollering for Turtle over the din of cars rushing by and handing fliers to kids running around and possibly shady characters standing on street corners. All were quite nice. But still I thought, Lord, it's like looking for a needle in a haystack. Then, about an hour ago, past midnight and into early Tuesday, I got home from work and decided to give it one more try. I drove over to the vet's, stood out in the middle of the dark street in the clammy fog and hollered for Turtle. A man passing by in dreadlocks and gravity-challenged pants rushed over to ask if I was OK. As I was talking to him, I HEARD A MEOW! And who comes out of the bushes and runs under my car but Turtle?? I was so happy I cried. The passer-by helped me get her out from under my car. I'm sure he thought I was a crazy woman. Turtle is home now, muddy but OK. I will not be putting her to sleep. She will die someday, but of natural causes. Yeah, she's just a cat, and a freaky one at that. But life is too short to poo-poo any kind of love at all, even love for and from a freaky old cat, I've decided tonight.