Happy 49th Anniversary, Mom and Dad!

Happy 49th!

This was a rough year -- my parents spent a good five months of it apart while my mom lived in Minneapolis to get her cancer treatments at Abbott -- but they're through that and past it now and back together and bickering again just like normal.

Just try to get a photo of them together though... 

Not until Beata photo bombs, anyway. (We've got another jokester-Hexum-impostor vying for favorite daughter position) -- 

Guys: I love you. Now no more cancer, now I mean it!

Conduit Lighting

Future home for naked pendant Edison bulbs -- exposed wiring hidden in plumbing conduit:

Insulation!

Future kitchen

Future loft

Future bedroom

Future loft

And new poured concrete footings in the basement! To hold the house up!

Road Rage

The Virginia Piper Cancer Institute' s Department of Radiation Oncology is located on the south side of busy three-lane one-way 26th Street in Minneapolis, Minnesota. And if you're not careful and don't start changing lanes to get over to the south side well in advance, you could miss the parking lot, which is in the middle of a block just shortly after a stoplighted intersection. See what I mean?

Good old irritating 26th...

I had to bring my mom to radiation in the mornings, and that meant I was also usually late for work.

One morning, I forgot to get over to the left side of the road before the intersection and found myself stuck in a situation not unlike the photo above. I was going to miss that parking lot if I didn't hurry up and rudely cut a bunch of people off to get over.

I waved my hand out of my window and moved over one lane, and attempted to move over another lane. I had to get in front of a white van and when I was in the middle of doing so, he was like, "what.are.you.doing?"

"I'M TAKING MY MOM TO RADIATION"! I screamed out the window. Take that. White van man. Cancer. Boom.

Signed,

Kady playing-the-cancer-card-as-often-as-possible Hexum

Elevators

Keri and I were in the elevator at the Duluth Radisson on a recent trip up north. We shared it with a very pregnant woman.

"Do you know where the pool is?" I asked.

"No." she said.

"Well, you better find out", I said, "you're about to be a mom."

She looked at me like UM...WHAT and then said, "I'm already a mom, I have two kids."

And then I was like, "So...where's the pool?"

TA DA!!!!!

I didn't mean anything by it, SHEESH.

Hanna, the Engagement and Her Uncle Pete

So, Hanna got engaged. 

She's getting married in January to a very nice kid named Dan. I think they make a terrific pair and am happy for them and blah blah blah. But that's not the point of this story. 

The point of this story is that as soon as she accepted Dan's proposal, she started making phone calls to her aunties and uncles to share the happy news.

Here is a transcript of the conversation between Hanna and my brother, her Uncle Pete:

P: "Hello?"

H: "I'm engaged"

P: "Do you love him?"

H: "Yes."

P: "Did he buy you a ring?"

H: "Yes."

P: "Is he a good man?"

H: "Yes."

P: "Does he have a good job?"

H: "Yes."

P: "Can he take care of you?"
H: "Yes."

P: "Who is this?"

Hal-isms, Vol. 61

"It's muggy and stifling and prejudicial."

"Why don't you keep estranging me until you have to text me in my grave?"

"You buncha gun totin' city folks. Eatin' at Arby's."

"Boy I should buy this paper - there's all sort of tragedy."

"I'm back up to only four pounds down."