Muckerman Family Times Xmas 2023

December 2023

Volume 30

Cindy & Dale lose daycare job

Days of our life

Cindy & Dale lost their jobs as daycare providers this summer. Marcus took care of Asa over summer break, and then, in August, Asa started school at the Walnut Street Day School. To fill in the void, Dale & Cindy traveled more than usual.

In March, during spring break, they went to Las Vegas and Death Valley. Dale had never gambled at a casino. He was able to scratch an item off his bucket list by spending $2 on a slot machine. That depleted our gambling budget. We spent some time in Vegas walking the strip and looking at the sights in the casino hotels, but most of our time was spent outside of Vegas.

What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas At the Hoover Dam, Dale got in trouble for carrying a pocketknife into an exhibit building. His knife was confiscated. Because he also once had a knife confiscated at a Peruvian airport, he was put on the international list of known pocketknife carriers. He now owns only two pocketknives. If you have pocketknives that We discover the Hoover Dam you want to get rid of, send them to Dale.

We hiked in Nevada’s Red Rock Canyon and Valley of Fire State Park without incident, and then livened things up by heading to Death Valley. March weather is nice in Death Valley. We often had to wear long sleeves or sweatshirts while hiking. It is a strange place. At one point, we were over 280 feet below sea level but could still breathe. We also saw some clouds there that were hiding UFOs inside them.

In May we traveled to North Carolina to visit Dylan.

Clouds hiding UFOs On a hike through a forest we spotted a pileated woodpecker and were able to scratch that off our bucket lists. In June we attended an all-class reunion at St. Monica’s, Dale’s grade school. Some of the other classes had aged, but everyone in Dale’s class was well preserved.

We took a long trip in July to Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks.

We got sprayed by one of the geysers at Yellowstone when it erupted just as we were passing so we didn’t have to take a shower that day, which was lucky because our cabin had no shower. We saw no bears, but a buffalo tried to walk into our car. Cindy was excited about the photo op, but Dale stepped on the gas and left the buffalo eating our dust. Buffaloes are a known cause of traffic jams at Yellowstone.

Free hot shower In September, we went to Akron to see Cindy’s brother Jeff and his family, and also got to see friends Don & Neva Hornbeck. While there, we saw a waterski show reminiscent of the shows televised in the 1950s from Cypress Gardens. Another item scratched off the bucket list! We then headed to Cincinnati to visit Dale’s brother Ray and his family. Ray has become a master tomato grower and provides his whole neighborhood with tomatoes.

We took a short trip on Thanksgiving Friday to St. Charles, Missouri where we met up with Bob and Janet Muckerman. We carried on our tradition of getting in trouble for making too much noise while playing a game in the hotel lobby. To balance things out, however, we rescued a $20 tray of cookies that had been abandoned in the hotel parking garage.

We seldom stay up late, but we did make it to some musical events. We saw some great cover bands for The Cranberries and Fleetwood Mac at the Blue Note. We won tickets to see Three Dog Night in Jefferson City, but those old dogs aren’t what they used to be. Cindy also went to see one of our favorite groups, Guster, with Julie & Riki at Columbia’s Rose Music Hall.

We have become good at winning tickets, and were able to see several theater productions at Arrowrock’s Lyceum Theater. Our favorite was Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. We also saw The Addams Family, Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap, and Beautiful: The Carole King Musical. For the second year in a row, we won tickets to Columbia’s True/False Documentary Film Festival. We also won tickets to a rodeo, but had Covid so we gave our tickets to a neighbor.

Cindy volunteers weekly at the Food Pantry where she hands out food to people who need it. She also donates and delivers food to unhoused people in Columbia 2-4 times a month for COMAC (CoMo Mobile Aid Collective). She knows where to find the unhoused people and is working on learning their names and stories.

Once when we came out of a restaurant, she saw a hungrylooking guy and gave him our Cindy on a food run box of leftovers.

Even though we were down with Covid for a week or two, our health has been pretty good. Cindy did tear some cartilage in her hip-thigh area which causes some pain, but it is becoming more bearable. Dale has not had any more internal organs removed. We each received an Apple Watch and over $250 in Amazon gift cards for participating in a 2-year study on cognitive decline. As far as we can tell, we have at least 90% of our mental capacities left. We don’t know where the other half went.

Dale served on a jury for a 4th degree domestic assault case. It was a mash-up of Perry Mason and The Jerry Springer show.

Lots of legal arguments combined with angry people and profanity.

Dale again harvested over 400 I, the Jury pounds from his garden. New things he grew this year include ginger root and delicata squash. Delicata squash is very good and doesn't need to be peeled like other winter squash does.

Cindy read over 25 books, and did quite a bit of crocheting this year. She has been crocheting scarves and neckwarmers to give to the unhoused people in town. She also exercises regularly and watched all 15 seasons of ER while exercising. As you can imagine, she was very tired after that round of exercise but in excellent shape.

Dylan becomes a cowboy Dylan learned cowboy skills this year when the Piedmont Farm Animal Refuge added cattle to their inventory. Though he finished a 6 year term as a board member, he still volunteers at the Refuge. He worked on several construction jobs there, many involving electrical work. So far nothing has burned down so his electrical skills must be ok. He also took photos that are being used in the Refuge’s calendar, and he helped film a documentary about the Refuge. When we visited him this year, all the animals recogDylan & Benny the cow nized Dylan so his animal skills must be pretty good also.

In addition to working for the Registrar’s Office at the University of North Carolina and volunteering at the Refuge, Dylan has several hobbies. As an adjunct to his frontiersman cowboying skills, he forages for dogbane. He built a spinning wheel to spin yarn from He knitted both the the dogbane. He has knitted sweaters and other items from traditional fibers, sweater and the cap and plans to make something from the dogbane fiber he is making. So far, he has spun 87 yards of dogbane yarn.

Dogbane Dylan also grows mushrooms in his yarn garage and veggies in his garden, paints, and lifts weights. Two of this paintings were auctioned off at a fundraiser for the Piedmont Refuge.

One went for $425 and the other went for $475. He stepped up his weightlifting this year. He can deadlift 390 lbs., bench press 245 lbs., and squat 300 lbs. Sold for over $400!

Julie and Tyler time travel / host coven of witches Julie & Tyler are always open to learning opportunities. They traveled back to renaissance days at a fest near St. Louis to see what it would be like to be a faire maiden and a Viking warrior. Then, in March, they sought to expand their knowledge of religious traditions by hosting a “Witches and Bitches” birthday party for Julie.

Eager to further expand her knowledge of the Vikings, Julie traveled to Sweden and Norway on a work trip with colleagues from the Thompson Autism Center where she is Their time travel was go- a training specialist. She ing well until the Vikings found out it is still a bit noticed the sunglasses cold in May there especially on the hills above the fjords. 30 years of witchin & bitchin Julie is going to school to become a Speech Pathologist like Cindy. It will take a few years but that is alright. It will be her second master’s degree.

Tyler was busy himself moving to a new office in beautiful downtown Columbia. Though he is allergic to cats, he and Julie adopted another older Tyler at new office Chillin’ with coworker cat named Mr. Whiskers, so now their first cat, Miss Kitty, has a companion.

Samantha in Norway

The Adventures of Riki, Marcus, and Asa Riki, Marcus, and Asa have been on the move this past year.

Marcus won the James Madison Graduate Fellowship, a program designed to help high school teachers become outstanding teachers of the American Constitution. It will be Marcus’s second master’s degree. He is taking college classes while continuing to teach at Hickman High School so his workload is pretty heavy. He hopes to complete the program in 3 years. Only one person per state is awarded the Madison Fellowship each year. Send all your constitutional queries to Marcus.

Riki’s influence over the wastewater systems of the world is growing. She is now the senior applications engineer in charge of a team of five at Environmental DyOn Pikes Peak namics International (EDI).

She is basically a big boss now, like Meryl Streep in The Devil Wears Prada. She even got to go to a conference with other captains of her industry in Chicago last year.

Even with their more serious pursuits, Riki and Marcus still have lots of fun. Riki grew legions of flowers and vegetables around their house this year. She and Marcus and Asa vacationed in Salida, Colorado and Colorado Springs over the summer. They thought they would be getting out of the summer heat in the mountains, but it just so happened to be Colorado’s warmest weeks. Asa was not all that impressed with Pikes Peak, but enjoyed several playgrounds, and lots of sticks, rocks, streams, and BIG TRUCKS! Asa likes big trucks and playing outside. He is 2 1/2 and excels at throwing sticks into the pond, swinging, going down slides, being chased, and knocking balls.

He can also identify several types of birds. In August he started day school, and has learned several Cookie expert songs and social skills there.