Uncle Joe

My Uncle Joe died tonight.

He battled cancer since a terminal diagnosis at the beginning of last year. 

I wasn't able to say goodbye in person, but I did write him a letter a couple of weeks ago. I included a small watercolor I did of a leaf I found at the cottage.

 

I think of my uncle on every visit to the cottage. He was its caretaker for many years since he was in closest proximity. When my grandparents were alive, it was Uncle Joe who regularly checked in on the place for them. He knew the ins and outs of closing the cottage up for winter and opening it again in the spring.

My grandparents built it back around 1980. My grandfather died in 1985. My grandmother died 25 years later.

In my mind cottage was a vacation home for both of my grandparents, but I suppose it was really my grandma's, since I'm just now realizing how little time my grandpa got to spend there. It's filled with things he built. How we use it is based more on my grandma's example. It's a place for reading and eating and enjoying family in a spot surrounded by trees. 

We've changed very little about the cottage since we bought it in 2011. It still has the TV my husband and I bought Gram so she could watch both VHS tapes and DVDs. Her recipe cards are still in the kitchen. We still use her Spite and Malice deck when we play cards at the big table like we did with her on summer visits. We had a big family reunion there when Gram turned 80. She used to plant begonias out front because it was the one thing the deer wouldn't eat. The cottage is the only place I still retain a sense of both my grandparents clearly.

After my grandma died, the cottage was left to my mom and both my uncles. None of them were in a position to care for it, so it went up for sale. I was so sad that my husband decided we should try to buy it. We struck a deal where we paid Joe his portion up front, and then arranged payments to John and my mom. I'm very glad we've kept it in the family. It's my kids' favorite place.

Joe told me what improvements they added when they put the cottage on the market. They removed the dishwasher (which had an obnoxious tendency to flood the kitchen), and added overhead fans (which I'm sure my grandma would have loved). We've since replaced the bed on the main floor, and this summer we put on a new roof. My grandparents also bought some bad floor lamps that I finally decided should go, but otherwise, it feels the same as when I used to spend summers there in junior high and beyond.

Joe once suggested it could be nice to turn the screened-in porch into a three-season room, and add a sliding door to it from the inside. My grandparents' friends down the road had something like that, and he thought it could work at our cottage. I agreed. We've hired a contractor to do just that before the spring. 

The plan for Thanksgiving is (was?) to have it at the cottage this year. We have all the food, and as I am writing this, Mona is in the process of fetching her siblings from their respective colleges in different corners of the state.

But then Joe took a turn for the worse tonight. I talked to my mom who was on her way with her brother to try and reach Joe before he passed. They didn't make it. They weren't sure what would be happening next.

I told her any and everyone there was welcome to join us at the cottage. We could also just bring all the food to her in Detroit instead. I don't know what to offer, but I will do whatever I can that could bring anyone a little peace.

The loss of Uncle Joe is terrible.

He was smart and funny and kind.

He reminded many of us of my grandfather, in that he had a similar deep voice and a large comforting presence.

He had a mustache, and a famously hairy back.

Joe told great stories.

With him, you always felt safe. 

When I was growing up, we went to Flint for nearly every Thanksgiving, and I remember Joe trying to keep the dogs (Peanut and Seymour) from jumping on me and my brothers. He used to chuck a treat into the basement to get Seymour in particular to go down there when he was too much. Joe also once built additional height to their backyard fence to keep that dog from escaping, and pretty much the moment he finished, Seymour sailed right over.

In high school biology we were asked once as part of an assignment to name the most masculine man we knew, and I wrote "Uncle Joe." My friend Gabby didn't know what to put, so she wrote "Kory's Uncle Joe." Ever since, when Joe has come up in conversation, Gabby will nod and say, "The most masculine man I know."

It was always a great treat at Christmas or Easter to see my Uncle Joe and Uncle John together. They were so damn funny as a pair.

We did over twenty years of New Year's Eve celebrations with Joe and his family. The first themed one was when he and my Aunt Laura arrived with a homemade Wheel of Fortune setup, where Laura wore a tie, and Joe was decked out in a feather boa to play Vanna White. Another year we cast him as Captain Kirk in a Star Trek play. He happily rolled with whatever we wanted to do.

Joe taught history at Flint Central and coached the football team. My family was not a sports family, but Joe told me the thing about high school football is it could be anything. You might be able to predict the outcomes of professional or college games, but never high school. 

If I had to pick one moment that best encapsulates Uncle Joe for me, it would be the time my grandma slipped and fell rounding the corner from her kitchen to her dining room. Joe and I rushed over to where she was on the floor. She was shaken, and we were scared, but once we determined she was okay, we relaxed a little. Then Joe looked her in the eye and said, "Mom, the important question is: Can you still bake?" She laughed, assured him yes, she could still bake, and then everything was fine. Joe wanted to help make things fine. 

Joe loved his family.

We loved him.

I miss him.

The world is fundamentally lesser without him.

I'm glad any pain he suffered is over. 

 

Goodbye, Joe. Thank you for being my uncle.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Moldfest!

 

That's right: Moldfest! 

I know it sounds to the uninitiated like an event that might go along with Mildew-mania or Radon-a-rama, but no, it was the second annual Mold-A-Rama/Mold-A-Matic enthusiasts gathering in Berwyn Illinois where fans of the fun waxy figures can meet and share and trade to help fill out one another's collections. 

We only happened to learn about the existence of the event a little over a week before it took place on Saturday, Aug 9th. I've been struggling to get our machine working after years of neglect, and I finally discovered a Facebook group where collectors meet, and asked for help. A couple of very nice people who own private machines themselves offered advice and answered questions. One of them asked if we were planning to come to Moldfest. Who knew?! We rearranged our vacation plans to include a stop at Moldfest on our way to Michigan, and we loved it.

To have things to possibly trade at Moldfest, we took a trip to the Milwaukee County Zoo, since they had a couple of new figures there anyway that we wanted. 

Our zoo is also in the process of closing its Small Mammals building, which is a shame because it's always been our favorite. It's the only place we've ever seen with a bat mold, so we wanted a couple of extras. Sadly the machine was not prepared to make a few in rapid succession and they devolved! (Which is simply amusing to display, so we're fine with it.)

 

 

The completely new figure from our zoo was the flamingos, and the stegosaurus, penguin, rhino and hippo are repeats in new colors.

 

In general, we've lapsed in our Mold-A-Rama hunting since the few places left we know of that we want to collect from are a bit far. Oklahoma City Zoo, for example, could be an easy weekend trip if not for the dog, and a trip there in summer sounds really hot. Maybe we'll figure it out for spring break?

In preparation for Moldfest we decided to literally dust off our collection of over 200 figures on our mantel and see what we have from where already. 

 

In doing so, we discovered that black Sharpie can fade completely away on that material. We mark the dates and places of where we obtain our Mold-a-Ramas on the bottoms of each figure in either silver or black depending on the color. Silver lasted, black did not. So Quinn went back through my blog posts to determine missing information to remark figures that needed it in silver.  

She also pointed out that I have not been good at documenting any acquisitions since Covid, so I'm going to take a moment now to catch up!

One of the challenges of collecting Mold-A-Ramas is that they come and go from certain locations. Brookfield Zoo is always reliable. But apparently the couple we picked up from The Dells we were smart to get when we did because they are gone again. Driving my oldest daughter back and forth to UW Stout includes passing The Dells, so in April of 2022 after visiting her for Easter on campus, the rest of us stopped at the Kalahari resort/water park to grab this elephant and giraffe.

 

In June of 2022 Mona and I visited our own zoo again to pick up this blue eagle, green otter, and silver seahorse. I don't know why our zoo did the seahorse, but it's my favorite so I'm glad! 

For Mona's birthday in 2022 we spent the day at MOSI in Chicago to visit an official Mold-A-Rama show! I intended to write a post about it, because it was great to see Mold-A-Rama history on display. Unfortunately I had a computer disaster and lost a ton of photos from that year. (Which included such memories as when we first met and adopted our dog, Domino, so I'm still sad about that.) A Mold-A-Rama show post with no photos didn't seem worth doing so it never happened.

At that event we picked up a white angel (which was finally explained to us as being an ornament, so I am not quite as irritated that it doesn't stand up well), green Christmas tree, green monorail (which is odd and always looks like a caterpillar to me at first glance), yellow chicks, blue ships, red Santa, and silver robot.

 

In June of this year, Quinn and I were in Detroit to spend time with my mom to help her recover from surgery, and we had the chance to finally visit Third Man Records at that location. It's ridiculous that we already had the Third Man figure (of one of Jack White's guitars) from Nashville, and didn't have the one from Detroit considering how often we're there. The Detroit Third Man machine makes a yellow truck.

 

Okay, back to Moldfest!

 

What a delight to be among other people with the same goofy obsession. Many people seem confused as to why collecting Mold-A-Ramas is appealing, but we didn't have to explain it to anyone that day in Berwyn. I even got to meet a woman in person from Tennessee that we sent figures to years ago, including a messed up corythosaurus (she likes the goof-ups) from our own machine, to help fill out her collection. Julie's long since surpassed us with over 600 unique figures, and I love knowing things we sent her are in that display.

Admission included a specially marked "Moldfest 2025" figure (choice of non-waving gorilla or piggy bank) and a BBQ buffet lunch. Quinn and I picked up t-shirts, a Moldfest T-Rex, and although there were some figures we didn't have that were available for sale or trade from other collectors, the fun for us is really in getting them ourselves as part of a family travel adventure.

The few figures we brought from our zoo weren't of interest to the kind of hardcore collectors (over 100 and from ten states!) that were in attendance at Moldfest, but we decided they fit in well with the things on the mantel at the cottage where we were ultimately headed.

A couple of days before we went to Moldfest, we were able to connect with a nice guy at a local hydraulic repair business who seemed intrigued by our machine. He took parts of it away to tinker with and use as a teaching tool for an apprentice, and the goal is to have the whole thing working again by spring. If we couldn't find someone in our area, we were prepared to drive our machine for a total rehab down in Florida, but with luck we won't have to do that. On the brief occasions where we've gotten it to work well enough for people use outside our store, it's been such a delight. At this point I just want the machine to be reliable enough that we can put it out on nice weekends, and we want to proceed with getting our own mold ideas made.

 

Aden has been playing with designs for a violin figure. It would be nice if the mold could include a bow, but that may be too complicated. We were able to take a 3D printed prototype to Moldfest where we got advice about how different parts need to be angled to work correctly, and now Aden's starting over with a fresh design that ticks more of the boxes we need before we can approach a mold maker.

 

It would be exciting to actually offer up a violin mold! If it works, we may create a Domino mold next. Maybe a little figure of her perched in her dog bed the way she hangs out in the window. Lots of possibilities, many of which I'm sure would be a hit at a future Moldfest. We'll let you know when we reach that step!

Who's a good little mold model? Yes you are!

 

Summery Summary

 

This summer has been a lot, and it went by too fast. Time to jot some of it down before it all slips away!

On the travel end of things, it's been a simpler year. No mandolin adventures abroad, no camping trips or visits out west. We managed a trip to our cottage in Michigan for a few days where the highlight was that we finally had both the money and sense to arrange for someone to deep clean it before we got there. We don't have enough time when we visit to both clean it and relax, and the point of going is to relax, so the cleaning was overdue. The maid was wonderful, and even found a new arrangement for the twin size beds upstairs that at first we balked at because it was new (and at the cottage we seldom strive for "new") but after a few moments had to concede was much better.

Cookouts and walks and board games. I think often about how my grandmother used to spend a full month at the cottage every year, and how nice it would be to settle in there like that. Someday. When I'm not as needed to do so many school repairs over summer.

 

 

 

We also had someone come in and update all the electrical stuff, which was another thing that was overdue. Now we can do exciting things like use the microwave for more than 30 seconds at a time without tripping the breaker.

Unfortunately, we may need to budget for a new roof at the cottage as the next big thing. I really don't want to pay for another roof. We had to do that on our first house, the garage for that house, our current house, the violin store building, and my husband's childhood home in Oregon before we could sell it this summer. That's too many roofs! Oh, and selling a house two time zones away? Not fun. But after two years it was time and I'm glad someone will get to enjoy living in that nice little neighborhood.

The other travel we did this summer was all related to the Celebrating Women Luthier's exhibit. I had the two instruments I'd made for two of my kids on display, along the scroll I carved that will go on the third soon. It was a marvelous exhibit that started at Potter Violins in the Washington DC area, and then moved on to Reuning and Son in NYC (down the street from Carnegie Hall), a surprise stop at the Reuning and Son shop in Boston, and finally at Sapp Violins in the Chicago area.

We did a road trip to NYC (with fun stops to stay with family in Ohio each direction), and that was amazing. I don't normally get to include my family in my luthier-world events, but at Reuning and Son I was part of a panel discussion where my mom, husband, kids, brother, and sister in law all got to attend. I loved that. My brother and his wife arranged for us to stay in their next door neighbor's place (which was vacant at just the right time) in Washington Heights, which is always a joy. Prettiest part of Manhattan in my opinion, and we enjoyed walks to Fort Tryon Park and the Cloisters. We ate well mostly because we ate in most nights and my sister in law is an incredible cook. We also ate out at a Turkish restaurant one night that we could bring the dogs to. And not a typical stop on most visitors' trips to NYC, but I was really pleased to get to see my brother's new office at the Child Mind Institute.

In no particular order, here are some New York pictures:

View of the Hudson River on our walk to the Cloisters.

 Kids at the obligatory visit to the Nintendo Store, and at the Cloisters.

 

\

 Dog cousins!

Homemade lime cheesecake with fresh berries at the end of a delicious feast our final night.

 

Insanely intricate miniature carvings on display at the Cloisters. (I own a lot of tools, and I have no idea how I would approach trying to carve something like this.)

 

Aden on the balcony of the room she stayed in.

 

Subway Domino!

  

My brother's apartment is both the doors on the left, and the place we stayed is the door on the right. Interestingly, those two side by side apartments are technically in different buildings. We never take it for granted that we have such a lovely place to stay when we are in New York. Also, Pepper!

 

Outside the new digs for the Child Mind Institute! They have some excellent art inside. Also, Domino the subway dog in a bag!

 

Some of my family and friends at Reuning and Son for my panel talk. Such a pretty space!

Panel selfie!

It worked out very well for me that I crossed paths with a friend heading to DC in time to deliver my instruments to the beginning of the Celebrating Women Luthiers exhibit, and that the last stop was in Batavia IL where I could not only attend the opening, but pick my instruments up at the end of the show. The event at Sapp Violins was incredibly nice. I got to drive in with a fellow luthier, and meet my other brother there and show him around. We arrived early and stayed late and enjoyed every minute of it. Here's even a shot of someone playing one of my instruments, which is always a treat.

Speaking of lutherie... I've been doing my best to make progress on the two violins and viola I've been working on forever. For a plethora of reasons, I'm behind schedule, but my current goal is to maybe have something done in time to enter in this fall's Violin Society of America competition. We'll see.

 

 

The main impediment to my work lately has been pain. 

My right knee started to hurt back in February, and by St Patrick's Day, I ended up in urgent care because I couldn't walk. After x-rays and ultrasounds I still can't tell you what's wrong with it, but they sent me to PT before opting for anything invasive. PT helped, although I honestly am never sure if the main factor for healing is simply time. About a month ago the physical therapist gave my right knee a passing grade and let me go. Now the left knee is failing in the same way. I'm doing the exercises I learned in PT, but it's hard. Some nights the pain keeps me awake. Moving in any way is difficult. You don't realize how much you twist and shift your legs in bed until it hurts every time you do it. 

Chronic pain is demoralizing. It lures your focus from everything you'd rather be doing, and it's boring.

And sitting on any chair where my knees are pitched too high is excruciating. I've been avoiding mandolin rehearsals this summer, partly because after ten minutes in a folding chair my knee feels like it's screaming at me. I may have to bring some kind of cushion when orchestra starts up soon or I don't think I'll get through it.

I have another appointment with the sports doctor soon, and I hope she can help. (Considering how much I have always detested running, the idea that my injury is connected in any way to something like "sports" is very funny to me.) I miss being able to walk without having to think about it.

Fun things this summer!

My kids have really upped their game with Mother's Day breakfast in bed.

I started a little Domino painting on our garage, but I can't finish it until my knees are good enough to get that low again. I don't think the dog approves.

The goofiest non-violin project in my shop is gluing up the oddest snow globe I've ever seen. One of my kids bought it for her little sister last year, and it's inexplicably a seagull standing next to a littler seagull in a snow globe. So I need to put that back together at some point.

Between graduation requirements and participation in the National Honor Society, Quinn needs lots of volunteer hours. We did some of that this summer by signing up every few weeks to make bag lunches for an organization called Street Angels that works with homeless people in our area. She's gotten really good at shopping for, and assembling, 50 lunches at a time.

I think my favorite summer project has been making a cube mosaic display for my violin shop. I have wanted to do that since we opened in 2008, and I finally decided I needed to make it happen rather than think about it. It took me a while to build the box, and then find the right dolly to prop it up, but I'm happy with the result. Although there was a prolonged issue with getting my bulk cubes. I ordered 240 stickerless speed cubes to start, but after playing with some designs, decided it would be worth it to double the number of them to make a more detailed display. I ordered another 240 cubes, but through a mix up, I got sticker cubes. I returned those then had to wait for the stickerless ones to be back in stock. When those arrived, they didn't match the original cubes! I wound up exchanging the original box of cubes for more cubes that would match the newer ones. So that was more complicated and drawn out than I imagined it would be.

Mismatched cubes

480 cubes is a lot of cubes

 

In the end it all worked out, and I love the display. We run photos through a grid generator online that breaks the picture down into pixels a dozen cubes at a time, then I arranged the cube faces and Quinn lines them all up in the box. We've done two pictures so far, and plan to change it up again soon.

The only concert I played this summer was for Juneteenth with the Black Diaspora Symphony Orchestra. It was a powerful program that included pieces I feel lucky to have gotten the opportunity to play. The one I can't stop thinking about is

Dayvin Hallmon conducting rehearsal

Seven Last Words of the Unarmed by Joel Thompson. It's one of those things that is hard to recommend in a way, because it's devastating. But also very beautiful. It was emotional to play and kind of wrecked me a bit more each time we played it. This is an important composition that deserves to be much better known. 

I felt the same way about the music featured in the NYC concert of women composers at the lutherie exhibit. Some of the best music out there remains obscure because it isn't in the standard repertoire. We need to put more music by underrepresented groups front and center for all our benefit.

It's hard to stir the people in our house out of our own quiet projects, but we did go see a drone show downtown. We watched it near the North Point Water Tower. I really liked something akin to a fireworks show without the noise. (Domino does better with fireworks explosions in our neighborhood than Chipper did, but it still bothers her.)

There were several things we expected to do this summer that we either didn't get to or didn't finish, but I was proud of Aden for doing some work with the 3D printer. She made a small dog for a friend that was only a few inches tall, and really cute. One day she will make us a Domino design we can print out. Mona has continued to crank out more and more amazing plushies for her Etsy shop. (Check out the butter cats and the cheese mice!)

The main thing I'm annoyed not to have gotten to by now is my novel. I hired a lovely editor this year to give me notes, and I finally have a direction in mind for when I edit it. I just need actual time to sit down and do it. 

Time has been hard to come by this summer, but thankfully at work my assistant came back again and helped me get dozens of cellos fixed for the school system over the past couple of months. Cello work is particularly hard for me when it hurts to stand. So work has been extra busy, but thanks to my assistant, it didn't kill me.

We were hoping to organize a trip to Six Flags for Quinn and her friends before summer was up, but that required planning on the part of the kids involved, so that was likely doomed from the start. (This generation is impressive in many ways, but planning things is not one of their strong suits.) 

I can't believe school starts next week. Although I appreciate the abandonment of the mid-August calendar this year which got Quinn a longer summer than usual. She's a senior. My last kid in K-12! How did it go by so quickly?

Rufus King High School

 

I'm glad Aden was home this summer. I'm glad Mona is nearby. I'm assuming once Quinn decides on a college that she'll be home next summer before we deliver her to some new campus. But there is no way to know if we'll have another whole summer like this one with all five of us in the same place able to spend time with one another on a daily basis if we wish. I hope so. But I'm not counting on it.

Here's to diving into fall! I'm excited to see what awaits.