Palin Pales in Comparison With Dylan

How unqualified can one person be? I'm positive that Dylan knows that Africa is a continent, and also that he could name the countries of North America! Oh, my goodness...did we ever dodge a bullet?!?!

Obama, Obama

OK, this is not really me raining on anyone's parade.

I got emotional watching the victory speech and celebrations. I am ecstatic that Obama defeated McCain and The Twit. Of course I'm sentimental about the history that I have witnessed during my lifetime - the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the end of school segregation, the integration of colleges, MLK and the marches in Alabama and the "I have a Dream" speech. It's all very historic and memorable, dynamic and admirable. It's almost unbelievable that our country has come so far in just 4 decades that we now have elected the first African-American President. So I share everyone's sentiments, and we both voted for Obama with vigor and satisfaction.

However....a few months ago I was thrilled and ecstatic thinking that we would finally have a woman President in my lifetime. I thought that Obama was a fine candidate, but that maybe he shouldn't run at this time because he's much younger than Hillary and would have more future chances at a Presidential candidacy. Waiting for another time would give him a chance to get more Senatorial experience under his belt, and learn more about foreign relations, military operations, etc. I was never anti-Obama, just thought that he was maybe not quite ready yet. In reality, I was thinking that I might not have that much time left to see a woman in the top office of the land, so go Hillary, go.

Well it was not to be. Dick disagrees with me, but I kind of feel that women now can plainly see their place in the pecking order. Obama, is after all, a man - and so, obviously far preferable than any woman regardless of her proven ability, intelligence, experience, knowledge of foreign affairs, and other highly skilled Presidential qualities.

I was joking with Jana and said that Dick wants to name his next baby Barack. I sincerely wanted to name my next baby Hillary.




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Presidential Election Day

It's been more than a week since I was rear-ended, and I'm feeling fine - back to normal. Except, as you know, for me normal is not that good to begin with! Anyway, my bruises are fading, and I never had any bad pain or anything - just tenderness and achiness for a couple of days. I was indeed lucky. Plus, our little Subaru really protected me.

The Subaru was totaled, and so MEEMIC will be sending us a check in a couple of weeks. We've been shopping around today and we've tentatively decided to get a 2007 Toyota Rav4 from Wares Brothers. We drove it around today and really liked it.

We had a pleasant voting experience this morning - only one person in front of us, and lots of workers - it all seemed very well organized. Dick was concerned about having to stand in line for a long time, so he packed water and chairs - we were ready! We figure that the whole voting process took us less than 10 minutes. Now we wait for a little good news! I saw myself on Channel 4 News as I was walking out of the East Bay Township Hall polling place. I was on TV for about 1.5 seconds!

I have an appointment tomorrow at 8 a.m. for a double root canal. Maybe it won't be so bad if I have an Obama victory to celebrate.

Martha Cook Picture

When we picked up our mail yesterday, included in it was my Martha Cook Building Alumnae Newsletter (Cookie Crumbs). Imagine my surprise when on page 9 I spotted a group picture from 1956 which I recognized right away, because I'm in the first row! So now my college days qualify for historic pictures?

In the newsletter it actually says, "Can anyone help put some names to these faces?" It's just like in the Grand Traverse Herald every Wednesday with the pictures of the 1908 baseball team, except that this time it's ME! YE GODS! If you click on the picture it gets a little bit bigger. I'm 3rd from the right in the front row.



I did write a letter to help the gals "put names to the faces", which is very easy because the names are all right there in the YEARBOOK for crying out loud! Not exactly a mystery.

Yes! This picture is in the 1956 Ensian on page 144, complete with all of the names!

I'm in the first row, 3rd from the right (Nancy Kanitz Steiger).

Next to me, 2nd from the right is my maid of honor (Roberta "Bobbie" Evans Hayes).

Behind us, first on the right is my bridesmaid (Carol "Cookie" Cook Boberg). I noticed that on the website enlargement of the picture, Carol is completely cut off - but she's there in the yearbook.

My roomate, Claire Zimmerman Dailey must have missed picture day - she was my other bridedsmaid.

Bobbie, Cookie, Claire and I were all in the Class of 1957.

I married Richard B. Steiger, '59, and we'll be celebrating 52 years in June, so the wedding party did an exceptional job, don't you think?

We all keep in touch, even though we are widely separated - I live in Traverse City, Michigan, Bobbie is in Virginia,
Carol is in Houston, and Claire lives in Naples, Florida.

It was fun to look at the picture again and to see so many friends and familiar faces.

My family and I visited Martha Cook this past September when we were giving my 10 year old grandson a tour of the campus. It was extremely pleasant to see the building looking so much the same, and Dick and I were proud to show it off to my daughter, son and grandson. We shared many good memories of the University in the 50s. It made me proud to be a Cookie all over again!

It was fun to see the picture in the newsletter, and I recognized it right away even though I haven't looked at it in years. Thanks for the opportunity!

Sincerely,
Nancy Kanitz Steiger

Find #2000

Although geocachers say that it's not about the numbers, somehow the numbers become important as you go along. So today we are proudly celebrating the finding of our 2000th geocache.

We did an earth cache over at Elk Lake - it was fun and easy, on a really nice day. The pictures didn't turn out - they were purple for some reason.

So we went back the next day, which was not such a nice day, and took the official 2000th find pictures.




We weren't really happy with those either, so Tim and Susie took these other pictures for us at a later date. Anyway, it's a minor big deal, if there is such a thing.

We wanted to do a special cache for number 2000 and after suffering through another Wolverine disaster, decided to take a drive and find this one. We have been here many times, the Elk, Skegemog, Torch cruise is one of our favorites which is highlighted by lunch at Docksides. When we were kids, there was still an excursion boat that sailed out of Elk Rapids and the bridges across the Torch and Clam rivers were the swing type. Thanks for bringing us out today.

Total Loss

The Subaru has been declared a total loss.

The insurance company left a message that they had received all of the paperwork from Ross Beakes Collision and would be contacting us in a few days to discuss the settlement. So we need to go shopping.

I would really like to get a new car for a change. Then you have no worries about getting a flood car, a hurricane car, or a previously smashed car. I would also really like to get a little bit bigger car - the Subaru was a bit of a tight fit. I would also dearly love to get an American made car, especially in these dark days for Michigan. How about a Ford Escape hybrid?

Dick, on the other hand, loved the Subaru, and trusts Wares Brothers. Can't argue about the safety aspects of the Subaru. Since 2003, it's had side airbags, and since 2006 it's even had a trunk release, which is not a safety feature but nice to have. So no doubt that we will once again go trucking off to Wares Brothers to look at the latest crop of discarded Subarus. Heavy sigh.

It was a beautiful day to drive home to TC. We were very glad to be heading home - the last week in Ann Arbor has been a week of recovery for us - and we were all a little subdued and listless. Luckily, the apartment was a nice place for recovering - we were warm and comfortable. We each had our laptops so we could all play WoW at the same time.

We ate lunch in Cadillac, got home around 3 p.m., unloaded the rental (a black Mercury Milan), returned it, picked up our mail, and drove downtown in time to see tons of kids trick or treating on Front Street.

Happy Halloween

Baby, Baby !

Adam announced today that he and Melanie are expecting!

That is such exciting news - the new band of cousins keeps growing and growing - Jackson, Dylan, Fay, Lauren, Autumn, Brooke, Lydia, Drew, Maya, and now a new Hardy baby!

How great that is.

Congratulations to Adam and Mel and Lydia!

The Secret Life of Steigers

Lunch and a movie seemed like a good way to celebrate Jan Snider's early birthday. We all went to lunch at TGI Friday's. Then Jan and I went to see The Secret Life of Bees, Jana went gallivanting with Molly, and Dick went geocaching.

The movie is a beautiful thing. It follows the book very closely. The actors are ideal for their characters, the setting is perfect, and the story is very bittersweet. I don't remember the book being so sad, but the movie is tremendously emotional. It's a terrific story, and I recommend the movie highly - take kleenex. It's probably more of a chick movie.

Things are going well. Jana is not having much difficulty walking around - she only has an occasional twinge. She's not even taking her pain meds anymore. I'm fine too. I've recovered from the shaken, anxious feeling, and I'm not in any physical pain. My body looks like I'm wearing a purple sash - bruising from the seatbelt.

Our car may be a total loss. The garage has not come up with the final numbers yet, but today they told us that the frame rails have buckled, which means that the whole frame of the car has been compromised.

We have a rental car which we're packing up tomorrow and driving to TC on Friday. Jana will be leaving on Friday also.
If the car is repaired we'll pick it up when we return in a couple of weeks for the Northwestern game. We have our Explorer at home so we won't be without a car. We'll be staying with Sniders for the Northwestern weekend.

Either way, we'll be getting rid of the Subaru and we'll get a new (used) car. Our kids have convinced us that driving the repaired Subaru to Florida and back is probably not a safe idea.

Normal

We are feeling almost back to normal. Jana is walking well with a walking stick, and I'm no longer quite so achy, although still very very bruised. We took a ride to campus. Jana and I visited the Alumni Center while Dick went in search of a cache which he didn't find.

We had a delightful late lunch at Zingerman's roadhouse.


We spent the rest of the day in front of our laptops. Jana went shopping at Linens and Things and found some good bargains. Dick found out that the frame bars on the Subaru were buckled, which will add quite a bit to the repair cost. We still don't know whether or not we will get it back.

Martha Cook Our Building

When the kids were little, we used to sing all kinds of songs together - current songs, Walt Disney songs, and songs from my past. (Such as "Beware, beware of pick-pocket furnace - pick pocket furnace can waste a lot of fuel and money, so if you care, replace it with a GE, a General Electric furnace, save, save save!") I guess you had to be there.

We loved to sing "Let's Go Fly a Kite", and "I Want to go to Chicago Town", not to mention the Superman song: (Though no one knows the secret of Superman's identity, he's really Clark Kent, the timid nonentity..." and so on and so on.

One of the songs we sang a lot was the Martha Cook song from my old residence hall in Ann Arbor. Jana was trying to remember the words once, and googled it. Lo and behold the lyrics are not on line! Google doesn't know the lyrics, and neither does the Martha Cook website. http://www.umich.edu/~mcaa/

So Jana asked me to put the lyrics on the blog so that future googlers can find it somewhere. (As if.) Anyway, here's the song:

Martha Cook our Building,
our dormitory dear,
We love you.

Martha Cook our Building,
0ur dormitory dear,
we love you.

With Portia o'er the doorway,
and Venus in the hall,
and Prexy in the Sparking Room,
where harm can ne'er befall,

Oh Martha Cook our Building,
our dormitory dear,
we love you!

The other dorm song that we sang was the Betsy Barbour song - evidently that one remains unrequested! It's a simpler song - "We're Barbour born and Barbour bred, and when we die we'll be Barbour dead, so hooray for Betsy Barbour, hooray for Betsy Barbour, Hooray for Barbour, Rah, Rah, Rah!!"

Some Better

Today we are feeling "some better" as Mother used to say. Jana is walking with a cane, which is a big improvement. I'm just bruisy and have a purple stripe on my bod.

Dick and I went to Meijer to pick up a new coffee pot - the apartment pot finally gasped its last gasp. It felt good to walk around for a while, but not so good after a few minutes. I was glad to get beck home.

This evening we went over to our neighborhood Joe's Crab Shack for dinner. Quite a spread - quite an entertaining staff - quite a good time.


Tomorrow will be even better.

Happy Birthday Tom!!

Today the three of us are sleepy, sore, and you might say...listless. I know this will pass, but right now we just want to sit here and take our Aleve.

Tom's iPhone out in San Diego is not working for some reason, so we haven't been able to talk to him on his birthday. He blames it on AT&T because he's never had any trouble with his Verizon account.

We had contact on our computer game, so we were able to text him that way, but that's about it. At least he knows we're thinking of him, and that we are all OK.

Happy Birthday - you are now officially middle-aged!

Our Own Personal Day From Hell

The bad stuff began when I went out to get sandwiches for lunch before the big game.

On the way home, the car in front of me stopped when the green changed to yellow, but the car behind me did not. I was rear-ended big time. I saw it coming, but there was nothing I could do - traffic was bumper to bumper on both sides of me, and I was stopped still. I was a sitting duck. The impact was more forceful than I could have imagined - the rear end of the Subaru was shoved forward quite forcefully.



The front end of the car behind me was totally smashed in and had to be towed away. The driver was a woman, but I don't know if she was injured or not. I hope she had a good airbag.

My airbag did not deploy, probably because it was a rear collision. I sat in my car for the longest time, but finally a police officer came to see if I was OK and asked me to move my car to the center left turn lane. I was OK - I knew nothing was broken or bleeding - I just felt a little bruised in the seat belt area, and I felt considerably shaky. Four police cars came, two amublances and two tow trucks.

I think I sat there for 40 minutes until the ambulance guy came to check me out. I declined any treatment and turned down the ride in the ambulance! The police officer took my info - license, registration and proof of insurance - and disappeared with it for a long time. It seems like I sat there forever.

Finally he told me I could leave, and I drove home. The engine was fine, but the rear end was very noisy with scraping and rattling, and it certainly didn't feel right, either. Thank goodness I didn't have far to go. Dick thinks the car may be a total loss, and that we may have to replace it. Tomorrow we'll see about renting a car.

I filed a claim online with Meemic because they woun't be answering phones until Monday morning.

Even though it was time to get over to the stadium, I was feeling a little too shaky and bruised and I decided I didn't want to try going. I convinced Dick and Jana to go ahead to the game. I told Jana that I would be very sad if she drove all the way from D.C. and then had to miss the game! So off they went.

On television, the game was just getting ready to start - they were lining up for the kick off, and the cell phone rang. It was Jana, and her opening words were "I broke myself." It seems that she fell down the stairs in the stadium, and had to be carried out and taken to first aid.

There, they told her that she should go in the ambulance to U Hospital for x-rays of her foot, ankle, knee and hip. She had the cell phone and the car keys with her, and she also wanted her Dad with her - so Dick was paged in the stadium to go to first aid.
Jana's "ambulance guys"


The next time I spoke to them she was in the ER, and Dick was with her, taking pictures. At that time she was still being examined and hadn't yet been x-rayed. She was in some pain, but seemed to be OK.



So I spent the rest of the afternoon listening for the phone to ring, talking to Laurie and Chip, and sporadically watching the game on TV.

Since I'm the only one of the three of us who has had a chance to watch the football game - here are some fleeting impressions that I found memorable: There were at least 3 plays reviewed that I know of. One of them was a Michigan touchdown that was kind of a phantom touchdown - I think that mistakes were made in the review booth upstairs. I'm sure it will be controversial forever. Michigan somehow managed to stay even with State up until the 4th quarter. The score was tied 14-14 at the half and 21-21 at the beginning of the 4th quarter. The State quarterback was sacked at least 3 times that I saw - although I must admit that I didn't watch continuously. Brandon Graham got all 3 sacks. It appears that State may be winning statistically - total yards, etc. State missed 2 fieldgoals - one was blocked and one was shanked. State easily got two touchdowns in the 4th quarter to win 35-21.

Losing the game doesn't seem like that much of a tragedy to us today. We have been preoccupied with our own personal stuff, and so to us, this time football is just a game.

U-M Loses to Spartans in Battle for Paul Bunyan Trophy
October 25, 2008

Site: Ann Arbor, Mich. (Michigan Stadium)
Score: Michigan State 35, Michigan 21
Records: U-M (2-6, 1-3 Big Ten), MSU (7-2, 4-1 Big Ten)
Attendance: 110,146
Next U-M Game: Saturday, Nov. 1 -- at Purdue (West Lafayette, Ind.), Noon

ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- The Paul Bunyan Trophy will reside in East Lansing for the first time in seven years as the University of Michigan football team fell 35-21 to the Michigan State Spartans on Saturday afternoon (Oct. 25) at Michigan Stadium in the 101st meeting between the programs.

MSU's big-play offense registered two of the four longest plays against U-M's defense all season, scoring touchdowns on a 64-yard rush and a 61-yard pass while rolling up 473 total yards of offense. Spartan quarterback Brian Hoyer completed passes of 61, 50 and 44 yards to finish with 282 yards through the air and three throwing scores. His most potent target, Blair White, caught passes of 61 and 50 yards, finishing with 143 yards and a touchdown.

UPDATE;
Here's a letter that I just wrote to Sharon with the update on our day from hell:

We are all fine. I have deep bruises where the seat belt goes, from my right hip to my left shoulder. All I have to say is Thank God for seatbelts!. I also have a lesser bruise on my left knee - I think it must have hit the steering wheel. So no big deal really. The car is a different story. We're glad that Jana's car is here.

Jana is OK - nothing is broken! She has crutches and an air cast on her ankle. She has bruises too, of course. We're just so relieved that she has no broken bones. She's limping around the apt. on one crutch. They got home from the ER around 9:40 p.m.
Limping around the apartment

At U Hospital ER, you have to go through security!


We're fine - just aches and 'bruisiness" and it's just a reminder of how lucky we are compared to what might have been. All's well that ends well, the the only real victim is our poor little Subaru.

Hi Sue!

Susan came to town to visit Molly, and so after the workout we met her for coffee.

It was nice to see her and we had a nice long conversation and solved most of the world's problems.. well maybe not. Anyway, it was lovely to have her in town.

We spent the rest of the day just hanging around the apartment - reading and playing WoW. Restful and pleasant.

Hi Sharon! Hi John!

We drove up to Lansing to visit with John and Sharon, and to see more pictures of baby Maya! We had a great visit - it's always fun to catch up on the family news. It was very special to hear about their trip to L.A. to visit their first grandchild, and to see the special pictures. You just can't get enough of baby pictures!

John treated us to lunch at the Red Robin - that's always enjoyable. Thank you John!
We had an interesting conversation, and we all enjoyed just sitting and talking after lunch.

On the way into the restaurant, Dick noticed that the gas price across the street was $2.81, and on the way out at the same station the price was $2.73 after just an hour or so! Of course we filled up.

On the way up and back to Ann Arbor we found nine caches. It was a beautiful drive - the fall colors are arriving in southern Michigan and the red maples in particular are just glowing.

Phooey on Phootball

We were out and about this morning, mostly over on campus trying to scout out clues for a difficult multi-cache. We think we have solved it now, but we haven't completed it yet. Dick did find a difficult one near Pioneer High School.

We felt obligated to watch the football game - I was on the computer and occasionally glanced at the TV - and occasionally was more than enough. We actually enjoyed the first 17 minutes of the game, and that's something.

Michigan Falls at No. 3 Penn State in Big Ten Clash
October 18, 2008

Site: University Park, Pa. (Beaver Stadium)
Score: #3 Penn State 46, Michigan 17
Records: U-M (2-5, 1-2 Big Ten), Penn State (8-0, 4-0 Big Ten)
Attendance: 110,017
Next U-M Game: Saturday, Oct. 25 -- vs. Michigan State (Michigan Stadium), 3:30 p.m.

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- No. 3-ranked Penn State University scored 39 unanswered points to end a nine-game losing streak to the University of Michigan football team with a 46-17 victory on Saturday evening (Oct. 18) at Beaver Stadium. The announced crowd of 110,017 fans was the fourth-largest in stadium history and the largest road crowd played in front of by the Wolverines in school history.

Lunch With Todd

Today we had a lovely lunch with my cousin Todd at the Olive Garden. It was fun to see him again, and we had lots to talk about. He's a good story teller, and we really enjoyed his company. The Olive Garden lunch is always a winner.

Afterward, armed with a hint from the cache owner, we went back downtown to find the pub micro that stumped us previously. Here's Dick's log of our successful search:

Found it 10/17/2008 You found Michigan Craft Brewing: Treetown (Traditional Cache)
A lot of the time when we go back and, aided by additional assistance from an owner or previous finder, find a cache we had missed on an earlier trip, we can't figure out how we missed it the first time. Not in this case. Both of us had searched the spot "thoroughly" on our first visit. We missed it because we flat out did not look carefully enough. Thanks for the help and thanks for the cache.

Jackson

It was a good day to drive over to Jackson.

We spent the day there - found 8 caches (and couldn't find two). It was a very pleasant day. It was fun to reminisce about some good times in the old days when the Mirzas lived there. I remember visiting there one time with the kids. Mrs. Mirza came to me and told me that my children were playing with matches in the garage! It turned out to be no big deal, but at the time I was embarrassed and horrified! We drove past Thompson Street and also past the Queen of the Miraculous Medals Church where Mrs. Mirza went every day.

Cascades Park is a beautiful place - well used by joggers, bikers, dog walkers, and some who actually walk without a dog. There were two caches to find in the park, and Dick did quite a bit of hiking around it - nice place.

We ate lunch a a sad little place called Ted's Firefighters Pub. They claimed to have more firefighter memorabilia than any place else in Southern Michigan. (Not a very wide ranging claim!)

We were touched by the waitress who lost her good job because of a back injury, is a single mom with two kids, and can't afford medical insurance. One of her kids has medicaid, and that's it. We were interested because of our past work with the Medicare/Medicaid Assistance program. She was appealing and friendly, but we still wouldn't recommend the pub!

Relaxing

After the Geezer Workout we went shopping at Kroger, which is a big, beautiful store. We were there because there was a micro hidden in a parking lot behind Kroger's. It was one in a series of micros hidden all around Ypsi/Ann Arbor. This one was Micro Madness #18.

After a tour of campus, we went home and relaxed - Dick by reading his book, and me by playing the game. I'm having a lot of fun completing the new achievement challenges. Right now I'm working on exploring all of the continents. It's just one of he many new achievementts available now on WoW...more fun than ever.

We also had a nice phone conversation with Dylan, who was staying home from school with a fever.

Round and Round

We went exploring in Ann Arbor, and found many interesting places. Bader Park is kind of a pocket park in a neighborhood off of Arlington St. It's really hard to locate, but Dick found it and even found a cache there.

We drove around the campus of Washtenaw Community College - it's quite an impressive layout - and it's beautifully maintained. We got a cache there, and also one across the way near the grounds of St. Joe's. It's always fun to tour Ann Arbor and today was no exception.

The most puzzling cache was at lunch time. There are a couple of brew pub caches downtown, and we ate lunch at one of the brew pubs, and then went searching. We both looked and looked, and searched and searched, and gave it a good go, with no luck. The other one was no problem.

We parked in a parking structure across the street from the pub - it was very convenient, but I'm not a big fan of parking structures. We always have to go round and round and round and park on level five. Well, at least that's what it seems like.