J. Michael Andresen

This past Friday (the day before my birthday) we had dinner with Liz and Jeff and Maria. Maria's birthday is just two days after mine. I am 18 times as old as Maria. Happily, she's catching up quickly. As she was being born, I recall, I was infinitely older than she. In a thousand years, I will be a mere 3% older than she. Here I am at Liz and Jeff's wearing "the birthday hat" while Katie tries to blow the candles out: (Little does she realize that the candles and the flames on top are made of felt!) Here's Maria looking dapper in the new pajamas we gave her for her birthday: Katie surprised me with a grand birthday itinerary. It started with a lecture at the Minnesota History Center about the progression of the voting rights (which are not as clearly protected as one might think) in the US Constitution. (We subscribe to a monthly lecture series, and it just happened to be on my birthday this month.) Then we checked out a local cigar store, where the colorful

My mother had her 60th birthday this past Saturday, and we decided to throw her a surprise party. We invited 11 of her closest friends, all of whom were able to come . . . provided we had the party the Friday night before her birthday. I came up with a lame excuse for having Mom's birthday dinner on Friday night when the actual birthday so conveniently landed on Saturday. She bought the story, though, and none of her friends gave anything away. It was a complete surprise, as the pictures bear testament to. Here she is just after she came in and everyone yelled "SURPRISE!" Notice the nicely dropped jaw: For a live-action view, Missy has posted a video of a slide show of pictures of the party preparation (including the party hats and beads that the arriving guests donned with only occasional complaint) along with video of Mom coming in to the shouts of "SURPRISE!" Later in her presentation are videos of the last mad rush in the kitchen before we served dinner. We

My lovely wife and I had the following exchange last night. It started when I was getting into bed and realizing that Katie had changed into her pajamas but was still wearing her glasses. Michael: Why are you still wearing your glasses? Katie: I'm very cold! Michael (touching Katie's arm): You're not very cold! Katie: Well, neither are you! I would be very appreciative if anyone can explain to me what light this conversation sheds on why Katie was still wearing her glasses.

I have recently modified my list of life goals (which I blogged about recently). After much reflection, I have abandoned bridge as my main hobby. I am giving up on the goal of winning a national bridge championship. This makes me a bit sad, considering how hard I worked toward that goal for fifteen years (see chart of the rating points I've acquired since starting in 1992). In the end, I've realized that my favorite part of bridge is making an insanely detailed bidding system, which requires a fully dedicated partner. I have not been able to find one here. The idea of all the traveling to tournaments is also much less appealing now that I'm a family man. So with a heavy heart, I abandoning bridge after Memorial Day of last year. In place of all the time I would normally have spent studying bridge, I have turned to literature. I've missed out on a lot of reading with all the constant studying, and I'm trying to catch up now. Not knowing where to start, I did a search

Katie and I went yesterday to see two art exhibitions by prominent 20th century woman artists: Georgia O'Keeffe (at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts ) and Frida Kahlo (at the Walker Art Center ). We went to both exhibits with Beth Z. and Heather M. and then returned home for pizza and discussion. The O'Keeffe exhibit was my favorite of the two. I was especially fond of the "pelvis series" paintings in the collection, which typically depict a blue sky framed by a cow pelvis in the foreground. My favorite O'Keeffe painting from yesterday was Pelvis IV (1944): O'Keeffe meant to contrast the eternity of the blue sky (with moon in this instance of the series) with the ephemeral nature of life on earth. O'Keeffe may have had World War II on her mind as she painted, but the sobering contrast is just as relevant today as we destroy our planet with greenhouse gases. At first glance, the abstraction in the piece is subtle. She provides enough shading to make cle