Rosemary Ruffenach's blog

by Rosemary Ruffenach, 6/9/08 • “There is someone out there for everyone,” began the essay. Yeah, yeah. “It was the perfect time to fall in love,” Emma’s memoir continued. I sighed. The memoir assignment routinely elicited tales of teen-age love lost, as well as of childhood accidents, disastrous first jobs and best friends gone missing. However, in the next sentences I realized this story was different. It was the perfect time for love to appear, said Emma, because right then her problems were so gigantic that it seemed they would never get better. Drugs? Abuse?

by Rosemary Ruffenach, 5/18/08 • While May brings thoughts of romance, garden improvements, new fishing gear, or surcease of the primary campaign season to most Minnesotans, for me this year it means the yearbook advising assignment. Now, until recently, I hadn’t paid much heed to these trophies. Back in high school, I made sure my senior photo displayed me to proper advantage and that I was pictured in at least one extra-curricular activity (journalism). I purchased a copy and stored it away; not even my own children have looked at it since.

by Rosemary Ruffenach, 2/18/08 • As coats made from the pelts of animals go, it probably wasn’t that expensive; it wasn’t mink , beaver, sable or even fox. Rather it came from the sacrifice of brown rabbits, their pelts subsequently dyed black. I inherited it from an aunt three years ago, and until this winter, had only worn it for Christmas Eve service. Even wearing it once a year had elicited protests from my daughter, though she couldn’t threaten not to be seen with me on Christmas—that would be carrying PC too far.

By Rosemary Ruffenach, February 2008 • Rosemary Writes • The lure of a fresh snowfall and reasonable temperatures was irresistible—finally. I hauled out my cross-country skis and began waxing. The last two winters had brought so little snow that my skis had been relegated to a dark corner of the basement to gather cobwebs. With Christmas festivities, work obligations and temps in the polar wax range (white), they remained sulking in the corner this season until that last Saturday in January.