Ornamental morning

When I woke up this morning, a few peonies had started to blossom. Most are still living tight in their buds. It made me think of this:



Peonies by Mary Oliver

This morning the green fists of the peonies are getting ready
to break my heart
as the sun rises,
as the sun strokes them with his old, buttery fingers

and they open—
pools of lace,
white and pink—
and all day the black ants climb over them,

boring their deep and mysterious holes
into the curls,
craving the sweet sap,
taking it away

to their dark, underground cities—
and all day
under the shifty wind,
as in a dance to the great wedding,

the flowers bend their bright bodies,
and tip their fragrance to the air,
and rise,
their red stems holding

all that dampness and recklessness
gladly and lightly,
and there it is again—
beauty the brave, the exemplary,

blazing open.
Do you love this world?
Do you cherish your humble and silky life?
Do you adore the green grass, with its terror beneath?

Do you also hurry, half-dressed and barefoot, into the garden,
and softly,
and exclaiming of their dearness,
fill your arms with the white and pink flowers,

with their honeyed heaviness, their lush trembling,
their eagerness
to be wild and perfect for a moment, before they are
nothing, forever?

"I hear lake water lapping"

I'm heading up to the lake by myself tomorrow, in this case my parents' place on Lake Beltrami, north of Bemidji. They're back now from their winter in Mission, Texas; I haven't seen them for over seven months. I think they have a nice life: summers on the lakefront with the canoe and the pontoon, the deer and the loons. Winters in the sun with friends and weekly happy hours, bridge tournaments and art classes. Our kids, their only grandkids, each spend a week at the lake with a friend. Mom and Dad teach them to bake bread or to sew, catch walleyes, waterski. Mom's always yelling out to them: "Wear sunscreen! Take off those wet suits! Be careful!" Dad just keeps feeding them more food.

When my kids were little they would fall asleep on the long drive up from the Cities but wake just as we hit the curvy Gryce Styne Road, entrance to the west shore of Beltrami Lake. "Are we at the bumpy road? We're on the bumpy road, we're on the bumpy road!" they'd say in their whisky nighttime voices, and they'd kick their little legs against the car seat and clap their hands.

My mom wrote this morning: "Just a line to tell you we are excited about your visit and getting food, movies, and the bedroom ready. It's cold and wet but we have heat, unlike the first couple of days and I almost froze. I'm anxious to see you and catch up on some news about the family and talk about things I just can't express on the phone or machines. Please drive carefully and take as many breaks as you need. We'll be here
waiting for you."

That warms my heart and makes me smile. This charming story from Bill Holm, writing in the new book Cabins of Minnesota, makes me smile, too. Here it is. Have a good weekend!

"What about professional performing musicians who must, of course, practice every day, but like the rest of us need a periodic cabin retreat and renewal? Jussi Bjorling, one of the greatest singers of the twentieth century, was endowed with a silvery tenor of great lyrical beauty. He was also the pride of Sweden. His career began in the twenties as a boy singing with the Bjorling family quartet, touring every hamlet in the country, singing folk tunes and hymns on Swedish state radio. 'Tonerna' or 'Varmeland' could reduce otherwise phlegmatic Swedes to blubbering. As a grown man, his Puccini and Verdi sold out opera houses all over Europe and America.

"Like most Swedish families, the Bjorlings owned a summer stuga, a retreat to nature for the brief, intense arctic summer of continual light. But singers vocalize daily to keep their instrument tuned and supple. To learn a new role for the opera season requires hundreds of hours of practice. The Bjorling family owned a small island in the Stockholm archipeligo, with a comfortable and commodious house for guests, children, long summer dinners with herring, boiled potatoes, pickled beets, gravlax, cream cakes, aquavit, and probably croquet on the lawn. Imagine Ingmar Bergman’s Fanny and Alexander.

"But for Jussi, there was work to do, so he commandeered a small cabin next to the lakeshore, moved in a piano, and created his studio. There he disappeared daily to vocalize and memorize. But an operatic tenor of his size and penetration is a bit hard to muffle. Vesti le Giubba is hardly silent. On the other hand, it is very beautiful. Bjorling’s voice was of such quality that even a simple scale or arpeggio could bring pleasure. Remember also that Jussi rehearsed on the lakeshore and sound carries with astonishing clarity and distance over water. Neighbors from miles around that galaxy of small islands must have heard the bell tones of the great man at work. Being Swedes and simultaneously loving his voice, they wanted to listen but not to cause a fuss. They drifted past in their canoes or small boats, extinguishing the motors or rowing as silently as they could past the music. There they floated as slowly as possible as Il mio tesoro intanto or Una furtiva lagrima or Ingemisco undulated out over the glassy surface of the lake in the long white light. Bjorling’s son Anders remembers an endless parade of boats moving silently past the studio for this watery glorious concert. What did they do when the great man, needing a cup of coffee or a pee, stopped singing and opened the door. Did they applaud? Wipe tears from their faces? Or being good Swedish neighbors did they nod politely, or cast rods into the water as if just passing by hunting for a breakfast pickerel? That scene and the thought of that music make me wish I had been there."

Do As I Say Not

So today was Bus Day. My daughter left the house at 4:45 a.m. for her job at the Nicollet Mall Farmer's Market. I seem to hear everything in the night these days and not only did I hear her shut the doors and drive off but I also heard the four cats she disturbed on her way. The black one from our not-so-friendly neighbors across the street sleeps on or under our porch. I don't think it likes our neighbors either because it's always over at our place. They never bring him in. Which is fine, until he bawls like a newborn calf and it's 4:45 in the morning.

I remember my mom and dad craving sleep when they were the age I am now. I used to think they were a little obsessive. As preteens fending for ourselves, my brother and I learned to tiptoe around the house in the mornings, never quite shutting the cupboard doors after getting our cereal, learning to watch Saturday morning shows on mute, like those Anoka guys who have garage parties and keep the Nascar on mute in the background.

Well now I understand my parents' sleep needs. If you asked me anytime today what I'd like to do for fun tonight I'm sure I would tell you, Go to Bed Early, and I wouldn't mean for the sex.

So I was all set for the bus: mug of tea, extra shoes and rain jacket in big bus bag, umbrella. Except I forgot to check for change so it wasn't until I had walked the six blocks in the rain that I found my pocketbook empty. Forgot I had given the kiddos all my money for Chipotle last night.

I had twelve minutes to walk back--in the rain--and get some change and still make the last rush hour bus. I spilled my tea on the front of my shirt on the way back and my walking shoes started to make that squishing sound from all the rain.

No change in the house. None to be found except for $1.89 in pennies. The rush bus is $2.00. I called my husband and asked him if he knew of any money stashes in the house. He offered to drive back through the rain-induced freeway traffic and get me. I declined.

Then I called him back and said yes.

On the ride to work my husband told me about seeing a squirrel fall and slip off our porch roof this morning, landing on its backside in the wet flower beds. Said he'd never seen a squirrel lose its footing like that.

Me and that squirrel. We just need to take it easy on these wet, trying days.

POM POMS #3

(See previous nominations here and here.)

My pick this month is Metro Transit of the Twin Cities. Now if you live in Philadelphia or Chicago or Palo Alto, this can still work for you. The dealio is to choose public transit, at least one day a week. It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood, gas prices just hit $3.40 here in St. Paul, and you'll make Al Gore AND Leo DiCaprio happy.

(An aside: Once we published a book by Dan Maguire, theology and ethics professor at Marquette, and the final bound books shipped with a heading something like this: "Engage in Pubic Policy." Yep, that dreaded A-level head with the bad typo, one of the ones they warn you about in proofreading training. We didn't even catch it until Prof. Maguire himself faxed a short note that read, "While I'm sure this would be a lot more fun, we should correct this heading in our second printing." So I always triple proof a phrase like "public transit.")

Many of you (here and here) already commute by train or bus daily. I share a car now with the college kid and take the #74 down Randolph Ave. to downtown St. Paul a couple of times a week.

I'm a big believer in the idea that you can learn many of life's little lessons by observing closely all those people and places in your own neighborhood. And what better way to see the details of your lovely neighborhood than through the windows of a slow-moving bus. As Point wrote in Ma Gastronomie: “. . . one must read everything, see everything, hear everything, try everything, observe everything, in order to retain in the end, just a little bit.” I am getting to know the 74 regulars. The woman with white orthopedic shoes who gets off at Smith Ave. near the hospitals. The man who gets on by "Run and Fun" and carries an old Land's End softside briefcase. The crowd of men who get on at the Salvation Army, full of piss and vinegar, as my grandma used to say. Two of them sat near me the other day.

One said, "Hell, I feel like I got run over by a dump truck."
The other said, "You shouldn't feel bad. You should feel good. Wine's supposed to be good for us now, you know."
"Wine? It is? What kind?"
"Hell, it don't matter. White wine. Red wine. Just wine. Good for you. Stops heart attacks."
"I guess I don't feel so bad after all."

When I was a kid I used to bring the Sears and JC Penney's catalogs to bed with me. Sometimes I'd pretend I had to outfit myself and my brother for a year for under $100. Or I had to outfit a new apartment for under $100. I always had a $100. Weird. But now this kind of thing is a regular feature in glossies like Simple Living and Seventeen so I guess I was ahead of the curve.

So sometimes when I ride the bus I think about living without a car. (I lived it as a new editor back in the eighties, riding the Lorenz commuter line down Rice Street.) I know exactly what I'd do on my first car-free Saturday. I'd walk down to Kopplin's at Randolph and Hamline for a hot chai and zucchini bread with my big market bag slung over my shoulder. After reading the paper and watching the morning coffee groups I'd take the 74 downtown to the Farmer's Market in Lowertown to pick up some spring rhubarb. Then I'd hop it back up Randolph and get off at Sophie Joe's Emporium, at 453 W. 7th St., for a little retro shopping, and then I'd walk over to the Day by Day Cafe for lunch on their back patio. I'd step back on and take the bus all the way up to the College of Saint Catherine's, where I'd hop off to stroll through the lovely campus, stop by the Catherine G. Murphy Gallery if it's open, and watch the geese slip around at the pond. I'd walk down the block to buy some bulk granola and bottled cream at the Mississippi Market Co-op, and then head back home. Lovely.

All for way under $100. Beats driving your truck to Target.

Just what we needed--a little joy

Photo by Joey Mcleister, Star Tribune

The Double Dutch team from Cityview Community School, Minneapolis.

For a delightful double dutch video, see the article "Dutch Treat" from the Star Tribune, 5.18.07, written by Delma J. Francis (http://www.startribune.com/389/story/1189875.html).

Missing Joe?

For you baseball fans out there, in case you’re sorely missing Joe, I have a story for you.

I was shopping at the Grand Avenue Kowalski’s Market and was waiting for the deli man to hand over my chicken pasta salad. The deli is nearly always crowded on a Sunday so I had time to people-watch. I was watching a young mom checking the labels on ice cream when this really tall guy walked by with a little green shopping basket in his hand. I recognized him immediately. Joe Mauer. It was Joe Mauer. Man, he’s taller in person than you’d think. I mean he towered over all of us average-Joe St. Paulites. Of course, he's no average Joe. I’d seen Mauer in person a few times over the years. Once my daughter and I crawled over the barriers and into a roped-off section at the packed-to-the-gills high school basketball playoff game between Highland Park (with its star Moe Hargrow) and Cretin Derham-Hall (and their star Joe Mauer). And we'd watched a few high school baseball games at the “Little Wrigley” setting of Cretin and I remember my son carefully following Mauer’s pregame warm-ups right beside us.

This day he seemed taller than usual because beside him was the cute-as-a-button Miss USA girlfriend of his. (Apparently they’re still dating, despite Twins fans posting their rants online: “Drop the girl, Joe, and get back to the game”; or “If Joe’s love life gets in the way of him playing baseball he’ll have to answer to all Twins fans.”) Anyway, they were walking near the ice cream freezers, he ambling along like a young farmer in a row of newly planted wheat, she all perky and with the twittering walk of Reese Witherspoon in Legally Blonde. He looked a little bit like a farmer, too. Knee-length jean shorts, a green cap, that bad haircut. She wore the tiniest little stretch shorts and her brunette hair was smooth and long down her back.

The Twins had just wrapped up a home stint and they were off for Sunday night and Monday. I imagined Mauer and Miss USA going home to the Mauerneau pad and grilling up some dinner together. She was directing the shopping trip: chattering about what they still needed, backtracking to find the missing item, Joe sauntering along behind her.

I got into the checkout line right behind them. She really is cute. He really is tall. The two guys behind the register couldn’t keep their eyes off the couple. I tried not to stare so I watched those two guys. They rang up the couple’s basket items really slowly. Everyone else in line watched the entire transaction and I could hear quiet murmurs all around the store, “Joe Mauer. Look, Joe Mauer.” I even saw one of my son's school friends, Bridget, widen her eyes, point to the couple, and stick her fist into her mouth, like she was keeping herself from screaming.

After Joe and Miss USA left the register, the two check-out guys watched the couple walk all the way out to the auto doors. One said to the other:

“Dude, did you see who that was? Dude, did you check him out?” He nudged his pal in the ribs. “Dude, are you listening?”

“Nah, man,” said the other guy dreamily. “I’m just watching the girl.”

Words of Wisdom

A great quote on the American scene--political and otherwise--from Tony Kushner, who won a Pulitzer Prize and two Tony Awards for his Broadway production, Angels in America:

"What used to be called liberal is now called radical, what used to be called radical is now called insane, what used to be called reactionary is now called moderate, and what used to be called insane is now called solid conservative thinking."--from Mother Jones, August 1995)

thinking about my being a mom

One of my favorite Mom stories is of my daughter in second grade. Her class had just completed a course on heroes, complete with charcoal portraits and essays on their personal favorites. They mounted an art show with each of their portraits hung side by side with their framed essays. They were just learning cursive and you could see the effort they had put into their writing. Parents were invited to the school for "A Night of Heroes," complete with lemonade and cookies.

We walked through the gallery of portraits: Abraham Lincoln, "because he saved our country"; Rosa Parks, "because she took a stand"; Martin Luther King, Jr., "because he had a dream." There were more: my Grandma, the president, Jesus Christ. And then we saw my daughter's portrait: a man with a crown of really big hair-- Kramer, "because he's really funny."







And about this one, the fast-growing teen in the picture: when did that happen?

thinking of mom

My mom raised two teenagers in the seventies.

And Ronald Reagan was president.

Need I say more?


(My mom, at left, with her sister last Halloween)

Six Degrees of Spring

Atlanta lawn art (to see this menagerie up-close, click on picture)


What is seasonal about your life? Your job? Although it was Minnesota-gorgeous, I was fairly trapped inside my office for all of last week, only breaking out to take in a Tuesday baseball game and a nice long walk along the Mississippi last night.

I've been surly and not sweet and quite envious of all those folks with the outdoor jobs. The greenskeepers riding carts at the Highland Golf Course, the crew building that scene-blocking parking ramp on Kellogg Blvd, the St. Paul city workers pouring new sidewalks along John Ireland, even the ice cream man dingalinging his way through our neighborhood. Sitting out alone on our front porch each night after the sun went down, I was like Eileen Brennan, the haggish captain on Private Benjamin, and I felt like I should have a long Virginia Slims cig hanging out of my month. I heard someone say, "Shine, Don't Whine," and they ought to feel awful lucky they didn't say that to me.

My daughter came home from college and I was thick with envy. The summer, to play, with friends, no worries. And I remember how I would fill my freedom summers: I'd swim at the quarry in Winona; I'd hike with all those kids along the bluffs; I'd wait tables filled with all those Chicagoland tourists; I'd take trips with my roomies to visit each other's families, me learning to ride an old work horse in Wells, me waterskiing on wood skis on gummy Cedar Lake.

But my days are tied up in work. I find plenty to celebrate the seasons outside of work. But what's seasonal about my job? What summer trends break my work routine?

Well, for one, I show my toes now. I have a friend who had a boss at the MMM campus in Woodbury who frowned on open-toed shoes in the workplace. And my friend just kept wearing them, watching her boss glare down at her feet at every meeting. I dug out some lilac frost polish and painted my toenails. Well, that's enough to make me feel better already.

Second, the museum is now packed with kids, what with all the end-of-year school field trips to our place. The kids are so cute; they scream and slide on our heavily waxed granite floors. I heard one say to another, "And then if you are a teenager you might get ZITS!" And in the women's restroom a fourth-grade girl was sobbing and wiping this humongous chocolate milk spill from the front of her white tee-shirt. There was no way that was coming off. I felt so bad for her I scrounged around some of the departments and asked the program people if I could have one of their pink tees they give as prizes. I went back to the restroom and the poor girl was still sniffling and now her shirt was mucked with shreds of brown paper towel. I gave her the pink tee and she went into the stall to change and compose herself. We both were practically beaming as she walked out with her new "I (Heart) History" tee-shirt.

Third, many of my newly signed authors with academic posts are getting almost giddy, the thrill of their own summers of freedom near at hand. And now they e-mail all the time (the book, I'm ready to work on the book!), like spammers selling Viagra, and I have to curb their enthusiasms while I tend to the books at hand.

Fourth, my kids are heading into their own summer routines. Soon my phone machine will be filled with such messages as: "Mom, where are the hot dogs?" Then, "Mom, where's the ketchup?' And "Mom, where are my golf clubs?" Then, "Mom, when are you coming home?"

Fifth, I can walk down to the Seventh Place Farmers' Market and buy fresh veggies for lunch and a bunch of fresh flowers for my desk.

Sixth, I can eat lunch on the lawn. Wednesday I stole away 15 minutes and laid flat on my back on the grass and called my mom. In the sun. It was perfect.

Spring is in the air

"A strong skunk-like smell that wafted through this city and as far south as Wahpeton appears to have come from a sugar company's lagoon in Moorhead, Minn."

Maybe you all read this the other day, an article about the foul smells up in Fargo. It says, "On Wednesday morning, American Crystal Sugar spokesman Jeff Schweitzer denied his company was the source of the skunk-like smell.

'The type of odor that's out there isn't one that American Crystal generates. When American Crystal has odor issues, we are one of the first to acknowledge them.'"

Yeah, and my dad used to blame his farts on our dog, Duke.
















Besides, I know that smell. I used to live in the valley and work near one of those big mounds of rotting sugar beets and hoe in the fields where those plants grow. I am like a sugar girl. But that implies sweet, and I am often not. American Crystal sugar implies sweet, too, but let me tell you. Whoo-wee. I mean it's funny because I was just writing and thinking about that valley recently and had forgotten all about that deadly spring stink.

The article goes on, "The stench started Tuesday night. Wahpeton City Coordinator Shawn Kessel said he heard complaints of smell in his city, nearly 50 miles south of Fargo. The smell was more like feces than skunk, he said."

I remember our customers at The Tiffany Lounge and Restaurant, which butted-up right next to one of those decaying mounds, coming in to our restaurant with the most sour looks on their faces. If they weren't from around the valley they had no idea what made that smell. I believe it affected their taste buds--how could it not?--and certainly believe it affected my tips.

It even made our water smell putrid. You know those distinct combinations in our smell memory? Those that are a little like Proust meets South Park? I mean, and I know this is distasteful, but one of my college roommates had a boyfriend who slept over often and every morning he'd make a deposit in our shared bathroom and then try to cover it up with raspberry Glade Air Freshener. To this day I can't stand the smell of artificial room fresheners. Or how those dirty metal ashtrays used to smell--the ones left out on bar tables or in messy hospital reception rooms, that mix of old nicotine smashed and rubbed against aluminum. Makes my teeth hurt.

Well, the Red River Valley tap water imprinted the same kind of memory in me. I used to wash my long hair with Herbal Essence (the original, in the dark green bottle) and I distinctly remember that the shampoo never cut the smell. I walked around--we all walked around--with fishy stinky slightly jasmine-scented hair.

The Night Before Wednesday

My last Wednesday turned out to be a bust. Full of you-shoulds and you-should-haves. The rigmorale of work, mostly.

My next Wednesday--tomorrow--is shaping up to be worse than the last. Two deadlines, three meetings, a Nervous Nellie for an author, plus a finicky server that is about as supportive as Donald Trump in the boardroom.

Ahhh, but I'm thinking about all kinds of things to keep me from getting too down in the dumps.

1. I got to sit in the setting sun tonight with a picnic basket and some lawn chairs to watch my son's first Midway baseball game, which they won handily. Lots of hits, many stolen bases, a good amount of banter: "That's it, protect the plate" and "Stretch your primary, take a step, take another."

2. You know what's great about my job? I can do a Wikipedia or Google search for a phrase or word in one of the book manuscripts I'm working on and come up with this little gem.

3. I can think about my dinner out Friday at Ristorante Luci to celebrate my good friend's birthday.

4. I can see my perennials are coming up just fine, even without my clearing out the winter weeds and old debris. I've got two new Lupines springing up along the steps.

5. I will look forward to my daughter's coming home tomorrow for a weekend stint--and we'll get to cook and catch up together. She starts her new job at the Minneapolis Farmers' Markets selling bread for Saint Agnes Bakery.

6. I got to stay up late to watch the Twins beat the Sox in the 10th with a walk-off three-run homer by Canada boy. And now the house is quiet--full of sleepers--and the rain is coming down.

7. I got to have a few more conversations with my son regarding some of the chatter from one of my last posts, "Sometimes he's Dewey and sometimes. . . ." I realize now after talking to a few people that I might have misrepresented him as some kind of racy alley cat.

You remember how it was, yes? You're thirteen and your hormones are raging and suddenly you're just hyper-aware of all the sex, drugs, and rock and roll surrounding you 24/7. And then it doesn't help that your class is talking about all the right and wrong choices and you're learning all kinds of new terms like "weed" and "crack" and "boner," and mom gives you a new book called "What's Happening Down There?" with some dorky cartoon on the cover that has a kid looking down the front of his pants, like he's trying to shake out some dirt that flew down during a slide at home. So like adults who learn some new hobby or program--the Weight Watchers gals who tout "points" and "core choices" willy-nilly everytime we sit down to eat or the new fan who learns all the hocky lingo and so you're hearing "what a goon" and "it was like a shot from the point" every chance he gets--my modern teenager suddenly is full of all his new lifestyle words and phrases. But that doesn't really mean he has a hand in it all. Just trying it out in his vocabulary.

His friends came over this weekend and I saw that they flocked to the computer so that they could look up different MySpace pages, and I know which ones they went to because they don't know about "Clear History" yet. So I look over a few pages of girls writing "Call Me" and of boys writing "Now you're on my shit list," and the running header at the top of the pages carries photos of big-breasted women with the line, "Who would you rather date? Cindy or Shayla?" But then I see later, after the friends have gone home, that my son goes back to the Web and spends some time clicking and cruising. But this time when I check through the history of views they're all for "Amazing Sports Catches" and "All-time Worst Race Car Crashes" on YouTube.

And then he tells me tonight that he never did ask a girl to go out and he wouldn't know who to ask if he did work up the nerve. Does that mean when he said "which one" when I asked him his intentions last week he was just trying to narrow it down to a few who might actually say yes to him. "Pretty much" he says.

At a party last weekend some parents and I decide that one of my son's friends is right when he says, "The other guys in our class would probably attract the girls to our group, but T. (my son) will keep them around." Ahhh.

Friends and Neighbors Day, part 2

(continued from here)



We pulled into Grand Forks and found the hotel on Gateway Drive. Dad left the car running as he walked up to check in. My dad’s legs are strong and stocky but bowl-legged. Mom says he walks like an old cowboy. “Full,” he told us when he got back to the car. “Full,” he says again. Apparently there was some event in town where all the Canadians come down to shop and the base opens up the flight lines to let civilians and their families tour all the hangars and the big B-52s.

“It’s called ‘Friends and Neighbors Day.’ They told me the whole town is full up and they’d be surprised if we found a room anywhere,” Dad explained. By now my brother was saying he had to go to the bathroom and I felt sick to my stomach because it was late and I was hungry and I always got that way on an empty stomach.

“I can’t believe we’ve come all the way up here and there’s no place for us to stay. I won’t drive around anymore getting rejected by another hotel. You call the base and tell them we’re here and tell them they need to find a place to put us up for the night,” my mother demanded.

Dave and I exchanged looks in the back seat. Mom always has to lay down the law with Dad after he goes too far with something. I remember when we were stationed in Texas and we’d go to all these family barbecues and Dad would drink too much with the squadron guys and Mom would just slide over to him and whisper something firmly in his ear and then she’d start packing us up. He’d start pussy-footing around her saying, “What? What’s the matter? Oh c’mon hon, what’s the matter?” And within minutes we’d be home.

So Dad gets out again, this time at a gas station, and he calls over to the base on the pay phone. When he comes back the car was really quiet and we were all kind of holding our breath hoping that we hadn’t been shut out again.

“Well, we’re in luck. I talked with a guy who’s in charge of hospitality and he’s going to put us up at his house for the night. And, his house is right next to the one we’re assigned so we’ll be neighbors. Christ, honey, I’m sorry. You kids okay?”
My dad always seems to come through in the end, even in a crunch. He is big and tall and loud and good-looking and has always tried to please everyone and do the right thing. His dad had left the family when my dad and uncles were little and although his mom remarried a wonderful man, she died when Dad was only eleven or twelve. He said he watched her lay in bed for a year, the cancer moving in on her until she died.

We stopped for a burger and a soda and Dave and I played around with the jukebox, Mom and Dad smoking and talking after their meal. Driving the half hour to the base, we were talking and laughing again, Dave telling knock-knock jokes and Mom petting our dog in the front seat. We pulled up to the base entrance and, like all military bases, you had to get out and show your pass to security until you could get a sticker for your car, and then all you had to do was slow down and salute and drive through.

We wound our way slowly through the streets and found the one we needed, full of side-by-side duplexes—”relocatables” they called them, one-story, gray, prefab houses for enlisted families. Dad matches the numbers on a house with the ones he’s written down back in town and pulled into the drive.

It’s late and so the host family is already dressed for bed. The man is thin and over-charged, shaking Dad’s hand and saying to us all, “Come in, come in.” He wore thick glasses and had a kind of sarcastic smile, like he’s thinking of an alibi for some accusation, or a put-down if you didn’t say the right thing. His wife stood behind him, with bleached blonde hair, and she’s built like an inverted triangle: big head, fat torso, short legs, feet that look too little to hold her all up. Their little girl was already asleep and their son stood in the hallway. He looked about my age. Mom was weary, her blue eyes pale and reddened, dry in their sockets. I learn later that she’s disappointed, hugely disappointed, but that night I think she’s just worn out from not finding a hotel. She agreed to make this last move—Dad promised, this would be our last move and then he’s retiring from the service, twenty years is more than she bargained for—because she thought it would be like home. Home is Wisconsin and the pine trees and the Rock River and the rolling hills near the Dells. The picture he showed her of the Grand Forks Air Force Base had pine trees, and brick houses, and soft, sparkling snow. Snow! It had been years since she saw a good northern snowfall.

But she could tell on the way up from Fargo that this was not the Dells. This was not home. The land was as flat as Texas; the only trees she saw were shelterbelts around lonely farms, the only hills were dikes built to hold back the spring floods of the Red River. And now she’s looking at another two years in a metal trailer with white walls and green carpeting and neighbors who were just like a lot of other military families, messed-up people who lived day to day without a plan, without the right priorities, waiting for the government to tell them what to do.

After short introductions, Dave and I set up bedrolls in the boy’s room and we three lay down on his floor. Our pets had to stay out in their garage. The boy hadn’t stopped talking since we got there. He was telling us about his dad and how they always have the welcome party for newcomers in the basement of the NCO Club, and that he had lots of toys and in the morning we could play with them if we asked first but we had to make sure we put them away neat or his mom would be mad, and did we like his pajamas, his mom got them on sale, and on and on. Dave and I moved round toward each other in the dark and made funny fake yawns and rolled our eyes, then pretended to fall asleep. I thought about the things my mom would be whispering to my dad in the dark, the two of them laying in another strange house, trying to figure out how they’d set up our lives once more.

Man of Many Seasons

I think it's true. It's true what they say: I dated you for your legs. "What do you see in that wild man?" they asked. "Are you kidding? Did you see those broad shoulders, slim hips . . . and the legs on that fellow?"











And then we went hiking, and fishing, and biking, and dancing, and carrying on--and you brought me those foil-wrapped campfire dinners on Parents' Night with my camp kids and wrote me a love letter on a big wad of state park paper towels--and I got to know the full sides of you, and one weekend we gave each other Indian names, or so we thought, and I called you Man of Many Seasons because I thought you were like Heathcliff and you gave me the name, without even pausing, "One with Own Path." And I think that was the clincher. That and those damn fine legs.

Happy Birthday, big fellow. And many more to come!

Friends and Neighbors Day, part 1

I've been writing a bunch lately--and surprising myself with all the stories I've been discovering--and thought I'd share a short one here about my family's move to North Country. This is part one.


Friends and Neighbors Day

We were like the family in the Christmas story, only then there were four of us in an old Rambler station wagon working our way up through the plains. We were on I-29, having come from Altus, Oklahoma, in the middle of June. My dad was in the Air Force and had been transferred again; this time to Grand Forks, North Dakota. Mom, Dad, my brother and I--with our dog, our cat and her four kittens--were all hunched over, watching the scenery go by. We had driven a long way, through two states, and now we were in Fargo, stopped out front of a Holiday Inn while my dad was inside the lobby, talking to the man at the counter. Our plan had been to stop by seven, have some dinner, and take a little swim in the pool.

When Dad came back to the car, he told us the hotel wouldn’t take pets. We couldn’t stay. But he was optimistic, unshaken. As always—he was a sergeant, after all—he seemed like it was his idea all along.

“Hey, that’s okay. I think we can make it up to Grand Forks tonight anyway,” he said to Mom, who was now wilting against the passenger door. My mom is an even five feet with short curly hair and a feisty way about her. I know a little more about her heritage now; she’s a mixed-blood—Winnebago Fox and German and Irish. She never seemed to fit in with the other Air Force wives. She used to tell me she hated getting together for coffee klatches. She hated hearing the sound of defeat in the voices of the other young women who followed their husbands from SAC base to SAC base, leaving their hometowns and extended families and life dreams behind.

The kitties were starting to mew restlessly and the mother cat, K.C. (we named her after Kansas City, one of the many places we’d called home), looked about as wilted as Mom.

“Oh, Keith, how far is that?” She turned to look at him and you could see from her eyes that her voice was hiding the frustration and fatigue.

“We should be able to make it in an hour and a half. The man at the Holiday said there’s a place that takes pets and it’s not too far to the base after that. We’ll still get there in time to swim,” he promised.

I was tired and hungry and my brother kept sticking his elbow out at me whenever I started to fall over toward him. I was about ten and Dave, two years older. My mom told me when I was little I used to chatter away in his ear, inside the kitchen, in front of the TV, on the way to the backyard. And he would interrupt me and say in a long, deadpan voice, “Shut up” before I could finish whatever it was I was telling him. He was born in England, in Hunstanton, and had a bit of that Englishness to him. Mom said he was a little fuss-budget before I was born and worried a lot after she brought me home, but I don’t think he worried about me per se, just that I was going to be a lot of bother and intrude on his long-held space in the family. I could tell this from another story she told me.

One day she was doing dishes and she felt a kind of strange silence in the house. I was just a baby and was taking a nap. Dave was supposed to be playing with his Tinker Toys in the living room. Dad was away on a month-long alert.

She picked up another dish to wash and then, thinking about this eerie silence in a way mothers do, dropped it back in the sink and ran to my bedroom. Dave was holding a pillow over my face, reaching his arms up and over the crib sides, standing on his tippy-toes to reach. He must have had some strength despite that precarious position because when she pulled the pillow off my face I was blue and gasping for breath. And then I let out with one big wail.

“Davey, WHAT are you doing?” she screamed.

“Sis was crying and crying and she wouldn’t stop crying and I tried to make her stop.”

I’ve known many other families who tell their funny stories in crowds at reunions and weddings and funerals and I’ve heard my mom tell this one over and over. She sees me laughing at it, too, but lately I’m not that keen on being the one gasping for air anymore. Lately I’ve been feeling like I'm always racing to keep up with my life, never getting ahead long enough to stop and know a place, stop and take a deep breath.

But I held my own in this brother-sister act and remember one day, six years later, when Dave was giving me a lot of guff in the kitchen. He had broken his leg on the cement wall in the backyard and was standing in crutches near the basement stairs. He had a full-length cast; it had been a bad break. I guess I had had enough of the teasing and pushed him with the back of my fingers, easy—like aw, knock-it-off easy. And he fell over the edge of that top stair, widening his eyes at me, scared—like pull-me-back, you-still-have-time scared. But I didn’t pull him back and watched him row his arms back and back like you do when you’ve just been pushed off the end of the dock. He was okay, amazingly, but had to have a new cast.

Still, we were siblings and constant companions for each other in a world of ever-changing friends. In the Southwest, we would race off on our bikes to the base swimming pools, hot air filling the cups of our lungs and throats. In the mountains, we would camp with Mom and Dad, roasting marshmallows on whittled green branches over fires late at night. In the North here, we would face a lot of new terrain together.

(to be continued)

My traveling salesman

You know why I like that my husband is a traveling salesman? (Ahem, keep it clean, folks.) I can call him at mid-morning--because I've been locked up indoors tracing Word tracked changes AND it's so nice outside AND all I want is lunch on a patio somewhere--and chances are he'll be on a Twin Cities highway, coming to or from a sales call, and he'll have time to pop over and fetch me.

We went to The Happy Gnome, sat out on their lovely patio (had the place mostly to ourselves), and ate and drank and told stories and jokes in the sunshine.


Perfect. Thursdays are the new Fridays.

Sometimes he's Francis and sometimes he's Dewey and sometimes he's Malcolm

I hate Wednesdays. Are Wednesdays the new Mondays? I mean, they're so crowded, with no let-up. Tomorrow's going to be just like today. Thursdays offer no relief. I meant to work in the garden tonight. I did not. But I did get to have some hang time with the boy.

Son: Could I ask out a girl?
Mom: I don't know. What are your intentions?
Son: Well, I'm not planning to have sex or anything.
Mom: I should hope not. But, I mean, what exactly do you have in mind?
Son: With which one?











Mom: Hey, you could put down your burrito and talk to me a bit.
Son: We're at Chipotle, Mom. You don't come to Chipotle to have conversation. You come here to scarf. If I wanted to talk, I'd take you to a fine dining restaurant.
Mom: Okay. Makes sense. Pass me the City Pages.

In like a lamb

Spring is here. I heard the phrase "The Big Greening-Up" this morning on The Current. My husband mowed the lawn for the first time this season. I've got plans to work in the perennial garden tonight.

But if you really want to get a fresh take on spring, check out this blog by writer Catherine Friend, "Ms. Backup Farmer" at Rising Moon Farm. It's called Farm Tales, and Friend writes this about herself: "I write, I farm, and sometimes I write about farming. I listen to Elvis, salsa, and k.d.lang. The older I get, the more content I become."

The top photograph in her latest post is enchanting. The ewes are about to give birth!

The Big 10

The Big 10 (notes on a weekend of rowing)


1. Watching daughter, of course (at right, with her coxwain).

2. Watching son acting nonchalant with us, but really feeling very proud of his sis and sitting/standing next to her every chance he could.





3. Watching Amazonian rowers and their wee little coxwains and seeing them toss the first-place coxwains into the lake.

4. Hearing a race organizer shout, "Boat down. Boat down." Not to worry, all were okay; Indiana? boat had capsized in the white-capped lake during warm-ups.

5. Saying "cox box," without tee-heeing. It is the speaker system the coxwains use to guide and motivate the rowers. The First Varsity 8 cox box failed and the boat faltered for a span; then one of the senior rowers just yelled out, "Let's get this XX#@$%! boat moving," and they rowed like bats out of hell, pulling back to second place, enough to win the Big Ten trophy."

6. Hearing about the Head of the Charles, the big fall race in Boston where recently all but the coxwain on a Chinese team made it through customs. The team had to quick find a Mandarin-speaking cox. They found a Chinese speaker comfortable enough to go out on the boat but not experienced to steer and the Chinese boat ultimately crashed into another boat and then sunk themselves on the course.

7. Comparing the heavily European line-up of big money Ohio State to the mostly homegrown roster of the Gophers.

8. Cowbells.

9. Cheering and noshing with parents under the Big M tent, with big Weber kettles, little smokers, brats, burgers, salads, caramel brownies, lemon bars. Who doesn't love a potluck?

10. Watching hubby, full of support and pride.

Rah, rah, rah for Ski-U-Mah

See news on the Gophers women's rowing Big 10 Championship. (My daughter is third from the right holding right side of sign!)

Spring Fling

(Atlanta, 2007)


Enjoy the weekend!

We're off to watch the Big Ten rowing races in Madison. Go Gophers!

Look, look, look, look, look, look.

I do not have OCD, at least when it comes to the more stereotypical behaviors. I do not wash my hands over and over. I do not daily polish my mirrors and my bathroom handles and the canister that holds our cotton balls. I do not brush my hair a hundred times each night before sleep.

I do, however, suffer from random acts of anxiety. Like when it's 2 a.m. and my daughter said she'd be home by 2 a.m. so I only half-fall asleep and at the requisite curfew look at the clock every 3 seconds, so that in that one minute of time that it is 2 a.m. I've looked at the clock 20 times.

Or when I get good news and I have something to show for it--a letter, an e-mail, a little handwritten note set by my bedside--I keep clicking it open (or holding it in my hands) to read it, over and over, like that scene from Castaway when Tom Hanks keeps clicking his flashlight on to see the cameo picture of his girlfriend. On and off. On and off. On and off.

So I've finished my twenty pages of writing to submit for the Loft Mentor series. I was going to do 40 pages and submit something in two genres but I simply ran out of time and energy. I e-mailed the pages to work and throughout the day yesterday I clicked on the file and read it, then clicked out of it competely and saved it in my home folder. Then I clicked it again at noon. Click on, click off, click on, click off. Somebody slap me, please. Like Cher in Moonstruck, just come over and slap me.

Last night I got all tucked in and called out goodnight again to the son, brought the covers right up to my ears (wasn't it a great night to sleep in St. Paul, brisk and crisp?), and fell fast asleep. But then at 3:50 a.m. my eyes were wide open and I felt the agitation in my shoulders. Like a sleepwalker I sort of floated down the flight of stairs and pulled out one of the three neatly stapled photocopies of the writing and read it once more. Which was good because this time I said to myself, "Okay, that wasn't half-bad."

So this morning, feeling all happy and accomplished, I jumped into my reasonably newish car with plans to buy a chai and muffin at Sisu and at the corner of Scheffer and Hamline, the Vibe died. Died there on the corner. I was so NOT-OCD by that point that I just pushed it over to the side of the road and called a tow truck. I didn't even open up the hood to see what might be wrong (not that I'd know). Didn't even check the bus schedule to see when I might hop a ride to work.

Nope, nothing's ruining this little glow of accomplishment. Maybe I'll even bring along some of those twenty pages and read them aloud to the tow-truck guy.

Yes! You over there! What is your question? Well then why did you have your hand up?

I used to dance a lot when I was younger. Jazz, tap, ballet. I was a Kansas City Kitty in the tap program in Missouri. I joined up with UND's dance program when I was in high school. And in college I danced and performed with a small dance studio in Winona.

Playwright Kevin Kling writes about dancers and writers. Dancers have bodies like exclamation points--tall and limber and joyous. Writers have bodies like question marks, bent into shape by all that sitting and crouching over desks and keyboards.

"Mama, I don't want to be a question mark anymore."

Sit! (good girl)

“If I’m stuck on a poem, I might read the Brittanica entry and write words down that I think are interesting. It’s like filling a fridge to make a meal.”--Madeline DeFrees

(Blue Dusk: New and Selected Poems)

I do that, too, although more often I let myself get lost in the links of Wikipedia. But I call that procrastination, not inspiration. In my desk I have two little packets of slips, a whole mess of them I never use.

One packet is made of different shapes of colored paper with strings attached, and I made them to hang on my desk lamp: "I'll be back soon," is written on an orange circle with a smiley face. "In meeting" is on white with a little drawing of a meeting desk and chairs. "At research library" is another. "Out for the day!" is on green paper and I've drawn a stick picture of myself running and waving goodbye. I sometimes add to these notes when I'm bored or annoyed. A new one: "At lunch," with a picture of a clock face with its hands at 2:00 pm.

The other stack is a set of words with their definitions. I've had them a long time. You'd think they were part of a self-improvement program, like my own version of Einstein Baby. I've got "ethno-biography," "bricks-and-mortar business," "box social," "legacy admissions," "brio," and "intrepid."

You know how writing coaches and teachers tell you to sit down at your desk and write, no matter if you have nothing to write, nothing to tell, just sit there and write for at least two hours every day, preferably in the morning? These little packets of line drawings and Webster definitions are what I come up with when I'm stuck. I am writing. See, I'm writing.

I once asked an author how she was able to publish five books in ten years (and they're all good books, too). We were at a conference and our exhibit booth was packed with people and she told me loudly and bluntly so that nearly everyone turned around to look at us: "There's just one thing you have to do. You've got to put in some ass time. You've just got to plant yourself in a chair and write."

Excuse me while I draw myself a new little doorknob holder with that wisdom.

Working on my 3 Rs: reading, 'riting, reaching

I'm working, I am. Thinking about connections, structure, architecture of stories. . . . I have a title: "I Live Next Door Now." The room where I write is so damn dusty that I really did wish I lived next door now. . . .

POM POMS #2

Last month I highlighted a book. This month a place. Mmmm, a glorious place. It is called The Dwelling in the Woods (320-592-3708).


The Dwelling, located on beautiful land near McGrath, Minnesota, is a hermitage retreat. I stayed there last spring for a long weekend of writing and reflection. I got "The Meadows," a homey cabin surrounded by the woods on one side and a lovely meadow on the other. I was treated to amazing, mostly vegetarian food (you can eat your meals in the companion of others or take your meal wrapped back to your hermitage), and a welcoming fresh-baked loaf of the Dwelling's famous bread. I took a hot bath in the claw-toothed tub at The Octagon, which also has a nice library and a reading nook at the top of the stairs, a meditation space--with drums (drums!). I took hikes on the walking trails in the nearby Solana State Forest. And I wrote and wrote and wrote and wrote.



I wholeheartedly recommend it. You can go it alone. You can bring a friend. You wouldn't believe how rejuvenating it is.

But I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep

"We’re often cynical about how resolutions are never kept, but we shouldn’t be. Resolutions are perhaps lies, but they’re lies of good faith, necessary illusions. As long as we can make them, we are saved, we can control the chaos of destiny; it doesn’t matter that we break them and that others view us with skepticism. Every resolution is good simply because it is declared. It is a comedy, perhaps, but it keeps us sane."

From “The Temptation of Innocence: Living in the Age of Entitlement.”

I am determined to keep my resolution to collect my stories and submit them by the end of next week. Even if I just got eleven e-mails in a row from an author and then a request to meet now, "mano a editor," to see "where we are and where we need to go." (beats me! I'm still on e-mail #4) Even if my Sundays tend to be overwhelmingly full. Even if my son plays hockey eight of the next ten days.

So I'm going to sign off for a little while, coming up for air only to give you updates on the WRITING, not the dark green chive shoots popping up through the garden mess, not the new boxed rosé that the folks at Solo Vino are raving about, not the Twins pitching staff, who don't seem to be doing too bad, not too bad at all.

Even when you wake up on the wrong side of the bed, there is much to praise

7:45 a.m.: Curse husband under breath for waking me before eight with loud hand-dishwashing. Curse self for being ungrateful. Curse effects of PMS.

8:00 a.m.: Read another chapter in girly book "The Reading Group."

8:30: Husband brings hot chai tea and Sunday paper to me in bed. Praise husband for good deeds.

9:30: Eat French toast and bacon with son and husband. Discuss buying new baseball glove for under $100. See wrens peek out of birdhouse. Say, "Look the birds are mating," and watch my son drop his fork and crane his neck to see.

10:00: Blog, read blogs, fix blog, comment on blogs. Hear son say, "Whatcha doin'? Bloggin'?" Praise son under breath for giving me good boy quotes.

10:45: Give young son foot and hand massage; he says they are sore. He used to wear shoe prosthetics; maybe its time to have another pair fitted. Together we count his bruises and scrapes. A rare closeness since he turned thirteen. I tell him he has to wash his hair before dinner with our old friends Owen and Marilyn tonight. He tells me he knows what he wants to wear, maybe to ward off any of my suggestions.

11:00: Field phone call from husband out shopping for new baseball glove with son. Approve glove purchase of $181.00.

11:10: Check bank balance online. Do quick math.

11:30: Wash dishes, put away clean clothes, tidy up bedroom. Think about getting new eyeglasses. Daydream about traveling . . . to Puerto Rico, maybe?

11:40: Eat another piece of chocolate caramel from St. Paul's Caramel Queen. Curse under my breath that it will be the last one of the weekend. Of the week!

11:50: Remember my friend Sharon's birthday is today. Think about her coming over to St. Paul to celebrate next weekend. Then remember another friend's birthday is today, too. Two tax babies. Spring girls. Fresh as daisies. Admirable women both.

Noon: Call daughter at college to say hello. Wake her up. Feel her cursing me under her breath.

1:00: Stop by local garden shop to browse through pansies, bleeding hearts, and lots of phlox.

2:00: Watch tail end of Twins v Tampa Bay. Watch a lot of swings and misses and curses under breath.

3:30: Buy new school pants for son, after he blew out his on a rock playing dodgeball in the dark. See counting of scrapes at 10:45 above.

4:00: Neighborhood walk filled with good cheer. Two-year-old calls out "Bye-Bye" to every passerby, which is pretty astute when you think about it, since no one really stops to chat. Two teens double dutch on a ten-speed. Honda Element drives by with the painted slogan, "Dr. Computer. Help is on the way!" Praise spring under my breath.

5:30: Watch son's last bit of baseball practice. Drive out to Woodbury to have dinner with our friends, a dear old couple who are now in their eighties. Praise both son and husband under my breath for their gentle ways with them.

9:45 p.m.: Crawl under quilt layers with book again. Give praise for these full days.

I'm just working on a few bedtime stories for Don Imus

Sunday is the 60th anniversary of Jackie Robinson's first major league game with the Brooklyn Dodgers.

From the book First in the Field:
"Robinson was a determined man and a gifted athlete. In his two years at UCLA, Jackie became the university's first 'four-letter' man and left there as a sports legend. Unfortunately because of his color, doors to professional sports were not readily open. It wasn't until a few years later in 1945 that he signed with the Brooklyn Dodgers."

From Hank Aaron, in Time magazine:
"I was 14 years old when I first saw Jackie Robinson. It was the spring of 1948, the year after Jackie changed my life by breaking baseball's color line. His team, the Brooklyn Dodgers, made a stop in my hometown of Mobile, Ala., while barnstorming its way north to start the season, and while he was there, Jackie spoke to a big crowd of black folks over on Davis Avenue. I think he talked about segregation, but I didn't hear a word that came out of his mouth. Jackie Robinson was such a hero to me that I couldn't do anything but gawk at him."

******************
My son plays for St. Paul's Midway Baseball and took a clinic with longtime coaches Steve Winfield (Dave's brother) and Billy Peterson, infamous Little League coach and mentor to both Dave Winfield and Paul Molitor. Coach Peterson was one of the influential people Molitor thanked at his Hall of Fame induction.

Before my son and his teammates were sent home for the afternoon, instead of talking about wins and losses and pop flies and grounders, Winfield and Peterson spent time talking about Robinson's courage and talent.

******************
Dave Winfield talks about his days playing Midway baseball in St. Paul.

From Answers.com:
"'Considering that we grew up in a broken home, we had a happy childhood because of the love and affection our mother gave us,' he said. When the Winfield brothers did venture out, they usually strayed no farther than the Oxford Playground in the next block. There they were befriended by Bill Peterson, the playground director, who encouraged them to play basketball and baseball. 'Bill Peterson was a white man in the black community,' Winfield recalled in the interview, 'but he gave more to that community than anyone I know. To me, at different times, he was coach, friend, father, all rolled into one.' The guidance he received as a youngster was not lost on Winfield. When he became a top-earning major league baseball player he founded an organization to help needy children, especially those in San Diego and New York City."

***************
From Twin Cities.com:
One of Paul Molitor's teammates talked about the St. Paulite a few years back, when Molitor was nearing 3,000 hits. "'Paul is going as strong as ever at 40. If he didn't get hurt, he'd be closing in on 4,000 hits.' Twins manager Tom Kelly marveled at Molitor's influence, 'Molly is one of those rare players who makes the other people around him better. It starts in the clubhouse, but where it really matters is out on the field, when the players see how a professional like Paul Molitor handles himself.' "

*********
Coach Billy told the story to my son and the other Little Leaguers about Molitor working hard as a kid to perfect his sport. Molitor, who came from a family of 8 kids, would throw a baseball over the roof of his house and then run around the house so he could catch the ball on the other side. He did this over and over.

Now, I'm no fool when it comes to the state of sports in America--can you say "Duke thugs get their cake and eat it too?" And as somone who makes her living in the arts, God knows what we could do with the money poured into these new stadiums. But it's amazing what all these elite athletes--from kids in St. Paul to the young women in New Jersey--go through to excel in their particular sport.

********

One of my hometown favorites, Ashley Ellis-Milan, St. Paul Central graduate and center for the Gophers women's basketball team, along with her Gophers teammates, recently sponsored a "Girls Night Out" at the Sports Pavilion. Over 100 inner-city girls had a chance to work out with the Gophers, see behind-the-scenes locker and weight rooms, and find out about being a Division-1 athlete. The St. Paul Parks coordinator said, "The Gopher players are wonderful working with the girls and it’s a great opportunity for them to interact with some solid role models" (from Gophersports.com).

********

BTW, thinking about the Molitor warm-up drill, I'd better warn my neighbors now.

Footloose

It is time to cut loose, yes?

A week of duties, or losses, bad colds, or sons who won't hug you anymore. A week of unwelcome snow, tax burdens, New York's baseball bruisers, stiff upper lips. It could be the end of a celebratory week, too. Your birthday. Your new account. Those great baked goods you made for the family dinner.

Alcohol does not have to be involved, but as the following cuts show, it really does make for a hell of a good time.

This is from a Lithuanian performance piece: "Three Sisters in High Heels Drink Vodka."

The performance unfolds (and varies each night) as the Sisters drink whole bottles of Vodka.

I think it is really funny that the actors wear protective head gear.

little insecurities

In light of my events Wednesday, you might chuckle to know that:

1. While browsing at Borders, I studied the entire Glamour’s Big Book of Dos and Don’ts.

2. After flipping through the pages of Self magazine, I made a notation in my little black book for the best wrinkle-absorbing eye cream.

3. I cursed the fact that I never bought those new shoes.

4. Thanks to Stacy London, after watching “What Not to Wear” I sorted through my underwear drawer to make sure I had something decent to hold up the girls.

5. I did fifty sit-ups and ten push-ups before bed last night.

6. I googled Rob Hudson.

7. I actually practiced my smile in the mirror.

8. I washed my car, thinking that would help.

9. I practiced yoga in the dark History Center locker room over lunch, hoping that would help.



10. I had the silly thought, “If Cormac McCarthy can come out of hiding, I can do this teeny little segment, too.”

Pitching Poetry

It's National Poetry Month.

There are all kinds of ways to celebrate. You could write a spring haiku.

This is a good one for April, from the Haiku Society:

spring planting
her refusal
to compromise
(Frogpond XIX:1 Anthony J. Pupello, 1996)



You could celebrate Poem in Your Pocket Day.

You could attend a poetry reading. Here are a few poetry readings and book signings for Where One Voice Ends Another Begins: Fifty Years of Minnesota Poetry.

Wednesday, April 11 at 7:00 PM – Minneapolis
Mill City Museum
704 S. Second Street, Minneapolis
Cosponsored by the Loft Literary Center, the Friends of the St. Paul Public Library, and Mill City Museum.
Free reading and signing featuring Robert Bly, Bill Holm, Michael Dennis Browne, Heid Erdrich, Deborah Keenan, Wang Ping, and Angela Shannon, with editor Robert Hedin as emcee

Wednesday, April 25 at 7:00 PM – St. Paul
St. Anthony Park Library
2245 Como Avenue, St. Paul
Cosponsored by Micawber’s Books and the Friends of the St. Paul Public Library
Free reading, signing, and reception featuring Ray Gonzalez, Leslie Adrienne Miller, John Minczeski, Jim Moore, and Joyce Sutphen, with editor Robert Hedin as emcee
Reception to follow at Micawber’s Books

Sunday, May 13 at 2:00 PM – St. Paul
Swedenborgian Church
170 Virginia Avenue, St. Paul
Sponsored by Common Good Books
Free reading and signing featuring Patricia Hampl, Phebe Hanson, Michael Dennis Browne, and Mai Neng Moua, with editor Robert Hedin and Garrison Keillor

You can catch me pitching the Mill City event and the book on Kare-11 Sunrise and Kare-11 Showcase, 6:15 a.m. and 10 a.m.,(sometime before the segment on National Fondue Day) this Wednesday, April 11. Have sympathy. I'll have slept fitfully the night before and been up before the birds to make that first studio appearance. And I hear it will be snowing that morning, too. Ah, for the love of words.

The Easter Bilby

I got my first Easter chocolate of the season, a gift from someone just back from Australia.

"Oh, an Easter bunny!" I say with delight. The chocolate is shaped like a bunny and wrapped in colored tinfoil.

"Not an Easter bunny. This is from Haigh's in Adelaide. The Aussies vilify rabbits. This is the Easter Bilby."

'Vilify rabbits?" I think. Cute furry creatures with large ears and fluffy tails? Gloria Steinem against the Hefner bunnies, that I understand. But slam the Easter Bunny?

From the Haigh's Chocolates website:
*******************************************************************
"Back in the early 1990s, The Foundation for Rabbit Free Australia created the Easter Bilby. Not long after, we joined forces with them. Haigh’s stopped making chocolate bunnies and made Australia’s very first Easter Bilbies – an immediate hit with our customers.

THE BILBY’S BOUNCING BACK
Thanks to increased awareness and lots of hard work by a number of organisations and government departments, the bilby is starting to make a comeback. In South Australia, where the bilby was once extinct, there are now estimated to be over 1500 bilbies back in the wild.

SAVING THE BILBY
The bilby is a very cute little creature, native to Australia. This small burrowing bandicoot used to be found in its millions, living across 70% of our country. Sadly, over the past 200 years, settlement and clearing, plus the introduction of rabbits, foxes and feral cats, pushed this animal almost to extinction – in fact, entirely to extinction in South Australia.

HAIGH'S SUPPORT RABBIT FREE AUSTRALIA
Rabbit Free Australia is a non-profit organisation established to raise community awareness of the damage to the environment done by the wild rabbit, and find ways to get rid of all the wild rabbits in this country.

The Foundation developed and registered the Easter Bilby campaign in 1991 – partly to raise awareness of the damage done by rabbits to native wildlife, and partly to raise money from royalties of Easter Bilby to fund their work.

Two years later, Haigh’s joined forces with the Foundation, and created Australia’s very first Easter Bilby."
**************************************************************

Well, who knew? I'm all for nursing back the bilby but I feel a little bad for the bunny now, the black sheep of the Outback. I tell you, one chocolaty bite of this bilby, however, and I'm happy to ride both sides of the debate. I am a bandicoot/bunny fence-rider, the Norm Coleman of Easter chocolate ideology. Bilbies from Adelaide, bunnies from St. Paul. Here's hoping you find a little chocolate in your basket.

Don't Forget! Not Long 'til Mother's Day

My last post made you a little sentimental for your own mum, didn't it? In an earlier post I mentioned the custom box of chocolates you could get her (http://nighteditor.blogspot.com/2007/03/if-life-is-like-box-of-chocolates-then.html), but there's still time for a Mother's Day portrait, too. . . . Thanks to Marta for the video tip.

Good Friday

My good friend, an introvert, sent me an article from The Atlantic called "Caring for your introvert." It's good. I have never taken the Myers-Briggs test so I don't know if I'm a J or an I or an X or a Y. I do know that I am what folks call a people-lover. But I am also a closet introvert, too. (We all are, perhaps; it seems to come with this modern life.)

My son was away visiting his grandparents for spring break so I was out about town every day this week. I do love people. I love meeting old friends and strangers alike. Tuesday a colleague and I took our former intern out to celebrate his new job at the Indiana University Press. We sat by the window at Luci Ancora overlooking the St. Kate's campus and we talked all night long. The next day I drove to Mankato, had three hours of author meetings and another 2 hours talking to a graduate class at the college. In between all this I had chatty dinners out with my husband. Yesterday I had a three-hour meeting with an author while a Dunn Brothers grinder roared in the background.

Today I'm exhausted. Flat out spent. When I picked up my son at the airport last night, he (because he's now 13) gave me the Fargo nod as greeting. I was so tired I just gave it right back to him. We both understood.

Luckily, I took this day off. It's a perfect day to stay inside and be quiet.

Did I tell you my mom is an artist? I wrote a little about her in an earlier post. One time, while I was on retreat at St. Paul's Monastery, I wrote a piece about the Sisters there and how in many ways they were a model for growing old. I wrote that because my family moved around so much in the Air Force I hadn't come to know many older women, the way you might if you grew up in Chicago your whole life and had your great-aunt living down the street or the sage crones over at the salon or at the neighborhood coffee shop.

I take these retreats every year--another way to rejuvenate after a long season of demands and rushes. Some people are leary of spending time with religious communities but many of them have set up retreats with the option of participating in song and prayer--or not. On this one I was mostly interested in writing. So I would write in the spacious, light-filled library and then take many walks in the acreage and woods behind the monastery.



I was walking along singing the praises of these nuns, who cared for each other with such tenderness, and then I stopped right in my tracks. Of course I have another wise woman mentor. My mother. I overlook her own skills and life intentions sometimes because I'm too busy acting like her daughter. I thought about how over the years she has made military-issue homes beautiful for us, often on a moment's notice, moving from one bleak prairie base to another. She would embroider our pillowcases and paint all the pictures that went on our walls. When she wanted to make art she would do it late at night, after we had all gone to bed. Some mornings she'd just be coming away from her easel and her eyes would be crackled and red and we'd be all raring to go. But she was drawn and committed to her art in ways I so appreciate now. That's my mom below.

After moving so much and leaving her own hometown and family far behind, her art is the one clear thing she can call her very own.

So I've set my new spot to write, up in the bedroom on the farm table we got for free from the basement of our first apartment. In Atlanta I got an embellished print of my initial "P" from an antique store and then found a lovely square frame for 99 cents at Goodwill, and I've propped that against the wall, like Sid Hartman's nameplate over his booth at Manny's. We've got an old laptop without a battery and no Internet capabilities, but it'll do just fine. I'll pull out all the different stories I've been saving in brown accordian folders and start working away. I like this resolution.

But first, I've got to take a nap.

Play Ball

Me, to my son: Hey, you kind of remind me of Justin Morneau.

Son: Yeah, right.

Me: No really, look at these pictures I found of you.

(Readers, click on images below to see larger.)



Son: Yeah, but look, Mom. I'm totally missing the ball.

Inspirational Settings

I had a great weekend with my hubby in Iowa. It's amazing what a little TLC does for the both of us. I came back renewed and committed to work on and send in some writing for an April 27 writing deadline.

On our Sunday morning sleep-in, I even dreamed about the pieces I would write. I had woken to the soft rain at the workaday hour of six a.m. but knew there would be hot tea and apple fritters waiting for me later so I just turned over and gave in to more sleep. Luxury!

So now I'm going to set up a better writing space in my room. Look what I found at The Happy Booker:

From The Guardian Unlimited, a feature on the writing rooms of some of Britain's beloved authors. This one is A.S. Byatt's (whose book Possession: A Romance is extraordinary). Byatt explains,

"Inside is a purposeful disorder. Two of the walls are books, floor to ceiling. There are also, owing to irresistible on-line ordering, tunnels and towers of books all over the floor. The books on the desk are those I'm using for the current chapter - Kynaston's wonderful history of the City of London, some books on Rye, some books on Art Nouveau, Hofmannsthal, Millicent Garrett Fawcett. I write fiction by hand, hence the absence of a computer in the picture. I write better since I put the computer in a separate office - partly at least because I am less tempted to play Freecell when I can't think of a sentence. Carmen Callil made the printed sign for me when she was publisher of Chatto. ANTONIA WRITING TIME. It still works against distraction and procrastination. I try to write all morning, and read and think in the afternoons."

Even if I only clear off the old table and set out some yellow notepads in my own room, I'm inspired by these writers' spaces.