Woman in the Park

Three Women Lying in the Grass at Como Park, 1910

From the Minnesota Historical Society Collections

Here's a pleasure: On my recent walk through Como Park's Enchanted Garden I held out my fingers--like a doctor checking testes in an annual exam; er, sorry, like a gardener pulling off grape tomatoes from the vine--and I kiped a few seeds from various plants I liked. It's late September and the plants were loaded. I know, I know, "what if everyone decided to kipe seeds from those precious plants?" But I took only a few from a bush loaded with over two hundred wispy seeds, and then I took another few from another plant, and soon my hiking shorts were filled with these things that normally would blow in the wind. I had buddleia seeds in my right pocket, white cleome seeds in my left, delphinium seeds in my back pocket, echinacea seeds in the side pocket on my leg. And then I hiked all along the bike paths, checking out the fountains and ornaments and stone benches. Then I went home and made some dinner, watched a little television, washed my face, brought down the covers, and plumped my pillows for the night. And right before I took off my shorts I remembered all the seeds. So I delayed my bedtime and sat under a nightlamp sorting and labeling them in little envelopes.

Walk in the Park

At the Como Conservatory, St. Paul,

photo by Michael Hartford

I was so inspired by these Como Park pictures by Michael Hartford that I spent Sunday night and Monday lunch at the park: first Sunday evening in "The Enchanted Garden" and then Monday noon in the Conservatory and Japanese Garden. I was blue after saying goodbye to my parents, who I won't see now for eight months or so. The park uplifted me. (And so did Hartford's pictures. You can see more of his work here.)

I love city parks. For many of us, city parks provide some of the only green space in a packed urban landscape. I love stone (and glass) structures in city parks. Luckily, St. Paul enjoys the labors of city architects like the pioneering Cap Wigington and craftsmen of the WPA.

I know the saying about Central Park that millions of native New Yorkers tell their grandchildren: "This is what New York looked like before all the buildings were here." I'm sure there are many St. Paulites who will say the same thing about Como Park--and Phalen Park and Highland Park, too.

Yesterday I saw three German tourists walk the rock paths in the Japanese Garden. Then I saw a photographer and two beautiful Korean women take pictures near the Frog Pond. And I saw an old chap, in tan work pants, a flannel shirt and braces, sitting alone and quite content on a bench near the rose gardens.

It's the official beginning of fall. If you live in a city, save a little time for yourself and take lunch in a city park near you. It'll make your day.

The Monday Morning Report

We all attended the Minnesota v. Purdue football game Saturday night. Not a good game, not a good game at all. But we sat with our daughter and the jubilant Minnesota women's rowing team, who were there to be honored for their 2007 Big Ten Rowing Championship.

Some notes from the game:

The manufacturer hadn't finished work on their Big Ten rings so they bought Toys R Us plastic rings in pastel colors for them to wear out on the field.

Some of the surly football boosters who have season tickets near our great seats (three up from the sidelines) were upset by all these squirrely women who really could have given a rat's ass about the dismal game. The boosters called security and the man with the yellow jacket came down and warned, "This is a football game, not a slumber party." A lot of others in the crowd, after watching the Gophers drop the ball and miss all kinds of tackles, would have disagreed.

The ESPN camera man has to run sprints back and forth along the sideline, with various intern-types running after him, cords in tow. I mean this camera man could book it! Many of the people around us got so bored with the game that they started tracking the cameraman. Finally one person said, "Hey, maybe they should give HIM the ball."

Finally, after Harris dropped the ball just 10 yards from the goal line and the Boilermakers were poised to tromp the Gophers, some of the beer drinkers started to shout out, "WE LOVE YOU CANNON MAN!" Because the Cannon Man, you see, is this Alfred Hitchcock lookalike who makes a grand statement parading along the sideline, cannon and "CANN0N CREW" in tow, ready to shoot off the thing when--if--the Gophers ever scored. Even after the game, when we were all in the elevator and there was nothing even to analyze about the Gophers poor effort, two strangers looked at us and said, "Even the Cannon Man missed shooting after one score."

From the University of Minnesota:
Rod Wallace, who built and owns the Thunderbird Hotel and Convention Center near the Mall of America in Bloomington, has fired a cannon after every Gopher football score in the Metrodome for the last 11 years. Although he never attended the University, having entered military service on his 18th birthday, Wallace is also a major University donor, having given money to renovate the interior of Burton Hall, to install an indoor field in the Gophers' football practice facility, and more.

Q: How did you become Cannon Man?

A: The Goal Line Club [a football booster club], which I helped to found, started with a cannon that made noise through the PA system. That didn't seem to suffice. I did a lot of sailing, so I came up with the idea of bringing a [sailing race] starting cannon and using it at the Dome. We tried it out and it made a lot of noise. I've been the infamous Cannon Man ever since.


Rod Wallace, aka Cannon Man, photo courtesy of University Athletics
Q: What does the cannon shoot?

A: We fire a 10-gauge shell with various different powders inside. Usually, it's six grams of powder. When the Dome used to be almost empty, we went down to four grams. When it's full for Iowa or Wisconsin games, we fire 10-gauge with eight grams of powder. But the shells seem to get louder as they age, so you never really know what you're going to get.

Q: Have you ever missed a score?

A: No, but I've held off shooting sometimes. It's a little dangerous, because it does shoot a small projectile [of packing cardboard] a short distance. Sometimes the cheerleaders get excited and run across in front of me. I have to be careful that everything is clear.

Q: Do you wear ear protection?

A: Oh, yes, it's awfully loud. My hearing has somewhat gone bad anyhow, so it doesn't affect me so much.

Q: If a new outdoor stadium gets built, will the cannon be loud enough?

A: We've taken it on trips to the various bowl games, and it made plenty of noise there. I'm going to be 80 in December, but I hope to get a chance to fire the cannon in a new stadium. I enjoy it and I'll keep doing it as long as I can.

Marcel Marceu arrives for the first time to Japan in 1960

Marcel Marceu has died. The Star Tribune notes that the 84-year-old "revived the art of mime and brought poetry to silence." I was thinking how I would have liked to "see" a Sunday sermon from this guy (though most likely Marceu was an atheist), rather than some of the long-winded orators at pulpits around the country today. It would be peaceful and beautiful (like his greeting in this video) and just what we need.

It is the weekend. The parents are still not here. They finally left Bemidji at 4 p.m. and then pulled over to spend the night in Little Falls. Last I heard they were having a late dinner at the Perkins. When my mother’s sisters left their native Wisconsin for good and settled in California, both of them said the things they miss most are the good, old-fashioned Midwestern thunderstorms.

That was a rash of rain we had here in St. Paul last night. The wind was whipping and a branch hit my car and then we headed into the basement for a spell.

The teen boy is going to a fall dance tonight. He’ll have two or three of his buddies over for pre-dance warmups: brats on the grill, a little X-Box competition, plenty of Axe. So much Axe, in fact, that grandpa will have to take a step back once he reaches the upstairs bathroom, because those excited teens will have layered their cheap cologne the way Estee Lauder wants us all to do: body wash, deodorant, body spray, a little matching hair gel—the Axe Effect.

We’re all going to the Minnesota v. Purdue football game at the Dome Saturday night. NOT because we are in any way Tim Brewster fans but because college daughter and her crew team are being honored between the third and fourth quarters for their 2007 Big Ten Rowing Championship. They should be getting their rings in the ceremony but they’ve been held up at the manufacturer so maybe they’ll get cigar bands instead. You know how opposing team fans bring newspapers to read out in the stands when the other team has possession, hiding their heads behind their open newspapers, acting all disinterested? Well, unless the Gophers have come up with an exciting and new game plan, a few of us in our family will be bringing newspapers for real, reading all the sections carefully—the real estate ads for 55-and-over apartments, the new movie reviews, ALL the letters to the editors. And then someone will nudge the other right at the end of the third quarter and we’ll all sit up at attention and cheer on the college kid with pride.

I'm in the mood for . . . love

(click to make pictures bigger)
This is it. The last post on cleaning, Felix, Oscar. My husband and I have been scouring the house, hanging new window decor, trimming evergreens outside. We even made chicken enchiladas Sunday night and froze them so we could just pop them in the oven tonight for my visiting parents.

Dad just called. Mom's kind of a weather nut. Hates all weather except 65 and sunny. There are tornado watches in Pequot Lakes today. They're packed and ready to drive down the five hours but don't want to be caught in storms. They might not make it here until tomorrow.

Did I say I cut roses this morning and brought them in to brighten the bathroom shelf?

My man he's been cleaning and scrubbing and cooking and all without a complaint. The bedroom is clean. The sheets have been washed. I've got a fresh candle by the bedside. Who needs company to enjoy this scene? Honey, if you're reading this now, I'll meet you at home in like 12 minutes. Okay?

If Felix had a tat . . .

If Felix had a tattoo, it would be on his right hip, just above his pelvic bone and right under the right loop of his trim trousers, and it might look like this:

If Oscar had a tat, it would be on his left bicep, just above his short-sleeve line, and it would move up and down when he pumped his muscles:



If Felix had a favorite dessert, it would be this:

If Oscar had a favorite dessert, it would be this:


And if Oscar and Felix could dance, they'd . . . well, wait a minute. They CAN dance--and speak German, too. Have a look, below.

The Odd Couple - Männerwirtschaft - Felix and Oscar dance

Sometimes we are one and then we are the other

I know you who know me are laughing out there. Felix, shmelix. You know I'm an Oscar and you know I married one, too. And we're proud of it, we are. Some of our favorite courtship stories are the ones that come out of our Oscar tendencies. Like when I invited him over for dinner and was very nervous about the whole thing, despite the fact that "dinner" consisted of boiled spaghetti and warmed-up Ragu. I lived then in an old lumber magnate's house with a bunch of women and he lived with a bunch of men in the attached "servants' quarters." I had set the table, was boiling the water, and was just about to pour the Ragu into the saucepan. I was chattering a mile a minute and trying to get the lid off the jar when the jar and the lid and all the thick red sauce went flying out of my hands and into the big open heating vent on the kitchen floor. Oh my! Despite my scrubbing that long vent as best I could, every time the heat kicked on the whole place smelled like a Ragu factory.

And then there's the story of him camping alone in one of his favorite state parks. He gets the fever to camp in all seasons, winter to fall, and he throws whatever he needs into his vehicle and heads out without much planning. This time was no different. We were dating then and I hadn't committed a thing yet. He missed me. He grabbed a stack of brown paper towels from the trail center and sat down and composed for me a long, winding, hilarious and endearing letter. On like 17 sheets of brown paper handwipes. Then, on his way home, he mailed the wad to me at the next post office. That was definitely a deal-maker.

Television plays up these Felix and Oscar stereotypes and we begin to count on them. Will and Grace. He's the metrosexual, she's the splendid slob. Adrian Monk, the OCD-addled detective who solves crimes with precision. Monica Geller Bing, the dustbusting overachiever. Lucy Ball, the chocolate-stuffing, Dezi-loving, clumsy ditz.
But in real life, I'd venture to say we have a little bit of the opposite in each of us. I may be able to turn my head from a half-inch of dust on my bedside table, but I loath a dirty fridge. And I loath dirty things in it, like the black crust that forms on the ridges of the salsa jar. And I like my clean towels tri-folded, so they're smooth and tight in the linen closet. And my husband can't stand spills on the stovetop and counters. And he's one of those men who keeps a well-stocked shoeshine kit in the bathroom--and uses it often.

Literature is better than TV at tracking the nuances. Neatness can indicate depression or it can signal freedom to do what someone has been wanting to do his or her whole life. Sloppiness can symbolize love or it can symbolize loneliness. We can be one way and then we can be another. Nick Hornby writes this up brilliantly in his novel High Fidelity.

Many times a happy couple lets it all hang out, too preoccupied with each other to worry about appearances. The main character Rob describes his shared flat with Laura, before the break-up:

". . . the half-read Julian Barnes paperback on the bedside table and the knickers in the dirty-clothes basket. . . . Women's knickers were a terrible disappointment to me when I embarked on my cohabiting career. I never really recovered from the shock of discovering that women do what we do: they save their best pairs for the nights when they know they are going to sleep with somebody. When you live with a woman, these faded, shrunken, tatty scraps suddenly appear on radiators all over the house; your lascivious schoolboy dreams of adulthood as a time when you are surrounded by exotic lingerie for ever and ever, amen . . . those dreams crumble to dust."

And then, after Laura leaves him:

"Tuesday night I reorganized my record collection; I often do this at periods of emotional stress . . . When Laura was here I had records arranged alpabetically; before that I had them filed in chronological order, beginning with Robert Johnson, and ending with, I don't know, Wham!, or somebody African . . . Tonight, though, I fancy something different, so I try to remember the order I bought them in: that way I hope to write my own autobiography, without having to do anything like pick up a pen . . . I like being able to see how I got from Deep Purple to Howlin' Wolf in twenty-five moves . . . But what I really like is the feeling of security I get from my new filing system; I have made myself more complicated than I really am. I have a couple of thousand records, and you have to be me . . . to know how to find any of them."

Are You a Felix or an Oscar?

My young neighbor just started his first year at the University of Iowa and is rooming with a teammate from high school; they both play football for the Hawkeyes. His mom tells me that the roommate is a neat freak: all his clothes are organized by category (dress shirts, t-shirts, pants, jeans) and they all hang uniformly on thick black plastic hangers. A tidy hamper sits in the closet, too. That neighbor's mom says her own son is a slob. Most times he can't tell which clothes are clean and which are dirty. She wonders how they'll work it out.

My daughter's new roommate has those Felix Ungar tendencies. She's got their university apartment looking nicer than a Pottery Barn showroom (only nicer because she's also mixed in flea market finds and her own artwork on the walls). She brought in a toothbrush holder for their bathroom with a sanitizing top that goes over the heads of the toothbrushes and somehow rotates throughout the night. My daughter is definitely of the slovenly sportswriter gene pool, ala Oscar. I wonder how they will work it out.

My mom and dad are coming to visit Thursday and my mom, she is a Felix, through and through. There is not one corner in her house to which she has not thrown her attention. The only things in my corners lately are cobwebs. Hey, September is for spiders, isn't it? So, keeping in mind my "good is good enough" mantra, I've got to clean up around here. Tomorrow I'm going to make a list. I think I might need to buy some furniture polish. I have plans to touch up the chipped paint on all the corners on the first floor but that might not happen. I have this big pile of I-don't-know-what in an alcove in the big bedroom, including a laundry basket of upholstery fabric and a lamp on its side. And on the window ledge in our kitchen, above the "baking counter," there are these items:

1. football cleat tightener
2. foggy binoculars from when I dropped them in East Pike Lake trying to see a moose
3. a mini flashlight
4. my son's duffel bag nametag
5. a dish of paper clips
6. some lighter fluid
7. a half-pak of Tropical Twist Trident

It feels like the Clampetts live here. I think of the pleasure my mom might have scooping all this detritus into a trash bag with the back of her hand. . . .

In a New York Times article on messiness (April 29, 2003), the writer shares a story about his friend:

"My friend Pam, certain that she could make neatniks of her young children, devised a clever strategy. 'They had shoebox-size toy boxes into which I would sort their toys by type, with the type indicated by a Polaroid on the end showing what was supposed to be in that box: Legos, soldiers, crayons, tiny cars and trucks,' she said.

'''The idea was that the kids would learn to sort the inevitable mess in each box before they could read. Wrong. I spent hours on their floors, sorting, while they watched, with bewilderment and then increasing amusement as they got older.'''

One of my own friends from high school had her first baby quite young and so began setting up a home years before the rest of us. She was a neat one, she was. And I'm sure still is. When we all drove down to Fargo to visit her new family, her toddler begged us to come look at his room and when we all gathered in his cozy little bedroom he lifted up the skirt on his toddler bed and said, "Wookit how cwean it is." And he swept his hand under the bed like a pro.

The Times article goes on to say, "Contrary to popular belief, messiness is not necessarily a sign of mental disorganization. Who among us doesn't know a messy person who can instantly retrieve, from a bewildering stack of papers, exactly what he's looking for? As Freud supposedly said: ''Don't clean up the mess. I know exactly where everything is.'"

Those productive and happy messy types, the Oscars of the world, don't sweat the details of their made environments. They just sweep the clutter off the coffee table with a free elbow before planting a box of Grandpa Tony's thin crust pizza and a coupla Dad's root beers for the game. The Oscars can torture the Felixes, easily. I could do that to my mom, but that wouldn't be nice for her or me. The Felixes, of course, can torture the Oscars. Once I took my mom to a party in Uptown, to my friend's stylish apartment. When we got back to my place we had to share a queen bed in the one furnished bedroom. We lay down together and said our good nights. She said, "You have nice friends." I said, "Thanks." She said, "You could get your place to look like that, too." Torture.

And we all might know those schizophrenics: the ones who drive cars filled with so much crap you can't move the passenger seat back anymore but who have alphabetized their CD collection and keep matching indexes near the shelf. Or the neat freaks who have one or two really annoying sloppy habits, somehow proving that they are not neurotic, they're not, they're not. Like my old roommate who always made toast on the counter without ever using a plate or a napkin and also refused to rinse out the tub after long shaves in the bath, so that the white tub had a perennial five o'clock shadow.

Anyway, I'll be tempted to post pictures of my clean-a-thon but I promise I won't. In a few days I'll get this house to that good-enough place, good enough for the Feloxcar in me.

The Monday Morning Report

Hey, I tried out Ngon Vietnamese Bistro this weekend (http://www.ngonbistro.com). This is such a fresh, bright place. Yellow walls and white curtains, modern art and photos. Clean, crisp flavors in their lemon grass beef wraps, and Phos, and traditional Vietnamese noodle salads.

DARA MOSKOWITZ GRUMDAHL of City Pages writes of Ngon's Pho:
"I have had so many bowls of pho that were just watery aquariums where low-cost ingredients go to die that I feel beyond militant on the topic. . . . [but] when I had the great, the gorgeous, the gallopingly, gargantuanly gratifying beef pho at the new Ngon Vietnamese Bistro in Frogtown, I wished to take a thousand bowls of it with me, fill a thousand Super Soaker water guns with it, and just rampage. Take that, lesser pho vendors—splat! When you try this pho, you will feel the same way: Ngon Bistro serves the best beef pho I've ever had. The broth is what does it—it's potent, hauntingly spiced and sweet, rich and beefy brown, onion-touched and herbal, peppery and anise-scented. In short, it's as complex and richly nuanced as a wedding, as dark and unforgettable as a divorce, but far quicker than either to get through. You gotta try it."

If you're close to St. Paul, go to the corner of University and Avon. It's on the north side, with parking just to the east of the corner building. You should go right after work, when you're all worn out from the monotony of this back-to-work Monday, and fill up on some Pho, then take a long, relaxing walk along the Mississippi River Blvd. You'll forget you've got Tuesday coming right on your heels.

Here are some links to Ngon Bistro restaurant reviews and info:

http://www.rakemag.com/restaurant/Saint+Paul/Ngon+Vietnamese+Bistro/2130

http://www.chowhound.com/topics/381260

http://citypages.com/databank/28/1386/article15591.asp

Word.

It's the weekend. In case you're looking to update your cocktail party conversational skills, here are some new words to drop, from Word.com, a listing of new entries from Merriam-Webster's Open Dictionary, which will soon be celebrating its second anniversary and boasts "more than 11,000 submissions and includes entries for nearly 10,000 words of all kinds, from slang to technical, playful to serious, and from fanciful coinages to words that may indeed find their way into regular dictionaries."

burquini (noun): Modest swimwear (mostly for ladies) which covers the head and most parts of the body while swimming. A cross between a burqua and bikini. The advent of the burquini has made swimming popular among conservative Muslim girls.

buffer-stall (noun):The empty stall in the restroom left unused when someone is using the stall next to it. I was so upset when someone used the stall next to me; there needs to be a buffer-stall.

deskercise (noun):Exercise, usually stretching and calisthenics, that can be performed while someone is sitting at a desk at work. I try to do at least 15 minutes of deskercise everyday in order to increase blood flow and alleviate stiff muscles.

fat finger (noun): Tendency to always press the wrong button. The system is not working because of your fat finger.

grumpelstiltskin (noun): Someone who is easily agitated; an overly grumpy person. [named after Rumpelstiltskin, a character from a Brothers Grimm fairytale] My dad can be a real grumpelstiltskin when my mom asks him to mow the lawn.

intoxitexting (verb): Sending text messages while intoxicated. Sorry if my last text didn't make any sense. I was intoxitexting at the bar.

LSS (abbreviation): Last Song Syndrome; a state wherein you keep on singing the last song you heard, whether from the radio or from someone else. I got LSS and have kept singing 'I Ain't Got You' for five hours now.

one-downmanship (noun): Verbal sparring over who has the worse tale of self-inflicted woe or the hardest luck of all. When they started talking about their disastrous first days at the office, the one-downmanship became intense.

varitarian (noun): A not-so-firm vegetarian who occasionally eats meat when cravings overcome logic. David showed his varitarian tendencies when he failed to resist the barbecued chicken at the neighbor's party.

vidiot (noun): One who languishes in front of a television screen watching videos or television programs continuously.

Good is Good Enough

I was reading a new Martha Stewart Living magazine the other day, one that someone had donated to our staff lounge. I hadn’t read Martha since before she made those ponchos in jail. I hadn’t read her since before she finally got her hair out of her eyes. It was one of those read/eat lunchtimes I normally love. (See Paper Cuts “Tables for One” on the pleasures of reading and eating.) But you know what? I couldn’t stick with her “Gentle Reminders” at the front of the magazine, the ones that told me to change out my summer draperies and air out the wool blankets for fall. I didn’t care that she made her damask pillows up in her new craft room.

This didn’t surprise me. I’ve been feeling this way for a few months now. A new copy of Real Simple, a croissant and a cup of tea, and a few hours to myself, and I’m normally happy as a lark. But there’s something turning me away. And I know what that is.

The constant push for self-improvement, that’s what. Like I said, in the last six months, when I read these magazines, I began to feel anxious and jumpy. I felt jealous of those things such as Martha’s craft room—and even more jealous of the fabulous crafts that came out of it. There was that voice telling me, “Pretty to look at but you’re never gonna do that.” Do men have the same feelings when they read Modern Woodworker or Northern Gearhead? Or do they have some sense in their heads (like the kind that comes for many married men reading Playboy), the kind that tells them this is for pure enjoyment, eye candy only?

I used to feel that way, that these beautiful things, these beautiful things like perfectly organized closets and great crafted memo boards, were for pleasure viewing only. I didn’t have to perfect them! I could even use the stuff in my short stories—to illustrate the perfectionist housewife, for instance. They didn’t mean ME when they printed those templates for stenciling long stairwells. These are just pretty things, like the shiny baubles birds go after on the seashore.

The thing is, there is just so much to fail at. I remember that line from Anne Lamott, when she shares her mom’s advice about men: “Mama told me not to marry a fixer-upper.” I think mamas everywhere should say, “Do not be your own fixer-upper. There is not room for continuous improvement.” I mean otherwise we’re all going to be walking around with our hands holding our heads and thinking “please don’t let me fail, please don’t let me fail,” like Marisa Tomei in the scene with Mel Gibson in What Women Want, when she’s thinking, “please let him be gay, please let him be gay, please don’t let me be rejected again . . .”

I worked for a publishing house that brought in TQM, Total Quality Management. We had all these consultants analyze every last step of all the work we did and then pushed us to deconstruct those steps further to see what we could kick out, what we could bring in. Our new CEO kept saying, “It will feel like we’re taking apart the plane while still trying to fly it.” Yeah, and that’s not an overworked metaphor. The thing is, have any of you ever flown Pulkovo Airlines?

So every move we made we felt the heat of TQM. Did you really need to make a copy of the edited manuscript before sending it to the author? In fact, do you really need to send the author a copy? Maybe you didn’t really need to copyedit books that much anyhow.

My friend worked at UPS at the time and they were going through TQM analysis, too. So they’d time her deliveries and ask her to walk up to the house with a package in one hand and her pen and pad in the other, writing as she delivered. Anything to shave off time, improve productivity.

In the end, the TQM scheme failed. Our CEO was fired. He went off to sell Amway, last I heard. The books aren’t being produced any faster or any better, though I do understand there is less copyediting going on. Better product? Probably not.

Now my anxiety has turned to indifference and the last few times I’ve opened up the mags for ladies I don’t even feel the pull of self-improvement: lose weight, save time, cook better, make love like a pro (sorry, honey). I just don’t really care. Now, don’t get me wrong, I can be motivated to make a really great roasted chicken, and Martha’s got a kicking recipe where you slather French’s mustard around and in the bird and roast it with potatoes and onions, and I wouldn’t mind seeing the video of her demonstrating it, either. But I’m not going to sweat it.

I recently attended a seminar by the marketing/branding firm Iconoculture. One of the key trends they’ve identified is the feeling among a new generation of adults that “good is good enough.” Works for me. Definitely works for me.

See, I just grilled some corn on the cob and I shaved the kernels off the cob into a big red bowl and now I’m eating those corn “slabs” with my fingers, straight out of the bowl. Damask pillows? Not tonight, honey. THIS is the good stuff.

POMS # 6: Meet the Editors

See also POMS #1-5 here.

The Editors, an indie rock band from Birmingham, England, are playing the Fine Line tonight. I first heard them at SXSW a few years ago and I've been listening since.

I've got another commitment tonight so can't make it but what I really want is something from their online store--the green army shirt or the black mug. Hmmm, I've got a birthday coming up so not only are they on my recommended POMS but they're also new items on my own wish list.


For more on the band, see their official website.

Charles Wright speaks just what's on my mind

It is the sixth anniversary of 9/11 and the flags at half-mast whip mercilessly in this Minnesota wind. A homeless man sleeps on a bench in the sun. A few women eat their sack lunches near the World War II Veteran's Memorial. I watch the legislators and lobbyists make their way down the Capitol steps. Life goes on.

Here's a poem that speaks just what's on my mind today.

Cowboy Up
by Charles Wright

There comes a time in one’s life when one wants time,
a lot of time, with inanimate things.
Not ultimate inanimate things,
Of course, but mute things,
beautiful, untalkbackable wise things.
That’s wishful thinking, cowboy.

Still, I’d like to see the river of stars
fall noiselessly through the nine heavens for once,
But the world’s weight, and the world’s welter, speak big talk and
big confusion.

From the online Virginia Quarterly Review
***********************************************************
And for much less weighty news:
The boy weighed in at 149. Pretty sure no nudity was involved. He went directly to Chipotle after making weight and ate a whole chicken burrito with pinto beans AND chips and salsa.

Are you ready for some football?

Amos Alonzo Stagg, University of Chicago, football playbook, 1927. Throughout his legendary career as a coach, Stagg maintained careful and detailed records of successful plays he had devised. Wisconsin and Ohio State felt the impact of his offensive innovations in the 1922 season.

I’ve been on a high school track team, a West Publishing softball team, even a middle-agers pick-up basketball team, but I’ve never been on a football team. I’ve played a little touch football over the years; once, in college, we were playing in the snow on an empty lot and I fell to the ground trying to chase the passer. My palm landed on a broken Cutty Sark bottle and I had to rush to the emergency room for twenty-two stitches. That scar hurts every time I grip and swing a bat. Even if I could punt the ball deep, like some of these modern girls can, I don’t think I’d ever push to join the boys.

Still, it is the one sport I watched with my dad when I was growing up. He rooted for the Kansas City Chiefs and I was a Steelers fan. I liked watching Lynn Swann catch those passes and would think he had the perfect name for the job, like Bob Barker’s was for his role as annoying game show host. I even knew the name of the Steeler voted “most fashionable”: running back Frenchie Fuqua.

My dad and I would take up our places in the basement rec room, he in the floral wing-back recliner, me in the matching floral sofa. Mom would be upstairs watching her own shows because she hated the sound of those announcers shouting out the plays. Cosell, Madden. She didn’t mind Musberger, though, so she’d come down with toasted BLTs and chips when he called the games for CBS. My dad and his brothers played high school football in Wisconsin and one of his brothers tried out for the Chicago Bears farm team. My Uncle Larry, on my mom’s side, played OT for Florida State in 1965. I heard a lot of football over the years.

So I’m a fan. Despite the militaristic machoism of the NFL. Despite the corruption of the college game. Despite the misguided frenzy at the high school level. Despite the fact that my young son might get upended and crushed by some 180-pound kid in the junior high league.

Some notes from our first weekend of football:

I heard about the visit by pro baller Chris Weinke, a Cretin grad, who attended Florida State on a football scholarship but opted out before graduating to play baseball for the Toronto Blue Jays. He told my son and other campers at the Cretin football camp that “of all the sports I’ve played none compares to the camaraderie of football. None.”

My son rushed the ball a few times in his team’s fall preview on Saturday, but when he was stopped by a large wall of defensive linemen his coach told him he should have jumped over them. So every time we watched a game on TV and saw a running back get tackled after only a few yards, we’d yell out “SHOULD HAVE JUMPED OVER THEM,” just to make my son crazy.

One of our friends is an All-American who played tight end at Michigan. The usually mighty Wolverines are a dismal 0-2 this season. My husband walked up to him at the kids’ game on Saturday and asked, “Wait a minute. How DO you spell Appalachian State?”

In order to run the ball in official games for the eighth grade, players must weigh in at 150 pounds or less. This keeps teams from giving the ball to their enormous lunks to plow over everybody else thirty pounds lighter than them. My son is at 151. His official weigh-in is today at 3:00 p.m. with the school nurse. I was in the bathroom this morning getting ready to shower when I heard my husband walk into my son’s room.

“You have weigh-in today,” says dad.

“Uh, I know,” says son.

I’m thinking, “Don’t say it, please don’t say it.”

“You should, uh, you know . . .” says dad, faltering.

Son waits. I’m thinking, “Really, just don’t say it.”

“You should, uh, you know, try to go to the bathroom before, uh, you get weighed,” says dad.

“Man,” I think, “he said it. I knew he’d say it.”

“Dad, knock it off. Seriously,” says son.

I can see my husband, who is really not as fanatic as this sounds, standing by the scale with my son, the reading at 150-1/2, and him saying, “You should try taking off your pants now, son,” and the two of them getting in a huge fight right there in front of the unsuspecting nurse. Camaraderie indeed.

morning mist

Foggy morning on John Lake, BWCAW, 2007, photo by B. A. Gaede


A Few Moments
by Tomas Tranströmer
Translated by Robert Bly


The dwarf pine on marsh grounds holds its head up: a dark rag.
But what you see is nothing compared to the roots,
the widening, secretly groping, deathless or half-
deathless root system.

I you she he also put roots out.
Outside our common will.
Outside the City.

Rain drifts from the summer sky that's pale as milk.
It is as if my five senses were hooked up to some other creature
that moves with the same stubborn flow
as the runners in white circling the track as the night comes misting in.




From The Half-Finished Heaven, published by Graywolf Press. by Tomas Transtromer. English language copyright © 2001 by Robert Bly.

More stats, less sass*

A few weeks ago four of us put in at Clearwater Lake for a week of BWCA paddling and camping. Most of our shots are threesomes--as one of us took the pictures. Here we are, excited to get going. (I'm the short-looking one at left; the center pal is nearly six feet tall!) Our goal: 35 miles on the Clearwater Loop, what some say is "the most scenic route of the BWCA" (from "Paddling the Boundary Waters and Voyageurs National Park"): Clearwater to Caribou to Little Caribou to Pine, Little John, McFarland, John, East Pike and West Pike.

Three of us on the trip are book editors. We like to analyze. We do it in our jobs all the time: moderate edit, 65,000-word manuscript, 5 pages/hour to edit, 10 pages/hour to proofread, 7 months to produce book.

Regarding our trip, we planned:

approx. 9 miles a day, since we'd be taking two leisurely layover days
approx. 2 miles/hour to paddle, unless we hit hard winds
approx. 8 rods/minute to portage

Double-back portages until the last day, when we had reduced to four packs, then we portaged the "leap-frog" method:
1,2,3,4 = person
A,B,C = beginning, midpoint, and end of portage
1 & 2 carry canoes from A to C
3 & 4 carry two packs from A to B and return to A
1 & 2 return to B and carry packs to C
3 & 4 carry last two packs from A to C


Instead of walking the portage three times, each one only has to walk the length twice.

*****

Or, if you want a BWCA story with fewer stats--

When my then twenty-year-old, Chicago-born husband went with a crew of his friends to the Boundary Waters, he was in charge of food. This was his list:

Fish?
Cornbread




*homage to the not-forgotten Batgirl. Boy, would she be having some doozies to say about these faltering Twins. . . .

Mama, don't let your boys grow up to be fashion models

There are some days when I dress myself for work when I know I haven't got it right. If there's time, I change. If not, I wince, and go about my day.

But I KNOW I've never left the house looking this ridiculous.

For more from Thom Browne, see:


http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2007/09/06/fashion/shows/20070907_THOM_SLIDESHOW_index.html?partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

Sights and Sounds

(This is a progress shot of the front porch we built for ourselves a few years ago.)

Today I got to know the neighborhood again.

I have finally finished this huge book project and I'm feeling free and easy. I took a walk at 8 a.m. this morning, knowing it would make me late for work.

Because of some construction at the MSP airport, planes coming in for landing are now using runways that take them right over Highland Park. Whew. They make my bones rattle. We've been lucky in these parts not to have too much air traffic over the years, unlike our South Minneapolis neighbors. I remember one time taking my daughter, who was three at the time, to Lake Harriet. We played on the grassy knoll and then a big Northwest Airlines 747 came over us loud and low, its belly practically skimming the lake, and suddenly she just started running away from me, terrified, like those set extras they hired for the bombing-of-Pearl-Harbor scenes in "Tora! Tora! Tora!"

I remember hearing--or at least first recognizing--my first sonic boom. I was in my bedroom on an Air Force base in Altus, Oklahoma. I didn't know what it was but it felt like thunder inside my heart.

My dad worked on flight lines for twenty years. He shouts at people, even when you're just sitting in the dining room sipping on some tea. He really shouts when he's having a good time in a crowd. And for the longest time I used to get piping mad at him for always answering "WHY?" whenever I asked him a question. "Dad, I think I'm going to study English literature." "WHY?" he would boom. But then I finally realized that what he really should have said was "WHAT?" because that's what he meant inside, but he was too proud to admit he's practically deaf.

So I walked up Randolph Ave. right about school time and all the elementary school crossing guards in their orange vests came out in the street to flag my way through the intersection. I thanked them and most of them turned to smile back at me. The planes were going over and the big orange schoolbuses were barreling by and all the traffic coming off Snelling was loud, too.

I saw that same guy who always sits at J&S Coffee smoking a cigarette on the back patio and I saw the private school kids run laps around the softball fields. I felt the bruises on the bottoms of my feet from all the rocks on one of our long BWCA portages and then I remembered to look up at the morning sky, which, despite the planes, was lovely.

Then I came up on our little cottage and the neighbor's black cat was asleep on our porch rocker and the pink geraniums still stood out in the greenery despite the summer's end. I was happy but my hearing (which is not great to begin with) was muffled from all the neighborhood noise. When a woman walking by stopped to say something like "Nice morning to walk, isn't it" I missed most of what she said and was almost tempted to shout "WHY?" but I stopped--because I already knew the reasons.

Solidarity

It is back to school, back to work. There is a bit of protest in the air. Last night my son dutifully wrapped his textbooks in old Korte's grocery bags (rather than buy the book covers at Target), and listened to his sister's album from Sage Francis, and you can practically read his mind: Where did summer go?

In the Boundary Waters, we dined elegantly:
*Salmon and Rosemary Pasta
*Potato Pancakes
*Spinach and Cheese Tortellini with Pesto Sauce
*Asiago cheese and smoked oysters, along with red wine
for “happy hour” on The Rock. We even splurged and brought along these nifty picnic glasses.

But now back home we're packing Sad Sack lunches for back-to-school, back-to-work: turkey and mayo on wheat, Cool Ranch Doritos for the kid, last night’s leftovers in Rubbermaid for the hubbie and me--and I doth protest. I don't want to sit inside today! Though I’m facing a tight deadline I still vow at least to bring my lunch outside and watch the sky.

But my protests are small and silly. Yellow taxicab drivers are striking in New York. Something about the demand that they install GPS units and ways to accept credit cards from their customers. A few days ago those in New Orleans’ Ninth Ward protested the debilitating lack of progress on the second anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. Clerical, technical, and health workers are striking at the U. Seems even profs who teach “Labor Struggles in Developing Countries” are being told by the administration to do nothing public about the strike that will disrupt the normal flow of classes. My daughter’s feminist theory class and instructor are planning to join the picket line Thursday.

I haven’t walked a picket line myself but I know my mother, who worked in the tradebook section of the University of North Dakota bookstore, fought for better wages. Mine have been only little acts of defiance. Once, in high school, we girls protested the school’s policy of unannounced “purse checks.” The administration was on the lookout for cigarettes and drugs. They’d call in girls and ask them to dump the contents of their purses onto the main office counter. So we contacted as many girls as we could and asked them to pack their purses with tampons—and nothing else. Sure enough, three of us were called in at once and the look of the vice principal’s face when these bundles of white sticks came tumbling out of our handbags was right out of Ferris Bueller.

If you’re stuck at your desk on this sunny day and feel the pulse of protest, large or small, past or present, pull up a good protest soundtrack. Though not specifically "protest," I always like a little Pink Floyd, especially their debut album The Piper at the Gates of Dawn. Here’s some help: In the American Sociological Association- sponsored journal Contexts, the editors compile a list of "essential protest songs."

There are 14 songs on the list including standards as "We Shall Overcome," Bob Dylan's "The Times They Are A-Changin' " and the 1930s union anthem "Which Side Are You On?"

"Lift Every Voice and Sing.”
Lyrics by James Weldon Johnson; music by J. Rosamand Johnson. Key lyric: “We have come over a way that with tears has been watered / We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered.” Known as the “Black National Anthem”—the antidote to “America, the Beautiful.”

“Which Side Are You On?”
By Florence Reece. “Don’t scab for the bosses, don’t listen to their lies / Us poor folks haven’t got a chance unless we organize.” Written during the labor struggles in Harlan County, Kentucky, in the 1930s, it was later adopted by the civil rights movement.

“Strange Fruit”
Performed by Billie Holiday. By Abel Meeropol (who later adopted the children of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg). “Pastoral scene of the gallant south / The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth.” A chilling protest against lynching. Maybe the greatest protest song of all time.

“Pastures of Plenty”
By Woody Guthrie. “Every state in this union us migrants has been /‘Long the edge of your cities you’ll see us, and then / We’ve come with the dust and we’re gone in the wind.” Guthrie’s ode to America’s migrant workers.

“The Times They Are A-Changin’”
By Bob Dylan. “There’s a battle outside and it’s raging / It’ll soon shake your windows and rattle your walls.” Tough call between this and Dylan’s “Blowin’ in the Wind,” “Only a Pawn in Their Game,” “Masters of War,” “With God on Our Side,” etc., etc.

“We Shall Overcome”
Adapted from a gospel song, the anthem of the civil rights movement. “Deep in my heart, I do believe / We shall overcome some day.” Infinitely adaptable.

“Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me ‘Round”Also adapted from a Negro spiritual. “I’m gonna keep on walkin’, keep on talkin’ / Fightin’ for my equal rights.” Another powerful civil rights anthem.

“I Ain’t Marching Anymore”
By Phil Ochs. “It’s always the old to lead us to the war / It’s always the young to fall / Now look at all we’ve won with the saber and the gun / Tell me is it worth it all?” An antiwar classic, complete with a revisionist history of American militarism.

“For What It’s Worth”
Performed by Crosby, Stills, and Nash. By Stephen Stills. “There’s something happening here / What it is ain’t exactly clear / There’s a man with a gun over there / Telling me I’ve got to beware.” Eerily foreboding.

“Say It Loud (I’m Black and I’m Proud)”
By James Brown. “Now we demand a chance to do things for ourself / We’re tired of beatin’ our head against the wall and workin’ for someone else.” A Black Power anthem by the Godfather of Soul.

“Respect”
Performed by Aretha Franklin. By Otis Redding. “I ain’t gonna do you wrong while you’re gone / Ain’t gonna do you wrong ‘cause I don’t wanna / All I’m askin’ is for a little respect when you come home.” The personal is political.

“Redemption Song”
By Bob Marley. “Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery / None but ourselves can free our minds.” Marley’s “Get Up, Stand Up” is also a contender.

“Imagine”
By John Lennon. “Imagine no possessions / I wonder if you can / No need for greed or hunger / A brotherhood of man.” Lennon as utopian socialist.

“Fight the Power”
By Public Enemy. “Got to give us what we want / Gotta give us what we need / Our freedom of speech is freedom or death / We got to fight the powers that be.” An exuberant hip-hop call to arms.

Lessons from the Reentry Council

"Atmospheric reentry is the process by which vehicles that are outside the atmosphere of a planet can enter that atmosphere and reach the planetary surface intact. Vehicles that undergo this process include spacecraft from orbit . . . Typically this process requires special methods to protect against aerodynamic heating. Various advanced technologies have been developed to enable atmospheric reentry and flight at extreme velocities."

* * * * *

Away for nine days, my first long-ish vacation in over a year: blue skies, clear water, eagles and otters and beavers--and a cow moose and calf eating wild rice on the shore of East Pike Lake. Swimming every day but one, island exploring, discovering sacred art on a point of land on West Pike (does anyone know about this spot?), long, meditative paddles and portages, full moon through triangle window of tent, shiraz and smoked oysters on "The Rock" on John Lake, a great company of women.

When my daughter went on her 30-day canoe trip in Canada I was warned by others to watch her "reentry"--that when she returned she might lick her plate clean at dinner, she might sleep on the hardwood floors at night, she might be overwhelmed by the noise and heat of the city after so much time in the wilderness. What do I do? I take her straight from her Bloomington drop-off to a loud and busy Vietnamese restaurant for spring rolls and noodles. She was as twitchy as a person with Tourette's by the time our dinner was over.

(I think hers would be described as the "blunt body concept." Like when you plunge into a chilly lake headfirst, just to get it over with. NASA first thought a blunt body reentry would quickly defer heat and pressure away from the craft and be a better design for a lunar capsule, and when I think about those quick, cold plunges we took in those BW lakes, they always worked better than the slow-footed wading we all think will be easier on our bodies--but really only prolong the icy agony. You know, the nursing home shuffle down the granite, feet first icy wet, shuffle, shuffle, ankles icy wet, shuffle, shuffle, knees icy wet . . . Still, I wish I had done better with my daughter's return home.)

My reentry has been more of the rounded "manned capsule" variety. Today I came home to a quiet house--the boys are up at the lake place--and my daughter and I arranged fresh flowers from the Farmers Market into various and pretty bouquets. Then we each took a "Caramel Queen" caramel into the living room and watched a rerun of Top Chef, the one where Stephen comes back from Season 1 to act as sommelier for Sara's team. I read some of my favorite blogs. She made a fried egg sandwich. We shared notes about paddling and the Boundary Waters. We decided to splurge and have a large Pizza Luce garlic mashed potato pizza and slices of carrot cake delivered to the house. She's taking a nap now; I'm taking time to write.

And now I can unload my gear, lay out my wet Solomon's and wool socks to dry, wash my stinky clothes, flip through my journal and remember all the sights and sounds from this amazing trip.

Pleasure Ahead

Things will be quiet here for awhile as I head out to the BWCAW. Enjoy this passage from Eric Sevareid's Canoeing with the Cree, an account of his 2,250-mile voyage from Minneapolis to Hudson Bay:

"Coming out of the lake, the river was very small, running in a channel not more than forty feet wide. There were high weeds on each side and everywhere around us was low, marshy swamp. There was no place to stop. The channel wound crazily, seeming to get nowhere. The reeds prevented a breeze from reaching us and, since there wasn't a sign of a tree, the sun beat down on us unmercifully. Salty perspiration ran down into our eyes and the maddening horse flies bit time and again."

*****

". . . Days later, torn, tattered, unshaved, unshorn, looking as though we came from the ends of the world, Walter and I thumped into the Winnipeg Canoe Club. They would not believe our story until we showed them our letters and other evidence. That night we were introduced, unkempt though we were, to the entire club, at a dance.

"'That's what I call some paddling,' the president said."

*****

"All kinds of questions from various individuals about Minnesota and the United States in general finally convinced Walt and me that we were a long way from home, after all.

"'Minneapolis?' Colonel Reid asked. 'Where the deuce is Minneapolis?'

"And when he wanted to know just why we had made the canoe trip and I answered, 'Oh, for pleasure, I guess,' he exploded: "Pleasure! What a jolly funny kind of pleasure!" But he amended his statement with, "Oh well, that's youth. Things look different when you're young, I suppose. My word, I almost believe I envy you."

I'm 28 years older now than Sevareid was then, but the pleasure is still the same, I suppose.

The rain stopped and we all smiled

Hello, all. I’m back from our 4-day trip near Elroy/Sparta, Wisconsin, with:

28 kids

2 bike crashes

1 flu-sick teen

4 inches of rain

12 drenched sleeping bags

2 really bad pup tents (along with 5 good, dry ones)

74 miles of bike riding, 1/4 of which were through sheets of rain

35 really sore tushes

1 late-night return bus breakdown on I-94

Wait . . . can I tell you a couple of hilarious fart jokes? We picked up lots of those, too.

I want to write "Priceless" here at the end of the list but I know we're all sick of that cliche. Let me just say the trip was a blast and the kids, well, okay, I'm saying it: they were priceless.

Show and Tell

(J. M. Lerma, Klecko, me)

In a week I'll be at the Minnesota State Fair kibitzing in front of the St. Agnes Bakery kitchen with our fine mayor, Mr. Coleman. Last year we talked about family recipes and I tried to link the conversation to our recently published cookbooks. Before the event Mr. Coleman's brother, another Mr. Coleman who acquires rare things for the musuem here, told me he didn't know why I was going to talk about family recipes with his brother the Mayor because not only did his brother not know how to cook, but neither had their mother--that her famous family recipe was five pounds of hamburger, fried, with cans of corn and kidney beans thrown in. "The Irish, you know," he said.

But last August I learned that Mr. Coleman the Mayor did like to cook on trail and was especially fond of grilling salmon and other fishes. And since I'm about to hit the trail in the Boundary Waters myself for a week, I thought we'd talk about camp food.

So anyone who wants to share their favorite trail recipes, I'd love it if you sent them in the comments section below. And if you'd like a chance to ask questions of the mayor and see a book editor try to act like a talk show host, we'll be in the Creative Activities building next Friday, August 24, 1 p.m., at the St. Agnes Kitchen in the corner, between the quilts and the baked goods display. And you'll have an easy chance to win a free book, too (like the terrific Canoeing with the Cree)!

Word of the Day, August 16, 2007

The Websters.com Word of the Day is rankle.

rankle • \RANK-ul\ • verb
: to cause irritation or bitterness in
Example Sentence: Rae Ann's snooty attitude and rude behavior rankled me, but I smiled to hide my irritation.

Did you know?. . . When "rankle" was first used in English, it meant "to fester," and that meaning is linked to the word's Old French ancestor, a noun that was spelled "raoncle" or "draoncle" and meant "festering sore. . . ."

This morning I tried to bake some meatballs (the things we do before work!) so my teen son would have something to nibble on for lunch. While the oven was preheating (and I was outside picking tomatoes), it started to smoke furiously--thick, stinky clouds of it poured up through the stovetop burners, like a Thomas the Train engine. When I opened the oven door, a big black pile of crud had flamed up. I quickly turned off the oven, opened some windows, and turned on the fan. Later I called my husband, who told me the teen daughter must have left the mess after cooking a homemade pizza yesterday. Did I tell you kids go back to school in a few weeks?

Example sentence: Their summer routines rankled the mother and so she made little notes to herself at the office: "Breathe. Take walk at lunch. Buy flowers. And gin."

In a few days I'll be taking 27 teenagers on a four-day bike trip. Some of them, I think, have never camped before and more than a few of them are scared silly of creepy crawlers.

I found this wonderful sketchbook on the New Yorker website: "Camper Bug Alert" by Bruce McCall. You can click through all six juicy bug scenarios--but only if you dare.

Speaking of dare, my own kids know that I'm not too scared of bugs or snakes or lightning storms (boy was that a doozy here last night!) or even rabid foxes (which have been in one of my camps.) But they know that I am afraid of "the hacker." That guy, that deranged and soul-less guy out there in the woods, the one Alix Kates Shulman also fears in her memoir, Drinking the Rain. I was glad to find out I wasn't the only one with these fearful thoughts. When I hear the FDR refrain, "We have nothing to fear but fear itself," I say "Oh yeah? Let me tell you about the hacker."

In my twenties, I was a counselor at the YMCA Camp Winona. It was a day camp for kids ages 10 to 13, with two sleepover nights at the end of each week. I was good at building campfires, pitching tents, pulling ticks off ears and backs, and sleeping with 7 stinky, fidgety teen campers on the top of some secluded bluff. But at night I was always thinking about that hacker.

****

Once, when my husband and I first bought our house in St. Paul, he had to leave on a long business trip. I was pretty new to the city and hadn't met the neighbors yet. That particular week there had been a string of beatings of elderly women in their homes. The St. Paul police had a police drawing of the suspect and it seemed I had that guy imprinted in my mind. The hacker, personified.

One night I came home late from my friend's Minneapolis apartment. The drive home seemed tense. The house was dark. I got spooked.

I ran upstairs and locked my bedroom door with the skeleton key, which I then gripped in my palm while I waited on my bed for the scared feeling to pass. It didn't. I put the key in my pocket and went down to my husband's locked cabinet for the .22. I had taken a riflery class in college and had grouse hunted some with my husband and duck hunted with some old high-school boyfriends. I knew how to handle a gun. It wasn't loaded and I didn't load it. It was just something to hold on to until I got over the heebie-jeebies.

I brought it back to our bedroom, laid it across my legs, and watched the back of that locked door most of the night. Finally, dawn came. I put down the gun, opened the door, and ran down the steps. I was so glad to have that night finally over. When I opened the door to check for the morning paper, I saw that I had left my keys in the door the whole night. So much for protecting myself from the hacker.

****

So as a camp counselor, I wasn't much good at ghost stories or late-night treks to the outhouse. (I'm much better now.) But my fellow camp counselors were master storytellers and we'd all sit around the campfire listening to tales of chopped-off heads, and golden arms, and monsters in the night.

I always offered up a chance for immunity from breakfast clean-up to the first kid who volunteered to lead our group at midnight--post-ghost storytelling-- back up the hill to our tent. They always thought that was such a cool thing for me to do. Little did they know.

Castro, Rove, and Toads in a Hole

Today's news is dominated by some of the senior men in our world: Fidel Castro celebrates his 81st birthday (at least Castro's peers do; who knows what Castro knows anymore), Karl Rove announces he'll step down as "Bush's Brain," (not much more to say about that), and Merv Griffin dies (he the man who earned "70 or 80 million" on royalties for his Jeopardy jingle).

Does anyone make that breakfast that some call, "Toad in the Hole"? A piece of toast with the hole cut out and an egg cooked inside, like this below only not so fancy (from The Amateur Gourmet blog):

My Papa (grandpa) and my dad both call these breakfast specials, "One-eyed Elephants." I don't know who concocted the name but my Papa listed it on the menu at their restaurant Tibbie's, in Indianford, Wisconsin. The key to the dish is making sure (1) you spread butter on the bread and toast one side well first before flipping the bread over and cracking the egg into the hole, and (2) you cook the egg thoroughly on both sides or, as we used to tell Dad, the whites are too jiggly. It's a tidy little egg dish and fun to serve.

I saw my mom and dad up north again this weekend. This time Dad didn't make his One-eyeds but instead thin pancakes with real maple syrup and sausage.

My dad was sent off on TDYs often when I was growing up (month-long alerts in places like North Dakota or Alaska) and when he returned we'd all be giddy. He'd wake up early on Sunday mornings and shout out from the hallway, "What do you want for breakfast?" My brother would yell, "Scrambled eggs and toast!" I'd yell, "French toast with bacon!" and he'd shout back, "Pancakes it is!" Drove my mom nuts.


When we were teens he'd pull us in circles around Big Wolf Lake, many times bearing the brunt of our anger when we couldn't get up on one ski or when we tried to land barefoot on the shoreline after a long pull. He was always looking for ways to give us a good pull, make it worth our while.


Now we have just a little Lund with a 25 hp motor so we don't ski much anymore but he's always up for taking the grandkid out for a little pull.

All the Roves and Castros can make a muck of the world out there but aren't we lucky we have our hardworking and loving dads to keep it real?

Is this better . . . or worse? Better? Or worse?

I have my annual eye exam tomorrow. Man, do I need new lenses. You know those heavy plastic tumblers a place like St. Clair Broiler uses for water and soda glasses? All scratched and cloudy from the wear and tear of customers and dishwashers? Yep, that's what my lenses look like.

It's only been a year or so that I've been wearing glasses nearly full time. Last year on my trip to the Boundary Waters I thought I could definitely paddle without wearing them and I could--I do just fine seeing things at a medium or long distance. But then when my companions asked me to navigate from the map, ah hell, I found I couldn't really read a thing. I tried to read the contours of the lake by squinting my left eye and sort of guessing at the portage points but that didn't work too well.

So I'm still a rookie at the eye exam. I'm always a little chatty and nervous around doctors or any kind of medical personnel. I chatter endlessly, like Kathie Griffin on Bravo, only not so obnoxious. Maybe more like Lucy Ball. Right at the point when I was about to deliver my son, I asked my doctor what he thought of Hillary's national health care plan (Bill had just been elected).

Anyway, last year, after the ophthalmologist did that light test and then the puff test, me tight in that head contraption, he began the whole lens series where he would flip over different lenses--one eye at a time or both eyes together--and ask me:

Is this better?

The same?

Or worse?

Better? The same? Or worse?

I got the knack of it for awhile but then it got confusing and I feared I was saying "better" when I really meant "worse." Or that I said "worse" for a lens that the doc knew was clearly better. I felt as incompetent as those kids who would rather become electricians or sous chefs but their parents make them take the SATs, and the tests so frustrate them that they darken the circles of the multiple choice questions only so the rows and columns make pretty polka-dot patterns.

I finally said to the doc, "I'm failing this test aren't I?" He told me no one can really fail this test, but he wasn't convincing. And then I wondered if my new eyeglasses would come back so out-of-whack for my eyes, like when we were kids and we'd ask to try on our dad's glasses just for the thrill of the dizziness.

So this year I thought I'd practice a little bit. Get the hang of the comparisons. Is it better? The same? Or worse?

Here goes:

Izzy's or Grand Ole Creamery? IZZY'S, BETTER

Friends or Frasier? SAME . . . I THINK

Raspberry martini or appletini? RASPBERRY MARTINI, BETTER (especially the ones at The Craftsman on Lake Street)

Hanes or Jockey? HANES, DEFINITELY WORSE

Those cavemen or that gecko? PRETTY EVEN ON THAT. MAYBE THE CAVEMEN. I DON'T KNOW

Chicago Manual of Style or AP Style Manual? CHICAGO MANUAL, DEFINITELY BETTER

Mac or PC? OKAY, DOC, COME ON

Pawlenty or Ventura? AH MAN, SAME

St. Cloud or Mankato? SAME. WAIT. YEAH, SAME

Roddy Doyle or Frank McCourt? EASY, RODDY DOYLE

Starbucks or Caribou? GOD WHO CARES. OKAY, STARBUCKS

Coconut or almond? HUH, WAIT, DO THAT AGAIN.

Coconut or almond? WELL . . . THAT DEPENDS

(That's not an answer; which? Better or worse, or same?)

Try again: Coconut or almond? ALMOND, BETTER, BUT ONLY SLIGHTLY. BARELY ANY DIFFERENCE. REALLY.

MIA or Walker? MIA, BETTER.

John or Paul? JOHN, EASY

Okay, now, Ringo or John? JOHN, BETTER

Okay, now (flip, flip), John or Mick? HUH? WAIT A MINUTE. YOU FORGOT GEORGE. I WASN'T READY. CAN WE START OVER?

Stewie dances with Gene Kelly

Look, you too can learn to dance

So, I think I can dance

Like father, like daughter. Kansas City, MO, pictures before the recital, c. 1968. I think this is the year my dad is in Vietnam. I imagine him getting this picture in the mail, if it wasn't confiscated like some of our other packages to him, and I picture it making him happy.

I think the thing I miss most in my life is dancing. That and my 1980s-era dancing body.

So You Think You Can Dance?

He can. That's my dad, third from right. (My Uncle Rod is next to him, in the center.) I love looking at these preteen faces from the forties.

*as always, click on photo to enlarge

POMS #5: St. Agnes Bread, on the wings of angels

For a lift, here are two poems for this Friday. I adore the first, called "In the library," by our U.S. Poet Laureate Charles Simic. If you go to the Poetry Archive web page here and click on the audio, you can hear the poet read it.

In the library
by Charles Simic

for Octavio

There’s a book called
A Dictionary of Angels.
No one had opened it in fifty years,
I know, because when I did,
The covers creaked, the pages
Crumbled. There I discovered

The angels were once as plentiful
As species of flies.
The sky at dusk
Used to be thick with them.
You had to wave both arms
Just to keep them away.

Now the sun is shining
Through the tall windows.
The library is a quiet place.
Angels and gods huddles
In dark unopened books.
The great secret lies
On some shelf Miss Jones
Passes every day on her rounds.

She’s very tall, so she keeps
Her head tipped as if listening.
The books are whispering.
I hear nothing, but she does.

From Selected Poems (Faber and Faber, 2004), copyright © Charles Simic 2004.

And speaking of flying, my good friend Klecko, master baker at St. Agnes Bakery, shares his poem:

VAMPIRE (1250 W 7TH – SAINT PAUL)
by Dan "Klecko" McGleno

THIS BUILDING’S OLD –
THE HALLWAYS COLD –
CONDENSATION, CAUSING MOLD –

ON THE BASEBOARD –
ON THE WALL –
CLOCK STRIKES MIDNIGHT –
OVENS CALL – (AND)

I’M GOING TO FLY TONIGHT-
GOING TO FLY TONIGHT-

RULE THE WORLD-
WHILE YOU SLEEP-
SO PRAY TO GOD, YOUR SOUL WILL KEEP –

BONES ARE COLD –
EYES ARE OLD –
SEEING STORIES NEVER TOLD –

AT YOUR TABLES –
IN YOUR MALL –
CLOCK STRIKES MIDNIGHT-
DUTY CALLS – (AND)

I’M GOING TO FLY TONIGHT-


You can warm your bones and your tummies with the good bread and fun doings at the St. Agnes Baking Co. monthly retail event tomorrow, Saturday, August 4, at 644 Olive Street in St. Paul. There's nothing better for breakfast than a slice of his black Russian rye with a little slather of butter on top, and you can pick up all kinds of other treats: the moist zucchini bread, the wild rice sourdough (great with smoked turkey and fresh sliced tomatoes). Retail day goes from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. right inside this commercial bakery.


I hear Klecko will be reading poetry to those waiting in line to get in, so fly on over there. What could be more uplifting than poetry and bread?

Bridge Talk

For some other takes on our I35W bridge collapse:

University of Minnesota students and area residents reflect

Photographer Alec Soth weighs in on crassness

Blogger Noah Kunin writes "35W just came down right in front of my house" here.

The Dharma Blog contemplates the faith we put in things

A Twin Cities birder gives her perspective; scroll down to the post "35W Bridge, Who Knew?"

and the New York Times praises Jeremy Hernandez's heroics here. (8/6/07 edit: I had listed the incorrect name of the valiant camp counselor who helped rescue those kids. I've got it right now.)

A few weeks ago one of the boys on my son's baseball team got hit in the wrist with a high fastball. It was probably sailing about 50 mph when it smacked and broke three bones in the kid's arm. He dropped his bat and ran away from home plate in pain, gripping his elbow and trying not to swear. When he got close to the dugout one of our coaches wanted to test it out, see if the kid could still play, so he gripped that broken wrist and asked the kid if it hurt. The kid passed out so fast I thought he'd break his collarbone. Later he told us he must have gone into shock from the pain.

The next game a kid from the opposing team tried to steal second and jammed his leg against the base. We all heard his leg snap Joe Theismann-like and we all simultaneously cringed and moaned. Players from both teams gathered around this kid so tightly that we couldn't see the fallen player any more.

The league director was called over and one woman rushed by saying she was a nurse. And then the paramedics arrived quickly and they tried to open this tight band of ball players who were wrapped like a prayer circle around the victim. The mother, who had not been at the field when it happened (perhaps she was toting another child to another place, perhaps she had just gone back to her car to get her sunglasses), was beside herself, running out on the field. "What happened? What happened? You called the paramedics? I could have brought him to the ER myself. What? It's that bad?" I felt for her and knew that it was especially hard to have missed the accident, to come on to the scene of her young son's break only after the fact. And then there was our own injured player, who was sitting behind the fence with us parents, gripping his elbow again, the memory of his own pain front and center on his mind.

Though relatively small and minor, I recall these moments of pain and trauma after watching all the news about our collapsed river bridge here in Minneapolis. Our bodies, our everyday movements are so fragile.

It was a nice night and we were out walking and grilling and tending the garden when the 35W bridge collapsed, so we heard about it from our Colorado relatives, who had called to see if we were okay. God this stuff happens right in our own backyard, just a few blocks from our daughter's campus apartment--on our mighty river, the one she rowed with her crew team nearly every day last term--just one bridge over from where our good friend drives home every night, and look what happened! That could have been her. That could have been us. That could have been you. We think of our other personal near-misses (the night my Dad's apartment building was bombed in Saigon and the chaplain came over to sit with my mom until we heard word that Dad was okay; and, of course, 9/11). And we grimace and wince with those memories of pain and injury, and we fret over the way things fall apart when we're not there, but could have been, might have been. We sit in tight circles and watch, amazed that the bus of schoolkids just barely made it across, amazed that the surface of that fallen highway normally packed with commuters lies on top of the water like an old empty barge.

We are all okay at our house and hope you and yours are, too.