Mailing art and love

An author and friend has just gone through her first chemo treatment for breast cancer. She shopped at the American Cancer Society last week for a free wig, scarf, and hat. She'll lose her hair 18 days after her first chemo blast. She had a "port" inserted in her chest to facilitate the chemo. In order to shower after the port was inserted, she had to wrap her chest in Saran Wrap, avoiding the pain at the spot of the missing breast and the discomfort at the spot of the port. She speaks with frustration at the human indignities of her disease. She normally goes to yoga twice a week, works at the food shelf once a week, and teaches cooking classes on the side. She wonders, "Why should I cancel these things?" Yet, she's so tired she worries about wearing out. Did I mention she is 73?

I don't knit but I hear there is a pattern for a wonderfully soft knit cap you can make to wear at night that protects that soft little chemo-scalded scalp from brushing too hard against the pillowcase. Instead, I sent her a card with love and art from the wildly creative Susan Mrosek of Pondering Pool (www.ponderingpool.com). She has something like 50 different cards with all kinds of loving and empowering and damn funny truths.



Of course, I know a card isn't much. If she feels well enough, I'll take my friend to an early Valentine's Day dinner. I'll help her with her scarf wraps. I'll listen to her stories.

Cancer sucks.

A Touch of Art

Tuesday, January 30, 2007 10:22 am: Currently Sunny and 2 degrees. This week: 5-10 degrees below average, but even colder weather is shaping up for the weekend and early next week, 3-4 days/row with single digit highs and subzero lows. Winds: NW at 13 MPHB

If it's too cold for you to walk at lunch today, which you should really do, if only to the mailbox, I suggest an at-your-desk gallery tour of some art-filled websites. Shut your door if you have one. Heat a mug of instant miso soup, play some nice music. Some of my favorite art sites are:

Circa Gallery, Minneapolis

Minneapolis Institute of Arts

National Gallery of Art

The Guggenheim Museum, New York

And on a day like today, when it is butt-cold out, I find fancy and warmth from one of my new favorite artists, Amy Rice, whose whimsical and light mixed-media pieces warm up my space. See www.amyrice.com.



("Red Mitten," by Amy Rice. 18 X 24 in., mixed media. Available for purchase.)

The End of the Day

Photograph from Mike Melman, The Quiet Hours: City Photographs (Univ. of Minn. Press, 2003). EAST SEVENTH STREET BETWEEN WALL AND WACOUTA STREETS, ST. PAUL, 2001

Yesterday was a day-full, full of depth and gravity like the snow-weighted Midwestern skies before the flakes fall. It was an enlightening day, one where I noticed the calm moments as much as I did the action. As I drove home to bed, my mood was like the city at night—quiet and luminous and still faintly resonating with the activities of the day.

You know how your days can be a frenzy, as if you are the modern-day version of the frantic party-line phone operator, cords and plugs stopgapping the blinking lights of your digital switchboard? Twelve separate e-mails from one author--you read seven and give up on the last five, at least for the morning. But then you keep returning to the boldfaced Inbox (You have five unread e-mails) and discover over and over those same five messages you put aside earlier. The Spam folder highlights subject lines like
“Tired of being the little guy?”
“Trouble keeping your man?”
“Looktin for trim you waistline?”
and you think maybe they all actually have some meaning for you? Cryptic subliminal messages planted by your computer to warn you that your life isn’t as swell as you imagine. You’re eating smoked ham sandwiches again because that’s the least messy lunch you can can munch while working at your desk on the overdue manuscript; even then you get mayonnaise on the title page.

Wednesday I was all talk and no action, it seemed, and I actually observed myself saying, “I make content marketable.” Why did I say that? Why would I say that?

But yesterday I read diligently at my desk, a revised manuscript carefully prepared by a man who has a monumental story to tell. He trusted me during my first edit of his work. He trusted me enough to send the submission back again. I read for hours straight through the morning, into the afternoon. I wrote notes. “Powerful.” “Compelling.” His work made me think of times in our state decades ago. It made me think of times in my own life. It made me want to be a better person. I can’t think of more honorable work than that.

When I got into my car at the end of the workday, just as the sunset was streaking the sky with stripes of pink and gray clouds, my face was flushed and hot with the weight of that powerful tale. I’ll call it "referred energy." I work mostly alone at my desk on these editing days and I hadn’t the chance to transfer this deep emotion in conversation or dialogue. I laid my hot cheeks against the cold steering wheel and waited.

On the ride home I listened to the soundtrack to the locally produced movie Sweet Land and the music was a perfect match.

http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/markorton

Later, at the end of a night listening to music at The Times and sharing tapas with my grown daughter—who is so charmingly grown—I drove slowly through the city. The café windows were backlit by storeroom lights. The tall church steeples cut black witches’ hats into the faint sky. I could not see the moon but I think it could see me. My daughter at five used to say, “Wherever we go the moon follows us. Look. See.” I came into our quiet house where the husband and son were fast asleep. I folded up the couch throws and looked out the front door window before turning off the porch light. The night would be fine without it.

Kyle Okposo goal

Like the great Moose Goheen of the 1920s and '30s, Kyle Okposo dazzles!

The State of Hockey

"Those were the days when everybody took their best dates to the Hip, rode a 10-cent fare, ate a beef dinner for a buck and saw Moose Goheen dump enemies into the fifth row for a 75-cent ticket." from Dimensions, a NSP newsletter

"Frank Goheen, the most spectacular player on the ice, carried the puck down alone, evaded, leaped . . . around some four of the Soo players. Just as he shot he was sent sprawling on the ice, but while he was sliding the puck shot past the astonished goal keeper." (Godin, Before the Stars, MHS Press, 2005)

And here's another perspective on the sport, from my son's first days as a 9-year-old goalie (he has since moved on to skate out as left-winger and defenseman).

"In my first season of Squirts, it was our third practice. Out of nowhere, Howard, our assistant coach asked who wanted to be goalie. I raised my hand. I thought I, me, was going to be goalie for Edgcumbe, my team.

"The next day Howard called and told me that I was goalie for practice. I was so excited. Later that day at practice I was really nervous. I thought I was going to miss every shot. When I was laying down getting dressed and people were walking by with their skates on I was afraid they would cut my fingers off with their skates. When I first got the goalie pads on I fell before I even got on the ice. It was embarrassing. When I did get on the ice I didn’t fall. Then Howard took me to the net. I was so nervous. I didn’t know how to do anything. First he told me where to stand. Then he shot pucks at my stick, all the time telling me to be a brick wall. Be a brick wall. He kept on saying it over and over again. I was tired and sweaty. Finally practice was over. I was okay but needed a little more work, Howard told me.

"When I got home I took a shower. When I went downstairs my mom, my dad, and even my sister asked me how goalie was. I told everyone that it was great but very tiring. It was the subject all day, even at dinner. Finally the day was over and I was able to go to bed.

"The next Sunday I was goalie again. Again I was afraid people were going to cut off my fingers when I was getting dressed. On the ice Howard shot the puck at my catcher and blocker. I was really good at those. At last, practice was over. I felt like an avalanche was going down my back I was so sweaty. I took a shower, did my homework and went straight to bed.

Two weeks later we had our first game, and I was goalie. We were playing Edison. I was nervous but also happy that they picked me for goalie. The team warmed me up by shooting from a U-shape. Then the game was under way. The first two periods I didn’t do much. When we started the third period were up 2–0. Nothing happened until there was only two minutes left. It was a 2 on 1. They got past our defenseman and shot. I was thinking “please don’t let them score.” I made the first save but then—rebound and goal. They scored with one minute left. The game was over at last. I felt like the world was falling down on me. I was so sad. I couldn’t believe I didn’t get the shutout."

Saturday was Hockey Day Minnesota and our town was crackling with the sound of sticks on ice. Boot hockey on backyard rinks, outdoor hockey tournaments, indoor games between longtime rivals. To start with the best of the best, try to catch the spectacular play of Gopher freshman Kyle Okposo, who honed his hockey skills at our local Groveland rink. For you out-of-staters who can't see a Gophers game, check out Okposo's between-the-legs goal at YouTube on the following post.

And then, take a fan's tour of our local action:

A glorious day for boot hockey

Boot hockey scrum







Annual Edgecumbe Squirt Tournament











Arriving early



Ponying up for three-minute line shifts

You Tube; no, MY TUBE

The television has taken a more prominent place in my life these last EIGHT days I've been sick. Of course, we are a TV family. That is, our sectional couch and recliner are in a half-circle facing the tube. We spend $54 a month on cable (yet, still don't get HBO for that price; go figure). We organize some of our days around what's on the TV. Wednesday night: Top Chef or Project Runway. After-school unwinding for the boy: Malcolm in the Middle. Winter weekend nights: Gophers hockey. Sunday mornings: well, Sunday Morning.

My daughter's dormmates gather together for Prison Break on, what is it, Monday nights? My parents watch the local news before retiring to bed. My neighbors watch Sunday night Masterpiece Theatre; I see the blue glow of those period pieces through their picture windows on my late-night walks.

I don't keep the Sunday TV guide and we don't own TIVO so my life isn't that intertwined with the offerings of NBC, FOX, TNT, and AMC. But, damn, this week, the highlight of my days has been that moment I've cocooned in the old brown quilt inside our old green recliner, held the remote in my hand, and clicked on that little red button. What today? What's in store for today? Kristie Alley reveals her new body in a bikini. Oprah at 4. Joey buys one encyclopedia from the door-to-door salesman and masters the letter "M." Friends rerun at 6:30. American Idol travels to Seattle for Season 6 auditions. Wednesday at 7. I've taken my tea in that chair, eaten my hardscrabble sick-dinners in that chair, and reviewed my son's daily homework in that chair, with one eye flickering up to the screen between teacher comments.

Why, Tuesday night, when I couldn't sleep for this hacking cough, I turned on ESPN2 and saw the best college basketball game I've seen in a long time. Oklahoma State over Texas--last-second three-pointers, behind-the-back passes, and three overtimes! I was so thrilled for the entertainment I even considered staying on for the continuing coverage of the Austrialian Open.

I remember our family TV moments growing up. We lived in the Southwest so my mother kicked my brother and me out of the house to play most days. No excuse to stay indoors when it's 74 and sunny. My Chicago-born husband exclaims, "You mean you never watched Bozo? You don't even know who he is? That's just crazy." But she did let us watch The Captain Kangaroo show something like two days a week. By then we had a cocker spaniel, a cat, and my black rabbit, Midnight, so I loved Mr. Green Jeans. And my brother had one of those upright, old-fashioned dial telephones with the separate ear piece, just like the Captain.

I remember the day my mom thought my dad had been killed in the Saigon bombings during the Vietnam War. I still see the scene clearly: the base chaplain was at the open screen door, my mom was crying on the telephone, and Walter Cronkite was following up the Saigon footage with his own heartfelt commentary. (The bombs just missed my dad's barracks and he was able to call home to us later that night.)

I remember the day we put a man on the moon. We all got to watch the coverage after my dad got home from the air base flight lines. I can imagine now how thrilled he was to see progress from government and science rather than destruction. Then, after Dad tucked us in for the night in our bedrooms down the hall from the living room, I crept out in my flannel nightgown and crouched behind his recliner to catch more peeks of the screen. I'm sure he heard my shallow breathing but he never let on.

I remember watching the progressive All in the Family, and MASH, and Laugh-In, and learning a lot of my politics from those shows and our family talk about them during all the commercials. My mom would make those shows an event and prepare a big round tray of TV dinner--not the Swanson's kind, but her specialty crispy BLTs on white toast, or tomato soup in mugs with pickles and saltine crackers. She'd bring the big tray down to the basement family room and we'd sit cross-legged around the round Early American coffee table--all except my dad, who never could sit cross-legged.

So, looking at the Star Tribune headlines this morning, the ones berating the sex and violence on all our graphic TV series, and the summary of the dismal contestants on the American Idol Seattle episode, makes me a little defensive about our connection to TV. (I won't even burden you with the idiotic, overpaid commentator from the Center for the American Experiment whose right-wing columns are so poorly written I can't even laugh about them, the way I do about George Will or even William Safire.) I mean, I'm with her on the exploitation of humans on shows like CSI and Law and Order: SVU. And I disagree about the comedy in watching another set of fragile humans, those unattractive, untalented reality show contestants we seem to take pleasure in mocking. (Last night, after my husband and son and I watched some of the American Idol auditions, albeit laughing at some of the funnier scenes, I said, "But didn't our parents teach us not to make fun of vulnerable people?" "Yeah, you're right," said my son, "let's just change it.")

But give me a big bowl of Dorito Golds, a lap quilt, and a couple of hours of free or sick time, and I'll gladly give you my undivided attention, you producers of Divine Design, National Pie Festival, reruns of Gilmore Girls and Sex and the City, and modern-day laugh-ups like The Office and Studio 60. Order up the BLTs, honey. I've got a lot of catching up to do!

(My daughter and her friends catch a laugh!)

Though I walk in the valley of the shadows of croup

Croup, croup. Still sick but back at work. Unsteadied by my adverse reaction to the Nyquil, which apparently conflicted with my thyroid medication and put me in a dizzying tailspin (note from my doctor: Must Read Fine Print!). It’s like the time I was on morphine after surgery except without the fantastical dreams.

Croup, croup. I threw away the Nyquil and at night my husband made me big mugs of brandy with sugar and hot water. (Last time I was sick he washed my hair while I soaked in a hot tub.) Last night he kept checking on me to drink down the brandy potion, which I did, in bed, while watching the Golden Globes. Someone else probably knows what Angelina Jolie has tatooed on her back, but I don’t. Also, I’m glad to see Forest Whitaker win, and glad to know I’m not the only one with a droopy eye.



Croup, croup. It was –11 degrees here this morning but we have our first real snow so everything seems crisp and clean; everything seems blue and white and cream here from my view on top of the city. I bought Halls Menthol-Lyptus Vapor-Action cough drops, in its Scandinavian-tinted blue bag, just to match the mood.

*****
I read this poem this weekend and was startled by the truth of it. That, or the earlier Nyquil made me extra receptive.


Explaining a Husband

They say two people aren’t always two people.
That’s what I’ve heard. Sometimes, two people,
They’re the same person in two places.
And it’s not that they have to love each other or hate each other.

They still have to be together.
If not, they spend their whole lives, every day,
Looking around at everybody they pass,
On the chance that one person might look back
And hope that in the flicker of that moment
They’ll both know it’s them.

We’re like that, I think, he and I, that husband of mine.
We’re like that now, even if we didn’t start that way.
We used to love each other.
But now it’s something else, something more.
We know each other’s life. And when we talk,
We are each other’s story.

by Alberto Rios, from his new book The Theater of Night (© 2006, Copper Canyon Press)

And then she knew it was okay to let go

I think I have turned the corner. On being sick. Not that I mean, exactly, that I'm getting better. I am, getting better, but that's not what I mean. I mean I think I have finally turned the corner on "being sick." If you don't know me, and even if you do, you might not know I get weird when I get sick. The harder I try not to, the worse I get, like the Melvin Udall character Nicholson played in "As Good As It Gets."

Okay, here's the deal. I pride myself on being sturdy and strong. An Ernest Borgnine-approach to solid and robust living. My dad has it. I have it. My dad gets weird when he's sick, too.

I have a really bad cold with a hacking cough, dizzy head, achy and fatigued body. Like Meg Ryan in "You've Got Mail," where she comes to the door in her trenchcoat over pajamas and Tom Hanks brings her daisies. Like that. Only my sick routine started as it always does. I fool myself. Thursday morning I was losing my voice and the cold had worked its way into my chest. I called in to work and told them I would work from home. "Call me if you need me. I'll have my cell on all day and will be checking e-mail." I had some manuscript home and spread it all out in my pretty, light-filled dining room. It seemed it was almost a treat to be sick. (This is the fooling myself part.) I started working through the manuscript but the words got pretty fuzzy and I couldn't make any decisions without consulting the dictionary or Chicago Manual of Style or even Wikipedia, and if I was freelancing I would have been making $3.25/hour at best: What is the usage, plural or singular, for asparagus? Is Lake Vermilion one or two "ells"? I gave up when I couldn't decide on hyphens and commas for "old-fashioned, bricks-and-mortar business," and got up from the table. Cooking. I need to cook something good and hearty, something with the restorative powers of chicken soup.

I was more successful at this task but, of course, I'm still missing the point. There is no need to be productive. I'm sick. I don't know. I worry that if I give in, it might spiral into something else. Something worse. I jump ahead too much. I push recovery before I even have a chance to get sick. I also push reconciliation before a fight really unfolds. I'm terrible at transitions. Having a cold is like a transition. You're feeling fine and suddenly there is "something" there in your nose or your throat. And it could go away tomorrow or it could develop into the full-blown flu. I can't stand waiting to find out.

I knew I had some turkey thighs in the fridge (really, you should buy these. They're cheap and full of meat for things like turkey curry and turkey pot pie). And onions. And some old bread from Great Harvest. I found the perfect recipe--an old Colonial turkey recipe from Epicurious.com and I worked at that pot of Stewed Turkey with Herbs and Onions for the rest of the morning (www.epicurious.com/recipes/recipe_views/views/235929). It was restorative and tasty and a big hit with the hubby but by the time he got home I was hacking and clutching my mangy cardigan like an old Baltimore widow who spends her miserable days with her cats and her cigarettes and her overworked Reader's Digest crossword puzzles.

Yet, still, I forged ahead.

My son said he was bored and I told him I was bored so we agreed we should venture out to the local Barnes and Noble so he could use his Christmas gift card. I could browse through magazines and we could be back within the hour. I decided to go with my black leggings and mangy cardigan and barrette-clipped hair. It didn't matter. I was sick, after all. He grabbed another sequel of WarCraft and I grabbed a copy of SELF (Lose 8 Pounds in 30 Days!) and we put our chairs in front of the picture windows and our feet on the ledge, and again I thought being sick wasn't really so bad. So what if I got a little behind on my deadlines? And then one of the pretty girls from my son's class walked by and did a double-take at Tim, then at me, and then waved to us both, and my son just looked at me and shook his head and closed his book and said it was time to go.

I dropped him off at hockey practice and decided to make one last stop. I thought it might be a good time to finally read Susan Sontag's "Illness as Metaphor." I had, in fact, just recently finished "On Photography," and why not read her treatise on sickness when I was myself feeling under the weather? (Yeah, I know, I'm just shaking my stuffy head here writing this.) I climbed the steps to the Hillcrest Library and got seriously winded. The temperatures have dropped quite a bit here in Minnesota, and now my chest was so tight I could hardly breathe. I found the Sontag book near Andrew Weil's "8 Weeks to Optimum Health," and also "Surviving Anxiety Disorder," and "When Women Do Too Much."

And then inside the library's reading circle with its low cushions and colorful mobiles I saw this very loving mother tug down a red handknit cap over her four-year-old son's head; and then tenderly, tenderly, she straightened his little horn-rimmed glasses for him, and I almost cried a bit. I left the Health and Wellness aisle and went over to Fiction. I found Curtis Sittenfeld's "The Man of My Dreams," and Jennifer Weiner's "The Guy Not Taken," and Stephen Chbosky's "The Perks of Being a Wallflower," and as I checked them out I imagined my sorry little self being cheered on by an Oprah crowd.

I haven't left my living room all day today. I haven't checked e-mail. I haven't cleaned the counters or written a list of New Year's resolutions. I'm almost done with the first breezy novel. I haven't been snarky about my cardigan or my two-day-old sick hair, and I've called out to various family members for tea, take-out chicken noodle soup, and hot buttered popcorn. The personal IS political. I am woman. Hear me cough.

Boy Talk

Moments in the life of my twelve-year-old son. . . .




After the results of PeeWee hockey tryouts were posted online:

Me: “I wonder who made the B teams? And the C team?”
Him: “Mom, I gotta tell you, you don’t ‘make’ the C team.”

*****

Me: “Hey, you should take a shower. And wash your hair with shampoo.” Then, upon closer inspection, acting like the momma orangutan we all mimic at some point in our parenting lives: “And you should clean your ears. And brush your teeth, too.”

Him: “Mom, I’m going to build a little nest on my shoulder here, right here [he points], so you can sit in it and peck, peck, peck at me all day long.”

*****

Me, just after Christmas: “Hey, do you want to go for a walk with me?”

Him, playing video games in his room: “Naw, I think I’m going to take some time to reflect on all the giving and getting of Christmas.”

Me, feeling awed by his sensitivity, then suspicious: “You just said that so you can stay back and play video games, right?”

Him: “Yeah, pretty much.”

*****

Me, after his first junior high dance: “How was the dance?”

Him: “Good. I don’t want to talk about it.”

Him, about ten minutes after his sister comes home from college: “Megan, I went to our dance and I danced with five girls. All slow dances.”

*****

Him, in the kitchen with his sister: “You’ve been away so you probably don’t know I can make my own macaroni and cheese.”

Him, walking away with plate of uber-orange pasta: “And my own scrambled eggs. And I make toast. And cereal.”

Him, now calling out from the living room: “And grilled cheese. You probably didn’t know that.”

*****

Me, maddened by the rough hands of the returned college kid, after the fifth time our old toilet handle falls off: “I'm off to work. Make a sign, will you, and tell your sister to take it easy on our toilet handle. It keeps flying off after she whacks on it. This thing runs all day when she does that.”

Him, rightly suspecting that it’s not about the toilet at all but about the 2 a.m. late nights and new conflicts in the house, writing on a little sheet of paper now taped above the commode:

“Please flush gently.”

How Do You Sleep?

My bedroom is freezing. It is truly a good 15 degrees colder there than in other parts of our old house. Five bedroom windows are glorious in spring and summer and fall but they leak and whistle air in the winter like a poorly made igloo.





This is how I sleep. Except I’m not hugging Ono; I’m wrapped in five layers of quilts. And I’m not naked. I’m the opposite of naked. I wear


REI wool crew socks
Cuddle Duds top and bottoms
flannel buttoned shirt
black leggings

I’m so stiff from holding that fetal position all night long that I feel like the Tin Man, post-rain.

As they say in trailer town, “I got to get me a space heater.”

Celebrating this Dormant Season

In January, wine lovers celebrate the feast day of St. Vincent, patron saint of wine growers. It is a chance to salute the “dormant season of the vines.” It’s no coincidence that St. Vincent’s Day is officially January 22, historically the coldest day of the year in the United States. Why not celebrate our own dormant season with the gift of wine?

January, February, and March compose the heart of our Minnesota winters. It’s not a bad time to stay in our dens and reflect on our souls—individually or collectively. Why just this past weekend I was blessed with the gift of drink. A long post-holiday work week ended with an impromptu gathering at the home of some friends. Children played knee hockey in the basement and we stood around the kitchen island, drinking inexpensive Red Truck® wine and eating venison sausage. It was a perfect ending to a long week. I agree with many who say that Americans worry too much about buying the perfect wine. Just have some decent bottles in the house and bring them out for friends whenever you can.

Then Saturday I got awful nostalgic as I put away the tree and the ornaments and the mantel decorations. I thought about how much I missed my snowbird parents and how fast my kids were growing. I had no plans for the evening and felt myself getting blue and forlorn. And then I remembered one of my Christmas gifts, a 2004 Catena Malbec. Each year I exchange wine with my good friend. Our limit is $25 and often I save her delicious bottles for special occasions. But both she and I agree that a special occasion can be anytime when a good bottle will make things better. I sipped a couple of glasses of this Argentine wine alone by the window and watched the stars come out for the night.

Books and wine have a long history. Some say most great authors are also great drinkers. There’s a new book out by Mark Bailey and illustrator Edward Hemingway, grandson of the infamous drinker Ernest Hemingway: Hemingway & Bailey’s Bartending Guide to Great American Writers (Algonquin Books, 2006). In it they describe the drinking rituals and favorite libations of some of our most beloved authors. For instance, one of Ernest Hemingway’s most favorite drinks was the mojito, not surprising given his love of all things Cuban. And Carson McCullers’ favorite drink while writing was a mixture of hot tea and sherry that she kept in a thermos, drank all through her writing day, and called her “sonnie boy.” At Yaddo, the famous writers' colony, she began with a beer at the typewriter just after breakfast, then moved on to her "sonnie boy," and finished with cocktails in the evening.

I once waited anxiously for an ocean liner to deliver bound books from Hong Kong. Jan Karon, author of the well-known Mitford series, was the author of those books and her tour was soon to begin and the books were late. Headlines of a freighter going under made the evening news: a vessel coming across the Pacific had sunk. Its cargo: books and wine. What a relief it wasn’t my vessel and those weren’t our books. But what a sunken treasure, a pairing that might beat all those of Noah's choosing: books and wine, books and wine!

I had my first real drink at Whitey’s Bar, the famous old speakeasy next to the Red River in East Grand Forks—an after-dinner shot of Drambuie. Of course I was underage but the esteemed father of my boyfriend at the time bought it for us so I felt safe. And very grown up. I tried my first martini before a Shakespeare class taught by the inimitable Dr. Nichols at Winona State. Unwittingly, I drank three of those gin martinis before wobbling on my bike to that night class up in Minne Hall. My first really good bottle of wine was a wedding gift from one of my first bosses at West Publishing Company. It was a Chateauneuf-du-Pape and instead of saving it dutifully while it aged further, we drank it on the second night of our honeymoon. I remember clearly the way that secret elixer made me want to dance naked with the gods. Really. (I settled for dancing naked with the groom!)

I learned to drink huge quantities of Scotch on ice with the biblical and theological scholars from Harvard and Yale and Princeton at the annual Society of Biblical Literature meetings when I was with Fortress Press. That's definitely where I learned to get drunk standing up.

And, of course, I’ve ended many a long day of word-wrangling with a good drink at some of my local favorites: W. A Frost’s, Moscow on the Hill, The Happy Gnome, even Groveland Tap. Recently, I treated myself to a little birthday lunch at Frost’s and the very handsome waiter brought me a glass on the house: a 2004 Gruner Veltliner Hopler. For those of you in St. Paul, you can find it at Thomas Liquors. Another good white wine is the unoaked Lanoble from France. They carry cases of it at Solo Vino on Selby. It will taste even better if you buy it as a treat for yourself on these cold, dark days.

Publishers Weekly reports that there is a new book forthcoming called Crush: A Clerk’s Tale. It will combine memoir and reporting to tell the story of American wine from the colonial era to today. The author, New Yorker staffer Field Maloney, plans to immerse himself in all aspects of wine culture, from working in a Napa winery to drinking with the wine buyer at the Olive Garden. Now here's a prime example of why we should all take the George Plimpton/immerse yourself-approach to publishing. "Sorry, I can't come in today. I'm nursing a headache from all that research I've been doing."

So back to that celebration of St. Vincent. Here’s advice--from an average reader at Amazon. com--for a grand night of the soul: “Really what more can be said [about Garrison Keillor’s book, Good Poems]? I am a blue-collar poem reader. I don’t want to understand the free form or debate why the writer used a certain word over another. I like poems that take me away to a familiar memory or experience and most of these poems do just that. This is a book best experienced by candlelight with a special someone and/or a great bottle of wine.” Well said! Here’s to St. Vincent! Here's to this dark and dormant season!

Behind the Scenes

You know that phrase, "you can't judge a book by its cover"? That teacherly motto that reminds us not to jump to conclusions, that there is more to reality than our first impressions? I never trusted that motto. (I'm not a fan of "you have nothing to fear but fear itself" either, but that's a story for later.) I believe you can judge a book by its cover and that you can also get a true take on a person even on your first meeting.

Case in point:

I worked nearby two very strange people at West Publishing who later were found to be criminally insane--or insanely criminal. It was clear to me the moment I met them.

A privately owned, multimillion dollar company is an odd duck these days, both by its often idiosyncratic business practices and also because it is surrounded by the more slick, publicly held corporations more common in American business. I remember West Publishing never gave out revenue statistics to the local business media but it did give out to staff free boxed turkeys on Thanksgiving, free pastries early mornings, and free fruit and milk on all lunch shifts. It gave free memberships for the St. Paul Athletic Club and free car washes after every noontime excursion for all its executives. As the era of computerization and digital content drove West to become ever more protective of its legal competitiveness, it became more and more secretive and we often wondered what went on behind the scenes.

One day we were shocked to see our company cashier, Elroy Stock, escorted out of the building by the FBI. Elroy was one of those joyless bureaucrats, a little like Dwight Schroot from the sitcom The Office. He wore ironed, but worn, white shirts, drab polyester suitcoat and slacks, and had slicked-back hair like Dennis the Menace's dad. He always hung his coat on a hangar so he could work the cashier counter in rolled-up shirtsleeves.

When Elroy was escorted out of the building the day he was arrested rumor had it that they had closed off access to all the elevators surrounding his floor. Then the stories spread quickly. Elroy had been arrested. They thought Elroy might fight back. Someone heard Elroy shouting from the hallways.

All I really knew about Elroy was this: he had a disdain for most people who interrupted his time at the cashier window, and was especially rude to the female clerks who came up to cash their personal checks. Someone in my department wondered if any of us could make Elroy smile and said he'd put up money for anyone who was willing to try. A few of us took up the bet and we'd work Elroy through the opening of that plastic cashier window. I think I got a smirk out of Elroy but I wasn't sure, it was a little like that ambiguous Mona Lisa smile.

Anyway, we were sure Elroy had been taken away for embezzling. His cheap polyester suits were the dead giveaway for a company crook who wanted more of the good life.

But the next day we heard about all the hateful things Elroy had been doing behind that cashier's facade and from his lowly Woodbury apartment: he'd been sending mounds of racist hate letters to people all over the Midwest, mostly targeting interracial couples and their children. From City Pages, "Stock dedicated his free time to his belief story, often rising in the early morning to send out a stack of mail. . . . 'The colored men thought they had the right to date white girls. I saw that as wrong. And when I saw those girls getting pregnant, that's when my new mission started. I had plenty of work to do,' he says. 'I would fill grocery sacks with mail. I just kept working and working.' He is not sure how many letters he has sent, or to how many people--hundreds of thousands at least, he guesses, maybe a half-million. He did little else. 'I've lived a frugal life,' he boasts. 'Never taken a trip since World War II. I never married, so I never had anybody pushing me around.'

****

Another unforgettable employee at West was Susan Berkovitz, the woman recently sentenced to life for murdering Shelley Joseph-Kordell, estate counsel for Berkovitz's parents, at the Hennepin County Government building in 2003.

Some of you may have seen Susan over the years. She was a familiar sight in the Hamline-St. Clair neighborhood and you couldn't miss her disheveled appearance: dressed in black and pink, tangled hair, heavy eye make-up, red lips, always talking to herself, her appearance and disturbing character deteriorating year by year. At West, she seemed to try hard to be an "office girl." She teased her jet-black hair high over her part, wore heels, and applied lipstick in front of the bathroom mirror after breaks. But her make-up was so heavy and so off-kilter that some women used to say that Susan drew all her make-up onto a big mirror and then stamped that painted face onto hers, except that some days she missed so it looked like those out-0f-register cartoons when all the color is off-center. She knew we talked about her and I could feel the heat in her rising and rising. I could feel her anger and I didn't even know her. A particularly polished and snooty College Division editor was in the bathroom with Susan and called out the catty nickname she and her friends had given Susan: Morticia. When that woman left the bathroom Morticia--Susan--ran out after her yelling, "That bitch didn't wash her hands. Look at her, she didn't even wash her hands."

A few years ago I ran into Susan at the Dorothy Day Center where I was helping to serve the free nightly dinner. She was alone, wearing black pants and black Keds and a bright pink windbreaker, talking to herself, alone at a table surrounded by rough and hungry homeless men, eating scalloped potatoes and canned ham. I felt bad for her. She recognized me and I hoped she didn't think I was one of the mean office girls from those West days. How naive of me to think she still had an opinion of me, considering her situation and all that anger that filled her mind at the time. It was only a month later that she walked into the Hennepin County building and shot Joseph-Kordell (who happened also to be her cousin) in the face three times with a handgun she had purchased at a gun show that summer.

Our Christmas Journeys

As gray is the new black so is Minnesota the new Ohio. Brown, warm Christmas with rain in the forecast. There is still a little bit of white on the lawns outside my window, like powdered sugar siftings on a freshly baked bundt. I am more ambivalent than I have ever been on Christmas. A few years back my brother-in-law invited us out West for the holiday week and he was as tense as ever. We opened our presents on Christmas morning, had Honey Baked Ham at noon, and by evening he had taken down the Christmas tree and shoved it outside by the trash cans. "Christmas is over," he said.

I'm certainly not as estranged from the season as that but maybe I understand him a little more now. As Garrison Keillor wrote at the start of the season:

"So it is with Christmas. You can go straight from pure bliss to desperate remorse in less than a minute. There are dead friends that one does not ever quite forget, and there is the great wound of divorce which, even though 30 years in the past, can come open and bleed and almost break your heart. You walk to church and she's waiting for you in the shadows, asking, 'Why did you do that?'"

What is the spirit of the season and how can we be sure to discover it--again and again? What if it doesn't come to us? I realized after a day or so of wallowing that action can be the antidote to many sorrows. I just bought $20 of the fanciest wrapping paper, picked up the last of my presents and a box of Christmas hooch: two bottles of Baltika lager, a bottle of Jim Beam rye whiskey, some Korbel for the hubbie, and some Argentine malbec for the December 25 dinner. I have pumpkin puree and peppermint extract and some dark Ghiradelli chips for an afternoon of baking. I have my favorite Christmas book out for reading tonight: "A Christmas Memory" by Truman Capote. I've plugged the old phone in next to the leather chair so I can have long talks with my relatives in faraway states.

My mom wrote in an e-mail from Texas yesterday, in light of the storms in Denver, " If you haven't already told the story, remind Megan of the time you tried to get home from college during a blizzard. One of my favorite stories."

It was my first year at West Publishing and I was desperate to get home. I lived in a third-floor, sparsely furnished apartment on the corner of Rice and Larpenteur, near the Lamplighter Lounge, "St. Paul's Only Gentleman's Club." My then-boyfriend, now-husband, was trying to make his way up from Chicago, where he'd pick me up and we'd drive the eight hours or so to East Grand Forks, except his truck broke down near Eau Claire in the midst of this huge Midwest Christmas storm. I literally waited at my kitchen table, my two packed bags and Christmas presents by the door, for hours. He didn't show up and didn't call (this was the era before cell phones). Finally he phoned from the St. Paul Holiday Inn, some five hours late. He had hitched a ride with a truck driver who took him as far as the St. Paul freeway exit. You can imagine his weariness when I stoically answered, "I will NOT miss Christmas with my family." We stayed the night in St. Paul and took the Greyhound, the only transportation we could find, to Fargo, where my dad and brother picked us up on Christmas Eve in the old Datsun.

There was such a blizzard raging along I-29 from Fargo to Grand Forks that the roads were eerily empty. In a blizzard across the flat plains like that you're better off having more cars on the road so you can follow each other's tail lights. Like young John Kennedy, Jr., we seemed doomed to fall off course. As the airline reports indicated after Kennedy's fatal airplane crash in a night storm, "In the last few minutes before Kennedy’s little single-engine airplane went into the heavy seas off Martha’s Vineyard, its radar track showed all the evidence of a mind wobbling in the tortured confusion called vertigo."

Only our bafflement was the result not of a blackout, where the dark of the sky melded with the dark of the sea, but rather from whiteout, where the whipping winds all but obliterated the line of horizon on that lonely road. What determination my father held during that four-hour ride. He smoked his Winstons nonstop and gripped that wheel, hunched over the front of it like Radar O'Reilly from the MASH unit, that everyman's hero.

The bafflement young Kennedy likely encountered arose, they say, as his mind struggled with the contradictory signals of what he thought the plane was doing and what gravity was really doing to it--and him. In other words, in a blinding storm, you literally can’t tell up from down, left from right.

That Christmas Eve on I-29, we took turns riding on the passenger side with the door cranked open so we could drag a long stick along the road to feel the pavement and to try to judge if Dad was veering off the side of the highway. It was harrowing and heroic. I never felt better about Christmas than that year when we finally pulled up to my parents' house with the old big-bulb lights stapled along the roofline, a fire crackling in the hearth, and mom standing in anxious relief by the door, all of us laughing from our own released tension and family reunion.

The old adage is that everything seems harder at the holidays: old family disputes, old inadequacies. But I am cheered by my family stories and the ones unfolding right before me. There's nothing too heroic about a plate of cookies and a bottle of Christmas wine, I guess, unless you too struggled with the contradictory signals of this yearly tradition. If laughing over breakfast with the kids and lighting candles in the dark is the best I can discover of the Christmas sparkle, then so be it. There will always be storms. We've pulled ourselves out of bafflement before; we can do it again.

Happy Holidays to all!

Part 2

My first paid job was babysitting for Eddie Higginbotham, a young enlistee on the Air Force base where we lived. Eddie had lost two fingers in a farm accident--his index pointer and his ring finger--so that when he held his chin in his hands, which he always did, like a drunk without a plan--it looked like he was giving the finger to the person next to him. Eddie said it always provoked guys to pick fights with him at the bars he frequented. I had two things to work with on those nights babysitting his two sweet kids: snacks in the fridge for their pre-bedtime ritual and a phone number where I could find Eddie if things went wrong. I never worried much about things going wrong on my end but rather whether I'd receive a call from a bartender about Eddie getting beat up by a stranger.

My second job was hoeing sugar beets with my Mexican neighbors up in the fertile Red River Valley. We joined a migrant clan at a farm near Argyle for stints of both thinning and weeding. I'd walk over to the Gamboa's at 5 a.m. and we'd pack into their Oldsmobile and drive the 45 minutes in the dark, with loud Tejanas music blaring out of the back speakers. My only tool for that job was a hoe. We got paid $4.00 a row. Each row was a mile long. Big Joe Gamboa told me to thin out every third seedling. My first day I walked the row slowly, like a pastor in thought, counting 1, step, 2 step, 3 hoe. 1 step, 2 step, 3 hoe. I'd prick out that third plant with the corner of my hoe. The migrant workers, the families making their living by circling the country in time for the various cropwork--first California and the vegetable farms, then the Plains for the sugar beets, next the Midland, finally the south and all its fruit--all zipped through the rows like this: ba ding, ba ding, ba ding, ba ba ding, so that when I looked up from my careful counting most of them had worked their way nearly to the end of the rows. They were hoping to store up their winter wages on this route; I was hoping to get a new bike.

My first payroll job was as a car hop for the local A&W drive-in on Gateway Drive in Grand Forks. They gave me a uniform, an apron, and a coin changer I wore around my hips. They also gave me a warning that the first dropped tray was on them; any after that and the breakage that resulted came out of our paychecks. They thought this penalty would teach us to slide the auto trays correctly onto the half-open car windows. But that didn't prevent breakage. They seemed to forget about all the dolty drivers who knocked over those frosty mugs in a rush to pacify the people in the back seats. Each of those heavy mugs cost us 90 cents a crack.

My first salaried job was as production assistant for the college textbook division of West Publishing. I would assist senior editors and others in producing mostly entry-level books for the college market: criminology texts, and editions for human nutrition, organic chemistry, oceanology, astronomy. They gave me lots of tools, some familiar, some not.




Seemed like half the West Publishing staff, especially those assigned to the more profitable and historic law divisions, were women who sorted, counted, proofed, and corrected the millions of sheets of paper that passed through that institution each year. These women were paid a fraction of what the male managers and executives in the company were paid, and they worked in large pools set up on each floor. Once I saw a flyer on one of their bulletin boards: "If you take 0 sick days, you will get a raise. If you take 1-3 sick days, you may get a raise. If you take more than 3 sick days, you will not get a raise." And also once, "Women should not take handbags to the ladies' room, unless it is your lunch break."

I was buffered from the patriarchy some by my status as a college graduate in the upstart and independent College Division. But I felt a solidarity with my sister word handlers. I noticed that they ignored the handbag warnings. I also noticed that they almost always left a rubber finger or two on the countertops of the bathroom sinks. I wasn't completely sure these weren't new contraceptive devices; women leave the strangest things in the powder room. After I asked about them, I got a nice stack of my own along with a pica ruler, a pack of pink gummy slips, and a bottle of Euricen from our department's Penta typesetting coordinator. I felt like I was heading for training in the lab at the Free Clinic.

A new girl in town, Part 1

A few weeks ago a St. Paul developer turned down Ramsey County’s invitation to buy the former county jail and West Publishing buildings in downtown St. Paul. That guy, Jerry Trooien, is bullying his way through options for his billion-dollar “Bridges” proposal for a spanking new luxury hotel, condos, and shops, but declined the offer. Perhaps he doesn’t know the storied history of that West building. I might be able to entice him with a little slice of its history, if he only knew to ask. My first publishing job was at that riverside West Publishing building.


*****

I had taken the Amtrak from Grand Forks, North Dakota, to the Fairview station in St. Paul the night before my interview. Earlier that week I had set my interview outfit: a gray polyester skirt suit, a white blouse, one of those bow ties women were wearing then, and some very sleek maroon pumps, serious pumps. I looked like that early 80s version of Meg Ryan in When Harry Met Sally.

After a night on the couch at my brother’s girlfriend’s place, I took a cab into downtown St. Paul and asked the driver to stop right before that long block of dark granite. I wanted to get a feel for the place before going in. I was thrilled with the idea of working along the river I had heard so much about. (After I lived in St. Paul awhile a bunch of French and Belgian businessmen were in town for a winter meeting with city officials and the mayor took them down to Harriet Island where they could walk out onto the frozen ice. One of the Frenchmen got down on his hands and knees in his long wool dress coat and leather gloves and kissed the ice. He said he had always dreamed of the great Mississippi and here he was now walking on it!)

I grew up on Strategic Air Command bases, in the middle of prairies and tumbleweeds. I thought if I got this editor’s job I’d have romantic views of the river and the bluffs and all the people bustling by. I didn’t know then that much of the office space was cut deep into the core of that riverbank, having been converted from the loud and cavernous printing and binding facility West had operated for much of the twentieth century. Setting the machinery into the bluff like that buffered the noise of the busy printing presses for the hardworking young lawyers at their desks up on the seventh, eighth, and ninth floors. But now for us young, modern office workers that seaspace was like working inside a snow tunnel: white, dense walls, no windows, still air, muffled sound.



Does everyone remember their first great boss? Doug Grainger was mine and he and his assistant director interviewed me in his corner office, facing the river. It was morning so the sun was on the east of the building, dim and low, and I remember wondering why they didn’t have the blinds open to that glorious view. It wasn’t until after I was hired that I asked why all these executives with the spacious corner offices never opened their blinds, and it was Doug who told me it was because the inmates in the adjacent Ramsey County Jail would masturbate in front of their corner windows, especially if they saw a group of people from West peering over. (Once I pulled down a single blind during an especially long meeting just to see if I’d see anything but all I saw were those stacked columns of cell windows and inmates lying inert on their double bunks, their hands over their faces.)



It was a great place to have a first job. Patriarchy, money, scandal, litigation, criminals, sex, romance, anxiety, sweeping change.

A Nagging Thaw

And now, almost a week later and 40 degrees warmer:


Crawling Out the Window
by Tom Hennen

When water starts to run, winds come to the sky
carrying parts of Canada, and the house is filled
with the scent of dead grass thawing. When spring
comes on the continental divide, the snowbanks
are broken in two and half fall south and half fall
north. It’s the Gulf of Mexico or Hudson Bay, one
or the other for the snow, the dirt, the grass, the
animals and me. The Minnesota prairie has never
heard of free will. It asks you, quietly at first, to
accept and even love your fate. You find out that
if you fall south, life will be easy, like warm rain.
You wake up with an outgoing personality and a
knack for business. The river carries you. You float
easily and are a good swimmer. But if you fall north
while daydreaming, you never quite get your foot-
ing back again. You will spend most of your time
looking toward yourself and see nothing but holes.
There will be gaps in your memory and you won’t
be able to earn a living. You always point north
like a compass. You always have to travel on foot
against the wind. You always think things might
get better. You watch the geese and are sure you can fly.

(Tom Hennen was born in Morris and grew up on farms in western Minnesota. He has worked as a laborer, migrant bean-picker, and stagehand, and for many years he was employed by the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources and the United States Fish and Wildlife Service. He is the author of Crawling Out the Window, Looking into the Weather, and Love for Other Things: New and Selected Poems.)

Real Winter

Mark Vinz (1942–)
Born in Rugby, North Dakota, Mark Vinz was raised in Minneapolis and the Kansas City area, and attended the universities of Kansas and New Mexico. A professor of English at Minnesota State University at Moorhead, he has played an instrumental role in the Minnesota literary community for decades. (corrected)

Still Life with Thermometer

Today you remember windchill—
40, 50, 60 below—
after a point it ceases to matter.
Your car is sealed in ice.
All footprints have drifted over,
houses drawn up together
in a ring of smoke.

How do you speak of the real winter?
It’s cold, you say. Cold.
It moves through doors and walls.
This is the way you have learned to speak,
without postmarks, without stamps.

You watch the dead growth
of last summer’s garden
rising from the snow,
a spider frozen on the windowsill,
the gathering dark—
your own cloudy breath
bearing messages
to each corner of the room.

A Voice Is Born

My daughter was born on this day, nineteen years ago. She was three weeks overdue and took 52 hours to deliver. I was so exhausted after she was born--yet I knew I would be discharged that evening. It was the pre-Amy Klobuchar-advocacy era for new mothers with HMO plans; at that time, we were given only 24 hours after delivery to vacate the birthing bed. I looked up the number for my local Health Partners and called with my story. I connected with a sympathetic operator who gave me a 48-hour extension and orders to get some sleep.

I woke up hours later to the most soulful hollering I've ever heard come from a 7-1/2 pound newborn. The maternity nurse burst into my room and said, "Mrs. M, I got strict orders not to wake you but you wrote you wanted to breastfeed and we've been holding back, giving the baby sugar water, but Mrs. M, your baby is out there and she's STARVING!"

And the voice was born.

When she was about 4 and getting reprimanded for small troubles, Megan would say to her Russian and Sri Lankan caregivers, "I know, I know. It's all because I was born on a stormy night."

We would tell her to hold her own and always shout out if someone or something didn't feel right. Then we'd pick her up from day care and there she'd be at the top of the slide, hands on her hips, shouting like Lucy from the Peanuts gang, "No! Don't do that! I DON'T LIKE that."

When my parents took her to her first play, a performance of The King and I, she jumped up from her theater seat when the King was treating Anna so badly, and shouted, "You're so mean. Stop doing that!"

When she suddenly got pious and started making little crosses out of scrap wood and marking them with the words,"Jesus Loves Me," she asked that our family start going to church. We, the skeptical, nonpracticing, semi-believers that we are, went church shopping. We went to the small, A-frame Presbyterian, the brick Episcopalian, and the grand Cathedral of St. Paul to see what might fit us. As we sat under the echoey dome of the Cathedral, listening to Archbishop Flynn's homily, Megan leaned over and in her coarse Irish whisper, which most parishioners around us could hear, implored, "Why is that guy yelling at us?"

In AAU basketball as a teen, she was up to the line for a free throw. The parents of youth basketball players might be the most obnoxious of us all. If you look out into the bleachers many over-involved parents are scowling, like Bill Cowher of the Steelers, or screaming at players and refs, like the Lady Vols' Pat Summitt. So she's up to the line and everyone's shouting and scowling and she just turns to the crowd, with eyes aimed at her Dad and me, and shouts back, "Shut up. Shut up. Just shut up."

So now she's in college. She seems a beacon for the future, blending all she's learned from her family and friends and mentors--and herself-- into this one strong voice. Isn't that what we all want for our children, for ourselves? She just sent me a piece she wrote about a mother giving advice to her daughter, prompted by a reading of Jamaica Kincaid's "Girl." It seems fitting to share it with you on the occasion of her birthday (and with her permission):

"Don’t go where I can’t see you; wash your hands after you go to the bathroom; don’t put things in your mouth; say please and thank you; don’t talk during church; don’t spill on your clothes; this is how you tie your shoes; don’t wake your father when he’s sleeping; be quiet when other people are talking; think before you speak; brush your teeth every day; eat your vegetables; don’t show your underwear to boys when you’re playing in the playground; don’t talk about others behind their backs; do your spelling words; look both ways before you cross the street; be respectful to your teachers; this is how you pour your cereal in the morning; this is how you braid your hair; make sure you don’t get grass stains on your white dress when you are playing in the field; watch out for your brother when you two are alone together; if you get lost know that I’ll find you; don’t play with your food; don’t chew your nails; don’t wear clothes that are ripped; plaids and stripes don’t match; wear socks with your shoes; don’t let your bra show; don’t wear skirts that are too short; this is how you balance a checkbook; read; don’t watch that television show; don’t sleep past noon; clean your room; this is how you argue rationally: don’t tell people that they’re wrong and explain why you’re right; even though they are your teammates, they’re still your competitors; this is how you write a thesis; this is how you drive a car; this is how you preheat an oven; this is how you behave in public; don’t talk to me like that in public; don’t have a dirty mouth otherwise people will think that you’re dirty; this is what I sound like when I swear; protect your reputation, it’s the most important thing you have; do what makes you happy, and know that money can’t buy happiness; if someone breaks your heart know that I’ll always be there to put it back together; don’t let jealousy interfere with relationships; you’ll never know what it’s like to be a parent until you are one.

"Don’t talk to strangers; wear a helmet; take music lessons; learn a language; buy something that expresses your own personality and not what everyone else has; don’t make drama out of nothing; don’t procrastinate; always get enough sleep; learn how to use a computer; climb a tree; make forts out of blankets and chairs; have an imaginary friend; don’t worry about your weight until you’ve had a baby; don’t smoke; don’t waste your time on false friends; appreciate the friends you have; chicks before dicks; don’t have sex until you’re ready and it’s with someone you trust; don’t bring yourself down because there will be plenty of people in your life that will do that for you; don’t watch too much television; don’t create drama through AOL Instant Messenger; talk to someone you’re upset with right away; keep a secret; when it comes to alcohol, know your limit; get to know people who are older than you; don’t worry about what other people think about you; live life with humor; do something crazy every once in awhile; learn how to dance without alcohol; listen to good music; don’t just learn, but understand other cultures and ideas; don’t dismiss something just because you’re afraid of it; don’t be afraid of not knowing what you believe; know that what you feel really strong about in the moment might change drastically in the future, and don’t be afraid to let it happen; don’t let people take advantage of you; stand up for what you believe in and don’t be afraid to say what you think; be classy; never own a pair of underwear that has holes in it; love the body you’re in; trust people; learn how to communicate with people without technology; know that you won’t understand all these things, but when things come up and you learn these lessons the hard way, know that I’ll always be there for you."

Good Gifts

"I give in hopes that it gives someone a break. Everyone needs a break at some point in their life."--Margaret McDonald, owner of Let's Cook, from the December 2006 The Rake

So it's the first week of December, the start of a busy month at our house--and I'm sure at yours as well. We deliberately lounged this weekend in anticipation of the month's activities: ate French toast late, read the Sunday papers, brought home slices of pepperoni pizza to eat in front of the TV, watched two football games (could it get any worse than the Vikings-Bears game?), fell asleep on the couch like those back-of-the-class mouth breathers, woke up in time to shoot a few pucks at our makeshift shooting gallery set up against the garage. Young Morneau would have been proud!

But today we put our slovenly ways aside and become little Midwestern versions of Rachel Ray or Regis. Chipper and industrious. We have three birthdays and Christmas. Come on! The show's about to go on.

Now isn't this a nice gift-giving quote, the one from Ms. McDonald (above)? And check out her store in Northeast, too. My good friend presented me with just such a "you deserve a break" gift for my birthday. A bottle of good red wine, some exotic chocolate, two DVDs, and the new Madeleine Peyroux album. What a treat!

The theme of our gifts this year is "buy local." And if we can make them also "you deserve a break" gifts, all the better. So here are some of my favorite Minnesota giftsellers:

1. Blissful Bath. Really nice products, great customer service, based in Woodbury, Minnesota.

2. Joe's Sporting Goods, a third-generation local sporting store. REI is hard to resist, but check out Joe's stock--love the Dale of Norway hats--online or at the Rice Street store.

3. Sausage Sisters. Rockin' dogs.

4. Sunrise Bakery, that famous spot up in Hibbing. Potica, strudels, biscotti to make Dylan proud.

5. Avalanche Looms. okay, Wisconsin, but close enough. Love her potholders. Can I be jealous of her life. too?

6. Micawber's Books. Best independent bookstore in town.

7. Sisu Coffee and Tea, on Snelling Ave. near Highland Parkway. Lori and Karen are making up amazing and affordable gift baskets: coffee, breads, caramels, Finnish cookies, etc.

8. Paper Patisserie, 366 Selby Avenue 651-227-1398. Great host/hostess gifts.

9. Paper Source. I know they did not start here, but who can resist the company's history--"begun in 1983 from one woman's obsession with paper . . . " Rubber stamps, inks, gorgeous papers and stationery. Visit the store on Hennepin for some delightful browsing.

10. Gypsy Moon, Grand Avenue near Wet Paint. Lovely owner, lovely selections.

Sex, Lies, and Videotape

My husband and I speak in code sometimes when we connect by e-mail because we're sure at least one of our bosses enjoys the use of SPYWARE. "You pick up Tim" means it's crazy at work and I'll tell you later and also possibly I'm going out for drinks with colleagues to bitch about it. "Someone shoot me" can follow an inane staff meeting. Lunch sometimes means sex.

Me: "Want to meet for lunch?"

Him: "Yes"

Me: "What time?"

Him: "How hungry are you?"

****************************

When I was in the eighth grade I cheated on a health test. Just because I could, I guess. Wally Cash was handing out multiple-choice answers so my friend Robin Werman and I each wrote all the answers in two-columns on the palm of our hand: 1-a, 2-e, 3-a, 4-b, etc.

When I turned in my test Mr. Olson handed me a neatly folded note. I opened it on my way back through my row. It read, "If you have answers on your left hand, please tear up your test." As I looked up I saw him pass Robin a note, too. She told me later hers read, "If you have answers on your right hand. . . ." We were both impressed with his method and also that he noticed I was right-handed and she was left. Not bad.

***************************

Need I say more?

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