Too tired...

I'm too tired to post much tonight. We went to Canby yesterday and spent the day with my sweet Mom. We cooked on the grill and then went to the Leo Kottke concert in Marshall...the tickets were a Christmas present. We loved leo, as usual, and the theater in Marshall is beautiful. We were up until midnight which is unusual for us, and awake early this morning. We sat on the deck and watched George chase squirrels and robins out of the yard, then left for home about 10:30. As soon as we got home, I changed into garden shoes and went out to work in the yard. I cleaned a truck load of leaves and dead plants out then Regis helped me load it into the truck and take it to the compost pile. I'm about half done. It looks like most things survived...maybe the cheddar pinks are going to be spindly and ugly so they might get crossed off the list. I don't like plants you have to baby. I have to take the Round-Up to the artemisia because it's spreading everywhere. At least it won't be as hard to get rid of as the pampas grass. It will be a busy week. Regis starts his new job tomorrow, I have a couple after-work meetings, we're having a garage sale on Saturday and we're going to see Dean McGraw at the Bothy on Friday night.

Dr. Urban reports on Bert's complicated health issues

Dr. Urban called us back about Bert. Yes, it could be canine cognitive dysfunction, it could be seizure activity that looks different than it has in the past, it could be sensitivity to storms, it could be the diuretic that he takes twice a day. Hard to tell. She didn't recommend any expensive medical diagnostics this time but said we should watch his appetite and activity level which have been fine. This is the dog with the 24 inch vertical jump and the voracious appetite. The last two nights, Bert has slept most of the night and we've come home to dry puppy pads. Maybe he heard me on the phone...

We went out to Whiskey River for a burger and a beer tonight. We ran into Jim and Deb Hughes, old neightbors of mine. We had a good time talking smart and playing the cardboard cocaine (pull-tabs). No big wins but a lot of laughs.

That's all to report tonight.

A fire in the trash bin

Today was eventful. First of all, I don't want to start a rumor (I almost said an untrue rumor but I was stopped by the Department of Redundancy Department) but I heard today that Scott Anderson of the below mentioned entry might be coming to the Treaty Site History Center. Not too weird since I read the book Canoeing with the Cree for the book club. Still a little ironic.

I just checked the web for Scott Anderson and found this: he died sometime after his trip and the writing of the book. Check this out here.

The big event was our fire. Last night we cooked on the grill. Regis dumped the tray full of ash into our garbage dumpster, not realizing that one of the hot coals escaped into the tray. After dinner, he rolled it down to the street for garbage pick-up day and when I went down to put one last bag in this morning, I opened the lid and WHOOSH...smoke and stench of burning garbage. There were no flames but obviously things had been smoldering...the bags were melty and yellowed and there was an ooze of burned garbage on the surface of the dumpster. I took two watering cans full of water down and doused the trash with it. You know what happens when you pour water on a smoldering fire: you get a big cloud of stinky smoke up in your face. I'm sure I smelled like a dump all day even though my friends at work insisted that I did not. Hard to tell someone, yeah, you do smell like a dump full of burning garbage.

Regis and I spent an hour after work on paperwork. Life insurance details, car insurance, transferring a tax sheltered annuity (I'm not even sure what that is), and COBRA benefits. I loathe that kind of stuff. It's like putting gas in your car...necessary things that you shouldn't have to take time and energy to do. When I win the lottery, I'm going to hire someone to take care of that crap for me. And again...don't ever let an insurance agent tell you this: Oh, no, it isn't hard to transfer all those policies.

The other thing we're dealing with is our internet provider. We have our services bundled, which is a diplomatic way of saying that we have stuff we don't really want like call waiting and 450 channels so they can charge us more. We don't watch much tv and think we can live without it, we rarely use our land phone line so all we really want from them is the DSL service. They won't sell us that alone. They insist we have a phone line even though you don't really need one to have DSL but they can't charge you as much then. There's some competition in town now and they'll sell us DSL without a phone line so we might switch. Why make it easy for telemarketers by having a land line?

Friday again....no, wait...Monday

Today was almost as bad as a Friday. I had a blistering meeting at the high school that made me come home and chop vegetables for the grill like a mad woman. We had shrimp, red potatoes, red onions, mushrooms, cabbage, and pineapple skewers (with a brown sugar and butter glaze). It was very good and helped to dispel the stress. Oh my God, Johnny Depp's on Inside the Actor's Studio. I have to go.

Later: We've missed the last two book club meetings because (hate to admit) that we didn't get the books read. The last one was a bear...something about frogs. The next one is called Canoeing with the Cree and it's very good. Eric Sevareid, when he was 17 years old, and a friend who's 20, take a canoe from Fort Snelling, down the Minnesota River to the Red River and up to Hudson Bay. Amazing that they could do it in the days before bug repellant, Gore- Tex, and nylon. It's a very good book about a great adventure. Another book to recommend would be Distant Fires by Scott Anderson, a Minnesotan. This from the Library Journal:
Following much the same route taken by Eric Severeid and Walter Port in 1930 ( Canoeing with the Cree ), Anderson and his college friend set out to canoe up lakes Superior and Winnepeg and down the Gods River to York Factory on Hudson's Bay. The three-month, 1700-mile trip was full of wind, rain, and discomfort, but Anderson's account is also filled with humor, a youthful zest for life, and a mature sense of the history and culture through which they passed. "Life is pursuit, not the capture," he believes, and the "distant fires" of the North remain a goal even as this particular journey is ended. Neither a how-to nor a step-by-step description, this is an enthusiastic tale of following a dream.

I don't live dangerously myself. Not flossing regularly is a big risk for me, but I do enjoy a good adventure story. Check out The King of the Ferret Leggers. Put it in the google. It's a great story. It's in this book, The Best of Outside.

Bert had a bad night last night. Starting about 3 a.m. he was up and down from the bed, pacing around on the hardwood floor of the bedroom panting, and wanting to go outside repeatedly. So, I read about geriatric dogs on the internet today. Now, don't write (or call) and counsel me about euthanasia; we know what it is and who does it. I did call the vet after making making my own diagnosis of canine cognitive dysfunction. CCD. She hasn't called back yet. CCD is like doggie dementia...pacing, confusion, and loss of appetite are characteristic. Bert has no appetite problems but he does pace and he does have some repetitive behavior like licking his paws. We aren't interested in doing a bunch of diagnostic tests like an MRI, chest x-ray, or a blood panel and he isn't ready for Dr. Kevorkian yet. In many ways, he's very active and exuberant. He loves food, jumps on the bed, and prances around the yard sniffing at and peeing on every blade of upright grass. We just want him to stop waking up in the middle of the night. It makes us cranky.

Betty's Birthday: April 23rd

Happy Birthday, Betty!





We celebrated Betty's birthday with a cook-out at Kathy and Harvey's on Saturday. The menu was all appetizers, most cooked on the Weber grill: rye bread with cream cheese spreads, crab cakes with mango salsa, chicken wings that had been marinated in some delicious cumin, cayenne, celery seed stuff, asparagus with balsamic vinegar, scallops wrapped in bacon, portabella mushrooms, cheddarwurst, bruschetta with pesto sauce and provolone, pineapple and banana kabobs. Kathy served a chocolate drizzled cream pie for dessert.

It was all delicious and we kind of ate our way through the day. There are more pictures on my mac website. There are more food pictures...for some reasons I like to take pictures of food lately. (See St. Patrick's Day website!) The food is always so good and it's fun to look back and remember.

It was so windy in the middle of the afternoon that we sat in the garage, but about dusk, the wind went down and we pulled our chairs out onto the driveway. I suppose this is a rube-ish thing to do...sit in the garage and on the driveway. Do people in ritzy neighborhoods do this? Ah, well. That's life in a small town.

Regis had to go back to work at ACS today. The Midwest Call Center has someone else starting Monday the 30th so they asked if he could wait until then. Big groan from me. He's having a string of sad phone calls from people wanting to make reservations or cancel reservations today. It's never for a good or happy reason. It's kind of like bed sales that way...sometimes people bought a new bed just because...but many times it was a divorce or a move or a fire. Maybe the new job will be less stressful that way, too.

I better get something done today. We might get severe weather later which means I will be sitting in the basement wringing my hands. Hahahahahah. Not really.

Friday night

This is a Friday night at 7:15 kind of blog entry. I'm too tired to move. I made grilled cheese sandwiches for dinner which is cheesy (ha) I know, but I couldn't even muster the gumption to find the phone number for a pizza place. I'm on my way to bed with the sun still out and I know that's pathetic. If we had a tv in the bedroom, I would lie there and try to watch something. Dancing With the Stars, for example, would be about my level of intellectual functioning tonight. I might look at a catalog but reading a book with actual meaningful English sentences sounds like too much work. I surfed the web a little and put three pair of sunglasses totaling a hundred dollars (WTF?) in a shopping cart somewhere. In my defense, they filter 100% of the UV rays. Better wait until tomorrow to make that decision. This is how people move toward retirement...one miserable Friday night after another and finally you are convinced that working, as much as you like the money and being able to pay your bills, only increases world suck. Who needs to feel like this? Did ancient people feel like this on Friday night? Did they crawl onto their mats by the fire and groan, too tired to throw a wild pig on the spit?

One thing I hate about spring

I'm sitting on the couch in my robe at 7:15 and the sun is coming straight in a west window, illuminating the water spots and dog nose prints on the glass. How can a guy relax with that kind of stuff going on? At least in the winter when it's nearly dark as you walk in the door after work, you don't have to contend with reminders of your slovenly ways.

We went to the HyVee after work to buy groceries. Kathy and Harvey are having a party Saturday to celebrate Betty's birthday and Regis' new job. We're going to sit on the deck and grill appetizers and desserts. I'm making grilled crab cakes with mango salsa, asparagus with balsamic vinegar, bruschetta, and grilled slices of sweet potato. The dessert menu is just chunks of fresh pineapple and banana on skewers, maybe with a chocolate ganache. Lots of finger foods.

Regis and I stopped at the Mongolian Grill in Mankato after our shopping trip. You choose a bowl, pile in fresh vegetables and meat, noodles, and spicy sauces. They cook it on a huge and very hot grill, stirring with big sticks. One of the cooks would flip the bowl behind his back and over his shoulder. Great show and very good food but not much for ambience. Since you pay by the size of the bowl you choose, some pigs would really pile it on. One woman was applying the crusher move to her bowl in order to squeeze more in. How rude. You can pay two bucks more and get all you can eat but apparently that's too much work for those folks.

Good news on the dog front. Another complete day with no escapes. No mess to clean up on the kitchen floor either which can only mean that somebody snuck in here before we got home and cleaned it up. I would never suspect our dogs of elegant behavior. My brother Dave's big old St. Bernard, Onslow, died yesterday. We love our dogs and Onslow was around for 11 years so everyone is very sad. He's in dog heaven now with the other Saum dogs: Smokey, Cindy, Snoopy, Molly, Honey, and Pepper.

I'm going to watch Grey's Anatomy tonight but I think I'll give it up after this year. I'm starting to feel a little manipulated by it and who needs to cry over a stupid television soap opera? Regis and I have debated about disconnecting the tv altogether. We don't watch it very much and it's almost more irritating than entertaining when we do watch. The company that provides all our electronic services gives us a deal if we have three, internet, cable and telephone, so we'd save about five bucks if we quit one of them. I guess we get five bucks worth of entertainment out of it. We used to watch COPS once in a while and I get a kick out of Miami Ink. Can you get any more entertainment than that?

I'm reading a book called The Tortilla Curtain by T.C. Boyle. This is from one review: This is a profound and tragic tale, one that exposes not only a failed American Dream, but a failing America. Uffffff daaaaaaa. I might need to wait until summer to finish it as it sounds dark and depressing. I need a little more uplifting reading material....like This Goat's Life, a blog about a goat farm in Washington state. Check it out. The latest story is a hoot and I can also recommend Rocky Road.

I guess I've rambled on long enough and linked my writing to every little stream of consciousness thought I've had tonight. Fascinating stuff, my boring life!

Regis on the move...again

Regis says he is as predictable in his job movement as Bert is at getting through a fence. Tom says we can count on Regis to give us a reason for a party at least once a month. Ha. Yesterday Regis was offered a job at the Midwest Call Center in Mankato. It's one of Glen Taylor's companies. He says it's a nice building with a pyramid thing on the top and an atrium in the center of the work area. Very nice touch. He took his drug test today and as soon as they get the results, he can start. Benefits, the main reason for the switch, start June 1st. This job has everything we hoped for...day hours, weekends off, benefits, and a reasonable distance from home. He has another four weeks of training...he'll be like a customer service wiz.

I think we foiled Bert with a four-foot fence. To our knowledge he hasn't even tried to scale this one. So far, so good. If we find him in the living room now it will be because he's learned to unlock the back door (which is difficult with no opposable thumb), unlatch the gate, and has gone around to pick the lock on the front door. I wouldn't put any of this past him for a second.

I've tried a couple times to write something about what happened in West Virginia but I can't seem to do it. I haven't watched it on the news, just read some on MSNBC and the Trib. I really haven't watched the news for years (since the OJ Simpson thing) and it's a good thing. Most of the news is getting to be like the National Enquirer anyway....crap that you don't really need to know. We've argued about it at work. Some people are obsessed and want to watch and talk about it all the time. It's a sad and wretched thing to think about so I'd rather not.

Poem: "Nothing is Lost" by Noel Coward, from Collected Verse
Reprinted without permission.

Nothing is Lost

Deep in our sub-conscious, we are told
Lie all our memories, lie all the notes
Of all the music we have ever heard
And all the phrases those we loved have spoken,
Sorrows and losses time has since consoled,
Family jokes, out-moded anecdotes
Each sentimental souvenir and token
Everything seen, experienced, each word
Addressed to us in infancy, before
Before we could even know or understand
The implications of our wonderland.
There they all are, the legendary lies
The birthday treats, the sights, the sounds, the tears
Forgotten debris of forgotten 2007s
Waiting to be recalled, waiting to rise
Before our world dissolves before our eyes
Waiting for some small, intimate reminder,
A word, a tune, a known familiar scent
An echo from the past when, innocent
We looked upon the present with delight
And doubted not the future would be kinder
And never knew the loneliness of night.

Bert Wins

Last night when we went to the Bothy concert, we pushed chairs up against the fence and piled boxes on the chairs. It looked like the Berlin Wall in our living room. When we came home...guess what...Bert is sleeping on the couch. Today when we left for work, we had pieces of cardboard between the fence and the chairs. That kept him in but it was a little tough getting over it to get out the front door to go to work. Regis stopped at PetCo after work and got the heavier duty and taller fence for more determined dogs. We'll see how long it takes him to scale that. As a last resort, Regis suggested attaching bowling pins to his back legs with bungee cords. That might work. A friend of mine at work suggested invisible fence in the doorways, the stuff that gives a mild shock. That would never work; Bert would think the temporary pain was well worth the comfort of sleeping on the couch.

Bertrand Russel Fritsch, AKA Houdini or Out-Witted by a Jack Russel Terrier

Don't be fooled by that innocent look. If you are a regular reader of this blog, you know that Bert, in his dotage, has caused us plenty of angst. He has some health issues; some of his medication gives him a powerful thirst and some of his medication gives him the need to pee at inappropriate times and in inappropriate places. (Remember the Christmas tree skirt story?) We thought we had the problem solved. We went to Pet Expo and bought a portable pet fence that is three feet high and can be stretched to about ten feet long. When we leave the house, we run it between the living room and kitchen and we shut the other doors so he's contained. We bought puppy training pads and he learned to pee on those. On our way back from Mankato today we were saying how nice it is to have found a solution to this problem and it's so good to not be mad at Bert all the time for peeing and how the dogs seem to have adjusted just fine. We pull in the drive-way and.....STOP....there he is looking out the living room window at us. I swear he had a smirk on his face. We are astounded. What in the hell happened? The gate is still in place. We didn't leave anything in the way that he could jump on. The only possiblity is that Bert, in his decrepitude, completed a three-foot vertical leap from the slippery kitchen linoleum, levitated forward, and landed on the living room carpet. He's not likely to make this leap back into the kitchen when he feels the need to pee so that means we're back to square one. Regis is going to put a row of razor wire like they have at prisons on the top of the pet fence because I know, if we went back and bought the four-foot fence (another hundred dollars) Bert would have a heart attack and die, leaving us with 150 dollars worth of worthless pet fence. Damn that dog.

Electronic gadgets

Regis has this weird penchant for clocks, thermometers, and electronic gadgets. His latest purchase is a Radio Shack clock/weather forecaster. It's round and functions like a clock but the bottom half is like a mood ring. If it's coudy, it turns pink. If it's sunny, it turns red. Hey, it's a nightlight, too. Sometimes in the middle of the night, one of his electronic gadgets will start up...I've heard the theme song from the Lone Ranger, chickens crowing, and various beeps. One goes off every day about 4 o'clock but it's in a drawer and I can't find it. I'm not big on digital clocks...I like those old-fashioned clocks that have a face.

I finished reading Love in the Present Tense by Catherine Ryan Hyde. I liked it a lot. It's about a young man who watches the neighbor lady's five-year old sometimes and one day she doesn't come back. There's a bit of a mystery surrounding her disappearance but most of the book is about the relationship between Leonard and Mitch. This is the author of Pay It Forward which I didn't see.

Moving on to my Saturday chores. I cleaned out the refrigerator, did the dishes, and I think I'll go buy some groceries.

Back to spring...wait!

We've had a couple of busy days. Peter turns 20 tomorrow and thought he would be too busy to see us then so we took him out to dinner last night. He chose TimberLodge which was a mistake. The service was marginal, the food was less than stellar, and they screwed up the check even though our waiter had a grand total of two, count 'em, two tables. Lame. Peter was funny and social, even talkative. Such a nice change from his sullen and monosyllabic teen years. He told us all about his trip to Mexico...whale watching, tequilla, four-wheelers, tequilla, parties on the beach, tequilla, and conversating (his word) with a lot of very nice older people. I inquired about what he considered older and he said forty or fifty. At least he didn't say thirty. Ouch.

Well, I guess it wasn't a couple of busy days...it was one busy day. Today we watched Ella but that's fun and not work at all. She took a little nap on the couch then ate a vegan waffle and a hot dog for dinner. We laughed about that combination but it's because she has dairy allergies. She liked the hot dog better than the vegan waffle which seems to demonstrate good sense for a baby. We gave her a big fat stuffed chicken for Easter and she loves it. She says, "chicken, chicken, chicken" and points at his big yellow beak. What a hoot.

That's our exciting life.

Back to winter

We had a day of almost spring-like weather yesterday where it was warm enough to sit in a lawn chair if you were on the south side of the house and protected from the wind. I won't even talk about that 80 degree anamoly from a few weeks ago. Today it's back to 30 degrees, wind chill, and icy precipitation. It's tiresome.

I'll tell you another thing. Having four days off to prance around in polite society makes it hard to go back to a building full of EBD kids. We had to give some inane state tests today which didn't help...it's Dilbert of the education world. I have eleven test-related boxes on a table in my office. Two of them were mailed empty. Empty boxes were sent in the mail. See? It's the pointy haired guy at work. It took me five full hours to sort and check in all the crap in the nine not-empty boxes and will probably take at least another five to pass out the tests, collect them, and prepare them for return shipping. I'd put a picture of Dilbert right here if I weren't afraid of being sued. Hey... do they put you in a white-collar prison if you are convicted of copyright violation? Do they have hot tubs and wine in white-collar prisons?

Monday

My friend Kathy called me this morning and suggested that I get started sorting for the garage sale I might have in May. I thought this involved a leisurely poke through a few drawers in the bedroom and didn't see it as an imposition. I didn't protest and even drove out to school to pick up some Office Max boxes I bought last year in a fit of pique when I threatened to quit my job. But when Kathy showed up at 10:00, she had a different plan in mind. She wanted to start in the basement. I don't let very many people into my basement, it being the home of a multitude of dead bug carcasses and major dust bunnies. Kathy and Harvey had the unfortunate experience of spending some time down there last August when they were here for dinner during a tornado so I thought it quite brave of her to suggest we start there. In about four hours, we filled five huge contractor bags with stuff for the dump and three of the same kind of bag with stuff for the thrift store. It was an embarassing ordeal, let me tell you. Kathy doesn't have a thing out of place and doesn't keep anything past the time when it's useful. I have crap I've dragged around for thirty years, hoping I might read it again, find a use for it again, or want to look at it again. In that time, the crap has accumulated a fine collection of dust mites, bug bodies, and cobwebs. Well, it was trash bag time for that crap today. Kathy doesn't like garbage bags sitting around waiting for the day you might want to dispose of them...unlike me. We squashed it into the car and drove it out to school. We almost filled a big dumpster...I hope our custodian doesn't have to throw anything away for a while. It turned out to be a nice day, even with the basement purge. We cooked shrimp on the grill and had American fries and garlic toast. Nothing like a few carbs and a little wine to take the sting out of cleaning.

Easter Sunday

We had a lovely Easter Sunday. All the kids were here for dinner and they stayed into the evening. There was a lot of laughing and a lot of eating so I guess that means we had a fine time. Tiffany was worried that Ella wouldn't remember her...but she did. Ella is fascinated by Peter and always looks from head to toe like she can't believe how tall he is. There are more pictures here on Ella's page and on my mac site.

It was a little chilly in the afternoon but Ella and I went for a walk. I realized after I set her down, that sidewalks were kind of a new concept; she just made a bee-line out across the grass. I'd chase her down, get her going in a different direction, and away she'd go. Finally we got to the sidewalk and she held onto my finger as we walked. She carried on some kind of little conversation and pointed at things from time to time. It was very sweet.

I woke up with Regis this morning to help him get out of the house for work at 6. I made him a ham sandwich and some coffee, then read the Free Press which is a sorry-ass excuse for a newspaper some days, today being one of them. They must be short-staffed on holidays. I hate to go back to bed and waste a vacation day so I think I'll stay awake and do some things. The bedroom is still a mess from the ceiling fan project since we are not the type to finish a job completely like some people are. We seem to run out of gumption or interest...or maybe we're easily distracted. Who knows. Variation in human beings, I guess.

I have friends who say they won't go to bed at night with dirty dishes in the sink. That's never been a worry of mine. In fact, I'll leave them there for several days and not get too concerned. I assume these people are the kind who would finish putting in a ceiling fan and then would put the tools away and make sure the furniture is all back in the right places.

We're expecting snow and rain again tomorrow. (Paul Douglas even said more snow next week.) Holy hell. You should not have to go back to shoes and socks after having worn sandals once. It's cruel.

What we did on Saturday...

We bought a new ceiling fan for the bedroom last weekend and spent a good share of today installing it. I probably shouldn't say we because it was mostly Regis. I held the screwdriver and the fan blades and did that sort of thing. Gopher jobs. I like the fan. Looks better than the one with skateboard stickers. I told Regis I woke up in the night worried that it would fall on us...this was before it was installed. He made sure to put a couple extra screws in it to make sure it wouldn't fall out of the ceiling.

We also cleaned the fish tank. We bought new guppies Thursday night and Ella likes to watch them so we wanted the glass to be clean when she comes tomorrow. We have lots of new fish lately, cheap and prolific fish because it seems like the more we spend the shorter the life span. That's one of our older fish in the picture. He's a rosy barb but he's pretty pale now because he's old. I like the guppies and sword tails because they come in gypsy colors. I'd love to have a saltwater tank if it weren't so much work of a detailed nature. The fish are beautiful.

I did some cooking today...Cuban bread, Easter cut-out cookies, and sloppy joe stuff. We might wait to frost the cookies until Tiff comes home later from a movie with her dad. Then we'll take a picture of the cookies. I decided to make this a more relaxed holiday but I'm still cooking like crazy...the cleaning is what I gave up. : )

Another project we did was to color two dozen eggs. I bought a package of color that required plastic gloves and promised the eggs would be "marbled". The colors are vivid but I'm kind of a fan of the old-fashioned color that requires vinegar and little colored tablets.

We had dinner and listened to Prairie Home Companion. Nice way to end a weekend.

Moles

We are suffering a conundrum. We have already seen the shotgun blasts to the lawn that signify our moles have awakened. Regis and I are not fussy lawn-keepers: We let the grass get long because we think it produces more oxygen, we don't mow in criss-cross patterns, and we rarely use chemicals because we aren't bothered by dandelions or other noxious weeds. We all have to live somewhere. But the moles are causing a problem. If you read my previous post (Saturday, March 10), you know that I'm not fond of the idea of killing them by any means chemical or mechanical because I read Mole Music...and we all have to live somewhere. The lawn gets so spongey from their little tunnels, though, that we're almost afraid to walk on it. Did you know a mole weighs 3-5 ounces but they can tunnel 200 feet in a day? We might only have one or two moles, but the little bastards are terrorists. Here's a letter we're going to leave on the lawn this weekend for the moles:

Dear Mound Makers-

Look, I am keenly aware that you were here prior to me buying the house. I am also aware that you were here before the house was built. This land is your land…I get that.

The thing is that I’m stressed out about you taking over my lawn. I don’t give a mole’s ass if you come up for air in the nooks and crannies of my yard. They’re yours. But, please, for the love of god and all things holy, leave my lawn alone.

I’ve researched several solutions to our co-habitation challenge: however, experts agree that the only real solution is your demise. I do have a trap out in the garage, in fact, it came with the house. I don’t know if you or your friends have seen these things…they’re terrifying.

I’d be happy to show it to you if you’d like. I’ll leave it by the large dirt mound (the one you favor) on my front lawn. Don’t worry, I won’t set it; it’s simply for display and educational purposes. Go ahead, touch it, get a feel for it. You know, I’ll even leave a latte next to it so you can ponder your decision in comfort.

I’m hoping we can work this out in a civil fashion, and so, I would appreciate a meeting of the minds with those in charge. Yes, take me to your leader…the decision maker. Perhaps we can agree to a homeopathic solution; one that won’t cause you any harm or discomfort.

Please consider my offer and respond accordingly.

Civilly yours,

Property Owners

Easter Weekend

I managed, by reading some of The Good Good Pig in the middle of the night, to sleep until 6:30 this morning. I've decided to make this a relaxed holiday so I'm not scrubbing the kitchen floor or any of that malarky. In some parts of the world people manage to serve an Easter dinner in a house with a dirt floor so I don't think I have to go nuts.

We're going to get Tiffany later and she likes to stop at the OK Corrall for dinner. They make those skinny onion rings (haystacks they call them) with a remoulade sauce. Here's Emerill's recipe:
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
3/4 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup chopped onion
1/2 cup chopped green onions
1/4 cup chopped celery
2 tablespoons chopped garlic
2 tablespoons prepared horseradish
3 tablespoons Creole whole-grain mustard
3 tablespoons prepared yellow mustard
3 tablespoons ketchup
3 tablespoons chopped parsley leves
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
Combine all ingredients in the bowl of a food processor and process for 30 seconds. Use immediately or store. Will keep for several days in an airtight container in the refrigerator.

I'm not sure the OK Corrall goes to all this trouble, but maybe. Emerill serves it with shrimp. We went to the OK Corrall once and they had a group of Old West re-enactors. It was like stepping onto the set of Gunsmoke, ladies dressed like saloon girls and men in cowboy hats packing six-guns. They looked very authentic from what I know of the Old West (Gunsmoke).

There is a minus 4 windchill today which is darn cold for this time in April. No Easter egg hunts outside this year. I took my kids when they were little to one Easter egg hunt, found it really uncivilized and never took them to another one. Now I can feel guilty for all the things my kids didn't get to do because they had a mother who didn't like over-stimulation and big crowds. We never went to Valley Fair or the Wisconsin Dells. We went to the State Fair a few times but I was not a good sport about it. Bad mother. Now I'm going to read Joyce Sutphen's poem Things You Didn't Put on Your Resume.

Things You Didn't Put On Your Resumé
by Joyce Sutphen.
(Not) used with permission from the poet

Things You Didn't Put On Your Resumé

How often you got up in the middle of the night
when one of your children had a bad dream,

and sometimes you woke because you thought
you heard a cry but they were all sleeping,

so you stood in the moonlight just listening
to their breathing, and you didn't mention

that you were an expert at putting toothpaste
on tiny toothbrushes and bending down to wiggle

the toothbrush ten times on each tooth while
you sang the words to songs from Annie, and

who would suspect that you know the fingerings
to the songs in the first four books of the Suzuki

Violin Method and that you can do the voices
of Pooh and Piglet especially well, though

your absolute favorite thing to read out loud is
Bedtime for Frances and that you picked

up your way of reading it from Glynnis Johns,
and it is, now that you think of it, rather impressive

that you read all of Narnia and all of the Ring Trilogy
(and others too many to mention here) to them

before they went to bed and on way out to
Yellowstone, which is another thing you don't put

on the resumé: how you took them to the ocean
and the mountains and brought them safely home.

Thursday but kind of like Friday

It's the last day of the work week for both of us. It's a good thing it's the end because it's been a hell of a long one. Regis started working from 6-2:30 and just that change of schedule has beaten us up. Then add the bitter cold weather and the wind that kept Bert awake a few nights and you have raw nerves and lack of sleep.

One thing I realize that my regular blog entries have done is make me more aware of the bizarre stories that occur during a normal day. Like this morning, I'm having coffee at Waldo's and this about 50ish man comes in. He's balding with a soul patch and glasses, but the really weird thing is this guy has on a racoon coat. Not a new and stylish one, but one that looks like it came of your grandma's closet. And seriously, with a mink collar. This guy thought he was a stud as he posed and strutted in that moth-eaten coat. He got out of a nice car and was obviously not a derelict or a guy who shops at the thrift store. What is up with this coat?

Another funny thing happened at HyVee. We went over right after school to beat the rush. Right. There were lots of people there and they were getting on my one raw nerve. At the end of the tour, we decided to order Chinese (MOM...IT'S PRETTY GOOD!!!!). While we're standing there, I see Lori, a teacher from St. Peter, start looking at the baby watermelons. She picks one off the rack and they start to tumble down and roll across the floor. She tries to catch them and put them back on top but they keep tumbling off...more and more all the time. Regis goes to help catch watermelons while I summon a helper. They're cracking as they hit the floor and leaving a mess of watermelon juice all over that aisle. Regis and Lori are both trying to catch watermelons...she's embarrassed but doing a great job of catching those melons and lobbing them to the top of the pile. Hahahahahaha. It was a hoot. What's ironic is that Lori and I were in pottery class together. Not a totally successful venture either. Neither of us were very good at the wheel part and clay went flying across the room to smack against the wall at a pretty good rate. I think we both left class with two tiny pots, making the cost about 80 bucks a piece. We know now why pottery is so expensive.

We love spring!

Here's the lawn chair we were using last week when the temperature was 80 degrees. This morning it was snowing and 22 degrees with a windchill that made it feel like two degrees below zero. Your exposed skin would freeze in ten minutes making walking from the parking lot to your office a dangerous venture. It makes you weary. The last two nights I've gone to bed before 8:30 and slept all night. Last night it sounded like the damn roof was going to lift off the house. Bert is deaf as a post but he senses big wind so he was agitated all night and got up and down off the bed, scratched at the door to get in, then out, and generally drove us crazy.

I made potato krub for dinner. Krub is a Norwegian potato dumpling that turns kind of gray and doughy-looking when it's cooked in water that turns into wallpaper paste. Regis likes it, although he had no experience with it as a child which leads him to ask questions like, "What are you going to have with it?". "Butter," I said. You wouldn't want to complicate a meal like this with a vegetable or protein. This is a super-concentrated carbohydrate meal that will help you survive a blizzard in April. See paragraph one above.

There is something kind of surreal about extreme weather changes like this. A week ago it was 80 and sunny and we were cooking on the BBQ grill. Today I needed a winter jacket and a gloves. What the hell. It's like being slammed back into November. I feel like I should be cooking meatloaf and baked potatoes but I have a taste for burgers and margaritas. I need wool socks but the sandals felt so good and my toes want to be liberated from my shoes. What next?

Say it isn't so: Is it really only Tuesday?

I wonder if that sentence (title of this post) is punctuated correctly. But really, who cares? the weather here has only gotten worse. The daffodils were rescued yesterday and today, the pansies had to come inside. We don't have the snow they're having up north (like St. Cloud and Alexandria for you non-Minnesotans) but it's about 25 degrees and windy as hell.

I came home and poured a glass of wine. I spent five hours today working on state test crap. We'll probably test fifteen kids and I had to unpack ten boxes. The stuff is numerical but not packed that way so I had to find fifteen-digit numbers on the packing list to make sure it was there and secure. This is probably HoMElanD security in charge of packing, if you know what I mean. Five hours of matching numbers, checking numbers, making lists of kids. I told the district test coordinator I am going to bill the state of Minnesota for my rehab. She said she isn't a drinker and I told her that BS like this is why God invented wine. Write your representative in Congress and see if it isn't true.

Regis got home about three and we relaxed and visited a little...then decided we wanted Ruben dip (recipe below) and pumpernickel rye for dinner. I had everything but the sauerkraut so had to run to the coop. I wasn't sure they would have it...sauerkraut not being a real vegetable. But they did so the menu was complete. We had an interesting conversation about the nature of his current workplace, that being that it sucks pretty bad. He likes the customer service part and enjoys the interesting people and situations...but they have an indentured servitude kind of deal. When the red light is on, indicating that things are really busy and calls are coming like crazy, you have to write your name on a white board so no more than two people can go to the bathroom at a time. I asked if you had to indicate number one or number two after your name. It's ugly. On the other hand, he met a nice woman from Alabama today who was so grateful for his help she blessed his heart and said she'd make him a southern breakfast if he ever came to Birmingham.

Ruben Dip
1.5 cups corned beef chopped fine (You can use Buddig...real is better.)
1 can sauerkraut drained, pressed on papertowels, and chopped
2 cups shredded Swiss cheese
2 cups Hellman's mayo

Bake in casserole dish at 350 degrees for 30 minutes or put in small crock pot. Serve with rye chips or pumpernickel rye bread. Yum-oh as Rachel Ray says.

Monday, Monday

Man, it was a stress-filled day. Not like anything in particular was wrong...just weird and tight feeling. Maybe it's the weather. We had a tiny peek at the sun today but it's gone now and the clouds are back. I went out and rescued a bunch of daffodils when I heard it's going to be 22 tomorrow. They're hardy but heavy rain and snow is hard on them.

I saw three baby animals today. Deb Johnson and her family are raising a dog to be a leader dog for the blind. He's a seven-week old golden retriever baby and so damn cute you can hardly stand it. Then when I went into North Intermediate this afternoon, there were two baby lambs in the office. Regis tells me they belong to the family of animals called bovidae (small ruminants) that includes cows, sheep, and goats. Oh my, such wooly little heads and pretty little faces. I would love to raise sheep and goats but they would all have to die of old age because I could never send them to the place...you know where. I saw an ad in the paper the other day...lamb for sale...will deliver to local processor. Uff da. That would be one sad ride down the road in the old pick-up truck for me.

I'm almost done with my book Let Me Finish by Roger Angell. Ironic since Herb Carneal died yesterday. You'll have to figure that out for yourself. He tells a story about one man he worked with who said he had dreams about the Queen Mum. They laughed and said she was quite a symbol (of something) and after all, didn't everybody dream about her? He said, "Erotic dreams?" Eeeeeuuuwwww. The next book I'm reading is called The Good Good Pig by Sy Mongomery. I wonder if pigs are in the bovidae family. And Regis thought I was only interested in transvestites.

Rain, rain, and more cold rain

It hasn't stopped raining for three days. Hard-driving and freezing cold rain. It pounds against the windows at night and during the day it's a steady cold mist with periods of heavy rain that comes sideways. Most unpleasant three days.

Yesterday we took Ella to Mankato. We thought she would enjoy the pet store and the bookstore but she was more interested in other little kids than books or pets. She found anyone between infant size and about ten-years old fascinating and she would wiggle down and toddle after them. She's a good sport and even let us do some shopping at Men-R-Nerds.

We're watching One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest which seems like a better movie than the last time I saw it more than ten years ago. We're going back to one movie at a time now that April's here. What a relief.

It will be a fairly slow week. No night-time activities and Friday off. I'll go get Tiffany for the weekend.

Saturday on the Moops

George Castanza cheated on a game of Trivial Pursuit. That's where I got the word moops...but I know it should be moors. It's soaking wet (moop-like) here this morning. We have a five gallon pail out by the garage that is full to the brim. I suppose that means we've gotten five gallons of rain. The forecast is calling it flooding rain which is not good when we have the Minnesota River two blocks away. I'm not worried about it lapping at the back door but it could make it difficult to get to Mankato.

We've had a quiet weekend, so far. Last night we had lasagna roll-ups that Regis won in a bingo game at work, strange but true. I did some light cleaning (really, all my cleaning is light) and now here I sit, reading and writing and listening to the radio. We're picking Ella up later for a trip to Mankato while Bob and Emily do some furniture moving. We like to take her to the pet store and the new Barnes and Noble. She has some food allergies so Emily is sending a list of food she can't eat. We hope fried potatoes aren't on it because she sure loves those. What a good little Norwegian baby.

I have two tiny pots of pansies on the front step and the daffodils and tulips in the garden are poking up through the dirt. The chives are already about four inches high. I love those signs of life in the garden that looks mostly dead and dirty this time of year. We're going to plant more things that attract butterflies this year. In the past, I've tried things like small water ponds and stones for them to rest on but I never saw a butterfly on them. They like the coneflowers and the Joe Pye weed so maybe I'll encourage more of that.

Tiffany's coming home next weekend for Easter and Peter said he'd be here for Sunday dinner. Maybe even another time so we can celebrate his birthday. I told him I thought this was the first year he wasn't nagging me about what he was getting for his birthday. He laughed. It will be nice, very nice, to have them both here. The other kids are coming for Easter dinner, too. So far, the menu is ham with a Jack Daniels sauce and some kind of cheese potato. The kids all love those hash brown and soup cheese potatoes. I think they taste like wallpaper paste but who am I to argue with popularity. I think I'll have kids bring side dishes so the only other thing I have to make is bread. I have an oatmeal bun recipe I'd like to try.

Tornado Anniversary

It's been nine years since the tornado hit St. Peter. This is exactly what it looked like: dark, cold, bleak. Here's a link to more pictures.

James Bond

Loud piercing scream. If there is anything I hate more than football, it's James Bond movies but I felt like I owed Regis since I've made him watch so many transvestite movies lately. Casino Royale...thirty seconds into and there has already been a brutal murder on a high steel girder. Honestly, is this entertainment? The main character's name is Layer Cake. Really? she said sardonically. Sardonically being my current favorite word. Let me recall my blog post about Tubby Smith. Does this seem like a theme? I suppose Pussy Galore will be this movie, too, which would blow my theory, but aside from that, this just doesn't seem real...all of it including the names. When Tiffany was little she liked to watch the Roadrunner cartoons but she provided a running commentary of "that won't work" and "that would never happen". That's what I'm doing as this movie plays; shrieking, covering my eyes, making sarcastic comments, and saying "that won't work". Just like football.

Addendum: I just read the review again. The character's name is not Layer Cake. Oh, this is too funny. The dude who plays James Bond was in a movie called Layer Cake. But if I took that out of the previous paragraph I wouldn't get to use sardonic. Another thing I read in the review is that there's a scene where James Bond is tied up naked and beaten with a knotted rope. And this is rated PG-13? I can feel another rant coming on....

The transvestite movies we've watched are: Transamerica (actually a transexual movie), The Adventures of Priscilla: Queen of the Desert, and Kinky Boots. They're all very sweet stories about interesting characters who happen to be men who dress like women. Regis watched Blood Diamond last night. He gave it a 5 and said he really liked the story but there was a ton of bloody violence and the noise made my spine hurt.

I'll tell you a thing about Netflix. We subscribed in November, I think. We hadn't watched ten movies in the last five years and suddenly we had two coming at a time. We enjoyed it for a while but during the month of March decided that we would upgrade to three at a time. Watching movies became a chore and we'll be glad to go back to one at a time next week. Like Deb said, if I hear one more time that I have to watch a movie so we can send it back, I'll snap. I do like it because I can find all these interesting movies (about transvestites) that I'd never find at the video store downtown.

No grousing today

I'm not going to rant or complain today. All sweetness and light. Regis sent me a piece out of Salon this morning that I enjoyed all day. It's about a chef and his restaurant in Minneapolis. The chef sounds like an amazing character and the restaurant must be a whole cast of characters. I can't put a link here because you have to be a member of Salon to read the whole thing, but here's a link to Hell's Kitchen. Well, hell, here's the link to the Salon article and you can rassle with it as you like. It's worth reading...very entertaining and...hopeful.
We're watching Blood Diamonds. More like Regis is watching it and I'm peaking at it from behind my hands. It's too much for me but Regis says it's a great story. If you have a taste for diamonds, this story will take care of that. I am a real wuss about movies. I don't like violence even if it's important to the story, I don't like horror or too much suspense, I don't like anything scary at all. I like movies about strange characters as you can tell if you look at my Netflix profile...a lot of transvestite stuff. Ha! At least they aren't killing each other.

The Case Against Gas-Powered Yard Machines

The snow has been gone for one day, truly, and I have heard every kind of gas-powered yard tool sold at Wal-Mart in the last 24 hours. Yesterday it was the lawn mower mulcher next door. Earlier it was some kind of gigantic blower thing. Now I hear a thing that sounds like a weed whacker chewing gravel. How could it be a weed whacker? The weeds are about half an inch high. People are nuts. If we're going to talk about decreasing world suck, this would be a good place to start. Do everything you can outside without the aid of a gas-powered machine. It will be good for the ozone layer and good for the peace and quiet of your neighborhood. [I just got up to see what was making the racket. It's a thing that looks like a BLOWER but it has a bag on one end so it must SUCK instead.] Here's a picture of it so you can avoid it. It's actually a leaf blower with a vacuum (suck) kit. A very portable way to annoy your neighbors. What a country.

I just looked at a blog done by two brothers who have agreed to not communicate with text for a year. They're going to make daily vidoes for each other and post them on the blog. The one today was a video of people with stuff on their heads....cats, computers, birds. That's what I love about blogs, they're so strange. Clearly, I should be more creative but going on a tirade about leaf blowers is about all I can muster.

A tiny bit verbose

Ok, I know this is my fourth post of the weekend but I have things to say. It was such a nice weekend, start to finish, except for my whining yesterday. Today was nice enough that we could sit outside for a while. We kept expecting rain but the storms were mostly east of us. I get anxious for spring but forget about all the bad crap that comes with it like thunderstorms and tornadoes. We decided to take a chance on the grill. We made big fat free-range pork chops from the Coop and scallops marinaded in olive oil and lemon juice. We sat on the driveway and did the grilling...how white trash...and the second white trashy thing of the weekend for us. Hey, if the shoe fits.
I put Jim Harrison's books on my list (to the right and down....see?) but I have to say some more. I finished Returning to Earth this afternoon right before my lovely nap. What a writer. He writes about the UP in Michigan and a family who got wealthy exploiting Indians and the land for timber. I like books with characters that I miss the minute I close the book and these are certainly some of those...Cynthia, David, Polly, K. The book is written in four sections from the perspective of four people from his previous book True North, the start of which will knock you back. Returning to Earth is sort of the denouement of the last book so the whole thing will make more sense if you read True North first. Lovely and powerful writing. Highly recommended.
I saw another neighbor raking today...another one not from here. We should have a sheet of instructions for new Minnesotans. One the same note, Regis said he is nervous about fishing here because he is accustomed to fishing for shad (for what?) in rivers in New Jersey and he's afraid people will look at him askance when he does it the wrong way here. He needs a fishing tutor.

Ella's Website

http://ellaamanda.com/
Bob set up a website for Ella with some new pictures. This one is of her with an Easter hat and purse from Great Grandma Shirley. She loves hats and bags.
Today is our sunny day. It's about 67 degrees with a nice breeze and blue sky. It's supposed to storm later this morning but it will have to spring from nowhere because there isn't a cloud in the sky. Nothing on the radar either.
Bert woke us up in the middle of the night having some kind of spell. He was breathing hard and kind of limp. Regis petted him for a while and we thought he had passed to the other side. But maybe he was just having a nightmare because all of a sudden he snapped out of it, sat up and looked fine. The other possibility is that he was going toward the White Light and Regis brought him back.

More signs of spring

It's not like the day is a total loss. There have been more signs of spring even though the sky has not cleared and it has begun to rain. I found more crocus and a few daffodils hiding behind an evergreen bush. I went to Fred's Garden Center and bought a couple pots of pansies and a spring flag. The flag says Spring at Last but you really can't tell from the way the garden looks behind it. My goofy neighbor (he's from the South and must think things are the same here) got out his LAWNMOWER today and did that mulching thing to his grass. We still have a little snow, for God's sake. It's way too early for that and can't he just sit in a lawn chair and enjoy one day without depleting the ozone layer? What a pant load. He also cleaned the glass in his yard light which proves he has severe obsessive compulsive disorder. We, on the other hand, have not done one productive thing today. We went to the liquor store and bought lottery tickets. I put ribs in the oven. We had a beer in the yard. How white trash. While we were sitting outside having a beer in a lawn chair watching John deplete the ozone layer, we remembered when we had that big-ass patch of pampas grass in the garden. One day I went out to go to work and couldn't find my car. Regis was on the phone to the police to report it stolen and walked outside to see if there was broken glass. He found my car behind the pampas grass. Whoops.

Not according to plan

I hate to be cranky about it but nothing is going according to plan this weekend. Betty and Tom were going to the Bothy with us but they changed their minds, we were going to have breakfast on the porch but Regis changed his mind, and this was supposed to be a warm and sunny day. So who the f changed his mind about THAT? Ha! Right now, we can't see across the street for dense fog. It looks and feels like the moops. There have been some signs of spring, though. I wore sandals for the first time yesterday and the picture is of a tiny crocus blooming on the west side of the house. I'm surprised that the bunny didn't find it and eat it...they like those tender spring flowers. We hope to get the grill out today but I guess that will depend on the fog and damp. I have scallops and some ribs ready. That will be the last straw if I have to make meatloaf for dinner instead. Harrumph. Maybe we should just go to Hermie's to drink Grain Belt and play buck euchre.

We saw some great bluegrass music last night. A group called Hit and Run Bluegrass from Colorado played at the Bothy in Mankato. Amazing that you can hear such good music in such a small venue. There were less than a hundred people there and we paid fourteen dollars for a ticket. This is not your grandma's bluegrass music either. The website calls it hard drivin' and I guess it is. Some of the band members were very young...twenty-five years old. And the Bothy shows start early so we were home by 10:30. The problem with so many live music shows is that they don't start until 9 or after and we run out of steam by about 10. We've talked to a few people in bands, suggesting a set that starts at 5 or 6. Doesn't that make sense?

I finally got the St. Patrick's Day detritus put away. The Irish coffee mugs are stowed and the green shamrock glasses put in a box with the cookie cutters, green kitchen towels, and the table linens. Now I can get out the Easter lights and bunny rabbits. I love holidays. I'm thinking about my Easter menu and thinking that I'll do something simpler. Maybe scalloped potatoes in the crock pot with a spiral cut ham and rolls. And sugar cookies.

I found a website dedicated to holidays. What a surprise...there are probably ten thousand of them. Everybody's got a website, a blog, and a MySpace page. Regis said this morning that blogs have gone mainstream. Even the Dalai Lama has one. Today is Houdini Day, this being his birthday. The 22nd was Goof-Off Day and I'm really sorry I missed it.

New Day

What a difference a sunny day makes in a guy's mood. Today was crisp and bright and beautiful. Busy...but with all this other, it was tolerable. It helped that Ella spent the afternoon and evening with us. What a funny little character. She's talking more now so when I started to get her out of the car to visit Betty, she said "Betty" and "Gonzo". Tom made fried potatoes and she loved them. She'd eat one and point at the bowl for more. We went to the library and Regis read to her and followed her around while I went to a meeting. She loves other little kids so she toddled after them dragging her pink blankie. When we got home, I gave her the Easter hat and purse that Grandma Shirley sent for her. I wish we had taken pictures but taking care of baby and all baby's stuff is a complete two-man job. No way we could manage a camera, too.
Just a little sports commentary. What's up with this Tubby Smith? How can anyone take seriously a grown man who lets himself be called Tubby? Of course, I could make a whole long list of men in this town who go by goofy nicknames they had in fifth grade...not mentioning any names. Maybe it's a man thing and what the hell anyway.

Wednesday at Dino's

It's been a very long and stressful week. Regis and I met up in Mankato after haircuts to go to Dino's, our favorite pizza place. From the website: Dino's in North Mankato recreates every detail of a classic New York pizzeria, from checkered red tablecloths and hardwood floors to thin, foldable pizza crusts topped with homemade tomato sauce and freshly grated cheese. Modern innovations like lobster and artichoke find their way onto some of the restaurant's more daring pies, accompanied by a full menu of appetizers, pastas and salads. At the bar, patrons enjoy house wines and premium beer. It was foggy on my way over which scared the liver out of me. I was sure that a big truck would roll past, lose a wheel, and dump a load of steel rods onto the hood of my car...all real possibilities in my closet of anxieties. I ordered a glass of wine at Dino's without looking at the wine list. Big mistake. Eight dollars a glass. I started to cry and couldn't stop but I don't think it was the eight dollars. Could be strung out from work (I won't get started on that...) and the fact that I don't like March and I miss my kids. Tiffany just turned 22 on Sunday. I miss taking her shopping when she'd hold my hand. I miss Easter baskets. I miss picture books and birthday parties. I think it all comes flooding back in March when their birthdays come around. Regis says I should be glad for what I have and I try to be...I try to remember that fog is a blanket for spring flowers and tulips are waiting just beneath the dirt but I'm still sad.

Tiffany's Birthday and St. Patrick's Day Party

Tiffany is 22 years old today. Regis and I are going to Minneapolis to deliver presents and take her out to lunch. This picture was taken the day after she came from Korea to be our baby. She was awake all night...then slept all day.
This picture was taken when Tiffany was two years old. Happy birthday, Tiff!

We had a great turn-out for the party. A few people came before the parade, we had a Guinness to celebrate the day, then went down by Patrick's to watch the parade. There are more pictures ono my mac website. Doesn't Regis look good in his Donegal hat?
Tom Hynes and Betty McGraw were two of the best Irishmen at the party. Tom brought shamrock sunglasses for me and the cool cap for Regis. He taught us how to make a black and tan out of Harp and Guinness with a bent spoon. We couldn't figure out how to make the shamrock pattern in the top of the foam, though.
Joanne dressed in green for the party. Joanne's mom's maiden name was Hennessey but she didn't appreciate her Irish heritage. She said the Irish left Ireland for a good reason.
Here are the holiday cookies. I don't know how many dozen we had to start with but there are four cookies left so we can assume they were a hit. All the food turned out just fine. I was nervous...too many things to come together at the same time. I used two different recipes for the corned beef, but this was my favorite. The cabbage really needs to cook in the juice...and in this case, beer.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Regis heard a broadcast from Ireland yesterday on MPR. Apparently they celebrate St. Patrick's Day but it's a tradition of parades and parties they've gotten from Americans. I guess they don't eat corned beef either. I borrowed a couple of Irish cookbooks from Tom. I'll say it isn't the most appealing looking food those folks eat.

It's a flurry around here. I made four loaves of bread last night and Regis and I frosted cut-out shamrock cookies. My usual pattern before a party of big dinner is to get nervous that I don't have enough...sure enough...Regis had to trek back to Mankato for another corned beef brisket. I'm sure we'll be eating corned beef hash and Ruben soup until the 4th of July, but at least we won't run out of food today.

The parades at 3 so some people are coming for a pre-parade Guinness. Pictures and stories later! And it's Tiffany's 22nd birthday tomorrow so we're going up to take her out to lunch and to deliver some presents. Happy birthday to my baby girl!

It's a Goat's Life and Duke

These goats are named Ginger Jones and Jules Jones. They live in Washington. I've always loved goats. I love thier funny little eyes with the slits that are vertical and their funny little faces. I've never really known a goat personally but have visited one at the Sibley Park Zoo (the phrase "smells like a goat" is no accidental turn of words) and always visit the ones at the Nicollet County Fair. I stumbled onto this blog that has great goat pictures and stories: http://goatcentral.blogspot.com

I saw my friend Mary today and she reminded me of the time I brought bread out to her house after her mom died. I had two loaves in a large Penney's shopping bag. As I got out of the car, Duke, her yellow lab came out of the garage to escort me into the house. Duke was really interested in what I had in the bag and kept sticking his head in to smell. Mary yelled at him and he would pull his head out for a second but he was right on my heels. As I went through the door into the house, Duke ripped the side of the bag and took off with a beautiful loaf of dark oatmeal bread. Mary and Al yelled for him to drop it and good bird dog that he is, he did. I scooped it up and dusted it off. Mary said Duke thought it was a duck so he didn't even leave a scratch. I'm sure the after-funeral guests didn't even notice a little dog spit on their bread.

Getting Ready for St. Patrick's Day or Can We Buy Enough Corned Beef (or beer) for This Crowd?

We're having a St. Patrick's Day party, as you may know if you are a regular Buns of Stone reader. I told Regis (and he was not surprised) that I was getting anxious about not having enough corned beef. I bought seven pounds but this is the pattern...I always get nervous about three days before a party and start buying more food like a crazy person. I'm using a recipe from the food network, although not from Emerill. The menu has been fixed as follows:

Corned Beef and Cabbage
Boiled Potatoes and Carrots
Scotch Eggs
Irish Oatmeal Bread
Irish Coffee
And of course, Guinness and Harp for appetizer and dessert. I think I'll make some big cut-out sugar cookie shamrocks with green frosting and sprinkles but they aren't really Irish so I can't put them on the official menu.

I don't have a lot of Irish in my gene pool. I believe my paternal grandfather, Hassa Saum, was Irish. Regis has no Irish in his background at all...he's Polish and German. His maternal side had the family name of Bogacka which is the feminine form and Bogatzky being the masculine form. They sure liked to conserve those vowels. But they don't have parades for the Poles here...the Norwegians either for that matter although now that I think about it I might have a party for Syettende Mai. What the hell.

I picked up two new books at the library. I finally figured out to put books on hold so it's really handy. I have Jim Harrison's new book Returning to Earth and Let Me Finish by Roger Angell. The Angell book has this for a description: Intimate, funny, and moving portraits form this book's centerpiece as Angell remembers his eccentric relatives, his childhood love of baseball in the time of Ruth and Gehrig and DiMaggio, and his vivid colleagues during his long career as a "New Yorker" writer and editor. The last memoir I read was a complete dud so I hope this one is better.

Jim Harrison is one of my favorite authors and this is what Publisher's Weekly said about his book: Dying at 45 of Lou Gehrig's disease, Donald, who is Chippewa- Finnish, dictates his family story to his wife, Cynthia, who records this headlong tale for their two grown children. Donald's half-Chippewa great-grandfather, Clarence, set out from Minnesota in 1871 at age 13 for the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. In Donald's compellingly digressive telling, Clarence worked the farms and mines of the northern Midwest, and arrived in the Marquette, Mich., area 35 years later. As Donald weaves the tale of his settled life of marriage and fatherhood with that of his restless ancestors, he reveals his deep connection to an earlier, wilder time and to a kind of people who are "gone forever." The next three parts of the novel, each narrated by a different member of Donald's family, relate the story of Donald's death and its effects.

We have the movie Babel but man, that seems like work. Has anybody watched that and actually enjoyed it? I think I'd rather wait for Benny and Joon or Kinky Boots. We voted and Babel will have to wait for another night.

End of Weekend

It was nice enough this afternoon that I took a notion to clean up the porch. We don't use it much in the winter because there aren't heat ducts out there. This time of year, it starts to warm up enough that we can sit out there for about a couple hours mid-afternoon. The sun was coming in the east window, Kramer was lying on the back of the couch soaking up the rays, and I could see the dust was thick. I got done just in time for us to sit down and read the paper before it clouded up and cooled off. At least the porch is clean if it's warm enough on St. Patrick's Day.

Tom and Betty brought a box full of goodies down last night and we did fondue for dinner. Do you do fondue or have fondue? Or is fondue the verb? We fondued. That doesn't sound right either. In any case, we had little bits of rib-eye steak, Cuban bread, vegetables (there were lots of those left) and swiss cheese. We cooked the bread and meat in oil, then in the cheese. For dessert we had strawberries and bananas in chocolate ganache. It smelled like the State Fair in here this morning but it brought back good memories.

When I was in college my friend, Mike Erickson, called that curious dread of Monday that you get on Sunday night, the Sunday psychosis. If you've ever worked, you know what it is. Not that you hate your job but it's the sudden feeling that all the things that go along with working as opposed to leisure are going to slam down on you again the next day. I keep checking my lottery tickets but Lyn says her chances of getting the money by accident are about as good as my winning. Guess I have to keep working, Sunday psychosis or not.

We watched The Prestige this afternoon. It was good but I didn't like it as well as The Illusionist. It was a little too much work to watch. I had to keep checking with Regis to make sure I wasn't missing something. In the end I was annoyed more than entertained. Last night we watched Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. It's about three drag queens who head out across the outback of Australia in a bus. Very strange but there were some great lines.

A Spot of Bother (Mark Haddon) on the other hand, is great. George watched his wife walk into the kitchen in the morning and wondered how he could love this woman with the witch hair and wattles. I laughed right out loud. It's a little dark and twisted but the British humor is hilarious. It would make a god movie but there are too many off-color parts and too much general weirdness. I don't think it would play well in the Midwest. I hate it when the text in a post doesn't fit right with a picture so I'm going to keep writing and try to get this sentence to go to the bottom of the book graphic. There.