I've been working so much this week that I haven't had time to write about the Ford funeral. (Or not time to write about it for my blog. I've definitely spent time writing about it, or trying to write about it.)

I know next to nothing about Ford. About every fifth time I think about him I think his name is Henry Ford. Until this evening I was pretty sure he served after LBJ. I think I know more about Betty Ford. She's the one with the clinics.

But why his death is exciting (excuse the morbidity) is the whole state funeral. I was in DC when the last president (Reagan) died for my study abroad (okay, study off-campus). And, to add to that, we were also reporters, so that meant we really dug into the whole thing (or had the chance to. I chose to run away from the parade when there was a false bomb scare at the Capitol. But I did see the plane salute from the roof).

What I really remember, other than hearing the stories of my classmates who actually did cool journalist things, is standing in line to view the coffin at the lying in state at the Capitol rotunda. I don't remember that much about seeing the actual coffin -- it's the standing in line I remember. It took six hours. But six hours in a I'll-remember-this-forever sense and not a this-sucks sense. Laura Keith and I got in line at 8:15ish p.m. after an eight-block walk from my dorm. At 2:30 a.m. we were in the rotunda. As we left the Capitol you could look down the mall and all you could see was lines of people (the line would zigzag the length of each block 12 times before moving onto the next), and you knew the ones way at the end might never get in because rumor had it they were closing at 6 a.m. And there were so many people. And they were America.

ha

I love it -- two big papers have been taking jabs at each other all year. The Pioneer Press was recently sold and more recently took significant cuts in its newsroom staff. Today, the Star Tribune announced it had been sold to a company that owns no other dailies. Their articles on the sale are very different -- and therefore very funny.

The Strib says:

The McClatchy Co. capped a year of dramatic changes in the newspaper industry Tuesday by announcing the surprise sale of the Star Tribune, its largest newspaper, to a private investment group.

The $530 million sale will place the future of Minnesota's dominant newspaper in the hands of Avista Capital Partners, a New York-based partnership of former investment bankers. It also continues a trend that accelerated this year in which large newspaper companies, such as McClatchy, Knight Ridder and Tribune, either winnowed their holdings or put themselves up for sale. Private owners have emerged to bid for many of the big-city papers that have come into play as a result.

McClatchy has played a major role in that change, agreeing to buy all of Knight Ridder Inc. last spring. Sacramento, Calif.-based McClatchy then sold a number of the Knight Ridder papers it considered to be less desirable, including the St. Paul Pioneer Press, which is now run by privately held MediaNews Group Inc. of Denver.

Those sales concluded by the fall, however, and the Star Tribune had not been viewed within the industry as a candidate for sale.

McClatchy paid $1.2 billion for the newspaper in 1998. Although its circulation and advertising results in the past several years had run into the same headwinds that other large dailies have encountered, the Star Tribune remains solidly profitable.

And the Pioneer Press says:

Newspaper publisher The McClatchy Co. said on Tuesday that it will sell its flagship newspaper Star Tribune to a private equity firm for $530 million, a sharp drop from the $1.2 billion it paid to acquire the newspaper just eight years ago.

McClatchy said it decided to sell the newspaper to Avista Capital Partners through a private bidding process "after a strategic reevaluation of its portfolio of holdings" following McClatchy's purchase of Knight Ridder for $4.5 billion earlier this year.

McClatchy faces a large tax bill from selling off 12 other newspapers earlier this year as part of its purchase of Knight Ridder. It said the tax benefit of selling the Star Tribune at a loss is worth $160 million, raising the total value of the deal to $690 million.

McClatchy chairman and CEO Gary Pruitt said in a written statement that the Star Tribune "is a profitable business that has generated significant returns for the company over the years. However, as we continue to analyze our business following the Knight Ridder acquisition, it became clear that selling the Star Tribune strengthens McClatchy's competitive position."

scratch 'n sniff Jesus

Some background info:

1.Once I spent a week in Chicago with a group learning about the the workings of a city. The trip isn't pertinent, but one of the trip leaders is. One morning he lined us up looking out the windows in a sixth-floor room. Then he prayed and asked us to join him, but with our eyes open. I like that best now -- praying with my eyes open, looking especially at textures, to sink in that this God I'm addressing was once of this dry, patterned flesh. If I close my eyes, it's easy to conjure up a film character instead.

2.A church in the suburbs did this "Christian haunted house" when I was in high school. It portrayed Hell, and you walked along from room to room and it was horrible. They'd have to move many people in the middle of a room out of the building because they couldn't handle it.

It would be neat to see a scratch 'n sniff Jesus ... well, display's not the word. Something where they're reading a story -- maybe even showing, maybe -- from one of the gospels, and instead of just seeing, it uses your other senses. (This is not for evangelical purposes according to this proposal.) For example, you're hearing (and maybe seeing) the story of the Last Supper and you stick your hand in something and feel/smell Jesus washing dirty feet. Then you hold the chalice and taste the bread and wine. Another spot, you might smell the alabaster jar's contents as it's broken. Feel nails in his hands (ick), mud on un-seeing eyes, feel the water Jesus walked on, a basket of loaves and fishes, hold the baby wrapped in swaddling clothes, smell the stable, feel the rough hay of the manger. Feel his face. The crown of thorns. See his hairy arms. Smell his B.O.

There we are. You're right, the other one was trippier.

The problem with working so late is that my brain is still wound up when I get home, so I have to stay up even later doing nothing to wind it down. So now ... I guess I'll read a book.

Clearly I did not edit this picture as well as I had planned to before I left work. Point: Trees are icy.

• I do not appreciate being prompted to sign in with "new blogger" or "old blogger," as if being an "old blogger" is worse than relying entirely on cassette tapes, during a week when there are so many dirty dishes on my counter.
• My new project at work is cleaning up our mug shot/head shot computer filing system. Right now there are at least four locations to find a mug: the folder "mugs" on Server A, "mugs in use" on Server A, "mugs to tone" on Server A, or folders (with nearly but not quite identical contents) by the same name on Server B within files X and J. Example of chaos: Yesterday I found that within "mugs" is "zzServerNewsMugsToSave" and within that is another folder and within that one is a folder called "column mugs" including hundreds of photos. Of course, the system includes multiple copies of the same mug, and multiple versions in black and white, and multiple shots of the same person. The system also includes all sorts of file names. I have no idea how you would ever find what you were looking for. Examples: "PS1830 Heitter, Jane 7/17" and "Jane" and "Jane col.mugs" would likely all exist and lead to the same thing that you'd never think of. And they would all feature Jane weighing 100 pounds more with a different hair color. We are finding that we have thousands of mug shots filed away, though again there are many multiples, many old shots -- some from people who graduated the year before me when they were high school seniors.
• The rest of December will be weeks from you-know-where with early holiday print deadlines. This week we will produce four papers in five days. Next week it will be three in four days. The week after will calm down with two in four days (normally three in five), but in between at least two key people are going on vacation. So, if you are on holiday break, you'd better darn well be appreciating it. ;)

A few weeks ago I went to a meeting for those interested in joining or leading a small group. I figured that would be a good way to meet people -- not that I am in desperate need of meeting people. I'm not lonely here and see plenty of people. If I did make a new friend, I'm not quite sure where I would find the time to hang out with them.

I didn't enjoy the meeting for a number of reasons -- 1) there wasn't really anyone else my age, and those older than me didn't really seem that interested in getting to know me; 2) I just did not have the passion for God or the church that I should have, or that others had; 3) I guess that's all the numbers there are.

The second reason aside -- well, really both reasons aside -- at least one speaker's point stuck out at me. She said that one rule of being in a small group is that you have to presume that you are welcome. It was a good point. And this is not something that I'm good at. I don't know why it is that in most situations -- barring those groups in which I know my role -- I subconsciously presume myself unwelcome.

Back to the second reason -- I really don't know what's wrong with me.

the thing about colds

The thing about colds is they always come in pairs -- or more. The news clerk got a cold a few days before me. The photographer got one the same day as me. The editor got one the day after me. The sports guy and reporter are steering clear of all of us.

The thing about colds is you're constantly worried about spreading germs -- to the point where you retrace all your steps with a can of Lysol. Or others use your things only while lining their hands with Kleenex and then using large dollops of hand sanitizer.

The thing about colds when you work in my field of ... work is that when you get sick, they say, "Well, that's too bad. When will page 4 be done?" Because likely there isn't anyone else to do your job, or if there is they're sick too.

The thing about colds is they're constantly mutating. Once you've found the remedy for one symptom, another just comes about.

I lost my voice! I never have before so right now it's really fun to try to talk to myself and see what comes out. I didn't even know it had happened before until I was trying to hum something. If someone tries to call me on the phone, though, this won't be quite as fun.

I most decidedly have a cold.

It's not so bad, though. It really is good timing, if a cold can ever come at a good time. We had a really tight paper to deal with yesterday and I had the A section half done by early afternoon -- I could have been out of there as early as 9:10 but dawdled awhile with webbing stories. And today there's nothing to do but be.

That being said, I'm sure you know how frustrating it is when your nose is stuffy and you blow it and blow it and it just gets stuffier. At least I never get sick for more than a couple of days -- it'll be all gone by Monday. And it's kind of fun to be sick once in a while, just to do nothing and take naps and eat chicken noodle soup (though I spilled 1/4 on the floor while I was taking it out of the microwave).

I went over to my parents' for a few hours in the afternoon to get my turn signal fixed. A batch of Christmas cookies had just come out of the oven! Later on I just laid on the couch there under a thick blanket and looked out the huge windows -- it's a great view, especially when you're laying down. Then you can't see the yard and the highway and the neighboring homes. It's just a six-window view of mature evergreens tops and the giant, bare maple, whose branches almost touch the house. It felt quite luxurious.

A meteorologist has just expressed excitement about one city in the state that has achieved the warmest windchill: 15 degrees.

Then he said this will be the warmest day of the next three.

BRRRRR

My furnace does not seem to be working -- I've asked it to go as warm as 72 and it's giving me 57. It's just as well, as half the time I don't even try to turn it on. If I'm home, I'm wearing a blanket anyhow.

It is now officially cold. The temperature is not supposed to rise above 25 for the entirety of the coming week. People are not only zipping up their coats and remembering their mittens, but digging out hats and scarves, too. And wearing them regardless of how stupid they feel they may look. I've taken to leaving my hat on in the office if I know I'm leaving again within a half hour.

It is now officially the Christmas season, as well. This is because a) of the concert Thursday, b) the beginning of December, c) the beginning of advent, d) the temperature plunge and e) the beginning of Christmas party schedule. For work, I have a Christmas party every weekend this month except for the weekend of Christmas, when I will be working. It makes me think of the dual government system: First there is the corporate Christmas party, which will be the fanciest affair and is farthest away. Next comes the local party just for our office. Last is one co-worker's private shindig.

Last year I didn't deck out the apartment much. If no one's seeing it but me, who really cares? I did rescue Douglas the Talking Fir from his box last week. His fate this December is still unknown. Perhaps I'll set him out somewhere with my wind-up Christmas doll that sings something from the Sound of Music -- they're quite a pair.

perk/ins

My new position means I now have "status." And status means perks. The latest perks were two tickets to the concert no one can get tickets to and a free expensive meal.

The "no ones" who can't get the tickets are mainly people in this town. And the concert is a classical Christmas one, but still. They're perpetually sold out for a reason. And we were lucky as heck the whole way through.

We showed up at the dinner late and missed the speaker. Yay! Finishing dinner late, we then were facing a long walk over to the concert -- except that we accidentally found the shuttle over. And then the line to get to our seats was the shortest. And they were THE BEST seats, seventh row floor center. (My sister said they were the best seats she's ever had to anything.) On the way out of the concert we caught a shuttle back to where we parked, and because we were the only car coming out of a small lot the cars in the long line took strange pity on us and we missed all the traffic!

And then the concert was worth any trouble we could have faced, anyhow.

There are several full choirs and an orchestra. Once again I found myself with a bizarre appreciation for the brass. There's something special about watching how an instrumental ensemble works together -- whole is greater than the sum of its parts and all that. Dozens of pairs of eyes all focused on one conductor to direct their lives and make harmony from the chaos. Everyone following the rules. Everyone with a common goal. Everyone cooperating.

One piece was called "Christus Paradox."
You, the everlasting instant
You, whom we both scorn and crave

Another was "Arise, Shine."
What joy to know, when life is past
The Lord we love is first and last

Then there were some classics written by a former resident of this town. They ended as usual with a piece that the NWC choir also ends with, except in the spring. I could tell I was home, though, when I heard it here -- I always think Dr. Holm sets it too fast. But of course I would think that -- I first heard it here, slow. And in my mind other choirs sing that song at all because they sing it here. But that's just the vanity talking. :)

There were lots of other songs, too, of course, including one Danish carol that the audience was supposed to sing along on, only there wasn't any tune written out. Yet about half the audience seemed to know it as well as "Jingle Bells." Megan and I decided we have to brush up on our Danish before we go again.

The mouse has been caught.
The ceiling began caving in because it is so wet from the leaks from the roof. The editor began tearing pieces out to guarantee it would happen while someone was there to clean it up.
One staff writer's desk had to be evacuated.
People were kind and donated their trash cans to the cause of catching water. When the custodienne came in last night she had very few actual cans of trash left to empty.
Because water was leaking through the light fixtures, the entire editorial department will be in the dark until further notice.

the fabric of this world

The unexpected has finally happened: I have finally finished quilting my sister's quilt. This has been a three-year process (because I was not diligent).

This means that it is finally time for a new project! The new quilt is one for my bed that matches the colors in Van Gogh's (? that suddenly sounds wrong) "La Chambre."

I've spent this weekend inventorying my currently-owned fabrics. Yesterday afternoon I sorted through my tub-o-fabric.

You have to understand that my mother is a seamstress -- as in makes wedding dresses, made most of our clothes when we were little, sews doll clothes for fun. (We had well-dressed Barbies.) Sometimes I like to say that I grew up in fabric stores. They were one of those places where you did touch instead of just look. We'd wander through the aisles of sequined and furry fabrics when we were little, or find the ugliest print we could, or decide which we would use for our prom dresses some day.

Some of the scraps in my box I recognized from an old dress of my sister's (or her doll's). Those were fun to see. Going through my mom's scrap bags is far spookier. The long and short is I had enough scraps on hand to cut out a third of my pieces for the new one. I even sewed the first piece! :) Trouble is that sewing machines are noisy and downstairs neighbors aren't big fans of them. That will make this quilt tricky, since it all has to be done on machine.

I will try to take a picture in about a week after I have the first few squares done.

today, I saw a mouse

It's curious, isn't it, how something so tiny can do so much damage?

This afternoon the sports guy found a mouse "no bigger than your thumb" in the break room. Great, just what we needed -- we just finally got a new roof after months of serious and dangerous leaks. We're just beginning to get over widespread computer troubles. Now we are infested.

That office isn't big enough for the two of us, I joked -- only one of us was going to be there on Monday as far as I was concerned.

At the very least, the possibility of creaturely surprise caused me to do some serious desk cleaning before I left tonight.

At about 7 p.m., I stepped away from my cubicle to find some dinner. Apparently our tailed friend was through with dinner, because he was seated along the wall outside the editor's office. I indicated such to the editor and announced I was going -- immediately -- to dinner. As I picked up the pace I heard "Gotcha, you rascal!" and felt a bit of relief. Yet, where there is one mouse there are likely ... well, more than one.

That remains to be seen in our case. For the time being, somehow that one mouse that was caught managed to become un-caught before he could be escorted out, and he ran behind an unmmovable desk in the editor's office and has not come out since.

cultural learnings...

Right about now, little blond 100-percent Dutch children all over Northwest Iowa, Pella, Western Michigan and Holland itself are beginning to dream of Sinterklaas -- hopefully he will come and leave some almond patties and Dutch letters in their wooden shoes. Etc., etc.

Children in Minnesota are not so silly. The blond children here are typically Scandinavian -- they are busy wondering how many helpings of lutefisk and julekage their grandmothers will force them to consume this holiday season. Others are constantly reminding their mothers that the family simply must have lefse for both Thanksgiving and Christmas... and maybe every week while she's at it. (They are also swordfighting with Mother's lefse-rolling sticks.) The mothers are busy dreaming of their Swedish tea rings. Some cry out for krumkake, but most don't have the special iron for making them.

(Younger Swedish girls are also putting on airs because they get to play Santa Lucia in early December and wear fake candles on their head and a pretty white robe like Jesus might have had after he rose again.)

And the blond children here who are not Scandinavian are German, but most are both anyway. The German children know securely for the rest of their lives that their family holiday dinners will never contain a Tofurkey, for meat and potatoes are the staples of any reasonable household. German children sing "O Tannenbaum" and watch "The Nutcracker" with extra pride.

How about other ethnicities? What are your holiday traditions?

Maybe I won't miss the city council meetings that much after all. Tonight they seriously spent five minutes arguing about the number of the resolution in front of them.

CBS's CSI: NY

Channel-flipping (and ironically, I get in fewer stations than in NW IA), I settled upon CSI: NY. What ticked me off was that halfway through, they talk about a contest. You text-message your choice for who the killer might be given three options. That's lovely, but now viewers know with half an hour left in the show that it can only be one of three people. Then I didn't like how they ended it, or at least didn't like how the characters reacted to the ending.

My new job means I need to alter my sleeping schedule to a little later -- two nights a week I'll work 'til sometimes the wee hours of the morning.

Our dog is getting old, and it's sad. Today my mom took her for a walk and when I went home to do my laundry this afternoon, she wasn't even using one of her front legs because it hurt so bad. I gave her an aspirin in some ham, and half an hour later she still couldn't make it up the stairs on her own. Half an hour after that, she could barely stand up at all. We even had to rearrange normal seats at the dinner table to accomodate where she happened to have laid. After dinner, she did manage to get up but just sniffed around for crumbs and limped around to lay on the other side of the table.

For awhile before I gave her that aspirin, she just wanted to be petted and petted. It was kind of unusual for her. So I petted her for awhile, and sang her some songs. I hope she's feeling better tomorrow.

"The Incredibles" is an incredible animated film -- impressive all the way around.

snow!

They said on the weather last night that they could get six inches of snow between Rochester and LaCrosse, but little to none in the metro. I woke up this morning and looked out the window from my bed and since it was still dark it was hard to see if the trees had any sort of coating or were just reflecting lights.

Got up and looked out another window ... the cars are slightly buried! The news says we have seven inches here, but that seems a little high to me. Nevertheless, a high-quality first snow overall: unexpected, thick enough to cover the ground, with light winds, and fell overnight so that you wake up to a transformed world. I am well pleased. Just wish I didn't have so much crap to get done today.

Just yesterday I was riding in the car and decided the world was looking like God was fiddling with "desaturate" in his version of Photoshop. But it looked neat.

'bout them big decisions

Wynia, I'm sick of big decisions. You're welcome to mine. :)

But thanks for the prayers all the same -- they were felt. This week I got ANOTHER new job. I almost didn't take it because I'm tired of switching jobs so often, but it was a promotion and a raise and one of those chances you can't really pass up.

And, this week I got a new loveseat and chair. Both comfy and both blue. The chair is one of those rocking gliders, and I'm excessively fond of rockers. Almost as much as porch swings -- almost.

This week was also elections, as you well know. Being a twice-weekly paper that prints Tuesday nights, we didn't get to go to bed until the results came in, which didn't conclude until midnight. I became frustrated because most of the Democrats I voted for lost and most of the Republicans I voted for also lost. There was at least one huge upset here and one really, incredibly, senseless choice on the part of the voters. This is not an answer based on partiality -- it really was clearly an uninformed decision, because the person they all voted for didn't campaign at all! He was not at all contactable -- I've called him more than 20 times -- and he didn't attend candidate forums and ... yeah. Apparently people have been sending flowers and sincere condolences to the losing candidate, who has run for office several times and is probably more informed than half of the actual councilmen. Whether or not you agree with him, at least he's involved and responsive.

"Won't you pray for me? (And I'll pray for you)..."

But seriously. More decision-making today. Thanks. :)
And heaven help us all as we vote.

Last night at church one of the preschoolers looked up at me and my mom from his coloring page and said, "Hey, you guys talk the same." That was a very perceptive thing for a four-year-old to notice, as he didn't know that we were related and we don't look alike.

Today the governor stopped through town and he went off about how the media spins every story to the negative. Good thing I was already not voting for him.

Today is a holiday, but it was a far from festive mood most of the day at our office. We found out our news editor was quitting yesterday and today we all had to talk with a news editor candidate. I think that caught us all off-guard because we were told advertisements didn't go out until yesterday. And the photographer was in a foul mood, causing the rest of us to be generally silent so we wouldn't get our heads bitten off. The things he was upset about were valid, though.

But we did have a company potluck today. I was one of several who decided to bring potato chips. Someone brought Special K bars so it was all good in the end.

I didn't mean to buy a new book. It just sort of happened.

Right where you walk into the bookshop they plant the bargain table. It sucks you in. "Oh, I could get this book on medieval ostrich farming (or what have you) for less than what my lunch cost," you think. Overlooked is the fact you haven't opened your two library books yet and you have a full shelf of other bargains you splurged on and then promptly neglected.

But come on -- 75 percent off? Too good to resist.

And then there were at least three things I spied walking from the entrance to the cash register that need to go on my Christmas list.

Buying books is kind of ridiculous to start with. You can only read so many at a time. And you'll only read them so often. And you only have so much space to put them in. And they're darn heavy when you try to put them in boxes.

And they're highly flammable.

There's something about chattering teeth that reinforces intelligent design for me.

on tour

So, I can't sound off about my town. At least you can look at it.

This is an artists rendering of the heart of downtown.


This is the church we lived near when I was really little.


This is part of the river we never got tired of watching when we were little.


This is another view of downtown.


These are more views of the river.




These are the actual tables from the shop I worked at in high school.

dear Google, my hero

Yay for Google -- it has single-handedly solved a hole in my genealogical work, first identifying an individual's father's name and THEN revealing the individual's wife's maiden name! Really. This is thrilling stuff. It had been driving me nuts and I'd more or less given up on ever finding out that one last paternal great-great-grandmother's maiden name.

Today, for almost the first time in two months, I wondered what I am doing in this profession.

There are really two reasons for that. First, it was a not-very-busy day after a hectic week, and when I'm not challenged my mind goes to pot.

Second, what I actually have been doing is interviewing candidates for various offices on the November ballot. This is both a rewarding and tedious task. Reward: I get to know much better individuals (well, men -- they're all men) who are in public office or who are community leaders that want to be in public office. This initiates relationships and potentially makes my life easier in the future.

However, it also means listening to half a dozen versions of what's wrong with ****town and half a dozen visions for its future. The problems seem so overwhelming when you hear about them all day long.

One guy today -- he was nice, he had the best of intentions, but the things he wanted his local government office to accomplish are things not even the federal government could really control.

A fact of life as a journalist -- your work is never done. What you did one day you will do all over again the next. You witness firsthand as problems are solved and created.

I wish I could write more about this city, but I'm too afraid people from here would find my blog. Another person today talked about what a small town this is, and I wanted to stop and interrupt him. This is not a small town. It's freaking bigger than LeMars. But small's all relative. It is the smallest town around with its own school district.

I think I'm going to learn to drink tea. Winter is a good time for that.

the weekend alphabet

Apples were crisp
Bought a new hairdryer
Collected my sister’s junk mail
Decided to sleep in Sunday… and woke up at 6:30
Ended up sitting next to a city official at church
Finished work at 7:30 on Friday
Got confused about who a person was who wanted to be my friend on Facebook
Headlines on my stories in Saturday’s paper were not accurate
Ignored my dirty dishes
Just relaxed some
Kristin talked to me!
Laundered my clothing
Made soup (from a can)
Neglected to come up with a Halloween costume
Overcharged for the parking ramp
Put away clean dishes
Quilted a bit
Read old censuses
Shivered
Transported a dress my mom altered to the dress owner
Used my sister’s cable TV
Visited the Historical Society Library!
Watched lots of movies
eXamined the printer cartridge, which appears to be empty
Yanked one of my blankets from my mom’s house
Zonked out early

There's a Facebook group called "You Know You're From Wisconsin If..." and most of the things in the list also apply to Minnesota and probably the midwest as a whole. Or maybe it seems that way to me because my dad and sister are Wisconsin natives. Included are the following:

You carry jumper cables in your car
You design your Halloween costume to fit over a snowsuit (I'd add "and you can cite how the '90s Halloween Blizzard affected your life.")
Driving is better in the winter because the potholes are filled with snow.
You know all four seasons: Almost Winter, Winter, Still Winter, and Construction.
You measure distance in minutes.
Your school classes were cancelled because of cold.
Your school classes were canceled because of heat.
You hear someone use the word "uffda" and you don't immediately break into uncontrollable laughter.
You know what "cow tipping" and "snipe hunting" are.
A brat is something you eat.
At every wedding you have been to you have had to dance the hoky poky and the chicken dance.
Sunday afternoons are sacred for the Packer game.
You have experienced snow storms in May.
You have had school closed due to wind chills and frostbite warnings.
You or someone you know was a "Dairy Princess" at a county fair.
The trunk of your car doubles as a deep freezer. (It's the porch at my house. We really miss that extra space during the summer.)

I would add that Jell-O qualifies as a salad without question or even a giggle. Roof and woof rhyme. "Bag" sounds like "Mag" in "Magazine." You shop in the cities, plural. Which city it is is not important. Add "Twin" if you're speaking formally or just say "St. Paul" if it's a local. Use "Minneapolis" if addressing an out-of-stater. Chances are all your relatives want to visit the Mall of America and they've been there more often than you have, anyway. If you aren't part Scandinavian, you're part German. But you are not 100 percent anything -- and if you are, people think you are trying to show off. And your three-season porch is only useable two days a year -- it's always way too hot or way too cold.

One thing about Minnesota that all schoolchildren appreciate: two days in mid-October.

Each year, all the public schools in the state are closed on a Thursday and Friday for what's called MEA. I guess it's two days that the state education association meets, though I've never heard of any teacher who goes to it. Still, all across the state you know no one's in school those two days. Kind of unique. Usually the district I grew up in works it out so that at least part of Wednesday, or sometimes more, are also off. One year we had the whole week.

more hodge-podging

My roommate got married this weekend. It was one of the happiest weddings I believe I've ever been to. There were emotions on so many levels because her family has been through so much, and yet she is one of the most giving, beautiful friends you could ask for. When she walked down the aisle and the pianist broke into... I don't even remember what it was, but it was a truly joyous piece, you couldn't help but be so excited and so happy for her moment. Hanging out with other roommates for almost two days was an added joy. You've got to love being known.

Craziness -- there were two murders in, of all places, Hawarden this weekend. Very glad not to be there for that. And it sounds like the suspects lived in my apartment complex... ha ha. My co-workers (current) didn't think it was that funny.

Two city employees here have resigned in the last week. One I knew faintly and appreciated much. The second I just met today and am very sad to see I will not get to know better. Somehow we got around to talking about what I had been reading lately, which, sadly, was pretty much nothing, for which I felt ashamed. Lots of excuses -- but good ones. I have not been wasting my time. It just does not happen to be invested in reading. The end of this was a good thought on that subject.

I could complain some more about the time we're wasting at work in "training" -- today on a new phone system that is unnecessarily complex. The lady sitting next to me is 85 years old and quite a trooper but you could see in her eyes she realized this was a waste of time, especially hers. We will lose 4.5 hours this week to training. And this is not a good week for that.

The cover to my cocoa tin has mysteriously vanished. Driving me a little nutty.

As usual, all hell broke loose here this afternoon. Just as I feel like I've got a handle on my story budget (schedule) for the rest of the week. :)

So, it did snow. Heavy flurries might be a better term. It was cold enough that some would stay on the ground but there just weren't enough of them to amount to much. It was darn windy, though. The photographer and I were complaining to each other all afternoon about having to go to a ribbon-cutting for a dog park in the freezing cold, but when we got there I know I had fun. I could tell he was pretty excited about the shots he got, too. I left with dog slobber on the cuffs and edges of my newly-dry cleaned winter coat. The photographer was smart and came in a change of clothes.

Life, you know. At times it is apparent how many things you really do know. And then there are other moments where heavy piles of paper and books come piling down around you and the acronyms come flying out of the woodwork and confidence is gone again.

Today my old boss called and asked where some things were located in the office. There were the normal questions about how I was liking my job, etc. It's so strange to think back at life before September (so very long ago). Kind of painful, kind of happy, kind of like 2005-06 was two and a half years ago.

Today my mom gave me leftover chili. A true mom, it could not be given without packing it in a paper sack with chips and cheese and a spoon. And she made me lunch and helped me try to conquer an ink stain on my WEEK OLD cords. And she told me the outfit I was thinking about wearing was not flattering on me. :) And then she had to give me a kiss before I left even though she saw me three days ago and will see me in another three. Maybe a bizarre topic for some -- I grew up almost always giving my parents a kiss on the cheek when giving them a hug. Like it was all part of the same action. Is that strange? When I sit and think about it, kisses were a notable point in my childhood. Another story.

Tomorrow! Tomorrow!

:) It's going to snow tomorrow.

It's not going to stick on the ground, but snowflakes are going to fall on our bit of earth. I am one of those people that people hate that likes snow. Hey, this is Minnesota. Snow is a fact of life. The leaves are done changing, a large portion are gone -- why not bring it on?

Although, I will reiterate, the first snow is best in the dusk/dark and lightly falling(at least at the beginning) and without much wind. And you need a good panoramic window to sit and watch it, one overlooking some sort of light source.

But those things cannot be controlled. Wednesday at noon is fine, too. With much wind. A cleaned-out garage to park my car in would be a nice touch.

Ariel, genius that she is, brought her favorite winter coat to the dry cleaner's this week. It won't be done for two days. She shall have to meet the first snow in her other coat.

Meanwhile, it is cold inside. Last night I had to add yet another blanket!

A big dog and a little dog are having a barking war either downstairs or next door. I've put my ear to the wall and the floor and I can't decide where it's coming from so I don't know whether to pound on the wall or stomp on the floor. A better idea would be to decide not to be bothered by it. Dogs bark. I'm not trying to sleep... yet.

People knock the city government beat -- say how boring it must be -- but I'll admit I am pretty enraptured for the duration of any given meeting. Granted, there gets to be a point in most meetings where you can feel the issue has dragged on far longer than necessary and now it's time that everyone should be home. But still. I admire city staff so much -- they put up with a ton of crap for things that are primarily not their fault. They get overworked and underpaid because their salary is another thing subject to public scrutiny. Meanwhile, the council is constantly adding to the work they already have.

The council itself is also a fun little unit, though. It takes all six of those people to disagree with each other just so to come up with the result they do each week.

Freaking dogs. They shut up for a while and then one of them barks and then they're both going at it again. Where are their owners at 11:30 at night that they're not both hearing this and annoyed by it?

one of those days

Some days, you know.

You're actually motivated, for once, to get cracking on the dozen assignments weighing on your mind. (And your co-worker went to California and left you some of her mess, too. And you're still not sure about "selling revenue bonds" but you're pretty sure you've got down "capital improvement projects.")

But no. There are hours and hours of things that must occupy your time instead -- like corporate training. (Training us to do our job -- while taking away from our time to actually do it. Bitter? No. Did I need to drive half an hour away to watch an outdated video of people telling me it's important to write solid summary leads but not actually how to do it if I didn't already know how? And it was also crucial to get handouts of master journalists' tips -- masters who can't punctuate or proofread their tip lists.) At least there were decent blueberry scones. I think the idea behind the training has merit, but the execution might leave some room to be desired.

Getting there was fun, too. Every week I have to go to the county seat to get the sheriff's report, which is on the way to where corporate training was. Today I called the sheriff's secretary as usual before I left. She didn't pick up so I left a message I was coming -- she usually calls me back right away. But I get all the way there and still I haven't heard from her. Meanwhile, I realize I forgot to bring a newspaper for training. I'm not sure where in that town I can purchase my newspaper. And I don't have any change to buy it with either, so I need a bank. And I don't know where that is, either. :) And then the directions to the training were wrong.

After traning the news clerk and I joined the photographer and the sports guy and the sports guys from three other offices for lunch. It was kind of awkward, us two girls sitting there in the middle, but we're still alive. And fed.

AND THEN, there was a 401K informational meeting I forgot about. How nice for two major meetings to be scheduled in one day.

So it's 3:00 -- I've been on the clock five and a half hours and accomplished absolutely nothing toward tomorrow's issue.

Nevertheless, and despite my sarcasm, it was a pretty nice day. Got to know our new news clerk a little better -- we even have the same car, bless our poor little souls. (People stop and stare at me as I drive by now, the wheel is getting so squeaky.) Had a nice lunch and a nice supper, parce que Mom made my favorite stir fry and invited me to come eat it. Interviewed a family of a little girl with a genetic disorder, and they were so upbeat. Neat story. Weather's gorgeous again, maples are still clinging to their green leaves, it was pay day...

Started watching a really bizarre series called "The Singing Detective." I expected, you know, musicals, a mystery... so far it's this dirty old man in the hospital ward with a skin disease either remembering or hallucinating about a sleazy 40s nightclub where someone was clearly murdered but there's no indication "the detective" intended to pursue justice in any shape or form.

I think a dirty old man sexually harassed me at the gas station this morning -- verdict's still out on that one. Sometimes it's hard to tell if they are trying to be nice or sleazy.

Steve wrote that he loves thunderstorms. Let me take the opposing view. I believe it is underrepresented.

I don't love thunderstorms. In fact, I might go so far as to say I hate them. (This fact is aided by my fears of noise and fire and love of control.)

Yesterday the weather forecasters were predicting a night of doom and gloom in severe weather and possible tornadic activity. I believe in part they exaggerated the possible dangers because there have been some significantly destructive storms in the metro over the past month or two, some gaining national attention.

It didn't help things that before I left work my coworkers were freaking out about the possibility of large hail that night. (This town had a devastating hailstorm just over a month ago resulting in nearly every roof needing repair, if not replacement, and most cars being heavily dented or their glass shattered.) The photographer had just gotten his truck back from $6500 hail repair the day before and was signficantly worried about it getting wrecked again. (I think people are suffering post-traumatic stress disorder.)

It also didn't help that there are heavy pallettes of shingles sitting on top of my building roof. And that I live on the second floor of a building with no public entrance during a tornado watch.

And there was nothing good on TV.

So I went and hung out at home so I'd stop thinking about it. It worked. When I left there at 9 it still hadn't even started raining -- still hadn't at midnight... when I woke up I could at least see evidence that the pavement had been wet.

Do I overreact to storms? Yes. Do some people underreact? Yes.

Ha.

Why is the Beacon not online?...

simply fabulous

The color is starting to become amazing! I'll say it again -- fall in Iowa is in a different ballpark than fall in Minnesota/anywhere with trees.

This year seems to be a big one for orange leaves, which is a nice surprise. Typically they only make it to yellow before it freezes hard or a few days of heavy wind go through.

The challenge is determining whether your area is "peaking." What does peak look like? You wonder if this is the peak. Or maybe this. Or leaves falling -- maybe this looks like a lot of leaves falling. But then a day comes when A LOT of leaves are falling, enough that they're tangled in your hair and blowing in your door as you open it.

The sad thing about fall is you never know how long it will last. It's not unusual for the trees to go from reasonably full to empty in one day. Or some years the leaves won't have colored much at all before they go.

I use the family birthdays as a gauge of early and late falls. One year in particular, the leaves were pretty and falling on my mom's birthday (Oct. 14). The next day, my sister's birthday, it got blustery and the trees became bare.

Tonight was a fun night. A bunch of friends met at the best-ever sandwich shop for dinner and then came back to my apartment to bake cookies and just shoot the breeze for three hours. You've got to love those friends where you don't need anything but yourselves to have fun.

what's up this week

1. I took this picture when it was too sunny.

2. Everyone's been sick, so you've read. My mom thinks I have asthma -- she has a tendency to tell me these facts about my life which shock me but most of the time end up being true. I read up a little on asthma and it sounds entirely possibly I have the mildest case that exists and yet qualifies as asthma.

3. Our building roof is about to be redone. Did I write about the big hail storm? It was over a month ago now, but it damaged anything that was outdoors here, including over half the roofs in town, I'd wager. There are yard signs everywhere, but it's funny to say this year they're mostly roofing advertisments. :)

4. Helped my mom with her preschool group tonight. The kids were drawing about a time they had to be patient. (It's very risky to interpret 3-year-olds' artwork. Us: "Is that you?" Child: "No, that's my house!") One little girl drew about how she had to be patient while she waited for her waffles in the morning. The boy sitting next to her, what a coincidence, had to be patient waiting for his pancakes. Another girl said she had never had to be patient before, but her brother had. He is four months old. Sometimes I wonder just how much really gets through to them from the lessons.

5. I love history. When I'm here I remember why I entered college listed as a history major. History seems a little different here -- in part, local history is "older." Iowa cities celebrate their incorporation in the 1870s. Minnesota cities are in the 1850s. It's only 20 years, but... it makes some difference. The major defining moment for this town, what makes it known world-wide, happened before the last town I worked in was even established.

6. My mom made bread. Yum... (Yes, I communicated with people today other than my mom.)

Every single member of the editorial department had a cold today. The editor even stayed home.

I hesitated to write we were all "sick" because I don't actually feel impaired. One of the luckier ones. There is this wheezing feeling, though -- I've had it before. I associate it immediately with Kensak's Shakespeare class. Why it always surfaced then I'll never know. It gets very irritating because I don't know how to get rid of it. Don't feel like coughing, nose is relatively unstuffed, steam doesn't help...

Watched that new "Studio 60" tonight, mostly because of its West Wing connections and promises it was the best new thing. I'm prepared to become addicted to it or to something, but I'll confess I don't see where the show's plotline has to go.

Heard "Six Degrees" is highly addictive. Don't think I'm even going to try plain "Law & Order" anymore -- moved to Fridays, yet another new ADA. I'll just stick with my reruns. The spinoffs are becoming more attractive, too. TO'd that I'll be busy most Tuesdays and Wednesdays at 7 -- when "House" and "Bones" are on, my favorite current series. Ah well. Having less time to watch TV is not a bad thing.

mini class reunion

Eight girls from my high school graduating class got together this evening and met at a restaurant in the cities for dinner. Very fun, but also somewhat eye-opening. Blast from the past, that's for sure.

There were so many things to notice.
1. I do not know my way around the east side of the cities -- can't say I've even been to most of those suburbs. I also do not know downtown St. Paul at all.

2. Most any one of them who had belittled or badmouthed our hometown has never really gotten away from it. Going to school in the cities is not getting away. Even going to particular schools two and four hours away is not getting away because those sister colleges are so strongly affiliated with this town. This is not to say it isn't natural to badmouth your hometown, or that this hometown doesn't deserve it.

3. People change, yet they don't at all.

4. The cities is expensive. Living in the cities is expensive.

5. I am so behind the times for my age group in terms of fashion and sophistication. On the way out the door my sister scolded me for not wearing a necklace and made me put hers on. It got so many compliments...

6. Somehow, I know an overwhelming number of people interested in teaching -- this is not only among my high school friends. But, take this group in particular. Of the eight of us, take away me. Seven left -- one art teacher, one student art teacher, one ESL teacher, one youth pastor, one youth volunteer, one former English teacher.

7. Though I hadn't seen many of these friends in five years, we picked up right where we left off. We have a long history -- twelve years of going to school together or going to school with the same group of people. We grew up in the same community, know one another's parents and siblings... In college, relationships may have been deeper and were ... just totally different. Not that either one is better than the other, but this is something it's easy to forget about in college -- I have a long history with these people. It isn't neccesarily a good history, but history is history. It was almost like "this is the kind of person I was to start with," before learning about the other possibilities at college. Does that make any sense at all?

8. I still socialize better one on one than in large groups. :)

9. I hate dancing. Gosh, I hate dancing. It's not that I am morally opposed to dancing or think no one should dance, not by any means. I just particularly do not enjoy doing it myself.

10. I have had a very sheltered life in terms of exposure to drinking and drunks. I didn't hang out with big drinkers in high school, and wild parties were just not to be found at my college. None of my high school friends really went to colleges like this one. This is not to note the badness or goodness of shelteredness. It is just to note.

11. Tonight was a reminder that ring by spring is not the norm --- seven of the eight of us were single as heck. Though there was a brief discussion of how to flirt with your eyes in a bar. :)

Genealogical research is just plain fascinating. You don't even always know what you're looking for, and then you find something beyond what you'd expect. These ancestors of yours are real people, who were good and bad in and of themselves and believed things that we now know aren't true and also espoused beliefs we honor today.

Unrelated (ha ha), I ran across this poem yesterday about a group of families in an area of North Carolina many of my Quaker ancestors came from.

The Rays and Russells coopers are,
The knowing Folgers lazy,
A lying Coleman very rare,
And scarce a learned Hussey,
The Coffins noisy, fractious, loud,
The silent Gardners plodding,
The Mitchells good,
The Bakers proud,
The Macys eat the pudding,
The Lovetts stalwart, brave and stern,
The Starbucks wild and vain,
The Quakers steady, mild and calm,
The Swains sea-faring men,
And the jolly Worths go sailing down the wind.

I'm part Folger, Coffin, Gardner, Macy, Starbuck and Worth. :) What a combo.

It sounds like this group of Quakers had one of the earliest stations on the Underground Railroad. (My ancestors possibly had moved west by that point.) One of the Coffins (not a direct ancestor) owned the station passed through by "Eliza" in "Uncle Tom's Cabin." Or so that internet page said. The internet says so many things, like that Mr. Ed was played by a zebra. (Which it turns out did happen, but on rare occasions.)

A local photography session didn't really happen this weekend. Here's a few to keep you occupied for now.

Settling in? Yes, it's going relatively smoothly. There are still pictures to hang and surfaces that could use a first cleaning, but the apartment is fully functional. Bedroom is already fully disastrous, the clothesbasket having spewn its contents all about the general area. And the archiving of all my writing/photography for the last 16 months has turned the living room into a second war zone.

Work seems to be going well, also. I get to be very independent, and that's nice so far. The bosses seem to be pleased with my work to date, which includes a story about a new dog park, with stories about CROP walk, visitors from Hiroshima (bombing era) coming to town, and maybe even tax levy previews coming up (!). Today I went to two board meetings that were actually very helpful. One, they had a guest speaker who talked about the difference between TIF and tax abatement (economic development funding tools -- I'd never heard of the latter), and in the second they had a review of their affordable housing initiatives. It gets really frustrating in the beginning of learning these things because I'm not familiar with a lot of economic jargon or financial processes, but as I understand the systems they become more fascinating.

Enjoying getting to know my co-workers a little more -- more comfortable every day. Every Wednesday after the staff meeting a group goes out for lunch (a really long lunch) and it's a chance to hear about what they're thinking and about their outside lives.

Yesterday was the beginning of the Wednesday children's programs at the church my family goes to. I was "helping" my mom with the preschool class -- maybe more about that later. Or now, briefly -- my mom's fantastic with kids, especially five and under. She manages them well and they like her and do what she says. This group of four ladies who didn't really know each other was in charge of 20-ish preschoolers, and I said I'd help with whatever they needed, which was pretty much nothing. The kids were cute and pretty-well behaved. It wasn't quite as fun as it could have been because I didn't really know any of them, minus a set of twins I hadn't seen since they were two months old (now four years) and a family friend's son I hadn't ever seen (now four years). Because this church has so many new people all the time, there were kids wearing nametags bearing names that weren't theirs because nobody knew any better (and kids couldn't read them to know they were wrong).

Hopefully, weather permitting, you'll get some photos of Minnesota this weekend. The longer I'm here, the more I realize how different it is from Iowa -- in good and bad ways.

Who saw "Pride and Prejudice"? (The new one with Keira Knightley who didn't deserve an Oscar but could have done worse) The intro theme haunted me after I saw it. I ended up downloading portions of the soundtrack off of iTunes. I could still listen to the theme over and over (still do, too...) as well as once of the pieces they dance to. But of the tracks I listened to, only about two were worth purchasing. It gets frustrating, doesn't it, when the themes and such are two-minute tracks? The soundtracks never seem to really be what they had in the movie to me.

If you happen to care about the Minnesota gubernatorial race, this editorial from the Strib is (pretty much) right on the money.

Another note on Minnesota politics note -- city councillors yesterday were explaining how they were having to raise the tax levies about 9.6 percent this year. That's significant. Of that, 1.6 percent was to account for inflation and the other 8 percent was to replace half a million dollars in funding the city usually gets from the state. Instead of raising taxes this year, the legislature spent the same amount but made drastic cuts to local governments, leaving the local governments looking like the bad guys.

where were you on 9/11?

I was finishing my first college calculus exam and/or brushing my teeth in the 3N Fern bathroom with a friend, depending on the attack. It was the second week of my freshman year and I was still scared of some of my neighbors. Some of them invited me over to watch the news with them, and we started to bond. I remember how upset my roommate was -- her brother-in-law was in the reserves and she was afraid he might be deployed.
I remember Tryg's face when he announced what had happened in chapel, and how crowded the chapel was that morning (a Tuesday, too) because our wing was squished into one pew.

P.S. Today I visited the dump. And recycling center. For a while Mountain Dew would take their green plastic bottles and recycle them to make Mountain Dew long underwear.

There are many people I'd like to be for a day. But I'd be Norah Jones for two days. Her songs are so sad, like the mysterious bar singer. You imagine this girl must have been hurt so terribly by men, but then you also have this image of her that makes you wonder what man would ever do anything to her but fall head over heels in love?
Maybe she's cheaply popular mainstream now. Oh well. ;)

I've tried so hard, my dear to show, that you're my every dream
yet you're afraid each thing I do is just some evil scheme
a memory from your lonesome past keeps us so far apart
why can't I free your doubtful mind
and melt your cold, cold heart?

Another love before my time made your heart sad and blue
and so my heart is paying now for things I didn't do
in anger unkind words I said
they make the teardrops start
why can't I free your doubtful mind
and melt your cold, cold heart?

There was a time when I believed that you belonged to me
but now I know your heart is shackled to a memory
the more I learn to care for you, the more we drift apart
why can't I free your doubtful mind
and melt your cold, cold heart?

twinkleberry syrup

Chocolate and I are parting ways tomorrow -- at least until Oct. 14. It is the reason I cannot wear my little black dress to my roommate's wedding and, well, I'm too cheap to buy a new dress, and I want to wear that one.

For a last farewell, I stopped at the new Perkins for something thoroughly chocolately on my way home from the 'rents this evening. While I was waiting for my piece of pie to be boxed, I examined the bakery items on display. Most of them don't tempt me, I confess, minus the chocolate pies.

On one shelf they had their pancake mix and a selection of syrups. When I was little, Perkins was one of the only places my family ever ate out, and we weren't too adventurous when we got there, either. They didn't even really need to give us menus -- we always got Perkins pancakes. My sister and I always ordered the Little Cowpoke breakfast, any time of day or evening. It was a sad day when we were over the age limit to order from the children's menu -- they just don't have that same combo for the adults.

At Perkins, they always bring you three syrups: maple, apricot, and twin berry, aka twinkleberry. One of the hardest decisions in my five-year-old life was how to distribute syrup upon my three pancakes. Do you have one pancake with each type of syrup? You can have maple any time, though. Yet it tastes so good on Perkins pancakes... And twinkleberry is a rare treat... And you can't forget apricot, either.

Note: You can buy a bottle of twinkleberry to take home, but it doesn't taste the same.

In other news, the weather is starting to get chillier! (I even wore socks today. It feels kind of funny.) The trees on the hill on the west side of town are starting to show hints of color... I hope my new telephoto lens comes soon.

There's a really gorgeous old Episcopal church in the next town that I forgot existed (there's an old, old one here too but it isn't gorgeous outside -- maybe it is inside). I at least need to take a picture of it. It's too bad it meets the same time as my parents' church service.

One thing I always chuckle about is that there's this dinky little town that now adjoins this town, because this town has expanded so much. What is funny is that to go from my parents' house (an address in the bigger town) to my apartment or even just to the grocery store, I drive through the little town for a shortcut and never go more than a third of a mile into the city limits of the big town.

Okay, enough rambling.

Here's a picture to spruce things up -- it's called "Portledge," and it was a manor in Devonshire that I guess was in my family for 900 years? Sounds fun. I hope my turn is coming up soon.

Somehow got caught up in genealogy again this week. Confirmed Ben Franklin's my third cousin nine times removed. Yay -- I feel like watching "National Treasure" now. And this was neat -- you know Martha's Vineyard? My great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather named it -- for his first wife. (Her name was Martha, in case you were curious.)

day 3

Three days and still no photos to liven this white page up for y'all.

Well, three days in to the job, things are going better. Yesterday afternoon I got a bunch of assignments that will keep me occupied but not too occupied through Monday morning. Sources are actually calling me back and talking my ear off and friendly. Feeling more comfortable with the co-workers.

Having said all this, I haven't written anything yet for publication.

One thing I like about being home: Today was my brother's birthday. I was able to pick him up from his job, take him to my parents' and have birthday cake for 45 minutes, then go home to my bed. I didn't have to pack a suitcase or my dirty clothes or spend $60 on gas to get there.

I haven't posted really that much about this town. It's hard to express its uniqueness, because you really have to be there to believe it and understand it. It was like growing up in a bubble in a way because... this town is not like the rest of the world, kind of in the way Orange City's not, but times six. More on that later.

For now, it suffices to say that I work downtown. Downtown is thriving, relatively, here. I can walk from work to at least a half dozen restaurants for lunch... no, probably more like a dozen -- then stop by the post office to mail a letter, pay my late fees at the library, pick up a birthday present all in 45 minutes. And then walk back to work. It's a nice change.

is it true? am I ... Dutch?

My ancestors were these Mennonites who moved from Germany to Russia to America. There's a name for it I forget. Sounds Transylvanian. But many of these Mennonites originated from Holland, some specifically were Friesian... But we're talking like 1500/1600. Not Dutch enough that it would mean anything, for better or worser.

the first day

Heaven help me.

Like I wrote before, this job looks like it will be more and less challenging than expected.

The "more" parts just get so overwhelming, you know?

I think the social components of the job will be among the most difficult, i.e. getting along with co-workers. It's not that I don't like them -- they really were friendly. But working here in the "real world" is different than working in Northwest Iowa, where the non-god-fearing person is the exception to the rule. It's just going to be different to remember how to relate to people my age who don't share my values, i.e. my idea of a successful weekend does not correlate to how much alcohol I consumed. I'm sure I already seem boring enough to them, mostly because I didn't have that much to say and I didn't have interesting hobbies and came from the boondocks and actually thought this town might be worth living in. If you're under a certain age you're expected to think it's dumb.

And people here are just more aggressive in general. If you happen to know me, you know that, well, I am not aggressive (in most cases) and I shy away from conflict of any kind. This will be a problem here (the conflict part).

And, my first day was the first day back for the rest of the staff after someone was unexpectedly fired.

Being in an unfamiliar process is also challenging. I like to have my mind wrapped around a system, and here the system is more fluid than I'm used to. I am not in control of the system, and that will be frustrating to get used to.

Mostly today I did nothing. I think they forgot I was there a lot. They were busy. I rewrote some press releases they didn't end up needing and then I read some stuff.

I saw copy errors. I wanted to help them, but they were published weeks ago.

I can feel I'm starting to go into panic mode -- the pre-depression mode, and I know I need to start thinking positively about absolutely everything ASAP. It's so difficult.

home messy home

Iowa got some much-needed rain Friday and Saturday as I was attempting to load boxes into my car. And Minnesota got some extremely heavy showers Saturday afternoon as I was trying to see the lane markings for I-35, and some lighter showers as the boxes were being transferred back out of the car.

Saturday marks a new chapter in life -- very cut and dried turning the page. There are very few connections now to life before Saturday. I live in a new state, preparing for a new job, whole new relationship with family, new apartment, new phone number...

Will the new chapter be more or less good, exciting, traumatizing, demeaning, boring, hilarious, mysterious, amazing ... than the last?

At the very least I know I have even more to learn about myself. I have to re-learn how to be part of a family, for one. It's one thing to visit for three days at a time. This is quite another. I know I need to learn to be more humble, i.e. getting upset when one family member suggests I do things a little differently than I'd planned, and I'm too proud to consider taking their advice.

Even going to the store is different here -- for one, they have stores, and they are big, and they have things I want, and they are extremely close by. Last night I went to buy groceries, and the first person I see is the father of my childhood best friend, whom I've known since I was five. I ran into him at least five more times during that shopping trip, and we checked out at the same time, and our cars were parked three apart. I ran into an old boss and her family today at Target. And my brother was my cashier.

Moving also means re-establishing a home. A friend just before I left Iowa mentioned something about that apartment, while being nice enough, wasn't in a very home-y area. And after seeing my sister's apartment this weekend, I've realized I don't set up a very homey home. Much of that is money -- I have cheap furniture like futons and bookshelves made of cheap wood and wood-colored paper. I don't have a thematic colors or decor of any type, really. In fact, some of these rooms and walls and corners are very bare. I don't mind so much, really. In a way, the decor is just things, and I'm sick of things. I have so many things, and I use them each about once a week. It might not be attractive, but it's home to me just in that I know I'm safe here to relax and be myself.

Tomorrow I start my new job. I have a feeling it will be more and less difficult than I expect.

Yay for Internet at home again. At least until tomorrow.

Query: Take a look at the "Lamp on a Stand" analogy in Luke 8. I've always assumed the lamp represented your faith. But then when you read carefully the two following verses, faith doesn't necessarily seem to fit the puzzle. Wealth almost seems a better fit to me... almost. Here's the whole passage:

"No one lights a lamp and hides it in a jar or puts it under a bed. Instead, he puts it on a stand, so that those who come in can see the light. For there is nothing hidden that will not be disclosed, and nothing concealed that will not be known or brought out into the open. Therefore consider carefully how you listen. Whoever has will be given more; whoever does not have, even what he thinks he has will be taken from him."

As for the "there is nothing hidden," why say that about faith? Now wealth doesn't seem to be a good fit either. And the "whoever has" doesn't seem to fit faith either. Maybe talents/gifts?

T minus three/four days left until packing must be finished. Why do you always have more crap than it seems like? It all has to fit into tight spaces... Freaking hangers take so much space. I filled almost a third of a box with them.

Water fights at the town festival last weekend

You know those study Bibles where half the pages are notations and a gutter of letters and numbers separates the columns?

Of late I have been ignoring the notes for the most part. Half the time there isn't a note about what you're curious about -- because it's an interpretation you're looking for -- or the note will upset you because you can see the opinions behind their writer. Or you didn't understand the verse and you don't understand the note, either. Or, how do you read the passage with the notes? Sometimes I'll read the passage and then the notes, but by the time you get to the end of the notes you can't remember what the passage was about.

ANYWAY,

Yesterday, trudging through Luke (another story), one note made me write "wow!" next to it.

I forget the exact context. Jesus and some guys were off praying on a mountain when Moses and Elijah appeared and they were talking about the "departure" he was about to make. The note noted that it was Joshua who finished Moses' work when Moses left supernaturally after helping deliver his people, and it was Elisha who finished Elijah's work when Elijah left supernaturally afer helping deliver his people (from their wicked ways), and Jesus left supernaturally after helping God deliver his people from their sins. Joshua, Elisha, and Jesus are all forms of each other in Hebrew. I like patterns. Sometimes we get carried away with them (i.e. End Times), but at other times they give us comfort that God really is in control with complex plans.

media -- don't be too quick to judge

When it comes to covering the goings-on of Iraq, I think people are too quick to judge the media.

"The media is doing a horrible job of covering Iraq," soldiers reporting back home say. They're not reporting on all the good things happening. They're biased. They're harming the efforts there. They're money hungry -- and all the implications in that.

Granted, I have never been to Iraq and especially not during this "conflict." I'll also be the first to admit that I am not as informed as I should be about what's going on over there. But, today as I listened to a soldier share about his experiences over there, I was upset by these accusations he made -- among others -- and not just as a journalist.

I agree, yes, the media likely does go overboard on the bad things happening in Iraq. Yes, by and large journalists are liberals. Yes, sometimes they get itchy to scoop their colleagues and might not think about security issues. Yes, their publishers and owners are often money-hungry. (Journalists themselves are not money-hungry, it should be noted, or they would not be journalists. Journalists who are not Katie Courics might as well be working for their keep.)

BUT, we should all take into consideration when pointing fingers,

A: The media is covering a WAR. War means people are killing other people. That is the main action of a war. The building schools and infrastructure are sideline actions. By the nature of covering a terrible thing like a war, the vast majority of war stories will be bad news. And should be, probably -- we need to remember that though war may bring good ends, it is not in and of itself a good thing.

B. Soldiers are not neutral observers of what's going on in Iraq. They are over there working for the government and are by and large on the government's side. Like most journalists are probably liberals, most soldiers are probably conservatives. This is not to say that journalists have a more neutral view of what's going on but that we tend to trust the word of a soldier before we trust the word of "the media." This is also not to say that what soldiers are saying is not right.

C. Yes, good things are happening in Iraq because American soldiers are there. But building a school and building an electric plant cannot be top stories on the national evening news. Would you watch the newscast if the teaser said, "Up next: American soldiers add another layer of bricks to the the school they're building in the desert"? Maybe you would once, but you wouldn't every night. The good things that are happening are mostly features and not news. Features are usually not top stories. And you can't feature the same thing every night, so yes, the good stories will come less frequently.

D. While not a point I like to add, the media is trying to give the people what they want... and people like bomb news more than water plant news... If you don't like a news outlet, stop giving them your business or let them know what you think. If enough people don't like their practices, believe me, they will change -- the bosses are the ones making the money from the customers, and they will give the customers what they want.

E. In contrast to that point, one of the reasons for unbiased journalism (which probably isn't 100 percent possible) is to keep a check on government -- the Fourth Estate, if you will. If the government says "we should be at war," the media will ask the question, "should we really?" and in order to look unbiased and not take the party line from the government, they almost have to have many stories about "is the government right?"

(nameless?)

A new conundrum shall come to a head in seven days: My blog is called "The Edge of Iowa," and, for the first time in (more or less) five years, I will no longer be living on the edge of Iowa... At least in the physical sense.

Thus rises the issue at hand: The renaming/re-evaluation of the blog situation. I will not be living on the edge of Minnesota; since I decided not to live at home I cannot say I live on the edge of town or the edge of the county or the edge of the area code as I could have there.

The edge of Iowa did have multiple senses: the first, of course, was physical; the second was psychological -- kind of one foot in Iowa-sanity and the other dangling over the edge in to the Chasm-Without-Reason; the third was the hip sense of living on the edge -- not knowing what's coming next. (It was originally named during my turbulent first month out of college when I moved twice and started at three new papers and a roommate and a sister got married. Whether that sense applies now is highly debatable.)

A second lingering question which many bloggers face: What on earth do I have this blog for? What's its purpose? Is it just littering the Information Superhighway?

My brother said they had baseball-sized hail at home yesterday afternoon. A friend near there had her new car all dented up, as I guess did most of the students who had cars in the college parking lot. The Strib cited hail big as grapefruit. There was also a tornado in the area -- it was funny listening about it on the Sioux Falls news because they kept mispronouncing and spelling "Nicollet County." Or maybe I mispronounce it. But they definitely had it spelled wrong.

And there was a tanker explosion in Sioux Falls today, too. The TV stations actually had news to cover today because there was another tornado near Huron.

The following is the story that went with the corn picture below. As clueless as I felt with them, I really enjoyed interviewing the brothers. I know nothing about farms – why do they feel like a home I was separated from at birth? Is it that farming is really in my blood? (Doing genealogy work, it's been very rare that a grandparent wasn't a farmer. They lived in the midwest – go figure.)

---
The summer of 2006 has brought on the worst growing conditions Denny and Lyle H have ever seen: weeks without rain enough to even settle the dust, the stretches of 100-degree heat…

But the brothers, who grow corn, soybeans and alfalfa on their farm south of I*, are trying to keep in mind that things could be much, much worse.

“This is where my grandpa lived and my dad lived, and Lyle just lives a mile down,” Denny explained. “Everybody talks about 1936, and Dad talks about 1955 and how bad 1955 was. But these hybrids and seed genetics in both corn and beans have come so far. Like in ’55 or ’36, if we had (their) same genetics (now), yeah, we probably wouldn’t have anything either.”

And the H's are far from having nothing. Their 1,200 acres of fields – about half corn and half beans – look full and relatively lush to passersby after recent rains.

“These last rains, you can see that the beans have shot up a little bit more, a few more pods, a little more growth spurt on them,” said Denny. “Corn, the ears are pretty well set. The stuff we have looked at, seems everything’s pollinated pretty well – the ears seem to be a pretty decent size. What the whole field’s going to be like, we don’t know.”

Recent rains will give the corn a chance to fill its kernels and take on greater kernel density, all helping the test weight at the end of the line. The brothers normally begin harvesting corn the second or third week in October and beans at the end of September, though drought conditions could push that up a week to 10 days.

“I believe that the beans, if the weather stays reasonable like this, the beans could get near to an average crop yet. I think the corn will be somewhat below average, but it’s hard to tell how much,” Denny said.

Their 40 acres of alfalfa produced two good cuttings earlier in the season. No rain fell between the second cutting and the third, which the H's said was down quite a ways. They’re hoping the improved August conditions will mean better things for the fourth cut.

“We were in real good shape through May, probably got a little bit dry the first part of June, and then June 15 we had a real nice rain and we were sitting good again then,” Lyle explained. “But from June 15 to the end of July, we probably had maybe a half-inch of rain in three different shots. Never really soaked anything up – it doesn’t get down to the roots or anything.”
They’re thankful at least that the dry spell didn’t begin any earlier than it did. If June had been as dry as July was, they guessed, the plants’ growth may have suffered even more seriously – corn may not have thrown a tassel, pollinated or thrown an ear even.

“If we keep weather like we have in August, we’ll make everything we can out of the corn at least, from what we had to work with,” Lyle predicted.

What they’ve had to work with is a hodgepodge of quality from plant to plant. Denny showed two ears of corn pulled from side-by-side stalks – one that had pollinated well and had kernels all the way out to the end, and another that either hadn’t pollinated or had aborted soon afterwards, leaving almost a dozen rows without their plump yellow kernels.

A crop of the full ears – about 16 rows around and 38 kernels long – could yield them about 175 bushels. Fields full of the poorer ears could easily cut that by 20 to 40 bushels, they said. Which type they’ll find more of in the end remains to be seen, though they have noticed that crops planted earlier – which had more time to put down roots – are doing better.

“I think this year when you start going to the elevators you’re going to find there’s going to be stories all over the board,” said Denny. “If you happened to catch a rain, or it didn’t get as hot, or soil conditions – it’s all going to be varied.

“And it varies from here to H*,” he continued. “We talked to someone over in H* (last Wednesday) that says there’s places where they’ve got ears that didn’t pollinate north and east of H* there.”

You don’t have to drive too far west into South Dakota to find conditions even worse, they said, and you don’t need to go too far south, either. Strong winds accompanying the needed rain near C* and A* left many cornfields flattened. Sandier soils are seeing more trouble, as are fields planted later.

The H's have found their own brown patches, too, especially in the lighter soils.

“Some days you think the world’s going to end, and the next day you realize that you can’t do anything about it anyhow,” Lyle said.

“If you keep yourself busy, you don’t think about it so much. Like Lyle says, there’s nothing you can do about it, so you’ve got to kind of realize you’re in the business of that, and you’re fully dependent on the weather all the time,” Denny added. “So hopefully the Good Lord will provide, and, you know, away you go.” ---

yellow things grow on farms

Two brothers talked to me this week about the state of the crops on their farm. Here, one brother is explaining how ears on adjacent plants pollenated so differently.

It's sunflower season. (Where do our seeds come from?)

This made me laugh so hard:
http://www.theshrubbery.com/0200/lincoln.html

the best game you never heard of

Something today reminded me of my favorite DOS-based computer game, BushBuck. So many hours dedicated to it... it's addictive. And highly educational, though now highly outdated (in terms of not only graphics but political geography).

I knew I still had a copy of it, but remembered it being on a CD bearing the contents of my computer three or four hard drives ago. Went through all my CDs to no avail... and found it on a floppy. :) They seem so funny now -- 1.44 MB capacity. :) Couldn't even hold one photo from my camera...

a, b, c, d...

A. Reading French: It's like riding a bike.
A friend recently returned my long-lost French textbooks. I was flipping through them last night, just reading the introduction to a section... and I realized the whole paragraph had been in French. And I knew what it said.

I used to love French, even thought about majoring in it. There's just not a lot of use for it in my everyday life, unless I'm reading Russian lit.

B. Things Fall Apart
Heard that was a good book. I like the title. It's funny how quickly they do fall apart, though -- the duration of a phrase, even.

C. When I Grow Up
Took a career-exploration quiz yesterday, just because I saw the link. It was only 24 questions that I thought were obscure -- you know how you can usually figure out how the quiz works? Thought I had this one figured out, but it was shockingly accurate. It detailed my "personal style" and said I'd make a good accountant, tax lawyer or engineer -- all options that probably would have been appropriate for me. Funny -- my sister's an accountant and my dad's an engineer. And I was almost pre-law. (But I can never figure out my taxes.)

D. Epidemic
Today I encouraged my co-workers to quit -- not to spite the bosses, but because it would be in their interest to be elsewhere. There seems to be a quitting epidemic, as there are apparently others in other offices also considering it.

E. Ha, ha.

The 1987 AP Stylebook has misspelled words in it... (and gets really lazy in its format, too.)

welcome back, boxes

I've been in one place five months... time to move again.

Really, moving is among the activities I'd rank with writing baseball stories and washing the dishes -- and probably lower still. But it just keeps happening.

This move, though, is the most drastic in several years -- back to the cities.

So today I quit my job and got another one. I dreaded telling my boss, and I feel awful for leaving the paper down a third of its staff, but... hey. There are times that it is right to look out for number one, horrible as it feels to think that way. My boss is clearly not happy, but my co-workers (whom I see far more often) are supportive and happy for me. I wish I could take them with me... mostly.

It's not that this job is so terrible, but this job opened up in my hometown and it would have been stupid not to take it. It's going to be very challenging but I'm excited (the good way and the bad way).

Other challenge -- living at home (Hi, Fluffy). This I will do for an undetermined amount of time until I find something reasonable and/or have saved up some extra money for a car or a paying off a loan or whatever. It's been several years since I've lived at home and living in that kind of setting after living on my own for a year and a half will be an adjustment -- but it will have its positives. My mom is thrilled and has already started (no doubt with aid of her friends) brainstorming about who she might match me up with eventually. Already named on the list are two divorcee-sons of family friends. Yay.

In short, I'm nervous, but excited on the whole. Three weeks till the ol' switcheroo.

The answer, clearly, is Mike Johanns, U.S. Ag Secretary and former governor of Nebraska.

There were three NW grads in the press tent covering the event, plus Carl. When I sat down and thought about it there are at least six of us working at papers in the area, most likely more.

name that politician

This was the last of several photos I took today at a (boring) press conference (out almost under a tent on a rainy day). When I got back to the office and sorted through them, this one freaked me out. Anyone know who this federal official is?

You know that knot in your stomach you get when you’re nervous?

It’s not so much a knot, but it’s tension for sure, right where your upper and lower halves joint. Like you have your hand clenched in a fist that for some reason you can’t release.

And you wonder: What would it take to pry that tension open?

This is my great-great-great-grandmother Phoebe. She looks so spunky, doesn't she? What's funny is that she's blind. Why the book?

misadventures of Dolly and Ariel

Dolly and I went for a ride east today. (Of course, by finally naming my car, I am condemning her to an imminent death.)

Some of the things we saw:

Jacki Bardole and her week-old baby girl
A silo painted like a 7-Up can
A person dressed in an ice cream cone costume
The beautiful city of St. Peter, Minn. -- lots of historic buildings
Too much road construction

The traffic on I-90 through Minnesota today -- enough said. The fact that there was any, as Wynia can probably attest, is bizarre. It was evident that Sturgis is either ending or beginning -- there were motorcycles going both ways. Who knows where the cars were going. Seriously -- the majorest city west is Sioux Falls, then Rapid. The majorest city east is Madison, with La Crosse beforehand if you count that. What cars from Missouri and Pennsylvania are doing out there is beyond me.

At one point we encountered not only the traffic but unexpected road construction. So we took a gamble and got off the interstate. I knew the road headed north, just wasn't sure how far it was to any east-west road I knew. It was quite a ways, but probably not longer than the construction route would have been. Ended up in Mankato (and, ironically, back on Highway 60) and took a scenic route that goes along the Minnesota River. You think, "Gosh, there are so many trees." Not because there aren't trees in Iowa, but because there are just so many suddenly.

On the radio, the announcer said, "Coming up: 'Over my head.'" Greg Scheer's on major secular stations now, I thought. :)

If you click on this it gets bigger. What I like about it is you can kind of see how the land goes on forever. I love driving down the hill I live on because it always strikes me how 3-D it is. You can see through the row of trees across the river to another row of trees to another hill and another and another (while you try not to hit oncoming traffic).

August: a commentary

Oh, sad.

August used to be the month we waited for the mail to come.
(I've had that line-to-begin-something rattling 'round my brain about a week. Let's run with it.)

August used to be the month we waited for the mail to come. Experience had shown that letters revealing your fate for the year -- your homeroom teacher's name or your class schedule -- could arrive as early as August 1. By this time of year the days were dragging by because we had played every game and written every story we could think of by July 25, and we could barely wait for school to start. Needless to say, we sat near the window and kept an eagle eye on the mailbox beginning at the earliest conceivable time each day the mail lady might arrive.

August was the month that nothing ever changed. It was like a stock month they threw in to every calendar to pad out the summer a little. Only since they couldn't add half a month, they had to put a whole one in. And it was agonizingly long.

But since high school graduation, August took on a new face: the time for major change. Logically this had to happen because all my friends were college students and college students move to college in August. And even friends who weren't in college -- they were teachers moving to new jobs starting in August, or they were married to teachers or grad students...

Now I'm out of school and August is still a month for drastic change. Friends are moving to Japan, California, England, Ohio, Bahrain. It seems that August will continue to mark the annual life shift for a while yet. It still entails some frustrating waits, too. But overall, August is still a really long month. It at least matches January in draginess. (Though July seems to have taken forever this year, too. The Fourth of July was only a month ago?)

P.S. It's my grandma's birthday. Grandma 'Lene. And her twin sister. My sister and I used to get tongue-tied if we were telling a rushed story about Grandma 'Lene and Grandpa John and we'd say Grandpa 'Lene and Grandma John. And we'd laugh hysterically. It was almost as funny as the times in First Grade I'd talk about what I did in Art and Gym and my dad would pretend he thought Art and Jim were people.