Somewhat Raucous Kitchen

Cruise, Baltic Sea Region

2010-09-04T06:27:00.004-05:00

Warnemunde is located on the Baltic Sea coast in what was once East Germany, and it gave me a thrill to be traveling on East German soil. I was even more pleased that the tour we took to Bad Doberan was on the territory of the Slavic tribes (the Wendish) who once inhabited that region. We visited the Doberan Minster, a former monastery founded as the local Slavs began to convert to Christianity. Most of the Slavs weren't convinced, though, and they burned the place down a couple of times before they finally converted. They actually massacred all the inhabitants of the monastery one time, a fact which our guide neglected to mention as he kept everything lighthearted.

Anyway, the Doberan Minster was extremely impressive, and I greatly enjoyed visiting it and would have liked to stay longer. However, we had to move out to make our train ride, which was advertised as the main part of the excursion, but which only lasted 10 minutes. That was when I decided I had had enough of excursions, and from then on we mostly did our own thing. Anyway, after the absurd train ride, we drove to Kuhlungsborn, a seaside town with a very nice beach on the Baltic Sea. The water is cold, but the sand is very soft. We took our shoes off and walked on the beach.

Nearly all the buildings were new construction. They must have torn down most of the Communist-era buildings. Our guide said the West Germans invested so heavily in East German infrastructure that now they have better roads than West Germany.

Our excursion was for only part of the day, so after our return, we zipped up our raincoats and headed into Warnemunde for a look around and a stop at a post office. We mailed postcards to family members, and we got caught in a drenching downpour. We took shelter in a pub, where we had to drink two Rostocker beers because the rain continued for a while. We were actually pretty pleased about drinking Belgian beer in Belgium and German beer in Germany, so we did not feel put out.

For the rest of our trip we would experience "passing showers," often heavy ones. We kept our jackets and umbrellas ready.

On the sixth day we arrived in Copenhagen. I had really been looking forward to Copenhagen and had extensively planned our day. Based on the location of our ship dock and the availability of transport, we of course adjusted the plan, but we did pretty well. We took a public bus to the New Harbor (Nyhavn), and then we took a walking tour through the city to end up at City Hall and Tivoli. To my surprise, Mom wanted to see Tivoli, so we found the entrance. However, it was $20 to get in, and it would have prevented us from going to the National Museum, which is free. We turned around and went to the National Museum.

However, first we stopped at City Hall to look inside, and there was a tour going up the tower right that minute. We decided to get in on it. I felt pretty guilty about that later, because it turns out that 300 steps are a lot of steps, and their city tower is higher than the Statue of Liberty. I couldn't believe I dragged my mom into that! She was a trooper, though, and made it to the top.

The day was intensely windy even on the ground, and the rain started up again while we were at the top of the tower, so we went right back down again. Then we walked straight to the museum. It was an awesome museum. We had this hilarious lunch in which the salads seemed to be made with whatever someone happened to have in the garden: delicious fresh vegetables. However, for serving a dry and flavorless sausage like that one, they ought to be ashamed to call themselves a Germanic people. The bread was good, served in a flowerpot. This was the first black bread on the trip. Black bread is sour, and I have never liked it very much, but I always eat it anyway because it reminds me of Saint Petersburg.

We only had time for the Danish Prehistory exhibit, because I had to read nearly everything and inspect all the main exhibits. I get extremely enthusiastic about prehistory. Our favorite exhibit was a striking display of lurs, long bronze horns that they hung together in a glass case.

We took a boat taxi back almost all the way to the port, then walked through a park, stopped to see the Little Mermaid, bought some postcards, and returned to the ship. The next day we were scheduled to drop anchor off the Swedish island of Gotland. I was booked for a bicycling tour that only takes 25 people; I got the last bike. It was raining, but I was ready with my waterproof biking jacket. Disappointingly, the winds were too strong, and the cruise line did not feel it could safely transport us to shore in the "tenders." We stayed on the ship and went directly to Riga.

Cruise, North Sea Region

2010-09-04T06:14:00.004-05:00

This year my mom and I took a two-week cruise to northern Europe. I have been wanting to take my parents to Russia for years, and a cruise was a safe and comfortable way to do it. I had actually offered to stick to just Moscow and Saint Petersburg, but Dad said if he was going to go all the way to Russia, we were going to darn well cross Russia on the Trans-Siberian. Although I am anxious to do that, planning for the Trans-Siberian was just too much for me, and I wasn't getting it done. True to his word, Dad didn't come for just Saint Petersburg; but Mom did. The cruise was her idea.

We flew into London Heathrow and boarded a transfer bus to the cruise ship, Regatta on Oceania cruise line. Really, don't ask me for a cruise line recommendation; I prefer to stay in a mountain hut. I did like getting lox for breakfast every morning, though.

The cruise line always arranged for its guests to have an escort. Even for the bus to the ship, there was a local guide on board. She was amusing--something like an older and slightly more reserved Bridget Jones. I managed to sleep through some of the chatter. England was also my first experience with having to hurry up and get back on the bus after a brief stop. Needing to meet schedules while on vacation was something of a first for me.

We traveled through the North Sea. Our first stop was Belgium, where Mom and I took a full-day excursion to Brussels. This guide was the absolute best tour guide in the whole wide world, so I was feeling pretty positive about tours at this point. He knew his material, he was funny, and he made sure we always knew where there was a restroom. What more could you ask for? We had a fun time driving around and seeing the sights, we got a walking tour too, and he turned us loose for lunch. Mom and I ate an extravagant lunch of mussels and French fries, a local favorite dish, along with some Belgian beer, Leffe Blond.

The next stop was Amsterdam, where one of the things our guide talked about was how great the tour guide in Brussels was. She herself could have looked after people a little better, but the scenery was positively delightful. We passed one dream house after another in the Dutch countryside. I've always thought I wanted a cottage with a small garden in place of a lawn, Such houses are nearly nonexistent in the States, so I was surprised to see one after another after another.

We stopped a couple of times to view windmills, and we spent a long time visiting the porcelain factory in Delft. We were given free time for lunch in Delft, and then we drove back to the ship, taking time to stop in The Hague at the Peace Palace. I have read so many scholarly materials that were published in "The Hague, Netherlands" that I was really psyched to see The Hague.

After the Netherlands, we had a lazy day on the ship, crossing the Kiel Canal. We landed in Warnemunde on day 5 of the trip.

Things You Do for Family

2010-08-08T20:21:00.005-05:00

When I was a kid, we were on a family vacation in Missouri in our Winnebago, and we came to a flooded spot in the road. Mom and Dad really wanted to keep driving, so they tied a rope to my brother and sent him out to find out how deep the water was. I asked to go instead, but they wouldn't let me. They were worried that I'd be too big to pull out, while my brother was smaller and they figured if he got into trouble, they could pull him out. To this day my brother tells my parents that they owe him for therapy.

I was always the one saying things like, "Hey, let's do a controlled prairie burn in the back yard!" So today my dad figured he would make it up to Mark and me for the fact that I wasn't the one sent out into the floodwaters in Missouri, and he would send me out onto the riverbed in front of his house to remove a piece of twisted steel that was marring my dad's view of the river.

We've been going to Lake Delhi since the late sixties, but last month the 1922 dam burst, and all the lake water ran out, leaving only a small river. When the flood receded, inundating the towns below the dam, a lot of boat docks and boats went down the river with it. The former lake floor is now littered with twisted hunks of steel, and there's an upside-down pontoon boat across the river from my parent's house.

The lake floor has about four feet of sediment, most of it runoff from fields--fields that are fertilized with hog excrement. People try to walk on the mud, and they sometimes sink in up to their waists and have to be rescued. Dad figured that if we could just get our weight distributed well enough so we wouldn't sink, we could get out there and collect the eyesore in front of his house, a big hunk of tin.

His first thought was water skis. You would simply step into them, and they'd be attached to your feet. However, Mom and I didn't think that would distribute the weight enough. That mud looked pretty sticky. (We were right, too.) We talked about plywood and other things we did not have at hand, but Dad remembered some 1950s planks he had that were well made, and that he didn't mind ruining with mud and hog excrement. He drilled holes in them and tied ropes through the holes so I could hold onto the boards. Naturally, being my father's daughter, I was all in. (I did not know about the hog excrement.) Besides, he threatened to go out there himself, and I wasn't about to let him do that.

The mud was sticky and slimy, and it was hard going to reach the piece of debris. Then, when I finally made it, I realized I would not be able to pull it out of the sand and mud. On top of that, even if I had been able to get it out, I discovered I would not have been able to move it very far. It was too big and heavy. I had to turn back.

I was out of breath and shaking from exertion, and on the return crossing of the stream, I lost one of the boards. It floated downstream at a fast clip, and I just stayed in the center of the other board and hollered for help. Dad found another board, but a much narrower one, and at this point he had changed his mind about walking out there himself. He started laying out long boards across the mud so he could get as close as he could to me without trying the plank walking himself.

At this point the neighbors had come over, and they were willing to send the 12-year-old out, but they figured the other adults were all too heavy to come out there. Luckily, the 12-year-old's father thought to throw me the long ski rope that was tied to the new board and have me drag it to myself, so nobody else had to come out on the water. The board burrowed through the mud and emerged covered in about three inches of sediment that I had to scrape off.

The new board was way too slim, and I kept sinking, but I worked fast and made it back in safely. Even though I was wearing gloves, it is going to take me a few days to get my nails clean, and I still smell faintly of a pig sty.

Kids, don't try this at home!

The Great Outdoors in Iowa

2009-12-24T11:58:00.003-06:00

I subscribe to Iowa Outdoors magazine because it focuses on places I can get outside that are close to home. Outside and Backpacker always talk about magnificent places all over the US and the rest of the world, places I might be able to go once a year. Iowa Outdoors actually talks about places I can visit on a Sunday afternoon.

I usually drag along my friend Linda when I go, because Linda is up for almost anything. If you live in Iowa and you like to get out of the house, sometimes you have to get a little creative. For example, when I was in junior high, I decided to try a prairie burn in my back yard. I wasn't trying to be naughty; it was all in the spirit of scientific inquiry and environmental stewardship. I enlisted my little brother to help, just to be on the safe side. Since I promised not to do that again, now I have to go hiking and stuff instead.

Sometimes Iowa Outdoors writes a multipage article, lavishly illustrated with photos, and totally brags up some obscure place that I have never heard of, can barely find on a map (but there are book-length maps of Iowa that mark practically every mailbox so I can find anyplace), and that is barely even mentioned anywhere on the internet. Linda and I get out to these places, and within minutes it is clear to us why they are obscure. Yes, there is an ice cave in northern Iowa, but it is completely blocked with a gate, there are no other caves around, and there's about half a mile of walking paths in total.

On the bright side, at least it gets us out of the house. That is why I have talked Linda into going up to Cedar Falls in January to try climbing an ice-covered silo. It is the middle of winter, and I require amusement.

Glacier Travels

2009-09-13T14:29:00.009-05:00

For the remainder of our stay at the park, we only covered a few short trails. After completing the hike down from Sperry Glacier, we checked into the Apgar Village Lodge, where we had a tiny room not much larger than a modern walk-in closet. It was clean enough, and I had brought earplugs because I knew the walls would be thin. We showered up, then drove to the Trail of the Cedars boardwalk nature trail through old growth forest. It was absolutely lovely, lush, green, moist. It included a view of a stream chasm too. The people there were certainly different from the fit hikers with their hiking poles at the chalet.

In the morning we checked out of the lodge, moved into only my friend's car, and drove over Going to the Sun Road, stopping only briefly to take in a few overlooks and another stream chasm. We grabbed lunch just outside the park, then re-entered the park for the Many Glacier area. My friend wanted to see Many Glacier and wanted to take a boat ride, so we combined the two and took a boat ride from the Many Glacier Hotel. The boat tour covered two small lakes, and it included a guided nature walk to Grinnell Lake. Except for my aching feet and hindquarters, it was quite enjoyable. We learned to identify a few plants, and we heard some of the history of the area.

That night we arrived late in East Glacier, where I had made us a reservation at the Mountain Pines Motel. I liked this motel; the room was spacious and included a queen-sized bed, the bathroom had a skylight, and the price was lower than I paid anywhere else in Montana. We ate at Luna's restaurant, which recently opened where Restaurant Thimbleberry used to be. Although my friend's meal was only passable (lame French fries), my meal was my favorite restaurant meal of the whole trip, and the service was friendly and prompt. I had the Indian taco salad, which is a fairly common offering in the area. It consisted of Indian fry bread, chili, a few pieces of lettuce, sour cream, and salsa. It was flavorful and filling.

The next day we visited the Two Medicine area of the park. The nature trail to Running Eagle Falls is both informative and short, and the falls were one of the great sights of my park visit. They were named for a woman warrior who had the good fortune to be interred there by her respectful tribe. We visited a couple other places in Two Medicine as well, then took the southern route around the park back to the west side and drove back to Kalispell. Kalispell has a convenient La Quinta Inn with reasonable rates and guest laundry facilities, so we were able to clean up our stinky hiking clothes, and in the nick of time too! Cold air came in that night, so in the morning I needed my hiking clothes.

We had planned to go rafting on Labor Day, but temperatures were chilly, and there was a short hike my friend very much wanted to take, so we did that. We took the shuttle up to Logan Pass Visitor Center, where the wind blew fiercely and it was snowing, and we hiked 1.5 miles each way on the most popular trail in the park, the trail to Hidden Lake Overlook. I welcomed the cold, though I was sorry I had forgotten to bring my gloves. I kept my hands in my pockets except when I was taking pictures, but it took a couple hours to regain warmth in them after the short hike.

Hidden Lake Overlook trail had a climb and a brief descent to a wooden viewing platform. Sometimes we were out of the wind, and it was comfortable. The viewing platform was the most exposed spot, and we could not remain there for long! We took a couple pictures and scrammed. The picture shows the wind blowing right up my pant legs and making me look like the Michelin Man.

Once down the mountain, we continued to Polson for a late lunch that doubled as supper too. Nearly everything was closed for the holiday, so we ate at a family diner, the Driftwood. I had a buffalo stew special with fry bread and a traditional native sauce made from wild berries. It was good comfort food. We stayed in Missoula for the night, then parted company, my friend driving west, and me driving east.

Sperry Chalet

2009-09-13T13:21:00.007-05:00

I met up with a friend from college in Kalispell, Montana, and we traveled together in Glacier National Park. Our first stop was Apgar Village inside the park, to buy him a hooded sweatshirt. Although I wore layers of lightweight clothing, we were not camping, and the weather was pleasant, so we did not worry about the old "cotton kills" saying in picking up something warm for my friend to wear. I had also brought a water resistant windbreaker for him.

We parked at the Apgar Transit Center and took the free park shuttle to the trailhead. Although the weather could have been cold, it was in fact hot. I quickly switched from my long-sleeved shirt to my wicking tank top. Later I even soaked the tank top in a cold stream to cool off; it dried quickly. It was the only tank top I had brought; I had intended to use it for an extra layer of warmth. I ended up washing it nightly and wearing it every day on the mountain.
The hike to Sperry Chalet was not terribly rewarding! It was seven miles long, was very steep, and was surrounded by trees so we could not see the mountains for most of the climb. It was also very hot and sunny; we were glad I had insisted on bringing a gallon of water to use to refill our water bottles. We drank almost the whole thing. We were grateful that the chalet staff meets its guests with glasses of lemonade. I ended up asking them for coffee too since I was so wiped out. Altitude may have had something to do with it, but the heat was probably the main cause. My body does not care for heat.

Sperry Chalet is a fabulous place to spend a couple of days. It costs quite a lot per night considering there is no electricity or showers, but it is worth every penny. The views are splendid, the rooms are neat as a pin, and the price includes all meals plus afternoon drinks and snacks. They cart supplies up the mountain by mule train twice a week.

There are two paths to reach the chalet, both of which involve the Gunsight Pass trail. You can take the 7-mile route from the Lake McDonald trailhead either on foot or on horseback, or you can take the 13.5-mile route from the east, which goes over Gunsight Pass. Both days when we were there, somebody ran into trouble on Gunsight Pass and did not arrive until late. One woman's hiking boot fell apart, and she also had not brought enough water. Some kind campers got her additional water and taped her boot together, but in the end the park rangers transported her down the mountain because she seemed to have altitude sickness. She did not make it to the chalet. Her group stayed, though one of them opted not to join the rest of the group for their Sperry Glacier hike the next day. The group on the second day simply ended up hiking slowly; the chalet still provided them with dinner when they at last arrived. That evening we enjoyed a highly entertaining presentation on park wildlife from the husband of the head woman at the chalet.

Dinner at the chalet is a multi-course meal. They have a rotation of three menus. My favorite was a salad of field greens, roasted tomato soup, fresh multi-grain bread, roast beef, mashed potatoes, corn, and huckleberry cake. They bake using whole grains, so the texture of their baked goods is very similar to what I bake at home. Breakfast also includes whole grains. Guests choose from a menu: 1-2 eggs cooked any style including poached, bacon, ham, pancakes, oatmeal, coffee, tea, hot chocolate. Apple juice is also included. Breakfast is fortifying, and after we eat we pick up our sack lunch. The first day they sent us off with us two sandwiches apiece, and I was so impressed and pleased, but I later found out it must have been a mistake. They normally only provide one sandwich per person. I loved having two sandwiches!

The 8-mile hike to Sperry Glacier was less demanding than the 7-mile hike to the chalet, because it was half up and half down. That said, it was more difficult. The trail was less even, a lot more rocky. Toward the end there was a climb up stairs through a narrow chasm that created a wind tunnel, but there was a rope installed to hold on to, so the passage was not too dangerous. After one finished negotiating the stairs, a sign said it was one kilometer to Sperry Glacier. This kilometer involved following cairns over rocky outcrops and across snow fields. After a while I got nervous that maybe we had gone too far, there was no one else around, and what would happen if one of us injured an ankle since neither of us was wearing boots... so I talked my friend into turning back, and then later we found out there actually _was_ another sign where the foot of the glacier was, so we should have kept going. More hikers showed up as time passed, so the area was not so devoid of people as it was earlier in the day. Probably the others stayed at the chalet to watch the mule train before leaving for the hike, but I did not want to hike in the heat of the early afternoon a second day.

Anyway, we did reach the glacier, just not the _foot_ of the glacier. The glacier area was spectacular. The whole hike was lovely, passing by stones of many colors, various small waterfalls, and three tarns. Even so, the glacier area surpassed it. We could see so many peaks spread out before us, and the mountain's stones were exposed with some alpine tundra flora. It is not surprising that this hike has the reputation of being one of the best in the park.

My friend got the idea to take Gunsight Pass back down, but I argued against it. I had a bad plantar fasciitis flare-up in July and August, and I felt I was lucky to have made it as far as I had. If I tried a really long hike, I might have sore feet for the next month. Sometimes it can take a full month of wearing nothing but Doc Martens to recover from a bad plantar fasciitis incident.

It was good that we took the short route down. My feet hurt agonizingly the next day, but they recovered quickly, and now they are only very mildly sore.

Wind Cave National Park, Black Hills, SD

2009-09-12T19:34:00.002-05:00

Wind Cave National Park is a wonderful place for stillness and reflection, and there is no fee to enter the park. The Elk Mountain Campground in the park offers a large number of campsites but was nevertheless quiet and peaceful. A number of us enjoyed the evening campfire presentation on the country's national parks system, after which we repaired to our respective tents and trailers for the night.

The campground provides numerous bathrooms and water sources, but not showers. There is no source of food in the park, but I had brought tea and oatmeal from home. I cooked breakfast using an Esbit stove, which I bought on the cheap, figuring I would upgrade later if I camped much. Given that I purchased the stove two years ago and this was my first time to use it, my decision seems reasonable. Lesson learned: bring instant oatmeal. Do not cook regular oatmeal over the stove. I had to use three Esbit tablets (one to warm the water, one to make the water hot enough for tea and to add the oatmeal, and a third one to finish the oatmeal). It took ages to get the pot clean, too. An Esbit cube burns at full force or not at all, so when the oatmeal is almost cooked, it gets burned. Flames shoot everywhere, and the fire is not very efficient, also scorching anything under the stove, so it is important to put the stove in the firepit.

At any rate, I did at length enjoy St. Isaac's Blend tea with fully cooked rolled oats flavored with fruit bits and cinnamon. I spent about two hours cooking breakfast and breaking camp, so I did not go see the sunrise over the glorious plains of Wind Cave park. The above-ground area truly is magnificent. It is a wildlife preserve supporting 300 head of bison, as well as a herd of pronghorn antelope, at least one gigantic prairie dog town, and some black-footed ferrets that feed on the prairie dogs.

Rather than exploring the glorious prairie and accumulating inglorious deer ticks, I went to the cave and took a tour. It was the Fairgrounds tour, the most extensive one you can take without going on a specialty tour. The specialty tours are the Candlelight tour and the introduction to cave exploration. The Fairgrounds tour is named for the large room that they call the Fairgrounds; I was never entirely certain when we were there. However, I did get to see several examples of the cave's famous boxwork. Wind Cave was formed by standing water and condensation, rather than dripping water, so it has very few of the usual formations found in limestone caves such as flowstone or stalactites. It does have less common formations such as frostwork, popcorn, and boxwork. Boxwork appears when cracks in limestone fill with harder mineral deposits, and the limestone gradually weathers away, leaving the box-shaped mineral deposits behind.

Day in the Badlands

2009-09-11T15:58:00.020-05:00

This fall I finally set aside two weeks for a driving vacation. I left on a Saturday morning, and returned on a Thursday afternoon so I could have a three-day weekend at home before going back to work. I drove 700 miles on the first day, all the way to Badlands National Park. After such a long drive, I did not feel like pitching my new tent for the first time, so I found a cheap and smelly motel room, opened the window, and headed back into the park.

I thought I had seen badlands before because I had seen a few buttes from the interstate. Badlands National Park blew me completely away. It is continual "bad lands to travel across," a fur trader's living nightmare. The landscape goes up and down, undulating like a 19th-century seascape, and much of it is sandy and treacherous besides. In addition, there are prairie rattlesnakes. One sign noted that if we were careful and hiked very quietly, we might have the privilege of hearing the warning rattle before the snake struck. O, the joys of communing with nature!

On that first evening I walked the Cliff Shelf Nature Trail, where I saw some extremely habituated wildlife, breathed in the juniper, took in the views, and watched for prairie rattlesnakes. It was quite relaxing. As the sun set, I drove up to a scenic overlook and took some night pictures, and then I attended a ranger presentation on the night sky. The Badlands are, fittingly, a "dark place," and if the moon is not too full, one can see a lot of stars. On this night the moon was nearly full, but there were still a few constellations visible to the naked eye. They had telescopes available for visitors, which was a wonderful thing for them to do for people, but I left early. It was late, and there were a lot of digressions in the presentation, and I decided to go away and sleep.

I got up for a sunrise hike but slightly misestimated the time of the sunrise. I was at the trail at 6:20, but 6:00 would have been better. At any rate, getting up early was the best thing to do. Temperatures were unusually cool in the Badlands, but it was still hot, and it was still dry. I hiked on the Castle Trail only from 6:30 to 8:15, but by the time I returned, I was quite warm, and I could not have gone much farther without packing additional water. If I return to do the Castle Trail/Medicine Loop hike, I will pack along more than a gallon of water, no matter how early I start.

The slanted rays of the morning sun allowed me to see the colors of the Badlands formations more clearly. Later in the day the sun is so bright that the cliffs seem almost white. In fact, I took an evening photo of a cliff that I thought was white, and I was surprised to see several different shades of tan when I opened the image up later.

The Castle Trail is a marked walkway in which you follow posts, not a groomed trail. When you reach one post, you look for the next one, and you follow whatever path looks best to get you there. Jumping around on the rocks is genuinely great fun; of course I wore heavy boots in case of rattlesnakes, but I could still jump around pretty well anyway. There are a few sinkholes that look like prime rattlesnake habitat, and I avoided those. Since there is so much erosion, you can see all kinds of different layers of rock, and you can often see the root systems of the prairie grasses. The very tippy-top of the Badlands formations is where ground level once was, but so much has eroded away through the work of ancient rivers and the ever-present prairie wind, that now the ground level is significantly lower.

After my hike, I went on a geology walk with a ranger and a group of smart-alecky older travellers much like myself. I am not sure whether we learned more or laughed more, but I suspect the latter. I learned that to prevent plague, South Dakota parks have been spraying flea powder into prairie dog towns, right into the tunnels, and that this process makes the prairie dogs highly indignant and aggravated. I learned that an early park geologist (Ferdinand V. Hayden) was known to the Sioux as "Man who Picks up Stones while Running," because he would see them coming and try to run away, but he could not bear to leave his fossil finds behind so he would stuff them into his bag as he ran. The Sioux actually left him alone because they thought he was completely crazy for being out there without food or water, and after all, crazy men are touched by the holy spirit.

When we finished talking and laughing ourselves silly, and hiked out to the end of the Door Trail and checked out yet another phenomenal view of seemingly endless badlands, I headed on out. I scooped the rest of the main drive through the park, stopped at a few overlooks, and drove up to Wall for lunch. (Later I also found women's jeans without spandex at Wall Drug, so Wall proved useful to me on this trip. Most department stores no longer carry 100% cotton women's jeans.)

I decided to drive down to the south end of the park to see the visitor center run by the Oglala Sioux. Although it was a good visitor center and I enjoyed visiting it, I would not have gone if I had had any idea how long it would take to get there and to get back out again. The roads were in poor condition, and it took simply hours. I thought it was interesting that the visitor center was located in an area so far from the rest of the park, and I wondered whose idea that was. I did not reach Wind Cave National Park until nearly 6:00. Luckily, my tent assembled easily, and I spent some time lying around staring vacantly until it was time for the evening ranger presentation.

Mixes

2008-11-08T08:24:00.001-06:00

I simply do not understand the popularity of pancake mixes. I know very few people who make pancakes from scratch, although pancakes are the easiest thing in the world and they're practically foolproof. Foolproof recipes are important on Saturday mornings.

This morning I was trying to make a new pancake recipe, and I wanted to make a half recipe, but it was morning and I was having trouble concentrating. I ended up accidentally using ingredients from both sides of my cookbook, needing to throw in some dried dragonfruit from the pantry because I had too much batter (due to adding an ingredient from the wrong recipe), and finally accidentally putting in way too much flour and needing to add an extra egg and more milk. The pancakes were still considerably better than anything I've ever had from a box mix.

If one had children who expected pancakes the same every morning, a box mix could be the way to go. Not surprisingly, in the somewhat raucous kitchen I like having my pancakes taste different every time I make them. This morning I used sour cream and soy milk, with minced pear from my uncle's tree and leftover Granny Smith apple, plus a little dried dragonfruit. Spices were nutmeg and Mexican cinnamon. And maple syrup on top, of course.

I'm returning to my graduate school cheapskate eating habits through the end of the year in order to reallocate funds elsewhere. Last night I made bean soup with mixed dried beans (one kind of mix that I like!), onion, celery, carrots, leftover Easter ham, leftover beef broth, leftover juice drained from cooking tomatoes, thyme, mustard powder, shot pepper (pepper with coriander), and cumin. Baby bok choy goes in at the end. Of course no tomatoes or salt touched the beans until they were fully cooked. It is delicious, hearty soup.

Beet "Caviar"

2008-08-31T14:04:00.002-05:00

Words cover slightly different concepts in different languages. For example, not every language refers to a "book" of matches using the same word that describes a book that you read. In Russian, "caviar" refers not only to fish roe, but also to cold spreads that can be eaten on black bread much like regular caviar. Vegetable caviars are popular, and they can be made with all sorts of different vegetables (but especially eggplant!). Happily, they are a lot cheaper than fish roe.

For a few years now I have occasionally made beet caviar from a recipe in Please to the Table: The Russian Cookbook, but I have never thought it was quite right. However, I decided to give it another try this year because I came home from the farmers' market with a small bunch of beets, and I had already made pickled cooked beet salad three times this summer and I needed to make something else.

The beet caviar recipe calls for prunes, which I'm afraid I simply don't like, so I never put in very much of them, and I still feel like my food tastes like prunes. This time I didn't have any prunes and decided to use dried cherries instead. I was also out of brandy and used diluted sherry instead. The result was scrumptious; I have finally found a beet caviar that pleases me.

Beet Caviar with Walnuts and Cherries

3 large beets, cooked, peeled, and cut into quarters
3 Tbsp. cooking sherry + 1 Tbsp. water + 1 Tbsp. lemon juice
1/4 cup dried cherries
3 cloves garlic, cut in half
1 additional Tbsp. lemon juice
1/2-3/4 c. walnut pieces, chopped
3 Tbsp. mayonnaise (I like Spectrum canola mayo or Nayonnaise)
salt and pepper to taste

Bring the sherry to a boil, then drop the cherries in, remove the pan from the heat, and let the cherries soak for 30 minutes.

Process the beets and garlic in a food processor until finely minced but not pureed. Transfer the mixture to a bowl and add the remaining tablespoon of lemon juice, the cherries, 2 tablespoons of the liquid used to cook the cherries, and the walnuts. Stir in the mayonnaise and season to taste with salt and pepper. Cover and refrigerate for 6 hours or longer before eating.

Not everyone would like this, but I melted a little bleu cheese with some beet caviar and spread it on toast, and I thought it was quite good, though not as good as the straight caviar.

Lava Beds National Monument

2008-08-03T20:51:00.004-05:00

On the Fourth of July we drove to California's Lava Beds National Monument. This was a very cool place, and I wished I had ditched my travel pillow to make room in my luggage for heavy pants for the lava tubes. I have been to a lot of limestone caves, and crawling around in them means becoming extraordinarily dirty. My friends warned me to bring clothes that I could get dirty, but they did not warn me about the rocks being sharp. The dirt was negligible compared to limestone caves, but since I was wearing lightweight summer pants, I felt uncomfortable climbing around very much. I don't like cutting up my legs.

I steered my friend away from the lava tube cave loop, where he normally goes exploring, and we went to see pictographs at Symbol Bridge, which had some good pictographs and also a welcome spot where cold air blew out of the ground. We looked in Big Painted Cave too, but as far as we could tell, this cave was not painted by Native Americans, only by mineral deposits and guano.

We went to the bottom of Skull Cave, which is a massive ice cave, and you can see the ice at the bottom. I was impressed with the size of this cave, formed not by thousands of years of water erosion, but by a volcanic eruption. I never once needed to bend over.

At that point I was running out of steam. I had been constantly on the move for a week, and my right knee was giving out, and I was falling asleep in the car. We stopped at the edge of the park to see petroglyphs, and then we headed to R.'s house, where we did not go out to see Fourth of July fireworks, but instead purchased salads at a grocery store, ate in, drank wine, and watched "Babylon 5" episodes on DVD.

Petroglyphs are a curious thing to me. We believe they may have had great spiritual significance, but they often remind me of teenagers who get drunk and paint bridges. Some are artistic, and others look to be on the lines of "Tony + Lisa."

On Saturday we breakfasted in Klamath Falls and drove back to Portland. R. was very kind to drive me such a long distance. Our Portland friends cooked us a wonderful dinner and bought us marionberry pie, which was so good that I had a second piece, when normally I only accept dessert to be polite.

In the evening we rounded up my friends' son, and we all went to Oaks Park, a little grouping of carnival rides. My favorite part was racing the other grown-ups down the super slide. The children's roller coaster was actually scary because it felt like we were going to fall out, and it banged us around quite a bit.

Sunday was Powell's City of Books, and then I flew back to Chicago. My car was still there, I got home fine on the spare, and I ordered a new tire in Iowa City.

Crater Lake and Upper Rogue Gorge

2008-07-27T13:34:00.014-05:00

Crater Lake was a highlight of my trip, though I must advise never planning a trip to Crater Lake before mid-July because earlier than that is not yet "the season." Outside of "the season," very little is open. The boats do not run on the lake, the roads are all closed on the east side of the park, and only three miles of hiking trails are available to visitors. They had two of their blue tour boats moored tantalizingly near shore, and they were conducting research trips and training new guides, but we tourists were not allowed in the boats.

We hiked two of the three open miles of trails; the third followed the road we were driving on, so we felt it was unnecessary. The first trail ran up the side of Garfield Peak until it reached a spot where the snow hadn't melted yet. We got some very nice views of the lake, although everything was hazy because of the California wildfires. The Rim Village is at 7,044 feet, and the full 1.5-mile hike up Garfield Peak would add 1,010 feet of elevation.

After the walk, we ate lunch at the park restaurant, which was pretty good, though not worth going out of one's way for. They keep limited hours, and they only serve breakast during official breakfast time, so R. did not get to have eggs Benedict. It would be a good idea to call ahead for their hours, which appear to vary.

We took Cleetwood Trail down to the shore of the lake. Crater Lake is typically about 37 degrees, which made it surprising to us that the mosquitoes were both numerous and ravenous along the entire trail. If it had not been for the mosquitos, we might have stayed another hour or so.

Since the water is so cold that no one can stay in for very long, the park service does not restrict swimming, and many people took the plunge into the icy waters. We merely dipped our feet and hands in, however. It's also interesting to know that unlimited fishing is encouraged in Crater Lake. No fish are native to the lake, but some years ago, someone decided it would be cool to add fish. These days the prevailing thought is that turning a national treasure into a stock pond is not desirable, and the park service would like to get rid of the fish. The fish continue to thrive, and people continue to eat them.

Many posted signs warn people that Cleetwood Trail is "strenuous and steep," so I was expecting at least some scrambling over rocks, but it was nothing except highly civilized switchbacks. It was exposed and hot, and we took a lot of stops for me to take pictures, but even small children had no real trouble with the trail.

Since we did not spend the full day at Crater Lake, I talked R. into driving the long way home so we could see the gorge of the Upper Rogue River. We both liked that a lot; the Rogue takes its rushing seriously and has carved an impressive little gorge. Our last stop was Mill Falls; at that point we were both hungry and wanted to go straight to dinner, but instead we went to Mill Falls because we each thought the other person wanted to go there. Later we could not agree on whose idea it was. However, the falls were lovely.

Oregon: The Coast

2008-07-26T20:52:00.011-05:00

R. and I drove the short distance west from Portland to Astoria, where we checked into the Crest Motel. It was very basic on the outside, and I wasn't very pleased that our deck door did not lock, but the inside was quite nice, and as promised, they had an outdoor hot tub in a gazebo. This came in very handy that night.

From the Crest, we drove down to Fort Clatsop, which was where the Lewis and Clark expedition spent the winter of 1805-1806. There was one particularly knowledgeable ranger who dispelled our confusion about the construction of the rooms in the replica fort; the expedition would have built them a different way, with the fireplaces in the middle so they would let less heat escape, but the replica was built for tourists so they put the fireplaces along the walls. This same ranger later gave a rifle firing demonstration that was absolutely fascinating. I don't know anything about guns, but I love hearing someone tell me all about how complex instruments work. They had all kinds of live demonstrations at the fort, and they were all terribly interesting. I had to pry R. away from a weaving demonstration because it was 6:00 and I wanted to leave and get dinner.

We drove up to Washington's Long Beach Peninsula, which separates Willapa Bay from the Pacific Ocean, so that we could try the famous Willapa Bay oysters. To me they tasted like oysters anywhere. I ate two, and then I had fried razor clam for dinner, which was tough and rubbery. Well, with dinner you win some and you lose some. Those are the breaks.

By the time we got back to the hotel, I was chilled and could not get warm, but the hot tub turned out to be well heated, and I eventually felt warm and comfortable again. We slept late, and in the morning our first stop was Josephson's Smokehouse. The salmon jerky was actually quite fantastic, and they also sold cans of high quality salmon, tuna, and oysters. After stocking up at Josephson's, we drove to the Astoria Column at the highest point in Astoria, which commanded a sweeping view of Young's Bay and the Columbia River. Unfortunately, the column turned out to be closed for repair, so we couldn't climb up to the top like we wanted to. Instead we went to the Columbia River Museum, which R. wanted to see. I did enjoy it very much. We heard the stories of many shipwrecks, and we were particularly impressed by a life-sized display showing a river rescue with the boat nearly at 90 degrees across a wave. The particular boat was a self-righting vessel that proved nearly indestructible but was finally retired and set up in the museum.

We ate lunch at Baked Alaska, a restaurant on a pier over the river. I ordered sea scallops over fettuccini, and this time my order was a winner. I found out later that the area has particularly tasty scallops, which mine certainly were. I love scallops that just melt in my mouth.

Finally, after lunch, we started driving down the coast. We stopped in Seaside to see a replica of the equipment that the Corps of Discovery used to get salt from the sea water, and I was pleased to get to see that. We made a lot of stops to check out sea stacks and other viewpoints. At one point we took a random trail down through berry bushes taller than our heads, eventually emerging at spectacular sea cliffs with birds soaring around. It was splendid, and it was all ours.

We took the Three Capes Scenic Loop and got out to walk around at every cape, so it was already starting to get dark when we stopped in Pacific City on Cape Kiwanda for a tasty dinner at the Pelican Pub and microbrewery. McPelican's Scottish Ale was the best beer we tried; for some reason I was not a fan of their award-winning stout. The view held a particularly engaging sea stack, pictured with this post.

It was quite dark by the time we finally arrived at the Sylvia Beach Hotel in Newport, which I selected. Each room has a theme of a famous writer. We slept in the E. B. White room because it was the only one with separate beds, but there are many other rooms. The Oscar Wilde room features garish Victorian wallpaper because they say Wilde's last words were, "Either this wallpaper goes, or I go." Besides the themed rooms, they have an upstairs library area with coffee and tea, and mulled wine after 10:00, and they serve a great breakfast including a hot dish that varies daily.

The tides were unusually low in the mornings, and the people at the Sylvia Beach Hotel kindly alerted us to this fact, so we went down to the beach and checked out some tide pools before breakfast. Breakfast was German pancakes, and we dined with two English/ESL teachers and a museum curator. Before leaving town, we spent the morning at the Oregon Coast Aquarium, which was a nice facility, though somehow I was expecting it to be bigger. Still, I always love to watch sea lions, and I think my favorite part was the sea birds. The puffins splashed around and showed off.

After a stop for pizza, we hiked up Cape Perpetua, another of my ideas foiled by Mother Nature. I did not really realize how high we were going. We rose above the fog, so basically we completed a tedious 800-foot climb in high humidity in order to see ... NOTHING. That took a while, and after the hike we did not make many more stops. We turned off the coast at Florence and drove west, stopping only for dinner and gas.

Dinner was at a promising-looking restaurant called Our Daily Bread in Veneta, Oregon. Unfortunately, I happened to be in the mood for a hamburger because the restaurant offered free range beef. They did not ask me how I wanted it, which was a bad sign; and while R. dined on a pasta dish that he wholly enjoyed, I got a dry, overcooked piece of something that used to be beef but was no longer entirely identifiable. They were busy and never stopped by the table again after bringing us our food, so eventually we gave up on dessert, went to the cash register to pay, and left. I bought us a couple cookies at a gas station later that evening as we drove late into the night to Klamath Falls.

Oregon Vacation Part 1

2008-07-26T15:00:00.002-05:00

My summer vacation occurred early this year due to time constraints at work. Despite the fact that I had a good trip, in hindsight this wasn't a very good time to go to Oregon; Mother Nature dogged me the whole trip.

I left not long after the Iowa floods. The roads were open, but it was still raining, and there was stuff on the roads. I was halfway to Chicago's Midway airport, which is about a 235-mile drive, when something sharp pierced the inside of my tire and I had a blowout on Interstate 80. I pulled all the way off so my right tires were on the grass, zipped up my rainproof jacket, and started changing my ruined tire. Several cars drove by without pulling over to the left lane, and one truck splashed a wall of water all over me. My blue jeans got soaked and filthy. Luckily, my can-do attitude resulted in good karma, and before I could even get the tire off, a handsome DOT worker stopped and changed my tire for me. I was dry by the time I got to the airport, although I was still pretty dirty.

I had driven that distance so that I could fly Southwest, the one airline that still seems to be nice to its customers. My direct flight was inexpensive and included an ordinary baggage allowance and inflight snacks, and Southwest also had the best terminals, equipped with wide seats with electrical outlets for laptops. Southwest doesn't have reserved seating, so when I boarded the plane, I looked for people who seemed nice and were not too wide. I saw a couple of genial men and asked if I could sit between them, and they steered me to the window seat, which was even better. They were flying to Portland for the weekend to visit some old friends, and let me tell you, they had come prepared. They had more free drink coupons than they could use, and they had brought their own in-flight movie, Sideways of course. They were delightful.

In Portland I had reserved a rental car. The West Coast traffic was a bit of a shock at first, and I white-knuckled it until I got out of the city. It was a long drive to Pullman, Washington, where I had a reservation at the cheap and comfortable Pullman Hotel. Unfortunately, the effort was wasted, except as a fact-finding mission showing me that I really liked Pullman. Winter had brought a record snow pack, and all the forest roads around Mount Saint Helens were still closed, which was highly unusual and a huge drag.

Deprived of my hike, I drove back west, stopping for a huge breakfast at a diner. I think an entire potato went into my hashbrowns. While I waited, I watched the short-order cook like a hungry wolf, and every time she brought out someone else's order, I looked disappointed and involuntarily dropped my shoulders. Although the waitress brought everyone else their orders, the short-order cook handed me my food directly with an understanding smile. I ate every last speck of food, left a 30% tip, and took off.

I visited the lowest visitors' center at Mount Saint Helens, where I learned a great deal about the 1980s eruption, and I took the walking path along Spirit Lake, which I had hoped to observe from a great height at Norway Pass. Then I took off driving toward the innermost visitors' center and Johnson Observatory. I never made it there because I started to worry about running out of gas, but I saw some great views. I'll go back some time in August.

After dropping the car at the Portland airport, it was easy to hop on a commuter train into town. I opted to walk about 1.5 miles toward my friends' house, until the sidewalk ran out and I called my friends to rescue me. We visited several Portland parks, and I was really impressed with the city.

In the evening we decided to take our chances at Apizza Scholls, New York style pizza limited to three toppings. They only serve pizza until they run out of dough, which generally takes 2-3 hours. The pizza was pretty decent, though I have to admit that I preferred Nick -n- Willy's, a New York style pizza chain that started in Boulder; they recently went out of business in my town. I still haven't decided what I'm going to do for pizza now. However, I think back on the Apizza Scholls beer list with great nostalgia. I may have to start eating pizza at the Sanctuary, which is several miles from my house but has a great beer selection.

Apizza Scholls started out in a small town, where they did spotty business until they decided to pack up and move to the city. Now they are so popular that they only open for a few hours a day. I remember Delfino's Pizza in my Iowa home town, which made such fantastic Chicago style pizza that they did hardly any business and they closed up shop and moved to the West Coast. I think I have located them in Seattle, so I'll be going out there some time to check them out. At Apizza Scholls we ordered two pizzas--a sausage, mushroom, and olive pizza, which was my idea, and my friend's choice of pepperoni and basil, which was better.

The next day was Sunday, and we visited the Portland Art Museum, which was absolutely huge. I had a great time there, and afterward we stopped at Voodoo Doughnuts, which also made me very happy. Voodoo Doughnuts is the coolest doughnut shop in the entire world, and I think no one could dispute that in a way that would carry any weight with me. They offer weddings that are "100% legal, unless you don't want them to be. The service is performed by ordained ministers beneath the holy doughnut and a velvet painting of Isaac Hayes. It doesn't get more legal than that!"

Voodoo Doughnuts offers several inventive specialty doughnuts. I could only try a few, but I particularly liked the dirty snowball: a chocolate doughnut with pink marshmallow frosting and coconut sprinkles, and a peanut butter dollop in the middle. It sounds gross, but it was so good that I ate the whole thing and did not share. What I thought would be delicious was the evil doughnut, all chocolate with a frosting pentagram on it, but it tasted boring. Maple glaze is something they do very well. We ordered both a maple log and a maple frosted bismarck, and they were irresistible.

In the evening we went out for Vietnamese food, and in the morning I left for the coast with college friend R.

Spring Bicycling

2008-04-09T17:24:00.002-05:00

The weather has turned mild, and I have begun my spring cycling outings. When I start riding in the spring, it's cold and dirty outside, and I ride my trail bike, and I wear heavy clothes to keep warm. Right now the weather is fine, but most of the people out riding are taut road bikers with intense looks on their faces. Now and then I see a couple of kids, and a handful of middle-aged lunatics on fat-tired bikes. I know where I belong. In my yellow striped pants and purple jacket, riding my trail bike, I am clearly one of the middle-aged lunatics, and we all smile at one another and wish each other good day. The road bikers do not acknowledge my nods unless I am riding the skinny-tired bicycle.

When I switch to my skinny-tired bicycle that my helmet matches, and I wear biking shorts and a jersey, the road bikers acknowledge my presence, while my own people, the middle-aged lunatics, view me with some suspicion. I might ride too fast on the trails, where people are trying to be at their ease and move at leisure.

There is no unity among bicyclists, except at RAGBRAI. I almost missed the registration deadline this year, but at the last moment I registered for two days. If all goes well, I will ride from Iowa City to the Mississippi.

Nothing Less Will Do

2008-03-17T18:33:00.005-05:00

I've decided to pursue one piece of perfect living room furniture this spring. My "stereo case" consists of plastic shelving, while I wait to find the right piece, because I'm a perfectionist and I'd rather have nothing than something I don't like. Today I drove to Cedar Rapids, because I have a suspicion that it will have better used furniture than Iowa City because there are fewer students to buy it. It's not that I won't buy new furniture, but I normally don't like it. I find most new furniture to be either too fussy or too clunky, and the chairs are too deep and bad for one's back. Even the ultra-expensive arty furniture just makes too much of a statement for me. I don't want to live in a gallery; I like everything cozy and inviting, or failing that, at least practical.

There was a traffic jam on the freeway, so I exited and cut through the Czech Village to the arty part of Cedar Rapids, which is a very small section of town. I drove past the Harley bar and some galleries and empty storefronts until I reached downtown, which, again, was not very far away. I've wanted to visit Jeff Jones consignment furniture store for over a year now, but I thought someone told me it was on 3rd St., where the Harley bar is, and I could not for the life of me find it. It's typical of me that it took me a year to pick up the phone book, write down the address--3rd Avenue--and drive over there. I'm not very good at keeping track of the passage of time. It's how I wound up in grad school so long. It's also why I wasn't upset when I turned 40; I had gotten upset the year before, when I turned 39 but thought I was turning 40.

Now that I finally know where Jeff Jones is, I will go there once or twice a month until I find what I'm looking for, whatever that is--unless I find it somewhere else first. I once picked out an entertainment center at a consignment store in Anamosa, but I never actually bought it, so Anamosa is my next stop.

Even so, of all the furniture stores I have ever been to, Jeff Jones is my favorite. I did not see any particle board, and nearly everything in the store had character. They have stunning furniture pieces. Even though I wasn't looking for a coffee table, I would have bought one there if it hadn't already been sold. It was perfect. It was light wood, probably a Prairie style, smaller than most coffee tables, with stained glass inset in the top, and a functional shelf under the table surface. There were outer slats that blocked anyone from having a clear view of the shelf. I saw other pieces with a similar look, and all of them had been sold. Probably I need to meet the person who bought them and just move in. Then I could stop shopping for furniture.

What You Wish For

2008-03-10T11:51:00.004-05:00

It's a good thing I was careful what I wished for, because my company may be sending me to Tucson! I can hardly wait.

In the meantime, I'm going to go on a Sherman Alexie reading spree. I have tickets to hear Steve Earle in May, but by that time it will be spring and I'll be happy even without Steve Earle, although Steve Earle will make me deliriously happy.

Business Trip

2008-03-01T16:10:00.009-06:00

Iowa has been a bit stark most of the time this winter, as you can see. The other day I was driving to work after another storm, and the road was icy, and I thought to myself, "You know, I hate everything." I'm not the type to stay cranky, though, and I mellowed out. Still, given the unrelenting cold and storms, I can't say I was terribly enthused about my business trip to Minnesota. I wondered why they couldn't send me to Florida.

Within a day in Minneapolis, though, I realized I could even go so far as to vacation in Minnesota in winter. It was great. I was there for five days and it never snowed once. The hotel had a swimming pool and a hot tub, and my coworker turned out to be an even bigger foodie than I am. We went to the Good Earth on the first night, where I had a Japanese udon noodle soup with bok choy and other vegetables. The next night we ate at Fasika Ethiopian restaurant; Ethiopian is one of my favorite cuisines. Then we ate at India Palace in Roseville, where we received truly professional service, and the food was perfect. Finally, we went out for Tibetan and Nepali food at Everest on Grand restaurant in Saint Paul, and everything was divine there too. I ate jak dumplings.

I dragged my coworker to the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, which was free and turned out to have a tremendous and varied collection, though usually just one or two works on display by any particular artist. They had something for everyone; my coworker likes the Dutch Masters, from whom there of course were some selections, as well as Chuck Close, and they had a huge work by him. I was thrilled to find three Edward Weston prints, and I also for the first time encountered the work of George Tice, which I found very exciting. In addition, the Tatra car took my breath away.

I was sorry to leave, and when I approached the Iowa border I was even sorrier. When I got about 25 miles north of the border, it started to snow. As I neared the border the wind picked up, and by the time I crossed into Iowa I wanted to turn around and go back. However, the driving was more or less safe, and I didn't have any trouble getting home. I did spot one motorist sitting, unmoving, in his car with both hands on his steering wheel, at the bottom of a deep median. He appeared to be meditating on how he could have possibly ended up at the bottom of the median. I called 911, and in less than five minutes I saw a police car headed in that direction.

Break in the Storms

2008-02-17T10:48:00.007-06:00

Yesterday brought temperatures only a bit below freezing, with sunny skies. I stopped briefly at the Sac and Fox trail to photograph Indian Creek. Although it was gorgeous, I wouldn't recommend it for walking. The entire trail, and then some, is covered in cross country ski tracks, and of course skiers don't want people walking on their ski tracks.

Today it is snowing again. I had to cancel my plans for a day on the town. Instead I get to prepare tax materials, pack for a business trip, and bake. I'm making Tex-Mex beef pie with cornmeal biscuit topping, and a large batch of carrot-pumpkin bars.

Hawes Wensleydale

2008-01-24T22:04:00.000-06:00

Every now and then I like to try a new cheese, and this week I saw an appetizing description of a British cheese, "pleasantly nutty," perhaps "tart." Seduced by these phrases, I bought a wedge. I always think I'm going to like "nutty" cheeses, and yet they nearly always taste like vomit. I adore cheeses, but in my opinion all of them have an undertone of vomit taste, and in some it is less subtle than in others. The flavor of the Hawes Wensleydale cheese suggested that it should not be eaten alone, but paired with something smoky and strong such as mushrooms.

Hawes Wensleydale frittata with portabello mushrooms

Saute in a high-sided skillet with a little oil until it begins to turn translucent:
one onion, chopped

Add:
several Baby Bella mushrooms, sliced
four lightly pre-steamed small Yukon Gold or red potatoes, sliced
Saute until the mushrooms soften.

Whisk together:
6 eggs
1/3 c. grated Hawes Wensleydale cheese
1/4 c. milk
1-2 t. tarragon
salt and pepper to taste

Lower the heat on the burner, pour the liquid into the skillet, cover the skillet, and cook until the frittata is set but not overcooked, about 20 minutes.

This frittata was very tasty, and the cheese blended in well with the other flavors.

Iowa Caucus

2008-01-03T20:53:00.000-06:00

I went to my local caucus tonight. It was fun! It went on too long, because there were five times the normal number of caucus goers, but it was a great experience. We had 555 people show up. I sat with the Biden group, which only had 9 supporters, and we were all a bunch of Independents who register Democrat. I'm definitely going to support the marginal candidates first every time I go to caucuses. You get to meet your little group and hear what everybody has to say, and representatives come from every other candidate to try to get your support in the second round, after your candidate proves not to be viable. The Clinton group brought us cookies, although they were not actual Clinton Cookies.

Candidates had to have 15% of the votes in order to be viable, and all the marginal candidates added together only had about 10% of the votes, so in the second round we had to choose Obama, Clinton, or Edwards. Obama had twice as many supporters as anybody else did. I left a little early, so I didn't find out whether Edwards or Clinton came in second. There was such a large crowd that I was afraid I wouldn't be able to get out of the parking lot if I didn't leave early. Next time I'll throw on a ski mask and brave the cold to walk to the caucus.

Winter Storms

2007-12-23T10:42:00.000-06:00

We got another storm hit yesterday. We have experienced a large number of ice storms recently, and we are too far north to have so many ice storms, so last night I watched An Inconvenient Truth while the rain fell all day long. Then overnight the temperatures dropped dramatically and we got four inches of snow. The snowdrifts are very beautiful, but it's dangerously cold outside, about 10 degrees Fahrenheit with a 30 mph wind making the wind chill about 20 below.

The snow plows didn't get to work on our parking lot until around 9 a.m., and I waited patiently inside and watched my 20-something neighbors become impatient waiting for the plows to finish clearing the snow. It appears that most of my neighbors do not own snow shovels; they just drive over the snow. Unfortunately, not all of them are bright enough to figure out that you can't simply drive over a foot-high snow drift if you don't have snow tires.

Most recently, I watched a little car get stuck in the snow with the parents and baby inside; the man of the house emerged from the vehicle with a window ice scraper in his hand, and he stamped through the snow and surveyed the area trying to figure out how to get the car loose. I envisioned him digging his car out with the ice scraper, but he didn't try it. They sat there until the snowplow came.

I find it difficult to imagine not owning a snow shovel at this latitude. My dad is a farmer and insists upon proper winter safety precautions. In my car I keep a blanket, a small snow shovel, a 60-pound bag of sand, and a spare pair of ski gloves.

It used to be that Iowans knew how to drive on ice and snow, but nowadays the ditches fill up with cars every time there's bad weather. After storms I pass an average of one stranded vehicle every other mile on my way to and from work. We are all becoming so urban.

Cheap Eats

2007-12-23T08:14:00.000-06:00

I spent altogether too much time in graduate school. Now that I am gainfully employed, I still keep to a daily budget that is very similar to what it was in grad school, but I spend extra on having a nice place to live, subscribing to cable, and furnishings and the occasional clothing item that I would not have been able to splurge on in grad school.

I still eat very cheaply. I'm now volunteering at the local food pantry, and looking around at their stocks of food reminded me of all kinds of things I've made to eat. I never eat Ramen; I eat a variety of cheap food that offers a greater variety of tastes. The food pantry keeps a book of recipes, and I submitted four of mine to them. Here's one I made up a couple years ago.

Refried Bean Casserole

Ingredients:
leftover tortilla chips
1 small onion
2 cloves of garlic
either: one can of Ro-Tel tomatoes, drained a little
or: small can of mild green chilies, drained, with 1 can of diced tomatoes, drained a little
or: one fresh jalapeno, with 1 can of diced tomatoes, drained a little
1 can of refried beans
grated cheese (Mexican "queso" or Jack cheese is good)
salsa, green or red

Directions:
1. Oil a large casserole dish.
2. Pour the tortilla chips into a big bowl and pick out the unbroken ones. Take the broken ones and crumble them into the casserole dish to line the bottom.
3. Saute the onion in oil for about 5 minutes, then add the garlic and jalapeno if using them. Saute until the onion is soft. Then turn the heat off and stir in the canned ingredients: chiles if used, tomatoes, and refried beans. Stir well. Pour this mixture into the casserole dish and spread it around evenly. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
4. Take the reserved whole tortilla chips and arrange them around the edges of the casserole so they form a ridge. Form a decorative pattern in the center using some of the chips.
5. Cover the surface of the casserole with as much cheese as you want. Drizzle salsa on top in a zigzag pattern. Bake until the cheese browns slightly.

Gruel Bread

2007-10-07T09:16:00.000-05:00

A few years ago I figured out a use for leftovers I didn't want to eat: Bake them into bread. I started with gruel bread made with leftover overcooked vegetables from soup stock. Gruel bread was not actually very good, however. Some leftovers work better than others. For instance, I have a truly nasty hempseed bar that I plan to boil down and use in bread or muffins, and the results might be rather tasty. I may do the same with my Trader Joe's fig cake, which has a strong boozy taste that I don't like, but that might be a good flavoring for bread.

A few weeks ago cauliflower and squash were on sale at the corner grocery store, and I used most of a head of cauliflower and most of a winter squash of some sort to make a vegetable dish. I steamed them, and then I baked them with orange juice, brandied ginger puree, and allspice. It sounded good, but in the end I didn't like it very much. Eventually I concluded I wasn't going to finish eating it all, so I froze the last of it.

After a few days I realized I probably wasn't going to eat the two frozen servings either, so I thought it over and decided to use them as the base for bread. I warmed them up in the microwave, pureed them in the blender with more orange juice, and substituted them for the fruit in the Freshly Fruited Bread recipe in The Enchanted Broccoli Forest cookbook.

The quirk of squash bread is that it absorbs flour slowly. At first it behaves as though I were a complete cad for putting in so much flour, and it is resolved to be dry and inedible. Then, as I continue to knead, I find that the dough is actually wet and sticky. I have to continue adding flour, but only a little at a time, and it takes too long, and if there's very much whole grain flour in the mix, it is awfully hard work. I've taken to using mostly white flour for squash bread so the kneading is not tiring. Today I ran out of whole wheat and had to mix in some soy flour and brown rice flour, which has very little gluten, but the white flour should make up for the rest of the gluten so the bread will rise well.

I'm rushing the rise a little because a friend is arriving in 45 minutes for a bike ride.

Rafting the Poudre

2007-09-30T14:56:00.000-05:00

That Friday I did laundry and ate breakfast in Estes Park, then drove to Fort Collins for an afternoon of whitewater rafting on the Cache La Poudre river. The river is designated Wild and Scenic, which restricts development and incidentally makes it a cash cow for the five river outfitters that were already established before the river became Wild and Scenic.

A-1 Wildwater offers a choice of two half-day rafting trips, both of which cover the exact same stretch of river, except that the #1 family trip pulls out and skips a couple rapids, while the #2 Wild and Scenic trip goes over those two rapids. We had five boats taking the #1 trip, and two taking #2. I took trip #2, which said we had to be strong swimmers in good physical condition, willing to paddle hard,... Maybe it's because the river was low and we had an excellent guide, but those strictures were laughable. We only paddled when our guide told us to, and there was almost no exertion involved at all.

On the other hand, there were still opportunities to mess up. I'm a big river snob with little patience for other people's dopey behavior on the water, but this time I made the one big goof-up on my raft. Our guide called for us all to move to the middle of the boat fast, but I could not hear the command well enough, so it took about a second before I processed the command and moved. That was long enough for me to see a large rock very nearly slam into my right side extremely hard. I got out of the way just in time, but the suddenness of the large rock appearing in the space I had just vacated freaked me out for a second, just long enough for me to forget about my paddle and lightly smack the guy in front of me on the back of the head. Luckily, he had a helmet on and was unhurt and unflustered, but I certainly felt like a putz.

The canyon was just gorgeous, and the water felt wonderful. The day was hot, and it was fantastic to get repeatedly drenched. My raft held six grown people and our guide, in whom I placed complete and unquestioning confidence. He was the senior statesman of the river guides, perhaps 25 years old, and more reserved and mature than the others. He never seemed to exert himself, but sat confidently in back and directed, in full control. I know the signs of someone who's having a good time comfortably in his element.

We six tourists took our part rather seriously, and we leapt to follow every command. Thus, while all the other rafts seemed to be spinning around and getting stuck on rocks, we moved cleanly down the river and often pulled off to wait for other boats. Once the guy in front of me helped someone out of the river after she got knocked out of her raft. She was moving swiftly, and I wasn't sure what to do, but he calmly held out his paddle, she grabbed it, and her guide scooped her back up into the raft. She was a really good sport about it; she joked that her guide yelled "Bump!" and she thought he said "Jump!" so she did.

I was surprised at how stable I felt in the raft. I always thought it looked precarious to be perched on the side of a raft, but actually the space is wide, and there's a place to secure a foot. With the foot secured, you have to hit a pretty good bump to fly out of the raft.

The raft itself is incredibly stable, too. It's not at all like a canoe or kayak. You can climb in and out in any clumsy fashion you can think of, and the raft won't even wobble. Another difference from a canoe or kayak was that my back felt very comfortable the whole time, because I was always moving. After two hours in a canoe or kayak, I am very stiff. After three hours I can't fully straighten up when I try to stand.

What I loved most was just cruising down that river and feeling the water below me and around my feet and splashing onto me. I am definitely booking a full-day trip on a future vacation.

Chasm Lake

2007-09-30T14:49:00.000-05:00

On Thursday in Estes Park I bought myself a cup of hot tea and drove to Longs Peak trailhead, arriving just after 7:30 a.m. It was August and the first completely clear day in a while, so the parking lot was already full because of all the people going for the summit. I had to park about a quarter mile down the road, lengthening my hike a little. I left half the tea in the car to finish after my hike, and I headed up the road.

After chatting with the rangers, I signed the registry at 8:20 and pointed myself up the mountain. The trail was wooded and shady for quite a good distance, though it climbed steadily. I immediately realized I should have brought more than 1.5 liters of water, although I rationed it and made it last the whole hike.

One complaint I have about hiking books is that they never mention toilet facilities. To me the presence or absence of a toilet on a crowded hiking trail above treeline makes a big difference in my planning. I had to assume there would not be a toilet, so I drank only a minimal amount before starting my hike, then drank frequently as I walked, so that all the water would be used by my body and would not be wasted. It turned out that this caution was completely unnecessary, as there were not just one, but two, composting toilets on the trail, neither of which was marked on the park map. However, I did not need either, because I had made sure I would not. If I ever write a hiking guide, I will mention toilet facilities for those who would rather not go in the woods if they don't have to.

After a couple of miles I reached a sign announcing the beginning of alpine tundra, and the trees became stunted and quickly went away altogether. The rest of the hike was exposed, and the sun was bright. I took short steps and tried to use as little energy as possible to lift myself up the stone steps. After only 3 miles I was exhausted and wanted to turn back, but instead I sat down, rested, and kept going.

I was frequently passed by trail runners, which was demoralizing. Even when I was moving at 2 m.p.h., which seems pretty brisk for walking up a mountain at 10,000 feet the day after one's arrival, I stopped for a swig of water and got passed by two older men from Minnesota who told me, "Keep drinking that water!" I congratulated myself on refraining from flipping them off.

When I got to the juncture where the hardcore hikers turned off to the Longs Peak summit, and there was only .7 mile remaining to Chasm Lake, I perked up and headed down the cliff-hugging trail to an alpine meadow, still being passed by multiple hikers. I think I was the second slowest person on the mountain. The slowest guy was traveling with a group, and at one point his female guide decided to encourage him, within earshot of any passing hikers--"I'm so proud of you, you've really pushed yourself, I'm really proud of you for pushing yourself that way." I was glad I was hiking alone, so I could stumble and groan without anyone embarrassing me with condescending praise.

Anyway, the alpine meadow was lush and glorious. A stream ran through it, then tumbled over a high cliff to form a lake below. Above us was the east face of Longs Peak. When I reached the end of the meadow, it was a while before it dawned on me that I had not seen Chasm Lake yet. I still had to climb the rocks in front of me. I thought, "This is sick."

However, there was no way I was turning back a quarter of a mile from Chasm Lake, so I climbed up that big rock slide. After I reached the top of it, I climbed an easy rock face and crossed a few boulders, and I was there.

Chasm Lake is surrounded by big boulders, and it backs up against cliffs. Sometimes you can watch climbers ascending the east face, but I didn't see anyone climbing, though there were a lot of people at the lake, including several children who were also tougher than me. I took in my view, ate Plainfield Pistachio trail mix (delicious!), drank more of my water, and turned around for the descent. It was easier than I expected, although this was when I witnessed the emasculation of the one hiker who was slower than I was.

I climbed on out of there, then descended carefully so as not to put too much stress on my knees, still continually being passed. Pretty soon my ankles hurt, my knees ached, my butt burned, and I basically felt like everything below the waist was mush. I didn't mind, though; I would have been disappointed if I hadn't hurt that much. I had a great time, and relished being quasi-alone in the mountains.

Lake Haiyaha

2007-09-30T14:46:00.000-05:00

When I arrived in Estes Park, Colorado, I stopped briefly at my hostel, the Colorado Mountain School, then drove on to Rocky Mountain National Park, making it into the park by noon. I took the shuttle to Bear Lake trailhead and hiked up to Lake Haiyaha. For the first mile, as far as Dream Lake, the crowds were really dense, but after that the path was sometimes so deserted that I sang songs to warn bears of my presence. I chose “Peter and the Wolf” and “Going to a Go-Go.” With any luck no one heard me.

Dream Lake is one of my favorite places, and aptly named. The water is clear and green, and there are rocks under the lake’s surface near the shoreline, providing an interesting brown and black contrast to the emerald green water. Most people continue from Dream Lake to Emerald Lake, but there’s also a narrower and less-trodden path up the mountainside to Lake Haiyaha. The trail is no more difficult, and the lake is prettier. There’s also a gnarled tree whose wood is an absolute riot of colors.

Unfortunately, I left quickly due to a cloudburst. I really need to get a better rain jacket.

This was my first day at high altitude, although I had overnighted in Limon, Colorado, which helped. I walked slowly, taking 4 hours to cover only 5 miles. I took long stops to shoot pictures with an antique Argus C-3. I’m not sure whether I like the views best, or the smell of the trees best, but the two put together are intoxicating.

In the evening, back at the Colorado Mountain School, some exhausted climbers and I all put in earplugs and slept for over 10 hours.

Trying Out RAGBRAI

2007-07-29T18:16:00.000-05:00

After three years back in Iowa, I finally rode a little of RAGBRAI (Register's Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa). I signed up for Friday, July 27, and I dreaded it all summer. It was a 64-mile day, going from Independence to Dyersville, and it might be hot, there might be large crowds of people, it might rain, or there could be almost any sort of unpleasantness, not to mention excessive sweating.

I set up a reasonable training schedule for myself but wound up not keeping it. I had to travel for work three times, and one of my colleagues had to be hospitalized, which forced me to work on two projects at the same time, cutting my riding time substantially. Also, I found out that spending more than three hours at a time on my bicycle tended to result in back pain. Finally I realized that Friday’s RAGBRAI included Manchester as a “meeting town,” only 42 miles into the ride. I arranged for my parents to pick me up in Manchester, which was more convenient for them than Dyersville anyway, and I stopped worrying about being in good enough physical condition for the ride.

The day turned out to be beautiful, not oppressively hot or humid at all. In addition, the hills were very moderate, and even when there was a headwind, my group was traveling at such a slow pace that the wind scarcely mattered. Finally, even when there was a big crowd of bicycles and we were all on top of one another, such as when a Team Skin pace line caught up to me, it wasn’t aggravating. It was fun.

To my surprise, I hardly seemed to notice the hills. I live near Iowa City, and if I want to ride more than about 3 miles toward town, I have to cross a ridge, which means going up and down some hills that are just progeny of dogs. There was nothing on RAGBRAI that remotely resembled those hills. Back on my home turf today, about 2/3 of the way down one of those puppies, I decided to let go of the brakes and see what would happen, and I hit 29 m.p.h.

Another great thing about RAGBRAI is that you never go more than a few miles without a place where you can stop and buy something to drink or eat. There are a number of local organizations that earn money by selling food during RAGBRAI, and also, vendors follow the route. Pastafarian has great-smelling grilled salmon, and they play reggae. This is the last year for Mr. Pork Chop, which apparently is an institution. Rumor has it that Lance Armstrong stopped there for a pork chop, and some lady asked if he would move out of the way so she could have her picture taken with Mr. Pork Chop.

The varied teams are a highlight; people choose a theme for their team, and it can really be just about anything. Team Spin, for instance, is a group that revolves around the color purple, and flipping people upside down and placing stickers on their behinds.

I rode with my old friend Linda, who was a member of the Lance Armstrong team, and I got to meet some of her teammates, who were very interesting folks. We didn’t ride with very many of them, though. There was a team photo, and then several shouts of “Who’s got Lance’s bike?” followed by an assembly in the parking lot. Linda and I got left behind on the first block out of the parking lot, when Linda dropped her camera case. We rode like crazy to catch up, but we couldn’t make it. I had my first near-asthma attack since the age of 22, and eventually I wound up way ahead of Linda and had to stop and wait for her in the first town. We settled on a group of four of us, and we stayed together until I peeled off in Manchester.

It only took me two hours to figure out that RAGBRAI was the best place in the state to hook up with somebody, and I’m annoyed that I lived here three years and nobody told me. I really should have set aside more vacation time for this. I already have all my vacation time booked up for next year, but I’ll at least ride on the final day.

Magdalena: Nightfall

2007-04-01T21:02:00.000-05:00

As Magdalena slept, she dreamed that her plants grew. The Wandering Jew and the fuchsia reached out to each other, tentatively at first, but then they intertwined and locked themselves together. Purple and orange proliferated and expanded downward and outward, overspreading the walls, extending tendrils to the ceiling and floor, enveloping the living room in a swelling tide of foliage.

Under the window the tide ebbed slightly, parted, and revealed a disembodied head, flowers tangled in its hair. It was Craig's. Magdalena jerked violently and woke up, disoriented. She turned on a light and looked around searchingly--no plant incursions, no dead body parts. She checked the living room--the same. Her two hanging plants barely brushed against each other, as if shy. Everything was quiet, and almost shockingly normal after the dream.

Moments Close to Home

2007-03-16T11:06:00.000-05:00

This winter we had a couple weeks of brutally cold weather. Our local media even called up Nome, Alaska, to see how they felt about experiencing temperatures above freezing while the lower 48 was in a deep freeze. Nome wished we could trade; they had to change the route of their dog sled race.

Eventually the weather warmed up to merely bitterly cold. When the temps finally got up to around freezing, I left work early to take a walk. Initially I wanted to walk at Sugar Bottom, but it was closed, so I drove a little ways around the Coralville Reservoir and found MacBride Recreational Area.

There were two vehicles already parked in the last lot: a pickup with a flat tire and a small car. As I walked across the parking lot toward the Hawk Ravine Trail, three or four hikers in full packs returned to their car from the opposite direction. I walked a short distance along a snow-packed cross-country skiing trail (which I later found out was not the Hawk Ravine Trail) and saw a bunch of raptors wheeling about. I watched them until they flew away, then walked on through the Fox campsites out to campsite 8, which was a fantastic spot overlooking the reservoir. I'd like to camp there some time.

I walked back to the parking lot and headed up the road that the backpackers had come from. I passed the Wolf campsites and a shelter, waved hello to a jogger, found a map, and decided to go on as far as the raptor center. Before I got there, though, I found the Hawk Ravine Trail. This was obviously a short trail headed in the direction of my parking lot. The sun was going down, and I had left my flashlight in the car, so I took off at a good clip down the trail, scampering up and down the hills with my feet sideways so I wouldn't slide in the snow. When the parking lot was in sight, I stopped on a wooden bridge and listened to the calls of the birds and the rustle of the breeze, and I looked all around.

After a while I walked on quietly for a few yards, then turned around for another look. About 50 yards behind me there was a timber wolf. I couldn't believe my eyes. I just stood there and stared, wondering if I was mistaken. I still can't say for sure that it was a wolf because he kept his face turned away from me, but he had the markings and the tail for it. Wolves seldom range this far south, but it was very cold this winter, and they do travel in winter.

The wolf studiously pretended to be interested in something else and didn't make any moves toward me. Still, it seemed to me that if a wolf showed himself to a human, he was probably hungry and might be kinda hoping that I was wounded or very small (or maybe only that I might toss him some beef jerky), so I made stomping noises as I walked quickly back to my car.

I'm reading a book of "unforgettable journeys" and trying to plan a trip on the Trans-Mongolian Railway for next year, but at the same time I feel that a person can have unforgettable moments close to home if she doesn't close herself off to them.

Home Internet At Last

2007-03-12T16:20:00.000-05:00

I hardly know where to begin. I've let the blog slide for nearly a year, but I finally bought a home computer and internet access. It's pretty thrilling.

My aunt died last summer, and I dropped most of my usual activities.

I didn't take my camping trip last summer. I went to Hawaii by myself instead and visited my old friend Charlotte. I figured that since I planned to buy a condo, I'd take a rather expensive vacation while I could still afford it. We went to the Big Island, saw Kilauea erupting at night, played on a black sand beach while staying 15 feet away from the sea turtle, hiked in a caldera, and visited the Ka'u desert. On Oahu I spent a day at the Bishop Museum, saw Halona Cove and Sandy Beach, circumnavigated the island, ate a magnificent meal with Charlotte's parents, and played with Charlotte's cat so much that the cat and I were both bummed out after I left.

Char and I went snorkeling in Hanauma Bay twice. It was one of the most fascinating experiences I ever had. I loved having my head underwater and still being able to breathe, and watching the fish. I loved seeing a sea turtle. There were these crazy deepwater fish that kept coming after all the humans to scare us, and they were grinning. I'd never seen a fish grin before. I loved wearing prescription goggles so, for the first time since I was very little, I could see clearly while swimming. It was incredible.

When I returned to Iowa, I devoted myself to my house hunt, and in December I closed on a small condo. I now have a bathtub, a big garage, a washer/dryer, and an office that's separate from my bedroom: just what I always wanted. I'm relaxing and feeling more like myself, although I still get very uptight rather often. After all that time not finishing my Ph.D., then not being able to get hired for anything but part-time jobs, and unsuccessful dating,... It's been tough for me to not feel like I have to struggle all the time, but instead to relax and enjoy myself.

I'm trying to accept that things are okay and will be okay, and there's no wolf at my door.

Granola

2006-03-29T12:01:00.000-06:00

Some people, like my friend Ellen and my parents, love "my" granola and want me to make it for them as housewarming presents and Christmas presents and Spring Solstice presents... while other people say "Eh, it's granola," or in other words, they're all the same. In any case, my granola is really Mollie Katzen's Very Crunchy Granola, and the recipe can be taken from her website. All I do to change it is reduce the oil content and soy protein content, reduce the almonds a bit to make it cheaper, leave out the brown sugar, and set the oven 25-40 degrees lower so I don't burn it. I add 1/2-2/3 cup unsweetened coconut flakes, which add fat to the granola, and I can't really taste a coconut flavor, but the granola isn't as good without the coconut. I suspect I wouldn't need the cooler oven if it weren't for the coconut, which burns easily. The more coconut I use, the cooler I have to set the oven.

I wrote all that down for Ellen, whose head was spinning from the simplicity of my alterations to the recipe. She ate the granola I left her, and then she made her own, and it didn't taste the same. She called me and told me, and I realized I had a secret ingredient. Of course I promptly spilled the beans: Instead of using raw pumpkin seeds, I make the granola with tamari pumpkin seeds, which are greasy and salty and extremely tasty.

New Wheels

2006-03-26T12:50:00.000-06:00

I just bought my second bicycle. I bought the first a year and a half ago: a Cignal Ranger hybrid trail bike, a little too small for me but I bought it at a small independent bike store at the end of the season when the owner didn't have many bikes left. I didn't want to spend too much money in case either I wound up not enjoying riding very much, or my acute sciatica prevented me from riding. I could only ride a short distance at first, and it would make the sciatic nerve ache, but riding quickly began to make the sciatica improve!

I was thrilled to find a form of exercise I enjoyed that made my body feel better instead of giving me more injuries. I observed other bikes to figure out what I wanted to upgrade to. At first I wanted a mountain bike with disc brakes because road riding makes me nervous, I love trail riding, and mountain bikes are a blast. However, I decided that there are only two single track riding areas within a two-hour drive of my apartment, and I had no one to mentor me or ride with me on mountain bike trails, and a mountain bike would lock me into solo riding because I wouldn't be able to keep up with groups on road rides. Thus, I needed to choose a bike based on my riding goals, rather than what appealed to me most.

So did I want a road bike? Suiting up in fancy riding gear and cruising at high speeds isn't my style. I don't take a serious attitude to bicycling, I mainly bike on rough surfaces, I'm a little clumsy, and I really don't like to wipe out. On the other hand, I wanted to join Bicyclists of Iowa City for some low-key road rides just to be social and hang out. Thus, I decided to buy another hybrid, but a faster one.

I thought I might get a Trek hybrid because the nicest bicyclists seem to ride Treks and I wanted to be like them. However, it was too much of a bicyclist's bike for me. There wasn't even a shield over the chain spokes, so the bike couldn't be ridden with trousers on unless the cuffs were bound to my legs. Also, although the bike shop would have fitted the bike for me, the default handlebar settings were so far wrong for me that I wasn't entirely confident they could be fixed. My rotator cuffs hurt just from taking a spin around the parking lot!

I think Cannondales are gorgeous, but I fell in love with the Specialized Sirrus, which is a cushy, compact bike designed for the casual rider. It seems to be very popular; there were at least two others out for customers when I bought mine, this time at Northtowne Cycles in Cedar Rapids. I have to say, if there was a Northtowne charge card, I'd have it. I think I shop there more than almost anywhere else except grocery stores. Anyway, the Sirrus has a comfortable ergonomic seat; it's sporty and compact so I can reach the handlebars easily; it has a straight handlebar instead of curved, which gives me more control and keeps my back straighter; and its handling is far superior to that of my Ranger. It has narrow tires that help it get up a good speed easily, yet the tires are still wide enough that they won't get caught in a crack in Sutliff Road and throw me on the pavement. Plus it's beautiful. It's a little cheaper than a low-end road bike, as well.

I took the Sirrus for its maiden voyage today on the North Ridge Trail. Very sweet. It corners smoothly, with a certain style and grace. At times I get the feeling of floating over the road. Hopefully now when I ride with other bicyclists, they won't turn and look at me every time someone's brakes squeal; and mechanics won't look askance at me and hint that I might have purchased a bike at a department store. For the record, my Ranger's brakes have never squealed, not even once, and I'm keeping it for trail riding.

The Wrong Way

2006-03-19T16:14:00.000-06:00

One thing I learned this spring about backpacking was that packs were supposed to be loaded with lighter items at the bottom and heavier items on top. I never knew this, so a few years ago I simply tested my pack with heavy items at both top and bottom, concluded that having heavy items at the top made the pack pull away from my shoulders and sit funny, and henceforth always loaded my packs with the heavy items at the bottom.

Fortunately, today I read a more extensive and up-to-date guide to backpacking, and I learned that my way is the right way for my body type. Men should put lighter items in the bottom of their packs, but women tend to have longer legs and shorter torsos, which changes their center of gravity. Women should therefore experiment with where they want the heaviest items in their packs. For women like me whose legs require trousers for tall people but who can wear petite shirts, it is preferable to put the heavy items right above the sleeping bag at the bottom of the pack.

This discovery perfectly fits my philosophy that if somebody tells me there's only one way to do something, I should try another way.

Last summer a friend and I rented bicycles in Boulder. My friend is very tall, and the store gave her a big men's bike and insisted she ride it with the seat up so that she could scarcely graze the ground with her toes. She was uncomfortable at that height and said so, but they would not change the seat height, because it would compromise her pedaling efficiency and it would not be the proper height for her. On the other hand, they gave me a women's bike with a wide seat. I hate wide seats, I'm a regular bicyclist, and I ride a men's bike. I wasn't pleased with the bike, and I expressed my preference for a men's bike and a narrow seat, but I did not insist on a different bike.

We rode a block and a half, and I turned around, went back, and insisted they give me a men's bike. They didn't want to, but I was absolutely adamant. I hate wide seats, and I'm a regular bicyclist and I ride a men's model. The guy actually thought I would be awkward and uncomfortable, and he seemed to think it was ridiculous for a woman to be riding a men's bike.

As soon as I got back to my friend, we lowered her seat and had ourselves a very pleasant bicycle ride, the wrong way.

Trip Planning Continues

2006-03-11T10:39:00.000-06:00

My new backpack turns out to be something that gearheads call a "load monster," in other words too big unless I intend to be out for a week. Sigh. Well, I won't be hiking very far with it.

My new strategy is to try to win some gear from Backpacker magazine, which is sponsoring a contest. It's a long shot, but I might as well try, as I have no difficulty in presenting myself as pathetic, after ruining a nerve ending in my pinky on my first solo CAR CAMPING expedition, in freaking NEBRASKA. I'm going to get a friend to take a picture of me with my load monster and the offending padlock, the one I crushed the nerve with.

Anyway, I'm leaning toward purchasing a Jetboil camp stove. It's rather expensive, but it's so fuel efficient that if I use it for a few years, it will pay for itself. And when you're boiling water for 20 minutes to kill tapeworm larvae, fuel efficiency is a nice feature.

Planning My Summer Vacation

2006-02-25T10:50:00.000-06:00

I am making plans to take a friend to the shores of Lake Superior this summer, including a three-night camping outing on Isle Royale. Isle Royale is the largest island on Lake Superior, and it's a wilderness area where no vehicles are allowed. Campsites are first-come, first-served, but I hope that won't be too much of a problem since we plan to travel during the shoulder season, late August. By that time there are fewer people, but even more importantly, fewer mosquitos.

My friend is no stranger to pit toilets and needing to boil water to kill parasites (in this case, tapeworm). Still, we will take a car camping trip some time this summer just to make sure our traveling styles are compatible. She has left all the Superior planning to me, which is a great way to ensure my happiness, since I love to plan vacations.

I have backpacked before, but only when someone else was in charge and told me what to do. I went on a weekend group trip to Lost Maples in Texas, where a third of the group whined incessantly about having to postpone their morning shower until the evening. I camped in a quiet backcountry spot in Colorado with a boyfriend who was unsympathetic to my recent arrival from sea level, but he did do all the work so I can't complain. I walked the Pennine Way in England for a week with a dear friend, and I got heat exhaustion on the second day so we had to hitchhike on the third, and then we resumed our walk.

I bought a new backpack that's probably larger and heavier than it ought to be, but it's incredibly comfortable, and my summer bicyclist legs shouldn't have too much trouble with it. My Coleman tent is also somewhat big and heavy, but there will be two of us, and we can divide the tent and the cooking supplies between us. I will be buying a tiny camp stove, and borrowing other cooking supplies from my parents' cabin. I attended a backpacking workshop this month and collected some clever tips, the most amusing of which was to bring along single-serving packets of instant oatmeal, pour boiling water directly into the packet, stir it up, and eat it without a bowl. One of the workshop participants asked if you then needed to take special precautions to dispose of the wrapper in a hazardous waste container. (No, you do not.)

For food I was planning to bring some finger fruits like kumquats, cherry tomatoes, and grapes, my own blend of instant oatmeal, my homemade cookies with protein powder, beef jerky, dried bean dishes, tortillas, chocolate, some packaged Pad Thai just so we could say we made Pad Thai on Isle Royale... We won't starve. My friend mainly requires coffee and supper, and I mainly require lots of food. While we're car camping, we'll probably drink organic Guatemalan Vienna Roast coffee from some co-op where the workers receive a fair wage, but I'm guessing we'll make do with instant Folgers while we're on Isle Royale.

Respite

2006-01-07T13:42:00.000-06:00

In case you couldn't tell, I find Midwestern winters somewhat confining and distressing. There are ways that I used to feel when I was a teenager, like my heart was clenched in a fist and I was fighting down mounting panic, and when I grew up those feelings went away so I thought they were teenage anxieties, when in fact I felt that way because it was winter in Iowa. It turns out that I still feel like that as an adult when I don't get out of the house enough.

Today we are having warm and sunny weather that for me is exceptionally well timed. I am out on a bicycle ride and am thoroughly pleased. I found out that the nice thing about exercise in winter is that I can allow myself to become quite winded; I have no allergies and am in no danger of an asthma attack.

However, I am taking steps to make it through the rest of the winter when it gets cold again. I have several possibilities: skiing in Galena, joining a gym in Iowa City, taking up aikido again in Cedar Rapids, learning to dance. I obviously have to decide. Giving up aikido due to injuries was so heartbreaking for me that it took me two years to settle on some new physical activity other than walking. I finally chose bicycling, but now I need something for the winter, as well. Winter. I'm glad that we are past the solstice, and the days are lengthening.

Next winter I will try to live near a path where I can cross country ski.

Magdalena: Totalled

2005-10-17T16:18:00.000-05:00

Magdalena's Quest for Self Improvement begins in January of 2005.

Sunday morning a handsome, dark-haired man in tight skiing attire appeared at the snack bar. "Coffee."

"Would you like cream or sugar?"

"Black. Tall. Is there an employee discount?"

"No, sir."

"Hmph."

The dispensing nozzle of the coffee vat got stuck when the cup was half full, and no amount of fussing with the handle would dislodge another drop of coffee. The man fumed, and Magdalena sold him the coffee for the price of a small. She heard him grumble softly, "Teaching families at a place without coffee. Just great."

"Uh, excuse me, are you a ski instructor?"

He seemed surprised to be spoken to. He started a little and quickly answered, "Yes, yes I am."

"I'm sorry to bother you, but you wouldn't happen to know where Craig is, would you?"

"Never heard of him."

"Oh. He's a ski instructor here too."

The man shook his head. "Hate to disappoint you, but I'm the only one. There was some other guy, but he didn't show up this week. Something about totalling his car on a pile of manure. They don't like tardiness here. Listen, thanks for the coffee." He walked briskly away, shoulders squared, every movement purposeful and precise.

Well. This man was good-looking, but he was certainly not cute or friendly. Where was Craig? Did he really run into a pile of crap? And now that she put it that way, how often have all of us run into a pile of crap?

Pie Times My Radius Squared

2005-09-16T20:32:00.000-05:00

This week I drove down the Flat Tops Scenic Byway in north central Colorado. There were plenty of mountains and scenic vistas, and it was all very lovely. I started in Yampa after a quick visit to the Finger Rock fish hatchery to feed the trout. As we drove the three-hour route westward from Yampa, my traveling companions and I began to get hungry. We were on a gravel road with no towns nearby, and we had not thought to pack a picnic, which was a bit of a shame since there was a perfect picnic spot at the overlook by 10,300-foot Ripple Creek Pass.

After a couple of hours we were mostly down from the pass but not yet to the first town, Buford. Just as our tires touched asphalt, I spotted a cafe. When my stomach calls, I hate to let the phone ring off the hook, and we hastily pulled off the road. The place was Fritzlan's Cafe, and we were just in time to eat lunch before they closed for a couple hours at 2:00.

I expected the food would be good. The place was clearly frequented by locals, and the decor wasn't the type of stuff that people just pack up and move: antiques, antlers, even a moose head they acquired when somebody from Nebraska shot it by mistake, thinking it was the biggest damn trophy elk he'd ever laid eyes on.

What I did not expect was that when I ordered hot tea, I would be able to choose blackcurrant tea from London, which I would steep in freshly boiled water. Water hot enough for tea is a treat nearly impossible to find in restaurants not specializing in tea. I've even had lukewarm tea water at one place that called itself a teahouse. Here the menu was simple cafe fare, and the special of the day was a chicken-fried steak sandwich accompanied by crunchy, pickly potato salad topped with paprika. I appreciated the attention to detail shown in the paprika sprinkle. Also, the service was fantastic.

I was so impressed that I ordered dessert, guessing I might be able to get a good slice of homemade pie. In fact, their only desserts turned out to be pie: peach, apple, cherry, or blueberry. My hopes rose higher. My pie's cherry filling was very ordinary, but the crust was nice and flaky. Although I very often eat dessert to be polite, there are few ways to tempt me with dessert I will actually want. One of those ways is to offer me pie.

Autumn is just settling in, which means that soon I will be compulsively baking pies. I bake apple-walnut pies, dark brown from the molasses I sweeten them with; chunky, spicy squash pies; pecan pies with bubbling maple syrup; custard pies that bake for hours and are so rich they have to be eaten in small slivers with a cup of black coffee; buttery peach tarts with almonds; savory pies with tender carrot slices. I like pies.

Living Creatures, For Now

2005-08-23T18:30:00.000-05:00

Normally I treat living creatures with care. For example, just two weeks ago I found a stray kitten in my parking lot, scooped her up in a soft towel, and paid for her veterinary care. I have two spiders thriving in my bathroom. However, when insects or arachnids harass me, I take them out.

One day I was buying a fly swatter and tactlessly remarked that there was gonna be a fly killing spree at my place. The saleslady blanched: "I don't kill anything. I figure they have as much right to be here as I do." I redeemed myself from my discourteousness by not pointing out that flies vomit on her food. You see, normally I am quite tactful.

However, if I would definitely hurt a fly, then you can only imagine what sort of rampage I might undertake to eradicate, say, a cicada in my bedroom ceiling. For the past eight days, about the average cicada lifespan, I have been tormented by cicada mating calls. My entire hit list consists of one item:

1) cicada.

First I sprayed the eaves with insecticide. That didn't work. My landlady was unable to get access to the attic crawlspace, so she bought me earplugs and called an exterminator. The exterminators were booked solid, so she drilled two holes in my ceiling and sprayed insecticide through them before resealing the holes, but there was a thick layer of insulation that she couldn't penetrate very well, and this attack strategy had no effect.

The earplugs prevented me from hearing my alarm clock so I overslept and was almost late to work, but I could still hear the cicada right above my head. My landlady cut a hole in my closet ceiling, threw up a bug bomb or two, and resealed the hole. The cicada moved to the exterior wall of my bathroom. It was quieter at first, but then another cicada moved into the living room ceiling, and at 4 a.m. the two of them began a serenade at full volume in nearly perfect unison. I put the earplugs back in.

This morning I sprayed insecticide on the back eaves and through the holes in my siding. Tonight the saga continues.

Well, All Right

2005-08-19T20:45:00.000-05:00

This week I walked into a music store wearing a linen shirt and generally looking sleek, well-fed, and as they say, respectable, a look that I have cultivated for the past ten years or so and am finally getting right. A salesman immediately asked if he could help me, and not in a way that meant he wanted me to leave the store, which was nice. I inquired politely, "I have heard something about a new Iggy Pop compilation. You wouldn't happen to know if that's available yet, would you?"

To his credit, he didn't bat an eye. He took me directly to the Iggy Pop c.d., which I happily purchased using some of the proceeds from my respectable employment. I can become a regular middle class American, but I can't forego my superior taste in music.

Upper Iowa River

2005-08-10T17:27:00.000-05:00

Last weekend I canoed the Upper Iowa River for the first time, with an assortment of people from various canoeing clubs and the Sierra Club. It was a beautiful river, and I had a good time with the "Class 1 Riffles." I'd like to go back and canoe down more slowly so I could see more of the bluffs. Canoeing with an unfamiliar partner is always inefficient, and my partner and I had entirely different philosophies about steering, so the two of us had to work pretty hard to keep up with the others.

It was funny to be with a group of nice and likable people with whom I had a lot in common, but to feel like we had little in common. Our similarities included a political orientation somewhere in the left wing, enjoyment of good food and beer, love of the outdoors, love of rivers, and a propensity to pick up litter. I think that our differences are most conveniently summed up by our choice of T-shirts: They all wore canoeing T-shirts, food co-op T-shirts, environmentally focused T-shirts, and I wore an angry-looking samurai.

Be that as it may, I had far more in common with the friendly river cleanup squadron than with the drunken mob inhabiting most of the commercial campground where we pitched our tents. Even the employees were drunk, driving around at 10:30 at night noisily collecting canoes from people's campsites. One night I slept with my 10-inch heavy steel flashlight next to me in my sleeping bag after some lout who could barely stand invited me to make out with him. I asked around later, and apparently not all women are routinely propositioned by drunken louts; I'm just special that way.

It was a pretty spot and would be fantastic on a weeknight. The smoke from the fireworks and campfires hung around the bluffs and somewhat obscured the stars, but we could still see some of the Milky Way belt, so there was very little light pollution.

Two Bike Trails

2005-08-09T17:45:00.000-05:00

I explored two new bicycle trails where I can get passed by people on light road bikes who aren't working nearly as hard as I am. My only satisfaction has to be my thigh muscles.

First I rode the trail along the Mississippi River in Davenport and Bettendorf. The paved part is not terribly long, but it looked like it continued as a gravel path. I didn't try the gravel since it wasn't marked, and 16 miles or so were enough for me that day. It's a pretty route, especially the south end.

The north end goes through a lot of civilization, passing riverboat casinos, factories, and a couple of bridges. The most memorable part of the north end was passing under a bridge and then hearing a thunk on the top of my bicycle helmet. I thought, "Was I just divebombed by a bird? Naw..." and I pedalled faster, figuring the bird would let me leave in peace.

THUNK!

I could sense the bird behind me, dipping and rising like some World War II fighter pilot ready to strafe, but I wasn't about to get divebombed a third time. I brought the bike to a dramatic stop across the whole bike path, hollering in my gravelly predator voice, "That's it, bird! Now you're gonna get it!"

She flew off. On my way back she came for me again, a red-winged blackbird, but this time I was watching for her. She flew overhead, and every time she started to swoop downward, I yelled at her menacingly and shook my fist in the air. I was fully prepared to clobber her and knock her right out of the sky, and she knew it and stayed out of reach.

Now that I have passed through safely, I will leave her in peace and not return to that bike path until her babies are grown.

The other new trail was the Cedar Valley Nature Trail. This is a rails-to-trails path and really amazingly dull. It's just a straight shot, no bends or small hills to liven things up. I went about 10 miles before turning back, rationing my single bottle of water in the heat, stopping at a park for more water on the way back, and making it to town for Gatorade in the nick of time, just as I was beginning to feel dizzy.

Once you get about 6 miles out of Cedar Rapids, you find some pretty trees and streams, as well as a little shade here and there, so although it's still a straight shot, at least there's more visual interest and a break from the relentless sun. Next time I'll start from Boyson Road at the edge of Hiawatha, rather than from inside the city of Cedar Rapids, so I will reach the shady part of the trail more quickly. Bicycling will be more enjoyable when temperatures get below 90 degrees later this month.

Making Connections

2005-07-04T07:43:00.000-05:00

I've been checking out a few more area trails, and I have to say that it's a good thing I specialize in seat-of-the-pants navigation. Recently I was extremely irritated after I drove out to Lake MacBride, asked around for the bike path, had to circle the whole park because all the roads were one way, parked near the path, and biked the little 5-mile multiuse trail, only to find that the trail terminates in a town that's very convenient to me. My bike trails book makes it look like the trail ends out in a cornfield somewhere, but no, it ends at a baseball field in Solon, which is on my route home from work.

The towns of Iowa City and Coralville have a number of multiuse trails, but the amusing thing is that they are not connected to one another. I carry a brochure with a large map of bike paths in the Iowa City area, and it doesn't really give excessive street names or any such extraneous logistical details. My bike trails book never says how to find smaller trails, basically gives the name of the town and a phone number, and you're on your own. I only found Olin's Grant Wood Recreational Trail because I knew where the railroad used to be; there's a sign for the trail if you arrive from the south, but not if you come from the north. We used to stop and wait for interminably long trains on our way to visit Great-Grandma Mary, but now there's no trace indicating that there ever was a train track. To get to the Grant Wood trail, I turn at the splendidly restored Victorian home where Grandma Ruth grew up and Grandpa Roy courted her, and then I take a right and pull into the parking lot on the left.

However, back in Iowa City there's the challenge of finding the next trail when the trail you're riding on suddenly ends. This weekend some friends and I met at Coral Ridge Mall for a ride to North Liberty on the North Ridge Trail, to be followed by a ride south to Highway 1 on the Coralville Clear Creek Trail and the Willow Creek Trail (not connected). The first navigational challenge was that I knew where the southbound trail was, but not the northbound. This problem was easily solved as they turned out to be connected. But what I didn't know was that I wasn't officially on the North Ridge Trail yet, although my map said I was!

We biked around North Ridge Park, picked the most likely-looking path north, and biked all the way to the town of North Liberty (only 5-6 miles), taking a few wrong turns but finding our way. The path was not at all well marked until we got two miles out from North Liberty, when we realized we had not been on the North Ridge Trail at all. We returned via the North Ridge Trail, a well-marked 5-mile path which terminated at an apparently random street about half a mile from North Ridge Park.

We did not take the two paths south to Highway 1 due to a thunderstorm, but I do know the way, thanks to Thursday Night Leisure Rides with Bicyclists of Iowa City, people who know the connecting routes between the bike trails!

Ricotta Frittata

2005-07-03T18:12:00.000-05:00

I did quite a good job of getting in plenty of both work and relaxation this week. One evening, for example, after work I purchased groceries for entertaining this weekend (also entertained last weekend: shark escabeche, tossed salad, Italian bread, cherry-ricotta mousse). At home I tidied a few things, did laundry, and fixed dinner from leftover odds and ends:

Ricotta Frittata Acuna Matata, serves 3

olive oil
2 small Yukon Gold potatoes, cut into small strips
small onion, chopped
1/4 green bell pepper and 1/4 red bell pepper, cut into small strips
4 or 5 eggs
leftover ricotta (approximately a scant cup)
1/4 t. ground cumin
1/4 t. dried oregano
1/4 t. dried French basil
sprinkling of crushed red pepper
salt and pepper to taste

Fry the potatoes in olive oil until lightly browned. Add onion. When the onion starts to soften, add peppers. When all veggies are reasonably softened, arrange them in an oiled shallow pie pan. Beat together remaining ingredients, and pour them over the vegetables. Bake at 325 degrees for about 20 minutes.

It was delicious.

I spent the rest of my evening reading a newspaper and Bridget Jones's Diary, while polishing off the leftover bottle of chardonnay that I had opened to make marinade for my tasty shark.

Deer Crossing

2005-06-20T11:20:00.000-05:00

This weekend I biked from Epworth to Durango and back, a distance of 24 miles on the Heritage Trail. Durango has a population of 34, making it larger than nearby Graf.

I am becoming a better cyclist, and I averaged 12 m.p.h. on the crushed limestone path without particularly exerting myself. The trail is long and rural, so there's no need to slow down or stop all the time for pedestrians like on urban trails: only occasionally. And then there's the wildlife.
This time I saw a deer leaping into the woods ahead of me, and I stopped because I heard something on the other side of the path, and deer usually travel in groups. As my friend Chuck would say, "Bambi they ain't." I would sincerely not like to get kicked by a deer.

Well, a doe and fawn broke out of the woods a safe distance ahead of me to my right, and the doe turned away from me and jumped back into the trees, but the spotted fawn, less than two feet tall, spun around and ran straight at me on my stopped bicycle. As I stared in astonishment, the fawn barely missed my front wheel, brushed my right ankle, crossed behind me, and vanished into the woods at my left.

I rode on, still feeling the sensation of deer fur against my ankle. I'm glad it wasn't the buck!

Energy

2005-06-20T11:13:00.000-05:00

We finished a major project at work so I feel I have leisure to think. I looked over a detailed brochure from my power company and discovered that I could receive ALL my electrical power from renewable energy sources at an extra cost of two cents per kilowatt hour, which for my one-bedroom apartment adds up to $1.64 per month, about $20 a year. I signed up. I feel smug. This is WAY cheaper than a solar panel.

This reminds me of an unintentionally hilarious NPR piece about a survivalist who trains military personnel to live off the land. The reporter commented that visiting this man's home was like stepping into the 19th century: He chopped his own wood, he burned kerosene lanterns, and he powered his computer equipment with solar panels! Completely off the grid!

Good god, how did they ever manage with only solar-powered computer equipment back in the 1800s? Yes, people were made of sterner stuff in those days.

Food from the Recent Past

2005-06-11T11:32:00.000-05:00

Growing up, I wasn't much of a cook. I had no real interest in anything that smacked of domesticity. I preferred to solve a math problem, write a poem, read a book, or stroll purposefully through the woods pretending I was Clark, my best friend was Lewis, and my faithful dog was Seaman.

In college I learned to microwave cheese tortillas, and that was about it. Even after college my kitchen creations tended to revolve around cheese, except for curried eggs with avocadoes. I still miss those heady times when avocadoes were five for a dollar.

The longer I stayed in graduate school, the more obsessive I became about saving money and finishing without debt, which meant I had to cook. I went through enough times eating lentils and rice that I also was determined to eat not merely cheaply, but well.

Now I am earning money and gradually letting go of my obsessively skinflint ways, but I am still cooking, as I have developed a taste for eating very well. This week a coworker asked for a curry recipe, and while I searched for that recipe, I uncovered a treasure trove of recipes from people I have known over the years.

As I've mentioned before on this blog, I collect people. They live their own lives, and they don't take up any space, but I know a few of their stories, and I keep a few recipes from some of them. I have a pickled garlic recipe accompanied by a soundplay poem from a dear friend who shares my passionate love of Moscow. There's the Zen noodle recipe from my geologist friend with the "four-dimensional mind," a divine diablo sauce that I used to make once a week with vegetables from my garden. There are shark recipes that I'm going to try this summer, sent along by a Floridian who knows what's good to make in hot weather.

Most importantly at the moment, I found, misfiled, the wonderful chicken salad recipe that I begged one friend to send to me. A year ago this month, she killed herself. She had already taken pills but had been found before the pills could finish her off, so being a thorough academician, the second time around she took pills and drowned herself. I have her letters, and she published articles, but her chicken salad with sundried tomatoes and pasta seems to me to reflect the way she lived--a shy, invariably kind tenured college professor whom I had known since our own college years, with a bright, airy, lovely home, a sweet husband, and two dynamic dogs. She seemed happy. She had the kind of life I wished I had. And now she doesn't.

Academe has killed or driven mad a smattering of my friends and acquaintances, and I've suffered a couple stinging betrayals. In some ways it's odd that I'm not now a Ph.D., and I still find that many of the most magnificent people I know are in universities, but I love, love, love having an hourly job. I work 8-10 hours a day, and that's all. I finally have an apartment to myself, with my desk in a different room than my bedroom. It's heavenly. Why did my other interviewers ever not hire me? I'm the happiest employee ever.

This summer I plan to have the most fun I've had since 1995 in Moscow. I will attend concerts, I will ride my bicycle, and I will cook delicious meals and remember my friends.

Not Particularly Snazzy

2005-06-06T10:21:00.000-05:00

I found out that my Sutliff Bridge route is a well-known scenic bike route, but many people avoid it because it's so bumpy. Once a month the tandem club PIGS (Paired Iowans Going Somewhere) rides out that way.

I joined Bicyclists of Iowa City for a "Thursday Night Leisure Ride." It was extremely leisurely, but I figured out that if I shifted down, I was able to bike that slowly. The slow pace made the hills more difficult because I had less momentum, but the extra exercise was probably good for me, though it gave me sore knees the next day. They set an average pace of 10 m.p.h., which is the speed I normally ride; but I normally ride on crushed limestone. This was smooth concrete, a much faster surface.

I think the path was called Glen Willow, although it is unnamed on the map of Coralville trails. It runs between Coral Ridge Mall, which is the largest mall in the area, and another major shopping area, terminating at a small, well-hidden, and very popular ice cream shop. The trail area is undeveloped because it used to be a Boy Scout camp, and it is now being used as greenspace.

Before the ride I went to the mall to buy a brightly colored shirt to ride in. My wardrobe is mainly black, white, brown, and navy, due to nine years of New England living--enough time for most of my bright and funky Texas and California clothes to wear out. So the first place I went at the mall was Scheels All-Sports, where I decided that there was no way on this green earth that I was paying serious money for a bicycle jersey when I never ride more than 22 miles at a stretch. I went to a department store instead and bought an orange T-shirt on sale for $14. It's a shade darker than a traffic cone, but just as bright, and it has stupid little flowers on the front, and it still looks better than most cycling jerseys. I wouldn't be caught dead wearing it in Boston, but we Iowans are less finicky about what we put on our backs.

I was happy to find that most of the other riders were also wearing T-shirts and ordinary shoes, so I didn't feel out of place in my makeshift riding gear. Most of us had bicycle shorts, though, which are well worth a $60 investment. I now see why my cyclist friends say "everyone looks funny in bicycle shorts," but frankly, I don't mind looking funny (if I did, I'd throw away the corduroy sneakers I'm wearing right now), and those shorts are darned comfy. But I still think the jerseys are funnier. I have no idea what that back pocket is for.

Iowa City is a generally unassuming town. Back in the 80s I bought a comic book called "Superheroes of Iowa City"; they all had these piddling superpowers like melting the soles of tennis shoes, so they couldn't get in on the big leagues and had to content themselves with banding together to fight crime in Iowa City. Bicyclists of Iowa City also proved to be a lowkey crowd in which each individual had a few unique talents. I look forward to riding with them again.

More Exploring

2005-06-02T14:44:00.000-05:00

My new favorite place to ride is the Sac and Fox Trail in Cedar Rapids. I still technically prefer the Dubuque-Dyersville Heritage Trail, but the Sac and Fox is a lot closer. It is an easy trail, actually even less strenuous than the Heritage Trail because there are lots of little hills, and the speed from descending one hill gets me going up the next. Since the Heritage Trail is fairly flat, I work a lot harder and change gears more when I ride there.

The Sac and Fox is a multi-purpose recreational trail, but it is much better for bicycling than for walking. Its turns and hills are too small to provide interest for a hiker, but they are lots of fun for a novice bicyclist. I meet a lot of recreational riders, some serious road riders, a few walkers, and typically one deer and one tanned guy on a gently used Trek (not the same deer or the same man every time). The men on the Treks can be a little crushing to my ego because they pass me really easily, and they're obviously not putting forth any effort, sometimes even riding without hands. Still, I treat them extra nicely, not only because I'm a nice person, but also because I recognize their potential usefulness. One heavensent Trek rider fixed my front brakes for me one night.

I checked out Matsell Bridge Recreation Area, which got a full page spread in a book on Iowa biking trails, but I didn't like it. I had to either share a trail with horseback riders, which seemed daunting, or else I had to ride on a gravel road out behind the firing range. I find gunshots unsettling.

I decided to pick out my own riding route. There's a little-trafficked, scenic county road running from Lisbon to the Historic Sutliff Bridge, where a small tavern is conveniently located. The ride is 6 miles out and 6 miles back, and it can be extended by either cycling on into Mount Vernon on the north end, or riding out past the bridge toward the historic church on the south end. I made a good call; it's an excellent ride past several scenic farms and over a stream or two. I don't know why I never see any bicyclists out there. I wonder if it has anything to do with the condition of the road; I've encountered fewer bumps on gravel roads. It doesn't bother my steel-framed hybrid bike, but I don't know what someone on a skinny-tired bicycle would think.

Half Baked

2005-05-21T15:01:00.000-05:00

I take my baking seriously. This week on my day off I was in the middle of whipping up some Moldavian feta cheese cornbread when I discovered I had neglected to buy cornmeal. I cursed up a blue streak, slammed around the kitchen in a panic, pulled on sandals and a jacket, and dashed out into the rain to try to buy cornmeal at the Dollar General before my broccoli casserole had to come out of the oven.

Doubtless a little worried by my behavior, my neighbor emerged from his apartment just as I stepped out onto my front step. I grinned sheepishly, "Out of cornmeal," and took off at a dead run.

Back Roads and New Neighbors, Part 2

2005-05-06T15:57:00.000-05:00

I got a day off this week and decided to find Sugar Bottom Recreational Area, site of the only mountain bike trails I know of around here. I knew the directions I had were inadequate, and the park was not marked on my map. First I found the wrong recreational area, stopped, and acquired directions and a map, so after that I went straight to Sugar Bottom. Of course when I arrived, I didn't know where the bike trails were. I stopped at the campground to ask, and they didn't know either. They had a map of the bike trails, and I had that too, but we couldn't tell what part of the park the trails were in.

However, the signs seemed to be pointing me to the beach, so I went there. At first I only found the frisbee golf course, the picnic shelter, and the bathrooms, but then I spotted a dilapidated sign at the far end of the parking lot. There it was: the access road to the bike trails.

I was glad to visit Sugar Bottom on a weekday morning when there was no one else around. I knew I was clueless, and I didn't want to be a rolling roadblock slowing down all the other riders. On that weekday morning I was alone. The only sounds in the woods were the cries of the birds, the whirr of my bicycle tires, and my muffled shrieks and curses.

The trails are rated "easier," "more difficult," and "most difficult." Some of the "most difficult" ones have colorful names like Hell Trail. I only briefly attempted a "more difficult" trail, but it seemed to have the same obstacles as "easier," just more of them. I suspect there is a substantial jump between "more difficult" and "most difficult."

Frequently on the "easier" trails I couldn't make it up a hill, either because it was too steep for me, or more often because I couldn't navigate the tree roots. I would get my rear wheel caught on a root and come to a dead stop, and then I couldn't get started again because of the uphill path choked with tree roots. Twice I simply carried my bike up a hill because the tree roots were so huge. Once my chain came off its track when I shifted down while ascending a steep hill. I took some skin off my thumb from gripping my handlebars too tightly.

I'm proud of my bicycle for managing all the bumps and abrupt changes of direction. My spokes are all intact.

I had to stop from time to time to admire the scenery, which was quite varied and nice. There was no time to look while I was riding! I was always either pedaling hard to get uphill, or holding the brakes like a total sissy on the downhill. I did improve over the course of my ride, and one time the cackling birds were briefly silenced by my raucous whooping and hollering after I made it up a root-choked hill without stopping.

I enjoy birds. I enjoy birds except . . . except when they take up residence in my air conditioner. Last week a pair of sparrows did just that. They would flap their wings against the grate of my A/C at 5:45 a.m. sharp, waking me up. Although it was 40 degrees outside, I ran my A/C fan in an attempt to frighten the birds away, but I was the only one frightened by the clanking, sickly churning of my A/C. The sparrows were unphased.

My A/C is well out of reach of a broom handle, so I called my landlady. She promised to come out the next day, but she didn't make it, and these birds were making a very large nest, so at 8:15 p.m. I took action. I laid my yoga mat out and wrapped it around the tip of a dowel to make a long pole, and when that wasn't quite long enough, I clipped my dust pan to the other end of the dowel. I was on a mission, and I didn't care how much of a crackpot the neighbors thought I was.

I knocked down about half the nest, with the sparrow couple watching me in dismay from a nearby phone line. "The crazy predator is after our humble home! Have we offended? Edna, what can have gotten into that monkey with the stick? I've never seen anything like it!" They were so sure I must have had a bout with temporary insanity, that they came back and rebuilt the next day. Equally obstinate, I gave the nest a quick knock in the morning, and my landlady got the rest down in the afternoon. The sparrows decided that since there were multiple monkeys with sticks, appearing at irregular but frequent intervals, maybe this wasn't such a great place to start a family after all, and they moved on to a quieter spot with saner neighbors.

Back Roads and New Neighbors, Part 1

2005-05-06T15:41:00.000-05:00

Occasionally I use my bicycle to save a quart of gas by riding to the next town instead of driving, but most of the time when I ride, I use up a gallon or two of gas by driving my bike somewhere and then riding on a trail. I feel a bit silly about this, but it sure is nicer than riding around town, especially now, when the town's lilacs are in bloom and I practically choke on their overwhelmingly heavy perfume. By the time I get across town, I feel sick to my stomach.

Trailheads are often located in the countryside, and I sometimes have to travel obscure roadways to find them. Driving on back roads in Iowa is challenging even for an experienced navigator such as myself, and I've decided to search for a road atlas of the state. Ordinary road maps show most of the roads, but they don't provide names for the small roads. I have to guess as to whether I'm on the correct road.

Last week I rode my bike from Graf, a tiny village in the hills west of Dubuque, an area similar in appearance to much of Pennsylvania. Only one road goes to Graf, and much to my surprise, the bridge from the east was out. I could either go back south the way I came and approach Graf from the northwest, or I could reverse direction and head east, look for a turn to the north, find the highway going west, and cut south in the hope of finding Graf Road. I accomplished this without making a single wrong turn, although it took 25 minutes, and I did not know I had chosen the correct route until Fivepoints Road became Graf Road a couple miles north of Graf. Graf is a lovely spot to ride from, but in future I'll park in Epworth instead so I won't have to worry about any collapsed bridges.

The ride was simply divine; I particularly enjoy the views of creeks that flow alongside the trail and cross it under bridges. There was one view that I'd like to forget, but it is, thankfully, unlikely to recur. Let's just say that bicyclists move faster than pedestrians, so a pedestrian might be in the midst of a private act and not notice an oncoming cyclist.

I saw two Great Blue Herons together, the first time I had seen more than one at a time. However, the next week at Coralville Reservoir I saw several, as well as possibly an osprey, and many smaller birds.

Return of the Prairie Wind

2005-04-25T16:34:00.000-05:00

Sometimes a gal has to be determined if she wants to get in her bike ride every few days. Friday I didn't ride because it rained; Saturday I didn't ride because it had just rained, and there was a ferocious wind; Sunday things were drier, but there was still a ferocious wind, and I rode anyway. I was the only bicyclist out there. I decided to do my standard short ride of 10.5 miles, and it wasn't so bad because I didn't worry about going fast, but I was continually worried that I would tip over or be blown off the trail. I felt like a swimmer traveling at an angle to the undertow.

I remember when I was a kid, and I could never seem to find days that were windy enough to fly a kite. Must have been a quiet year!

There are several good turnaround points for short rides on the Heritage Trail out of Dyersville. I can turn around at the large tree after 3.2 miles, which I do when I take my mom out with her antique Schwinn. I can turn around at the birch stand at the 4-mile mark, a lovely spot. I can turn around at the crest of the hill after 4.75 miles. But I prefer to ride to the raised roadbed at 5.25 miles, and get a good rolling start on my way back down.

However, my favorite turnaround spot is the willow-shrouded pond with the swans at the 9-mile mark. I'll wait for a calmer day.

How to Describe Women's Shape

2005-04-23T11:35:00.000-05:00

Plain and simple: I don't like the terms "pear shape" and "apple shape." Although descriptive, they are pedestrian, completely suburban and domesticated. I say "apple shape" would be better called "Diana shape," because I for one far more closely resemble a huntress than an apple. The other shape could be "Hera," except that the powerful queen of the gods has something of a bad rep. However, I bet Aphrodite was pleasantly rounded in the hips, and the men were absolutely wild for it, so I'll propose "Aphrodite shape."

A number of women prefer one shape or the other--either they say wide hips are more womanly, or they groan to think of all the months they would have to spend at the gym to acquire a narrow build. I think both shapes are pretty awesome and ought to get a lot more respect. Fruit bowls, indeed.

I got to thinking about shapes because Elantu just sent me copies of the Celtic warrior women sketches she drew from poses I did for her. She took some artistic license, but parts of the warriors look like my parts. She obligingly tells me what people say to her about the drawings, and we laugh. "Are her shoulders really that broad?" (Yes.) "Hmph."

But no, my fingers are not that long, and my calves are longer. Also, when I swing a sword, I appear calm and happy and fierce, but not, I think, aggressive. I'm not really a warrior in real life; I'm a huntress. Even my warrior friends say so.

But although I eat apples, especially with bleu cheese on them, nevertheless, I am not what I eat.

Spring Bicycling

2005-04-22T07:56:00.000-05:00

I enjoy exercise, but I don't so much like to exert myself. Monday I went out for a 12-mile road ride to the historic triple span Sutliff Bridge over the Cedar River, and I only traversed about 5 miles. I remembered why it was that I never rode very far when I was a kid:
1) The roads are hilly.
2) The prairie wind can be so strong that it carries away air that I'm in the middle of trying to breathe.
3) There are cars.

I have worked out a town ride that I enjoy, to the Mount Vernon library and back home, about 8 miles round trip, a good thing to do in the evening after work.

People keep asking me if I'll participate in RAGBRAI, the Register's Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa. I tell them no, but now I'll tell them NO WAY. I'll hit an offroad bike trail this weekend.

I'm Green and I'm Proud

2005-04-02T08:14:00.000-06:00

I tried some new produce recently, Lacinato kale. Lacinato kale snorts dismissively as it declares that Kermit the Frog is a wimp. It is easy being green, provided you've got the constitution for it.

I did a little research and found out that Lacinato kale is also called dinosaur kale, which explains its attitude. Kale is even tougher than the dinosaurs in one way; it can survive in subzero temperatures. You just suspend a blanket over it to keep the snow off. Then you put on your snow boots, your parka, and your gardening gloves, and you reach underneath the blanket and presto! Vitamin K and molybdenum!

I should cook some for my mother this year. Her doctor told her she should eat kale, so she put some mature leaves in a salad and was sufficiently scarred by the experience that she has never eaten kale again. I don't blame her, either!

There's an absolutely charming website run by people who love kale even more than I do, and are Buffy fans, and also have a somewhat raucous kitchen, in which you cook whatever comes your way. Check out their unconquerable kale logo.

Magdalena: Gainfully Employed

2005-04-01T20:21:00.000-06:00

For the rest of the week Magdalena worked diligently at the snack bar, making sure the furnishings were round and there was plenty of food, most of it things that would freeze well. She never saw Craig again that week; what a shame, he was so friendly and cheerful.

Despite the galling lack of a cute ski instructor, she enjoyed her work and its responsibilities. Friday she celebrated the end of her first week at her new job by buying a hanging orange fuchsia plant to provide her other hanging giant with some company in the living room. He had seemed a tad more...male...than usual on Monday, and she thought it was time to find him a female companion with leaves.

Saturday and Sunday she spent the entire day at Mittelmont. Outside the snow swirled in the fog, and from inside the lodge it was impossible to tell whether the storm was natural or artificial.

John dropped by on Saturday. “Oh, hello, you’re still here!” He smiled, looking at once pleased, surprised, apologetic, and scheming. “I’m sorry, I forgot your name. Not that you’re not memorable, but I...meet a lot of people. Ski resort opening, you know.”

“Maggie.”

“Maggie!” He slapped himself on the forehead, hard. “Of course! Maggie! I’m John, if you don’t remember.” She did. “Well, I hope you’ll be around for a while. What are you doing here now?”

“Running the snack bar,” said Magdalena, hoping to sound curt. She decided to drop a hint, too. “It keeps me very busy.”

“Oh yeah, busy, busy!” he drawled, pulling up a round barstool and plopping his angular behind down onto it. “I know I’m working hard, that is, when I’m not hardly working!” He laughed. “That snow machine’s a bitch—excuse me, a bear—to keep running. Damn thing’s brand new, but I’ll be d--, a monkey’s uncle, if it runs worth a spit. I’m out there all the time. Good thing I’ve got a good schedule worked out with my community service! Exes. You know?”

Magdalena shook her head mutely, keeping her expression blank.

“You don’t got an ex? Or you’re just not saying? Just as well. We’d probably sit here and talk all day, and I know something’s broke by now. Better go fix it!”

“Bye.” The word squeezed itself out between Magdalena’s lips in spite of her attempt to maintain a distant, withering silence. Why, why did she feel this irritating, self-destructive compulsion to be polite? Well, you never know, at least this way he can’t tell Amanda she was rude to him. That’s a good thing.

So he thought she’d already be fired by now! Of all the nerve. She shook her head violently and refocused her attention on her job.

Aging Gracefully?

2005-03-25T08:47:00.000-06:00

My age is between 30 and 40 years old, and my face has not yet given itself over to being a particular age on a consistent basis. It swings back and forth between 30 and 40, based on how much stress I am experiencing. Last weekend I appeared to be 40; this weekend I appear to be 30. Some day my face will switch over to the older appearance and stay there, but for now it wavers uncertainly.

Last weekend was, at long last, the final weekend of my community theatre play. Again I lied and lied and lied: "Yes, it's been fun." Okay, it was fun to enhance my nun costume with a temporary forearm tattoo of a skull with the words "BORN BAD." That part was fun. Plus, we provided large crowds of people with some really good laughs, which is one of my favorite kinds of public service.

By day, my new job was exhausting, and I needed to boost my performance; by night I tried to be cheerful and gracious about a play that I disliked from day one and had since endured for 3-7 days per week. I am not complaining; I love my job, and I was fortunate to have a small commitment like a community theater play, instead of a large commitment like another job or a family. I am only trying to emphasize how delighted I am that the play is over.

I get to keep my job for a while, and I am thrilled about that too. Given all the good news, and a four-day weekend, I'm looking 30 today.

Next Phase of My Life

2005-03-20T08:55:00.000-06:00

Today is the last day of my community theatre play! I am very glad. I enjoy my new job, and I often have to be there early in the morning, so the play is wiping me out. It has been a big success, though. We sold out 2/3 of our shows the first two weekends, and now we are in a larger venue in another town. Today we will probably sell out, which is wonderful because it will help pay for the renovations of the town's historic opera house.

Two weeks from now, I will finally host the champagne party that I promised my friends, celebrating my new job. I'm going to try making deviled eggs with caviar, coconut chicken pieces, and fried plantains. The deviled eggs may be odd with the chicken and plantains, but they'll be tasty anyway. I'll give them a test run for Easter, but without the caviar. Fish eggs? My little niecies would be appalled.

Magdalena: Starting Work

2005-03-05T12:44:00.000-06:00

On Monday morning Magdalena’s first alarm went off at 6:00, and the radio alarm clicked on at 6:05, but she was already in the shower. She took her time getting ready; she fussed with her appearance, drank her tea, and ate her granola with yogurt while listening to the news.

At 6:55 she bid farewell to each of her plants in turn, assuring them of her prompt return and undying affection. The Wandering Jew was unconcerned, supremely confident that she could never leave him. The hemlock looked more nervous but seemed reassured by the extra attention.

She drove off at 7:05. The fields seemed to part before her and lead her not into temptation, but across the purple bridge and directly to Mittelmont, looming clear and sharp dead ahead. As her car began to climb, a sudden white fog descended. Drat! she thought. What is it with this Midwestern weather? If you don’t like it, just wait five minutes... but it didn’t change again. The fog clung to her all the way to the resort parking lot, where she arrived at 7:45.

She sat for five minutes, then walked over to the main building. She made a ghostly gray figure in her flowing black skirt and long black wool coat, silhouetted against the white fog. Once again there were only a handful of cars in the parking lot, and the building seemed deserted. She looked for the employee kitchen but was unsure which door led to it. Suddenly Amanda glided into view. “Why, good morning, Maggie! I might have known you would be prompt. Let me guide you to your work station. How long can you stay this morning?”

“Um, until noon, ma—Amanda. How are you today?”

“Dear, let’s not waste time with idle chitchat. We have a lot to do this morning, and by we, I mean you!” Amanda laughed musically and explained to Magdalena, “We will be open for business next week, and you will need to have this snack bar up and running by then! There are purchase request forms for you to fill out; I will order everything, but you will need to tell me what to request.”

“Er, how many guests are we expecting?”

“Oh, heavens, how should I know? It’s our first week!”

“Do you have a ballpark figure? One hundred per day? One thousand?”

“Yes, somewhere in that range. We need this place to be shipshape!”

“Do you have an Internet computer that I could use to get ideas and find out what’s available to us?”

“Oh no, dear, you’re here to be the idea person,” Amanda said, sounding a bit stern. Magdalena figured she’d better get cracking, so she did. She took inventory of the snack bar, which was well stocked with mustard packets and salt and pepper packs, but little else. She organized her requisition forms into categories and began to list everything she thought she would need and in what quantities.

As she worked, someone tall, blond, and male labored nearby, carrying skis out of the halls and taking them to places unknown. After a couple hours all the skis were gone, and he stopped and introduced himself.

“Hello, I haven’t seen you here before. My name’s Craig, I’m the ski instructor.” He extended his hand.

Magdalena gratefully took it. “I’m Maggie, I’m the snack bar facilitator.”

“Snack bar facilitator?” His eyes twinkled, but he let the subject drop. “Looks like you’re getting ready for the big day. That’s what I’m doing, too. No one to teach, so I’m setting up the rental area.”

“How long have you been a ski instructor?” asked Magdalena, imagining daredevil rides down steep slopes in rugged mountain ranges, feeling the rush of the wind.

“This is my first job. I’ve been skiing since I was a kid, though. You know, there’s only one Midwestern ski resort that’s received a National Ski Areas Association Award of Excellence, and I don’t think we’re going to be the second, but this is a great start for me, and I’m really glad to be here.”

“This is a great opportunity for me, too. I’m thrilled about it.”

“Well, I guess we’d better be getting back to work, then. Nice to meet you, Maggie.”

“Nice to meet you too.” She watched him leave, then redoubled her efforts with the purchase orders. Any job with cute ski instructors was a job she definitely wanted to keep.

Over the course of the morning someone came by and photocopied her identification and transcript. She left at noon, seeing no one on her way out. That afternoon she delivered her carefully worded written notice at the library, sincerely hoping that she would not lose her new job and find herself without any employment whatsoever.

That evening the purple, abundantly leafy man of the house sensed that Magdalena had had thoughts about someone else, but he knew she would come back to him. She always did. He wished she would bring home a woman some time. That would be hot.

Sack Lunch

2005-03-02T08:34:00.000-06:00

Lately I leave my apartment at 7:20 and return at 5:05, then leave again at 6:30 for play rehearsal, which doesn't allow me a lot of time to do my usual cooking from scratch. Still, I need to cook things at home so I'll have leftovers to take to work! I work in a crowded building where there's always a line for the microwaves at lunch, so I don't want to tie up a microwave with a frozen dinner.

At my last workplace I used to bring little salads with dressing on the side, and other such elaborate dishes, but here I only have a 30-minute lunch break, so I bring food that I can eat very fast. Last weekend I made eight twice-baked stuffed potatoes and a healthful carrot cake, which is a less sugary snack than a protein bar. During the week I fixed black bean and spinach enchiladas and a dessert that I made up. I thought it might be really terrible, but I actually like it, although it definitely has NO CLASS.

I got the idea from eating pre-packaged rice pudding, which is overly sweet and has no nutritional value whatsoever. I figured I could make my own version with calcium, B vitamins, and fiber. Indian rice puddings can get pretty complex and involve complicated, intoxicatingly delicious ingredients. Not my rice pudding!

I took one cup of brown rice and prepared it, which was almost the entire preparation time. Next, I poured in about 2/3 of a can of sweetened condensed milk and 1/2 teaspoon of ground cardamom, and I stirred it up and stuck it in the fridge.

Delicious. I'll use 3/8 teaspoon cardamom next time.

This weekend I made Armenian lentil and spinach soup, and a quasi-Cajun red bean and vegetable dish with Andouille sausage. Okay, I baked an apple cake too, but we won't talk about that.

Magdalena: The Good News

2005-02-19T16:18:00.000-06:00

Sunday morning Magdalena fixed herself a spinach-feta omelette and brewed some of her last supply of single estate Assam tea. She dined in a leisurely fashion over her brightly patterned blue and white tablecloth while she read the Saturday newspaper, which was cheaper and less time consuming than the Sunday paper. Eventually, when she felt sufficiently collected, she picked up the phone.

“Hello?” came the voice at the other end.

“Hello, Mom! It’s Magdalena!”

“Why, good morning, sweetie! It’s so good to hear your voice!”

“It’s good to talk to you too, Mom! How are you?”

“Well, I’m just fine. Everything’s fine. Your father’s burning the trash outside. How are you today?”

“I’m fine, Mom. Actually, I have news!”

“What is it?” Her mom sounded a little nervous, as if afraid Magdalena was about to announce the unveiling of her stegosaurus.

“I got a job, Mom!”

“Oh! Oh, that’s wonderful news! Your father and I have been pulling for you. You have so many talents, and we’ve just hated to see you get turned down. I don’t know what the world’s coming to today. Everyone’s out for themselves. People work at the same company until they’re 55, and then they’re let go so they don’t get their pension. It used to be that people stayed at the same company until they died, and now there’s no loyalty to employees. Your father and I are so lucky. Many of our friends aren’t so lucky. You know, when I went to look for work, a long time ago now, I went to one place, showed them my diploma, and they hired me. They didn’t interview me or talk to anybody about me; they didn’t ask me anything; they just hired me. Now you go to all these interviews, and you’re so smart and so talented, and I feel so bad for you! That’s just wonderful that you’ve been hired. I’m so glad for you. Your father will be so happy. Oh, but I do go on. What is your job, dear?”

“Don’t worry, Mom, that’s okay. I’m the facilitator at the snack bar at the new ski area on Mittelmont. I think I’m sort of in charge. The pay’s a lot better than at the library, and it’s full time. I’m really excited.”

“Oh, honey, that’s great. I hope they know how lucky they are to have you. Your father and I would like to see you start saving for retirement. This is a step in the right direction. We know you can do so much more than this, but it’s a foot in the door. That’s all you need.”

“Aw, thanks, Mom. I love you.”

“I love you too, honey. You be careful driving to and from Mittelmont. I don’t want to stand in your way, but you know it’s dangerous there, and if you work late, be sure to stay awake and watch for deer; don’t drive too fast at night...”

After assuring her mother of her never-ending vigilance, hearing tales of every visitor to her parents’ house in the past week and news of every acquaintance of these visitors as well, and eventually giving her own news to her father and dutifully taking note of a few stock recommendations, Magdalena hung up the phone, turned to her herbs, and said, “Feed me.” Then she remembered she’d just eaten an enormous breakfast, so she fixed herself a bowl of raspberry sorbet with a couple sprigs of fresh mint, wishing that just this once she had purchased double chocolate fudge brownie ice cream instead. Magdalena loved her parents more than anything else in the world, but for some reason their conversations often made her hungry.

Magdalena: The Interview

2005-02-11T21:31:00.000-06:00

Magdalena proofread her application twice, stood up, paced the kitchen a few times, examined the contents of the refrigerator — a six-pack of water bottles with five left in it, two Pepsis, three different fruit juices, and a couple of yogurts not quite old enough to have value as antiques — ran her fingers over the countertop, gathered herself, and sat down again. She stared fixedly at the wall and took deep, slow breaths, willing herself into displaying composure.

She ran through potential interview questions in her head. What kind of supervisory experience do you have? Who was your least favorite boss, and why? How have you resolved a conflict turning it into a win-win situation, so that everything turned out better for all parties? Describe your organizational strategies. What would your references say about you if we called them? If an employee told you she defrauded the company out of 15 minutes’ pay, what would you do?

Eventually Amanda stretched her long, slender neck through the door frame. “All set, dear?”

“Yes, ma’am, I have everything here.”

“Wonderful, but please, just Amanda, not ma’am,” replied the willowy woman as she smoothly picked up Magdalena’s completed application with her sinuous white arm. She drew the papers to her and glanced through them. “You were in a Circle of the Arts? I love circles.”

“Oh, yes, we would sit in a circle and discuss our projects, and sometimes we’d take trips to Chicapolis...”

“Round trips?”

“Ah, yes....round trips.” Magdalena noticed that Amanda’s gold earrings were hoops.

“How lovely. And can you provide me with proof that you are authorized to work in the United States, and a copy of your diploma or transcript to verify your credentials?”

“Yes, I don’t have them with me, but I can bring them whenever you’d like! My references will verify my work history, too.”

“Oh, there’s no need to speak with your references. I trust you. Why don’t you start on Monday?”

“Monday? Yes! Yes, I’d love to! Um, what will I be doing?”

“Well, of course, you will work at our snack bar. I’d like you to be the facilitator, making sure there are no sharp edges to the services we provide for our guests. You know, serve as many round items as possible.”

“You mean like bagels?”

“Bagels! What a wonderful idea! I never thought of serving bagels! Yes, you see you are perfect for this role in our enterprise. I am never wrong. You will come in on Monday at 8 a.m. I will pay you ten dollars an hour. It is a nice, round number.”

“Th-thank you!” stammered Magdalena. “But I have an afternoon job, and I’ll have to give them two weeks’ notice before I can work here all day. I’m sorry, I’d like to come on full time right now, but I have an obligation...”

“Hm, that is a problem, but I believe we can work around it. I appreciate your candor. You will work every morning and also on weekends until you are free to adhere to a regular schedule of weekdays and alternate weekends. However, you will still begin work on Monday morning. We will not be ready for you tomorrow.”

“That’s wonderful! Thank you so much!” Magdalena tripped over her own tongue in her gratitude.

“You are welcome, my dear. I am willing to sacrifice a little to have you on board. An innovative mind like yours will do wonders for our snack bar. Bagels!” Amanda glided swiftly from the room.

Magdalena stared numbly at the table, picked herself up, and walked mechanically out of the building, meeting no one. Well, she thought, she had been through stranger interviews than that without getting hired. At least this one ended in a job offer. How bad could it be?

The fog lifted as she drove down from Mittelmont, but she continued to feel dazed. She drove along the county road through the fields, over the vivid purple bridge painted by the local contractor who believed bridges should never blend into the background, past a couple of gas stations, and eventually into her own narrow, pitted driveway.

She entered her house, stood stock still for a moment, then screamed, jumped up and down, and ran around from room to room telling her plants how excited she was. She figured that plants respond well to happiness, so maybe this would be good for their health. She hoped that her happiness would continue, and her plants would grow like gangbusters and take over the place.

The first order of business was a thank-you note, and Magdalena dug out her card stock. She looked at it for a moment, then painted a series of interlocking circles in pastel colors on one of the cards and set it aside to dry. What the heck, she painted a second card too, so she could choose the best one.

She glanced over at her Wandering Jew. He looked bigger.

The weekend passed quickly after that, and the hemlock began to look as if it was considering a move against Socrates in the near future.

Killing Bikinis in Winter

2005-02-04T13:27:00.000-06:00

Today is my second-to-last weekday of unemployment, and it is 50 degrees out, so I went for a bike ride. I anticipated that the trail might be too snowy and I would not get my ride, and it was, and it was much muddier than I expected, but I rode a little anyway. I rode for 20 minutes, and I spent another 10 minutes brushing the worst of the sand and limestone off my bicycle. I would have gone longer, but the snowy parts were extremely bumpy, and I didn't want to trash my little hybrid bike, which is not the sturdiest thing in the world. I can't keep the front wheel tuned to save my life. At least the guy who sold it to me occasionally tunes the wheel for free, which makes me like him even though I told him I wanted a mountain bike, and he talked me into a hybrid bike instead.

When I can afford it, I will probably order my mountain bike through him, explaining to him in detail why it is that my fancypants shoes, which I insist on wearing when I am not riding or hiking, do not mean that I need a wimpy bicycle.

I am thrilled with my new job. I signed the contract yesterday. It is customary to celebrate these sorts of events with champagne, but I have recently been dumped and am still in the phase of listening to too much Bikini Kill. (I'd offer illustrative lyrics, but this is a polite blog.) Therefore, I bought something that is at once celebratory, consoling, and somewhat badly needed: a new pair of black leather shoes with silver metal buckles. My ideal shoe is a steel-toed black leather motorcycle boot covered in superfluous buckles, but I realize that it would create the wrong impression, so I content myself with snazzy women's low-heeled dress shoes accented with buckles.

I will be apartment hunting tomorrow, but I hope to find time to describe how Magdalena gets her own job.

Curry Debacle

2005-01-28T18:19:00.000-06:00

Tonight I decided to fix a pot of curry from a recipe in a newspaper column that I rather enjoy, "Table Talk" by Anne Kapler. It was a good recipe, and the only problem was that I live in a rural area. I went to the grocery store today, and they didn't carry coconut milk. In fact, the kind stock worker had never heard of coconut milk. The closest thing they had was coconut cream, which is a sweetened coconut designed for making pina coladas. I managed to find a can in which coconut was listed as the first ingredient, rather than sugar, and I decided to try it.

Once again, my willingness to try anything once got me into hot water. I was hoping the jalapenos might counter some of the sweetness, but I ended up with curried cauliflower, potato, and chickpea DESSERT. The worst part was that it smelled absolutely fabulous, exactly the way it would smell if it were made with unsweetened coconut milk. It smelled like I had made something good, and it turned out to be terrible.

When I reheat the leftovers, I will try adding plain yogurt and lemon juice. I think the fat squirrel in the back yard would be the perfect finishing touch for this curry debacle, but I would need my friend Elantu to kill it and dress it for me, because I am too squeamish.

Magdalena: Mittelmont

2005-01-27T10:14:00.000-06:00

Magdalena entered a low, rambling white building. It was as institutional on the inside as it was on the outside. It could have been a school or a medical clinic, except for the pairs of skis leaning up against the walls at random intervals.

Magdalena peered around feeling lost, not sure where to go or whom to look for. Much to her relief, a slender, middle-aged woman glided out from a side door to greet her. She wore a white knit pantsuit; the jacket had large white plastic buttons down the front. Her high-heeled white leather ankle boots had a narrow trim of real fur. Her platinum blond hair was meticulously styled and sprayed into place. All of her jewelry was white gold and extremely conservative.

“Why, hello! Welcome to Mittelmont Lodge. My name is Amanda Wynn. Please call me Amanda.” She shook Magdalena’s hand warmly, holding on until Magdalena let go.

“I’m Maggie Wegian. I’m so pleased to meet you. I learned you were opening a ski resort here, and I wondered if you could use some help.”

“My, such initiative! I’m delighted to meet you, Maggie. We have openings for ski instructors, custodial staff, and servers at our snack bar. All of our positions coordinating ski rentals and lift tickets for our guests have already been filled.”

Suddenly Magdalena noticed there were no snowboards, but she continued the conversation without mentioning it. “Oh, I have waitressing experience! I worked in a family restaurant, promoting a comfortable and welcoming atmosphere!”

“That’s just wonderful. Why don’t I find you an application? Here, let me show you to the employee kitchen.” Amanda placed her hand behind Magdalena’s elbow and guided her through an unmarked white door into a small room containing a breakfast table with three chairs, a large beige refrigerator, and a sink and countertop with a microwave. Amanda stepped out, and Magdalena took a seat at the breakfast table and started reading the brochure sitting on it, advertising “The Midwest’s Most Challenging Slopes” and “Highest Quality Rescue Services.”

A tall, wiry, dark-haired man with a weathered face entered. “Hello, my name’s John, you must be new here,” he said, looking her over in a manner that displayed a little too much interest.

“I’m Maggie. Nice to meet you.”

“Nice to meet you! Are you here to help with the clean-up?”

“Ah, no, I’m applying to work at the snack bar.”

“Oh. Well.” He paused briefly. “Good luck!” He pulled a Pepsi and a ham sandwich from the refrigerator. During the lull in the conversation, Amanda popped in.

“Oh, hello, John.”

“Hello, Amanda. I was just taking my lunch break.”

“That’s fine,” she said, and turning away from him, went on, “Maggie, dear, here is an employment application for you. Why don’t you just fill this out, and I’ll come back in a few minutes to talk with you about what you might like to do for us.”

“Thank you so much, Amanda!”

“Oh, thank you.” She turned her head and added in a stiffer tone, “I’ll see you soon, John.” John nodded, and Amanda glided out.

Magdalena began to write out her employment application, but as she wrote, John still leaned against the countertop, crossing his long legs, slowly and thoughtfully eating his ham sandwich, and watching her intently. She could tell that he badly wanted to make conversation. She preferred to write her job application, but she felt rude about ignoring him. She decided to acknowledge him with a polite question that should elicit a short response, and one that would tell her a little about Mittelmont. She would not use his name, not wanting to encourage any feelings of intimacy. “What do you do here?”

John looked relieved, and tumbled immediately into slightly halting but gregarious speech. “I do the grounds work here. I plant gardens in summer. In winter I shovel snow, and I’m gonna run the snow machine this winter! I think that’s funny, I add snow in some places and take it away others. I pretty much do anything that needs doing. I cleaned the toilets yesterday and mopped the floors. I really like working here. I only work here part time. I’d like to work more hours, but I have to be in town. I’m being charged in a court case. I didn’t do nothing, but I have to stay in town a lot until the case is over. I got me a lawyer. It’s my ex got me into this. We were at this bar drinking, and she yelled at me, and I yelled at her, and now she says I abused her. But I didn’t. I’m innocent. I got witnesses. She’s just mad at me ’cause we’re not going out no more. So I’m gonna get through this court case, and then I can come work here full time.”

Magdalena tried to appear composed. She nodded sagely and continued writing out her past job experience. After a while she said soothingly, “I’m sure they’ll clear everything up for you.”

“Yeah, it’s just such a pain in my ass, excuse me, it’s just a pain. I can’t work as much as I want, and I have to pay this lawyer, and I hate to be cooped up in one town. Wish I hadn’t dated that b--, uh, that awful woman.”

Magdalena continued to write. She was almost finished. “Well, breakups are painful.”

“Sure are. Well, it was nice talking with you, I guess I’d better go, got, um, snow equipment to fix.”

“Bye! Maybe I’ll see you around.”

John finally left, and Magdalena breathed a sigh of relief. She finished her employment application and moved on to the proofreading. Magdalena was very careful to proofread because she had heard she could lose a job because of a single misplaced comma. She hoped her interviewer wouldn’t think that a properly placed comma was actually wrong. She tried to avoid commas.

Magdalena: Journey

2005-01-23T08:56:00.000-06:00

Magdalena set out Saturday morning, grateful for a weekend without snow, picturing herself struggling to climb Mittelmont in her small and vulnerable, aged Corolla. Once she got a job, she would buy snow tires.

With the car packed with emergency blankets, chemical hand warmers, sand, salt, a snow shovel, and of course a flashlight, Magdalena carefully slipped into her dirt-encrusted car without staining her flowing skirt. She pulled on her sunglasses and drove smoothly down the county road in the glaring white light of the winter day, orienting herself by the single peak visible throughout the entire region.

The closer she got to Mittelmont, the whiter her surroundings became. As the car started to climb, she realized she was no longer engulfed by a white light, but by white fog. She took off her sunglasses and tried to pick out where the snow ended and the fog began, but it was impossible to tell. How odd, she thought. She hadn’t seen any fog on the way here!

She knew she had arrived when she reached a parking lot. There were only a handful of other vehicles in the lot. She chose a space and got out of the car with her purse and an envelope containing a list of references and her general purpose resume.

MAGDALENA I. WEGIAN
523105 226th Ave.
Outaway City

SUMMARY OF QUALIFICATIONS
• Attentive, customer-centered attitude
• Good written and verbal communication skills
• Organizational skills, attention to detail proven in work at public library
• Computer literacy
• Energy, friendly personality, dependability

EDUCATION
TALL CORN INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY. Art History. B.A. 1994

EXPERIENCE
OUTAWAY CITY PUBLIC LIBRARY, 2000-present
Library Assistant
• Serve customers over telephone and in person
• Maintain orderly reference system
• Page and shelve books
• Request books via Inter-Library Loan
• Chosen to represent staff at select community events

FAMILY TRUCK STOP AND KAFE, Outaway City, 1994-2000
Waitress
• Waited tables, operated cash register
• Promoted family atmosphere for travelers and local customers
• Always wore smile and put customer first
• Honored as Employee of Month five times

TCIT MUSEUM OF SCIENCE AND ART, 1990-1994
Student Assistant
• Greeted all visitors to museum
• Represented museum to patrons, answered their questions cheerfully and patiently
• Commended to supervisors for going out of my way to help patrons find parking, find Admissions Office, etc.

LEADERSHIP AND COMMUNITY SERVICE
BOOKS ON WHEELS, Outaway City, 1998-present
DOLPHINS WOMEN’S ARTS CLUB, Outaway City, 1995-present
• Delivered multiple presentations on varying topics, including Frida Kahlo and women’s self-portraiture, art of the American West, and a brief history of mystery novels
COMMUNITY PARK AND GARDEN VOLUNTEER STAFF, Outaway City, 1997-2000
• Helped establish community flower garden
TALL CORN WOMEN’S ALLIANCE, TCIT, 1992-1994
TALL CORN CIRCLE OF THE ARTS, TCIT, 1990-1994

Magdalena: At Home

2005-01-22T15:00:00.000-06:00

Magdalena lived modestly in a small, rented home five miles from the nearest town, Outaway City. The house sat by itself on a small lot surrounded on three sides by a bean field. One oak stood in the yard, and, trying to stand but not really making it, sprawled the rusted-out remains of a swingset that Magdalena intended to convert into sculpture once she found the money to take a welding class. She thought a stegosaurus would do nicely. Perhaps if she got really good at welding, she could turn it into a swingset-themed custom chopper, but she would have to practice a lot.

The house had a small porch, and in summertime Magdalena would sit there, careful to distribute her weight evenly across the rotting boards and supplemental two-by-fours. She would gaze past her peeling blue paint and watch the corn grow on the other side of the county road, the fourth side of her rented plot. When drivers passed, she would raise her index finger calmly and deliberately, and they would raise theirs in return.

Upon opening the rickety, cartoonishly saggy screen door and kicking in the sticky interior wooden door, one reluctantly set foot on the peeling tiles of the kitchen floor. The kitchen was clean and cheerful, and it generally smelled of cinnamon. In wintertime the tiny windowsill above the heavily stained ceramic sink was choked with herbs in small, decorated pots. The rusted metal kitchen table teetered perilously but was covered with a cheerful cotton tablecloth. The bathroom, similarly stained but clean and cheerful, opened off the kitchen.

To the right was a doorless passageway into what might charitably be called a living room. Atop this room's matted green carpet rested a prickly, burnt orange three-cushion couch dotted with colorful hand-knitted blankets, a brown leather recliner that was missing several buttons, a green three-legged footrest, a side table supporting an 11” TV with a built-in VCR, and a folding chair and card table with an outdated computer, printer, telephone, and piles upon piles of paper, much of it also outdated. The walls supported unframed drawings and paintings, some by Magdalena, some by her friends. A Wandering Jew houseplant hung territorially from the ceiling: the man of the house.

The back room was the bedroom, which contained a full-sized bed, a dresser, two antique lamps, a filing cabinet, a dwarf hemlock tree, and more artwork. The bright side to having only a few small, almost windowless rooms was that it kept the heating bills down.

Magdalena supported herself with a half-time job as a library assistant, but although she did not like to think of herself as materialistic, she had higher aspirations. She wanted to work full time. She had a dozen resumes, each tailored to a different career path: receptionist, short order cook, data entry clerk, waitress, seamstress,... It puzzled her that she had found nothing in nearly a year of searching. She was well liked by her parents, grandparents, landlord, and three friends. She dressed well, in clean, black full-length dresses with bright jewelry. More than that, she was a responsible person with a kind disposition who deserved to be able to take a welding class.

Reading a newspaper during her break at the library, Magdalena learned that a ski resort would soon be opening at Mittelmont, the only substantial hilly outcrop in the area, apparently somehow created by glaciers. A ski resort would have to hire workers. True, Mittelmont had a reputation for strange occurrences, even disappearances, but beggars could not be choosers. She needed a second job, and she was determined to try every possible avenue.

Distractions

2005-01-12T20:23:00.000-06:00

I got out of the house Monday to audition for a community theatre play, and I won the largest female part! The play is "Bless Me, Father," and I play a disapproving nun. I get a bucket of water dumped on my head, something many people from my home town should pay good money to see. My father seems even more dismayed about me pretending to be a nun than about me appearing in my friend Elantu's artwork as a sword-wielding, tattooed Celtic warrior woman. Well, I have to do something to keep myself busy until somebody finally caves in and hires me.

Movie of My Life

2005-01-07T11:39:00.000-06:00

My trip to town was so exciting, they had to make a movie about it.

Tina Turner: Wow, these corduroys make my famous legs look... ordinary.

She smashes her fingertips in her garage door, ruining the polish on her long and elegant nails. She skids dangerously up the driveway, finds herself stuck, stops to sand and shovel, then peels out of there and cruises to town in her convertible, her long hair flailing in the wind, snowflakes making her eyelashes sparkle.

She arrives at the grocery store, but those corduroys! They have to go! She strips to her black stockings, micro miniskirt, and stiletto heels, and struts through the aisles, picking up canned goods suggestively.

What's snow got to do, got to do with it?
What's snow, but a sweet old-fashioned notion?
What's snow got to do, got to do with it?
What's snow, but a secondhand precipitation?

Customers dressed like the Michelin Man gape in astonishment. Margo is politely escorted to a hospital in the next county. The white-coated men are smiling. "Ma'am, you've got a great pair of legs for your age." The film terminates abruptly.

Snow

2005-01-07T09:12:00.000-06:00

We just had our first big snowfall of the winter: 14 inches over a 24-hour period, the most in 50 years. We actually don't get a whole lot of snow around here, not like the Sierras! Still, 14 inches is not to be sneezed at, and I have a really long driveway. I was valiantly shoveling away when my friendly neighbor drove up in a John Deere mini-tractor outfitted with a cheerful yellow steel blade, and he cleared my entire driveway and carport.

Needless to say, I was plenty grateful. I decided to bake cinnamon roll bread and take a loaf over to him and his wife, along with a bottle of my dad's beer that I don't drink.

I make this bread by finding any pulla recipe and adapting it. Pulla is a very rich, delectable Finnish bread made with cardamom. My favorite pulla recipe is Elizabeth's high school boyfriend's recipe, but I don't have that one here! I adapted a recipe from the Moosewood cookbook instead. What follows is not a Moosewood recipe, but if you want a sweepingly beautiful pulla braid with some stunningly elegant possible variations, that's a good place to look.

Cinnamon Roll Bread

Dissolve sugar in water, then sprinkle on yeast:
1/2 c. wrist-temperature water
1 Tbsp. sugar
2 packages dry yeast (2 scant Tbsp.)

Let the yeast proof (bubble). Meanwhile, mix, and warm to lukewarm:
2 c. milk
3 Tbsp. sugar
1 t. salt
1/2 t. ground cinnamon

Pour both liquids into a large mixing bowl, and mix them well. Add the following and beat:
4 eggs, beaten (reserve 1 Tbsp. for making glaze later)
1 c. whole wheat flour
4 c. white flour

Now add:
1/2 c. (one stick) melted butter
Leave a little butter behind at the bottom of the cup, and pour it into a very large, clean bowl to use for the bread's rising.

Stir in approximately 4 more cups of white flour, as much as the dough requires. Knead the dough on a floured surface for 5-10 minutes. It doesn't require a whole lot of kneading. When it's fairly springy, place it in the large buttered bowl, and turn it to coat it with butter. Cover it with a damp cloth and put it somewhere warm to rise until doubled in bulk, 1-1 1/2 hours.

Prepare the filling:
1/4 c. brown sugar
1 1/2 t. cinnamon
butter optional

Punch down the dough (this is fun, it deflates really dramatically) and divide it into thirds. Flatten each third into a long oval. Divide the filling among the three ovals. Roll each one into a loaf by starting with the short end and rolling up, then sealing the edges with your fingers. Put the loaves in baking pans, cover with a damp cloth, and let rise again until almost doubled in bulk, 30-45 minutes.

Make glaze by beating together:
1 Tbsp. egg
2 t. milk

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Brush glaze over loaves. Bake for about 25-30 minutes, until the top is golden and the loaves sound hollow if rapped with the knuckles.

I gave the best loaf to my neighbors, kept half a loaf out to eat, and cut the rest into slices, which I froze. I'll be able to pull out a couple slices at a time and toast them for breakfast.

Soup

2005-01-03T17:42:00.000-06:00

I went to the doctor today, and he confirmed that I have acute sinusitis. I have never been so congested in my life. I'm not even sure this is my life any more. Maybe it's somebody else's. I'm on so much medication, how would I know?

Now, in addition to Maximum Strength Contac, I am on a prescription expectorant. I drive on icy roads in this condition.

I decided to make some powerful soup tonight. I'm sure every corner of the house reeks of this soup, but I cannot smell it unless I put my face directly over the pot and wave the fumes up my nose. It is a basic soup with beans, tomatoes, carrots, potatoes, and whatever celery I could rescue from the crisper, but also with a whole bunch of onion, garlic, ginger, and cayenne pepper. I expect it will clear my head even more than my new prescription strength medicine. I will eat it with a box of tissues at my side.

Holiday Trees

2004-12-31T10:37:00.000-06:00

It sure is pretty out here in the woods this time of year. The white ice of the lake backs up against the shore; white frost adorns the trees.

I have been sick with flu for a week, and I am about to spend New Year's Eve alone so I won't make anyone else sick. However, I can't think of a gracious way to whine about my troubles when there is so much dreadful news of death and horror coming in from the rest of the world, so I'm going to talk about trees instead: holiday trees.

This year my older niecie wanted to select her grandparents' Christmas tree, so my dad took her to a tree farm, and she picked out a big tree, and they brought it home in Dad's swank covered trailer. Dad and I carried the tree inside. Dad, Mom, and I put the tree up, but it wouldn't stand up straight! Mom and I had to hold the tree in position while Dad wired it to one of the beams that support the roof, and then we'd step back, look it over, and readjust.

Dad and I both have bad backs. I spent the next hour or so lying around with an ice pack, and Dad and Mom helped the niecies decorate the tree. They were finished before I knew it! I wasn't even done with my ice pack, and they had the entire tree decorated. Dad had to walk with a cane for the next three days, so I felt like a real wuss for lying around icing my back instead of helping with the tree until I needed my walking stick to get around. I swore to myself that next year I'm buying a four foot artificial tree made out of turkey feathers dyed pink. (I saw one in the newspaper.)

Our family has quite a few Christmas tree stories. My parents' favorite is the time I pulled the tree over on top of myself when I was two or three years old. Despite my peril, Dad couldn't stop laughing even while trying to find his only daughter under the branches.

This year Dad told me a new story. Once he and his father decided that their Christmas tree would be a cedar that was growing in a nearby ditch. I have since learned that cedars from ditches are nearly iconic in Iowa, a common tree for people who don't want to pay anything. Because ditches are part of the public right-of-way rather than private property, nobody owns anything growing in the ditches. Just this year a friend complained to me that some coworkers were very proud of themselves for taking a ditch cedar and setting it up at the office, where it gave off an unholy stink and made the whole building smell so bad that they received numerous complaints, all of which they blissfully ignored in their joy over having a fresh tree that didn't cost them a red cent.

So Dad and Grandpa wanted a ditch cedar. It was right in front of somebody's house, so even though it was technically not the property of the people in the house, Dad and Grandpa didn't want them to see them taking the tree. They tried to work fast. They cut down the tree, tossed it in the back of the pickup, and took off. The tree immediately fell out onto the road. So much for stealth. They picked it up, tossed it back in, and took off, but the darn thing fell out again. At this point they finally figured out that they needed to pack it so the heavy end was next to the cab, with the top of the tree sticking out the back of the truck. They threw the tree in the right way, took off, and made it home without detection.

However, the saga did not end there. Grandma was not at all happy about having a cedar for a Christmas tree. Not only are they rather scruffy trees, but more importantly, they drop needles and make a big mess. Grandma wanted that tree gone, but Grandpa promised that it wouldn't make a mess, and it would be a fine Christmas tree. Grandma caved in, and they decorated the tree, but three days later Grandma declared that there were far too many cedar needles on the carpet, and the tree had to go.

This year as the days went by, I increasingly dreaded the day after Christmas and the removal of our big, heavy tree. That fateful morning I slept in a little--not on purpose--and awoke to the sound of a handsaw. Dad was sawing the Christmas tree into pieces so it would be easy to carry out of the house! My dad is so smart. It's good to be a redneck.

Christmas Season

2004-12-24T09:19:00.000-06:00

Right around Christmas, there's almost always some bitterly cold weather in Iowa. I remember one year when it was 20 below out, 60 below with wind chill, racing through the snow and ice to hurl ourselves into the car and drive to Florida!

Yesterday I walked to the mailbox, an enterprise that involves long underwear or tights, boots, sweater, parka, heavy gloves (but not the heaviest), and a supplementary fleece hood under my parka hood. On the walk to the mailbox my body was toasty warm, but the 5-degree F air hurt my nasal passages, and it felt like I wasn't drawing in the full amount of oxygen. However, I did not have to stop walking, and I didn't break into a coughing fit, which was encouraging.

I had a hypothesis that I only broke into coughing fits in the past because I was accustomed to warmer temperatures and moister air; even in Rhode Island the winters were mild. I guessed that if I spent the winter here instead of just visiting, I would be okay. So far, so good.

It is cold, though. Last night a pipe froze somewhere in the ceiling, and we had no water until the sun came up this morning.

Yesterday we had a visit from my niecies (I call them that; in my head I actually call them my niecie-poos, but never out loud as it would be much too silly). The 7-year-old likes to cook, so I supervised, and she made the pecan pie filling for Christmas. However, that was too easy, and she wanted to make cookies or cake. Cookies or cake?!? Good gravy, this house is so full of cookies that Santa Claus himself couldn't eat them all.

The 2-year-old wanted to cook too, so I thought up a bread machine recipe for chocolate bread, and we made it together. The little one poured some sugar on the floor, but otherwise all went well.

Chocolate Bread

Alternating nieces, pour the following into the machine bowl:

1 1/2 t. yeast
3 c. white flour + 1-2 Tbsp.
1 t. salt (1/2 t. per niece)
2 Tbsp. sugar
2 Tbsp. butter
1 1/8 c. lukewarm water
3/4 c. milk chocolate chips

Bake at sweet, light setting.

I put the chocolate chips in late, hoping they wouldn't melt and blend into the bread, but they did anyway, so they might as well go in at the beginning.

Later, when one is stuck with a loaf of chocolate bread, it makes excellent brandied cinnamon French toast.

Dining Out

2004-12-20T16:15:00.000-06:00

Friday night after a job interview that amazingly seemed to go pretty well, I was taken out to dinner at a Cedar Rapids restaurant called Vino's (plus a little sitting and sipping at the bar next door, R. G. Books).

We had a basic meal with no appetizers or desserts, but I have to report that my main dish was a delectable hunk of seafood as good as any I've eaten in coastal areas. I will no longer pine so much for Parkside in Providence, unless for the cocktails. My dinner was a thick piece of slightly crisped Chilean sea bass topped with a tiny dab of black caviar, lounging comfortably on a bed of risotto with tiger shrimp and peas. The peas were not as chic as the rest of the plate, but all the seafood was tender and perfectly cooked. It was a solid and delicious meal.

I bought a gift certificate for my brother and his wife. They enjoy good food and appreciate the difficulties involved in locating it.

Tonight I am playing around with the Enchanted Broccoli Forest recipe for mushroom pie. I don't want to make a spinach pie crust, so I'm using a regular frozen crust and putting spinach in the filling. We don't have any fresh mushrooms, so I'm using a can of mushrooms and throwing in a turnip. My friend Elantu advises me to replace half the yogurt with sour cream, so I'll be doing that too. The pie may taste funny, but it will definitely be full of vitamins!

Whiter Shade

2004-12-16T16:51:00.000-06:00

I never try to intimidate anybody, I don't bite, and I am genuinely friendly, but let's face it: Nobody wants to hire a clerical worker who can read Greek, Old Church Slavonic, and Hittite. For the most part, nobody even wants to know what Old Church Slavonic and Hittite are.

I clearly need to come up with a new answer to the job interview question that asks me what problems I have solved during my work experience. During a recent interview, I knew better than to tell them about my work addressing the problems inherent in teaching ancient languages in a way that actively involves the students, but I couldn't think of another good problem that I had solved outside of academia, other than routine everyday problems like software glitches, copy machine meltdown, filing systems that needed serious overhaul... So there I was, telling them about working with ancient language teachers, when I went from bad to worse: I referred to the teachers of ancient languages as "we." One of my interviewers visibly turned pale.

I definitely feel like the freak of the week.

Ch.5a: A Fast Friendship

2004-12-13T19:48:00.000-06:00

The Fourth of July dawned warm and muggy. Cassie whiled away the morning alternating between the ocean and the condo’s swimming pool, while Maggie fit in a workout. Brad emerged from his laptop in mid-afternoon, and all three took a cab to South Beach, where festivities were underway. Cassie felt like Ashley Olsen on her way to meet Mary-Kate for a tropical adventure. They would dance on the beach, and maybe solve a mystery if one presented itself.

Brad insisted that Cassie stay with him and Maggie until they found Brittany, and he carefully selected a central location for the three of them to meet if they accidentally got separated. Cassie sighed wistfully. Ashley’s parents would have said, “We trust you,” and sent her on her way with a credit card. Sometimes real life could be so unfair.

Luckily, they barely had time to drink their iced herbal teas, and Brad was still standing in line for beer, when Brittany appeared. “Cassie! It’s so lovely to see you! You look amazing! Hi Maggie! I want to show Cassie something. Can we go? Mom’s around here someplace; she said she’d come find you later.”

“Okay, you girls go off and have a good time, but remember, Cassie has to be under that awning at 10:00 sharp.”

“Okay, Maggie,” said Cassie, and she allowed Brittany to tow her away by the wrist. “Where are we going, Brittany? It’s good to see you too!” Cassie basked in Brittany’s warm affection; Brittany had so much self confidence and elegance.

“I’m going, like, as far away from parents as I can get! This place is full of hotties, and you and I are a couple of gorgeous babes who, like, need to be seen!”

They were headed straight for the beach. Cassie noticed heads turn, but she did not fool herself into believing those guys were looking at her. Brittany gave her a little hug. “Oh, Cassie, it’s so much fun to be here with a girlfriend! What would I do without you? I’d be so bored! So what did you do all day?”

“Me? I went swimming. It really wasn’t that exciting, but I had a good time. The beach is so beautiful!”

“Yeah, like, we had our photo shoot on the beach this morning. The men were so... wet... not the photographers, the models.” Brittany giggled.

Soon a few men started filtering over to talk with Brittany, and she engaged them in lively conversation. The group of them strolled along the beach until Brittany abruptly shrieked, “Oh my god! We have to be somewhere! Thanks, guys, but we’ve gotta go!” She grabbed Cassie’s wrist and jogged back up the beach. “Cassie, there’s somebody you just have to meet! You’re going to be so surprised!”

Cassie, who had been ever so slightly disgruntled over being completely ignored for the past hour, was instantly mollified. “But what about the people you just met?”

“Who? Oh, you mean those guys just now? No, we’re going to meet some much better ones. Besides, most of those guys were just not my temperature. Or yours!” Cassie felt a warm glow at being included. She wondered what her temperature was.

Obsessive

2004-12-07T22:49:00.000-06:00

I have been actively seeking work for over three months now. It is discouraging, and occasionally I allow myself a day to sink into despair and make no attempts to look for a job, or a day to do volunteer work and amuse myself and make no attempts to look for a job. This week I left a rejection letter on the floor for two days so I could step on it a few times. Still, for the most part I keep on plugging.

As a person who likes to remain very active and busy, I have a minimalist beauty regimen. It involves cutting and filing my nails every week or so, shaving my legs from time to time, remembering to moisturize and floss, and other similar grooming activities that many women, swimmers, and bicyclists engage in. However, now that I am unemployed and full of angst, I feel completely licensed to obsess over any body part I choose. In making this choice, I have left my skin and hair to their usual haphazard maintenance and focused my nagging anxiety on my face.

My chin, neck, and upper lip have never been so clear of stray hairs; the blackheads on my nose have never been so small. My eyebrows are so perfectly sculpted that even other people comment on them, and not just people who saw them when they were bushy, either. They require touch-ups twice a week.

I realize that some people spend real time on their appearance and even hire professionals to perform facials and manicures and pedicures and waxes, but for me, plucking stray hairs from my eyebrows is a sure sign of obsession and angst. I need a job soon, before I start buying lip liner.

Get the rope!

2004-12-05T18:46:00.000-06:00

One thing I have learned: the label "homemade in Iowa" is not a good enough reason to buy a salsa.

Hiking Sampler

2004-11-29T17:36:00.000-06:00

Hiking in Iowa is an uncertain enterprise, not for the easily deterred. There are usually surprises. (Occasionally there are no surprises, but that is rare enough to be surprising.)

I have found no surprises on Eastern Iowa's Heritage Trail, where I go bicycling. It is a straight shot trail rather than a loop, which I consider a disadvantage for a walker, and there's a fee. However, it is quiet and lovely, there are benches and a couple of toilets, and strong animal smells are few and confined to the area between Dyersville and Farley.

Iowa's state parks are free to visit, which is one of the many very cool things about Iowa. Backbone State Park offers a number of excellent trails, particularly the short loop along the Backbone Ridge. Here the surprise came when I sat down to watch the sunset: tiny, ferocious black insects that crawled all over me and bit every area they could access.

Insects are a common problem here. I remember a late summer hike to which a friend showed up wearing shorts. My heart sank because I knew my hike would be cut short. My friend would not last ten minutes before being driven away by mosquitos. That day I had my socks rolled over my lightweight batik pants, and I wore a baseball cap, and my mother asked me, "Do you have to look stupid to go on a hike?" Nonplussed, I eventually gathered myself enough to respond, "Why, yes, it is sort of a prerequisite."

Indian Creek Nature Center has an absolutely wonderful little network of trails with an abundance of wildlife, but hikers should wear long pants, because there is one small place where poison ivy has overgrown the trail and you cannot walk around it. Even though I knew the ivy was there, it was so tall that I accidentally touched it. Whoops!

This past weekend was the last weekend before deer season, so I observed the occasion with a hike. I chose the Sac and Fox Trail, Iowa's oldest national recreational trail. The Sac and Fox is another straight shot trail, but short enough that you can park a car at each end of it and walk the whole 7.2 miles. It is located on the south end of a genuinely charming and likable city with a lot of recreational opportunities, but no area is perfect, and this particular pleasant community bears the unfortunate informal nickname "City of Five Smells." The wind was unfavorable that day (normally it blows the other direction), and one of those five smells, a sewage treatment facility, followed me for half my hike. Surprise!

One place to hike without surprises--unless you include startling visions of people caked head to toe in mud from crawling around in caves--is Maquoketa Caves State Park. I highly recommend it for its clearly marked trails, caves, and plant life.

Effigy Mounds National Monument has only a short trail, but it's a good one, with awesome views of the Mississippi River. The first section is a mildly steep walk up a bluff, and I always find it entertaining to hear people's complaints about the rigors of the climb. They warn me to take it slow. Once my hiking partner asked some kids if they thought he could make it all the way up, and they all hollered "No!"

Okay, it's not Colorado or New Hampshire, but it's not all cornfields, either. Not that there's anything wrong with that!

November in Iowa

2004-11-23T17:56:00.000-06:00

Twice this month I have driven 370 miles in the flat part of Iowa, and it is not half as interesting as it is in the summer when everything is green. It is getting chilly in the Tall Corn State, and everyone I have spoken with has cooked a pot of chili within the past two weeks.

I'm going to share my chili recipe today. I got the idea for bulghur from Jeanne Lemlin's tremendously useful book Vegetarian Pleasures, but my chili differs from hers in several key ways, most notably in not being vegetarian.

Soupy Chili for One to Three People

Start out with a medium-sized saucepan, and put about a tablespoon of vegetable oil in it. Chop up a small to medium onion, and saute that until it is translucent. Add the following:

3 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 green pepper, chopped
1/4-1/3 cup bulghur (or textured vegetable protein if you don't eat wheat, but bulghur is tastier)
1 1/2 t. chili powder
1 t. cumin, ground or seed
1/2 t. oregano
1/8 t. cayenne pepper

Saute all this for a couple of minutes, stirring frequently. Then add the following:

2 cups stewed tomatoes, or thereabouts
1 can beef broth (1.5 cups water if you're vegetarian)
1 can black beans, drained and rinsed
1 bay leaf
additional water if you're so inclined

Bring the chili to a simmer, then lower the heat and cook for at least half an hour. Add the following:

1 t. red wine vinegar (balsamic vinegar if you like chili sweeter)
black pepper to taste

At this point I turn the heat off and let the chili sit for about half an hour before I eat it, with cornbread.

Last weekend I got to eat a friend's delicious chili after a University of Iowa football game. Attending a Big Ten game was a lot different from going to Rice games! I am an alum of Rice University in Houston, where our student body was under 5,000 students, yet our football stadium seated 73,000 people. The stadium was never full, and everyone moved about freely. Not so at Iowa's Kinnick Stadium, where there are only 70,000 seats, but 28,000 students and a substantial number of alumni. I was allowed into only the section for which I held a ticket, and I could not enter any other area.

Another way that the Iowa game was a new experience was the incredible crowd noise. One thing about me is that when I do not feel like preserving my dignity, I can scream like a banshee. Never before have I heard anyone over 25 scream like I can. But at the Iowa game, the forty-year-old man in the neighboring seat threatened my hearing. I had to find standing room to preserve what was left of my best ear. When that crowd roared, it felt like I was being levitated. When Iowa scored and I emitted a piercing shriek that probably destroyed part of my friend's eardrum, I could barely hear myself.

Of course it was never 40 degrees at football games in Houston, but attending football games in Iowa's November cold was not new to me. At least I was not wearing a drum major uniform with a short skirt, like I gladly wore in 12th grade no matter how cold it was. And at least there was a hot bowl of chili waiting for me after the game.

Won't you come home, Bill Bailey?

2004-11-16T16:30:00.000-06:00

When I get to know new people, I tell them stories, not surprisingly. However, the nature of the stories can be surprising because I do not look like a person who would have very many wild stories, and yet, somehow, I do. Sometimes I start with stories from more than ten years ago, because they are by far the oddest, and if I can get through them without causing people to run for the door, I am probably home free. However, even now, when I am cautious and respectable, odd events happen around me, and I plunge right in and do nothing to make the world more normal.

My mother claims that I am the reason why my parents have gray hair. Apparently it has nothing to do with being 60 years old. 95% of the gray hairs came from me, and 5% from my brother when he was 16 and 17.

Here is a story from long after I became a respectable model citizen. I was living in Providence, Rhode Island, and my friends Lara and Steve came to visit me from Washington, D.C. I picked them up at the airport and took them to meet a mutual friend for a drink, but we arrived early and did not immediately find parking, so we swung around through India Point Park, my intent being to turn around and come back to find a parking place.

India Point Park is not a place where one wants to get out of the car after dark, but it is generally safe enough to drive through. However, we ended up getting out of the car. Steve spotted a shape in the darkness, and it proved to be a man dragging a woman by her feet. When he pointed this out to me, I stopped the car. Lara and I got out, and I told Steve to watch the car.

It appeared to me that the woman was unconscious, and the man had chosen an extremely awkward method of transporting her, so, not wanting to be confrontational, I asked him if he needed any help. Lara smiled her utterly irresistible smile of pure, unadulterated charm, and the two of us tried to look as innocuous as possible. The man said he did not need help, but Lara worked her way over to the woman, who was in fact conscious and resisting. The man offered us a brief profane tirade concerning certain women (not us in particular) bearing the same title as female dogs.

I rather stupidly asked the woman directly if she wanted us to call 911, and she said “YES!” which made the man panic. Steve came running over. Luckily, the man did nothing violent, only berated the woman for trying to get him in trouble with the cops, and he drove away in his van.

Meanwhile, I was on the phone with the 911 operator, who did not want to send over a car. I said that the woman needed an ambulance, or at the very least a ride home. The operator said they don’t give rides home. I said okay, in that case she needs an ambulance. The operator wanted to know if she had ASKED me to call 911, as if I was meddling where I did not belong and I had no right to call 911 unless the victim requested it. However, I said yes, she had asked me to call.

The operator asked where I was, and I said India Point Park. The operator said they could not send a car without a street address. I said India Point Park was a major city park. In desperation, I gave street directions for getting there: Go down Gano Street to the very end, then turn left. Okay, the operator accepted this as a street address. Then the operator wanted to know if there was a fire. No, I said, there was a medical problem and possible crime.

Finally we settled it that someone would be sent to the park, and I turned my attention back to the scene. Lara was comforting the woman and finding out her name and other important information. The woman was dirty from head to toe and wearing no shoes or socks. She did have on a pair of bunched-up black underpants under a white dress. Her hair was a mess, and she was crying and shaking. After 10 minutes or so she started to convulse.

After about another 5 minutes a fire truck arrived, but it turned right at the end of the road and vanished. A couple minutes later a police car arrived, making the correct left turn, and soon after that an ambulance, then the fire truck. The police officer questioned Lara and the woman. The woman was able to tell him the name of the man. Let’s say it was Beetle Bailey, because that’s a pretty far cry from his real name, but his real name also belonged to a fictional character. “Oh, I know him," said the officer. "His whole family’s f---ed up.” We confirmed that there was no clear evidence that any crime had been committed, but that this woman obviously needed a doctor.

As the paramedics wrapped the woman on a stretcher and carried her away, another police car arrived. “It was Beetle Bailey,” said the first officer. “Oh, I know him,” quipped the second, “he wears a lot of olive drab...”

Our mystery woman received her medical care, none of us was hurt, we all downed a couple of beers by the hurricane barrier, and we never saw any of our India Point Park acquaintance again. Steve decided that I am the best tour guide ever: “I’m in town for 30 minutes, and already I’m fighting crime! What’s next, a trip to the Margo cave?”

Ch.4b: Brittany

2004-11-16T10:16:00.000-06:00

The next day they repeated their sunbathing ritual. Maggie reluctantly admitted that they had exhausted their beachside shopping opportunities the day before. It wasn’t far to other shopping areas, but Maggie was in an extravagant mood and decided to hail a cab to Coral Gables. “They call it the Magnificent Mile because it’s a whole mile of nothing but shops!”

Fortunately for Cassie, there were cafes as well, and they had a delightful Italian lunch. Maggie missed the foot traffic of South Beach, but Cassie was enraptured by the little round tables and the charming accent of the waitress.

They wandered past tall stone buildings and were frequently enticed in by lovely beaded dresses or handmade jewelry, until suddenly Maggie let out a piercing scream of joy. Cassie looked around for a celebrity, but she only saw a strikingly slender, elegantly dressed woman of about thirty (actually she was thirty-five) and a blonde teenager a little older than herself. The woman emitted more subdued high-pitched noises of joyful recognition and edged forward on her two-inch heels to embrace Maggie, who was still bubbling over with excitement: “Oh my god! It is, like, so good to see you! How long has it been? Aaah!”

“Oh, at least these five, six years since college graduation, ha ha ha...”

“And you don’t look a day over it. You’ll be 28 forever.”

“It’s gracious of you to say that, little sister. And I see you are no stranger to moisturizers either, although you had better watch that sun, or you’ll be needing a peel before you know it! Just looking out for your best interests, darling.”

Maggie’s screaming subsided, and she turned to the teen: “This must be Brittany! Look how you’ve grown! You won’t remember me, but I’m Maggie Fitzwilliam, and I was a sorority sister of your mother’s in college. I see you’re still a blonde. Well, blondes have more fun! You take after your mother. But I have my own little protegee now! This is Cassie; she’s not really mine, she’s my s.o.’s daughter, but we like to think of ourselves as family, don’t we, Cassie?”

“Yeah, Maggie, sure. We do, yes.” Cassie tried very hard to be polite in case Maggie was feeling insecure.

“Cassie, wouldn’t you like to meet Brittany?” She turned back to Marjory. “Cassie’s been wishing she knew somebody in Miami, and now she does!”

Cassie was mortified, but Brittany immediately spoke up. “Cassie, it’s nice to meet you. Where do you live?”

“I’m from Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania.”

“Really! I’ve heard of it. That’s near Philadelphia, isn’t it?”

“Yes. You’ve seen ‘To Wong Fu’?”

“Uh, no. What’s that?”

“Never mind. How do you know Bala Cynwyd?”

“Oh, we’re from New Jersey. I just know the area. It’s good to meet someone else from home!”

“Oh, I am so happy to meet someone my own age,” Cassie gushed, then checked herself. “Well, you and your mom probably already know plenty of people.” She eyed Brittany’s glossy hair, long, slim figure, and expensive clothing.

“Sure, we know tons of people. I’m going to be a model, and we have to meet everybody who’s anybody. There are, like, photo shoots and parties and things all the time. But I’m glad to meet a real person. Those industry types are so phony, you know.”

“Oh, I know,” agreed Cassie. “I’ve seen it all on ‘Entertainment Tonight.’”

Brittany laughed musically. “You’re so cute! I just know we’re going to be the best of friends. Tell me, where did you get those adorable flipflops?”

“They’re from Target.”

“I just love lowbrow retail, don’t you? Cassie, before our mothers scratch each other’s eyes out and we have to lead them home like seeing eye dogs, let’s get each other’s phone numbers.”

Cassie obeyed, although she didn’t understand why Brittany thought Maggie and Marjory weren’t getting along. They had been chatting happily during her whole conversation with Brittany. Even now she could hear Marjory enthusing, “An insurance salesman! What a catch for you, darling!”

Brittany took Cassie’s arm, and they window shopped until Maggie and Marjory returned for them, suggesting they all go for cleansing fat-free fruit smoothies with seaweed. They passed another hour or so in each other’s company, the barbs between the adults gradually subsiding as they established a pecking order.

Brittany seemed to know everything about fashion, whether it was displayed in a shop window or on the sidewalk. She could decode the interactions between passersby, letting Cassie know whether people knew each other, whether they interested one another, how likely it was that they would become romantically involved, and the outlook for the relationship. Cassie was so overawed that she would not have dared to pursue a friendship with this older and more sophisticated girl if Brittany had not been so warm and welcoming. Every social faux pas of Cassie’s seemed utterly charming to Brittany. She even invited Cassie to spend part of the day with her tomorrow! Cassie was shocked to realize that tomorrow would be the Fourth of July. She had been so excited about being in Florida that she forgot all about the holiday.

When the four ladies parted company, Cassie surreptitiously watched Brittany and Marjory stroll away. She finally had a friend in Miami, and such a friend! Her own level of coolness must have risen at least tenfold, but it could never come close to Brittany’s beauty and charm. She was the most fascinating and beautiful person who had ever paid attention to Cassie.

Ch.4a: Toby

2004-11-12T11:07:00.000-06:00

Cassie entered the bookstore, let the door close behind her, and stood still for a moment to savor the air conditioning. There was no one at the front counter, so she set herself loose in the store. No magazine rack was in sight, but she reasoned that a used bookstore might put the magazines farther back in the store than a regular bookstore would. Pleased with her deductive powers, she made her way slowly through the shop.

Before she had quite reached the back room, the salesclerk emerged and found her perusing the shop’s one shelf of young adult literature. “Hello! Can I help you find anything?”

“Well, actually I was looking for the magazines.”

“Oh! Well, you won’t find them there with the books. Do you want me to show you our glorious collection of historical used magazines?”

What an unusual salesperson, thought Cassie. He was only a little older than she was, a little geeky-looking but not badly so, with very short brown hair and twinkling eyes. Surprisingly, he spoke with a New York accent. Maybe all New Yorkers used weird big words like “glorious.” However, more importantly, he was teasing her! Unsure how to respond, Cassie tried to appear composed: “Yes, please. I would like to see the magazines.”

“Follow me, miss,” he said officiously. He led her into the back room of the store, straight to a cardboard box on the floor. “This is our selection of vintage magazines. Can I interest you in a 1985 Field & Stream, or possibly this classic Better Homes & Gardens from 1978?”

Cassie sneezed. As the cheeky salesclerk pulled out one magazine after another, the dust visibly rose in the air. Then he sneezed too. He laughed and asked, “Do you really want one of these magazines, or should we get out of here before we start choking?” Cassie shook her head and backed out the door. She checked her watch: still twenty minutes before she was due to meet Maggie.

“I’m sorry, I couldn’t resist showing you our magazines. Are you all right? I haven’t, like, given you an asthma attack, have I?”

Cassie shook her head and tried not to cough, but failed.

“Damn. Here, there’s a chair over here. Sit down, and I’ll get you a glass of water.”

Grateful for any excuse to sit, Cassie sank into the comfortable old chair. When the young man arrived with the water, she said, “Thank you. I was really hoping for last September’s Young Miss, but I’m happy just to sit down. I’m all right, really.” She paused, then hurriedly added, “My name’s Cassie.”

“Cassie, I’m Toby. Pleased to meet you,” he replied, and shook her hand firmly and warmly.

“Are all used book sellers like you?”

“I sincerely hope not!” he said in mock horror, then looked a little sheepish. “I haven’t been doing this long. I hope I haven’t scared you away.”

Cassie smiled a little. “No, I don’t think so, yet.”

He brightened. “So, the September issue of Young Miss. We don’t have it, but let me see if I can recreate it for you.” He gave a dramatic pause before continuing. “Back to school 2002! What’s hot, what’s NOT. Celebrity back-to-school wardrobes. Celebrity style for gym shoes. The best hairstyle for your face shape! An interview with someone blonde. Recipes for a healthy lunch box. Ten ways to get boys’ attention. And of course a quiz: Which TV back-to-school girl are you?” He grinned.

Cassie flushed. “I suppose Field & Stream is deeper?”

“Well, those streams can get down to six feet or so. But really, you don’t need some special month of Young Miss any more than I need the August 1985 Field & Stream, or even, you know, a hole in my head. But I’m not trying to insult you, my sister reads stuff like that too, and it’s fine as long as you don’t take it too seriously. I just get bored here, and you’re only, like, the third customer this afternoon.”

“Well, I’m glad I could entertain you and I didn’t choke to death or something on the dust back there. Uh, but I have to go. I’m meeting my dad’s girlfriend. Thanks for the water!”

“You’re welcome. Next time maybe I can help you find something without making you sick.” He walked her to the door. The heat outside smacked her across the body. She looked back, but Toby was already gone.

“What a strange guy,” she thought, but she also thought it was nice to have had a conversation with someone besides Maggie or Brad. Cassie had never been sought after by boys, but there were no mysterious or even cool ones around anyway. Maybe in Miami she would meet someone cool, and they’d go to all the coolest clubs together and have fights and make up. Maybe she’d break up with him and he’d go out with some tramp, but then he’d realize he only ever loved Cassie.

Exactly as she reached the aerobics studio, Maggie emerged, sweating and smiling. They phoned Brad to find out what he wanted for dinner, and they bought take-out and brought it home in the taxi.

Ch.3: Cooler Beaches

2004-11-08T09:24:00.000-06:00

All night Cassie dreamed of rhythmic ocean waves and sand between her toes. In the morning Maggie insisted that she take time to shower before they go to the beach. Cassie applied make-up, fixed her hair, and pulled an adorable wraparound skirt over her bikini. Maggie pronounced her purse unfit for a tropical arena, but promised to buy her a more appropriate one.

Brad had taken the Highlander to check in with his firm’s downtown headquarters, so Maggie and Cassie walked to a nearby smoothie shop, then hailed a cab and rode along Ocean Drive to the very southern end of South Beach. Cassie sipped her banana smoothie and gazed, wide-eyed and eager, out the window at every passing sight—-primarily hotels and condos—-nodding at intervals while Maggie lectured her regarding the virtues of antioxidants and the reasons why she was not too young to start putting blackberries and green tea extract in her smoothies to retard the aging process.

At length a greenway appeared to the left, dotted with palm trees and clusters of gnarled Southern grape trees that Cassie thought might be Florida sycamores. Maggie corrected her: “You’re such a silly! Sycamores don’t grow this far south. They’re cypresses.” The driver held his tongue, sensible to having not yet received his tip.

Very soon they hit 5th Street, paid the driver, and crossed over to the beach. Hearing the driver call after them, “Southern grapes!” they were extremely puzzled. They were able to speculate as to why he might have called them grapes, but how could he think they were Southern? “Well, I certainly hope I never see that driver again, calling us grapes, and after I tipped him! Maybe a Northern woman is a Southern grape. I can’t imagine what he was thinking.” However, Maggie quickly forgot this line of thought and turned her mind to the business at hand.

As it was still morning, the first order of business was to sunbathe before the sun grew too strong. Maggie led the way to a pair of lounge chairs with umbrellas, and she rented them for an hour. To be safe, Cassie reapplied her SPF 15 sunscreen that she had just applied an hour earlier, while Maggie relied on the staying power of the SPF 4 that she had applied before leaving the condo. As soon as Maggie had covered Cassie’s back, she lapsed into what appeared to be a deep coma.

Cassie was bored lying perfectly still, although she tried not to show it. She stared at the umbrella, looked around, studied the fanciful, candy-colored lifeguard huts, listened to the indifferent rumble of the surf, counted palm trees, but eventually couldn’t stand it any longer and attempted to engage Maggie in conversation. However, the latter was unresponsive. Finally Maggie whispered softly, “Cassie, honey, if I talk, my chin will move and I’ll get an uneven tan on my neck.”

Cassie regretfully turned over onto her stomach and began examining the fine sand, comparing sizes and colors of individual grains. After about ten minutes of that, she practiced surreptitiously observing the people on the beach. She noticed that many of the passersby were looking around too. A number of men seemed to glance at Maggie and herself with a curious expression that she could not at first place, although it did not seem to be desire or interest. As she had nothing better to do, she thought about it until she remembered that Maggie looked at her that way when her make-up was just right, her hair was reasonably behaved, and she wore well-chosen clothes. It was a businesslike approval: satisfaction at a job well done. The attention implied no further interest, but Cassie fairly glowed from the realization that, as long as she stuck close to Maggie and didn’t talk, she fit in. Still, she hoped she might find someone to talk with later in the day.

Thus engaged in speculation, she no longer noticed the passing of time. Maggie rose promptly at the end of their hour, and Cassie was surprised but pleased to find out it was time to stroll along the beach and find a spot for lunch. Cassie was thirsty, but Maggie promised it would not be long until they reached a cafe, so she waited.

True to her word, after only a short distance over sand, Maggie turned Cassie toward the street and past a sand volleyball court: “Surprise! This was the last place Versace ever ate!” Cassie was duly impressed. They asked for an outside table and settled in to wait. Maggie pulled out a fashion magazine and perused it with Cassie, oohing and aahing over what she liked, and pursing her lips and tsking over what she disliked. They carried on a lively debate over whether short gloves might be worn with minidresses, until their table was ready and they went out to sit at a small round table for two, generously shaded by a green awning, and affording them an equally generous view of the greenway across the street. They could hardly keep their eyes on the menu, so eager were they to see what people were wearing, how they did their hair, and what the latest trends were for fitness: which muscles were lean, and which were bulky this year.

They drank water and tea, and ate salads with grilled chicken. “Wouldn’t it be nice if we knew some of these people here?” asked Cassie wistfully.

“Yes, I suppose that would be nice.” Maggie paused and smiled slowly, “Do you want me to introduce you to someone?” she teased.

“No!” Cassie looked horrified. “No! I just wish we maybe already knew people in Miami, so we could wave at them and say hello, and maybe, like, join them for lunch.”

“Oh, yes, I suppose that would be nice. If I knew anyone, I’d introduce you right away, of course.”

Cassie returned her attention to her salad, and Maggie went back to examining physiques for areas she could work on. “Just look at that woman’s upper abs! How unusual! I wonder what her secret is.”

When they had finished eating and had drunk refills until they could no longer justify their presence at the table, there were already few people out on the street. They reluctantly left the shade of the umbrellas and ventured tentatively onto the uninviting walkway. Heat rose from the sidewalk in waves. The sun beat down on their bare heads and arms, and they could feel the hot concrete through the thin soles of their sandals.

Maggie grabbed Cassie’s arm and hauled her bodily into a nearby air conditioned shop. They pretended to be interested in the bathing suits, and they tried some on while the bubbly store clerk provided a running commentary:

“Oh, yes, that’s one of our sportier suits, you can swim in it!” (said of a racer-back one-piece, the swimsuit equivalent of two rubber bands strung across one’s front and back)

“Wow, that looks so good on you; you really have a great figure for that one.” (a low-slung black bikini with clear plastic shoulder straps)

“Yes, for you I think it’s better to have a more...interesting suit.” (to Cassie wearing a colorful bikini with elaborate strings all tied into neat little bows)

To the dismay of the perky saleswoman, they left without buying anything, and continued their retreat from the heat at a long succession of shops and cafes. They quickly exhausted the small supply of shops on Ocean Drive, but there were plenty of places located only a block or two from the beach. Maggie would go no farther than that from the oceanfront: “I swear, people grow a full hip size with every block!” Cassie got her new purse, and Maggie acquired some skincare products formulated for hot, humid salt air.

Finally Maggie said, “Cassie, darling, it’s been a long and lovely day, and your old aunt Maggie needs to sit down.” They gratefully plopped down on a bench in the shade, and they sat there for a full thirty seconds before Maggie spotted the aerobics studio across the street. Class started in half an hour. She had just enough time to buy a pair of sneakers and exercise pants. Would Cassie come too?

As much as she wanted to please Maggie, Cassie also wanted to sit down and rest, so she volunteered to take Maggie’s packages and meet her at the studio at the end of class. She waited for Maggie to comment on her health or figure, so she would have to immediately relent and attend the class. However, Maggie handed over her bags and delightedly bounced off down the street without another word. Surprised but relieved, Cassie looked for a quiet place to rest.

Before long she spotted a used bookstore, and she thought, “Where could it be quieter than a bookstore? And they’ll have magazines!”

Ch.2: Sunny Isles

2004-11-04T07:59:00.000-06:00

Cassie’s father’s girlfriend, Maggie, was an energetic woman who was clearly younger than her father by a substantial fraction of his age, but not so young as to raise eyebrows (except those of Cassie’s mother). She was still old enough to be Cassie’s mother, although she was scarcely out of high school at the time of Cassie’s birth.

Maggie had bonded with the 1980s in a way that few others could understand or appreciate. It was the aerobicizer in her. The 80s were the time when aerobic exercise really took off. Jane Fonda led the stampede, but even in dance and film, people bounced and flounced in a way that touched Maggie’s heart. She devoured “Flashdance,” “Footloose,” “Dirty Dancing,” “Fame,” and everything Cyndi Lauper. Then there were Whoopi Goldberg’s colorful sneakers in “Jumping Jack Flash,” a fashion inspiration that stuck with Maggie for life.

Still, Maggie had adjusted to changing times, to the extent that she was no more an embarrassment to a teenager than any other adult. She was merely a bubbly, bouncy woman who did a lot of aerobics, wore colorful (but nevertheless fashionable) clothing, and was known to suddenly and alarmingly scream, “Oo, she-bop!” in the middle of vacuuming.

As a school nurse, Maggie had her summers to herself. When Brad told her about the Miami getaway, she delightedly cancelled her July aerobics enrollment, visited a tanning salon a few times, and pronounced herself ready for South Beach.

The condo, much to her dismay, was a few miles away from South Beach, far away on the north end of Miami Beach, practically outside Miami altogether: Sunny Isles Beach. Brad’s company wanted to furnish its executives with plenty of quiet in which to accomplish great and profitable things while inspired by a sedate beach populated by well-to-do, respectable pillars of society—or, as Maggie preferred to think of them, old people. With much dramatic flinging of arms, she hastily assured Cassie, who honestly didn’t know the difference between one beach and another, that she absolutely promised, cross her heart and hope to die, that they would spend a lot of time seeing and being seen at cooler beaches than Sunny Isles.

For her part, Cassie only wished her brother Paul were coming. He had been invited, but he’d declined. He had a summer research assistantship in Princeton, and a two-bedroom apartment that he shared with three friends. It definitely beat sharing a room with his little sister on one of the most unhip beaches in Miami, although he took care not to explain it to his family that way.

As the month of June drew to a close in Bala Cynwyd, one would assume that Cassie’s mother’s anxiety and jealousness would peak. Cassie would be subjected to hysterical outbursts and sarcastic remarks beginning with “That woman...” There would be tirades about crime in Miami, with admonishments not to get out of the car in a fender-bender until the arrival of police, lest your purse be stolen and you be run over and killed thereafter. There would be attempts to buy Cassie’s loyalty with money and credit cards. Her mother would give her a long talk about being careful with boys she met on the beach, and she would embarrass Cassie with calls to her father to extract promises of faithfully watching everything Cassie did in Miami.

But Cassie’s mother did none of those things. Instead, she waited until the morning of the departure for Florida, and then advised, “Cassie, I know your father always takes good care of you, and Maggie... is Maggie... and she loves you very much in her fashion. Here’s fifty dollars. I know your dad will buy you what you need, but try not to get carried away. Love you, dear.” She kissed Cassie on the forehead and helped her carry her bags outside, then waited with her until Brad and Maggie showed up. They tossed Cassie’s bags into the back of their Highlander and headed south without further ado.

Rather than talking on the cell phone with all of her friends and jamming to music on a headset, Cassie looked out the window, chatted with Brad and Maggie about what they saw on their journey, and only occasionally retreated into her headphones, generally only when Brad was listening to the stock reports. No one threw any tantrums at all. The three of them were about as unlike a TV family as possible, yet there they were, on their way to a vacation adventure in Florida! Shopping, sunbathing, and boys! Cassie could scarcely believe her good fortune.

The journey was uneventful, proceeding with no incidents more alarming than getting cut off on I-95; and after all, it would have been more surprising if they had not been cut off on I-95. Brad never got lost and refused to ask for directions, and they were never once accused of being discourteous SUV drivers who thought they owned the road.

After two days of driving, they arrived in Miami. Cassie had been catching sight of beaches for hours and could hardly contain herself any longer. She prepared herself to leap out of the car without warning as soon as it stopped in the parking lot. She would fly out the door, run full tilt to the beach, dig her toes into the sand, and stay rooted there until Brad had insisted several times that she return for her luggage.

They passed a number of moderate homes, then a bewilderingly tall, dark fantasia of circular turrets thrusting out of a green plot of land like some vigorous, stubborn, overgrown tropical plant. After that hotel there were condos: great gray, white, or even pink buildings dotted with palm trees. Some were new, some were rundown, and others were just skeletons waiting for demolition. Finally, to Cassie’s great disappointment, the Highlander turned and entered a parking garage. The beach would have to wait. Maggie and Cassie loaded up luggage carriers in the cool, closed garage, while Brad picked up their key. The three together took the elevator to the sixth floor and let themselves in.

There was a small corridor inside the door, and they all bumped into one another squeezing inside with the bags and racing to the balcony. Maggie reached the sliding door first, but Cassie managed to slip past and be the first one to see the ocean view. The sea was magnificent, surging in and out, glistening blue, green, and white, blending with the sky in the distance. The pale sand was its perfect accessory, dotted with colorful umbrellas and soporific people dressed in every getup imaginable. Not hearing a thing that Brad or Maggie said, Cassie closed her eyes and listened to the murmur of the sea and the cries of the gulls. She smelled the salt air and the sharp tang of the beach. Every sensory impression was intoxicating. No wonder people worked so hard to become Baywatch lifeguards.

Gradually she realized that someone was talking to her. “Cassie? Do you want to get in your new swimsuit and go down there? It’s a little too late to go anywhere, but with the water reflecting the sun, we might be able to get some sun, especially with accelerator.” Cassie sighed contentedly and helped Maggie get her tanning accelerator on evenly, and she changed into her blue bikini from Maggie’s favorite online retailer. Brad had long since shut himself in a bedroom with his laptop, so Cassie and Maggie ran for the stairs and scampered down to the beach.

Both of them were surprised at the unbearably hot sand, and they shrieked, hopped up and down, and made a dash for the water. There, Cassie chased waves in complete absorption, running out to sea and back in, grinning and giggling. Meanwhile, Maggie slowly and thoroughly took stock of the people on the beach. She stood with her arms folded and eyes narrowed, sternly surveying every umbrella, every towel, every cooler, and every last hairdo and outfit that went with them. At last she made her pronouncement, with the gravity she reserved for fashion: “It’s just as I thought. They’re old, and old fashioned. They don’t even care. Hasn’t anyone here heard of Jane Fonda? Now, that is a woman who knows how to take care of herself. Come on, Cassie, let’s walk.”

Maggie began power walking down the beach, with Cassie splashing through the water to keep up. When people passed going the opposite direction, Cassie would briefly observe them to try to see how they had let themselves go, but instead she always found herself listening in on their conversations. So many of them were in languages she couldn’t understand! She’d had a year of Spanish so far and was signed up for a second year, and sometimes she understood “blah blah si blah...” but other times it was probably not Spanish at all.

When Maggie turned around to go back, Cassie asked eagerly, “Can we go for a swim?”

“A swim? But you’ll ruin your hair!” She paused. “Well, I’ve seen a few people worth looking nice for, but certainly no one your age, and I’m already taken. Oh, what the hell.” She plunged into the ocean with Cassie hot on her heels. They splashed each other, shrieked, and jumped waves until the sun became red and low. At that point they suddenly noticed it was late, and they walked hurriedly back to their condo, just barely managing to locate it before darkness fell. Brad had take-out waiting for them inside, and they warmed it in the microwave.

Cassie was perfectly satisfied. In addition to her pleasure at the ocean, she had even overheard someone complimenting her bathing suit, more than enough for her modest needs. Her evening could scarcely be improved upon. She imagined that she might have seen her hero somewhere along that beach, but not yet known him. They would meet again under different circumstances, dance all night, and embark on numerous adventures in the morning. However, in point of fact, she had not so much as glimpsed a hero anywhere that evening, nor had one spotted her. Indeed, she saw no one at all who would ever play a role in her life.

Ch.1: Cassandra

2004-11-01T09:14:00.000-06:00

Today is the first day of National Novel Writing Month. Unfortunately for me, NaNoWriMo insists that all participants begin their novels today, November 1. Writing my novel takes a lot of emotional space, and I only have three weeks free this month to work on it, and I certainly am not going to spend those three weeks writing some other novel than the one I have already started. Still I want to do something in honor of the lovely name National Novel Writing Month, and toward that end I will post the first chapters of my novel. For the sake of having a title, let's call it Golden Beach. It is a modernization of Jane Austen's first novel, Northanger Abbey, loosely inspired by Bridget Jones's Diary, which is a modernization of Pride and Prejudice.

Cassie Morton, our reluctant heroine, was brushing her shoulder-length, dark brown hair, while carefully inspecting every pore on her face for the slightest sign of an encroaching pimple. It was not that she was vain; it was merely that pimples are of the utmost importance. As soon as she had assured herself of her clear skin, she diverted herself by wishing she could grow her hair longer, into a sleek, glossy mane like Joey’s on “Dawson’s Creek.” Unfortunately, the moment her ends grazed her shoulders, they split.

No, Cassie had no particular personal vanity, only a love of media. She anxiously monitored advertisements, magazines, and appropriate television for teenagers, and she understood what was expected of her in terms of personal appearance and demeanor. Cassie had no special desire to be a heroine, but she was convinced that heroism would one day be thrust upon her, like it was thrust upon Liz in “Roswell,” when Liz was just working in a cafe but almost died and was saved by an alien, after which her whole life changed.

Cassie grew up in Pennsylvania with parents who loved each other. After the divorce, they remained in the same city, Bala Cynwyd, so that they could both participate in raising Cassie and her older brother Jim, who was now a freshman at Princeton. Their parents were always there for them--separately.

Now 15, Cassie had for three years been gradually leaving behind the tomboyish ways of youth. She still secretly loved to run through the small wood behind her house and wade in the creek, but now she immediately ran home and bathed afterward. She shaved her legs; she tried whatever hair treatment Seventeen was recommending that month; she wore the latest shades of make-up; and she always smelled like one or another Bath & Body Works scent. However, she was well aware that she was not beautiful or exotic! Her hair resisted every application of honey or hot oil or henna, or even substances not beginning with h, such as olive oil or oatmeal; the smooth hairlessness of her legs could scarcely compensate for their perfectly commonplace shape and length; and her make-up appeared to lean awkwardly against her clear skin in an unnatural fashion, as if it did not belong there.

Still, although she was not striking, and she had never inspired a great passion in anyone, and no famous director would ever accost her in a coffee bar and insist that she audition for his next production, nevertheless, she was not unattractive. She had a pleasant expression reflecting her kind disposition. She often smiled with genuine delight, making her brown eyes squint in a manner that was individual and interesting. There was neither an oversized nor an undersized feature on her face or body. She was simply ordinary in appearance, the sort of girl who would be quite unappealing if she were sour in temperament, but who in this case happily possessed such a good nature that she was almost pretty.

In addition to being unremarkable in appearance, Cassie was not accomplished in any area. She was not stupid or dull, merely undisciplined. Her mother and father had tried to give her opportunities to develop skills, but nothing had come of it. When she was five, her mother offered her piano lessons, and she eagerly accepted, but within a year it was clear that she would never practice unless pressed. Her parents were not the type to press, so the piano lessons were dropped. Her father then took her to voice lessons for half a year, but again, her initial enthusiasm quickly faded, and her parents did not force her to continue. Still, she retained the confidence that she could have sung well. Perhaps some day she will audition for “American Idol” and become a surprise sensation.

At nine she was allowed to try soccer, but she had no natural talent for sports, and no will to acquire an ability. So she continued to ride her bicycle to the park and the pool, to sing to herself in the shower, to cheerfully pluck out “Chopsticks” on the piano with a great sense of satisfaction and accomplishment, and to watch TV and read magazines for young women.

She cultivated a knowledge of appropriate quotes from popular songs and films, to be dispersed sparingly to display her wisdom and good taste. From Des’ree, she learned,

You gotta be bad, you gotta be bold, you gotta be wiser

and from Britney Spears,

I’m not a girl
Not yet a woman
All I need is time
A moment that is mine
While I’m in between,

and from Avril Lavigne,

Uh-huh,
Life’s like this
Uh-huh, uh-huh
That’s the way it is.

From her reading and her lively interest in music and television, Cassie knew about all the classes of people she would encounter in life: the jocks, the geeks, the artists, the snobs, sometimes even the dangerous criminals. At least she felt forewarned and prepared.

As she grew older, Cassie did not defy her parents. She did not have a secret life, did not fill notebooks with artwork or heartfelt journal entries. She never went to work at a fast food restaurant, a coffee bar, or indeed anywhere at all.

There was little to recommend Cassie as a heroine. Heroism would have to find her by chance. She would have to be like all those ordinary girls in movies who suddenly meet the right guy, get total makeovers, and become the most beautiful girl at the prom, after a few embarrassing but touching misadventures.

Cassie’s greatest obstacle to heroism was probably Bala Cynwyd. Long lost heirs to thrones reside in San Francisco. Movie moguls find starlets in Los Angeles. Handsome aliens grow up in New Mexico. How would adventure find her in Pennsylvania? Bala Cynwyd had produced a famous drag queen, but as she had been born female, that path was barred from her. Besides, even the drag queen had needed to leave town to find adventure. It was still conceivable that Cassie might catch the eye of a loner basketball player, but it was a long shot. Although she remained convinced that destiny would find her anywhere, the fact remained that an exotic location would greatly improve her chances of becoming a heroine.

As things worked out, a potential story was not far away. Cassie’s father Brad, an insurance executive, had won the acclaim of his firm and the use of a company condominium for the month of July, a month that, in Miami, could be regarded as arguably more desirable than August. Naturally he was not to be on vacation during this month, merely enjoying a more scenic and exotic location while working on his laptop and paying occasional visits to the Miami office of the bureau. He and his girlfriend had invited Cassie to join them, and her mother had graciously consented to let her go. She would have a whole month to find adventure, romance, and with any luck, intrigue.

Halloween Costumes

2004-10-30T08:29:00.000-05:00

Three years ago on Halloween my friend Debbi held her housewarming party in Providence, Rhode Island. I showed up without a costume because I knew I could find something to wear at her house. Debbi is a collector, especially of goddess art, clothes, and masks. I knew I would not have to remain ordinary-looking at Debbi's house.

In going through her collections, I picked out a feathered mask and a flouncy, lacy white dress. I chose the ultra-girly white dress because normally I dress in black pants, dark colored shirts, and Doc Martens or other black shoes. I used to wear brighter colors, but then I lived in New England for 9 years. At this point my closet is a row of black, tan, and navy clothing, plus two red blouses, and the scariest part is that I like it that way.

I chose the opposite of what I usually wear because I thought it would make Debbi laugh, but it did more than that. Debbi was absolutely transported with delight because I had unknowingly chosen the fairy dress. This dress was a part of her previous house. When she purchased that house, she stipulated in the contract that the owners, upon vacating the house, would leave to her one costume of their choice from their sizable collection. They chose the fairy dress, which was appropriate for Debbi since she is very fond of fairies.

I wore the fairy dress all evening, and Debbi said it was a sign of good luck for her new house. After that I decided that since I could never pick a costume for Halloween, I would just be a fairy queen every year in honor of Debbi and her special party on her favorite holiday. It is important to distinguish between a fairy godmother and a fairy queen. A fairy godmother does favors for children; a fairy queen turns people into donkeys when they get on her nerves.

Last year in North Carolina I bought myself a girly white dress and wore it to a costume party, but this year I am living in Iowa, and it is much colder than in Rhode Island or North Carolina. Therefore I am welching out on the fairy costume and going as a cowgirl, an outfit that will keep me warm. I'll be a fairy again the next time I attend a warm indoor party.

Unfortunately, I have lost my brother's boyhood leather belt, which was in my collection for a while. It has horses and ranch scenes tooled on it. I cannot believe I would have given it away, and I hope it will turn up.

I will be wearing the cowboy boots that a former landlord gave me because they were uncomfortable. These are dancing boots, not field boots. In the first place, they are a pale red leather with yellow heels and toes. In the second place, they have two-inch heels. Two-inch heels!! Even one-inch heels are high enough to make my back hurt, and normally I only wear two-inch heels with either the Electric Blue Party Dress, the Swirling Spanish Dress, or the black dress whose name shall not be mentioned on this blog because it could be misconstrued as rude. (My cocktail dresses have names. Wanna make something of it?) Who wears cowboy boots with two-inch heels?? Pretty much just me, and even I only wear them on special occasions.

My borrowed cowboy hat is simply amazing. It is from Paris, Texas, and is made of beaver felt, which is crushed beaver fur. The hatband has two kinds of feathers in it. The feathers alternate between small brown feathers with white speckles, and long blue feathers. It is a glorious hat, and it fits me perfectly.

Alpine Tunnel

2004-10-29T13:21:00.000-05:00

On my third day visiting my Colorado friends, there was finally no rain, but Elantu did not feel well, and Harold can't ride in the Land Cruiser because his back is worse than mine. Mike and I were both positively itching to go somewhere, and it was likely to rain again the next day, so I took Mike up on his offer to go on a Land Cruiser adventure.

We drove up Old Monarch Pass, a well maintained dirt road with a lot of very long switchbacks, and then we went over Blacksage Pass and Waunita pass, so we bagged three dirt road passes on our way to our ultimate destination, Alpine Tunnel. We occasionally had to stop for various animals in the road: cattle, marmots, and one female blue grouse. Finally we passed through the town of Pitkin and headed up the road to Alpine Tunnel. This road is listed as a Class 1, but we've got a couple of substantial cowboy hats that we'll eat if that was an appropriate designation. It's an old railroad bed clinging stubbornly to the mountainside because if it lets go, it will plummet over a dizzying distance all the way down to the valley below.

We drove past one place where there used to be a town, but it was buried in a landslide, and pretty much everybody died and they never rebuilt. There is no longer any sign of the town. At another spot farther up, there was a former town where there were still a few beams remaining here and there.

We passed the entrance to Hancock Pass and continued up to where our road got really narrow. Since we were going up, we had the right of way over the Palisades, an area where the railroad workers seemed to have built the road out from the mountain instead of cutting it into the mountain. The road is supported by the stones that the workers cut and fitted themselves. It's narrow, so a full-size vehicle can drive along it, but two full-size vehicles would be hard-pressed to pass one another even at a pull-out.

We drove on by Williams Pass, which is a pile of very sizable rocks that someone refers to as a pass. It is only open from August 1 to August 30 each year.

We arrived at Alpine Tunnel 3.5 hours after leaving the house; we were at 11,600 feet. There was some rain and hail, but we walked out into it to see the old railroad depot, which has been partially restored through volunteer labor. It was quite interesting; I liked it that I could still see the depot's archway in the pattern of the fallen stones. There were some marmots sunning themselves on the restored engine turning area.

Alpine Tunnel caved in during the early 20th century. It has since been sealed to prevent fools like us from peeking in to see what it looks like in there, so of course we were disappointed, but we went ahead and hiked up to 12,000 feet through the rain and hail. The weather cleared up when we reached 12,000 feet. Mike stopped to rest and enjoy the view, and I scampered on for another 10 minutes down the Continental Divide trail toward Tunnel Lake, through an absolutely divine Alpine meadow full of wildflowers, little birds, and chipmunks. There were two stream crossings as well. I felt like Julie freakin' Andrews crossing the Alps, even though I hate that movie. It was perfect, and I hated to leave, but I knew that since it took us so long to get there, we really needed to be heading back. We had told Elantu we'd be back by 7.

On our way down, we had to pull over to allow a full-sized pickup to pass, and we thought we might have to back up the road to find a wider spot. Mike teased me for the rest of my visit because I kept telling him he had more space to pull closer to the edge of the cliff. However, the pickup's driver was extremely bold--you should have seen how he pulled to the very edge of that scary road to let a bunch of four-wheelers drive past him. Mike moved some rocks down from the cliff onto the road so that the pickup could drive at an angle with his right tires on the cliff, and he cruised right past us. After that we hurried down the road with no further incidents.

We thought about bagging another pass, but Mike decided to spare my back by returning over modern, paved Monarch Pass, and it was a good thing we did that, because we got back at 10 minutes of 7. Elantu was about to roust Harold and come out after us!

The four of us had dinner and a movie at the house, and retired for the night.

Cranberry-Grapenut Bread

2004-10-26T09:03:00.000-05:00

Last Friday evening was a party for my aunt's birthday. In the early afternoon my mom asked me if I had gotten my aunt a present, and my response was, "Duh...no." Abruptly, I realized I would be baking bread that afternoon. My aunt's daughters and their significant others were visiting my aunt, so I thought I would bake something they could eat for breakfast.

I checked the cupboard for stale raisin bran, but it had already been thrown out, so I took the last of a box of Grape-Nuts. I had been to the grocery store that morning and bought sweetened dried cranberries, so those were going in too.

However, the first order of business was to make a sponge--a yeasty base that would rise like gangbusters. I started with one cup of wrist-temperature water, dissolved a scant tablespoon of yeast (one package) in the water, added a dash of molasses, and stirred in 1.5 cups of wheat bread flour. I covered the sponge and put it somewhere warm to rise for about 40 minutes.

The sponge: one cup lukewarm water, 1 packet yeast, a little molasses, 1.5 cups wheat bread flour.

Then I heated about a cup of water until it was pretty hot, and I poured it over 2/3 cup of dried cranberries. I added 3 tablespoons of butter so it could melt while the cranberries hydrated, and I poured in another dash of molasses (less than a teaspoon) and a teaspoon of salt.

When the sponge had risen, I dumped 2/3 cup of Grape-Nuts in with my cranberries to briefly moisten the Grape-Nuts, and then I threw the whole mix into the sponge and stirred it down. I added two cups of white bread flour, and then I continued adding wheat flour until the dough was ready to knead.

The add-ins: 1 cup hot water (cooled), 2/3 cup dried cranberries, 3 tablespoons butter, a little molasses, 1 teaspoon salt, 2/3 cup Grape-Nuts cereal, then finally a whole bunch of flour.

At this point bread baking follows a fairly standard pattern. Knead the dough, adding more flour as needed, until the dough is "earlobe soft" and springy. Place it in an oiled bowl, and turn it to oil it so it won't get dry and crusty when it rises. Cover it, and let it rise until doubled in bulk, an hour or so. Knead it again, and form it into loaves, in this case two loaves. Put it in bread pans, cover it, and let it rise again until doubled in bulk, maybe 35 minutes or so.

I baked this bread for about 40 minutes at 375 degrees. I knew it was done because when I rapped on it with my knuckles, it sounded hollow. It more than doubled in size, smelled wonderful, and tasted fabulous.

Heritage Trail

2004-10-25T20:20:00.000-05:00

In early September I bought myself a hybrid (mountain-road) bike. I didn't shop around at all. I went to a tiny bicycle shop in Dyersville, Iowa, run as a hobby by a nice man with a day job, and I bought the only new bicycle he had in stock. It is a Cignal Ranger, an inexpensive bike with a heavy steel frame. I figured that if I turned out to be too lazy to ride my bicycle, I wouldn't be out an arm and a leg. As it turns out, I ride about as often as my back allows. Every time the weather is clear and tolerably warm, I say, "This could be the LAST beautiful day before winter! I have to go for a bike ride!" and I'm out the door.

I had intended to regularly ride a circuit from the house to the park, around the park a few times, and back. Unfortunately, my back would not tolerate the terrain, which is hilly and full of deep ruts and plenty of loose gravel. Sadly, I resigned myself to driving to the Heritage Trail, which runs between Dyersville and Dubuque. Philosophically, it irritates me to drive somewhere in order to ride a bicyle, but I suppose that cripples can't be choosers.

Fortunately for me, it turned out that the Heritage Trail was a wonderful bike path. It is a rails-to-trails project with a smooth surface of crushed limestone. I have previously bicycled only in towns and on Rhode Island bicycle paths and roads, which are certainly pleasant, especially the East Bay Bike Path, which runs down the eastern shore of Narragansett Bay in Rhode Island. However, I like Iowa's Heritage Trail better. It has the beauty of New England without the crowds. Of course in Iowa there's also the intermittent smell of cattle manure, but the natural beauty and solitude make up for it in my view.

At first when I rode for short distances from Dyersville, I was impressed with riding past farms and fields, surrounded by wildflowers and trees and birds. There were a lot of benches available to sit on, great for walkers. Leaving from Dyersville, I would ride uphill on the way out, then downhill on the way back, which meant I could go as far as I could manage, then return easily. I would measure my distance by the number of farms that I passed.

The Heritage Trail propaganda claims that it has no more than a 1% grade at any point, but I do not think that is strictly true, because there are a couple of places where the trail crosses a raised roadway. I guess it would be cumbersome to write "The Heritage Trail has a 1% grade everywhere except at a couple of places where there's a 5% grade, but they're small enough hills that you can get off and walk your bike if you want to. Otherwise it's all 1%."

It does not follow that because the trail is flat, the area is flat. The trail is on a raised rail bed and is often surrounded by hills on either side, sometimes small cliffs where builders blasted a path for the track.

After Farley, the 6-mile mark, the trail becomes sheltered and even prettier, which surprised me since it was so pretty even before that. Farley is the high point of the Heritage Trail, so the trail past Farley is a downhill ride that comes as a relief after the laborious 6-mile climb to Farley up that demanding 1% grade... After Farley one enters cattle country, but it is not particularly stinky because the cattle graze in the fields instead of being kept together in a small area. There are many streams and fields, a few very low cliffs alongside the trail. My favorite spot is at the 9-mile mark: a pond with a large overhanging willow and often geese or swans.

At Epworth, the 10-mile mark, is the first view of a hillside covered in trees, which is a particularly lovely sight in autumn. A mile beyond Epworth the downward slope ends, and the trail climbs slightly uphill again for three more miles toward Graf, where there's a park with welcome toilet facilities.

One weekend I parked in Graf and bicycled to the Farley high point and back, 8.75 miles each way. Graf is difficult to find without either directions or a detailed map, and at first I took a wrong turn and wound up driving on unnumbered roads until I found myself 12 miles away in Dubuque.

Shortly after Graf the terrain changes as the trail nears Dubuque. Dyersville is part of the Western Corn Belt Plains, but Dubuque is part of the Paleozoic Plateau, so named because of the rock strata that have been exposed through erosion. There are a number of steep hills and bluffs. Sometimes the trail cuts directly through them, but more often there are simply beautiful views of stony hillsides. A stream runs alongside the trail for several miles.

At this late date most of the trees have dropped their leaves, and the trail looks wintry. Soon daytime temperatures will be reliably below 40 degrees, and I will stop riding until spring. I don't like the cold wind on my nose.

The King of England

2004-10-20T11:58:00.000-05:00

Long ago and far away, in 1995 in Moscow, I was having a far grander time than I have had since then, up until this very year, when I finally had a truly, deeply good time once more. This is a story of a legend, and also a museum, and some truly epic bad breath.

There are museums that every foreign tourist in Moscow visits. The Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts is not one of them, although its star is rising, and it no longer seems to be virtually ignored in literature for tourists. Nevertheless, the core tourist sights in Moscow are the Kremlin, the Tretyakov Gallery, Arbat Street, and McDonalds. The Pushkin is part of the next tier, one of the secondary sights. Originally designed to house copies of great Classical and European artworks for study, the Pushkin is now a major museum, albeit an eccentric one. While the Tretyakov Gallery is known for its collections of icons and twentieth-century Russian art, and the Hermitage in St. Petersburg is known for its impressionist paintings and the sheer vastness of its collection, the Pushkin houses an eclectic collection of extraordinary ancient artifacts, reproductions of Classical and Western European art, and original Western European art from the eighth century to an exceptional twentieth-century collection, making this museum difficult to package for the weekend tourist. The eccentricity of the collection may even attract eccentric patrons, as I learned during my visit to the Pushkin.

I was utterly enthralled by this museum. I started out on the first floor, checked out their special exhibit of engravings by a man named Hieronymus Cock, a Flemish artist who lived from 1510 to 1570, zipped through a few rooms, marveled at the size of David's ankles in the room of reproductions of Classical statues, stopped to examine the Byzantine icons more closely, was particularly fascinated by the cuneiform tablets and seals, looked at every last goddess figure so I could report back to my friend Debbi, and was pondering the Egyptian art and hieroglyphs when, there in the Egyptian room, a dishevelled old man approached me with a bunch of papers in his hand. The top sheet bore a drawing of a dragon. The man asked me something unintelligible in Russian. I don't think I caught a single word. Despite all my years studying Russian, this year is the first year that I made any headway in understanding street Russian. I shook my head and peered intently at an artifact, hoping he'd give up and leave.

He did no such thing. He repeated his query, as rapidly and as incomprehensibly as he had asked it the first time. Again, I couldn't make heads or tails of it. I responded in Russian, "I don't know. I don't even understand. I'm not Russian." This was Error #1. I had only excited his interest: "Where are you from?"

Reluctantly, I answered, "I'm an American." Here was Error #2. I immediately resolved to start answering that question with "I'm from Finland."

The man began speaking to me in English and asked me if I understood him. I did. Great: "I am king of England." (He pronounced it as "kink of England," but I knew what he meant.) Without being asked, he explained that he spoke English with an accent because of an unfortunate speech impediment. Apparently someone less trusting than I had attempted to disprove the origin he claimed for himself.

Well, okay, I thought, this was certainly mildly entertaining, but not nearly as entertaining as what came next. He attempted to prove his lineage by reciting his own version of English history in verse. It was quite long, and he knew it all by heart, although he did have a typed version in his sheaf of papers. In Russia it is common to memorize large amounts of poetry. I have to tell you that I was suitably impressed, but the woman guarding the collection was not. She stalked over to inform him sternly, "No lecturing without a permit." She was a dear woman with a good heart. Nevertheless, the King of England was undeterred. His poetry was all perfectly metrical and rhymed, although there were some strange enjambements, as though it was British history as told by Tom Lehrer.

Despite my interest, too soon I began to reel from over-exposure to his breath and became desirous of escape. I was grateful for the return of the guard and the forceful repetition of her admonition. The man who would be king protested, "I'm not lecturing, we're only chatting!" but she would have none of it, and I interjected, "I need a drink," and made my escape.

I was reminded of this episode a year later in the Japanese garden at Boston's Museum of Fine Arts, where I saw posted the familiar admonishment "No lecturing."

Collecting Intangibles

2004-10-18T22:15:00.000-05:00

In the morning of my first day in Colorado, Elantu took me to a favorite spot of hers in the San Isabel National Forest. A couple weeks earlier she had taken a writer from Backpacker magazine to that spot, and they spotted a grizzly (and the grizzly spotted them too!), the first one in that area in decades. She showed me where the bear was. She was sad that the rangers reported his departure back to where he came from, but I was openly delighted to know that I would definitely not be meeting any grizzlies. I practically danced with joy.

Elantu showed me where she always went to watch beavers, but there were no more beavers anywhere in the area. The grizzly ate them all.

We drove to Salida, walked along the Arkansas River, and visited some galleries, including a really intriguing little gallery run by Barbara Flynn. Her gallery is packed with little goodies, so no matter how long you stay, you keep running into something you missed the last time you looked.

That evening Elantu, Harold, Mike, and I went out to eat at Country Bounty, where we saw a rainbow and ate scrumptious elk meatloaf seasoned with juniper berries. We drove across Poncha Pass to Joyful Journeys hot springs, and the sky was absolutely incredible. There was a "sun dog" over the mountains: like a small spherical rainbow. We enjoyed the hot springs as well. Joyful Journeys had three soaking areas, one at 99 degrees, one at 104, and one at 108. Only Harold ventured into the hottest one. The rest of us soaked, looked at the mountains and the sunset,... An owl flew directly over us in hot pursuit of some prey.

We met interesting massage therapists who were in the area for a workshop. One guy was a little sanctimonious about not eating anything with a nervous system, and I think he made Elantu's whole evening because she could torment him with tales of plants screaming when harvested for food.

Mike and I both collect intangibles, things that don't clutter up our living spaces. He collects visits to hot springs; I collect memories of people.

By the end of the evening, all my crankiness had dissolved into the mineral water, and even Elantu was no longer remotely cranky, and she's legendary! (In a good way, of course.) She actually features as a cranky character in someone's science fiction novel.

Back at the top of Poncha Pass, we pulled over to admire the night sky, where the entire belt of Milky Way dust was visible in a wide arc across the center of the sky. It was heart stopping. I had never had such a good view of the Milky Way before, and I could have stayed a lot longer than we did.

On my second day we made plans to visit St. Elmo, a historic ghost town. Elantu and Harold were taking some time to get ready, and Mike and I got antsy and took off in his 1965 Land Cruiser, of which he is obscenely and charmingly proud. Elantu had given me a copy of Sibley's bird guide, so on this day and every day after that, I busily identified every bird I saw, and was absurdly pleased with this exercise.

On the way to St. Elmo we saw a Stellar's Jay, which is a brilliant deep blue with black markings. It is a very elegant bird, and I suggested to Elantu that she draw a person as a Stellar's Jay, but I don't think she takes the idea seriously! In St. Elmo we saw a Western Peewee, which is a small, hyper gray bird that appears to be sporting a crewcut.

Elantu and Harold eventually showed up, and we looked at the houses in St. Elmo, which are still preserved and have people living in them. However, we spent most of the time sitting around feeding sunflower seeds to plump, greedy little rodents: chipmunks, squirrels, and ground squirrels. Harold took several pictures of Elantu covered in chipmunks, musing about what dishes she might cook with them now that she had gained their trust.

Mike and I decided to drive up toward Hancock pass, while Elantu and Harold rested and read books for a while. We didn't have time to drive all the way up the pass, but we saw some mining ruins, including a building that had broken clear in half as it slid partway down a mountainside. Now, one of Mike's books rates back roads in Colorado on a 10-point scale based on roughness, exposure, and difficulty. 1 is the easiest. We were on a 2, which is bad enough that although I could drive my Camry on it, I wouldn't want to because I would worry about screwing up the alignment. 6 is about as rough as Mike ever likes to drive on.

Completely innocent of what was in store for us, I made known my burning desire to drive up to see the Mary Murphy Mine, which was the chief source of revenue for the old town of St. Elmo. Mike obligingly turned onto the one-mile road to the mine, which looked like about a 3 in roughness, but which quickly transformed into a 5 (we looked it up later). There was nowhere to turn around for about half a mile, so we bumped and bounced up this pile of rocks that qualified as a road only in the sense that there were no trees in our path. My head was banging against the headrest, and I was laughing, and I had to say that this road had the most beautiful view we had seen all day. We were looking down a steep dropoff to a narrow streambed and some ruined wooden buildings. The roof had caved in on one building so that it looked like it was upside down. I wanted to go ahead and drive or walk all the way to the mine, but we really didn't have time because we had to meet Elantu and Harold at the Mt. Princeton Hot Springs.So we lurched and lumbered back down that outrageous excuse for a road, and we headed on down to the hot springs.

Mt. Princeton Hot Springs has two full-size swimming pools, one of which is quite hot, probably 102 degrees. The other pool is actually for swimming, and it's about 90 degrees. In addition, there's a river that runs right past. You can walk down to the river and settle into a pool near a spout pouring runoff from the hot pools into the river, and you arrange rocks and sand to admit only as much freezing river water as you want, to set the temperature of your rock grotto to whatever suits you. Then you settle down to watch the rapids dance past at eye level while you stay comfortably warm and cozy.

Midwest Miso

2004-10-14T19:31:00.000-05:00

The somewhat raucous kitchen does not always have everything on hand to make dinner.

A few weeks ago I bought some packages of instant miso soup, $0.25 per bag of four packets, each of which would reconstitute into 8 ounces of thick, salty miso with tiny tofu bits floating in it.

I pondered what I would make with this cheap miso. I could drink it like tea at work. I could make myself yummy soy-based vegetable soups. Or, alternatively, I could use it for wildly non-macrobiotic purposes its creators never intended.

At my parents' household, a meal is not a meal without meat, and most soups also contain meat. Certainly main dish soups contain meat. I decided that a simple soup containing stewing beef, watercress, and miso would be delicious, and the meat and vegetables would absorb some of the salt so the soup would not taste quite so salty.

Unfortunately, watercress requires a special trip to the city, and I didn't get around to it right away, so when it came time for me to make dinner tonight, I decided to do without my watercress. My mother went to town to take my aunt to her driving test and play in the alumni band. I was excused from these duties, but only in exchange for making dinner. I clearly got the better end of this deal, so I was more than happy to make dinner.

At my request, Mom left me a nice hunk of beef to thaw on the countertop. I inspected the refrigerator and came up with some appropriate soup vegetables.

In the mid-afternoon I began to cook. I chopped half a Vidalia onion and sauteed it in canola oil. I browned the hunk of beef. I cut up a garlic clove and a carrot, slicing the carrot into small strips because I think it looks cute that way. The carrots are from my uncle's garden, so they are particularly tasty. They are not merely better than grocery store carrots, they are also better than carrots from other people's gardens. I do not know why this is, but it is so.

After adding the garlic and carrot, I chopped up a celery stalk and a cup of cabbage, and I added them too. I poured in 6 cups of water and 4 individual packets of dried miso mix. Then I turned up the heat and waited.

After a while I took out the hunk of meat, chopped it up, and put it back in. By this time the soup was done, sooner than I expected, so I shut off the heat and let it cool. Then it occurred to me that I should add ginger, so I threw in a small piece of dried ginger. I refrigerated it until dinnertime, when I forgot to add cilantro, reheated the soup, and served it.

Here are the ingredients that went into the soup:

1 Tbsp. canola oil
1/2 large onion, chopped
around a pound of beef
one medium carrot, julienne
one garlic clove, minced
one stalk of celery, chopped
1 cup cabbage, lightly chopped
6 c. water
4 packets dried miso
fresh or dried ginger
black pepper to taste

I thought it was very tasty, although the beef was a little tough. I would have preferred to use a different cut, such as stewing chunks or a small roast. It would have been good with an added grain, as well, like barley or rice.

My Intro to Camping

2004-10-13T17:03:00.000-05:00

About a week after a really tough July stumbling through summer camp with sciatica, trying my best not to grouse at the students, I decided I needed a vacation.

I started out with a visit to the Iowa State Fair with my parents and an aunt; we were the recipients of a Century Farm Award for a farm that has been in the family since the late 1800s. While at the fair, I also ate Iowa cornfed beef, rode the double ferris wheel, and wandered around filling out a questionnaire that allowed me to enter a drawing to win a really cool mountain bike. I didn't win the bike, though, only a free T-shirt, so I had to buy my own bike at a later date.

I drove out of Des Moines around 2:00 that day and got as far as Kearney, Nebraska, where I camped at a state recreation area. It was cheap, and there were showers, and you stopped noticing the smell of cattle after a while. Unfortunately, the ground proved to be rocky, and I had a brand new tent and no hammer. I pounded away at the stakes for 5 or 10 minutes, tried to put the tent up without stakes, and finally gave up. I had to move the tent to softer ground and try a second time to pound in the tent stakes, using a stainless steel padlock from my trunk. I did get all the stakes into the ground, although in the process I bent one steel stake and broke off a piece of bone in my right pinky, which has since interfered a lot with my ability to stir things. I had to beg help from a passing elderly couple to get the tent fully erected before dark, because one pole would not behave. Without a second person, I would have been forced to take the whole tent down to fix the pole.

By the time the tent was up, my back was too tired for me to put up the rain flap, so I decided that if it rained hard in the night, I would throw the tent into the car and drive on. It did rain, but not hard enough for me to give up and leave.

The next morning I took off, making one necessary stop in Sterling, Colorado, to buy a tent mallet, a tool box, and a White Stripes c.d. Then I continued through Denver and Colorado Springs to scenic highway 115, where my aunt says it looks like God crumpled up the land in His cosmic fist and tossed it down in piles, all scrunched up in balls. I picked up highway 50 in Canon City and drove through the Arkansas River canyon to my friends' house, which is just shy of Salida. The canyon was a magnificent array of multitudinous shades of red stone, with a merry river playing and lunging through it. The Arkansas River is happy in itself; it's not that the river is benevolent or anything like that, it really doesn't care one way or the other about humanity, it's just having a jolly old time on its own. You can hear it happily resting for a while in the deep areas, then frolicking through the rapids.

I spent five days visiting my friends Elantu, Harold, and Mike, who make and sell wonderful Celtic artwork together (www.ghostraven.net). Elantu also writes books about ways to cook and eat what you can find in the woods--anyone for Hot Hunan Stir-Fried Field Mouse?--and about rednecks she has known.

Dish Boy

2004-10-10T10:40:00.000-05:00

Alex stood dripping in a restaurant kitchen, alone with the hulking metal appliances that surrounded him like a cage: gleaming bars and locks. He faced a deep, silver steel sink, his hands plunged deep into the stark white soap bubbles. No dishes were in sight; they could only be felt in the heat of the soap suds and slightly oily water. A small dollop of soap suds dangled precipitously from Alex's left ear, clinging to its perch as if fearful of rejoining the Great Link of dish soap amassed below it.

Alex wiped a plate under the foaming mass. Unnoticed, a tendril of suds snaked out from the sink and curled itself around Alex's left arm, sinuously winding its way toward the trembling soap scum at his ear. As Alex pulled the plate out of the sink to rinse it and hang it carefully on the bars of the drying rack, the tendril struck. It forcefully reclaimed the errant soap drop and immediately commenced to punish the interloper who had harbored the escapee.

The suds covered Alex's entire arm and launched themselves upward with lightning speed for a surprise chokehold. Suddenly sensing the damp sudsiness on the sensitive skin of his neck, Alex dropped the plate--"Damn! That comes out of my pay!" His hands scrabbled impotently at his neck, but there were too many suds to wipe off. He flailed helplessly as the entire room, his entire consciousness, filled with soap suds. He reached for the sink to steady himself, but there were only soap suds, no air, no water, no heavy steel appliances.

But there was a phone. Phone? He could hear a phone ringing! He stumbled through the murk, would have fallen if it hadn't been too thick to fall through, and gradually became aware that his support was coming from his own tangled bedsheets. Oh crap! The phone!

"Hello? Hello???"

First Post

2004-10-09T12:16:00.000-05:00

In my family of stalwart Republicans there lives a stealthy rogue Democrat gene. It manifests itself in every other generation; its last appearance was in my father's mother. The rest of the family tolerates Democrats in its midst because we bake excellent bread.

However, I did not come here to talk about politics. I am here to tell little stories. I am an Iowan who's been away for 18 years and is sick to death of being either a graduate student or a member of a low-paid part-time labor force. I have moved into my parents' upstairs loft for a few weeks in order to have the leisure to recover from a back injury at one of my assorted part-time jobs and also to find a decent full-time job. In the meantime, I am facing reverse culture shock, which is well known for being worse than regular culture shock.

When a science fiction writer sets a story in the distant past or future, or some galaxy far far away, the writer often gives us a hero who doesn't belong there, someone from our own place and time period whom we can relate to. Otherwise how would we understand all the things that denizens of the foreign land or era take for granted?

I don't know what place I belong to any more, but Iowa is definitely somewhat alien. I grew up here, but 7 years in Texas (very alien) and 9 years in Rhode Island (I never did figure out what to do with that place) did not leave me unchanged. I was always a city girl inside, but now I'm just a city girl all over, and it's obvious to absolutely everyone, not only to me. Even when I take off the dress shoes and the black clothing, the urban Northeast clings to me like Boston fog, the damp air that sticks in your lungs.

One of the first things I did in Iowa this summer was to attend the Red Power Roundup, a gathering of International Harvester tractors and their owners. You may laugh, but I have every right to attend tractor festivals. My grandfather was an IH dealer, and I find farm equipment fascinating from a technical standpoint. I love going to the Farm Progress Show. However, I do stick out like a sore thumb. The Red Power Roundup in particular is a real downhome country event. They actually sell bumper stickers that say, "Friends don't let friends drive green tractors." (IH is red, and John Deere is green.) I attended this event to support a dear friend, and my friend thought those bumper stickers were hilarious. To this day, I simply cannot fathom it.

When I lived in New England, I was sad that life was so seldom deeply weird, so it is good to be west of the Mississippi again. I loved living in Texas because there was something hilarious everywhere I went. Iowa comes close. Recently I went to a bar with some friends, and there was a man there wearing a T-shirt that proclaimed in block letters, "I F*** SHEEP." All letters were present and accounted for. After living on the East Coast, where people looked askance at me if my shirt was too blue (how daring), it is nice to be in a place where a man can proclaim his affinity for sheep. Besides the sheep lovin man, the band at the bar had a gratuitous mascot that was a condom named Pokey.

Texans still don't believe me when I tell them there are rednecks in Iowa. They don't believe me that there are hills either.

Another surreal event was bowling with Ukrainians. Only in Iowa. The Ukrainians had never bowled before. One woman always stood completely still and threw her ball down the alley from that immobile position. She scored higher than I did.

Irish pub and Harley bar, Smithsonian museum and chainsaw artists, river walk and fish fry Friday, that's my Iowa. It's not as weird as Texas, but it will do.