mindaTHINK

UNFAIR! Post #1

So, in twenty minutes it will be the first day of the Minnesota State Fair, and the first time in three years that we will NOT be there at our Squngee booth. 

So, I'm intending to post every day with some UNFAIR! posts...a walk down memory lane along with speculation about all things State Fairish.

Scott thought we'd start the UNFAIR! posts off with a bang, by dragging his family to the Emergency Room at Fairview Southdale Hospital for a night of fun and pacing.  Several holes and a little nasal cocaine later, and we are all back home safe and sound.  Turns out when Scott says he has a bad sore throat, he means he has a BAD SORE THROAT.  Diagnosis: pharyngitis, which is a doctors way of saying, "Hey dude, you have a bad ass sore throat."  Treatment?  Lotsa drugs and see a doctor in two days.  As if you could get an appointment with a doctor in two days time, like they were some sort of drive up McDoctors or something.  Heh.

So yah, more fun at Fairview Southdale, will this summer ever end?!?!?

Imagine if we still did have a State Fair booth and we were starting out tomorrow with our head sales guy fresh out of the ER?  May, wouldn't THAT have been a riot.

Trial By Fire (and lightning and wind and rain and...)

Without really intending to, we have skipped out on camping for three years.  Finally, our Eclectic homeschool group decided to set up a group camping outing and this past weekend was the weekend we reserved. 

We went to Baker Park Reserve, a great place to do "camping lite" as it is instead the Twin Cities Metro area, has shower houses and has tons of things to do.  It isn't getting away from it all in the traditional sense, but it does provide a great intro to camping to get us going again.  Three families ended up going, Park and Julie, Becky and Jeff and us, and the kids immediately found friends at a neighboring campsite and starting whooping it up while we set up camp.  Then we sat around the fire and talked and laughed and just settled in. 

No surprise to us was Andrew's fascination with the fire.  Sigh.  I bet you didn't know that pyromania tendencies can be handed down genetically.  Ask Scott some day about his grandmothers garage....anyway...

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Andrew is covering up his eyebrows because Park has told him if he gets too close he'll burn them off...so much for trying to discourage his obsession with fear...

So then Park gives him a bandana to help free up his hands for the fire play.

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not EXACTLY how you are supposed to wear the bandana Ronan! 

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Jeff and Park joke around while Julie pours us a glass of wine.  Becky is gone home to get the bike lock key, so she can get the bikes off the car.  Oops!

At 8:30 Scott headed back home to shower and get ready for his last night of work that week.  His plan was to work, go home and sleep for 5 hours and then join us back at the campsite in the afternoon.  Oh how foolish it is to make plans with Mother Nature!

At 10pm it was quiet time in the campgrounds, so we three families ushered our kids to the bathhouse for teethbrushing and one final trip to the wc, then it was the three kids and I all off to bed.  I think the other grown ups stayed up a little later, but I was tired so I took that chance to head to sleep.  THANKFULLY I took some tylenol pm.  Why thankfully?  Well, TPM has a CALMING effect on me which was to prove very useful in the next few hours...

...so, about 1am I was awoken by two things, constant, unremittant bright lightning and ground shaking thunder.  No rain yet...so I'm thinking, I bet this is gonna wake Andrew up and I must go pee!

I ran in the dark to the bathroom, and ran back, hoping he didn't wake up scared while I was gone.  Blissfully, as it got worse and worse, he was still sleeping.  I crawled back into my tent (he was in his own tent) and tried to go back to sleep.

Within half an hour the rain drops started.  I zipped up one window, then another.  I wondered if I had brought the library book in from the camp chairs...I zipped up the final two windows and wondered if Andrew's window was rolled up...

Suddenly the rain began coming down in torrents, swirling around my tent that was quickly filling up with water.  My air mattress (how did I get lucky enough to have the one with a hole?) was now flat, and I was laying in a puddle of water that was rapidly growing.

Out of the darkness I hear a shaky little voice holler, "Mommy, I'm scared!" and I dashed out of my tent into the tight quarters of Andrew's.

He was shaking like a leaf and I calmed him and drew his sleeping bag around him and scooted him over so I could share his nice full mattress.

This is a little $5 walmart tent.  I was so proud of how it held up in this storm, which went on and on and on.  The sides were rolling and shaky and I could hear things crashing down around us, but it held firm.

I can say more than a few prayers were being hastily whispered throughout the night.  I wondered if my tent and all my belongings had rolled away since it was now empty.  I kept thinking about the Casting Crowns song Praise You in The Storm, I kept telling Andrew that God would take care of us, in my falsely sedated voice.

Then the screaming and yelling began.  It seemed our three families were quiet and staying put, but around us you could hear cars driving away in the fury.

Finally after an hour or two with no relief, I unzipped the door and peaked out.  The screen house that was our kitchen was gone.  The campsite was in shambles.  But more importantly I saw a light on in Julie and Parks SUV.

So I asked Andrew, who was by now calm and getting used to the storm and the occasional drips of rain sneaking in, if he wanted to make a break for it to Parks car.  "No, I feel safe here mama" was his response.

I was so proud of him at that moment.

You see Andrew has been paralyzed by his fear of storms since he was three or four and lived through a tornado on the lake with his grandparents.  He doesn't even like to hear weather reports of rain, and he might be the only 7 year old with the weather channel on his computer home page.

And here he was in a storm to face all storms, trees snapping around us, and he felt safe in his little $5 tent.  A huge moment in my parenting life.

Finally I readdressed the idea of going to the truck, explaining I had towels and  dry clothes and we could dry off once we got there.

I sent him off across the campsite, a blanket wrapped around him, the tails flying out behind him as he ran and then I ran after him, pelted by rain as I tried to zip up the tent and preserve what was left of it.

Julie, Park and their little 6 year old boy were steaming hot and wet in the car.  Their tent had not held and they'd had to drive to where their boat was to secure it, as the cover wasn't in place for a storm. 

Then they'd come back, wondering if we were still asleep.  Hehe!  I guess they'd walked by our tents twice and because we were quiet they thought we were sleeping!

I called Scott and updated him on what was transpiring...their power had gone out and they were just getting the computers back online with the generator.

My 20 year old, having heard we were camping from his sister, called with fear in his voice, "Mom, are you guys okay?"  So sweet.  Seems trees were snapping out of the ground and basketball hoops were crashing and he knew both of his sets of parents were out in it camping!

After about another half hour of waiting, its now 3:45 in the morning, we decided to drive the hour home and come back when the storm ended.

The ride home was harrowing...

...The way home showed us just how lucky we were to be alive.  Road signs and trees were laying in the road, showing us just how strong the winds had been.  Our campsite had been ringed with trees, and we realized how lucky we were that they all stayed up.

Huge sections of the city were black with no power, and we saw numerous sky to ground lightning, which would have been deadly if it had struck in our campsite.

When we were a block from our home, we saw the power was out in our whole neighborhood.  Luckily there were emergency lights on in the hall, as two bedraggled, soaking wet, shoeless waifs headed in to our building.  Our apartment was pitch black as we entered.  I thought, I need to remember where the flashlight is...oh yeah, its at the campsite.  The lantern?  Yeah, the campsite.  Andrew's kitty flashlight?  Campsite.  I fumbled around and found some matches and a candle and we crawled gratefully into our warm and dry beds after stripping off our dirty wet clothes.  The power outtage seemed so unimportant compared to the safety and warmth of our beds.

Found Uncle Rog's Gravesite

After talking with staff at the National Cemetery last week, yesterday I stopped off at the Ft. Snelling Nat'l Cemetery again and this time found what I was looking for.  Seems last time I was in section X instead of section 15.  Reading signs is OH, so helpful!

Uncle Rog (and his big brother the pilot) would get a big kick out of where he's "planted" at the top of the hill, in the very back row, overlooking the airport and a major runway.  It made me smile. 

Linden Hills I Love

Tuesday my mom and her friends/family went to Linden Hills for a little adventure.  She knew that I am a big fan and wrote me for some recommendations on where to eat.  My email back to her got my juices flowing and so yesterday when we had the day to ourselves, Andrew and I made a trip to this, my favorite neighborhood.

It is hard for me to sum up what it is about Linden Hills that I love in a few words.  Of course as you well know, its hard for me to sum up ANYTHING in just a FEW words!  But I think the crux of it is that the people of Linden Hills spend their time and energy and money created shared spaces instead of self spaces.  As you walk down the street you see how much they care about this, their neighborhood.  They want to walk a block and have a sweet little sitting area to chat with friends they run into on the street.  They want beautiful flowers.  They want slow traffic and pedestrian priority roads.  They want to preserve their past, savor their older buildings, not tear them down and build the latest and greatest.

I like this.  ITs about sharing.  ITs about believing that what is good for the community is good for the individual.  I always feel welcome there.  Now if only I could afford to live there!

yes, they actually have a phone book next to the hardware store...and it still works!

this space is owned by the grocery store.  Seriously.  A beautiful patio for sitting on, by the grocer!

Doing Something Scary

Growing up as I did, moving from place to place every 2-4 years, I have avoided certain uncomfortable situations that others experience much younger in their lives than age 43.

Many of you know that Erin and Jason's dad's family has had a rough go these last few years.  Tim's 43rd birthday was greeted with the death of his older brother Tom.  Now, less than two years later, his brother-in-law Bob Swalve is terminally ill from another form of cancer.  Bob is a great family man who gave Tim his first full-time job and who has been in homebuilding ever since.  From doing contract siding of homes to building new homes to becoming a premiere restorer of historic homes all along Summit Avenue in St. Paul, Bob has built an amazing business and a beautiful family, his oldest is 20, his youngest just 5 or 6. 

Last night, his family and friends threw a benefit at Famous Dave's in Uptown to help raise money for Bob's family.  Erin and Jason asked me to go, and I did.  I had always been fond of Bob and he was definately one of the people I missed after the divorce.  As I stood in the LONG line waiting to get into the event, which I'm happy to say was overwhelmingly attended (I'm pretty sure that place has NEVER been that full before) I realized that I have been in the Mpls/St. Paul area for 25 years now.  A quarter of a century in one metro area!  Four times as long as any other place I've lived.  And, it having been 16 years since my divorce, there were a whole lotta people at this event that I hadn't seen in 16 years.  I've run into Tim's brothers, sister and parents at various school events for the kids.  I saw most of the family at Lance's goodbye party.  But the church friends and extended family?  Not in 16 years, when I disappeared off their radar.

What I didn't realize was how much that group from back in the day hung together.  Basically I was ripped back in time 16 years in one night, seeing people from my school, my church, seeing aunts and uncles.  There were plenty of people I didn't know, which is good since I seriously think there were over 1000 folks there, but there were far more there I did know then I had imagined.  And I was remembered.  Which surprised me.  And shook me a bit.

Two people I really didn't expect to see were Jan Johnson and Teresa Worrell.  Jan's mom was the secretary at the church I attended after marrying Tim, and Jan was one of the very few who stuck by me after the divorce.  She is responsible for hooking me up with a job at IDS, which at the time was a godsend.  We drifted apart a few years after the divorce as our lives moved in different directions.  Teresa, or Tree was another friend I met through Edgewater Baptist Church that stuck it out when Tim and I split.  The camping and exploring trips I took with Tree in 1990 and 1991 saved my life in so many ways, as I struggled with the divorce and with my self worth.  She is now married to a guy named Tim and they live in Prior Lake on an acreage where she works from home.  She seems happy.

It was great to see them, catch up for a bit, and move on.  Meeting people from the past, having a pleasant conversation and moving on.  That must be what people who stay put do with far greater ease then I, as they encounter this situation more often.

It was hard to greet Bob and give him and Carol a quick hug and realize that Bob probably didn't even know who I was.  One of the many casualities of divorce is how hard it is to maintain family friendships with the best of people.  It was harder still to see a DVD that was playing.  It was created by HealthPartners and shows Bob, Carol and the kids making plaster castings of their handprints, talking about what they love about each other, and listening to Bob sing songs he made for each of his kids.  We had to leave fairly early so Scott could get to work, but Erin said right after we left Bob sang the songs right there at the benefit for each of the kids.  Beautiful.

I want to give a big shout out to three people that made my attendance last night possible.  Erin and Jason were great, staying by my side and making me feel loved throughout the evening.  I am glad they understood how hard the night was for me, it shows how grown up they are.  But the hero of the hour was certainly Lisa.  Lisa who has never met Bob but who wanted to be there to lend her support to Erin and Jason as they struggle with losing another uncle and to support me as I entered a room full of people from my distant past.  Thank you Lisa for your warm support of my family.

Of course the difficulties I experienced last night pale in comparison to what Bob and his family are going through these last few months.  Imagine being 5 and seeing your father, normally strong and muscular and active slowly slip away until a wheelchair is his only option.  Imagine being the parent of that 5 year old and knowing better than he what is being lost.  Imagine being Carol, watching your husband and everything familiar in your life slipping away.  Terror in my heart when I think about being in her shoes. 

And here is where I throw down a tribute to the Anderson Family.  In 2005 when Tom died, his son and his wife sang a song of hope at his funeral.  Can you imagine?  Can you fathom the faith and peace in God that took?  The family worked hard to celebrate Tom in his final days, with parties and slide shows and lots of fun.  They are doing the same with Bob.  Tim works hard to help pay the bills of the family, and Sunday dinners with Bob are a must attend.  As sad as it is that they are losing a brother, an uncle, a father, a husband, a son-in-law, I hope they take comfort in the fact that they shouldn't have any regrets.  They are doing their goodbyes right. 

But enough maudlin emotion, it was funny that when I ran to the bathroom in the middle of the evening, the only person in the bathroom was...Tim's second wife Tracy.  Tee hee!

From this to 60 in 48 hours

Ahhh Minnesota.  Never a dull moment!

Another Field Trip Friday

We decided this Friday to pay equal homage to the OTHER Twin City and spent the day in downtown St. Paul.  The majority of our time was spent at the Science Museum, where we have a membership.  We spent hours in the two newest exhibits, Wild Music and Race, and went to two of the little sit down presentations that they do.  Normally Andrew has us hurtling around the rooms, running from spot to spot to taste everything just a bit, but since this was his second time at the SMM this week, and since we were committed to actually enjoying the exhibits ourselves, we took a slower pace. 

Among the things I learned yesterday:

Caucausian is a DIRTY word.  Do NOT call me a caucausian.  Its sort of kin to calling me a Nazi.  Just don't do it.

Brazil has over 130 words in their vocabulary to delineate race!

Our brains perceive light to always be coming from above, which is why many light based perception tricks work.  If the light source is from below or the side, our brain gets confused.

Race is a concept that was developed in the last few hundred years.  It has always been used for social or political oppression (I get this thing/priviledge/right because I'm white, you don't because you are some other variation) and it is not scientifically supported.

I was born the year President Lyndon B Johnson signed it into law and began enforcing it.  At its inception its purpose was thusly,

"You do not wipe away the scars of centuries by saying: 'now, you are free to go where you want, do as you desire, and choose the leaders you please.' You do not take a man who for years has been hobbled by chains, liberate him, bring him to the starting line of a race, saying, 'you are free to compete with all the others,' and still justly believe you have been completely fair . . . This is the next and more profound stage of the battle for civil rights. We seek not just freedom but opportunity—not just legal equity but human ability—not just equality as a right and a theory, but equality as a fact and as a result."

Many things have been cobbled on top of this initial law, but at its core it was meant as a temporary measure to right a very bad wrong.  If you haven't been to the SMM to see the Race exhibit, I recommend it.  Uncomfortable stuff for a white chick.  Thought provoking stuff for all.  And very cool art as well.  One exhibit has three screens with portraits of various people melding into each other very slowly. Another is a series of portraits of people with their statement as to their race, as well as the "technical" listing of their heritage.  Several of them made me laugh with their witty comments.

Next we went on a skyway walk around downtown, looking for cheap dinner.  It was weird to be running around skyways without a hint of where we were headed and not being able to give anyone directions.  We ate dinner at Erberts and Gerberts.  Good sandwich!  We took a pit stop along the way at the lovely Central Library, constructed between 1914-1917, a National Historic Place since 1975.  Love that building.  Love that library.  We picked up a set of free passes to the Children's Museum. Andrew has been squawking about going there again, and although my friend Lisa is planning on taking him soon, we know once isn't enough with this boy!

Here is a few pictures of the day:

From N 45 17.460 W 122 24.800 to N 44° 49.632 W 093° 18.804

Back in 2001 or 2002, I bought a book about something called Letterboxing. 

Here's the basic idea: Someone hides a waterproof box somewhere (in a beautiful, interesting, or remote location) containing at least a logbook and a carved rubber stamp, and perhaps other goodies. The hider then usually writes directions to the box (called "clues" or "the map"), which can be straightforward, cryptic, or any degree in between. Often the clues involve map coordinates or compass bearings from landmarks, but they don't have to. Selecting a location and writing the clues is one aspect of the art.

Once the clues are written, hunters in possession of the clues attempt to find the box. In addition to the clue and any maps or tools needed to solve it, the hunter should carry at least a pencil, his personal rubber stamp, an inkpad, and his personal logbook. When the hunter successfully deciphers the clue and finds the box, he stamps the logbook in the box with his personal stamp, and stamps his personal logbook with the box's stamp. The box's logbook keeps a record of all its visitors, and the hunters keep a record of all the boxes they have found, in their personal logbooks.

When I first read about this "sport" nearly all the letterboxes were located in England.  There were, if I remember correctly, 3 in the southern half of the TC area.  Three.  At the time I was reading up on it, I was also introduced to the term Geocaching.

On May 2, 2000, at approximately midnight, eastern savings time, the great blue switch* controlling selective availability was pressed. Twenty-four satellites around the globe processed their new orders, and instantly the accuracy of GPS technology improved tenfold. Tens of thousands of GPS receivers around the world had an instant upgrade.

The announcement a day before came as a welcome surprise to everyone who worked with GPS technology. The government had planned to remove selective availability - but had until 2006 to do so. Now, said the White House, anyone could "precisely pinpoint their location or the location of items (such as game) left behind for later recovery." How right they were.

London, Paris, New York, Beaver Creek?

For GPS enthusiasts, this was definitely a cause for celebration. Internet newsgroups suddenly teemed with ideas about how the technology could be used.

On May 3, one such enthusiast, Dave Ulmer, a computer consultant, wanted to test the accuracy by hiding a navigational target in the woods. He called the idea the "Great American GPS Stash Hunt" and posted it in an internet GPS users' group. The idea was simple: Hide a container out in the woods and note the coordinates with a GPS unit.

The finder would then have to locate the container with only the use of his or her GPS receiver. The rules for the finder were simple: "Take some stuff, leave some stuff."

On May 3rd he placed his own container, a black bucket, in the woods near Beaver Creek, Oregon, near Portland. Along with a logbook and pencil, he left various prize items including videos, books, software, and a slingshot. He shared the waypoint of his "stash" with the online community on sci.geo.satellite-nav:

N 45 17.460 W 122 24.800

So in the back of my mind for all these years was the idea to try this out.  I even went so far as to document a general idea of where a couple of caches were in Bloomington, down by the riverbanks by Highway 77.  Then time took its course.

Today I was at the park with Julie, Ronan and Andrew.  Along the way we met a neighbor of Julie's who inexplicably started talking about Geocaching:  had we ever heard of it, did we know there was a cache right in that park, could we believe there were over 3,000 caches within 5 miles of where we stood?  Well of course this got me thinking about it again, and Julie and I made tenative plans to try it out sometime, as they had a GPS unit.

Eventually Andrew and I headed home and at some point thereafter I signed on the internet to see what I could see about Geocaching.  What I discovered was over a dozen sites within walking distance of our house.  Several dozen in a two mile radius. 

Now we don't have a GPS unit, but when I used Google Earth to view one of the sites, I was able to get a pretty good idea of where it was located.  We made a map with some landmarks to guide us, got out Andrew's bike and away we went.  Half an hour later we were snapping pictures by our very first cache find!  Not only that, but there was a Geocoin in this cache, which is less common!  We were jubilant, what a fun adventure it had been.

We wanted more.  So we headed home, did some more research and after dinner we went out and found two more.  One was another big cache, and this one had a Travel Bug in it.  A very big find!  Travel Bugs are tagged items that you track online so that the original owner can watch its progress around the world.  Our Bug has been quite a few places already, as you can see from the map we plotted of its progress.  We are going to place it in a new cache at the Mall of America tomorrow morning, in hopes that it will find its way further along the trail across the states.

Our third cache was found right before dark.  It was a microcache, which means there isn't room to leave or take a treasure, just room for a small book and a pencil so we can sign in and leave comments.  We each can be credited with finding one of them, and this one was all mine.

   

We are definately hooked on this pasttime and once we have our own GPS unit we will be placing some caches of our own for people to find and sign in at.  But until then you can find us at N 44° 49.632 W 093° 18.804 which are our home coordinates.  Got it?

952-835-5863 Is No More

Go ahead, telemarketers, have a go at my phone number.  Pass that number around to all your buddies.  Call and call and call all you want.

Its official, we no longer have a relationship with the phone company.  I called yesterday and cancelled all services effective this morning.  Gave them my cell phone number as a contact.  After 3 solid months of waiting for them to fix the billing problem on my account and call me back, it was an hour AFTER I cancelled my services that they called.  I find that amusing. 

Of course the message they left indicated only two of the four missing payments as found, so really its not fixed yet.

Anyway, if you are a friend and you want to come over, no advance warning is necessary unless you don't have a cell phone.  Because the entry system to our building won't work on a cell phone, so you'll have to call us directly from your own phone to let us know you would like to be let in.

Shhh....Cable Modem seems to be working

Well, the guy came out, plugged things in and left.  I plugged in the wireless router, said a prayer and turned it on.  Wala!  Internet access at "blazing speeds."  I played around with it for a few minutes, then Scott, Andrew and I went out for a late lunch and to buy some printer paper and ink.

We arrived back at home, and Scott put the modem and router boxes in their permanent home and BANG...no internet access.  Two hours of fiddling later...NO INTERNET access.

Finally we realized that what was happening was a conflict between our Qwest access and our Comcast access, and half an hour later we had it up and running.  So, nobody breathe around our modem until I have time to shut down Qwest tomorrow.

Actually it might be as late at Tuesday or Wednesday because I need to transfer the apartment entry to the right phone number and get the word out to our friends and family that our phone number has changed,  not to mention our website needs to be updated to the correct email address and phone number.

All this because I need revenge on Qwest, who really doesn't care a bit!  Actually, this isn't about revenge, its about assuring that I don't have to deal with Qwest and its miserable lack of service ever again.

So, if you are on my email address list you will be receiving an email announcing my new email address soon.  It is [email protected]. 

Off to explore the web!