YA was three when I took her to the fair for the first time. We took her umbrella stroller although she didn’t use it too much that day (YA never liked any kind of enclosure – no exersaucer, no playpen, no doorway jumper). The following year we didn’t bother with the stroller at all – she kept up with no issues or complaints.
Since this is our experience, we are both a little surprised at the stroller revolution. Strollers have gotten bigger and bigger as the years have gone by. Now there are side-by-side doubles, front to back doubles, not to mention all the additional pockets, cupholders and clip-on fans. They seem like a lot of trouble to me but they are clearly popular with parents of toddlers.
I shouldn’t be surprised that strollers have taken the next step – wagons. The fair was full of them – large wagons, almost all with canopies. They remind me of the old Conestoga covered wagons that took settlers west. Most of them also have a lot of extra storage area and, of course, cup holders. Most of them have seating and trays (think tv tray) inside. And have I mentioned storage? Cookies, stuffed animals, shirts, bubble blowers, straw hats…. If you can find it at the fair, YA and I have probably seen it in one these wagons over the last week. I saw a handful filled with so much stuff that there wasn’t room for the kids. On Wednesday, a family with their full wagon held up the bus back to the park `n ride as they figured out what to do with all their stuff before they could fold it up to go in the bus luggage compartment.
Who know what the next step in stroller evolution will be but for now I’m absolutely sure that if I looked closely enough, I’d find that one of these covered wagons was named “Intimida”!
What would you have wanted in your Conestoga if you were heading west?
Wednesday was the most frustrating day. I drove from St. Cloud to near Oshkosh, WI to visit husband’s sister and BIL. I have never encountered such road construction for so many miles. The trip took about six hours. The day before our trip to St. Cloud took seven hours. I haven’t encountered such traffic for a long while. Where are all these people going?
One of the detours near Watoma, WI took us past several huge fields of cabbage. That was lovely to see. When we arrived at the family house, I found that they didn’t have wifi, so I couldn’t use my computer to show them the Ancestry info I had promised them. They have a computer and pay for wifi but have it all unplugged and turned of. This is a low tech household. We will go to the local library to access the wifi there. Whatever works, I guess. One problem is that I couldn’t figure out how to insert a header photo on my phone. Maybe I will add it tomorrow at the library.
Tell about your most memorable trip? How do you deal with being off-line?
The breed standard for our Cesky Terrier calls for a rather long skirt and long fur on the legs, with long bangs that go all the way to the tip of his nose. The fur on his skirt and legs is very fine and feathery, and attracts weeds and sticks. He really dislikes being brushed, but he would be a tangled mess if we didn’t attend to him. Here he is sitting on the bench in the front looking for bunnies in the garden. He is a rather pretty boy by Cesky standards. It takes a lot to maintain that beauty.
Husband always wanted to grow his hair long when he was in college in the early 70’s but his hair is so curly he could only get it a little above his shoulders before he started looking like Bozo the Clown. My boy cousins in Pipestone were mortified that their dad insisted they keep getting crew cuts when everyone else had longer hair and bangs. Uncle Harvey thought that a crew cut was all a boy needed to look good. I had the standard long, straight hair popular in the 70’s. My mother had a wash and set every week at the beauty parlor. I read the other day that a North Dakota man holds the record for the world’s longest beard, at 17.5 feet. Oh, the things we do for looks!
Who did you want to look like when you were a teenager? When have you been the happiest with your hair?
Last Wednesday was our grandson’s first day of Kindergarten. He was happy, proud and confident. He is, after all, 5 years old, and in his mind, he can do anything! His parents were dewy eyed, and our DIL had to redo her eye makeup when she got to work after dropping grandson off. I reminded son that I missed his first day of school since I had moved to Iowa to do my psychology internship, leaving him for the year with his father.
My first day of school was in Mrs. Helling’s room. I teased my mother in the weeks before school as she, a Grade 3 teacher, was getting her room ready and I would go with her to the school , warning her that I would slip into Mrs. Cooney’s room next door. Wouldn’t you know, my teasing got me all confused and I actually went into Mrs. Cooney’s classroom and was told to go next door. I was mortified!
What are some of your memories of first days of school?
Just a few observations from Opening Day at the Fair!
Cookies. Sweet Martha’s has made a big change, well a big change in my book. Instead of the smallest size coming to you in a paper cone, it now comes in a cup. Of course, they still fill it up 50% higher than the lip of the cup, so I continue to need my collapsible cookie container!
Tantrums. Normally you see more tantrums in the afternoon but this one little gal (I’m guessing four years old) was getting the day off to a rip-roaring start. I’m not even sure what she was raging about but her poor father was sitting on the curb, holding onto the stroller (which she was trying to rip out of his hands), while he tried desperately to “reason” with her. I didn’t want to pry, so I didn’t hang out long enough to see how long the meltdown lasted but as worked up as she was, it might have been awhile.
Community Building. One of the bands in the parade was the Eden Prairie High School Band, which is a whooper. As the muscians marched by, I noticed that the entire drum section was wearing pig ear headbands from the Oink Booth. None of the rest of the band was sporting any headgear.
Creating a Stir. There was a fairly large crowd at AFL-CIO Corner, but all but one of the little kiosks was quiet. Turns out six St. Paul Firefighters were present to sign and sell the firefighters’ annual calendar. Two of the six were wearing muscle shirts, the others no shirts at all. They were doing a brisk business in calendars and photo ops.
Sad Shakespeare. I have a pretty high tolerance for Shakespeare in any form and it’s a good thing. There was a short performance in the West End towards the end of the day. The little troop did the Pyramus and Thisbe play from the end of A Midsummer’s Night Dream. It was a silly bit and only lasted 15 minutes but without the rest of the play to explain it, it didn’t make much sense. The poor sound system didn’t help them much. Pyramus’ death scene however was a hoot.
It was hot. How hot was it? It was so hot Wednesday, I stayed at the college until 8:30 PM. The air conditioning units for the Theatre were recently repaired, so except for the fact there is no thermostat, (it’s either on or off), at least there’s air conditioning here as opposed to home where there’s only fans. Well, there’s not AC in the shop at the college, but I open the doors to the stage and turn on some fans and it’s very comfortable.
The chickens hang out under some bushes or somewhere in the shade from mid-morning until mid-afternoon. You can tell they’re hot when they lift their wings a bit. I’ve had their fan running all summer and the back door open for more ventilation the past week.
The cattle hang out in the shade too. By evening, everyone is moving again and having a drink.
Humphrey is really in a conundrum; he wants to be with us, but it’s cooler outside than inside. Decisions, decisions.
Back this spring as I was getting machinery ready for planting, I used my favorite wrench in one of the tractors, and I kind of remember setting it above the steering wheel and telling myself, “Don’t put that there“ and then, of course I couldn’t find it again all summer. I was delighted to find it in the toolbox of that same tractor recently. Putting a wrench in the toolbox? That was pretty good thinking at some point.
Has anyone else noticed all the dragonflies around lately? They were swarming all around the yard earlier this week and out in the fields. And my brother commented on seeing them at his place. I did some reading and they peak in July and August, they sure are fun to watch. And all the barn swallows are sweeping around; there’s a couple nests here that are working on the third batch of babies. That’s really impressive and these poor kids are hardly gonna learn to fly before they head south.
Was up to John Deere last week getting some parts and there is a new parts lady behind the counter. It was interesting that while she was still learning the system, and she didn’t know some common parts like a cotter pin, she seemed to know a lot of the customers and they would call her by name, and someone made a comment about her staying in the industry. Later, as we were trying to find some of my parts, (they were right here, and then they were put somewhere by somebody who wasn’t there now, and nobody else knew where they were) she and I had some time to talk. She ran the auto parts store in Plainview with her dad for 20 years. So, she kind of knew the business, just not this particular system, and some of these parts. I don’t recall, in all the years I’ve farmed, I’ve ever seen a woman behind any of the parts counters that I frequent. There was a female in a welding place several years ago, and she knew what she was doing. And I know this lady will figure it out too. Even the guys, when they start, they don’t know much. It takes a long time to get into the swing of things.
I’ve been listening to a jazz station a lot lately. I have a membership to Jazz Radio and primarily I listen to modern big band, but lately I’ve done Latin jazz too. It’s a fun change. I’ve learned that I don’t like hearing the same music over and over. And while that rarely happens on Radio Heartland, it happens even less frequently on Latin jazz. I get some Maynard Ferguson on the modern big band station and I like that.
Last week at faculty duty day at the college, I saw this shirt and it made me laugh. I hope you get the joke.
That momma hen still has 13 chicks. She’s a good momma and she’s smart. There’s been a hawk trying to grab the chicks. Bailey actually chased it away a few times. We made a straw bale shelter for them to hide under, but she figured it out on her own and moved them down to the trees and taller grass during the day, and at night takes them back into the pen. I take corn down to them. Keep your fingers crossed.
One night Kelly and I burned up a bunch of brush we had accumulated. A bonfire on the second hottest day of the year? Why not.
Over the past couple of weeks I have received emails purportedly from our internet and landline provider warning me over a variety of false circumstances like having too many emails in storage, and our automated payment not going through. Yesterday I got one warning me that our internet would be disconnected if I didn’t pay our over due bill of $689. I knew in my head that this was a scam, but just to make sure I contacted our provider and found that we owed no money at all.
I also received voice mail messages recently from a law firm in Minnesota and a Disability advocate firm in Minnesota for “Charlotte” asking me to phone them back regarding my disability claim. I looked the numbers up on Google and they are definite scams. Husband has been getting messages on his phone from some bogus dentist office about a missed appointment. I know that they hope we phone them to tell them they have mead a mistake so that they can further ensnare us and get our SS numbers and bank account numbers. We just delete them and block the numbers. Their attempts seem to be getting more sophisticated, though. I wonder how less tech savvy folks manage to not get fooled.
Have you ever been scammed or know of anyone who has? What do you think a fitting punishment would be for these people?
My best friend from Howard Lake texted me on Tuesday to say that the heat index there was 114 degrees. She had never experienced such heat in Minnesota before. It is hot here, too, but not like that.
I wonder how we would cope if there was no air conditioning. I remember as a child we spent a lot of time in the basement on really hot days before my parents had an air conditioner installed in the living room. It was one of those that sat in a hole especially cut in the side of the house. Most of my relatives on farms never had air conditioning in their homes. They just hung out on their porches and tried to keep cool. There was no air conditioning in the school in Luverne. The nights were the worst, as it never really cooled down because of the humidity.
When we moved here in 1987, our house didn’t have air conditioning, and we really didn’t need it because it always cooled down at night. The humidity here is low. After about five years, things changed, the nights didn’t cool down, and we decided to put in Central air. I think that was my first direct knowledge of climate change. I don’t know what we would do without it now.
When did you first live in a home with air conditioning? How did your family cope without it? Share some weather songs.
The regulatory board I am a member of is governed by two legal documents, the North Dakota Administrative Code and the North Dakota Century Code. The difference between the two is that only the Legislature can amend the Century Code, and we as a board can amend the Administrative Code after we jump through a bunch of hoops.
Our board needs to make some changes to the Administrative Code because of some things that occurred during the last legislative session , and I am sure glad we have an attorney to help us with the language. Saying that the board “shall” do something, as opposed to the board “may” do something makes a difference in how we can apply rules and regulations to individuals and circumstances. We want “may” more than we want “shall”.
I was really surprised to hear our lawyer tell us that the reason he didn’t capitalize abbreviations for entities such as APA (the American Psychological Association) in the language for our administrative rules changes is that the Legislature doesn’t allow capital letters for entities’ abbreviations in laws. I found that so odd. He had no good explanation for it.
Once the Legislative Rules Committee (note the capitals) approves our Administrative Code changes, we have to pay to have an announcement in all the newspapers in North Dakota that changes to our Administrative Code are being proposed, and that there will be a hearing for public comment on the changes. That means that Husband and I will sit in some room in our town either at my work, the public library, or some other room I can rent for an hour for no one to show up and make comments. After that, it becomes law.
Have you ever protested proposed legislation?When has a word made a difference for you? What kind of a lawyer would you have wanted to be?
I don’t spend much time looking at “the best things to buy” kinds of online ads, but yesterday afternoon, while lazing around watching re-runs of Columbo, I clicked on a “Unusual Items that Everybody Wants” lists. Not sure what I was thinking.
The first item that made my jaw drop was a wristband that you use when you wash your face… to catch any water drips before they run down your arm. Not sure why this is needed in life unless everybody washes their face differently than I do.
The next items that stopped me in my track was the “purse organizer” (above). My very first thought was “who has 8 purses”? Silly question since I sleep in a room next to someone who most likely have more than 8. I’m sure she’s not alone. Me? One purse for everyday use and one fabric “State Fair” bag with a turtle on it that is the perfect size for what we need to take to the fair (money holder, coupon booklet, collapsible cookie holder, aspirin, address labels…). If we weren’t State Fair aficionados, I would just have one purse.
My second thought was how in heaven’s name would you explain either of these items to someone living in the Middle Ages? This was followed by a huge number of things that I can’t imagine trying to explain. If you are suddenly transported to the year 1435, you probably shouldn’t mention ANYTHING about the times in which we live. It’s a perfect way to end up on the 1435 version of the loony bin. It never goes well in any time travel book I’ve ever read.
What would be the hardest thing to explain about our world to King Henry VI?
Trail Baboon 