It was fun to be in Brookings this past week. Brookings is the home of South Dakota State University. Both our son and DIL work for the University, he as a mental health counselor and she, in a new position, as a Freshman student advisor.
Classes started on Monday. Last weekend Son helped students move into their dorm rooms. Golf carts were involved, and Son also helped direct campus traffic. DIL helped students rearrange and tweak schedules. Though they can’t and didn’t give us any individual details, both stated the incoming students were pretty anxious.
I started at Concordia in Moorhead in 1976. I had never lived away from home before. A band trip to Europe that summer seemed to have cured me of any homesickness. As an only child it was rather disconcerting to have to share a dorm room with someone, though. I was in the oldest dorm, Fjelstad Hall. My roommate was tolerable enough, but a local girl and more interested in her hometown friends than she was in developing a relationship with me. I quickly found friends on other floors.
Concordia had very strict rules for students. Freshmen and Sophomores had to live on campus. The school openly acknowledged taking an in loco parentis role with students. You couldn’t have a vehicle if you lived on campus. That meant taking the Fargo-Moorhead transit system around town. There was, of course, a total ban on alcohol in dorm rooms. (All that meant was that people got really sneaky.)
I wish all the first year SDSU students well. I am glad they have my son and DIL for support.
What were your first digs like when you moved away from home?Ever live in a dormitory?
You all know where I am, right? That’s right – the VS State Fair Fest has begun!
Tickets purchased (actually bought them in November for last year’s price).
Blue Ribbon Coupon Book purchased. Both YA and I have added our post-it notes.
Food list assembled and printed off. This includes traditional items that we like every year (corn, cookies, crepe, Hawaiian shave ice, etc.) as well as new foods.
Trial drive to parking lot done. I do this every year to make sure there isn’t any surprise road construction.
Turtle bag “packing list” updated… actually just printed out this year – we didn’t make any changes from last year.
Turtle bag packed (bandaids, Tylenol, pad/paper, address labels, collapsible container for cookies, coupon book, cash…).
Depending on what time you’re up and reading this, I’m either feeding the dog/cat before I leave, driving to St. Paul, waiting in line, on the Park & Ride bus. Once the bus gets to the transit hub and I get through the entrance, who knows what the day will bring for me!
You’ll have to talk among yourselves today. Anything planned for YOUR day?
Our son’s dishwasher has been making the most dreadful noises all summer. He was hoping to wait until September to get it looked at by the appliance repair folks.
We are currently staying with our son and Dil looking after our grandson. Yesterday I started the dishwasher after I had finished making some Franzbrotchen, a Hamburg pastry. The dishwasher made its usual grinding noises. Not too far into the cycle it stopped and a warning signal began beeping and a special code popped up on the display to indicate what the trouble was. Husband and I were the only adults home. We contacted our son and he sent us the on-line information of what to do in this circumstance with this particular warning code. It said to unplug the dishwasher for 5 minutes, then restart it.
I followed the instructions. After I restarted the machine it no longer made the awful noise. Then, however, I noticed that something that looked like steam but had a burning, electrical smell was wafting out of the top of the door. I checked, then double checked and decided it was actual smoke. I immediately turned off the dishwasher and unplugged it. I removed the bottom access plate to see if anything was burning under the machine, felt all around on the floor and cupboards to see if anything felt hot, then checked the ceiling in the basement where the dishwasher was perched. It was ok.
For some reason when I woke up yesterday morning I distinctly remember thinking that Son needed to get that dishwasher replaced because the awful noise it made could mean it might start a fire. How weird is that? PI never have had a premonition, but this is pretty close. We helped him choose out a new dishwasher late yesterday afternoon.
Ever had a premonition? Any memorable appliance fails?
This week we have encountered two external references to our former region of ND. At church on Sunday we spoke to some fellow parishioners who had just returned from a cattle buying trip to Montana. They stopped in Medora, ND on the way there. Medora is about 40 miles east of where we used to live. It is a small town of about 120 people adjacent to Theodore Roosevelt National Park and home to the newly opened Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library. Daughter’s best friend’s dad owns a ranch there, and she spent a lot of time there as a kid. It is also home to the Medora Musical, an outdoor theatre that has a cast of singers and dancers all summer for shows every night. The various attractions of the place have been promoted by a foundation started by Harold Shaefer, the manufacturer of Mister Bubble.
Our church friends were quite disappointed by the library, due to the pushy crowds and the fact that they saw no books in the library. We thought that perhaps all the books were digitized, but had no other explanation.
The other Medora connection was an article by Rachel Monroe in the August 17 edition of The New Yorker describing what is was like to be there during our current president’s visit on July 4th. It was, of course, a disaster. The musical had to be cancelled because the tech crew couldn’t got the stage ready in time to support heavy protective barriers for presidential security. She had much better experiences at the Mandan Rodeo and the 250th Celebration at the Sisseton Wahpeton pow wow. I encourage you to read the article if you can.
I know there is a special Teddy Roosevelt department at the university in our former town. Maybe they have some books. Who knows?
Ever been to a Rodeo, a pow wow, or a presidential library? What sort of books might Teddy have had?
On Friday we brought our grandson back to Brookings. The first thing he said to his dad when he got home was to describe the wonderful frozen yogurt bars he had at our house and he hoped his dad would get some right away. He also was happy that we sent a box of Effie’s Oatcakes home with him. He had never eaten those before and loved them.
I love frozen treats, especially Popsicles. I would devour them by the bag or box when I wasa child. My dentist was quite unhappy with me since I was also a random tooth brusher and had lots of sugary liquid in my mouth during the summers. I had lots of cavities as a result.
It is my understanding that frozen yogurt bars are all the rage these days. I still prefer icy treats, and I was excited to find mangonadas in the Hispanic grocery store on Luverne’s Main Street. They are enormous and icy with sweet and sour and spicy flavoring. You can see them in the header photo. They had no paletas, though, which are also wonderful Mexican frozen treats. They are my absolute favorite.
We are in Brookings this week, taking care of grandson until school starts. The Walmart store here has paletas, and if they have the yogurt bars grandson likes we will get those, too. It is still summer and it is still hot.
What were your favorite treats when you were a child? How about now? Any memorable childhood dentist experiences?
Finishing a book that I started was a “rule” of mine for more than half my life. If you had asked me, I wouldn’t have said it was a rule, but that must have been what it looked like from the outside. My three copies of Ulysses are a case in point. Ever since my college years, I have thought I should read it but could never make it more than a couple of pages. Then I would forget I ever had a copy and eventually buy a new one.
At some point I read some place that so many books are published each year that even if you read a book a day, you would never get to all of them. That’s when I did make a rule for myself – if I’m not enjoying the reading, I quit and move onto the next book. I can be ruthless about this; more than once I have dumped a book after just a few pages.
Today I am returning a book to the library that I have not finished. It’s a Maggie O’Farrell, an author who I normally adore. Every one of her books that I’ve read has earned 5 stars. But yesterday, while listening to it on CD in the car, she broke one of my rules… the dog died. When it happened I turned off the CD immediately to think about it. That’s when I realized that even though I was about 1/3 of the way through the book, I hadn’t really connected to any of the characters and wasn’t enjoying it. When I got home I looked up the summary online and found that continuing was probably not going to be enjoyable to me. That made me ponder my reading rules. I’ve never written these down before, in fact have never really thought of them as a list before, but here things that can put me off:
The dog dying (specially if the dog is killed)
Children dying (same caveat as the dog…)
Torture/rape (I quit Rob Roy because of this)
Graphic violence (Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy went back to the library quickly)
Child abuse (a fairly long string of abandoned books for this rule – Demon Copperfield, Swamplandia, Where the Crawdads Sing….)
Vapidness. This probably seems a silly rule, but if the main characters are all shallow and full of themselves, I don’t see a finished book in my future. (These tend to get rejected very quickly so I can’t even think of a title!)
I realize that these are all negative rules. I’ve been pondering if I have any positive reading rules; the only thing I can come up with is things that draw me to books and that list is way too long to put here. Suffice it say that the list would start with dragons and fairies!
Do you have any reading rules? What draws you to a book?
Husband and I were ND State employees for 37 years. As such, we were actively discouraged, almost prohibited, by our bosses from putting political signs in our yard.
This was the case no matter what party was in control of the State government. There apparently was great concern that State employees had to appear as neutral as possible and not be viewed as trying to influence elections.
I suppose in more populous areas inthe country people wouldn’t necessarily know if you were a State employee . In ND, where everyone knows everyone and where they work, nothing was anonymous.
This will be the first year in decades we will be able to put political signs in our yard. Husband is going to the county DFL meeting tomorrow night and I hope he brings some signs home. It is pretty exciting!
Do you put political signs in your yard? Ever run into problems with them or had them vandalized?
Since my retirement in October I have been increasingly addicted to online games. Most are from the New York Times. I play them on my phone.
I play Wordle, Strands, Connections, and Spelling Bee. The other games on the NY Times are a little frustrating and I don’t care much for them. I like word puzzles better than visual puzzles.
Wouldn’t you know that the New Yorker, to which I also subscribe, has a crossword puzzle in every magazine, as well as other word puzzles online. Husband has become addicted to those, and we played the online ones every day.
Grandson loves word puzzles, and I plan to play them with him when he is here this week. He always asks me to play puzzles.
Our grandson is spending a few days with us this week while his daycare is closed. We plan to take him swimming and to the local library. I also plan to bake with him and we will make Franzbrotchen, a Hamburg pastry. I want him to learn about where his ancestors came from. He loves to bake and cook and is an excellent sous chef. We will have Pasta Carbonara, one of his favorites. We also will enlist his help with some gardening. He loves to grow things. We are Oma and Opa, to distinguish us from his Grandma and Grandpa on his mom’s side of the family.
I spent time with both sets of grandparents in the summer. My father’s parents lived on a farm outside of Magnolia, MN. That grandma was a great lover of cats and had a regiment of them. She loved to feed them buttered sweetcorn cobs after we were done eating the corn kernals. I would help her collect eggs and work in the garden. The hens pecking at my arms as I took their eggs were scary. I liked talking to the cows and pigs. My grandfather was partially paralyzed from a stroke. He had a wonderful library of history books, and we would talk about his recent read and the history discussed in the book. He really liked talking about Napoleon, someone who had such an impact on his family in northwest Germany.
My maternal grandparents lived on a farm close to Hatfield, MN, a small town with a notorious dance hall, near Pipestone. That grandma (who we called Omie) and I would bake sweet rolls and cook wonderful suppers together. She was a great story teller and related lots of reminiscences from her childhood in Hamburg, Germany and her teen years in New York City. Grandpa was a really quiet guy who kept busy helping my uncle on the farm. His English was somewhat limited and we didn’t talk all that much. He was kindly and gentle.
I hope our grandson has positive memories of his time with us. We have books, a garden, fancy food, terriers, cats, a library, and a really nice swimming pool. What more does a kid need?
Who were your most memorable older relatives? What did you learn from them?
I’m back to Work work at the college, so that’s interrupting my home schedule. If only we didn’t live in a capitalistic society so focused on the paycheck. Thoughts on that? Should we consider the barter system?
Last Saturday afternoon I pulled the bale elevator out of the weeds and greased it and oiled the chains and was going to get that set up in the pole barn for unloading straw. And then the hitch broke off the front. It broke off a few years ago and I welded it back on, but evidently not all that well. Now I have a different welder. So I rolled it around to the shed door and moved the welder to the new outlet outside the shop, and used the grinder and cleaned up the edges and welded it back on. Again.
I can be a good welder if I’m welding in a down position, and steel thicker than a pencil. But this is thin and upside down, and thin metal is harder to weld with an old fashioned ‘stick’ welder like I have. Not impossible, and good welders can make it work. I’m not that good of a welder. As they say, practice makes perfect, so I gave it a shot and tried different welding rods and different amperages on the welder and I got it enough to hold for another few years. That’s me in the welding helmet on the cover photo.
Welding
On Monday, Noah, Padawan 1 came out. We got the elevator in place, then I took him out and taught him how to rake straw. He doesn’t like driving tractors in the first place, and he said this was really boring. I said yes it is, why does he think I had him doing it? You rake, I’m gonna go find something better to do.
While he was going round and round, I was checking out the soybeans. Some of them look really good. Waist tall. And then the deer come in and graze off the tops.
Nibbling the tasty tops
And I did random stuff in the shed. Got the pole saw out and trimmed some branches. Several other small random things.
I decided to climb one of the silos because I haven’t been in them in 23 years, since we sold the cows. The silage has decomposed and settled a long ways. The old silo unloaded is still hanging in there.
Looking in and up from the chute
In and down, The back end of the unloaded
The bottom of the unloader. The spiked wheel is the drive wheel. It normally sticks off to the side. An indication how far the silage has settled.
Looking up the chute. The doors are the steps creating a ladder. Normally this was all full of dust and silage stuck to everything.
Tuesday I worked elections all day in our township.
Wednesday was back to work at the college. I did NOT wear sleeves, rebel that I am. I went home an hour early, and got out and baled two loads of straw.
But on Thursday I wore sleeves and made the rounds; Talked with my dean, and several other people and got caught up on all the gossip. Friday I was without sleeves again and just stayed back in the shop.
P1 is bringing a friend to help unload straw on Saturday afternoon. P2 is on vacation this week and goes back to school next week. Besides, he sprained his ankle at home last week and is wearing an ankle brace. So, we’ll see how P3 does.
The basement bathroom is nearly finished. The maple trim is back ordered, but everything else is done and it’s a useable bathroom. Need some art for the walls yet.
