I know that November and December are very busy seasons for musicians, but I have been astounded by the number of musical performances by local musicians since we moved here. When I grew up here, all the music was in the school and the churches.
In the last two weeks there have been musical performances by a variety of groups downtown in stores, in outdoor public performance spaces, and in the Palace, the old Vaudeville theatre. They performed in the snow storms. The music ranged from classical, folk, and rock. Children and adults have been playing and singing all around town. The school is having concerts.
Next Sunday, there is a big concert of a variety of musicians at the Senior Center. We bought tickets to attend. I signed Husband up for guitar lessons at the local music school. Is this typical for small town Minnesota? Our ND town was extremely musical, but not like this.
What is your favorite holiday music? What would you like to perform or hear?
We have been in our new home for almost a month, and find the community and people friendly and accommodating. We spent the last almost 40 years living among ranchers, oil workers, and people descended from a Black Sea immigrants. The latter are somewhat short and Roman Catholic. Now we live in an area settled by Germans, Norwegians, and Dutch immigrants. There are lots of Lutherans and Dutch Refomed here. There are lots of tall, blondes here. The Lutheran Church we attend and that I grew up in was founded by Norwegians. It was surprising when we attended last week to hear the loud and intune singing from the whole congregation. The local high school here had to start a new men’s choir this fall since so many of the boys wanted to sing. This is a very musical community.
Husband and I are amazed how often the city puts out street sweepers and machines that suck up piles of leaves that people have raked into the street. We usually just ignore the leaves. Husband felt compelled to rake since everyone else was doing it almost every day. He blames the Dutch influence for this street cleaning obsession.
Husband was excited to find Aquavit in the local liquor store. It was impossible to find out west. He went full Scandanavian by getting lingonberries and pickled herring, both easy to find in the stores here. We also have a local brewery that makes a German type beer that Husband likes. We rolled and fried 75 sheets of lefse last Saturday, so we are ready for a SW Minnesota winter. I draw the line at lutefisk.
How are you influenced by your neighbors? How comfortable are you singing aloud in church or other public settings?
If you don’t like this post – it’s Jacque’s fault!
As those of you in Blevins know, I sometimes like to bring something for the potluck that aligns somehow with one of the books we’ve read or is a favorite of the author. Walter Mosley got espresso chocolate brownies. Louise Penny got miniature croissants with chocolate sauce on the side. For the book Broken for You by Stephanie Kallos I was very pleased with my cupcakes adorned with shards of “glass” – made by melting Jolly Rancher candies and then breaking it up into sharp-looking pieces.
This month I was in the mood to do something fun but wasn’t sure what to make. I didn’t think I’d get an answer in time from John Scalzi about his favorite food and I figured the only way I would find out about Mary Shelley’s favorite would be if she communicated from beyond the grave. Not my cup of tea.
I decided that moon pies would be fun, except that all the commercially available moon pies have gelatin in them- that’s why I haven’t had a moon pie since I was a kid. So I headed to the internet and found a relatively straightforward recipe using marshmallow cream. Marshmallow cream is easy to make but purchasing a jar of marshmallow cream from the grocery store is even easier. I made the graham biscuit dough, rolled it out, cut it with a crimped cutter and baked. That turned out to be the easy part. Marshmallow cream is incredibly futzy to work with. First I tried to pipe it from a pastry bag, but getting the cream into the bag was just about impossible and having a star piping tip was worthless as the cream settled into a star-less blob anyway. I abandoned the bag and just used a spatula but at this point had cream all over. I had to put the sandwiches in the freezer for a bit and then I started the chocolate. I was really having trouble just dipping the whole cookie so I switched to icing the top and the sides with a spatula instead. I had chocolate EVERYWHERE (think both hands, handle to the double boiler, the counter, spoon, the spatula, the floor….). I had to use my teeth to pull up my sleeves at one point. There’s something to be said about having stuff made in factories with enrobing machines:
But in the end, it was very satisfying to make them and they turned out to taste great… quite rich so if I ever try this again, I’ll make them smaller. Of course, we’ll have to read another book about the moon!
Tell me about a favorite book and what food you would bring to represent it to a potluck!
My next-door neighbors’ son is getting married right after Christmas. He met his fiancée when he was stationed in Taiwan a few years ago (Marine). They moved here early last year after he retired; yes, that’s right, you get to retire from the Marines when you’re 30 if you join up right after high school. He’s attending the Carlson School of Business for his MBA and she’s working in financial planning.
Zander and Nina will be getting married in Taiwan, where her family still lives. Apparently there are quite a few “traditions” that weddings incorporate in Taiwan, even in this day and age. This is from their wedding website:
The wedding ceremony then will begin with a “bride pick-up” ceremony (迎娶), where the groom arrives at the bride’s home with music, groomsmen, and playful games. After the groom complete the “mission,” they travel together to the groom’s house. A tea ceremony follows, where the couple serves tea to elders in exchange for blessings and red envelopes. The evening ends with a lively banquet, sometimes held outdoors as a traditional 流水席 (Liúshuǐxí), filled with delicious dishes, toasts, and laughter. Of course, mostly seafood in Taiwan.
Another tradition that wasn’t listed on the website was the sending out of engagement cakes – see the photo above. YA and I are not invited – obviously it’s a small number of folks heading to Taiwan from the US the day after Christmas for this wedding. This doesn’t bother me – I would have been shocked to be included and we couldn’t have afforded it anyway. But it was nice that my neighbors brought us over an engagement cake (called “marry girl cake” in the past) which are sent out by the bride’s family to announce the upcoming nuptials. I looked up the label to find out it was a red bean variety but then YA translate-googled the Chinese ingredient list and found out it also has pork. So we got to admire it, but didn’t eat it.
Weddings are way down on my list of favorite things. Way down. Too much pomp, too much emphasis on the day and not the life afterwards, too much expense, too much “it’s the bride’s day”. My first wedding was pretty much run by my mother; I made a few key decisions but she took care of everything else. It was too big as far as I was concerned but at least it was very low key. My second wedding was at a table at Good Earth; the judge joined us but didn’t stay for lunch. Our witnesses were our waiter Philip and the waitress Sarah from the next section over. The restaurant gifted us with a little centerpiece and comped our dessert. Even though the marriage didn’t go the distance, I’m still happy with the memory of that wedding day.
YA will not expect a big flashy wedding from me… if she ever ties a knot. I’ve been sending her psychic messages for years…. just one word…. “elope”!
I’m pretty sure that not too many people see grocery-shopping as an exciting activity. Well, count YA and I as the outliers. For some reason over the years, we have cultivated grocery-shopping as an activity we like to do together.
Our favorite is Trader Joes. We especially like to go every couple of months when the new round of items hits the stores. We go through the Fearless Flyer that TJs sends out and highlight stuff that looks good. Sometimes, if I just want a couple of things, I don’t tell YA that I’m going to Trader Joes; if she comes along, it will triple the bill at the register.
The spot where Rainbow Foods used to be in the Hub Shopping Center near our house has been empty for seven years. A couple of times there were signs for temporary spots, like a Halloween store, but they never materialized. When construction started to happen almost a year ago, we were both excited to see what was happening there and then doubly excited when we found out it was going to be a Mexican market, bakery and taqueria. Unfortunately, it took WAY too long to open, so I had put my excitement on the back burner. Finally, about a month ago, it was clear from the trucks in the parking lot that progress was finally happening.
The grand opening was this past Saturday. Prizes, giveaway, samples, a bouncy house, mariachis and native dancers made it a big party. And it was CROWDED. The opening was at noon and we arrived at 1. Thank goodness for my bad knees and temporary handicap parking placard; we would have had to have parked in Iowa otherwise. And forget getting a shopping cart. Luckily YA and I didn’t have any big shopping plans so we just used a big bag that we had in the car.
Lots of nice-looking produce, a massive dairy/cheese aisle and two bakery sections, one with cakes, pies and then the self-serve bakery aisle …. I don’t even have the words
There were plenty of mainstream items alongside the Latino foodstuffs you would expect to find. A big endcap of Mary statuettes and a long row of Mary and other religious paintings above the front windows. They even have a Currency Exchange office. The taqueria was doing a bang-up business, as well as the deli. The tortillaria, where they will make fresh corn and flour tortillas is still in the works and should be open in a couple of weeks. You could see that area and the machines waiting to get set up. Since I’ve quit making my own tortillas, I can’t wait.
Anyway, YA and I had a fun time. We picked up a few items that I needed for a soup I wanted to make but didn’t partake of any on-site food – just too crowded, even for us. But my guess is that in the next few weeks, as the hoopla dies down, this will be another grocery shopping venue that YA and I will add to our events catalog!
If a tomato is a fruit, does that make ketchup a smoothie? Any good grocery shopping stories?
I have purposely chosen to not write about Halloween today, as it seems to me we have enough horror and fear around us. Instead, I wanted to let Baboons know what I am thankful for right now.
First, I am thankful to all the Baboons for putting up with all the posts I have written over the past several months about moving. I am sure they were getting pretty tedious to read. Moving is over, and now we are getting settled and organized. Not much more needs to be said about it.
I am also thankful for the increased time with our son and his family. We saw them yesterday in Sioux Falls and I got the best smiles from our 3 month old granddaughter.
Thanksgiving is four weeks away, and our son has requested a particular brined turkey ala Alton Brown, homemade French bread, and various other side dishes. Son and family, along with my best friend, will spend Thanksgiving weekend with us. I am so excited to cook in our new kitchen.
Finally, I am thankful that the court hearing Husband was to testify remotely at yesterday was settled on Wednesday afternoon. He had done a parental capacity evaluation on the parent in hot water with a central ND county. Now he is officially done working.
What are you thankful for these days. What are your Thanksgiving plans?
I see that today in 1520 is the anniversary of Henry VIII ordering that a bowling alley be installed in his palace at Whitehall. I imagine it was an outdoor lane for lawn bowling, but even so it reminded me of my bowling experiences.
I noticed last week as we were driving around Luverne that the bowling alley was still a going concern, although it is only open Thursday through Saturday these days. I never belonged to a youth bowling league, but the bowling alley was a place to go to have fun when I was in high school. I don’t remember it serving anything but snacks and simple beverages. My mother belonged to a bowling league, and I remember how heavy her bowling ball seemed to me when I was a child when I would take it out of its bag in her closet.
The bowling alley in Dickinson is a really busy place that doubles as a bar and restaurant. There are very active bowling leagues for adults and children. It also is the stop for the buses that run east and west across the state. The police have their hands full there. A work colleague’s husband was attacked and robbed in the parking lot by a couple of Montana guys recently who he met bat the bar and had a couple of drinks with.
One of my high school classmates had a dad who was a professional bowler who seemed to earn a living bowling competitively. I remember seeing him on TV in bowling matches. I don’t think that is a thing anymore. What a way to make a living!
When I started as a freshman at Concordia College in Moorhead. MN, we had to take two semesters of physical education. I opted for bowling for my first gym class. It was taught by Sonny Gullsvig, the college basketball coach, at a local bowling alley. I will never forget Coach Gullsvig instructing us in his coaching voice as though he was in the Concordia gym ” FIRST YOU TAKE THE BALL AND TOSS IT DOWN THE ALLEY….” I skipped class a lot and ended up with a “C,” in the class.
What are your bowing memories? Ever hang out at a bowling alley?
It has been interesting being in Luverne this weekend as I get to know the place again. When I grew up here I never bothered to associate street names with places or landmarks, so when I am told that City Hall is on Luverne St., it means nothing, but when I am told City Hall is in the old hospital, then I can find it no problem.
There are more coffee shops now, as well as a Mexican grocery store. I ran into a couple of people who knew who I was after I introduced myself, although their memories of my dad are fresher than their memories of me. I recognize familiar faces but don’t have names for them yet.
Two people stopped by the new house when they saw we were parked in the driveway. One was a neighbor who I knew from high school, and the other was the former owner. Both told us they had been keeping an eye on the place until we moved in. The former owner was able to tell us the garage door code and said her husband would come over to help navigate the very complex sound and video system set up throughout the house. We feel very welcome.
Last evening we ate at a very fine Italian restaurant in Sioux Falls with our daughter, son, grandson, and daughter-in-law. It was at the hotel we are staying at this weekend. We struck up a conversation with the waitress, a young woman in her late 20’s. She grew up in Luverne, knew my dad, and went to high school prom with my Cousin Jack’s son. She was going to drive to Luverne after work to visit her parents. She said she visits there a lot and would see us around town. I feel connected with new and old.
What are positive and negative changes over the years in your community? When haveyou experienced old wine in new bottles?
Last Sunday, we sang in the choir at the 9:30 service, and were acknowledge for 38 years of musical service to the church in both the choir and bell choir. They even had a God’s Speed blessing for us, which I had no idea they were going to do. After that, we were expected to sing a choir anthem all about leaving and journeying. It is awfully hard to sing when you are choked up.
We have committed quilters in our various musical groups, and they gifted us with a queen size quilt with musical motifs. It is gorgeous, and you can see it in the header photo. As soon as I took the photo, our dog jumped on the quilt and snuggled in, claiming it for his own.
What motifs would be on a quilt someone made for you to commerate your work and life? How do you keep yourself from crying?
Sure has been a good year for walnuts based on how many are falling onto our deck and deck table. We have to be careful walking out there or they will bonk us on the head. We have one Horse Chestnut tree back there, too. I planted it from a seed I picked up at our church when I was a kid. Mom says I dug it up every couple days to see if it was growing and it’s a wonder it ever grew. It has a lot of chestnuts on it this year. I like how smooth they are and the rich dark brown of the nuts. (I glued a bunch onto a chair to look like barnacles when we did ‘The Little Mermaid’ at the college).
The other day I picked up daughter and we went home. Two hours later I was going to take her back into town, so I didn’t want to get myself into too much trouble. Don’t get your clothes dirty, I told myself. I backed the hay rack into the shed in case it rained (which it didn’t) but If I had left it out, the 8 bales on it for the next PossAbilities hayride would have gotten rained on for sure.
And then I thought to myself, don’t go dig a hole for the new concrete because if it rains, you’ll have a hole full of water. And then I went and dug a hole. I didn’t mean to, I meant to just clean up the edges using the tractor loader but I kind of got carried away. I took the excavated dirt back behind the machine shed as I’m building up that area for the lean-to, which is next summer’s project. There was that tree branch hanging down in my way. Course it was coming from 20’ up in a box elder tree and the loader bucket only reaches up 18’. So, I pushed the whole tree over. That’s the thing about box elder trees, they don’t have much of a root to them, and when the ground is wet like this, it’s pretty easy to push one over. A smart person will pay attention to the top of the tree so it doesn’t fall back onto the tractor. I’m grateful I have a cab that is designed to protect the occupant, but I’ve broken a lot of headlights and mirrors pretending I’m in a bulldozer rather than a farm tractor. I pushed that tree over, which leaned onto another tree, so pushed that one over too. None of this was the reason I went outside, but I was in the tractor and didn’t get my clothes dirty.
The third group from PossAbilites had a much warmer day for a hayride. I took a longer route, up on the hills. One kid didn’t want to get out of the van, and that’s alright. A staff member stayed back with them.
Last Saturday we hosted a “Combo Welcome & Movie/Pizza on the Farm Night” for Kelly’s work people, the staff and trainee’s in the Pathology division. It rained during the day and it took some effort to get the bonfire started, and we decided to have the movie in the machine shed because it was darn chilly outside. It was a good group, they ate a lot of pizza and popcorn, and they made a good dent in the 8 gallon rootbeer keg. The movie was our favorite, ‘Mr Magorium’s Wonder Emporium’.
You know, back when daughter graduated from high school we got a rootbeer keg. That was the first time I ever tapped a keg. My brother isn’t sure how we’re related if I had never tapped a keg before. So now I’ve tapped 2 kegs! Both rootbeer. My brother says I’ll be ready for actual beer next.
At the college I’ve been working on shirt sleeves. Swapped sleeves from some shirts to other shirts, and shortened them enough they still qualify as sleeves to keep admin happy, but not long enough to bug me. And this summer my nephew-in-law Justin gave me a Hawaiian shirt, with the sleeves cut off, because he had described me as “flowery”. In a good way! It didn’t have a pocket, but he dug one of the sleeves out of the garbage, and I added a pocket. All told, I swapped 4 sets of shirt sleeves. I’m not very good at sewing. I can manage, but it isn’t pretty. Good thing the seams are inside.
Sewing is sort of like construction. Just with other tools. When I was a kid, mom would let me fill the bobbin. I always loved threading the machine, and the bobbin on the little spindle that would “pop” over when full fascinated me for whatever mysterious reason. I didn’t bother changing thread on these sleeves. I picked a purple thread that matched some of the sleeves, and a teal colored bobbin thread and I just used them for everything because I like the colors. I tried using pins but I struggled more than one would expect with pins. It made me think of the strawberry pin cushion mom had. I wondered if I should get a pin cushion for the costume room, as opposed to the box of pins in there now. A magnetic one? Do I think it really matters?? I thought about thimbles too, and playing with them. And I had happy memories of mom. You never know do you; you let your kid do something, and 50 years later they’re swapping shirt sleeves.
Every mechanic knows you don’t tighten up all the bolts until everything is assembled and yet here I was struggling with getting the bolts lined up on the manifold for the 630. And there’s three gaskets in the middle of all of this and they shift and move while trying to get it all in place. There are six bolts that attach the intake and exhaust manifold to the tractor, and four bolt that hold the intake to the exhaust. I tightened the four bolts first, which is why I couldn’t get the other six all in place. I messed with it for an hour trying this that and some other things. Finally realized I had tightened those bolts. I loosened them, got all six bolts in place, THEN tightened everything up. Just like a professional.
Yeah, I should have put gloves on. Usually I do, this time I got ahead of my self. Between the black gasket maker goop, and the silver ‘Never-seez’ I put on the bolts, it took a while to clean my hands when I was done. all that fussing and I never got grumpy or mad about it. And that’s interesting. I have such a pleasant time working in the shop. Course working on the 630, part of that is, as I told Kelly, when I was milking cows usually I was fixing something because it was broke and I needed it and I didn’t have time to be messing around. I just needed the darn thing fixed ASAP to get on with whatever. But this is sort of a ‘just because’ repair so there’s no pressure– other than my mechanic for the carburetor asking me if I have the tractor running yet, so now I feel like he’s judging me. Other than that, no pressure. And I like that.
SEWING BY HAND AND THIMBLES AND PIN CUSHIONS. WHAT ABOUT THEM? WHAT PIN CUSHION SHOULD I GET?
Trail Baboon 