Today’s post comes from Renee in North Dakota.

We drove to Minot last Wednesday to attend the Norsk Hostfest and hear Emmylou Harris perform.  We have lived here for 28 years and never once attended the Hostfest. It was quite an experience.

The Hostfest is a celebration of all things Scandinavian, and is a major trade show, community reunion, cultural celebration, and entertainment venue. I counted more than 200 vendors of food and crafts. About 55,000 people attend annually. Tourists  come from the Scandinavian countries to  attend. It has all the kitsch you would expect (hence the Rosemaled toilet seat and the Cream of Lutefisk Soup), really wonderful Scandinavian textiles and arts, comforting food, and music all over the place.

The bigger concerts like that by Emmylou are held in “the Great Hall of the Vikings” which is a hockey arena that also serves to show livestock during the ND State Fair. In the various halls named after Scandinavian capitols are smaller stages  where various groups play traditional and modern music. There is adequate space for those who want to polka. Hardanger fiddlers, Danish folk musicians, Norwegian Country-Western stars, and Meti musicians play in the hallways and staircases. We missed hearing Ragnarokkr,  who bill themselves as Vikings with Guitars. Outdoors are demonstrations of Viking games, crafts, and arts. Many people are in costume. People in troll costumes wander the hallways.

The food is interesting.  You can sign up for a six course dinner prepared by fancy chefs imported from Norway, or else visit the food booths. Most of those are sponsored by local Lutheran churches. You can get potet klub, lutefisk and meatball dinners, lefse, Finnish beef stew,  sandbakkels, and aebelskiver.  There is a lefse making competition that lasts 4 days. Nordic Ware puts on cooking classes. My favorite was the class that taught how to make traditional Viking fare like kale porridge with smoked herring. For some reason, the Germans from Russia were selling Kneophla soup and brats, and there were a couple of places to get baklava and gyros.

Artisans teach classes in making Arctic flutes, making Sami bracelets and rings with spun pewter, felting, knitting, making your own wool using a drop spindle, weaving, and carving a Dala horse.

I suppose this pales in comparison to venues like Ren Fest, but Hostfest has its own charm. It is local and international, sophisticated and silly, all at the same time.  I like that one of the Minot banks had a booth where you could write a cheque for cash even if you were from out of town and had your account at a different bank. I like that people were encouraged to go up to strangers and say “Hi, and where are you from” in the hopes that the stranger was a Mystery Viking who would give you $100  I like that many people have been at every Hostfest  since it started 39 years ago, and many people stay for the entire 4 days. Emmylou was in good voice.  We saw an honest to goodness whooping crane in one of the prairie potholes south of Minot on the trip there. The weather was sunny and warm. It was a good day.

Describe (or invent) a festival that you would go out of your way to attend.   

Today’s post comes from Barbara in Rivertown

The good thing about your 50-year high school reunion coming around is that Father Age has visited not only you, but everyone else in attendance. You recognize your closest friends because you’ve seen them at other reunions, or maybe visited them during your travels. But it really takes a while before you recognize who most classmates are. Of course, once a person starts talking, they are “revealed”, sometimes with memories of how you knew each other.

The prettiest people are still fairly good looking, but they don’t stand out so much, and may have a paunch just like yours. Thanks to Facebook, you know a tidbit or two about a few folks – in my case, i.e., a friend from the church of my youth now, in his retirement, posts wonderful paintings he started doing ten years ago. He joins a number of us who were sort of funny looking at age 18, and who now just look INTERESTING, in a good way! As I looked around, most of the people I was curious about were people I hardly knew existed back in 1966.

This wasn’t the kind of weekend where you get into depth about your lives, at least not at the scheduled activities. For one thing, we convened both Friday and Saturday nights at the newly renovated (I am not kidding) Hotel Tallcorn , which was recently refurbished and quite elegant but with dreadful acoustics. We could scarcely hear each other above the din, and I believe the most asked question of the weekend was “Where do you live now?” because it was short and recognizable via lip reading.

Most of the highlights of my weekend were not on the agenda:

– hanging out with best friend and her husband, since we’d visited them two years ago. This was (my) Husband’s first time accompanying me to a reunion, so it was nice there was at least one person he knew.

– watching their dog play Frisbee  : )

– climbing the Observation Tower at Grimes Farm, with a wonderful overview of an intersection of town and farmland, with the historic County Courthouse spire in the misty distance. Rolling farmlands were never prettier.

If I hadn’t gone to this reunion, I’d be forever wondering whom and what I had missed. I still missed a lot of folks I had hoped to see, so it is probably my last reunion – if they didn’t come to the Big One, they probably won’t be at the next.

What would it take to get to a 50-year reunion?

Today’s post comes from Linda

Last fall a small spider took up residence underneath a cabinet next to my kitchen sink. At the time, and the kitchen sink seemed to be Fruit Fly Central Station. I have never been particularly spooked by arachnids, so I left the little spider alone. Having something hunting the fruit flies seemed a fair trade-off for a few sticky webs.

A character from a children’s book is likely responsible for my charitable attitude toward spiders. We all grew up with Charlotte, of course, brought to life so memorably by E.B. White. Later in life I came upon a poem by the same author that captured my fancy.

The Spider’s Web (A Natural History)

The spider, dropping down from twig,

Unfolds a plan of her devising,

A thin premeditated rig

To use in rising.

And all that journey down through space,

In cool descent and loyal hearted,

She spins a ladder to the place

From where she started.

Thus I, gone forth as spiders do,

In spider’s web a truth discerning,

Attach one silken thread to you

For my returning.

I’ve never known which came first, the book or the poem. But to me the spider in the poem is undoubtedly Charlotte, with her loyal heart.

When winter moved in the fruit fly problem went away, as it always does in cold weather. Through the winter I’d regularly see the spider, still parked underneath the cabinet. I thought about knocking down the web from time to time, but instead I’d just clear part of the space, leaving some web way back under the cabinet, where the spider would retreat and bide its time.

Spring approached, and still the spider remained. Finally I resolved to move her outdoors, as the weather was getting warm enough for the creature’s survival. One day as we were close to being past that last cold snap, I had a talk with her. Look, I said aloud, I haven’t minded having you spend the cold months here. But now that it’s getting warm, I’d rather you went outside. It’ll be better for you, too, since there will be insects out there for you to trap, and it’s probably been months since you’ve captured anything in this location. It’s time to go. In a couple of days I’ll put you in jar and take you outside. I don’t want to hurt you, and I’ll be careful.

I returned that weekend with the intention of carrying out the relocation, but the spider was not there. For a couple of weeks I checked back, but my tenant seemed to have vacated.

Now fruit flies have taken up residence again in my kitchen. Last week I found a web in the bowl that sits in the old Hamilton-Beach stand mixer. A small eight-legged jobseeker is looking for seasonal work.  Experienced pest control technician; will work for food.

What would you hire a non-human to do?

Today’s post comes from Renee in North Dakota

I have had some pretty stressful weeks at work lately, mainly due to the seriousness of some of my cases, and I have neglected to look around me for humor. Humor is an essential component of my self-care.  A conversation with my husband last night provided me with some giggles, and I  wanted to share it.

My husband and I don’t get out much. We seem to be constantly busy with gardens, cooking, or cleaning the house. I work until 7:00 pm three nights a week.. We are tired by the time Friday rolls around, and, quite honestly, we live in a small community where we know lots of uncomfortable truths about many people and/or their relatives. It doesn’t make us the most popular couple in town.

When we meet people and they find out that we are both psychologists, the usual remark is “You two must stay at home and analyze each other all the time”.  Well, we certainly don’t do that. We have lots of conversations, though. I realized last night as we were talking that some of our conversations would probably sound positively bizarre to most folks.

Husband has an undergraduate degree in Philosophy from the University of Wisconsin. He is a deep thinker and has a myriad of interests outside of psychology.  At one point last evening he was talking about “Health care justice and its relation to Constitutional Monarchy” (I think we were talking about the Canadian and British health care systems). He then scampered to the history of political philosophy, described a history of the Second World War he was reading by John Lukacs (not George Lukacs the Marxist, he was careful to point out), and ended the evening with the pronouncement “The French Revolution was not universally blessed”.

Taken out of context, I think this all sounds terribly funny. It also would confirm to many of our town folk that husband and I are more than a little odd. We both had a good laugh last night when I pointed out what egg heads we sounded like. I hope tonight’s conversation can give me the giggles, too. It has been a hard week.

What’s your conversational style?

Today’s post comes from Barbara in Rivertown

On a perfect Saturday (one of the 10 perfect days this year) during Labor Day Weekend, Husband and I were introduced to Family Art Day here in Winona. Held from 10:00 – 2:00 on Saturday at a covered pavilion on the banks of Lake Winona, this annual event features a couple of dozen local artists, each with a table (or two) holding the supplies required to do/make their craft. There was everything from painting murals to…  well, here is the list of options:

• Fish Prints with Dirk Nelson
• Sculpture with Michelle Cochran
• Finger painting with John Durfey
• Kosmic Knots with Tom Dukich
• Book Arts with Jill Krase
• Bow drill a shell for a necklace with Patty Albrecht
• Murals with Julia Crozier
• Acrylics with Barb Feiten
• Puppets with Jill Marie Piggott
• Mosaics with Monta May
• Clay sculpture with Emerald Hulsing
• Masks with Julie Johnston
• Weaving with Kathie Peterson
• Wood and Wire Sculpture with Jamie Schell
• Tatoos with Heather Casper from Minnesota Marine Art Museum
• Giant Bubbles with Ramona Redig and Robert Aldrich
• Hats with Amy Peterson
• Cartooning with Mary Singer
• Sing-alongs with Amanda Grace
• Watercolors with Kathy Delano
• Thrown pottery with Anne Scott Plummer, Mary Denzer, Mickey Maslowski, John Bloomfield, and Sue Pariseau  (There was also a side tent with two potting wheels)

Not Just For Kids

Giant Bubbles

Lots of Options

Mural Painting

Hat Making

Mosaics

Weaving

The idea was conceived 9 years ago by our late friend Bernadette Mahfood (about whom I will write more another time) and another local artist, Julie Crozier. The event is designed to get adults, as well as children, to try out new art forms. Says coordinator Vicki Englich “Sometimes, people are intimidated to pick up a brush… This gives you permission to explore things you didn’t have a chance to explore in school.”

We were among the many volunteers who helped set up, take down, and act as “gofers” during the 4-hour run. It takes an amazing amount of organizing, and some grant funding from the Southeast Minnesota Arts Council for supplies and stipends for the artist/teachers. I’ve met a watercolorist that I would like to team up with for next year – she was heading it up solo this year and would like help. I can hardly wait – it was a joy seeing the look on some of the faces of the artists as they finished their creations, and then scanned the pavilion to see what they wanted to try next.

What type of art, that you haven’t yet tried, would you like to try your hand at?

Today’s post comes from Verily Sherrilee

I love the Fair.

I’m unapologetic about my love of the State Fair. I know that it’s not everyone’s cup of tea but from the first time I walked through the arches on Snelling, I was hooked.  I love the animals, I love all the educational buildings, I love the butter heads, I love the art, I love the parade.  But most of all I love the people-watching.

This year I went to the Fair three times: once all by myself, once with Young Adult and once with friends for Garrison Keillor’s show. I have a fun memory from each day.

On opening day, as I was sitting on the curb, waiting for the parade to start, a father and son came to sit in the space next to me. As they sat, the son (probably 11 or 12) let out a huge groan.  I couldn’t help but laugh and so did the dad.  I said to him “I expect to hear that kind of groan from myself or from your dad, but not from someone your age.”  Without missing a beat, the kid leaned over and said “I’m a catcher.  I have old knees.”  I almost snorted by water up my nose.

On the day with Young Adult, we did the Bunny Barn first. I call the Young Adult “The Bunny Whisperer” because she has a way with the rabbits. Most of the rabbits sit near the back of their cages so that they can’t be reached.  Young Adult slips her hand into the cage and then waits.  One after another, the bunnies move to her side of the cage and let her pet them.  She probably has an 80% success rate.  It’s amazing.   Of course this means that we spend A LOT of time in the Bunny Barn and she usually suggests that we go home with a rabbit.  At one point I turned to her and said again “No, we can’t have a bunny.”  She replied, “I know, it would just be fodder for Guinevere.”  I was so excited that she knew the word “fodder” that I almost wept!

On Friday I got to the fair in time for the parade. As the little kids’ farm train went by, in the last car I noticed a little boy (probably 8 or 9) doing the Vulcan salute.  I quickly flashed the salute in return; his face lit up and he gave me a huge thumb’s up.  Finally my ability to do “live long and prosper” has come in handy!

It was the best fair ever!

 Are you a fair person or not?