I smell a pilgrimage

Having heard before I moved here about the "famous" giant stucco snowman, I've been wondering when I'd stumble across him. Today I came across a pdf file about exploring art in the suburbs that outlines a history of this snowman sculpture. I think now is a good point in my acculturation to Minnesota to finally go find him.

Just for your viewing pleasure, here's a photo stolen from his wikipedia entry:

Walking up hills with ice

I'm not the only one who blogs about how Minnesota winter is enough to drive you a little crazy. This is a good cab story, and I knew I had to link you all to it when I read this:

"Whenever there's a blizzard, I usually end up stowing my car in a ramp about a mile away and walking home. In the ice, however? I seriously did not want to walk up the hill when it was covered with a quarter-inch sheet of ice."

Duluth is beautiful, but I think I'd rather spend summers there, quite honestly.

When it was too hot, or it rained too hard, everything came to a halt in El Salvador and nothing got done until it was more bearable. Is that what happens here when the streets freeze over?

Texas looks goooooooood.

Growing up in Texas was a nightmare, and I like to believe it hated me as much as I hated it. Once I graduated at 17, I moved away and never set foot on Texan soil again. I changed planes in the DFW airport once and felt creepy until the plane took off.

Take a look at these actual current temperatures. Today it's 84 in southern Texas! Yeehaw! Andale! Vamanos ya! Texas sure is lookin' good, ya'll.

I have no reason to go to Minnesota...

I'm able bodied, young, fit, stubborn and spry. Additionally, to help with the unfortunate physics of being inexperienced with all things winter, I have Yaktrax to help out with what I have not yet mastered. I will not sugar-coat my disdain of Minnesota winter weather, but if it weren't already clear by the tone of my previous posts, let it be known officially that I wrestle daily with the question, "Why the hell am I in Minnesota?"

Today it's gray and dreary outside. Actual temperature right now is -4.4 degrees, wind chill is -20 degrees and we've had forecasts of snow since last night. (I know: it's colder outstate. I know: all you locals have lived through -80 degrees. I know: some of you pay $500 heating bills every month. I know, I know, I don't care.)

Okay, here's what I'm trying to get to. Why in the world would you live here if you are elderly? Permanently in use of a wheelchair? Chronically ill? I'm doing just fine in the scope of health and agility, and I slip all the time on ice, tromp awkwardly through snow, whine into the wind, and bitterly bitch about sub-zero temperatures. I cannot imagine how difficult this must be for anyone who's just not feeling so great.

I just walked home and crossed paths with a very old man who was so hunched over he could not comfortably look up to see where he was going. He carried a very large, heavy bag and wore tennis shoes. I'm so saddened that he has to get somewhere, and it's so uncomfortable and super slippery outside.

Long before I moved here and toward the end of the phase L. and I can only refer to simply and fondly as "friendship," I actually said to her, "I have no reason to go ever to Minnesota. Except to see you, I guess."

And now I live here. Indefinitely.

It sure is amazing what we put up with. The trade-off is unquestionably worth it - success, happiness, family, love, clarity, direction, purpose. I'm just not sure if the putting-up-with gets more arduous or more tolerable with time. By the time I'm old and frail and dependent on devices for mobility, I really wonder if I'll have grown to ignore or (gasp!) even enjoy November through March.

Angry punching squirrel carved out of snow

There are squirrels everywhere in the world, but I sure have noticed that there are a disproportionate amount living in the Twin Cities. (I've seen all black ones and all white ones here, which I've never seen anywhere else before). They roam the neighborhoods in packs, attacked our Halloween pumpkins like vultures on a carcass, and for all I know probably have their own political party in the state of Minnesota.

Today L. insisted we go to the snow carving area in the fairgrounds to see snow sculptures. All of a sudden today the temperature shot up to 40 degrees, so some of the sculptures were self destructing by noon. However, this angry punching squirrel hadn't melted a tad.

It seemed so freaking funny that someone would put so much time and energy into carving a squirrel out of a block of packed snow. The squirrel is angry, but the acorns surrounding its feet are smiling. It's such a confusing scene.

Now, back to that temperature rise. It was so wonderful! I wore a spring fleece and a scarf, no hat, and no gloves. Tomorrow we're forecast for snow and 12 degrees, but today I pretended I was in California again on the coldest week of the year.

It's so warm outside I can't believe it!

School started and my mind is on beginning so many new tasks and readings that I haven't felt in the mind frame for blogging. I will let you know, however, that it's so warm outside that I've been walking around outside with no hat! Yesterday I went for a run outside, rather than in a gym, and didn't wear gloves either!

It's been hovering around 25 degrees the last two days.

Perspective is truly EVERYTHING.

Saw this guy today and asked him for a photo

Haha! Just joking! Did you think I was telling the truth?

I did collect some ice in my own hair today from respiration condensation, but not nearly that much. Just to make myself feel better about why the hell I live in Minnesota, I read this: The Coldest Places on Earth.

International Falls, MN, is profiled first, just soo ya know. More evidence that my paranoia and dramatic flair are justified!!

Read. Enjoy!

One of those backwards days

This morning around 7:30, it was 5 degrees. By 8:30, it was -1. Now at 10:40 it's -4.4. The sun is rising, it's bright and blue out there, the snow is glistening and crunchy. There's some sort of weather phenomenon I don't understand - that it gets colder on sunny days. This is a sweeping generalization, right? But I heard it as a warning when I moved here and today it's obviously true.

Anyone get it?

How to talk Minnesotan

I'm studying up on how to talk Minnesotan and I'm not so sure about all this.

Get a load of these two! I can't help but think they look like L.'s parents. Did I say that? Yes, I think I did! In all fairness, L.'s parents are Wisconsinites.

Mango salsa in January

In an attempt to momentarily cure our winter weather weariness, L. initiated the making of a mango salsa for dinner last night. It included: fresh mangos, jalapeño pepper, cilantro, avocado, and lime juice. It was so freaking good that we ate the whole bowlful, first scooping properly with chips, then devouring it with spoons, and then licking the bowl (just kidding).

The ingredients seriously mocked our memories of 10-inch avocados and over-abundance of mangos we grew tired of eating in El Salvador. Not to mention that for four years on any Saturday of the year, I could walk to the farmer's market in Oakland and hand pick the cheapest, freshest, tastiest, most organic produce in the region from the people who'd grown, picked and delivered it.

In January in Minnesota, you settle for the produce at the co-op that has been picked green thousands of miles away and rattled to some version ripe-ness in a semi-truck, passing various inspections along the way. And you banish away your memories of the way life used to be. You pay a fortune for these hard specimens of tropical fruits, cart them home with visions of culinary dreaminess, and devour them in one sitting while snow falls outside.

In October, I was seriously tempted with the idea of eating only locally-grown foods forevermore, so help me Buddha. Last summer, L.'s sister loaned me the local food diet book written by Barbara Kingsolver, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, and I was inspired to adhere to my ideals. I always try to choose local over not local. But recently I went grocery shopping, and L. opened the fridge and said, "where's the food?" I'd managed to get hydroponic lettuce and beets, local cheese and bread, and not much else.

Buying locally is really hard to do in Minnesota in the winter. I could, potentially, spend all my free time driving all over the place and maximizing my "local" purchases. But, then I use a lot of gas instead of walking three blocks to the nearest store - and that doesn't make any sense. Once in a while, though, far-away grown mangos and cilantro and avocados in winter are great stimulants for SANITY and HAPPINESS.

Dead bunnies

If you have a hard time reading about and looking at dead bunnies, you might not want to read any further.

Two dead bunnies have appeared near the house recently. It's the strangest thing. The first one was completely torn to bits and left as a pile of fur and one leg. We weren't even sure for awhile what it was.

I was just walking down the sidewalk and approaching the back of our house when I came across this decapitated bunny.

I said, "Oh my god!" to no one but myself and the bunny, and quickly retrieved my camera phone. The head is nowhere to be found.

What in the world???

Further findings

Coincidentally, mnspeak.com profiled a story done by the Star Tribune about how hard it is for Minnesotans to brag about and brand themselves.

Links: Why don't we ever brag about Minnesota? and the original Star Tribune article.

I say coincidentally because it mentioned that it's difficult for non-natives to break into social circles in MN and I just wrote a blog post about my experience with such phenomena.

Otherwise, it's been above zero degrees and lightly snowing all day, so all is well and it's gorgeous outside.

Live piano player at Menards!

We wandered around Menards (a Midwestern mega-super-gigantic hardware-n-everything store) today looking for some items we didn't find at the re-use store, Ax-Man.

Menards has a live piano player! So amazing and funny and great! He even said "good afternoon" to me in such an enchanted manner that I felt like I was entering Charlie's chocolate factory.

I eventually coaxed The Photographer into maybe sneaking a photo of the piano player, but many blue-vested Menards staff were hovering around us at the moment we'd mustered up courage to steal a shot. And we chickened out. So you'll just have to take our word for it.

Making friends

Making friends is no small feat for me. I'm introverted around everyone except exceptionally good friends I've known for years, and I'm super anxious in crowds of more than four people. So I don't collect new friends very easily. Sometimes the anxiety doesn't even show because I'm that good, but I'm kind-of a mess on the inside in social situations.

Therefore, it's been equally comforting and nerve racking to instantly acquire new people through L. upon moving here. L. is as social as I am socially phobic, has lived here for a decade, and actually likes most of her family. So I got to know a lot of people really quickly upon moving here.

I've heard more than a few times that Minnesotans are hard to get to know. I'm not exactly sure why, really. I'm in a graduate program with a lot of friendly, social, kind, and open people, and I work in a place with 300 employees. So I get to meet a lot of people, many of whom are Minnesota lifelong residents.

But the only person I've met here that I can actually begin to call my friend - not L.'s friend who befriended me (which has happened a lot, many of whom are you all reading this blog, and I'm super grateful for the connections, by the way) is actually not from here.

She's from Reno. I lived in Reno. And that's the main reason we started talking in the first place.

How strange that the single potential friend found on my own in my new home is not even from here.

So answer me this: What's behind the myth that Minnesotans are hard to get to know?

To illustrate my point

Here is my car. There is a layer of ice inside the windows from respiration condensation. The jagged lines you see in the ice were my frantic attempt at using a broken ice scraper while still sitting in the driver's seat so I wouldn't hit anyone while backing up.

The white stuff behind the car is, of course, a hill of snow.

Poor California car.

Never before have I felt cold like this.

As you read this, remember: I moved to Minnesota LAST June.

At noon today it was -3 degrees. This is a first for me. Here's a list of amazingness just from this morning.

1. My hair froze within 2 seconds of going outside.

2. My nose hairs froze within 2 seconds.

3. L. said, "don't go to a car wash on a day like today." I said, "why not?" L. said, "because your locks and doors will freeze shut." I freaked out, of course.

4. When I said, "I've never felt this kind of cold before!" L. said, "I've been in -70 degrees." I said, shocked beyond belief, "WHERE!?" I was of course thinking she'd taken a trip to Antarctica I'd never heard about. "Here, in 1997," she said. To top it off, she was on crutches that day. So much for me whining about frozen hair.

5. I hear that if you boil water, and then throw it up in the air, that it will freeze before it hits the ground. If we actually do it, I'll post a video.

6. You can't clean your windshield until it's warm. Windshield wiper blades move the fluid around and then it freezes in a thin sheet. Then you are driving, and you can't see, and you crash. And the ambulance arrives and they ask you what happened and all you can say is, "California, California."

Making out.

Believe it or not, I interviewed a "local" today about making out in a car in the winter. I'm gathering data about "local" common knowledge of condensation accumulation in a non-running car, and the feasibility of actual condom usage in a car in the winter. (If you're joining this blog at this post, you'll just be confused unless you read the linked previous posts. So, go on now, read them.)

The interview went like this:

Me: So, you ever made out in a car in the winter?
Local: Yes.
Me: What was it like?
Local: Cold.

At this point the interview was over because I could not stop laughing.

I've basically concluded that I'm learning about condensation accumulation turning to ice in a car in the winter at age almost 30 when most locals likely learned about it as a teenager while making out in a car.

Sigh. Better late than never.

Maddening!

I realized on the way to the haircut appointment (study up on part 1 and part 2) that I'm the nutty one living in this environment. It all seems nutty to me, but really, I'm the one who just doesn't quite get it.

Case in point:

I was on my way today somewhere in the car. It was 3 degrees outside. I was early to my destination and needed to return a phone call, which I did in the car while waiting for the time to tick. (Irony: I was calling California.) I knew 15 minutes in a warm-ish car would be ok and that I wouldn't freeze. What happened, though, is that my respiration collected inside the car as condensation. And froze. All of my car windows are covered on the inside with a layer of ice. It's a real bitch. I now have to scrape the ice out from inside my car.

(If you don't live in a cold place: CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT? Eesh.)

I mean, it's got to be common sense for the locals. It never occurred to me to not breathe in my car in the winter while the heat isn't running. Just like it didn't occur to me that accidentally not locking the back door might cause pipes to burst.

While the title of this blog is "Those crazy Minnesotans!" I am quickly coming to admit that half or more of what I need to talk about here has to do with my total lack of intuition for all things northern.

It's so maddening! In social work talk, it's a paradigm shift.

Haircut, part two.

Ashlee should be a lawyer. She talked me into it. I told her, "I don't know what I want but I know what I don't want" and explained the whole mom and boss situation. She convinced me to let her cut my hair the way I wanted it cut because a) I have a personal life and I shouldn't let my boss' haircut affect that! b) It's just too sad to not get what you want! and c) It didn't have to be *exactly* like my boss'! Ashlee sometimes talks in exclamation points, another reason I adore her.

You know what though? I seriously de-emphasized the mom part. It's fascinating to me what I/people choose not to talk about. I can't tell you why I did that.

During the cut and after she cut it, she kept raving about how cute it was. It is cute. I do like it. It is what I wanted. And I can't stop rehearsing my explanation to my boss. It occurred to me in the car that men get their hair cut alike all the time. This should be no big deal, right? It feels like a big boundary no no deal. Ug.

Should I get it cut like Prince?

The best haircut I've ever had was in Minneapolis a year ago. I've been a faithful customer to Ashlee at Maude Salon ever since. Who would've guessed Minneapolis? I know San Francisco has an overwhelming number of highly capable hair folk, I just could never afford them. The Midwest is nice for that - more bang for your buck, on most things. (Except for persimmons in winter.)

Today I'm going for a haircut. What's funny about it this time is that I have no idea yet what I'll come out with. Three days ago I'd decided on something different than what I've had for a year. The next day, I went into the hospital (where I'm doing my internship) and my supervisor had just cut her hair in that same style. Then I realized my own mother had that haircut right now.

Imagine going around looking like your mom and your boss. What a Freudian field day! My mom and boss are incidentally two of the most naturally fashionable people I've ever known.

I have no idea what I'll come out with.

I wonder which haircut would make me look least likely to be from here? I'll take that one. Because Prince is from here and you'd never guess it.

The photographer and the ice crystals

The photographer, aka L., met me on foot after work today. When I approached our meeting spot, she was hunched toward the ground taking photographs. This is a common occurrence if you hang out much with L. and her trusty camera. However, what she captured was perfectly uncommon. These ice crystals have formed inside of the holes of a grate on the ground in a thin, flat circle, with a hole of air still left in the middle. Reminded me of mushrooms that grow directly out from tree trunks. Quite gorgeous. We conjecture that ice formations like this only happen under specific temperature and humidity conditions. That's our unscientific hypothesis; It's quite cold and humid today.

The photographer has quite a lovely blog and you can visit it by clicking on the image.

The winter is rather unbearable in many ways, and quite gorgeous in many ways, too.

I wasn't being dramatic, after all

I commented to a comment in a previous post using the dramatic term "arctic" to describe our weather. I say that often out loud. "It's not the arctic!" L. often replies, with an accompanying eye roll or a deep sigh.

And this morning I read this headline: Arctic blast to send the temperatures tumbling, Cold snap could last for 10 days, the Weather Service said.

Here is the whole story.

We've cancelled weekend plans twice for various reasons and I have to say I'm glad I don't have a single reason to leave the house.

Minnesota is not the arctic, but we get arctic blasts. Hmm. I think I'm entitled to my drama.

Any day now, I expect to see these guys wandering down from the north.

Smells like a social worker, sounds like a social worker

On a more positive and less sarcastic note, I would like to mention that life here is on the up and up for me in a professional way. Social work school really did turn out to be a perfect fit. My internship this year has really turned out to be an ever-constant stimulant for nitty gritty learning and super-capable supervision. However weird much of this state does seem to me, it seems to be telling me in many other obvious ways that I fit.

It's like there was a Sanguinetti A! shaped hole in the universe and I was magnetically pulled toward it and *shlooooop!* in I fell.

I fit here. First, professionally I fit. Equally importantly, my needs for family and love and community are met like never before, too. Things are really quite great.

I'm writing this tonight because today I had my first real deal 90-minute therapy session all by myself with a client. It went quite well. I've done countless client interventions all semester, and I have learned a ton. This, however, feels like a big deal and a big step.

I'm on my way.

This time, it's that crazy Californevadatexan!

This time, I was the crazy one in crazy Minnesota.

Short story to save myself from too much embarrassment: I didn't lock the back door. It blew open in the night. The kitchen froze. The basil plant and an orchid died from ice in its roots.

Poor basil.


The green thumb runs in my family and I usually can't kill a plant if I try. So, this is a major household loss, ya'll.

The pipes didn't freeze (which, I didn't even think about as a possibility, believe it or not) luckily.

I was thinking afterwards - after I'd re-heated the house by noon and partially gotten over my shame for being absentminded - about my porch in Oakland. The door was old and didn't shut well. Oftentimes it would blow open in the night. Even on the coldest of nights when it would get into the low 40s, it just didn't really matter. Because it was a balcony porch I didn't worry too much about being broken into.

Silly me, still thinking like a Californian.

It was bound to happen eventually

Me talking about sex was bound to happen eventually on this blog. And here it is for the first time.

On Monday the temp was about 5 degrees during the middle of the day. It was slightly breezy and the windchill felt like -5 to me. Probably wasn't though. I decided to be strong and tough and bad and walk to my destination, about 2-3 miles away, and finally get a little exercise and sunshine. I got a little lost on my way to one of L.'s sister's house and called L.'s other sister to get directions out of Como Park. Soon enough, I was on my way again.

It was really cold yet I was fine until I got lost. When I got lost, I had to slow momentum and look around and communicate the cross-streets to my navigation guide on my cellphone (meaning my hands were no longer in my pockets, heart rate was decreasing, and my sweat was cooling rapidly). The walk was a great idea but I realized I'm much more laid back about getting lost on foot when it's agreeable outside. I still think in Californian sometimes. (More on that in an upcoming post about leaving the back door open.)

We've all seen used condoms on the ground. Goodness, aren't they curious? I always wonder how they got there. Don't you? Did they actually fall out of garbage bags? Unlikely, really. More likely they never got thrown away. Because I'm more fascinated with gross than grossed out by gross, I really tend to wonder what each rogue condom's story is.

After I figured out where I was going, I started booking it. (Thanks again to those Yaktrax!) Right after I hung up the phone, I almost walked on a used condom. Used condom caught in new Yaktrax - not something you want to deal with when you're cold and lost.

Okay. This is no big deal anywhere else. But this is a big deal here!

1. It was not covered in snow, ice or dirt. Sure, it was frozen (a first sight for me). But it had not endured snow/icefall anytime recently.
2. It was on the sidewalk in a neighborhood. Not an industrial zone or a dark alley, where you'd be more likely to put two and two together.
3. If someone actually really truly used it outside... well, wait, that is not even possible!
4. If someone used it inside of a car, then threw it out - I suppose that's the most likely option. Do you keep your car running for that? Wouldn't the whole encounter reek of exhaust in that case?

So, I wonder out loud, to the universe, to the latex angels, to anyone who might turn a trick in a cold town, to anyone anywhere using condoms in the winter anywhere close to a door where it might fall into the outside world: how? Really, how?

(It's notable that all of my posts thus far have the "ice" label.)

Polar bear plunge

I got the idea of my blog title from this post I read recently.

Link: via neatorama.

Oh god! If anything is worse than ice fishing this is.

L. and I went to the boundary waters recently (and we stayed in a cabin, not a tent, for the record) and the neighbor cabin folk had chainsawed a hole like this one in the ice in on the lake, presumably to do this very thing.

Oh, the horror! I am tough and bad and fun but, oh, goodness no.

Will this be something I eventually do and looking back on my reaction now and laugh at my unwillingness to be adventurous?

Yaktrax are wonderful!

One day, I said to L. (who is the reason I moved here, so keep that in mind as this story unfolds): "I wish I had something to put on the bottoms of my shoes so that I wouldn't slip on the ice that forms on sidewalks when those rude bitches don't shovel the snow right away."

L. said, "they do make something!" End of conversation as I remember it. I probably conjectured they were uncomfortable and expensive, cheap and pessimistic as I tend to be.

Then just the other day we saw a "missing Yaktrax" sign on a billboard in our neighborhood and the actual returned/found Yaktrax posted next to it.

I was astounded! It looks like an implement of torture folded up in its fetal position. Look!:

Sweet as pie she is, L. bought me some after I oohed and ahhed over the potential grippage I could obtain from such devices. Mine do not have the strap, but the rest is the same. Super cool. Rubber and wire brilliance, mmm.

Even though there happens to be more bare sidewalk out there than icy patches at this moment in the season, you better believe I wore them right away. They are so wonderful. I can walk very fast on slippery ice. I can be careless and hurried on my way somewhere. They are lovely devices. I do hope they last.

Minnesota is a crazy, cold place right now! And these are making my life more wonderful.

Who wants to go ice fishing?

I thought I'd hear this at least once a month during the winter (and maybe during the spring?) when I decided to move here.

Ha! I've actually only heard it once so far. As a joke. Good sign.

So, anyone out there want to go ice fishing with me?

This is gonna be a blog about all the funny things (to me) I see and experience here in Minnesota.

It's sure a funny place. Of course, every place is. But this kind of funny I'm getting used to very slowly. Maybe it's cause I'm getting old. Maybe it's my white guilt mixing with the Swedish ancestry that oozes out with every "o" and "a" and "yah" people say.

Lots of stuff is funny and here I go to blog it all.