Should I Try an Uff Da Jar?

Last year I was extremely lucky to get to travel to Poland, Finland, Amsterdam and Germany. To prepare for that trip I tried to learn some of the language. I had Finnish in-laws and they said, "Uff Da," so last year I started saying Uff Da too. Uff Da is a catchy term.  Once you start saying Uff Da it comes out when you least expect it. I lift something heavier than I anticipated and I say "Uff Da."  Someone cuts me off on Highway 10 at 70 miles per hour I say "Uff Da." I overhear someone at work give really poor customer service and I think to myself, "Uff Da." But the thing is I am not Finnish, or at least not very Finnish, I am mostly German and Polish.  I get frustrated when "Uff Da" comes out unexpectedly. To make up for that I try to say something Polish.  I have been saying "Perestroika."  I looked up what Perestroika is and turns out it is Russian. I could say "Za Glosne Wolanie" which is Polish for "for crying out loud."  Or I could say "Co Do Cholery" which is Polish for WTH. I am not sure what to do.  I just want to quit saying "Uff Da."  Maybe I should start an "Uff Da" jar.  I used to put money into a swear jar and that helped me.  Maybe an "Uff Da" jar will help me too?

A Bold Rodent

Yesterday I heard a story from a friend of mine. She was camping with her best friend from second grade and her father up north. Her father chose to sleep in a pup tent because he knew the two girls would be up all night chatting away.  In the middle of the night my friend was awoken to the voice of her father saying, "Hello there, bear." She and her friend peeked out the window of the tent to see her father in his underwear, holding a cast iron frying pan and speaking to a bear who stood upright. The bear walked forward and tripped on the guidelines of her father's tent.  Her father kept saying, "Hello there, bear." until the bear ambled away into the darkness.  She went on to say the next afternoon they went fishing. As they returned to the campsite they saw the bear walking upright through the woods.  Once at their campsite they found their cooler with teeth marks on it. The cooler was open. The bear had eaten a pound of butter, a pound of raw bacon, and a dozen eggs.  All the three campers had left to eat was the fish on their stringer.  So that was the story in my mind this morning as I left the Government Center in Anoka. Right outside the door to the seven story building are two trash cans. The lids had blown off the top of the trash cans. Inside the garbage trash can sat a grey squirrel feasting on unhealthy carbohydrates left in the trash.  So I had no choice but to say, "Hello there, squirrel." I stood only a yard away from the squirrel who was busily munching on Subway sandwich crumbs and MacDonald's French fries. The squirrel looked right at me without blinking a brown eye. I waited 15 seconds. The squirrel continued to eat. Such a bold rodent! So confident and self-assured was the squirrel that I just had to walk away in admiration.

After The Battle

A good friend of mine went to school in Battle Lake. She lent me the book, After the Battle; A History of Battle Lake, Minnesota.  This was the second printing and the binding is coiled wire. I thought it is a very interesting book. The battle was between the Ojibway and the Dakota tribes right on a sand bar on Battle Lake. Most of the information is not about the Native Americans but about the Norwegians and other immigrants who settled in the area. The book lists every business in town, every mayor, every doctor and just about every city council decision. Over the years many businesses in Battle Lake were destroyed by fire. Eventually they got a fire department but even then some building were lost to fire. At one point they made a resolution that people could not let their live stock roam the town because they made a mess of every hay wagon that pulled in.  The book talks about anglers pulling 600 pounds of bass out of Battle Lake in a single day. In 1902 the state game department announced they were releasing ring necked pheasants (a species from Asia) into the area for hunting purposes.  That was a poor decision, in my opinion, because pheasants peck holes in the eggs of prairie chickens and soon we won't have any more prairie chickens. Some of the stories in the book are sad and some are very funny.  Here is an example of a funny story that came from a newspaper article on Dec. 21, 1916: Tuesday with the thermometer from 28 degrees below zero in the morning up to 15 degrees below at noon, automobiles were running into and out of Battle lake.  Running an auto when it is below zero we imagine is colder work than changing underwear on the ice in the middle of Battle Lake at midnight with the underwear wrong side out, four sizes too small and all the buttons gone with no pitch handy.

Museum of Extraordinary Things

I just finished another book today. This one was written by Alice Hoffman (who wrote Practical Magic and The Dove Keepers and Turtle Moon).  I got an audio book at the library and Judith Light plus two other people read The Museum of Extraordinary Things to me.  I think Judith Light was with Tony Danza in Who's The Boss? I really enjoy Alice Hoffman's work. She seems to be a fierce feminist. This book talks about life on Coney Island around 1911.  The Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire is mentioned.  One of the main characters is a photographer who happens to be there at the fire.  He took photos of girls jumping out of windows and photos of dead bodies on the ground.  The other main character is a woman named Coralie.  Coralie grew up in the Museum of Extraordinary Things. She, herself, is an extraordinary thing.  Her bond with Maureen, the woman who cooks and cleans at the museum, is solid. I liked Coralie. She reminds me of myself. Coralie loves to swim. Unlike me Coralie likes to swim in the frigid water of the Hudson River.  I prefer a pool and 84 degrees Fahrenheit is just right. I really liked this book so I think I will look for more books by Alice Hoffman.

A Book Without A Title

One of my BFF's lent me her book.  The book has no title. The cover shows a young girl in a blue dress and a blue hat.  She has blue ankle socks and mary jane shoes. Behind her back she holds a wheel. A stick lies at her feet. She is surrounded by flowers and bushes. The book is dedicated to my BFF's daughter and the date is August of 1990. The pages contain the handwritten memories of my BFF's mother.  I knew my BFF's mother. I met her in the 1970's and she was a very nice woman. She always remembered my name. She always asked me to stay for dinner.  She treated me like one of her family and I thought she was the bomb.  In her book she writes that when she was born she weighed 15 pounds.  She was weighed on a scale that they weighed grain on. Her first best friend was Betty. When Betty moved away "her heart was crushed."  At her home they did not have city water. They had a cistern but the cover was not on tight so lizards and snakes got in there. They did not want to drink that water so they walked to "Doc Johnson's" house to get drinking water. While walking with her brother and her black and white terrier dog, Tootles, Tootles was struck by a car. Her brother Gene carried Tootles home and laid him in the yard. Gene had Tootles blood all over his coat. After a couple hours someone saw Tootles move.  They took Tootles to Doc Johnson's. The Doc found a broken leg and put a cast on the dog.  In a couple of weeks Tootles was as good as new. When she was in first grade she got measles on Valentine's Day. She was sad to miss the big party. She was home alone on Valentine's day.  At lunch time her father came home from work and brought her a heart shaped box of chocolates because he knew she would be sad. Her father cheered her up and she did not feel so sad about missing the party. Her school was on the other side of town. They had to walk to school wearing tan stockings, a garter belt, and long underwear.  When it got warmer she would roll down the stockings and roll up the long underwear as soon as she was out of sight from her home.  On the way home she would wait until she was almost home to roll the long underwear down and the tan stockings up again.  One day her mother had the church ladies over to her house. She was told not to get her feet wet "or else." She and her friends liked to walk in the ditches where the melting snow gathered. So she borrowed her father's mud boots so her feet would be dry. She and her friends went into the ditches to play. Her feet, inside her father's mud boots, got stuck in the mud. She could not pull her feet out.  The harder she tried the more stuck her feet got. She pulled so hard she ended up falling backwards into the mud. She had to take her feet out of the boots and in doing that she fell forwards. The only part of her that wasn't covered with mud was the top of her head. She went home to her mother very muddy and without her father's boots. Her parents punished her.  They didn't spank her. They did something worse than spanking. She was not allowed to play with her friends at her house or their house. She was grounded. She was so bored she laid on her stomach on the swing and watched the ants at work for hours. Her father's job was to drive the gas truck. One year he hurt his back and could not work. Her mother tried to support the family with her seamstress work. Her mother was a talented seamstress. Eventually they could not pay the rent so they had to move in with another family.  A boy at school made fun of her for being poor.  That boy's father was someone who cheated other people out of money. She did not make fun of him for having a cheating father because her parents taught her never to make fun of other people.  Living in Donnelly, Minnesota, she and a friend were out one night stealing apples from an apple orchard. Suddenly the sky lit up with lights. At the time she had not heard of Northern Lights.  She thought the creator was angry with her for stealing apples so she went home and never stole apples again.  When she was 13 her family moved to Murdock, MN so her father could work in a grain elevator. She met a boy in school who was ill with rheumatic fever. Eventually he had to leave school because he was so sick. She wrote him letters. When he died, at age 17, she felt glad she did send those letters.  She went to high school during the war years. All the good teachers either joined the service or worked in manufacturing plants. Gas and other good were rationed. This book ends when she graduates from high school.  Because of the war there is no class trip. no senior dance, no home coming, and no class pictures.  She ends her book with the words, "But we survived."  What a class act!  My BFF's mother, she was a class act.

Much Mulching

On Thursday evening the weather was unseasonably warm. I had an opportunity to spend my time after work on any of a group of fall chores. I chose to mow and pick up the fallen leaves with the bagger on my  mower.  I added some gas before mowing but not too much as I wanted to run the mower dry so I could put it away for the season. I got right to work.  All the basswood leaves were down but not all of the oaks and maples.  I filled up my compost bin but kept dumping leaves on top of the already full bin. I finished mowing the lawn parts of the yard so I took the bagger off to mulch the leaves on the paths through the woods.  I mowed through the paths mulching leaves so deep the yellow leaves were higher than the deck of the mower. Round and round the yard I went mulching away waiting to hear the sputtering of the mower that indicated I was running low on gas. I mulched down to the street.  I mulched along the boulevard.  I mulched the driveway. I still had plenty of gas.  I mulched over by the rain barrel and kept the mower running as I filled a bucket of water. I mulched with the bucket over to the chicken coop and watered the chickens.  I mulched back down the mailbox and got the mail. I mulched by the recycling bin as I read my mail and put most of it into the recycling bin.  I mulched through the woods again.  I sat in a lawn chair for a few minutes watching the clouds go by while the lawn mower mulched.  I mulched down the driveway again and again and again.  By now the cars passing had their head lights on. I wondered if this mower was ever going to run out of gas.  I regretted putting in so much gas in the first place.  I sat for a few minutes.  The clouds were turning pink and gray.  I mowed down to the mail box again and mowed over some of the dried out day lily leaves. I mowed back to the house.  Finally, at 7:15 p.m., after mowing for 2 hours, I gave up.  I turned the mower off with gas still in the tank. Darn efficient mowers they make these days!  It takes forever to run out of gas!

Kim

My book club chose Kim by Rudyard Kipling this month.  I had just read Rikki Tikki Tavi so I thought I would like Kim. This is supposed to be a young adult novel but, man, oh, man, it was a difficult read. So many times I thought about giving up. The first few chapters were so difficult because I am not familiar with the Indian terms. The story is about an Irish orphan boy in India making his way in the world. People don't know he is Irish because he acts like a native.  Kim gets himself attached to a Tibetan Lama and seems to be heading down a spiritual path. Here the book is easier to read because Kim and his Lama are taking a journey, walking through the country side and meeting all kinds of people. A British officer notices Kim's masonic medal, a memento from his father, and all that changes. This book is  highly regarded in England as a classic. I am glad I read it but I gotta say, it wasn't easy.