Fruitcake

What's the deal with fruitcake? It's highly fashionable to hate fruitcake. However, bucking fashion trends as usual, I love fruitcake. An old friend sent two large hunks of homemade fruitcake, wrapped in cheesecloth to hold the brandy. It is excellent, and I've been adding more brandy. It can't hurt.

My mother used to make a fruitcake that was pretty much nuts, dates and raisins. It was close to black in color and quite wonderful. And in days gone by, when I was into the DIY style of domestic achievement, I would make a fruit cake, trecking all over New York to find real candied citron and other delicacies. My roommate and I would soak all the fruits in cognac for several weeks before we put the thing together. We ate a great deal of the fruit before we actually baked the cake.

So try it--you might like it. Just stay clear of the store-bought stuff.

Urban wildlife

Never let it be said that the inner city has no wildlife. In addition to feral cats, squirrels, raccoons, bats, rabbits, skunks and the odd deer, we have bald eagles and opossums. On Saturday, in the midst of a blinding snow storm, an eagle soared above the Lake Street bridge. As we stopped for the light, old Abe checked us out through the sunroof window, circled around a few times, and decided we were not appropriate prey and flew up the Mississippi in search of better grub.

Then, on Christmas day, we were headed out the side door to visit a neighbor. When we opened the door, there was a large possum sitting right outside . He didn't seem inclined to move, so we left through the back door. He followed us up onto the neighbor's deck, leaving those distinctive possum footprints in the snow. He had a nice coat, but his face and tail were something only a mother possum could love. Apparently, they are not the brightest of mammals. Wikipedia says they have a "small braincase".

If Tom the cat were still alive, he would have protected us from the visiting fauna. Guess we need to look for a replacement.

Christmas Cards

People don't seem to send Christmas cards the way they used to. Or maybe I have the wrong circle of friends and relations. But I seem to remember that in the old days people would send and receive hundreds of cards. Everyone they knew, even slightly, would get a card.

I'm not talking about the pre-printed business holiday cards that law firms, accountants and other personal service folks send. I'm talking about personal, signed-by-a-human-being cards.

When I was a child, I used to count the cards my parents received. It was a large number, and every day in December it would increase, necessitating a recount. And then we would save the cards, chopping them up to make labels for the presents under the tree.

There are other uses for Christmas cards. Some people make decorations from the cards, stringing them around the fireplace, over a doorway, or some other attractive spot. Others donate them to a non-profit that uses them in some way.

I myself send Christmas cards to friends that I don't see very often. I neglect neighbors, relatives in distant states whom I never see, and professional and work friends. I use the Christmas card as a way to stay in touch. Of course, I also chop up those I receive for gift labels. The habits of youth last a lifetime.

Green Christmas

I was trying to put a cap on Christmas gifts for the family this year--but that didn't work. So instead we have a new rule--every gift must be used. Joe College has already made several trips to his favorite store, Goodwill. There are tradeoffs--while we're buying used stuff, driving around to all those thrift stores uses more gas. But it encourages creativity and means that we don't have to fight the crowds at Best Buy.

OLGS bought a skimpy tree because that was all that was left on the lot and he didn't want to drive to a tree farm. He justified this by stating that land used to grow trees could feed millions. What he neglected to note that the land on which trees are grown is generally unfit for any other agricultural purpose.

But I've discovered a whole new dimension to shopping.

Swim Time

Here it is again. Minnesota Boys High School Swimming. For the next three months, Joe High School will be the long distance guy for Minneapolis South High. The first meet is Wednesday--stay tuned. Today there was no practice. Rather, there was a chewing out by the coaches. Apparently some of the swimmers are getting out of the pool before the end of practice to avail themselves of the YMCA sauna.

Being a high school athlete is tough. Joe had wanted to take a class at MCTC, the local community college, but it will be hard to get there during the school day and still have time for swim practice. We'll see. But he is remarkably determined to take calculus before he graduates from high school. The only way he can do it is to take pre-calculus outside of the normal school day or year. Summer school, anyone?

Snow--here it comes

It's snowing. The weather guys are very excited--could be as much as ten inches. Yesterday I was wishing for global warming as the prairie wind blew into the University of Minnesota. Students were bundled up in multiple layers, watch caps and scarves. The sun was shining and everything looked deceptively lovely from the inside of Andersen Library. But that walk to the parking lot? Don't do it. Stay inside and read weather blogs.

Job loss cliches

What goes around comes around.

I hate to think that such a cliche could possibly be true. But take a look:

I fired or convinced to resign five people in my checkered career. Then I myself was "laid off."

And now Kit Hadley, who was ultimately responsible for my layoff, has herself been reorganized out of a job.

Comforting for maybe two seconds. But, since it's a cliche, pretty meaningless.

And only slightly better than "Some things were meant to be" or "You'd be really good at...."

Brrrr

It's cold--18 degress at 10 PM. We are so unused to this, thanks to our inability to live any other way than we do right now. I read that daffodils were blooming in late October around the Twin Cities. They were clearly confused. Today's temps will certainly discourage any more of that behavior.

Bitter wind from the west

It's finally cold. Today the temp was 35 degres, with a howling wind that apparently topped 30 MPH. Certainly not hurricane force, but strong enough to blow the leaves around.
Minnesota Harvest Photo
At my place of employment, we sit under the SE approach to MSP airport. When the planes pass overhead, they are about two miles off the runway, and today those NWA birds with the red tails were bouncing in the gale. I thought of the pilots quickly needing to adjust to winter flying conditions--they've had it easy for so many months.

Medical miracle

There was an op-ed piece in the Strib the other day about the writer's encounter with the Chinese medical system. He marvelled at its primitive (to our eyes) nature, its ready availability and its cheapness. All true, no doubt, but I can top that.

In 2006, I fell and busted my nose on the High Street in Dalkeith, Scotland. I didn't think it was broken, but it wouldn't stop bleeding, and being vain, I was worried about scarring. It was a Bank Holiday, and the local clinic was closed. So, off I went in a taxi to the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh casualty ward. The taxi was by far the most expensive part of the experience.

I presented myself at the desk, where the admissions clerk asked me my name and my age. That was it. Than I waited for about 45 minutes -- it was a holiday, after all -- and was then seen by a nurse, who asked me my name, my age, and whether I was allergic to anything. I then waited about 10 minutes more and was called back to a cube where I saw the great man himself, the head of the famous internship program. Apparently the most senior staff pull shifts on holidays. He was busy, trying to secure a place at some hospital in England for one of his students and kept darting in and out. But he was clearly tickled to have a Yank on his couch. "You're not from around here," was his little Scottish joke.

But here's the thing: he patched me up, lectured me about why stitches wouldn't work on a nose, and sent me on my way. It cost nothing except the cab ride. Think about the hours of paperwork saved. Why is it so difficult for us to even think about a system along these lines? The only people who benefit now are the insurance claim processing companies and their parent corporations. Do we care so much about them?

And the blood spots stayed on the High Street pavement for many weeks, despite the daily drizzle.

Scandal at MNDOT

Apparently even Republican appointees are capable of questionable behavior. Sonia Pitt, a career employee of the Minnesota Department of Transportation, was elevated to a senior position in 2003 by republican governor Pawlenty. In charge of emergency management for the department, Ms. Pitt declined to return to the state after the 1-35 W bridge collapse in August 2007 because she was hanging out with her boyfried in DC. The boyfriend, a federal transportation department guy, was the recipient of hundreds of emails, cell phone calls and visits, all paid for by the tax payers of Minnesota. And Ms. Pitt apparently was so blinded by luv that she didn't have the grace to show the flag after the bridge collapse. "I can work from here just fine" was her response to questions about her whereabouts.

Here's another example of how the insertion of politics into what should be merit-based positions hurts the rest of us. Ms. Pitt was a marketer when she was promoted to head the emergency prepardeness section at a cost of $84,000+ and very nice state benefits. In the Northstar state, that's a good salary. And, as a marketer myself, I know that such jobs are good preparation only for other such jobs.

That's why we are supposed to have a civil service. The so-called experts are protected from political retaliation, in return for which we are supposed to believe that they are working hard for us. In Sonia's case, she was clearly using the state dime to get her own needs met.

And apparently that's only the tip of the iceberg.

Ghost cats

Even though they've been gone for several months, I keep seeing black cats. A pouring rainstorm brings the fleeting thought: I've got to get them inside. A pair of jeans tossed on the white bedspread in a dark room brings irritation: She's sleeping on the bed again. A marauding tom cat in the middle of the night makes me worry about the big tom: Hope he's close to the house. An old coupon for cat food reminds me: Gotta stock up.

Their elusive presence is surprising. But, even in their elderly, sick, last days, they were out of sight as much as front and center. They were not ever-present. In short, they were independent cats. These nano-second reminders are the way it was when they were alive. They would suddenly appear after an absence spent under the bed or across the street. They would pretend that we were the center of their world for those few moments it took them to convince us to feed them. Then they would disappear again.

So even though they don't personally appear any more, our minds are conditioned to have them pop up unexpectedly. That's the cat way.

Barak story

During his sojourn at the University of Chicago, Joe College Grad lived in an apartment in Hyde Park, across the street from Barak Obama's place. How close it was I don't know, but close enough to make this a story.

Anyway, Joe, as college students often do, had a party to which he invited several hundred of his close, personal friends. That part is clear. The next bit gets a tad murky.

Bottom line: some of Joe's friends got a bit excited and began throwing stuff, or in some versions of the tale, shooting a BB gun at Barak's building. Who knows...

Bottom line: Chicago Police department officers or secret service guys--I suspect Joe doesn't know--arrived at the scene of the party, asking to be invited in. And maybe this has nothing to do with guns, rock throwing, or other juvenile attacks on the senator from Illinois. Maybe the neighbors were sick of the noise emanating from Joe's place. However, whatever the cause of their arrival, the cops were denied admission to the student apartment. Joe wouldn't let them in because they didn't have a warrant. Every penny spent at the U of C was worth it....

And Joe is a solid Barak fan. It turns out Barak doesn't live in the neighborhood anymore. Probably those students got to him.

Hillary story

Back in the age of dinosaurs, in the early spring of 1992, Hillary Rodham Clinton came to Eau Claire, Wisconsin, on behalf of candidate Bill. The rally was held in one of the general aviation hangars at the Eau Claire County airport. There weren't too many of us -- maybe 200 or so. We went because OLGS briefly went to the same high school as Hillary Rodham, although not at the same time. That he is now a fervid supporter of the Hillary for Prexy movement has absolutely nothing to do with this, or so he tells me.

Anyway, we paced around in the back because at the time Joe High School was in his stroller -- pre verbal but quite active. As we stood around listening to her tell us why Bill would be a great president, he began shaking his wooden rattle, which made a lovely clacking noise. He was quite insistent on listening to this lovely sound. Soon, a secret service guy in expensive shoes came over to inform us that Joe was making far too much noise and we should quiet him down. Of course, taking the rattle away only set him off more, and he started to howl and cry. We then gave him back the rattle, which he shook and beat on the edge of the stroller. The SS guy scowled at us.

When she was finished spelling out the virtues of Bill, Hillary worked her way around the hangar, shaking hands and smilling, the good politician's wife. When she got to us, she apologized for the officiousness of the SS guy, cootchy-cooed Joe, and exchanged reminiscences about Downer's Grove North, in suburban Chicago.

It's all about the personal connection, you know. OLGS has been a fan ever since.

Next up: Barak story.

Sick kids, sick government

I can't stand it. Current Occupant can say with a straight face that we cannot afford to pay the paltry $12 billion to cover poor children because they aren't really poor (yup, he did say that) and besides, we just can't afford it.

But it's fine to spend untold zillions on a war that is achieving absolutely nothing. The only people that are gaining from the adventure in Iraq are the non-bid contractors and private security firms. Otherwise, it's a total waste. But that is OK with George. And he has the gall to have his minions in the defense department ask for even more, 'cause we all know that throwing money at a problem is the way to solve it, right?

Am I missing something here?

Fall

This is my favorite season. This, rather than January 1st, seems to herald the start of the New Year for me. Maybe it's the school thing. Maybe it's the lovely weather. A lone goose flew overhead this evening, very low, trying to find its way back to the flock moving down the Mississippi flyway. It was honking furiously as it sought its fellow travellers.

Catless after all these years

Judy the cat died on Thursday evening. She had been off-feed for two days, but continued to drink water. Her head congestion was worse. Then she apparently had a stroke, as her back legs didn't work for a half day before her death. While we were watching TV in the evening, she came down, or fell down, the stairs, cried a few times, and died within ten minutes. OLGS (and I must admit, I, too) was touched by the thought that she wanted to be with us in her last moments.

It's amazing how still a dead body is. The notion that people are not dead, but only sleeping until the last judgment, must have been developed by someone who hadn't seen many or any dead bodies.

We are now catless for the first time in more than 30 years. It will be a while before we can replace them. Judy was a mighty huntress, even in her later years, although her victims got smaller and smaller. She seemed to specialize in baby rabbits. It was awful.

She was also amazingly sociable. At her last event, the neighborhood cookout on Labor Day, she sat in front of the grill, oblivious to the 25 people milling around. She was clearly waiting for something meaty to fall to the ground; she was very patient. We finally had to move her out of the line of traffic. She loved parties and being the center of attention.

She was a smart, smart cat. She had us eating out of the palm of her paw. We fed her shrimp, sour cream, and other tidbits. The boys loved her, especially Joe College Grad. He spent several hours patting and grooming her the day before she died. She went to the great catfood factory in the sky with an excellent fur coat.

Minneapolis Bridge Disaster

They opened up the 10th Avenue Bridge, which runs parallel to the 35W Bridge that collapsed in August. This has the best vantage point of the collapsed bridge, and today there were hundreds of people walking on it, staring at the mangled rebar, chunks of concrete, and the long span that runs at a 75 degree angle from University Avenue down to the Mississippi. It looks like a massive skateboard park for really good skaters.

The 10th Avenue Bridge sidewalk was full of families, either on their way back from the Gophers football game (they won) or visiting the kids on the first weekend after the start of the semester. An odd destination for a family outing, but it is a compelling view. From one angle, the bridge just stops. But from the 10th Avenue side, you are about 200 feet from the structure. You can see very clearly that the bridge does not stop, but continues down into the muddy waters of the Mississippi. It's rather chilling.

And now that the 10th Avenue Bridge is open, I can get to my gig at the University libraries much more quickly.

Back to School

Here it is again. This calendar has governed my whole life, spent on the periphery of academe as it has been. OLGS started today, although he had no classes. But he did have 45 freshmen advisees. Joe High School and Joe College also started today. Joe High School has a schedule that includes two classes he's already taken before. They don't have the teachers and sections at Minneapolis South High to give him what he requested, but I will not allow him to take classes he's already taken. I can't begin to spell out how stupid that is. Joe College seems on track, although the AFSCME staff at the U of M are planning to strike on Wednesday. I've urged him to buy his books, but he hasn't. So unless they settle tonight, he (and 49,999 other students) is out of luck.

And so it goes, Academe is not a bad life, as such things go. But OLGS does not recommend it to either his students or his sons. Especially in public institutions, the urge to justify the educational activities of the place to the yahoos who provide the funding has lead to some truly nutso stuff. And the mossback legislators, all of whom benefitted from atending schools like the University of Wisconsin or the University of Minnesota, seem to feel that now that they and their children are out of college, it's OK to turn off the spiggot. Not surprising, but sad for the community, the state, and the country.

Minneapolis Airport

Steve Sack, Minneapolis Star Tribune

It's hard to contain myself. Senator Slimy, aka Larry Craig, was caught trolling for sex in a men's room in the Minneapolis airport. Seems ol' Larry comes through the Twin Cities regularly on his way back to Idaho to service (ahem) his constituents. He knew exactly where to go. What the Star Tribune and other fine journalistic organs did not tell you is that the location of this men's room is really not on the way to any gate. It's in the main concourse right outside security. If you just landed from Washington and you need to transfer to Boise or Pocatello, it's a good bet that you don't need to walk through the main concourse.

So, Star Tribune, get on the stick. Find out what Larry's flight numbers and gates were. And, while you're at it, tell us why you didn't break this story in June or July. Have the cuts made in the Strib reporting staff been so severe that you aren't able to have someone review the court cases for newsworthy and titillating stuff? You were scooped by a Washington insider paper.

That the airport uses its security resources to have an officer spending his shift in the men's room, sitting on the toilet and reading the paper, is a sad commentary on so many things that I don't know where to begin. But having a moralistic, gay bashing, conservative being caught with his pants down, so to speak, is too good to be true.

And Alberto Gonzales is no doubt thanking his lucky stars, if he has any, that Americans don't really care about substantive matters. Sex scandals trump violating the Constitution every time.

Minneapolis arts scene

There's a reason I won't live in Washington County, Maine, full time. It's certainly beautiful. But I'm a culture junky. And Minneapolis is a great place to indulge that particular weakness. It's affordable, accessible, and middle of the road enough to appeal to bourgeois types like myself.

Exhibit A: I spent 15 minutes figuring out our obligtions this fall and into the spring. We have a performance of some sort every other week. And that's with three sets of season tickets. And there is a little break in January. We have two sets of theater company tickets and one set of chamber orchestra tickets--the Park Square Theater, the Guthrie Theater, and the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra. It's a bargain that we can share with our kids--if we can't go, they can. And this doesn't take into account the free tickets that Joe High School receives as a result of his attendance at an inner city high school.

For less than $900 per year, OLGS and I can see world class performances of musicians and actors. And if you're not as snobbish as I am, you can see far more for far less. That is one of the primary reasons that I would prefer to live in Minnesota during the opera season, although I've been to the Minnesota Opera twice. But it's the thought that counts and the realty that matters.

You can't get there from here, or Minneapolis cleans up

Three miles of Interstate 94 are closed in downtown Minneapolis for the weekend. This stretch connects I-35W, where the bridge collapsed, with County Highway 280, which is now one of the official detours. The highway gnomes are widening it (i.e., eliminating the breakdown and bus lanes) so that it can handle all the extra traffic caused by the need to manoeuver around the missing 35-W bridge.

It is amazing how fast highway construction crews can move when they really have to. Even though it's been raining all day, they are at work. Last night, we were in one of the last cars onto I-94 before it closed until Monday at 5 AM. The westbound side, already closed, was ablaze with huge floodlights and busy with activity as workers knocked down fences, uprooted metal barriers, and painted new lines.

In normal circumstances, this project would take a whole summer. But because there is no alternative, and traffic has been a total mess for three weeks, it will be done by Monday. Makes one think, yes?

When children return

Joe College Grad and girlfriend moved to Minneapolis. It was a saga getting them out of NYC--Joe College drove to New York, helped them pack, and drove them back to the Little Apple. They are looking for jobs and an apartment while they live upstairs with Joe High School, who had been looking forward to spreading out into the empty rooms and having the bathroom all to himself. My deadline for them is September 1, and it is fast approaching, with little movement on either the job or the apartment front.

They seem depressed, adrift, and without a well-thought-out plan. The skills required to get through the University of Chicago or teach first grade in the Bronx do not seem to translate to the real world. Joe's girl has never been outside New York. So this move represents many challenges for her. Let's hope the whole enterprise works.

Washington County, Maine

View of Lubec from West Quoddy Station

West Quoddy Lighthouse

Dennys River, Dennysville

OLGS and I (and an old school friend who joined us at the last minute), visited Washington County, Maine, the easternmost county in the United States. We went to eat lobster, soak up some of the amazing light, and see whether we wanted to buy or build a second home for our sunset years. Those are fast approaching....

The trip was a disaster as far at getting there was concerned, all thanks to Northwest Airlines. We missed the connection in Detroit because of weather, and couldn't even get to Bangor until 11:00 PM, so went to Portland instead and drove to Bangor. Coming home, we landed in Minneapolis 30 minutes early, and then sat on the runway for 40 minutes because lightning at the airport pulled all the jetway and ground crew workers inside. And they lost our luggage on the inbound leg of the trip.

Frustrating, but being delayed did give us a chance to eat at the Eagle's Nest in Brewer. There are large people eating large portions of food, all enjoying the nice view of the Penobscot River. We saw no eagles, but we did see some otters or muskrats swimming against the tide--if such animals actually venture into salt water. Dinner was really, really, good. The menu calls the lobster roll the "famous" lobster roll. It is deservedly famous.

We had lobster every day while in Maine. Interestingly, the best was in Brewer at the Eagle's Nest and on our way home, in Hallowell, Maine, near the state capital in Augusta. There we had some really good lobster stew. Both Bangor and Hallowell are interior cities, and not on the coast. And did I mention that we stayed in the Coast Guard station near the lighthouse?

Washington County is very poor, as it has been since the lumber industry moved west to Wisconsin and Minnesota. Half of the land and buildings are for sale. This makes it good for folks from away, like ourselves. They need our money; we need their lobster and their light and their access to the sea, which is all around them. And in the real estate agent's office, when we acknowledged we were from Minnesota, we received an outpouring of sadness for the victims of the bridge.

Minneapolis Disaster

From the Guardian

It's hard to write about. An interstate bridge less than two miles from my house, and one that I drive on at least weekly, collapsed during rush hour. An unknown (as of 8/2/07) number of people died; there are still cars at the bottom of the Mississippi River. Witnesses said it was like an earthquake--there was a vibration, a grinding noise, and the structure collapsed with no warning.

I don't personally know anyone who was on the bridge, was injured, or died. But I did talk with one colleague whose husband drove on the bridge an hour before it collapsed. She was shaken. Another co-worker sent out an email about a colleague of her husband's who is missing after the accident; if he has died, he leaves behind four children and a wife who is an East African immigrant. My immediate supervisor has a friend whose fiancee was critically injured; the boss left work at noon to go to the hospital to be with his friend.

Why do we have to have disasters like this for anyone to pay attention to the needs and safety of ordinary citizens driving from work, to a Twins game (they lost), or to the shops? It's a cliche, but we are apparently quite willing and able to spend billions in Iraq and elsewhere on imperialist adventures, but we cannot find the resources to repair bridges at a few million each. This is just nuts. And now we will spend lots of money to inspect interstate bridges throughout the country. This strikes me as a case of closing the barn door after the horse has gone.

Despite the posturing of our governor, it was heartwarming to hear the voices of Minnesotans, with their unmistakable accents, talking to the national media. They were earnest, sincere, and wanted to help. Why can't we do this all the time?

Elegy for a tom cat

Tom the cat died yesterday. The heat, his advanced age, and his off-the-charts hyperthyroidism got the better of him. His last few days were miserable. He now rests under a huge white impatiens plant in the flower bed where he spent most of his last summer days and nights, curled up on the wood chips in the shade.

He was a noble beast, huge in his prime, with a lion's big head and powerful shoulders. In his youth he was impetuous, taking on fights that always left him with wounds in his flanks, which some might see as evidence of cowardice, but that I saw as proof of his innate common sense. When he was outnumbered or outgunned, he ran.

He was never a great hunter, leaving that chore, as do his big cat cousins, to his sister. He guarded the perimeter of our house, fending off marauding visitors from across the street in endless stare-downs and with an inch-by-inch plan of attack that wore them down. At times he was more like a dog, wanting to be with people, following them around and begging for love. And he was more accepting than his sister when we took in a stray during a -30 degree spell one January. He was happy to ignore the interloper as long as the gravy train was still running in his direction. Until his last months, when his voice failed him, he had a loud croak that sounded like a cross between a Siamese and a crow. It was unmistakable.

He was a great cat who gave us 16 years of cat loyalty. In a species not known for this, at least among dog lovers, that's really something.

Sweet Sixteen

Remember the summer you were 16? I don't. Was that the summer I went to England by myself, or was it the summer before? Did I visit any of my out of town friends? Can't remember. And I suspect Joe High School won't either. What has he done this summer?

1. Been to swim practice twice.
2. Taken the classroom part of driver's ed.
3. Expanded his living space to two rooms, now that Luis has returned to Mexico.
4. Taken care of a couple of cats, plants, etc., for pay.
5. Lost his bike lock, rendering him immobile.
6. Gotten his ear pierced.
7. Bought the last Harry Potter at midnight on July 21st.

Looking at the list, it strikes me that he is probably typical, although maybe a bit more slothful than some. He is poised on the cusp of adulthood, but still reads Harry Potter. Of course, as soon as he's done, I'm going to read it, too. Just because I can't remember my youth doesn't mean I don't want to revisit it.

College Frenzy

It's started. Joe High School got his results from the AP tests he took this year--one in Chemistry, the other in US History. While we don't brag here at Domestic Tranquility, suffice it to say that he could use the scores for credit or exemption from prerequisites at Columbia or Princeton or Stanford. However, there's the little problem of his GPA in an inner city high school.

Pillsbury Hall, U of M

And an old friend is bringing his kid to check out a couple of local lights in the private college pantheon--Macalester and Carleton. Both good schools. But Joe, with a GPA barely scraping the top 15%, would probably not get in to either, despite the AP test results. These aren't the golden key they once were. But maybe lightening will strike. And it doesn't stop my bursting with pride at my baby's achievement.

Boomer blues

So much going on. Elderly dad not doing so well. Elderly mom coping, but exhausted. Young adult children need money, apparently supporting friends. Enabling sandwich generation parents wondering what to do. Anxiety producing times, but a story duplicated by the millions across the country as baby boomers finally come to grips with reality.

But what's truly amazing is the behavior of the two chief boomers, George and Dick. How can any sane person think that war with Iran would be a good thing, let alone something we could actually win? How does anyone accept with a straight face the juggling that is Dick's characterization of his position as VP not being part of the executive branch? How can one see George as anything more than a cardboard suit when he supports his master's maneuverings in public? And how can anyone see the commutation of ol' Scooter's sentence as anything more than payback for keeping mum?

And this was very, very clever. Scooter was not pardoned, and his conviction is being appealed. This means that he will not be able to testify before Congress for some time--maybe through 2008, because of the pending appeal. If everything goes correctly for George and Dick, the wheels of justice will grind exceeding slow. And the two chief boomers will leave their offices having avoided the reckoning that is surely theirs. It's enough to make one hope that Armageddon is real.

And it's clear from their actions and speach that Mutt and Jeff smoked a little too much wacky weed in those wonderful days gone by. We know that George indulged. We now have pretty clear evidence that Dick was a pothead too, leaving him with only a few brain cells to use to function as Veep. Too bad he didn't smoke more.

Minneapolis vigilantes and taggers

Don't think that all Minnesotans are nice. Exhibit A: Joe High School and about six of his friends, some on bikes and one in a car, parked bikes and car on East River Terrance and went to explore the abandoned box cars that sit on a railroad siding nearby. They left the bikes for a long time, moving on to other parts of the neighborhood. When they returned, the bikes were immobilized by padlocks through the gears. Both bikes and car had threatening notes suggesting that the kids were graffiti artists and gang members and that the note writer had pictures and license plate numbers. Joe is not a tagger--he can barely hold a pencil, let alone manipulate a spray can or fat marker. And there is nothing in the city ordinances that encourages individual citizens to act by targeting relatively innocent teens.

I was furious. Second precinct cops would not cut the locks, as the bike rack was on private property belong to St. Frances Cabrini church. Local neighborhood leaders shook their heads and reminded me that graffiti was a problem in that part of the neighborhood. The church administrator was unaware of any their neighbors taking matters into their own hands. The second precinct community liaison officer was not too surprised, partly because she knew about the neighborhood graffiti problem. But she did want to see the note, leading me to believe that maybe she had an idea. But I doubt it.

In addition to the inconvenience of Joe having his bike unavailable, this cost me work time and $20.00 for bolt cutters after our less sturdy ones broke. And then there are the threatening notes. Stay tuned. This ain't over.

And, lest you think that Minnesota is a totally blue state, remember the past. There's a history of vigilante action in this region that goes back to the beginning and continues to this day. That may be why no one seems especially surprised at or concerned with Joe's predicament.

Gratia Countryman and the Minneapolis Public Library

There was an op-ed piece in the Strib a few days ago by John Gonyou, singing the praises of Depression-era librarian Gratia Countryman. Gratia, the director of the Minneapolis Public Library (MPL) for many years, was unhampered by bureaucrats, unions, and, it seems, city government. She saw a need and she met it. The pull-back from Gratia's expansionist activities began as early as the 1950's, when MPL no longer provided deposit collections for public schools.

Although it would be wonderful to operate public libraries, and MPL in particular, in the spirit of Gratia, John Gonyou's piece is one more bit of romantic thinking about the state of public libraries in 2007. To put it bluntly, librarians missed the boat at least a decade ago, resisting the free, uncontrolled, and unevaluated information provided by the Internet. Because we abdicated management of the information explosion to the technies, the opportunity passed us by. At MPL, we insisted on purchasing obscure print business directories of foreign countries, such as Argentina, that were never used, perpetuating the just-in-case mentality that pervaded collecting at MPL. This is one example of the kind of thinking that contributed to the downfall of a great institution that was stuck in the past.

While being able to point to the existence of a comprehensive business collection, or the activities of an activist librarian like Gratia Countryman, is wonderful, it doesn't pay the bills. The librarians at Minneapolis Public Library committed the great sin of many public servants--we thought we knew better. We didn't.

Cat food, or there's something wrong with this picture

Judy the cat has made a remarkable comeback. It may be that she's getting her meds on a regular basis. But I think it's the shrimp. OLGS buys her the cheap frozen shrimp, chops it up, and squirts a dose of medicine on top. She laps it up. But think about it. Thousands of teenage girls in Bangladesh or similar spots labor over these tidbits. They never dream that the the little luxuries they're preparing will become the lifeblood of an elderly black cat in flyover land.

Minneapolis Public Library merger

The Governor

Let's see if I understand this correctly: RT Ryback, Minnapple's photogenic mayor, has been pushing the merger between Hennepin County Library and the Minneapolis Public Library systems, not because it will lead to an improvement in service for the citizens of Minneapolis, but because it will get the entire issue of MPL off his back. RT has demonstrated, in a variety of areas, that pushing the problem onto someone else is preferable to dealing with it. The current merger talks are just another bit of proof.

The Mayor

Anyway, the merger will cost $4 million. Does RT step up to the plate, offering any material support for the merger that he has been pushing? Nope. The gov., Mr. I-Might-be-Vice President-Some-Day Pawlenty, vetoed this, apparently because it gave no tax breaks to any of his friends in big business. So it's back to the drawing board, with RT put in the spotlight anyway. He only likes that spotlight when he turns it on himself. But let's give the guy credit. He has put himself in a good position to be the savior of the deal, the mayor on the white horse. And if he can pull this off, more power to him. This could be a legacy building effort, and RT would do well to pay attention and make this happen.

Post-Secondary Options in Minneapolis

Joe High School did not get into the University of Minnesota as a 10th grader, an admission that is theoretically possible. The U noted that neither his GPA or class rank fit the profile of admitted high school students. Things have changed. Joe College Grad, who was admitted to the U as junior eight years ago, had similar stats. The difference is that far more kids now apply to this high school program, known as PSEO (or some variation on this acronym, which stands for Post Secondary Education Option). And I bet they apply in larger numbers at least in part because public schools just don't have what they need. In the era of Pawlenty and his gang of tax-hating Republicans, the public schools in this state are shameful for a place that touts itself as an education state.

Anyway, that's why Joe wanted to go to the U--he wants to take AP Physics, which is no longer offered at Minneapolis South. He'll have to come up with a Plan B. Blaming his failure to get into the U entirely on Pawlenty is probably a bit unfair, but is entirely fair to blame the gov for the increasingly limited selection of course options at Minneapolis South.

Al Gore: Quixotic?

Heard Al on the radio tonight. He was pushing his new book, The Assault on Reason. Al may be stiff and wooden, but he is still a breath of fresh air. He spoke in complete sentences, making every word count. He skillfully danced around the interviewer's suggestion that he was calling Current Occupant a liar. And he used words like quixotic.

Although CO probably doesn't know the meaning of that word, and wouldn't use it if he did, it could apply to him if he actually had any whimsy about him. But he doesn't. We are locked in a trial by fire and sand organized by ideologues who are unable to say why we are getting blown up in the desert. They have dug us a hole so deep that no one can figure out how to climb out. That is not quixotic. That's stupid.

Wolfie

Unbelievable! One of the main promoters of the disaster in Iraq, Paul Wolfowitz, has been brought down (finally) by penny-ante corruption. The fact that in some countries he might be considered a war criminal is unimportant. But cronyism--now that's serious.

And the pronouncements by Current Occupant on the matter reinforce my impression that loyalty to one's friends is the most important value, even if those friends are venial, arrogant, and corrupt. Heckuva job.

Boston and points west

Another trip, this time to Boston to visit the old folks. My frequent flyer miles on NWA are getting up there. And, speaking of NWA, Terminal E at Logan, into which Northwest flies, is almost complete. It's only been 15 years.

Signs of the times: on the Massachusetts Turnpike, there are notices every quarter mile announcing the forthcoming toll booths, with an exhortation to provide correct change. However, the signs neglect to tell you the amount of the toll. Am I missing something? Or is this yet another example of "If you have to ask, you don't belong here?"

Ground Zero from the 37th floor

Another trip to New York, this time courtesy of those nice folks in Eagan, where I was accomodated at a fine Hilton hotel abutting Ground Zero. From the 37th floor, the hole in the ground was filled with little ants, toy PATH trains, and Tonka trucks pointlessly moving earth around in anticipation of another monument to capitalism.

And that is the point. Current Occupant shamelessly used the events of September 11, 2001, to give himself a free ride for the next four years, telling lies, invoking false memories, and playing to the worst in the American psyche. We are better than this, and should not be goaded into war by toys and by boys like the Current Occupant who play with them. The number who want to play with him is diminishing, but he does have all the marbles, so there are some who will continue to play just to stay in the game, engaging in the military-industrial equivalent of tearing the wings off flies.

Joe College Grad visited briefly, after telling me he was not feeling well and was going to bed. I returned from a lovely evening with the client to find, like Goldilocks, that someone was sleeping in my bed, watching my TV, and eating from my minibar. He was feverish and should not have come, but it was great to see him. He's counting the days until his gig at PS107 ends. Getting through the University of Chicago in four years is nothing compared to the challenge of teaching in the NYC public schools.

It is easy to focus on the personal and local, ignoring the damage we have wrought throughout the world. But when I remember those middle class Iraquis who are living in squalor in Syria, and whose dreams for their own children are now unattainable, it doesn't bear thinking about. They don't have the luxury we do, of ignoring the disaster that is the Middle East, complaining about the price of gas, and scheming to get our kids into Duke. This is not a game to them, and it should not be to us.

Film Festival

No posts for days and days. Elderly cat is stable, Michele Bachmann is quiet, and Current Occupant is on his downward spiral, rumored to be drinking and begging Laura to stay. Life in cube land continues to be boring. Spring has come to Gotham-on-the-Prairie. In short, not much is happening.

And then, along comes the Minneapolis St. Paul International Film Festival. Apart from the fact there are no screenings in St. Paul, the title says it all. There's a nice array of movies at different film palaces around town. Some of the films will be in general release before long, while others would never otherwise be seen.

There does seem to be a large number of Norwegian films. Given where and who we are, AND the presence of a Norwegian consulate in Minneapolis, AND that said consultate was the sponsor of several of the screenings, this is probably not surprising. However, the lack of African films is pretty remarkable. They have an entire semester class devoted to African film at the University going on right now. In fact, Joe College is (allegedly) taking the class. There are clearly African films available that are worthy of study. But not many of them made the cut in Minneapolis. Given that this area is home to a large East African refugee/immigrant population, including the largest Somali population in the US, it might make sense to include more African films. As we all know, the flood of Norwegian immigrants ended sometime prior to the Boer War....note to Minnesota Film Arts for next year: remember where you are.

So far we've seen German and French comedies. Our next outing will be to a Romanian movie on Friday. That will probably be it, given our lack of time to spend hours each day in a movie theater, enticing though that may sound. And that's undoubtedly why most of the congregation at the screenings appears to be of retirement age....they don't have to get up the next morning.

Private industry--a view from inside cubeland

Let's talk about paternalistic employers. To be specific, let's discuss a large publishing firm in suburban St. Paul. You know the one I mean--the one that is trying to get tax breaks from the City of Eagan to expand its "campus", using the carrot of more jobs, and the stick of pulling up stakes and moving to Podunk, OK.

Don't get me wrong. It's not a bad place to work, as private industry employers go. However, the pay stinks, they are continually upping the production expectations, and the physical environment is something out of Dilbert--miles and miles of cubes and a party-hearty atmosphere among the 20-somethings that make up the bulk of the workforce. I wear headphones cranked up to top volume. Losing a bit of hearing is a small price to pay for not being forced to listen to 10 no-doubt fascinating conversations at once.

Anyway, this organization, number 55 on Computerworld's Best Places to Work in IT, possibly to compensate for its shortcomings, offers its employees lots of little perks. There's the free fruit on Tuesdays and Thursdays. There's the turkey at Thanksgiving. There's the free coffee, milk, and tea. There are the subsidized cafeterias, with each day's lunch menu published on the company web site so you can make your dining selection before you get in line. There's the in-house Carribou Coffee, reputed to be the busiest one in the Twin Cities. There's the dry cleaning pickup. There is the subsidized health club membership. There are the discounted Twins tickets. There's the ability to purchase Word software for $20. And on, and on.

But, since most of us do not take advantage of these perks to make up for the paltry pay, there is really only one good thing about this organization, at least from the point of view of a lowly writer like myself. And that is that everyone is smart. Everyone. And that makes those conversations by the metaphorical water cooler, or the ones I don my headphones to drown out, very interesting. And that is indeed worth the price of admission--almost.

Cat tails

My excuse for not posting for a week is the sick cat. She was a mess last week, and I got OLGS to take her to the vet, where expensive bloodwork revealed what we already knew. Her thyroid is out of whack, and we haven't been giving her the medication that regulates it. OLGS hates to upset her, and giving her medication upsets her. So he doesn't.

But the vet implied, not very subtly, that if we weren't going to follow doctors orders, we might as well put her down. So for the past week, I've turned into a screaming banshee on the subject of cat meds. I will not let OLGS shirk his duty, which is to hold her down while I shoot the stuff into her mouth. And she is better. Input equals output....

My excellent adventure in New York

Don't let anyone tell you that New Yorkers are cold, unhelpful, etc. Not true. In fact, they love to show off. If you are befuddled about the bus cards (no money is allowed for bus fare--you have to purchase a card), they jump in. If you want to know which subway goes where, they are delighted to tell you.

OLGS and I went to NYC for a very quick visit, ostensibly to help Joe College Grad with some stuff, but that was an excuse. We went to the theater, had wonderful bus rides, ate in little Italy, visited Orchard Street (see photo, left), and had lunch with long lost relatives. OLGS did some family history research at City Hall (incidentally, a beautiful building). We visited ground zero and St. Paul's Church nearby. All this and more we did in less than three days.

New York is expensive, so take plenty of cash or a well-funded credit card. And, if you can avoid it, don't fly into Kennedy. The cheap air fare is offset by the fact that it costs a fortune in time and money to get there.

Farwell to MPL

It will probably happen. The Minneapolis Public Library (MPL) will be swallowed up by Hennepin County Public Library. In some ways this is a very good thing, and probably inevitable. In fact, there are members of the MPL staff who believe that the hiring of the current director was engineered to accomplish what has now come to pass. I've always believed that people aren't really smart enough to institute conspiracies at this level. I'm also willing to admit that I may be wrong.

However, whether or not this is the case is fairly irrelevant. MPL is a dinosaur. It has had a collecting policiy for many, many, years that was out of the mainstream of public library practice. The beautiful new building, and the satellite at the caverns at the U of M, house thousands of volumes of books that have never been read, and will never be read. In some cases, there are even two copies of these books. This represents the "just in case" thinking that once prevailed in libraries and in businesses. This is a really expensive way to run a railroad, or library, and has contributed in some measure to the financial disaster that is MPL. It is horribly out of fashion, and very expensive.

Hennepin County Library, in contrast, is a "just in time" organization. The money goes to where it is demonstrably needed, rather than where it might be needed based on annecdotal evidence. Hennepin County is a rational library. Minneapolis Public Library runs on impressions, past practice, and guesswork. HCL is a modern library, and has won many awards and kudos. MPL, in contrast, has a low per volume and per capita circulation right up there with other dinosaurs such as Cleveland and St. Louis library systems.

However, the dinosaur library somehow represents the best in our city. It has an old fashioned, endearing quality. It caters to the kooks, the cranks, the artists, and the weird. It has collections that no one west of New York possesses on the slim chance that someone might want to use them. It does not discriminate based on the popularity of a book title, as HCL does. The tyrannical majority has not ruled at MPL until recently.

And so, even though it will almost certainly happen despite the serious practical obstacles to a merger, I feel a little wistful. MPL represents an effort to hold back the onslaught of cookie-cutter culture that the wildly successful libraries in Hennepin County promote. If the merger results in MPL abandoning its idiosyncratic collections, we will be a much less rich community.

We will be, in fact, a cold Omaha. While I'm sure Omaha is a perfectly fine place, it does not have a reputation as a fine, interesting, place. We need diversity to retain our competitive edge, and the death of MPL will be one more attack on diversity and one more step toward boring mediocrity.

March snow

Well, technically not March. But almost, and this amount of snow is more typical of March. There are two feet on the ground in Minneapolis. Lots of stuff closed--schools, corporations, libraries, churches. But it was a one day wonder. The plows came out, the salt trucks contributed to the degradation of the environment, and people put on their boots and shoveled out. "This", they said to themselves, "is what makes us different and (dare we say) better."

Michele does it again--gotta love democracy

Illustration by Robin Eley for City Pages

Where do we get these guys? The home of Paul Wellstone and Walter Mondale is also the place that elected Michele Bachmann, dubbed "Our nation’s loopiest congresslady" by the blog Wonkette. And is she ever. In addition to her other weird behavior, Michele is the "author" of a plan to use Personal Rapid Transit, a genuine dog of an idea, to solve the nation's transit problems. Of course, if you are paying attention, you'll have noted the word "personal" in the title of the scheme, which should tell you everything you need to know. The idea is that you can support "rapid" transit while still being a total loner, far from the madding crowd, serene in your individuality, and never rubbing shoulders (or in Michele's case, lips), with anyone else.
Just when you thought that Minnesota was too cold, too dry, too Norwegian, and too boring to be livable or interesting, along comes Michele to offer a bit of comic relief. And if we go to war in Iran because of Michele, we are dumber than we look.

And did you know that Michele was once a Jimmy Carter Democrat?

The end of the high school swimming season....sigh

Joe High School acquitted himself amazingly well at the sectional swim meet for the Twin Cities. He took four seconds off his 500 yard frestyle, coming in 5th for the region. While not enough to get him to the state tournament, he's determined to get there next year. College scouts, take note!