So Very Hot or Why Jen Loves Winter

It’s the end of August and it’s 90 degrees in Michigan.

I would write more about how that’s a travesty and how this summer has been unconscionably warm and how if I wanted to suffer through temps in the 90’s with 100% humidity I would move to a southern state, thank you very much. I would write all those things but I’m hot and sweaty and desperate to focus on something else.

Winter! Winter is my favorite season. Don’t get me wrong, I love the newness of spring, the green grass and rainstorms of summer and the crisp air of fall, but nothing beats out winter. There is just something about that season that refreshes me, and it’s not just the fact that the temperature is finally tolerable. 

 

I love the way the snow shines in the sun and then sparkles like glitter in the moonlight. I love how a good snowfall mutes the world around you. I love the way that the air freezes your nose when you take a deep breath. I love the grey skies and muted  sunlight that characterize a Michigan winter. I love how being out at night seems safer when snow makes the world look not as dark. I love breathing through scarves and wearing mittens and clomping around in boots. I love how snow can look like giant clumps or delicate wisps of lace and all the  descriptions in between. I love standing on a vent and feeling the rush of warmth when the heat kicks on. I love that you can walk outside when it snows without getting really wet. I love that you can watch snow melt off your sleeve when you walk into a building. I love the sound of snowplows in the early morning hours, how they scrape and rumble through the streets like monsters. I love how getting through a big winter storm makes us feel like we survived and conquered nature.  I love ‘bitterly cold’. I love silent precipitation. I love salt stains on boots and shoes and the legs of your jeans.  I love the bite of cold when you first step outdoors, like the air is attacking you all over. I love hot chocolate and chili and mugs of soup. I love Halloween in snowsuits, Thanksgiving in sweaters and Christmas morning in thick socks.

I love Christmas lights and snowmen and wreaths hanging from lampposts.  I love pine trees laden down with thick blankets of snow. I love trees and bushes, barren of their greenery, carefully dusted with white.  I love that any bit of color seems like a special treat in the midst of the grays and whites of winter. I love the pattern of iced over windows. I love the smell of fireplaces, the pop of the burning wood. I love the chill of the bathroom floor in the morning and the warmth under a pile of blankets at night. I love that snow can feel soft and gentle or overwhelming and scary. I love being allowed to stomp your feet whenever you go inside.  I love that the house is quieter with all the windows shut.  I love the feel of frozen grass and the view of tiny blades through a dusting of snow, a promise of spring to come. I love icicles hanging from the eaves of houses. I love the crack of ice over old snow when you walk over it. I love trying to catch snowflakes on your tongue and ending up with them on your eyelashes. I love cold toes and dirty street slush and sneezing and drafty windows. There really is nothing about winter that I don’t love.

It’s going to be September in two days and while I’m afraid that summer and the heat isn’t going to easily give up it’s hold on Michigan, I’m excited that winter is just around the bend.

Goodies from the Farmers Market

Made a trip to the East Lansing Famer’s Market and it was awesome. One of the most ‘markety’ type of farmers market in the area. It actually reminded me a lot of the Grand Rapids one I went to with Katie (I miss you and your market Katie!) with lots of food, flowers and even live music!

 

I got in line first thing to get an apple cider slushie. Which was cold, delicious and smelled like fall. I love cider, and this was a new and very tasty way to drink it. Seems everyone else loved it too because I waited in line for 5 minutes before I was able to get a taste. I also picked up a fresh veggie spring roll which tasted amazing as well. I love farmers market food! 

Because it’s a farmers market and because it’s in East Lansing, the prices were a bit high on certain items. But everything looked really good and the booths were well stocked and clean. They had two baked goods booths and my sister bought focaccia bread at one while I picked up dried cherry and walnut bread from the other booth, which turned out to be a home bakery based out of Holt. We chatted for a bit and I tried their sourdough havarti which was insanely good. There was also croissants that were almost a foot long that I wanted to bring home and make a whole meal of, but sadly they only had almond ones left.

 

Of course there was a flower purchase, it seems wrong to come home from a market without it. We also picked up spicy peppers for my brother and oddly enough, light bulbs. The recycling center had a booth where they were giving out CFL bulbs for free so we each grabbed some. They also had pens made from recycled denim but I missed those and despite my begging, my sister refused to give hers up.

Our local market in Holt is heavy on crafts so it’s always a letdown to shop there. The Benjamin Davis market in Lansing is less on the crafty side, but it’s small so the selection is limited. I was very impressed with the number of booths and the diversity of the selection. Everything from goat cheese to smoked whitefish from Sault Ste Marie. They even had a section with staples like flour and sugar. The only things I didn’t see (and could have been there but I missed) were coffee and eggs.  It was a very fun experience and definitely the market where I want to shop from now on. 

Zombie brain likes computers

I had a dream in which I was desperate to get to a computer. Any computer, I just needed to type something. There was something about running through the food court in a mall and then running from a herd of bats (or whatever you call a group of bats). Eventually, in my dream, I made it to a laptop, booted it up and typed whatever I needed to type.

Which is when I woke up and realized I had booted up my laptop and started typing stuff. Because apparently sleepwalking for me includes sleepcomputing.

I’m going to try and go back to sleep now, with my computer put on the other side of the room and hope to dream about normal things like ferris wheels and showing up at work in just your undies.

Oh, and for curosity’s sake, here’s what I typed: “FOSTER SPACH GGFIL COME FOSTER  WIWE NOR OTHERS”

I’m not really sure either.

My Two Loves

Sitting in the floor of my Aunt’s house, we chatted about memories. She passed across letters and Christmas cards saved for decades, I poured over newspaper clippings and paycheck stubs from the 50’s. It was an afternoon spent in the past and we both enjoyed it immensely. My Aunt loves to reminisce, to think back and then to share with future generations. I love history, the whys and whos of my family.

I also love snooping…the true hobby of a good anthropologist.

Some of my favorite finds were letters from my mom when she was younger of a Thanksgiving dinner she cooked after her mother died. It was a proud letter detailing just how well the dinner had come off, even though she had somehow added sugar to the cornbread. Then later we came across a letter from my grandfather, chronicling the same holiday feast. One of the first things he wrote? Sugared cornbread. I read a lot of letters but it was getting these two about the same event that was so special. While my mother is still around today, I’ll never meet the cautious teenager she used to be, paying careful attention to a recipe for a dish she hadn’t had to make before. I’ve never met my grandfather and it was like listening to him as I read his careful words on paper, “to my dear ones in Michigan”.

Of course, my favorite had to be the newspapers. I love old newspapers. The vivid history on the front page, the polite editorials, the ads for cheap groceries littered throughout, I even love looking at the forecast! My Aunt had a decent collection, some of important events, some with personal announcements and some that she obviously just felt like keeping but can’t remember the reason why any longer.

Out of all the clippings,  this page is my favorite because of the sentiment in the middle. I’m a sucker for romance. My uncle loved my aunt so very much.

Picture Roundup

Gather round, lil cowpokes! I don’t have ideas for a post, so I’m just going to post some recent photos.

Fresh-from-the-garden bruschetta. Yay cooking!

 

Lonely bird on a wire against a pastel sunset.

In flower language, Birdsfoot Trefoil means revenge. Just so you know.

“Yo man, sup?”

What I’m Listening To

Night Squall by Balmorhea is one of my new favorite instrumental pieces. I’m not sure if I like it because it’s beautifully done or if it’s because it’s so full of emotion but it really is worth a listen.

The Thursday Cultural Trifecta

Went to a live concert, saw art and watched a play all in one night. Okay, the play was actually a DVD of Hugh Jackman in Oklahoma…but it counts. The art portion of our night was at the site of this motel in Lansing that’s soon to be turned down. The city invited graffiti artists to come and use the hotel as their canvas before it’s demolished and the community was invited to stop by and see their work. Really, it was amazing. Not only to be able to see the great art created, but to walk around it and interact. Judging by the fact that there was a crowd of people at 8:00pm on a Thursday wandering all over this abandoned hotel, Lansing should find more ways to create art installations. These are just a few of my favorite shots from the night.

 

 

 

 

Scary Movies and Sister Time

My little sister and I have a long history of watching movies together. When we were younger my sister was the kind of kid who loved to be outside with her friends while I was content to be reading or writing inside. Watching movies together was a way for us to hang out and do some sisterly bonding. Over the years we’ve changed the types of movies we’ve watched, but sitting on a couch and sharing snacks while glued to the screen is something that’s stayed the same.

My mother raised no wimps and we all watched Chuck Norris movies as kids. If Chuck was going to be saving people by kicking them in the face, my family was going to watch him do it. Action movies were a big deal in my house, but our favorites were the ones that involved kids. Russkies, Red Dawn and The Rescue. Oh, people remaking Red Dawn…I know that you’re going to do your best but I don’t know that you’ll ever surpass the scene where Jed is holding Mattie and says “Daddy’ll be here soon.” Makes us cry every time! We watch The Rescue to cheer, especially when Bobby has to flash his Springsteen t-shirt in order to keep their plane from being shot down. Yeah, that’s right. Springsteen T-shirt vs fighter jets. I love the 80’s.

Being girls, it wasn’t long before me and my sister choose movies based on the cute boy factor. It didn’t have to be a good movie, just had to have eye candy on the front cover. That’s fine though, since it led us to the Breakfast Club and Newsies. Both of which are movies that we still watch. We tracked down a youtube version of Newsies a few months ago and last year we went to see The Breakfast Club on the big screen of our local theaters classics series. Fun fact: After watching Newsies in 1992, my sister and I spent several hours in our basement coming up with new dance routines for the Newsies soundtrack. I’m totally biased and all, but I think we rocked.

Sci-fi and fantasy has always been a staple in our movie times. As kids we watched D.A.R.Y.L. and Flight of the Navigator and Star Trek. And of course the multiple rewatches of The Neverending Story. My sister loved Atreyu deeply. I wanted to ride on Falcor. Lately we’ve graduated to Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings and Twilight. I’m still trying to get her to watch Doctor Who, which I know it isn’t a movie but it counts because I’m writing this and because it really annoys me that she won’t even watch. (Mocking it in a hotel room in K.C. doesn’t count, Katie!)

The love of the musical is a love taught us by our mother. The King and I, South Pacific, Flower Drum Song were familiar films to us. We sang along to White Christmas every year and grew up only knowing how to spell Oklahoma if we could sing it out. In the 80’s we got updates to the music-driven movie with flicks like Footloose and Dirty Dancing (which we weren’t allowed to watch until we got older). Most of the musicals we watched in the 90’s were Disney animated films, which produced awesome music and had good plots to boot. But we’ve got plenty of musicals to watch now and we often get together to watch The Producers, Mamma-Mia, Bride and Prejudice, and Joseph and The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.

One of the movie types that we watch now that we didn’t as children is scary movies. My mom isn’t a big scary movie fan so we didn’t watch many, if any, horror flicks as children and teens. But as adults, Lily and I have seen our fair share of scary flicks. We even have a whole method of watching – she is less freaked out when she covers her ears during the scary parts and I do better when I can hold onto someone. So when the scary music starts to play or the damsel in distress ignores logic and goes to check out that spooky sound, we lean towards each other and Lily covers her ears and I grab hold of her wrist and we both squint at the TV to minimize our chance of seeing the scariest bits. Tonight we got together to watch Paranormal Activity and despite the freaky movie, it was comforting to settle in front of a TV screen with my sister.

There may be something different playing on the screen and we may look different sitting in front of it. But there is a part of us that is the two little girls sharing a blanket on the couch and laughing as we watch a movie together.

Randomness

 

One day there were firefighters in the street. I put money in their boots and they let us pass.

 

 

 

Alongside the road from Okemos is a field full of sunshine.  My pictures do not do justice to just how cheerful this field is. I half expected there to be children running through the sunflower stalks.

 

 

 

This is probably the least happy I’ve been to vote. I hate when you feel as if you are picking between the lesser of two evils.