Let it Rain

The rain comes down in sheets, then cuts off, then drizzles, then falls so quiet you're not even sure it's here, and you have to watch a puddle in the street for ripples, and even then, it's hard to tell. Is it run-off from the overwhelming maple? Is it your eyes?

When it rains like this, you sometimes wish you were at home, and your dad was still farming because when it rains like this, everyone is happy. The crick swells, washes out the old and the dead. Water runs over the farm to market road, and you can become trapped. It's OK, because everyone is happy.

But you're a city kid now, and you're proud because your lawn is rocking the block, because when you reseeded, grass actually sprouted and it's now thick and lush, even if it's a different, brighter, green. And even if the peonies are too heavy, too drenched, to stand up straight, they bloomed.

They bloomed.

In the gray mornings, you like to sit out on the front stoop, just to look at the grass, and your flowers. You worry because your snapdragons aren't opening up like you want them to, and then you think how lucky that I worry about snapdragons. And then your bamboo windchime knocks hollow against itself, and you forget you had anything to worry about at all. Because it's raining, and that, in itself, is more than good or needed or wanted.

It's a miracle.

And if you aren't from here, if you didn't grow up next pines and prairie, and lakes and riverbanks, and sagebrush and switchgrass, and cattle and antelope, you don't know rain.

You want to store this water while you can.

Cowboy Capital of the World

Cody, Wyoming.

We're in God's Country now, boy.

Today, we traveled 385 miles, and it took nine hours to do that. We started out at the fish hatchery in Spearfish, which was beautiful and fun and awesome. We took in Devil's Tower and did some light boulder climbing (ie: stepped up on boulder, took pics, then stepped off of boulder), then drove through the Big Horn Mountains and acres and acres of sagebrush.

I love the names for everything here: The Dead Swede Campsite, Buffalo Tongue, Crazy Woman Creek, Dead Horse Creek Road, Dirty Annie's Convenience Store, Powder Creek. Ranchester, the Greybull Buffaloes, Sundance.

We saw:

Moose
Deer
Marmot
Sandhill Crane
Antelope
Chipmunk
Heron
Coyote
Beefalo

Quote of the Day:

Bridget's Mom: "I'm going to look at the Wyoming Orientation map."
Me, whispering to Bridge: "Why do they need to know our orientation?"

Word I am so Freakin' Sick Of:

"Pronghorn."

It's a flippin' antelope. For the love of all that is holy, call it a goddamn antelope.

Tomorrow, Yellowstone!

Road Blogging

On the road to Yellowstone National Park.

We drove 447 miles today.

It took us eleven hours to do that. In those eleven hours, we saw The Corn Palace, lots of gas stations, the beautiful Chamberlain vista, cool trestle bridges, the SoDak Badlands, 64,000 prairie dogs, 37,000 antelope, and one magpie.

I learned that "West River" is one big billboard. NoDak is soooo not like that. We are quiet about our cheap jewerly and bad tourist traps.

After a round of swimming in the Holiday Inn Pool, we are all going to bed.

Quote of the Day:

"Jesus' magic made those rocks pink and green."

When I find more free wireless, I'll share more!

Pet Files, and Other Musings

I am done.

It's a little weird to think I won't be grading papers for at least 2 and a half months. I keep expecting student e-mails with attached late assignments, and them asking me, for the billionth time, how to get to the IL quizzes.

All is quiet now.

I had a good semester. I like the student demographic up here. My students are a little older, have a little more experience, are a bit more receptive of issues brought up in class. As I was reading through the last essays last night, one of my students warned us of being "aware of pet files." His paper discussed the creepy doctor in William Carlos Williams' "The Use of Force," and what he meant to say was "pedophile." But, I will be on the lookout for pet files from now on.

I had a few nice surprises in the final portfolios. One of my rockstar students gave me a copy of his band's CD. Other students wrote in their last journal entry how much they enjoyed class. Maybe these are attempts to soften me up while I grade, but I choose to believe in their sincerity.

I am done:

Downtown SuFu

SculptureWalk 2007. Phillips Ave.

Go check it out, it's pretty amazing:

Fire, Shadows, and Dancing

Hands

Jerry Garcia. Doesn't he look kind?

Musculature

John Lennon

Sentinel

Sleep

Frozen Owl

Tennis Player

Totem

While I love downtown and the art and the stores and the old neon signs and the music, this was my favorite sight on the whole block:



I'll say!

Wunnerful, Wunnerful

A-one, an' a-two ...

We settled in on Saturday evening, me with a stack of final portfolios on my lap, Bridge stretched out on the couch, a veggie pizza between us.

"The Lawrence Welk Show" was on, and we were glued to the TV. As we watched the dance numbers, the songs, the clarinets and trumpets, the camera spanning the dancing audience of old ladies in cat-eye glasses and old men in belted slacks, Bridge said, I want to live then.

Lawrence Welk is a North Dakota boy, the son of German immigrants, a Catholic German from Russia just like my mom's side. One of my third cousins, Joey Schmidt, once played accordian with him. When Mr. Welk speaks, I miss home. My Grandma and Great Aunt with their low-German accents. Hard, airy S's; there are no "zee" S's for them. Bismarck is Bissmarck.

German is Cherman. Th's are just T's, sometimes D's.

Once, in high school, my aunt and sister did a Bobby and Sissy over-the-back flip move in my Grandma's kitchen, and we were all surprised they didn't crash through the wooden floor and end up in the basement.

Lawrence Welk once said this:

Conversation didn't seem necessary when I put the accordion down and swung some young lady around the floor.

You know when I blush and stutter and look down?

I would rather be spinning you on the dance floor.

Things I Feel Others Must Know

I bought a picnic table today. Bridge paid for half. See how unafraid of committment I am?

I am not combing my hair anymore, I've decided.

My mother received her Mother's Day Flowers.

You would think potato soup on a hot day wouldn't work, but it does.

LaKisha got sent home.

Without friction, it would be like walking on ice all the time.

Marigolds are my absolute favorite.

I'm afraid to clean out the window wells because of the garter snakes.

I cracked the top 5 last night.

9:30 on a Tuesday Night

Fourteen nights ago, I had a really terrible dream. It was awful. Bloody and lonely and sad.

Twelve days ago, Bridget came home and handed me a turquoise bag. Inside was a Dreamcatcher.

I hung it on my side of the bed.

I have been sleeping well since.

___________________________________________

Tonight, we grilled. Rather, Bridge grilled marinated chicken breasts and corn on the cob while I read the latest issue of "Reader's Digest" as the sun dropped. Dinner was lovely--we ate outside and had big bowls of fresh fruit for dessert.

Tonight, I learned how to moonwalk. It was the opposite of how I thought one would moonwalk. I am going to practice every night until the next musical extravaganza.

Tonight, I have three and a half more final portfolios to grade, but my bike is calling me. Last night, I rode by all of your houses and sent good thoughts. Did you catch them?


This is my new favorite song:

Fall on me
Tell me everything you want me to be
Forever with you
Forever in me
Ever the same
Call on me
I'll be there for you and you'll be there for me
Forever it's you
Forever in me
Ever the same

Dakota Writing Project

Sorry--had to re-post because my original post made my blogger all jacked up. Thanks for your comments!

My Name (taken from Sandra Cisneros)

My name is Melinda, and I am one half of a twin, so together, we are Melinda and Miranda. One of my aunts wanted us to be Megan and Morgan, but my father refused, saying, “they are not a team of horses.” Our nicknames were supposed to be Mindy and Mandy, but when my sister and I were two, we began to call each Lindy and Randy, and so that is who I am. Lindy. No one calls me Melinda. I have never, ever, heard my father call me Melinda, and my mother will call me Melindy lots. I like “Lindy.” Many times, I am the first “Lindy” for people and this makes me feel good, but territorial, too, and I want to be the only Lindy.

My middle name is Ann, and that is taken from my mother. I look just like her. One year, during the Catholic Daughter’s Annual Farmer Hats and Soup Dinner, I am cleaning off tables and refilling bowls of knoephla soup, and a woman I don't recognize is staring at me. I am fifteen, and blush easily, but I smile at her as I pass. She tugs the arm of my t-shirt and asks, “are you Robbie's daughter?” And I say, “yes.” And before she can say anything else, I say, “I know, I know.”

As I get older and more into a career, I often think I should go with the more formal Melinda. But, I sing karaoke loudly and badly and throw little boys into the air and ride my bike all over town, and I don’t think a Melinda does those things.

He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother

My brother calls me.

My brother was my best friend until I was eight, hated me until I was eighteen, and now we end every conversation with "love you." I idolized this man when I was a kid. He hated Coke, so I was pro-Pepsi, even though I don't really like colas. He couldn't stand Michael Jordan, and I still have problems with Jordan as the greatest player of the game. We were Lakers fans. I hid my New Kids on the Block poster in my closet in 3rd grade because I knew he would make me take it down. I would have done anything to be liked by him. Or to make him laugh.

When I told him about myself, he told me he loved me, that if I wanted him here he would be here, and that he would rip apart anyone who ever gave me trouble.

Which I believe, because he is always proving to me that his hands are "lethal weapons" and that he is "trained to kill" by putting me in some ridiculous headlock/armlock/hand-crushing/chokehold each Thanksgiving, Christmas, birthday, Easter, summer, spring, fall, winter.

This is the guy you want in your corner.

My brother calls me.

A lot.

Usually early in the morning because he is on his way to Guard drill or he's in some other time zone for training or he's coming home from the bar.

Almost always, I pick up the phone and am greeted by his really terrible falsetto.

This morning, it was Fleetwood Mac's "Hold Me."

I'm just around the corner
If you got a minute to spare
I'll be waitin for you
If you ever wanna be there

Hold me, hold me, hold me
Hold me, hold me, hold me

Even though we ain't got money

Sometimes, what any of us really needs is

cheap canned beer,

a bowl of crunchy cheetos,

a bright-eyed moon,

a lilac bush loosening into life,

and a porch to sit on.

All this,

while watching the Buicks roll by.

Last Night

Nobody knows how to celebrate May Day like Anarcia.

These two are wonderful.


And if you threw a party, and invited everyone you knew, you would see the biggest gift would be from me, and the card attached would say,
"Thank you for being a friend."

Worker Rights! Worker Rights!

(I love you guys.)