New Home, New Spam

Before I moved to Minnesota, I did not get e-mail from Plow & Hearth catalog. Coincidence?

Minnesota Things

A few random observations after my first three months here:

1) They play a lot of Prince on the radio. (Those of you not from Minnesota should know that Prince is.)

2) "Minnesota Nice" is not just a myth.
- If someone so much as brushes against you when they pass you in a crowded store aisle, you get the kind of profuse apology that, in other places, you only get when someone runs over your puppy. (This probably explains why for the last 14 years in NY, DC, and Paris, it's made me so unreasonably angry when someone bumps into me without even saying "excuse me": here where I grew up, invading someone's personal space is practically a felony.)

- When you're driving, if you turn on a blinker to signal an upcoming lane change, the car in the next lane will often slow down to let you in. The other day, I was discussing this with my best friend from high school, who now lives in New York. We both agreed that at first, this phenomenon is so disconcerting that we didn't even change lanes, assuming that it could only be some kind of Machiavellian ploy on the part of the other driver.

3) There are many people of Scandinavian descent here.
- Long ago at my very Norwegian, very Lutheran college, a classmate shared a very funny anecdote of going to a wedding in New York. Most of the guests were what she described as mafioso types, and she said that a woman came up to her and complimented her hair, asking how she had it done. The classmate shrugged and told the woman it was just a normal bob, nothing special. The woman said, "No, I mean the color." When the classmate replied that the color was natural, the woman looked stunned and then said, "Where are you from?!" We all thought it was hilarious that someone couldn't believe that blond hair could be natural. Now I realize that with the possible exception of Stockholm, there are not this many natural blonds anywhere else in the world. This point was clearly emphasized to me a few weeks ago at my great-niece's volleyball game when I was having trouble finding her on the court. Her team had their backs to the spectators, and I realized that looking for the girl with a blond ponytail was not going to help me. At all.

- Also at the volleyball game, there was one girl that was wearing a different color t-shirt from the rest of the team. Instead of a number, it said "Ingalls" on the back, so I assumed she had lost her uniform and was wearing a souvenir shirt from a "Little House on the Prairie" play or something. Then I saw the front and realized it was just a different uniform, and that "Ingalls" was actually her name.

Tattoos

One of my faithful readers (perhaps the only one remaining) has just e-mailed me for the second time in as many months asking for my blog address, again. She is apparently very embarrassed that she keeps losing it (as well she should be--one would think that someone who earns a living as an IT journalist would know how to bookmark a website!) and promises that she will never lose it again, because she's going to have the address tattooed on her left buttock.

So I thought that if she's willing to submit to bodily mutilation to be able to read my blog again, the least I can do is give her something new to read.

Here's a summary of the past month of my life:

- August 21: furniture and belongings finally delivered from France, after weeks of delays and annoying negotiations with French moving company and U.S. moving agent about whose fault it was that the shipment was stuck in the U.S. customs port for 10 days, incurring $1500 in additional storage costs, and who had to pay aforementioned costs. (Good news: it wasn't me!)

- August 22-25: unpacked bedding, so as to be able to start sleeping in my new apartment in St. Paul; moved most other belongings from temporary apartment in Minneapolis to permanent new place in St. Paul; waited in vain for my passport and West Africa visa to arrive from DC in time for my scheduled August 24 departure for West Africa; had to delay trip 2 days; do not unpack any boxes (except aforementioned bedding).

- August 26-September 6: go to West Africa (see two previous posts); get dysentery.

- September 7-12: return to St. Paul for a business conference; recover from dysentery; prepare for trip to North Africa; do not unpack any boxes.

- September 13: get phone call from mother at 7 a.m. (confusedly try to answer cell phone on nightstand, pulling charger out of plug and flinging cell phone across room before realizing that it's actually the fixed line ringing in the other room) to tell me that my father is hospitalized with acute pancreatitis. Spend day waiting to hear how serious it is, to determine whether I should delay trip to North Africa. Also discover car is leaking oil, so scurry to find trustworthy garage open on Saturday in new hometown and try to decide if should leave car in garage while away or must keep car to rush to Mankato if father is seriously ill. Or maybe shouldn't drive to Mankato in car leaking oil. Or if father not too ill, need car to drive to friends' joint birthday party that night. But really should get car fixed while away. And so on with decision loop until news arrives that father will be okay, just needs gall bladder removed; I should go to North Africa; I find car garage open on Saturday and leave car there and friends drive me to party; do not unpack any boxes.

- September 14-19: go to North Africa; do not get dysentery; call mother on Tuesday, hear that father is doing well, she promises to let me know if any changes; call mother on Thursday, find out father has been in ICU since Tuesday night (she didn't call because she "didn't want to worry" me) due to seizure, chest cavity filled with blood, collapsed lung, other badness; she assures me father will be okay now; get off phone and decide that it's stupid to remain in North Africa on Friday when only have one meeting scheduled, so call travel agent and get departure moved from Saturday the 20th to Friday the 19th; arrive at MSP at 10 p.m. on Friday. (Note to self: for future trips, if have choice, will always choose to have dysentery myself rather than father with blood-filled chest cavity.)

- September 20-21 and beyond: in Mankato, sitting with father and family at hospital. Dad got out of ICU on Friday evening and is gradually getting better. We're still waiting for the inflammation of his pancreas to go down (extra credit to those of you taking Biology this semester: please describe the location and function of the pancreas, or simply donate your own for my father's use), and then they'll remove his gall bladder. Maybe later this week, or maybe he'll come home for a few weeks and then go back in for the surgery.

For the time being, my boxes remained packed and piled in unnavigable and teetering towers in my new apartment. But they'll get unpacked eventually (maybe by Christmas?!). They're not going anywhere, and neither am I. Right now, I'm glad to be living in Minnesota, right where my family needs me to be.

I might even be willing to get that tattooed on my left buttock.

MPAS: Wanna go to a movie?

MPAS = My Politics Are Showing

I just read this article on a film called Pray the Devil Back to Hell, which won best documentary feature at the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival:

"The film is inspiring, uplifting and is a call to action for all of us", Desmond Tutu, Winner 1984 Nobel Peace Prize. Pray the Devil Back to Hell is the extraordinary story of a small band of Liberian women who – armed only with white T-shirts and the courage of their convictions - came together in the midst of a bloody civil war, took on the warlords, and brought peace to their shattered country. The film is compelling testimony to the potential of women worldwide to alter the history of nations.

I think the film sounds very cool and would love to see it. The website has a link where you can put in a request for a screening in your area. Why don't we see if we can get enough requests to have a showing in the Twin Cities?

Click here to demand a viewing of Pray the Devil Back to Hell in St. Paul, MN. I originally started a request for "Minneapolis metropolitan area", but then I noticed that there was already a request for "St. Paul, MN" (someone didn't read my explanation of Twin Cities geography!), so I propose we add our votes to St. Paul. For those not lucky enough to live in Minnesota, just check the list to see whether there's already a request for your city (Washington has 15 requests already; there are 2 screenings booked in New York). I'll also add the request link to my sidebar. E-mail the link, tell your friends!

The Place I Will Be From

As I prepare to leave Paris, I know that I'm going to be spending a lot of time waxing sentimental about life in France in the weeks (and months, and years) to come. I'm sure you'll all get sick of hearing about it, and many of you will think that I'm an America-hater or that I'm miserable to be going to Minnesota. I want to tell you now that that's just not true. I love the U.S. (I imagine I'll write more about why I'm Proud To Be an American some other time), and I'm excited to be moving to the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota*. Let me tell you a little bit about why I'm choosing to move there.

For those of you joining us while my life is already in course, I should explain that Minnesota is where I grew up and went to college; I lived there from the ages of 5 to 22. So the most important reason for me to move to the Twin Cities is simply that Minnesota is home to more people I love--family, friends from college, friends from childhood--than anywhere else in the world. Another reason is that although I've spent a lot of time in the Twin Cities visiting friends, I've never actually lived there. So although Washington, DC, might have been a more logical place for me to return to professionally and socially, I thought it might feel a little "been there, done that," whereas the Twin Cities would be a new adventure for me.

There are two lines that I love in the Semisonic song "Closing Time." One of them is "Closing time, time for you to go out to the places you will be from." I love the sound of the future potential in "places you will be from." Likewise, one of my favorite scenes in the movie "L'auberge espagnole" is when Xavier, a French college student, arrives in Spain for his year of study abroad and is wandering lost in the streets of Barcelona, seeing them for the first time. He narrates his thoughts on the future potential:

Later, you will have lived in this city. You will have walked its streets; you will have known its buildings; you will have lived through stories with people there. When you will have lived in this city, you will have taken this street six, twenty, a thousand times. After a while, all of this will belong to you, because you've lived here.

That's what I'm looking forward to about the Twin Cities: the future potential of making it my own. My home. The place I will be from.

Two more things:

1) For the Minnesotans in the audience, please be forewarned that experience has shown that I and all my possessions are eminently portable. It will be your responsibility to keep me Entertained, or I'm outa there!

2) *I've listed the full name/description of the metropolitan area where I'll be living for the benefit of the non-Minnesotans in the audience. If you're not American, of course you can't be expected to know all the arcane details of U.S. geography; if you are American and didn't know this, please get out a U.S. map and study it carefully. The Hudson River is not the western limit of our great nation! In either case, here's the deal: Minneapolis is the largest city in Minnesota; St. Paul is the second largest city and the state capital. The two cities are located on either side of the Mississippi river, right across from each other, and can thus be considered "twins." The terms "Twin Cities" and "the Cities" will be used interchangeably in this blog to refer to the greater Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area. FYI, Minnesota became the 32nd U.S. state exactly 150 years ago this week. Learn more here.