Mutant Musky

A mutant fish has come to challenge Godzilla!  Look how it bares it’s ugly teeth as it soars over the building!

This is Hayward. Home of a Freshwater Fishing Hall of Fame and the Moccasin Bar and Wilderness Museum- where you can see, if your heart desires, the world world record musky- 67 1/2-pounds and 60 1/4 in. long!  Holy bananas!

This town and I didn’t have too much in common.  I did delight in the moose head suspended from the ceiling in the pizzeria where we had dinner. But I opted to skip the giant musky so after a bit of shopping (including a trip to a humongous candy store that would make any eight year-old drool) me and the parental units went to the charming HookStone Winery-  so much more my speed. We tasted several of their wines- most just ran with the fish theme:

Bluegill Blanc

Rock Bass

Walleye Blush

Muskie

Panfish Port

Sunfish- the tasty Syrah (with 5% Voignier) I’m drinking now.  Blackberry Bouquet with blackberry, pepper and chocolate.  Mmmmmmmm…

A Jaunt Up Mt. Telemark

Today I understood that nature and I will never be best friends, but, at times, we can get along.

Last night, I was finally ready to get on board with this outdoorsy, nature thing when I looked up into the night sky and saw the Milky Way.  The Milky Way!  It looked like a thin layer of static smoke in the night sky- and behind and all around that were a bazillion twinkling stars!  I’d never seen so many balls of burning gas at once before.  I don’t know when was the last time I saw the Milky Way- if ever.  Even in Austin (at 23,219 people it’s a metropolis compared to these hamlets) I thought I had a terrific view of the stars- compared to Chicago.  Standing in the backyard I clearly saw the Big Dipper!  Oh, how naive I was!  Awe washed through me as I gazed above the treetops- and then I hightailed it inside because I thought I heard wolf howls.

Awe gave way to bitterness when the silence and the blackness distracted me from sleeping again.  Ugh. 

To shake myself from my zombie state, because three cups of coffee wasn’t doing the trick, I decided to hike up Mt. Telemark.  The open path hugged the forest line and ran roughly parallel to the ski slopes as I climbed further and further up, stumbling on rocks in the path and avoiding bees feasting at the yellow wild flowers. Grasshoppers leaped and fluttered around me, some jumped up and kissed my elbow. I tried not to think too much about snakes.  I didn’t encounter anyone on the way up (or down) and the self-imposed solitude (in the daylight) refreshed me. As I crunched on dry grass and kicked up dirt, I remembered playing in an open fields with the neighbors when I was a kid.  How satisfying that crunch was.  How we played games- I often fantasized I was a brave explorer or archeologist, delighting in digging holes, searching for important rocks and pealing layers of dry dirt after the field flooded.  Today I was Christina: Fearless Conqueror of Nature!  Explorer Extraordinaire!  

With a haphazardly drawn map, I was confused by what path I took. I think I marched half mile to the top and just guessed when I reached it- I expected to see a Congratulations!  You Made It Without Falling Down the 45-degree Incline!  Alas, no sign.  But it didn’t look like I could climb any further so I surveyed the area, kicked some grass, stirred up some more grasshoppers and their friends.  I was exuberant.  On the climb back down, two deer bounded in front of me.  Well, 15 to 20 feet below me. I would only momentarily panic with memories of wolf sitings- they like to eat deer? And I would only make one wrong turn that for a few confused minutes plunged me directly into the woods. 

But standing on top of Mt. Telemark, the wind whipping my hair around and the brilliant blue sky shining down on me, my body had finally woken up.  I felt a rush of “I can do anything!”  I imagine Sir Edmund Hillary felt damn near the same thing.

The Night of the Neverending Story. And Bayfield.

Ha! Completely forget what I said about “relaxing” and “refreshing.”

I had a marvelous jacuzzi last night… got all pink-faced and noodley.  Was sooooo ready to just melt into bed. And then.  And then.  The quiet.  The silence.  Once the TV was off there was absolutely no noise except the occasional creak of the building and my mother’s snore.  All I could hear with vivid clarity.  Give me sirens!  Give me car horns!  Give me the dull chatter of people passing under the window!  Not this black silence!  And I do mean BLACK.  Around 1AM, restless and annoyed, I took a little walk around the condo peaked out the rear window- and there was nothing. Absolutely nothing. My gut burbled with that visceral fear I felt watching the Neverending Story when I was a kid.  Something about The Nothing thourghly weirded me out, rendering me incapable of watching that movie again, or even thinking about it without heart palpitations.  And here I witnessed it!

It took a couple more hours of kicking and pillow punching, but I managed to doze . Woke up and dozed some more until my parents started poking me and saying “Rise and shine Sleeping Beauty.”  I struggled to sit up and shot them death stares.

The day was annoyingly bright and cheery and we set out on our adventure- to visit the artsy community an hour away on Lake Superior named Bayfield.

We whizzed by tiny towns and converted barns and a large number of mom and pop coffee shops. And stopped at what I suspect are the only two stoplights in the county- and they were for construction purposes.

Finally, we arrived.  After lunch and a couple hours of dodging into shops and grabbing ice cream, I was disappointed in this town.  Sure, it’s a cute, seaside town. Very New England-looking.  And it was relaxing to stroll down, and then sit, by the pier watching the boats. But when I hear “artist community” my mind conjures streets filled with artist studios and their shops.  From pottery, to jewelry making, to paintings to quilting.  In Bayfield, most of that was confined in the town’s artists co-op, The Artist’s Guild, where we discovered this wonderful artist, Denise Koch. She manned the co-op, tinkering behind the counter, wearing a black moo-mooish dress, sans bra, her silver hair wavy around her ears. “She’s a painting herself!” my artist-mother excitedly whispered to me after snapping a picture of Denise posed by her art. 

Besides the co-op there were the local restaurants, several candy and ice cream shop and the requisite touristy shops selling gaudy t-shirts and mugs. The towns’ offerings were slim if you weren’t inclined to do anything in a boat. 

I don;t know how my dad managed to do it- not steal any one of the sea kayaks that were casually left atop people’s cars.  I could easily have stowed away in one of the myriad of boats left docked on the pier. Maybe they will take me to China???

Stranded in Pine Trees

  Finally!  After driving through the wilderness of Wisconsin, full of unincorporated towns with just a barn or two converted into a craft store and a bar that merrily blares the electronic Bud Light sign, the parental units and I made it to the metropolis of Cable, Wisconsin. Also unincorporated.

We’re clearly staying in an area that used to be completely covered by pole pines- towering, thick sticks with green tufts at the top.  I think the George S. Telemark- or whomever founded the Telemark Resort- found a moderate sized hill while on a fur trapping expedition and decided it would be perfect for skiing.  He promptly bulldozed the hell out of that hill while also clearing a little area for a landing strip, for the resort’s main building and the handful of condo’s scattered throughout the forest. Throw in an outdoor pool and the place is ready for summer, too.

So far, having been here for only hours, the isolation is kinda refreshing.  Strange and creepy because it’s not hard to imagine deers leaping out in front of the car and bears knocking at the door.  But still refreshing because it’s so far away from everything.  (It’s a good 15 minutes from the unincorporated Cable).  Get away from the kids splashing at the pool and it’s dead freaking quiet.

Anyway, our newly renovated condo has a huge jacuzzi- it’s time to test that out.

Cable, Wisconsin

Tomorrow I and the parental units drive to Cable, Wisconsin. We will travel up and up and deeper into lake country before snaking over to Wisconsin, plunging into the forests, land of tiny towns and two-lane highways and moose and black bears and birds and…nature. Cable, Wisconsin.

I think the town population is six, with a constant flux of hunters and paddlers and bird watchers. We will be there a week. My parents are excited about this- my father for the plethora of kayaking options, my mom for some quiet time to paint. And I’m going because there’s a growing distant between Austin and I. To be honest, I’ve grown bored with him. I’ve toured the sites of the town and scoured the local Target and I feel there isn’t anything new I can learn about him. This trip into the hinterlands will be just what we both need- a break. I’ll come back refreshed, having devoured twenty books and finished two novels and ready to move forward.

My goal is to write everyday we’re there-seven whole days. I don’t know quite what to expect from this little speck of a town- days of reading by the pool or adventures of paddling the rivers or tours of lights houses or boat trips around the islands of Lake Superior.

Oh what an adventure it’ll be! With the parental units… sleeping in such close quarters… surrounded by towering pine trees and giant furry animals…I better pack my rifle.

Don’t Pet the Puppy!

So I’m afraid of getting rabies. I’m afraid a cute, slobbery mutt is going to approach me and because I am a sucker for cute, slobbery mutts, I’ll reach out to pet it, but in gratitude it will clamp down on my hand, puncturing my only protection against the rabies. Because I’m in the middle of China, there is no post-exposure prophylaxis, and when I finally mange to find a suitably supplied hospital two days later, I’m already exhibiting symptoms of the dread disease and it is too late for me. Toast.

Clearly, my imagination is a tad overactive. It feeds my hypochondriac tendencies.  I look forward to going to the doctor’s office to get my routine shots because getting shots means I won’t get that disease. I skipped into the travel clinic and felt safe and secure when the nursed jabbed my arm with needles of the life-giving hepatitis A and tetanus/diphtheria cocktail (already had the needed hepatitis B and meningitis shots). After a week of taking an oral typhoid vaccine, I was ready to sail around the world! Imagine my heart break, my panic, when I learn there’s a shortage of pre-exposure rabies vaccines in the U.S.  My local hospital has ZERO.  

Fine, fine.  I’m going to a huge urban area in the Northern China that has several million people so the risk of rabies exposure is relatively low, but this does little to comfort me upon learning that in the past ten years cases of human rabies in China has actually increased. In 2006 there were 3,279! Not to mention inadequate supply and administration of post-exposure prophylaxis.

This whole situation is absurd. Sad and absurd.  China is a rising, rich world super power- and they have a rabies problem! It’s largely preventable disease- tell the kids not to chase after raccoons and keep Spike’s shots updated and it’ll  be fine.  

Aaarrgh. I’m learning that China is a land brimming of contradictions. It’s a totalitarian state.  They censor the Internet, and won’t allow the words “free” and “Tibet” in the same conversation.  But they don’t require people to register dogs, they don’t require them to get rabies shots. One clever province came up with an immediate band-aid: they slaughtered 50,000 dogs in 2006. Not the way to fix a problem, China, but I admire your boldness. 

The spitting in the streets and the squat toilets don’t faze me compared to the risk of rabies because I have my hepatitis shots.  I’m sure I’ll encounter some of that spitting right after I step off the plane- while on my way to a Beijing clinic to get my pre-exposure vaccines. It’ll be up to me to remember, thought I doubt I’ll forget, stay away from cute, slobbery mutts.

I Want to See Things

“Madison’s all right, I guess, but no one place is good enough…I want to get around.  I want to see things,” Emily Haan, world traveler and former New Yorker writer wrote in her collection of essays “No Hurry to Get Home.”

Right now, I so am sympathizing.  Minnesota is all right.  It’s a pretty state.  If you look, there are things to do, especially if you’re outdoorsy.  I shouldn’t complain too loudly about boredom and monotony since I’m freeloading from my parents- spending my days reading, writing and watching TV.  

Chris’s visit was a wonderful distraction from the waiting game to China  (September 17th and we’re on our way!) and we managed to find a few things to do: Spam Museum, gambling.   But half way through his week-long visit, I started to feel that tingle.  My mind wandered, I stared out the window at the soy bean fields, and fantastic images rose: pagodas and mountains and laughing, fat Buddhas and crazy, brightly colored bejeweled outfits.  All sorts of pictures of China that could have appeared in National Geographic.

The Olympics, with their incessant shots of Beijing: the Birds Nest, CCTV, Tienanmen Square and so on have only made me more anxious to go.  I’m especially excited to fly into the new terminal of Beijing’s airport which, if I’m to believe Vanity Fair, will make me want to hunker down, sip a cocktail, and admire its crisp, efficient beauty.

I even want to go to that market in Beijing that serves up insects.  Being a vegetarian, I have no idea what part of my brain thinks that would be a good idea.  Then again, Mary Carillo made Scorpion on a Stick look very enticing.   Will I muster up the courage to try it- or any Insect on a Stick?  Maybe if it’s covered in chocolate.  

In my continuing quest to read as much about China before we leave, to mentally prepare myself and add to my list of places to visit, I picked up J. Maarten Troost’s new book “Lost on Planet China.”  He wrote about his time living in China, his attempt to understand this formidable, mysterious country.  This morning, I read a heartwarming description of his hotel door man in Beijing expelling a wad of snot that made me completely loose interest in my cereal.  Then there’s the insane traffic, the disregard for personal space, the karaoke and I wonder what made me think China was a good idea?  

I suspect it was that part of my brain that thinks the Insect Market would be fun.  It’s twiddling my fingers thinking, “ooooh… I’ve never tried karaoke before!” Somehow, that’s a lot more enticing Over There than Over Here.  Anywhere you go has it’s problems and if you have to dodge a few puddles of mucus, then well.  I won’t wear sandals.

The Diamond Joe

My mother, being the awesome mother that she is, took Chris and me gambling.  About half an hour drive from Austin, just over the Iowa/Minnesota border, surrounded by swaying corn and soy bean fields, is Diamond Joe Casino. 

After a quick lunch at The Kitchen Buffet (cheesy focaccia and ice milk with M&M’s- delicious!) we perused the Diamond Joe’s offerings.  This was my first time to a casino and I was a tad nervous that I would embarrass myself violating a code of gambling conduct and they’d chuck me out so I clung to my mother’s side (Chris too) as we weaved around the electric lights, scoping out the action and feeling for any good vibes.  

The action was pretty slow, being only a Monday afternoon.  Most gamblers were retired farmers and old ladies with canes- even most dealers were well passed 45.  A good thing, my mother said as anyone would be willing to help and teach us to play whatever game.  Chris and I were by far the youngest people, my mother a close third.  She immediately hit on an empty blackjack table.

“Oooooh!  You wanna play?”  We changed our $20s and a very friendly, very patient dealer named Pamela helped me and Chris hobble through the rules, and tolerated both of us hissing to my mother, a Blackjack enthusiast “Wha-What should I do?”

“Well you have 18.  Do you really wanna hit?”

“Um.  No.”

We twiddled our fingers over the cards, wiling an Ace and King to show up and the dealer to bust out.  My mother was a tad more outspoken: “bust out bust out bust out…yahooooooo!”  

Feeling confident, I doubled my bet and started stashing my winnings in my bag so I wouldn’t get carried away.  When I walked away from the table, I had pile of chips in my bag, more than double what I originally started out with.

We hung out at the craps table, watching a group of men cheer on the shooter, a petite women in exercise clothes, “she’s one of the best shooters,” one of the men exclaimed before he shook his fists in the air and emitted a  ”yeessss!” as a hefty stack of chips was pushed his way.

My mom and I left Chris there and wandered through the maze of slot machines, feeling out any vibes.  We stopped at the one where her and my sister won $500 a few weeks back.  We settled on a similar machine nearby.  I was dazzled by the complexity of these machines- how many lines do you want to play, how much do you want to play?  1 cent, 5 cents, 25 cents?  All I wanted to do was pull the lever!  My mother had a better grip on the situation- she put in a twenty and watched the wheels spin with their 7’s and bars and cherries, chanting “come on baby big bucks big bucks big bucks!”  We talked nicely to the machine, we petted it lovingly.  We went down to $10 and up to $25 and down to $6 in small increments of 40 cents, $1.10 before we finally hit on a big one: $60!  Not quite $500 but, like seasoned gamblers, we knew when to take the money and run!

We found Chris still at the craps table, a shooter!  And with quite the stash!  When he finished, the three of us tried a game of Super Fun 21, similar to Blackjack.  I wasn’t feeling it, said goodbye to a few of my chips.  I wandered back to the machines since I had good luck last time.  The trick, so I decided from that one experience, was to not give up so easily.   Feeling cocky, I plopped down at one that I thought gave off a good vibe.  I stared at the buttons asking me how many lines I wanted to do, how much I wanted to bet and pushed a few buttons.  I talked nicely to the machine and petted it lovingly and promptly lost a large chunk of what I won on the Blackjack table.  Good vibe, ha!  Defeated, I sulked back to mom and Chris, who actually made out quite well at Super Fun 21.  Drat.  

We stopped at the Roulette table and I was transported to Rick’s and there’s Humphrey Bogart, looking ever so sexy in a bow-tie, observing the goings-on of his gambling hall.  If only we were draped in jewels and evening clothes, drinking scotch…  

I tried Blackjack again, confident that I would do as well as my first time.  I had experience!  The dealer easily took my money after three Blackjacks!  Chris didn’t duplicate his luck with craps either.  After circling the casino for several minutes, we found my mother stewing at a slot machine, in the process of losing $20.  

“I should have left when I was up to $30!” she moaned.  But just ten minutes ago she was saying, “I feel it, I feel it!  Big bucks big bucks!”  I know, Mom.  If only I would have stayed at the first Blackjack table.  How much money I could have won!  

We finally emerged from the smokey casino into the bright cornfields after nearly four hours of gambling. Ultimately, all three of us came out ahead, Chris the big winner with $100. In this cutthroat world of chance and luck, what more could you want?  Las Vegas, here I come!

The Spammiest Place on Earth

Yesterday, my mother and I took Chris to the Spam Museum, one of Minnesota’s top three tourist attractions. The Mall of America and the giant sporting/outdoor goods store Cabela’s being the other two. Oh yes. Meats and animals. Throw in a little shopping and this is the Minnesota experience.

It’d been a while since I’ve been back to the Spam Museum. For a while, I was going all the time as it’s a tradition to bring all guests to the museum at least once. But it was all comfort and familiarity.

“Welcome to the Spammiest place on Earth!” the museum, in all it’s royal blue and sunshine yellow Spam glory announced. We were immediately greeted by one of the museum’s employees, a colleague of my mother’s as she works in the Spam Shop. She pointed out the giant wall of Spam cans behind us and gave us some mind-blowing trivia (for instance: the two Spam-making plants in the U.S. produce 44,000 cans an hour!) Lucky Austin has one of those plants. We dodge into the small theater just in time to see the 16 minute film introducing Spam and the museum: the official opening of the museum at the 2002 Spam Jam; Tom Brokaw introducing the WWII veteran’s monument for Hormel employees; songs of the Spamettes, an all-girl quartet that sing songs featuring Spam; Spam around the world, a segment that showed a few of the crazy things people do with Spam, such as Spam sushi in Korea, chocolate-covered, deep-dried Spam in Hawaii; and people loving all over Spam!

We meandered through small, brightly lit museum packed with the exhibits illustrating Hormel’s origins, to the birth of Spam, Spam in WWII, Spam in the Vietnam War, the plethora of Hormel products, and fun trivia about Spam around the world. A conveyor belt above us slowly snaked through the museum carrying a variety of Spam cans.

The lady that greeted us found us watching a video of the Spam Girls, an all-girl chorus and band that toured the country in the ’40s and ’50s promoting Spam and other Hormel products.

“I brought over some turkey Spam special for you!” she thrust the tray of cubed meat between us.

Oh, shucks. Chris and I, being vegetarians, politely declined.

But my mom: “Oh thanks! I love this kind!” she popped the Spam in her mouth.

Chris and I found the Spam assembly race (with bean bags substituting for the real thing, of course) and after an intense 30 seconds, Chris technically beat me but was disqualified for putting the Spam labels on upside down. Unfortunately, we didn’t have enough time to complete the Spam Trivia contest (we had to make the 3 o’clock show of the new Star Wars movie). Spam isn’t without a sense of humor: an ongoing recording of the Spam skit from Monty Python played as we departed the museum. Sadly, an hour wasn’t enough time to fully absorb everything (we breezed right by the Spam Ads through the ages exhibit). But we did leave a few minutes for the Spam Shop!

Spam was everywhere in those brilliant shades of yellow and blue. Of course there were dozens of different kinds of Spam for sale: garlic, turkey, hot n’ spicy, low sodium, etc. and Spam cookbooks. Standard souvenir things like t-shirts and pens emblazoned with the SPAM logo. But someone had gone a little crazy with a stamp and branded things like plush, pink pigs (”Spammy”), stress Spammies, basketballs, cooking equipment, shoelaces, socks and bracelets with SPAM.

If only I were a meat eater…

Pretty Nails

The nail salon is my mother’s Cheers.  We entered the open, brightly lit room to a swell of nail chemicals and Vietnamese accents calling “Hey, Shel!  How you?” 

My mother: “Hello Kathy.  Hello La?  How are you?”

“Very good!  You here for manicure?  Wait one minute,” they said, their voices muffled behind surgical masks and the scrapes of buffers and nail files as they finished polishing two other customer’s nails.  

This was only my second time having a manicure, the first also a treat of my mother’s at this salon.  Normally I don’t bother except with the most rudimentary nail care.  Meaning I just bite my nails, but with all this free time on my hands, and someone wanting to pamper me, why hell yes, I’ll have a manicure.

I couldn’t remember what to expect but I sat down on the black leather office chair while Theresa, a petite Vietnamese woman with a heart-shaped face and green toe nails plunked three very sharp-looking silver tools down on the counter.  Aside from tightening nuts and bolts, I had no idea what they could be for.  After soaking my fingertips in water, she picked up one of the tools that looked like pliers and attacked my haggard, overgrown cuticles.  A cringe waited to spring on my face when she accidentally sliced my fingers. 

Meanwhile, the chitter chatter continued.  La, the gregarious co-owner, carried on with his customer about back massages, at one point springing out of his chair to get his own back massager- which he later claimed was meant for your stomach.   “You can use it while driving!”  he exclaimed.  He carefully applied a mauve polish to his customer’s nails while the massager vibrated the woman’s back and her chair.  I admired La’s skill for not also painting her hands.

Theresa set down her weapons (no blood!) lotioned up my fingers and hands and gave me a quick, but soothing hand massage.  Oh… I was carried back to the last time I had a full-body massage.  How I almost melted in the table as all the knotty worries in me relaxed.  With me still in a daze, Theresa then picked up the first of three or eight bottles and in minutes, I had a coat of orangey-red polish on my nails and waited with sweaty palms under the heat light for my pretty, new nails to completely dry.  

By this time, my mother was only half way through her “Pink and White”-  an hour long process total, which involves a grinder that creates flying nail dust and an assortment of other brushes and tools that produced in me the same flickers of apprehension when I entered shop class. But my mother is fearless.  She even indulges in airbrushing.  For Christmas she had small snowflakes painted on cool, winter blue nails.  

I swiveled in the chair next to my mother, feeling like a ten year-old when Kathy said “Shel, your daughter so cute.”   I blushed, watching with awe as Kathy pulled out a giant buffer that seemed too ferocious for freshly polished, delicate fingernails.  But a handy weapon should anyone try any funny business. 

We learned Kathy’s birthday was yesterday.  My mother asked, “So, did La get you anything for your birthday?”  Kathy shook her head.  

“Oh, La…”  my mother said.

“What?  I go to Kmart.  Get her big diamond,” he replied with a wide smile.

Kathy, still busy with the buffer, exchanged a look with my mother and said “do you know any diamonds from Kmart?”

La ignored this and still with that wide smile says, “I go Hy-Vee buy hot dog for Kathy’s birthday.”

I laughed along with the other ladies in the salon, “sounds like a feast!”  

He looked from Kathy to my mother, still with a wide, oblivious smile.  “Yeah!”

La strode out the salon and quiet returned except the whir of the buffer and the chatter of other customers and their nail technicians.  La returned with a Quiznos bag, one step up from hot-dogs in my book. 

We settled our tab, Kathy saying to us, “you come back get pedicure soon.”

I glanced down at my toes.  Eek.  “Definitely.”

Kathy waved, “Bye!  Oh!  Happy Birthday, Shel!”  (my mother’s birthday is in a few days.)

“Oh, thanks.  Happy Birthday to you.  Enjoy your dinner!”

She chuckled.  The door chimed as it swung shut behind us.  I admired my pretty, new nails all the way home.