Remembering childhood

I'm resting on the couch at the moment, enjoying a quiet moment with Froglette and letting my mind wander. I'm struck by the unbidden memories that float to the top.

When I was little, we lived in the country in Idaho for a while. My parents bought a house with some acreage and we farmed alfalfa while my dad was a computer engineer for HP. I have the mostly hazy memories of a young child, but one of my favorites is of the pheasants. They loved to nest in our field, and our dog Tinker would go out and bring home their eggs. Pheasant eggs are beautiful things, large (maybe the size of duck eggs?) and lovely shades of greenish brown. Tinker could bring home the eggs completely unblemished in her mouth - an impressive feat it always seemed. I brought them to kindergarten at least once to share with the teacher. I wonder know what Mrs Heart must have thought of that. Was she appreciative? Was it a strange act?

We have pheasants here in the Middle as well. I saw many of them last spring while driving back and forth to the SLAC I taught at. They were so beautiful with their white ringed necks and shiny green heads. They must like nesting in the corn and soy fields as well.

I wonder what stories and half formed memories Froglette will have of this time in the Middle? What stories we'll tell seven bajillion times until Froglette can repeat them without having experienced them first hand? I'm sure that stories of Miles will figure prominently. I can tell stories of at least 2 cats that were around before my time as if they are my own memories. And I know stories of my parents' dating and college days, building houses, and traveling on the motorcycle. I love how these stories and memories come floating to the surface unbidden, triggered by random thoughts and associations.

Sculpture or Architecture?

Although we live in Anytown USA, the fact that there is a University here means that interesting and cool things occassionally make their into town. This is one of them.



For my last architecture project I was designing a pavilion for Wiccans to use (don't ask). As part of it, I was researching ways to make my building more 'natural,' or how to bring the outdoors in. My studio professor pointed me to a local park, where last semester a visiting artist installed a large scale sculpture.


As you can see, this isn't just a sculpture, but a physical structure that you can walk through, in, and around. It is constructed by weaving cut reeds with existing trees and living reeds. The structure is actually quite solid and isn't going anywhere anytime soon. It is also intended to 'bloom' in the springtime when the trees start shooting off leaves and such. Its actually pretty cool.

The day I was out there it was close to dusk, and actually pretty cold. I'm hoping to go back out there in the spring, when the weather is more bearable, to see if the structure is actually blooming.

Is this Heaven...?

No, It's the Iowa State Fair.

It was that time of the year again...time to pack the kids into the giant pick-up truck, grow out the mullet, put on the beer stained wife beater, and head on down to the Iowa State Fair (We only did one of those things; most other people at the Fair do all those things. I kid...Kind of).

U Gotta Love It!!!

I do, in fact, love it. (Did you know that Rodgers and Hammerstein wrote a play set at the Iowa State Fair, and that it was made into a movie? Don't believe me? Well, IMDb doesn't lie. It even won an Oscar for Best Score)

If you'll recall, one of the first things the wife and I did upon arriving in Iowa last year was attend the Iowa State Fair. We were overwhelmed with the selection and quality of deep-fried food on a stick. And the heat/humidity was oppressive. This year, we had a game plan: we eat nothing that doesn't come on a stick.

Generally, the month of August here is hot and humid - people often refer to this as 'Fair Weather' - last year we experienced this, and it was dreadful. Fortunately, this year, the summer has been relatively cool and dry, so we were able to spend 7 hours at the fair, instead of getting tired out after 4 like last year.

The day got off to a great start immediately, on the bus from our parking lot to the Fairgrounds. We got on early, so had seats, but a family of Iowans (or at least Midwesterners) got on towards the end and had to stand and hold on to the straps. They all had on matching shirts and sandals with white socks. Here was their exchange (I'm paraphrasing):

Mom: I feel like I'm in New York City. Except it doesn't smell as bad.
Son: I rode the subway in New York. It was confusing and scary.
Mom: Ya, it's the same way in Boston. I don't know what it is about those subways, but they're terrible.

[Non-Fair related tangent: I was annoyed. First of all, I had on a shirt that said MASSACHUSETTS on it, meaning there's a good chance I resided close to Boston at some point in my life; you probably want to look around before besmirching other people's hometown. Second, nice sandals and white socks; that's a good combo. Third, I've rode the subways in both Boston (often) and New York (once); both were easy to ride, simple to navigate, well-lit, and not scary. Granted, there's usually little or no air-conditioning on those cars in the summer, so there's some smell, but let me tell you this: I'll take that smell over the smell of factory-farm pig stench on a stagnant, humid summer day every time. Fourth: nice matching shirts.

I find this to be one of the more amazing things about people from the middle. A lot of them complain that they are fly-over country, that everyone from the coasts, especially NYC, think they're a bunch of rubes with no culture and live in manure. And they rightly are offended by this. But to then turn around and believe/spread/create rumors about city-folk yourselves is terribly hypocritical. Cities aren't really that scary. The Middle isn't really that backwards. Sometimes, people are stupid. Check that: Most of the time, people are stupid. Back to the Fair.]

Of course, the first thing we did at the Fair was get something to eat: it was 1030 am and we had our game plan to stick to. We headed over to the Iowa Pork Producers and got a Pork Chop on a Stick. In most parts of the world, a pork chop is about 1/2 - 1" thick - a nice size to grill or broil. Here in Iowa, they have a special cut, conveniently called an Iowa Chop, which is usually 2 -3 " inches thick. The stick in this case is nothing more than the bone, but that qualifies to me.

From there, we headed to the Agriculture building to peruse the prettiest vegetable winners,

see the champion pumpkin (another State Fair record),
and of course, the Butter Cow, who this year was accompanied by a Butter Shawn Johnson (and Olympic Gold-medalist) and some other painter guy.

We then stopped for a smoked turkey leg. These things are straight out of the Flintstones. This, along with the cheese curds, pork tenderloin sandwiches, and corn dogs, are one of the staples of the Fair. We weren't impressed: the turkey tasted like ham, which is just weird, and it was really salty. We ate about 1/3 of it and threw out the rest. For us, the giant Turkey leg was 7/8ths hype, 1/8th taste.

On to the Prepared Foods building, where all the canning and cooking competitions were held. We weren't planning on eating anything, but they were giving away free ice cream bars on a stick so we had some of those - a palate cleanser if you will.

Unfortunately, we were somewhat disappointed with the canning displays. I'm not sure if the 500-year flooding event Iowa had earlier this year limited the number of entries, but we were unimpressed. Well, not unimpressed, because there was some pretty stuff, especially the white/green striped canned beans, but underwhelmed. Oh well.

We then circled around to the livestock barns, where we watched a sheep judging competition (kind of boring since they all look alike, although the one woman who was coaxing her sheep along by sticking her hand way far up its butt was pretty interesting), walked down the 'Avenue of Breeds,' where they show off all types of horses, cows, sheep, goats, rabbits, and chicken breeds, and visited with the Biggest Boar (once again, enormously large testicles) winner and his runner-up (in case the winner can't perform his duties). These Boar are so big I don't think they can stand up - two years we've seen them now, and not once has any of them even moved while we were there.

After that, some more deep fried wonderfulness. This time, we went simple and decided on fried, battered cheese curds. Honestly, these may be the best food ever invented. I could eat 10 million of them and never get bored. (Technically, the cheese curds aren't on a stick, but it doesn't matter, we made an exception. Trust me, if you ever have tried a deep fried, battered cheese curd, you understand what I'm talking about)

We then went to something new: the 'This is how a Real Farm Works' Building. In this building, they had arranged for various animals to give birth every day of the Fair. Since we went towards the end of the Fair, most stuff had already been born, like the piglets, cows, and goats (baby goats are very adorable, and pretty funny looking). There were also chickens hatching and baby ostriches, as well as ostrich eggs still incubating. And just for fun, while we were there, they were spaying a dog in front of a live audience; I thought this would be kind of gross and cool to watch, but it was terribly boring.

This building may have been our favorite part of the Fair this year. This entire building was basically saying: "Hey City /Suburban folk. The food you eat, it starts out really cute. Then we kill it and eat it. Deal with it. Its the Circle of Life." We weren't able to witness a live-birth, but we got the point.

As were leaving this awesome new building, we ran into some friends. We sat with them as they snacked on some cheese curds, a deep fried Milky Way, and deep fried pineapple; we also had deep fried pineapple, which of course comes on a stick (after re-reading that last sentence, I think we qualify as Iowans. We saw people we knew at the State Fair and shared fried food on a stick with them. Sounds like Iowa to me)

After that, the day took a bit of a turn for the weird. First, we took part in a popcorn poll, where you got a kernel of corn and put it in a jar for the Presidential candidate you were supporting. As we were going through the line, the guy behind us said '10 out of 10 terrorists support Obama.' We were pretty upset by this comment, and said something to the fine gentleman who said it. I don't really care who you vote for (well, I actually do - Barack the Vote!), but that kind of comment, based on rumor-mongering, really has no place in a real discussion on the merits of our future President. It made us sad.

We then entered the Varied Industries building. Back in the day, this was the place where farmers could check out the newest products for both the farm and home. Now, it's filled with sauna salesmen and political booths. It's pretty weird. There was an Anti-Evolution booth; I'm sure these people mean well, but to argue that humans co-existed with dinosaurs (and possibly even rode them like horses) is a pretty funny concept. I think we actually laughed out loud when we saw this booth. After passing a few anti-abortion booths, we decided it was time to go. It was starting to get hot, and we were tired.

On the way out, Kimberly stopped to get the gigantic-ist ice cream cone I've ever seen from the Iowa Dairy Association; she asked for a double scoop, but somehow ended up with 4 scoops. It was pretty insane.

I took a little detour to see the 'Super Bull,' in this case an albino looking thing, also with gigantic testicles. When I walked in, it was lying on its side. After a few seconds, it stood up with a speed that was very impressive for an animal of its size - me and the kid next to me jumped backwards as he turned towards us, despite the fact he was behind a fence. He also had a nose piercing (a bull ring, if you will), which made him look super scary.
I would not want to be the guy at Hawkeye Breeders that does this job:

And after that, another year at the Fair was over. While we ate a good amount of food, we skipped the pork tenderloin sandwich, which are supposed to be fantastic. And the Beef Sundae (like an ice cream sundae, but not at all like an ice cream sundae). And a Fried Twinkie on a Stick. And, sadly, the corn dogs. but we need to save something new to try for next year.

As for next year, we'll be even more prepared, and we're hoping to become more active participants in the Fair Experience. We're planning on entering Miles into the 'Best House Cat' competition (again, not joking); not to put too much pressure on the little feline, but I'm pretty sure he's going to win. I'm also hoping to submit some sunflower heads into the 'Largest Sunflower Head' competition; after sizing up this year's winners in person, I'm pretty sure we could compete. There's also a handful of 'Prettiest' vegetable competitions I think we could compete and place highly in, it just kind of depends on how early we can get our crops in the ground and get some fruit to ripen.

If I were you, I'd start planning my vacation for the 2009 Iowa State Fair right now. Just hope that we don't have Fair Weather.

[Check out all the pics on Flickr]

A Midwest Odyssey

[Somehow, this post got to be almost as long as Homer's Odyssey. Sorry about that.]

As some of you may have noticed (read: our mothers), we haven't posted in a while. Since we got back from Mexico, we've been busy with the garden and preparing for school, which starts in exactly a week. I've also been traveling all over the Midwest.

Two weekends ago, I was invited to play in a weekend Ultimate Frisbee tournament in Madison, Wisconsin with a team from Des Moines. I knew most of the people who were playing on the team, and had never been to Madison, so I decided to go. While the 4-1/2 hour drive was a little tedious, the tournament was a lot of fun. The weather in Madison was perfect, the team I played with was filled with some really talented players (including the best male and female players in the State of Iowa, as regarded by people who know more than I do), and everyone was really fun. We crashed at a friend of a friend's house, covering almost the entire floor space and spent a night eating and hanging out in downtown Madison, which is the state capitol and location of the University of Wisconsin. I could see us living in Madison some day. We ended up finishing 5th in the tournament, which was a pretty good outcome for us, based on the competition.

Two days after I returned from Madison, Kimberly and I drove to Kansas City, where the Red Sox were playing the Kansas City Royals. One month ago, if you had asked me, I would have had almost no opinion of Kansas City; I just never thought about the City, nor did I think I would ever visit it. I remember when I was little, I was always scared of the Royals because they had George Brett and Dan Quisenberry, but that's all I knew of the City.

We were very pleasantly surprised. KC is a pretty old city that is going through some urban revitalization. There are cool, funky, Portland-esque neighborhoods, with good restaurants and cool old buildings. The housing stock was cute, and a lot of the old warehouse buildings are being converted into apartments and condos.

The quantity and quality of the restaurants was also surprising. Of course, KC is known for its BBQ, and it didn't disappoint. We ate at Arthur Bryant's, which is considered one of the 2 best places in the City. I wanted to buy some BBQ to take home, but Kimberly nixed that idea.

Additionally, a chef I worked with here used to be a chef in KC, and gave us some great restaurant recommendations. In one place, we drank real coffee (not Iowan coffee, which can best be described as strong tea) while eating one of the best brunches we've had since leaving Portland at a place called Rm 39. It turns out that the 2 waitresses at this place also were thinking of moving to Portland, so they kept coming by to refresh our coffee just so they could have an excuse to keep asking us questions.

The Royals stadium was also a nice place to watch a baseball game, which is a bonus. As seems to be the case for most Red Sox away games these days, the stadium was over half full of traveling Red Sox fans. This makes sense: the price of airfare, a hotel, and tickets to all 3 games in KC is probably cheaper than going to 3 games at Fenway these days.

Kansas City has some glaring negatives, like the lack of public transportation and the lack of bike-friendly streets, but I could see us living in Kansas City some day.

To add to the insanity, two days after getting home from KC, we drove to Chicago, where one of Kimberly's friends from Portland was visiting her in-laws. Additionally, my brother-in-law-in-law (alternately, my brother-in-law once removed. He's my brother's wife's brother) lives in Chicago, so we visited him as well.

We spent a brisk 36 hours in the City, having a wonderful lunch with my in-law and his girlfriend. He gave us a tour of his downtown apartment, which was pretty awesome, and we walked along Lake Michigan on a picture perfect day.

Later on, we met Kimberly's friend and husband at The Original Gino's East, a legendary deep dish pizza place located kind of near Wrigley Field. They have just recently returned from living in Chengdu, China for a year, so we spent the time catching up and listening to some pretty crazy 'living-in-China' stories.

We really enjoyed our short time in Chicago; it's a great City that seems really livable. With the perfect weather and good company, it was a great weekend. I could see us living in Chicago some day.

Finally, this past weekend, I went to another Ultimate Tournament, this time near Milwaukee, a short 6 hour car drive. I played with team of random people, most of whom were from Denver, but who also came from Seattle, Indiana, and Chicago. While still a good time, this tournament wasn't as fun as the first in Madison. But I did get to experience some beautiful countryside outside of Milwaukee, and more perfect weather.

Over the 2 weeks, I spent approximately 38 hours traveling around by car, covering approximately 2500 miles. That's far.

The one thing I learned/realized these past couple of weeks is that the Midwest is a place of 2 extremes: the City and the Country. The whole state of Iowa is definitely 'country', despite the best efforts of Des Moines (in my travels, this is also true of Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, and South Dakota). Iowa is 90% cornfields, with a few small cities that are decent but isolated (Iowa City, Ames, Dubuque, Des Moines). The places we visited are capital-C Cities, with a lot to offer, even Madison; although they are surrounded by farm lands, they don't feel so isolated, because the City is big and vibrant. Considering I grew up in a place where the City didn't really ever end until you drove a few hours, the capital-C city model seems more comfortable.

The Day After

On Friday, I informed you all of the small scale flood we had here in our middle-American town. We were supposed to keep getting rain and thunderstorms, adding to the water level, for the rest of the weekend; fortunately, the weather was more or less dry.

So on Sunday morning, I walked down to the field where our plot is to assess the damage. I have to say, I was expecting the worse. In reality, it wasn't as bad I thought it would be.

Here's a view from the embankment, the same place I took some of the earlier pics:
As you can see, the soccer field has become a water polo field. But, as you can see in the back, there's our fence, and it looks like it isn't in too bad of shape:
I walked down the path on the east side of the field to see if I could walk to the plot, but there was still a significant amount of water on the low ground, including on our plot. While I was down the path, I did get this better shot of our still standing fence:
Since I couldn't tell if the plants had survived from that distance, I tired to use the digital zoom on the camera to get a better look. Unfortunately, with the digital zoom and my shaky hands, I wasn't able to get a good look at ground, although it does look like it was still underwater:

Unfortunately, we're supposed to get more storms over the next 3 days or so. If somehow it stays dry here, I'll try to walk down to the plot to see if anything made it through.

Devastation

First of all, thank you all for the wonderful comments in the original garden post. I appreciate them.

Second, remember how mentioned I would keep you updated on said garden? Well, this may be the last post in that thread.

So, I mentioned that it was raining and we were having thunderstorms, right? Well, I awoke this morning to a co-worker who also has a plot near us: 'The rain gods are fickle.' I know he's trying to plant his plot, so I thought there was too much water still and he was sad.

I was so wrong.

When I walked down to the garden plot, I noticed an unusually large number of cars coming through the complex. Then, as I got close to the plot, I saw this:

You're looking at a soccer field. And that's water. A lot of water. More water than there should be. Like, say, a flood.

And this is where our garden plot is/was/should be:
There is a river that runs a couple hundred feet to the south of our plot, and apparently it crested overnight (I heard someone say it crested 5 feet, which sounds really bad):
Now the river is like 10 times as wide as it was before. And flowing really fast.

And if it looks deep, it is. See these basketball hoops, they're 10 feet tall. Keep in mind that the original height of the river was at least 5 feet BELOW our garden plot.
There's also a golf course across the street, which is along the river. Guess what happened to that:
I think that hole now has a water hazard.

It's supposed to thunderstorm pretty much non-stop until next Wednesday, so I think the water might continue to rise. We're fairly high up, so I think we'll be ok, but I think the units down near the filed are in trouble.

I don't know what happened to the fence and plantings at our plot, but I'm going to go ahead and assume they're all gone, based on how fast the water was flowing.

Here's the schematic of our plot now:

I'm not sure what it will look like once the water falls, so I'm not sure if I'll replant. right now, I'm a little shocked.

Goodbye dear garden, we barely knew ye.

[More pictures of the devastation on Flickr]

An Open Call to our Former Plants

I was going to put my sunflowers in the ground this morning. Then I saw that the temp was 45 degrees at noon and that there was a chance of a frost and snow overnight, so I didn't. It's almost May.

In light of this delay, I started thinking of all the plants we had in Portland, but which we gave away right before we left: the hot-pepper plant, the strawberry pot full of succulents, all the spider plants and mother-in-law tongues, the aloe, the fig trees, the jades, etc.

I was wondering how all these plants are doing. I know some of the people that read this have some of them, so I'm looking for updates. I know one of the fig trees was planted in the ground, but is it still alive? Maybe bearing fruit? Did the succulents grow and multiply as fast as they did 2 winters ago? Is the pepper plant still alive, providing wonderful little hot peppers?

So let me know in the comments if you know how our plants are doing. The memories will get me past the snow tonight.

Some News

I got accepted. Which is kind of mind blowing.

Kimberly had the letter all day and just gave it to me a few minutes ago. She's mean.

If you have no idea what I'm talking about, I'll add details later, when I figure things out.

I think this calls for the the Badgers.

Has to be Done

I don't like it when people complain about the weather. There's nothing we can do to control it, unless you count slowly and systematically destroying the atmosphere through the burning of fossil fuels for industrial purposes to fundamentally change the atmosphere and, thus, weather patterns. Of course, I occassionally do a little complaining, but that has more to do with my Italian upbringing, where complaining is a way of life (I like to call it 'critical observation'), not necessarily a reflection of how annoying something actually is.

But then, I saw this post over at kch's place. And I got really annoyed. Or sad. Or mad. Not with kch, but with this crazy Midwest weather.

Wanna know why? Here's why: On the same day kari and co up in Portland are enjoying 'fake-spring,' the weather here in the middle is just messing with us. Take, for instance, yesterday:

The day starts out real nice, so you decide you'll spend some time outside. It's 65 degrees out and you go for a walk in the park with short sleeves on. All the snow is melting and you think you actually might see some green grass. If you imagine hard enough, you can even imagine leaves and green buds on those gray, sad trees. A couple hours later, when you get home, the temp drops 20 degrees in an hour and it starts sleeting outside. Then the thunder and lightning start. During a sleet storm. In March. Then, it drops another 20 degrees when the sun goes down. The snow starts coming down like you live on Hoth. By the time you go to bed, all that kind-of-green grass that was poking through the melted snow- remember that? - well, it's gone. It's covered in 4 inches of snow. 4 INCHES OF SNOW in, like, 30 minutes. When you wake up, the car is covered in half an inch of ice, with an additional 6 inches of light, dusty snow - you know the consistency, the one where when you brush it, it just goes straight up in the air and then down the neck of your jacket or back on the car.

Yes, I grew up in New England, where the weather swings are just as monumental. And I went to school in a place that was so cold that the 6th Great Lake would freeze over. But I moved to the NW, where the Goldilocks weather turned me into a giant weather-wuss. You could go hiking in January. And play Ultimate Frisbee year round. And the rhododendrons and dogwoods are probably already in bloom. And you could grow rosemary year round without having to worry abou tit freezing to death.

And now, I have to deal with this Midwest weather. The wind whips through constantly, creating snow drifts so high I'm worried Kimberly might disappear. We haven't been snow-free since Thanksgiving, which, let me remind you, was in NOVEMBER.

Hopefully, once this cold streak ends - which, I hope might happen by June - we'll get 2 or 3 months of nice weather before the heat and 90% humidity kick in. Meanwhile, in the Northwest, they'll be enjoying 85 dry degrees, blue skies, and not a vision of rain for 3 solid months.

Yes, I'm going stir-crazy.

Presents!

Today was a very good day. Today involved a lot of presents!

My favoritest sister sent me these:

Now, while YOU may think, "seriously? She's excited by that?" the truth is, I have been dreaming of these since we moved to Farm State. PEter and I have a large collection of mason jars and store lots of cooking stuff in them. I've been looking for these everywhere and they are not here.


Then, after that, Cool Accent Prof took me to the Italian Grocery in the big city. I came home with proscuitto, oil cured olives (the black wrinkly ones), sopresatta (a spicy salami type), and a jar of spicy mixed pickled veggies. This little store was great fun! PEter visited it a while back and wrote a post about his trip here.

So now, I'm enjoying olives and cured meats and grading and writing papers. Woo hoo, what a Friday night!

Exhaust: Good for the Environment

The past two days, the high, the HIGH, has been about 258 degrees Kelvin (or 5 Fahrenheit. You might remember from Chemistry class that Absolute Zero = 0 Kelvin = -273 Celsius = -459 Fahrenheit). At night, the temp has reached a balmy -9 F; you can actually see the cold air moving our curtains on the windows. Fortunately, we are inside and usually nestled under our electric blanket.

I don't write this to complain, although I've barely left the house in the last 48 hours. I am mentioning this because of something we've noticed lately.

We were sitting in a bar the other night, looking out the window, drinking a beer, when I noticed that one of the cars parked outside had smoke coming out of its tailpipe. Since the wind was blowing snow all around, we weren't sure if it was exhaust, meaning the car was running, or if it was just an illusion. Kimberly assessed that the car was running, since the snow on the hood of the car was all melted. I thought that was crazy; I know we're in Iowa, but wouldn't someone drive off with the car, a drunk college kid or something?

At least an hour later, a guy from the bar walked right out to the car, stepped in, out it in gear, and drove away. Apparently, he left the car running so that it would be warm inside when he needed to leave. Peculiar.

Over the last couple of days, I've noticed unoccupied cars idling all over the place - the grocery store, outside the coffee shop, the gym.

So I have to wonder: do people here leave their cars running so that they're not cold when they get back in them? And are people really that nice here; I've definitely seen some homeless people around, so why wouldn't they just take a car? Do you need to carry 2 keys with you to keep the car running, but lock the door? Doesn't gas cost a lot? I grew up and went to school in some really cold places, and I'm pretty sure this wasn't common there; or was it and I just didn't notice? Or maybe a lot of people here have automatic starters (a good idea), and I've just happened to walk past all the cars just after they were started?

If anyone has any insight on this, I'd love to hear about it, because I think it's really kind of weird that there are all these cars running with no one inside them here.

A Point for the Middle

For the most part, I haven't been too nice to the Middle on these here interwebs. It's not that I don't like it here, it's just that I like to complain, a remnant of my east coast upbringing that I don't think will ever abandon me, no matter how hard Kimberly wishes. Despite the terrible drivers, extreme weather, and difficulty finding things we have become accustomed to having (like feeling in our extremities), we are settling in with our very nice, terribly coiffed (like I can really say anything about anyone's hair), very Christian, Midwestern brothers and sisters.

So, I come here today not to fault the Middle, but to praise it, for there is something here in Iowa which I could not find in Portland: a dingy, cheap, sketchy, wonderful Italian grocery store.

You may remember a while back when we discovered that there was some notoriety for Italians in Capital City. Well, I finally made it to their neighborhood (on the recommendation of a friend in Portland who is originally from Iowa) and found the wonderful Graziano Brothers market in South Des Moines.

Grazianos was great - cinder block building, no windows, haphazard parking lot - and was packed pretty tight with basic Italian staples. There were 20 different kinds of canned tomatoes, 10 different kinds of roasted peppers, 50 types of dry pasta, lots of fresh pasta (including ravioli and tortellini), fresh pizza dough, parmigiana cheese, panettone, and pretty much anything else you could want from your Italian specialty market. They had fresh bread that wasn't sliced on Wonder. Most importantly, they had a deli with home-made sausage, bulk olives, and fresh cut meats, including wonderful prosciutto and salami.

Of course, you can get all these things in Portland. Except that the prosciutto will cost you $30 a pound. At Grazianos, just $15. And in Portland, the chances of the counter help speaking Italian to the customers is low. Here, there were actual Italians, and the were being their typical Italian selves (cutting in line, throwing the elbow, etc). I still don't know how they get here, but apparently they're here. And I 'm not going to complain.

The next step is to find out if there's any good pizza down in that neighborhood. Making my own dough is fine, but can get old. And don't even get me started on the local 'pizza' places (if they didn't serve wings, there would be no reason to go there). There's an Italian Festival over the summer, where I'm sure they'll have pizza, fried dough (but they'll probably call it funnel cake), and sausage subs (here in Iowa, they call them Guinea Grinders, which no one finds interesting or offensive in the slightest way).

While I might have to wait for the ground to thaw before I can check out the festival or the pizza, I know that tonight I can have some prosciutto and good bread.

This Is How They Roll in Iowa

It's miserable here today. It snowed about 1/2 an inch last nght and now freezing rain is falling from the sky. It's the perfect combination as the snow is forming a solid core of ice, making it impossible to leave the house.We'll post some pictures later on.

So to warm everyone up, I present this video. This girl actually has a radio show on the college station here, which I had listened to a few times before someone sent me this video.

There's so many fantastic parts to this video, I can't count them. Although my favorite is when she says "you make me hotter than a stick of hot glue; I'm gonna scrapbook everything we do." If that doesn't sum up the Middle, I don't know what does.

Please enjoy. I am.

Some Notes on the Flat (aka Things I'll Miss About Oregon: Volume 11 [Geological Formations])

Mt Hood standing sentry over Portland, protecting it from that dangerous early morning sun.

Before we moved out here, everyone told us that The Middle was flat. 'It will take some time getting used to it,' they said. Based on these statements, I pictured Iowa looking like the other flat places I've been: Kansas and West Texas, which are devoid of trees and where you can see the curvature of the earth on the horizon (if you can see past the oil derricks or world's largest cross (made of vinyl siding) in Texas).

In actuality, our part of the middle is much more 'rolling hills' than 'flat.' When riding my bike, there are definitely times when I need to work a little to get up the hills (most of the time, it's for train overpasses, but not always). And in our small city (I prefer medium-sized town, but people here insist it's a city), there's a good amount of trees and assorted foliage. Still, the region feels flatter, so I know what everyone was talking about.

It just feels much flatter here for some reason.

Then, one Sunday, as I was driving to Des Moines, I had a revelation: 'It is really really flat here! But you know what, this isn't any flatter than the drive from Portland to Salem.'

On that drive you are in the middle of the Willamette Valley, which is about as flat as flat can be. Here, you're on the Great Plains in America's Breadbasket (or something). There are differences, of course. Some small, like the crops being grown (corn/soy/pigs vs grass/hazelnuts/apples/christmas trees), the number of cars (less vs more), and the quality of the drivers (example deleted).

But it wasn't until I was driving home in the evening that I had the 'light bulb moment' and realized the major difference: As I was driving, the sun was setting and shining directly into my eyes.

Now you're probably thinking 'well, it rains every day in Portland so you don't have to worry about the sun there.' I would retort 'hahahahahahahahahahaha' real sarcastically and then explain that you know nothing about the weather in the NW.

In Portland, the sun does in fact come out. More than you think. The reason the sun isn't a problem is that everything is surrounded by mountains. The Cascades and Mount Hood are to the east, blocking the rising sun until it's high enough not to be a nuisance. When you're in Portland, you have the West Hills blocking the sun most of the late afternoon. On the west side (The Tron and Hillsboro), the Coast Range is in the way (apparently, its official name is the Pacific Cordilleria). As you head south in the Valley, you have the Cascades and the Coast Range as your geologic sun visor.

Here in the middle, you have the Appalachians and the Rockies, both of which are like a thousand miles away. They don't block much of the sun.

In fact, there's only one place I can think of in Portland where the sun in your eyes is ever a problem, and it's so unique they gave the road a special name. When you drive west over the Sunset Highway at rush hour, you will be staring directly into the sun. And the only reason this happens is because in order to go over the West Hills, the angle of the road points you directly into the sun. It's like you're marching to war with Helios.

So anyways, this is all a roundabout way of me saying that there's not much in topological variation here in the middle. While it's not as flat as a pancake (like Kansas was scientifically proven to be), there's not much in the way of hills, not to mention mountains. Don't get me wrong, driving through miles and miles, and miles, and then more miles, of rolling corn and soy fields, with the sky open above you, can be very pretty. And some of the sunsets, especially when the thunderstorms are rolling, are amazing. I've also heard some of the river valleys (the Mississippi and the Missouri buffer the state) are beautiful [a friend in Portland once called Iowa City, on the eastern portion of the state in the Mississippi River valley, the 'Paris of the Midwest.' I can't wait to verify/debunk that claim.]

But in the end, I miss my friends St Helens, with its occasional outpouring of smoke and soot, and even occasionally Jefferson, Adams, Rainier, or the Sisters, depending on where you were in Oregon.

But mostly, I miss Mt Hood. That mountain just looks like a mountain . I would see it every day driving to and from work (or at least on days when it wasn't raining, which wasn't often, hahahahahahahaha). And sometimes at night, with the sun setting over the West Hills, Mt Hood turns purple or orange and sits there glowing on the horizon.