Camping Memorial Day Style...

... or Hot Dog Blog

Dawn, Kellie, Amanda, Dustin, Javers and I (plus some others who came here and there for a night) had been getting ready a Memorial Day weekend camping trip to Newton Hills State Park (not quite up to Yogi Bear Campground standards) for quite a while. Well, it came and went and it was an adventure. Man, I love camping food.

Friday: It was cold. Pretty sure I had 2 hooded sweatshirts, 1 t-shirt, 1 pair of sweat pants, 1 pair of jeans, 2 pairs of socks and tennis shoes on that night sitting by the campfire. I kept waking up in the middle of the night and could not feel my nose. It was certainly cold, but not as cold as when I went camping at Marion Lake in college with Jeanette, Dan, Arn, Bajo (Mike?, Sarah? who else was there?). I had to wake up at 6:00 am to get to a choir concert and my alarm clock had frost all over it. I shivered so much during the night I was sore in the morning. Crazy. Hot dogs.

Saturday: Woke up in the morning to our screaming neighbor kid. This poor kid might have been sick or continually picked on or something because he literally cried/screamed 75% of the time. Breakfast burritos. Smacking Kellie in the crotch with volley ball. Hiking. DQ and Alco in Canton. That game with the boards with holes and bean bags. Sun tanning with the accelorator from "frickin" Alco. The walk to Lake Lakota with Javers where I acquired a tick that latched on to my stomach and learned how to catch a water bottle "just like an egg." Shish kabobs and hot dogs.

Sunday: All the exciting stuff happened on Sunday when it was only Gimbel, Kellie, Dawn and myself left. Too bad you guys all left just when it got cool. Here's what you missed... Driving to town just so we could get some onions. I got some coffee too because I think I'm addicted. Hot dogs that were making out. Hiking to the lookout tower that might not have been worth the hike. At one point during the hike Amanda, with a serious look on her face said, "Kellie, I just had to stop. I thought I was going to die." Hobo dinners. A kick-ass fire with purt' near kindlin'. A broken camping chair that we burned in a special commemorative Memorial Day ceremony. Hot dogs and perfectly roasted marshmellows. Kellie hid the fire poker in the ground and then pretended she was Zoro as she pulled it out.

Monday: Camping was over in the am, but I went horse back riding at the Javers homestead in the evening with Jeremy and Adam. Reckon my horse starting moving along right quick. My stirrups were a little long and I was trying to hold on to my sunglasses, the saddle horn and pull the reins all at the same time. With every bounce I shifted a little more off the horse until finally I just fell. We were in a field so there wasn't much pain when I landed (actually, today my neck and butt really hurt so there might be some pain). I didn't think it was such a big deal that I fell off a horse, but as I have been telling people about it they all gasp or laugh hysterically and ask me if I have been scarred for life. No worries, friends there will be no scarring here.

Untitled (yeah, not really a creative day here)

I was driving home from work yesterday and I noticed that my birdhouse maniac neighbor (see April 19 post) took the birdhouses off his porch. No more “spurled” birds. I thought he might have moved, but the NO SOLICITORS sign on his door still glares at me when I get to the top of the steps. Hmmm … curious. This sounds like a case for the Hardy Boys. Good Night!

On another note—because I clearly have too much time to think about what happened to a neighbor I only talked to once—I have moved up the part time job search. My financial situation stresses me out so I decided I needed to suck it up and look for some supplemental income even if it’s a job I am not that excited about. Here are my current prospects: Dells Rocky Run Golf Course and Country Club in Dell Rapids (about 20 miles from Sioux Falls), JW Perry (a flower wholesale warehouse), Sioux Vocational (an organization that works with developmentally disabled individuals), an office cleaning agency, mowing the lawn for Reed and Sue and their neighbor.

Right now the one I am most interested in is the golf course. A part-time staffer at the museum, Roger B., is also an assistant manager at the golf course. He said they could use some occasional summer help on weekends or weeknights. Because most of the summer staff there are high school age kids, Roger said they would like someone older who can drive the beer cart around or bartend at the country club. He also said I might help out with banquets—set-up, serving, clean-up. It would be quite a drive, but he said the schedule is flexible and if I bartend, drive the beer cart around and show some cleavage (oh wait, I don’t have cleavage) I might get tips, too.

Sioux Vocational pays pretty well, but I am not sure how many Depends I can change and how many baths I can give. Polly, props to you for doing all that. The JW Perry thing I found in the newspaper and the museum has done business with them before but I think they want me to work every weekend. Mowing lawn sounds like fun so I might be up for that if I can fit it in. Maybe I’ll give some of that business to Nicklaus as he will be home this summer.

The office cleaning job is another story. I found the job in the paper so I called the number listed. Some frazzled-sounding woman answered and we had the weirdest and most awkward conversation. She kept doing this fake laugh and saying “I’m so tired. I’m so tired.” She sounded like she might have been either mentally impaired, on drugs, or actually just tired from cleaning too much. I asked her what I would do if I had to miss one of my scheduled cleaning assignments. She said she did not know because that had never happened to her. Doesn’t she ever get sick?

I asked her what the pay was and if I needed to fill out an application. She said that would all be discussed at the interview at Burger King, which is where “Gary” (it took me five minutes and repeated questioning to get this guy’s name out of her) does all his interviews. She told me he would be wearing a black shirt, gray pants and carrying a briefcase. Is this a uniform? How did she know what Gary would be wearing next week? She also said to call right before I left for my appointment at Burger King because sometimes Gary just doesn’t show up. Okay, who ever heard of the interviewer not showing up? How professional is that? I called her back the next day to say I was going to cancel my appointment. Her response, which she repeated three times, was “I just never know what’s going to happen here, you know. The next fifteen minutes everything could change.” Yep. Glad I turned that down.

Supper

This post is for Sarah Shorthizzle. Upon request that I post more often, even if it is just what I had for supper ... on Thursday night for supper I had steamed broccoli and carrots, cottage cheesse and crackers. I followed that with a nice cup of Twinings Lady Grey tea. Then I proceeded to watch an intense episode of CSI (the Las Vegas one). It all made for a splendid evening.

The Races and a Philosophy for Life

Not much exciting, quirky or funny has happened to me lately except for that some medication I'm taking is slowly turning my skin blue. I guess I could tell y'all I went to Huset's Speedway on Sunday with Jeremy to catch "the races." There were throngs of NASCAR hat and coat toting fans drinking beer, cheering on stock cars, sprint cars, outlaws (gosh, I hope I have all those catagories labeled correctly) and all that razamatazz. It was loud, dusty and intriguing. Since I am all about new experiences to help broaden my understanding of my community I might just catch the races again.

On my way home from work two days ago, amongst all the annoying traffic, I heard quite the gem on All Things Considered on public radio. It is from a new segment called "This I Believe" where people are asked to write a short essay about something they believe in. Some of these essays will be selected to be read on air. I have included the link to the first installment of "This I Believe" below. It really struck as an excellent philosphy for life and I hope I can work to embody some of the attributes this lady discusses. Read away and let me know what you think.

Be Cool to the Pizza Dude

Two Conversations and the Middle Ages

Last week I had two really good, deep, enlightening conversations and they were both with old people (if you consider someone in their 70s old). Here are some highlights:

The first one was with Louise S. She's a volunteer tour guide at the Pettigrew Home & Museum. The tour guide shifts at the Pettigrew are three hours long and usually when a volunteer comes in he/she will chat for a bit then head upstairs to the break room and wait for tours. Not Louise. She sits and talks to me for the whole three hours (unless she has a tour) and she will say things like "I'm just talking too much" or "listen to me ramble on" or "enough about me, what about you," but she still keeps talking and still keeps talking about herself and her life. This is okay, though, because I like what she has to say.

Last week Louise and I talked about many things. A school dorm on a reservation in South Dakota burned down recently. Louise is part of a church quilting group that makes quilts and then gives them away. She saw the news story about the dorm burning and she wanted to donate quilts to the victims. Her quilting group wasn't so sure it was a good idea and they were very concerned with trying to figure out the logistics of making the quilts, packing them and getting them to the victims. Her quilting group did not think it was going to work out. This really bothered Louise because she saw a need and she felt like it was part of her quilting group's mission to overcome what she considered trivial issues and get what was needed to those who needed it. Sometimes I am like one of those cynical quilting group members who tries to quell others' idealistic visions. I need to learn to appreciate the passion of people like Louise, whether I agree with them or not.

Louise and I also talked about racism in South Dakota. We both agreed that most everyone has some degree of racism and most people are in denial about it. The first step is recognizing it. Think about it, we are always using skin color to describe and catagorize people. Why would we say "look at that black guy or that Indian" when we could say "look at that guy wearing the red shirt"? Or sometimes we feel differently (like maybe threatened or disgusted) when we walk past a group of people with a different skin color from us. Are these feelings right? I am not sure they are. Someday Louise and I would like to not feel that way and would like to not describe people based on the color of their skin.

The second good conversation happened a few days later while I was holding up a portable dark room for an historic wet-plate photographer (it is a very interesting process, you should research it). Steve L. has been working in the geneology library in the museum for the past month or so. He saw me outside as he was leaving work and came over to chat. We started talking about where I was from and how I came to Sioux Falls and then ended up talking a lot about his family. Suddenly he told me he thought I was a very direct and insightful person, which he really appreciated. He said he appreciates people who are direct in their communication because he doesn't get the feeling from them that they are playing games with him or trying to manipulate him for their own benefit. Steve used to be a Lutheran pastor and he said Lutherans (pardon the generalization) are too passive aggressive. He used to have so much trouble with meaningful communication with people in his church. I told Steve Mennonites grapple with that issue too. It's like we think we are fulfilling this never ending quest to be humble if we don't come out and just ask for things. It's not taking advantage of someone if they are offering you something (material or emotional).

One thing Steve learned from his years as a pastor was that in order to best communicate with people you need to figure out how they best communicate and then work with them on whatever level that is. It's tricky to do because it's different than brown nosing. You actually have to think about the other person and figure out how they are interpreting what you are saying. Good communication is not necessarily about telling people what they want to hear, it's about telling them how they want to hear it. It's not about content, it's about tactic. Excellent points Steve, I completely agree.

Now this is totally random, but today after my evening run at the park I was walking back to my car when I spotted a group of people dressed in Medieval costumes. Some of them were participating in this fighting game involving large logs. I just thought it was hilarious to see a group of people in costumes in the middle of Sertoma Park acting like what they were doing was totally normal. I wanted to ask them if it was a club or special society or something but what they were doing with those large logs looked pretty scary.

Tribute to Kellie

After reading Kellie's nice tribute to me, I thought I would return the favor (although I'm not really motivated to write quite so much). Here's a little some'in some'in from K-Dawg's brain:

Sometimes when you are checking out at the grocery store the checker will ask you if you want paper or plastic. What do you call the people who cannot decide which kind of bag they want?

... Bi-Sacks-ual.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.