5 More Days before I leave for Wisconsin and "The Lake"

It's 85° F already this morning and it's not even 9 AM yet. Actually 85°F isn't all that bad. The only reason it's that cool is that we've had a fluke weather pattern here that is mimicking the late July monsoonal flow. Good grief! I sound like a weather person. Anyway, we've had two straight nights with dust storms which have made a mess out of my yard. So I have to add to my To Do list. Sweep the patios.....again. I asked my daughter if I should bring her anything from Arizona when we see her on our way to Wisconsin. She lives in Nebraska. I had to laugh though because I thought of this Cliche of the Day as I made the offer. I hope she doesn't ask me to:

Carry Coals To Newcastle. Do something superfluous. Newcastle is in the heart of the main coal-mining region in England. It would therefore be the last place where one would want or need to lug coal. The expression was recorded as common in the 16th century by John Heywood, a compiler of familiar English sayings. Thomas Fuller defined the term in 1662: "That is to do what was done before; or to busy one's self in a needless imployment."

6 More Days before I leave for Wisconsin and "The Lake"

I've been reading The Dictionary of Cliches by James Rogers. I came across one this morning that had me howling. So I've made it the Cliche of the Day.

Calamity Howler. A pessimist; someone who persistently predicts that bad things will happen. It is an expression of American origin, well enough known by 1892 to be reflected in the Congressional Record: "We have some 'calamity howlers' here in Washington as well as in Kansas." The thought is reminiscent of what Friar Laurence says in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet:

Romeo, come forth; come forth, thou fearful man:
Affliction is enamour'd of thy parts,
And thou art wedded to calamity.

7 More Days before I leave for Wisconsin and "The Lake"

It's too hot here in Arizona for me to succumb to panic. I'll just have to take my To Do list and edit it. There is no possible way to accomplish all the things on the To Do list between now and the time we leave for Wisconsin and still retain even a modicum of sanity. You ask me, "How hot is it?" My mother sent me the following "funny". Keep in mind that the weather in Arizona is just as hot or hotter than that in Nevada.

YOU KNOW YOU ARE IN NEVADA (OR ARIZONA) in JULY WHEN...

~ The birds have to use potholders to pull worms out of the ground.

~ The trees are whistling for the dogs.

~ The best parking place is determined by shade instead of distance.

~ Hot water now comes out of both taps.

~ You can make sun tea instantly.

~ You learn that a seat belt buckle makes a pretty good branding iron.

~ The temperature drops below 95 and you feel a little chilly.

~ You discover that in July it only takes 2 fingers to steer your car.

~ You discover that you can get sunburned through your car window.

~ You actually burn your hand opening the car door.

~ You break into a sweat the instant you step outside at 7:30 a.m.

~ Your biggest bicycle wreck fear is, "What if I get knocked out and end up lying on the pavement and cook to death?"

~ You realize that asphalt has a liquid state.

~ The potatoes cook underground, so all you have to do is pull one out and add butter, salt and pepper.

~ Farmers are feeding their chickens crushed ice to keep them from laying boiled eggs.

~ The cows are giving evaporated milk.

*****

When I received an email from my mother telling me that they had a "hard frost" at "The Lake" last week and that the temperature had hit 28° F over night, I decided to choose the following Cliche of the Day.

Add Insult to Injury. To be notably harsh or unkind to someone (perhaps unwittingly); to (in effect) hit someone when he is down. A version of this notion appeared in Latin almost 2,000 years ago in the fables of Phaedrus. He cited a fable by Aesop in which a bald man swats at a fly that has bitten him, misses the fly and hits himself on the head. The fly remarks, "You wished to kill me for a touch. What will you do to yourself since you have added insult to injury?" In English the idea was picked up as early as 1748, when Edward Moore used it in his play, The Foundling: "This is adding Insult to Injuries."

8 More Days before I leave for Wisconsin and "The Lake"

Oh my! I just noticed that I'm in the single digits here and I've only just started checking things off my To Do list. Well, at least some of the things will have to be post-poned now.

Last night I had a bird in my house. It kind of looked like I had a bat, but it was a bird. My son was taking the garbage out and he left the front door open. My "wreath bird" flew inside. One of the subjects of a past blog was about a bird who built its nest in the wreath which hangs on my front door. One of the things on my To Do list was to take the wreath down, get rid of the nest, and wash the door and wreath before returning the wreath to the door. I should have done that as soon as the chicks left the nest. I didn't. Too late. The bird has now returned and there is another batch of eggs in the nest. I know because I looked. On the bright side, I now have one fewer thing To Do on my To Do list. I cannot remove the wreath and the nest from the door until the new residents have departed and that doesn't look like it's going to happen until about mid-June. I'll have to wait until I get back here in September. On the negative side...but I guess all's well that ends well...I had to chase the bird out of my house last night with my feather duster. The poor thing flew erratically and frantically around my house as I herded it diligently with my feather duster but it finally left my house "like a bat out of hell". One must use the proper tool for the job afterall and I didn't want to hurt the poor little mother-to-be. The bird is now back outside where I hope it will remain and I have one less thing to take care of before I leave for Wisconsin.

*****

Cliche of the Day

There were two that struck me as appropriate.

Like a Bat Out of Hell Rapidly. Why a bat would leave hell any faster the you or I, given the opportunity, is not clear. Moreover, the habitual flight of the bat is, as an 18th-century writer put it, an "irregular, uncertain and jerky motion," not symbolic of great speed. One can speculate that the originator of the phrase envisioned the bat as abandoning it's habitual motion in favor of a fast, streaking flight should it have the chance to escape hell.

Bats in the Belfry Crazy; a bit weird or nutty. Bats live in belfries, among other secluded places, and since a belfry is usually in the tower of a church, the connection between that lofty place and the human head is easily made. The expression appears to have originated in the United States; a correspondent in Notes and Queries wrote that the American author Ambrose Bierce had used it in 1907, but the correspondent did not give the quotation. In Colonel Todhunter (1911), R.D.Saunders wrote: "It's a case of bats in the belfry on that one subject."

9 More Days before I leave for Wisconsin and "The Lake"

I forgot that today wasn't Monday. It's Tuesday. Yesterday wasn't Sunday, it was Monday. Yesterday was Monday. Today is Tuesday. This may seem repetitive but I need to keep repeating this until my mind grasps this concept. I often face this problem when there is a three-day weekend. It takes me a while to get myself back into the proper mindset. Today is Tuesday. It's laundry day. I now have to gather all the laundry from all the hidden corners of the house, sort by color, and then start my first load. My son is the one that reminded me that today was Tuesday. He told me that his dirty laundry was in his basket, on the chair in his room and that he couldn't find his wallet. He tells me all this as he's racing out the door so he can catch his bus. I'm still in shock that he not only remembered that it's Tuesday (I didn't) but that he managed to collect all of his dirty laundry and put it in a basket. I better check the pockets of his jeans for his wallet. Tuesday is my laundry day. I always do laundry on Tuesday. Always. I refuse to ruin my whole week doing one load one day, half a load the next day and a couple of loads the next. If the clothes aren't available for me to wash on a Tuesday, they won't get washed until the next Tuesday. Consistancy is key. Laundry doesn't take a holiday. If Laundry Day falls on a holiday, laundry gets done. I suppose that's why my son remembered that today is Tuesday...or maybe he just ran out of clean underware. There are exceptions to every rule. If I'm halfway to or from Wisconsin, I don't search out a laundromat to do the laundry. I may be set in my ways but I'm not crazy. I'm going to go and do laundry now. But first I'd better go get a cup of coffee so I don't hurt anyone.

*****

Cliche of the Day

Babble Like a Brook. Chatter enthusiastically and perhaps rather incoherently. Thomas Gray's "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard" speaks of "the brook that babbles by." The phrase is onomatopoetic, that is, the words as spoken resemble the sound of a running brook. A person chattering aimlessly on sounds somewhat the same.

10 More Days before I leave for Wisconsin and "The Lake"

Today is Memorial Day. Someone in our neighborhood has placed small flags on each of our front lawns. Memorial Day is the day to remember those who have served and those who have died for our country. I also spend this day remembering relatives. Not just those who have died but also those who remain. Lately, I've been going through old pictures that I took of my children as they grew. I came across pictures of them sitting and playing with their grandparents. Some of the pictures were those of my children sitting with their great-grandparents. Those great-grandparents, no longer with us, had a profound affect on those who remain. My children may no longer recall those past events, but good or bad, those events all served to shape us into that which we eventually became. My parents, my children's grandparents, got married on Memorial Day. Happy Anniversary Mom and Dad! I remembered. My son was born on Memorial Day. Happy Birthday honey! I'll never forget that day. We were all so surprised. You were supposed to be a girl. That beautiful full head of hair was followed by a set of plumbing that we hadn't expected. If only I could show you a picture of the look on your father's face at that moment. I have an equal amount of memories for the births of each of my children and today is Memorial Day. I can take out all the old pictures and the past memories that have no pictures and remember. Today is Memorial Day, a day for memories.

*****

A friend of mine sent me this "funny"which I thought I'd share.


Hey Dad," one of my kids asked the other day, "What was your favorite fast food when you were growing up?"

"We didn't have fast food when I was growing up," I informed him. "All the food was slow."

"C'mon, seriously. Where did you eat?"

"It was a place called 'at home,'" I explained. "Grandma cooked every day and when Grandpa got home from work, we sat down together at the dining room table, and if I didn't like what she put on my plate I was allowed to sit there until I did like it."

By this time, the kid was laughing so hard I was afraid he was going to suffer serious internal damage, so I didn't tell him the part about how I had to have permission to leave the table.. But here are some other things I would have told him about my childhood if I figured his system could have handled it:

Some parents NEVER owned their own house, wore Levis, set foot on a golf course, traveled out of the country or had a credit card. In their later years they had something called a revolving charge card. The card was good only at Sears Roebuck. Or maybe it was Sears AND Roebuck. Either way,there is no Roebuck anymore. Maybe he died.

My parents never drove me to soccer practice. This was mostly because we never had heard of soccer. I had a bicycle that weighed probably 50 pounds, and only had one speed, (slow). We didn't have a television in our house until I was 11, but my grandparents had one before that. It was, of course, black and white, but they bought a piece of colored plastic to cover the screen. The top third was blue, like the sky, and the bottom third was green, like grass. The middle third was red. It was perfect for programs that had scenes of fire trucks riding across someone's lawn on a sunny day. Some people had a lens taped to the front of the TV to make the picture
look larger.

I was 13 before I tasted my first pizza, it was called "pizza pie." When I bit into it, I burned the roof of my mouth and the cheese slid off, swung down, plastered itself against my chin and burned that, too. It's still the best pizza I ever had.

We didn't have a car until I was 15. Before that, the only car in our family was my grandfather's Ford. He called it a "machine."

I never had a telephone in my room. The only phone in the house was in the living room and it was on a party line. Before you could dial, you had to listen and make sure some people you didn't know weren't already using the line.

Pizzas were not delivered to our home. But milk was.

All newspapers were delivered by boys and all boys delivered newspapers. I delivered a newspaper, six days a week. It cost 7 cents a paper, of which I got to keep 2 cents. I had to get up at 4 AM every morning. On Saturday, I had to collect the 42 cents from my customers. My favorite customers were the ones who gave me 50 cents and told me to keep the change. My least favorite customers were the ones who seemed to never be home on collection day.

Movie stars kissed with their mouths shut. At least, they did in the movies. Touching someone else's tongue with yours was called French kissing and they didn't do that in movies. I don't know what they did in French movies. French movies were dirty and we weren't allowed to see them.

If you grew up in a generation before there was fast food, you may want to share some of these memories with your children or grandchildren. Just don't blame me if they bust a gut laughing.

*****


Much of the above "funny" fit the family that I grew up in. We did have a car...at least by the time I came along. We had one black and white TV but only 4 channels. My grandparents had a color TV long before we did but my grandmother hated the color and would make my grandfather turn it back to black and white. The colors were never as good as her imagination. I took the following "Test" and discovered that I was "Older than Dirt". However, I prefer to say that I have a wealth of experience.

How many do you remember?

~Head lights dimmer switches on the floor. (I still have a hard time adjusting to having the brights on that little handle by the steering column)

~Ignition switches on the dashboard. (My mother's first car. The car that I used to drive to school, the few times that I was allowed to drive to school. The Corvair. I loved that car. Leaves in the fall would come blowing at you from the vents.)

~Heaters mounted on the inside of the fire wall. (We had radiators. They were very hot. Don't touch!)

~Real ice boxes. (My parents had a few tales to tell us about these. We had a genuine gas-powered refrigerator. But we used blocks of ice when we went camping in and "ice box".)

~Pant leg clips for bicycles without chain guards. (Who had money for pant leg clips? You just had to be a little more careful the next time.)

~Soldering irons you heat on a gas burner. (Sorry, I'm sure they were around but I was a girl and girls weren't taught that sort of thing. I did get to watch my Dad teach my brother how to use a hammer and a saw. It's amazing how much you can pick up from watching.)

~Using hand signals for cars without turn signals. (That was in the Driver's Education book and it was taken very seriously. Now it's in the book and many don't understand why but many don't understand why the car had turn signals in the first place. They never use them.)

The above was just a preparation for "The Test". Count how many of the following that you actually remember, not the one's that someone just told you about. The ratings are on the bottom.

1. Blackjack chewing gum (Hated the stuff so I never bought it. I prefered the bubblegum with that cartoon that I never understood.)
2. Wax Coke-shaped bottles with colored sugar water (Ben Franklin's or Clancy's Drug Store)
3. Candy cigarettes( Ben Franklin's or Clancy's Drug Store)
4. Soda pop machines that dispensed bottles (Our church had one of these. Coke always seemed to taste better from those glass bottles)
5. Coffee shops with tableside jukeboxes (Clancy's Drug Store had tables with those jukeboxes, and they worked too.)
6. Home milk delivery in glass bottles with cardboard stoppers (We didn't have the milkman come to our house but I remember that some of our neighbors did. The milkman would always stop and talk to me when I'd ride my bike around the block)
7. Party lines (We didn't have one but they still existed when we first moved to Arizona because we were given one by mistake and we had a heck of time getting the phone company to fix it. I never knew who'd be on the phone.)
8. Newsreels before the movie (I probably shouldn't count this one because I just remember the cartoon shorts before the movies. I miss those cartoon shorts)
9. P.F. Flyers (?)
10. Butch wax ( I know what it is but never knew anyone who used it)
11. Telephone numbers with a word prefix (Olive-6933) (I remember memorizing ours as Walnut 6-3008..the church was Walnut 6-3808 so we got a lot of calls for the pastor by mistake)
12. Peashooters (I remember these but we couldn't have one. "You'll shoot your eye out". We had cap guns.)
13. Howdy Doody (It's Howdy Doody Time. I actually preferred Romper Room)
14. 45 RPM records (I still have all mine. I have a fine collection of 78's too.)
15. S&H Green Stamps (My mom used to have shoe boxes full of these. I remember helping to paste them into the little books)
16. Hi-fi's (We kept ours on a stand in the dining room when I was growing up but only my parent's were allowed to touch it)
17. Metal ice trays with lever (I think my sister still has those trays. That lever was supposed to help you get the ice out of the tray but it didn't work all that well)
18. Mimeograph paper (I used to teach. We had a mimeograph machine and I had to know how to use it. Ahhh the smell of freshly mimeographed papers!)
19. Blue flashbulb (I wonder if my Dad still has some of those bulbs in a box somewhere. I remember the multitude of spots that would appear in your vision when that bulb would go off. And those bulbs were hot right after they'd go off. "Don't touch, you'll burn your fingers!"....I remember burning my fingers.)
20. Packards (no...we had a Chevy station wagon with genuine textured vinyl seats which would leave an imprint on you legs)
21. Roller skate keys (four wheels and a key so you could adjust the size to fit your shoes)
22. Cork popguns (nope...my brother did have a popgun but no cork.)
23. Drive-ins (I remember sitting in the hot car on a summer night watching Bambi. Poor Bambi)
24. Studebakers (see #20)
25. Wash tub wringers (My grandparents had one of these in their basement but I never actually saw them use it)

If you remembered 0-5 = You're still young
If you remembered 6-10 = You are getting older
If you remembered 11-15 = Don't tell your age,
If you remembered 16-25 = You're older than dirt!


I hope everyone has a least a few good memories today. I know that I do. Happy Memorial Day!

11 More Days before I leave for Wisconsin and "The Lake"

I went to the bookstore yesterday. I love bookstores. I love books. I love reading. This great book leaped off the shelf and into my waiting arms while I was at the bookstore. Lets get real. Several books leapt off the shelf into my waiting arms. Usually my husband tries to keep me well away from bookstores. There aren't too many times that I can exit a bookstore without having purchased at least one book.

Anyway, the book I'm writing about in this blog is called, "The Dictionary of Cliches" by James Rogers. I have to say, after paging through the book, that not all cliches are listed in this book. The ones that are listed, however, are wonderful. What would life be without cliches? "Not to beat around the bush, or hedge the bet, this is a must-read for every Tom, Dick, and Harry under the sun!" This is the quote from People magazine that graces the front of my new book. There are over 2000 entries so I now can find out the origins of almost every cliche that may cross my path. I'm going to keep it right next to my abridged dictionary and my thesaurus. But first it'll reign supreme in a place of honor.....the bathroom, until I've gone through every page.

I'm always on the lookout for good bathroom reading material. Not every book receives this honor. You won't find any mysteries, romance, or suspense in my "Throne Room". Bathroom reading needs to be something that one can read in short doses by the page and that will not keep you sitting any longer then necessary. Afterall, unless you live alone, there may be other people interested in reading a few pages of your bathroom reading besides yourself and the goal isn't to develop hemeroids. Ideal candidates for bathroom reading are such books as, "The Essencial Calvin and Hobbes", "The PreHistory of The Far Side", and "The Bathroom Trivia Book". "The Far Side Gallery" and "National Lampoon's Truly Sick, Tasteless, and Twisted Cartoons" have finished their reign in my "The Throne Room" and will be moving to a Nebraska Throne Room this summer. I do not endorse or condone any of the humor in the book "National Lampoon's Truly Sick, Tasteless, and Twisted Cartoons" but such reading sometimes becomes necessary when one is researching an indepth definition of "Truly Sick, Tasteless, and Twisted". OK. I admit that the book was funny. The kind of funny where you find yourself laughing but you really feel bad and guilty that you find yourself laughing. I am now a more educated person having read such a "Truly Sick, Tasteless, and Twisted" book.

So I'm starting on the A's in "The Dictionary of Cliches" and will share just a couple with you today in this blog. I'll try and share a few more in the coming blogs when I stumble across ones that are a must to be shared. So Abandon Hope, All Ye Who Enter Here which means that "You're going into a dismal, unpromising, no-win situation. The expression comes from Dante's Inferno(1300) where it appears as, "All hope abandon, ye who enter here." "Here" was the Inferno, or Hell." Because I shall keep this book as my Ace in the Hole which means that it's "A good move, maneuver or argument kept in reserve for use at a strategic time. In stud poker it is an ace that is turned facedown on the table; only the player who holds it knows he has a secret source of unmatchable power." (Insert an evil laugh here.) Don't you just love cliches?

12 More Days before I leave for Wisconsin and "The Lake"

I've checked two more things off my long list of Things To Do Before I Leave For The Lake. I won't bore you what's on this list. It is sufficient to say that there are more things on this list then there are things off this list. I make lists. Lots of lists. I have to make lists. My brain just isn't capable of keeping all the data that needs to be stored any other way. I figure that lists are a kind of zip drive for my brain. If I put the data on a list, or zip drive, I can allow more room on the main drive (my brain) for input.

My family has a long tradition of making lists. I will always remember my mother by her lists. She would keep a multitude of lists. She still does. I remember that she would start making a list of Things To Bring To The Lake the minute we arrived at "The Lake" and would continue to add things to that list the entire time we were at "The Lake" and would continue to add things on the way home from "The Lake" and would continue to add things to that list for the entire time until we were ready to return to "The Lake". By the time we were ready to pack to return to "The Lake" this list was several pages long. It was always a challenge to see how much stuff we could actually pack from that list into one station wagon along with two dogs (we always had two dogs while I was growing up), three children, and two parents. Tetris wasn't around back then so we did the best that we could. My mother is famous for her ability to pack three carloads of stuff into one car. I attribute my ability to rule at Tetris to the many hours spent watching my mother, supervising my father, pack the car. (On a side note, my mother also rules at packing an amazing amount and variety of food into one refrigerator or one freezer.)

My mother still keeps lists. I keep lists. I'm pretty sure that my sister keeps lists. I bet that my brother keeps lists. Things like that tend to run in the family. My mother never really organized her packing list. On the day before our trips, she would send all three of her kids running willynilly up and down stairs to gather items from her list to put in boxes and bags for "The Lake". When I finally couldn't take the endless ups and downs, I confiscated my mother's packing list and marked whether the items on that list were in the basement, on the 1st floor of the house, or on the second floor. This way I wouldn't be running endlessly up and down stairs while we "packed".

I keep my lists on the computer now. My mother tends to make lists and then she forgets where she put them. That's the reason I keep my list on the computer. If I didn't keep my list on the computer, I'm sure I'd forget where I put my list. The day will come when I'll start keeping my lists on one of those small handheld computers. Only problem with that is, I'll set it down somewhere and I won't remember where I put it.

13 More Days before I leave for Wisconsin and "The Lake"

I have 13 more days to get everything done before I try to stuff two carloads (three carloads if you include the stuff on my husband's list, four carloads if you include the stuff on my son's list) of stuff into one car (Thankfully, I rule at Tetris), before I lock up the house, set the alarm, and head off in attempt to reach the open road. I hope the fact that I have 13 more days to go and that today is Friday doesn't affect my day. So far I haven't encountered any difficulties that I'm aware of yet. I was able to quickly turn off the clock radio before the morning host annoyed me too much. My son got to the bus on time so I didn't have to drive him to school. I've had my first cup of coffee. The dogs are all fed and watered. I didn't forget to go out and get the paper off the driveway. The paper was delivered dry and intact as opposed to wet from the sprinkler system or blown all over the neighborhood. So I've had a pretty good start to the morning. I wouldn't want to jinx things though by supposing that the rest of the day will follow suit.

14 More Days before I leave for Wisconsin and "The Lake"

I'm not going to panic. I have everything under control. I have my list. I'm right on schedule. Maybe I'll start the panic attacks next week.

Yesterday my son and I took our two dogs to the vet for their annual shots. They shed all over me and my son. Since my son was wearing black he looked like he got the worst of it. I prefer wearing neutral colors. Desert camoflage would be ideal but I didn't have any of that in my wardrobe. One should never wear black while taking dogs to a vet. Dogs shed even more then usual when they're upset. Our dogs really hate going to the vet so they were really upset. I can sympathize because I'm not too fond of going to the doctor (or the dentist for that matter) either. So you just grit your teeth and go and do what you gotta do. I needed a full set of vet records to bring on the trip to Wisconsin and the dogs needed their annual shots (though some say that you really only need that annual shot once every three years which sure would be a blessing but if you have to kennel the dogs for some reason kennels won't take your dogs without the annual shots and the paperwork that goes with it). I now have two sets of paperwork to show to anyone who will ask me for them if I get stopped at the borders of various states ( This hasn't ever happened but they do have that right to check on your dog's vaccination records and take away fruit and produce) and I'll have the papers if I need to put the dogs in a kennel for some reason. I have the records now which means that I will never have to use them. I go by the premise that if you carry an umbrella it will never rain. Anyway, I thought I'd pass on the following "funny" that someone sent me a while back. I thought about it as I was paying for my vet bill.

Subject: Limp Parrot

A woman brought a very limp parrot into a veterinary hospital.

As she lay her pet on the table, the vet pulled out his stethoscope and listened to the bird's chest. After a moment or two, the vet shook his head sadly and said, " I'm so sorry, Polly has passed away."

The distressed owner wailed, "Are you sure? I mean, you haven't done any testing on him or anything. He might just be in a coma or something." The vet rolled his eyes, shrugged, turned and left the room returning a few moments later with beautiful black Labrador.

As the bird's owner looked on in amazement, the dog stood on his hind legs, put his front paws on the examination table and sniffed the dead parrot from top to bottom. He then looked at the vet with sad eyes and shook his head. The vet led the dog out but returned a few moments later with a cat. The cat jumped up and also sniffed delicately at the ex-bird. The cat sat back, shook its head, meowed and ran out of the room.

The vet looked at the woman and said, "I'm sorry; but like I said, your parrot is most definitely, 100%, certifiably. dead." He then turned to his computer terminal, hit a few keys and produced a bill which he handed to the woman.

The parrot's owner, still in shock, took the bill. "$150!" she cried. "$150 just to tell me my bird is dead?!" The vet shrugged. "If you'd taken my word for it, the bill would only have been $20, but with the Lab Report and the Cat Scan....... What did you expect?

15 More Days before I leave for Wisconsin and "The Lake"

Update on the Digital Crisis

I never did get that promised call from the Cox cable service representative. I don't blame her. She must have had one really really bad day. I hope Cox cable offers its service representatives hazard pay. Our digital cable came back on line at around 4 PM. I can't be certain of the time because I was reading a book. I did watch the news but there are only so many things that can be said about the possibility that the terror alert might be raised to ORANGE and believe me I'm pretty darn sure that I heard them all. Then more BREAKING NEWS, the terror alert actually was raised to ORANGE. There are only so many things that can be said about the ORANGE status of alert. I listened for a while but turned off the TV before anyone could tell me to dig out my duct tape. I turned the TV back on when I noticed that my cable box was telling me what time it was. This is one of those much advertised, very expensive, wonderful "you will never be able live without this feature" features of digital cable. The experts were still expounding on the BREAKING NEWS that the terror level had been raised to ORANGE. Since nothing else seemed to be BREAKING, I turned off the TV again and finished my book. I feel so much better now that the digital crisis is over.

I was late getting out of bed this morning and it's all because of Janet Napolitano.

Every morning I wake up to my clock radio. Actually this statement isn't exactly true. Anyone who knows me, knows that I wake up 5 minutes before the clock radio turns on. I don't like being startled awake. So sue me. Anyway, this morning, to be truthful, I woke of at 5:49 AM, which isn't exactly 5 minutes before the clock radio was supposed to turn on but why should you care? When the clock radio finally went off at 6 AM, I wasn't startled awake. The news was starting. I like to listen to talk radio on occasion, so the clock radio was set to my favorite talk radio station. At 6 AM, they have a fairly decent news segment so I often will lay in bed until the news is over and then hop up and do whatever I need to do to make my little world run smoothly. But this morning, I was listening to the news and what should I hear but the voice of Janet Napolitano telling everyone who might seem interested, that"I have no tolerance for intolerance". I lay there in shock. She's Arizona's new governor. How could she actually let that kind of statement pass her lips? I'm thinking, "Did she just say what I think she just said?". She says she's intolerant of people who are intolerant?! I lay there in bed remembering all the similar sort of things that have been said over the ages. I've heard people say that they hate people who hate. I've read graffiti condemning graffiti. Now, I've heard the Governor of Arizona say that she is intolerant of intolerance. I know that she didn't really mean it. I know she actually meant that she had no tolerance for racial or religious intolerance because the news story was about the near fatal shooting of a gentleman of Indian background. (Apparently, some idiotic, stupid, intolerant person mistook the man for someone from the Middle-east and shot the poor guy.) I couldn't agree more with her intolerance but I just couldn't get past her actual statement. She actually said that she was intolerant of....herself? My mind kept going on and on about it until....I got up late. Thank you very much Janet Napolitano. Because of her stupid statement of the morning, I lay there in stunned silence until I was jerked out of my shock by the even dumber talk radio host of the morning who was angry because someone complained that Nicole Kidman was seen lighting up a cigarette at a news event. Apparently, the dumb talk radio show host of the morning smokes and thereby was showing no tolerance for anyone who would be intolerant of smokers. So the theme of the morning was, intolerance. And I had to drive my son to school because he missed his bus because I was late getting out of bed. And it's all because of Janet Napolitano.

16 More Days before I leave for Wisconsin and "The Lake"

Dealing with The Digital Crisis

Have you ever had one of those mornings where you've spent a great deal of time and effort on something and it ends up looking like you haven't done anything at all? I don't know why but this seems to happen way too often to me.

So I woke up this morning and my husband tells me that the cable TV isn't working. We've got Cox cable with digital. None of the digital stuff was working. Fine. I can live with 99 non-digital channels as long as I can still watch the news and those 99 non-digital channels were working just fine. Now if my cable modem decided not to work, then I'd have been miffed but my cable modem was working just fine. My husband wanted the digital back and tells me that "someone" needed to call Cox. "Someone" called the Cox service rep. I punched in the service number on my phone. Then I punched in, when prompted, that I wanted English instead of Spanish. I speak and understand Spanish since I lived in South America for a while and I also had 5 years of it in high school and another 4 years of it in college and I taught Spanish at a high school level; but I decided that I'd prefer to listen to my instructions in English. Then they got all personal and wanted me to punch in my 10-digit phone number. OK. Did that. Then they got really personal and wanted me to punch in the last four digits of the primary person on the account's social security number. That's not me. I don't have that kind of information recorded in my memory banks so I have to run in and get that information from the "primary person on the account", my husband, and he's sleeping. I woke him up. I didn't even feel sorry. He mumbles the number but by this time the automated system at Cox has hung up on me. So I dial up Cox...again. They wanted me to punch in my 10-digit phone number again. They remembered that I wanted my instructions in English. So I punched in my 10-digit phone number again. Then they wanted the last four numbers of the primary (sleeping again) person on the account's social security number. Thankfully, I remembered it. I punched it in. Then they had me listen to a menu so I could punch in the number of the thing that I wanted them to deal with. I listened and I punched. Then they gave me another menu from which to select a service. I punched in another number. Then they gave me yet another menu. I listened and I punched. I was getting pretty punchy by this time since I hadn't had nary a drop of coffee yet. Then I was informed by the computer that they were doing maintanance work in a nearby town and that the cable would be out for a while in that named town. OK. I don't live in that town. I was put on hold. I waited. I made myself a cup of coffee with a phone stuck to my ear. I got my son's breakfast with a phone stuck to my ear. I drank my first cup of coffee with a phone stuck to my ear. I let my dogs outside with a phone stuck to my ear. I fed my dogs with a phone stuck to my ear. I sorted the laundry and started the first load with a phone stuck to my ear. The "primary person on the account" slumbered on while I had a phone stuck to my ear. Finally a person talked to me. Yes! We had touchdown. She asked me for my 10-digit phone number. Didn't I already punch that in? I gave it to her. She asked me, for security reasons, for the last 4 digits of the primary person on the account's social security number. OH NO!!!! I REMEMBERED! I was so hoping that I would have to wake the "primary person" up again! I gave her the primary person's social security number....the last four digits. There was a long pause before she asked me what the problem was. I told her that the digital feature (much advertised, very expensive, wonderful "you will never be able live without this feature" digital) on our cable TV wasn't working and that the primary person on the account (still sleeping) wanted his digital back. She paused. Then came the bad news. She tells me that they will have to send a signal through the air to our cable boxes in order to reboot the system. OK. I'm with her so far. Then she tells me that it will take at least 45 minutes and up to 1 hour for this to work and fix the problem. OK. Now the bad news. I have to turn off the TV and not watch it at all until the system has successfully rebooted my box. NOOOO!!!!!!! I like to watch the news in the morning while drinking my coffee. It's a ritual of sorts. Me, all by myself, in control of the remote, surfing the news channels while I drink my coffee. I woke up the primary person for consultation while I have the Cox cable-type person still on the phone. HE (the primary person) tells me to go ahead and have them reboot the system. HE'LL BE SLEEPING ANYWAY SO IT WOULDN'T BE A BIG DEAL!!!!!! Now do you see why I take all these pills so I won't kill anyone? Sigh! I'd already taken my pills so I had no excuse to kill him. I had the Cox cable-type person reboot the system. She was nice. She felt my pain. Nice service representative. Nice service representative. She told me that she'd call in an hour to check on me. Nice service representative. She called back. More bad news. Apparently, Cox is in a world of hurt this morning with over 16,000 unhappy cable customers. I'm beginning to feel sorry for her at this point. But when I'm told that I won't have TV for another three to four hours, I'm starting to feel really nasty. But I've had my pills so I'm in control. Can I watch the TV without the digital (much advertised, very expensive, wonderful "you will never be able live without this feature" digital) cable? She can't answer that question. I mentally picture hoards of lawyers standing at her elbow as she answers with a non-commital answer that some people could receive the basic non-digital signal, but some people wouldn't be able to get past "THE BLUE SCREEN OF DEATH" She didn't call it that...I did. "THE BLUE SCREEN OF DEATH" comes up before the box lets you tune into the basic 99 non-digital channels that I had before I started this whole horrible morning. Then she tells me that she'll call me back in three to four hours to check on me. With shaking hands I turned the TV back on. THE BLUE SCREEN OF DEATH came on. I waited and watched THE BLUE SCREEN OF DEATH and then, miracle of miracles, I had my 99 non-digital channels back. YES! I can now watch the news! The "primary person" is still slumbering so I can watch the news....and I have control of the remote. I'm going now to brew a pot of coffee. The "primary person" can take care of his own stupid digital (much advertised, very expensive, wonderful "you will never be able live without this feature" digital) crisis when he finally wakes up. I'm going to go now and watch my 99 non-digital channels and drink a fresh cup coffee. You realize, of course, that if I'd done nothing at all this morning other then what I normally do in a morning, I would have arrived at the same spot where I now find myself? But then you wouldn't have been able to read this neat blog because I would have been blissfully happy watching my 99 non-digital cable channels, remote in one hand and coffee mug in the other.

17 More Days before I leave for Wisconsin and "The Lake"

I'm addicted to coffee. I admit it. I've told myself and the doctor that I don't drink as much coffee as I used to but that's not true. I tell the doctor that I only drink two cups of coffee a day now instead of my six cups of the past. But I know that I still polish off one whole pot of coffee all by myself. How can that be? I keep buying myself bigger and bigger mugs. None of them match because I like it that way. They're all different and all have their own personality. You can tell what kind of mood I'm in by the mug that I've picked in the morning. "Stay clear of Mom...she picked that big green mug today." But my mugs all have the same thing in common. They've always been big but they've been increasing in size as I add new ones to my collection. One of my mugs is actually an antique Frankoma beer stein (I love this mug, I've been haunting antique stores looking for more). Two of my mugs will polish off one pot of Mr. Coffee. Twelve cups my Aunt Sally! I mean really! Who actually expects a cup of coffee to be eight ounces? So you see, I can tell the doctor that I've cut back to two cups of coffee a day but in reality....I'm still drinking my usual six cups of the past (Which finished up the so-called 12 cup pot). On the other hand, I haven't increased my coffee intake any so that's a positive. Right? And I still haven't killed anyone which may have been a distinct possibility if I'd cut back to two 8 oz. "cups" of coffee. I figure that the doctor was kind of stupid anyway. I don't care how many years she studied medicine (and don't tell me that interns don't drink even more coffee then the average caffeine addict), she should have asked how many ounces of coffee I drink a day...not how many cups. Cups are variable. Maybe I should tell her I've cut back to one cup a day. Does anyone know where I can find a coffee mug that will hold a full pot of coffee?

18 More Days before I leave for Wisconsin and "The Lake"

So what did I do today? It's Sunday. I went to church. I don't go to church every Sunday but I went to church today. I play the clarinet in my church contemporary group. The contemporary group played today for two services. I went to two services today and played my clarinet. I got up at 5:30 AM to get ready for church. I took care of all the morning chores before I left for church and left the rest of the household in blissfull sleep. Sometimes I'll even drag members of the household along with me to church. But not today. I left them with visions of breakfast dancing in their heads. That's all they'd get until I got home at around 11AM. I had to run to the store before heading to the church. Our vocalist is graduating from high school so I had to get a card. Usually I have cards, lots of cards in my desk drawer. Actually, I have tons of cards in my desk drawer (I have a tendancy to buy cards and then forget to send them, I love e-cards...don't you wish everyone had a computer?) but none of the cards in my desk drawer were graduation cards. So I had to go to the store and get a graduation card. I bought myself a cup of coffee too. It was hot. Very hot! I only got two sips before I had to give up and go into church. The service doesn't start until 7:45 AM but we (the contemporary group) all get there by 6:45 AM so we can go through all the music. So, with the 1 hour practice before church and the two 1 hour services, I played a total of three hours today. Thankfully my lip didn't give out. Well, it was for church so I'm sure God had something to do with it. I don't think I could actually play 3 hours, non-stop, anywhere else. To be honest, I don't think anyone would want to listen to me play the clarinet for 3 hours, non-stop. People at church are so nice. So I sat through two services and marveled at how two of the same sermons can be so completely different. Maybe it's because I was able to grab a cup of coffee and a couple of cookies out on the patio between the two services. Maybe it's because the Pastor was able to grab a couple of cookies and a cup of coffee on the patio. Maybe I was half asleep for that first service's sermon. Maybe the Pastor was....no. I did hand our vocalist her graduation card after church so now I don't have to add it to the other cards in my desk drawer. I headed home, drinking the coffee that I'd bought before church because it had finally cooled down enough for me to drink (it wasn't too hot and it wasn't too cold, it was just right) and the household wanted breakfast. So, I made coffee...and then I made breakfast. Since it was 11 AM by the time I made breakfast, I figure that I'll either skip the lunch making process entirely today or make lunch at 2 PM. But if I make lunch at 2 PM, then I can't make supper until after 6 PM and then supper will run into The Simpson's. Can't have that. Maybe we'd better just skip lunch today and say that we ate brunch. Works for me. No-one wants to miss The Simpson's .

19 More Days before I leave for Wisconsin and "The Lake"

I just realized that I left the I out of my preface yesterday. How careless! Sometimes I go back three or four times to change and fix things in my blog during the day (I am my most devoted reader....actually, I link from my site to other sites so I check to see if anyone has made any comments or if I want to make any changes before I head on to those sites.) but I don't see all the mistakes. Actually I should make the preface with a we instead of an I, because I'm not driving to Wisconsin all by myself. My husband and I share the driving and my son will probably do some of the driving this year too. Also, we tote along our two chihuahuas. They don't drive.

It's getting harder and harder to travel with our dogs. There are fewer and fewer hotels and motels that will let you stay with pets. It's becoming a bit of a challenge each year to find places to stop for the night on our yearly trek back east, but places still can be found and our reservations have been made. The "funny" below seemed appropriate for today. The ones that I highlighted (printed in bold) seemed especially appropriate for our struggle to make our reservations for our trip back to Wisconsin. The last one is because...I'm still on a diet. Dessert is very important to me right now.

Thoughts for Everyday

1. God wants spiritual fruit, not religious nuts.

2. Dear God: I have a problem. It's me.

3. Growing old is inevitable, growing up is optional.

4. There is no key to happiness. The door is always open.

5. Silence is often misinterpreted, but never misquoted.

6. Do the math. Count your blessings.

7. Faith is the ability to not panic.

8. Laugh every day, it's like inner jogging.

9. If you worry, you didn't pray. If you pray, don't worry.

10. As a child of God, prayer is kind of like calling home every day.

11. Blessed are the flexible, for they shall not be bent out of shape.

12. The most important things in your home are the people.....and your pets, they're people too, only shorter.

13. When we get tangled up in our problems, be still. God wants us to be still so He can untangle the knot.

14. A grudge is a heavy thing to carry.

15. He who dies with the most toys is still dead.

16. We do not remember days, but moments. Life is moving too fast, so enjoy your precious moments.

17. Nothing is real to you until you experience it, otherwise it's just hearsay.

18. It's all right to sit on your pity pot every now and again. Just be sure to flush when you are done.

19. Surviving and living your life successfully requires courage. The goals and dreams you're seeking require courage and risk-taking. Learn from the turtle -- it only makes progress when it sticks out its neck.

20. Life is uncertain; eat dessert first.

20 More Days before leave for Wisconsin and "The Lake"

I made my last batch of Arizona salsa this morning. Hopefully it will last until we leave because I don't want to make any more salsa until I can make Wisconsin salsa. Same recipe...different states. I did stock up on pequin peppers to bring along. You can't find that sort of thing in Wisconsin. No way, no how. I may actually buy even more to bring to my sister who lives in Eau Claire. Last year I was lucky if I could find fresh cilantro. The grocery stores in Rice Lake are just as big as the stores in Arizona so they do have potential but you're more likely to see a large variety of mustard and there is an amazing variety and supply of cheese. But there aren't too many "imported" items more common to the southwest. However, they are a lot bigger then the one grocery store in Birchwood which still has its original wooden floor and is just a mile and a half from "The Lake". I'm not going to say anything bad about The Store. I love that store. But I won't be going into The Store in Birchwood to look for anything as exotic as an Anaheim Chili Peppers. They have a nice selection of emergency grocery supplies such as matches, mosquito dope, B & M Baked Beans, hotdog buns, bratwurst, hotdogs, marshmallows (big and small), J-ello (all the basic flavors, especially the green stuff), Ketchup and mustard, milk, coffee, cream, cereals and microwave popcorn but I don't think chili peppers are one of those emergency supplies. The two grocery stores in Rice Lake have more of a variety but they did try to pass off a jalapeno pepper as a chili pepper last year. Finding cilantro there was even more of a hit or miss. They kept trying to pass off the Italian Parsley for Cilantro. I won't even tell you how much it costs a person to buy a lime in Wisconsin. Maybe I'd better add limes to my packing list. They keep fairly nicely in the fridge.

Should I warn you that though Wisconsin is a dairy state, the cost of milk is amazingly high? Good thing we don't drink that much of the stuff anymore now that most of the kids have moved away. We pay half as much for milk here in Arizona. Poor desert cows. Wisconsin cows always look so happy grazing in the verdant fields. There are no verdant fields for desert cows. My mother, on a visit to Arizona, mistook one of the local dairies here for a feedlot. The only verdant fields here in Arizona are part of the golf course. The only grass you'll see has been carefully planted, groomed, and irrigated by someone. I won't get into that. That should be the subject of a whole new blog. "Why Do People Plant Grass in a Desert?"

As you can see my thoughts are turning to Wisconsin. I've already started on my packing list. I just need to go out and buy more pequin peppers and add limes to my list. I'm willing to pay the additional cost and buy the Wisconsin milk produced by the happy Wisconsin cows while I'm living in Wisconsin.

21 More Days before I leave for Wisconsin and "The Lake"

OK. I have only three more weeks to get ready to go to Wisconsin. I'm not going to start panicking yet though. I'll wait until I only have two weeks left....then I'll panic. In the meantime, I've decided to discontinue my lessons on How To Talk Minnesotan. I've gone over all the pertinent parts of the book. After all, I'm only going to be traveling through Minnesota on my way to Wisconsin.

I've received some emails lately from Wisconsin. I'm told that my driveway washed out....again. So, I have to look forward to getting my road regraded this summer. I also received some nice pictures of my dwarf iris which always bloom while I'm gone. At least I get to see them in pictures. Some day I hope to be in Wisconsin to see them blooming in person. Of course, by then, I may have reached senility. Senility can't be all that bad can it?

THE SENILITY PRAYER

God grant me the Senility to forget the people I never liked anyway, the good fortune to run into the ones that I do like, and the eyesight to tell the difference.

Oh well. The proceeding prayer and the following "funny" were sent to me by a friend. I thought I'd share both.

Now that I'm older, here's what I've discovered:

1. I started out with nothing, and I still have most of it.

2. My wild oats have turned into prunes and All Bran.

3. I finally got my head together; now my body is falling apart.

4. Funny, I don't remember being absent minded.

5. All reports are in; Life is now officially unfair.

6. If all is not lost, where is it?

7. It is easier to get older than it is to get wiser.

8. Some days you're the dog; some days you're the hydrant.

9. I wish the buck stopped here; I sure could use a few...

10. Kids in the back seat cause accidents.

11. Accidents in the back seat cause... kids.

12. It's hard to make a comeback when you haven't been anywhere.

13. Only time the world beats a path to your door is when you're in the bathroom.

14. If God wanted me to touch my toes, he would have put them on my knees.

15. When I'm finally holding all the cards, why does everyone decide to play chess?

16. It's not hard to meet expenses... they're everywhere.

17. The only difference between a rut and a grave is the depth.

18. These days, I spend a lot of time thinking about the hereafter...I go somewhere to get something, and then wonder what I'm here after.

22 More Days before I leave for Wisconsin and "The Lake"

Lesson 11 in How To Talk Minnesotan....A Visitor's Guide covers vacationing in Minnesota during the winter. Why? Why would anyone want to vacation in Minnesota during the winter? OK. So I'm prejudiced. I grew up in Minnesota. I stood countless hours at bus stops with only thin nylons standing between my legs and frostbite, waiting for the bus to arrive to take me to school or to work. Yes, they were nylons but when pantyhose were invented I wore pantyhose (they weren't any warmer then nylons). I remember trying to start my car in the mornings. I repeat to word "trying". That word does have two meanings. Have you ever tried to unlock your car in the morning only to find that the lock has frozen?

I think this chapter was put in for all those suckers out there who don't have a clue about Minnesota winters. Sure, there is skiing, skating, snowmobiling, and icefishing. And don't forget the Winter Carnival which I never went to because....I don't like snow, falling on slippery sidewalks, or below freezing temperatures. The closest I ever want to get to snow now is the fake stuff in my snowglobe collection.

We (my husband and myself and our baby daughter) decided to make the move to Arizona after that memorable winter when ice dams formed on our roof and my husband had to spend a wonderful adrenaline filled time punching holes in the ice dam, in freezing rain with an ice pick because you don't want to make holes in the roof with an ice chipper. We figured that since he lived through that and he wanted to live a bit longer, we'd better move to someplace where he wouldn't have to cling to an icy slope in order to keep the roof from caving in. Go figure.

There are many a stubborn bunch who will remain in those conditions but I've seen a great many more Minnesotans who have moved here to Arizona having decided to leave Minnesota during those wonderful winter months. My daughter in Florida tells me that there were a few Minnesotans down there this winter too. Actually, come to think of it, maybe the only people , besides the stubborn few who will tell you that they can't live without four actual seasons, who remain in Minnesota during the winter are.....vacationers? Could that be?

I will have to say that those who remain in Minnesota during the winter have a great deal in common with those who choose to remain in Arizona during the summer. I have spent many a summer here in Arizona, baking in the triple digit heat, and it wasn't all that pleasant, even with air-conditioning, because you still have to walk to your car which has been baking in the sun all day and drive home in ovenlike heat because the car air-conditioning doesn't really start being effective until one block from your house. And no-one in their right mind would ever wear pantyhose (it might melt).

I figure that Minnesota must be populated with people who hate the heat more then they hate the cold and Arizona must be populated with people who hate the cold more then they hate the heat. It takes all kinds. It's nice to have a variety of choices. And when you retire....you may even choose to spend your time in both worlds. Minnesotans who spend winters in Arizona are called snowbirds by the locals in Arizona....I wonder what the locals in Minnesota call Arizonans who spend summers in Minnesota?

23 More Days before I leave for Wisconsin and "The Lake"

After reading over Lesson 10 in How To Talk Minnesotan....A Visitor's Guide, I decided to skip that lesson and go onto Lesson 11. But in order to keep things organized, I'll honor Lesson 10 in this blog by not covering Lesson 11 until tomorrow. No big deal. Actually, that's what Lesson 10 was all about. No big deal. The phrase "No big deal". It wasn't so I decided to skip it. Instead I'll share this "funny" that came to me via email the other day. It reminded me that I'm still on a diet.

In the beginning.....

In the beginning, God populated the earth with broccoli and cauliflower and spinach, green and yellow and red vegetables of all kinds, so Man & Woman would live long and healthy lives.

Then using God's great gifts, Satan created Ben and Jerry's and Krispy Kreme. And Satan said, "You want chocolate with that?" And Man said "Yep." and woman said, "And another one with sprinkles." And they gained 10 pounds.

And God created the healthful yogurt that woman might keep the figure that man found so fair. And Satan brought forth white flour from the wheat, and sugar from the cane, and combined them. And woman went from size 2 to size 6.

So God said, "Try my fresh green salad." And Satan presented Thousand-Island Dressing and garlic toast on the side. And man and woman unfastened their belts following the repast.

God then said, "I have sent you heart healthy vegetables and olive oil in which to cook them." And Satan brought forth deep fried fish and chicken-fried steak so big it needed its own platter. And man gained more weight and his cholesterol went through the roof.

God then brought running shoes so that his children might loose those extra pounds. And Satan gave cable TV with a remote control so Man would not have to toil changing the channels. And man and woman laughed and cried before the flickering light and gained pounds.

Then God brought forth the potato, naturally low in fat and brimming with nutrition. And Satan peeled off the healthful skin and sliced the starchy center into chips and deep-fried them. And man gained pounds.

God then gave lean beef so that man might consume fewer calories and still satisfy his appetite. And Satan created
McDonald's and it's 99-cent double cheeseburger. Then he said, "You want fries with that?" And man replied, "Yep! And super size 'em." And Satan said "It is good." And man went into cardiac arrest.

God sighed and created quadruple bypass surgery.

And Satan created HMO' S

24 More Days before I leave for Wisconsin and "The Lake"

After reading Lesson 8 and Lesson 9 in How To Talk Minnesotan....A Visitor's Guide, I decided to skip all but a slight mention of them in my blog today.

Lesson 8 deals with the subject of Lutefisk. The definition of lutefisk in Howard Mohr's book is: "a translucent, rubbery food product with profound odor, created by soaking dried cod in a solution of lye, although equivalent results are claimed for doing the same to gym socks." Hey! I've eaten this stuff....it wasn't all that bad. Of course, if you've read my past blogs, I've eaten all kinds of stuff that you'd all think was pretty gross. Additionally, I'm mostly German so I didn't have as much contact with lutefisk as some of my neighbors who can claim Norwegian ancestry. I also should mention that Everclear (a 100 proof alcohol) is often served at the same time you might be served lutefisk. After drinking Everclear, it is doubtful that you would even remember anything that you had eaten. The lesson continues with the following.

"It's debatable whether lutefisk really belongs in the food section of this guide. Lutefisk is sold by the ton as food in Minnesota stores, sure, but we don't eat it all that much. It's mainly brought home for its humor potential. Things that smell can of course be funny."

I did feel like I had to pass along the following joke.

~ Did you hear about the Minnesotan who put lutefisk in his hatband to keep the mosquitoes away? It worked. He wasn't bothered by mosquitoes, but a herd of Norwegians ambushed him and boiled his hat for supper.

Since Lesson 9 dealt with poetry and bullheads in Minnesota. Since there was not one single poem provided in the chapter for me to pass on to you I'll skip right on to the bullheads even though Howard Mohr writes, "Although it is known as the land of 10,000 lakes, Minnesota has more poets than it does lakes and more gophers then it does poets."

"There are more northerns than walleyes in the lakes. There are more bullheads then the total of northerns, walleyes, gophers, and poets. Bullheads appear to be outnumbered by carp, but carp have an obsession with being seen. Walleyes make better eating than northerns, but bullheads are easier to catch. Carp are easiet to catch, because they swim on the surface and have a romantic notion about mortality. It is illegal to throw a carp back into the water. Most people throw them on the shore. If you step on a rotten carp you never forget it."

I'm not going to go over the cleaning of a bullhead. It becomes too graphic for those who have never cleaned a fish before. I've noticed that my daughters, son, and husband will often "disappear" when this little chore becomes necessary. I'm not sure if this is because seeing me with a knife makes them all nervous or because they just don't want to help me clean the fish. I used to be sure of the later but now that I'm menopausal, I'm beginning to think it's the former.

25 More Days before I leave for Wisconsin and "The Lake"

Lesson 7 in How To Talk Minnesotan.....A Visitor's Guide covers the subject of cars and Minnesota. I don't know much about cars. What I do know is that it's pretty much a universal truth that if your car breaks down while you are on vacation, it will cost you big bucks to fix your car. This is a given. I'm not going to even ask how much my parents had to pay for their car repairs from their recent trek back to Wisconsin. I do know that they left for Wisconsin from Henderson, Nevada on May 4th. They were towing a little Suzuki SideKick behind their Ford van. I know that they discovered that they needed to replace the battery on the SideKick on the second day of their trip in the tiny little town of Santa Rosa. New Mexico, I think. I know that they had to have the alternator in their Ford van replaced in Minneola, Kansas. Population 700. This also meant that they had to have the battery replaced on their Ford van. I know that they arrived safely in Wisconsin on May 7th. Amazing! Usually you can expect at least a three day delay because you have to replace or rebuild your transmission near Albuquerque. It is almost inevitable that you will have some kind of car trouble while you are on vacation. It is also almost certain that if and when you have car problems, it will usually be in an area where there is no cell phone reception. Again, I will not ask how much said repairs cost. I am assured from Lesson 7 in the book that said repairs would have been costly in Minnesota. I'm pretty sure said repairs would have been costly in Nevada. And I know that said repairs would have been costly in Arizona. I also know that said repairs would have taken a lot longer in Arizona. However, please note that once you finally arrive in Minnesota or Wisconsin, Minnesotans will want to discuss every detail of said repair woes. Do not be startled if you are asked to "pop the hood". Be prepared to discuss every little detail.

I thought about Lesson 7 a great deal. Where it is accurate for the most part, I find that since the book was written by a man it tends to lean toward the male perception. When my sister was asked the make and model of the new truck that my daughter had bought (a fully loaded, four-door Dodge Ram), she replied...." I don't know. It's blue." (Cars just aren't that important to my sister. She's very smart but she prefers to delegate that responsibility.) Where, I may know the make and models of all the cars that I've ever owned, I really don't care too much as long as they keep running. I do know that while the men are outside in the driveway hovering over the "popped hood", the women can usually be found inside discussing some new "hot dish" recipe they invented or someone else had the bad taste to serve at the church potluck.

26 More Days before I leave for Wisconsin and "The Lake"

Lesson 6 in How To Talk Minnesotan....A Visitor's Guide covers two main points. It covers an important aspect of Minnesotan. How you should expect someone to meet and greet you when you come to Minnesota. And it covers where you may decide to go while you're in Minnesota.

"When you travel to Minnesota, I hope you're not expecting to be met at the border by a bunch of hyper people in colorful clothing. Our black-and-white signs at the state line say it all: MINNESOTA. If a smiling group of people with colorful clothing does meet you at the border, lock the doors and don't get out of the car. They probably escaped from someplace."

For the most part, the above is true. On the otherhand, this is not true for those Minnesotans of Italian ancestry. I know because I married into such a family. Lots of hugs! Lots of pinched cheeks! You learn to accept such things. Eventually.

The second part of the lesson had me scrambling to check the copyright page of this book. Yep! Outdated. There are legal casinos in Minnesota and they are not located out in the middle of the great wooded boundary waters. Indian casinos. The entertainment is really quite nice (it has to be...who would come if it wasn't). It is doubtful that you will have to make do with polka bands (though I have nothing against such bands) or some comedian who plays a saw and tells Norwegian jokes. Most of the smokers in Minnesota and Wisconsin hang out at one of the casinos. The air is blue with smoke. I don't actually recommend going to a Minnesota or Wisconsin casino if you like to gamble. You might as well hand the guard at the door your money and save yourself some time. The odds are poor. If you wanted to gamble you should have gone to Vegas. With over 10,000 lakes, you'd be better off fishing in Minnesota....the odds are better that you will get at least one bite (even if that bite is only from a mosquito).

27 More Days before I leave for Wisconsin and "The Lake"

Lesson 5 in How To Talk Minnesotan...A Visitor's Guide covers eating out in Minnesota. Please! This is so painful! I'm on a diet. Oh well....I'll proceed with the highlights.

Minnesota Spices

The three workhorses of Minnesota cooking are salt, pepper, and ketchup. If the ketchup bottle is not already on your table, the waitress will bring it automatically. The last customer probably used it all. We use ketchup like it was water.

When Chinese restaurants began to open in Minnesota, one of the first obvious changes the owners had to make was to remove the soy sauce from the table (Minnesotans kept mistaking it for coffee) and replace it with ketchup.
But what kept Minnesotans away from Chinese restaurants more than anything else was the fortune cookies--the fortunes left customers with a bad taste in their mouth. So the restaurants that now offer Fragrant Hotdish and Mandarin Jell-O on the menu, due to public demand, now serve Minnesota-style fortune cookies. Here are the ones I have collected from friends.

~You will change the oil in your car every 2000 miles.

~There could be thunderstorms tomorrow.

~You will run out of 2 percent milk.

~A stranger will knock on your door and try to sell you insurance.

~The tops on your new shoes are not real leather.

~People around you think you are okay, mostly.

~They will put in bottled water at work.

~Your Olds 88 has a burnt exhaust valve on the #2 cylinder.

~Romance will enter your life unless you're careful.

~The smell in your root cellar is a dead gopher.

~Your subscription to USA Today is about to expire.

~The big shade Elm in your front yard has had it.

I would like to add that unless Chow Mein or Chop Suey is on the menu of any Chinese restaurant that we go to, my mother-in-law becomes confused and has no idea what to order. I would also like to say that when visiting Wisconsin, all restaurants, no matter if they are Italian, Chinese, French, or Mexican, I repeat ALL RESTAURANTS, offer all-you-can-eat Wing Dings on Wednesdays, and all-you-can-eat fish on Fridays, if they want to remain in business. That's just the way it goes.

28 More Days before I leave for Wisconsin and "The Lake"

Lesson 4 in How To Talk Minnesotan....A Visitor's Guide deals with conversation.

"If you are called upon to start a converstion from a dead stop in Minnesota you should know that 35% of our conversations deal with the weather, 30% with cars, 15% with food, 10% with road and building construction, 9% with fishing, 1% with politics and religion, and 1% with all the rest."

Weather is very important in Minnesota. My husband watches over the weather religiously. Total silence is required in our household when the weatherman comes on the TV, even if we have people over and everyone is talking about the never-ending road construction going on out on 35W or about that new stadium going in downtown. Grey clouds don't even have to start to form on the horizon and my husband has got the TV weather channel on, he's checking the weather radar on the computer, and he's got a flashlight with fresh batteries sitting ready by his side. People in Minnesota know their weather. There can be blue skies but we know it's going to rain or storm by the "feel" in the air, the way the leaves are blowing in the trees, by the smell. The fish start really biting. I mean they actually commit suicide on your line. You know for sure it's going to rain if that happens. Of course, after a big storm, nothing bites, that's why you see so many idiots out there on the lake in boats, begging to be hit by lightening. And it always seems to rain on the weekend. I suppose that's because so many people wash their cars on the weekend. Of course, it may be because of all those outdoor barbeques that people plan for the weekends. Beer, bratwurst, beans, coleslaw, potato salad, and don't forget that jello salad with the tiny marshmallows all served on dinky inadequate paper plates with "yellow jackets" (wasps) buzzing around your head while you all discuss things like.....the weather and whether we're going to get more rain, cars, the food, the road construction that you just went through on your way to this cookout, fishing, and taxes.

29 More Days before I leave for Wisconsin and "The Lake"

I've been on a diet for so long that Lesson 3 in How To Talk Minnesotan....A Visitor's Guide (Do I still need to keep telling you that Howard Mohr wrote the book?) was very difficult for me. I wanted to run out and buy some jello and little marshmallows so I could make salad. And when I go to Wisconsin I'm going to be faced with such culinary favorites as Wednesday Wing Dings, Friday Fish Fry, and Deep-fried Cheese Curds. Sigh! So many carbohydrates. Too many carbohydrates in the hot dish recipe too. But I thought I'd pass it on. It's a basic formula that every Minnesota woman was taught from birth.

GENERIC HOTDISH (for 4)

Mix together in a large bowl:

2 cans cream of mushroom soup
1 pound of cooked pulverized meat
2 cans vegetables

Stir.
Salt to taste.
Sprinkle with canned french-fried onion rings or Chow Mein noodles.
Bake at 400 degrees until a brown crust forms.

The following is another favorite of mine.

Froggy's Generic Hot Dish (for 4)

Mix together in a large bowl:

One can stewed tomatoes
One can tomato sauce
1 pound cooked pulverized meat
1 cup macaroni noodles, cooked

Stir.
Salt to taste.
Bake at 400 degrees....if you think you need to do this because the dish isn't hot enough.

Grey Froggy's Generic Hot Dish (for 4)

Mix together in a large bowl:

Two cans of cream of mushroom soup
Two cans of tuna
1 cup of egg noodles, cooked

Stir.
Salt to taste.
Pour into baking dish.
Sprinkle with stale potato chips (left-over from when the guys came over to watch that football game and left the bag open so they're all stale and soggy now)
Bake at 400 degrees until the chips are brown( and crisp enough to cut your gums and the roof of you mouth)

I won't go into how Minnesotan's make taco's. It's just too painfully true. Pass the ketchup (catsup?) please. I do know how to make and appreciate good Salsa.....now....but I've lived here in Arizona for quite some time. There are a great many of us transplanted Minnesotans here so I also have a recipe for Taco Hot Dish.

And so I was thinking about that second lesson and I remembered my reactions of last summer. Of course...I was in Wisconsin. I remember the call I got from the hospital very clearly. I was told that my daughter was in the hospital with an appendicitis and they were going to operate. I call my folks who are across the lake from me. It's 9 PM. My father answers the phone.

~ "Hi Dad"

~"Hi ' Beloved Daughter (he doesn't really call me that but I don't like to use my real name in this blog)....What's wrong?" (It's 9 PM....something is always wrong if you get a call that late at night from me.)

~ "I just got a call from the hospital....My 'beloved daughter...your beloved granddaughter' (again....I try not to use real names in this blog) is in the hospital. They're going to operate. It's her appendix. I'm going to go in so I can be there."

~ "OK. Come on over and pick up Mom and me. We'll follow you over in our van." (Outwardly....everyone is very calm. Inwardly, we're all screaming hysterically.)

I make it over there...across the lake....in record time...after loading up the dogs. Can't leave them....don't know how long this'll take. Gotta plan for the worst.

~ "Good, I see you brought the dogs. Let's get our dog all loaded up too and go. Mom will ride with you. I'll follow."

Now we have three dogs all loaded in their kennels in our two vehicles and we're racing (outwardly calm) to my daughter's bedside. We make the 1 hour trip in 30 minutes. No-one stopped us. Things could be worse. The receptionist at the hospital tells us kindly that my daughter was already in surgery. The doctor would come tell us how things were after the surgery. Could be worse. When the doctor came in he informed us that the surgery went very well. They'd caught the appendix before it could burst. Things could be worse. After my daughter was settled in her room, we had the opportunity to go up and see her.

~ "Hi Mom, Grandma, and Grandpa. What are you all doin' here? You didn't have to come."

~ "How are you?"

~ "Not too bad." (she was feeling no pain yet because of all the drugs that they'd pumped into her....heck there was still and IV hanging on her arm)

We left her there cause she wasn't making too much sense and she probably didn't even know we were there. The next day we all came to see her and I checked into a hotel across the street. Couldn't complain. Things could be worse. And darned if they didn't get worse. Everything was working out just too well. My daughter was fine. My parents took my dogs back to "the lake" to look after so I wouldn't have to worry about them. Everything was just fine. I was just settling in for the night in my hotel room across the street from the hospital when I get a call from the front desk. I was told that some person, unknown, had shot the windows out of the back of several cars in the hotel parking lot. Things could be worse. Thankfully, the hotel had several guests who were police officers. They were visiting from a neighboring town. Wonderful people. One of them went out and bought duct tape and plastic sheeting and then we all pitched in and helped each other tape up our broken windows and sweep away the broken glass. Because....it looks like rain. It started raining. Things could be worse. It's now after 8 PM at night and I call over to the hospital. My daughter's still drugged so she's not so bad. I call my insurance agent. It's 10 PM in Arizona where my insurance agent is located. I never did get a hold of him. Things could be worse. I grabbed the yellow pages and start calling emergency autoglass places. My daughter is going to be released from the hospital the next day and I didn't think it would be too cool to drive the hour and a half with the wind whistling and the plastic sheeting flapping. No one was open. No one had my window. Things could be worse. Thankfully, I finally found one place that had the last replacement window for my make and model of car in town. I reserved it but they weren't going to be able to actually do the fix until the next day. Fine. Things could be worse. Thankfully, my daughter was so drugged when I picked her up from the hospital that she probably doesn't even remember that I left her at the autoglass place in the tender care of the receptionist there while I used the autoglass loaner car to go over to my daughter's apartment to feed her cats and then go and pick up her prescription for more drugs. She probably doesn't even remember the 1 hour trip back to "the lake". She was feeling "not so bad" at all. That was followed in a few hours by, "Can't complain". Which was followed by, "Could be worse." But in a few days, she was back to "Can't complain" and by the time I drove her back to her apartment she "wasn't too bad".
Yes, things could've been worse. But, thankfully, it all turned out not so bad.

30 More Days before I leave for Wisconsin and "The Lake"

I grew up in Minnesota. I always wondered by I carried certain attitudes and perceptions around with me. After reading How To Talk Minnesotan...A Visitor's Guide By Howard Mohr, I have a better understanding of myself. Lesson 2 in Howard's book is The Power of The Negative. So that's why I'm always running around knocking on wood and looking around for the next disaster to fall. See? Minnesota.

A WORD ABOUT EMOTIONAL OUTBURSTS

~ "Oh, great, just wonderful, terrific. I love it!!!!"

Get that excited about something in Minnesota and you might as well paste a bumper sticker on your forehead that says I'M NOT FROM AROUND HERE. I don't know what you were taught where you came from, but you shouldn't let your positive feelings run amuck while you're here. It's okay to have good feelings but there's no sense running down the street telling people about it at the top of your voice. There's a good chance it won't last, anyway. Good things happen--yes--but when they do, Minnesotans are a little nervous because they know something bad will eventually happen to balance it out. But if something bad happens they know they're safe for a while from something else bad, probably, but you never know.

(I believe that I've expressed this opinion/truth in one of my past blogs....I know I passed it along to my children.)

Minnesotans prefer to express their positive feelings through the use of negatives, because it naturally levels things out.

If somebody asks "How's it goin'?" and you're feeling mainly average and life in general is okay at the moment--not perfect, of course--you'll say

~ "Not so bad."

On the other hand, if you're feeling better than average and you haven't noticed any ill winds, you'll say

~ "Can't complain."

Can't complain actually means you could complain if pressed, because there's always something, that's just the way it is. But you're saying that since you feel so good (within reason) for the moment--with no illusions that it's permanent or anything--you're going to pass on the complaining for now, but you'll catch up on it later.

If you reply

~"It could be worse."

you could be saying exactly what you mean, because of course things can always be worse than they are. In fact, things can be worse than they are more often than they can be better than they are; it's a fact of life. If it's not going real well--say the pipes busted in the basement while you were in town seeing the sheriff about your stolen car--you say "It could be worse." because you know very well that if you start thinking this is the end of it, the water heater's gonna short out or your daughter's gonna need braces.

(I think that this attitude explains a lot about how I react to various disasters that have come my way. Yup! "It could be worse.", but I pray for, "Can't complain.", but will settle for, "Not too bad." or "Not so bad.")

Howard continues with this last note which finishes up Lesson 2 of How to Talk Minnesotan:

Not too good and not so good are worse than not too bad and not so bad. Way worse, in fact. When somebody asks you how you slept on the guest bed with the bar that cuts across your back and gives you shooting pains down your legs, you will say "Not too bad" because you don't want to hurt their feelings, but how you actually slept was not too good.

31 More Days before I leave for Wisconsin and "The Lake"

OK. It's How to Talk Minnesotan...A Visitor's Guide By Howard Mohr. Today's lesson is about two different phrases used in the Minnesotan language. As you may recall...or if you can't so you may want to re-read some of my blogs....Lesson 1 covers the following phrases: You Bet (which I already covered a couple of blogs ago), That's Different and Whatever.

That's Different

That's different is indispensable in Minnesota. You bet is a blanket reply on neutral ground, with the mere suggestion of opinion. That's different is deployed in all other cases, except where whatever is called for (see below). That's different means you have an opinion, but you're holding back the details. Here are two Minnesotans discussing bullhead bait.

~ "I suppose you use night crawlers for bullheads?"

~ "You bet. Whadda you use?"

~ "Stink bait. I make it out of rotten hamburger and moldy cheese, with oatmeal for a binder."

~ "That's different."

If somebody shows you the Holstein paneling he covered his living room walls with, you say

~ "That's different."

If a new family moves in down the block and they've got four big dogs, six old cars, and three teenagers, you say

~ "They're different."

If you are dining with Minnesotans during your visit and they ask you if you like the Macaroni/Herring/Pinto Bean hotdish staring up at you from your plate, you might say

~ "You bet."

But probably you'd say

~ "That's different."

Whatever

Whatever expresses emotional turmoil of many varieties and takes over in Minnesota conversation whan you bet and that's different won't do the job.
Whatever can be used to express disappointment.

~ "Your work is good, Bud, we don't have any complaints, but we're gonna have to let you go. It's the economy."

~ "Whatever"

Or it can express resignation

~ "I've been an electrician for twenty years, but I tell you this house of yours is the worst I've seen. I'm surprised you didn't have real trouble long before now. I'm gonna have to replace all the wiring. It ain't gonna be cheap."

~ "Whatever"

If your wife tells you that her sister and brother-in-law are gonna come stay with you for a few months while they find themselves, you might say

~"You bet"

Or you might say

~"That's different"

But more likely you'd say

~"Whatever"


So ends Lesson 1 in How To Talk Minnesotan. Tomorrow, I'll go on to cover Lesson 2, where such phrases as, It could be worse, Not too bad, Not so bad, and Can't complain, are covered in this chapter aptly named The Power of the Negative. Do I find that this book is a fine source of information which may help many understand the fine nuances of the my Minnesota language? You bet. My children (progeny of two Minnesota natives who have been raised in a foriegn state...Arizona....That's Different) may finally truely understand their grandparents, their uncles and aunts, and their cousins, all natives of Minnesota, still living in Minnesota. They may even learn to understand their parents. But that may be asking too much. Whatever.

32 More Days before I leave for Wisconsin and "The Lake"

Yesterday, I promised to continue with How to Speak Minnesotan...a Visitor's Guide By Howard Mohr, in my blog. Today I was going to get into the phrases, That's Different and Whatever. This would have finished up Lesson 1 in How to Speak Minnesotan. However, I've decided to save that for tomorrow's blog and instead beg to differ with Howard Mohr on one point he makes in his book. According to Howard,

"Minnesotan is not a musical language. Some people with an ax to grind have said it is the musical equivalent of a one-string guitar. What I say is, what's wrong with a monotone---at least you don't startle anybody, but it does mean that Minnesotans are not asked to be on talk shows as much as residents of other states, not that we care."

(Here I need to interject the following "funny" by Garrison Keillor about Lutherans who make up a large religious base in Minnesota. I don't at all agree that Minnesotans speak in a monotone...well...at least I don't ...but then that may be because I'm a Lutheran.)

Singing With the Lutherans
By Garrison Keillor




I have made fun of Lutherans for years--who wouldn't if you lived in Minnesota? But I have also sung with Lutherans and that is one of the main joys of life, along with hot baths and fresh sweet corn.

We make fun of Lutherans for their blandness, their excessive calm, their fear of giving offense, their constant guilt that burns like a pilot light, their lack of speed, and also for their secret fondness for macaroni and cheese. But nobody sings like them.

If you ask an audience in New York City, a relatively "Lutheranless" place, to sing along on the chorus of "Michael, Row the Boat Ashore" they will look daggers at you as if you had asked them to strip to their underwear.

But if you do this among Lutherans, they'll smile and row that boat ashore and up on the beach and down the road! Lutherans are bred from childhood to sing in four-part harmony. It's a talent that comes from sitting on the lap of someone singing alto or tenor or bass and hearing the harmonic intervals by putting your little head against that person's rib cage.

It's natural for Lutherans to sing in harmony. We're too modest to be soloists, too worldly to sing in unison. When you're singing in the key of C and you slide into the A7th and D7th chords, all two hundred of you, it's an emotionally fulfilling moment.

I once sang the bass line of "Children of the Heavenly Father" in a room with about three thousand Lutherans in it; and when we finished we all had tears in our eyes, partly from the promise that God will not forsake us, partly from the proximity of all those lovely voices. By our joining in harmony, we somehow promise that we will not forsake each other.

I do believe this: people, these Lutherans, who love to sing in four-part harmony are the sort of people you could call up when you're in deep distress. If you're dying, they'll comfort you. If you're lonely, they'll talk to you. And if you're hungry, they'll give you tuna salad.

So you see....we don't all speak in monotones. Tomorrow I'll continue with further lessons on How To Speak Minnesota. Today, I'm celebrating Cinco de Mayo ( May 5th).....on Cuatro de Mayo (May 4th) with friends. I am still in Arizona afterall and for some reason that I won't try to understand....those who live in Arizona celebrate Cinco de Mayo which is Mexico's Independance Day. Hey! Any excuse for a margarita.

33 more days before I leave for Wisconsin and "The Lake"

I'm all jealous because my sister, who lives in Wisconsin, has already been up to "the lake". I think she and her husband are going back up there this weekend too. Opening of fishing season. Maybe she'll take some pictures for me. Oh well. It's still nice here in Arizona. Regardless, I can't leave here until my son finishes up the school year. Stupid modified year-round school. I keep having to tell myself....one more year, just one more year. He's taking his SAT tests this morning and next year will be his last year in high school. And then....we're free. Well...nothing is free. He'll have at least four years of college after that but.....we'll be free! Empty nesters! Anyway, I'd like to pass along in the next 33 days a few tidbits from How To Talk Minnesotan...A Visitors Guide Written by Howard Mohr. I grew up in Minnesota but found over the years that Packers (People from Wisconsin) have the same basic language morphology as Minnesotans with a shared heritage and resultant habits and behaviors.

Handy Words and Phrases

~ You bet
~ That's different
~ Whatever

These three workhorses of Minnesota conversation will carry you through your first scary hours here (Minnesota). Memorize them, work on them at home with your family, repeat them until they are second nature. They are the building blocks of dialogue.

(I find that these phrases tend to be passed down through the generations. Only one of my children was born in Minnesota, the rest were born in Arizona. All of my children speak Minnesotan. Often I was asked "What languages other then English are spoken in your home?" when I filled out paperwork for my children's schools. I've always been tempted to fill in the blank with....Minnesotan. If you hear any of the above phrases from your children, or if you have yourself used any of the above phrases....you may want to do some serious geneology work to see if there may be a past Minnesota connection in your family.)

~ You Bet (You Betcha is a variation of this phrase and has been used as far west as North and South Dakota and indicates a certain amount of enthusiasm that may be frowned upon by purists of the Minnesotan language)

A common use of you bet is in response to thank you or I appreciate it. If you buy something in a Minnesota store--say a bag or two of tiny marshmallows for a salad--the sales clerk might say thank you, in which case you would say you bet. But generally the customer says thank you first in Minnesota and the clerk says you bet.
You bet is mainly used to answer questions. If you can't think of anything else, say "You bet." You bet is meant to be pleasantly agreeable and doesn't obligate you to a strong position. In fact, hardly anything obligates you to a strong opinion in Minnesota.

It's worth pointing out that you bet has nothing to do with betting or gambling of any kind, even though Minnesota is the Bingo Capital of the Midwest. But you bet can occur in a Minnesota wagering situation, so don't be confused.

(I will hold off on the paragraphs dealing with That's Different and Whatever until future blogs. Note that if you see comments like this in parenthesis....that's me writing....all credit for the rest must be given to Howard Mohr. If you want the full text of his book...you'll have to go out and buy it. I'm only giving you choice tidbits. My scanner isn't connected to my computer so I have to enter all this in by hand and I'm not going to type the whole book for you. I'm also giving him full credit...or blame...because I don't want anyone to get me for stealing his work.)