Feeling Minnesota

I copied and pasted the following from the blog of my friend Brennen Leigh's older brother, Seth. He used to live in Austin, but now he's back in Minnesota. His blogs are always fascinating--one other great one I read was about him having coffee with a hooker in Costa Rica. Another is about a town in the south of France with a small municipal swimming pool that. He went to the pool to go swimming, but they wouldn't allow him to go in unless he changed. Turns out they don't allow men to wear swimming trunks in that pool, "for safety reasons". It's a rule that all male swimmers MUST wear Speedos. Seriously. And then they presented him with some that were lying in the Lost and Found box. This is the best thing: Seth plays with Brennen Leigh, and was in the south of France for the same festival I will be be playing next summer. So now I must add the "Speedo swimming pool" to my list of sights to see! Heehee.

Anyway, I digress. Here's something he wrote in his blog that makes me crave some REAL weather for a change. It reminds me of many old-timey stories I read voraciously in my girlhood.



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November 26, 2007



I just thought I should let you know about the first visit by Old Man Winter. Today was a tolerable day; temps were in the 30's and I didn't even have to bust out my hat and mittens.

However, as darkness fell, a terrible wind came roaring out of the northwest from across the lake -- taking most of the shingles on the far side of the roof with it. The oldtime thermometer on the garage door read 9 degrees. I suspect I will wake up to the sight of a frozen lake; the view we'll get to look at until about May Day, when the last snowbanks will finally disappear.

Alas, that is a long way off. It is best to resign oneself to the cycle of weight-gain, alcoholism, incessant bitching, and seasonal-affected depression that is just a way of life here in the Land of 10,000 Lakes. The weather man said this little system is just sort of a "tease" compared to the mess of an Alberta Clipper that's going to be unleashed upon the Red River Valley from the Great White North later this week. The guy on TV said the storm should only produce a few feet of snow and it shouldn't cause too much of a disruption.

In our culture of Scandinavian Optimism, this essentially means we're all toast. Think about temperatures that are ten times colder than your grandparents could ever exaggerate .. not being able to leave the house for five to seven days .. people being found buried alive in snowbanks or frozen in their cars in downtown Fargo .. school being cancelled because they can't FIND the school under all that snow .. just another day in the Upper Midwest.

So, the last outing of this fine evening found me fumbling around the yard with a flashlight that barely worked in a blinding snowstorm trying to retrieve all of the shingles that blew off the roof. As if that didn't sufficiently suck -- tomorrow I get to go up on the roof and put them back on in -10 degree windchill. Does a teetering ladder, icy steps, and gale-force winds sound like a good idea to you? If I should happen to survive this affair, I must also locate all of our deck furniture, eaves troughs, several trashcans and a large outdoor grill that has gone missing in the first blizzard of the season. Cheers.