The Northern Mind; or Now Where’s My Mittens?

I put on my socks today.

A small thing, you say?  Nein, liebchen.  In the Great State of Minnesota, this is known as the Beginning of the End.

Next thing you know, I’ll be looking for my hat.

There’s a nip in the air.  Mother Nature, having done her best to steam us into submission over the last few months, has taken another tack.

She will kill us using her favorite northern weapon:  Canada. 

The winds have shifted, and one’s mind turns to winter-weight oil, shovels and the heavier ales. 

And now there’s nothing to do but look for the sweaters, the corduroys, the thick-bottomed shoes.

Don’t get me wrong – it’s all comfortable now, despite the need for socks.  The sky is blue, the teenagers still run amok with little else but their hormones to warm them, the odd ant still creeps into my house in search of sustenance.

Nevertheless, I will soon need a hat.  And having recently moved, many boxes still unexplored, I can now legitimately use my only other German phrase – aside from the necessary “bier, bitte”.

Ich habe keinen hut.*

Perhaps I should open those last boxes.

* “I don’t have a hat.”  Learned this little bit of happiness at a “Crazy Hat” party given by a local German group, the Spielmannszug.   Silly Germans.

Wherein I Awake: or Slow and Steady Wins the Race

I have to be reminded, sometimes, of why I love the city. 

Luckily, there are always clues.

Like Willie, who lives next door, who mows my lawn along with his.  Like Cheryl walking from her home to mine carrying a cake she’d made, smilingly telling me that she “needed to get rid of it”.  Like sitting on the back deck and looking at the moon over the wires that run along the poles in the alley, listening to the sounds of the upstairs’ renter putting his dishes away, one clattering, truck stop plate at a time.

Out front, the leaves on the trees in the park across the street slide softly from dark green to last-gasp yellow. 

The Farmers Almanac calls for more snow than usual. 

And I am not prepared.

Where did it go?  Has there been enough summer?  The State of Minnesota – liberal bastion! – had promised me a blue-skied, fluffy-cloud season of picnics and boat `rides.  You saw the commercials!  You heard the talk!

I should have RSVPed.  I should have made plans.

But here it comes, whether you’re for or against.  Here comes Fall, where we take stock of where we’ve been and make plans to do better for the next season.

And here comes the next season. 

I should RSVP.

Bus Stop, Early Monday Morning; or Nostalgia

Monday morning.  Again.  And here is the bus.

Again.

I have settled into my usual seat – the one just after the surveillance camera.  

I like to know that, should I be accosted in any way, there will be a record of it.

They climb aboard one stop after mine, shivering and under-dressed.

The young couple coming down the aisle is sorely misplaced. 

I pull an earplug, in case they speak.

His arm is around her.  Skin-tight black pants, a torn Misfits tee-shirt, black Converse tennis shoes, he has a young, sleepy scowl on his face.  It is clear that he is here to guard her against the wiles of the 6:30 Monday morning commuters.

Because you just never know what us bus types might do. 

I cast a sideways glance at them.  Clad in torn fishnets, her white legs are sure to be goose-bumped, although I cannot conceive of a way to appropriately ascertain this. She pulls long, slender legs under her, a fawn of a girl-woman, only to remember the view she is no doubt giving the bus driver, should he check his mirror. 

She places her feet on the floor, leans into the young man and lays her head on his shoulder.  He kisses her temple.  I watch as he pulls his phone out, checks Facebook. 

I watch as he takes a picture of her. 

And I think of the men who have loved me.

I get off the bus, step into the City Center, head toward the elevator.

They never spoke, those two on the bus.

They didn’t need to. 

Every Season is Special; or, I’m – Sob! – Cold!

I stood at the bus stop this morning, a chill in the air and a suspiciously autumnal look to the sky and thought to myself, ‘Now where’s my mittens?’

Wait.   Mittens?

It’s a full 30 degrees colder this morning than it was just two weeks ago.

Oh, September, you sly little thing you.

Ladies and Gentlemen of the jury, I stand before you, a woman covered fore to aft in layers upon layers of thick, weather-defiant clothing. 

In September.

The Farmer’s Almanac, always disturbingly accurate, predicts another dreadful winter, much like last year’s dreadful winter, only with more snow.

I have cousins online comparing SAD light boxes. 

“This is the first year,” my son says, “that I’m not looking forward to winter.”

“Me, too,” I say.

“There just wasn’t enough summer,” he says.  “I’m not sick of it yet.”

And ain’t that the truth.

Of course, it goes against the code, living in Minnesota, to face an upcoming season in this manner.  We’re a hardy people, dammit, and buck up, won’t you?  Why, our great-grandmothers hung wash that froze on the line!  They subsisted on animals they butchered themselves and root vegetables they kept in a root cellar!

They wrested a living out of the land – frozen and unfrozen – with nothing but steely determination; large, well-muscled sons; and the knowledge that there was nothing they could do about it!

It was 42 degrees at the bus stop this morning. 

If you need me, I shall be in a hot bath until spring. 

That's a Lovely Free Chair You Have There

I must be stronger than I look.

This is something that I reflect upon whilst grappling with one end of a wardrobe.  Made somewhere around 1904, it’s better constructed, heavier, than most cars.  Roughly nine feet tall and four, maybe  feet wide, perhaps three feet deep, it once housed clothes, boots, a secret passage to Narnia.

Willie has retrofitted it to hold his CDs, all 1200 of them which are now lying, alphabetically, on the floor in another room.

All we have to do is move this wooden behemoth from one end of the house to the other.

I close my eyes, just for a moment.  The day has been an endurance test.  Still reeling from last night’s Halloween party, I’ve managed to feed and dress myself.  I have not, however, bothered retouching my hair (carefully wrapped/preserved from the night before) or makeup. 

Grunting, my mind starts running through all the items that have been moved.

You see, there’s a new couch.  And a La-Z-Boy.  And an entertainment center.

Not that we don’t have all those things.  We do.  They were free, they were old.  The couch in particular was a leather, Caucasian-tinted hand-me-down, a color many of my friends and relatives – especially in the mid-winter months – could not sit on without disappearing almost entirely. 

Was it just an hour ago, my hands then splinter-free, that we had taken a door off its hinges, wrestled a large, square club chair and ottoman down a flight of steps and out the front, where it was abandoned, a large sign - “FREE!” - taped to it?

“I don’t think this is a good idea,” Willie had said.  “I don’t like the idea of leaving it in the yard here.”

“RAwRRRrrr grrr ackle rawr,” I said.

Willie stared at me.  “You’re not the only one, you know.”

“GrrRarrrr acker rawr rawr,” I point out.

“Fine,” he said. 

A car slows down at this point. 

And then another car.

And another.

“Hmm!” Willie said, smiling.  “Looks like this is going to work anyway!  Look at all the people slowing down to get a look at it!”

And that was an hour ago.  Now, on the second floor, Willie and I tussle with the wardrobe.  Akin to moving an undrained waterbed, we are both sweating, both making interesting, perhaps feral noises.

“Just another few feet,” Willie says, “and this wave will be done.”

And the light bulb went off in my head.

And I begin to laugh.  I have to set my end down.

Willie smiles, rests, too.  “What’s so funny?”

“The cars!” I say.  “All those cars slowing down!”

Willie frowns.

I shake my head.  “They weren’t slowing down because of the awesome chair,” I say. 

And then he realizes, too.

  

The chair, by the way, is gone by morning.

Well That’s One Way of Keeping Warm

The sun, having heard, perhaps, that Minneapolis has cast furtive glances at its Tupperware-ed  stockpile of cozy sweaters and corduroy pants, has cooled in her affection for us.  The temperature drops daily, and the citizens of Our Great City rub their hands together, exhale hotly onto their exposed fingertips.

Summer!  Oh, summer.  I only sunburnt once this year – just a little bit! – and I never did get a tan.

There is nothing I can do about it now. 

The seasons change, and we head to the cookbooks.  Indian, Thai, Mexican, anything where the tongue can be fooled into thinking that it may have struck out on its own, perhaps flown off to somewhere warm, somewhere where dark-eyed men with enterprising moustaches offer bowls of fragrant happiness…

Three jalapenos, the recipe said.  Cored and chopped, seeds are optional.

Optional?

Optional?!!  Say no more, my good man.  Any time a recipe suggests “optional” to me, I suggest that it does not know who it is dealing with.  Optional?  The word tastes bad, and I’ll have none of it.

I chopped three jalapenos.  Cored and chopped them.  Kept their little seeds.

Optional.  Why I oughta…

Of course, it is not long after that, whilst brushing my hair from my face, that I notice my cheek is burning.

And my left ear.  And the right side of my chin.  And the center of my chest.  And a portion of my forehead.

And it occurs to me, something that I read ever-so-long ago, something about wearing rubber gloves when dealing with jalapenos…

But!  But!  These were grown in Minnesota!  Surely a little home-grown vegetable wouldn’t burn like one grown in, say, Texas?

Right?

For a bright woman, I am surprising stupid at times.

I go into the bathroom, look in the mirror at the red splotches on my face.

They will burn for hours.

I made salsa to remind me of summer.

And just like that, summer is back.

Bus Stop: Nicollet and 24th; or No, How YOU Doin’?

I am waiting for the bus.

Bright fall evening, corner of Nicollet and 24^th.  McDonald’s is at my back; the lights on Nicollet are a stone’s throw in front of me.  Having missed one bus by minutes, I am forced to wait another 25, maybe 30 minutes for the next one.

Still, I am feeling particularly pleased.  The sky is the high, clear blue that we remember from our childhoods, the nearby restaurants are fragrant, and I’m relatively sure, in that nonsensical, self-delusional way that I have, that everyone likes me.

I laugh softly at myself.  Yeah.  I’m pretty sure everyone likes me. 

There’s no arguing, though, that it’s a beautiful day.  We are weeks away from snowfall, from the kind of cold that turns all porches into freezers, all cars into remarkably poor sleds. 

For the moment, I am happy to be boot- and mitten-free.  I vow to myself that I will remember this, that I will remember what it feels like to be wearing a skirt without leggings, to wear high heels without risking permanent cellular damage or a spectacular slip-and-slide, like last year’s, where I found myself flat on my back and half-way under a parked car.

I grin at the memory.  The fall had been so fast, so smooth, that it hadn’t hurt at all, actually, and the look on the face of a passing motorist as I had slid had been priceless…

The world’s largest car pulls up, stops for the red light.  The music is loud, but not too loud, a bass-heavy, I-could-dance-to-this kind of music.

 The passenger, a handsome, dark-skinned man with a grin to match mine leans out his window, says something to me.

“What’s that?” I shout.

“I said ‘How you doin’, beautiful’?”

The grin on my face broadens.  

I don’t always get hollered at by strangers, but when I do, I like to take charge of the situation.

“Well I’m doing well now, thank you!”

“Well all right,” the passenger says, all smiles.  The light changes and the world’s largest car pulls ahead. Smiley leans out his window, yells as they drive away. “All right!  You have a blessed day now!”

I raise my left arm, wiggle my fingers at him as the car takes a left at the green light and keeps on keepin' on.

It’s a bright fall evening, corner of Nicollet and 24^th. 

And I am waiting for the bus.

And Don’t Forget to Tune in Tomorrow When Pearl Makes Pithy Observations re: Migrating Geese

Just like that, and in a fashion true to Minnesota and her inconsistencies, the weather has made me a liar.

I spoke yesterday – to anyone who would listen, frankly – about my feelings regarding the turning of the seasons, of the darkening skies, of the fact that the time we will spend naked between now and, say, May, has dwindled dramatically.

The temperature at the bus stop yesterday, after all, was 44 degrees.  Enough to get anyone excited.

Today’s rather non-autumnal temperature?

74.

It is here, by the way, that I should interject with a dramatic retelling of the blizzard of Some Much Earlier Year, wherein people, caught unaware by the storm, were forced to take refuge in the interior of oxen and those trapped in houses by unbudge-able doors were compelled to ration their chewing tobaccy, harsh times calling for harsh measures.

Shh.  You hear that? 

Someone has begun to hum The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.

It is a fact of life in these here parts that we are contractually obligated to discuss the weather (you’ll find it sandwiched there between the lines specifying that Cream of Mushroom soups must be in the pantry at all times and the part about all carbonated beverages being referred to as “pop”).

Look: when you’re subjected to a hundred-degree temperature differential in the course of a year, you’re allowed a certain amount of weather-related obsession.

Not to mention that, you know, it’s part of the contract.