From London With Love

I spent this past weekend traveling to London and back via: Omaha and Chicago. Lots of traveling which sort of sucked the life out of me in a way that I wasn't really prepared for, but well worth the trip nonetheless.

Whilst in London I hung out with my 87 year old Nana, making food, eating food, watching golf, being amazed by her apparent distaste for organic foods (she bought an organic broccoli once, it wasn't good), and giggling as she pushed her way to the front of the line because of her "stick" and generally hurtled around North London. I also visited my 92 year old grandfather at a nursing home which could have been better, but very easily could have been worse. It was interesting to see a home filled with old Jewish Brits and staffed by people from all around the world. It sort of made sense with what I saw around North London in general, some very British people walking alongside lots of Muslim women with their heads covered and people who seem to be from Africa, South Asia and other places that feel fairly un-British.

This isn't new, but it is always surprising to see how culturally diverse London is and how much I feel like I've crossed an ocean to get there. Since I started traveling there when I was 8 I have always felt like there is so much closer to the rest of the world than here. Even when my "here" meant NYC and not Vermillion, SD. It makes me wonder how the world is going to change/is changing all the time due to the movement of people. This is really not something new, but when Sioux Falls, SD has Iraqi refugees coming to live and small towns all over the midwest are filled with pockets of new and different communities, what is shifting in those places? Since London and Britain in general has always felt so much more stead and traditional than here it gives me another little window through which I can explore the world.

Luckily I was able to discuss and debate these thoughts with Adam, my American friend with the Cambridge-educated perspective. Note: Cambridge British and Jewish working-class British are not the same thing. All in all, good trip, but I am happy to sit still for a few weeks before I jet off again to a longer and more frightening adventure.

One Year Out

Graduation was a year ago this weekend, in honor of the momentous occasion I offer you some thoughts:

The oft-mentioned “real world” is a hoax. During the past year I have come into contact with many people who occupy this mystery place; people who have worked at my job longer then I have and have been thinking about their health insurance for years, but for the most part, we newly graduated masses continue to look at the world through our collegiate lens. University life is still our paradigm. When I’m hanging out with my older friends I often catch myself referencing college life and feeling silly, young, inexperienced, nostalgic? We recent graduates reminisce about our hours logged in the library and pine for the place we learned to call home while shyly examining the world around us. (Note: working at a University during your first post-graduation year may intensify feelings of confusion about where the University life ends and real life begins.)

Exploring is challenging. After graduation I realized that there were so many parts of Cornell and Ithaca that I had just touched on, or had taken a really long time to find (ex. Walking down the Cascadilla gorge and following it along the creek to Gimme! Coffee). I thought that by moving to South Dakota everything would be an adventure, but I’ve found that I need to be vigilant and not just sit at home watching TV and chatting on the phone. I’ve refined what I think of as exploring, including hanging out with new people, biking around new places and doing things when I want to even if I don’t have someone to do them with. I think I can always do better, but I’ve been working at it and hope that exploration doesn’t one day take a back seat to constant office work.

Writing when you’re not in school is hard. I miss thinking new things and communicating them in an interesting way. Emails, blog entries and press releases are not the same as academic papers. Sometimes when a smart word like “conceptualize” sneaks into my conversation (as in: Liz Lemon radically re-conceptualizes comedy) I get pangs and want to lock myself in a library and come home hopped up and chatting to my roommates about all my ideas. That said, I am not quite ready to head back to school yet. But look out, this blog ain’t slowing down anytime soon!

Experiment

I have been thinking of experimenting with eliminating Corn Syrup from my diet. I was thinking it would be difficult, but make sense since it would be a logical continuation of my rants against ethanol and corporate agriculture (if you've missed these, be thankful). I started to poke around the web to find others who have done it and instead found people who were engaged in much more challenging experiments such as eating organic for cheap and the now-ubiquitous No Impact Man.

I am not a huge fan of these sorts of experiments, since they are definitely gimmick-y, but it can't hurt to try to make small changes in my own life without starting to compost my own poop. Although I can't wait to start composting my food wastes once I live somewhere that feels semi-permanent. I've been making an effort to eat more organic, more local and be more mindful in general of what I'm buying, but I haven't been as deliberate about it as I'd sometimes like. So, after a year in South Dakota where the diabetes rate is something like one out of every six people and a trip to the dr. who strongly suggested eliminating all high fructose corn syrup from the diet, I am going to see what I can do. I'm hoping that I feel some sort of difference, but in reality, it may be a bust. I'll keep you posted.

In other news, last night I had a dream that reminded me of when I was taking my anti-malaria medication. I am headed to London this weekend to see my grandparents for an amazingly short period of time (in reality) and dreamt that my flight went through Mongolia. This made sense. Once in Mongolia I realized that I could just hop on a later flight and called up my friend Leigh to hang out with her for a few hours. We hung out in her apartment and had a nice time until I panicked about getting back on the flight and we had to run through a field of dirt and yaks as the sky blackened because a dust storm was approaching. I made it back to my gate and immediately felt bad because my Nana was probably wondering where I was since I was hours later then expected without a phone call or explanation. Then I realized that I'd left my pounds and oyster card in Vermillion and felt like a schmuck.

I guess I'm anxious about traveling. Or just really itching to visit Mongolia?

On the Verge of Rain

It's been on the verge for two days now, do you know what that can do to a man? I've been getting pains in my knee, I wonder if the two are related. Summers aren't made for working, as I may have mentioned before, they're for lounging and exploring and drinking and chatting. Too bad I have a desk job.

I just found out through the grapevine that a certain friend of mine is just a few months from receiving security clearance from our illustrious government. This makes me think about things that I've received in my capacity as a federal employee. An unhealthy obsession with my cuticles. An intimate relationship with the internet. A developing allergy to the indoors (for realz, the eyes have been mad itchy). An aversion to conference calls. The company debit card, which I still need to keep receipts for to justify to accounting.

I hope it rains already.

The Great Outdoors

I spent a lot of time outside this weekend, although most of it was sitting down. Camping in Yankton which mostly entailed drinking beer, playing bags (some standing), watching food cook, roasting marshmellows (does getting up to replenish my marshmellow supply count as standing?), croquet (definitely included standing), rowing around, and sitting by the water. All without getting sunburnt! I have been camping four times in my life, including this weekend, and they were all essentially car camping. The Lewis & Clark campsite might take the cake for least separation between campsites, as in, no separation in the form of trees, bushes or even that much space. But it was great regardless, so I guess that the powers that be in the SD Parks Department have hit the nail on the head. Or something.

Inspired by our adventurous camping excursion, Nick and I did some more wandering on Sunday. A visit to the illustrious Spink Cafe, a very small town cafe where Jr., the owner, loves Elvis and fried food. Everyone knows each other and I was happy to be wearing my Centerville hat, since it seems to provide coverage from the sun and some SoDak street cred.

We took the backroads to Union County State Park. I always love passing this little bit of topographically interesting and very very green land while on the Interstate. Backroads are even more fun for exploring and made me realize for the millionth time how many layers there are to each place and how impossible it is to really explore a variety of places to their fullest. Just next to the interstate, the roads take you past farmhouses and fields and through tiny towns that may or may not still have any inhabitants. Southeast South Dakota always seems so much more beautiful on the little roads, almost shockingly so. Oh yeah, and Jewels liked it too.
We ventured even further afield to Iowa, where I was swept away by a wind powered school and a short visit to the ice cream capital of the world.
Unfortunately there was no ice cream to be had there because it was graduation, an event so important that even a world capital has to take a breather. Look out East Coasters, I may have found my calling as the official rain gauge of Akron, Iowa.

Delicious Nettles

Lots of fun things this week interspersed with some not so fun things (yay for crushing my phone!). It turns out that stinging nettles with garlic, soy sauce and intense amounts of organic olive oil are fabulous. and actually, it wasn't just Vermillion that went nettle crazy.

The Farmer's Market/Community Gardening opening was a success! The kids went crazy for Amy's Art Seeds creation. Oh kids, they're so cute until they don't stop talking and you want them to, or they get bossy, or demanding, or whiny. Anyway, they made cute things and played in the garden.
After the garden celebration I tried fishing. I have to admit, sometimes my city kid-ness is overwhelming, my ability to sit still is close to zero and my intolerance to bugs is overwhelming. Regardless, Nick and I had a nice time watching our fishing rods get caught on things in the wild and crazy Vermillion river, putting nightcrawlers on the hook (for some reason, I didn't think about worms having blood, ew) and watching a loooooooong train pass by.
By the way, my Centerville Tornados hat and crazy earrings are probably two of the most exciting things I've ever found in the Civic Council and I have worn both everyday since purchasing them. Gotta get my SoDak gear on!
Sorry that it's not the most exciting train picture in the world, but it's owned by Warren Buffett. Does that make it more exciting? Maybe not.

By the by, I spent two hours yesterday ripping a wire fence down off an old chicken coop. Take that NYTimes I think I'm so cool because I have a coop in my house. Whatevs.

A Study of the Mundane

This may or may not be an interesting concept, but I'm sure that my parents will love it, so the rest of you can suck it up. Unfortunately all I did today was run errands, but maybe it will provide the insight into my life that you wouldn't get from talking to me because no one wants to hear about running errands, but let's face it, we all do it. Sometimes a lot.

I pick up my bike and head over to Jones' Food Center to pick up free polenta from Jozef for tomorrow's big Farmer's Market/Community Garden opening.
Polenta + Stinging Nettles = Delicious? I certainly hope so. At least I found these, notice the name...Post-Jones' I head over to the Coffee Shop Gallery. Having one of those moments where I feel like I live in 1957. Why do water towers make me feel like that when every town has them and NYC's look so much more old school anyway? And I meet Lu who is grading students portfolios for English 101. Watch as she fails those crazy students. When she says eight pages she don't mean four! Check it out, she's got a grade book, and she didn't get it in no teacher store!
I didn't stay too long because I had a mountain of clothes to fold. Seriously, it was sort of scary. Don't I look sort of scary?
And now, something totally not surprising, my room is a pig sty.
But not any more! Check out the meta blog.
Anyway, off to bbq and go to jazz night.

interesting map

I think that google greatly overestimates my swimming abilities. Also, interesting that the most direct route from Vermillion to London takes me through Boston and France. Who knew?

In other news, I've found the source of the cheesy smell in my portion of the office. Thy name is coagulated fair trade hot chocolate remains. Yum. My future looks messy.

more pictures

This picture got passed around at my goodbye party at work yesterday. i may as well put the pedal to the metal and share it with the whole world.

Taken at Al's Oasis in South Dakota. If you have driven across the country, there is a very good chance that you ate a buffalo burger here. If you have lived in South Dakota it is almost guaranteed that you have eaten a buffalo burger there. And maybe you hung around the area after dark and maybe you went to a small town bar in Reliance, SD where you met an older man who likes to tell raunchy jokes such as:
older man who has spent all day working outside -- "How do you cut a fart in half?"
bemused girls from Vermillion non-verbally to each other -- "can we get out of here NOW?"
older man -- "wear a thong!"

picture city

This is a picture of me mega loving the Community Garden. Actually, it's a picture of me doing my weird "Alex takes a picture and flinches because she hears her mother yelling to smile, but not like that" face in front of our awesome signage. How great is this sign?!? You can sort of see the plots in the background. We're going to have an opening party next week, so i'm sure there will be more pictures.

Also, some people wonder what I learned from Warren Buffett at the Berkshire Hathaway shareholders meeting. I don't want to give out any hot stock tips here, so I'll just leave you with this.

it's May!

to celebrate, here are some things that I like - -

• how people in South Dakota lift a finger when they pass you on the road. I especially like it when older people do it from their pickups, but I do not like it when young whippersnappers ignore you because they are on their cell phones.
  
• being a cat person. I can really see myself getting into this.
  
• how food looks when it's arranged interestingly on a bbq.
• drinking chilled wine when it's warm out.
• using public spaces in a personal way, i.e. walking around a church in Omaha barefoot because I stayed there with a bunch of USD student volunteers this weekend.
• bloody marys at Happy Hour!

can you tell that I want to be outside?