There is a pale evening light casting its frosty breath through the windows of the sun porch.  It's weak illumination reaches one arm of the couch, then runs out.  In the shadowy bosom of the couch is a sleeping figure swaddled in a red and white wool blanket.  The television flickers a blue light on the wall behind him.  I can hear the chatter of the Gilmore Girls from underneath the red-headed hermit's door when I take off my headphones.  As the western light fades further, the kitchen is beginning to glow with the yellow light of the floor lamp by the big iron basin.

Sometimes, these days, the coming darkness sparks panic or a resigned despair: there goeth the entire weekend and I have not even finished the work that would make missing it worth it somehow.  I dwell in the present moment and the logic of present sacrifice for future gain is cold comfort.  But tonight I feel the warm glow of home.  I feel my thoughts slide quietly westward with the sun to the other home.  I see the pattern of the branches cast as shadows in that same pale evening strain on the brown carpeting where it now slides across smooth wood floor.  The warm glow of the kitchen light reminds me someone must now be assembling ingredients for tacos in my other home.  I warm this home in the blanket swathing the Beloved.  Its twin might even now be spread across my mother's lap with a warm circle whence the teacup was lifted.  I am facing northward and even now, my father might also be forgetting to turn a light on, absorbed in the white glow of a Word document. 

I hear the muffled footsteps of a sister in my present home; I can feel her, too, casting thoughts back across the flatlands to the frosty highlands. Our minds search for the wisdom we found there: how to make a home, carry it with you, be courageous, hopeful, faithful, tenacious.  Sometimes this is practical advice, words echoing in our minds, or habits, but most of the time I look around that home when I am lonely and lost.  This kind of yearning for home, a phone call will never sate.  This is the compiled conversation of childhood, this is the kind of timeless, crystalline vision that binds time and distance together.  This exercise is not self-indulgent comfort for when I see that little home among the clapboard herd out on the prairie, I see the dark blue exterior fade into the dark.  I see the wind whipping at the windows of my childhood. And I see my parents lining those windows with plastic--Saran Wrap against the teeth of the howling wind.  Faith is not without worry, it is not without hope, and mercy is a drafty house still standing on the prairie.  It takes strength of will to cast a small, steady, warm glow against the enormity and miscellany of life.  It is truly an awesome undertaking to bundle these small, sturdy things into my heart and go forth.  When I am clutched by desperation, when I am drowning in the enormity or the miscellany I retrieve these things, these memories and new-old creations and I begin at home.  I hold these things in my hands, work them around, kneading and clutching, sliding a thumb across the smooth spots, pressing the ridges into my palms until they begin to glow.  Then I sit in the warmth of my homes, worry less, wonder more, and am comforted.

Don't Let The Pigeon Drive The Bus

While the first official flakes were spotted Monday, I believe, today's snow (for the last 5 minutes) has been much more authentic as well as more asthetically pleasing (it arrived in flakes instead of tiny specks or balls as Monday's).

Had a great time at the Walker last eve (time for more architectural goodness). And a waltz through the Frida Kahlo exhibit (which definitely deserves a return trip)! All in all I would say it was definitely worth procrastinating my 4-day overdue homework for. Besides, our car's been in the shop all week so yesterday I rode the bus for a total of 4 hours for my 'field experience' at a high school north of the Cities, then to work, then to the Walker. The week's worth of early bus-riding mornings and late-night arrivals home has, as I've proven in recent posts, proven me incapable of intellegent thought and expression.

Summary of last paragraph: I like fun. Doing stuff is hard. I am tired. Vote me martyr of the year!

Anyway, car should be re-commissioned today. Surprisingly, when we remembered to ask them, "Oh, by the way, how much would it cost to get the lights in the dashboard fixed so we can see how fast we're going when it is dark out without having to wait until we drive under a street light?" they responded with an estimate the labor-hours could possibly make the total cost of replacement $250!!! HA! (There are totally street lights all over the city.)

Speaking of public transit though...here is a photo from the Hiawatha rail line early in the morning. I love the bus, but I love the train even more. Erin recently shared with me her dismay at being proselytized by sandwich-board wearers in Ohio back in the day, but I think that an abundance of weirdies is actually one of the highlights of bus riding.

If you're lucky, the weirdy will actually be driving the bus...when riding home from class on Monday, our driver spent 15 minutes at a stop. I continued to talk to Mom on the phone since the boys in the back of the bus were so loud I figured I couldn't possibly be bugging anyone. Finally, 2 transit police boarded the bus and removed 2 guys. Then, at every stop our bus driver would use the loudspeaker to announce, "I'm sorry I'm late, but I had to have the police remove some ruffians."

Then, about 6 groups of emergency vehicles passed us going the other way, on the other side of the divider island, and we stopped to observe each of them.

Then, I heard a new announcement over the intercom: "It is okay if you talk on your cell phone, but you cannot have your phone on speaker or walkie talkie mode." A woman sitting close to the driver fired back that it was only for a second, bus driver said it disturbs the other customers, woman said no one complained, the driver cited policy, the woman told her what an uptight so-and-so she was, but began to climb down the stairs to get off the bus. Don't worry, though, our bus driver insisted on defending us, the rest of the customers, by not letting the woman leave until she told her exactly what she thought of her.

When I got off the bus I saw a man try to steal a police car and then realized that he was a plain clothes officer.

And then I found a sandwich.

Okay, I didn't find a sandwich, but I was definitely not really upset that it took more than an hour to complete a bus ride that normally takes about 40 minutes...because that bus driver was crazy! Usually, though, my public transit experience is of a mundane character that even an erin could love.

Well, you've all endured more than enough for today. I will leave you with a photo from last Friday's walk. In addition to this barge I have observed animals of the wild turkey, raptor, and waterfowl variety over the past week.

2 in 2

So...after the leisurely ride past the flat pack (this is a few weekends back, mind you, when the weather was fine), I basked while watching kickball. Below find ncd and his health inspector SIL. And yes, in case you were wondering, people do, in fact, look at me like I'm bonkers as I take pictures of bloomin' everything for this blog. Ok, the blog is just an excuse...I'm a total photo dork.

After the kickball game ncd and I rode our bikes over to Saint Paul for a little lunch on the patio out back of The Happy Gnome. This would not have been such a difficult undertaking had I not had my backpack with schoolwork and 78 layers of clothing in it. Backpacks were not made for biking: in order not rest all 147 lbs. of my body + whatever the weight of the gigantic backpack on what the experts on Grey's Anatomy refer to as "the va-jay-jay", I had to curve my spine in a way that crushed all of my internal organs and forced me to pedal my hand-me-down-from-the-80's bicycle with only my legs (which are pitifully weak). ncd chilvalrously volunteered to take the pack eventually and made it look like a tiny purse.

I wish I had had my camera at the ready on the return trip for when I was accosted by a gas mask wearing guy who rode in the middle of one of the busiest streets in Minneap congratulating me on how fast I had ridden down that hill and across the Mississippi, but positing that if I had a lighter bike I would be even faster. Then he tried to sell me his. While he was describing all of the features of his bike he was pausing to curse at drivers who were restricted to driving behind him through the miles-long construction. Then, he gave me a bike light. Then he admonished ncd & me to wear gas masks (or at least ride on a side road), warning us that "these people" (drivers) are intentionally driving slowly to try to kill "us"(bikers) off and I believe there was a tie-in about how then we wouldn't be able to vote and they could take over the world and do their nefarious will without interference. Then he recommended an internet radio show that he thought we might like. He allowed as how the opinions of the host are "sometimes a little bit over the top". I would really like to know what qualifies as "out there" to a guy who thinks that drivers, as a group, are conspiring to kill bikers by, (in the words of Dave Barry, "I am not making this up): driving really slowly so that we'll breathe in more of that crap in their exhaust".

He was pretty cool, though. And we were pleased to dedicated our ride to the biking badasses out in Oregon.

This style of blogging shall hereafter be known as "bogging". Have you been bogged down in foregoing sentences? Have you had a difficult time finding the action in the sentence? Have you felt like you might be reading the musings of a seventh grader or perhaps on acid? Sorry. I'll have to check, but it's possible that the amount of time I've spent on a bus this week is very near the amount of time I've spent in bed. The combination is having a deleterious effect on my communication skills.

Before I go to the Walker to meet KK Bobcat and Sheesha, I shall post this picture from Mom's last tour of the midwest. Instead of just retiring from her prosperous career in the elementary school library and skydiving like regular boring moms, our mom is keeping her job and is boldly pursuing her goal of seeing 300,000 appear on the odometer of the car. This works to our benefit since she gets to be present for landmark events like us getting our first couch ever that we actually bought at a store instead of picking up from the curb (for real). And here's the proof, people:

Okay. That's all I'll inflict on you today. Except this: we haven't turned our heat on yet. We challenge any of you out there who have not turned yours on either to a contest. Ceara is at home all day thinking of new ways to combat the frickin' freezing temperatures in the house so that we can win this contest. The only problem is that all the pansies we know have already turned theirs on. So we need some competition. Residents of the southern hemisphere need not apply (we're on to that scheme).