things i learned on our road trip

Okay, I freely admit it - I am 36 years old and I had never been on a road trip before last weekend.  Seriously.  The longest car ride I'd ever been on was 4 hours to the northwoods of my own state.  I thought that felt like forever.  (Of course, I was in junior high at the time and everything was immensely annoying to me.)  This was an official road trip - 13 hours west with kid in tow.  (You might remember this post as we were trying to come up with ideas.)  From the southern corner of WI through the southern portion of MN all the way through SD ending up in the Rapid City and the Black Hills.  The kid got to see mountains, we did the whole National Park thing, and all we stopped at a major tourist trap.  What more could one ask for from a road trip?

Being our first major excursion, I learned a few things along the way and thought I'd pass them along for anyone who might want to do this themselves.

1) There's really nothing to look at between here and South Dakota. It's true. I had heard people talking about how there's nothing around, but I guess I thought "nothing" meant "not much." There are miles and miles of nothing. It's like driving through the desert, but instead of sand around you, it's grassland. Oh, and barely any animals around either. We saw a bald eagle fly over, a couple of pheasants walking along the roadway, lots of cattle in SD, and a few deer on the top of a hill, but for 13 hours of driving, it didn't give us much entertainment. Once we got to rivers, we had moments of scenery - the Mighty Mississippi and massive Missouri, but once we got past those, it was right back to nothing again.

Vast expanse of grass

2) Reminder: Different states have different speed limits. This is something that I had known but completely forgotten about. The hubster greatly enjoyed driving in South Dakota where the speed limit was 75 mph. Oh, and don't worry about police - we only saw 3 on the way there and 2 on the way back and most of those were in the home state. Drive on my friends!

3) No two states' rest stops are alike, and some of them are actually very nice.  I've never really been one for rest stops until this trip.  When I used to think of rest stops, I'd think of truckers getting lucky with truck stop floozys and men getting lucky with other men when given the "right" signal.  Now I understand the need for the rest stop and how flipping practical they are.  Park, stretch, pee, get your bearings.  It's a great thing!  I've been in Wisconsin rest stops a few times.  Pretty boring, vending machines, bathrooms with toilets that you're afraid to sit on... Minnesota's rest stops actually have attendants that sit in a little office and wave at you when you come in and even converse with you for a little while.  How nice is that?  South Dakota actually has very clean, very spacious and high tech rest stops.  High tech, you ask?  Yes - they have an internet kiosk in each one where you can look up the weather, driving conditions, traffic, and news all at the touch of a button.  For a state with not much else on the roads other than scary rural gas stations, the rest stops felt like mansions.

Rest Stop #1

4) The number of billboards on the road leading up to an attraction does not necessarily equate to the size or quality of that attraction.  For some reason, South Dakota doesn't seem to have a limit on the number of signs allowed along the roads.  I guess because there's so much open space, they feel the need to fill it up with hand-painted signs and billboards for attractions that are sometimes over 300 miles away.  For hours, we were seeing signs for an auto museum and when we finally passed the place on the freeway, we could see how tiny it was.  The same goes for an old reconstructed mining town and an exhibit of petrified plants, and a whole bunch of other little tourist traps along the way.  The number of signs that they had placed along the freeway could very easily fill those little attractions and I'm sure the price of admission is not small.


Ooh - how exciting!

4) Driving on tires that are almost bald in rainstorms with strong winds while thousands of semis are on the road is not advisable. Okay, maybe they weren't almost bald, but they were two points away from where we would be told it's time to get new ones. Or does that mean almost bald? Anyway, we had crappy stormy rainy weather all the way home and the combination of all of the conditions listed above and the added factor of driving at night did not make for a pleasant driving experience. By the time we finally made it home, my husband had to pry my fingers off of the steering wheel one by one because they were frozen there from the tension. This brings me to another thing I learned...

5) When your husband asks you if you want him to drive, it's not because he's being nice and trying to relieve you of your stress, it's because he thinks he can do better or it would make him feel more comfortable. Now, had I known this at the time, I would have welcomed the chance to take my hands off of that steering wheel. Why he couldn't have just said, "Okay, it's my turn," or, "I think I'd feel more comfortable driving now," is beyond me. Too many years of being told he's supposed to be sensitive about the way he brings things up to a woman I guess. When he asked me if I wanted him to drive, it was usually after he had woken up from a nap...groggy driving does not make me very comfortable. I thought it was just because he could tell I was stressed out and I wasn't going to wimp out like that...no, sir! But if I had known it was for his sake and not mine, I would have gladly switched. You see, after almost 15 years of marriage, we're still learning things!

6) And I believe this is the most important one... A road trip isn't all about your destination - it's also about enjoying your time together on the way.  That's something we should all remember about life in general.

yay for teachers!

There has been so much talk of teachers in the media these days, I've been thinking about some of my favorites over the years.  Here's a hearty thank you to the bestest (*snicker*) teachers I ever had!

Mr. & Mrs. Marshall:  A husband and wife teaching duo extraordinaire.  She was an advanced reading teacher in grade school who introduced us to the stock market, Greek mythology, Old English, computers and logic puzzles.  These were subjects that most would consider far too advanced for 2nd - 4th graders, but we soaked it up and loved every minute of it.  He was a middle school social studies teacher who introduced us to politics, the judicial system and history.  Wow - we really went through a lot that year.  The most memorable moments were our classroom court trial and "The Big Lie" which was an amazing exercise showing us how easy it can be for people to believe something that is not true at all (when discussing Germany under the Nazi regime).  Not to mention he gave every single student a special nickname and he always used Chucky Chuck Chalk on the chalkboard every day.  Don't ask me to explain...

Mr. Kahl:  He was a math teacher in middle school.  I hated math.  I still hate math.  But somehow he made me enjoy it for one year.  We did the most awesome projects in his class - yes, projects in math class.  In one, we designed our dream house and filled it with everything we could imagine, but we had to track how much everything would cost.  Maybe we had some sort of budget - I don't remember.  Actually, I kind of doubt it now looking back - I had a pyramid house with 5 levels, tons of exotic animals, and an elevator connecting the whole thing.  I don't see where any budget would work with that...  The other project that I remember was having to build a bridge out of balsa wood to hold a decent amount of weight.  Much better than sitting there doing math problems on a piece of paper.

Mrs. Lindloff:  Middle school art teacher.  She had a knack of making every student feel special and talented.  Her projects were unique and it's amazing how many of us still remember them.  Every year brought the 8th Grade art show and we lived for it.  We each had our own space in the cafeteria, library or hallway and we all got to feel special for the week or two that our exhibits were up.  It was a great way to make us feel proud of ourselves and our friends.

Mr. Severing: Our high school choir director.  He treated us like adults even when we didn't act like it.  We sang pieces of music that expanded our horizons and gave us opportunities that we never would have imagined.  Not to mention he'd let us hang out in the choir room for study hall and we would either play piano in one of the practice rooms or sit there and talk about anything and everything.  I still have the pleasure of singing with Sev every year when he directs our community choir.

Monsieur Kinnunen:  Hmmm...guess what he taught.  He had ways of getting things stuck in our heads that we still have stuck there yet today.  "Conjugate, conjugate.  Ooh!  Ah!"  Yeah, you had to be there.  He was one of the most animated teachers I ever had.  It was a great way to get us to understand what the heck he was trying to tell us.  His class was never boring and we usually had a good laugh.

Thanks to these wonderful people, I considered becoming a teacher at one point.  Unfortunately because I knew I wouldn't want to deal with the bureaucracy, I didn't pursue it.  I just hope my son has teachers that are just as memorable for him.

march madness

I just do not get the whole March Madness thing.  Seriously - nobody follows college basketball during the rest of the season then all of the sudden they have to start filling out brackets and getting into office pools and take time off of work to watch games.  How did this American gambling addiction start?  I don't remember it being such a huge deal when I was a kid.  Am I just blocking it out of my memory?   Did they have brackets that they would Xerox and pass out at work?    I don't think I even knew that they had college basketball on tv.  Of course, maybe it's just because my family never really watched sports...  The only basketball I really remember from my childhood is the world's obsession with Larry Bird and those very popular athletes - the Harlem Globetrotters.  Short shorts and over the calf tube socks.

My version of March Madness is what I've been living this month:  One weekend at a retreat in Chicago, one weekend at a competition in Madison, the next going to South Dakota, and sick family members in-between.  I'd say that's madness.  I don't even have time for brackets for my month.  I can tell you one thing though.  If I come out of it all alive - I'm the winner.  What's my prize?

a superhero or a princess

When I was a kid, I had aspirations of being a singer, a ballerina, a Playboy Bunny, Wonder Woman and Princess Leia.  I'm too old to hit American Idol, and I'm not good at late nights in bars so I won't be a singer, my ballet career ended in 5th grade, and we don't have the Playboy Club in the area anymore.  That leaves me with Wonder Woman and Princess Leia.

I suppose this lets the geek side of me out of the closet, doesn't it? 

When I was little, I loved watching Wonder Woman on tv.  I so wanted her outfit and her Lasso of Truth and the awesome tiara/bracelet combo.  I even liked the stupid leotard-type-thing she wore when she went swimming.  (Why she actually covered more skin to go underwater, I'll never know)  I would try spinning around in circles in my backyard to see if I would change into her.  Never seemed to work though.  What I could deal with as a substitute though was a set of Wonder Woman Underoos.  It was the closest thing I would ever get at the time. 



I keep thinking that becoming Wonder Woman is still attainable.  Okay, sure, I don't live on some mythological island, but stories change all the time - maybe she could become Wonder Woman by a chemical change fueled by being fed up by her mean bosses at work.  "I'm not gonna take it any more!"  Yup.  That's how I'm gonna become Wonder Woman.  Some day I'll be at the end of my rope and I'll stand up in my office and spin around, a flash of light will blind everyone momentarily while my frumpy work clothes magically turn into red, white and blue undergarments, I grow a pair of awesome red boots, and instantly lose 20 pounds.  Then I'll use my Lasso of Truth on the powers that be, record what they say, get them fired, and I'll be the hero of the workplace.  Then I'll take the show on the road, fighting for people's rights, truth and justice, etc... 

Princess Leia - that's my kind of Princess.  Not the "waiting around for her prince to come" type, but the "I'm going to help lead a rebellion, do what it takes to get what I need from you and don't fuck with me or I'll blast a hole in your chest" type.  (Well, by the second movie anyway.)  She could go from almost monk-like robes to outdoor gear to an elegant gown to a metal bikini and her hair - her apparently extremely long hair - was always perfectly styled to go along with it.   Did she have some sort of hair attendant with her?  Did she take the time to do all of that braiding and twisting herself?  She could blast a stormtrooper, steal a speeder bike, woo an ewok, pass herself off as a bounty hunter, and still get the guy.  How cool is that? 



I could totally do that!  Okay, I already have the guy, but gimme a good cause and I can be that kick-ass.  Laser blasters look like they'd be pretty easy to use with a lesson.  I'd even take up light saber lessons with the right teacher.  Gimme some hairstyling lessons and I could get my hair to go with anything.  The only thing that concerns me is I can be prone to motion sickness, so I'm not sure how all that hyperspace flying would agree with me.  Maybe I'd get used to it in time.  I'm certainly willing to try.

I haven't found a profession that really suits me, so I'll go with superhero or princess, thank you. If we can supposedly become anything we put our minds to - who's to say I can't be one of these two women,.  Right?

politics...again? sorry

And this is why I don't get into it:  (And forgive me if I ramble a bit, but this cold is making me a smidge spacey) Shouldn't government be open to the people, free from game playing and somewhat civil?  Am I truly that idealistic?  Apparently.  I know that people who live in other countries envision our government that way.  I know when we were learning about government in school, that's how we saw it.  Unfortunately, it's nowhere near the case here in America's Dairyland.  Seriously - this goes far beyond the games I'd expect to be played in Washington.  Rushed meetings, no notice, things that are one minute all about money are suddenly not about money at all... 

I want to go back to thinking our government is full of people who are working together, with some differences of course, to make things better for the people with reasoning and civilized debate - not just push agendas through by any means necessary.  It's a sad, sad time not only for those who are immediately affected by the decisions made by the state government, but for all of us who live in the state as we are embarrassed that people like this could come from the place we love.   Now we'll be known for Dahmer, Gein and Fucked Up Government Officials.

men's day

Yesterday was International Women's Day - a day apparently truly celebrated in other countries, but just another insignificant day here in the states.  (Apparently since some of us get to celebrate Mother's Day, that's good enough for the world of whomever makes the rules about which holidays we actually celebrate and which ones we don't.)  Anyway, while I appreciate the fact that the world is highly skewed in favor of the males of the species, they should still have a day of appreciation as well.  Celebrating it wouldn't even be expensive - I'm guessing they'd be completely content receiving beer and blow jobs while watching crappy action/sci-fi movies.   Am I wrong?

To show my own appreciation for men, I've decided to compose a little list of the things that I truly appreciate about them - well, the good ones anyway:

They're pillars of strength - protectors
They can make you laugh when you're feeling down
They can make you feel like a goddess when you're feeling like a shrew
They are providers - sometimes monetarily, sometimes emotionally
They smell like men.  Masculine, musky, earthy - no flowers or fruits for them
They can laugh and have the sound fill a room with joy
Their hands can go from hard manual labor to gently brushing a lock of hair away from your eyes to exploring the most intimate spots on your body just the right way
They have strong arms that can carry your child, give you a hug when you really need it, or toss you around a little bit in the throws of passion
Their shoulders, chests, backs, necks, mouths, hair, smiles, moans...

Whoa  - calm down there, girlie! 

As you can tell, I appreciate men.   Thanks for who you are and all you do. 

I'm gonna go cool off now...

blog neglect

You'll have to forgive me and my lack of attention to the blog lately, dear miniscule number of readers.  I had quite a bit going on in my little world between kid and chores and list-making.  I just wasn't feeling the inspiration in the duldrums of domesticity. 

I know you've been losing sleep wondering when I'd be back, so sleep well tonight kiddies.  I have returned.  I'll follow up with some new thoughts soon.

the songs that send you back in time

We all have them.  Those songs that as soon as you hear them, you're instantly transported back in time to a certain place with certain people and you are there until the last chord is played, with a smile on your face...until you snap out of it and realize you're in your thirties and the scenery around you has changed quite a bit.

Here are a few of mine...



My dad used to play guitar.  Sometimes my uncle would come up to visit - he played piano - and they'd start singing together.  Some of my best childhood memories were of the two of them, or just my dad, singing songs I didn't really even know.  Hearing them again as I grew up, I could place them right away - either being sung inside by the piano, or out on our front porch on a summer's night.  This was one of those songs.



Ack!  Dance class!  I remember we did a routine to this song - one of the few where we used pom poms.  (As was about the furthest thing away from a cheerleader as you could imagine - even in grade school)  When this song comes up, I remember the mirrors on the walls and the wet, slippery floors on those hot summer days when the humidity and sweat just condensed on the floor.  Yeah - yummy.  Dancing while trying not to slip and fall on the cheap tile was always fun.



I had written about this song in an earlier post.  One guy and a night I wish I could have done over.



Oh, this song....how I love this song...  Back in high school, one of my friends and I used to exchange smut stories.  We would take time during study halls and try to write the next best tale of love and lust - full of terrible metaphors and colorful terms for body parts (ahem), keeping the other person's crush as the male character in the story.  Well, she won with her tale of the guy I had a crush on wooing me while he sang this song longingly to me in the high school hallway.  Silly as it was, it stuck with me.  The crush faded away, but the memory of the song and my feeling toward it stayed.



Ha!  High school talent show.  I was a huge Madonna fan at the time, and Dick Tracy had come out not too long before.  I was out of my New Kids on the Block phase and had entered the femme fatale phase that I would remain in for the remainder of my high school life - something that I embraced to keep me strong, but I'll get into that another time.  Anyway, I was determined to make it as a singer and I had my eye on this guy that had come and gone out of my life since 8th grade, so I decided to sing this song at the talent show and convince him to attend so I could sing it to him, and of course he would fall for me and we'd live happily ever after.  Ah, the naivete of high school.  He did attend, I sang it and sucked (Madonna with a terrible case of laryngitis in this video sounds 20 times better than I did), and sooner or later...it still didn't really happen.  Though I should note - my husband-to-be did attend the talent show as well, so maybe it worked on him instead.  ;)



Our wedding song.  Yes, writing "Love Song for a Vampire" was very satisfying to write in my wedding program.  Funny thing is, the song never even mentions vampires.  How could these lyrics not be any more perfect for a wedding:
"Let me be the only one
To keep you from the cold.
Now the floor of heavn is laid,
Its stars of brightest gold.
They shine for you.
They shine for you.
They burn for all to see.
Come into these arms again
And set this spirit free.

the family trip to phoenix

It's very hard for me to believe that I've hit the point in my parenting life where I'm touring the junior high that my son will be attending next year.  I'm old!  What makes it really freaky is that I attended the same school from 5th to 8th grade, and other than the additions of a couple of wings, it hasn't changed much.

I'm pretty sure my husband was getting sick of me saying things like, "Oh My God, I remember that!" and "It hasn't changed a bit" and "Oh, this is so weird!"  So, now I get to type it all in here and he doesn't have to deal with it...unless he feels like reading it...then it's his own problem.

As soon as we walked in the doors, the memories started flooding back.  The lobby hasn't changed a bit, so I could see myself sitting on the bench in front of the tile mural of the founder of the town.  We were steered to the cafeteria which, other than the loss of a storage closet and cubbies against the walls, hasn't changed either.  The holes in the arches of the ceiling from kids throwing pencils up there had multiplied, the same faded yellow and blue chairs and white/grey tables that we sat at every lunch and study hall period had remained, but with new names etched into them.  I picked out where my art exhibit was in 8th grade, remembered sitting at one of the front tables in 7th grade homeroom and replayed a moment in my mind when I had a "boyfriend" in 6th grade when all that basically meant was you sat next to each other at lunch and went on dates to PG movies.


We sat in the cafeteria for a while, listening to the (very young) principal and vice principal talk the place up with the help of current students.  The "it's not as scary as you think" talk.  Then they sent us to the library which is attached to the back.  I found myself actually getting excited to be able to go in there again.  The only disappointment I had was noticing that the walls were painted a sterile white instead of the avocado green that they used to be.  The dark wooden tables and chairs were still in there along with the matching shelving for the books.  Suddenly I remembered that I was a library helper for one year, checking books out, putting them away, etc.  I had completely forgotten about it (as I had blocked out much of 6th and 7th grades because they were awkward and not terribly pleasant).  I remembered that the little room behind and to the right of the desk was for periodicals.  I honestly don't even know if they still have print periodicals for the kids to look at anymore - how scary is that?  More memories played in my mind - spending lunch periods in there watching "Anne of Green Gables," my friends' 8th grade art exhibits, waiting impatiently in that room for our turn to sing during choir concerts, my 8th grade science project on erosion...

Then came the grand tour of the building.  Well, "grand" might not be the correct word for it.  Groups were led around the halls by a few middle school students, no rooms were open, and I could barely hear a word that was said.  I didn't care too much though, because the places we were taken were in the old section of the building with all of the rooms I new and loved...and hated. The home ec rooms with a kitchen in one and sewing machines in the other, the art rooms where I spent so much of my free time working on projects and in OM practices, the former industrial arts room that now housed the "tech ed" rooms instead, the choir room on the second floor above the gym. Old worn lockers lined the walls and I could remember the general areas where mine resided - the insides of their doors covered with pictures of cute actors and meaningful quotes.  Wow - I remembered a lot more than I thought I did.

The tour concluded in the lobby, but our son noticed that there were people in the gym, so he had to go see it.  I'm pretty sure he was in awe of it's size.  His grade school has one room that is both gym and cafeteria.  It's small, has some rubbery flooring, and it's pretty generic.  This gym is a real gym - wooden floors, 6 different basketball hoops, bleachers along the wall.  He picked up a basketball and joined in with the rest of the kids and didn't want to stop.  It was at this point that I realized that even though junior high had some very rough spots as it does with all kids, I had some pretty good times there.  Sure, I was picked on quite a bit - by both students and some teachers, had my heart "broken" many times and for a while never quite fit in, but I also was able to try new things, laugh a lot, and I met my best life-long friends there.  Those are the things that are worth remembering.  Hopefully my son will be able to make some great memories there as well.

a blog about politics by someone who hates politics

I live in Wisconsin.  A pretty calm, happy place to live.  We have festivals and beer and music and the Packers and brats and deer hunting and cheese and the Badgers and loons and....we're pretty content for the most part. We also think the cows who live here are far happier than those in California.

Usually the kind of political turmoil we have around here these days is when a small town mayor is caught pilfering money or cops screw strippers in squad cars while on duty.  It's not thrilling and that's the way I like it. But now all of the sudden, there's all this drama going on.  Our tranquil little state has become the center of national media attention (for something other than sports or binge drinking) and it's not shedding a favorable light on any side of the issue. 

It all started when the new Governor, who just took office six weeks ago or so, decided that in order to fix the budget and get out of the huge financial hole the state is in, that he would do a little...okay, a lot of...tweaking to the public employee unions.  (Please note, I'm putting all of this in the simplest terms possible not because I don't know what's going on, but because if I were going to go into everything, this blog would take up far too much space on the World Wide Web.)  Some of the changes didn't have a ton of opposition, some weren't pleasant, but do-able, but other changes were pretty drastic including taking the right of collective bargaining away from them. 

Yeah, all of those changes in one fell swoop didn't go over well.  With no discussions allowed and a quick-time vote scheduled, people went ballistic.  Protests were scheduled by people against the bill, the Governor called out the National Guard, more protests happened, the capitol building was filled with protesters who brought in sleeping bags and signed up for round-the-clock speeches before the committee.  The speakers were stopped, and the vote sped up.  Teachers from across the state made their way to the capitol to voice their disdain which closed schools everywhere.  Then, when it came time to vote, the Democrats all seemed to drop off the face of the earth.  They disappeared out of state so that a vote couldn't be held, and now the Governor has sent the cops out looking for them.

This is all getting pretty ridiculous - on both sides.  At this point, wouldn't any sane person who wants to keep some sort of order in the state stop and say, "Okay let's stop all these shenanigans, look at the bill, talk to both sides and make some changes," instead of stomping his foot and saying, "No, this is how it's going to be.  So there!"  On the other side...playing hide and seek?  Really?  And I can't say I'm too jazzed that teachers are forcing schools to close.  Colleges and universities are one thing, but when elementary schools don't have enough teachers present to stay open thereby forcing people to call in to work to stay home with their children who are oblivious to the whole thing and just want to hang out with their friends and play at recess...Not cool.  Voice your objections, call people, write letters, get to protesting after school.  Do your part, it's great!  Don't make the kids and their families suffer to get a point across.  I don't think that's very fair either.

Changes do need to be made, and people are willing to work together to make the changes, but they have to be allowed to discuss things and not rush through it.  Do such drastic measures really need to be taken?

Again, I am NOT a political person, but when things get this out of hand, I just want to pop, and this blog is a quiet enough place for me to do it without people jumping down my throat. I'm sure people who read this will have their own opinions as well, so if you feel the need to comment, please do so without name calling, catch phrases or superiority complexes.

I never thought I'd say this, but can we get back to talking about the Packers again?