Adventures With Patti

So the last post was my lengthy reflection on returning to Minnesota as a visitor. This post is about the fun part of the trip home. Back in the land of 10,000 lakes, I spent a couple days at a little resort near Brainerd with the Toeniskoetter clan. We did exactly what we were supposed to do at a cabin: played board games and card games: swam, boated, fished and lazed around; ate too much; drank too much; and exchanged insults and pulled practical jokes on each other. I had brought a magnetic Obama for President bumper sticker with me. While Jane’s conservative Republican brother was running into town for goodies, we slapped that puppy on his Intrepid, then lurked behind the bushes waiting for his reaction. He didn’t disappoint. Here is a photo of Jane eating her sister-in-law’s patented “Cookie salad.” Yes, California friends, this passes for salad in Minnesota, and can be found at family gatherings and church basements around the state. The ingredients are Cool Whip, vanilla puddin...

My recent trip back to Minnesota gave me a chance to reflect on life in my new home. Here is what I wrote as I sat in a cabin at the shore of a little lake in central Minnesota with my best old buddy, Jane, and her family: I’m back home for a visit, two months after moving to California from my native Minnesota. As my plane approaches the airport at dawn, I look down on the familiar green landscape. It’s unassuming, low and flat, but festooned with silver paillettes: lakes ringed with the pompom crowns of elms and cottonwoods. Away from the water, county roads form a grid around furrowed fields. Like morning stars, occasional yard lights still twinkle on remote farmsteads. It’s bizarre to be coming here as a visitor, to this place that has been home for half a century. Walking into the concourse, I hear the Minnesota accent with its singsong-y cadence and its nasal, flattened “a”s and protracted “o”s. I had strained to understand the Hispanic gate attendant as we left San Francisco, bu...

Repainting red and black bookcases white is a big job! We started by sanding the gloss off the old paint. Then it took three coats of stain-hiding primer, followed by two coats of oil-based semigloss. We got the final coat done a day before I left for a two-week visit back in Minnesota. In my absence, Gauss unpacked several boxes of books and living-room knick knacks.