Good things about England v2

Following up on the previous post of good things about England (buskers) I bring you the latest installment: the British weather. I love the British weather. I know, it’s normally not something that gets complimented about this country. But let me try to explain. When I lived in the US, both in Minnesota and Virginia, I had to check the weather forecasts all the time. Daily. I had weather.com bookmarked, and I don’t have weather.co.uk bookmarked here. Why? I just don’t need to. It is relatively mild here year-round, and the daily changes don’t require nearly as much planning as the 20-30 degree swings I’m used to experiencing. I notice that it starts to get gradually colder as fall proceeds, but I don’t find myself in a dire situation if I haven’t been memorizing the five day forecast. I do try to keep an umbrella in my bag at all times for the infamous English rain, but I don’t otherwise think much about the weather. It’s one thing I can count on. And when it does get ‘cold’ here, it doesn’t get Minnesota cold. And with the rare exception (which this summer I missed, as I was in Singapore in the one week it was hot in England) it does not get Virginia hot here either. Overall it stays relatively mild and unchangeable. Which leads me to wonder, as ever, why the Brits are infamous for talking about the weather–talking about something that is reasonably uneventful and not worthy of the extra words. Kate Fox claims it’s just the universal ice-breaker here, but I can imagine better ones. Regardless, the weather is definitely one of my favorite things about my adopted country.

Ordinary world?

Came in from a rainy Thursday
On the avenue
Thought I heard you talking softly

I turned on the lights, the TV
And the radio
Still I can’t escape the ghost of you

What has happened to it all?
Crazy, some are saying
Where is the life that I recognize?
Gone away

But I won’t cry for yesterday
There’s an ordinary world
Somehow I have to find
And as I try to make my way
To the ordinary world
I will learn to survive

We all have them, ghosts in our past.  And no matter how things have changed, how we all move on, it’s hard not to stop and have a good cry for the past when big things change, even if you’re not really actually sad about the end result and you definitely don’t wish for any other outcome.  So tonight, conveniently Friday night, I will raise a glass to my ex-husband and his new wife.  Cheers.

Thanks to the “Minnesota Connection”

Last night I had to go to a cocktail party thingy (the Brits would call it a drinks party, appropriate since it was more of a wine and cheese). The attendees were work colleagues and their partners (and in one case, a daughter) and we were all doing the chat thing, some work chat (we had a big dinner Thursday night, in celebration of some big changes around here) and some social chat. Somehow we started discussing the funny way the local paper, and the British news media in general, sometimes report things. Our local paper is hilarious, and one colleague said he bought it just to be amused by the way the reporting tended to emphasize aspects of stories that we would find less than objective. My example was the “Five Britons die in Air France crash” from a BBC story I saw on the news at the gym a few months ago–it struck me because it was so familiar. You see, any time there was a local “Minnesota connection” to anything the local news would lead with that and make a big deal about this local connection. I’ve even blogged about it before, and how I find the local news media similar. It’s a sign, I think, of some inferiority complex–Minnesota is small and its virtues seem to be only well known to the locals. Britain is, as was described in the recent story for Newsweek about the Great British decline a place that might also be accused of having an inferiority complex. I was explaining this theory to the people to whom I was speaking, and I used the words “Minnesota Connection” trying to draw this analogy. Suddenly a girl comes walking quickly at me from across the room, saying, “did I just hear you say Minnesota connection?” Yes, my friends, it was another Minnesotan. Not a Minnesota native, but someone who has lived there, has seen the local culture, and who knew exactly what I was talking about. It was like a breath of fresh air. I had a fantastic rest of the evening, mostly chatting with one of my good friends (also an expat, but German) and my new, good, Minnesota friend. I have to admit, after dealing with my mixed feelings on my return, and my jet-lag and trying to get back into my work with some degree of normalcy, it was a breath of fresh air and a good way to end the first work week back. This has been one big change I’ve noticed in the past year, I have work friends now. Both expats and even (gasp!) British natives. It took a few years, but it’s definitely one of the better things about having been here for longer than a year or two. And I can’t wait to see my new Minnesota friend again.

Minnesota trip, by the numbers

• 5: number of total nights in the trip
• 4: number of nights spent in Minnesota
• 1: number of nights spend in Wisconsin
• 3: number of visits to my beloved nonagenarian grandmother
• 1: number of grilled cheese sandwiches (Velveeta, of course) eaten at the home of my nonagenarian grandmother
• 3: number of cups of tea drank at the home of my nonagenarian grandmother
• 4: number of games of Scrabble played with my nonagenarian grandmother
• 1: number of games of Scrabble won by me when playing with my nonagenarian grandmother
• 2: number of times I had lunch at the new Burger Jones in Uptown
• 2: number of times I had bagels for breakfast (Bruegger’s once, Einstein’s once)
• 0: number of times I had Starbucks coffee in the midwest (Dunn Bros. and Caribou are both firmly non-zero tallies)
• 3: number of purchases at the Uptown Art Fair
• 3: number of purchases in the Maple Grove Shoppes
• 2: number of awesome gifts from family members
• 2: number of items I had to carry on the plane in a separate shopping bag when all of said new acquisitions did not fit into my luggage
• 5: number of times I drove over the new 35W Mississippi river bridge
• 2: number of times I turned on my rental car to find Jack Johnson playing on Cities97
• 2: number of new songs heard on Cities97 in 6 days of driving around in said rental car (not that familiar music is a bad thing…)
• 0: number of times I drove directly by one of my old apartments in Minneapolis
• 4: number of times I was close enough to one of my old apartments in Minneapolis to feel nostalgic
• 3: number of times I randomly teared up while driving around town
• 3: number of times I was asked if I had heard from my ex-husband (not in over 2.5 years, for the record)
• 1: number of times I had a bad dream about said ex after everyone kept asking about him
• 2: number of good friends from high school that I got to see on this trip
• 1: number of high school friends that I meant to see but ran out of time
• 0: number of cousins I got to see on this trip again due to very limited time (maybe next time…)
• 2: number of times in the last 3 trips to Minneapolis that I’ve ended up spending time out of Minneapolis at another midwestern town with a Big 10 University
• 0: number of times in the next 3 trips to Minneapolis that I intend to spend time out of Minneapolis at another midwestern town with a Big 10 University (although who knows if I can really control this…)
• 3: number of gifts for my parents that I forgot back in England
• 1: number of gifts for my parents that I brought with me to Minnesota but forgot to give them
• 4: number of possessions of my sister’s that I meant to bring and also forgot in England
• 2: number of “care packages” that I will have to send from England to deliver items to parents and sister
• countless: number of times I’m glad that I finally made it back to Minnesota after a year in England and traveling elsewhere

Minneapolis update

I was going to write a post about the bittersweet nature of being home in Minnesota, but then I realized I had written it already–last year at this time, when I experienced the same sorts of ups and downs about being here. Read it here. So that’s the emotional update, that made it much easier than trying to write the words fresh. I guess in some ways that is why I don’t spend much time here anymore, much to the chagrin of my family. It’s just a bit too much.

So that said, what have I actually been doing?

• Staying with my best friend in her awesome new digs near uptown but in the part where grown-ups actually live.

• Bought an amazing photo of the old Uptown theater, at the Uptown Art Fair last weekend. Seemed appropriate. And it’s one of those photos that, if you know what it is, it’s awesome, and otherwise it just looks nice.
• Took what must sound like a totally random brief road trip to Madison with my sister. Had a three hour work meeting and then sis and I went on the town, stayed overnight and came right back. If you’re in Madison, check out Harvest Restaurant, it rocked.
• Played lots of Scrabble with my nonagenarian grandmother and her caretaker, who happens to be my dad’s older sister. When my sister’s not playing too, I can win occasionally. When the sis is there, I get crushed every time. Grandma does the scorekeeping and you have to keep a close eye on her or she’ll deprive herself of deserved points
• Had dinner with another good friend and her little girl, now almost 4. There are still a few very good friends here (as well as a large number of facebook friends!) and I don’t do a perfect job of catching everyone when I’m in town, but I try my best. This particular friend has an edge since she lives six blocks from Grandma, so I’m always lurking about her neighborhood!
• Drove over the new 35W bridge, tried to view it from the side from the Stone Arch bridge and decided it is so undistinguished and indistinguishable that you cannot even clearly see it in the photographs, it just blends into the scenery. Not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.
• Bought a few random toiletries at Target

Off to spend my last full day here with the parents and sister, with perhaps one more stop off at Grandma’s. Going to walk around Lake Calhoun in the sunshine, meet my parents’ new dog, and probably eat just a bit too much at newer restaurants in the area. And try to stay busy so as not to dwell on the melancholy or bittersweet feelings, but just enjoy the sunshine.

And so it ends

There is finally a result in the Minnesota senate race. The elections were in November, and today is (well, over here in Southeast Asia when I got the news) the 1st of July. A senate term is 6 years, so more than 1/12 of the term elapsed while the politicians wrangled, the judges judged, the counters re-counted, and Minnesota sat with a single senator. Am I happy with the result? Yes, I grew increasingly disrespectful of Coleman as the charade wore on. Was I a huge primary fan of Franken? No, and I think the MN Dems could have fielded a stronger candidate in the first place. But at least this morning I wake to the news that the whole danged charade is over. It’s been a blight on American politics and a symptom of the modern era that a simple vote is no longer so simple. Now can we just get on with some actual law-making?

April 21, 1939

On the 21st of April, 1939, seventy years ago today, my grandparents were married. They were married out in the homestead prairie regions of southwestern Minnesota. The wedding photographs prominently featured a baby goat and mostly took place in the bride’s family home. This was small town/farm country America. My immigrant great-grandparents (grandmother’s parents) moved to the area from the Netherlands in the early 20th century. They initially lived in a sod house with dirt floors; they had 15 children, my grandmother included, of which 14 lived to adulthood. They were so stuck for names that there is a series of pairs, with the first and middle name switched, for most of the older children.

My grandparents fell in love and got married in a scandalous cross-culture experiment: she was Dutch! But he was Norwegian! Tongues were wagging across southwestern Minnesota, although they both came from “highly respected families” in the area. They took up more than a few column inches in the local newspaper with the wedding announcement (I have a scan, hoorah!) My grandfather’s sister was the bridesmaid and my grandmother’s brother was the groomsman–thank goodness these details were preserved in the local paper for posterity! We even know what song was played for the wedding processional. If we didn’t have the photos to sustain us, we could be assured that the bride “was beautifully attired in a floor length white satin dress, trimmed at the shoulders and sleeves and with stand-up collar. An ankle-length veil completed her attire. She carried a bouquet of Easter Lilies and white Sweet Peas.” If we had any doubts, we could know that “A bountiful lunch concluded the reception…” and that the honeymoon took them “for an extended wedding trip, which will take them to the Twin Cities and other points.”

They managed more than 60 years of married life before they left the earth at the same time, after a car accident some years ago. This is admittedly more personal than my usual post, but… Have you ever seen two people so happy in a wedding photo?

And the Minnesota Senate election drags on…

Yes, I am from the lovely state that makes the Bush-Gore battle over hanging chads look organized by comparison… Al Franken was declared the winner by a unanimous ruling of three judges, albeit a winner by a few hundred votes out of nearly 3 million cast–that’s 0.01% for those who think of these things in numbers. Now Coleman is due to appeal. Again. This thing is never going to end! And unlike the Bush-Gore battle, where it was important to get someone into the office of the POTUS, the Senate is humming merrily along with only one Minnesota senator. And increasingly I feel guilt over my not having sorted out my registration to vote in the election, which increasingly seems to support the idea that Minnesota is where I should have voted. Cause all the times you fell like your vote doesn’t count, in this case it might have. Of course, it’s absentee ballots at the heart of the appeals court claims, so maybe not

And now I’m “taking the piss”

Serious point what has been bothering me for days has been vented, and I’m sure will land some flaming horrid comments that my thin skin will find disturbing. But I persist with blogging and now attempt humour. Headline on today’s Guardian website:

New British Search Engine ‘Could Rival Google’

The best part about this is how the “could rival Google” bit is in quotes–and they’re careful to cite the source as not being them–as though they realize how silly this must sound. I also love how important it is that it’s a British search engine. This I find strangely endearing, in part because it is exactly like the “Minnesota connection” phenomenon. Local newscasters in the Twin Cities can find–and do–find a local connection for any important story, and no matter how tenuous, they hype it on the local evening news as though it was the most critical aspect of the study. Imagine my shock on moving to Britain and discovering that they do the same thing! Oscars? Sod the full list of winners, how did the British actors and movies fare? In both cases it’s driven by the same general phenomenon–reporting stories to the local group (Brits or Minnesotans) and trying to increase the relevance of the story to those local people. And I think it also sort of implies a slight inferiority complex in the case of MN, I’ll not try to judge if that’s true about Britain Regardless, I read the story and the site from which the quote came, at least for the forseeable future my money’s on Google.

A real Dutch village

My little jaunt to the Netherlands is almost over, but it is hard for me to hang around here without thinking of how much my maternal Grandmother would have been amused at my being on Dutch soil yet again. So far I have not made it to the ancestral homeland, the town Dordrecht, but it’s only a matter of time, I’m sure! I hear from my hosts on this trip (to Eindhoven) that Dordrecht is lovely and thus definitely worth a visit with my camera. Maybe next time my sister is in town!

I got a little sentimental this evening after wandering around the old town of Eindhoven, recalling the time that my Grandma and I spent bumming around Holland, Michigan, including our visit to the theme park/shopping area known as the “Dutch Village“. My Gram was really enjoying that day; she was proudly 100% Dutch, her parents came over as immigrants to the US (how ironic, says this American expat… only lasted two generations!) and although she was born in the US, she grew up speaking Dutch. Gram charmed everyone in the Dutch village with her fascination for the place and her affection for the homeland she had never visited, and that’s certainly the way I remember her too–she was definitely sentimental about the motherland in some ways, and wanting to pass that to her kids and grandkids. How hard she tried to teach us little phrases, and how happy I am now to have some of her recipes. Her visit for the Dutch village extravaganza was such a really special trip–I lived in Michigan, and she (although around 80 years old at the time) flew from Minnesota for a long weekend to visit me and hang out in America’s own little Dutch enclave: A visit I will never, ever forget.

I get now that my childhood was somewhat unusual in ways: many Americans are quite well-settled in the great melting pot and many generations have been established in the US, while I was reasonably close to the recent arrivals, who all came to MN or thereabouts around the turn of the 20th century. This one was always my “Dutch Grandma” (to contrast with my “Norwegian Grandma” who was similarly first generation American and also speaks her mother tongue). Holland, MI was as close as my Gram ever made it to the Netherlands, so I hope she’s smiling down on me today from the great beyond. I know I’ve enjoyed being here and look forward to another visit, perhaps more leisurely and for soaking up more of the culture, in the future.