Flashback Friday: Trrrrreeaaattttttssssss!

Okay, so I want to support Cable Girl of 42 in what I think is a wonderful effort, so I'm doing Flashback Friday today, and encouraging people to visit her site and read the other Flashback Friday entries, but honestly speaking, I'm only flashing back.... to...

yesterday.

I have a pre-diabetic guinea pig. And yes, I promise you this is not another Jen post about the wonders and perfection of guinea pigs.

But anyway, Pookie Girl is pre-diabetic. And she needs glipizide twice a day. And the only way she'll take it is to know a treat (ie. a bit of cucumber, or an herb, or some other green, non-sugary vegetable) is waiting for her. And, of course, her sisters wouldn't understand if Pookie Girl got a treat and they didn't. Because piggies don't roll that way. So... twice a day, I call out, "Do I have a good girl?" And Pookie Girl comes running up to me and takes her .07 mg of glipizide and then I call out "Treeeeaaaatttttsssss!" and all the piggies scramble to the bottom the cage to see what wonder awaits.

Okay, so I promised this wouldn't be about pigs. And it's not. About guinea pigs, in any case.

But I have to admit, I was reminded just what a small town I live in yesterday. And this is why.

A new grocery store opened just down the road from me. But it's not just any store... oh, no, it's an organic/all natural/gourmet food/pharmacy/wine seller with salad and hot food bar, and a pizza station and homemade breads and pastries and a sushi bar, a See's candies shop and a Zingerman's cafe. I was happy for two reasons: one, I can now buy a gallon of milk easily when I run out. Two, I have to admit - I'm a foodie, and the temptation of all that was very... tempting.

I didn't, however, expect what I ran into.

Now, this super-duper fancy a-- grocery store is darned similar to a mega Whole Foods that we already have in another part of town. In addition, Whole Foods is opening their biggest store in the state of Michigan in yet another part of town. We have a mostly organic/local/natural food store that's been in business for 30 years that's independent. We have two, local gourmet shops with a wide variety of produce, meats and groceries. We have a well-stocked, amazing food co-op. We have a Trader Joe's. In the summers, we have three separate days of farmers markets. We have representatives of four grocery chains - all of which are well-stocked, clean and reasonably-priced.

And we're a city of a whopping 100,000.

Makes you wonder.

But this morning, you would have thought that the people in my town had never seen food before. It was as if someone had blasted "Trrrrrreeeeeeeaaaaaaattttttsssss!!!!" through the tornado sirens, and all the good citizens were scrambling like lemmings to take cover in the aromas of Peet's coffee and the perfume of fresh bergamot.

Michigan has the highest unemployment rate in the country. It seems like every third house is for sale. Houses in my neighborhood have been on the market for two years. No one works permanently anymore - almost everyone is on yearly contract. A successful job is one with health insurance.

And it makes me wonder... are we really all a bunch of guinea pigs, following the latest trend, getting into debt because we're told we need "stuff"?

Yeah, the new store is really nice.

But is it really necessary?

Bates Motel(s) and the Ann Arbor Art Fairs

Somehow, it gives me great pleasure to have a poster for Psycho next to a photograph that is the craziness of the Ann Arbor Art Fairs.

Yes, Fairs. That is not a typo.

For those in ignorant bliss, the Ann Arbor Art Fairs descend onto our smallish city of 100,000 or so, swelling our ranks to a good half mill over a period of four days.

Not only do we gain fanny pack-wearers, water bottle merchants and approximately 500 artists' RVs, but we have oodles of opportunities to buy art on a stick. Anno did a brilliant description of the horrors of the Art Fairs on her entry today, but I'm going to sing the Fairs' praises, instead.

The Fairs are called such, because they are actually four separate official fairs, rounded off by several smaller, unofficial fairs (such as King's Chosen). If you learn the ropes over the years, it's easy to enjoy the Fairs, and you absolutely get to see some marvelous art (minus the black velvet paintings and the stuff on sticks). I'm planning to share some of my favorite things about this year's Ann Arbor Art Fairs on tomorrow's Friday Fifteen, but for now, I'll just say that we had the right Art Fairs weather (threatening to storm, and therefore keeping foot traffic down), the right parking space (one of the garages, centrally located, so we were also able to come back with library books and Zingerman's baguettes) and a great people-watching spot for coffee (Primo - best coffee spot in Ann Arbor).

But I'm really discussing the art fairs only so I could have the excuse to put the two pictures together. So more on them tomorrow.

My real topic today is our Bates Motel(s) experience at the family reunion:

My hubby and I were honored to be invited, once again, to my BIL's wife's family's week at the lake house. Now, with all those possessives, you'd think this was complex enough, but it's even more so. My brother-in-law is the father of my nephew, and my sister was his former wife. Tragically, my sister passed away in 1997, and my BIL had the great good fortune of meeting, and falling in love with, a simply wonderful woman, whom he married in 2001.

My new SIL and her family have welcomed our family with open arms and we can't be more grateful. They're also great fun and we always enjoy our times together. As an added bonus, my son has inherited a whole group of new surrogate aunts and uncles, and we've inherited two wonderful surrogate nephews. So, it's always a good time when we can all get together.

Except...

...that the last time we visited them at the lake house, I slept on a couch there and did something to my back that lasted about 3 months. So, this time we thought we'd splurge and get a motel room.

So I went on the internet, found a couple of motels in the area and went with the local, non-chain one. It looked clean and pleasant (on the internet), and since we try to support local growers and businesses, that seemed the right choice.

We got to the reunion and had a great time. My nephew was there, along with my surrogate nephews, and we all played games, ate burgers, romped in the pool, checked out my nephew's new girlfriend, talked about everyone who couldn't come, etc. In other words, typical family reunion. To make it even more special, my SIL's family all thought it was my b'day and they got me a cake and cards. They even found a guinea pig card. They are the best! (And we must be really family, because absolutely none of us can get dates right).

Late afternoon, DH and I drove the five minutes to check into above-mentioned local motel. It was bare, but basic, and seemed pretty clean.

In the daylight.

It was also a killer humid day, but the little air unit in the room cooled it nicely during the five or ten minutes we spent there.

But by later that evening, after burgers and too much sun and a final gelato trip (we admired the cake, tasted it, and then all went out for amazing ice cream) DH and I staggered back to our motel, ready to crash.

Somehow, the somewhat cheery, okay, pretty clean place by day had turned into The Bates Motel by night. The lighting didn't work. The room was set in shadows. The room was damp and hot and the little air unit that could, couldn't. House crickets (which I despise) hopped across the floor. The threadbare towel in the bathroom was damp and grey. The sink had an odd smell. There was a spider convention near the 7" TV.

No problem, though. DH and I have slept and traveled in many places throughout the world, this place was clean(ish), dry and doable. We were tired.

We crawled into bed and turned off the shadowy light.

I tried to sleep. The bed was tilted at an angle, so my feet were lower than my head. The burgers were coming back to haunt me (I rarely eat beef). A situation with my writing group was causing me a mental canker sore. The sheets felt sweaty. I imagined I was being bitten. The clock slid from 11 to 12 to 1 to 2 to 3...

And finally I sat up. I couldn't take it anymore. I knew sleep wasn't happening, but I didn't want to wake DH.

Except that he sat up. Apparently, he was having the same experience I was.

So, we did something very uncharacteristic. We were decisive. We got OUT.

We left and decided that since we had cancelled all other summer travel for this year, we could afford to get another, similarly cheap motel room in a chain.

We threw our "local" principles out the window and drove up the road to the Motel 8.

Ah, civilization! Dry sheets, clean room, bright lights, no crickets. Bed at the angle it should be. Quick check first on e-mail and cell phones, having first access to such things since we'd left Ann Arbor. We wallowed in our stupid, spoiled selves and took until 4:30 to really get settled and turn out the lights, again, to go to sleep.

5:35 a.m. That's what the clock said when the fire alarm started going off. Yes, started. And kept going, and going, and going. Like the energizer bunny, we were warned repeatedly that something was wrong.

We stumbled around the room and packed up our stuff. We opened the door, shuffled down the hallway and down the stairs, and entered the lobby. And found ourselves the only ones there. (And keep in mind, please, that this alarm had gone off about 23 times, and it was not quiet.)

The nice lady at the desk explained to us that this happened frequently. The other guests had probably taken that for granted. We tumbled back up to bed and got under the covers again.

Sun was streaming in my eyes. We'd set the alarm for 9, so we could rejoin the fun at the lake house. I looked at my watch. 11:20!!! Check-out was 11 and the desk sign clearly said that those who stayed later would be charged for another day. I lurched awake. Awake, awake.

I was really awake.

I grabbed my watch, ran over to the slit in the curtains through which the sun was streaming and found out that it was 7:05. And I was awake.

And an hour later, so was DH.

My own bed felt really good last night.

Beeps and Bleeps

It's one of those typical Michigan summer days. Brilliant sunshine and steamy atmosphere, which quickly shot to cool and breezy, then to full blown storm, and now back to brilliant and steamy.

For some, this just feels like home. For others, like my son, it's headache-inducing.

So he's lying down, trying to lick his migraine, while I continue to putter with summer fruits and vegetables. The first flaming fury peaches made their appearance at the Farmer's Market yesterday, so they were combined with second-week blueberries and made into a cobbler.

This recently beeped at me, letting me know that I probably cooked it too long. I'm still getting used to a new kitchen set-up and equipment, and I have realized that I probably need to cook things for a bit less time in my new convection oven, but out of habit, I still use the settings of the old times for my distinctly lower-tech previous oven.

The cobbler came out bursting and bubbly and a lovely maroon/purple color, so at least we'll have a colorful dessert. The smell is right, too, so it may be that the timing was fine and I have something else to be grateful for.

Now for the bleep.

At the orthodontist's today, the doctor asked us what we'd done for the 4th. It turns out she was equally unimpressed with our local parade, which she had seen for the first time. "So anyone can walk in this parade, right?" she asked.

Yes. Apparently.

A2 July 4th

What's July 4th without a cookout? Without a parade?

The parade was minimal. The mayor didn't even bother to show, although John Dingell did. Interesting, when one of the most powerful men in Congress can make it to a smallish-town parade, but John Hieftje can't make the time. OTOH, he might have been on vacation, and I guess he deserves one, too.

The weather is that moist, greyish-sunnyish, hide and seek that causes naps.

Despite this, the non-cookout must go on, as who knows what the weather will do next, so we're doing a "cheat" cookout:

4th July 2007 (menu chosen by Danish son, who's experiencing the 4th with us for the first time)

barbecue chicken (cheating here - got roasted chicken and am re-roasting with bonesucking sauce - my barbecued chicken always tastes anemic)
corn on the cob
vinegar-based potato salad a la Patricia Wells
cabbage-apple slaw
hot fudge sundaes made with ciao bella ice cream and homemade fudge sauce

We also bought some firecrackers for the first time - snakes and sparklers. We'll see how that goes.

I've been reading the John Burdett Bangkok series. This has caused me to look into An Idiot's Guide to Buddhism. I browsed B&N today for Dalai Lama books and Anger by Thich Nhat Hanh. I decided to start with the Idiot's Guide and go from there. The reviews and those who reviewed (including Thich Nhat Hanh) were impressive, and I just want to see if I can even start to think about grasping the concepts.

Happy 4th. I hope that by next 4th the U.S. government will have implemented some more globally-minded policies, but I'm not holding my breath. I'm still grateful to have this country and the opportunities it provided to my ancestors and to me. I'm also hoping that we can re-establish ourselves as global helpers, rather than global conquerors. Here's to a more celebratory 4th next year. Cheers!