Life and Times of AlieMalie

I forgot to mention in my last post that as I was driving to St Paul, I saw a sign for the Lake Wobegon Trail System in Minnesota and as I was heading home, I knew I just had to stop. I was beyond thrilled. Ever since I was a little girl, I’ve spent a good many weekend afternoons listening to A Prairie Home Companion with Garrison Keillor keeping us all up to date with the News from Lake Wobegon.

I have a great story about one of the times I’ve been able to see him live, that once I get started on talking about how much I love him and his show, I cannot not tell.

When I was about 11, maybe 12, my mother bought us tickets to go see him when he brought his show to San Antonio on tour. I was so excited. A Prairie Home Companion was like tv to me – I’d either sit at the dinner table and literally just listen to the radio, or I’d lay on my back on the couch, close my eyes and let my imagination take over. Seeing him in real life was going to be a huge treat. And it was. My mother and I walked into the theatre, found our seats – which were just phenomenal, she couldn’t afford to be on the main floor as money was extremely tight, so she got the next best (actually better) thing: front row of the mezzanine.

The show went on, I was in love with watching Tom Keith do the sound effects and seeing Keillor’s bright! red! socks! that you don’t get to see if you’re just listening at home. The intermission came and I got to see that real people really did leave messages on stage for him to read off to friends and relatives at home – some witty, others compassionate, a lot of happy birthdays – and then we all settled in for the News from Lake Wobegon, probably the best known part of his show. He started talking about this girl he knew back in high school who was his first crush, who turned into his girlfriend and finally his first true love. He spoke about how they would stay up until the wee hours talking and doing classic high school couples in love things. And he sort of drifted into his own daydream, describing his favorite outfit of her’s. Penny loafers with a penny in them, Abraham Lincoln’s face up and facing out to greet the people they walked past. I looked at my own penny loafers and smiled, good choice, I thought to myself. I’d always wanted penny loafers ever since I saw the girls at the school my father taught at wearing them. A navy blue pleated skirt that came down to just below her knees with broad, forest green stripes and tiny little yellow stripes as well. I looked at my skirt and thought it was quite a coincidence that my skirt was exactly the same, down to the direction of the stripes. But the favorite part of his favorite outfit was her too big, cable-knit, cream colored sweater. That did it. I, too, was wearing a too big, cable-knit cream colored sweater. This wasn’t, obviously, a coincidence.

Maybe, I thought, he could see me from the stage. Well, that got ruled out fairly quickly when I remembered that I was in the mezzanine, 70 feet away, in the dark and half hidden behind the wall and railing in front of me. Even if Keillor could see into the dark theatre and see me, he would never be able to see my skirt or penny loafers – both of which he’d described to a T.

The only conclusion I could come to was that he’d had someone out in the lobby as people were coming in to pick someone out of the crowd to use in his story. Apparently, that was me. So now, whenever I listen on the weekends, I try to listen for the person in the theatre who’s being described. In one story or another during the show, you can always find someone that he’s picked out of the crowd. And I wonder if they know it’s them.

I got to meet him after that show, running up to him in my nerdy, adoring way. As he came from backstage, he alluded to his story and asked me what was the latest I’d ever stayed up, and I answered, “24 hours!” So my autograph from him says, “To Alex, Living her life 24 hours a day. Garrison Keillor” I love it and I can’t wait to get to the Fitzgerald Theatre in St Paul to see him live again.

A lot of people write the state of North Dakota off. I would like to point out that this is a major mistake.

I know that up until I arrived here, ironically on April Fool’s Day, I laughed when someone mentioned Fargo. I laughed in disbelief at the thought of living in North Dakota. I had the idea that there was nothing in this state. I was wrong.

The people here are phenomenally nice. I’m used to people being kind and nice and generally pleasant to be around – after all, that’s what the south is about. In Texas there’s a saying, “HOWDY, damnit!” which pretty nicely sums up what Texas is all about – the people are nice, as long as it’s their way. But people in North Dakota are just plain nice – no qualifications. I walk down the street and everyone says hello or good morning or I get a wave. Even people who should be my sworn enemy (work politics), are pleasant and cooperative to an extent. I remember listening to Garrison Keillor growing up; he’d talk about how the people in this part of the country are just fantastic, how rhubarb pie can fix just about anything, how the people never give up and have an incredible work ethic. I’d think to myself that it was all just fiction, of course on A Prairie Home Companion it truly is fiction, but it’s based in fact. People in the Dakotas are solid, honest folk.

But it’s not just the people. The land here is amazing. I had the opportunity to drive through the southern portion of North Dakota and straight through the middle of South Dakota a few weeks ago for a meeting, and I have to say that the land itself is incredible. I wasn’t able to see how amazing it is when I was moving since it was still covered in snow, by my goodness; I wanted to pull over and roll around in the dirt. I have never seen such black dirt that smells so good and looks so delicious. Can you imagine just eating dirt? I hadn’t thought about actually eating dirt in decades – I imagine I’ve eaten my fair share as a toddler – but I wanted to run out into the field naked, roll around in the black soil and eat it.

And how about those sunsets? They are incredible. I’ve been meaning to go out west of town one evening to watch the entire thing from start to finish, but I haven’t had the opportunity to. They have amazing punches of color that I never would have imagined were ever involved in sunsets. I’ve seen everything you’d expect to see from pinks to reds to oranges to yellows, but have you ever seen deep purple or green in a sunset? They are almost indescribable.

As I continue to be the butt of some jokes from coworkers in other states about having gotten the short end of the stick in terms of being deployed to North Dakota, I just continue to tell them it’s their loss. This state is a place of beauty, a haven of pleasantness, and I’m so happy that I’ve gotten the opportunity to explore it.

This guy was going incredibly fast – probably close to 50mph.  Incredible.

This past weekend I drove down to St Paul, Minnesota to see some friends and get in some shopping at IKEA. I cannot tell you just how much I love IKEA. Anyway, I’ve been on the hunt for a couch for some time now, years really, and I’m now in a position to buy one, a nice grown up couch, and I’ve found it. I spent Saturday afternoon sitting on a bunch of them, and there was one that really stuck out to me, plus it’s SUPER easy to put together as well as being fairly easy to move around – key in my nomadic lifestyle – and it’s also a sleeper sofa, so a total win. It looks like this:

Unfortunately, due to a screw up in accounting, I wasn’t able to buy it on this trip, but that’s ok – I was able to get all the lamps I need and a few other necessities, and I will return to pick it up in about two weeks. In my tiny Honda Civic. Did I mention it’s fairly easy to move because it comes apart and breaks down into fairly small, flat pieces? Because it does.

So, hopefully, I’ll actually have a couch to lounge on this time next month. Now I just have to decide what color. I can say definitively that it WON’T be the orange.

Remember this?

Now it looks like this: Read the rest of this entry »

Totally a materialistic post, but I finally downloaded all of the new photos off of my camera and onto my computer and into flickr so I can, at last, show you the new shoes that I bought last week.  I went shopping for some essentials for the apartment and decided to duck in to do some window shopping in some of the stores in the same area and just when I wasn’t looking for anything in particular, I saw these.  And they were in my size which is a miracle in and of itself.

A lot of the time, I get razzed because I tend to wear all black or dark colors, so I’ve been trying to jazz things up a bit in my wardrobe and if these don’t add a bit of pizazz, I don’t know what will. They’re pretty comfortable and I think that as I wear them – almost religiously, nowadays – they’ll become the shoe that I wear out. I’ve been needing to replace the flats that I bought in Salisbury a few years back because I’ve loved them too much, and these just may be the pair to do it.

Is it goofy to say that I still get excited each and every time I see them? And they were only $14! A total steal! Anyway, off to do laundry. Have a great weekend, all.