Fragility

All week, the desire to plant my poor sagging plants from the windowsill into the garden was tugging on me. Finally, Thursday the wind died down and it got warm, and it was May 14, only one day from the guaranteed safe day to plant, May 15, the day after which there couldn't possibly be a frost-- all the best Minnesota Public Radio meteorologists said so-- and I left work at 4 p.m. and got to work. I was only going to put a few things in, the most desperate-looking plants sagging in their tiny pots. But I got in the hang of it and planted the squash that is already in flower, then a few tomato plants, then all the tomato plants that were on the windowsill, then several of the brussel sprout plants, then what the heck, the allysum in the border of the flower beds where the lilies are already coming up.

I came home at 4 p.m., but before I could get out to the garden I did have one more task from work. I had to open up my computer and check for Sister Ancille's obituary from the St. Cloud Times obituary desk. Sister Ancille was one of the women I had lunch with last week at the diamond jubilee celebration at St. Scholastica Convent. Sister Ancille was a tiny woman and had played the organ for one number at the Mass that day. She told me she had a stroke a few years before, and had to learn to talk again. She talked haltingly, but well, perfectly understandable. But it was clear it caused her trouble so I didn't ask her too many questions. She fell on Tuesday and broke her hip. She had surgery and died Wednesday evening in the hospital. It was a surprise. It let us know again how fragile things are out there at St. Scholastica.

Last night the temperature was expected to drop to 30-35 degrees, and tonight there is another frost warning. The wind was up so high again that it was pointless to put blankets over the plants. I might go put some newspaper around a few. However, the wind damage is pretty bad at this point, after two more days of blowing. I'm going to start my seedlings later next year, and hope for safety in numbers this year. I still have a few tomato plants I could bring inside from where they were "acclimatizing" in large pots just outside the front door.

There are leaves on all the trees, and the flowering trees at the monastery are in full bloom. The lilacs between the parish church and monastery are heavy with blossoms. The grass Steve planted in the large lot behind the parish rectory is coming in nicely. And this week he didn't have any machinery breakdowns.

Sunday afternoon I give a talk to the Oblates at the monastery, about which more in another entry. Sunday night the community receives the body of Sister Ancille, before her funeral on Monday morning.

Wind

I swear, I don't know how the pioneers did it. The unrelenting wind over the prairie and cold dips that have kept me from planting, still, are crazy-making. I'm an Illinois girl. I like thunderstorms and that kind of wind, but I really hadn't realized just how much wind blows over this prairie all spring and summer and fall. It's hard to think about gardens, which seem so fragile. I know they're not-- the greenery of the lilies are coming up, and the irises. But there's just never a day they can stand tall in the sun and be warmed and look pretty. My peas are hanging onto the fencing for dear life, and hanging on admirably. The tomatoes are fusing to the sticks I put in their pots to keep them steady and upright, and the stems are thickening. I put hollowed-out coffee cans over the two I did plant in the garden and though they're buffeted against the sides of the can, they're also keeping their leaves. Last year I lost half my tomato plants to wind damage-- but the others did do quite well, cherry tomatoes all. Downstairs I see I do have some quite sturdy-looking plants, especially the brussel sprouts. And someone said that zucchini and squash are hardy plants and can go in, but I can't bear to do it to them! And the three I set out in pots had lots of breakage after a day, and two of the three died. I'm thinking I might get two or three to survive, and will plant seeds.

It is spring, so this is part of the mix of weather, I'm sure. But I remember putting in the terraced flower garden along the side of the house here last June, before we got married, and thinking quite often that I don't know how those flowers are holding on against the wind. And they were dusty and a bit tattered looking, most of them, by the time of the wedding in late July. I'll give it a go one more time with the flats of annuals. But next year it might be time to look at the sedum and the fescues, with maybe some tulips, and just turn it over to "landscaping" instead of a garden.

Does anyone have suggestions for something that is like alyssum for borders, flowering, but a perennial, that would do well in this zone?

jubliees and centenarians

I had lunch on Wednesday with a 100-year-old woman. That was definitely a first for me. Sister Arno Beehler was born on July 9, 1908. She was the only daughter in a family of seven children. She grew up on a farm in North Dakota, 500 acres of wheat, oats and barley. Her brothers weren't interested in farming, and the family moved to town during the Depression when they lost the farm. She joined the novitiate at Saint Benedict's Monastery in 1933 and made final vows in 1936. She ate a full plate of food-- chicken and mashed potatoes and asparagus, and a full slice of lemon meringue pie, and even had a few sips of wine.

With 100-year-olds, the tendency is to focus on what good shape they're in. Sister Arno appears to be maybe 90 years old. She has macular degeneration, so doesn't see very well, but she hears wonderfully, and pointed out every time she heard Sister Jane laugh from across the dining room. The only difficulty is that it's hard to hear her when she speaks. She barely has any voice, though she speaks clearly and lucidly. She said she hopes God will call her home before she turns 101, that she's ready to go and never planned on living this long.

The occasion was the jubilee celebration at Saint Scholastica Convent, the assisted living facility for the Sisters of the Order of Saint Benedict. We had seven 75-year jubilarians this year, and six made it to the celebratory Mass and dinner. Sister Carolinda, who is 97 and in the early years took care of the turkey flock, stood for the photo and still gets around very well. Sister Berno, who turned 99 on April 3, was having a hard time at the photo shoot, but when they got her hearing aid in the right ear she was fine. It was a great celebration. Sister Ellen Cotone played the piano and Sister Ancille played the organ. They played "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring" and I couldn't help notice two Sisters watching to make sure that they would eventually wind down and stop-- it's one of those numbers that loops around and can just keep going. Father Dominic, the chaplain, was brief (as is his custom) but pithy, and everyone was glad to move on to dinner.

Sister Ellen and Sister Ancille also sat at my table, as well as Sister Aurelianne and Sister Giles, both of whom are deaf and so excused themselves from the conversation.

Sister Ellen is delightful. She has Alzheimer's, so forgot that she had played the piano for Mass, and we watched her wine and coffee intake (2 glasses of each). She told me about her childhood in the Twin Cities, and how all the relatives would drop in for visits from the country. Her father was from a family of ten children, and "back then people didn't make arrangements, they just came when it worked for them. We never knew who would show up for the weekend, and it was so much fun." It was just her and her brother, and they both played music-- accordion and piano-- in a band and in clubs in Minneapolis. Sister Ellen is the one who can play the piano with her hands behind her back, but more impressive is that she can play pretty much any song, even with Alzheimer's, if she sees the name of it on a list. She was in Brazil for ten years and loves Brazilian music. One of the music teachers at St. John's University donated a piano for her, which is in the dining room, and after meals she sits down and plays. After this lunch she played a few classical numbers and then went into a rag and some popular numbers from the '40s.

This was during nap time, while some of the jubilarians rested up before the program at 2, when everyone reconvened in the dining room for stories about each of the jubilarians, to celebrate their long lives and commitment to the Benedictine way of life.

Caroline, or Change Review

An old friend from Grinnell College, David DeYoung, runs a popular music and theater review website, HowWasTheShow.com covering all sorts of performing arts in the Twin Cities. He encouraged me to write a review of The Cartaker by Harold Pinter after I saw it at the Guthrie Theater's Dowling Studio, but at the time my thoughts were too big and ranging for a theater review. But when I posted my thoughts on Caroline, or Change on Facebook and then again here on the blog, he encouraged me again to work up some kind of cogent review.

And so, in the fastest writing-to-publication experience I've ever had, I finished the essay at 4:30 p.m. today and it was online by 5 p.m. If you'd like to read it, click here.

Where's the Change?

For a couple weeks now, I've been stewing and brewing up thoughts about the lack of change by the culture and media over the financial crisis. It's almost like the H1N1 virus-- is this what a pandemic is like? One person mildly ill 8 miles down the road, no shaking hands in church for a few weeks as if to acknowledge we should be afraid-- but we're really not-- and then, well, what happened? There's a certain unreality to the financial crisis for me. I know people are losing their jobs-- including my favorite print company salesperson. I know people are suffering-- but I only hear about them now and then anecdotally; I don't really know any.

But what has been bothering me is, basically, Marketplace, the radio show on NPR. It already bugged me before the crisis, and I've had a longstanding policy of turning off the radio as soon as it comes on. I can't stand the smug tone, the wise-cracking approach, and I also just don't like that we're supposed to spend so much time thinking about money. It's not cool.

Since the financial crisis began, the content has changed a little, but actually, not much. Their main shtick seems to still be advising people on how to invest their money. The advice now is peppered with: work on solidifying your position at work and protecting your job, and save more-- but then with the extra, how about this financial vehicle or that stock option... Don't invest in GM even though it looks like a great bargain. And some very witty repartee on the various trials and tribulations of, well, every economic indicator.

In addition to a half-hour show every day, and an hour on weekends, Marketplace gets 10 minutes at the end of each hour of Morning Edition. Which is when I'm driving to work. Last week I didn't get to the dial before the opening "teaser," and I caught a bizarre and frankly offensive opening line. Something along the lines of: "Mexico's closed, but someone is making money..." a story about the drug companies making the vaccine, no doubt.

An exception to same-style-slightly-altered-message was John Stewart's wonderful challenge to Jim Cramer on his comedy program on March 13 (link here ), after which of course he went back to the usual yucks-- and let's face it, if it's sarcasm and cynicism I DON'T want, and I DON'T, then John Stewart can't be part of any real solution. Of course, his main message was: "Don't engage with me! You're not me! You are an actual financial news show and so you have a much higher standard to meet. You have a real job to do, not just entertainment." But more and more young people get all their news from John Stewart. Where that will take us has worried me at least since I watched the Daily Show coverage of the conventions in 1992 with my father...

This morning I decided to go through my Bon Appetit and Gourmet magazines from the last six months to pull out any good recipes and then recycle... January 2009 was on top, and it is the "value issue" (bon appetit would never go so far as to have a "budget" issue, so "value" is the best word they can use.) Which means the cover item is Fettuccine carbonara with pancetta and broccoli rabe. Have you priced pancetta lately? I'm quite sure I can't get it in the ordinary grocery stores in Central Minnesota, and would feel like a snob asking for it at the St. Joseph Meat Market. Even better was the mussel bisque, "mussels being a less expensive and wonderful substitute for lobster in this rich, savory bisque."

Well, across the page from the opening editor's letter, "Time to Save-- and Savor," is an ad for "delicious adventures" by Adventures by Disney. International travels to 23 countries with your family, safaris and good eating. Of course, all the ads are like this: the All-Clad slow cooker, ski vacations, cruises, luxury ranges... And the value issue does have a story on "pate de campagne," a French "meatloaf." It does turn out to be a mixture of ground pork and spices, whipping cream and Cognac, but still!

I guess I'm saying that these attempts to pretend we're committing to a "scaled down" existence are just screaming "false!!" to me. Of course, January was early to change our advertising habits, let alone our luxury dining.

Yesterday we went to see Tony Kushner's musical (more like an opera) Caroline, or Change, set in 1963 in Louisiana. (In the program was a big ad for "staycations" at a luxury hotel in Minneapolis.) It's the story of a black maid who works "below sea level" in a rare basement in Lake Charles, LA, for a Jewish family. She's angry and disappointed about her life, a single mother of four children, working for "pennies." Then the family decides, to teach the young son a lesson about his carelessness with money, that Caroline can keep any change she finds in the boy's pockets. He starts leaving change there purposefully, because he wants Caroline to like him and to be part of her life. The change is, of course, a metaphor for real change, and the quarters are nice but corrupting-- they make Caroline more dissatisfied with her plight and inability to give her children the finer things. They basically mock her. And she feels bad, of course, taking from a child. It's a set up. There's no real chance for her to get real "change."

In the end, the message of the play seems a bit muddled. For Caroline, there's resolution to her plight, and acceptance by her rebellious daughter that the opportunities she has are because of the sacrifices and hard work her mother has done. After a climax and catharsis, Caroline resigns herself, settles herself, and loses her anger and misery-- but her situation does not change. Her daughter is the hope for the future, the one who will see and effect real change. But if you care about Caroline, you can't feel good about the resolution.

And it's a musical.

I guess the problem I'm having with mixed discourse-- the media not matching the message, and the seeming inability to move to an ACTUAL new discourse, to just cancel Marketplace and say we're now going to do a different kind of programming, provide people with something that is actually new and appropriate and real, was exacerbated by the musical. I was crabby all evening, despite being very amply entertained by great music and acting for nearly three hours.

Perhaps it is time for me to "tune out, turn off (the t.v.)," and listen to the landscape and the people around me. Of course, given the "no handshaking" policy at church, it's hard to tell if listening to the world around me more directly would lead to something more real.

Living in Lake Wobegon

Pandemic fears have reached the Catholic Church of St. Joseph. It seems the bishop had an article in the St. Cloud Times this morning advising parishes to take precautions because of the H1N1 (swine) flu. The directives were not to hold hands during the Our Father and not to shake hands during the Sign of Peace, just to nod and say "Peace be with you" or some other greeting. And churches should feel free not to offer the cup for Eucharist (just the bread).

At our church, they decided to still offer the cup, since partaking of it is entirely optional anyway. But we were advised to not hold or shake hands. This seemed absurd to most people in the church, but we complied. The priest announced, before asking us to give each other a sign of peace, that the bishop had supposedly said at a Mass he officiated earlier in the day that "husbands and wives could give each other a kiss... but otherwise, a nod would suffice." So we were able to laugh as we turned and obediently did not shake hands, asking friends when the last time was they'd been to Mexico.

After church I was introduced to a couple sitting behind me, and at that point we all shook hands. And it was also a First Communion service, so the six little girls (one with extreme veil issues) and two boys, were all getting handshakes and hugs at the back of the church. And if you're not likely to get it from a seven-year-old, who are you going to get it from?

But the oddest thing was to come home and turn on A Prairie Home Companion. Garrison Keillor was just launching into his monologue, and his first joke was that Pastor Inqvist at the Lutheran Church had advised against shaking hands at the sign of the peace! People began to laugh right away, although this wasn't the real joke. His joke was that the Lutherans were happy about this because they knew any handshake could open the door to a hug. Well, there's never any danger of hugs from the German Americans of St. Joseph. And not much danger of the H1N1 virus either, I wouldn't think.

He then moved on to a story about turkeys in mating season...

Mating Season (2)

I believe the pheasants have successfully mated and moved on to nesting. We've also got a pair of Canada Geese on the large pond, and our ducks have settled in on the small pond. I'm surprised by how much those geese bug me. I don't want a flock of geese around-- it's completely suburban of me. I remember how Canada geese became a nuisance in the northern and western suburbs of Chicago, "golf course geese" that left their green poop everywhere, until you couldn't walk around in parks and even on lawns without it covering your shoes. They did manicure the lawns quite nicely, however. Everyone assures me that there are often geese who have a small brood of chicks out here, but they always move on. We won't be overrun.

Despite all this successful action, there is a poor tom turkey who has been working his tail off to get laid seemingly with no luck at all. Of course, I don't know what happens in the high grass of the wetlands, but all week we watched this guy strut his stuff. The tom is a large bird, and when he's puffed out with his tail feathers fanned, he looks exactly like the old storybook pictures of the Thanksgiving turkey. When I was growing up we had a cardboard cut-out decoration like this, and I never tired of studying its detail and pleasing shape.

The hens-- at the beginning of the week there was one but she was soon joined by another-- are, of course, smaller, with no distinguishing flourishes except the waddle they drag along the ground. In the morning they are out in the new grass where we had the burn, grazing. They do not even look up at the tom who is putting on such an elaborate show for them. They are intent on one thing, eating.

To his credit, he doesn't actively pursue, keeps a respectful distance, relying no doubt on his elaborate plumage and glorious size to do the work. It's almost like he's saying, "If you don't want me for me, I'm not going to make you. What woman could possibly resist?" And also like he's saying, "Maybe if I puff out my feathers just a little bit more, she'll see me and love me." But these female turkeys are as aloof as they come.

Or maybe they're just hungry.

(note: the photo above is a stock photo, though he looks a lot like our turkey!)