From Barrie’s Peter Pan, 1904:

But there was no elation in his gait, which kept pace with the action of his sombre mind. Hook was profoundly dejected.

He was often thus when communing with himself on board ship in the quietude of the night. It was because he was so terribly alone. This inscrutable man never felt more alone than when surrounded by his dogs. They were socially so inferior to him.

Hook was not his true name. To reveal who he really was would even at this date set the country in a blaze; but as those who read between the lines must already have guessed, he had been at a famous public school; and its traditions still clung to him like garments, with which indeed they are largely concerned. Thus it was offensive to him even now to board a ship in the same dress in which he grappled her, and he still adhered in his walk to the school's distinguished slouch. But above all he retained the passion for good form.

Good form! However much he may have degenerated, he still knew that this is all that really matters.

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There's a cheese haus at just about every exit in Wisconsin. They usually have a variety of local cheddars, curds, beef sticks, and jams. Sometimes more variety, sometimes not. And usually at least a cheese cow and cheese mouse. The Cheese Chalet, however, has an entire cheese horde. Of course I snapped a shot; the power of Fresca compelled me.

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My perspective on top, Mr. Husband’s on the bottom. Play them both at the same time.

(From now on, my GorillaPod goes everywhere with me. The jiggliness in mine comes from balancing a camera on a half-inch rail in a stiff breeze.)

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We wandered by this little mexican joint in the Baran Park neighborhood and then wandered on in. Much deliciousness ensued.

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I loved these signs at Broad Vocabulary in Milwaukee — and their big old dictionary, of course. Highly recommended if you’re feministy and in the area.

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It’s good to let your mind be blown at least once a day. This 16 minutes will do that. In that small space, Chris Abani says more about humanity and humanness that almost anyone else could say in hours of going on.

(via Mister Husband.)

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We attended our first Bavarian Blast in New Ulm yesterday, making sure to arrive in plenty of time for TubaMania. Turns out it was not a tuba contest as I had thought, but is instead a tuba pickup band. If you have a tuba and want to play, you show up in the morning, rehearse with everyone, and play in the afternoon. Nobody gets turned away.

We stayed for about half an hour of tuba-ing. As we turned to wander off to another tent, they began a version of Amazing Grace that drew us back to the bleachers. It was a sort of quintessential southern Minnesota moment: Schell’s beer from the New Ulm brewery, a hot breeze, the smell of bratburgers drifting over from the food stand. Kids running around in shorts and everybody dancing to the band.

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A sad spring led into a bittersweet road trip, and now we are in the very middle of a summer that is... what’s the right term? Complicated? Blue and green? Nah, it's just bittersweet too, days sprinkled with fresh produce and then my mother-in-law's less than lucid phone calls, lovely lunches with friends and then computer problems, that’s how it goes. Best to concentrate on the good, and so here are ten things that make my world go 'round lately.

1. We’ve noticed lately that we know some of the very best people. You know who you are. Thanks.

2. Monday / Thursday, my diptych project with Jenny. It keeps me photographing, it makes me smile, and she's one of those people included in #1.

3. Lil’ Ed and the Blues Imperials, who I’d wanted to see for years and finally did last night. Good in recordings, but even more fun onstage. This video isn’t the most technically perfect example, but it’ll give you a sense of their flavor live:

4. This photo of my sweet husband, taken last month at dusk in the Sierras. I keep coming back to it.

And also this photo of us in Vegas.

5. It's tomato season, and I’m living on tomato sandwiches as much as possible. Decent bread, a little pesto, a little mayo, and an entire sliced tomato. That’s all you need.

6. Speaking of which: pesto! Made fresh from farmer’s market basil. Here's this week's pesto-to-be, all of which cost $4 at the St. Paul Farmer’s Market:

and here's what happened to last week’s batch:

7. We watched End of the Century: The Story of the Ramones the other night, and I Wanna Be Sedated has been stuck in my head ever since. Odd for a girl who loves the road so much, but I mind this not one whit.

8. Tomorrow is the TubaMania contest at Bavarian Blast. Enough said.

9. Zinnias. On a cloudy Saturday. When I am missing my grandma, who grew them every summer.

10. The dissertation proceeds once again, and I’m actually having fun with it. Shan’t say it too loud for fear of jinxing it, though.

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via Wooster Collective, pointed out by Mister Husband.

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After a wonderful, winding conversation at dinner last night with Wilhelmina and Mister Husband, it dawned on me that I often give the impression that the only food eaten in our house is fresh, local, organic, carefully-prepared bits of artisinal goodness. I never really meant for that to happen — it’s that those things seem more interesting to write about, and it’s true that my food and beverage range has grown during grad school. We still maintain a steady supply of what can only be described as box food, though, and some evenings that's the only food I want because it’s so easy and comforting and full of ingredients I can’t possibly pronounce. It’s true that right now there’s a two-day batch of vanilla ice cream in process, made from real vanilla beans and due to be served with homemade cherry sauce, but it’s also true that it might be preceded by any of the following:

- fish sticks
- Ore Ida crinkle-cut fries
- Kraft mac-and-cheese
- Creamy Garlic Tuna Helper
- a variety of ramen flavors (which I occasionally make with broth and bits of real chopped up food, but just as often gets made with water and the packet flavoring)
- Life cereal
- Hormel chili (this is a Mr. Husband item)
- canned corned beef hash (referred to as snoot hash, because I bet that corned beef is mostly ground up snoot. Whatever, snoot’s good on a cold evening.)

One of the house specialties, eaten in phases and then forgotten for a year or so at a time, is the classic der Wienerschnitzel sandwich: pre-sliced provolone melted on pre-fab pumpernickel bread, coated in mustard, and filled with polish sausage halves, a dill pickle spear, and jarred sauerkraut. You could make this with all-local, organic stuff, but it would completely defeat the spirit of the dish.

So as usual, we are a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside a conundrum. One Local Summer next to Tuna Helper. Local thick-cut pepper bacon and organic Farmer’s Market tomatoes with Hellman’s Mayo and store-bought bread. (Oh, the mayo-making experiment the other night! The entire kitchen ended up coated in eggs and oil, and the rest is too traumatic to recount. Let’s just say that two grown cooks were reduced to wailing and gnashing of teeth after multiple attempts.)

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The various trials of this year have shifted me toward some better ways of being, and I live more in the moment than ever before. (Which is not to say that I do it well, but more often and more consciously.) So I resolved, as I have every year since we moved here, to embrace the summerness—the sunlight that lasts from 5 am to 10 pm, the warmth, and the green. Beer and lakes and ice cream and Farmer’s markets and long stretches of time for reading and writing. No teaching, lots of honey time.

And I did very well with this for the six weeks that we were more or less on the road. We’ve been back for ten days now. We’ve restocked the fridge, put our lives sort of back in motion. I’ve been working on chapter revisions and did a guest lecture last night. Dear colleagues are leaving and people who may become dear appear in their stead. My mother-in-law lingers in a bed in a border town. My friends prepare for babies. Life is happening all around. I wish for a garden, for more pantry room so that I could can things and try to preserve something, just for a little while. I stand still and do my best to soak it all up, both the blessings and the awfulness, and remember to breathe.

But as I was driving by the campus trial fields, full of corn that is indeed knee-high-by-the-fourth-of-July, the thought came, completely unbidden: I’m ready for fall. I pushed it back, pressed it into a corner, squashed it flat. A few days later the August Vanity Fair came in the mail and out sprung the ads for fall tweeds, for coats, for bright leaves and gloomy skies, and my heart skipped just a bit, just enough to let me know that in spite of my best efforts I will never really love summer. I can embrace it, but I never relax into it the way I do the autumn. There is never enough time — and I know enough now not to hurry it — but when the air changes and the leaves aren’t far behind, I won’t think that the seasons have shifted too soon.

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Taste of Minnesota, Saturday evening

Truck stop bathroom graffiti

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Scene: We’ve spent the holiday afternoon watching DVDs of Dudley Do-Right and Petticoat Junction. Mister Husband has had his fill of the latter.

Him: I still can't believe you never saw an episode of Dudley Do-Right when you were growing up. Surely there were re-runs. We’re going to have to take a break from Petticoat Junction, though. I’ve had a little too much of it.
Her: But we just finished the cliffhanging first half of a two-parter!
Him: Well, let’s intersperse it with some Beverly Hillbillies and then come back to it.
Her: Oh, okay. I never saw that, either.
Him: How did you never see that?
Her: Well, it was on Nickelodeon back in the day, but I never watched it.
Him: shakes head in stunned silence
Her: Hey, this was before it split off with TV Land! I am totally old skool!

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We can sell our souls to the Dissertation Devil. (Also: When in doubt, get the blowtorch.)

(Mister Husband said, "Hey, we should do a Flaming Pitchfork Southern Gothic!" but it ended up being just me. I wired up the pitchfork with sparklers, Dad lit them all with the blowtorch, and mom clicked the camera. The power of collaboration, people.)

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While we were at home, I conned everyone into coming outside for firework photography. Or more like, Mister Husband and Dad watched me dart around with sparklers while Mom stood behind the tripod.

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