08/29/03’s illustrious band:

Church Donuts

originally posted: 07/30/02

It’s summer, kids, and you know what that means: reruns, reruns, reruns! Yes, even on Band Name of the Day. Here’s a little deep-fried flashback brought on by a discussion of the Minnesota State Fair and the crispy, crunchy, deep-fried mini-donuts you can find there. Bon appetit!

Brought to you by Recipes from the Belle Fourche Community.

Here is proof that deep-fried dough is one of God's great gifts: that holy of holeys, the donut. The recipe is simple: mix dough, roll out and cut donuts, fry, apply sugar, eat. Whether you're enjoying a mass-produced confection at a big ol' church brunch or a bag of minis at the state fair, a fresh crispy donut still damp with hot grease and crusted with sugar is one of nature's perfect foods.

When I was but a wee Media Sensation, Mother Media had a donut recipe much like the one below. (I don't remember whether it had come to her through Dad's parents, who ran a bakery, or from elsewhere.) Once my friends and I were old enough to behave responsibly around frying oil — early high school years — we were allowed to have donut-making parties. My girlfriends and I would invite some boys over to my house, and they would cluster around the TV to watch Knight Rider while we did the cooking. A cringe-worthy example of sex-role stereotyping, I know. It made us mad, too, but we put up with it because hey! we had boys nearby!

So we would roll out the premixed, prechilled dough (thanks, Mom!) and cut out a dozen or so at a time with a special donut cutter that sliced the divot in the middle. (It never occurred to any of us not to cut the middle out of the dough circle. Part of the definition of "donut" is that it has a hole in the middle, and some traditions you just don't question.)

We tossed — er, gently and carefully placed — both the donuts and the holes in the grease and watched, fascinated, as the dough browned and swelled. When they reached the proper state of goldenness on one side, someone would use a slotted spoon to flip — I mean, gently and carefully turn — them over to fry the other side. We scooped the finished products straight into brown paper bags preloaded with plain sugar, cinnamon sugar or powdered sugar, shook vigorously, and served. This last step was the only part the boys took seriously.

The coolest part, though, was reinventing the self-turning donut. I believe it was in reading the Little House on the Prairie books to me (the third book in the series, Farmer Boy, possibly?) that Mother Media learned of the self-turning donut, an ingenious innovation that saved a busy baker one step in the process. Rather than placing the dough "O" flat in the frying oil, you stretch it a little and twist it a couple times first. That way when the bottom half swells as it cooks, the spiral seam makes it easy for the inflated bottom half to rise to the top, rolling over and trading places with the uncooked top half. Very nifty!

It was a fine way to spend a chilly fall evening. That recipe produced a vast quantity of donuts, so none of us was wanting for fried pastry or a sugar buzz by the end of the night. If you're looking for a community-building activity that involves hot oil and cool physics, you can't go wrong with making donuts*.

* A word to the wise: Due to the lack of preservatives, fresh homemade donuts don't keep. Plan on eating the whole batch, preferably while they're still warm.

Church Donuts

1-1/2 c. sugar
4 Tbsp. butter
3 eggs
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. vanilla
1 tsp. nutmeg
4 tsp. baking powder
1-1/2 c. half & half
5-1/2 c. flour

Mix; roll out. Cut donuts. Fry according to deep fryer instructions. Easier to roll out if first chilled slightly. After frying, roll in sugar, powdered sugar, frost, or serve plain. Fresh, hot oil makes the best donuts.

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08/28/03’s illustrious band:

Smart Farm

Brought to you by a headline glimpsed in passing.

What is a smart farm? A place where you raise IQs (ba-dum-bum).

I’d love to have one. The first thing I’d raise would be a bevy of blue chips, which when mature could be implanted into human brains to make them adept at stock market trading. Next to them would be the gaggle of gizmos, upgrades for the mechanically impaired. And I’d have a huge word herd of great story ideas and writing techniques.

Unfortunately, the herd is thin today (too much reading about bunions), so I’m off to the T’ai Chi studio. There I hope to feast my eyes on the fruit of some earlier labors: String of Pearls, a book of articles and essays collected for the studio’s 10th anniversary, now out in hardbound form. I edited and contributed to that volume, and I know it’s going to look as great finished as it did in progress. Can’t wait to see it. You-all may be permitted to look through my copy, but only if your hands are clean.

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08/27/03’s illustrious band:

The Truth about the Pakistani Bagpipe

Brought to you by eBay, repository of culture of all kinds.

Click here to learn the truth about the Pakistani Bagpipe as contained in Pipe Major Conley’s Complete Tutor for the Pakistani Bagpipe. “It is a humorous, irreverent look at bagpipes and bagpiping that has long been needed,” writes the person auctioning this book on eBay for $10. “Many long looked for answers are at last exposed. Pomposity is thrust aside.” (However, the seller cautions that “You must be a piper or someone who understands the bagpipe to get the most from this remarkable book.”)

At last! Answers to my PB questions -- without the usual pomposity! As an added bonus, the book promises to reveal some of the “strange things” the writers from the Monterey Bay Scottish Research Group have uncovered, along with pointers and sympathy. Is that sympathy for the reader, the piper, or the piper’s audience? Guess I don’t understand bagpipes well enough to make that determination, but I’m willing to learn.

Also available on eBay:

• The Full Armor of God: children’s plastic swords and shields for mounting their very own Crusades, billed as a Christian character-building costume
  
  
• Odd Shaped Glue Art
  
  
• your very own inflatable gorilla
  

And much, much more!

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08/26/03’s illustrious band:

Killer Chips

Brought to you by today’s outing of the Soup Group.

The Soup Group went to Subway for lunch today. I got chips with my sandwich and opted for some new BAKED! DORITOS brand NACHO CHEESIER flavored tortilla chips (I’m just quoting the packaging here). We were all shocked by the color when I dumped them out. They’re a shocking orange-red that doesn’t occur in nature.

Well, actually, it does. Further discussion reminded us that bright yellows, oranges and reds are reserved by Mother Nature for her more user-unfriendly creations: yellow jackets and wasps, coral snakes and copperheads, tarantulas and black widows, venomous centipedes, various poisonous fishes, some toxic plants and their berries, and professional wrestlers.

Yet we deliberately dye our food these colors, especially “fun” food. Why? Shouldn’t we have learned by now that bright orange means danger? Not me! I was drawn to the BAKED! DORITOS like a moth to flame. Twinkies? Maraschino cherries? Same problem. They may not be as bad for me in the short run as a set-to with a Gila monster, but in the long run . . . we’ll see.

Marketing gurus know all about this phenomenon, of course. Ever wonder why there are so many red and orange and combo-colored boxes and labels on the shelves? Why so many fast-food restaurants share similar color schemes? Research shows that those colors draw attention and stimulate the appetite; a customer leaning over a yellow counter is more likely to want fries with that than someone facing a blue counter. Same goes for red lingerie vs. green; red revs the viewer’s body up, green slows it down (just the opposite of traffic lights; wonder what that is?).

So there you have it. I have succumbed to marketing hype, and it has left its mark: I still have orange stains on my fingertips. The worst part of it is, even knowing all this, I’ll undoubtedly buy more killer chips like a good little consumer. They may be dangerous, but they’re tasty.

And none of this explains the popularity of Oreos, unless there are a lot more color-blind shoppers out there than I thought.

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08/25/03’s illustrious band:

On the Skids

Brought to you by the makers of Stonehenge, the pyramids, and other large prehistoric structures.

As a single, female Media Sensation without a lot of upper-body strength, I sometimes find myself facing the daunting task of moving heavy objects by myself. Such was the case this weekend, when I decided I wanted to move a shelving unit from the garage into my home office. (Yes, the unit was in the garage rather than in the house for a reason, but it’ll do until I decide to spend money on something better.) So I had to find a way to get it inside.

A smart person would probably have hailed the nearest neighbor and gotten some help in exchange for a glass of iced tea. A stubborn person like me would find a way to do it herself, and I did. The shelf unit was too heavy to lift, so I knew I’d have to drag it. However, the terrain was too rough and the unit too rickety for a simple push/shove routine. I needed two smooth surfaces to work with.

My garage came complete with several long 1x6s, so I laid one out on the walkway between the shelving unit and the front door. I laid the unit on its flat side on the plank and pushed it to the end. I laid a second plank in front of the other and kept pushing. The first plank, once freed up, became a ramp up the front steps and into the living room, et voila! The shelving unit is now indoors on the carpet, where I can slide it the rest of the way into the office as soon as the recently shampooed carpet dries.

So there’s my life lesson for the weekend: If you find yourself on the skids, unable to get anywhere, try getting onto a real set of skids like my planks. Tip your problem onto its side, lay out a series of short, smooth paths for yourself and see if that doesn’t get you where you’re going.

And if it doesn’t, come on over to my house for a break and a tall, cool iced tea. I still have a desk that needs moving.

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08/20/03’s illustrious band:

Southwestern Flare

Brought to you by El Queso Grande, quoting from that most abundant source of ridiculable material, marketing hype.

“This is one of the descriptive phrases used by the Sheraton in San Antonio to describe the room I'll be enjoying,” El Queso says. “I have a very clear mental image of flaming plastic wallpaper.”

Yeah, me too. Sometimes spellcheck just isn’t enough; I wish there was a button to press for sensecheck, too. But you know, Flaming Plastic Wallpaper would make a dandy name for an opening act.

And speaking of opening acts, how’s this: Sister-san and Brother-in-Law-san have purchased a house in Phoenix! Congratulations!

They’d been in town just about a week when they found what they wanted. It’s a house-to-be, actually; still under construction in a brand-new development equidistant from both their new jobs. Having gotten in on the ground floor, so to speak, they’ll be able to choose certain finishing details to be added upon completion, such as countertops, floor coverings and landscaping options. I’ve seen a photo of the work in progress and an artist’s rendering of the finished product, and I’m eager to walk through the final product. So Mother Media has warned me to pack my bags. Looks like we’ll be celebrating Christmas in Phoenix this year.

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08/19/03’s illustrious band:

Stalking Stuffers

Brought to you by Dr. Amy and her recent trip to a professional conference.

Amy has always attracted interesting people, and never more so than at this recent conference. First, there was the lady on the bus. Upon learning that Amy was a magazine editor, her seatmate, a wannabe writer, proceeded to schmooze for an assignment -- and then went on to confess that she didn’t understand why every editor she’d ever worked with had hated her writing. She had won a writing award in high school, she explained, so she knew she was good. Yet editors kept telling her that her articles were unprintable and that she was in the wrong business.

With this “Top 10 Reasons Why You Shouldn’t Hire Me” list in mind, Amy declined to assign the woman a story. This did not, however, spare her from hearing a full and complete recitation of the woman’s most personal information during the day-long bus tour.

At a later function, held outdoors, the hosts had provided insect repellent wipes: moist towelettes impregnated with anti-bug stuff that one can swipe over exposed skin. After using hers, Amy went to the trashcan to throw it away. As she tossed, a little voice in her ear said, “I stuffed mine in my bra.”

Put yourself in her place for a minute. You’re at a business function. You’ve just slathered your skin with strong chemicals. And suddenly, out of nowhere, there’s a little voice talking to you about bra stuffing. Has the all-confessing writer lady, whom you’ve been dodging since you got off the bus, snuck up on you? Or is your overstimulated brain imagining it? And if you really are making it up, why are you talking to yourself about other women’s lingerie-enhancement tactics?

Turning cautiously, Amy found herself facing a little old lady of around 70. “I don’t want the mosquitoes to bite through my clothes,” she continued, “so I tucked the wipe into my bra. See?” And she opened her blouse a button or two to display the insect repellent wipe spread across her bosom, neatly tucked into the cups on each side.

There’s some special aura about Dr. Amy that makes complete strangers want to bare their souls (and other parts, apparently) to her. El Queso Grande has the same problem, as do I. In my family we refer to this phenomenon as “getting Bettied,” after an incident in which an older lady named Betty cornered me on an airplane and talked about herself nonstop for a couple hours straight.

Or there’s the time a woman I knew only slightly asked to catch a ride with me to a social function. My then-husband, whom she’d never met, was driving. Before we even had our seatbelts fastened, she began regaling us with details of her recent stay in the mental ward of a local hospital for a combination of psychiatric symptoms and female reproductive problems.

Whoa! Time out! Too much information! Needless to say, we didn’t offer her a ride home.

Got Betty?

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08/18/03’s illustrious band:

The Evolution Control Committee

Brought to you by the ECC itself (http://evolution-control.com), whom I saw perform this past Friday evening.

I actually went to this “sound collage” show to see Datura 1.0 (www.daturaonezero.com) and the circuit-bending orchestra. Circuit bending involves rewiring various objects and running the sounds they produce through some sort of electronic maze until they come out the other side sounding decidedly different than before. Datura’s current specialty is a colorful array of Fischer Price toys whose tones are altered and amplified by a laptop computer, their cheerful tweeting morphed into disturbing growls and subsonics. The kids will definitely be seeing monsters under the bed after playing with these little trinkets. It’s the kind of thing Stephen King would come up with if he were a musician.

Datura was joined onstage by several other benders, one of whom played what looked like a miniature water heater with xylophone mallets and manipulated an electromagnetic field’s sonic output by waving his hands over it. He also, at various times during the set, strung yellow “crime scene do not cross” tape up the aisles of the theater and handed out postcards bearing photos of various cuts of meat. I got a T-bone.

Then the ECC came on. The Committee consists of just one guy, a mad scientist sporting an untamed white pompadour, a white jumpsuit and black Converse high-tops. He opened his set by asking the audience to please rise and join him in singing the national anthem. However, due to budgetary cutbacks, he said, the federal government had been forced to accept corporate sponsorship from the Oscar Mayer company, and the lyrics to our anthem had been replaced by those of “My Bologna Has a First Name,” sung to the traditional melody. With the help of his laptop, he projected the words on the screen so we could sing along, karaoke style.

Next Ev (as I call him, because I can’t remember his real name) demonstrated some remixing, cutting back and forth between familiar musical tracks to create amusing juxtapositions.

Then he got out the Thimbletron. The Thimbletron consists of a pair of white cotton gloves with a thimble mounted on each fingertip. Wires lead from each thimble up the operator’s arms and into a snarly pile of custom electronics. By touching different thimbles together, completing different circuits, Ev was able to “change the channel” from one music or voiceover track to another, or change the distortion effects, or both. The laptop projected the software programs in use, plus an oscilloscopic representation of the various soundtracks, onto the big screen for our viewing enjoyment.

All in all, it was an excellent show and an interesting glimpse at one direction in which music is evolving. For someone like me who likes plain old a cappella vocals, all this electronic stuff is a big step outside the box. It’s good to get outside now and then.

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08/15/03’s illustrious band:

Toad Colon

Brought to you by my literary hero James Lileks (www.lileks.com).

“Toad’s colon” is Lileks’ genteel euphemism for “rat’s @$$.” As in, “I don’t give a toad’s colon who the Vikings picked in the first draft.” Works for me. You get so distracted contemplating the intricacies of amphibian digestion that you forget all about the original topic of conversation -- which may be just what the speaker intended.

Speaking of colons reminds me of a press release received at Media Headquarters this morning. It reads, in part:

90% of all sickness and disease begins in an

UNCLEAN COLON!

Since "Death begins in the colon," you should find out HOW to clean your colon.

Toxins and waste build up in your colon just like they do in the pipes of your home. Both demand immediate attention or the results can be disastrous!

Etc., etc. The document offers access to colon-cleansing techniques, but I passed on that.

Well! I’d always wondered about the origins of mortality. Now if we could just figure out how death ends, we’d be all set.

Doesn’t it just make you want to run around flapping your hands and squawking, “Unclean!! Unclean!!”?

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08/14/03’s illustrious band:

Tractor Tango

Brought to you by Skeeter, commenting on intriguing events at the Iowa State Fair -- including tractor square dancing! Skeeter writes:

"Tractor square dancing is where they have a caller doing the square dance calls and have people driving tractors instead of dancing so that the tractors appear to be dancing with one another. And no, I'm not making this up.

“I'm sure I'll also get to see the life-size cow made from butter. There's an old woman -- in her 70s -- that makes a life-size sculpture of a cow each year out of butter. Each year she sculpts a different breed. This year is some French breed I've never heard of. She also does another sculpture, too. I've heard this year it's a life-sized Harley Davidson.

“A couple of years ago she sculpted a life-size butter sculpture of the Last Supper. Everyone tells me that was pretty spectacular because it wasn't a sculpture of the painting or anything -- it had life-sized people (however many people were there; I don't recall how many were supposed to have attended. I guess I need to go back to Bible school?). From what I understand, the most amusing part of the Last Supper thing was that she sculpted a tray of butter on the table. Ha!"

And you thought your state fair was wacky? What’s the oddest thing you’ve ever seen at a fair? (Crop art doesn’t count.)

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08/13/03’s illustrious band:

Strategic Rot

Brought to you by RoRoRo.

There’s not much of a story to go with today’s band name. Ro reported to Mother Media one day that she had met a man with a limited supply of strategically placed rotten teeth.

Eeeuuuw!

Can’t you just picture this guy? He probably has a saggy grin and saggy pants and breath that would make a hog farm smell like a rose garden.

What is it about rotten teeth that provokes such a visceral reaction, anyway? Aside from the smell, I mean. Maybe it’s the clear indication of ill health, of something really not right. Maybe it’s the fact that we immediately wonder how deep the pits on the teeth go and what all might be stuck in them. Maybe it’s the lack of symmetry in a gap-toothed smile that offends some innate sense of aesthetics. Or maybe . . .

Maybe I’ll just go home and floss. Right now.

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08/12/03’s illustrious band:

Cakeslide

Brought to you by my friend Fred and last weekend’s T’ai Chi retreat.

Fred is the father of three little boys age 6 and under, about whom he tells many hair-raising stories. One time, one of them called to him from the kitchen, “Daddy, what should I do with this?” Fred walked around the corner to find his son holding a roll of Bounty paper towels . . . which were on fire. He’d been investigating the stove.

Another time, Fred got a call from the next-door neighbor. One of the boys was urinating outside. Fred started to laugh it off, since little boys seem to enjoy answering nature’s call in the arms of Mother Nature herself. The neighbor didn’t think it was funny, though. The kid was standing at the top of the swingset slide, peeing over the fence into her yard.

My favorite from the most recent round of stories goes like this: One of the children had a birthday, complete with a blue birthday cake. Not much of the cake got eaten on the day itself, and the adults left it sitting on the kitchen counter.

The next day, Fred awoke to strange sounds and giggles -- not an unusual occurrence. When he went to investigate, he found that the boys had gotten into the cake. Instead of eating it, however, they had found that they could throw it down on the hardwood floor, take a run and bellyflop onto the mess, and slide from the kitchen all the way into the dining room.

Plenty of other stories got told around the campfire this weekend, too, many of them involving boys and fire. Some highlights:

• Some 10- and 11-year-old boys decided to put on a fire show for the neighborhood kids. Not wanting to get into trouble for it, they crowded all the kids into a garage and shut all the doors. Then somebody got the bright idea to light a big bowl of gas on fire. When they aimed a fire extinguisher at it, the stream of water (which is a no-no for a gas fire anyway) served only to push the bowl down the floor toward the audience. Kids started screaming and trying to get out, but the performers didn’t want them to tell their parents and get them in trouble, so they locked the doors. Eventually, though, someone got a door open, the kids escaped, and no one was injured.

  
  

• A guy had a clogged drain but no Drano, so he poured gas down the drain and dropped in a lit match. For the next 20 minutes, he wandered through the house listening to the sound of flames rushing through all the pipes. No injuries.

  
  

• Two girls walking in a park wondered what would happen if they set a small patch of grass aflame. The experiment quickly got out of control, and the fire too big for them to contain. The girls raced to the pond and brought back Coke cans full of water to pour on the blaze, but to no avail. Terrified, they finally managed to stamp out the flames, leaving a burnt patch dozens of yards wide. Knowing they would get into huge trouble if the police came, they prepared their story: The fire was set by a UFO that landed in the park. For weeks afterward they scoured the local paper for mention of the damage, but found none. No injuries.

  
  

• Here’s my tale, which I didn’t tell at the campfire . . . because I was saving it especially for you. One day in high school science lab, I couldn’t get my Bunsen burner lit and summoned the teacher for help. While he fiddled with the burner, I turned away to say something to my lab partner. Suddenly I heard the whoosh of igniting gas behind me and felt the heat. My usually safety-conscious teacher was aiming the jet right at me and my very long hair -- a honey-blonde curtain down to my waist, my pride and joy. Startled, I exclaimed, “Jesus!” and jumped back. I received a severe dressing down for taking the Lord’s name in vain . . . but no injuries.

  
  

Tell me your fire stories!

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08/06/03’s illustrious band:

Beef and Other Seafood

Brought to you by a press release reading, in part: "A study just released by the Environmental Working Group reveals that PCB-contaminant levels in 7 in 10 farm-raised salmon are 16 times higher than those found in wild salmon -- and four times higher than those found in beef and other seafood."

Since when is beef seafood? Unless we're talking water buffalo or sea cows here.

And speaking of exotic edibles, if you’re in western South Dakota this week for the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, be sure to park your Harley at Uncle Tom’s Sandwich Stand just off exit 131 in the Badlands. (That’s my actual Uncle Tom. He lives in a cabin. No lie.) He’s selling buffalo burgers, buffalo sausage and regular beef burgers. You can wash them all down with an ice-cold sarsaparilla. Almost makes me wish I could take the Soup Group over there for lunch.

Even a buffalo burger is no match for the chocolate commode, though. For this we owe our thanks to The Other Amy, who has shown me a catalog of business gifts with some mind-boggling products inside. The Apple Cookie & Chocolate Co. (www.applecookies.com) caters to corporate gift buyers in the plumbing, construction, electrical and janitorial trades. You can order, for instance, cookies that come in a paint can, a plastic toolbox, an OSHA standard hard hat, a wooden crate, a wooden truck or van, rolled up inside architect’s plans or even jammed inside a section of plastic plumbing pipe (unused). Savvy bit of niche marketing, eh?

But wait! There’s more!

The second C in AC&C stands for chocolate, and boy, do they have chocolate.

• For the architect in your life, you can purchase milk chocolate T squares, triangles, compasses and protractors about the size of a Post-It note.
  
• For the electrician: chocolate electrical outlets and light bulbs.
  
• For the builder: chocolate nuts, bolts, hammers, nails, screws, tape measures, drills and other tools, bricks or tiny milk chocolate paint brushes with their bristles dipped in white chocolate.
  
• For the HVAC (heating/venting/air conditioning) professional: chocolate furnaces, vents, air conditioners, thermostats and fuses.
  
• For the janitor: chocolate vacuum cleaners, mops, buckets and coils of hose.
  
• And for the plumber: chocolate wrenches or sections of pipe . . . or wee chocolate commodes (lids up).

  
  

If you’re not satisfied with the prepackaged offerings, there’s a 5-page section of individual chocolate trinkets you can buy (100-piece minimum). These range from the abovementioned gear to vehicles, computer equipment, kitties and musical instruments to little chocolate disk brakes, brake pads, spark plugs and struts. I kid you not, chocolate disk brakes. If Santa tucked one of those into my Christmas stocking, I wouldn’t have the slightest idea what it was.

Just goes to show you, for every industry, there’s a corporate gift-giving opportunity. Suddenly, beef as seafood doesn’t sound so odd, does it?

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08/05/03’s illustrious band:

Up & Down Dizzy

Brought to you by Dylan Brown, age 4.

At the farewell party for his aunt and uncle this past weekend, Dylan had the opportunity to play on a trampoline. He enjoyed running around it and jumping on it. He also liked to lie on it while an adult jumped nearby, causing him to bounce in place. But he didn’t want to do that for very long at a time; too much bouncing, he said, made him “up-and-down dizzy.”

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08/04/03’s illustrious band:

Musubi Monday

It’s our monthly reading from the Book of Spam!

This month’s entry is quoted directly from my official Spam calendar, a gift from Hawaii devotees Lightbringer and the Flexible Chef. To wit:

“More Spam luncheon meat is eaten in Hawaii than in any other state in the union . . . by a huge margin. Spam appears on Hawaiian restaurant menus on a regular basis. The most common way that Spam I eaten in Hawaii is in Spam musubi. This is a kind of sushi that consists of seaweed, rice, pickled plum and (of course) Spam. This popular food is sold in convenience stores and school cafeterias.

“The popularity of Spam musubi caused a major controversy in 1994. The state health department stared to enforce oft-ignored regulations preventing stores from selling convenience foods with meat in them at room temperature. However, Spam musubi is always sold at room temperature, because it is believed that refrigerating rice ruins it. The health department’s decision caused a huge wash of feedback in newspapers and on the radio. Finally, a compromise was reached in 1996, allowing Spam musubi to be left at room temperature for no more than four hours -- causing all Spam musubi fans to breathe a sigh of relief.”

Wow. Room-temperature Spam sushi? Spammy school lunches? I can’t wait to visit the islands!

In other travel-related news, this weekend marked the last occasion to see Sister-san and Brother-in-Law-san before their big move to Phoenix, which commences later this week. Some local friends of theirs hosted a farewell party, complete with homemade salsa, margaritas and a 15-foot trampoline -- and no Spam. The guests of honor had been expecting friends to attend but were surprised (pleasantly, we hope) by the arrival of several family members as well, including parents, siblings, aunts, uncles, and a nephew who is the author of tomorrow’s Band Name of the Day.

The weather was perfect, the company was excellent, the food was plentiful. The only thing wrong with the party is that it means my favorite sister and brother-in-law are really and truly moving very far away. No more quick trips north for me for a weekend of theater and ice cream. No more playing hostess for a night or two if they stop by the metropolis. I’m excited for them in their new adventure, but feeling a little lonely now that my nearest relatives, geographically speaking, are about 600 miles away. I’ve already warned them to expect a visit about the time temperatures drop below zero here on the tundra.

Meanwhile, what’s a girl to do in Minnesota?

I guess I’m in no position to make fun of Spam musubi, really. Mother Media and I, biding time before the party, attended that staple of Twin Cities summer, the Uptown Art Fair. We decided it should be renamed the Art Fare, since we sampled almost as much food as art. Deep-fried cheese curds for breakfast? You betcha! Deep-fried Oreos for lunch? Got ‘em right here! We sniffed everything else and bought some kettlecorn to give as a gift, but we had no room left after the Oreos. If you get a chance to try them, do, just once. They’re so greasy and crunchy and sweet and good, they’ll remind you of home.

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