Traipsing Through a Winter Wonderland

Well, it will definitely be a white Christmas here in Minot, and you know what? It’s not the Bi(n)g deal it’s cracked up to be. Has something with the forecast high being minus 5.

I have heard of minus 5, but have never experienced it firsthand. Honestly, I’d be OK if I never did, but thanks to the Mayans being horribly wrong, that appears to be unavoidable now.

Fortunately, I have a giant pumpkin suit on loan that has helped me fight the cold.

This thing is warm. It’s a RefrigWear and is highway safety orange, complete with reflective stripes. I mean, there is NO missing me in this. (Though I do blend, because we have several of these at work and these days, we’re all wearing them.)

I think it’s rated to something like 55 below zero, but I’m OK with not testing that theory. However, it’s really so warm I’ve been looking for excuses to pull it on and then go traipsing down the street. I even shoveled something like a quarter inch of now just to test them again.

The outfit is in two parts, but so far I’ve just been wearing the pants. They look like firemen pants; they have a high bib and little overall-like things. (I’m sure there’s a word for these, but I’ve no clue.) It zips and buttons up the front. The pants also unbutton/zip to the knees, too, so you can wear cool LL Bean boots with them. (I shudder to think of how much I’ve ordered from LL Bean since I’ve been here. This includes today’s order, which I hope to be my last.)

The thing is bulky as hell, but it’s warm so who cares. I love the thing. So far, though, the pants have been enough; I wear them and then my LL Bean coat (in addition to the boots – either pair), which has a hat.

We at Hope Village got a donation from an oil company, Baker Hughes, for these things for volunteers to wear while they’re working outside and fixing houses. Since at the moment, we don’t really have any volunteers in, we’ve put them to use otherwise.

The little tag bills itself as “Visibility Safety Warmth” and there is no doubt why “visibility” is listed first. Stand next to a fresh snowdrift and the thing throws off an orange glow.

I’ve been walking to work, and since it turned bitterly cold (this is the Weather Channel’s description) this week, I pulled on those suckers – no easy feat – and hiked.

It’s fabulous. If anything, I’m sweating by the time I get there. I’m not sure I’ll feel the same once the wind gets here, but for now I am greatly amusing myself (as well as others, let’s be honest) by wearing the things.

The only thing I haven’t figured out yet is the same issue I had in Detroit. I can’t cover my nose with a goiter or scarf without fogging up my glasses. That’s a problem. But for now, the cold just isn’t a huge one right now.

I made it to the winter solstice, so even though I recognize it’s going to get horribly bitter, the days are at least getting longer. However, I am going to be wearing that pumpkin suit as long as I can.

Thinking Out Loud

It’s maybe 18 degrees outside with lots of snow on the ground. Someone told me this is as bad as it gets and although I don’t believe them, it’d be fantastic if it were true.

I’m still expecting horrible wind, but so far it’s been manageable. Actually, I find it really amusing because all these North Dakotans keep telling me I’ll never make it, but they’re the ones running the car for eight hours a day to keep it warm while they’re at work. I’m still walking to work. It’s as unheard of here as it is in Indonesia.

But I’m sure it will get worse, no matter what I was told today. While researching weather averages in North Dakota, I found that January 9 is traditionally the coldest day of the year.

So, Dec. 21 is the next calendar milestone I am aiming for and that’s coming up quick. After that, there’s Christmas, so next I’m aiming to get through Jan. 9. Hopefully, it will be downhill from then on out.

This week was my six-month mark, too. So technically, I’m halfway done. BUT … there’s a new plan. It might not happen, but I’ve requested to extend for four months.

That would put me here until Oct. 15, 2013. Our big building season would end at the end of September and two more weeks would, first of all, round it off to four months, but second, allow me to wind this thing down.

Realistically, we could finish our rebuild project next year, so it might enable me to really ride out the whole thing.

The reason I’m considering this is because I have re-qualified to take the foreign service oral assessment again. I’m hoping to take it in May (I think you have to wait a year between takes). Before last week, I thought if you took it again and got a higher score, it replaced your old score but you didn’t gain any time on the register. But I learned that it’s a whole new candidacy.

If I passed, I would get 18 more months to get offered this job, which would mean I’d have no problem finishing out here.

If I didn’t pass, well, I still wouldn’t get an offer until July or September anyway (I’m still on the register with my low score.)

So there are a lot of things to consider. Nothing is definite, but I did officially request an extension and asked my supervisor to do the same thing. I figure it’ll be stronger if it comes independently from both of us.

My supervisor wants me to stay on anyway. It would just be more convenient if we could just continue on the same path. And honestly, it seems like a decent compromise because we were supposed to get two volunteers and wound up with just one. I’m not sure that AC will see it that way, though.

This weekend has been a little more exciting than last, just in that I went to a Christmas party. Nothing huge, just a little get-together with the same old people. I have a small but special social circle. And they’re good cooks.

Food … For the last two weeks, I’ve been eating salmon left from HostFest. I finally finished that and am now starting on leftover Salisbury steaks. Quite honestly, it might be February before I need to buy meat. I’d love to make some chicken soup, but I just have too many meatballs, S steaks and ribs to even consider buying new stuff. And that doesn’t even count the fish sticks – I forgot I had those.

Really, I have barely bought much food. Milk, yes, but real food – no. I even have donated tea. Someone brought a ton of tea bags that make a gallon at once. It’s a ton.

I am on the Key lime pies, though. The Marie Callendar ones are fabulous, but Edwards are pretty good too. Nothing’s the total real stuff, but it’s darn good.

I’m trying to avoid retail outlets before Christmas but I did walk over to Walmart this afternoon. All I did was drop off a bag of bags for recycling, but I dropped them off at one entrance, walked through the store and walked out the entrance closer to my house.

Holy cow. People are nuts. The 20-items-or-less [sic] line was stretched to the pharmacy.

I want to stay so very far away. However, it’s tempting to not get caught up in it. I haven’t been in the country for what, four of the last five Christmases? So this is kind of cool.

And then yesterday, I got a free-and-clear $10 gift card from Eddie Bauer. I don’t need anything, really, but I could use some socks. The gift card expires the 20^th, so it would require me to go to a mall before Christmas. I’m just not sure I am capable of doing that.

Happy to Be Home

Ah, my first post-fund-raiser weekend and I pretty much had the house to myself.

No big plans, but I did intend to get up and go to a Christmas party. However, it snowed Friday night – I really need to pay more attention to the weather reports – and the roads were slick on Saturday.

Now, I lived in Detroit for 11 years. I do know how to drive in the snow, but then, I had a 4x4 truck and now, not so much. My little front-wheel drive Corolla has already skidded twice and it just freaks me out  a little bit.

I did intend to head out there, but the place was about as far as it could be from where I live. I left and stopped off at Walmart on the way for a few groceries and skidded on the way out, so that was all she wrote. I drove back home and just holed up. I had a Mad Men disk so I watched that and then some serious Monk-a-thon took place.

 

And I’m pretty glad it turned out that way, because I found out later that someone caromed into a house in my trailerhood.

This little neighborhood, which really does have some nice trailers, runs along a main road. It doesn’t back up to it; there is a big field there that has wheat in the summer. And the roads inside are pretty curvy but very neighborly.

Well, apparently on Saturday, a truck – not a semi or anything, just a regular work truck – somehow lost control on that main big road, took out a streetlight, headed straight over the plowed-under wheat field and into a house.

Here are the photos from the daily:

http://www.minotdailynews.com/page/content.detail/id/571481/Pickup-truck-smashes-into-residence.html
 
http://www.minotdailynews.com/page/content.detail/id/571482/Pickup-truck-smashes-into-residence.html

Sorry I missed that. I guess the fire fighters came out, but I certainly heard none of it. And I am really, really glad I was not on the roads.

I really didn't do much over the weekend except take another FEMA class online and then write a news release, in which I am attempting to somehow parlay my fund-raiser into a little more.

Not that I'm unhappy with it -- it's surpassed my wildest dreams. I just came out of such odd circumstances I'd like to pitch the story elsewhere and see if I can get some more media attention on disaster recovery here.

So we'll see what this week brings, momentum-wise. I had the TV station here for one photo opp earlier and I've still got more on those burners.

Since it's so freaking dark out so early, I'm trying to knock off earlier (by that I mean about 5:30 p.m. or so). I am still trying to walk to work when I can, but it's now cold, dark and icy and that's just not a hat trick I want to deal with.

But it's much nicer to be "home" than it has been in awhile.

My little home really is a trailer, but it’s about a triple-wide and is nice. The bedroom, honestly, is about twice the size of the RV.

And I've splurged on Netflix for the six months I'm in the little house.

I don’t miss the RV.

Hard to believe, isn't it?

Thump, thump, thump

That’s the sound of me patting myself on the back

It doesn’t happen often (as in, never before), but my fund-raiser is essentially over and I’ve pretty much surpassed anything I could have imagined.

Considering we had about a 30-day span (I’m still taking money if it is clearly earmarked toward the campaign, but the deadline was Nov. 30.) and we decided to do a mailing campaign at the 11^th hour (stuck in the mail on Nov. 19), it went very well.

Plus, my automatic match came through, so that immediately put us at the minimum we’d hoped to raise, which was $100k.

Essentially, my Zac Brown Band auction winner ponied up a total of $75k, and the Minot Area Community Foundation kicked in $50k.

But the rest of it – the part where I did all this work to raise money – netted $40,000. Well, $40,028. I’m thrilled.

So now I have to figure out whether or not to have another news conference to present the checks to the other entities (we were splitting it 45-45-10, with us getting 10).

And I have to pump out a lot more copy regarding it still and I am way behind on the newsletter.

Essentially, this thing has sucked away my November and it’s still going. Which is OK, because it’s cold outside and I need something to distract me from the weather.

I'm just really glad it's almost over and been an amazing success. It's a lot of money toward flood recovery, which is awesome.

At some point, maybe I'll get back to normal, but I'm really not sure what that is.

This week has been cool because my roommate is gone and I have the house to myself. Not that I'm throwing parties or anything, but it's just been a good week to decompress after the whole frantic pace of November.

Time flying v. standing still

It is 8 degrees outside right now.

That is so very wrong.

But what’s unfortunate about that is the weather is beautiful. It’s clear, no precipitation and, more importantly, no wind. “Eight degrees” and “beautiful” should never go together.

The wind here just brutal, so any reprieve from it is utterly fantastic. I’m just dreading the rest of the winter.

Or, I guess I should say, winter. Technically, this is still fall, as I’m reminded by the fact FSU lost a horrible football game yesterday. Winter won’t begin until December 21.

I’m sort of looking forward to that, if only because that’s also the winter solstice and therefore on. Dec. 22, the days will start to get longer again. It’ll be colder, for sure, but it won’t be dark at 6:17 p.m.

Yeah, just like in PC, I look forward to crossing off dates on the calendar.

There are still two little landmarks to cross before I hit that solstice, though.

The first is Nov. 30, which is the last day of my $50k in 30 days fund-raising campaign. The early results of the direct mailing are in. I had a $4k day on Saturday, which put me to the $17k mark – not counting that automatic match I mentioned last week.

The next landmark is Friday, Dec. 13. According to the little journals I have to do for AmeriCorps, that’s going to be week 21 – the halfway point.

That’s a bit bittersweet. Except for the weather, I feel like I just got here, but I’m halfway done.

So far, I’ve done far more than I did while in PC (not that I didn’t try), and in some sense time is flying. But in others, it’s standing still, too. I have stuff I’ve been working on for what seems like forever, but I haven’t even made a dent.

I learned another crappy thing about my position with AmeriCorps – it’s not being renewed.

This is bad, and it’s wrong. My organization signed on with another organization for two volunteers for multiple years. The one was Epic Fail, and she is not being replaced, nor are they putting anyone here after me.

So for me, this creates a dilemma because I am still pursuing the State job, for which I am still undergoing clearances.

Assuming I clear that, it is possible – though not extremely likely – that I could get an offer in January or March.

I feel the odds for January are virtually zero, but on the off-chance if I got an offer in March, I’d have to accept and would feel very guilty about it.

This would leave my organization, and flood recovery overall, in a lurch.

I’m expendable; I’m comfortable knowing that. But my position is not. It doesn’t matter if it’s an AmeriCorps position, pro bono or funded by a grant. The position is needed.

When the VISTA people came to visit me previously, I lobbied for the next volunteer to be placed here in April, because that’s when the Hope Village campus reopens. There’s a big need for continuity. Me leaving in June would have been hard enough.

Now, I’m going to have to go out and find a grant or something to fund another position and hope we can get funding by March.

Incidentally, when I got a visit from the VISTA people, I got a lecture (a nice one, I mean) about how VISTA is *not* the same thing as AmeriCorps. Apparently, the VISTA people are not AmeriCorps, although VISTA is one of the AmeriCorps programs.

It makes no sense to me, either, honestly, but I don’t like identifying myself as a VISTA because, well, no one knows what the hell a VISTA is. (For the record, it is a Volunteer In Service To America.)

As far as I am concerned, I am an AmeriCorps volunteer, and that works for me.

I just wish there would be another AmeriCorps volunteer coming here after me.

Pee and Toast

FINALLY. I have heat and running water. I’m in the house and it’s everything I remember it to be.

It’s been just wonderful, although today I learned that there’s a leak in the ceiling in the breezeway. I have to call the owners about that and see what they say. It looks like it’s been repaired before, so clearly they know about it.

The house is pretty big and I am sharing it with a roommate for about a month. She is a member of the church who just moved back to town (air force) and is buying a house.

I’m in the main bedroom and it is more than twice the size of the entire RV.

The best thing is the bathroom. It has a deep tub and a shower. And bother have running water! Oh, my.

The first night, I caught myself pouring a glass of tea around 8 p.m. I caught myself and first thought, “No, wait, it’s after 7 p.m., you can’t drink liquids” and then I thought, “Holy cow, yes you can!”

I no longer have to pull on boots, a coat and a hat to go pee in the middle of the night!

Oh, these small hurdles are just so fantastic.

I also have a garage, which is wonderful for my little car. I mean, that poor thing is as Southern as you can get. It was probably made in Tennessee, and it lived in Louisiana before moving to Florida. It groans at me in the snow – of which there is PLENTY right now.

I’m still getting used to some things, like where the light switches are and the fact that there is no garbage disposal. Not that the RV had one or anything, but these days, most sinks do, you know?

The TV has a satellite package but none of the ESPN channels. This has worked out just fine so far because I had to work during the FSU game on Saturday anyway. I trust the Gator game is on ABC or something, but if not, I will watch it at Hope Village in the rec chapel.

There is no DVD player but I brought mine over. The Internet is pretty darn slow and I can’t Netflix but I will deal with that.

Walking to Walmart seems like it would be quicker, since I am technically only four houses away from it, but I can’t just cut across those three other backyards, I have to walk back up the street, around the road and then back down the sidewalk.

My solution to this will be to try to avoid Walmart. I usually do this after Thanksgiving anyway, and since I’ve pretty much done the Christmas shopping (since I’m not buying gifts and all) and can now make my own sweet tea, I don’t have much of a reason to go.

At some point, I will have to start grocery shopping. I’ve bought minimal goods so far, like pasta and alfredo sauce. I’m still eating leftovers from Hope Village, although I did make rice tonight to supplement the meatballs from HostFest. And I bought another Key lime pie, although not with the coupon that was in the paper since I had left it in my car. I will save that for another day.

I still have a ton of leftovers. Most of it is still in the freezer at Hope Village, but I’m pulling out some stuff and bringing it over. I grabbed Salisbury steaks yesterday, thinking it was the salmon. I have pounds and pounds of salmon. It’s very briney.

I also have eggs. We somehow had two cases left over and I bought a dozen home and gave away a few more dozen before realizing I could just take the rest of the stuff to the food pantry, which I did today.

But now I have a dozen eggs of my own, and I’m making scrambled eggs in the morning.

And toast! I haven’t had toast in so long. It’s just so cool to be able to cook my own breakfast. I am so sick of that Corn and Frosted Flake mixture I’d been eating.

Hot food! Late-night liquids! Does it get any better?

Self-portrait in my new bed.

Yes, yes it does!

I’m in the midst of my fund-raiser right now (www.hopevillageND.org). A donor gave us $25k and agreed to match, dollar for dollar, amounts raised up to $50k more. (This is the Zac Brown Band contest winner … so glad I don’t listen to people who try to tell me what I can’t do …) So the whole package had the potential to be $125k to flood recovery (not just Hope Village).

It ends Nov. 30, and I was starting to sweat, even though it was just this past weekend that I got the entire mailing to the post office. I had $14k as of this morning.

Then, I got an email from another place I’d asked. I wrote a grant for the entire match amount -- $50k – and they granted it in full.

I swear, I was so excited I was completely useless for anything else. So that’s, so far, $139k for flood recovery, with the direct mail just hitting mailboxes this week.

I’m so pyched. And to think, according to some little blurbie thing I saw on Facebook, an average AmeriCorps volunteer brings in $8k in grants.

I am so above average. But you knew that. 

Happy Thanksgiving. I know I’m thankful.

Oh, s---!

Well, it’s a bittersweet day. I have been sitting at the office in the church and working on hand-addressing 2,500 envelopes, content in the knowledge that tonight I’ll be soaking in a bathtub in my warm house. And it’s snowing outside. Still and again.

The owners of the home I’m moving into were due to fly out at noon this morning and during, my breaks in labeling the lopes, I have loaded up my car.

And the folks who just came by for their church portraits let it slip that all flights were canceled today. I went online to verify and, sure enough, I’m sleeping in the RV at least one more night.

Oh, I am so disappointed, but I can’t say I am surprised. The visibility is miserable and I’m not excited about driving any time soon.

I was excited about wearing my new boots, though. I got some Patagonia boots on sale from someplace for dirt cheap, but when I wore them for the first time yesterday, the suede split! I have to ship them back tomorrow and I am bummed about that.

But there’s enough snow to warrant my taller LL Bean boots, which are also awesome.

In the mean time, I’m hanging out in the church again, addressing envelopes and watching Netflix. I’ve been alternating between “Monk” and “Frasier” with an occasional movie or documentary thrown in.

I do not want to spend more time in the RV, where I again ran out of propane in the middle of the night.  Again, the electric blanket is all that I need, but it’s still really annoying.

And cold. So very cold in the morning. I got up, threw on the sheet and got dressed under that as I stood in front of the space heaters.

Went into the church for breakfast and went back to the RV, where I got validation of how cold I had been.

There, hanging out of my faucet, was an icicle. Inside the house. Oh, my, it’s cold inside.

The high today is 12, and tomorrow it’s 20.

It is so frightening that I am looking forward to it being 20.

But I am. Not as much as I am looking forward to it being May, but I am.

What a disaster

This week, I kicked off a big fund-raiser for long-term flood recovery, which was cool. This has been in the works for a couple of weeks and I’m glad to have gotten it started.

The hard part, of course, is sustaining it, especially in the face of new disasters.

Minot’s flood, even though it affected a full quarter of the population, never really got the attention of the nation. Recovery here is incredibly slow; beyond the fact that fewer than 200 people had flood insurance (seeing as how we're not in a flood plain), we have a short, short building season and there aren’t companies headquartered or based here to hand out money hand over fist and all.

And now there’s a new disaster to remove us even more from the public’s eye.

It’s pretty awful, to try to figure out how to fund an operation to rebuild homes when people would much rather contribute to a high-profile disaster. I mean, what’s North Dakota in comparison to the nation’s largest media market?

That’s not to take away from the devastation along the East Coast, but it’s just another challenge.

We don’t have Bruce Springsteen to hold a benefit concert the week after. We wind up having the only celebrity in sight call in a favor with his wife to get the Black-Eyed Peas to perform. (Apparently, Josh Duhmel, whom I’ve never heard of, is married to Fergie, whom I’ve also never heard of, and she is a singer with the Black-Eyed Peas, which I only know of as a restaurant that, I think, went out of businesses, but it is apparently a band as well. I don’t get out much, do I?)

So I do not know how this fund-raiser will do. And I worry about recruitment for volunteer teams next year. And I worry about finding grants to continue to fund the care and feeding of the volunteers who do come.

There aren’t going to be many teams coming here through the winter, unfortunately. We don’t have another coming in until Nov. 12, but there are still a few for the winter. I’m not sure when the next one after that is supposed to be. I’d like to get more local volunteers, but right now it’s not looking promising.

Part of that is the three inches of snow that just came down. Yuk. I didn’t even drive anywhere this weekend because I just don’t want to deal with the snow. Which doesn’t bode well since it’s only November.

The good thing about it being November is that, in seven days, I get to move into the house. It looks like it’s a go, but I am going to have to fork over some rent. At this point, I don’t care. I am so tired of throwing on a coat, boots, a hat, scarf and gloves to go brush my teeth or whatever. Just tired.

Weekends are boring, and I have to work my trips into the church to brush my teeth, wash dishes, etc., around church services or risk getting caught in the bathroom with a toothbrush in my mouth, which is kind of a surprise to early morning church-goers. At least there were no funerals or weddings this weekend.

I walked to the Y around noon on Saturday for a shower. It feels like going to the hammam in Morocco. I load up stuff and walk down there,  then trudge back clean. Bishaa!

This weekend I had planned on going to see “Argo” but it wasn’t showing at the matinee time and I decided I’d just get it on Red Box or whatever when it comes out on video. Seven-seventy five for an afternoon show doesn’t work for me.

So between that and the dreaded “wintery mix,” I just stayed on campus, which means I’m going nuts now.

I started taking FEMA classes online to stave off the funny farm. Between yesterday and today, I took seven classes. I decided I’d take all the communications-related ones and add them to my resume. There are four of those left, and then there are something like six others that sounded fairly interesting.

But there are a slew of classes overall, so I might just kill lots of time with them. I figure if the State job doesn’t come through, maybe I can opt with FEMA. God knows it pays so much more. I am checking those job openings on usajobs just to see what kinds of gigs they have.

Despite the fund-raising kickoff and being incredibly busy, it seems like it’s been a dull week. I’m not entirely sure why that is, because I really did do a slew of stuff. Maybe I’ve just already mentally blocked everything.

I’ve ordered some new snow boots and bought the new Toby Keith CD plus a George Strait No. 1 hits one. When those get listed as highlights, it’s time to slit your wrists. (Nothing against TK or Strait, and the boots *are* awesome, but you get the picture.)

In more Minot flood v. Sandy, here’s a sampling of what we’re up against.

Beyond the Boss v. the Black-Eyed Peas, we have dueling singles.

Rapper Big Reeno for Minot:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2I4oV4sbpo

It’s “The Forgotten Disaster,” and, even though it’s not my genre, it’s a really good thing for BR to do. I’m thankful he’s donating the proceeds to Hope Village, though I wish he’d gotten our web address right on the video. (It’s .org, not .com)

Meanwhile, Hurricane Sandy survivors get this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2CcW-OMT8Q

It’s David Lee Roth, but not as Van Halen fans remember him. Instead, he’s teamed up with my favorite country writer, Scotty Emerick, who, while (unfortunately) not seen on video, is the one picking the guitar. 

"One Piece Thermo-Molded Country Plastic Chair," with proceeds to Sandy victims.

I would very much like to read the story of how those two wound up collaborating.

Stealth Shower

It occurred to me last Sunday one of the things that make this place seem odd to me:

No one understands college football. No one.

The universities, including MSU (and boy, do I have a hard time remembering this is “Minot” State University and not the Sparty kind), have football teams, but people just aren’t fans of the college game.

Or maybe there are, but not like in the South. Football in the South is life, and people here just don’t comprehend it.

Last week, in church, where plenty of people wear Green Bay jerseys, it hit me: no one talks about college football. They don’t really even talk about pro football, either, but it’s really weird, coming from Florida, that the preacher doesn’t reference a single play from the games the day before.

I am wearing a Noles sweatshirt and my supervisor actually asked what it meant. No, really. I can’t keep him straight on why there is a difference between “Florida State” and “Florida,” either.

[Aside here: Thank you, Bulldogs.]

Once in awhile we get a group in that does somewhat appreciate college football. We had one of those in this past weekend, which was cool. But by and large, this area is just devoid of college football.

This past week, we shut off the water to Hope Village, which has made life even more adventuresome here. Now, I have to wake up in the morning and come into the church to use the bathroom, wash my face, eat breakfast, etc.

It’s kind of depressing because that means I pretty much eat three meals a day at my desk.

And I had to change 10 rolls of toilet paper in seven days.

But the most depressing part is now I have to get in a car and drive to the Y to take a shower. This is a PITA, if just because I have to load up everything and drive. It’s only down the block, but still, I have to remember to bring everything. Considering I lug the little basket to two different places to clean up and both require different stuff, it’s not really that easy. I totally forgot my shampoo – something that I normally kept in the other shower permanently and therefore didn’t carry in the basket in the first place.

The Y also closes early on Sunday, so I’m pretty much going to not sweat on Saturday. And Friday was brutal, because I had to go pick up some people at the airport late and therefore couldn’t get to the Y.

That night, I also wound up cooking for the volunteers. They’re staying offsite, so I headed down to one of the local churches to cook. Well, really, “heat up” is a more proper description. Although I can cook, we kind of had short notice that it’d be me cooking – there was a little mixup, but no harm, no foul.

Anyway, the volunteers weren’t staying at this particular church, but last week we had another group there, so the food was still there.

And they had a shower, so I took my little bag of stuff and, once the lasagna was in the oven, ran down to the basement and sneaked in a shower. Shampoo and all!

Felt kind of bad sneaking it in, but it was nice to be clean, especially since I had to skip it on Friday to pick up those folks.

Two more weeks of living like a nomad before I get to move into the house. The evening of Nov. 11 (Happy birthday, Dorothy), I should be good to go.

If the RV is Rocking … Maybe it’s Just Wednesday

Ah, life in the trailerhood has been adventuresome this week. I really need to see if “My Name is Earl” is available on Netflix on demand.

As if my internet signal was strong enough to Netflix from the RV, but that’s really the least of my RV issues right now.

Quite sincerely, my accommodations in my little Copper Canyon are worse than my ceiling-leaking, George-infested, black-mold-growing abode in Morocco.

I lost power about 9:45 p.m. last Friday, and it took until about 2 p.m. this Friday to get it fixed. At that point, I thought I was gold but now the propane-fueled heat isn’t working.

At one point, I thought I had a leak but was blown off. Turns out I do have a leak. I only had one tank, which I was going through in about 10 days. There is some kind of splitter on it and when you only have on tank, instead of two, it leaks out through the open hole.

So we hooked up a dummy tank but for some reason I still can’t get the heat to come on.

Now, I’m perfectly fine at night – when the power was out, I just ran an extension cord to the nearest plug and plugged in the electric blanket.

This works fine for heat, but there is nothing anyone can do about wind in an RV.  Even if it has power.

Wednesday and Thursday, we had 40- to 70-mile an hour winds. I woke up at 2:30 Wednesday morning moving. The little RV was like a Disney ride. Or a vibrator bed.

I could barely nod off, seriously. It was constant motion, and the rain just pounded on the aluminum. I couldn’t believe it was so loud and strong. I am in the very back of the campus, and I really thought the trees behind me had a chance of coming down. Either that or the wind just jolting the whole thing off the little blocks.

Wednesday night was quite a ride.

By Thursday morning, I figured it had to be freezing cold and soaking wet based on what I’d heard and felt, but when I opened the door, it was wet, but not pouring and not really cold at all.

However, the weather that day was my least favorite: low 40s and light rain all day.  Gross.

I haven’t spent barely any time in there in the last week, so really, having no power wasn’t much of a problem. I unloaded my fridge and freezer and put my stuff in the big reefers, so nothing got lost there.

Essentially, I woke up at 7 every morning, fumbled around in the dark to get dressed as quickly as possible, grabbed my spoon, cup and bowl thing and my toiletries and headed off to the rec chapel, which has heat.

There, I’d eat breakfast, brush my teeth and get ready to go to work. After walking my stuff back to the RV I walked right back over to the church to work until lunch.

At that point – and sometimes before, for tea – I’d go back to the reefers and grab something for lunch, or just a bag of chips. Since our volunteers have moved off campus, there are no meals served and no new leftovers (if that makes sense), so sometimes I’d just skip it.

Around 6 p.m., I’d wind down, do the same thing for dinner and then go back into the office to work and watch Netflix a little more. I just finished “Arrested Development” again. Around 8 p.m. or so, I’d go back to the RV (armed with a flashlight), fumble around, grab my shower stuff and a book and then head back to the rec chapel, read, then go take a shower, come back and read until bedtime and then cross back over the RV and curl up and go to bed under the electric blanket.

So really, no harm, no foul. But right now, it’s getting old. I am again without heat, so I have been hanging out in the rec chapel all day today.

I’ve tried everything I know to do with the propane tank and the heat, but I am at a loss.

I did, however, remove all my food items from Cain and Abel – the two reefers – and store them back into my own fridge.

This morning, I went to Walmart to get a little bit of food for the week, since the gravy train is coming to a halt. I splurged on a $5 Key lime pie (not Marie Callendar’s; the other brand was on sale this time). I also got milk, rice – just a little bit of basic stuff. I didn’t even get Junior Mints.

When I went to pour tea, I noticed my refrigerator light was blinking. Not like it was about to go out, but regularly.

So that can’t be good, right?

Of course not. I just went back to get more tea and the fridge is dead for the moment.

The really depressing thing is, today is the last nice day, probably for the entire season. It was 60-something today and, watching the weather forecast, the temperature just drops from here on out.

And there’s still no word on housing, except for the YWCA is off the table. I’m relieved of that – I never wanted to do it; it was my sitemate’s idea for a stopgap – but there’s no funds available for the nice house. I am not sure what will happen. I’ve offered to pay some, but it was in my deal that housing was taken care of, so I hope I don’t have to do that.

This is just not my week.

The Life and Times of RV Living

This past weekend, I added electricity to the list of luxuries that I do not have in the RV. It’s right after “water” but before “space.”

Since we’re trying to test the propane situation – I seem to have some sort of leak and it keeps running out – I am running it more, but have it set even lower than the 65 I normally keep things at in the winter. To offset this, I’m running two small electric heaters to try to keep things warm.

Friday evening, I took a shower and headed back to the RV to do some computer stuff, wind down, and watch TV. “Catch Me If You Can” was on, and Tom Hanks’ character had just captured Frank when, all of a sudden, the lights, electric heaters and TV just snapped off. No loud noise, no burst, just a shutdown.

So I fumbled for a flashlight, found the nice one (I have a nice one and a crappy one. I also have a headlamp somewhere, but that involved opening cabinets) and went to the fuse box.

Finding no issue there, I went outside my little RV world to see if where it was plugged into had exploded or melted or something. No dice. No small animals corpses that might have chewed a cord, either.

So, I knocked on Steve’s door –he was just back from seeing “Argo” – and he came in to look. I hadn’t pulled out fuses or anything because, even though I’ve done that before, we just had a situation on offsite housing where someone made a problem worse by doing that.

Steve got to the fusebox and saw a tripped switch, saying that was the problem. I said no, see, it was the A/C one. And sure enough, it didn’t work.

Neither did anything, but by 10 p.m. it didn’t matter. I told him I’d just go to bed and we could deal with it the next morning.

So I piled on the blankets – the overnight low at freezing – and did OK. Due to some stress at work, I did have weird dreams, but I managed all right.

The next day, it was Steve’s to deal with, and as he went off trying to get someone from the RV place to look at it, I went to volunteer at a small park, where a person I know was heading a team to rip out flood-damaged bushes.

That was a lot of fun. I miss yard work! I had the scissor things for two solid hours, cutting stuff back so it could be dug up completely later that afternoon.

I had one bizarre moment, as I was trimming some juniper bushes and trying to get to the ground and pick up all the trash that was under them.

All of a sudden, I saw a pair of eyes looking back at me. I drew back, but then realized it was a stuffed animal. Too funny.

 

After we wiped out the bushes and loaded the trash bin (similar to the one we had for Gray’s stuff), we went to someone’s house and had Jimmie John’s.

Their house had been flooded, and it was the first house I’d been in that had been flooded (three feet of water on the first flood for three weeks) and restored.

The house was right by the river cutoff and was HIGH up. The water was likely 9-10 feet high but did not do much (comparative) damage to their 1914-built home. The basement was ruined, I think, but they decided to not repair that one.

The home was beautiful, and very creative. Even prior to the flood, they had a faux brick wall I thought was real. I was looking at the before-and-after photos and was surprised to find a brick wall had been replaced by a yellow drywall one. She said oh, no, I’d painted the wall before to make it look like brick. Talent I don’t have.

After that, I headed to the library and got Hunger Games. Got back, washed my sheets and took a nap, then, still without power and finding out the earliest someone could look was Monday, I went to the rec chapel to watch FSU.

Steve strung an extension cord to my RV for heat, but really, it was 55 outside and there was no need. I figured I’d run the electric blankets and night and then plugged in the Direct TV so Steve could watch whatever in his RV – I have the control box ones.

So I read Hunger Games and watched FSU rebound from its horrid last week. Went back to the RV and realized I hadn’t brought a flashlight with me and it was not only pitch dark, but I had an extension cord somewhere. Fumbled around and did OK. No broken bones.

Took a shower and figured I’d go ahead and finish Hunger Games before heading back and to bed. Now I need to find the second book.

Sunday, still without power, I went to an award presentation for someone and then hung out again in the rec chapel and church office. More “Arrested Development,” and I’d also gotten Not Without My Daughter at the library (banned book week!). I’ve read that one before.

Today, it’s back to normal, I guess, though I still don’t have power. Steve is dealing with that, but it was a fabulous weekend to not have electricity. It was 60-something yesterday and is supposed to be 70 today.

So it could have been worse.

Still no word on when/where I am moving, but my supervisor is back for a few days so maybe it will get resolved.

There’s lots that has to be resolved in the next few days. Most people know what I’m talking about but if not and you want to know, email me.

Wild, Wild West

This week, I got out of Dodge for a morning and headed to Williston.

It was for work purposes – I delivered a speech to a minstrel group – but it was fascinating to see the wild, wild West – which is what Williston is.

Minot is a boomtown, but Williston is where the boom really is. It’s Oil Field Central and Man Camp Land.

I’ve heard these words and seen the fringes – much of Minot’s housing crisis stems from oil rig workers who live in Minot and commute – but seeing up close was incredible.

As I’m typing this, I’m sitting in Gramma Sharon’s restaurant and boy, if I wanted an oil man, I’d be in heaven. It’s a nice meal to eat out. I’ve heard the bars at night are unsafe – as in date rape unsafe. But breakfast (I’m starting this on a Thursday at 10:15. I can’t believe I’ve gone five waking hours without breakfast) is a good meal to eat out.

And the bacon is fabulous.

My speech was at the hospital and right at the entry door there was a sign that said “Slipcovers for muddy boots’ with a box of footy things. Now, it did rain last night, but I don’t think that was what it was for – the three guys sitting in the booth next to mine all have mud on their boots.

It’s a blue collar town, and, judging by the morning hour, it’s pretty much what I’d heard.

The drive in – complete darkness, as I left at 6 a.m. – I saw the fire of oil rigs dotting the prairie land around Highway 2. As I neared Williston and the light increased, I saw a real man camp – rows upon rows of trailers split into bedrooms.

I brought my camera and will aim for a couple of photos on the way back. I wish I could have gotten the brightening sky with the oil jack things against it, but it didn’t work out – too dangerous to fumble for a camera, a stick shift and the steering wheel in a construction zone.

[Later…]

Back and it’s Sunday. I spent all day yesterday working. We took down the mess tent, which was a pretty monumental task. It took from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. to get the thing down. (See photos at http://www.facebook.com/HopeVillageND?ref=hl#!/HopeVillageND.)

And it’s cold. Not super, super cold, but in the 20s at night and if we’re lucky in the 50s during the day. Now (I’ve fast-forwarded tot Sunday now) it’s absolutely gorgeous outside, although a bit nippy.

In Williston, I hit their Walmart (hiring at $17 an hour, good luck finding housing, though) and bought a nice warm hoodie. Today I am going to set out to the mall and look for Barry a grandpa gift as well as a scarf and decent hat. I have one, but it’s not all too warm.

My sitemate quit, which was the right decision for her. Now, though, I am a little in limbo after her quitting because the housing was supposed to be two of us in a house and now it’s just me. I’m not sure what will happen.

5-1-5-0; Florida State is 5-0

Lord have mercy, what a week. 

So glad HostFest is over. Not that it was bad, it was just insanity.

Everything people told me was true, but it still blew my mind. I’d been told – repeatedly – that the HostFest crowd was all silver haired folks with walkers. Tons of them, people said.

Still, it’s one thing to be told about it and another to experience it. Holy cow, the gray hair! There were elderly folks everywhere. The whole exhibition halls were packed with people, and the little ladies outnumbered the little men about five to one. I really did get trampled as I tried to get a free cookie sample.

Folks were in from all over, including the Scandinavian countries. But there were zillions, I think, from Saskatchewan and Alberta. I think every second person I saw was from one of those two provinces.

Every day, I set up and took down the Hope Village booth. I had a free pass on the hotel shuttle, which worked awesome for the most part, although occasionally I got stuck wandering in the halls to kill time before the next bus.

One evening, I watched the Oak Ridge Boys on the free stage. It was kind of bizarre, just because that attorney I’d worked for had been their manager/financial guy/whatever since the 1800s or something like that. I mean, I’d fielded calls and emails from the guys, although I can’t for the life of me recall a single name.

But man, they crank out a good show. Low-key, but really well done. I think they played for 45 minutes before they took a slight breather to talk. It was fabulous.

Saturday was brutal. Before the Host Village booth fell into my lap last Thursday, I’d already signed up to work 10:30 to 3:30 at the Our Savior Lutheran Church’s salad booth. Then, as it was the last day, I scheduled myself to close down Hope Village’s booth so I could take the booth down.

I’ve gotten no sleep whatsoever this week. Too stressed (not in a bad way) about HostFest and things going all right with that. I’ve gotten up around 6 a.m. or before every day and just have had some wild dreams.

 

But Saturday went well, even if I did wake up early for no reason. I made it through and even got into the Dierks Bentley concert.

Man, THAT was weird. Let’s just say that the HostFest is NOT a “young country” crowd. At all. I was kind of surprised at the lineup, really. I mean, it seemed like an odd selection, and it just got weirder as the night progressed.

First, Bentley was not on the free stage. I wasn’t about to fork over money, but in the morning at the salad booth, someone offered a ticket and I said sure. I had absolutely no idea who he was and even had to ask his name right before the show.

He was very nice and a big concert go-er. He said he normally took a lot of photos and also recorded the shows. So that was kind of odd in a Seinfeld-y way, but, like on Seinfeld, something went wrong – he wound up forgetting his memory card so he couldn’t record. It was kinda funny.

It was a bizarre, bizarre show. This is young country, not the Oak Ridge Boys. Yet the crowd, even with a good number of younger kids, likely averaged well over 50. And those older folks sat in the front row seats, where, if my ticket was priced at $80, was a good chunk of change.

The operative word there is “sat.” At this uptempo show, they just sat. And some of the younger fans wanted to dance.

So at one point – and I only have one Dierks Bentley CD, so I don’t really know the songs – he motioned for someone to approach the stage, and he high-fived the buckle bunny.

Well, that encouraged a slew of kids to come down to the mosh-pit area for a couple of songs. After maybe the second one, Bentley said something about “I just want to get it on record that I didn’t ask these fans to come down here.” He made light of it, saying he didn’t mind, etc.

But I wondered if it was in the HostFest rules (I’ve heard they’re restrictive for artists) that, essentially, no one could stand up. And considering a couple of minutes later the police forced the fans to go back to their seats, I really think they just can’t do that.

It just must be so weird to be an artist and essentially not be able to get any reaction from fans. It was just so weird and I kept laughing at it. I just thought it was so funny.I felt bad for Bentley, though. I wondered if he, like me, had been told everything about the crowd but still found it unbelievable.

Fairly early on – after the cops busted up the fans – Bentley kicked the band off and went into acoustic mode, which I enjoyed. I have the first CD and he played “My Last Name,” which I at least knew. (And I wonder if he was aware that one of the announcer guys before the show referred to him as “Dierks Benedict.”)

While I wouldn’t in any time in the foreseeable future spring $80 for any concert I can think of, I would pay more for acoustic. I like that so much better. Screw the stadium, bring on Bluebird.

About a third of the way through the show, my ticket buyer went to the restroom, and happened to run into his father and borrowed a memory card from him. He came back with the card and said his father (who was likely in his 70s) deemed the show “terrible,” and left.

We, though, had a great time. About the time Ticket Buyer came back, Bentley had brought the band back out and kicked it up. As TB was fumbling with the camera settings, Bentley started playing up to the young rambunctious crowd – which happened to be seated in the section next to us.

Then Bentley got down off the stage, walked past the older folks, climbed the steps and walked over to the little buckle bunnies as they mobbed him. I am not sure how it’s possible to do that without missing a beat (literally) but he did fairly well, even turning over the mic to one of the girls. I mean, if they wanted to fondle him and didn’t, they weren’t trying. It was kind of funny. TB got some excellent shots, but I didn’t think to bring a camera.

Incidentally, Bentley got a haircut and looks much better. I like the CD I have, but I don’t find the man attractive.

One of the songs he did he talked about his father, who died earlier this year at the age of 88. I looked it up – Bentley’s 36. Holy cow.

During the beginning of the show, I kept texting Barry so I could get the FSU score updates. I’d had my laptop on while I was working the Hope Village booth but the show started around halftime. I got the score going in but it was WAY too stressful to not know what was going on. I kept checking the messages until FSU was officially 5 and 0. Thank God.

After the show (finale was “What Was I Thinking?”), I broke down the Hope Village booth, and as I was lugging everything out, one of the people from one of the nearby booths stopped me and said I had been very good. I asked what she meant and she said that while she couldn’t hear what I had been saying about Hope Village, she could tell I was sincere.

I was totally flattered by that, but it is true. I really enjoy what I am doing because I believe in it – we are working to get 500 families back into their homes. I can tell you, on a weekly basis, how many families are still living in FEMA trailers (1,086), how many homes we’ve worked on (over 300), and how many jobs we have pending (190).

We’ve had volunteer teams (185) from 25 states and four Canadian provinces. We also set up local volunteers with projects – I will put anyone to work.

And I am sincere about it. I’m definitely not faking it. I am in the right place and doing the right thing.

More on HostFest

First, it is not possible for me to have fingernails during football season. FSU is down 13-7 early against Clemson (we’re on a review for the TD; no PAT attempt yet) and I’ve bitten off everything I have.

14-7 now. The only consolation is those are the two first touchdowns the Noles have allowed in three-plus games, but it’s scary since it’s the first true test of the season.

I really wish I could get to a game this year, but it’s not going to happen. Flights from Minot to FSU land are about a grand. That’s not possible.

This week, I had my first unexpected bill. The flat tire came back. I don’t usually drive much but ran to the doctor on Monday and Tuesday, I think it was, I noticed it was low again.

So, rather than tell Mike the repair didn’t take, I filled it up enough to get to Walmart, which, sadly enough, is where I spend about four nights a week.

It’s within walking distance and after dinner, I tend to walk up there and back. Sometimes I buy something (Junior Mints or tea) but more often than not, I just wander around, use the bathroom (it’s got running water and underground pipes and everything!), drink out of the novelty that’s a water fountain and then walk back.

I dropped it off so they could fix the flat, but as it turned out, the hole was too close to the wall and I had to get a new one.

It’s a real bummer because the tires are still fairly new. I mean, I bought the car in early 2010, but it was pretty much out of commission for the year I was in Indonesia. I’ve put fewer than 30k miles on the car since I’ve had it.

But you do what you have to do, and paying off a hefty AmEx bill will be what I have to do this time next month. I’d already splurged a little last week – I bought three shirts on sale at LL Bean (I have NO decent clothes post-Peace Corps and it’s getting bad), plus “Grand Torino” and “The Full Monty.”  My cell phone bill also came due, etc., etc.

But I have a new tire now, bishaa. Fortunately the associate with the purple dredlocks didn’t bother suggesting I buy two of them. Normally you get flack when you only get one tire at a time.

This will stave off my hubcap-buying. I currently have three but haven’t seen a match to complete my set. I don’t want to pitch the three good ones and just buy four more, though.

So, the previously-mentioned HostFest is next week and suddenly I’m going to be there a lot more than I thought.

A well-meaning supporter called on Thursday and let us know that, without asking, she managed to secure Hope Village with a booth.

In the end, this is a good thing, I think, because it’s free and we can get publicity. But OTOH, in order to get that, I have to sit and create a PowerPoint, a display board and then handouts and also somehow staff the thing for five days.

The official hours are 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. When I asked the well-meaning lady what peak hours were, she said 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Joy.

So we’re looking at that. I guess the worst-case scenario is that I wind up doing the whole thing myself. Since I’m mentally preparing myself for that, I don’t think it will be so bad.

Repeating: Uff da!

Uff da!

So, Hostfest is coming up and everyone here has their thoughts turning to All Things Scandinavian.

Hostfest is, of course, the largest Scandinavian thing going in North America, and obviously you know that all kinds of blond people descend on Minot during the four-day  (or maybe it’s five, I’m sure you already knew this) festival.

It’s huge. It’s at the fairgrounds, of  course, but you knew that. This year, Dierks Bentley and Vince Gill are among the artists playing, but it’s that (for some reason) Irish O’Donnell person that all the older folks go to.

Of  course, everyone knows this. I’m only learning, but after 13 weeks here I’ve picked up on it. I’ve probably been asked “Are you going to Hostfest?” as many times here as I was asked, “Wech kliti ksks?” (“Have you eaten couscous?”) in Morocco.

And yes, I am going. I signed up to work the salad booth for Our Savior Lutheran Church. I’m not entirely sure what it entails, but I’ll figure it out. I’m on for Sept. 28, Mackenzie’s birthday.

And I’ve started warming up on the whole Scandinavian thing. On Friday, I got enlisted to make lefse (LUF-sa). This is, essentially, a tortilla made out of potato. But it’s just the tortilla; there’s nothing in it to eat. I guess people spread butter or something on them – I wasn’t privy to that part.

The process was as involved as making the deep-fried red beans and rice balls, only there was no ham surprise.

First, you peel potatoes. Lots of them, as this particular batch of lefse (not sure if that’s plural or not) was intended to be sold Sunday at church for a fund-raiser for the day care.

After the taters are nekkid, they get boiled and then riced.

Yes, apparently that’s a verb. I honestly had no idea what it was, but basically there is such a tool as a ricer that looks like a giant garlic press. You load it up with potatoes and squeeze them and they get shredded into potatoes the size and shape of rice noodles.

Me, I’m a grain rice person and completely forgot that rice came in more shapes, so when they said “ricer,” I had no idea of what to expect. But I discovered the verb form, and it was a lot of fun to squish the potatoes into rice.

The next step after the ricing is to mix them into dough. This involves evaporated milk, but I was involved in that step so I’m not sure what the magical ingredients were.

After that, they’re rolled into little balls, a little larger than golf balls and refrigerated for a bit.

Then, you get to roll them out and slap them on a little skillety thing. Transporting them from the pastry table to the skillety thing is done with this sword-like wooden stick, manufactured especially for the task.

We had maybe 5-6 women doing this in the church, and it was great fun. We had music playing the entire time and, since there was a lot of flour involved, it got quite messy. We had a ball, leaving handprints on each other, doing the Monkee-walk across the kitchen flood, listening to everything from “Jeremiah was a Bullfrog” and the aforementioned Monkees to “Penny Lane” and “Escape” to the finale (which Susann thoughtfully dedicated to us) “Friends in Low Places.”

Fairly un-Scandinavian-like, I’d say, but fun nonetheless.

In other news, I had one of the most convenient flat tires ever this week.

The guilty screw.

It was one of those rare weeks for me when I left campus three times. I visited two construction sites and also went to the regular meeting. Usually I only leave one or two days a week.

Aside: I looked at my car book today and in the 13 weeks I have been here, I have driven 1,027 miles and filled up my tank just four times. And that includes a trip to Bismarck.

So, what I’m saying is I don’t drive much. I’m glad of that, because gas is $3.85 a gallon here in oil country.

But my car doesn’t have much of a chance to get out, so I was kind of surprised when I walked by it one evening and thought the front driver tire was a little low. I wasn’t going anywhere so I didn’t dwell on it and then it slipped my mind entirely.

The next morning, I saw it again and thought, “Oh, note to self – check tire” on the way to breakfast. And after breakfast, I walked by again and it looked even lower, so I got on it.

Found my tire gauge and as I went to check it, saw a little screw sticking out. Oh, joy.

Fortunately, this being a Flood Rebuild Central, we have tools, including air compressors. My plan was to fill the tire enough to drive down the street to the gas station and have it plugged.

That morning, though, lots of people were checking out tools, so I just went over to check to see if it would be possible to execute my plan once the area was clear.

I explained the issue to Mike, and he said if I wanted, he’d plug it for me later that day. I said sure, and offered to run up to Walmart and get a plug kit. He said he liked one particular brand, then remembered he had one in his truck right the.

So, essentially, instead of waiting for the afternoon, he just had me pull up right then and he plugged it. He didn’t even pop the tire off to do it.

So that was lucky. And honestly, it was about the worst thing to happen all week, so that means it’s pretty good.

Uff da!