The Twin Cities

My folks and I spent about 3 days driving from southern Colorado to Minneapolis-Saint Paul (a.k.a. the Twin Cities; this is how the baseball team got their name "The Minnesota Twins").  We'll be here for about a week visiting my brother & his family in Minneapolis and my sister in Saint Paul.

Driving across the country was long and tiring, but it was also neat to see so much of the country in springtime.  The last few times I visited home it was winter, and both Minnesota and Colorado were covered under tons of snow.  This time, I saw green, green grass and lots of wild animals, such as deer, coyotes, rabbits and whistle pigs.  It's also calving season, so all of the cattle fields were full of lots of big cows and even more little baby calves.  (I forgot how cute calves are, and I was happy to see so many.)  Today, in the suburbs of Minneapolis, I even saw a big turkey walk along the side of the road!

We are having a good time chatting with my siblings and my nieces and nephews, but it's a shock to see how big the kids have gotten.  Yesterday, we all went shopping together at IKEA, and this morning we went to hear my brother's homily in church.  Tomorrow, I might go to my favorite hardware store, or maybe I'll go get a new tattoo.  There are so many things to do in the Twin Cities!

One of my favorite things to do is eat, of course, and eating is always a big part of family reunions.

Last night, my sister and my folks & I went to a wine bar/cafe for dinner.  We had a lovely time talking about lots of stuff, especially the food we were eating.  My favorite dishes were a chickpea & avocado crostini, a re-e-e-e-eally good polenta with mushrooms and spinach, and a pizza with beets and blue cheese.  We picked up dessert on the way home, and the chewing and chatting continued.

Here's a picture of the polenta (with the pizza in the background):

Tomorrow I plan to go to my favorite bagel shop for lunch, and I plan to eat a billion bagels!  However,  since I weighed myself this morning, I think I'll skip dinner tonight.

Monte the Bronte

I've been home for about a month now.  I'm in the process of sorting through boxes and boxes of all of my old stuff. I have A LOT of stuff, about 30 years' worth, just waiting to be sorted.  I've thrown away or recycled old papers and clothes, I've reboxed heirlooms, reread old letters and looked at old pictures.  I've opened boxes that held embarassing memories and quickly threw them into the garbage bin.  I've also opened boxes that held treasures about which I'd completely forgotten...

When I was younger I loved dinosaurs, especially the apatosaurus.  (Another name for the apatosaurus is brontosaurus.  The brontosaurus was a huge vegetarian with a long, long tail and a long, long neck.  Scientists think they were as heavy as 4 elephants, and that they could crack their tails like whips, and that the sound of the whipcrack was as loud as cannon fire.)  I begged my mom to please, please, please make me a stuffed brontosaurus! ...And she did.  I named him "Monte the Bronte" and I loved him as much as anything.

The other day, I was opening box after box after box.  I was getting very tired sorting through all of my stuff.  But then, when I opened yet another box, who was staring up at me? My darling dinosaur, Monte!

Back then, my favorite movie was called "Baby: Secret of the Lost Legend".  I remember that it wasn't a very good movie, but I loved it anyway.  It was a story about a couple who find a brontosaurus family living in Africa.  Like "E.T." and many other movies, they have to protect their new "friends" from military scientists and so on.  As I said, It wasn't a great movie.  However, this was made before CGI was common, and so all of the dinosaur effects were done with puppets.  Dinosaur puppets!  This was a movie made for me. I haven't seen or thought about this movie for over 25 years, but since I found Monte, I think I'll try to rent it and watch it again soon.

Life in The Valley

This photo shows the sleeper logs I talked about last time, but they're gone now, and all that's left is the bare earth...

Life is very different for me now.  Not just different from living in Japan, but also different from all of the cities that I've lived in here in the U.S.  This is a picture taken from the porch of my folks' house:

It is really beautiful here, especially on days like today, when the sun is shining and the wind is calm.  However, you can see that there aren't any street lights or neighboring houses, no city trams and no McDonald's or kaiten sushi.  Which means, at about 8:00 p.m. the house is surrounded by blackness.  On a clear night, the stars are big and shiny.  On a cloudy night, you can't see anything. 

Lately, I've been getting up and going to bed with the sun.  That's just what people do around here.  People make phone calls at 6:00 a.m.  People are in bed by 9:30 p.m.  People are much more casual about time and appointments in general.  People aren't bothered if your plans change, so they assume you aren't bothered if their plans change.  Sometimes, they remember to tell you when plans change, but usually, people figure nobody cares, so they don't bother to update eachother.  If a store has a slow day and there are only a few customers, the staff will close the store whenever they want.

This is a big departure from what I'm used to.  I can understand wanting to close a store on a beautiful day like today, but I still can't believe that people really do it.  Life is very different for me now.  I can't say that it's better or worse, but it is very different.

Before & After

This is a picture of the 110-year-old bunkhouse that the old ranch-hands used to stay in on my family's ranch.

Although it snowed about 10 centimeters last Monday, all of the snow was gone by Wednesday, and it has been sunny & warm, but very windy.

As you can see, the bunkhouse was not in good condition.  This past week, my parents decided that they want to build a storage space and greenhouse in this location.  So, I've spent most of my time helping my dad tear down the old bunkhouse.  

We took each log off one by one, then removed about a bazillion nails from each log.  We carried the logs to a trailer and loaded it up, then drove the trailer to the place where we keep firewood and other old scraps of wood.  Once again, we had to lift the heavy logs off of the trailer, and stack them neatly.  It has been a lot of hard, sweaty, painful work, but it has been a lot of fun!

Now the old bunkhouse is gone.  All that's left to do is burn the old sleeper logs (the logs that were under the bunkhouse) and flatten the area so that we can start building the new structure.  I hope we can finish the project before I leave for Hawaii.  I really enjoy building stuff!

I've also been helping my mom in the kitchen.  I've made a lot of meals, and I baked muffins, 2 loaves of bread, and a lot of cookies (and I've eaten most of what I've cooked).

I should have taken a "before" picture of me, too...

Denver

As a kid, almost every summer was spent with relatives in various parts of Colorado.  Whenever we visited my aunt's family in Denver, we inevitably went to Casa Bonita for Mexican food (we really went for the atmosphere - cliff divers, Black Bart's Cave...check it out: casabonitadenver.com) or we went to the Denver Museum of Nature & Science.

I just moved back to the US a few days ago.  My folks planned to drive to Denver to pick me up at the airport; it's about a 5 hour drive from their house. Since I probably won't drive up to Denver too often this summer, I requested to go to the museum for old times' sake.

So, on my first day back in the US, we went to my favorite museum with my aunt & uncle and one of my cousins.  I hadn't been there for about 25 years!  I was looking forward to it very much.  They have a GREAT dinosaur exhibit, and a lot of other exhibits like Egyptian mummies, space, geology (my uncle's favorite), and many many more. The dinosaur exhibit was, of course, my favorite. But I wondered if my other favorite part of the museum was still there...  

At the entrance to the museum, there used to be a big saber-toothed cat replica.  You could drop coins down its throat, and it would roar at you.  I loved it!  My cousins and I would always beg our folks for coins to "feed the cat".  After 25 years, would the saber-toothed cat still be there?

I wasn't disappointed!  Not only had the museum expanded, and added lots of new exhibits (check it out: www.dmns.org/), but it still had the cat! 

I suddenly realized that I only had Japanese yen in my pocket. Once again, after 25 years, I had to beg my mom for coins to feed the cat.  Yep, he roared like he used to!  I was so happy- I felt like a kid again.

(photo courtesy of Aunt Mary)