For the love of bacon!

Nathan and I have successfully completed a full year of the Bacon of the Month Club. It was good. Really good. And our cholesterol is just fine, thank you. It was sad, though, the end of the bacon. We thought, you know, maybe we'd renew for another year... but rationality took hold and we realized that good bacon can be found everywhere, especially Clancy's. So, we will leave the BoM to others. In fact if you need a last minute gift for someone this holiday season, I highly recommend bacon. The gift that keeps on giving. http://gratefulpalate.com/



In other bacon related news, now everyone can enjoy the beautiful flavor of bacon every day, even vegetarians! Thanks, Bacon Salt! http://www.baconsalt.com/
You've made the end of BoM a little bit easier to ,um, swallow.

Manic - Randy - Pelican

I've been having very vivid nightmares lately. And, I remember them which is unusual. The first happend about a week ago. I dreamt that I was travelling through Canada by car and I stopped in this cheerful small town to visit the Manic Organic and to have dinner with him and his wife and family. If you are not familar with the Manic Organic, it is a TV show on the FoodNetwork in Canada. http://www.foodtv.ca/ontv/titledetails.aspx?titleid=63174 Well, the visit in this idyllic Canadian town got weird. I was to stay the night and like any good nightmare or horror movie, the seemingly sweet loving family was actually possesed (my subconscious holds no harsh feelings for the real guy, I'm sure). Late at night I began to hear fighting, yelling, slamming of doors, creaking of wood. I find out in my dream that the M.O. is brainwashing women and having them pose as his wife/wives. The community thinks that he is simply a hippy polygamist and that when the "wives" disappear they are simply returning to the States to go about their lives having tired of the hippie farmer life. In my dream reality, of course, he is a serial killer that does away with the wives when they start to get squirrel-y about their forced servitude. In other words, the brainwashing eventually wears off. However, not before the women manage to have at least one child, so the house is full of little demon kids that appear to be normal children by day, but go around stealing farm supplies and implements by night. When I get wind of all this, I try to flee. Of course, my car has been tampered with and so I start to run. Again, like any good horror movie or nightmare, the town is not as it appeared during the day. It is closed up, no phone lines work and no one really lives there. It turns out that the M.O. has purchased the whole town under the guise of "restoring" it to its historic significance. He hires in folks to work on the town during the day and since he is a good employer, no one thinks that this is odd. As I run through the town, he slowly follows me in a large, late 70's staton wagon filled with demon children, laughing maniacially at me, knowing I can't escape. He finally catches up with me at the brightly painted grain elevator where I find his stash of "ex-wives" in various levels of decay. Since this is a nightmare, there is, of course, no ending. No rationality to it, no resolution. I do not think that the M.O. is in real life anything but a weird nice guy. I really enjoy his show and cannot explain why my brain made him the focus of this nightmare. Maybe its because my husbands new hairdo looks oddly like the M.O. when he wakes up in the morning. Hmmm.... honey?



This second nightmare is really quite odd as I was not the main character but a narrator. It was like an early 60's mob flick and my friend Randy was the main character. However, Phillip Seymore Hoffman was playing the character of Randy in the movie. Randy is running from the mob, knowing quite well that he is going to get his ass killed as he pissed someone off. He runs to his fathers place which is a trailer house with a huge carport on top of a bluff overlooking the Mississippi River. It is fall and the leaves are falling. It is daytime, but dark and raining. As the mob begins to turn into the unbelieveably long gravel road driveway, Randy contemplates flinging himself off of the bluff into the river. It seems a better alternative to what the guys fast approaching in black Lincoln town cars has in store for him. He decides instead to run into the house, dial 911 on his cell phone (I know what the hell is cell phone doing in the early 1960's? But, dreams don't adhere to rules about time and place, you know?) Randy leave the phone on the table and grabs a shot gun. He figures why not go out blazing? The cops miraculously show up at the same time the mob does and arrests everyone. Randy goes into protective custody. That's it. That was the whole dream. Was it a nightmare really? I don't know, but it seemed scary when I woke up.



The third dream was just last night and it was a recurring nightmare that I've had for the last ten years. What's odd about it that I haven't had it in a good long while and I'm wondering why my psyche decided to dig it up now. The nuts and bolts of it are that I am riding my bike around Pelican Lake (near Detroit Lakes) and I'm left behind and panicked. I'm searching for someone. Someone in real life I hope I never see again.

I have another dream that has been recurring since I was five years old. It is about life and death and the meaning of it all. It started shortly after my grandfathers died. I will write about it in detail at another time. I bring it up know because this recurring dream has a soundtrack which is running through my head right now. It's set to "Wheel in the sky" by Journey. Seriously. Why? Well, my grandfathers died in 1981. That year Journey released the album Captured with which had "Wheel in the Sky" on it. This song originally appeard on thier 1978 album Infinity, but no one paid any attention to Journey until "Lovin' Touchin' Squeezin" hit the Top 40 in 1979. "Wheel in the Sky" was a big hit in 1981, making it to #57 on the billboard charts, becoming a favorite at high school proms all across the USA. I also happened to have two sisters in high school that year who were prom-bound and Captured got a number of spins on the home record player. Thanks a lot Shelly and Brenda.

Beer tastes better than academia

I am in the final stretch. Pun intended. My final paper is due on Thursday. I now have 14 not so rough draft pages, and six pages of absolute shit. I've been sitting at my computer for about 12 hours straight today with work and then paper writing. My back feels like crunchy little rocks, like I flew over the handle bars of a mountain bike into the middle of a gravel pit. I am going to reward myself with a beer, maybe two.

UPDATE: Ha ha! My paper is done! I am worried that it sucks because I feel like my classmates presentations were much more put together and thoughtful than mine, therefore their papers are likely to be much better than mine, right? Anyhoo, I've completed my first Masters class and it feels pretty good. It's all over but the grading. I should know by Monday what my prof thought of it. Next semester I am taking Professional Ethics. ThatI oughtta be enlightening...

Georgia on my mind

This is a blaze marking the way to the Appalachian Trail. The AT itself is marked with white blazes. Side trails and shelter trials are maked with blue. This photo was taken on the
Approach Trail in Amicalola State Park in North Georgia. It is about 7 miles from the top of the falls to the AT trialhead at Springer Mountain. There are about 165,000 of these marking the 2,175 miles of trail from Georgia to Maine. Nathan and I hiked the first two miles of the Approach Trail. Only 2,172 to go. The 604 steps up to the top of the falls are tough, but the view is quite breathtaking.

I love the idea of hiking the entire length of the AT. I imagine weeks of solitude and nature, quiet contemplation and beautiful scenery. I imagine in the inner strength and sense of accomplishment that such a journey would provide. I imagine my body fit and strong from day after day of hiking. Yep, I love the idea of hiking the whole of the AT - in theory, that is. In reality, I know better. Its a long, hard slog that only about 9000 people have every claimed to accomplish. I would get tired after a few days and the desire to be on my couch with a baseball game on the tube and a cold beer next to me would drive me off the trail and to the nearest airport. Maybe I could do the trail slowly, in 3 day increments over the rest of my lifetime...

Or not.

Junk Mail Be Gone!

The mailbox at our house and, subsquently, the recycling bin is choc full of junk mail, circulars and catalogs these days. Jesus bless the cosumer holidays. God wants you to buy, buy, buy!!! I obviously don't love you if I don't buy for you a flat screen tv this Xmas season, don't cha know. But, I digress.

Here's a cool website that allows you to opt out of hundreds of catalogs. Tell those marketing bastards NO!

https://www.catalogchoice.org/

Oh, and Merry Whatever.
Love,
Cari

3rd Annual 29th Birthday

Thirty-two is not a very exciting birthday. It's not one of the big ones, it holds little significance and its not even prime. Even numbers, in general, are pretty boring. Mathematically, I'm in for a lame year. On the bright side, I spent some quality time around a fire with friends which is always a good thing. I learned to make lefse from my in-laws and found that I am genetically predisposed to the craft. Of course, we already knew about my inclination towards the kitchen arts. That brings me to my two favorite birthday presents, both from my loving husband. First he gave me a 3-quart stainless-steel All Clad saucier or "chef's pan." Lovely. Then, for inspiration, he took me out to dinner at La Belle Vie. Our friends Dave and Julie joined us and we indulged greedily in the 7 course chef's tasting. Devine.

Fall in the garden

I love Fall. The garden turns lovely colors and smells wonderful as we rake and work to put the plants to bed for the winter. Here are some photos of my peaceful Fall garden:
White and purple Alyssum

The walnut tree turns bright yellow

Grape Vine

Hops

Coleus