FROM MY WINDOW Land of Endless Snow

FROM WHERE I SIT         Land of Endless Snow     Feb. 17, 2014  p.d.spilseth

Can you believe it?  The gentle breezes, sun and warm white sand were lovely in Ft. Lauderdale, but I actually missed the snow.  However, now that I’m back in the Land of Endless Snowfall, I’m happy to stay inside my warm house looking out the windows at the frozen lake with huge drifts, bare black limbs and birds flying to the birdfeeder. 

For a few days last week I was in Never-Never Land...days of sunshine, ocean breezes and sandy beaches.  In January, I thought I might want to be a snowbird.  I’d jump on a plane and fly south each winter to some idyllic place in the sun.  

But I got bored!  I mean, how many days does it take for a northerner to feel relaxed in the hot sun by the pool, walk the beach, read another beach book and get sunburned?  Five days did me in.  I’m not cut out for parking my body in a lounge chair at the pool with a fluffy romance or a gruesome mystery.  I get no satisfaction.  I need winter in Minnesota, with a few short R&R breaks...thank goodness for flying privileges, courtesy of my husband, the pilot.  HIs line, “Marry me; fly for free” has given me no end of adventures.

My Scandinavian heritage and that Puritan work ethic many of us were raised with, grabbed me, tossed me out of the louge chair, and threw me back to my roots of snowflakes, snowbanks and frozen lakes.  

I missed my neighborhood & my identity as DESSERT QUEEN.  I had withdrawal symptoms when I didn’t have my pots and pans, bowls, spatulas and beaters.  It’s essential for my good nature to be baking cookies, blueberry muffins, delectable chocolate tortes, brownies or fruit kuchen and sweet breads.  Who, but me, feels like baking when lounging on the beaches of hot, sunny Florida?

It’s just not me to be idle.  I’m not comfortable playing Bouncy Barbie to JLO and her hip hop musicians who were filming a commercial in Ft. Lauderdale for the Brazilian World Cup in Rio.  The buses of crews and extras caused traffic jams in front of our hotel.  Tourists and time sharers were gaga, oogling for a look-see at the starlets and muscle-rippling hunks.  

I’ll never have a body even close to JLo, Jennifer Anniston or Catherine Zeta Jones.  I’m Dessert Queen in my Rubenesque figure, loving moments munching on chocolates, indulging in a glass or two of vino.  

All the oohs and aahs at the hotel of sunburnt northerners swooning over the dancing hipsters was quite a spectacle.  The “extras” clothed in tophats, tall, slinky boots and teeny, tiny shorts and miniscule tops were not my style.  Makeup artists had a field day glamorizing the crew for their one day ‘gig’ on the ocean strip of bars, tattoo parlors and fast food joints.  Spanish words and rhythms riccochoted through the air to the beat of hip hop, jumpy music.  

Give me the Beatles or Carole King...I want lyrics I understand and a beat I can groove to.  None of that jumpin jive stuff for me.  

Loved the ocean view from our window, the endless parade of skateboarders, runners pushing baby carts, bicyclists, homeless with their loaded shopping carts, and movie crew looking official in their dark sun glasses and identifying shirts.   

My daily routine involved relaxing in the sun by the pool, searching for a new place to dine every evening, and sleeping 10 hours a night.  We were up with the sun for coffee and a newspaper, a swim, another beach read...the endless cycle repeated itself.  A bit bored, but we were so relaxed.

February by the pool or on the beach finds only the wealthy, seniors and grandkids.  Who else has the time to sun by the pool in February?  Wait until March for Spring Break when college kids flock to Mexico and Fort Lauderdale to party.   Gentle breezes are lovely, but a week is plenty.  I needed a MN break. 

Home again, I’m content to smooze with Buddy, my loyal Beagle, who insists on sitting in my lap by the fireplace.  Relaxing in my red leather chair, we sip coffee and read the newspaper which is announcing another snowstorm.  This is winter.  This is Minnesota.  I’m home and lovin’ it!  735 words

LOVE & MARRIAGE

FROM WHERE I SIT Love & Marriage   Jan. 30, 2014  PAT SPILSETH

The LOVE chapter expresses well what love in marriage can be.  Corinthians 1:13 is read at many weddings: “Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous, or conceited, or proud; love is not ill-mannered, or selfish, or irritable; love does not keep a record of wrongs: love is not happy with evil, but is happy with the truth.  Love never gives up: its faith, hope and patience never fail.” 

Many love poems praise the joys and beauty of love, its tenderness and kindness.  Poems and songs praise the way love lifts us up, out of ourselves, into a greater communion with the world.  Then again, some lyrics of love take us down into the depths instead of up into an open sky.  

The “aches of marriage” are also good to know and experience: they make our love stronger, more commited.  These dark passages of many years reveal the treasures worth digging for.   

Poet Rilke said, “It is also good to love: because love is difficult.  For one human being to love another human being: that is perhaps the most difficult task that has been entrusted to us, the ultimate task, the final test and proof, the work for which all other work is merely preparation.”

There are always going to be questions.  If you ask yourself, “Why should I stay in this marriage”, there will always be days when you don’t have a good answer.  That’s why an underlying commitment is necessary.  You have to know there’s something, today, tomorrow or next month, that’s worth hanging in there for you to want to stay and make it work.

Kahlil Gibran writes in The Prophet, “ For even as love crowns you, so shall he crucify you.  Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning.”

That idyllic, romantic stage of early love, when you’re crazy about each other, often leads to other stages of love.  Couples may feel trapped, uncomfortable with the idea of marriage.  It can be a terrible time for all.  In our minds, there’s often an elaborate dance of uncertainty and fear.  It might have been a lovely romance, a whirlwind courtship, but was there commitment?

Today many couples feel that living together will serve as their roadmap to whether marriage would work for them or not.   All too often the relationship doesn’t work: one or both of the individuals end up feeling devastated, destroyed. One or the other moves out.  House payments or rent are no longer shared, but worse than the money involved, is the destruction of self-image and worth. 

Novels, song lyrics and “Dear Abby” columns reveal individuals lamenting, “I never would have agreed to our living together if I didn’t think it would lead to marriage,” she said.  “I thought he felt the same.  He’d always told me he wanted to be married.  I don’t think he was lying to me.  He believed it.  But when it got too real he couldn’t face it.”

An honest commitment demands the lack of impatience, selfishness, demands and expectations.  In contemporary society, many men and women have given up hope of finding someone with that level of commitment.  Others resign themselves to stay in destructive relaionships because that’s all they know.  

Self worth plays a major role in a commited relationship.  True commitment is not just living together; true commitment is a bonded marriage, ensuring a lasting commitment through good and bad.

Having fun together with playful, lighthearted moments, lightens life.  After those idyllic first stages of marriage, couples get used to one another.  Life can become a bit boring--unless individuals are willing to work at the relationship and inject fun and laughter.  Perhaps we need more date nights, an unexpected trip to some destination dreamed of but never thought possible, sharing a book or movie, planning a “dream” house or weekend.

The Love Doctor, Leo Buscaglia, advises us to build a solid foundation to our love.  He wrote, “One does not fall ‘in’ or ‘out’ of love.  One grows in love.”  Being behind each other, one hundred percent, demonstrates abiding respect for each other.  Resilience  means YOU AND ME AGAINST THE WORLD.

Kiekegaard wrote, “To cheat oneself out of love is the most terrible deception; it is an eternal loss for which there is no reparation either in time or in eternity.”  He added, “Only when it is a duty to love, only then is love eternally and happily secured against despair.”

The Bible’s love chapter ends, “Love is eternal...There are faith, hope and love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.”  788 words

My Funny Valentine

FROM WHERE I SIT  My Funny Valentine 

In my 1950‘s grade school at Glenwood, MN, kids would spend several days prior to February 14^th constructing memorable Valentine boxes crafted from toss-away shoe boxes. On our flip top wooden desks, little fingers would smear Elmer’s Glue or that sticky white paste on the shoebox.  We’d cover it with red construction paper, cut-out pink, white and purple hearts, a snippet of lace or rick-rack, cut a 5” hole in the top and hope for a box full of valentines! 

Grade school was such an innocent time of life.  On Valentine’s Day, we had no complications like gifts of rings or necklaces, flowery notes or flowers.  Love in grade school was simply a secret you only wanted your very best friend to know.  My dreams would easily be fulfilled when a boy would pass a wadded-up penciled note down the row of desks to my desk.  No name, but “I LOVE YOU!” was written in big letters.  How my heart would flutter when a valentine from my dream-maker would appear in my Valentine shoe box. 

Who didn’t have a crush on that cute boy or girl sitting behind you in grade school?  So what if he pulled your pigtails or hollered “cooties” when you scratched your head…he/she noticed you.  Surely, this must be true love.

It didn’t matter if every kid in class got the same valentine.  If the boy with the greased ducktail or heinie haircut actually signed his name to the valentine, I knew it must be love.  Naturally, girls signed their names.  We wanted love early on…

I was convinced that the punch out valentine with no name MUST have been from the one I loved.  My imagination would know it was from a shy suitor:  I knew he loved me.  It would hurt just a bit if I’d get a gorilla or monkey valentine.   I knew that must be from some squirrely boy: I’d probably stuck out my tongue at him.

At the Ben Franklin store downtown on the corner, every kid’s mom would purchase a sheet of 25 punch-out valentines.  An additional, larger valentine for the teacher would be in the package of cards to be punched out along the dotted edges. Kids hoped that valentine would be rewarded with a good grade on their report card, which was scrutinized by most moms and dads.  It would determine if I received my allowance that week.  Otherwise, I could be given additional duties around the house.  It could make a kid feel like Cinderella in their own home.  

At least one or two “brown-nosers” were always smiling sweetly at the teacher and correcting other kids.  Of course, that was never those mischievous Danter twins, Dean and Dale.  They pulled the best tricks on every teacher they got!  They would switch places in their assigned seats so the teacher wouldn’t know which twin she called on or who she was reprimanding.  I bet they even put frogs in their teacher’s desks like the Little Rascals did in the comics.  How I envied the antics of those boys.  But on Valentine’s Day, their mom would make sure her boys came through with valentines for everybody.

  

I loved the home-made lacy valentines of my parent’s generation.  Mom always saved the beautiful boxes of Whitman chocolates she got from Dad on Valentine’s Day.  The heart-shaped box was covered in pink or red satin with a big satin bow and a heart card declaring his undying devotion to her.   Dad was a man of few words so Mom treasured those Hallmark greetings he sent, which had words he found difficult to utter.  But he always signed the card with a big signature “Hank”.  She knew better than to expect him to actually say those words.  

“Better let my heart be without words, than my words without heart.”  John Bunyan

Today’s breed of husbands and boyfriends are expected to send either flowers, chocolates, at least a card of considerable size and loving content to their valentines.  Hallmark has a monopoly on today’s Valentine gift market.  They’ve issued not only cards with flowery sentiments, but also cute little pins, candy flower bouquets and t-shirts overflowing with hearts and flowers.  

If a girlfriend doesn’t receive the expected gift on Valentine’s Day, that romance is doomed.   What gal could put up with such neglect?  That’s an error never to be repeated.

It is best to love wisely, no doubt; but to love foolishly is better than not to be able to love at all.”  William Thackeray

“The only gift is a portion of thyself.”  Ralph Waldo Emerson

Loving, sharing, dreaming…that’s Valentine’s Day for me. 797 words  

Mischievous Cupid

FROM WHERE I SIT  Mischievous Cupid Feb. 3, 2014 Pat Spilseth

It’s a strange world out there in DATELAND!  Why are girls so mindlessly attracted to Bad Boys?  What is it about the rebel, his tattoos and earrings, that’s so alluring? And why do beautiful princesses and bouncy cheerleaders attract guys?  Is the attraction all about looks?  What’s wrong with nice guys and girls, Plain Jane and Basic Bob?  How come a nice guy, who treats a gal well, doesn’t end up with a date?  Why is the guy or gal you eventually bring home to meet Mom and Pop rarely the first person who caught your interest?   What did you learn from your rejects?

Do we ever learn that the mysterious, attractive, elusive person we’re so smitten with might not be the best choice of an honorable, lifelong mate?  What will make us wise up to the best qualities in a future husband or wife?

I know several men and women who still are searching for the perfect guy or gal.   One of my neighbors can’t find an American gal who recriprocates his attentions so he’s writing and romancing gals in Russia.  Several girlfriends are frustrated with internet dating, but they remain hopeful for a nice guy who is interesting, one who will not stray.

Valentines’ Day reminds us that almost everyone is looking for love, no matter how hard it is to find.  Who doesn’t want to receive a smaltzy valentine, roses, and chocolates on Valentine’s Day?   Pet dogs and cats can be affectionate companions, but...

So being a friend who wants to aid my friends’ search, I went to the internet.  I found numerous sites under the headings CUPID, VALENTINE, and LOVE.  A current experiment is being conducted, which analyzes 500,000 first contacts on a dating site, OkCupid.  The searchers looked at keywords and phrases, how the words affected replies, and what trends were significant.  They came up with a set of rules about what one should and shouldn’t say when introducing yourself to someone on an online dating site.

Here the best of the OkCupid online dating advice:

1. Be literate.  It’s a HUGE turnoff when a propective mate uses bad grammar, bad spelling or netspeak.  Don’t think you can get away with illiterate words like ur, u, wat, wont, luv, realy, hit, ya.  Slang makes a lousy first impression on any intelligent, possible date.  It’s a deal breaker.  It’s okay to laugh, using haha or lol, but keep the rest of your message grammatical and punctuated correctly.
2. Avoid physical compliments:

      This advice is mostly directed at guys: they are the ones to more likely talk about looks.  A guy might think the words like gorgeous, beautiful and sexy are nice to say about someone, but no one really wants to hear them on an online dating site.  They’re overused.  People like compliments, but when they’re used as a pickup line, before you’ve even met the person, they feel yucky.  What does work well are compliments like awesome, it’s fascinating, sometimes even that dated expression cool.  

1. Use an unusual greeting:

    Your initial message to someone creates the classic “first impression”, which lingers a long time and is usually accurate.   Top three popular ways to say “hello” are bad.  That slangy greety Holla , yo  and hey are advised against; instead, be literate.  It’s smarter to use no traditional hello and just dive into whatever you have to say than to start with “hi”.  Informal standard greets like how’s it going, what’s up and howdy all did well.  Personally, I’d rather hear/read Hi, though it is awfully traditional and dates me. 

1. Bring up specific interests:      

   Talk about specific things that interest you or something you might have in common  to make a connection.  Specific words that are successful: band, metal, vegetarian, zombie, favorite movies, tattoo, physics, video games, grad school and literature are popular and effective, in descending order.  Even better results occur when your phrases show that you’ve read their profile.

1. If you’re a guy, be self-effacing:

    A male message that guarantees success involves words like awkward, sorry, apologize, kinda, and probably.  Though much real-world dating advice tells men to be more confident, apparently hemming and hawing a little works well online.  Appearing unsure makes the writer seem more vulnerable.  However, the word please is on the negative list.

1. Consider becoming an atheist:

  Mentionning religion helps you, but the numbers tells us that it helps most if you have no religion.  

Reading through the responses to these internet rules, it appears that nice guys and gals get few if any responses.  Perhaps profiling yourself as a vegetarian in a metal band, with numerous tattoos and studs, or a domamatrix who knows about a good sale on leather is the way to get a response these days!  

Thank goodness, I won’t be searching for love on the internet.  Because I’ll make sure Dave reads this column, I’ll get a lacey valentine, chocolates and flowers on Valentines’ Day from Mr. Excitement.   How nice (a terribly uninteresting word for internet dating) to be married for many years to my valentine who likes casseroles and enjoys curling up on the couch to watch basketball with Mrs. Excitement. 870 words

Money Doesn't Grow on Trees

FROM WHERE I SIT  MONEY DOESN’T GROW ON TREES  March 19, 2008  pat spilseth

Going back to my hometown always fills my head with people from my past.  Most everyone in town believed in working hard and paying their bills on time.  If you didn’t have the money, you didn’t buy something.  They would have been wary of those tempting credit cards we’re so free with today.  Folks brought hot dishes to the sick, baked birthday cakes for their kids and made sure their elderly neighbors had visitors.   

Parents reprimanded naughty neighbor kids who set off fireworks behind the garage and spanked their own kids if they attempted to light and smoke cigarettes.  Neighbors sat on their porches visiting with friends over a cup of coffee and caught up on news.  

Messages of advice I received about life can’t be forgotten.  Back home, family and friends believed in the Golden Rule and lived by its standards of fairness and friendship. Parents taught their kids that “Early to bed; early to rise, makes and man healthy, wealthy, and wise.”  Well, maybe not wealthy…that would be a “sinful”   We learned that too much “pride goeth before a fall.”  If things seem too good to be true, they’re probably not to be trusted to continue.  

“Moderation in all things” was my folks’ advice.  Play had to be balanced with work.  Most of us had weekly chores around the house like cleaning the bathroom or wiping dishes, dusting or mowing the lawn.  We were rewarded with a weekly allowance.  But kids was never given too much of anything.  That wouldn’t be
good for us.  That meant we shouldn’t have too many sweets or other treats, too much money…too much of anything.   When I’d feel low and cry a bit, I’d hear “Buck UP!”  Weakness wasn’t appropriate; strength of character was valued.  Strong hearts, bodies and strong minds was important to most folks.

Remember that little figurine of the monkeys with hands over their eyes, mouth, and ears symbolizing “See no evil.  Speak no evil.  Hear no evil”?  Of course, we had one of those tiny statues sitting on a table at our house.  Almost daily I heard “money doesn’t grow on trees”, the oft-repeated answer to my teenage question about upping my allowance.   

There wasn’t much money, but I never felt poor.  After all, there was plenty to eat; I had a bike and a swing, plus swimming in the lake was free, and I could play in the woods by the big rocks christened by kids the Giant Chair and Table as well as wade in First Creek.  

 At the tall, brick schoolhouse on the hill, there was an asphalt playground with teeter-totters, hand-over-hand bars, a merry-go-round, swings and slippery slides that burned my bottom when the sun beat on that metal slide all afternoon.   I could shoot marbles, play hopscotch, jump rope and even do cartwheels on the asphalt.

The park down by the lake had numerous free activities.  There were organized activities each summer on the picnic tables like braiding bracelets, painting pottery and learning to play tennis.  We rode our bikes everywhere and paddled Jimmy Gilman’s canoes around the edge of the lake, near shore, to Starbuck, 7 miles across the water or to Priest’s Point where kids had a grand time scaring each other with tales of hanging bodies in the attic.  

Some of us had roller skates that had metal gripping clamps that held our Buster Brown shoes.  We bumped along the broken cement blocks of sidewalk down Green Street.  We played pick up sticks and jacks with a little red ball in the parking lot in front of Dad’s sheriff office and tossed a ball against the wall of a building playing 7-Up.  Hangman and ante-ante-over, cops and robbers, and rolling down the grassy hill at breakneck speeds were other free games kids played.

Life was so free…little if any money was required, just lots of kid energy and enthusiasm.  Gripping two fuzzy yellow tennis balls in my left hand and the wooden tennis racquet in my right hand, I could careen down Green Street to the city park’s tennis courts.  My thin-wheels on the three speed English bike had handlebar brakes and a gear shift, but my fingers didn’t have much of a grip with my hands filled with balls and racquet.  I’d experiment riding that street of potholes with “No Hands.”   What a thrill if I could make it down the hill, through the stop sign with no cars zipping across the cross streets and into the park without a spill!  That was kid skill!

And all that activity was free!

About the only thing that cost money was a movie where I could sit in the dark theatre with the maroon velvet curtain in a rocking double on the aisle.  With a friend, we enjoyed any movie and ate milk duds and popcorn from Merlin’s con cession stand before handing over our tickets.  I could escape into another world of the Wild Wild West riding a painted Palomino pony next to the Lone Ranger and Tonto or dance down the street, skipping in the rain puddles with Gene Kelly and Debbie Reynolds to “Singing in the Rain” or grab a tan on a beach towel with Annette or Sandra Dee.   I could be entertained with a movie, snacks, sitting with my friends and peeking at those older kids in the upstairs “make-out” section for a few coins, maybe 50 cents.  What a bargain.

My kid life was filled with punch-out paper dolls and comic books I could buy at Potters’ Dime Store on the corner downtown.  Veronica and Betty were my teenage comic book idols along with Archie and Jughead.  The four friends would drive in red convertible with the top down:  I could feel my naturally curly ringlets blowing in the open air that I had forced into braids or a bouncing ponytail.  My hair was so thick, I needed a “do” that would keep me cool.  And I was swabbing on Ban roll on deodorant to stem my actively perspiring armpits.  So many new discoveries to make as a teen. 

Flopping flats finally freed me from childhood Buster Browns, but they probably destroyed my arches.  I loved to hear the flats click as I walked the school hallways or danced the Bunny Hop or the Twist.   Those noisy metal clicking cleats were music to my ears as I pretended to tap dance.   Dancing was a dilemma for me; there was no money for dance lessons.  Extra money was already spoken for:  I was signed up for piano lessons with Miss Rahn.  She kept petrified rocks under her grand piano, a clicking metronome on the piano’s lid, and her snoring mother rocking in a chair behind piano students playing scales.

Growing up in small town America, a good life didn’t require much money.  Life was pretty free, even when I started driving Dad’s Ford Falcon, which must have gotten at least thirty miles to the gallon.  For fifty cents, we could cruise Main Street and ride all evening, grabbing an A&W root beer at the drive-in for a break.  Living was cheap.  Later on, I discovered there are costs to that delicious freedom. 

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