March 2008 - Posts
Aaaaah, spring. The flowers, the sun, the birds … whatever.
Let’s face it, right now the best thing about the coming spring is going to be temperatures that remain above 60 for more than a day or two at a time. We thought we had spring last week when it came really close to 60 degrees – then it went and snowed on us Thursday and brought us all back to reality.
I know I sound like a whiner, but this year I think I’m in good company – we’ve had more than our share of snow, ice and cold temperatures and we’re due for some spring-like weather, darn it! The opening of the golf courses is a good start, but it won’t mean much to me until it actually begins to feel like spring.
Once that happens you’ll find me working in the yard, painting my house (ugh), on the golf course or on my bike. As the temps continue to rise, I’ll add more and more activities to the list of things the kids and I will be doing.
Until then, I’ll continue to whine about the cold.
Sometimes it’s just too tempting to try to help people answer the questions we pose when we’re out doing the “On the Street” interviews. It’s a temptation we never give in to, but it’s there, all the same.
This week’s question was probably the most tempting for me. Not really a question, I asked those braving the return of Iowa’s colder temperatures to watch the SaPaDaPaSo St. Patrick’s Day Parade to finish this sentence: “You know you’re Irish when …”
And then I watched as nearly all of the 12 people I talked to struggled for an answer.
Maybe it’s no longer true that “everyone is Irish on St. Patrick’s Day,” but it’s not something I’d be able to confirm with great conviction. I’ve loved being Irish since I first learned I was Irish. For me, being Irish has always centered around a love of family; although it may be true in any other ancestral background, for me there's just something comforting and familiar in the geneology.
There have been, of course, other reasons I've been proud to be Irish. When I was in grade school it meant bragging to my friends of non-Gaelic descent that there was a day each March that was devoted just to “us.” In college … well, that was college and a long time ago and hey, even the Scots and Germans were up and drinking in time for the 8 a.m. parade.
As an adult I’ve changed my way of thinking from “everyone is Irish” to “everyday is St. Patrick’s Day.” Sure, I still wore green on Monday (there was bound to be some smart alecky 40-something out there ready to pinch anyone not in proper attire), donned my Irish button and even listened to a little of my favorite Wylde Nept CD before leaving for work – but there’s a part of me that is conscious, every single day, that I am Irish.
So here, in the true “You know you’re XXXXXXXXX when …” fashion, is my own list.
You know you’re Irish when:
• You have two skin tones in the summer: red and white.
• Strawberry-blonde hair, even heavy on the “strawberry,” is considered “blonde” in your family because it's not nearly as red as everyone else's.
• Your family gets together because someone is getting older, getting married, getting divorced, having a baby, having puppies, having a garage sale, getting confirmed, getting baptized, getting home from the Army, getting home from vacation, or just baked brownies and wants to share – and you absolutely love them for it.
• You not only know that your ancestors are from Ireland, you know which county (County Wexford and County Kerry for me, thank you very much!) (And thanks, too, to my Aunt Patty for reminding me!)
• You were a sophomore in college before you realized that not everyone eats corned beef and cabbage on St. Patrick’s Day.
• You rejoiced with your family when your mother “lost” your father’s polyester green plaid St. Patrick’s Day slacks.
• You mourned when your father found another, more obnoxious pair.
For me, being Irish really is about belonging to a family that still cherishes getting together for even the smallest of occasions, let alone the big ones. It’s knowing there’s a reason we are where we are and why that is important. It’s staying in contact with those who are still on the Green Isle, and looking forward with great enthusiasm to the visits from cousins and others from Ireland, and planning with stars in my eyes my first visit there.
I should have thought about how I would answer this week's On the Street question, "What's your signature dish?" before walking into the Junior League's second annual Iron Chef competition Wednesday night. It didn't take long before someone threw it back at me. And, I didn't have a clue what to say. After verbally fumbling around for a while I grasped at the first thing that came into my head -- Salmon.
Now that may or may not be true. But, it got me off the hook and I got a new recipe out of the deal. The woman who posed the question suggested the next time I grill salmon I should add orange juice, orange zest and rosemary. Sounds good to me!
Now I do have a freezer full of salmon, and not the farmed Atlantic mush. Nope. I have the real deal, wild Alaska salmon sent by my mother. But here comes the reason I may have lied to those women. I rarely cook it. For that I blame my husband. You know how people either love or hate seafood? He'd fall into the hate camp. Not only does he not like to eat it, he turns green at the smell. So, I only get salmon when I can cook it outdoors and the wind can carry the scent away.
The salmon is actually a good example of the dinnertime tango at our house. When I met my husband I hadn't eaten a bite of meat in five years. He, on the other hand, won't eat any vegetables except corn and lima beans (I know. Wierd. Right?) So, what happens when a meat and potatoes carnivore and a foodie vegetarian get married? The vegetarian starts eating free-range hormone free chicken and the two of them eat a whole lot of pasta. Throw a picky 4 year old into the mix and you can imagine how painful our meals can be.
You can also understand my excitement when I'm able to add a recipe to our repetoire. It doesn't happen often since the criteria is strict. No vegetable can be detectable and no red meat can be involved. Enter enchiladas. I use ground chicken. He gets corn and cheese in his. To mine I add black olives and black beans. We're both happy and he can inhale three or four in a sitting.
A few more sucess stories like that and maybe I can write a cookbook for vegetarian wives and their picky meat-eating husbands. We can't be the only dysfunctional family in the kitchen.
In search of people to talk to for this week's On The Street I decided to take the opportunity to check out Iowa City's Gallery Walk. Granted I could have chosen a warmer month to get a taste for the event. But, it ended up being kind of appropriate. Why not talk to people who braved the cold to take a look at local artists' works about what's the best and worst about Daylight Saving Time?
Without counting I think it's safe to say the decision was split 50/50. Half of the people I spoke with took a postive approach to the annual event. It is after all an extra hour with which to do whatever you want after work or school. For many of us, it means not leaving our jobs after the sun sets every day. This benefit lasts until the fall when that hour is stolen away from us again. Still, the other half took the pessimist twist. They may get an extra hour every night, but they don't appreciate the fact that it's stolen from them during the night.
I can appreciate both viewpoints. With a new baby in the house, sleep is precious. I'm not relishing the thought of how Sunday is going to mess with our schedule. But, I do love the prospect getting home when it's still light. And in the warmer months, I will truly love being able to relish those evening walks or dinners on the deck.
That is, if spring ever comes.
We've come full circle.
Two weeks after asking people questions and taking their pictures at a rodeo, I was back at the same U.S. Cellular Center to ask another round of questions-- this time to a band of cheerful fans at the U.S. Cellular Center watching several singlet-clad teens duel it out at the Iowa dual-meet state wrestling tournament.
Replacing the dirt floor of the rodeo were several mats, each holding two wrestlers trying their best to force their opponents to lie (lay? Blast it!) still in the center of a circle; and if that sounds entertaining, it was. There's something about sports where important things happen only after long periods of struggle that raises the intensity level of each victory. It reminds me of soccer, or watching the Iowa Hawkeye basketball team try to score points. I watched as two wrestlers-- both dressed, befuddingly enough, in purple and white-- fought each other for more than ten minutes, until finally one purple guy did something to another purple guy, and the crowd belonging to the purple guy who was winning erupted into cheers, and, as they cheered, I, also, became excited.
That's a sign of a good sport-- when people can be entertained without knowing what is going on.
It also occurred to me, as I watched all the wrestling matches going on below, that anyone on that floor could beat the living daylights out of me if they so wanted. Even those little elementary kids who were going at it in the lower left hand corner. You might disagree, I know-- but it'd hard to stop a four-foot kid who was determined to shoot for your legs. I would be a goner.
With wrestling in Iowa being the biggest thing since showchoir in Iowa (bringing it full circle), I grew up with several wrestlers while going to school in nearby Solon; and there is something about the sport's association with pain that I find somewhat unsettling. However, I think it is this suffer-to-succeed mentallity that also provides it part of its appeal. In a sport like football, for example, people get injured all of the time, but that is only secondary to the main goal of running the ball into the end zone, achieving fame and glory, and driving off with a cheerleader beside you and a stack of money in the backseat.
There are outside motivations to the game of cleats and pads, is what I am saying.
When it comes to wrestling, however, the only motivation seems to be victory. If these wrestlers are anything like the wrestlers I knew growing up, they starve themselves, run, practice, starve themselves, run, and then starve themselves some more-- all so they can win the priviledge of trying to make another wrestler who has starved and run and practiced submit at the center of the ring.
It is for this reason, I think, that the really good wrestlers are so intensely into the sport. And it is also why the mindset of a good wrestler, from the outside, seems so difficult to grasp.
But I've gotten way off track-- again. Full circle.
What was the question I was supposed to ask this week?
Ah.
What ties you into knots?
And how would I answer it?
I have no idea. I suppose, once again-- maybe this time more than any of the other questions-- it really depends on how you interpret what is being asked.
There's the literal interpretation, of course, but that would just be silly. Besides, it's already been done. If interpretation is brought into it, then it could mean anything ranging from what confuses me to what vexes me to what pushes me to the point of spiritual exhaustion, and the best answer I can come up with that will suit them all is just plain old, perplexing, enigmatic, stupid, silly, daily life.
Perhaps this answer is a copout, as I don't plan to really explain it, but an ambiguous question deserves an ambiguous answer.
Besides, it's the truth.
And with that, I conclude my stint as On the Street Gazette correspondent. A colleague who I had been filling in for has since returned from maternity leave, and she will now have the priviledge of once again asking people questions and then blinding them with the flash from a point-and-shoot camera.
Or maybe I'm the only person who did that...