Civic Minded!

Protesters outside Mankato High School

So a coupla months ago, Kylie was assigned to cover a Health Care Town Meeting in our area.  I tagged along and sat 'with the press' which means I sat next to my sister in a filled to capacity high school auditorium.

As you can imagine, there was heated debate, gross misinformation, yelling, clapping, booing, cheering, rabble-rousers, and regular old folks.  We all know about that stuff; we hear about it everyday. I'm not going to try and explain my position on health care or anything like that...

I am going to say this: It was a very American experience. There was a lot of emotion involved in this 'get together' and not all of it was positive, but the fact that we could all get together and talk about it without getting arrested, molested, or lined up at a firing squad afterwards was quite inspiring to my sense of nationalism.

We may never all agree on anything. There will still be people out there who will be convinced by the absurd things they read on the internet. There may even be a time when the government makes a mistake (or five).  However, our democracy is formed by the people, and our ideals are reflected in it.  Their mistake is our mistake.  Once we take responsibility for that, I think we can better work toward positive outcomes.

We are a strong people. We have choices. We can participate in our government. Nothing is hopeless. Let's stop pointing fingers and work with what enormous amount of resources that we have been given.

*** stumbles of soapbox***

ahem. WELL, I say.

Now it is time for LITTLE KNOWN QUEEN OF HOWKTOWN FACTS:

Here is something that I have always wanted to do:

Randomly search Amazon public wish lists and buy someone a gift.  It is a wish list after all, and wouldn't it be awesome to have something magically appear?

What wish would you like to grant?

As We Prepare for a Grand Celebration...

As I am sure MANY of you know, next week is a national holiday in Howktown. It will be a week long celebration with much jubilation and celebratory confetti spontaneously falling from the sky whenever I walk by.  At least that's how I imagine my birthday to be.

Considering some claim that Howktown is all in my imagination, I am choosing to believe that there will be confetti. Lots of it. Multi colored and shiny. And it instantly is cleaned up when I leave.

In celebration, I am going to try and post everyday... and I am going to have a give away. I'm not going to tell you which day that is going to be, you'll have to keep reading. hehehehe. That's a little trick I learned by reading other people's blogs.

On that note, I have a list of blogs that I read that I want to share with you.  I believe in the statement that you have to be a good reader to be a good writer, and I also think you should be a blog reader if you want to be a blogger. 

I read a blog today that asked question "Is teaching cursive handwriting really necessary?"  I thought this was an interesting question because I immediately wanted to say "Of course it is you IDIOTS!" with no really founding to why 'they' were idiots. Instead, I read through the comments and thought about it a bit.  How do we communicate these days... via facebook, blogs, and twitter.  Who really writes anything any more aside from post it notes? 

I am loathe to put cursive to the side. I love the act of writing things out. It is like drawing to me. Of course, I was also tortured with re-writing reports until they were legible, and as a consequence, I have great handwriting.  I also work in a office where people fill out forms. The young people who come in have terrible handwriting.  It's shaky, ill formed, and and and ugly. I hate it. Truth be told, their printing is just as bad, but should we waste our time on teaching cursive? 

I am happy to know that I have the skills for handwriting things and can teach my children the art if need be, but I am sad to see it go by the wayside, but young enough to realize this 'technology' thing we have is here to stay. So, I am embracing the art of electronic story telling in the blog as a means to feel closer to the human race. Just as you can choose your friends, you can choose the blogs you read and I choose to read ones that are overall positive, humorous, and beautiful. to look at.

We will start with the one that got me hooked into the world of the blog:

One day I was unemployeed. The next several days I was bored. I was surfing channels and started watching Star Trek: The Next Generation Marathon. Then I wondered.. What ever happened to the guy who played Wesley Crusher? I had a huge crush on Wil Wheaton when I was 14...

Here he is in all his adult glory.

Wil Wheaton's Blog

EXTRA, EXTRA, READ ALL ABOUT IT!

******Newsflash******

The Mayor of Ingvaldia has reported a confirmed case of the HINI flu in her household. The infected party succumbed to a sudden onset of symptoms, followed by several days of fever and malaise. The Mayor herself denies any ill feelings herself, although she remains on alert. Stay tuned for further developments.

Basil, basil, everywhere

A trip with the Mayor of Ingvaldia this weekend to the Minneapolis Farmers' Market was truly food for the soul.

I know I will sound cliched, but the sounds, colors, and movement at the market under the freeway overpasses always refreshes my spirit and my palate. I restrained myself this year and bought only a bushel of red, ripe tomatoes and two huge bouquets of basil A bouquet of basil? Yes. That is the only way to describe it. To hold it I had to nestle in the crook of my arm, exactly like I would a dozen roses. I brought them home, put them in water, and am enjoying the new fragrance my home is bathed in.

I took the leaves of one bouquet and made nut-free pesto, enough to freeze and to use. I stuffed one of those succulent tomatoes with it, baked it, and was content.

Now I have another bunch and I am at an impasse. Do grind it and freeze it in little cubes like Trader Joe? Do I dry it? Do I make more pesto? The possibilities surround me and delight me and overwhelm me. Basil, basil, everywhere.

2009 Summertime Enjoyment Implement

Living in the north midwest, one comes to realize several facts in life: Layering is a must, carrying around a extra pair of socks is a good idea, and the summers are short.

This particular summer seems extra short because we only had ONE day above 90°F.   Sure we had hot days here and there, but nothing lasting.  The tomatoes barely made it this year, and we are eeking out the last of peppers... a normally bountiful crop.

I'll tell you what though,  sure beats -20° on good day in January.  So, I'm not complaining.  Instead I'm maximizing my summertime effort! We only get 3 months of warm weather, people!

This year Howktown has chosen the Hammock as the preferred 2009 Summertime Enjoyment Implement! (I tried writing this post in the hammock, but it fell over, I hit my back, I whined a little bit, and then decided for the "safety of my laptop", I should sit inside.)

The great thing about a hammock is, people perceive you as enjoying your yard that you've sweated over all summer, instead of being lazy and avoiding making dinner for the family. Not that I've ever done that. Also, if it gets a little chilly, blanket and pillow will travel!  Plus, so far this hammock has survived at least 3 pig piles.

Howktown Approves:  The Hammock

A tasty failure

Jo Jo Potato's visit was not only made famous by lackluster acid cooked fish, but also by a brilliantly disastrous attempt at confectionery cuteness.

Have any of you read Bakerella's blog? Well, let me tell you, if you like cakes and sweets that are beyond cute, take a peek. A while back I was reading her posts on making Cake Pops, and after a whole season of sheep, bunnies, cupcake, chicks, and many other cute cakes on a stick, I had to try it.

I figured the only way I'd make this idea more Minnesotan was to deep fry it after I got it on the stick... (hey, that's not a bad idea!) but I was going to pass on that this time around and stick with the recipe.

The red velvet cake was a spectacular photo op! Photos mostly by Jo Jo Potato, some by me.

The goal was grand. It was going to be a culinary and artistic combination that only foodie artists could achieve! In our minds it was going to be impressive.


Here is what we came up with.

notice all the lumps, cake peeking through the frosting, and cake balls to heavy for the sticks?

We had a couple of execution errors in there. It became clear to us that it wasn't as easy as it looked and that something that we took for granted (like the size of the cake ball on the stick. Bigger isn't better!) were more important that anticipated.

Once again, my parents loved them. My mom said that if you didn't know what they were supposed to look like, they looked 'kinda cool'. That's kind of like responding to a kids painting in art class with "interesting" if you ask me.

The upside to this wrecktastic adventure was these cake on stick thingies actually taste good no matter what they look like.

Plus we found that putting a little ribbon around the stick improved there appearance score quite a bit. That is until...

You drop them on your way into work so all the sticks are poking out making them look like impaled brains.  Go HOWK!

Behold The Newest Header!

The Queen of Howktown Riding a Bike in Her Apron

Photo by Czarina of Saarisburg