#Winter

Yesterday, Nov. 24, 2014, I drove my car on an ice rink and didn't crash it.

Let me paint you a word picture of my commute.

First, let's set the scene:

The night before, ice started falling from the sky, landing on water that was snow before two days of unusually high temperatures.

Clear, shiny ice coated the entire city by the next morning.

I was having an unusually bad hair day, which doesn't even matter because it was definitely hat weather outside.

The dress code at work mandates that we dress "business casual" unless local schools are cancelled.

Ladies, testify with me for a moment that there is no form of "business casual" that involved dressing for -13 chill factors.

So, I throw a pair of leggings under my loosest pair of slacks and a sweater under my thermal coat and sprint out of the apartment, knowing it would likely take me twice as long as normal to get to work.

The "sprinting" comes to an abrupt halt when I reach the door that leads to the parking lot.

Thick glossy ice coats everything, especially the sidewalks and parking lot.

Luckily I decided to wear my snow boots. What they lack in fashion, they more than make up for in traction.

Still this ice is not playing around, and I skate/slip/walk very slowly toward the garage. Imagine a giraffe learning to ice skate -- that's me walking on the ice.

There's a thin path of snow in front of our row of garages. Score! I walk at a little faster packing the snow under my boots for traction.

Finally, I get the garage open -- not an easy feat with stiff gloves on, since the latch is small and stubborn.

Once I'm on my way I test the ground a little in the apartment driveway. It's slick but not too terrible.

I pull out into the road and immediately turn, taking my usual path to work.

Whoa! That was no small turn. Even at a turtle's pace my car slides several feet to the left. Only the momentum of my car is propelling me forward. Luckily there's no one around.

There is no traction.

But I slide the block west I need to go before I turn again.

This is where my story fizzles out.

The city has applied fresh sand to the major roads, so I have no more serious issues.

By the time I head out again they've sanded all the roads, even the ice rink by my apartment.

The sidewalks all have rock salt on them -- everything is back to normal.

...just another beautiful fall day in North Dakota...

A kayaking adventure

Our shoes barely escaped the adventure with their lives. 

My dear J turned 25 this month, so we decided to celebrate by doing things we had never done before.

First on the list: tandem kayaking.

The local university wellness center offers inexpensive equipment rentals and happens to be very near a coulee, meaning we wouldn't have to strap the surprisingly large kayak on our compact car.

Instead, we could easily carry it about 50 yards, drop it in the water and row around on a pleasant little stream, right?

Wrong.

We had no idea what we were doing, and the poor college students trying to help us had no idea either.

Where do you lift a kayak? Why is something made almost entirely of plastic so heavy? Why are there so many trees in the way? How far will we have to walk to find an access point?

Finally, we wrestled the kayak onto the bank of the "water."

I have been in some very disgusting water in my life -- Stock tanks, cattle troughs, mud puddles, etc. But I never experienced anything quite like this. The weirdly green algae on the top of the water didn't bother me, neither did the suspiciously tar-like mud on the banks.

It was the smell. ...and the garbage.

I got in first.

I'm glad no one was watching as I tried to crab walk into the front seat of the boat. Balance has never ever been my strong suit.

Finally, I got situated and J pushed the boat into the water thinking he could easily hop in where the water was shallow enough to barely cover his shoes.

Wrong again.

The mud on the edge of coulee is actually a stinky tar monster looking to devour limbs and shoes -- especially shoes.

I was facing forward and focused on shifting my weight to keep the kayak from flipping, so I'm not sure what exactly happened. My understanding is that J fought the tar monster with all his might to first retrieve his left leg. Once that foot was safely in the kayak, he rescued the other. His shoes barely escaped with their lives.

By the time he got in the boat, the tar monster had coated his legs in mud to the knees and he was soaked nearly to his waist. He took quite a bit of the monster with him, coating the bottom of the kayak in smelly, black tar/mud.

He smelled like a warrior  ...who fights in the sewer. 

We decided to go to right and paddle as far as we felt like. Surely the water will get clearer and nicer as we go, right?

Wrong again.

Within a few minutes we saw a giant, dead fish (or maybe it was a baby whale), a bicycle, a hubcab, a 99-pack worth of empty beer cans and countless other forms of trash.

There was a low point where the bottom of the kayak scraped on something. I'm pretty sure it was the rest of the car that belonged to that hubcap. Most likely the tar monster stole it out of someone's driveway for a midnight snack.

Then we came to a tunnel with three possible points of entry. It was low and scary, and I couldn't see well what was on the other side. From what I could see, two of the three routes were blocked with something big, brown and scary. A bear? A rock monster? A refrigerator box?

I'll never know, because we elected to turn around, instead of braving door number three.

To the right of the tunnel was a fairly large drainage pipe.

As novice kayakers? kayakis? kayakians? people who paddle a kayak, our steering left much to be desired.

I think you know where this is going...

We narrowly escaped paddling right into the drainage pipe.

The list of things we crashed into is fairly short, but I feel bad for the poor cattails that are probably still leaning over at a 45-degree angle.

After we turned around we went quite a ways in the other direction. The water got clearer, smelled slightly better and there were live animals including a turtle and several ugly ducks. I imagine the pretty ducks banish the ugly ducks to the polluted stream so they can keep the nice river for themselves. They are such snobs! The poor ugly ducks are probably forced to become minions of the tar monster and scout out cars, bikes and dumpsters for him to steal and snack on. 

I was happy to be in water that could sustain life again, so I gladly embraced the sight of ugly ducks and turtles as we paddled along.

It was a little overcast and still. So we decided to just coast a little while and rest our incredibly out of shape arms.

During our brush with death at the drainage pipe, I was so focused on maneuvering the boat I hadn't realized how hard my arms were working.

Update: Three days later I am still quite sore. 

Finally, we decided we were hungry for lunch and headed back.

This time we found a path through the trees we had overlooked before that would be a shorter walk to the building.

We paddled the boat as far onto the bank as we could. Now it was my turn to fight the stinky tar monster.

I braced myself.

The mud I stepped on after I awkwardly crawled out of the boat had no water standing over it.

But it didn't matter.

The tar monster is not limited to locations with standing water.

I sank fast, my left shoe, ankle and most of my calf disappeared like lightening. I took a big step away from the water with my right foot and used the hard ground to leverage my leg free.

But I still had to pull the boat out of the water.

Stepped toward the boat, just close enough to reach it.

It was too close. The tar monster grabbed both of my ankles.

On the bright side, being so well anchored in the mud, made it easy to pull the boat forward.

I fought free, stepped back and pulled again.

J hopped out lightly escaping the tar monster almost completely this time.

We navigated the path of least resistance through the brush, and, swarmed  by mosquitoes, we drug the boat toward the building.

Then, having finally discovered the best place to lift the boat, by the very ends where it's narrow in case you were wondering, we carried it through the clearing back the the building.

Needless to say everything was covered in mud, us, the boat, the paddles -- even the life jackets didn't come out completely unscathed.

It took a while to get it all cleaned up and, three loads of laundry later, I'm still waging the final battles with the tar monster.

But, I would do it again in a heartbeat.

Over lunch at a restaurant we had never tried we laughed and laughed about how ridiculous our adventure was.

I'm pretty sure we'll talk about this day on J's 50th birthday, too.

Happy birthday, dear!

Romantically involved

Note: I have to get to read a lot of "Dear Amy" columns at work, so I decided to adopt her style for this post. 

Downtown Grand Forks

Dear Amy, 

There's a man I work with and we are romantically involved. He's tall, smart and handsome with gorgeous green-blue eyes and great hair. 

Recently, we've been taking walks together during the day exploring the area we work in. 

Mostly we talk about our days and funny things that have happened since we last saw each other. 

Sometimes we talk about what we observe as we walk. 

This brings me to my dilemma -- we walk by all these restaurants in the late afternoon when their preparing for their dinner rush and the food smells so smoky and delicious. We love to talk about food. It's one of the things that brought us together in the first place. 

So my question is this: Is it love or is it just delicious ambiance of Grand Forks?

Sincerely, 

Fattie and Falling in the Forks

I imagine the response would go something like this:

Dear Fattie, 

A love of food and men is easily confused, but since you're walking with Mr. Gorgeous Eyes and not some other random individual, I'd say there's at least something about him you like. 

If you want to know for sure, take him to the least romantic place on earth and see if you still like him. If you do, keep walking.

If you don't, run! 

But when it all falls down around you, don't blame me. Blame the fried chicken. 

Amy

Texas our Texas

I promised to write about repping Texas in ND so here goes nothin'.  

I was never really the kind of Texan to buy and display or wear very much Texas-themed merchandise. 

Because I lived in Texas my entire life (until recently), rarely left and almost always surrounded myself with fellow citizens, I didn't realize how much of my identity is rooted in the lone star state.

But now I get it. 

And it shows. From my first day at work when a stranger said "you're not from here," after I uttered about 4 words, I knew I couldn't hide my Texas roots even if I wanted to. 

And I don't. 

I proofread copy for an agriculture magazine, and it took two months for me to stop reading farmer's quotes in my dad's accent. 

I still do impressions of all older men with that accent. Because, where I'm from, that's just how they talk...

But I digress... After a few weeks, people seemed to be getting used to me saying y'all. 

Then came the day I said spu-uds. 

 

Allow me to set the scene: 

In ND, if your referring to potatoes casually, you use the term spuds. 

So that's what we call a chart in Agweek that tells about their prices. 

In a hurry one Friday, I was running down the list of charts with my editor, checking off each one as I went. 

"Grain futures, check. Livestock futures, check. ..."

Now, reflect back with me to the golden days of the Cosby show... Remember Rudy's neighbor friend? I never knew his name because she always just called him bud. 

Can you hear her say it? "bu-ud." 

That's pretty much exactly how I said spuds. With all the drawl and twang Loraine, TX could impart, I said it and never thought twice... 

Until my editor started giggling that is...

At first, I was embarrassed. The academic snob in me was taken back to that one time a professor at a conference called me a peasant when I told her I was raised on a farm. (That's a story for another day.) 

Then, I was kind of proud. This is who I am, drawl and all. 

I may not be a Texas resident anymore, but being from Texas is not something you can drop at the border. It's a nationality of sorts, an identity. It's me. 

And I'm glad. 

So... umm... remember the Alamo! (This may not be totally appropriate ending here. But I'm going with it...)

Shoveling snow: Mrs. Dykowski and the great big drift

Dear readers,

Most of you know by now that my journeys in the great white north are a learning experience in more ways than one.

As I type, we're experiencing our first blizzard.

In Texas of course a "blizzard" (I've only seen one that might have been called a blizzard in all my years as a Texan, and I'm pretty sure it doesn't actually count.) means everyone stays home except those people who are absolutely needed for society to function.

That group never included me.

In North Dakota, if you want a snow day, you have to take PTO, and that's not an option for me if I want to go back to Texas without quitting my job. This all leads to one harsh reality of life: driving slow and shoveling snow.

Before today, I thought shoveling snow was fun, I have a pretty red snow shovel, and the snow is glittery and light. You feel so accomplished when you're done shoveling, because the area you cleared is smooth and nice and there's a pile of unwanted snow out of the way that you can look at and say 'I did that!'

Tonight, all of that changed.

Tonight, I drove across town in some crazy snow to get home from work. Luckily most of the roads are well traveled, so it wasn't so bad until I got to the street I live on, which was white, no visible stripes or curb, but I navigated that okay for the 3 blocks to my apartment. Then I turned into the driveway to our garages and my tires started spinning.

On the farm where I grew up, I was notorious for getting trucks stuck in sand in the turn row, so I know a couple of tricks for getting out... (One of them is call dad, but that one doesn't work here.) And snow is different, so I just put the car in park and walked around it to see what the issue was.

There was so discernible issue, so I backed up about a foot and pressed onward, slowly. Finally with two left turns a few hasty prayers, I made it to the row garages to find a great big drift piled in front of the garage door.

Bummer.

I never thought I'd have to dig my way into somewhere. But that's just what I did. I had to take a brief intermission to move my car our of a guy's way in the meantime.

Half an hour later I made it into the garage, finished up shoveling in front of Scott's garage, looked at the mountain I built on the other side and waded to the door.

I say waded because leading up to the door the snow came up to my mid-calf or higher. Thank heaven for tall Northface boots. At first, I wasn't sure the door would open but luckily a strong neighbor had pushed it open just a few minutes before I came in, clearing a path.

Whoa y'all that was some snow! And I'm pretty sure I'll see worse before it's all said and done...

As the North Dakotans say, "yooo betcha!"

The view from our apartment last night.

The view from our apartment tonight.

Mrs. Dykowski goes north: 10 things about North Dakota

As many of you know, J and I moved to North Dakota about 2 months ago.

We and Cat live in a small, 3-floor apartment in a growing side of town.

Every day we drive about 10 minutes through a cute neighborhood, past a coffee shop, bowling alley and Taco Johns -this is especially important to downtown where we work in the same building.

You may well wonder why it's taken me so long to update the world on the latest goings on, let me fill you in.

We drove 22 hours over the two days following my graduation to move here. Within a week, I had started a new job with Agweek, a regional, weekly, agricultural magazine published by the same company that owns J's newspaper.

Between unpacking and settling our apartment, adjusting to a full-time work schedule and learning a new city, there hasn't been much of me left over to share.

Today, however, I decided it couldn't wait any longer...

When we told our fellow Texans we were moving to North Dakota of all places, most of them reacted as if we were about to banished to Siberia... "Don't y'all know it's going to be cold there?" they would say.

That was about all I knew about ND before we moved here. It's cold.

We haven't experienced real cold yet, but we've been preparing. I'll talk more about that in a later post...

Since I got here, there have been some fun surprises and some quirks I wasn't expecting. Here are a few examples:

1. The accent.

I didn't realize the impact ND's proximity to Canada would have on the accents of the people here. They say 'aboat.' They say 'yoo betcha!' all the time. And they take notice when I say y'all. We'll talk more about how I'm reppin' Texas culture later on too. :) The funny thing is, most people I encounter don't think they have an accent at all. Uh... yoo betcha, yoo doo.

2.  Hockey

Hockey is to North Dakota as football is to Texas. This is not very surprising to me in and of itself. What I was shocked to learn is... I love it! It's fast, violent and indoors, what else would you want in a winter sport? Point Midwest!

3. It's SO close to Canada

SO CLOSE! When in an article a reporter used the phrase "south of the border," I had to do a double take. He was talking about North Dakota! The border patrol office near my apartment building, is looking for illegal Canadians... I'd never even considered the possibility of illegal Canadians.

4. Canadians have a reputation for being terrible drivers.

If you see a "friendly Manitoba" license plate headed your way, look out! So they say...the jury's still out with me... Minnesota license plates seem to be just a dangerous. ;)

Fries from the world's largest french fry feed.

5. North Dakotans love french fries!

...And beer. But the french fry bandwagon is the one I can hop on! We even went to the World's Largest French Fry Feed this year. You should have seen the deep fryer they were using!

6. They grow sugar beets

I wasn't even sure this was a real thing when I moved up here, but it's one of the region's biggest crops. When I drive to work this month, I'm usually behind a huge truck full of them, heading over to Minnesota to the sugar factory. In fact, when the trucks hit a bump you have to dodge the beets that fall out on the road.

7. People only grow things that can be eaten

Speaking of crops, when I say my dad grows cotton, I get a funny look. "But you can't eat cotton..." Here, if it can't be eaten by humans, they feed it to the cows. An inedible crop is unheard of... Random fact: cotton seed and cotton seed oil are both edible products of cotton for cows and humans respectively. 

8. People here speak Spanish too!

I thought when we moved north, we'd have our weak knowledge of Spanish as a kind of personal language that very few people would know, we could have conversations without others eavesdropping ...even if they were mostly about our names and random objects. But I was wrong. In line at the grocery store a few weeks ago the family behind us had a whole conversation in it. My boss says it's the only language offered in most high schools. Even one of the families at the tiny church we go to speaks mostly Spanish. I wish I had practiced more in school.

9. People are friendly and helpful

Need directions somewhere? Want to know why some cars have extension cords hanging out the front of their hoods? Want some fresh produce? Want to go to a sporting event without spending any money? North Dakotans to the rescue! Seriously, y'all, people are so helpful here. I ask about 200,000 stupid questions a day about snow, the town, the state. I misspelled Winnipeg at work and no one made fun of me. We had a Bible study in our house and a sister brought us fresh tomatoes from her garden. Not to mention the free things we're constantly being given at work, hockey tickets, fresh produce from the publisher's garden, random ice cream treats, football tickets and so on. People are very accepting and generous here. It's great.

10. Some things are still the same

I'm still Mrs. Dykowski, I still call my mom when I need advice, I'm still a homebody, I still have a lot to learn, I still talk to my closest friends, I still prefer Texas to any state in the union but I would still rather have one day in North Dakota with J than a million in Texas without him.

Stay tuned!