Culture

A Midwesterner’s (changed) view of California

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There are so many misconceptions I had about California before I actually went there…

1. I would experience an earthquake.

I thought that the likelihood of experiencing an earthquake was high. When I started to relax, I had to remind myself of this possibility. It never happened. I remember in grade school having a teacher tell us that someday an earthquake might send California crashing into the sea. From that point on, I always pictured the outline of CA tearing apart (like folding a paper in half and ripping it along the crease) into the ocean. Didn’t happen..

2. I didn’t expect so much variety of landscape and people.

While we experienced only a small part of CA, we were able to see the desert, mountains, and the ocean. In Wisconsin, our state is pretty flat except on the far western border.We are surrounded by many lakes and rivers, just no ocean. Although we do experience extreme differences in climate with the changing of the seasons our landscape is pretty much the same.

Paul noticed that the people of CA seemed to be very individualistic. People wore some pretty outlandish things and no one stared. In WI, we are all about conformity. Fitting in is pretty easy. All you need to do is wear a regular pair of jeans and buy a Packer shirt. If you move in from out of state, you will be accepted if you dress like this. If you wear outlandish clothing, and don’t own Packer’s clothing, you will be mistrusted and talked about. If you are a man, you have to be a Packer fan.

Every time we leave the state, people ask us about the Packers. Like I would know… Frankly (don’t tell anyone) I could care less about football. Doesn’t anybody know anything else about our great state??

3. People that live in CA are health nuts.

I bought a pair of sunglasses for the trip and noticed that it had a warning that according to CA law the glasses contained materials that caused cancer. What was I getting myself into? Will I be surrounded by judgmental health nuts? I didn’t find that to be the case at all. I think that because the weather is ideal year round that more people get out and exercise.

I didn’t see any obese people in CA.

While we were waiting for the plane, Paul said that he knew we were flying back to WI just by looking at all of the overweight people waiting for the plane. WI is a very obese state. Our diet consists strongly of brats, cheese, and beer. For a majority of the year, it is difficult to buy fresh fruit and vegetables because the quality is so poor. We have excellent weather conditions 3 months of the year. Only the die hard fitness fanatics have what it takes to exercise indoors on a treadmill for several months straight. Plus with the major lack of sunlight, it is hard to be motivated while we are fighting off seasonal depression. Most of our elderly suffer from obesity caused illnesses such as diabetes. Many have a hard time walking around carrying their weight.

We pride ourselves on being hardy to handle cold winters. We are also hard working. But honestly, there really is not much else to do.

4. People in CA are beautiful, rich, and talk differently from us.

I find it funny that a lot of my stereotypes of CA are perpetuated by CA itself. Even the most beautiful and talented Midwestern girls are told that they don’t have what it takes to compete with a California girl. The CA girls are very beautiful and if they are not they have plastic surgeons to make them more beautiful. Again, not true although it keeps a lot of our beauty and talent in the Midwest.

There were rich people and poor people in CA just like there are here…They just have a higher cost of living.

I thought that I would hear at least one person say, “Like, gag me with a spoon.” Nope! They talked very similar to us. More similar than our southern or east coast friends.

Although I would have to say that WI and Upper Michigan has their own dialect.

First of all, if you are visiting here, it is a bubbler not a water fountain. A water fountain is what we throw pennies into, a bubbler is what we drink out of. You may hear someone say ‘yous guys’ for a plural of you. Then replace the “th” with a “d” and wallah. The becomes da, there becomes dere, this becomes dis, and them becomes dem.

This would be an acceptable sentence. “How about dem Packers?” “Did yous guys have fun dere or no?” We typically throw in an ‘or no’ at the end of our questions. “What did yah do dere?” Yah could be a singular form of you or it could mean yes. “How do yah like dem dere cheese curds?” “Not bad, huh?” Not everyone talks this way, but we all know someone who does and we understand.

I really enjoyed comparing the differences in culture. Someday I hope I get the opportunity to explore the rest of California..

 

The Pacific shore

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The last few days of our trip to CA, we visited the Pacific Ocean for the first time.

After we left the winery, we drove to the marina in Oceanside with the thought of possibly renting a sailboat. We watched gigantic waves crash with a loud thundering crescendo over the breakwater. We saw a sailboat raise its main sail, get to the breakwater, then turn back around only to lower its sail again. We were out of our element. We decided it would be too risky.

I also thought that I could go surfing for the first time. I was afraid of sharks and sting rays, but frankly maybe I was afraid of the wrong things. When we arrived at the beach in Carlsbad, the waves crashing into the shore were above our heads. Just standing on the shore when the waves came in caused enough force to knock me down. I decided to watch Paul on the boogie board first before I attempted to do it myself. Then I saw a big wave crash Paul’s body into the ground like he weighed nothing.

Again, we felt out of our element. Those waves were for experienced surfers, not first timers. I also thought that I could swim in the water. No one was doing that. It would have been difficult to get past the waves.

Alcoholic beverages were not allowed on the beach. I thought that was strange. I don’t think that I have ever been on a beach in Wisconsin where people weren’t drinking. Maybe it would be different if our summers were year round. The warm sunny summer weekends are like holidays here. They don’t happen often enough.

Another thing I noticed about the town of Carlsbad was that it was very pedestrian friendly. They had a nice running track. Also, when pedestrians crossed the street they pushed a button that turned on a yellow flashing yield light. All of the traffic stopped to allow pedestrians to cross. The first few times, I ran across as fast as I could and waved a little sorry wave. Pedestrians cross at their own risk at home.

While we were in Carlsbad, we stayed at the Pelican Cove Bed & Breakfast. The owner, Nancy, was very helpful. She made excellent breakfasts and gave us little tips about where to eat and what to do. The room was not air conditioned, nor did it need to be. We left the windows open at night. It did get a little loud. Quite a few trains traveled through town.

The houses in Carlsbad were very close together. From our room, we could see into the house next door. We could smell their cooking and hear them talk. That is a bit unusual in WI. Even in Milwaukee, where the houses are close together, people at least have a small yard to mow. Some people didn’t have a yard there at all. There wasn’t a feeling of privacy, but that didn’t seem to matter.

We also noticed that Carlsbad is a very dog friendly town. People take their dogs with them everywhere. We saw more people with dogs than kids. We were at several restaurants where there were dogs inside. People in WI leave their dogs at home. I have never seen a dog in a restaurant here unless it was a service dog. A man next to us in the restaurant told us that he had his dog genetically tested to see what his pedigree was. How unusual.

Someday, I hope to go back. It was a lovely place.

Amish windows

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8-2-16 001This week we got our new windows. You probably are wondering why I would even talk about something so boring as home improvements. The exciting story here is not in the what, it is in the who. We had the Amish come out to work on the project.

Let’s just clear up the boring part first. My husband and I bought a house built in the 1990’s when everyone was on the air tight energy saving kick. Having an air tight house has been great when it comes to heating bills. We barely pay anything to heat our house during the cold Wisconsin winters. However, we have had moisture issues since the day we bought it.

The moisture can’t escape. Anytime we had temps below freezing, condensation would form on our windows. Sometimes it rained inside our house with water dripping down our windows pooling into the wooden sills. Our house is like a rain forest. We  bought an air exchanger to draw the humidity out of our air tight house. But by then the damage was done to our windows. They needed replacing but we couldn’t afford to do it in our earlier years.

The picture above is the window from our bedroom. We have been breathing in black mold for years now. We tried bleach, we tried everything, but we couldn’t fix the damage done without replacing them.

We were referred to an Amish man to do the work of replacing our windows. The first step was to have him come out here to look at our windows and take measurements. He needed someone to drive him. The first obstacle was giving him directions to our house. Get out your iPhone and type in our address. That obviously wasn’t going to work. He did get lost coming out once because he had difficulty explaining the directions to different drivers. It is probably like trying to read a map in a different language.

After he took the measurements, he made the windows himself. I thought that was pretty impressive. Most people around here know that anything Amish made is high quality.

Then he came over this week with three other men. They arrived in a large diesel truck driven by a heavy set man in overalls. He looked like a rancher from Texas, not that I have ever seen one anywhere besides TV. Then he drove off.

It took the men a day and a half to complete the job.  At first the men seemed pretty ackward around me. In their culture I don’t believe that they are comfortable talking to a married woman without her husband around. I felt naked around them in shorts and a t-shirt. No matter what I wore, I don’t think that I could ever be as modest as an Amish woman. I didn’t want to offend them.

I heard the men talk a lot in German. I didn’t understand a word even though they were speaking the language of my ancestors. When they were working outside, one of the men asked another what the buzzing sound was coming from a machine. The other man replied, “I think that is what you call an air conditioner.” They were very respectful and friendly, yet we all eyed each other in puzzlement by the differences in culture.

The second day, the four men came back to finish the job. This time they brought along two little boys around the ages of 7 and 10. The boys didn’t seem to do any of the work besides carry a few light things. Instead they followed their dad around intensely watching him and learning the family trade. I wish that our culture had the same attitude regarding our youth instead of throwing them out into the world after high school with no job skills.

The Amish workers seemed interested by my children watching TV. They seemed fascinated to see us drive off in cars, especially the teenagers. I’m sure that they had just as many stories to tell about us as we told about them. There was nothing bad to say.

I am very happy with our new windows and the work the Amish men did.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Living in a drunken state

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I really think it is time for an intervention. 

I have been doing some research on you, Wisconsin. I think I live in a drunken state. Out of 50 states, we rank number 6 as a top drinking state. We rank first in binge drinking. There is a bar closer to our house than a church. Drinking is a huge part of our culture. If you are trying to quit drinking, this is not the state you want to be in. Everything is tied to drinking here with the exception of school events. I suspect that more parents would attend school events if alcohol was served. I have even seen alcohol served at church events over various denominations. 

Last week I spoke a little about briefly getting into a drinking crowd. I don’t have a problem with people out having a fun time drinking responsibly. It is the binge drinking that I don’t like. I have seen it wreck too many lives. 

When I was 17, my friend’s parents were gone for the weekend and I stayed at her house. We decided to mix whatever liquor we could find in her parents cabinet. It was the most disgusting concoction ever, but I drank some of it. I remember giggling a lot and my legs didn’t seem to work right. We invited some friends over to play a game of truth or dare which resulted in a goldfish being eaten. Before our friends arrived, a squad car parked in front of my friend’s house. We thought her parents made good on their threats of having someone keep an eye on her. My friend hid me in the storage closet off of her parents bedroom. I remember tripping over a large roasting pan and falling down in a dark closet full of junk. Turns out she just lived on a main road in a small town. That was really my first experience with drinking.  

Skip ahead a couple of years later when I was 21. Right after I met my future husband, I was on a dart league with him and a few others at the local bar. I was single, but at the time I didn’t realize that within a few weeks I wouldn’t be. A man across the bar started buying me shots. I thought it would be rude to not drink them. Then he offered me a ride home because I was in no shape to drive. What a ploy! Fortunately, since we lived in the same apartment building, Paul was my ride home. The room was spinning all night. I spent the night puking and was too sick to make it to class the next day. I felt out of control of my body and it was scary feeling that way. I decided since it was self-inflicted that I would not get notes from the class I missed. I ended up doing really bad on the next test. I decided that I was never going to drink that much again and haven’t. Even when it meant leaving behind “free” drinks.

Turning 21 is a rite of passage here. It is encouraged to get really sticking drunk on that day. Even the first drunk driving offense is a traffic violation. We see billboards advertising alcohol next to signs that tell us how many drunk driving deaths occurred during the year. Newspapers advertise liquor next to public service ads cautioning drinking.

Last week I found out why the police were at my son’s ex-friend’s house. The local paper mentioned an intoxicated boy having a physical altercation with his parents on our road. Although this boy started taking his friends down the wrong path, I can’t help feeling sorry for him. His old friends are no longer allowed to hang out with him. While my son and his friends are enjoying the nice weather outside, this kid is locked inside of addiction at a young age.

We have already spoken to our teens telling them that if they ever need a ride home that we will pick them up anytime no questions asked. I don’t want my teens out drinking, but I would rather have them call me then get into a car with a drunk. I don’t know too many people that had their first drink at 21. 

I have known people that died and killed others from drunk driving. My friend’s dad spent years in prison for vehicular homicide while intoxicated. He missed his daughter’s graduation and wedding. He went right back to drinking after prison. One morning he arrived at her house drunk. He hopped into her car with her while she was taking her kids to school. After dropping her kids off, he became belligerent and refused to leave her car. She had to call the police on him outside of her kids school. He had to go back to jail. She was heartbroken.

I also heard of a story of a friend of a friend that was trying to get pregnant. She was a couple of days late, but decided to take a pregnancy test after going out. That night she got wasted enough to get kicked out of the bar. She passed out in the back seat of her friend’s car. The next day she found out she was pregnant. A couple of days later she had a miscarriage. Maybe she thought that it was early enough that a night of binge drinking wouldn’t matter, but it did. 

I had another friend that went out drinking a few weeks before she got married. A group of us were sitting in the living room when she went in the other room with her fiancé.  We heard a scuffling, then we heard a fight. My friend’s fiancé hit her that night. The next day, she wasn’t sure what to do. The wedding was planned and coming up fast. Her fiancé was so drunk that he could not remember hitting her the night before. They got married anyway.

Binge drinking and domestic violence are not as rare as you might think. Just ask anyone around here what they think the chances of fights are after a day of binge drinking and a Packer loss. 

The stories go on and on. Domestic violence, cheating, divorce, cirrhosis, getting fired at work, drunk driving, incarceration, and even death. I’ve seen all of these things happen in this state. It is the dark side of our drinking culture. That is why I don’t like binge drinking. Nothing good ever comes out of it even though it is portrayed as being so much fun. I’m thankful that my parents were not alcoholics like half of my friends parents were/are. In response to growing up with alcoholic parents, some of my friends decided not to drink. Others tend to struggle.

I am glad we had this little talk. I know it is not going to change things, that is just the way our culture is. Maybe you will have a better understanding of life in our drunken state. 

The travel diaries; Park City, Utah

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Paul and I have been to Park City a couple times for business. Park City is a ski resort town. This town hosted the winter Olympics back in 2002. As you enter town, you can see a massive ski jump. There are ski lifts located throughout the town. The resort that we stayed at was a ski resort in the winter. On the top left corner of the above picture, you can see a ski lift. In the off season, there are miles and miles of ski slopes turned into hiking trails.

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We spent a lot of our free time hiking at the resort. We rarely saw any other people on the trails. There weren’t a lot of signs, but surprisingly we didn’t get lost.

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It is absolutely beautiful in the fall.

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We didn’t spend all of our time wandering around, however the few pictures I have of downtown Park City were not quite as scenic. While we were in Park City, we had some of the best sushi ever. Too bad I don’t remember the name of the restaurant. It was small and crowded, but had some of the best sushi. We also stopped in at the Wasatch Brewery for food and drinks. I tried the jalapeno beer. It was strange, the warmer the beer got the spicier it seemed. I also liked the Polygamy Porter. It was so good that I had to buy the I’ve tried polygamy shirt. I am a little paranoid to wear it at home in case I offend some of the Mormons in the area. It also had other little sayings on it like bring some back home for the wives and one is just not enough.

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Back at the resort, we got together with Joe and some other business friends at the resort bar. The liquor laws in Utah are rather strict. I’ve heard that Park City is more lenient then other places in the state. For example, if we wanted to order a round of drinks, we had to purchase an appetizer first. I vaguely remember the bartender saying that if a beer is on tap that it has to contain 4% alcohol or less.

Park City is a nice little tourist town. I can’t imagine how beautiful it must be there in the winter. Throughout the town, they had little bonfire warming spots which weren’t lit while we were there. It was a clean town and the people were friendly. It was quiet in the off season. It was nice to have this beautiful town to ourselves. 

The travel diaries, Virginia Beach

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The trip to Virginia Beach was the first vacation that I took as an adult with kids. I probably shouldn’t have gone. I was probably only invited as a nice gesture, but I took the opportunity and ran with it. I was invited by my mom who was going on the trip with Luke and his future wife Emily. I think that they seriously thought that I wouldn’t go. Paul couldn’t take a week off of work as he was a one man show back when his business was in its infancy. People thought that I was crazy for going because I decided to go with a newly turned two year old and a newborn. We loaded up a rental van and headed across the country on an over 2,000 mile round trip road trip.

We didn’t make any reservations in advance, we just looked at a map and drove as far as we could in a day. Our goal was to see the ocean. The trip in and of itself was pretty uneventful until we got closer to the ocean. What I really liked was that we decided to eat at a restaurant at the top of a hill in West Virginia. It was a winding drive to get to the top of the hill. It was exciting because WI is pretty flat. Another thing I noticed, in WI we have about 2 bars for every church. Bar, bar, Lutheran church. Bar, bar, Catholic church. But when we went to WV it was church, church, church, church, and bar that was shut down. What different cultures depending on where you are in our big country.

When we were almost to the ocean, I think we were touring a fort or something when I ended up feeling sick. I laid down on the grass while everyone took the tour. The long body jostling miles 2 months after having a C-section, the sleepless nights of being up with a newborn, and keeping up with an energetic 2 year old finally took its toll on me. The day we planned to go to the ocean, I ended up in the ER. I had a foreign doctor with a southern accent that I needed a nurse translator to understand. He wanted to hospitalize me. I got hooked up to an IV and they put a catheter in me. He wanted me to go on some heavy duty antibiotics that I would have to stop nursing my baby with. I refused. I told him that I only had a bladder infection and that being hundreds of miles from home that I couldn’t just stop nursing as I had in no way prepared to buy bottles and sanitize them on the road. Plus we were going to see the ocean TODAY! I got some regular antibiotics and we were on our way.

We finally got to the ocean in the afternoon. The doctor said that I could not swim so I walked in the ocean for the first time up to my knees. I remember hearing a mother screaming up and down the beach because she lost her child and was afraid he might have drowned. Someone was kind and offered me their canopy when they were leaving as I didn’t have an umbrella to protect my baby from the sun. We stayed at the beach for 2 hours and then had to leave to meet up with a friend of mine. So our long trip to the ocean was again cut very short because of me.

The next day we did some touring of the area. I remember going to tour a president’s plantation house in the afternoon. We got there right before the last tour of the day. My mom and I were going to take turns with the kids. We planned to go on separate tours but since it was the last tour of the day we couldn’t do that. Once the tour group of about 20 people got inside, they locked us in. With a 2 year old and a newborn this incited some terror within me. Sure enough while the tour guide was explaining about the original antique rug that we were standing on, my son spit up all over it. My 2 year old had a tantrum at the end of the tour. It was great being locked in while she was screaming and crying. Oh, and the dirty looks. I can laugh now because I will never have to go through that again. Phew. On the way out, we walked through a pet cemetery. I guess that really was a thing.

After that we drove through the night to get back home. I crossed going to the ocean with little kids off my bucket list. What a trip!

The dear hunter

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For the last couple of years, my husband and son went deer hunting. If they didn’t bring home a buck at least on the last day they would bring home a Christmas tree. Today we are getting our tree. No buck or doe though.

When the men leave for the big buck hunt, it is widows weekend for the ladies. Local strip clubs bring in the male strippers. I never went to see the male strippers nor do I plan on doing so. But for a couple of years a group of friends and I would go out to eat and dancing in a small town.

I remember one year in particular rather well. It was the year that one of our friends was pregnant (designated driver). We went out to eat at a supper club that had happy hour basically all night. While we were eating, I ran into some old friends of my parents. Only a week before my mom told me that her friend’s husband kissed her many years ago. Guess who I ran into? Yup, those friends. Awkward! Even though this happened decades ago, it was still new news to me.

Afterwards, we went out dancing. Even as a group of married women not looking for men, we are used to hearing the same old pick up lines. “Hey beautiful, how about I buy you a drink?” Ho hum. But that one night was different. I had a man my age approach me with a pick up line that I never heard before. It was something I was not prepared for. He said, “I heard that you are a singer and I happen to need a female lead singer in my band.” Hmm, now that was interesting.

He bought me a drink and we talked about his band. Then he started to tell me that he was a divorced divorce attorney and he could help me with that too if I was unhappy in my marriage. I assured him that I was happily married to a great guy. I did promise that I would check out his band and call him if I was interested in singing.

I remember it was a really cold night as we walked around to see other bands up the block. Some of my friends slipped and fell on the ice. Too bad he wasn’t “that” kind of lawyer. I almost walked into a telephone pole. I was too busy talking and laughing with the girls to watch where I was going. His group followed our group around. I think that the guy was hunting for woman or business that weekend. After checking out multiple locations, it was time to go home. I lived 45 minutes away. But there was one small problem. Our driver lost her keys somewhere that we had stopped over the night and it was getting to be bar time. It didn’t take long for the guy to offer me a ride home. How kind, funny that he didn’t seem too interested in helping us find the keys.

My friend eventually found her keys and got us all safely home that night. The next day I looked up the guy’s band. It probably would have been something that I would have liked to do and I could have done it. Even though I really, really, really wanted to be a singer in his band, I didn’t want to end up being a divorced lead singer in a band. The cost of following that dream was a price I was not willing to pay.

The adventures of Hickory

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Our foreign exchange student from Japan arrived safely Friday night. She was tired, so we gave her a little cheese and sent her off to bed. She already has the knickname of Hickory, very similar to her own name. I liked the name so much it made me long to have one more child. What? Wait! No!  Forget about that, but it is nice to have one teen in the house that doesn’t talk back. Lol. Everything is exciting and new for her. Her sense of wonder reminds me of a 2 year old without the tantrums. So far it has been a very pleasant experience. Paul and I would like to have a foreign exchange student longer than a week when our youngest is in high school. 

Saturday morning, Paul made bacon and pancakes with real maple syrup on top. As is customary when we have a family meal, we say a prayer in thanksgiving for our meal. We tried to explain to Hickory our culture and beliefs. Paul asked Hickory if she knows what Christianity is. “No” replied Hickory. He asked if she knows God. “No” replied Hickory. He asked Hickory if she knows about Jesus as he was bringing out the cheese. Very excitedly Hickory replied, “Yes, I know cheeses”. I suppose it will be confusing if we send her home with a cheesehead. She may end up telling her parents that we have a strange culture. Stories of us Wisconsinites worshipping cheeses before eating it. Stories of us worshipping strange men in cheese colored uniforms while wearing cheeseheads. Makes me wonder what other people think of us, huh? Don’t ya know? 

Hickory also arrived bearing gifts from Japan. She gave us green tea cookies and chocolate, a fan, soup bowls, chopsticks, and saki. The saki was wrapped in newspaper written in Japanese. Of course, I am thinking of sending back some good WI beer wrapped in newspaper. I could wrap it up and send it back in a cheesehead for protection. Hickory’s dad is a sushi chef. No pressure, right? We have been making a lot of “American” food for her. Paul is making his homemade pizza tonight. It is the best pizza ever. Good thing you don’t know where we live. We are thinking of getting her dad either a Brewers or Packers apron. Now if we could only get some brats and cheese to them…hmmm. 

Other than that, we have been trying to show Hickory as much of our culture as we can. Last night we went to a chili dump. Some of the other foreign exchange students were there. They had a bonfire, live music, pumpkin carving, a piñata, and other yard games. Today we played miniature golf and had a picnic at a park with the school group. I hope she really has a good experience here. And she doesn’t go home telling everyone that we worship cheeses.