Raspberry picking at our CSA. Seriously wonderful.

Fair warning, folks: I’m going to get all “Sunrise, Sunset” in this post so if you’re not in the mood, move on.

We’ve been in Northfield for just over a year now. I remember when we were making final plans to choose Northfield over New York City, I warned Dan that I would likely cry every night for the first 3 months. I feared being friendless, lonely, isolated and further from a Trader Joe’s or Vietnamese sandwich shop than any person ought to be. Reader, I haven’t cried once.

Living in Northfield really suits us. For example, Dan’s gigs start at 5pm (as many of you know, we are often asleep by 10pm). But, more importantly, living in Northfield has also encouraged us to change the way we live. The lack of stores selling essentially prepared foods (I’m looking at you, TJ’s) has forced us to learn how to actually cook, which we enjoy immensely. Our large swath of much-less-than-perfect lawn encouraged us to plant a vegetable garden and pumpkin vines which nicely distract the eye from the scourge that is our grass. My fear of being lonely led me to be aggressive (uh, maybe “assertive” is a

CSA Haul or Why We Cook Now

better word) in making friends with other new mothers. Most of our friends in Chicago were our friends and I’ve really enjoyed having my friends. Living so close to the library has sharply reduced the amount of books I buy and having entire reference sections at my disposal has made it much easier to learn how to knit and garden. The astonishing fitness level and slender figures of our friends and neighbors has encouraged me to keep running and eat well.  The ecological conscientiousness of the town has led us (or guilted us, to be entirely honest) into being more responsible about recycling, reusing, etc. Being a nurse at the free clinic has forced me to learn how to take care of adults and discuss condom use or syphilis testing without embarrassment and not have a heart attack when I get a blood pressure of 150/90.

I do miss Chicago. I miss our friends there very much, especially at this time. I miss feeling anonymous and hearing the El. I miss my old job and my wonderful co-workers there. I miss, of all things, the lake. There are 10,000 lakes in Minnesota according to our license plate but none of them are in Northfield. But Northfield is most definitely our home now, lake or not.

Tonight my mother’s group is having a dinner to celebrate almost one year of parenthood. It’s been just under a year since we met at a “Baby and Me” class run through the school district. I remember agonizing over what to wear just before our first meeting and treating it like a first day of (baby) school. The women who I met that day and those who have joined our band over the months have turned into my most valuable resource and one of my greatest joys in Northfield. I am so excited to watch as our kids grow up together and to see whether or not Eleanor will eventially poke somebody’s eye out.

Summer Knees

We have been transitioning nicely into summer hours around here. To start, the end of all my day-to-day academic responsibilities coincided with the start of the World Cup. With the exception of the odd 30 minutes of Lawrence Welk, prior to last week Eleanor had basically never watched TV. In the past week, she has watched more TV (all of it soccer) than in her entire first year of life. And it seems like it is already having a deleterious effect. Now when she stumbles while walking she clutches her face, throws herself to the ground, rolls over three times and starts to cry with a distinct Italian accent. I’ve warned her that if she does it again, she’s getting a yellow.

Em's aunt DJ picked up the angel wings at a garage sale for $.25.

Three-generation walk

Last Sunday we headed a couple of miles south of town to visit the Valley Grove Churches. The two churches and graveyards sit atop a hill (neither in a valley nor a grove) and command beautiful views of the countryside around our town, including a small portion of restored prairie and some magnificent old Oaks. The churchyard has graves from the Civil War, WWI and WWII and is on the National Register of Historic Sites. The churches were built by Norwegian farmers in the mid 19th century. One church is stone and the other is clapboard; they are both white, spare and quite lovely. There are no longer used for regular services but do host a Christmas Eve service that I would love to go to one year.

The site is open year-round. There is no parking lot, no admission booth, no posted set of rules; and on a beautiful, warm and sunny Sunday, no people. It was just us and a pair of excited bluebirds.

This has got all the elements of a great story: a crime committed under the cover of darkness, defacement, anti-government agitation, random capitalization.

Behold the wall of Northfield City Hall from our front door this morning:

What happened? Well, according to local resident-cum-arsonist Mark Allen Cole, when life becomes “overwhelming,” you gather “a jug of gasoline, some paint thinner and pieces of bed sheets” and set your house on fire. Then, for added kicks, you drive to City Hall and light your car on fire to make a vague political point. When you flee the scene however, Northfield’s finest gets you. Luckily, no one was injured as a result of Mark Allen Cole’s life becoming overwhelming.

We were pretty excited. And so was Northield: here is a news clip featuring the event. They interview two local attorneys who took off time from work just to drive to the burned house to check it out. The blond, curly-haired one is our Kim. You can also note that the pan shot to City Hall starts with our house. Fame!

The arson drama was really just an introduction, however, to the main event: my discovery of Northfield News. Northfield News is our local paper which comes out 2 times a week. It’s sold in newsboxes around the neighborhood and usually features headlines about local high school sport triumphs and city council decisions. Clearly, however, it was the place to go for up-to-date information on the fire-setting. Since I have 3 papers due next week, it was also a fertile field for my procrastination.

And so I am very honored to present to you THE MOST BORING NEWS STORY EVER WRITTEN: “One of the world’s oldest barbers died here in ’40.” Yes, folks, one of the world’s oldest barbers died here in Northfield in 1940. As our friend T. pointed out, there must have been quite the backlog of articles to hold back this winner until 2010.

I am also pleased to present THE MOST BORING DRUG BUST EVER: “School search comes up empty” with the lede “Drug-sniffing dogs searching Northfield High School today found nothing illegal.”

There so, so much more. I’ll try to continue to share the very best of Northfield News with you all.

Also, for those of you who haven’t yet seen the proof, Eleanor is crawling:

She crawls! from Daniel Groll on Vimeo.

But we have managed to enjoy this month: we’ve skated, gone cross country skiing, Dan is playing hockey and Eleanor is no longer screaming when we put her in her little red sled. She even cracked a smile in the sled yesterday when Dan was making donuts with her while skating on the ice rink (and afterwards, she fell asleep in his arms while he was skating around and harassing me to learn cross overs). We make a lot of soup and hot chocolate.

February is an exciting month for us: we are going to Chicago and leaving the baby with Lu and Aubrey for 3 days. I have my first papers due and a “Nurse’s Day of Action” in St. Paul. P & V are visiting at the end of the month. I also start working at a local free clinic for the uninsured. We also have this giant 8-month-old who we get to cuddle and carry around and marvel at as she discovers her toys and the world around her and fine tunes her hatred of bearded men.

Behold:

This clip is from a state-wide competition performance and our local channel, sadly, limits us to regionals. However, I can say for certain (from the 3 shows they replay over and over (and that we’ve watched over and over)) the Faribault team is the best. Burnsville is OK; Apple Valley stinks and Lakeville is all right but their JV team is crap. We’ve only seen the Northfielders perform once but they were only so-so. And so, we always cheer for Faribault.

A few weeks ago, I found myself feeling particularly relaxed and perhaps even a touch giddy. I surveyed the obvious reasons — Christmas was on its way; I was a couple weeks into my five week break between terms; the new Eleanor had arrived on the scene, generally making life pleasant and not sleep-deprived. All reasons to be relaxed and giddy, right? But that wasn’t it. And then, one day while walking to school, it hit me: I felt like I was home. I don’t just mean that Northfield was beginning to feel like home, although that is certainly true. Rather, I felt like I was back home in Kingston, Ontario, which is most odd given that everything here is new and we have no family close by. Nonetheless, that was the feeling. I think winter brought it on. I left home when I was 16 to go to boarding school and, since then, I have not lived in a small(ish) town during the winter. I forgot how lovely it can be. The pace and feel of the place during winter just reminds me of what life was like growing up in Kingston. I don’t know how else to put it.

But what made me particularly happy, I think, was the realization that this will be the world Eleanor grows up in. Yesterday, we headed to the local rink to skate. For whatever stupid reason, I imagined the rink would be somewhat substantial given all the interest in hockey around here. But it isn’t: it’s one of those arenas that looks like an oversized tin barn. Small stands, small dressing rooms, a little concession stand. In other words, exactly like the arena I spent a good chunk of my childhood in. It was strange entering that place — new, but so very familiar — as a father. Walking into the dressing room to put on our skates reminded me of my father lacing up my skates (never, ever fast enough for an impatient 8 year-old) and watching me play from the stands. Ellie’s not there…yet (oh yes, she will play hockey). But she had a taste of things to come: after some discussion and the granting of a veto to Emily to call a halt to the whole thing, I laced up my skates, strapped Ellie to my chest and listened to her coos as I circled the rink.

I have also been spending good time outdoors. The park across the street from our house has a skating rink complete with a warming hut. We bought ourselves hockey skates for Christmas this week and have already been out twice. I haven’t skated since I was a kid and can’t actually stop  but it’s plenty fun. We’re also getting exercise by shoveling our sidewalk and driveway every 12 hours as it’s been snowing on and off since yesterday. By Saturday evening, we may have up to 20 inches on the ground. It’s absolutely beautiful.

Between the shoveling, snowing, skating, stockings and cookies, we’re thoroughly enjoying our first Christmastime in Northfield.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

]]> http://thefamilyroll.com/2009/12/christmastime/feed/ 1 http://thefamilyroll.com/2009/12/its-cold-here/ http://thefamilyroll.com/2009/12/its-cold-here/#comments Sat, 19 Dec 2009 03:20:04 +0000 emjcarroll http://thefamilyroll.com/?p=661 When we told people we were moving to Minnesota, their first impulse was to quote from Fargo. Their second impulse was to make some pronouncement about how cold it is in the winter. If they were wrong about Fargo (that’s North Dakota, not Minnesota), they were right about the weather. It’s cold here. Already, we’ve had temperatures that are colder than the coldest days we experienced in Chicago. But we do OK. The house is surprisingly free of drafts for a 90-year-old house. The baby has a space heater and Dan and I have the dog curled up under the blankets at night to keep us warm. For whatever reason, our bedroom is far and away the coldest room in the house. That picture at the right? It’s the frost on the window right next to Daniel’s head. [Daniel's note: That's pretty. Pretty fucking cold]

But the cold hasn’t stopped Eleanor and I from going on our walks. Our neighbors are treated to the grotesque sight of a bulbous, down, two-headed monster ambling down the street: Eleanor, bundled up in her hunting plaid fleece bunting, shoved in the Ergo, zipped underneath my mother-in-law’s down coat with her feet poking out at my hips. It’s not a pretty sight, but it gets us out of the house.

One interesting thing about Minnesota weather is that it’s perfectly acceptable to dwell on it in polite company. Even the indie rock station we routinely listen to has a detailed weather report every hour and MPR has a blog dedicated to talking about the weather to keep listeners sated between live call-in shows dedicated to the topic.

We got up close and personal with MN winter on Tuesday night when the power went out on the coldest night of the year so far (it was below 0 without windchill). A transformer burst around 8.30pm and the power company didn’t anticipate having things back up before 3am. Within 20 minutes of the power going out, the house became cold. It turns out we are ill-prepared for power-outages in sub-zero temperatures. We had candles. Plenty of candles. But no matches. Were it not for this summer’s camping trip, we would have been without a flashlight. With the house’s temperature dropping fast, we woke Eleanor up and decamped (with Belly) to Kim & Jason’s. Luckily, the baby has grown accustomed to traveling: she tolerated the abrupt change of scenery very well and slept soundly in her Pack n’ Play, lulled to sleep by a loop of white noise (pink noise, actually) downloaded by Jason at a moment’s notice.

We returned the next morning when Ellie woke-up and the house has been plenty warm since then. We’ve celebrated Hanukah and, with the purchase of our tree, we’re ready for Granny D‘s arrival on Sunday and Christmas.