Lake Harriet

Things to see at Lake Harriet on a Thursday night:

a giant green caterpillar with red stripes and a green horn, two tiny baby squirrels the size of my thumb smushed on the walking path, a gorgeous tree with grooves in its bark inches deep, old couples riding side-by-side bikes, crazily well-dressed eccentric men riding bicycles to the string trio concert in the bandshell, middle school girls making up dances to the concert music, joggers everywhere, lots of cellulite, poor choices in the sock/shoe department, too much spandex, too much manflesh...

Sometimes all I have to cling to is the hope that the Midwest is the embodiment of people being themselves.

tiny little things

Jon's toothbrush has a head that can be replaced. Maybe if my teeth weren't so holy I could say the same for myself. I use an electric. I have to make up ground elsewhere. Sometimes I go to the bathroom with the lights off to settle the score.


Jon also buys these biodegradable sponges. They drive me bonkers, but I do feel a small sense of satisfaction watching them visibly deteriorate before my eyes.

There is a mindset that little things don't make a big enough difference to save the world. I can understand the instinct. Sometimes I fill a canvas bag with groceries and think how futile the act is, in and of itself. It is small and insignificant. But imagine the truckload of bags delivered to the grocery store every week. Imagine that truckload being rendered obsolete by the simple act of people bringing their own bags to the store with them. Imagine the factories that make the billions of bags we mindlessly use every year being shut down. We are conditioned to think of factories shutting down as a bad thing. We are conditioned to think of a lot of things. The biggest danger that we face today is allowing ourselves to be conditioned to think a certain way. My challenge to you is this- think of one thing you do every day. Brush your teeth, wash your hair, shop for groceries, go to work. Anything. Take that one thing and try to do it in such a way that it does less harm. For example, think of washing your hair. Use an earth-friendly shampoo. Wash your hair every other day instead of daily. Turn the water off while you scrub your head. Use your towel for a week before washing it. Refill your shampoo bottle from a bulk container at a neighborhood co-op. Those are 5 ways to wash your hair in a way that does less harm. 5 ways to better one very simple act. And I am by no means an expert. Some of these changes are harder to make than others. Everyone needs to find changes that work for them. It doesn't help to think of these changes as a punishment doled out to us now that the world is falling to shit. Lifestyle is a choice. Be empowered by it.

meth mouth

This is one of my sister's favorite nicknames for me.

I have a tooth fixation that is disabling. I spend almost one hour of every day running my tongue over various imperfections in my teeth, believing them to be even more imperfect than the day before and believing further that a thorough excavation of my whole mouth via my own tongue will reveal whether or not this is true. Every day I convince myself that I am one day closer to placing my hand to my mouth and having it inadvertently filled with teeth. When I visit the dentist, I limit the number of questions I allow myself to ask her. I am fairly certain that asking as many questions as occur to me would lead to a direct referral to a therapist. If any percentage of people feel like I do about their teeth, dentists would be well-advised to partner with therapists. Tooth anxiety is like most other anxieties in that it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. I worry about my teeth a lot, hence I grind them when I sleep, hence they wear down and fillings pop out, hence I have even more reasons to worry about my teeth a lot... Kind of like social anxiety- you worry about people laughing at you all the time, hence you avoid social situations, hence you become totally socially inept, hence people laugh at you all the time. Also like financial anxiety- you worry about your financial stability, hence you act out by buying expensive stuff you don't need to prove your ability to do so, hence you have no financial stability. Also like mold anxiety. If you worry about finding mold everywhere...you know the routine. This works for spiders, too.

Today part of one of my fillings went m.i.a. It didn't just chip off or fall out. A perfect hole appeared in it, as if it had been drilled through by my worried little tongue. It was right after a gas station pit stop in which I had returned a V-8 Spicy Hot veggie drink to the cooler in favor of a yellow cupcake-flavored cappuccino drink. Like some higher power had sent a carefully aimed mini-bolt of lightning straight into my molar to teach me a lesson in not drinking synthetic vended beverages from styrofoam containers. I've spent most of the day since then trying to trace the root of my teeth issues to eating too many carrots. I guess it makes me feel less guilty about an entire college career spent drinking diet mountain dew in the wee hours of the morning until I fell asleep on spiral bound notebooks. Not to mention six months spent in Ireland with a complete lack of fluoridated water. Months in which, coincidentally, I rarely went anywhere without a piece of candy burning a hole in my pocket. (pocket = tooth)

I love my sister for many reasons. Just when I start getting all out of mind about a piece of missing fake tooth, she reminds me that things could be so much worse. I could have a whole mouth full of twisted, sponge-a-lin, darkly hued teeth that share the uncanny ability of silly putty to take on the shape of whatever last came in contact with them.
I am meth mouth- see me smile.

On that note, please check out a truly entertaining blog. Saipua. This blog is the handi-work of the owner of a soap shop by the same name in Red Hook Brooklyn. Check out the blog. If I spent as much time on Sarah's blog as I do prodding my teeth every day- I would be a much happier person. Jon and I have a cameo on the toothy photo ending her 2/27 entry. Warning: totally graphic

potato salad champion

When I think of the Fourth of July, I think potato salad. I also think fireworks, but as I am nowhere near winning a firework building contest between me and my two sisters- I hardly think it worth mentioning. I won a potato salad improv contest held at the Polzin house last weekend. It wasn't a premeditated event. It was prompted by an extremely mayo-friendly batch of potato salad that mom whipped up to the tune of about 50 servings. Jessica could not palate it. She also could not keep that fact to herself. We all agreed that it probably couldn't hurt to adulterate it and hope for the best. So I suggested a contest. Ballsy, to say the least- given that I cannot hold a candle to my sisters' work in the kitchen. The rules were simple. Add anything you can find in the kitchen. Rinsing off the existing mayo and adding more potatoes were not allowed. I didn't stand a chance with a strategy of culinary integrity. I had no choice but to take the route of complete irreverence and hope for the best. Here is my winning recipe. It sounds disgusting, but is surprisingly good.

8 servings potato salad w/ heavy mayo
add the following to taste:
Famous Dave's BBQ sauce
curry powder
chili powder
apple cider vinegar
salt and pepper
craisins, roughly chopped
garnish with toasted, salted walnuts


Jessica added a lot of vinegar, several varieties of olives, fennel seed, salt and pepper, wilted spinach (intentionally so), green pepper and a wealth of other stuff


Jamie added sweet corn, chili beans, chili powder, salt and pepper, etc. The edible flowers were a nice touch.


Hey, babes- we're all winners. (but there's only one champion)

baby time!

My sister has taken on a new role over the weekend. The role of mare. My aunt's horse died, leaving its two-day-old baby foal orphaned. The situation is a desperate one. No one who knows horses would claim otherwise. It is not rare for a baby horse in these circumstances to lack the will to live or to encounter complications that otherwise endanger its life. But, lucky for all, Jamie had just arrived in Black River Falls to spend five weeks on the homefront. Both Mom and Jamie are job-free for the rest of the summer and theoretically capable of waking up every two hours to bottle-feed an infant horse. Mom says that raising a baby horse in such a manner is actually more labor-intensive than raising a baby. Mom comes from the 'raise yourself' school of child rearing, so this is not an exaggeration. Jamie and the horse have thoroughly bonded.


It would appear that Jamie has given the baby horse reason to live.

mall of america

I fell off the face of the earth briefly (i.e. went to MOA and it took me this long to reassimilate). Actually, I had a very down to earth experience at the Mall of America. My relationship with the mall is this: I hate myself for loving it. I love it because I always leave before I feel satiated. I have never once gotten my fill of the Mall of America. I should just commit to spending a whole afternoon there some day so that I will get the whole thing out of my system. I am never disappointed by the mall. I'm not deluded. I know there is going to be mediocre food for high prices and kids screaming in toyland and that 90% of the shops are an insult to humanity. There will be hoochies and ho-bags and posers and delinquents and mall rats and mall chicks and 300-lb women further encumbered by their unnecessary purchases. The only stores I can afford to shop in will be ankle deep in clothing that no one bothered to pick up off the floor. The frozen yogurt I treat myself to stands a 50/50 chance of tasting more like plastic explosives than any distinguishable flavor. But I accept all of this. I surrender to it.

We had an hour and a half to shop before close. Have you ever walked into a Forever 21 store at this hour? The place is in bad shape. 1/2 the merchandise has footprints on it. The key is to realize that you are not going to leave with your dignity intact. After which it is surprisingly easy to lose yourself in the fruits of so much East Asian child labor. I guess this blog is making me feel bad, so here is a budget outline to keep you super frugal.

light rail pass: $1.50 each way (non-peak)
boca burger at Johnny Rockets: $4.99
frozen yogurt: $2.69 for smallest size
child labor dress: $22.80

$35 dollars per person and you are all set to rock out summer in your new dress. And you can do it again next year because your dress will be broken by then.

lake calhoun holiday

This excursion is best if you can play hooky. If you wake up feeling like work might not be such a good idea (no need to explain yourself), you're a prime candidate for lake therapy. I should warn you- this therapy ends with a fish taco and slush puppie, so if you are not faking it- just go to work. As for hooky, I recommend a jaunt around the lake via whatever means presents itself. You've got all day, so why not stroll? It facilitates staring. I promise you that there will be occasions when you want to stop and stare at people around you. Say, for instance, when you happen across the tannest man ever to exist above 35 degrees N latitude. I could give you a detailed description, as he is almost always 90% nude and posing for an abdominal count, but that will not be necessary. When you see this man, you will think to yourself 'that is the tannest man I've ever seen.' You will be wrong. There are plenty of guys that tan below 35 degrees N latitude, but you get the point. Other things you may have to pause for reflection on: any puppy- even if some bitch is walking it (dog term, totally cool), muscled out guys playing volleyball, baby turtles, topless girls thinking they don't count because they are lying facedown (hey babe, still topless, so I will stare at you until you feel uncomfortable), anyone who falls down trying to do something ballsy, kids way out of control in front of their passive parents, bikers in the walk lane, people getting in a fight, anyone severely burned by the sun, windsurfers, etc. The lake is a three-mile circuit, so you'll work up an appetite. I do not suggest doing laps, as this will put your appetite way out of the cheap adventure range. There is a snack stand on the north end of Calhoun that sells hotdogs and cotton candy. Better to save yourself for The Tin Fish. Just look at the line.

(oops, I forgot I zoomed in to eavesdrop on these guys. He was saying "we always used to go sledding at that hill, until we found a bunch of dead hookers there." WHAT HILL? Eavesdropping such a tease)

Anyway, lots of fishy foods. I've only ever had a mahi taco. Delicious. But I've stared at a lot of people who all seemed to really enjoy a wide variety of other things. Here's a vague idea of what they have to offer. Vague, as in blurry.

So while I cannot quote an exact cost on this adventure, I would say $9 will get you far. Technically, right back to where you started.