Day 16

I made it to church this morning. My grandmother was so eager to get out the door (well in advance of the necessary time) I felt like commenting "It's like Jesus himself is going to be there..." but I didn't think it would be well received. Then I went back to reflect on my catechism / confirmation classes (I had two as it was part of the private school curriculum and my sunday school) Really, if you aren't going to church with the attitude that Jesus himself is going to be there, then you probably don't need to go at all. I mean to say, that's a sign of strong faith to believe in the divine presence in church, but the music and the socializing are additional perks.

Anyway, the tiny (quite picturesque, I'll photo it on a future visit) country church has an incredible pastor who I've enjoyed on family visits to this area previously. She (the pastor) basically the target audience for Kashi foods; a vegetarian, hiker, philosophist, yoga-instructor. She's very much outside the expectations of this church's image but also exactly what they needed, so hey, maybe there is a divine plan.

Anyway, she's smart and creative and a great speaker, so I don't mind getting up to go. And this Sunday she talked about (Simon) Peter's Confession, and how we associate the term "confession" with sins, crimes, etc. However the word means to speak what's on your mind. She did a cool experiment with the congregation where we confessed our thoughts on our weekend in less than a minute to someone we came with. It was interesting to hear how she described the human mind's ability to recollect details as far back as our first memories of self-awareness and then tied it in to Jesus and his disciples walking along. I thought my generation might be slightly better at confessing because we have text messages and social networks and blogs like this one. The "homework" from church was to be more mindful of what we meditate ("chew over", previous week's sermon) on each day so that the things we confess to the world are truly things we value.

For dinner (lunch) my aunt and uncle came and joined us, and brought OMGTASTESSOOGOOD sweet corn from their garden.




Afterwards everyone had hearty naps, it was the right weather and mood for napping around here.

This evening my Grandpa asked if I'd be interested in throwing beanbags. Now, keep in mind, I insist on going down the stairs ahead of him in case he slips, and he's probably lost 100 lbs in the past decade, but bless him anyway, at ninety years old he can still hurl those beanbags with ridiculous accuracy. He beat me all three games 27-15, 21-19, 21-0. I was grateful they have no skunk rule.

Today I harvested: Humility
And petted 0 cats.

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Day 15

Today I mostly hid from labor, because it was a blessed day off. I'll have more of them, interspersed in my week later, but going from unemployed to a full M-F 40 hours is a bit jarring!

My grandparents asked me to come along to customer appreciation day at the local grain elevator. A grain elevator is like the inverse of a gas station, kind of. You harvest your grain from your farm and take it there and they put it into their tanks. (Also you can get paid at the current rate or at the rate you previously locked in at, it's like stock markets that way. Of course there are Gas Banks that lock in prices for gas too, so the strange analogy holds.)



I enjoyed the sliced pork BBQ and the potato salad. There was beer available too, but I decided not to push it. I kind of looked the part, even my Grandmother commented on that point, but you can't just buy a wolf from zoomart and stick it into a random pack. I'm saying I stuck out because it was a small community.

Well, I didn't mind all the "who's that guy" stares because I needed to be along to help my grandparents. They could have gone alone but I worry about their ability to safely be mobile. Ironically I gained a little more acceptance when I literally caught another of the elderly in attendance. There was a guy who turned around to get a napkin and his momentum was more than he could shuffle. I dropped my food and caught him around the shoulders. Apparently he had fallen twice recently and just gotten out of the hospital. They insisted I take extra food or that one, but still the younger farmers showed some fangs under their seed-company ball-caps when I walked past the barrels of beer :D

It's ok Farmers, come October I'll be driving a combine down the cornrows too (hehe, EJ) and then I'll learn to talk about the weather and stick my hands in my pockets properly.



Also, I left my grandparents to socialize while I went on a much needed grocery trip in the town grocery store. While perusing the six aisles I came across something bizarre. They had a very limited inventory but an abundance of uncommon potato chip flavors. I bought Szechuan.





Today I harvested: (More) Local (uncommon) Flavor
And Petted 0 Cats

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Day 14

Work continues to go smoothly. I love the random costumes that stand out to me. There's a ton of merchandise but ultimately it's all about the costumes.



After work my aunt invited me to join her and my uncle at her corporate picnic. He had described it as some inexpensive food and a little concert. She shared that the last time they had thrown one it had included a concert with Cheryl Crow and Rascal Flatts. This year's was not intended to compete with that massive event but it was still very impressive.

The company is called Sanford Health, which has grown from a Sioux Falls hospital into a massive healthcare network in three states. It's really a cool company and my aunt takes a lot of pride in working for them.



The weather looked kind of uncertain and I was very under-dressed for the fast dropping temperatures.




The below picpost is taken from the perspective of about 200 ft in front of the above Sanford corporate building.



So you can see it's kind of BIG. Also, hi Aunt and Uncle!

Well I don't have a lot of fancy words for this part. They had a "Stomp"-like group, a Circus performer troupe, a cover band called Impulse lead by an American Idol finalist (song range ran from Jackson 5, Beatles, Lady Gaga, Bruno Mars, Black Eyed Peas) and finally a country guy with the last name Azar. I guess he writes and produces too, and they had asked him to write a song about the work the Children's Hospital does. It was kind of a neat thing.








The benefactor spoke briefly (Denny Sanford) and he seemed like a warm and genuine man, and the CEO also spoke briefly and he seemed like a CEO. :)


And they closed the evening with some massive fireworks. It was a cool way to welcome the weekend, and in the words of Steven Azar, "I don't have to be me 'til Monday."

Today I harvested: Corporate largess and goodwill

And petted 1 cats.

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Day 13

Work was fairly uneventful today but I did leave a little earlier so that I could join my Grandfather back at the fair in the adjacent county.

He had managed to score tickets to the Demolition Derby. Oh man was this ever fun. They destroyed about 40 cars and 8 pickups. The tickets were a fundraiser for the after-prom party (to discourage teenager-ing after prom) and there were significant cash prizes (I assume provided by sponsors or entry fees) for the top three cars in every category.

I had no problem believing all the hype leading up to this event because people in South Dakota are absolutely terrible drivers.

When I moved to Florida I thought the drivers there were much worse than Virginia, because they were much more aggressive and fast. Now I'm grateful for that training. I've narrowly avoided two accidents myself in these two weeks and two of my co-workers have had minor accidents during their lunches and two others already didn't have their licenses because they'd been suspended.

So if there's one thing I knew I could count on the country boys to do well around here (other than impregnating) it was put massive engines into rusty cars and mash them into each other.

Result!



Basically it was 6-8 cars at a time and the survivors moved on. They were still "in" until they removed their "flag" stick. If their engine died they had 2 minutes to restart it. My phone died before the end but the last two standing at the end of 7 "races" (rounds?) were chasing each other around the disabled other 6 mashed up cars and both of their engines were so beat up that they both died twice and restarted twice. It was hilarious to watch.



After each round the "dead" cars were removed. It was a point of pride if the driver could get it running enough to hobble out on their own power. Sometimes they just needed to be unstuck from another car or the concrete barrier. Then they were eligible to enter the "consolation round" and try for the last spot in the finale (like coming up the loser's bracket)





It was a great night, the storms skirted the fair all evening, and I had some quality time with my 90 year old Granddad. I even tried Chislic (a roasted spiced lamb skewer) and some local homemade ice cream.

Unfortunately bad storms earlier in the day had actually rained and hailed on some trucks that were delivering the finale fireworks so they were cancelled. I mention it because it lead to the most incredible quote of the night as I was walking to get the car.
Young boy to mother (in a church parking lot): "Mom, why aren't there going to be fireworks now?"
"Because of fucking Barack Obama."

Seriously.




Today I harvested: Mayhem!
And petted 0 cats.

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Day 11

Great Places, Great Faces
South Dakota!

So I missed the Sioux Empire Fair because I was working and too tired to go after work, but my grandfather surprised me this evening by asking me to go (take him, really) along to the Parker Fair (Parker is the city's name, about 15 miles southwest of here)(It's actually the Turner County Fair).




I have to say, he's remarkably mobile for a 90 year old. Actually he's remarkably mobile for a 70 year old. (Shame on that tram driver who didn't stop to make room for him in the parking lot!)

We took some time to look at the antique farming equipment on display from the Heritage Museum and he was able to say which year many of the machines debuted. I bet they could fill a small book asking him questions one afternoon. I doubt there's many others in the area who have been involved in farming for the last 76 years or so.

For example he said "I remember (so and so) got one of them Bailers when I was going to catechism school..."

Anyway, where he lead, I followed.


We saw some prize winning pigs..




And Sheep...



And also, of course, cows.





All of which were available in various forms as food for $2-$3.




Anyway, I have to say that it's amazing the children of Turner County grow up at all. Many of them were unsupervised, but others were really sternly parented. I don't know the full stories of course, but I found myself thinking that a DCF case worker would probably lose their self control. I'm saying these folks are bad with their kids one way or another.



Still, there's plenty that are alright I guess, because there were very healthy entries in the 4H bunny competition, and milk goats, and even a pair of dromedary camels although I think they were just there for the other livestock to gossip overtly about, and not a 4H entry.

Today I Harvested: Local Flavor
And petted 1 goats.



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Days 8, 9, and 10

Ok so sometimes I just don't feel like blogging!

It's been a good start to the week. My day off Sunday was pretty nice although I had a cranky attitude all day. I tried to shake it but I think I just needed to be sour a bit, like a shoot of rhubarb.

The employees at my store are a really diverse bunch (for the region) but they all have some things in common, namely that they were unemployed and have pressing needs for the money. It's interesting to hear more about personal backgrounds as we work. I really feel like this is going to be like living in Empire Records except I hope none of them are struggling with drugs and we're selling Ninja Turtle suits instead of Nirvana and The Roots.

Anyway, things are pretty good. I was frustrated after work today because I couldn't find shoes or a dress shirt in my size that I liked, but it's a big back to school rush right now so the same casual and semi-conservative clothes I'm looking for are being snatched up by harried mothers.

I couldn't find the grocery store after my stop at the mall today. I just got too turned around and eventually went home. I heard there's a demolition derby (maybe) tomorrow night in Parker, but was also told it's likely to be sold out. If I had any energy left at the end of the day(one of the reasons I was shopping for comfortable shoes), this would be the kind of ideal local flavor to be taking in. There's also a $3 theater by my store, so I'm thinking I might catch Green Lantern in the next week.

Sunday I Harvested: Serenity



And petted 5 cats! (Monday)

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Day 7

Hello from Blogspot! I finally tracked down my new year's resolution blog, and since it was so cleverly titled amgrowing I have decided to keep it. I also purchased (relatively inexpensive) a blog app that will let me upload my pictures into posts directly. I hope to bring over days 1-6 in a later post, and if I can, postdate it to appear before this one. Also, I may be setup to double tweet posts, if so I'll try to fix that as soon as I can.

Yesterday I got to talk with a few friends and friendly voices and it was nice. I took a little walk because it was absolutely beautiful weather and there were hundreds of canadian geese roosting in a nearby field.



One of my friends asked how I felt about South Dakota (the 3rd best Dakota according to him). I said that the weather is beautiful, the rolling hills are covered in emerald green corn stalks under crystal clear blue skies harboring cool breezes and bright sunshine. I said the people here are friendly and helpful, honest, hard working, grounded, and more attractive on average. I said the food has been plentiful and filling and it's been exciting to harvest in vegetables to eat daily. But I also said that my friends aren't here to enjoy it all with me, which means that South Dakota sucks.

My cousin who lives here says that it has a lot of things wrong with it, I think this state has a lot more right than wrong but it still isn't the fit for me. There may be some neighbors that are similar and a better fit, but for now it's close enough.

I started the day with a bang. Well, someone started my day with a bang, at least. Those geese I mentioned? Open season started at dawn and my uncle had given permission to about a dozen different hunters so the peace of sleeping with an open window (cool breezes, remember!) was completely disrupted by the opening salvos of machismo around 6am. I closed my window and tried to doze through the gunshots (think strand of firecrackers, they must have been terrible shots or hunting for bulk). I did have work today but it really wasn't bad. Monday will be very tough. After work I treated myself to some Milky Way (Like a Dairy Queen) that reminded me of a friend that use to live in the apartments behind the ice cream stand and now lives in Shanghai.

The differences between a trip and moving tend to involve paying rent, getting groceries, and doing laundry. Well I went to the laundromat today and washed all the clothes from the past week. I could probably push it to two weeks without rewiring anything but I figured I'd feel better this way, and I do. The laundromat my aunt recommended was super clean and fast and I'm really happy with the results, and the price. So yeah, it's starting to be less of a trip. I also bought a floor fan (moar breezes!) mainly to help with background noise for better sleep. I'm looking forward to my first day off tomorrow (sorry churchgoers, I do need the sleep. Shush, I needed to stay up late blogging too. Needs.) but I'm fairly certain there were at least two pickups and tents still in the field at sunset tonight so I might make church after all.

Today I Harvested: Kittens!
And petted 7! Cats :)



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