Working at Home

Catherine's Compactor isn't supposed to be so literal, but today work and family is especially mashed up.

The school district canceled school because they didn't know if the buses could navigate through all the snow the blizzard dropped. That was a surprise--their usual MO is to let the buses get stuck in snowbanks and have the kids push them out. No, no, I'm SLIGHTLY exaggerating. 

The kids came to the office with me for a few hours while I did my can't-do-it-from-home media work. But now we're all  at home, on 'screen time.' I'm working. My son's playing a violent video game. My daughter is on Google chat, the Skype-like version, so she is giving her friend who lives in a beautiful home a visual tour of our messy 80s split-entry.

We Came, We Sawed

We don't get out there every year, but I like to call cutting our own tree at Hansen's Tree Farm in Ramsey, Minnesota, a family tradition.

Dave Hansen is a colleague of mine, and it's fun to see co-workers in another environment. Dave's a pretty happy guy at the office, but in the zero-degree temps surrounded by balsam firs and blue spruce, he simply radiated good cheer.

Hot cider and Christmas sausage around the bonfire while Dave's nephew gave our tree a good "shake and bale"--Good cheer indeed.

The Unfinished Project

My husband usually plans house projects in the winter, expecting to do them in the spring so come summer our family can enjoy them (like this deck). But spring beguiles, and summer is precious. This year, he roasted in the late-August sun, unsuccessfully trying to “do the deck” before winter. 

Some projects do get completed on time, and I’m grateful when they do. I’ve heard Ernest Hemingway was at his most depressed when he’d finished a novel. I understand: it’s the loss of the challenge and the unknown answer to the question: “What next?” 

The solitude of the writer’s life can be like that, but it’s not so on a work team, or with a family. The answer to “What’s next?” is “Plenty—check the calendar.” 

There’s a Hopi proverb that says “One finger can’t lift a pebble.” My work team has lifted a few boulders in 2010 (and so has my family), but I’m sure we’ll leave a few incomplete. The New Year wouldn’t be the same without the challenge of some unfinished projects.

Hmong Village

I bought these pretty fabric ribbons at the "Hmong Village," a mall on Johnson Parkway in St. Paul's Eastside neighborhood. Who knows what I'll do with them. I'd gone to the place after a sick-day-at-work (does anyone stay home with a cold anymore?). I needed a big bowl of Pho.

My family likes the Hmong Village for the produce market (lemongrass, live mushrooms, herbal teas that look like sticks), the friendly store vendors (about 200 of them), and the 17 food stands. My daughter also likes that there's enough costume jewelry there to put Claire's to shame.

This mall just opened six weeks ago and it's always packed. I have the feeling that more non-Hmong will soon discover the colorful energy of this school-admin building turned urban community mall.