a high school horror movie story.

When I was in high school, I thought I was quite the creative individual. I was a clarinet-playing, oral interpretation-performing/judging, alto-singing/lip-syncing, play-writing, constant photograph-taking dork who was known to dabble in acting (but only when the role was AWESOME, a la Wayne from Wayne’s World).

If you were paying attention, you’d notice that I included play-writing in my laundry list of artsy activities. When I was a junior, my friend Allison and I were recruited to write the spring one-act play. The one-act alternates between drama and comedy, and this was a drama year. The subject? A bullied high school kid takes his classmates hostage. Kind of a downer, but for a couple of 16-year-olds, I think we did just fine. The following spring, we were once again called upon to write the one-act. This time, it was a comedy about high school students who inexplicably find themselves drawn to sing. Allison was in charge of music and lyrics, and my friend Bob and I took on the script. We called it High School: the Musical. What’s especially notable is that we wrote and performed this play in 2005: an entire year before Disney and its High School Musical. Coincidence? Hmm…

So anyway, remember that business about script-writing. We’ll come back to it shortly.

Not too far from my parents’ house is a little abandoned house at the end of a quarter-mile-long driveway. As a young bachelor, my dad lived in that house with a friend of his. When my parents were first married, they lived in that house. After I was born, they brought me home to that house.

The house then...

We moved out in 1989, and the house has gone way downhill in the meantime. I’m not sure what happened to it between 1989 and 2001 (or so), but that year, a bunch of graduating seniors decided to fix it up and make it their summertime party house. It was still a pit, and it was aptly nicknamed “the Hole.”

...and now.

If that house wasn’t obliterated by the time those Arlington alumni moved in, it certainly was when they moved out. It’s really kind of sad. Before it became the Hole, I used to walk there and explore the empty rooms: one of them still had the ABC wallpaper my grandpa Harvey put up for me when I was a baby.

This fantastic wallpaper was also around.

Ever since that summer, the house has sat empty. Raccoons and birds made themselves at home inside, and the weeds took over the yard. My summertime strolls became less frequent as the grass grew higher and the door more obscured. Besides, I wasn’t too keen on meeting an angry raccoon inside, should I even make it that far.

It wasn’t until the spring of 2005 that my friends and I rediscovered that old house. It began when my friend Bob and I began taking portraits/glamour shots of each other. Say what you want, but it was cheap fun – Bob even ended up using a couple of them as senior pictures. Anyway, we were always on the lookout for new and exciting backgrounds, as there were only so many pictures that could be taken in my yard. Since the weather was downright pleasant, I suggested we pay a visit to that old house. Nothing says “artistic portraiture” like abandoned houses, right?

Bob and I took our first trip over there, took some artsy pictures, and promptly became infested with ticks. Bob, who had never been there before, made an off-handed comment about how it would be the perfect setting for a horror movie. Our respective lightbulbs came on simultaneously. With a perfectly creepy abandoned house at our disposal, why WOULDN’T we make our own horror movie?!

Complete with creepy barn!

Of course, we wanted all of our friends to be in it, so we created our characters accordingly. Our characters, for the most part, were thinly-veiled versions of their real-life counterparts. Bob’s and my core group of friends (Sarah, Meagan, and Tiffany) were all willing participants. Through the years, they had become used to – maybe even fond of? – our many harebrained ideas. To fill the remaining roles, Bob recruited a couple of theatrically-inclined individuals from our high school. Our cast was complete.

After we had assembled our cast, we needed – surprise! – a script. But to write a script, you usually need a plot. Pff, minor details. Bob and I cobbled together what could loosely be construed as a plot: a bunch of dumb kids go on a road trip, get lost, spend the night at an abandoned house, and one, by one, get killed off by someone/thing mysterious and unseen. Of course, the survivors become distrustful, blaming one another for the demise of their friends. If this story sounds familiar to you, that’s because it is: it’s the same plotline of countless crappy horror movies the world over. Bob and I didn’t mind, though: it was OUR movie, therefore it would be a work of genius.

While we hashed out the script, we assigned the movie jobs. The two of us, of course, would be the directors. Bob was responsible for all the creative stuff (set design, costume design), while I was in charge of procuring props (”executive producer”) and creating the soundtrack. However, we did need all hands on deck for the most daunting task of all: cleaning up that pit of a house.

The only word even comes close to describing the condition of that house is “squalor.” A layer of filth coated absolutely everything, and the carpet was hidden under a layer of animal dung. Obviously, it reeked to high heaven. No one in their right mind would stay at this house if they were lost, not even our less-than-intelligent movie alter-egos. We needed to make this house somewhat presentable, and it was going to take a hell of a lot of elbow grease.

I can’t tell you how many hours we spent cleaning that house. We ripped up the carpet and we scrubbed the counters. We removed the leftover junk from its days as a party house, and we used up countless bottles of Febreze to make the air less toxic. Many summer days and many pairs of rubber gloves later, our house had reached the point of “eh, good enough.”

After the house was clean-ish, we needed to figure out how to make this house seem like it had been occupied in the recent past. Two major obstacles stood in our way: a lack of furniture and an abundance of tall grass obstructing the door (and entire yard). My parents, God bless them, are the two most supportive human beings on the planet. Mom scouted Goodwill for cheap furniture, providing us with a small table and a couple of wall hangings. Dad attached his industrial-sized mower to the back of his tractor and obliterated the tall grass. When Bob and I located a cheap recliner at Goodwill, Dad even allowed us the use of his pickup to bring it home.

With the furniture in place and the grass mowed, there were a few finishing touches to be made. Bob and I added scores of tea-lights (the house, of course, had no electricity), plus some coloring pages taped on the upstairs walls (we thought this would amp up the creep factor). Our interior set was more or less complete.

A great deal of the movie was slated to take place outside. With its run-down barn and various collapsed structures, the surrounding property was inherently creepy. There were bones scattered about from the livestock that had once roamed the area, and there was even a broken-down ice cream truck painted to look like the Mystery Machine. It really was the perfect place for a horror movie.

With our script finished, our house furnished, and the outdoors thoroughly scouted for locations, it was finally time to begin shooting. Just kidding – it was time for publicity shots! Yes, I photographed each cast member (except for Meagan, as she was supposed to be the mysterious stranger/killer) because we thought we needed publicity shots. 

We tried to look serious and sad. We mostly
ended up looking goofy.

I put together the soundtrack and burned copies for each cast member. Bob created torn-up t-shirts (each torn up differently, of course) for every character, and he worked on producing a black shroud-like thing for our mystery killer. We even gave it a title: Gravel. (For a while, the working title was The Bunny, as Tiffany had been startled by a rabbit hiding in the bushes one day. We were looking for a scary title, and Tiffany said, “I think we should call it The Bunny because that bunny was TERRIFYING!”). In short, we did everything BUT film.

You may be wondering if we, in fact, did any filming at all. We sure did: we filmed exactly one time. Bob’s parents were kind enough to grant us the use of their video camera, so a good portion of our one filming day was spent trying to figure out how to use it. In our day of filming, we didn’t even make it through the opening scene. We were awfully proud of that scene: everyone is getting ready for this trip, and each shot of each person has a.) a different background song and b.) some semi-clever way of working in the credits. For example, one of the characters is eating cereal, and the text on the back of the cereal box announces who the set designer was. Bob and I had managed to get all the props put together that would make up the credits, but our planning was flawed (as always). Only four of us were available to film that day, for one thing. Another glaring problem: we had no editing software of any kind, so we had to film in sequence. Plus, our “film soundtrack” consisted of playing the designated song loudly in the background of the scene and hoping it was picked up by the camera.

You will probably not be surprised to hear that our grand film was never completed. For one thing, when you have seven cast members between the ages of 16 and 18, scheduling can become a problem. Between the seven of us, there were at least eleven part-time jobs, not to mention summer camps, family gatherings, and five of us getting ready to head for college in the fall. It’s damn near impossible to squeeze movie filming in amongst all that, and none of us wanted to give up any of the fun summer stuff. Plus, we simply ran out of time. Bob and I didn’t get our bright idea until April, which only really gave us until August to finish our film. There were just way too many things standing in our way. Luckily, lack of ambition wasn’t one of them.

That was the summer after my senior year of high school, so effectively, it was the last summer of my childhood. Even though our movie never came to fruition, I am so glad we spent the summer trying to make it happen. What better way to spend your last childhood summer than with your best friends, working on something that you believe tirelessly in but is totally unrealistic? I couldn’t have asked for a better summer.

let's talk about my Jesus freak dentist.

Excuse me for stating the obvious, but not too many people look forward to going to the dentist. With the scraping and the violent flossing and the potential for drilling, it’s no walk in the park. I dreaded the dentist more than the average patient, but not because of the actual dentistry. You see, after my dentist was done with my teeth, he would try to save my soul.

When I was a kid, I didn’t mind going to the dentist. My teeth were always cavity-free, and I got some really sweet prizes out of the toy drawer. 

Pictured: a sweet prize. Dentist prizes were so much
better in the early 90s, am I right?

It wasn’t until my parents heard the dreaded words “Calla needs braces” that the dentist’s office became a place of trepidation.

There’s really no way that I could’ve gotten around having braces. My teeth were pointing every which way, and there were too many of them crammed in my small mouth. 

You can't see the full magnitude of my crazy
teeth in this picture, but it's the best I can do.
Try to ignore my stylin' lime green overalls.

Mom and I consulted with a number of orthodontists, and Mom finally decided on one in particular because he was the only one who would not pull any of my teeth.

This orthodontist seemed pretty normal at first, despite his insistence that we call him by his professional title and his first name. (Would you want to receive dental care from me if I went by Dr Calla? I didn’t think so.) For the purpose of this story, I will refer to him as Dr Jesusfreak. You’ll find out why in just a few short paragraphs.

I started going to Dr Jesusfreak when I was in the fourth grade, so I would’ve been ten years old. We got along fine: he was very friendly, and he seemed legitimately interested in what I had learned at school that day or what I had done over the weekend. Dr Jesusfreak also would reassure me that all the painful contraptions associated with my braces would ultimately pay off. 

I had glasses, braces, and a perm all at
once. Life was tough for a little while.

I trusted him through metal spacers (gadgets that were cemented on the top and bottom of my mouth and cranked every so often to expand my mouth and make room for my teeth) and a weird operation where part of my gum was removed to expose an adult tooth that was refusing to grow in –a bracket then was attached to the stubborn tooth along with rubber bands attached to the braces on the rest of my teeth, which eventually dragged the tooth into place. Gross, huh?

Anyway, Dr Jesusfreak knew what he was doing, and I was totally ok putting the fate of my smile into his hands. I actually looked forward to going to my biweekly (yes, biweekly) orthodontic appointments just so I could chat it up with Dr Jesusfreak. Until one July day, that is.

I don’t remember exactly where this particular visit falls in my Dr Jesusfreak timeline, but if I had to guess, I’d say it was about a year after I started going to him. So let’s say that I’m about eleven years old. I had gone in for a routine visit: make sure everything’s ok, change the colors of the little bands on my braces, a quick check-in from Dr Jesusfreak. In and out, right? Not this time.

Dr Jesusfreak came in and greeted me with a handshake, as always. He had some guy with him – I’m not sure who he was, but he had scrubs on and looked incredibly uncomfortable. After Dr Jesusfreak inspected my mouth, he said, “Is it ok if I come back and talk to you in a little bit?” I said yes: you can’t say no to the dentist, can you? As the hygienist fitted me with new colorful rubber bands, I worried. Hadn’t been flossing properly? What if I had been using the wrong kind of toothpaste? I hated to disappoint Dr Jesusfreak, so I waited anxiously for him to come back.

When he did finally come back, Dr Jesusfreak pulled up his little stool next to my dental chair, and the uncomfortable scrubs guy sat behind him. “Calla, I’d like to talk to you about Jesus Christ,” said Dr Jesusfreak. I just stared at him: that was not at all what I had expected. Dr Jesusfreak asked me if I had accepted Jesus as my savior, because if I hadn’t, my soul wasn’t saved yet. And I wanted to go to heaven, didn’t I? I nodded dumbly. Well, then, I would need to accept Jesus as my savior. Did I? Again, I nodded. Dr Jesusfreak was positively ecstatic. He asked me to pray with him. Still not believing that this was actually happening, I bowed my head to pray with the dentist (but not before sneaking a glance at the scrubs guy – he looked like he’d really rather be someplace else).

After Dr Jesusfreak’s prayer, he produced a teeny tiny Bible bound in green faux-leather. In the back was a page saying something like “I accept Jesus as my Lord and Savior, etc” with a blank spot for my name the date. Dr Jesusfreak had me sign the Bible and congratulated me on gaining acceptance into God’s kingdom. I left the dentist’s office that day feeling awfully weird about what had just happened.

I wondered why Dr Jesusfreak felt the need to “save” me. Was there something about me that suggested an eternity in hell? I was too flabbergasted to tell him that I was a regular Sunday School attendee, so he didn’t need to tell me Jesus. Way ahead of you, Dr Jesusfreak. 

After that appointment, though, a lot of things made sense. Dr Jesusfreak consistently entered the exam room singing hymns, and he would say things like “Praise the Lord for such a beautiful day!” He had asked me what church I attended (“Ah, Lutherans are good people”), and his waiting room was filled with Jesus magazines. Just what, I wondered, had I gotten myself into?

At my next appointment, I was on edge. Dr Jesusfreak didn’t bring up our last conversation, and neither did I. It wasn’t too long after that, though, that Dr Jesusfreak appeared on the sidewalk outside of my school: as it turns out, he was a Gideon, and he was handing out Bibles. I quickly ducked the other way, hissing to my friends that IT’S MY DENTIST QUICK GO THE OTHER WAY DON’T LOOK BACK PLEASE HURRY. Of course, I then had to explain why I fled from my dentist. I related the soul-saving story, and everyone agreed that’s an awfully strange thing to happen at the dentist’s office.

As the years went by, Dr Jesusfreak continued in his churchy ways. He once asked me how often I prayed. My braces finally came off when I was fourteen, and Dr Jesusfreak would comment on “how great it was that God gave [me] such a beautiful smile.” 

For reference: my smile post-braces,
circa 2005. As much as I bitched
about the braces (and the dentist),
I guess they were worth it in the end.

I found it difficult not to tell him that my God-given smile contained many crooked teeth and my new smile was a result of modern medicine – as the very doctor who slapped the braces on my teeth, shouldn’t he know that? However, I wisely kept my mouth shut – I couldn’t have given him my snarky answer if I wanted to, as Dr Jesusfreak had a tendency to conduct most if his conversations with my mouth full of dental instruments.

Over the years, my visits to Dr Jesusfreak became fewer and farther between. After I got my braces off, my appointments went from every two or three weeks to once a month, and then after he was satisfied that my teeth weren’t going to revert to their crooked formation, Dr Jesusfreak lowered his requirements to every six months. Finally, I was told that once a year for a run-of-the-mill cleaning would do just fine.

I continued to go to Dr Jesusfreak for my yearly visits all through high school and college (thanks to me being able to stay on my parents’ insurance), and everything was fine and dandy. Dr Jesusfreak continued to praise God for my complete lack of cavities, and, after seeing this guy for more than a decade, I learned that the best thing to do was just smile and nod.

Now that I’m a bona-fide adult with my very own dental insurance (!!!), I need to find my own dentist. I’ve been to a couple of dentists in the random places I’ve lived, and none of them have asked me how I feel about Jesus. I hope I have this kind of luck when I pick out a Sioux Falls dentist: Jesus seems like a cool guy and all, so I don’t think He would mind if my dentist and I talk about something else for a change.

happy anniversary!

Guess what today is?

If you guessed October 10^th, you’d be right. If you guessed that it’s the one-year anniversary of this blog, you’d be extra-right. Sure enough, it was one year ago today that I sat in a Caribou Coffee shop on Minnesota Avenue and wrote my very first entry.

When I wrote that first post, I was almost a month into my job with the state government. I had just settled into my Sioux Falls apartment after three weeks of commuting from Brookings (one hour each way) or Ellsworth (one hour each way). I was internet-less until CenturyLink sent me a router, hence sitting at the coffee shop. I was also super poor from driving 100 or more miles per day with a car that got mediocre gas mileage, so my three dollar latte was kind of a splurge. On the upside, I was enjoying my first paid holiday EVER: it was Columbus/Native American/whatever you want to call it Day, and I had the day off. I’d never held a job that offered paid holidays before, so this was something new and, let’s face it, totally awesome.

Let me tell you, a whole hell of a lot has happened in this last year. Three major things stick out: a new job, an engagement, and a new car. In February, I exchanged my state government job for a job at the public library. My library job is nothing like I expected it to be, but let me tell you, no two days are the same. There’s definitely something that can be said for that. And who doesn’t want to be surrounded by books all day? Score. Plus, my degrees are in English and Art History, so at least I can say that I’m sort of doing what I went to school for, right? Right?

In June, my college boyfriend James asked me to marry him: easily the highlight of my year. 

James knew me well enough to skip anything that could be construed as a romantic proposal and instead proposed to me in Dinosaur Park in Rapid City.

The stegosaurus loved my engagement ring.

 The next day, we pet baby alligators and went down an alpine slide. I couldn’t have asked for anything more.

After years of lusting over the redesigned Ford Fusions, I finally put my money where my mouth is and got one of my own. With the help of my dad, we found a spectacular deal on a six-speed manual in Nebraska. I even successfully negotiated the price – I was so proud of myself.

Hello, gorgeous.

This last year hasn’t been all milk and honey, but it really has been a good year. Thinking back, the worst thing that’s happened to me since last October was probably when I passed out on the sidewalk after giving blood. If that’s the worst thing to happen to me in one year’s time, then I think I’m doing pretty well.

In that inaugural post one year ago today, I did a little whining about coming to live in Sioux Falls. I had come from Minneapolis, and I was worried about living in a town with a relatively teeny population: Sioux Falls, the largest city in South Dakota, has around 225,000 people in its “metro” area, while the Minneapolis/St Paul area (and all their suburbs) boasts more than three million. The verdict after one year: I miss Minneapolis like crazy, but Sioux Falls isn’t as bad as I thought it would be.

The arts and culture scene Sioux Falls doesn’t hold a candle to Minneapolis, but Sioux Falls does what it can. I went to Germanfest and the Sidewalk Arts Festival on the same September weekend, and the Festival of the Bands (a marching band competition – AWESOME) was just this past Saturday. I’d be a lot more satisfied with the activities in Sioux Falls if I had the good sense not to listen to MPR or flip through the Minnesota Monthly magazines at the library. Then, I wouldn’t even know what I was missing in the Twin Cities – like the Internet Cat Festival at the Walker Art Museum in August (yes, that’s a thing). Woe is me.

My Sioux Falls apartment is much nicer than my Minneapolis apartment – it’s cheaper, more spacious, and hasn’t suffered a single centipede invasion. However, the location of my Minneapolis apartment is hard to beat: it took me ten minutes to walk to the Nicollet Mall, and from there, all of downtown was at my fingertips. Walking in the opposite direction would take me to Uptown and the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, and if I headed west, I could spend a day in the Sculpture Garden or in Loring Park. Sioux Falls is quite a change from the hours I used to spend exploring Minneapolis by foot. The Japanese Sculpture Garden is within walking distance, but other than that, my options are mostly sleazy bars or fast food restaurants.

I know I’ve been grumbling about Sioux Falls so far, but it really does have all sorts of hidden benefits. First of all, everything is so much cheaper in Sioux Falls! Gas is always less expensive here, and parking is cheap, if not downright free. If you go out in Sioux Falls, you’ll pay less for your drinks, and you won’t have to wait nearly as long (if at all) for a table.

A huge upside to living in Sioux Falls has been its proximity to my family. Sure, not everyone WANTS to be within reach of their parents, but I actually really enjoy it. During the summer, it’s especially wonderful: the less time I have to spend driving, the more time I get to spend on Lake Poinsett. I also get to do things with my parents that I never would’ve been able to do in Minneapolis: I get to have supper with Dad when he’s in Sioux Falls picking up parts for his truck, and I get to go shopping with Mom when she takes a trip to Sioux Falls on her day off.

Living in Sioux Falls has been immensely helpful now that I’m planning a wedding. I’m getting married in Brookings, which would’ve been my location of choice no matter where I was living at the time. It’s been incredibly handy to zip up to Brookings on my days off and look at the church and the reception hall and work on getting the dress fitted and all that stuff that goes with planning a wedding. I can’t imagine trying to do all that while living in Minneapolis. Double bonus: Mom works in Brookings, so she’s able to come with me most of the time.

I did leave behind some awesome friends in Minneapolis, but I moved closer to equally awesome friends in Sioux Falls. I will say that getting together with friends in Sioux Falls is a lot easier than in Minneapolis: even if you and your friend live on opposite ends of Sioux Falls, it’s unlikely that it will take you longer than half an hour to reach them. On the flip side, if you live in Minneapolis and your friend lives in St Paul, heaven help you if you try to get together during rush hour and/or construction season.

Of course, the whole reason I moved to Sioux Falls was because I got a better job. For the first time in my professional life, I had a job that not only provided benefits, but provided paid holidays, sick leave, and vacation. At my job in the Twin Cities, the office would be closed for major holidays, but if you didn’t want to lose a day of pay, you’d better find a way to make it up. I couldn’t help but feel a little like Bob Cratchit on Christmas Day, as I had to be there all the earlier the next morning. (That job, by the way, will be the subject of an incredibly lengthy blog post one of these days. I promise it will be worth the wait.)

Yet another really great thing about moving to Sioux Falls was being closer to James. He and I had been living three hours apart for more than a year which, frankly, was total bullshit. By the time I moved to Sioux Falls, we had been dating for just over four years, and the distance between us shrunk to one hour. After nearly a year of that (which was better, but still sucked), James moved to Sioux Falls. We now share my Sioux Falls apartment, and friends, life is pretty grand.

The bottom line is really that it’s really not fair to compare Sioux Falls with Minneapolis: apples and oranges, I tell ya. I’ve been back to visit the cities a few times in my year away, and absence certainly does make the heart grow fonder. Maybe someday I’ll move back there, but maybe I won’t. Personally, I think James and I should move to New Orleans, but he’s not sold on the idea.

Anyway, it’s been a good year, and I am so glad that I’ve gotten to test the blogging waters. Thanks to you, my wonderful family and friends, I’ve gotten more support than I had ever imagined. I really enjoy sharing my goofy stories from my goofy life, and it’s even better knowing that there’s someone out there reading them. Here’s to another year!

let's talk about cereal toys.

Just the other day, I opened up a fresh box of Cocoa Puffs. (And no, I am not too old for Cocoa Puffs.) Nestled right inside the box was a little prize: a goofy straw with the Cocoa Puffs mascot (Sunny? Is that its name?) on it. Even though it’s a cheap hunk of plastic and I will NEVER use it, I kept it. It’s still sitting on my counter in its plastic wrapping.

Like most kids, I loved finding the toy in the cereal box. If I went grocery shopping with Mom, she would usually let me choose one box of cereal, and I’d make a beeline for whichever one had the best toy advertised on its cover. Cocoa Puffs and Cocoa Krispies had a great record for awesome toys, and I could usually get away with either of those. Lucky Charms did pretty well, too, but it was pretty difficult to talk Mom into buying those. She knew we’d just pick the marshmallows out and leave the rest to moulder in the cupboard.

My family went through an unfortunate Cocoa Pebbles phase, even though everyone knows that they are far inferior to their Puffs and Krispies counterparts. Our cupboard was even known to house the occasional box of Fruity Pebbles, which is quite possibly the worst cereal known to mankind. The film it leaves on the roof of your mouth, and that horrible pink milk… I cringe at the memory.

If the cereal was so gross, why, then, did we suffer through it? Simple answer: they had AWESOME toys. Sometimes, the toy would be included right in the cereal (like the little Flintstone car with the wheels that changed color in hot or cold water). Most of the time, though, we had to collect box tops to cash in on the really good stuff. There was a whole Flintstones cereal prize catalog, and we were probably their best customers. Each kid got a turn ordering something, and when my turn came, I selected a bendy dinosaur pen and a pencil box full of Flintstone school supplies. Mom even ordered a Fred Flintstone t-shirt that she still wears to this day.

It's her go-to lawnmowing shirt.

No matter what kind of cereal we got, we were under strict instructions: if it had a toy, no one was to go digging for it. We were to wait patiently until it plopped out into somebody’s bowl. The rule was enacted for good reason: while hunting for the toy, our grimy little hands tended to completely pulverize whatever cereal was in the box. The toy was always in the very bottom of the cereal, and my parents got tired of having to eat cereal that was mostly dust. Waiting until the cereal was GONE was torturous – so we simply ate more cereal. The cereal companies eventually started putting the toys on the outside of the cereal bag, but that was after my cereal toy heyday. Where were the cereal executives when I needed them?

Toys or no toys, we ate a ton of cereal all the same. We ate it for breakfast, of course – I lost one of my first teeth thanks to a morning bowl of Corn Pops – but our cereal-eating was never limited to just the early morning hours. We would eat cereal as an after school snack, and my dad is well-known for his midnight bowls of cereal. Though we ate a lot of it as such, cereal wasn’t just snack food to us. As far back as I can remember, my mom did not cook a meal on Sunday nights: it was “fend for yourself” night. I eventually figured out how to make a grilled cheese sandwich and fry an egg (note: to this day, that’s about the extent of my culinary repertoire), but before that, it was always cereal for supper.

Over the years, I got a lot of sweet toys from cereal boxes, though I can only remember one of them clearly. It was a little pink plastic spoon with Jasmine’s (from Aladdin) head on it (note: not as creepy as it sounds). 

I never had the Lion King versions, but I
always wanted them.

This spoon was the best thing ever: at room temperature, the spoon remained pink. However, once you dipped it into something cold (like the milk on your cereal), it would turn purple. Magic, I tell you. I remember carrying this spoon around with me before I was even in school, so it has to be at least twenty years old and most likely in a box in the attic.

So here I am: twenty-five years old and still buying cereal with toys in it. Sure, I might have the cereal palate of a five-year-old, but that’s the beauty of adulthood: I can buy Froot Loops and have the entire box to myself, or I can buy a box of Lucky Charms and pick all the marshmallows out if I want. (note: I would never actually do that, as Lucky Charms are disgusting.) In my defense, though, I no longer buy the cereal solely based on the prize inside. It may be a small step towards adulthood, but a step nonetheless!

a letter to my hometown church.

If you are looking for a normal goofy blog post, this is not it (fear not: the goofy posts will be back on Wednesday) . It's a serious post, which I'll only do for important occasions. This, my friends, qualifies as an important occasion: the marriage amendment is rearing its ugly head on the Minnesota ballot this November. I don't think the good people of Minnesota will let it pass, but it's important to get yourselves out there and vote NO. 

Anyway, a little background on the letter you're about to read:

For some time now, my hometown church has been discussing leaving its affiliation with the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (ELCA) and joining the North American Lutheran Church (NALC). The NALC formed a few years ago when the ELCA announced its acceptance of gay clergy: members of the ELCA who disagreed with this decision left the organization, and the NALC was born. The church council sent out a survey to all the members, asking us to check a box to stay with the ELCA or to leave the ELCA and join the NALC. Here is the letter I sent with my completed survey. 

Dear Trinity Lutheran Congregational Council:

I have received your survey as to whether or not we, as a church, should continue to be affiliated with the ELCA. As you will see from my survey answer, I believe that Trinity Lutheran should remain a part of the ELCA. However, this issue is much more complicated than a simple check mark in a box.

I am disappointed that there is even a question as to whether or not we should leave the ELCA for the NALC. The letter sent out to the congregation suggests that the ELCA has become “more of a political body than a spiritual body” while the NALC is “seen by some people to be more faithful to the Gospel than the ELCA.” The letter goes on to say that those in favor of the NALC feel that the ELCA “is not being faithful to the authority of scripture and is following social teachings rather than the Biblical witness.”

Stating that the ELCA has become more political and is following social teachings while the NALC is more faithful to the Bible is a thinly-veiled reference to the ELCA’s acceptance of gay clergy and gay individuals. The NALC, on the other hand, officially disapproves of same-sex relationships and certainly wouldn’t allow an openly gay pastor to join their ranks. In fact, it seems to me that the NALC formed predominantly because of disapproval of ELCA’s decision to allow gay individuals to serve as ministers. If you ask me, that’s a poor foundation on which to build a church.

A favorite (and flawed) argument for the NALC’s intolerance of gay individuals is that the Bible says that a man shall not lie with another man. The Bible also says that slavery is acceptable and that women may be stoned to death for adultery. Are we to believe that those statements should be accepted as truth, as well? One must also keep in mind that the Bible was not, in fact, written by God. It was written by a number of individuals with conflicting opinions who claim to have been spoken to by God. Just because someone once wrote that it’s a sin to be gay does not make it a fact. In this case, it’s some ancient judgmental writer’s opinion. “Because the Bible says so” is a terribly weak argument.

The NALC claims to follow the Bible more closely than the ELCA. Perhaps this is true, but to follow each and every rule in the Bible would be nearly impossible. Many of the rules do not affect our faithfulness: if you eat seafood or shave your beard, it does not mean that you love God any less. However, it is important to follow the rule that permeates the Bible from beginning to end: love thy neighbor. When you think about the Ten Commandments, they can be divided into two clear sections: honor God and love your neighbor. Commandments five through ten all ask that you treat others with respect: honor your parents, do not steal, kill, covet, or commit adultery. Jesus himself says that the most important commandment is to love and honor God, while the second most important commandment is to love your neighbor as yourself (Matthew 22: 36 – 40).

Ask yourselves, as Christians: why would you want to join a group based on its willingness to exclude a group of people? To be a good Christian is NOT to make individuals feel unwelcome in church: everyone is welcome in God's house. As Christians, it is up to us to welcome with open arms anyone who wants to hear the word of God. The NALC suggests that we should reject certain people because of who they fall in love with. How very un-Christian, indeed. Our responsibility as Christians is to help spread the word of God, not limit it to a chosen few. A church is supposed to be a warm and welcoming place, not a place where certain people are more welcome than others.

I will not belong to a church that is associated with a group such as the NALC, which maintains exclusionary policies. Yes, it would be sad: I was baptized and confirmed at Trinity Lutheran, and I have been a member all my life. I have spent every Christmas at Trinity, and countless Sundays in between. But I would rather give up my membership than be a part of the NALC: an organization so willing to pass judgment on those who are gay. Matthew 7:1 says: “Judge not lest ye be judged.” No one in the church, be they NALC or ELCA, has the right to decide who is a good person and who isn’t, nor do we have the authority to say who is and isn’t welcome in church and in the eyes of God.

Finally, I must ask this: if the church does, in fact, switch to the NALC, what good would it really do? I can only speak for myself when I say that I would withdraw my membership if the church switched, but I would not be at all surprised if others did the same. Trinity Lutheran struggles with attendance every Sunday – why would the church put forth a movement that would potentially alienate members and possibly cause them to leave? I feel that there are many more important things that the church could be focusing on: issues that would bring the church together instead of drive members apart.

I do realize that this survey was intended to be confidential, but I am quite comfortable with the congregational council – as well as the entire congregation - knowing where I stand. I stand with a loving, accepting church that will take anyone – gay, straight, or otherwise – into its fold. I stand with the ELCA.

Calla

let's talk about the blood drive.

Before I begin, I’d like to issue a disclaimer: I think giving blood is a wonderful thing to do. Many people have given gallons and gallons of blood and suffered no ill effects. While I am not one of these lucky individuals, I hope my horror stories won’t scare you away from donating. I simply feel that it’s my duty as a blog writer to share with you my mishaps over the years: aka, what didn’t kill me. Just laugh and be glad it wasn’t you.

My dad has given blood for as long as I can remember. Every year, the Arlington chapter of the National Honor Society would host a blood drive in the gymnasium, and they could always count on Dad. When I was inducted into the NHS, I wasn’t old enough to give blood (the minimum age is 17), but I was old enough to solicit past donors. (Sadly, the NHS advisor wouldn’t allow me to use my best Dracula voice and say, “The NHS vants your blooooood!” I think we would’ve gotten more donations that way.)

The following year, I was old enough to donate blood at the NHS drive. I had been there all day already: senior NHS members spent the day wearing Red Cross t-shirts and escorting donors from their gurneys to the cookie/recovery area. As a first-time donor, I had to lay flat on my gurney, and several of my friends gave me moral support: they made horrible faces when the large needle approached and took bets on how long it would take me to faint. 

I didn’t faint: I filled up my little blood bag in no time, and I felt great. My grandma Sheila 

and my dad also donated blood that day: how often do you have three generations donating blood at once?

I gave blood again that summer, shortly before I was to leave for college. Dad and I carpooled to the blood drive, and once again, it was a piece of cake. I even impressed the nurses with my ability to fill up a blood bag in under four minutes. Plus, they had the good cookies and the good juice: what’s not to love?

When I caught wind of a blood drive in Morris, my college town, I signed right up. I strode right into the blood drive, ready to be in and out like I had in years past. This time, I would have no such luck. I breezed through the screening process (having never dabbled in prostitution or heroin, their questions are no-brainers for me) and plopped down in the donation chair. My phlebotomist, as it turns out, was a newbie. The first time she tried to get the needle in my arm, a fountain of blood spurted from my arm. “Oops,” she said: the first of many that day. She tried a time or two to find the vein on her own before seeking help. Even then, the needle must’ve been slightly off: it took me about half an hour to fill up the bag, versus my normal five minutes. Plus, it HURT. During my blood-giving excursions of years past, I emerged with barely a scratch: just a tiny puncture wound where the needle had gone in. After this experience, however, I sported an impressive bruise that spanned from halfway below my elbow to halfway up my bicep. That sucker lasted for WEEKS.

Even after this less-than-pleasant experience, when Morris put on another blood drive in fall 2007, I was willing to give it another shot. I signed up at 2:15: jazz band ended at 1.50, and my next class didn’t start until 4:20, which gave me plenty of time to give blood and get some writing done for my job at the campus newspaper.

There was quite a long wait when I arrived for my appointment, and I didn’t actually get called until 3 o’clock. No problem: I still had ample time before my art history class. I finally got situated on my gurney, and I stuck out my arm: ready for action. My phlebotomist-of-the-hour approached me cheerfully and stabbed me in the arm without much ado. But then what did I hear? “Oops.” For some reason, my remarkably easy-to-find veins (according to the Arlington blood drives) had become elusive in Morris.

At the first Morris blood drive when my vein couldn’t be found, the staff had taken the needle out of my arm and re-punctured it, trying again. This time, they didn’t take the needle out of my arm: they WIGGLED IT AROUND IN MY ARM TRYING TO FIND THE VEIN THAT WAY. If that doesn’t give you the heebie-jeebies, I don’t know what will. Meanwhile, I was doing my best not to pass out as the trickle of blood out of my arm grew into a stream. The needle wasn’t taped down or secured in any way, so it would slide and flop about and aid in my queasiness. After about an hour of this – yes, friends: ONE HOUR – they finally gave up on me. I was bandaged up and sent over to the recovery area, where they had sub sandwiches and orange punch.

I couldn’t stay and recover too long: after all, I had an art history class to attend! As I stood up to leave, I tried to pick up my backpack… and found that my right arm (the donor arm) would not work. I couldn’t grasp anything, and I wasn’t even able to extend my right arm. I was a pathetic sight. I dragged my sorry self over to my art history classroom to explain my situation to my professor: in a class that involved taking notes for the entire hour-and-forty-minute duration, there was no way I could accomplish anything with a non-functioning writing hand. My professor took pity on me: “Go home!”

Going home was another issue entirely. I didn’t often drive to school, but on this particular day, I had. All throughout college, I drove a little five-speed manual. The shifter, of course, is on the right: my right arm didn’t work. I’d have to reach over with my left hand to shift while driving with my knees. Luckily, I didn’t have too far to go. That evening, I was supposed to go to an on-campus event and write about it for the school paper: that, too, involved taking notes. I gamely attempted to write some feeble notes: while I had regained gripping ability, I was still not able to write legibly. Luckily, James came with me, so I was able to enlist his help. He took notes, I got my article written, and my arm was back to full power in a couple of days (but the impressively disgusting bruise, much like the last one, lingered for quite some time).

This was five years ago. When I learned about the Bloodmobile making a stop near my workplace in mid-September, I signed right up. It had been five years, after all, and it was time for me to get back on the blood-giving horse. I put myself down for a slot right after lunch, so I was sure to be well fed. I arrived for my appointment, and the screening process was just like I remembered. I settled down in my blood donor chair, and I have to admit, it was a little weird: the Bloodmobile is a glorified bus, and it stayed running the whole time, causing me to vibrate while I sat there and gave blood. It was also freezing in there. The blood pumping tube thing was draped over my arm, so my own hot blood on my cold, cold skin was a little disconcerting. No big deal, though.

I was done with the whole process in about twenty minutes. They bandaged me up and said, “Ok, you’re free to go!” This was unusual: in all my blood-giving years, I’d only ever donated with the Red Cross. When you’re done at the Red Cross, they make you sit for at least 15 minutes, during which time you must have a glass of water, a glass of juice, and some kind of snack. This was not the Red Cross, though, so they did not require you to stay. At the front of the bus, they had some snacks and pop that you could take with you, and a little bench to sit on if you chose. No one before me had stopped to recover on the benches, and I didn’t either: I felt just fine, so I took a Dr Pepper and a little packet of Oreos and went happily on my way.

The walk back to work was only about two blocks, but around half a block into my journey, I started feeling a little strange. I was suddenly very hot, and my vision had gone fuzzy. I stumbled over to a brick wall and leaned against it, totally confident that I just needed a minute to breathe and I’d be fine. The next thing I knew, I was face down on the pavement, and some guy was telling me he was going to get a nurse.

The Bloodmobile nurses arrived and dragged my limp body into the nearest building. Unfortunately, the office where they laid me out the floor had a lot of foot traffic and a large window: I got quite a few stares as I was sprawled out on the floor. All I could think in my woozy state was “Thank God I didn’t wear a skirt today.” It took almost an hour for me to even be able to sit up without too many issues, so there was no way I’d be going back to work that afternoon, but there was no way I could drive myself home, either. Thankfully, two of my coworkers arrived to scrape me off the ground and deliver me safely home. Talk about embarrassing.

Luckily for me, James was only an hour away from home. When I called him and told him about my pitiful day, he rushed back to Sioux Falls. James did a great job nursing my scraped elbow and my bruised pride: James has all the bedside manner and compassion that I so obviously lack. Next time James is sick, I’ll do my best to be nice to him. It’s against my nature, but I’ll give it a try.

Though my blood-giving experiences have been more misses than hits, I don’t think I’ll give up that easily. Next time, though, I’ll take some extra precautions: I’ll sit down and eat cookies afterwards whether they want me to or not. I’ll be sure not to wear a skirt. And it might not be a bad idea to invest in some elbow pads. It will be a while before I donate blood again (this last fiasco happened just over a week ago), but when I do, wish me luck: obviously, I’m going to need it.

let's talk about golf.

Once upon an eighth grade summer, I decided that I wanted to take golf lessons. For the life of me, I cannot remember why. I had never played a real game of golf in my life, and I wasn’t too fond of mini-golf. Maybe I just wanted an excuse to use my grandma’s plaid golf bag, or maybe I liked the idea of a guaranteed morning off from work each week. In any case, it seemed like a really good idea at the time.

The “guaranteed morning off from work” didn’t work out quite like I had planned. I worked at a little ice cream store on the lake that didn’t open until 11… and golf lessons started at 7am sharp. I found this out after the lessons had been paid for, of course. What can I say? I haven’t been an early riser since I was 7 and had to get up in time to watch the 6am Lion King cartoons on Saturdays.

This was also the summer I began taking driver’s ed classes (which is a story for another time). I wouldn’t get my learner’s permit until after those classes were finished, and I had to wait another three months beyond that to get the license that allowed me to drive without parental supervision. So I still had to rely on people to give me rides to and from golf lessons at the Lake Poinsett course. One of my neighbors was also taking golf lessons, so either her mom or my dad drove us back and forth.

 I don’t remember much about golf lessons that summer, except for one unfortunate realization: I was terrible at golf. Just God-awful. When I teed off, it would often take me three or four swings to actually hit the ball – and I always manage to completely destroy the green around my tee. When we started playing nine holes, I always had the highest score and was the last to finish. I have said for years that if my golfing score and my bowling score could be reversed, I would be a champion.

When my summer of golf lessons ended, I had no desire to ever lay eyes on a club again. I told myself that at least I had tried, and now, thanks to this experience and many embarrassing years of PE, I could officially label myself “bad at sports.”

Skip ahead to spring 2002. I was finishing up my freshman year of high school, and I was the proud holder of a restricted driver’s license. I heard in the announcements one day that spring golf was now open for sign-up. My friend Meagan knew I had taken golf lessons, so she suggested we both join the team. I vaguely recalled my ineptitude of the preceding summer, but I convinced myself that I wasn’t as bad as I thought I was and signed up for golf.

Meagan and I were on the varsity team – not because of our skill, but because of our age. Golf practice started off in the grass by the school, but it was moved to the Lake Poinsett course when one too many golf balls were (accidentally?) hit at parked cars. After a handful of practices, I realized that I really WAS as bad as I remembered, and Meagan realized that golf was not nearly as fun as it looked. Practices were two or three times a week, and Meagan and I began to do our darndest to get out of them. We always rode together, so if Meagan had leave early to water her horses, I HAD to go with her – she was my ride, after all. Same rule applied for my dentist appointments (I had braces at the time, so the appointments were all too frequent) and any other conflict we could conjure up.

Practices were one thing: golf meets were something else completely. Varsity team members were required to go to so many meets per season in order for it to count towards our A-pin. An A-pin is a lifetime pass to all the sporting events hosted in Arlington. Not too useful for someone like me, but you never know: my dad is an A-pin holder, and he said that the first time he used his card was to hear his kids play pep band. Anyway, you need a certain number of points for an A-pin, and you earned these points by participating in sports, the arts, and for making the honor roll.

Anyway, Meagan and I were required to go to a handful of meets. We had to wear collared shirts, which was a NIGHTMARE. 

We looked a lot like this.

Few South Dakota ninth-grade girls would be caught dead in a collared shirt (unless it had some kind of desirable logo, which none of mine did). We did get to leave school early on golf meet days, though, so that was a definite bonus. If our golf meets were in DeSmet, we even got to stop at Dairy Queen on the way home. One golf meet even landed on my birthday, but (much to my delight) we got rained out.

Our golf meet performance was awfully pathetic. Meagan and I made sure to golf in the same group so we could at least have fun while being terrible. And we did have fun: we bragged about how awesome we were, and we tried to see how many golf bags we could fit on one of those little two-wheeled metal cart things (we never got to use the REAL carts).

Meagan and I were usually teamed up with one or two girls from other towns. Every once in a while, we’d get someone who just joined golf to get some fresh air, and she would get along famously with Meagan and me. The vast majority of the players were usually very focused on the game and their scores, and they simply ignored Meagan and me. The worst, though, was when we’d get partnered with someone who was as bad as we were, but they THOUGHT they were good. Meagan and I were grouped with a girl from a neighboring town who was absolutely horrible. She was doing worse than Meagan and me! It was a nice change not to be the suckiest players on the green, that’s for sure. The crappy girl would hit her golf ball totally out of sight, and she’d vanish while she’d try to get it towards the hole. She wouldn’t reappear until she was putting the ball in, and she’d claim that she’d made par. Meagan and I rolled our eyes – this girl was over par before she even hit the golf ball off the tee! It’s one thing to be a bad golfer, but to be a bad golfer who is also bad at cheating? Come on.

There was one tournament, however, where Meagan and I actually came home with ribbons. I came in fifth place, and Meagan was sixth. I bet you’re thinking that we improved drastically after hard work and dedication? Not exactly. There were only six girls competing in the tournament that day. So even though we got fifth and sixth places (out of six), Meagan and I were still proud of our ribbons! I have that ribbon to this day.

Golf ended in the spring of 2002, and that’s the last time I picked up a golf club. I might be willing to give it a try again someday – I hear it’s a lot more fun now that I’m old enough to have beer on the golf course.