What I consider spring is in full swing here in Reno. The apple blossoms are out, the lilac bushes are green awaiting the burst of color in a couple of weeks and I saw a robin in the yard last week. That’s about a month earlier than in Northeast Wisconsin. Last week I went to a friend’s house to get some yucca plants for our yard. Right now our yard is more like a sage brush field but I would like to have some plants that won’t dry up and blow away in a year or two. We had a maple in our yard. We do not have an underground watering system and the tree just couldn’t get enough to drink. Last year it came down in a wind storm because it was over half dead. Yes, the colorful leaves in the fall reminded me of my childhood, but I think it’s cruel to put a maple in the sandy soil in our yard on the edge of the desert. The tree hugger in me wants to go back to the Big Woods like in Wisconsin. To show how much of a tree hugger I really am, the one thing I wanted to do in Las Vegas was touch a palm tree. You always have to be careful of what you touch in Sin City, but I wanted to feel one of the trees that don’t grow in Wisconsin. I didn’t care about the glitz of the Vegas strip or even seeing snow on Mount Charleston, I wanted to touch a palm tree. Our one night stay in Las Vegas didn’t go as planned, but because of that we ended up taking a bit of a walk and there just happen to be a palm tree along our path. I got to run my hands across the dry bark of the trunk while standing under the fronds that always make me think of illustrations from books by Dr. Seuss. The next thing I would like to cross off my bucket list is to visit the redwood forests of California. Reno is about a day’s drive from the redwood coast of California, about the same distance as we are from Las Vegas but in a different direction. I know I wouldn’t be able to fully hug one – that would take every one of my siblings and our spouses to get around some of the older trees – but I want to touch one. Part of it is the historian in me wanting to touch something that was alive when kings and queens ruled Europe. And, of course, the tree hugger in me wants to lay hands on the tallest trees in the world. Another part of it is that I just want to get out of the city and smell the forest again like when I was growing up in Wisconsin. I want to enjoy the randomness of a forest planted by nature, not planned by a landscaper. I want to feel the sunlight filtered through a canopy of leaves that can move and sway with a breeze. I want to be able to close my eyes and remember the joy of being surrounded by trees as a child in Wisconsin and thinking of the line from Tolkien – “not all those who wander are lost.”
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Cheese is a comfort food. The pre-packaged, snack size, perfectly shaped string cheese will do in a pinch, but what you really want would be real cheese. Some days I’m in the mood for some cheese curds, which we can occasionally get out this way. Some days the saltiness of real Wisconsin string cheese is needed. Some days nothing will do but the rind of some aged brick. It is also hard to find the meaty snacking cheese, like salami or bacon cheese, out here. Good thing I have a supplier back in Wisconsin who sends care packages when possible. You expect to wake up to snow at least some days in March. People expect the Tahoe ski hills to have snow into May at least, but away from the resorts people are taken by surprise by snow in March and take it as an attack from Mother Nature if there is snow in April. For me, March was when we started to see the lawn occasionally between snow storms. Usually by Easter, in early April, the lawn was a muddy mess rather than covered in either a blanket of snow or lush green grass. That doesn’t mean no more snow for the season, just that it has all melted at least once before the Easter Bunny visits. I could not imagine living in Las Vegas where any day it snows becomes a holiday for everyone except traffic officers and tow truck operators. Then again, in the desert of Las Vegas even rainy days are a nightmare for anyone who has to be on the roads. You pronounce the name of our great state the correct way. There is a subtle difference in how a Wisconsinite says their home state and how the rest of the world says it. It took me a long time and a lot of careful listening (something my family would say I’m not always the best at) to figure it out. It is agreed that there are three syllables and the emphasis is on the middle one. The difference is where the first and second syllables are split. Someone who grew up in the state will likely put the first four letters in the first syllable, so it would rhyme with disc, then go on to emphasize the next two letters (on) an end with sin. A non-cheesehead would only put the first three letters in the first syllable, making it wis, emphasize the con and end with sin. We are not as particular about how to pronounce our state as someone from Nevada, where people will correct you if you say it incorrectly in public and may not purchase a product just because of a mispronunciation in an advertisement. I do, however, notice a difference when a character on a TV show claims to be from Wisconsin. Then again, usually they say they are from Milwaukee which we all know is really just a suburb of Chicago and follows the dialect of that state. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. Archives
October 2021
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