October, 2009

Twice this week I’ve been asked my age because I looked too young, and both times I wasn’t at a bar.

On Wednesday I got my first flu shot — ever — at work. We had to fill out a medical release form and bring it with us to where the nurses were set up in a conference room. I sat down and the whole thing took about 30 seconds. After the nurse pulled the needle out of my arm, she stared at me and my paperwork and said, “You’re 18, right??”

No. 1, shouldn’t she have checked my information before injecting me with dead viruses?

No. 2, I know I look young, but surely I look older than 18.

I guess I was wrong.

Today the Sam’s Club sample lady wouldn’t give me a bite of a French bread pizza until I told her how old I was. I did and then asked if there was a reason she asked.

“Well, you have to be 12 years old to get the samples,” she said.

“Twelve?????”

“You look really young.”

The woman waiting next to me agreed, “You do look really young.”

I wasn’t wearing makeup and I know I look young, but TWELVE??

I didn’t buy her pizzas.

A few months ago I dyed my hair a honey-brown-blonde. No dramatic change, but it enhanced some natural highlights I had. Yesterday I stopped myself in front of the bathroom mirror. My roots were coming in gray. Maybe it was the lighting, maybe it was just the way that hair looks compared with the lighter ends… but there was a silver shimmer to the hairs along my part.

My mom’s side of the family seems to have an anti-gray gene. I called my dad, who said he started going gray around 30. Then he told me to get glasses because there’s no way I could have gray hair at my age. I asked him if he’d buy the glasses for me, and he said he’d pay to get my hair colored.

I’m not afraid of the grays and I don’t mind looking young, but the two go together like toothpaste and orange juice.

71,004 people packed Memorial Stadium. I estimate 41,000 left at halftime. We did.

About a month ago, I decided I needed to see some familiar faces and places so I bought a plane ticket to Missouri. The best time to do this happened to be during homecoming weekend, when the Tigers were set to play Texas. I left Thursday after work and got back yesterday morning in time for my school board Monday schedule.

The homesickness I felt when I bought the ticket had faded by last week, but I was still happy to go. I ate at Cafe Berlin (twice!), tailgated, watched the Tigers play, drank my favorite coffee, walked around campus at night, caught up with old friends, enjoyed cinnamon ice cream from Sparky’s…

A good friend pointed out that it’s not the place but the people that you’re with who matter. She’s right, and the weekend might have been better had the old crew been around. There definitely would have been more music, more wine and more laughter.

But it was still a great weekend. It felt good to talk with people who know a little more about me than the last two months of my life and small details that creep into office conversation. It felt good to call Columbia home when I lived there. It feels good now to know I can always go back.

About a month ago I heard about the first-ever Wyoming Youth Congress and wanted to go to Jackson to cover it. I pitched it to my editors, offering to stop somewhere on the way to cover another story, possibly for a project I’m working on. That additional story had to happen as far west as possible — in Star Valley on the Idaho border — so the 2-day trip became 4.

The day before the trip, I called to confirm plans and got bad news. The superintendent in Star Valley had forgotten his district didn’t have school on the day of our visit because of the start of Elk hunting season. Ooops. I found a way to make it work and set up visits to the district’s small schools that were still open and a meeting with the super. in the afternoon.

Looking northeast as we drive through the Wind River Mountain Range.

The photographer Kerry and I left Casper on Wednesday morning. We ate lunch in Riverton in a strange diner with pink plates, pink coffee cups and a pink waitress — the old woman was wearing purple jeans and a pink top. Then we drove to the Wind River Indian Reservation, home to the Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho tribes and about 500 schoolchildren. The plan was to tour the schools and talk with the superintendent for future stories.

Par for the course: the superintendent was gone, as were one-fourth of the students who were out with the flu. On our way westward, I wrote a story about the flu (that the AP picked up and hacked to pieces, again,) which I filed from our hotel in Kemmerer with a photo of a girl surrounded by empty desks.

We ate dinner at a place called Bootleggers and hit the two bars in the small downtown triangle. The first bar was more high-class, serving at least 15 different brands. Across the triangle we found “The Stock Exchange,” which offered a handful of domestics and two pool tables. Kerry and I played the longest game of pool ever with two coal workers from Salt Lake while the bartender Margaret played classic tunes from the 70s and 80s. My first Wyoming bar story.

On Thursday we drove an hour north to Cokeville (pop. 506) which boomed as a stop on the Oregon Trail. In 1910 Cokeville had five saloons, a Mormon meeting house, a bank, hotel and restaurant. In 2009 Cokeville has one general store, a post office and two gas stations. The general store did have good sandwiches.

Afterward we drove to Afton and met with the extremely apologetic superintendent. We saw their newer schools, further evidence to my opinion that Wyoming school districts are so very very lucky to have the state pay for their buildings. We then drove to Jackson, checked into the 49′er Inn, a Star-Tribune institution, and headed to the Teton Science School for the congress.

Driving toward Grand Teton.

We spent all day Friday with a group of eighth-graders, hiking around the Tetons and learning about nature — fun, but tiring. We went with another group to hear elk bugle in the park near Jenny Lake. We were able to get close to a herd not far from the road.

Park Ranger Dave explains the toughness of the velveted elk antlers.

The elk mating call is kind of creepy. It’s very guttural and, as one kid said, it sounded like it was dying and whining at the same time. The park ranger told us the call changes throughout the season depending on the hormones of the females.

After seeing and hearing the elk, we almost hit three of them on the way back to town. Elk on the brain, we ordered elk tenderloin for dinner — tasty and not at all gamey. And it perked us up for a few drinks at the Million Dollar Cowboy Bar: questionable live music, more animal mounts than can be counted in one night and saddles for bar stools.

We worked a little on Saturday morning before leaving Jackson (land of Obama bumper stickers and good Thai food) and departing for Wyoming (land of antelope and big trucks with big gun racks and bigger tires.) We filed the story from the library in Riverton and arrived in Casper in time for dinner.

It felt like we’d been gone a week.

But it was a very good, very fun, very productive week. I hope I can do it again.

[Kerry's slideshow from the Wyoming Youth Congress]

My parents and brother flew to Colorado for my sister’s family weekend at Colorado State. The plan: I drive down for Saturday’s football game, they come up to Wyoming on Sunday and they fly out Monday morning.

Then it snowed. When it snows in Wyoming, they don’t clear the roads — they close them. I had to wait until 11 a.m. Saturday to leave and the roads were not good. More snow on Sunday meant I had to leave very early or stay through Monday. My sister’s test got moved, so she couldn’t take the family to the airport on Monday. Luckily I didn’t have to work Monday morning. I stayed.

Football was football, only it felt more like late November than early October. CSU students threw snowballs onto the turf.

The refs and police weren't happy.

We went out to eat, did a little shopping and watched more football. After two months in Wyoming, it was strange to see so many stores and restaurants. Old Navy? Super Target? Those are signs of big-city living. I stocked up on some things (mostly Indian food) from Whole Foods and headed up to Wyoming, driving through white-out conditions for a good portion of the way.

And when I could see again, everything was still white, with the occasional herd of black cattle roaming the hills. I made it back, to a place that feels more and more like home every time I go away. The big city is nice, but so is the open space. And really, I don’t miss having a Starbucks on every corner.

Red beans, long-grain rice, hot sauce and Tony's.

I have TONS of food in my fridge, pantry and freezer but could not decide what to eat tonight. Nothing sounded good. Then I remembered the cans of Blue Runner red beans and bag of Creole rice that I smuggled north with me. Red beans and rice was the traditional meal on Mondays, when beans could simmer while women did the wash.

The rice cooked perfectly while I caught up on e-mails and watched Monday night football. The beans simmered in the microwave for 2 minutes. I added Louisiana hot sauce and Tony’s and took a 10-minute vacation to New Orleans. For a minute, I was in my uncle’s kitchen, smelling the huge pot cooling on the stove. Then I was at Mardi Gras, downing a side of beans before running out to catch the Muses parade. Then I was at the Spillway, replenishing my tired muscles with beer and spicy food.

It was more like a 5-minute vacation. I wasn’t that hungry, but it tasted so good, so warm and homey.

I love to cook, but when I get home I  don’t feel like trying a new recipe. I try to make a big dish and eat or freeze leftovers (which I did Friday with zucchini lasagna). But there are countless nights when dinner means a bag of popcorn, pinot noir and a spoonful of peanut butter for dessert. (Mom, I was just kidding there.) I’ve been warned of the newsroom 15, but if it happens it will be because I eat honey roasted peanuts all day, not because of communal donuts and baked goods.

I was kind of ashamed to enjoy food from a can so much, but when you eat frozen meals for lunch every day, just putting something together — even if it takes minimal effort — makes it taste better, more complete. A real dinner makes me feel like a person instead of a worker bee.  And that’s really what I need after a rainy, cloudy, 30-degree Monday.