Untied States

Dear Minnesota,

2010-12-26T14:30:00.005-06:00

We need to talk.

We've been together for over two years now, and I just don't know where we're going with all this. I know this may be difficult for you to hear, but I think we need to take a break. I know what you're going to say; we're happy, we can make this work, and in the summer time I agree. But in the winter it's like you're a different person. I feel like I don't even know you any more.

I used to look forward to your endless snow drifts and sub-zero temperatures, but now it scares me. I go outside in January and I'm worried you'll hurt me. I can't live like this anymore. Not going outside for the legitimate fear of dying is no way to live. You've done this to me on more than one occasion now. There was the time I slipped on the ice last winter right outside my house. I was on my way to work and realized I had forgotten my phone and you totally took advantage of me, waiting until I tried to rush quickly back to the house before knocking me on my ass. Then just yesterday, you tricked me once again. I thought I was safe taking off my snow boots. I only had to be outside for a minute, but you couldn't let it go. I stepped on the ground and next thing, I saw the sky. Why do you treat me like this?!

Two years I've tried to make it work with you, and you won't even give me a permanent job! I gave up my family and friends to be with you, and you won't even give me PTO and health care....come on!

The truth is, I met some else. His name was Vegas. Nothing happened, but it made me realize I'm just not happy. Some days I want to wake up and see sunshine streaming through the window. Not sunshine that would freeze the snot in my nose, but sunshine that would make me a better person. You know, if I lived in a warmer climate, I'd eat less, I'd be more tanned, I'd even shave my legs occasionally. I'd be better all-round. It's not even about Vegas. It's about living with someone that I don't have to vehemently defend for 6 months of the year.

I'm tired of standing out. I went to buy a case of beer yesterday and had to explain to the clerk in the liquor store where I was from, why I was here, how long I'd been here, how I found the winters. Sometimes I just want to buy a case of PBR without getting the third degree. There are other places I could be where nobody would bat an eyelid that I had a different accent. Sometimes I want to wear a dress without the raised eyebrows and silent 'la-dee-da, who does she think she is' judgments that come with being with you. There is more to life than dressing for practicality. Sometimes a girl should be able to wear heels and a glam outfit without it having to be her wedding day. I'm sorry, Minnesota, but I just don't think you're the one. It's not you, it's me.

Hayley.

Time to rebuild

2010-04-12T10:19:00.011-05:00

It’s been three months to the day that the earthquake happened in Haiti. Wait…don’t stop reading! I know that at this point in time you’re probably sick of hearing about Haiti. That sounds harsh, but I know that there’s a desensitization that happens after any disaster like this. You see it in the news and you feel it’s awful, but after a while it just becomes another thing that happened. It stops being on TV every day, you don’t see the images of people being pulled from the rubble or walking-wounded and so you assume it’s not an emergency anymore. Unfortunately, that’s not the case.

I work for the American Refugee Committee and I can honestly say that this is the first job I’ve ever had where I’ve really connected with the type of work I’m doing. I’ve loved the practical sides of all my other jobs, but with this one, I find the work itself meaningful. That’s hard to find.

So since January, every working hour has been focused on Haiti. We had a team on the ground within 48 hours of the quake who immediately began to identify places where people were congregating and setting up makeshift settlements. After an earthquake, this will be any patch of open ground – a football field, park squares, in the middle of the street even. ARC is one of a handful of organizations which do camp management; many other NGO’s specialize in one service: shelter; food distribution; sanitation etc. So we found a place called Terrain D’Acra, which is actually a toxic waste dump in the grounds of a factory. This factory has been dumping its rubbish there for the past twenty years, and now people are living on top of it. Children were playing in it. You can see in photos that there are layers of rubbish packed into the ground.

So we began to manage the camp. This means we provided tents and tarps, we set up a clinic with doctors and nurses both from the US and Haiti, we cleared a space that is safe for children to play each day (child friendly spaces) and recruited Haitian teachers to begin activities with them. We partner with other organizations to get food and water distributions delivered.

Not to blow our own trumpet, but that’s no mean feat. How would you go about recruiting Haitian teachers and explaining to parents in the camp that we were beginning classes and get them to trust you with their children when you don’t speak Creole? Our ‘clinic’ was set up by putting a chair down in the middle of the camp with a doctor in it and announcing that there was a clinic. That doctor saw 190 patients in the first day and we built tents around him. We also now have nurses which go tent-to-tent in the afternoons to visit those who are too badly injured to walk to the doctor. As you can imagine, after an earthquake, many people suffer ‘crush injuries’ and amputations have to be performed before infection can spread. Most of this is done with no anaesthetic in the first few weeks, as hospitals run out of supplies and aid cannot get into the country and be distributed quickly enough.

I’m proud of everything we have achieved, both here at Terrain D’Acra and at Camp Hope in Fonds Parisien, where we have a convalescence clinic for people who are treated at a nearby medical facility just across the border in the Dominican Republic. But now the rains are coming. Hurricanes and floods will happen. We have 10,000 people in our camp at Terrain D’Acra and we managed to provide each family with a tent for now, and we received a grant from USAID to build a transitional shelter for those families. A transitional shelter is 16x12ft, constructed of termite and rot-resistant wood, with plywood and plastic walls and a sheet metal roof. It is designed to last three years, and will withstand earthquakes and category 1 hurricanes…so significantly better than a tent, I think you’ll agree.

However, we were informed recently by IOM (International Organization for Migration) that we are also responsible for an additional 15,000 people who live on the outskirts of our camp who currently do not have any shelter but the scavenged pieces of wood, corrugated tin and plastic which they pulled from the rubble. When the hurricanes come along, these pieces will become projectiles, injuring people. Rains will spread disease as rats and mosquitoes flourish. Sewage will be spread as the hundreds of thousands of people living outside the handful of managed camps – where there are basic latrines or pit toilets – have no designated area to go to the bathroom. This sewage will be washed through the city.

You may be reading this and thinking ‘But I already donated!’ or you may even be reading it and thinking that ‘the streets of Haiti must surely be paved with gold by now’, or that donations don’t actually get through to the people who need them, that they are tied up in bureaucracy within NGO’s and the Haitian government. I don’t profess to be an expert on any other agencies; I can’t tell you how much of their money goes where. But I do know what we do at the American Refugee Committee, and I can tell you that every penny that we have invested in Haiti until a week or so ago, when we got the USAID money through, came from private donations. Everything we had been able to establish was funded by donations from people just like you. That money is running out pretty fast. We spend 89 cents of every dollar directly helping people who have lost everything to take back control of their lives, and we receive an ‘A’ rating from the American Institute of Philanthropy.

On a human level, it can difficult to comprehend the situation in Haiti. I certainly can’t visualize 230,000 people dying. That’s Wembley Stadium filled to capacity two and a half times over. Or for my Minnesotan friends, the new Twins stadium filled almost 6 times…and then obliterated. I find it easier to deal with individuals. Many of my good friends have recently given birth or become pregnant, some for the first time. How would it feel to be a mother to a new born baby that you couldn’t protect from the rain, or perhaps you couldn’t breastfeed because you weren’t getting enough nutrition yourself? That was the case recently at one of our clinics. Put yourself in the position of a man who has lost his home, his job, and had a limb amputated and can no longer provide for his family. On the most basic level, the psychological impact of this kind of trauma can be devastating. So yes, perhaps you have donated - and that’s fantastic – but the scale of the disaster is such that we can’t even comprehend, and I would encourage you to remember that a small donation on a regular basis can actually provide the most vital services for people in Haiti, or in any of the other seven countries where we work.

If there’s one thing we don’t do, it’s handouts. We make every effort to get people back to being self-sufficient, whether that means providing a small business loan (around $50) to set up a market stall, or buying tools to give people the means to construct their own shelter, or donating seeds which can then be planted to provide both food and a source of income. Haitians are desperate to get back to work and rebuild their communities and get back to some kind of normality. We are establishing twelve carpentry teams to construct transitional shelters for the additional families in Port-au-Prince and I have begun a fundraising page on Firstgiving to make just one of those shelters a reality for one family.
http://www.firstgiving.com/hayleywambsganss

This is a small but achievable goal and can actually make a huge difference. It costs just $1,000 to build a shelter that will house a family of five for three years. I will be updating my page with news of our progress and any small amount contributed would be greatly appreciated! You can easily set up your own page too – just follow the link on my page that says “I want to raise money too!” and you can set up your own page in just a few minutes. I appreciate you reading this through to the end, as I know it’s not my most fun blog post, and I wasn’t trying to be preachy, I just want you to understand that what we choose to do in our lives can have huge consequences for other people and just a small action on your part, like donating $10 (the equivalent of a bottle of wine or two magazines!) can put a shovel in the hands of someone in Haiti and get them started on building their house.

If you'd like to know more about what the American Refugee Committee is doing in Haiti and across the world, please visit www.ARCrelief.org

All photos courtesy of Miguel Sampa.

Ice! Ice! Baby!

2010-01-15T16:37:00.011-06:00

Misanthrope.
Pronunciation: \ˈmi-sən-ˌthrōp\
Function: noun
Etymology: Greek misanthrōpos hating humankind, from misein to hate + anthrōpos human being
Date: 1683

Def: a person who hates or distrusts humankind.

Well, there we have it people: I am officially pigeon-holed. The more time I spend outside of my comfy nook on the sofa, the less I like. Of course this doesn't apply to you, beloved reader, but every family member, friend or colleague of yours who crosses my path. I feel I must have inherited this trait from my dad. Ma Mafyooz is generally what you'd term a 'people person', whereas Pa Mafyooz, since we're into alliteration, would have been defined as a 'grumpy git', and I fear it is a path I am destined to follow.

Take flights, for example. Now don't get me wrong, I love to travel. The airport arrivals section is my favourite place in the whole world. Never have I seen someone walk through the arrival gate to be greeted by disappointed family members rolling their eyes and saying "oh, it's you again." No, people are always joyous and greeting someone they haven't seen for a long time - it's great. It's the other end of the airport I have a problem with: Departures.

So you walk in to the airport, find your airline and enter where the sign says "Bags to check-in", right? Well no, apparently I always seem to be in the queue behind someone who thinks the sign reads "Bags and common sense to check-in". I always get stuck behind the person who put their passport in their suitcase and proceeds to strew the contents of the case around the floor whilst looking for it. Or the person who doesn't understand the concept of a weight allowance, or a number of suitcases allowance.

I'm the mug behind the person in the security line who has queued for twenty minutes to get to the screening area and only then realises that they have to take off their jacket, remove their laptop from its case etc. I am the one who, without exception, is behind the person who finds their seat on the plane and then stands in the middle of the aisle to remove all the crap from their "hand luggage" which they think they'll need for the next eight hours. Two magazines, a crossword book, a Danielle Steele novel, a bag of M&M's, an inflatable neck pillow and a travel-toothbrush set later; I might get to my seat.

You may have noticed my use of quotation marks around the word "hand luggage". It never ceases to amaze me how my fellow travellers define this term. As far as I am concerned, if you can't lift it yourself, it is not hand luggage. No, I will not help you to lift it into the overhead locker because you’re unable do it by yourself. Also, if you need to use more than the space above your own seat....it is NOT hand luggage! I have lost count of the number of times I have seen people cramming huge objects in to other lockers on the plane because they have stuffed their own to the gills with baggage that is bigger than my entire suitcase. I fail to see how your gross underestimation of the volume of your own personal items is my problem. I will toss your items to the floor if I find you have put them in my allocated space before I have even boarded the plane...it's just rude!

Every time I fly, I think I will encounter different people with none of the above-listed major freakin’ malfunctions, and every time, I am disappointed. Oh how I long to afford to fly first class. Not that I think my experience will differ greatly, I’ll just have a wider aisle to pass the person playing silly buggers and a couple of inches of extra legroom when I eventually reach my seat.

My astonishment at how irritating my fellow man can be continued when I came back to Minneapolis after Christmas in London. I was walking home from work after the city had been battered by twenty inches of snow over Christmas weekend and was marveling at the rather beautiful snow banks which had sprung up over the city from having the streets ploughed. They are quite impressive when they first loom up, before cars have splashed them with muddy slush, it gives the whole place a Hansel & Gretel kind of magic. I was trudging dreamily home, thinking thoughts of gingerbread houses with icing on the roofs when my eyes fell upon a startling motif in the snow.

It was a Pollock-esque splodge of brilliant orange, with hints of red emanating from the epicentre. I don’t know why it struck me so, but I needed a closer look – I think it was the high-contrast with the immaculate white powder. As I neared the bank I saw the depressions made by molten hot rocks which had penetrated the snow. It was then that I realized…someone had vomited into the snow bank. At once I began to feel very let down for some reason – I don’t know quite what I had expected it to be, but not this.

The rest of my walk home I pondered what could have made such a vibrant colour. Gatorade? Chicken Tikka-Masala? Antifreeze? Who knew. Just as my mind began to recover from the trauma of what I had just seen, my thoughts were interrupted once more on this solitary amble by the sight of an impressive snow sculpture, towering from one of the gardens overlooking Lyndale Avenue. Somebody had, ahem, erected an 8ft phallus replete with the, howyousay…two veg. I must admit I giggled to myself, for it is here in Minnesota that we have to find winter projects to stave off cabin fever (like Project Igloo) or we go crazy! Some build igloos, some build sweat lodges or snowmen, others build 8ft tall monuments to no-doubt 8cm body parts.

So next time it snows in your part of the world, get creative. Don’t grumble about the weather, or hide indoors, or moan that "the council ain’t gritted the feckin’ roads!". Call in sick to work so you don't have to spend time with those douchebags at work and start a sculpture!

Milk-plus

2009-11-08T18:45:00.004-06:00

Well it's been a while, friends. I currently type this with a gimp-finger thanks to my skills, or lack thereof, with a lino cutter. You see, I have of late had a renaissance of my creative side and have been painting, attending cooking classes and now carving lino for printing (I will be sending out elegant, hand-printed Christmas cards this year to a select few people, a step up from my usual Christmas email typed in red and green font). I am back to painting glassware and will notify you when my shop is up and running online so that you can all show how much you care by buying copious amounts of artwork from me. Don't worry, I will wipe the bloody fingerprints off first.

The summer was good to me - filled with visitors from England, although I have put a stop to that because childhood heroes of mine kept dying when I had guests over. First Michael Jackson, then Patrick Swayze. The only dance hero left is Molly Ringwald and that is a cross I am not willing to bear in 2009, so please, stay on your side of the pond until next year, peeps.

I have upgraded on the job front to an events role which will run until January, then I will be cast back into the sea of unemployment with nothing but Judge Judy and Cheez-its for company again.

This year saw my first American Halloween! I missed it last year because of the douche-nozzles at the US embassy in London playing silly beggars with my paperwork and so my costume sat in storage until this year when I could bust it out in Duluth, MN.

Wamby and I went as guys from A Clockwork Orange. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the film, a gang of lawless youth in futuristic Britain go on a rampage of rape and 'ultraviolence' dressed in bowler hats, false eyelashes and codpieces (pl. codpi?). This to me, would be an apt costume for Halloween, celebration of all things evil, horrific and grotesque, right? Well in America, apparently not. Halloween is an excuse to dress like a slag. Anyone who has seen Mean Girls has had that moment where they walk into a fancy-dress party complete with bad wig, rotten zombie teeth, or in my case a pair of Y-fronts worn over my trousers with a sock stuffed down them, and been confronted with everybody else wearing playboy bunny outfits or the equivalent.

I looked like the ring-master of a lesbian circus and it seemed that I had overlooked the memo informing me that since I am the proud owner of a (rather fabulous) pair of breasts, they had darn-well better be on show. Every other girl in Fitger's Brewery that night was a 'sexy witch', 'sexy pussy cat', French maid, or even - and this still puzzles me - a 'sexy leprechaun'. 'How can a leprechaun be sexy?!' I hear you cry. Let's think about this for a second, leprechauns are ginger, bearded midgets who wear green hats and shout something about lucky charms a lot. Well apparently, you just wear a green corset with shamrock nipple-covers and a pair of green hotpants, and you have your halloween costume ready to go! One other woman also missed the slutification memo and went dressed as a box of Franzia wine, which I thought was hilarious, if a little cumbersome on the dancefloor.

Don't get me wrong, our costumes went down a storm. One guy came up to us gushing that they were the best costumes he'd ever seen, EVER! I wanted to return the compliment but was unsure what he was supposed to be; he had a regular shirt and trousers and had a utility belt with a power-drill on it. I didn't want to be rude by guessing wrong so we just said thanks and exchanged some jokes and lines from the film about the joys of rape and whatnot.

There was another moment of the night that really rammed it home to me that I now live in the States. I was standing at the mirror in the ladies rearranging my sock stuffing (it was quite the ordeal to pee that night) and having a rather pleasant conversation with the Franzia lady who was waiting for the disabled cubicle when a voice piped up to my left:

"Uh, I don't mean to be rude, but what are you? I mean, if you're supposed to be Charlie Chaplin, he like, totally had a moustache."

"Thanks for the update toots. I am supposed to be Charlie Chaplin, but came without the cane, moustache, black suit or tie. At least I got the hat right though, eh? And what did you come as? Oh, that's right, a slutty cat."

With that I continued rearranging my package to make it bump-free so I didn't look like I had genital warts. Nothing like a moronic American girl to cheer me up with their gawping stupidity.

And so now, as November settles upon us here in Minneapolis, snow is imminent and another limb-numbingly cold five-month winter approaches. I have already subconsciously started my winter diet in order to build up my blubber and stay warm. Essentially this means replacing salad with gravy at each meal. Aah, Bisto, the cornerstone of any super-starch diet. This is all purely instinctual, obviously and it is quite the chore to replace my salads with anything roasted, mashed or stewed. It's tough but essential you see, for without it, I would die. Well I certainly would if some genius hadn't invented the Skyway system here - the series of linked heated walkways which connect all the downtown buildings. Without that, I would definitely die, or at least have very messy shoes from walking in snow a lot.

Minnesota nice

2009-07-26T16:49:00.016-05:00

Whitewater State Park is a beautiful spot down in the Mississippi River valley, which we've been to before and wanted to revisit. We left the Twin Cities after work on Friday and took I-35 South through the 'burbs and into Minnesota farm country. It was a beautiful summer evening and as the sky turned pink, we chatted idly. We're rarely short of things to talk about, Wamby and I, as we both do like the sound of our own voices.

I was playing navigator and had my trusty Google Map directions clutched firmly in my little hands. By American standards, this was a stone's throw; spitting distance, a hop, skip and a jump from the Cities. A two and a half hour drive - hell, we've driven further for dinner. We'd both had a hard week and this journey we didn't even have any driver/passenger arguments, not even when we missed our turn and ended up in a small town called Chatfield about eight miles South of our destination.

So we took the scenic route. We arrived at Whitewater around 8pm, with the sun setting slowly in the sky, only to find the campground full. Not a problem, we thought; there's bound to be another State Park nearby. In fact, the nearest one was also full, the next one along was John Latsch Park - merely a clearing in the woods with no facilities, just a walk-in pitch with no running water or toilets. As it was starting to get dark, we drove the 43 miles to John Latsch and pulled off the highway up the driveway the led into the woods. It didn't occur to me to be scared until Wamby asked if I was sure I would be OK on my own while he drove to get firewood. I looked around the clearing and suddenly realised that I felt very much like a sitting duck. Aware that there could be a hundred pairs of eyes that I could not see locked on me at that very second, I decided we should both go for firewood.

'There should be a gas station any minute now....somewhere just around the next bend...maybe in that town up ahead?' We kept stating things like this to each other, only to be disappointed that the next 'town' or strip of civilisation we came to consisted of nothing more than a bait shop and a bar. Around 30 miles later, we stumbled across a 'Kum & Go' petrol station. Wamby has affectionately nicknamed the chain 'conceive and leave' and 'pump and dump', which I can honestly say, just never gets old.

As we pulled in, we were well aware that we had just driven North for about half an hour past John Latsch Park, and that perhaps if we drove another half hour, we could reach Red Wing State Park, which had hot showers and more flush toilets than you could shake a stick at. The risk being that we may arrive at Red Wing to find that was full too and have an hour drive back to the clearing in the woods, or an hour drive back to the city to sleep in our own bed, having done a totally pointless five hour drive around Southern Minnesota.

We entered the petrol station and asked the charmless woman behind the counter if they sold firewood. She had a face like a dropped meat pie and a slight stoop which made her look older than she was. Through a slew of 'Aww gees' and other colloquialisms, we gathered that they did not sell firewood, but that there was a wagon-full in front of a house four miles up a dirt road on the other side of the highway, where we could drop a donation into a tin by the gate. Well, we'd come this far - we were going to buy firewood if it was the last thing we ever did....and it almost was.

We drove up the desolate winding track with our headlights on full beam and eventually saw a farmhouse with three or four outbuildings and a wagon - just as pie-face had said there would be - stacked high with firewood. We eased into the driveway, dipping the headlights and as I searched in my bag for change, we heard them.

They were in the distance at first, well up the driveway near the house. A scrabbling sound on gravel and barking that got louder, and louder. Two dogs came hurtling towards the car - picked up at first in the headlights - teeth bared and eyes wide.

We looked at each other, not really knowing what to do. They were small, but they seemed vicious and we weren't sure what breed they were. They calmed for a few seconds, so W tried to open his door. They barked ferociously and the headlights picked up more and more of them. Within seconds there were eight or nine dogs around the car, all barking and growling, one even jumped up at my window and was scratching at the glass. I laughed nervously, sure that at any moment the owners would come down the driveway, round them up and apologise. They never came.

We sat on the driveway for five minutes or so, waiting for them to get bored and go away but they never did, so we reversed without checking the mirror, hoping to hit one of the little bastards, confident in the knowledge that an unleashed dog is fair game in any US state.

The feeling that we may well be in a Stephen King novel was starting to dawn on us and we headed straight back through the cornfields to the highway, aiming for the town of Wabasha - home of the film Grumpy Old Men. Shining like a beacon was a BP garage with a stack of firewood outside. We stopped and bought the wood and a $2 scratch card. I scratched it off and checked it twice: we had won $12!

Wamby went back in and asked for our winnings in one dollar bills and made it rain through the sunroof like an NFL player in a strip club. Our luck had changed. This was going to be a good night after all! We decided to head back to Latsch Park for the night rather than risk being turned away from Red Wing, and look for somewhere else to camp the next day as it was now 10pm. As we drove back the way we had come, we saw a brown sign for 'Richard J. Dorer State Forest'. We could hardly believe our luck as we drove up the hillside into Kruger Campground, where there were other campers staying too. We marvelled that we had never found this little nugget before. We found a site and began unpacking the car. That's when we heard them.

'Yo, where the party at?!' 'Not here', I'm thinking, leave us alone. 'Man, why you pulling up so late?' Leave us alone. 'Dude, where you from?' Leave us alone. Three guys bowled straight into our site, drinking neat J.D. from bottles clothed in paper bags. We said as little as possible to try to persuade them to leave us alone, but they insisted on inviting us over for drinks. We politely said we were tired and were just going to bed. After hot dogs and a beer to unwind, we hit the hay, praying for an easier journey tomorrow.

"Left my niggaz house paid
Picked up a girl been tryin to fuck since the twelve grade
Its ironic, I had the brew she had the chronic
The lakers beat the supersonics
I felt on the big fat fanny
Pulled out the jammy, and killed the punanny
And my dick runs deep so deep so deep
Put her ass to sleep"

Are you kidding me? I'm in the middle of a state park, it's midnight, I just want to sleep and you're gonna play Ice Cube so loud the bass bins shake in your ugly Lincoln Navigator? And so we laid in our tent for a while. Maybe they'll just listen to one song? Maybe three? Maybe a ranger will come along? I did the very British thing of moaning about them and clenching my fists, but ultimately laying there not actually doing anything about it. W did the very American thing of going to unzip the tent saying 'I'm going to tell those jack-asses to knock it off!' I talked him out of it with the flawless logic that we are in the middle of the woods with no cell-phone reception; going to confront three drunken hoods is not a good idea. Around 3am, the music died down and I drifted into a shallow sleep.

Two hours later, I woke with a feeling in my stomach that I prayed would go away. I looked over at W and he was sound asleep. I felt like my stomach was being put through a mangle. It was the unmistakable gripe of food-poisoning, and I knew it wouldn't go away. I woke Wamby and he said he would walk me down to the pit-toilets, which were about 50 yards from our site. For any of you who have never camped, pit toilets are essentially a hole in the ground with a toilet fixture attached, which is usually peppered with blue bottles, there is no flush. They are unappealing at the best of times, but the idea of possibly having to hug one whilst heaving my dinner into it from one of my orifices was considerably unpleasant.

I crawled out of the tent and took perhaps three steps before I collapsed. My knees went weak under me and I was seeing black and white fuzz, like static on a TV. I made it to the picnic bench and rested for a few moments while W unlocked the car. He carried me to it and delivered me to the toilet hut by rolling down the hill with the handbrake off. I barely made it the ten feet inside before almost collapsing again and I saw my arm shaking uncontrollably from side to side as I reached out for the torch Wamby was holding out to me. I will spare you the details as to what took place inside that shed, suffice to say it has now been declared a toxic waste site.

We don't talk about that night. It was a glitch in the matrix that saw all our bad luck and dangerous encounters for the next two years rain down on us in one evening. Knowing that we have officially used this up, we have begun playing the lottery, buying pull tabs and attending meat raffles at the Uptown VFW on a regular basis. So far we're up $7 and a turkey crown. To infinity...and BEYOND!

Reasons to be cheerful: 1, 2....er

2009-07-14T17:03:00.006-05:00

Well, it's official: the grass is always greener on the other side. You had to listen to me whine for 6 months about not having a job and now that I have one, you're going to have to listen to me whine that I do. It irritates me on so many levels, which I shall proceed to list for you in an orderly fashion:

1) It's retail. Just the word prompts an involuntary eye-roll from me.
2) I have to ride the chav-wagon to work, which invariably results in me having to smell or hear something emanating from another passenger which is offensive.
3) I'm expected to smile...a lot (which is discrimination as I have a naturally down-turned mouth).
4) I am currently on a worse wage than when I was working for Asda at the age of 17.
5) I work very early sometimes, and I'm not a morning person.
6) I work very late sometimes, and that means I miss Letterman.
7) I work that awkward, middle of the day shift sometimes, which means you can't do anything in the morning and your evening's ruined too.
8) I get spoken to maybe 12 times a day like a crusty polyp on the sole of any given customer's kitten heel.
9) I don't know that I'm cut out for selling clothes as I don't think I'm a very convincing liar in the fitting rooms. While colleagues are able to tactfully suggest an alternative colour or size, I have been known to do the plumber's whistle (through the teeth, whilst simultaneously shaking my head), followed by closing the fitting room door and walking away laughing.
10) It's retail. *eye roll*

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not being a snob about people who choose retail as a career. If you don't mind working unsociable hours on pay that blows, good on you. I just don't have the patience or desire to massage the egos of high-maintenance American women who have a vocabulary of precisely one phrase, which is applied to seemingly every item in the store, "Oh my god, that ... is so cute!" Seriously, poor old Roget would rotate in his resting place.

I am looking for alternative employment, but currently there is little out there in the events industry. I guess there are always the fail-safe options of being a cleaner, and/or sex-line operator. After all, people always need clean houses and apparently the novelty of a British accent still just doesn't wear thin. Maybe I could combine them into some kind of slutty Mary Poppins character? I kid, of course - it would be wholly inappropriate to utilise a Disney character in the sex industry, except for Jessica Rabbit and The Little Mermaid - everyone knows they've been around the block a few times.

One piece of good news is that I am now officially a Legal Permanent Resident of the USA. All my paperwork is complete and I am free to travel as I please with no more waterboarding from Bertha in a side room at the DHS. OK, so I wasn't actually exposed to waterboarding, but I always thought it sounded kind of fun; like boogie-boarding, or skateboarding - and what's more fun than water sports?

So I leave you - little ray of effing sunshine that I am - and will resume my job search with renewed vigour, having offloaded all my negative energy onto you, my faithful reader. Cheers for that.

In loving memory of Andrew Matthews, 1951 - 2009

2009-05-03T20:40:00.008-05:00

Dad was a man far too complex to be summed up in a few words, and this is one of the most difficult things I have ever had to write, but I felt I had to at least try and return the favour for the amazing speech he gave at my wedding a few months back, which he made look easy.

Regardless of how you knew him, one of the things most people will remember about him is his sense of humour. He had an acerbic wit that was not always politically correct, sometimes inappropriate and at other times just plain rude, but I’ll smile every time I think of him laughing, even if I disapproved of the joke.

I learned a huge amount from dad, one of the first things was never to judge a book by its cover. In the 80’s, he’d go into pubs in the city in his biker’s leathers, with his long hair and piercings and strike up conversations with the stock traders at the bar. They were always amazed when dad chipped in with information about recent trading and offered his opinion on the state of the economy, and after a frosty start, welcomed him as part of the group. What he didn’t tell them, was that he used to memorise a few paragraphs of that day’s Financial Times and drop them casually into the conversation, to make them think he knew what they were all talking about.

Dad’s ability to retain facts like that was second to none; whether you needed to know who played drums on a Bob Dylan B-side or the quickest route between two London landmarks and the name of each pub along the way, Dad was your go-to guy. Fantastic if you were on his team in a pub quiz, but a total nightmare to play Trivial Pursuit against.

He was like this until the end, even from his hospital bed he would open his eyes and pipe up to correct our conversation about music when we thought he was asleep. He loved holding court with all his visitors and chimed in regularly with little nuggets of hilarity, like only he could. On one visit, dad was speaking slowly and deliberately, with the precision of a man trying articulate his final wishes. He told me; “Hayley, I’ve got to......I’ve got to.....” and I waited, enthralled, for the sage advice that my father was to pass down in his final days. He finally finished: “I’ve got to....give you your Christmas present, it’s in the cupboard at home.”

Thankfully, not all of his conversations dealt with issues like where he’d stashed our Christmas presents and Laura and I both had the opportunity to spend time with him alone before he passed away. I think this is one of the few benefits of having an illness like dad’s and I’m thankful for every minute we got together. What’s important to me now is to celebrate dad’s life, not mourn his death and to remember the immense love and unshakable commitment he had to my sister and I. Finally, and most importantly; his motto: Illegitimis nil carborundum, or in English: don’t let the bastards grind you down.

I wanna have a J-O-B in the M-S-P

2009-02-27T16:25:00.003-06:00

104 days. That’s how long I’ve not worked for, and I have probably another 50 or so to go. The first two weeks are great fun; you can lie-in everyday, watch daytime TV, stay up late on a school night. Then the rot sets in; you realise that daytime TV only teaches you how to sue people, file for bankruptcy and buy insurance. American TV in particular I find, instils a feeling of entitlement amongst the viewers: the car accident was not your fault, your debts should be minimised, you deserve to spend your tax refund on financing a new car, the list is endless.

Times are tight for Wamby and me, but we’re by no means on the breadline. We have plenty of things to hawk before we get evicted from our apartment. I firmly believe that anyone who bangs on about how broke they are when they have a Wii console and a gym membership deserves a good slap on the noggin. It’s all relative, and I have to say that we’re not doing too badly for getting by on one income. Apparently Minneapolis is also the easiest city to get wealthy in the USA (admittedly according to the Minnesota tourist authority), so once I’m allowed to work, we should have it pretty cushty here.

Minneapolis is great, it’s Chicago-lite, and I have to say that I’m actually really enjoying the current recession - it’s an amazing time to be a consumer. Macy’s had an 80% off sale last week, you can buy a 2 bedroom house with a garden for $50k and Toyota Tundra are offering buy one, get one free on trucks - I kid you not! As long as I can make it through the rest of my enforced unemployment without going gouging out my own eyeballs with a spoon just for something to do, my prospects are rosy.

I recently had my biometrics appointment, where they photographed me and took my fingerprints for my moustachioed friends at the Department of Homeland Security. The lady commented on how soft my hands are and I can only credit this to not working. I didn’t realise they were distinctly smooth and may consider adding it to my resume: ‘Detail oriented, strong interpersonal skills, hands like a baby’s bum’.

I looked around the waiting room at my fellow fingerprintees, wondering if me and my digits were really distinctive or if perhaps it was a chat-up line from Ms Mullet. In a crowd of 50 or so, there was only one other white woman (I would guess Canadian because of the polar fleece and orthopaedic shoes).

The Twin Cities of Minneapolis, St Paul have the second largest Hmong (pronounced ‘mung’) population outside of Laos at 17,000 -behind Fresno, California. Bizarrely, the state of Minnesota also has the largest Somali population anywhere outside of Somalia at 50,000, mostly in the Twin Cities, according to the 2000 census. The Hmong were allocated housing in Minnesota in return for helping US forces during the Vietnam war, but I believe the Somali community has simply grown as it has established itself here. I think the only state less like Somalia they could have chosen to relocate to would be Alaska, with our record low temperature being minus 42 degrees.

These were the two major groups who filled the waiting room and yet I knew that I would never be subject to the same branding they would be as a foreigner. As a Brit, or any kind of European in the US, you are a charming oddity and an accepted minority. The term ‘them immigrants’ for whatever reason does not include me. I’ll be able to pick up my career where I left it in London after the upheaval and disruption that is the immigration process and hopefully won’t have to work long hours in a job I’m overqualified for purely because my qualifications are not recognised in the land of opportunity, and for that I am well aware how lucky I am.

I have actually considered doing TV voice overs, such is the US love affair with the English accent. Minnesota has a particularly jarring twang, with one local landmark, the St Croix River being pronounced Croy, to rhyme with Troy, NYARRGGHH! It’s French - what’s so hard?! Another favourite is New Prague being pronounced New Praig, to rhyme with plague. It’s like fingernails scraping across a blackboard to me every time I hear it!

Anyway, everyday a new advert pops up with a British voice over, and I have already been asked to be the talking tree of a friend’s engineering company phone system. You know the kind; ‘If you hate these answer phone systems and just want to speak to a human being that may have some interest in and/or capability of answering your very simple query, please press one’; ‘To speak to an operator who has a distinctly thick Indian accent and calls himself Ian, when you really wouldn’t mind just addressing him by his real name so long as he can help you, please press two’ and so on. My friend seems to think that people would be less irritated by my dulcet tones guiding them through the labyrinthine phone system than the current voice, provided by his South Carolinian receptionist. I know which I’d prefer to hear, but if he’s willing to pay, I’m willing to take his money - and what could be more American than that?

Holidazzle fo' shizzle!

2008-12-16T11:36:00.010-06:00

'Tis the season to be jolly! 'Tis also the season to eat your body weight in poultry and puddings and spend excessive amounts of money on gifts for people (that you may or may not like) out of a sense of obligation and in an attempt to not look like the only cheap-ass Scrooge at the family get together or office party. No matter what your financial situation in these trying times, 'Can we not do presents this year?' just never seems to be a viable option.

Part of the reason this maybe never works for me is that I tend to go along quite blinkered until about December 15th over the fact that it is Christmas at all, by which point other more organised acquaintances have shopped for, wrapped and presented me with a gift. I'm not sure quite how I manage to be so unaware of the festivities unfolding around me; Noddy Holder on the radio, trolley rage, shop staff wearing stupid Santa hats - or if they're really cutesy, a bit of tinsel instead of a scrunchie! It's not that I don't hear or see any of this, it's more like I'm coasting along in neutral, let's make that cruise-control since I'm in the States, and I don't actually seem to get into gear and drive until Mid-December. Being overseas this year has caused a few problems with gifting the folks back home. Who knew there were International Shipping Deadlines?! What do you mean the postman won't collect my parcel and get on a plane and take it to my Mum's house?! It could get there in 9 hours if the stupid postman wasn't so lazy! So I've had to be creative: Mum, Dad, sorry but this year you're just going to have to accept an email from me in festive red and green font as a present. It's the gift that keeps on giving - unless you're colourblind, because then it would just look like any other email.

So what do they do in Minneapolis to celebrate 'The Holidays'? Well, it all kicks off at 12.01am on 1st November when I imagine they use some kind of crane/wrecking ball/street-hoover contraption to clear the aisles of Halloween merchandise, possibly aided by a gaggle of tinsel-scrunchie clad shop assistants heaving it all into bin liners. Out come the candy canes, front door wreaths and bad American chocolates (the leading brand of which smells like feet!) and away we go! But Minneapolis has an extra special something to give at this time of year.....

Holidazzle!!!!!! A Minneapolis tradition, people drive all the way from Iowa to come and see it (in fairness, people from Iowa will drive across state lines to see pretty much anything if it gets them out of Iowa for the day). It's the non-denominational November/December parade consisting of lots of jubilant Minnesotans dressed in LED-powered costumes on the theme of fairytales. They march enthusiastically up and down Nicolette Mall every night Thursday through Sunday between Thanksgiving and Christmas in what I can only really describe as an inverse of Las Vegas Blvd....stick with me on this....In Vegas, you move up and down the strip while the flashing neon remains stationary. At holidazzle, it's, well, the opposite of that. Ok, so that was a rubbish comparison, but it's fun! I love the way all the participants remain jolly despite temperatures below-freezing and not getting paid. Can you really imagine that happening in London? It's like the Notting Hill Carnival, only in a marginally colder climate and with less stabbings. I'd imagine they have whatever the US equivalent of St. John's ambulance on hand to treat cases of frost bite and hypothermia. I can see the headlines now: 'And in local news, little Johnny Pizowski's nose fell off this year as a result of being strapped to a float every Thursday through Sunday for two months - "but he looked SO ADORABLE in his gingerbread man costume!" said his mother Lynette.' Perhaps next year he'll have a prosthetic one and be cast as Pinocchio?

In all seriousness, I do mock my fellow countrymen for their excessive enthusiasm for absolutely everything, but I think there are lessons to be learnt for us Brits who do tend to be somewhat, well, cynical. Try this out: Next time someone asks you a question, instead of your usual response of a sharp intake of breath, a shaking of the head and the phrase 'Oh I don't know if I can do that, it's more than my job's worth', try just saying: 'Awesome! Uh-huh!'. Admittedly this may get you into a few awkward conversations*, but generally I find it to be a pretty good response to most things.

So, we are now gearing up to Christmas proper. I am preparing to co-cook my second turkey dinner in a month and cope with the ensuing 'meat sweats'. I found after Thanksgiving that the only way to deal with having eaten more food than I had eaten in the previous week was to adopt what I like to call 'The Starfish' pose on a flat surface (the floor works best), be covered with a blanket and simply remain in that state for the next 36 hours or until you are able to see your own toes again, whichever is sooner. I believe I am now ready; my festive emails will be sent this week in place of presents, the tree is up, I have a tray of mixed nuts and a bottle of Bailey's on the sideboard and I have discarded all of my usual hair accessories and replaced them with scraps of tinsel. Bring it!

*Not to be used in conversations about death, disease, redundancies at work or natural disasters**
** By natural disasters, I of course only mean those occurring in English-speaking countries, all others are natural predicaments.

Back on the radar

2008-11-19T04:54:00.008-06:00

Things have been quiet on the blogging front recently. There is a reason for this; I have not had writer's block or lost interest. I've not been isolated from the world because of the black hole that is dial-up. I have been angry, and I'm not sure that it's good to write when angry as I think people have enough misery in their own lives without having to deal with mine too. Suffice to say, visa woes, separation from Mr Hayley just a month after our wedding and illness in the family have all contributed to a pretty shoddy 6 weeks since my last post. But enough of that! I have been in London, fabulous London, whilst waiting for the embassy to get it's act together - oh how I missed it!

Give me Waterloo Station at 5.30pm; weaving in and out of your fellow commuters while the tannoy blares. Give me Westminster Bridge and its views of Big Ben, the Houses of Parliament, the London Eye, the gherkin and St Paul's. Give me wonky streets and wonkier teeth. Give me Oyster and the Tube, cheese and pickle, Fern and Phil, drum and bass! Coming back to all this from some time in the States gives me a new-found appreciation for all things Londinium. I've filled my days with working back at ODI and spent my evenings on opposite ends of the free-time spectrum, either frolicking with friends in various drinking haunts in and around the city, or staying at home and knitting. That's right, knitting. With wool. Previously not the hobby of anyone without a freedom pass, knitting has seen a revival of late and I have happily jumped on the bandwagon. Inspired by a friend at work who was talking about it, I thought 'well if 70 year olds can do it, why can't I?', I mean, how hard can it be?

Well, I would say on the scale of ease - with Rebecca Loos at one end and Stephen Hawking's Brief History of Time at the other - this is about level with playing Stephen Fry at Scrabble. Knit one, purl one, increase, decrease, yarn forward, cast off....who knew it was so complex?! The patterns look like binary code, I keep tangling the wool and have so far managed to knit maybe 11 stitches with no holes or knots. I tried getting expert advice from the lady in 'I Knit' on Lower Marsh, a veritable hub of all things woolly - there's even a knitting club where you go and drink booze, and talk about erm...knitting current affairs I guess, with like-minded individuals. She was fantastic, very knowledgable, and I was most impressed by the fact that she was donning the knitting-equivalent of a hip flask, that is a kind of wool-exuding utility belt, if you can imagine such a thing. She did her best, bless her, but I honestly don't know that I'll ever really understand it. Maybe it's like languages where if I did join a knitting club where you could drink alcohol, my skills would (or at least I would believe) improve. I would have the confidence to knit without fear, with gay abandon, even. Who knows what kind of woolly wonders I could produce?!

Alas, for now I am working on finishing a rather drafty scarf, which I intend to patch up with bijou buttons that I will claim to be part of the original design. I'm also persevering with the baby jumper I have started that was intended to be a gift but I fear would be an insult, and may actually be finished around the time I decide to have El Segundo with him indoors (that would be year six of my new ten-year plan, before you ask). Provided we have a baby with some kind of disproportionately large left arm and hunch back, who looks fab in lilac, we'll be good to go.

Which brings me full circle. The reason I am no longer angry and felt I should write something is that I finally got my visa today and will be flying home to Minneapolis tomorrow. Provided I don't get turned away by my friends at Homeland Security this should be the start of everything. It's a huge weight to be lifted, and though we still have a way to go in terms of getting my work permit, social security number etc, I will at least be a 'permanent resident with conditions' which is far better than 'alien spouse', I believe. Any amount of paperwork, form filling, fee paying and waiting is fine by me as long as I can be with Casey, everything else just seems quite immaterial. So, I am back and will update you in due course on the triumphs and trivialities of my banal existence just so long as I don't get angry again. In the words of The Incredible Hulk "You wouldn't like me when I'm angry."

Fall colours

2008-09-29T10:43:00.024-05:00

I have found the place where I want to die. Not anytime soon; after I have founded my multi million pound empire based on my secret salad dressing recipe, of course. I've seen the Grand Canyon, the Rocky Mountains, the Nevada Desert, the Florida Keys and most major landmarks on 41 states in between, but nowhere is as beautiful as Northern Minnesota. Now, I know most people outside of the US are unfamiliar with this little gem, and I know that within the US it's only really famous for fishing and brutal winters (the record low here is minus -41 degrees!), but I think that this may just be a clever conspiracy by Minnesotans to prevent their state becoming overrun with tourists. I'll tell you a few little nuggets about how beautiful it is, as long as you promise to not tell anyone else and to not visit...oh and this blog will self-destruct in five minutes, so read quick.

I've done my fair share of road trips across this great nation and driving through here at this time of year is one of the most scenic, colourful backdrops I have seen. We are just reaching peak time for 'fall colours', and the leaves are turning luminous shades of russet, orange and flame red, others are a deep cherry red and some have a graduated colour change from top to bottom that make the trees look like they're on fire. The air has suddenly turned cold within the past two weeks but the days are crisp and sunny. It's my favourite time of year, I love walking down the street crunching on leaves while smelling a bonfire in the neighbourhood, it reminds me of the hymn we used to sing in school assembly:

"Autumn days, when the grass is jewelled
And the silk in a chestnut shell
Jet planes meeting in the air to be refuelled
All these things I love so well
So I mustn't forget
No, I mustn't forget
To say a great big thank you,
I mustn't forget..."

Remember that one?

Plus, Autumn fashion is my favourite, nothing quite like knee high boots and knitted jumpers to ring in the change of season is there?! Anyway, we drove up to Lake Superior for a weekend of camping using our fabulous new tent and camping stove (which incidentally came without a name from our wedding registry, so if you bought it for us please let me know as we don't know who to thank). The radio on the car journey up t'north is one of the few things which is inferior to driving south - part of the 'Minnesota Conspiracy'...?

When we drive south, we have started to tune into what we have christened 'redneck radio'. These are AM talk-radio stations providing discussion forums on a variety of topics from the Video Music Awards to the nomination of Sarah Palin as VP candidate. A good forty minutes of Kansas plains passed by on the way to our wedding, as Casey and I listened to the likes of Marla from Bowlegs, Oklahoma (pop. 371), voice her horror that Russell Brand - a foreigner, no less!! - had made a pro-Obama statement when hosting the VMA's. It was at that point that she had deemed it inappropriate viewing for her teenage daughter and switched it off. I kid you not, poor little Bobbie-Sue was made to spend the rest of the night sans TV because of the mere mention of 'that Socialist', a word which I never realised was an insult until I moved here.

I have actually developed a curious fondness for country music when driving south, because of how absurdly literal the lyrics are. I'm not sure if this is because the songwriters lack the creativity to grasp metaphor and simile, or if it's because poetry is just seen as 'queer', and that penning a song without a hint of flowery or remotely abstract lyrics directly increases the size of your straight-talking, cattle-rustling, shoot-from-the-hip manhood? For those of you whose experience of country music is limited to Shania Twain and Cotton Eye Joe, here are some actual lyrics that I wrote down while driving through Iowa:

"I'm investing in my neighbourhood, friends and family livin' pretty good,
Trailer parks full of Cadillacs, we're upper-middle class white trash."

Can you imagine my horror when we drove north and found nothing but classic rock stations and the odd high school football game on the radio? Our socialist asses had to engage in a crossword puzzle book and some Def Leppard to pass the time.

We stayed at Cascade River State Park on the north shore of Lake Superior, which is around 45 miles from the Canadian Border. I had absolutely no comprehension of the size of the Lake. I know it's the largest lake in the world bla bla blah, but until you're confronted with what you assume is the ocean (I ditched Geography in year 9 to study Drama) and you're told that, in fact the body of water before you is merely a lake, you have no appreciation for its size. When you stand on the shore, it stretches fully left and right and then out to the horizon. You really have to see it to believe it, but don't come here or the Minnesotans will hate me. I looked it up on the atlas we have pinned up in our toilet, (I believe a bathroom should be both sanitary AND educational), and it is approximately the size of Ireland...Ireland! That's like a real country!

We hiked the Lookout Trail in the park and it's dotted with beautiful cascades and waterfalls, framed by the turning leaves. Every so often you reach a lookout point from which you can see for miles across the blanket of treetops and marvel at the shades of orange, red, green and brown, like the carpet in Abigail's Party.

Property here can be found pretty cheaply if you move a little inland from Lake Superior or onto one of the thousands of other smaller lakes. We're giving serious consideration to buying a cabin to rent out in the summer and use in the autumn and winter ourselves. The idea is that I have somewhere to paint and Casey has somewhere to write, and we'll spend winter months in front of the fire chortling smugly at how wonderfully artistic we both are while sipping port from tin cups. Then, come spring, we'll emerge from our chrysalis laden with the fruits of our winter creativity, ready to hit the press junket, private views and book signings before holing up again the following autumn, and repeating it. In reality, we'd probably get cabin fever and one of us would end up smashing through the toilet door with an axe, or we'd get snowed in and our heating would break down and we'd freeze to death, but it's good to have a dream.

One last marvellous feature of this area, well two actually, is the food: Betty's Pies and World's Best Donuts. I won't go into too much detail as you'll only want to taste it and book the next flight to Minnesota. I'll just say that we queued for forty minutes in Betty's for a slice of 5 Layer Chocolate Pie and took home a whole Rhubarb & Raspberry crunch-top pie, which aside from the time spent listening to Marla from Bowlegs, was one of the hardest forty minutes of my life. World's Best Donuts was exactly that; just a little sugary piece of heaven. I'm officially a convert to a cream-filled Long John (insert witticism here...).

I'm starting to spot a theme to my blogs and am worried that I've only been here 6 weeks and have already turned into a pie-eating, cheese-snuffing, donut-munching hog, but I no longer have a wedding dress to work towards, I have a ring on my finger, I can officially let myself go can't I? I may try to write it off as a foodie feature: as I get to know the country, I get to know a different food type in each area, something like that. All I have to do is sex it up, a la Nigella, and I can have the blogging equivalent of the Marks and Spencer's food-porn ads; (Cue Fleetwood Mac's Albatross) "This is not just a blog, this is Hayley's, all English, home grown, hand-typed, html blog..."

Say 'cheese'!

2008-09-11T13:12:00.034-05:00

The Minnesota State Fair: ‘12 Days of Fun’ proclaim the flags. It was certainly 3 hours of fun,12 days might have been pushing it though. It was a magnifying glass held on all things Minnesotan, and I have to say I liked what I saw...mostly. The fair is primarily an agricultural show attached to a fun fair. It’s famous for frying foods and putting them on a stick, anything you can imagine: lasagna, Twinkies, Belgian waffles, hot dogs, egg rolls - you name it, they can put it on a stick and fry it!

Another impressive aspect of the fair is the butter sculptures of the Princess Kay Finalists. I assumed that the Princess Kay competition was a beauty contest. Apparently I was wrong; the only criteria these delightful young ladies must meet is that they are the daughters of dairy farmers. This entitles said stunners to have their head and shoulders sculpted out of butter and to be displayed in a rotating chilled cabinet, it was reminiscent of the bohemian rhapsody video only with better lighting and worse hairstyles. I’m not entirely sure whether the winner was then decided upon the strength of their buttery likeness or whether some other ag-related yardstick were used; “If I were to be crowned Princess Kay, I would campaign tirelessly for the eradication of butter-substitutes and the plague upon the dairy industry that is ‘spreadable butter’.” Something to that effect anyway.

As a result of attending the fair, I have now started a tie-dye spotting contest, which I aim to monitor in future posts. Can you imagine my horror shortly upon entering the fair when confronted with a whole family - not just one oddball, but a whole family - sporting tie-dye T-shirts?! Casey explained that some people wear them so that they can’t lose each other. I am of the firm opinion that if you dress your children in tie-dye, frankly you deserve to lose them to social services. If you’re so concerened about the little mites running off, carry a flag at the front of the party, tie them with string chain-gang style, even get one of those horrendous snippets of Americana that is the family vacation t-shirt printed: ‘The Wacowski Family does Disneyland, 2008!!!’ Anything but the tie-dye, this is the kind of thing which results in angry young adults with access to firearms.

My horror was soon subdued with an almost local delicacy that is the cheese curd. These popcorn sized nuggets of yum hail from the neighbouring state of Wisconsin, ‘The Cheese State’. Clearly I've moved to the wrong place. I am in ‘The land of 10,000 Lakes’, whilst extremely pretty and a kayaker’s haven, you can’t eat a tray of lakes on the way home from the pub dipped in chilli ketchup.

Cheese curds are deep fried little lumps of cheese that melt in your mouth and are little known outside of the USA, and even then are only really widely available in the more northern states generally. If I were Princess Kay, my promise to the world would be to mass-market cheese curds and share the joy that is deep-fried cheese, I’m pretty sure that would earn me a Nobel Prize. Even if I could just get Americans to appreciate good cheddar, I would feel like my duties as dairy princess would be somewhat worthwhile. An aged cheddar here is anything that is over 6 months old and they seem to regard burger cheese as ‘sharp’. I spent 40mins in Uptown Rainbow yesterday glowering with derision at the tiny overpriced array of ‘mature cheddar’ that had a combined age of perhaps four years and tasted as sharp as a sofa. I like to think of myself as a bit of a cheese buff, and I have to say, this just will not do. Minnesota is treading on thin ice with me here and if I can’t find a reasonably priced cheddar outside of a hippy co-op specialising in gourmet imports, I may have to up sticks and move to Wisconsin, lakes are overrated anyway.

9 days

2008-08-20T11:35:00.004-05:00

It's been 9 days since I flew over to the land of the free and home of the brave. I was taken in to the passport control office at MSP airport and grilled for about 40mins by a rotund immigration officer with a brush moustache and a comb over. She asked me all kinds of questions about my plans, my visa application and my 'relationship with an American citizen'. I was polite and honest and after consulting a fellow rotund mustachioed colleague, she deemed me worthy of a stamp in my little book. I have decided to surgically attach this little book to me from now on, having been refused beer yesterday with only my UK driver's licence as ID.

I am still enjoying my unemployment and choose to fill my time with making wedding favours and writing placecards with silver Sharpies in swirly fonts. I have unpacked one suitcase and littered the floor of the apartment with the contents of the other. I have attended one barbeque and one first birthday party. I have seen Batman at the IMAX and for the record thought Ledger is better than Nicholson as the Joker. I like Michael Caine as Alfred, though I have come to think of him as the British Jennifer Aniston in that he always just plays himself. (Insert Michael Caine impression here......)

I live in uptown, have driven through midtown (without stopping if we can help it) and trawled downtown on a Friday night. I haven't seen as many pasty adolescent thighs and breasts on display since the Chicken Out! campaign. I have realised that comprehension of my accent by barmaids and waitresses directly correlates to the length of their skirts, no matter how slowly and clearly I speak. If only primary school teachers moonlighted as barmaids, I'd be crystal clear every time.

I fight the urge daily to buy a notepad and pretend to be a mute so I can just write down what I want and show it to people. I challenge myself in small ways to overcome my fear of speaking out loud by making a little trip to a different cafe each day and ordering for myself, noting the amount of times I am asked to repeat myself and keeping a little scorecard for each establishment: ultra-trendy Winehouse-wannabe barrista? 1 point. free wi-fi? 1 point. good mocha frap? 2 points. Able to order without doing a Fargo impression? 7 points, and so on. I have yet to master a phone call.

I made some new friends on Saturday at Cora's house (I worked with Cora at ODI in London and she strangely lives 45 mins away from me here); Jonas and Genelle, a German/American couple who know Cora through the tangled web that is the LSE (London School of Economics) connection, which shits all over the Kevin Bacon connection as everyone seems to be linked in two moves as opposed to Bacon's gargantuan six. Honestly, ask the next person you see if they went to LSE or know someone who did, I guarantee they will say yes. Jonas and Genelle are getting married this saturday in Minneapolis and live 7 blocks from us. Genelle's favourite wine is Gewürztraminer which is made at the Wambsganss winery in the Black Forest. Jonas watches the Arsenal matches at Brit's pub with his footy team. They are like some euro/yank mirror image of us across the Lake St divide. They're cool.

I was told the other day that because of my voice and the fact that I even know the smallest amount about 'soccer' I could get a job commentating on local sport radio. The same guy told me he thought it was funny that we called soccer football. I agreed that it was hysterical that we called something by the name it was given in the country that invented it. It was at that moment I believe my accent became slightly less charming.

So, my to-do list for the next few days:

1) Complete my inventory of local cafes and produce a deck of 'Cafe Top Trumps' cards.
2) Try to sell my Top Trumps cards to Minnepolis tourist authority.
3) Single-handedly establish a Minneapolis tourist authority with the slogan 'Come to Minneapolis - it's cheaper than Chicago!'
4) Redo the placecards that Casey spilt tea on when he tripped on the rug.
5) Buy Casey a Tommee Tippee mug and laminate all my future creations.
6) Bake a pie (because I can)
7) Laminate my pie.
8) Visit the Minnesota State Fair, where Casey was once paid to be a security guard for the mascot dept, assigned to a purple robot.
9) Take a photo to go with this blog.