Author: mariezhuikov

The Gauntlet

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Shopping for lotion, I enter the store.

A clerk approaches and asks if I would like a basket.

“Why yes,” I say.

As I walk to the rack that carries my lotion (named Hello Beautiful)

the clerk asks if she can help me find anything.

“It’s right here,” I say proudly, having found my lotion by myself. “Hello Beautiful.”

She triumphantly points to another rack nearby

where lotions sit with the same name and a different label design.

I ponder the new ones, wondering, why can’t they just leave it alone?

Whenever I find something I like, the powers-that-be

change the recipe, change the label, change the scent, change the price.

I put the lotions in my basket.

I walk through the store where another clerk

asks if I’ve found everything I need.

“Yes,” I say.

She leaves, downcast at my satisfaction.

I stand in the checkout line,

almost to the end.

It’s my turn and the cashier looks into my basket, dismayed.

“Oh, don’t you want any spray? It’s twoferone!”

“No thank you.”

She tisk-tisks and rings me up. Asks if I have an email address.

“I don’t like to give that out,” I say.

She give me a look, bags my purchases and starts to hand them to me.

I expect a request for my social security number before she

lets my lotions go, but no.

She has my money and I am free now,

having survived another pass

through the capitalist gauntlet.

Five Things to do in Freeport, Bahamas

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Taino Beach, Grand Bahama Island

I meandered away from the white snow of Minnesota to the white sands of the Bahamas for a week in February. My friend Russ and I stayed at a resort on Taino Beach in Freeport. Here are 5 things we did that you might want to do too, if you’re ever on the island.

Port Lucaya Marketplace

This shopping and dining center is named after the native people who used to live in the Bahamas, the Lucayan. Since the International Bazaar is defunct in Freeport after several hurricanes, this is your best bet for retail therapy and live music. High-end shops (Columbian emeralds, anyone?) mix with tourist stalls that sell T-shirts.

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The conch stand at Port Lucaya Marketplace

We had drinks at the Corner Bar (best pina colada I’ve ever had!) and another day ate a wonderful lunch at Zorba’s Greek Restaurant (which serves the second-best pina colada I’ve ever had). The conch stand always had a line of people waiting to taste this sluggy wonder of the Caribbean. If we’d had time, we would have eaten at Cappuccino’s, an Italian place known for its dinners.

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The second-best pina colada I had during our trip (at Zorba’s).

Rand Nature Center

Take a walk on the wild side in this 100-acre natural area. It’s named after the Rand Family, who were early Freeport settlers and philanthropists. For a $5 entrance fee, you’ll get a short talk and orientation to the visitor center and then free run of the place. Grand Bahama Island is very flat, so the walking is all easy.

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The pond at Rand Nature Center

You’ll walk through Bahamian pines and past a pond full of turtles. Besides wild lizards and birds, the trail takes you past cages with a captive red-tailed hawk, Bahama parrot, and a couple of boa constrictors.

Once back in the visitor center, take a look at the gallery, which features work of local artists. Our visit was very peaceful and restorative.

Wave Running

A WaveRunner tour of the island is on the opposite end of the excitement spectrum from the nature center. Our resort offered an exhilarating ninety-minute tour along the shore to Peterson Cay National Park, known for its healthy reefs and tern habitat.

This trip was Russ’s idea, so I let him do the driving. I hung on for dear life as we bounced on the turquoise waves. Our guide, Ricardo, showed us where dolphin shows take place, and we got to look through the fence and see a dolphin or two. We also motored along Millionaire Row, a canal lined with expensive homes.

DSC05161Then Ricardo took us back out to the sea to the cay, stopping once to point out a $20 million home along the beach. A couple from Massachusetts was with us on the adventure. Denise and Michael were able to keep up with Ricardo better than we were, but paid for it with two impressive falls off their machine.

As we neared Peterson Cay, Ricardo stopped and took a chum bucket out of his machine to feed the sea turtles that frequent the area. Unfortunately, they weren’t around, but he left some offerings for them anyway.

Once on the beach he dropped six tiny hermit crabs in my palm and seemed disappointed when I didn’t freak out. We only spent enough time at the cay to take some photos, then we went back to the waves. Normally, the tour stops at a beach bar on the way back for drinks, but we were so putzy, we didn’t have time.

Once we were back to the resort, Denise said, “I feel like we survived something!” Russ and I had to agree, but it was a fun adventure.

The Perfume Factory

At least one business is still in operation in the defunct International Bazaar in Freeport. It’s the Perfume Factory, where they make colognes for women and men. They produce an impressive variety of fragrances all onsite by hand.

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The Perfume Factory in Freeport

During our short tour of the “factory,” we saw their mixing room and production line. After the tour, our guide gave us samples to smell. My favorite was “Island Promises” for ladies, which is a mix of jasmine, lilies and patchouli. Russ liked the “Lucyan Bay Rum,” which features cloves and bay leaves.

If you don’t like any of their pre-mixed colognes, you can make your own and give it your own name. They will keep the info on file and you can order it again in the future.

Garden of the Groves

On a day when it was too stormy to snorkel, we took a bus tour that included a stop at the Garden of the Groves, which is a manmade natural attraction. It features a café with a view of a waterfall. If you feel like getting married, there’s even a chapel onsite.

We got a half-hour tour with a talkative guide who gave us the lowdown not only on the garden, but on local culture as well. If you feel like meditating, there’s a labyrinth for that, plus winding trails through lush vegetation.

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Garden of the Groves

In Which My Writing Inspires Theft

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45400919_10155548206416386_4915007419303591936_nHere’s a peek into the glamorous life of a local author. I was at the mirror in my church bathroom today when a lady going into a stall stopped and said she enjoyed reading the cover story on American martens that I wrote for Lake Superior Magazine recently.

She saw the magazine in her doctor’s office and since she knew a new issue of the magazine was coming out soon, she thought it would be okay to take the magazine so she could send it to her grandchildren in Japan who love learning about northern wildlife.

I thanked her and told her that there are martens in Japan, too.

Afterward, the more I thought about it, the more tickled I became that she valued my story enough to steal it. Although, perhaps she needs to listen harder to the moral messages during the church service!

A Tribute to Mary Oliver

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I happened to be reading Mary Oliver’s “Dog Songs” book of poems over the course of several evenings when I heard the news of her death last week. What a momentous passing for the poetry world! The thought that she will never write another word for the world to read is depressing. I’ve been in a funk for a few days.

One of my friends said that when he heard the news, it hit him like that scene in “Star Wars” when Princess Leia’s home planet of Alderaan is destroyed by the Death Star; a giant scream passes through the galaxy, heard only by those who are strong in the Force. In the case of Mary Oliver, I imagine many poets emitted silent screams when they heard the news.

20190121_143759I’ve long been a fan of her work. I even was able to see her read in person in the hinterlands that are Duluth way back in 1987. Her autograph is on my copy of “American Primitive” as proof!

I appreciate how Mary made poetry accessible. Her consistent weaving of themes from the natural world and the sensual world spoke to me unlike the work of any other poet.  Thank you thank you Mary Oliver for having the courage to put your words to paper and the perseverance to publish them!

I’d like to share with you some of my favorite poems from “Dog Songs,” which, as if you couldn’t guess, are poems about her dogs.

These lines are from one entitled “Her Grave,” and they echo thoughts I have almost every time I walk my dog:

A dog can never tell you what she knows from the

smells of the world, but you know, watching her,

that you know

almost nothing.

In that short phrase, Mary explains the different worlds that dogs and humans inhabit, yet how closely they are connected.

Another favorite is, “The Poetry Teacher.” This poem describes how the university gave Mary a “new, elegant” classroom to teach in – one where her dogs were not allowed. She would not agree to that and instead moved into an old classroom in an old building. She kept the door propped open and eventually her dog would arrive with his friends . . .

all of them thirsty and happy.

They drank, they flung themselves down

among the students. The students loved

it. They all wrote thirsty, happy poems.

Then there’s “The Wicked Smile,” about a dog who seems famished for breakfast and “talks” Mary into feeding it, only to “confess” afterward that someone else fed him breakfast already.

While her dog poems are not quite as strong as her people-oriented poems, they are certainly worth reading. You won’t look at dogs in quite the same way afterward.

May you all write thirsty, happy poems!

The Jayme Closs Case and the Importance of News Headlines

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Jayme (right), her aunt, and doggie, safe at home. Credit: Jennifer Smith

I was in the bathroom, putting on my makeup with the door open when the television news story came on about Jayme Closs. She’s the 13-year-old girl who was kidnapped in northern Wisconsin. This was the morning after she was “found.”

The newscasters were going on about how she had been “found alive.” Of course, this was wonderful and superb. News of her kidnapping had filled newspapers and airwaves for weeks, and it seemed that, especially during the holidays, her photo and identifying information appeared often in an attempt to keep public awareness keen.

The reporter on the news show was interviewing Jayme’s aunt over the phone and was asking for details about how Jayme had been found. Since there had been such a major search effort put on for her in the area where she disappeared, I think most people assumed that volunteers or the authorities had found her. Part of the inherent definition of “found” is that it’s something that somebody else does.

Then Jayme’s aunt said that Jayme had escaped from the house where she was held. I popped my head out of the bathroom and walked over to the television. This was new information. This wasn’t just a damsel in distress being found. This was the damsel slaying the dragon and saving herself!

I watched the interview for a few more minutes, but then had to leave for work. During my drive, I heard a radio story about how Jayme had been “found.”

By the time I got to work, the writer in me and the MeToo woman-power feminist in me was dismayed by the passive and inaccurate role these newscasts were putting Jayme in. I wrote this quick post to my recent (personal) Twitter account:

I’m happy and relieved to hear that Jayme Closs is alive! However, it bugs me that the media keeps saying she was “found” alive. She freakin’ escaped her captor and saved herself. #JaymeCloss

I’ve only written a few tweets before then, and I’d never used a hashtag before. I didn’t expect much to come of it.

Holy moly, the thing went viral! As of this writing, my little tweet made 209,000 impressions. It had 4,400 engagements, 2,270 likes, 372 retweets and 78 replies. At one point as I sat watching the stats rise, 20 people per second were viewing it.

That was scarily overwhelming for a person whose most popular tweet to date only had six likes. Handling the comments was also overwhelming. Obviously, many people agreed with my sentiments and said they thought the same thing. Others were upset because they thought I was criticizing law enforcement personnel. I explained I was criticizing the news media, not law enforcement.

Others asked me what words would be better to use instead. I said, “Missing Girl Escapes.” Better yet is the headline I saw a few days ago that said, “She’s the Hero!”

Others jumped on my semantics bandwagon and criticized the use of the word “miracle” in connection with her escape. “It’s called self-preservation and bravery,” one tweeter said.

Then the authorities held their first news conference after her escape and commenters to my tweet started dissing them for the self-congratulatory tone of the event. Yes, these agencies did stellar work in trying to find her, and yes, they found her captor soon after Jayme escaped, but to many, it seemed as if the law enforcement agencies were taking all the credit and not giving enough to Jayme. This incensed one commenter so much that she said she called the sheriff’s office and complained about the way they handled the press conference.

Others criticized me for making a big deal out of word choice when this was such a joyous occasion. All I can say is that words matter. Accuracy matters. I have a journalism background and master’s degree in journalism. Words are part of who I am and I’m not going to apologize for that. And it’s obvious my words struck a chord because a heck of a lot of the commenters agreed with me.

This issue makes me wonder, if Jayme had been a boy, would the news media and the authorities have characterized her escape so passively at first? Comparing headlines (passive vs. active) for kidnap victims who escape would be a good PhD journalism research project to see if gender plays a role. PhD students feel free to steal this idea!

Lately, the news conversation has been about who should get the $50,000 reward in the case. Everyone – even the people who first saw Jayme – are saying the reward should go to Jayme because she saved herself. I think that’s very fitting. Jayme’s parents were both killed by her attacker/kidnapper. She’s going to need all the emotional and financial help she can get in the future. I hope that happens.

But I’m not going to tweet this opinion. 🙂

 

P.S. If you want to write or donate to Jayme, the address is: Light the Way Home for Jayme, PO Box 539, Rice Lake, WI, 54868.

The Case of the Headless Bunnies

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A cottontail rabbit. Image courtesy of naturehaven.com.

Almost every day, I walk Buddy the Wonderdog in the woods by my home. This past summer, I was creeped out to see two dead rabbits on the edge of the woods. The incidents happened at separate times but in almost the same locations. The rabbits’ heads were gone, but much of their bodies was still there.

Then yesterday, I saw a headless rabbit again along a different edge of the woods. It lay in the snow with its fur ruffled at the beginning of the trailhead — almost as if someone had placed it there on purpose. A bloody mangled mess of muscle marked where its head and one of its legs had been. No animal tracks led to or from the body. It was as if the rabbit dropped from the sky.

Mysterious.

I finally got curious enough to investigate. I searched the internet for “animals that eat rabbit heads.” I came up with a story from the Toronto Star in Canada that described the horror some schoolchildren felt when they found headless bunnies near their schoolyard. The children thought a person with evil intentions decapitated the rabbits.

However, people familiar with the ways of wild animals responded that the bunnies were the work of an owl, not a Satanic Cult. They explained that owls can’t carry the whole rabbit, so they only take the head.

That’s the same explanation my woods-wise friends gave me when I described the gruesome scene from my dog walks. Also, brains are made out of fat, so I suppose owls get more energy from eating them than from eating other parts of a rabbit.

Similar to the situation mentioned in the news article, the rabbits’ bodies I saw this summer were near the same location each time. I think that makes sense. Animals tend to hang out in the same places. If an owl found a rabbit in a certain place one time, it must be a good place for rabbits, so they are likely to hunt there again.

The lack of tracks also makes the case for an owl doing the killing (or some other type of raptor) versus a human or an animal. The owl attacked from above, so of course it wouldn’t leave tracks.

I am glad to learn that the headless bunnies are just a case of nature taking its course, and not the work of twisted humans. But I am still sorta creeped out.

Old Wood: A Love Story, Part 3

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A screenshot of the Globe Elevator fire, courtesy of WDIO-TV.

Sometimes I shiver at the prescience of my past blog posts. Like the time I wrote about the “ice castle” that was being built outside of my office and said, “What could possibly go wrong?” (It collapsed while its creator was talking to a reporter for the New York Times.)

I got the same shiver when I read my 2013 “Old Wood” series about the historic Globe Elevator in Superior. (See Part 1 and Part 2.) The owners were trying to save their wood reclamation business from bankruptcy. The last line of my story was, “These pieces of history should not go up in smoke.”

Guess what? Unfortunately, the old grain elevator, some equipment, and a couple million dollars of wood burned in an accidental fire last month.

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The view of the fire from my office window.

The sight of flames and a plume of smoke out my office window alerted me to the fire. My coworkers and I immediately felt the lingering trauma of the Husky Energy Refinery Fire that happened this spring near our office and required a community evacuation. We made frantic calls to assess the danger and whether we should leave again.

Thankfully, no explosive chemicals were involved in this fire, just some really dry and valuable old wood, so we didn’t need to evacuate. The people I interviewed for my previous posts no longer owned the site – others were working to salvage the wood. News reports blame a spark from a piece of equipment for starting the fire, which quickly engulfed the elevator.

Another thing to be thankful for is that the elevator was out on a spit of land in the harbor away from other structures, so there wasn’t much danger of the fire spreading elsewhere. The location did make firefighting a challenge, however, because it was a long way away from a hydrant. Once the flames calmed down enough, fire crews were able to pump water from the harbor to put out the fire.

Anyway, now I’m rather paranoid to write about anything for fear of encouraging mayhem. I learned during Christmas gatherings with my relatives that I am now known as “the cousin in the middle of all the disasters.”

Of course, I know I don’t really have the power to write disasters into existence, but you’ve got to admit, my record is rather uncanny!

The Neighborhood Rezoning Zombie Apocalypse

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Image from The Walking Dead television series, courtesy of AMC.

One of my blog readers warned me it might not be dead, but I didn’t want to hear. I plugged my ears, closed my eyes and started singing (“La la la la la…”)

But he was correct. The rezoning issue for my neighborhood wasn’t dead. It rose, like a zombie, from the Duluth City Planning Department even though the planning commission voted it down. (See Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 for more info about this six-month-long saga.)

As it turns out, this is common practice in my city. The planning commission actions are just considered “recommendations,” not the final word. I wish someone had explained this to us from the beginning.

Thinking you’ve won a fight only to find you need to fight it all over again is disheartening. It also seems like a waste of effort to have every zoning issue heard by two civic groups. Why even have a planning commission then?

Anyway, once I heard that the proposal to rezone our Duluth residential neighborhood for commercial development was going before the city council, I admit, I tucked my head and legs inside my shell and hid for a while. However, in hiding, I regathered my gumption and eventually fired off yet another letter of protest to the city council. But that, and writing blog posts, didn’t seem like enough.

The city council heard the issue during two meetings. I couldn’t make the first hearing (because it happened while I was being a turtle). The same couple of neighbors who spoke before the planning commission spoke before the council. I decided it would be good to add a new voice for the next meeting, and that voice should be mine. If I was going to come out of my shell, I might as well do it up good.

The city council chambers was packed – standing-room-only. Most people were there for another contentious issue that involved a proposal for a new downtown apartment building that did not have any affordable housing units included. Along with a lack of single-family homes (like those in my neighborhood), a lack of affordable housing is a big issue in our city.

The hearing for the apartment building and other city council issues took 3-1/2 hours. We sat there at 10:30 p.m., boiling in our long johns, awaiting our turn. Once the affordable housing protesters left, a good number of my neighbors remained in the chambers.

I ended up as the first signed up to speak for our issue. When my name was called, I took a big gulp, stood, and did my thing. I was too nervous to speak without notes, so I used those as an aid. They also helped me stay within the three-minute speaking limit. My speech went fine, and I was sure glad once it was over! Several other neighbors also spoke.

The city councilors asked questions and a few explained their positions. In the end, they voted UNANIMOUSLY (7-0) to reject the proposal to rezone my neighborhood. I am so thankful that they listened to us and to the planning commission.

Is the zombie rezoning war over? Not if the planning commissioner has his way. He said he plans to bring it up again in a few years because he wants to see “orderly development” of my neighborhood. We neighbors would rather see no development. We are a neighborhood that works. Like I said in my speech, our neighborhood ain’t broke, and this won’t fix it.

This fight seems to have renewed people’s appreciation for our neighborhood. This Christmas, for the first time, carolers came to my door. Another neighbor made luminaries (ice candles) and placed them all along the road to her house, providing a special festive touch.

The zombie is dead for now, but it seems as if the issue is biding its time, waiting for another chance to strike. I hope we’re ready to rally then.

Let’s have some fun with this. Feel free to comment with your favorite zombie-killing techniques. They could come in handy later!

The Year in Blogging, 2018

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The image from my most popular post of 2018. No, I am not flipping you off! Photo by Jak of the Mast Cells & Collagen Behaving Badly blog.

Traffic to my blog continues to grow slowly. Part of the slowness is because I don’t have a lot of time to visit other blogs and court their owners’ readership of mine. I am too busy living life and writing about it! But at least my readership isn’t shrinking.

In 2018, more than 7,100 people visited my blog and it had over 8,900 views.

Here are the three most popular stories I wrote this year, plus the most popular overall:

#1 Writer’s Bumps: An Endangered Condition? – My, my, my, but many people have mysterious bumps on their hands! I had no idea. I wrote this post as a joke because I thought that the cushioning bump that grows on writers’ middle fingers when they hold a pencil was going out of style in this age of computer keyboards. Apparently not! Almost every day someone finds my story because they are wondering what the heck that thing is on their finger.

#2 Echoes of the Past: A Sneak Peek Into the Hotel Chequamegon – I had the chance to stay in an historic hotel in Ashland, Wisconsin, for a writing contest reading I gave last winter. I wrote a review of my stay. Hardly anyone else has written reviews, so I suspect that’s why people who are interested in the hotel are finding it.

#3 A Visit to the Tallest Waterfall in Minnesota – A friend and I visited High Falls in Grand Portage State Park last winter and lived to tell the tale, which involved slippery footing and some harmless trespassing.

The most popular post during my six years of blogging is one I wrote in 2017 about a bad experience my dog had with his food. It involved some sleuthing and label reading on my part. To think, I almost didn’t write it, but then went ahead because I hoped others might find the information useful. I guess my hunch was correct.

Iams Dog Food Alert!—This story’s popularity is unfortunately because many dogs other than mine have had bad reactions to the sneaky changes this company made in the recipe of their dog food. I wish it wasn’t so popular, but more and more people keep finding it though searches. I am glad the story is providing them with answers, but sorry to hear that their dogs are having problems.

Thank you again for meandering with me, and Happy New Year wherever you may be . . .