That is a cherry tomato from our garden and three little--guess! Watermelons? Nope! Those are three little (but fully grown) cucumbers. Well, not strictly cucumbers. "Honorary cucumbers" as one website calls them since they're not in the same genus as the cucumbers we know and love. They're also known as "sour Mexican gherkins" and they taste like slightly sour cucumbers. We didn't grow them (we tried and failed), we bought these at the co-op yesterday.
Ahem. Today? Today was kind of a weird day. Lots of stuff has got me all churned up, everything from end-of-semester stress to the Democratic National Convention speeches to PMS to therapy to insomnia. It is a very uneasy time right now.
And have I started studying? Lol, no, not much. Not enough anyway.
One thing Dave and I did do last night was plan a quick, post-semester getaway to--you'll never guess where! Yup, that's right, to glamorous Kansas City and Mansfield, Missouri! Why? I originally thought we would just jump on a train and head east and I remember last time we went by train to Chicago, stepping off the train for ten minutes into the humid dusk of Kansas City and thinking, I'll never set foot in this place again. But recently for some reason, I thought: Why not Kansas City? I like riding the train and there's probably an art museum and some good barbecue in KC, right?
Then I remembered that Laura Ingalls Wilder lived in Missouri. I looked up where she lived and she and Almanzo had a farm in Mansfield, a three-and-a-half hour drive from Kansas City. They moved when she was 27 and spent the rest of their lives there.
The posthumously published On the Way Home is a diary she kept on their trip to Mansfield in 1894--by covered wagon no less--and it was never sanitized for children the way her other books were. You get to see a very candid version of Laura, as when she writes: We all stopped and looked back at the scene and I wished for an artist's hand or a poet's brain or even to be able to tell in good plain prose how beautiful it was. If I had been the Indians I would have scalped more white folks before I ever would have left it.
It was in Mansfield that she wrote her famous books for children and now the farmhouse that she and Almanzo built is a museum that people can visit. So we're going to take the train out to KC, rent a car, and drive to Mansfield.
Last year, of course, we went to see where she lived with her family as a child in Walnut Grove, Minnesota. Maybe next year we'll go to Pepin, Wisconsin, where she was born.
Yes, I am a big fan--huge fan--of the books. In fact, I recently re-read the book, These Happy Golden Years, in which she and Almanzo decide to get married. That's set in De Smet, South Dakota, but I'm not sure about going to De Smet. Maybe not yet, De Smet.
Ah, and what else? I have a final on Monday night and one on Wednesday morning. Then I'm free. The semester will be over! Thank god.
So yes, I need to STUDY! But the Democratic National Convention has been pulling me away in the evenings. I watched Bill Clinton's speech last night and tonight I had to watch Joe Biden, Tim Kaine, and Barack Obama speak. Of course I have to watch Hillary Clinton speak tomorrow night! I'm still so thrilled that she is going to be our next president.
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