Tell the World, I'm Coming Home

I haven't been outside Des Moines for more than a day or so at a time all year, but it's still been 156,960 minutes since I've been home.  Don't get me wrong, I love the city I live in, and it's a new home that I've started to appreciate more and more over the five years I've been here.  But I don't know if another place will ever be as much home to me as that simple two-story white house with blue shutters on a tree-lined street in the Western Chicago suburbs.  I've got three days to spend back on my old streets.  And I know that it's no use planning anything, because we never get around to half of what we intend to do while I'm in town.  But I hope to at least do some of these things during my stay.


- Nearly get knocked over (literally) by a charging brother and sister who still come running the instant they hear the familiar creak of the door opening

- Stay up way too late the first night I'm there, just sitting around the kitchen table talking with everybody.  Then staying up way too late the other nights too, for any myriad of reasons

- Wake up to a pot of coffee every morning that somehow usually tastes better than anything I make at home.  I'm not typically a coffee drinker, but I'll have some every morning I'm home

- Spend some time in the backyard, getting my hands dirty: planting, mulching, assistant-pruning or grafting with my Dad.  Somehow all the jobs I used to hate as a kid are now an enjoyable way to spend a few hours outside.  There's no way we'll have time to get everything done, but at a minimum we'll walk around and check all the plants.

- Haul out the Super Nintendo for a couple of rounds of Super Mario Kart against my siblings.  And if we can finagle someone into it, the subbed-out player will provide hilarious play-by-play commentary.

- Go to the Algonquin Commons with my siblings.  It's basically an outdoor shopping mall, and we never seem to end up buying anything, but for some reason we always end up here.

- Volunteer to make any errand run, as an excuse to cruise around and hang out with one of my brothers or sister, windows down and radio up, if possible.  At a minimum, one of these trips will be to the grocery store I used to work at in high school.

- Drive into the city or to some other suburb I can't remember visiting.  Or one that I vaguely remember once I see it.  For all the years I lived here, it's amazing how much of the area I just don't know.

- Alternately, hang out in one of our old favorite haunts, reminiscing at the familiar and being surprised at the new.  The streets and shops of St. Charles or Geneva, Woodfield or Stratford Square Mall, maybe even downtown Elgin.

- If the weather permits, cruise around in my Dad's Miata with the top down.  It's sort of new, but I could get used to it.  :)

- Go to Portillo's for a hot dog and a chocolate malt.

- Do something that entirely surprises me.  Seemingly every time I'm home, one of my brothers or sisters suggests something that I'd never come up with and we end up doing it.  I haven't always been as receptive as I maybe should be but I'm getting better at it.

- Fight over the "old dog" seat on the couch.  It's the best spot, in the corner of the L, with room to stretch out your legs.  We all want it, and usually end up with a couple of us crammed into the corner to share it.

- Make a giant pot of hard-boiled eggs and color them late at night.  Be amazed by the creations my brothers and sister can come up with using stickers and rub-on transfers.

- Crowd into the cramped kitchen alongside everyone else for organized chaos as we hustle to get everything prepared for Easter dinner.  Pots simmering on the stovetop, chopping ingredients on the counters, timers blaring as everything gets done at the same time.

- Have a fantastic meal together, filled with tons of laughter, many silly inside jokes, and delicious food.  And, if I have time to make it, a homemade pie for dessert.

- Head out of town on the familiar highway, feeling full and happy, but wishing I had more time before I have to leave.


It's easy to be snide about coming to Elgin.  It's a suburb on the outskirts of Chicago, without the big-city feel or a ton of small town charm.  It's big enough to have city problems, but small enough to not have any major attractions.  But that's just Elgin on paper.  As usual, it took one of my siblings to make me understand how much more it is.  My sister, living in Chicago, arguably the greatest city in the US, writing online about how she loves Elgin and looks forward to being back.  And once that seed took hold, I started to feel it too.  Elgin isn't just its buildings or its streets, Elgin is memories, and reminiscences, and most importantly it's where my family is.  Where my home is.  They say home is where the heart is, and for better or worse, that's Elgin.  I'm coming home.

I thought I told y'all that we won't stop
Til we back cruising through Harlem Elgin, these old blocks
It's what made me, saved me, drove me crazy
Drove me away and then embraced me
Forgave me for all my shortcomings
Welcome to my homecoming
It's been a long time coming...

Scoopin' and stirrin'... for victory!

Things have been going well the last few weeks down at Zink Square Footage.  April is fickle, and the meteorologists are trying to frighten us with all this talk of potential snow this weekend, but it's simply been too nice out to believe in that right now.  When you get a Sunday afternoon that hits (no joke) 90 degrees on April 9th, snow is about the last thing on your mind.  What has been on my mind, then?  Preparing ourselves for victory, of course!

First things first.  I decided in my last post that our little urban farm needed a name to make it feel legit.  If you head down to the farmer's market and peruse the stands, there will be many differences, but one thing they all have in common is that they all have names.  Coyote Run Farm, Blue Gate Farm, Soder Apiary, the list goes on and on.  So once we added livestock (worms!) to our farm, it was pretty clear we needed a name to really reach the big time.  Stacia suggested a riff on the fairly common (Name) Acres, used by many farmers including her grandparents.  Well, we don't exactly have acres; we have about 100 square feet.  Keeping that in mind, and considering that we're largely following the Square Foot Gardening method, it was pretty clear that we should be Zink Square Footage.

So what's been going on down on our square feet?  A lot, actually!  A week ago the weather turned nice and we decided to head out to our cropland.  We had one raised bed that was starting to come apart at the corner, so we fastened it back down with an L-bracket and screws.  We pulled a few weeds and threw down some mulch on our pathways.  But the big job was getting the soil ready for planting.

The "soil" we plant in really never has been soil per se.  It's a 1/3 1/3 1/3 mix of compost, vermiculite and coconut coir (a sustainable alternative to peat moss).  This mix seems to work really well, as we had good results with it last year and it really hadn't packed down too badly when we stopped by this spring.  Compared to the dense clay all around us, it's 100 square feet of veggie plant heaven.  Well, this mixture worked so well last year that we really didn't fertilize or feed the soil at all, which let me to think we might have depleted it just a bit.  Certainly, though, there's no way we were going to dump a bag o' chemicals onto our precious plot, so we had to find an organic alternative.  That alternative showed itself in the form of...  poop.

Poop of various kinds, actually.  I've already espoused somewhat the benefits of worm compost, organic matter that's worked its way through worms.  Our squirm is a bit young yet, so they haven't processed enough to add to the garden, but we were able to find a few bags of commercial worm castings.  They don't do much for you in terms of Nitrogen, Phosphorous or Potassium (the three chemicals in all fertilizers), but they do add nice microorganisms that the plants like.  We needed that N-P-K too, though.  Fortunately, that is very available in the form of chicken manure, cutely marketed as Coop Poop.  With a few scoops of coop poop (say that 3 times fast) and a half-bag of worm castings per box, I felt confident we'd refortified the soil without overdoing it (which can be just as bad as underfeeding).

Working that mixture and stirring it into the existing material was a fantastic workout for upper body strength, which is nice for me since I currently have none.  With aching arms and beautifully prepped boxes, we wiped our brows and looked out over Zink Square Footage.  I gotta say, it looked goood.  It took all of my restraint to keep Stacia and me from jumping straight into planting seeds everywhere, but weather-people everywhere were promising a low that Monday night in the sub-30 degree range.  Our seeds might have been fine, but I didn't want to run the risk that we plant everything only to lose it in a frost.  One more week, I said.  One more...

Who can say if that was the right choice, since it only really hit 30-even in Des Moines, but either way a little prudence is probably a good trait to have in the garden.  We had marigold and broccoli seedlings, seeds of 6 different kinds that we wanted an early start on, and all the enthusiasm we could muster.  Patience... well, we'd have to work on that.  But victory in our fight for food independence isn't achieved in one quick skirmish.  It takes just as much planning, preparation and anticipation as it does actual work.  So for one more week we were content to gaze at our farm's bare soil.  Within another week, we'd be going all-out, for it would be one of the best possible days in the garden.  It would be... planting day!

Next update, I'll let you know how first planting went, and probably update you on the second planting, currently scheduled for this coming weekend.  Keep growing on!

Filmfest 1939-1940

I'm a bit behind on blog posting of late, so I'll get myself back on track with probably the least popular, but most consistent type of post I put out - my movie reviews.  I started this reboot in December of last year, and in the four short months since I have watched 25 classic films (out of the 123 on the AFI's combined Top 100 lists).  Some have been really good, some quite bad, and perhaps no month reflects that range better than this.  We didn't quite manage one movie with each possible ranking, but came very close.  These five featured some movies I just hated, some I was ambivalent about, and some I really loved.  Which is kind of what this project is all about, I guess - figuring out what I think is a "classic," rather than relying on some critic to tell me what I think.  But anyway, enough of that... on to the movies!

Movies 21-25

1939 - Stagecoach (#63) - I first watched this film last July, and I kind of hope that it's the last time I watch it, too.  As you may recall, movies in this project are up for second viewings if either a) I think I was too harsh or too generous last time around, or b) I just really like them.  Neither is the case for Stagecoach.  If you like stereotypical "old school" westerns, where the Indians are the bad guys who are easily dispatched by gunslinging cowboys, or you want to see all of John Wayne's movies, this is for you.  Otherwise, it's like they took a cardboard cutout of every cliched Western character, from the misunderstood saloon girl to the rogueish desperado to the pretentious upper class guy, and threw them all into a stagecoach for some reason.  Along the way, they're attacked by Indians, which amounts to little more than a carnival shooting gallery for John Wayne, up to a finale that means almost literally nothing to the viewer.  I don't much like Westerns in general, but this one is at the bottom of the barrel for me.

1 out of 5 stuffed bears for John Wayne

1939 - The Wizard of Oz (#6) - You've seen this movie, so there's no need for me to summarize it; and you love it or else you're some sort of zombie.  What's not to love?  The wonderful fantasy story of a girl transported to an incredible colorful world, the zany characters met at every turn, the quick wit of the dialog between them, the great theme of finding happiness at home, and of course the songs you simply have to sing along with.  Not to mention flying monkeys, which make pretty much any movie better.  In fact, had Stagecoach featured flying monkeys, it would have rated way higher.  In all seriousness, though, I really was concerned I wouldn't like this film after having seen (and loved) the musical Wicked, fearing I'd have a hard time accepting Dorothy's side of the story anymore.  But we stumbled upon it in a hotel room in Kansas City last winter, and what started off being a way to kill a few minutes ended up being a movie night, cozily hunkered down with a familiar favorite from years past.  And even though I know almost the entire movie rote, I was happily surprised to see how well it holds up and how much I enjoyed seeing it again.

5 out of 5 flying monkeys (what else?)

1939 - Wuthering Heights (#73) - Another film that didn't warrant a second viewing.  Again, you can look back to my archives to see why I didn't like it at first, but here's the short version.  I don't require movies to have happy endings.  In fact, tragic films, or those that involve overcoming immense hardship can be some of the most beautiful, touching or poignant of all.  However, movies that are only tragic due to the intentional stupidity of the characters, I simply find frustrating.  This adaptation is based on a book, and it could be the most faithful rendition possible; I wouldn't know as I haven't read it.  But if that is the case, I imagine I'd intensely dislike the book as well.  Two hours of film spent on characters deliberately mistreating one another only to futilely claim at the end to love one another just is not my kind of movie.  Maybe it's just really deep and I'm not getting it, but for now I'm okay with that.  I won't watch this again of my own volition.

I literally can't think of a fun little icon for this movie, so just 1 out of 5.

1940 - Fantasia (#58) - Everyone knows the Sorcerer's Apprentice portion of this film, but I have to say that it's not one of my top vignettes.  Not that we need to pick favorites, but I found the most enjoyable to be The Pastoral Symphony, followed by The Nutcracker Suite and Night on Bald Mountain.  Interestingly enough, Night on Bald Mountain and my other remembered favorite, the dinosaurs of Rite of Spring, weren't as great as I remembered.  But maybe I'm getting ahead of myself.  Fantasia is unlike other Disney films in that it has no main storyline, but simply consists of individual animated vignettes set to classical music.  This makes it rather hard to rate as a film, since most of my typical criteria don't really apply.  You almost have to think of Fantasia more as an abstract work of art, in which case some segments really work and others still lag.  The Pastoral Symphony is fun, as pegasuses (pegasi?) and unicorns gather to celebrate something with Bacchus, the god of wine.  But it's also animated beautifully and makes for a peaceful and stunning world.  The Nutcracker Suite is more abstract, going from simple lines to flowers, fairies, mushrooms and more, but there's something pretty about it all.  Night on Bald Mountain is a creepy tale of a demon conjuring up souls from graves, which (like the others) fits perfectly with the mood of the music.  These are the great ones.  But the dinosaur segment is tedious, Sorcerer's Apprentice feels like pandering, and the dancing animals of Dance of the Hours are too cartoon-y.  It's almost as though in an attempt to gather more mass appeal, Disney watered down the true art pieces with less significant parts.  There are parts of this film I'd love to watch again, but I doubt I'd be excited to watch it all the way through again.

3 out of 5 pegasi flying horses

1940 - The Grapes of Wrath (#21) - I know what you're thinking.  How could a movie about a family desperately traveling cross-country simply wanting to work possibly resonate with me, a person who strives to work as little as possible?  Well, somehow it did, and even though the film differs significantly from the source novel (which I've never read), I really found the story captivating.  Set in the dust bowl era in Oklahoma, the film follows a family forced to pack up and leave, heading for promised work in California.  Not everything goes quite to plan, as the travels are hard on the family, and not all the work is as honest as it should be.  But while the plot is important in showing the hardship of the Great Depression, the reason the film is great is the people in it.  Anyone who's grown up in a close-knit family can't help but feel for the struggles the Joads face trying to keep the family together through their struggles.  And anyone who cares about social justice and letting people earn a fair living should be inspired by Tom's heartfelt speech toward the end, followed by Ma's almost-as-great soliloquy.  But the thing that perhaps got me the most in this movie is the connection these people have with the land.  Muley Graves is supposedly a little crazy, but perhaps he says it best with the line "That's what makes it our'n, bein' born on it... and workin' on it... and dyin' on it!  And not no piece of paper with writin' on it!"  In a country with a food system so industrialized and corporate, the struggles of a people who toiled and cared for the land is something we'd do well to think more about.  The movie poignantly captures the beginning of the end of the family farmer in the mainstream and shows us just what effect our "progress" can have.

4 out of 5 jalopies

Next batch is an exciting one.  Two of the top three rated movies in AFI's list, plus another that I know I love.  The 1940's were a great era in American cinema, and I'm excited to get started on that group.