Amy Lu's View

I really realized that there are differences between Wisconsin and Minnesota when I learned that deep fried cheese curds are a “special” state fair food in Minnesota. 

Don’t get me wrong–I think deep fried cheese curds are special in the sense that they’re amazing, but growing up in Wisconsin, they were a common source of awesomeness. Fried  cheese curds were widely available at most dining/drinking establishments and outlets, and we didn’t have to wait for a yearly celebration to enjoy them. (In the past twenty-five years Minnesota has evolved in its deep fried cheese curd availability and they are much more ubiquitous than they used to be). 

Stereotypes are often rooted in reality, and on this National Wisconsin Day, I’m celebrating how I embrace my Wisconsin heritage, although sometimes with my own twist. 

The two main “I’m from Wisconsin” boxes I check: I love cheese and drinking. However, in an effort to lower calorie consumption, I try to avoid cheese as an entree, and I do often have faux cheese, which may sometimes be slightly more ethical. And beer is not my alcohol of choice. (I don’t eat brats anymore, but they should definitely be cooked in beer). 

Since I’m a fan of non-beer alcohol, it makes sense to assume that I’m into brandy Old-Fashioneds, the way Wisconsinites are known to make them and enjoy them. I’m certainly not opposed to that, but I can’t claim it’s because I’m from Wisconsin, as I knew nothing about cocktails when I was a youth growing up there. (In addition to the legendary Bloody Marys I loved at the bar The Joynt, the only “cocktails” I drank were Long Island Iced Teas, which I don’t really think count as cocktails but college kid booze delivery concoctions.)

And I am not a Packers fan. Insert gasp here. Maybe even a swoon. But that’s not because I’m anti-Packers, but because I’m deeply uninterested in football. I’m not a fan of any team, but if I had to be, it would be the Packers.

I say pop, (water) fountain, and duck duck GOOSE, but I think those may be differences based on geography rather than state lines. I think I grew up saying and hearing “casserole” and “hot dish” interchangeably, although I now prefer “hot dish” so maybe I’ve been brainwashed. 

Fish frys were never a big deal for my family. Like brandy Old Fashioneds, they were something that I learned had Wisconsin associations after I didn’t live there anymore.  

Is being from somewhere just about what we eat and drink and say? Of course not, but those are the easy things to identify and make jokes and social media and blog posts about. 

I broke my blog streak* yesterday and did not blog about any holiday. 

I didn’t blog because I was too busy “celebrating” a holiday–unfortunately, that holiday was Desperation Day**. 

Why was I so desperate? I lost my cell phone–which was bad enough–but this was the SECOND time that I had lost my phone in two years. And once again, I lost it because of my carelessness. I think it fell out of my bag–as it has done several times recently. Clearly, I had reason to think that putting my cell phone in this bag was NOT a good idea, but I kept on doing it. 

I know we all make mistakes, but I hate the feeling of making a “totally-preventable-I-could-have seen-that-coming-in fact-I’ve-done-this-before” mistake. I should at least get some new material. 

But today, I get to celebrate Valentine’s Day with feeling all sorts of warm fuzzy lovey dovey feelings for my awesome husband who rescued my phone! (as in picked it up from the very wonderful person who found it and eventually called him). Chad also handled all the details of locking my phone and setting the message to call him. I’m also filled with love for the person who returned it and the universe who reunited me with my phone, thus sparing me from more hours of self-recrimination and the expense and hassle of having to buy and learn a new phone. 

And yes, I have learned my lesson: I vow to be careful about my phone whereabouts and to NOT lose it again. I even left it at home when we went to Acme tonight. 

I hope I can at least make it to two years before I lose it again. 

*I feel bad about not meeting my challenge but if blogging 30 days in a row was easy to do, it wouldn’t be a challenge, right? So I’ll be back on the metaphorical horse (I don’t think I’ve ever been on a real horse) and onward and upward!

**Desperation Day actually has something to do with the television show “How I Met Your Mother” which I have never watched, but I reserve the right to interpret the “holidays” I blog about in whatever way inspires me, as long as it’s not too culturally inappropriate. 

I was so successful in cleaning up old files off my work computer today, that I got a “warning” email from the system alerting me that I had deleted a large number of files. 

Yes! I am the Queen of Computer Decluttering and I win National Clean Out Your Computer Day (February 12)!

It’s more accurate to say I deleted files from the cloud, but in my opinion, that still counts. I think it more than counts, as most files we access via computer are in the cloud now. 

In case you haven’t heard…2024 is the Year I Will Reach My 25th Work Anniversary. Maybe you haven’t heard, for while I seem to bring it up at every work meeting I attend, you may not be in work meetings with me. But if you have even the most casual social contact with me, or read my blog, you will hear about it. 

It’s not surprising that after almost a quarter of a century (?!–no my heart did not almost stop when writing that) I’ve accumulated a lot of files–digital, paper, mental, spiritual. And while today was not the first or only day I cleaned up my computer files, it’s still amazing how much I have amassed. 

Today I unearthed some delightful photo artifacts among the decades old meeting minutes and project charters that I now share with you. This is hardly a systematic retrospective (most photos only go back as far as 2007) but it conveys some of the different hairdos and accessories I’ve sported throughout the years.  (Yes, I still own most of these).

While I’m feeling accomplished that my work computer files are slightly streamlined, I now need to delete all the photos I just downloaded onto our Chromebook while working on this post.

I don’t think of myself as a terribly sciency person, but I literally have a Masters degree in Science, so I can celebrate that on this International Day of Women and Girls in Science. 

It’s a Master of Arts degree in Library and Information Science, but the word “science” is there. 

Despite it being my profession, I’ve never thought too hard about or really understood what the “science” aspect of Library and Information is supposed to be. Plus, having a Master of Arts in Science feels rather confusing, although I do like the idea of something being an art and a science. I tend to frequently use the “It’s an art not a science” aphorism at work to describe how there isn’t a precise formula or set of directions for handling a situation, but it may be better to think of most things as an art and a science, needing to be both prescriptive and open-ended. Not that art and science are a dichotomy, but I often use the words as shorthands to describe approaches and orientations with different focuses.

I’m definitely pro-science–especially in the global warming is real, vaccines are good, i.e. contemporary “liberal” sense. (Although liberals can get science wrong, too, or not adapt when science’s understanding of something changes). 

I’m also pro-science in the “science is cool” way. I love thinking about mind-bending ideas like the multiverse, dark matter, the mycelium network–concepts that usually end up as fodder for sci-fi entertainment. I don’t fully understand these ideas–I tend to just have a cursory understanding and glom onto what makes me feel intrigued, amazed, comforted, awestruck–often a spiritual response. When my mom was dying, I was moved and consoled by a book by physicist Paul Davies that I think had something to do with universal consciousness and time. 

I do worry that I’m not respecting the integrity of science or being intellectually honest–I just blithely take some vague “science” notions that make me feel good and get all woo–woo with them. But I’m okay with some fuzzy pseudo-science thinking as long as I’m not trying to make health decisions or advocate for policy change based on it. The most detrimental consequence of my love of pop culture science is I amass a lot of reading that I never get around to. 

I also tend to blog about topics I’m not really informed on, but blogging is definitely an art and a science.

Happy Flannel Day from me and my sherpa-lined flannel shacket!

I’ve had this shacket for almost exactly 3 months (delivered by Amazon on Nov. 9) and it has brought me immense comfort and coziness. 

However, I didn’t even know it was a “shacket” until I heard the term come up at a neighborhood bingo outing this afternoon. When I asked, “What’s a ‘shacket’ ?” I learned it’s a cross between a shirt and a jacket. I thought, “Hmmm, that sounds like my awesome flannel shirt I was planning to blog about” so I went home and looked at the history of my Amazon orders and discovered I did indeed own a shacket!

It might seem unexpected that I have loved my flannel shacket so when the winter has been crazy warm, but it’s perfect for many mornings and evenings when it’s rather chilly, or on an afternoon when the sunroom is still a little nippy. I can see myself wearing it in the early spring on walks around the neighborhood or maybe even hiking in a park. 

Wearing my shacket is like being hugged, with no social awkwardness. As I’ve said many times, I’m no fan of cold weather or winter, but I bet I will be a little wistful when I pack my shacket away for the summer. 

In fact, as I sing the praises of my shacket, I’m getting closer and closer to ordering another one through Amazon (hey, Chad’s not around to point out that the last thing in the world I need is another item of clothing). The only thing that’s really stopping me trying to decide what color to get. 

I’m not a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle. 

Obviously–I’m not a teenager, or a ninja, or a turtle. But I feel I really stray from the path of the TMNT because I don’t eat pizza very often. 

But the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles love pizza, so I’ve been thinking about them on National Pizza Day. This is a day that would make them very happy, and the Turtles have definitely made us happy throughout the years. In the early years of Chamy Chad was quite into the Turtles, and one of the first presents I ever got for him was a Turtle comforter–which we still have, and which StanLee often snuggles with in my/his office. 

(Chad’s favorite Turtle is Michelangelo, in case you’re wondering. And yes, I feel like a good spouse for knowing that). 

So I planned on celebrating National Pizza Day by reminiscing about the Turtles, and NOT having pizza.

But Fate had a different plan for us. 

Yes, I’m attempting to be amusing. I actively dislike the idea of fate, destiny, God’s will, etc., so I don’t think there was any cosmic plan for us to eat pizza today. But…when Chad came home with free leftover veggie Pizza Luce pizza (I think a Uncle Rico’s Jalapeño Popper Pizza), I couldn’t say no to it.

Yes, I had to do some soul searching and recalculation of my eating plans, but in the end my cheapness won out (l couldn’t pass up free good pizza) and WE HAD PIZZA ON NATIONAL PIZZA DAY!!

It was yummy–not super spicy as described to Chad, but noticeably spicy and definitely tasty. And did I mention free? 

Maybe the Universe does have a divine plan for my blog after all!

After Chad and I graduated from college, we packed our bags, and headed off to…Iowa. 

Yeah, sometimes I wish we had ventured off to someplace considered more exciting and glamorous, and that we had spent our youth being slightly more adventurous. 

But Iowa was good to us. (And, if I had lived somewhere farther away from my ancestral home in Wisconsin, my mom and dad wouldn’t have been able to visit us as often as they did, and as it turns out, I didn’t have that many years left to spend with my mom before she died). 

Iowa was a land of firsts for us–the first time we lived together, where we got our first pet (our dearly departed cat Rogue), where we first watched “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” tv show, first used the interwebs, and had our first (and probably last) maid rite sandwich. I think we had our first pizza with artichokes in Iowa (Chad was not a fan). 

We had a lot of beginnings in Iowa. I started walking regularly, which eventually led to me running. I went to graduate school at the University of Iowa and got my Master’s in Library Science, and had my first library job and did my first story times at the Cedar Rapids Public Library. Chad went to Law School. We got engaged in Iowa. 

We knew some lovely people in Iowa, including our landlord and landlady, who owned the little house we rented next door to them. We drank our landlord’s homemade wine with them, and he comforted me when my dead Stanza got towed by explaining the vehicle circle of life to me (it was off to the scrapyard).

We lived in Iowa for 4 and a half years (briefly in Marion and the rest of the time in Cedar Rapids). These are just a few of the sweet and funny and silly memories I have of Iowa, so I’m throwing myself into National Iowa Day with enthusiastic nostalgia. 

I’m a runner. 

Nothing too exciting or revelatory there, as I talk, post and blog incessantly about running. Still, accepting that identity was a process, as I had to wrestle with questions of if I ran fast enough, or seriously enough, to claim the “runner” label. 

I’m a runner, and I think anyone who runs–whatever that looks like for them–and wants to say they are a runner, is a runner. 

But am I “in sports?” 

This is the question I’m pondering on Women in Sports Day (I’m not questioning if I’m a woman, although I support folks who are questioning or reconsidering what that means). 

“Sports” suggests a level of competitiveness and organization that I don’t think apply to me. But, since I got an email from Twin Cities in Motion (which I’m affiliated with from running the TC Marathon and other races) wishing me a “Happy Girls & Women in Sports Day” I guess I won’t be too much of an imposter if I embrace my Sporty Spice persona.

I’ve thought (and blogged) a lot about running, so today I want to focus on the value of running (sports) for women, girls, and anyone who’s felt that being physically active wasn’t for them. As someone who spent most of their youth feeling mostly fear and loathing for physical activity, I’m so grateful that I finally discovered that running is an option for me. 

I’m still super self-conscious about participating in group sports and demonstrating how uncoordinated and awkward I am. Just this weekend I shared an elementary school memory of hitting a student teacher in the head with a softball on Track and Field Day, and I don’t think my “sports skills” have improved since then. But at least now I have some appreciation for my body as something more than just the vehicle for transporting my brain from place to place. 

My body is also useful for wearing my racing medals. 

Hey there, Reader of My Blog Post! You clearly have great tastes in blog reading! Happy Pay a Compliment Day!

I love being complimented. I may love it a little too much, and I may have a slightly unhealthy desire for praise and affirmation. I’m sure this is related to my love of performance…you can’t compliment me if you don’t see me, after all. 

Compliments seem like they should be simple to give and receive (“Hey, I like this about you!” followed up by “That’s neato, thanks!”), but I think for many of us they’re not. As much as I love getting a compliment, my self-doubt and insecurity often gets in the way, and a little (or not-so-little) voice inside me wonders if I just got a back-handed compliment (even unintentionally). “Hmmm, you think I did this thing really well this time…does that mean you usually think I suck at it?” 

And giving compliments can feel hard, especially if I’m in overthinking mode. If I compliment someone’s hair, will they think I’m shallow and only value them for their physical appearance? Or if I compliment their jewelry am I materialistic? What if my compliment sounds trite or insincere? 

Compliments can fall flat, but I still want to err on the side of over giving them. I want to actually let people know I like them and what they do and how they move through the world, even if the compliment is about something small and trivial. And I do aspire to give more meaningful compliments that show I’m really paying attention and appreciating something unique about someone. Being a good compliment giver seems like an exercise in awareness and gratitude–tuning into the big and little awesome things about people, including strangers, acquaintances, and those who are close to me.  

If you notice I’m getting better at being complimentary, please feel free to compliment me on that!

I don’t have as much appreciation for the Clash as I ideally should. I did get more knowledgeable a few years ago when we were in a student Clash cover band, but I’ve never really thrown myself into a Clash Consciousness Project. 

So to observe International Clash Day today, February 5, I’m pondering a song by The Hold Steady that gives a shout out to Joe Strummer. 

“Raise a toast to St. Joe Strummer
I think he might’ve been our only decent teacher
Getting older makes it harder to remember we are our only saviors”

–The Hold Steady, “Constructive Summer”

As I get older and older (less than a month away from turning 54) I love this lyric more and more. As the years pass, it can be so easy to forget that we are our only saviors, and that we still have power and potential. There is a lot to debate in what a “savior” is or what “salvation” means, but I think the really key point is that we have to do this work for ourselves and for, and with, each other. (Chad just pointed out that I’m referencing many of his sermons with this take on salvation). Whatever we mean by salvation we can’t give up just because we’re no longer young (and we can certainly welcome the young to help us out, and to maybe help them out, too). 

If we are our only saviors, we have to admit we need saving (or at least help), and try to be there for each other–even if it’s only in small ways.

I think this is charmingly and beautifully (and a little disturbingly) illustrated by the recent response to Elmo’s tweet (https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/31/health/elmo-checking-in-x-wellness-cec/index.html) asking how we’re doing. (Yeah, yeah, I know it’s no longer “Twitter” or “tweeting” but I’m going to keep using that shorthand). I didn’t do a deep dive into the responses, but many, many people replied that they, and “we” are not okay. Sure, some of this was probably intentionally funny and dramatic, but it seems like there was a lot of truth there. 

And Elmo, (and Cookie Monster, and Snuffleupagus, and Joe Biden–or Joe Biden’s social media people) tried to help.  

I won’t claim that anyone was saved by Elmo’s tweet or the responses to it, but I do think there was at least some degree of sincere asking for, and trying to provide, help. 

To uplift that spirit of saving, I’ll raise a toast to St. Joe Strummer, and St. Elmo, too (and Elmo also  had his own holiday on Feb. 3. Do I get extra points for working that in?)