7/22/09 08:29 am
In Fergus Falls there are thirteen thousand people and rows of decades old houses. Shingles, wood siding, craftsman style, painted in candy colors. Bubblegum pink, lavender, sunshine yellow, pale green. Children dart daringly across the street on foot and on bike. There's a farmer's market and roadside vegetable stands. There's a coffee shop (with roasted vegetable sandwiches and pierced lip older woman, "wut ken I GET yoooooo?") and a used book store with walls covered floor to ceiling with old books. I bought "Dandelion Wine" and "The Golden Apples of the Sun." There's a Walmart and a Truck Depot and a local burger joint - "Burgers, Fries, and Soda! Best in town!" Small towns are interesting. Of course, where I am (nearest town Underwood, population 371) people drive into Fergus Falls when they need a city.
Yesterday I went kayaking around a small lake. The surface was covered with lily pads in some areas, which you had to avoid because your kayak dragged so reluctantly through them. Bright blue dragonflies flitted over the surface. At one more narrow point between the shore and the island, children had constructed a rickety bridge, slats of wood laid over styrofoam tenuously balanced between metal poles. The hills on the shores surrounding the lake rose from a ring of cattails into tall meadow grass, which blew in shiny waves like the ocean. The sky was bright blue, with dark storm clouds moving in from the south. The air was so sweet.
Later, we went fishing. The boat was electric, and moved silently and slowly through the water as I straddled a bench. We would stop, float, drifting, and fling our lines out into the water. They bobbed and caught and creatures came out of the lake and into our boat. A strange, strange thing. Their mouths gaped but they sat there listlessly, as they were suffocating and dying. Alex killed them in the garage, on a bare table in harsh lamp light. We split them down the middle and their guts poured out. One, a Great Northern, had a bulging stomach and when we split it a smaller fish slithered out, slimy, its head more aerodynamic as it had begun to be digested. I saw their livers, their lung gills, their intestines, their bones. Their skin peeled off whole under the knife.
We fried them up in spicy cornmeal batter - which I somewhat ironically adjusted to be vegan. I ate some. It was good, or alright. I don't know if it was worth killing. But I would do it again if I needed to.
Today, I'm making cornbread, spicy chocolate cupcakes, peppermint chocolate cupcakes, and fresh bread. I've got my utensils laid out on a clean white towel. The counters gleam. I'm ready.
