As you know, Kyle and I fell in love in a mass of people at a World Juniors hockey game when he asked me, “So, do you like stuff?”  I liked stuff then and I like stuff now.  Here are a few of my favorite stuffs from the past few days:

Soup

My older son played in a hockey tournament in Winnipeg this past weekend, and my eight-year-old – who had two birthday parties on Saturday in Grand Forks and was sick and tired of being a good sport at these tournaments – absolutely did not want to go.  On Tuesday, I sent my parents a sheepish email asking if they would drop everything in their lives and drive ten hours round-trip to hang out with Eight so both Kyle and I could go to the tournament…and, of course, Bubbe and Zayde said yes.

My parents had to leave on Sunday before I returned home from Winnipeg (we didn’t just stick him in the backyard with $20 pinned to his shirt; one of our lovely friends’ daughters came over to babysit), and so my mom sent me a series of text messages on the way out the door.

“I washed the sheets in the guest room and remade the bed,” my mom wrote.  “I filled your fridge so you didn’t need to run to the store.  I also made you a little matzoh ball soup for Passover; enjoy!”

Sure enough, waiting in my now-overstuffed refrigerator was a giant pot of matzoh ball soup with the biggest, fluffiest matzoh balls ever balled.  That soup made it 24 whole hours before becoming nothing more than a delicious memory.

Lawn Furniture

Kyle and I decided to host an impromptu (inasmuch as a 5,000-year-old holiday is a surprise) Passover seder on Monday for 20 of our friends.  There was one small issue: every time we’ve hosted a group of any size at our house, it’s been BYOC (Bring Your Own Chairs) on the driveway, not sitting at a table passing around food.

“Should we have it in our garage?”  I said to Kyle, wondering if there was some kind of Commandment or whatever that said, “Thou shalt not serve Bubbe’s matzoh ball soup in the same place thy stores thy’s bikes and coffee cans full of old screws.”

“We can get everyone into the living room,” Kyle said.

“I don’t think we can rent tables and chairs in time,” I said.

Kyle paused; the heavens opened, the angels sang, and a flock of doves appeared behind a rainbow leading to a pot of gold.

“Oh, I have tables and chairs,” he said.

A constant is our marriage is my nonstop disdain at Kyle’s ability to harbor crap.  From the aforementioned coffee cans of old screws to broken lampshades and cracked flower pots, if it looks like garbage and feels like garbage, Kyle loves it with all his soul.  The only thing worse than the storing of this crap is when the crap becomes useful – for example, Kyle once fixed a table with a part from our swimming pool frame that I had been demanding he throw away and no one was gladder and more vindicated than Kyle and no one was more furious than I.

Over the next two hours, Kyle carried a picnic table and an outdoor dining table (both things I wanted gone last fall) into the living room and set them with two sets of junked up lawn chairs that I had ACTUALLY THROWN AWAY at our old house and had been rescued by Kyle when we moved.  Then he wiped them off and put tablecloths on them and I’m unhappy (but secretly happy because it worked great) to tell you that that crap worked great.

Something’s Bernini

We were sitting on the front porch enjoying the day with a few of our friends waiting for the rest of the Passover guests to arrive when Eight texted Kyle from his watch, “Something’s Bernini.”  A minute later Eight came outside and said, “I think I smell something burning in the house,” which turned out to be gravy boiling over onto the stove.  We wiped it up and thanked Eight for his quick thinking.

“Yeah, I pretty much saved Passover,” he told everyone.  “I guess I’m a hero.  The Passover Hero.”

“I guess you are,” Kyle said.

The Twilight Zone

After the Passover dishes had been cleaned up and the lawn furniture returned from whence it came (the yard, not the garbage), Kyle and I sat down to watch an episode of The Twilight Zone.  The episode was called “Third from the Sun,” and was about two employees of some kind of government agency who decide to steal a prototype spaceship and escape the planet with their families after it’s determined that their work is leading to nuclear warfare.  The plan hinges on getting to the airfield before the bomb is set into motion, and they are forced to move their escape up by several hours when one of their coworkers discovers their intent and tries to stop them. (By the way, if you’re like HEY SPOILER, the episode is 64 years old and the moratorium on spoiling ends after 63.)  The two families load up into the car and go racing down the road.

I’d highly recommend The Twilight Zone for the storytelling, the twists (this episode has a zingy twist at the end – again, NOT A SPOILER), but also for the special effects – and this episode had one of my favorites.  They clearly shot the car on a sound stage, and simulated movement by showing a very clean tire turning (only the top of the tire, though, since it wasn’t going anywhere).  Inside the car, the actors expressed the motion by…leaning forward.  This car race goes on for a solid thirty seconds and is repeated twice in the episode, and those actors leaned forward better than any lean forwarders I’ve ever seen in my life.

A Video

After The Twilight Zone episode ended, I procrastinated going to bed by flipping on my phone and clicking the first video that came up.  It was a man who had suffered a stroke several years ago and lost the use of one of his arms.  His daughter had asked him if there was anything he missed prior to the stroke, and he said he missed giving people hugs – and so his family fashioned a tube sock of sorts for him to insert his non-working arm and pull up using his other hand.  He got his hands together and his little grandson climbed into the space between his arms and leaned in for a hug and the gentleman immediately burst into tears and I IMMEDIATELY BURST INTO TEARS and I tell you what, if you have two working arms, go and give someone a hug because that’s what they are there for.

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The photo above is of the my dear husband and his lawn furniture. He wanted to tell me he wrapped the bottoms of the lawn furniture in discarded hockey tape so they wouldn’t scratch the floor.

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This week on North Dakota Today, we talked about a great group of seniors who are inviting you to play their dice game and an update on the hard work of everyone who helped Feed My Starving Children. (Valley News Live)

In “This is one of my Top 10 Favorite Stories of the year and it’s only April” news, Mott’s Kevin Carvell has collected over 14,000 books that mention North Dakota. (KFYR TV)

In “Wait a minute, maybe THIS is one of my Top 10 Favorite Stories of the year,” Herbert and Lorina Zuern have filled the Mercer County Museum with tractors. (KFYR TV)

Grand Forks’ Joey Grabanski has hit a LOT of home runs. (Grand Forks Herald)

Looking to do a little North Dakota Nice of your own?  The Winship Book Cafe is looking for donations to help kids with summertime reading material. (Facebook)

Kyle and his friends, Corey and Kelly, have a podcast called North Dakota After Dark where they talk about youth hockey in North Dakota.  The latest episode is up and is an interview with Max and Margot of a lot of hockey.  Check it out. Bonus: you can watch it on YouTube. (North Dakota After Dark)

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