When Pennies Collect Dust

The other beginning started with a letter. It was a letter that wound up in the trash because that's where letters that ask too many questions belong. In the trash.

The letter arrived months and months ago and it took me all of two minutes to decide it had earned the right to be ignored. You want my mother's full name? And date of birth? And date of death? And SSN? I've seen that episode of CSI. I know all about the creepers that use information to cause harm.

But then another letter arrived. It asked the exact same questions. I can't explain why I considered it slightly more seriously than the first of its kind, but I did. I realized something critical: it wasn't asking for anything that Dr. Googles couldn't provide. Which, if you know how to ask Dr. Googles the right questions and it gives you the right answers, why not just fill out the form?

Fine. Whatever. Have fun with that information that hasn't meant anything for SEVENTEEN years.

SEVENTEEN YEARS. It has been over SEVENTEEN YEARS since cancer closed that book.

So I filled out the form and returned the letter and threw away all thoughts of it amounting to anything. There were discussions and considerations given that it claimed to be from an insurance company in North Dakota. That insurance company claimed they were making right on a policy. They acted as if there hadn't been SEVENTEEN YEARS between the day the claim should have been paid and the day they were offering to pay it.

North Dakotans do that, by the way. They don't have any sort of concept of time, so they'll act as if SEVENTEEN YEARS was just minutes ago.

I returned the letter and forgot about it. For months. Or at least I think it was months. Remember, North Dakotans have no concept of time. It could have been minutes.

Some time passed and I repeatedly and loudly proclaimed that I was right! It had amounted to nothing! She who had nothing left nothing in her absence. She didn't have the money to pay for life insurance. She didn't have the money to pay for groceries, for goodness sake. There was no employer who could have done it because her most prestigious job in all of her 45 years was as a cashier at Wendy's.

But then there came the notice that my signature was required to pick up a letter. I ignored it for a few weeks because of course I did. The post office is never open and why would I go out of my way for $10 or whatever it was going to be? No way was it more than $20.

I'm not a pessimist, I swear. I'm a realist who bases her assumptions on years and years of experience.

But I was wrong. Experience was misleading.

The dollar amount on that check wasn't enough to change lives, for certain, but it was enough to take care of a few long overdue projects. There's a new light in the foyer, the ridiculous countertops in the kitchen are taking their last breaths, and a few odds and ends are now less odd and definitely endier.

Not life-changing, but not insignificant either. A few pennies.

It took a while to figure out how it was that a few pennies just fell out of the sky, but with careful consideration, it became clear.

Grandpa Lew.

He has been gone for well over a decade, but it had to be him. He never bothered to mention that little something, not even when it should have been paid out. That's what North Dakotans do. They say a whole lot of words, but they never actually say anything.

Pennies probably never would have fallen from the sky if not for a little audit. A review of records led the insurance company to realize that something long past due was just sitting there. Collecting dust.

And now the pennies that collected dust are lighting up the night sky.

Failing To Mention The Pennies

Sometimes in order to tell a story, you have to go back to the beginning. Not that beginning, though. The beginning before the beginning.

All of that is to say, North Dakotans are weird. That's where it starts.

The advantage to living a nomadic existence is that you get a feel for the quirks of people in different places. For example, find me a resident of Houston who eats at home all of the time. Look out, thought! It's a trap! Houston people don't eat at home, silly. They eat out! A lot!

Wander to Buffalo and comment that you smell cereal. I guarantee more than one person will look at you and proudly grin as they say, "Isnt' it great?"

Then there are Pittsburghers and their parking chairs and even though I have -- as of nearly this very moment -- lived in Pittsburgh longer than I have lived anywhere else in my life, I still don't fully understand the parking chair. I mean, I get it. I just don't GET it. It's a quirk. It's a thing Pittsburghers GET and understand and own.

North Dakotans have quirks, miles and miles and miles of quirks, but chief among them is their penchant for saying everything and nothing at once. Are you one of those people who turn up the iPod as loud as possible while shoving your nose in a book while on a plane? Then don't go to North Dakota. You won't survive the plane ride to Bismarck or Minot or Williston or wherever because Aunt Beulah will murder you with words. She will ask you about that book and you'll give a simple two word answer. Next thing you know, you'll be listening to Aunt Beulah's neighbor's sister's life story. Don't worry, Lottie's story is an interesting one. Sort of.

OK, not really. It won't matter, though, because you're dead from ALL OF THE TALKING.

Ask a close-ended question, get the life story of some person whose name you can't remember because it was mentioned before ALL OF THE WORDS.

Ask for directions (turn left at the tree!) and forget where you were headed because OMG THEY NEVER STOP TALKING.

While North Dakotans feel the need to pour words and words and words into the silence, there is a thing they do that is almost magical. They never say anything. They dance around neighborhood, but they never actually cross the street.

Exhibit A: Read this blog all the way through. Seven years of posts, but I've never really said anything. It's true. It's one of the ways you know there is North Dakotan blood screaming through my veins.

That blood came from my mother's side of the family. The lot of them were Norwegian immigrants who found the cold and silence and vast nothingness of the prairie appealing enough to settle down and build a farm. When the first farmhouse no longer served the purpose, they built another less than a mile away. Both farmhouses existed in the midst of miles and miles and miles of fields filled with wheat, soybeans, and sunflowers.

When Paul Harvey talked about the farmers, he was talking about my grandfather.

Grandpa Lew was the man who took a bean seed and placed it in a plastic box with a wet tissue so that I could learn about germination. He was the man who taught me to lean just right when wrecklessly driving a three wheeler through the gravel pits. He was the man who taught me about horseshoes and bowling. Grandpa Lew convinced me that real men drive Chevy trucks and have a collection of baseball caps miles long. He taught me that smart men tie one end of a rope to the porch rail and the other around their waist before navigating a snow storm on foot. He taught me what trash to burn and what trash to bury.

There were words and words and words and words.

But he never actually said anything.

Which is exactly how it doesn't surprise me at all that he never once mentioned that he paid for a life insurance policy and named me a benefactor.

I think.

I don't actually know because, like I said, North Dakotans say a lot of words, but they don't actually say anything.

Baked Spaghetti with Ricotta

I kind of have a rule about what the people at my table should order when we eat out. It's a simple one, really -- just please don't order something that is easy to make at home. For example, if we're somewhere that serves instant mac-n-cheese, I'll ask Alexis to pick something else from the kid's menu. Me and the blue box are friends. I don't need somebody to charge me $2 for the privilege of letting them boil the water.

That means I often go to battle over spaghetti. Yes, spaghetti.

Alexis loves spaghetti. I do, too. JUST DON'T ORDER IT AT A RESTAURANT.

That usual battle came to be a few weeks ago when we were out somewhere and Alexis decided to fight. "But, momma! They have FANCY spaghetti!" she told me.

It was freakin' baked. That's all that was fancy about it.

I had a point to prove and so I did. Baked Spaghetti happened right after I apologized to the kid that I hadn't made it lately. Apparently she forgot that I do make it, and now I think she's going to ask for it all of the time. Which, FINE. At least I won't be paying someone else to boil the water.

Baked Spaghetti (serves 6-8)

1-16 oz package spaghetti
1 jar spaghetti sauce (if you like lots of sauce, feel free to double that)
1-15 oz container Ricotta cheese
1/2 cup parmesan cheese
1 1/2 cups mozzarella cheese
1 egg
Oregano
Thyme
Salt
Pepper

 1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

2. Prepare the spaghetti according to the directions on the box. Drain.

3. Lightly spray nonstick cooking spray inside a 13x9 inch baking pan. I'm a big fan of using a disposable pan when I'm cooking this for an army, but whatever makes you happy is cool.

4. Toss the spaghetti together with the sauce and pour it into the pan.

5. In a medium mixing bowl, combine the Ricotta, parmesan, mozzarella, egg, and spices. (Go with your gut on spice quantities -- I end up around 1/2 teaspoon of each, but that has a lot to do with the sauce I use being sort of bland. Use better sauce and you won't need as much.)

6. Spread the cheese stuff over top of the spaghetti.

7. Cover with foil. Bake at 375 degrees for 45 minutes, or until cheese is bubbly. Or! Or! Or ... you can cheat. Cook it at 375 for 20 minutes and then turn the broiler on high for about 3 minutes. You'll end up with that fantabulous pizza-like cheese on top. Just make sure to keep an eye on things if you go the broiler route because cooking times can vary greatly once the broiler gets involved.