Tomorrow

Due to slightly warmer temperatures/a certain fondness for sleeping in, leaving Madison has been pushed back until Monday morning. Mz. Kelly Pertzborn has graciously allowed me to stay at her house this weekend (thanks Kelly!) and tried to fatten me up as much as possible (And dayum, does she make a good lasagna!)


So, after a haircut, seeing some great friends, and a delicious quantity of food, tomorrow I will be off. With an early enough start, my goal is reach somewhere around Fort Wayne, Indiana but we shall see. I may end the day sill waiting on the on-ramp of 12/14 in Madison or a cornfield in Indiana, and man, am I excited. Today Wisconsin, tomorrow the world. 


I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference. 
                              -Robert Frost

Worms

Just maybe, someday, I will actually be packed for a trip ahead of time. Today is not that day.

“Early bird
Oh, if you’re a bird, be an early bird
And catch the worm for your breakfast plate.
If you’re a bird, be an early bird—
But if you’re a worm, sleep late.” 
― Shel Silverstein, Where the Sidewalk Ends

My family

is pretty awesome. Yesterday my mom helped organize a showing of 'Weight of the Nation' in Marshfield, complete with cranberry salsa (omnomnom!), a magicians show, and some super cool dancing vegetables. We had a blast.

Me and mamma Anderson!

The 'ol cucumber/carrot dance routine.

Breaking it down.

I feel that this poem complements yesterday quite well:

                                 Laughter

I Laugh at Life: its antics make for me a giddy games,
Where only foolish fellows take themselves with solemn aim.
I laugh at pomp and vanity, at riches, rank and pride;
At social inanity, at swager, swank and side.
At poets, pastry-cooks and kings, at folk sublime and small,
Who fuss about a thousand things that matter not at all;
At those who dream of name and fame, at those who scheme for pelf. . . .
But best of all the laughing game - is laughing at myself.

Some poet chap had labelled man the noblest work of God:
I see myself a charlatan, a humbug and a fraud.
Yea, 'spite of show and shallow wit, an sentimental drool,
I know myself a hypocrite, a coward and a fool.
And though I kick myself with glee profoundly on the pants,
I'm little worse, it seems to me, than other human ants.
For if you probe your private mind, impervious to shame,
Oh, Gentle Reader, you may find you're much about the same.

Then let us mock with ancient mirth this comic, cosmic plan;
The stars are laughing at the earth; God's greatest joke is man.
For laughter is a buckler bright, and scorn a shining spear;
So let us laugh with all our might at folly, fraud and fear.
Yet on our sorry selves be spent our most sardonic glee.
Oh don't pay life a compliment to take is seriously.
For he who can himself despise, be surgeon to the bone,
May win to worth in others' eyes, to wisdom in his own.

                                                    -Robert Service

Hmm

"What would you attempt to do if you knew that you would not fail?"

-Robert Schuller

Think about it. What WOULD you do?

Death's Door

That's three thousand words right there, and I think it pretty much sums it up. Shout out to Death's Door for the juniper picking/fish boil/pig roast extravaganza this weekend! Ooooooh my poor belly.

Each Day a Life

I count each day a little life,

With birth and death complete;

I cloister it from care and strife

And keep it sane and sweet.

With eager eyes I greet the morn,

Exultant as a boy,

Knowing that I am newly born

To wonder and to joy.

And when the sunset splendours wane

And ripe for rest am I,

Knowing that I will live again,

Exultantly I die.

O that all Life were but a Day

Sunny and sweet and sane!

And that at Even I might say:

"I sleep to wake again." 

                                    -Robert Service

Sam McGee

It's unfortunate that poetry has left the realms of modern education. The power to evoke emotion and communicate coherent thoughts and concepts on multiple levels is an art, and something unmatched by many modern movies and other media.

A good tea selection is one of the better hidden secrets of B&W.
Good tea and poetry, hard to go wrong.

I can still distinctly remember my last encounter with institutionalized poetry, involving fourth grade limerick writing about seagulls flying over buildings (memorialized in a book lost to time in one of the boxes under the stairs). While I'm still quite proud of said masterpiece, I'm afraid I might have some work to do to catch up with the masters of the art.

Finding an edition of the Complete Works of Robert Service on the floor of my room this morning brought back some wonderful memories of my father reading The Cremation Of Sam McGee and other assorted poems as a child (thanks dad!).

Being fairly unacquainted to the world of poetry, I hope you'll all bear with me as I delve into the depths (ok ok, I'll probably stick to more of the classics) and post some of the ones that resonate with me.

Reveille

Wake: the silver dusk returning

Up the beach of darkness brims,

And the ship of sunrise burning

Strands upon the eastern rims.

Wake: the vaulted shadow shatters,

Trampled to the floor it spanned,

And the tent of night in tatters

Straws the sky-pavilioned land.

Up, lad, up, ’tis late for lying:

Hear the drums of morning play;

Hark, the empty highways crying

‘Who’ll beyond the hills away?’

Towns and countries woo together,

Forelands beacon, belfries call;

Never lad that trod on leather

Lived to feast his heart with all.

Up, lad: thews that lie and cumber

Sunlit pallets never thrive;

Morns abed and daylight slumber

Were not meant for man alive.

Clay lies still, but blood’s a rover;

Breath’s a ware that will not keep.

Up, lad: when the journey’s over

There’ll be time enough to sleep.

                                       -A. E. Housman

Three days of Island Life

It's late and I have nothing important to say here, other than that an actual post will be coming tomorrow after I have caught up on my flurry of job applications/trip planning/life schemings.

Parting thought for the night: Drink more tea. It's good for the soul.

Today we lit up the wood stove. Mmm wood smoke.

In other news, I am reserving a tenth circle of the fiery abyss for pharmacists who, after repeated instruction and explicit verification of said instructions for an order, still manage to screw up every single aspect of the order. 

Every. Gorram. One. 

But for now, time to ride mi bicicleta home through these gale-force winds ( fun fact, "gale force" is considered any sustained winds between 32mph and 63mph... not yo' average kite flyin' squall!) 

Whoop whoop, go time!

114 months?

College education repayments... only $6,350 to go!

I, Matthew Noah Anderson, being of sound mind and body, do declare that come hell or highwater, I shall never again skip a class for the entirety of my future education. Jeez. 

Donezo

Three days running the cafe - survived! Time for a cookie and a nap. Omnomnom.

A Place Out of Time

Where summer never ends and the rest of the world is just an abstraction.

St. Francis

Rainbow flags, kayaks, and St. Francis greet me every morning coming into work.

A good way to start the day.

I've finally cemented my position as 'surrogate older brother who lives in the yard' in the family. Having 6 people looking to you as a role model daily is an enlightening experience. Especially Josh.

I enjoy it a lot, but it's hard not having 'me' time (my room is open on multiple sides at any given time a face will appear and start talking to me through the screen). I love the farm, but I will never ever again live with my immediate boss. Never ever. 

Island Life (and the virtues of planning ahead)

On Sundays, the island grocery store now closes at 1pm.

Sometimes, Sunday night dinner is leftover Fig Newtons and Kix.

Polar Extremes

This life is about as opposite of my Madison experience as I can get (early bedtimes, little internet, not a lot of people my age, lots of outdoors, etc.), and you know what? I enjoy every minute of it.

Thanks for the insights mom!

Walter

This is Walter. In addition to being to being my immediate duckling wranglin' supervisor, he also holds full-time positions as resident drum (on anything) master as well as maintaining his "cutest baby on the island" status.  

In other life news, I went to a Bahá'í service this morning (getting up pre-8am.... voluntarily!), and my pokedex is now up to 35. 

P.s. The Bahá'í faith is super interesting, if you have 5 minutes check out their  short explanation of the precepts of the religion or the Wikipedia article. Essentially, as far as I have gathered, it's a blend of Islam/other old monotheistic religious prophets (Moses, Buddah, Jesus, Muhammad) with one more in the 1850's thrown in, named Bahá'u'lláh. Long story short, all religions are different paths and stages to reaching the same singularity (or being... I haven't quite figured that one out). Unity of religion and human kind being the big thoughts. Also, they're down with science, which is pretty groovy in my book. More on this later.

Best. Job. Ever.

Yesterday I got to help wrangle ducklings. It was quite easily the cutest thing I have done in my entire life. While no camera on earth could handle the amount of cute that was present, I've given you a quick photo approximation below:

"Hey Matt, want to go close up the baby ducks for the night at the farm next door with me?"

Wrangle baby ducks? AWWWWWW YEAAAAAAHH!

Here ducky ducky ducky!

Don't want to play nice? FINE! IMMA GET YOU, DUCKS!

Too much duck to handle! What do I do?!

AHA! I'VE GOT YOU NOW DUCKS! THERE IS NO ESCAPING MY BUTTERFLY NET! *

AAAAAAaaaaaaaaaa! GOTCHA!**

Alright - bedtime for bonzo, buddy!

Matt Anderson, professional duckling wrangler!

* A good amount of time was actually spent chasing ducklings around the yard with a butterfly net. I have no regrets.

 ** Please note that I did not actually belly flop on any of the ducks, no animals were harmed in the wranglin' of these ducklings.

*** This entire process was overseen by Walter, possibly the cutest almost 2 year old boy you'll ever meet. More about him coming soon!

The Island Knows All

The (bar) talk on the Island can be boiled down into three re-occuring themes:

Island gossip (OMGS the Hansons are leaving?!?), Autobiographical monologues of great personal accomplishments (I met the first man to make a "made-for-TV" movie on CBS), and 'The Sting'.

For those of you 'off-islanders' out there reading this, 'The Sting' was a coordinated, undercover effort by the off-island Door County Sheriffs Office to crack down on underage drinking on the Island. Multiple underage operatives and plain clothes policemen traveled incognito on the ferry over and entered all of the bars on the island attempting to get drinks without getting carded. As the concept of having to be 21 to drink hasn't quite made its way out here, every single bar failed the test and The Sting was a large success (or failure, depending on your view).

(While curbing underage drinking is a very good thing, it is common knowledge that the Sheriff's Office was running out of money, and at $300 per bar tender and bar owner, it was quite  lucrative haul. Island politics are all sorts of messed up.)

Needless to say, the Islanders have since stepped up their game. That is to say, bars are still just as open (I've been ID'd once here) but ferry traffic monitoring has greatly increased. Now less than 10 minutes after stepping on the ferry, every bar on the island will know if any police presence is on its way, via the incredibly efficient Bartender Phone Network (BPN). Last week a plain clothes officer returned to the island to check up on enforcement of the new carding regulations, and before he stepped foot on the island, every bar had been notified of his presence. Islanders don't mess around.


The Island knows all.






p.s. I really did meet the guy who made the first made-for-tv movie on CBS. He also excels at extremely irrelevant life advice and drinking gin and tonics.

The restaurant biz

At the ripe and tender age of 24 years young, I can now say that I have (successfully) run a restaurant!

...Solo. Without ever having used a credit processor. Or taught where the sugar is. And with a boss that does not bring her cellphone on a "15 minutes, be right back", at least 1h+ excursion. Nothing like waiting, busing, cooking, serving, and doing dishes all at the same time to get you going in the morning, oofda!

Oh the adventures we'll have!

Labor Day

...and so LET'S ALL GO TO WASHINGTON ISLAND WITH OUR MOTHER AND BROTHER AND AUNT AND SISTER AND GRANDPARENTS AND LITTLE DOGS TOO. Dear god, all of these people needing food.

This guy got me a job

This is Shammond (and Scrabbles, a neighbors dog). He's awesome.