Xmas in da U.P.

Hi there!

I’m home. Did you miss me? Just pretend, OK? Thanks.

Heather and I took the obligatory holiday drive to grandma’s house in Menominee, Michigan¹ this weekend. I hadn’t had much time to think about the trip before actually climbing in the car and going, so I didn’t have the opportunity to work up the usual dread of detachment from civilization. I just let it hit me full in the face when I got there.

The 320-mile drive there was uneventful. If you combine lots of coffee with lack of sleep and really loud music, you achieve this perfect roadtrip haze that makes Wisconsin pass almost painlessly. The only notable event along the way was my protein sandwich², which I ate in about ten minutes, and then talked about for the next 45. Strangely, Heather wasn’t as pleased about it as I was.

We arrived at grandma’s to find Stephanie and Escobar rolling their eyes, ready to fill us in on the last 24-hours’-worth of family drama. I quickly headed to the Menominee YMCA, because I am an addict, and also because it involved no family drama of any kind. The women’s locker room was located in the furthest reaches of the building, and I think might have doubled as the boiler room. I walked into the fitness center and scanned the room for the elliptical machines. Were they perhaps back in the corner near that heap of scrap metal and plywood? No, that was the elliptical machine. I grumbled my way through my workout, lifted some free weights, and went back to grandma’s house, where dinner was slowly evolving onto the table. There were about 17 meat dishes (half of them in pie format), and lettuce. I had lettuce, and Tofurky Jurky, because I come prepared.

We opened presents. I gave Escobar Slang Flashcards, and we had hysterical seizures while my mom read them out loud, thoroughly confused. My sister gave me possibly the coolest present ever, a Cross Ion pen with my name and title³ imprinted on it. In a hurry to escape having to socialize, Stephanie, Escobar, my dad, and I jumped in my car and headed to Putt-N-Batt, the ever-popular Upper Michigan hotspot, which we found completely empty, as usual.

It’s funny that no matter how old you are, you turn into a kid again when you spend time with your parents. Somehow, it didn’t seem strange to accept a handful of tokens from my dad, even though I was standing there clutching my own cash, which I ended up using in the jukebox instead⁴. I let Stephanie stomp all over me at air hockey, then got in the batting cage. I haven’t hit a baseball since I was a kid, and I was surprised to find out that I still could, and was actually pretty good at it. I ended up hitting about 70 of the 80 softballs that the machine lobbed in my direction. For some reason, I’ve always had good aim. The day I crack and go on that shooting rampage (and it really won’t be long now), you better stay at least 100 yards away, and bear absolutely no resemblance to a tiny metal chicken⁵.

After the hitting, I did some driving and crashing, then some motorcycle-riding⁶ and crashing, had another crushing air-hockey defeat from Stephanie (this time, a shut-out), some Skee-Ball, some Ms. Pac-Man and Tetris, some shootin’ guys in a warehouse, and then my favorite, skeet-shooting. Man, I really want to go skeet-shooting again. When I finished that game, the machine puked about a million tickets all over my feet in congratulations. We pooled our tickets and thoughtfully picked out prizes from the bemused old lady at the counter. Stephanie and I carried them proudly out the door, and then she quickly shoved them all in my purse as if they were infectious.

The next morning, I ate my oatmeal-with-protein-powder and argued with my grandma, who was already drinking at 8am, and angry with me for not wanting to eat any of the huge variety of breakfast-related meat products. I set out for coffee, having discovered a genuine coffeeshop the last time I was in town (the closest Starbucks is 150 miles to the west). It’s a little patisserie in Marinette, Menominee’s Wisconsin-side clone across the river. Stephan, the super-cute, super-shy Frenchman who owns the place, made me my Americano while I perused their lunch menu and discovered not one but three good vegetarian options. I informed him that I would be back, and headed to the Y to climb on the junkpile again.

There were 4 or 5 other people there working out. Two of them seemed to be the twins of the guys who were there the night before. They were pink-faced and squeaky, with slicked-back hair, hemp necklaces that looked like macrame projects gone horribly wrong, and tribal tattoos around their biceps. One of them sat on the leg-lifting machine reading Field and Stream, lifting once every 30 seconds or so. The one TV was broadcasting a college football game. I closed my eyes and fantasized about the Southdale Branch YMCA in Edina, Minnesota. There’s no place like home.

I went back and got Heather, and we went for lunch. I had mixed greens with balsamic viniagrette, and a roasted-vegetable crepe with goat cheese. Stephan was still super-cute and super-shy. We went shopping, as we always do, at the Pine Tree Mall. You know that Mall of America I always talk about? It’s the opposite. And it has an attached Wal-Mart, which has driven the rest of the mall out of business. For the last near-twenty years we’ve been going to my grandma’s in Michigan, our favorite joke has always been to walk into the Pine Tree Mall, take a long look at the 15 or 20 people wandering around, and proclaim, “Mall’s busy today!” It never gets old.

After shopping, which took far too little time, and meant we had nothing else to do but go back to the house, I sat around and whined about having nothing to do. Around 4pm, my cousins from Milwaukee showed up. There are four girls, ranging in age from 6 to 16. Since I can never tell them apart, I decided to call them all “dude”. They didn’t seem to mind at all. After another round of meatful dinner and present-opening, I convinced Heather that we needed to go find the nightlife in Menominee. As impossible as it seemed, I knew there had to be some young people in that town, and I intended to find them.

And we did, at the Pirate’s Cove on the waterfront in Menominee. We walked in and there were about twenty clones of the guys at the Y, playing pool and darts. I went up to one of them and asked if we could have one of the chairs from their table. Note to self: do not get cloneboys’ attention by touching them; you will end up with drool on you if you do.

‘Mystic DJ’ was just setting up as we got there. The big-screen TV in the corner was broadcasting the weather channel. Apart from the cloneboys, the bar had a lesser number of girls who all had the same hair issue: too little conditioner. A few of them were fighting, which was cool. The girls at the table in front of us kept whispering and turning around to eye us. I don’t know. We’re perfectly nonthreatening, I think. As the music started, Heather said, “This is probably the only place you’re gonna find someone who’s a dock worker by day and a DJ by night.” ‘Mystic DJ’ then launched into his very own worst mix ever, prominently featuring Bon Jovi, Michael Jackson, and some line-dancin’-style country music that made half the folks in the bar shout, yeeeeee-haaaa!⁷

Heather watched a show featuring reporters at the scenes of former tornadoes on the Weather Channel. I watched the people. I’ve never seen so many guys in their twenties wearing acrylic sweaters at a bar, or sporting farming shirts and hats in a completely unironic manner. I went to the bathroom, and a girl walked out of one of the stalls, saying, “That one’s not flushing, but you might want to use it anyway. I just made a tinkle.” I said, “Thanks, I’ll wait.” I went back to the table and tried not to make eye contact with anyone who had I had already made eye contact with, which meant that I had to look at the pool table a lot. When the girls on the dance floor started shaking their Michigan booties to Sir Mix-A-Lot and Vanilla Ice, we knew it was time to go.

After that, the trip became that much better, because all that was left to do was sleep and go home. And so we did.

Hope your holidays were less midwestern!
Jenni