Socializing

So, again, this is Ely Minnesota (pop 3,702). It's 250 miles north of the twin cities, 100 miles from a bus station, over an hour to the closest McDonald's, literally the end of the road. As in, the roads end in Ely and the only way to get to Canada is to walk or canoe the 10 miles, but once you cross the border you still have about 500,000 acres of wilderness before you find another road. I've been here roughly two months and have yet to meet anyone between the ages of 17 and 42, and I have yet (with the sole exception of my boss) to meet someone over 17 who is not a member of Alcoholics Anonymous. I have done these things trying to make friends:
1)Attend the Ely High School football banquet, where I watched kids named Storm and Bear and Sky get their letters. (Side note: chose this particular evening to wear my tangerine cardigan, not realizing it was right before the deer opener so half the room was dressed in hunter orange. It was almost like fitting in... almost.)
2)Stop as I was walking home from work on a Thursday night to watch a VW van pull up to a bar. I stood seven feet away and gazed at the young people getting out. I was carrying only half a loaf of bread in my hand, unbagged.
3)Follow a guy roughly my age through the aisles while he grocery shopped, trying to think of witty things to say about organic salsa as an icebreaker. Came up empty.
4)Attend the Ely High School musical, which just so happened to be High School Musical. You really haven't heard 'We're All in This Together' until you've heard it sung in heavy Minnesota accents through a speaker system that works only 30% of the time.
5)Most shamefully, made my one friend (58 y/o, you guessed it, recovering alcoholic) go to a bar with me on Halloween under the pretense of watching the world series game but really to try to meet other people. She made it four innings before asking if she could leave. Everyone was my parents' age anyways.

Yes, I'm not really proud of any of these things, but since there are statistically only like 40 people in town in my age range I have to think outside the box.

A few selections from this week's classifieds

WANTED: To Mount Your Antlers For This Christmas! Bring in by Dec.15 or FREE ANTLER MOUNTS With Trade Of Good Capes From Bucks 170Lbs Plus--Call For Details before skinning. ---.----

WANTED: the heart, liver, and any extra deer meat a hunter who gets a deer doesn't want. Contact ---.----

BESTSELLING AUTHOR of Romance with SASS: Suspense, Angst, Seductive Sizzle Margie Church will be signing books at Piragis and Lisa's Second Floor Bookstore Thanksgiving night. This is your chance to meet a local Minnesota author and get your exciting copy of Avenging Allaire.

Hope Lutheran Church Lutefisk and Meatball Dinner, Dec.5 12-5pm.

Open Season

Two weekends ago marked the opening of deer season in Minnesota. Ely has come alive. By Friday afternoon main street had turned into a parade of pickups bursting with hunters, dogs and guns streaming out of town so they could get started shooting deer bright and early Saturday. The ladies in my pilates class were all a-titter Friday morning, talking about how excited they were to finally get some venison back in their meat freezer. Just for comparison, East coast ladies who take pilates don't own meat freezers or three guns apiece. Hunting season is the most culture-shocked I've been since getting here, and I'm not even a city girl. Everyone in town was already wearing camo on an everyday basis, but as soon as deer season started the blaze orange came out in ways you can't even imagine. My boss' daughter (freshly single, if you remember) had invitations from two different boys to go hunting with them this weekend. It seems that killing deer together is the Ely High School equivalent of dinner at Applebee's and a Vince Vaughn movie for the rest of us. However, she chose to go with former boyfriend, which evidently rekindled the romance.
I've put together a little photo montage to try to portray what deer season is like. Keep in mind this is only a taste of what Ely is like right now, and there's still another week to go. I hope you enjoy.

Camoflage cake, courtesy of my friends in AlAlon (which is actually all my friends) who were full of cake but still hungry for venison.

You can drop your deer hide off in this cement pit at the gas station if you're not going to use it. You can also bring your dead deer into the grocery store and they will butcher it for you. Like, walk right through the front door past the produce with the carcass slung over your shoulder. Also let's look at the closeup:

Here you can see the ATV on the back of the SUV, the deer hide drop off, and the two men entering the gas station dressed in their finest.

So I went to my boss' homestead (40 miles outside of Ely, just unbelievably off the grid) for the weekend to do some novelty hunting. By which I mean work on my Rubik's cube while sitting inside wearing orange. I may have showed up in skinny jeans and Converse and Banana Republic outerwear, but thank goodness I brought my orange sweatband. I'm totally ready to go hunting, you guys!

The mannequin in the window of the radio station (what are they supposed to display, RADIO WAVES? Don't be ridiculous) was able to demonstrate how hunting works, apparently.

A shelf in my boss' house. I was way too terrified to figure out where the rest of the deer was.

Flyers around town

To aLL peT owners
A woLf has recenTLy kiLLed aT LeasT 2 dogs in The ELy area. These were day Time aTTacks. PLease keep a cLose waTch on your peTs. If you waiT TiLL iTs Too LaTe iTs Like having your hearT and souL Tore ouT.
signed
a concerned and grieving peT owner

What time is it?

So this is probably my favorite Ely anecdote so far, and happened even before I moved in. First off, I should probably note that the people in this town are all but frothing at the mouth with friendliness, at least those over 50. There's also a seemingly endless supply of matronly women eager to give me tips on whatever I'm doing the moment they happen to be walking past me. Apparently I radiate the deer in the headlights look of a rudderless charity case who needs some mothering. I have been good n' mothered in virtually every local establishment I have entered, most notably in the spice aisle of the grocery store while picking out dill.
On this particular afternoon however, I was in the public library taking advantage of the free wifi and sitting in a childrens' rocking chair in the Minnesota Room, which is about the size of a closet and filled almost exclusively with birding and plant books. The knees of the elderly employee who was holding dominion over the library that afternoon dodder into my field of vision, followed by his face as he inserts it between mine and my laptop screen.
"Do you know what time it is?"
I had no idea what time it was. Panic. He was definitely about to say something along the lines of 'We closed an hour ago, it's time for you to take your personal computer and get the hell out of my library.'
"Uh, it's um, I think it's like..."
"It's CHOCOLATE time!" He hands me a chocolate bar he'd been hiding behind his back then turns and dodders out of the room.
Frankly it was the best possible answer to that question I could have imagined.

Post Script: Today, the same man doddered back into the Minnesota Room to tell me that he thinks the guy who just vacated the other room must roll in a garbage truck before he comes to the library because he smells so bad. I think the Old Man of the Library and I are friends.

Three things about yesterday

1)I found a gas station that sells guns. This is true.
2)I discovered that the post office closes promptly at 4:20 every day.
3)During our interview for an upcoming article with the Ely mayor, he called the age restrictions on snowmombiling gay.
Welcome to the northland.

Working it OUT

The company I'm working for provides employees (all three of us) with a gym membership at the local gym, bartered for advertising space in one of our publications. The gym is a delightful place. There doesn't appear to be a full time staff, so instead there is a sign next to the door that asks you to kindly turn off the lights and music if you're the last person to leave. It's also fully stocked with wooden nordic-ski machines and very old and complex weight machines, which are tons of fun to play with because hey, there's no staff around to glare at you for doing it wrong.
Today I also took the opportunity to try out the pilates class they offer three days a week. Warm introductions and mothering from all female class participants. The class just about kicked me to the curb though. I'm pretty sure I've been bleeding internally all day, and there was also a moment where I thought I had just torn both triceps off of whatever they were supposed to be attached to. While the prospect of detachable triceps is probably reason enough to keep going back, the true reason I plan on going back is that I finally placed where I had heard the instructor's voice before and it thrills me to no end. It had been nagging me throughout the entire session that her voice sounded so familiar.... If you would, I'd like you to take a moment to envision the narrator in the clip below instructing you in pilates, and you'll have a spot-on idea of how I plan to spend my MWF mornings from now on.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ygqh8xZwekI&feature=related