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Buried Pennies

Perversely, I wish I could say this was at our house, but it isn't.  It is at the parking lot of the grocery store.  I know that there are places on God's Bleached Earth where winter is fierce; much fiercer than here, but the urge to be long-suffering is too pleasant to dwell on that irritating fact.

Can you imagine the pennies that some enterprising child capitalist is going to find under that pile next April?

It is very much Minnesota to have sun in winter; sun on snow, as a kind of glorious consolation for finger-frost and foot-frigidity. We are not all that tough:  we keep the motor running and the heater turned on.  The back seats always have extra caps, coats, and gloves.

Everything is always a trade-off.  Portland, Oregon trades interminable rain for proximity, restaurants, and neighborhoods.  Tucson trades stolen water and summer sear for sun in winter.  There is enough rain in Seattle to lubricate the entire tectonic plate boundary that lies just west of the glory that is Puget Sound.  The entire Confederate South is willing to trade soggy summer sweat for the leftover dream of white supremacy.  Here in Minnesota, we admit we elected Michele Bachmann in trade for sun on snow.  It is a horrible price to pay, but so would be six months of gray frost.  We can ignore the snow.  We try to ignore our belle, Michele.

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