This would be a good article to print off and put in your disaster kit for situations such as tornadoes, blizzards and power outages.

– Paula Wethington

I saw several mayflies this morning in downtown Monroe.

– Paula Wethington

But I was highly amused at the interesting collage taking place of events happening at the same time, within a block of each other, at that time and place. And all three of them were so very typical of Monroe!

There was a small car show taking place in the parking lot of St. Mary’s Park. The car show organizers didn’t report their event to The Monroe Evening News, so I don’t know who was involved. But it’s summer. This is typical activity in the area with there are two or three car shows a week somewhere in the county.

There were also a group of political pickets at the Custer statue at Monroe St. and Elm Ave. I didn’t get a chance to see what the cause of the day was. But, if you live in Monroe, you have learned that’s a favorite spot for protests and pickets to gather. It’s a pretty busy intersection, so a lot of passers-by will see what’s going on.

And St. Mary’s Church hosted its annual May crowning and ice cream social last night. I was among the parish members who walked in a procession from the Parish Life Center to the church, where we had a prayer service and placed flowers at the statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The ice cream party took place afterward. Faith celebrations also are a big part of the local culture in Monroe, Mich. Specifically, I’ve seen pictures of the very colorful and elaborate May crownings held years ago in our city.

There were all happening at the same time, within a block of each other, for a very interesting collage of life in Monroe.

– Paula  Wethington

Enjoy!

– Paula Wethington

The weather is warming. Flowers are blooming. Potholes are being filled. It must be spring.

On my way to Ida High School yesterday I had the pleasure of seeing a Monroe County Road Commission vehicle filling in the potholes along Lewis Ave. Yes!

I also noticed some flowers coming up in the grassy patches and flower beds around town.

I’m pretty much a newsy and read three or four different print publications daily, listen to NPR regularly and visit other media Web sites when I have the chance. I keep hearing about people being “too scared to spend” money.
Now, I’ve always been rather frugal with my money trying to save as much as I possibly can. When I bought my first car, I paid for it myself. The same with my second and third. The first two were not very expensive.
Last year I paid for two weekend trips to New York City. That was the first time I visited a place outside of Michigan and Ohio in a very, very long time.
And I love to shop. A lot. Clothing, shoes, purses. I don’t spend a ton of money on them, but I’ll admit, I spend more than I should.
In the last few months, I haven’t been spending money on anything but gas, bills (including my rather large student loans) and once in a very blue moon, lunch. I usually bring my own every day to save a few extra bucks a week.
I’ve been in the market for a laptop for about a year and a half now. When I bought my first one, it was $1,800 and I was getting ready to start college. I considered it a necessary expense.
Now that same laptop takes about 30 minutes to start up, 15 minutes to place two sentences in a Word document and about an hour to shut down. Not exactly the best thing to take to a public hearing that lasts about an hour, like the Bedford Township Planning Commission meeting I attended last night.
So, I need to get off my wallet and buy a laptop right? Wrong. I can’t even seem to bring myself to buy a similar model that’s like $500 nowadays.
I guess I’m a victim of the times.
Just don’t judge me too badly if my Tweets- posts on the Web site Twitter– take hours to show up.
I’ll just blame it on the economy.

I just came across this web site: MichiganFireworks.com.

You can search by date or by city for fireworks shows across the state. Monroe and Luna Pier are among the notices in the database.

Are you a talented photographer? Can you create a pretty cake? Is your crochet work exquisite?

Today’s edition of The Monroe Evening News includes the Monroe County Fair Premium Guide 2008. If you’re a city slicker, and have no idea what that is all about, the premium guide lists all the contests that are available in this year’s Monroe County Fair.

You don’t have to live on a farm, or even in a township, or belong to a 4-H family to compete. The open division fair contests are open to anyone who lives in Monroe County.

Look through the premium guide and you might find something you can enter. Be sure to follow all the entry deadlines. The procedures can be confusing for first-time fair entrants, but there are contact people with phone numbers listed for each competition division.

Browsing through the paper this weekend, I was drawn to the classified ad that simply read: “MUSKRAT MEATS Call Bill at …” How could anyone pass that up? (I’m fond of packages of nuts that label their innards as meats, like walnut meats or almond meats. I think that was in play here.) I was so taken by it, I didn’t even realize it was under the wanted to buy heading rather than the for sale heading.

So I called, wondering about these mysterious muskrat meats. Were they available? Where did they come from? Bill, the man seeking the meats, clarified. He wanted some muskrats for bear hunting. He usually uses beavers to draw bears close, but beavers have become scarce – harder to find and more expensive. So he figured muskrats were a none-to-distant relative and they would probably work, too. Hence the ad, seeking the meats.

He said they used to be available at Monroe Frozen Foods, and he could satiate his need for muskrat whenever he needed to. While this batch he wants for hunting, he said they used to trap them at the creek near his home and his mom would cook them up in creamed corn for big family dinners. But he’s having a hard time locating any muskrat. Bill said he keeps hearing about all the muskrat dinners and has been wondering if they’ve cornered the market. So his question is: where does one acquire muskrat around here?

Apparently he’s not the only one. About 20 minutes before I phoned him, he said he got another call asking how much he was charging.

This seems like a uniquely Monroe thing. What do you think?

It seemed like a good idea at the time – but then, it always does.

Last week as leap day was approaching I was trying to think of what kind of story was warranted. Inevitably my thinking went back to my own leap day experiences – particularly two leap days ago, in a far away land.

Flashback to the year 2000 (thank you Conan and Andy – I can never say that even in my head without desiring a flashlight and shrill-voiced man). I was still living in Marquette and knowing my time was coming to a likely end there, I decided I would do something special to mark my last year.

I’m not sure where the inspiration came from but sometime – actually it was in 1999 – I decided I would swim in Lake Superior at least once each month of the year. I believe it had something to do with a large glob of people constantly asking – you mean you can swim in Lake Superior? For more than two weeks out of the year? Ever the sassy one, I thought it would be kind of nice to be able to say I swim in it year round. And I love Lake Superior. I should mention this. Thinking back now of late night skinny dips under the northern lights – well, it’s not something most people ever get to experience.

I began in May 1999. It was unseasonably warm and my friend Mari and I went to the beach, for the first time in a long time without wearing boots. Though we tromped through some snow in the woods in our flip flops, it was quite nice once we hit the sand at Little Presque. The thing about up North is that you have to take advantage while you can and before the flies start hatching.

We ended up swimming. I felt awake for the first time in months, the snow cleared out of my winter soul. It was easy enough to uphold the swimming at least once a month throughout the summer. The lake tends to stay somewhat warm into the fall – at least warmer than the air for the most part. September and October were beautiful. November, not so much. The lake hadn’t frozen yet, but for all intents and purposes, my swim was mostly just a dunking. There was not a whole lot to be done.

December, well, it was actually quite nice. There’s a whole long back story here that I won’t go into. But the swim was after a long, sweaty ska-core show. A bunch of us went down to the lake but only a few intrepids went in. It was a little icy, so that made it more difficult. We were at city beach, the towering red lighthouse and coast guard station still visible in the dark.

January of that next year, we had to go to the power plant outtake that didn’t really ever freeze all the way. That was also just a dunking. It was definitely obligatory. I don’t really remember this one – and in fact thought I may have missed it, but was reading one of my journals from back then and had it there. It was right after we had come back from Christmas break.

February. I thought I had missed February. Everything was frozen. The winter had worn out it’s welcome. My commitment was waning and I gave up. I was saved by one little fact – it was a leap year. On the 29th of that year it was freakishly warm – it felt to be about 78 degrees and the lake ice had loosened up. It was one of those days where everything fit into place. It provided a second chance, a spare day.

After all this, it should have been easy to finish out the year. The cold, most challenging months were gone. But nope. March. That’s what killed me. I ended up going home for Spring break and never made it to old GitcheeGoomie in the time that I had. My one blemish on a year’s record.

But that 29th was more than just an extra day to get a swim in – it’s been a benchmark of sorts. It’s been a tether throughout the years since then, reminding me of who I was then and how it’s lead me to here.