A Tradition: Hot Dogs and Holidays

Hot dogs.

Quick and easy, they're a food that you can either throw on the grill or roast over an open fire. They're tasty with or without a bun, and they tempt even the most sophisticated palate when covered with ketchup, mustard and relish. (And chili dogs? Please don't get me started. Yum with a capital "Y".)

Regardless of how they're served, these crowd-pleasures are most often doled out during sporting events, gobbled up during summer picnics, and devoured while hunkered down next to an open campfire. For most people, they invoke delicious thoughts of baseball games, carnivals, the outdoors, summer...

And me? When I think of hot dogs, I think of... Snow. Below freezing temps. My dad's red pick-up truck. Presents and wrapping paper. Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. And Christmas Eve.

I don't remember exactly how the tradition got started. My mom used to joke that it was because my dad always waited until the last minute to do his holiday shopping. My dad, on the other hand, swore up and down that he wasn't a procrastinator, but merely wanted to give my mom some peace and quiet so she could wrap presents, bake, and get the house ready for the following day's festivities.

Whatever the reason, from the time I was old enough to walk until the year he passed away, my dad and I would devote the entire day before Christmas to shopping and eating. Sometime around nine o'clock in the morning, we'd climb into his old Chevy, drive it all the way downtown, fight for a parking space, traipse through the crowded stores, spend several hours searching for a suitable gift for Mom, purchase said gift, wait in line to have it wrapped, push our way back out of the store and, after breathing a sigh of relief, sink into a booth at the Milwaukee Weiner House.

Back in Sioux City, Iowa, where I grew up, the Milwaukee Weiner House was the place to get a hot dog. Sure, the mall had places like Coney Island and other here-today-gone-tomorrow hot dog stands that were always busy, and the local softball complexes and football stadiums sold franks like they were going out of style. Even the two Dairy Queens in town sold as many footlongs as they did sundaes and Blizzards.

But the Milwaukee Weiner House was different.

The shoebox-sized restaurant wasn't fancy. There was nothing special about the decor. They didn't temp adults with "buy one get one free" coupons, nor did they lure impressionable children with happy meals and plastic toys made in China. None of that gimmicky stuff.

But what they did have was... good hot dogs. And pop in glass bottles. (As a kid, you focus on the important things. And pop in a glass bottle is a huge deal to a six year old, let me tell you.)

Milwaukee Weiner was a family run business, and while the employees were nice, they weren't special. No outrageous uniforms or wacky pieces of flair interfered with the ambiance. Just a friendly smile here, a courteous head nod there. The atmosphere was cozy and warm, and during the holidays, various renditions of "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" played over and over and over again in the background.

As good as Milwaukee Weiner was, we (my dad and I) didn't frequent the establishment much throughout the year. It was almost like an unspoken agreement between us. Like we each recognized that to eat there too much would take the magic out of it. The glass soda pop bottles would lose some of their appeal. The hot dogs would lose some of their zest.

I haven't been back to Milwaukee Weiner in close to ten years now. But every time I think of that little hot dog shop, I remember. The smell. The music. The holiday crowds and festive atmosphere. That tradition ended when I was fourteen, but to this very day when I eat a hot dog, from the moment I take that first bite, all I'm able to think about is Christmas Eve... and my dad.

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"What an enormous magnifier is tradition! How a thing grows in the human memory and in the human imagination, when love, worship, and all that lies in the human heart, is there to encourage it."
-- Thomas Carlyle

Yoga is a Community

Yoga is a community.

The bending. The twisting. The breathing, sighing, releasing.

Our yoga mats unite us, and our pain during particularly difficult poses (for me, it's always the standing bow pulling pose) instills in us a sense of camaraderie that lingers well outside the studio.

We come in all shapes and sizes, yet we all look alike. Stretchy pants, form-fitting tanks, and bare feet. I'm a bit rounder than my friends on either side of me, but as we ooze into our first pose, it doesn't matter. My body moves, stretches, and elongates just like everyone else's.

This is yoga. There is no tension. Anger and resentment, stress and despair - all of those negative emotions are left at the door. The yoga studio is a sanctuary, a reprieve from the outside world and our otherwise chaotic lives. We get along well together.

Yoga is a community that I adore. Every class is a vacation, and the people are like family. We are bonded by our energies. On a simple day, we move together. On an outstanding day, we move as one. Every exhale, every inhale, every inner ohm is ours to share. For ninety minutes, we are a yoga class. For a lifetime, we are a community.

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"We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow men."
-- Herman Melville

My Purse

My purse is a liar. If opened by any stranger, it would confidently boast about my neatness, my organizational skills and, all in all, convey to the observer that I am one put together woman. At the moment, it would reveal a modestly small interior containing only the bare essentials: two books, Evolve Your Brain by Dr. Joe Dispenza and The Right to Write by Julia Cameron, with a ragged mint green Chinese take-out menu sticking out of the latter, a black Bic pen, a barely used tube of ChapStick, and a "secret" pocket containing my check card, credit card, and driver's license.

And that's it. Simple, neat, compact and completely free of unnecessary clutter.

The fact is, I don't own a wallet. And I hate to carry a purse. When out and about, I'm usually with my husband, Chris, and his wallet serves as my wallet. It holds my driver's license and credit card, on the rare occasions that I even bring those two items along on our outings. When I do leave the house on my own, I transfer those bits and pieces back to the secret pocket in my purse, toss in my current reading material, and hit the road.

So would the contents of my purse give someone an accurate picture of who I am? Absolutely not. I'm not, in reality, a neat person. (Granted, I'm no slob, but keeping a neat-as-a-pin house isn't my number one priority.) Am I organized? Not really. What about clutter? Well, you should see my desk. Enough said.

So what does it say about me? Well, I think it conveys the message that I don't like attachments. I strive to keep my life as simple as possible, forgoing dependency and other unnecessary items. I don't carry pictures of family members, and no sentimental objects travel with me from place to place.

And just what would that person not be able to deduce by rifling through my meager belongings? That I grew up in Iowa, but spent the last thirteen years living and working in places like Hawaii, South Dakota, Minnesota, and Washington. The items in my purse would in no way reveal that I love animals and adore zombie movies. My identity as a photographer would escape them, as my purse holds no reference to my business. And finally, this stranger would have no way of knowing that my aversion to attachments has to do with the fact that I've lost more loved ones over the past eighteen years than I care to count.

If misplaced, would I wish for a Good Samartan to box it up and send it back? Probably not. It doesn't, when it comes down to it, hold any emotional value for me. Except for the books. Yes, I'd most definitely want those back.

I guess, when all is said and done, I do have some attachments after all.

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"If a man empties his purse into his head, no man can take it away from him. An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest."
-- Benjamin Franklin

Testing...

I started blogging back in 2008 and absolutely love it. I post to my photography blog pretty regularly, so keeping two blogs alive should prove interesting!

Best of luck to everyone in English 101! :)

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"All life is an experiment."
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson