Christian with an 8 to 4 win as goalie!!!

Christian played really well against the rival team tonight. The team was so happy they had a dog pile on Christian at the end of the game. I was proud. Christian will rotate to defense next week... I think it will be his biggest challenge this year.

Jay

Haugenkoski... wine???

Many of you know of, or have even tasted, Haugenkoski "Hurdle the dead, trample the weak" beer. But have you tried our new line of wine? Today marks the day that I make my own home made wine. I chose a white wine to go with fish that I smoke with my home made smoker. Yah, I feel pretty good right now.

Guess where I hide the hooch so Jen doesn't find it? THE BROOM CLOSET! BWAAAAAAAA HA HA HA HA HAHAAHH HHAAA

Jen's Column / Sports Parents

Hola! This is the "replacement column" I wrote for last week's edition of the P-B. (You can see the original column posted below.) I was feeling a little pissy about having to write an entirely new column at the last minute... and it comes out in the subject matter. :)

Oh, also -- when the P-B ran this replacement column, they edited out all but the first sentence of the first paragraph. Apparently, writing ANYTHING about cars is too controversial. Sheesh.

* * *

I had a column all lined up for this week. It was about buying a new car — which I was forced to do last week when my van died — and how that whole process freaks me out. In the end, the car thing worked out (I dig my new CR-V and Ryan, the very patient salesman who sold it to me). The column, on the other hand, didn't.

Onto Plan B. "What can I write about at the last minute?" I asked my husband as I stared at my laptop's blank screen.

"Legos," he answered, pouring a bag of popcorn into a large plastic bowl for movie night. "Write about how our lives revolve around Legos. How they're under our feet, in our food, in our dreams." Then, to make his point, he picked one off the kitchen counter and threw it at me.

I shook my head "no," but he didn't see me. He was already heading back downstairs to the sound of chickens screaming. (Chicken Run was the night's movie, as it is every time it's my six-year-old's turn to choose.)

Writing about Legos was actually a good idea. On any given day, I could find a handful of Legos hidden in every room of our house. But I don't have much else to say about them right now. When a Lego space ship clogs the toilet or a Lego pirate winds up in a lasagna, then I'll have something to write about.

In the meantime, I needed a new topic. And because I was feeling a bit scrappy, I came up with one of my favorite soapbox subjects: sports parents.

I know this is usually Greg Sellnow's area. But now it's my turn. My kids — at ages 6 and 9 — have tried their hands at a couple of sports. This winter, for instance, Christian is in hockey. (Bergen isn't ready for hockey, he says, because "it's too slippery.") Last summer, they were both in baseball — an activity I love if only for how cute they look in their baseball caps.

I'm all for sports. I think that teamwork is an important trait to encourage, and that exercise is a crucial habit to foster. I like the confidence my kids build when they learn a new skill and the bonding time they get when my husband helps coach. These are all good things.

But I'll tell you what. Nearly every time I go to a game, I'm thisclose to freaking out on some of the other parents.

There are, no doubt, many wonderful and supportive adults out there who understand that the goal of school sports is fun. Yet, in my short career as a sports mom, I have witnessed some pretty disturbing incidents.

I've seen the father of a seven-year-old girl get six inches from a coach's face and yell so loud that he cleared the locker room of kids and parents… all because his daughter couldn't play goalie at the next game. I've overheard a father berating his son for losing a run — after his son's team won the game by more than 10 points. I've sat behind a mom who trash talked the other kids on her child's soccer team.

I've heard three different coaches on three different occasions say, "The kids are great. It's the parents who make me crazy."

There's really no need to point out the moral of the story. You know what it is. And if you don't, well, you're probably one of "those" parents. To you, I offer this advice: Be nice. Play fair. Give your kids a break. And please don't sit next to me at the game.

Jen's Column / The "Controversial One"

Hey everyone! I wrote this column for last Wednesday's edition of the P-B... but then the publisher decided he couldn't run it for fear of angering advertisers. (So frustrating!) So consider this a Haugenkoski Blogski Exclusive!

* * *

Our van died. It was a slow and painful death marked by considerable jerking, audible shifting and frightful revving at all the wrong times. When the mechanic called to tell us we'd need a new transmission, we decided to cut our losses. It would be, after all, the second transmission we'd be replacing in as many years.

And so we found ourselves in need of a new vehicle — and fast. I'm not going to mince words here: There are thousands of things I would rather do than negotiate the purchase of a new car. I would, for example, rather relive my firstborn's 30-plus hour delivery. I would rather have a cavity filled without Novocain. I would rather wear the same pair of underwear everyday for two weeks.

It boils down to this: I hate the game — the whole bargaining and finagling and negotiating required when buying a car. It's scary and uncomfortable and yucky. (Yes, I believe "yucky" is the technical term.) At least if I'm buying, say, a crock pot, I can check the ads in the weekend paper, see which store has the best deal and go there to buy it. I don't have to stare down the check-out lady and say, "Take off five dollars and throw in that bag of baby carrots and you have yourself a deal, missy."

However, seeing as the death of our van left us car-less, we had no choice. My husband and I hit nearly every lot in town on Saturday to test drive the models we liked best. To take off the pressure, we told each salesperson our plan: Drive. Go home to research. Return… later. They were all cool with that, except for the guy who said those dreaded words: "So, what can I do to get you to drive this car off the lot today?"

"You can't," I answered, panic setting in.

"Nothing…?" he asked in a singsong voice. "There's nothing I can do?"

"We're not buying today," I screeched, rising from my chair. "And you can't make us!"
OK, maybe I didn’t say that last part. But I felt like it.

Once we narrowed our search to two vehicles, we typed our fingers bloody researching options, invoice prices and incentives. We called other area dealerships. We polled our friends.

Two days of reconnaissance work later, we found ourselves at the Honda dealership for a second test-drive of the CR-V. Its handling on the snow-packed roads was almost as impressive as its power moonroof. We returned to the dealership with our decision made, and I steeled myself for a hostile encounter with Ryan, our salesman.

"OK," I said, daring him to pull out his best stuff. "Try to sell it to us."

"Great," he said. "Why don't you give me a number, and I'll talk to my manager."

My poker face broke. "No! Please, please, pleeeeease don't do that to us," I begged. "I loathe this process — loathe it." I waved my little paper with numbers scrawled across it. "Listen. We did our research. We know what the invoice price is. We know what other area dealers are asking. Can we skip the game and just settle on a price that's fair for everyone?" I waved my paper again. "Please…?"

"Absolutely," Ryan said. "We can do that."

Had my husband not been there, I might've kissed that salesman.

True to his word, Ryan came back with a number that was fair — and lower than the "bottom-line prices" we'd been quoted elsewhere.

"Well, that wasn't so bad," I told my husband back at home. It could've been the relief talking, though. If all goes according to plan, we won't have to do this again for another 10, 12 — maybe even 20 years.

The 2008-09 hockey team

Christian is in the front row, 3rd from left. I am in the back, far left.

Click on the image for a larger version.

- Jay

A new week

Jen and I bought a brand new Honda CR-V. It is so fricken nice we hate to get in it to drive - as if we may scratch it or leave a stain. Christian had scouts and hockey... the gym, ice fishing. That's it in a nutshell.

The PICs are Bergen with a bluegill (nose bleeds and all he outfished the old man 9 to 1!) Christian at the Pinewood derby for scouts. He came in last... but his good sportsmanship made me a very proud father.

Jen is back from Vermont and we are all happy. We are not happy that we missed the family Christmas up north (the Range) as our ability to make plans ahead of time plagues us.

Jay

Jen's Column / Vermont

I missed you last Wednesday! I do have a good excuse for last week's absence, though. I was away in Vermont for school. You may remember that I'm doing a low-residency MFA program in creative writing there, which is a fancy way of saying that I spend roughly 10 days in Montpelier each semester attending lectures, listening to readings, and — with any luck — learning to be a better writer.

When I went on my first residency last summer, I was struck by the freakishly diligent way in which Vermont motorists stop for pedestrians. That's still true. But I'll tell you what: Those same people could learn a thing or two from us about snow removal.

Each time I walked the steep, 10-minute trek from the campus to downtown last week, it was like wading through mashed potatoes. Even when homeowners did shovel, they'd only do a narrow strip of the sidewalk, leaving a slippery, slushy mess in their wakes.
Which shouldn't be a big deal, right? I mean, I'm a born-and-bred Minnesotan. I can handle some snow.

Sure. If I'd packed boots. But there was no room in my suitcase for my Sorels after I packed the items essential to a 10-day trip: Like the five pair of shoes required to match different outfits, and the three hefty bags of jelly bellies, and the curling iron, and the blow dryer, and the combination curling iron/blow dryer. You know, the necessities.

Plus, even without my boots, my suitcase was 6-1/2 pounds over the airline's weight limit. Which means I had to pay an extra $50 to check it at the airport. (Those five pairs of shoes might've had something to do with this.)

To avoid another charge on my way home, I schlepped through the mashed potatoes to buy a box at the Montpelier post office so I could ship six pounds of my heaviest belongings — including some cool magnetic rocks I found for my kids — home. But when I got back to campus with my box, I realized I'd need to battle the potatoes again for shipping tape. Sigh….

Since I mentioned the magnetic rocks, I feel compelled to point something out. I'm not a big fan of bringing home gifts for my kids when I travel. It's not that I'm some kind of sadist Mom who doesn't miss her family. It's just that I prefer to hear, "Mommy! You're home!" as opposed to "Mommy! What did you bring me?!" when I walk in the door.

But on horrible-slushy-trip-to-the-post-office-no.1, I popped into this bead shop and they had these super cool stones that are so magnetic that when you throw them up into the air, they find each other and come back down together making this fun noise. And really. What household doesn't need something like that?

All in the all, the residency was a good experience — though one that feels so far removed from the real world that when I walked past a house with a Christmas tree in the window on January 1, I was stunned. Had completely forgotten that we'd just come off the holidays.

The thing is that when I'm in Vermont, life revolves around study plans and lecture notes and a 12-page pink schedule that dictates every hour of my day. It revolves around talking (and talking and talking) about character and scene and narrative over meals and during walks to class and even between spitting toothpaste into the bathroom sink. That's all good. But I'm excited to be back to talking about whether or not it's OK to watch Spongebob after school and how to build the best Lego spaceship and why wrestling next to the ice fishing gear may not be the wisest idea.

It's good to be back.

Jen's Column / 3-Year-Anniversary

Well, here we are again. It's the start of a new year, which means I've just tucked another 12 months of Jen's World snugly under my belt.

So how was Year No. 3 from this end? Oh, you know, pretty wonderful. I still feel incredibly lucky to be able to sit down and chat with you on Wednesday afternoons. And, as usual, dear readers, you've proven yourselves to be great friends.

This year, you've watched me go back to school and introduced me to my first chemical peel. You've joined me — if only in spirit — for belly dancing lessons and have doled out gardening advice. You commiserated with me when all the spoons disappeared from my house — and you helped me refill my drawer. (Thank you, again, nice lady from LeRoy!)

You cheered me on when I went to New York for my first half-marathon. And even though you were silent when I invited you to join me for next summer's triathlon, I'm confident that you'll come around. (I'm telling you, people: We can do this!)

You related to my adolescent diary entries. And instead of making fun of excerpts like, "I have 14 posters of Kirk Cameron. He is so awesomely choice," you shared some doozies of your own. (I won't name names, but at least one of you admitted to a diary entry that included detailed instructions for rolling the perfect '80s-style jeans cuff.)

You comforted me when I sent both of my sons off to school for full days for the first time — and warned me that it'll be even tougher when they leave for college. (However, you should know that my kids have promised me that they'll never leave, so that's not really an issue at my house.)

You watched me seriously freak out over my unfortunate Post-Bulletin head shot — and you chose an appropriate replacement when I had it redone. I was excited by how many of you voted for my new picture and appreciated your sympathetic (and funny) words about how horrible the old one was. But no comment surprised me as much as the one that read something along the lines of, "What a joke. No male columnist would do something like this."

Well, duh.

Sure, you may not always be comforting — but what friend is? When I told you about how I went to the Mamma Mia sing-along in my pajamas, after all, one of you had the audacity to say, "I'm not sure I believe you."

Alas, I, too, wish it weren't true. Unfortunately, there were far too many theater-goers that night who can vouch for me and my Scottie-dog pjs.

Still, "I'm not sure I believe you" is a friendly admonition when compared to the anonymous online reader who called me, and I quote, "that idiot Koski" earlier this year. But don't worry; my skin is getting thicker… and more often, my heart is warmed by you.

A prime example is the stack of letters and comments I received after I wrote about the death of my grandfather this fall. Not only did you sympathize, but so many of you shared your own stories of parents and grandparents who've impacted your life.
Thank you for your stories. I hope you'll keep them coming. And as long as you will, I will. I like that we're in this together — and I thank you for coming along for the ride. Here's to 2009!

Vermont

My Vermont residency was fabulous -- but it sure is great to be home. I was assigned a new faculty advisor (we change it up every semester) and I'm really happy with my assignment. I feel like I've hit the jackpot both semesters now, first with Robin Hemley and now with Sascha Feinstein. Sascha is primarily a poet, but he just came out with a book of essays similar to the writing I am doing. Lucky me.

Unfortunately, I came home to our minivan's slow and painful death. We got rid of it on Friday, and have been car-less ever since. That's right, car-less. As in "no car." Luckily for us, Jay takes the bus to work, the boys take the bus to school, and I work from my home office. (Actually, today I'm working from the couch in front of the fireplace because MAN, that walk to the bus stop was COLD this morning!) But obviously we're going to need groceries at some point, so we must go through the absolute torture of buying a new vehicle.

I'll let you know what happens....

Let's see, what else? I suppose I could post my latest columns. I took last week off because of Vermont, but I don't think I posted my "anniversary column" yet. Will do that!

Happy New Year everyone! xo, Jen

Da Rink!

Christian and I lost to Team Blue C6 in hockey today. Grandma Wanda and Bergen were in the stands cheering.. even with the loss a good time was had by all.

A couple more thin coats to the curling/hockey rink and she will be ready for action. 8 inches thick and nearly as smooth as glass.

Jay

Thank goodness that it is movie night (PIC ONE) because it took me forever to get my birthday gift together (PIC TWO)... a two man ice shack that folds down to a sled (PIC THREE). Only two bolts missing from the box! I feel sooooooo happy.

Jay

New Years!

Happy New Year everyone! Snacks, movies and Wii were on the agenda last night. All but Bergen made it to midnight.

Wanda, Christian, Bergen and I wish Jen a Happy New Year!!!! She is in Vermont attending school.

- Jay