Dear Darling Ones,

I promise not to turn this into a blog about The Windmill Fundraiser. However, I have some more things to say.

When I was down with the COVID I had a discussion with someone about how I much I hated to ask for help. I thought this discussion happened in the comments here, but I can’t find it. It might have occured in my imagination. That happens sometimes.

The woman I had the discussion with was all, “Stop being a dumbass and ask for help when you need it.” And I just made a scowly face in return, which she couldn’t see because I think this all occurred on the internet.

When I told Sisters #2 & #4 about the fire at The Windmill last Tuesday morning their initial shock and sadness, and then they said, “we’ll set up a GoFundMe.” And I was all yes, of course.

Then I had to set up the GoFundMe. On the outside I was giving BFK & Atom lectures about how there’s nothing to be ashamed of, how this is not begging, and how people want to help. Sister #2 was also lecturing on community aid and asking for what you need. We’re fun at parties!

Let me tell you, Darling Ones, setting up that GoFundMe and clicking the share button are two very different things.

Asking for help is fucking scary. Pressing that share button felt like asking everyone I ever met at anytime in my life if they wanted to go on a date with me. It was like passing a note across a row of desks asking, “Do you like me? Circle one: yes no”

Is it irrational to pin any amount of your self-worth on a fundraiser that benefits your best friend as if this is a reflection of your actual value in the world? Uh, yeah it is.

I did it anyway.

Darling Ones, so many people circled yes that I’ve been an on & off emotional, weepy mess since Sunday. SO MANY PEOPLE! Bowlers said yes. Westernerds said yes. Old internet rivals whose gooey sweet center I promised never to reveal said yes. Darling Ones, many of you said yes. And those are just the names I recognized. A lot of people who I never heard of and who have no clue I exist said yes. So far 103 people have said yes. In just two days we raised enough for one week of pay for all the people left jobless after the fire. Now we’re working on another week. Every bit helps and every donation, no matter the amount, makes me so damn thankful I could burst.

That is amazing and touching and if work weren’t still kicking my ass I would sit and cry about it while contemplating the drive to help and the unending kindness of so many people I’m honored to share my life with in some way, shape, or form.

If I could, I would invite you all over for soup (though right now I have Cuban pork with mojo in the oven and the smell is probably what God smells like if I believed in an all-powerful deity like that) and we could listen to records and I would tell you all things that are amazing about you as a way to say thanks.

Instead, I included you on the tacky collage of a lot of my favorite things I could think of off the top of my head. I also included a pictogram of one of my favorite songs which nobody will get but makes me laugh and laugh and laugh and compliment myself on my own cleverness.

All my love,
Jodi

The post I Do Appreciate Your Being ‘Round appeared first on I Will Dare.

Hello Darling Ones,

I’m not quite sure where to begin. This is gonna be a heavy one and I’m gonna cry while writing it, and that’s on top of already crying roughly 48* times today.

Okay, here’s a good place to begin. I want to tell you three things about my BFK (Best Friend Kari).

1. She was the very first person I ever called using a cellphone.
2. I love her so much I went to see the band Train with my own eyes and ears. In a parking lot. In July. It was awful.
3. She loves me & my family so much she got up at like 4 a.m. on her day off to take my parents, Sister #4, and her BFF Amanda to the airport.

Sometime during the night of Monday, January 24th, there was a fire at Kari’s restaurant. Her husband, Atom (of wheat penny fame), discovered the rubble when he went in to open the place at 4:30 Tuesday morning.

Nobody was hurt, because the restaurant was empty. The building is still standing, but the inside has suffered extensive damage. If you look at the pictures above you can see how the pop cups on top of the pop machine melted together. They melted!

Officials who know these things & investigated think there was a chemical reaction in a basket of freshly-laundered towels that caused the fire and all the damage. I guess in the exact right circumstance grease residue + laundry detergent + towels = catastrophe. Who knew? I mean, I kinda knew that greasy rags could spontaneously combust, but I had zero idea that formerly greasy rags that have been washed can do that.

Science, why you gotta be so weird?

Fun Fact: I have not done laundry since this happened and I’m kind of afraid to.

Do you know my history with The Windmill? My parents owned the restaurant from 2008 until they retired in January 2020. That’s when Kari & Atom took over, much to my sisters & my relief. None of us wanted to run the place and we also didn’t want it to sit empty or go to strangers.

Kari started working at The Windmill in March 2019 after getting laid off from her corporate gig. She needed a job ASAP while she figured out what to do next. I asked my mom and the rest is history.

So yeah, Kari & Atom took over in January of 2020. And we all know what happened in March of 2020. Remember how I became the proud owner of 30 eggs?

Despite government-mandated shut downs and all kinds of COVID restrictions, The Windmill kept on churning. Until Monday, that is. The place is a wreck, insurance is sorting things out, and rebuilding & repairing all the damage will take months. This means, that Kari & Atom and their eleven employees are out of work for, optimistically, six months.

Dang, this is already 600+ words long and I got so much more to say, but I will stop lest your eyes fall out of your head from reading so many words on the internet at one time. I’ll save the rest for later.

In the meantime, if you have the means throw a couple bucks in the pot for The Windmill staff. I’d appreciate it so much and I can 100% guarantee there will be tears of gratitude shed in your honor.

Gratefully yours,
Jodi

*This number change constantly, because I cry a little each time someone donates to the GoFundMe. I was a fucking mess this morning while we were setting things up and the donations popped in so quickly. I’ve cooled it a little now I only shed one or two tears each time I get the notification email.

P.S. I’ve had The Beatles’ “Help!” stuck in my head all damn day.

The post Help Us Get Their Feet Back on the Ground appeared first on I Will Dare.

Dear Darling Ones,

Yesterday BFK walked into Supergenius HQ toting a giant, glittery-snowflake dappled bag with tissue paper peeping out of the top. I took one look at it and said, “If that’s for me I’m gonna be pissed.”

She grimaced at me as she dropped the bag at my feet. “You said you only want presents that make me think, Jodi needs to have that.”

I scowled and made huffy breath noises, because I did say that. I say that a lot, actually. I’m old and I own tons of crap. I don’t want people to feel obligated to buy me stuff for any of the gift-giving occasions. So I say, a lot, the thing about only wanting gifts that make people think of me. If I never get another gift again because people don’t think of me, that’s okay. I’ve gotten eighty-kabillon thoughtful gifts in my lifetime. Wheat pennies and used records and vintage dishes and signed books and just today Sister #4 sent me some Grover Bombas.

As BFK dove into her lunch I started to gingerly pull tissue paper from the bag, and then I folded it neatly.

“You don’t have to do that,” she said.
“Uh, yeah I do,” I said. “We’re not wasting this. I’m gonna fold all of it neatly, put it back into the bag, and you’re going to take it home so you can reuse it.”
She rolled her eyes at me.
“It’s my gift to you.”

Darling Ones, I did not get her a gift. I didn’t even think about it because from Thanksgiving up until yesterday I’ve been super depressed.

The first thing I pulled out of that bag was a small container of peanut butter blossom cookies. “These are my favorite!”
“Those aren’t part of the gift,” she said. “Those are just what was leftover from the cookies I made.”
“I don’t care,” I said. “They’re still my favorite.”

The next thing I pulled out of the bag was a gift so sweet and thoughtful I thought about crying, but didn’t.

“YOU GOT ME DONUTS?!”
BFK nodded.
“You saw donuts and thought of me?” I asked.
She nodded again.
“This is the best present ever,” I exclaimed.
She sighed. “That’s not even the real gift,” she said.

The real gift was a Funko Pop of Wonder Woman riding on Pegasus. She said she got it for me because Wonder Woman is an Amazon and Pegasus is from Greek Mythology and because I love Funko Pops. I told her that her gift logic passed muster and that I would accept this present. I didn’t say that. I thanked her profusely and told her I loved her.

I’ve been a little Ponyboy Curtis today with only two things on my mind, neither of which are Paul Newman or a ride home. My mind has been pre-occupied by the thoughtful donuts and the TV show “Succession.” I’m in love with this show. I’ve got like five more episodes of the third season and then I’ll be done with it. I’m kinda ready to be done with it because I spend all the time I’m not thinking about donuts thinking about the Roy siblings, Connor Roy specifically.

Connor is the oddball, not entirely in touch with reality eldest Roy sibling. He’s a half-sib, like me. And he’s played by Alan Ruck who also played my fictional soul twin Cameron Frye in “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.” And another thing about Connor? He likes donuts too.

Stay gold,
Jodi

The post Like Ponyboy Curtis, I Got Two Things on My Mind appeared first on I Will Dare.

I lost my first client today for COVID-related reasons. Lost might be a bit of reach. I’ve been paused. I suspect there is a lot of pausing in my future and I’m doing my best not to panic about it.

So instead of stress-blogging about my road to financial ruin I will tell you about a small, good thing.

Usually sometime during the weekend my best pal Wolfdogg will turn on his Twitch stream and play some songs for anyone who wants to watch. As my friend & fellow Westernerd EM said a few weeks go about watching him, “It makes my heart happy.”

I tend to know a lot of the songs by heart because Wolf and I have very similar musical tastes. Duh. We met on a Paul Westerberg message board back in like 2004. Do you remember that? I do. That fact makes Sister #2 laugh so hard she cries. It makes my niblings Jaycie & Max laugh and laugh whenever I tell the story because they hardly remember a time when the Wolfs weren’t like family.

One time I apologized to Max for really dropping the ball in the uncle department, but then he said he considers Wolf and Atom (BFK’s husband) kinda like uncles and then I felt better, because I brought both of those men into his life.

So as I was saying, Wolf’s and my musical tastes match up pretty closely. We have dragged each other through many musical crushes (remember when I was obsessed with The Kooks?). And one of those came back to me this weekend.

On Instagram I’ve been doing the 30-day music challenge because my niece asked me to (and then promptly abandoned the whole thing). One of the prompts last week was to post a song that makes you sad and I chose Dolorean’s “To Destruction.” That song just wrecks me. Still.

So this weekend when Wolf said on his Twitch stream that all those song challenges were making him revisit some forgotten favorites I did not expect “To Destruction” to pop out of his guitar. But it did, and it made me so happy that I cried.

It was a lovely, beautiful thing that happened and I’m glad I could share it with you.

The post The COVID Diaries: To Destruction appeared first on I Will Dare.

My BFK and her husband Atom own a little diner in Savage, MN called The Windmill Cafe. Maybe I told you all this? They bought it from my parents? Remember? Back in January?

As you know it is an excellent time to be a restaurant owner, especially the owner of a restaurant that specializes in bacon & eggs and a clientele that leans heavily towards aging baby boomers. With everything going on BFK & Atom made the tough decision to close the doors for two weeks and then see what the world is like then, and are hopeful they can re-open then.

This is why yesterday I got a text from Atom that said, “Do you want some eggs? Kari can drop them off this morning.”
And I was all, “Yes, we would enjoy some eggs.”
And he was all, “How many? 30? 60? More?”
And I was all, “. . . Um. . . ”

So now I’m the proud owner of 30 eggs. Scratch that, I’m the proud owner of like 50 eggs, because we already had some in the fridge. Last night I told Maxwell he had to figure out how to make a quiche. Right now he’s in the process of mastering biscuits with varying success. He really likes to off-road it when it comes to recipes and last night’s turmeric and curry biscuits were a little. . . unusual? Cade loved them.

When BFK dropped off the eggs yesterday she also came with treats. Specifically she brought over two bags of Starburst Jellybeans and bottle of paprika.

“I didn’t think it was safe to drop off 30 eggs and no paprika,” she said.

So don’t worry about us over here at Supergenius HQ we’ll have deviled eggs for days, and whatever the boys manage to forage for at the grocery store today. I sent them shopping because.
1.) I hate it.
2.) It’s literally the only place left for them to go.
3.) I canceled my InstaCart order because it was our pick-up time and they hadn’t begun shopping
4.) I couldn’t get a Hy-vee slot until next Thursday.

The only part of this that is actual complaining is how much I hate grocery shopping. If I never have to walk through a grocery store with randos asking me how tall I am again, I will be a happy woman.

I’m a pretty happy woman in general today, right now as I type, all things considered. I landed a cool new paying gig for a nonprofit that does work I really care about and despite allergy-related sore throats in this joint we’re all healthy so far.

How are you, Darling Ones?

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