dakota date book

If you visit me we can take a walk to the hardware store where they write out your receipt and get your change from their antique cash registers. There's a Ye Old Books and Curious Goods shop you should see. We can count how many cars go through a green light at the busiest intersection in town. Complete strangers may wave at you. 

We can lay in my back yard and listen to doves and crickets at night. I'll make you granola, lemon curd, waffles, fruit cobblers, vegetable pies with homemade pie crusts, curried-apple couscous. I will not make you zucchini baked fries, not until I do a better job than I did tonight. We will only eat honey that came directly from a bee farm, there is no store bought honey in my house. And there will always be homemade bread. 

If you're taller than me (which you all are) maybe you can borrow my dad's bike and we'll ride along the flooded river. You can see the parks of my childhood drowning. 

If we stay up late talking you will hear the train that passes less than a mile away. I'll read out loud to you or we can read silently. I'm already started on my fifth book and it's only been two weeks. 

We can walk around and see the architecture of the town: a mishmash of farm houses, victorian, and others that seem inspired by eastern sea boards. I'll take you down to the rec center where I worked out in high school, the weight room where I was educated on Black Sabbath and Pink Floyd. 

We can visit my mom's library and chat with all the septo and octogenarians ladies that work there. They'll ask about your life and tell you about their grandkids and if they really take a liking to you maybe someday they'll send you a cross-stitch table cloth.

We can go out of town, stand on a hill and see the blanket of land stretch for miles and miles in a way you've never seen before. The sky hangs so low you'll think you can touch the clouds and if it rains you'll notice more than ever how they turn such an impressive steel color. Or if you come in the fall maybe you'll be able to see a harvest moon. There's a Little Yellowstone, we could camp there. What about buffalo, would you like to see some buffalo? Or do you like bird watching? We have great bird watching.

Have I convinced you yet?