Starts with K

I need to change my attitude.

While I lucked out – in more ways than one – with an assignment to cover Ribfest, the Blooming Prairie Youth Club’s annual fundraiser, it was, no pun intended, tough at first.

Saturday’s high temperature hit 86, with a dew point of about 70 degrees. It’s the kind of weather you wear, and it’s kind of offensive.

I had a delightful reprieve when I went inside to cover the judging and stuck around in the air-conditioned Servicemen’s Club longer than necessary. It was for journalism, y’all.

When I went back outside to catch the public rib-tasting, the crowd had grown.

There were plenty of kids across the street at Fireman’s Park, enjoying a bounce house and slide, fairy hair and face-painting.

Silent and live auction items filled tables inside a long tent on the west end of the parking lot, mercifully shaded by a row of trees.

And the cooks – those men and women (and children) – who had been in and around temperatures not in the 80s, but in the 200s, seemed to be doing just fine.

I, however, was not. I had spent at least 30 minutes inside a cool building, I had not been jumping in a bounce house, and I had certainly not been cooking ribs for the past seven hours – but I was a sweaty mess.

I’m unsure if Marcy Sundine saw me wincing as sweat dripped into my left eye while we visited.

I’m fairly sure the Smoke It While It’s Hot team pretended not to notice as I repeatedly walked behind their serving table to stand in front of their big barn fan.

I’m certain Jay and Karen Nichols, of JK Smokin’ BBQ out of Creston, Iowa, recognized my struggle when they called me over, then told me they were sure they were the oldest people there. They were not – and I cannot emphasize this enough – sweating as much as I was.

Karen Beede nearly reduced me to tears when she asked if I could have a beer. I could not.

And when I got home that night, looking a bit worse for the wear, my husband asked how the day went.

“It was really, really hot,” I said, “but really, really good.”

That’s not because of my attitude, but despite it.

The team of All Sauced Up, with their honest self-assessments and good-natured ribbing (ha!) of each other, made me laugh.

BP Chamber Director Karen Peterson, who was one of the judges, made me laugh when she later confided that she wants her ribs fall-off-the-bone tender.

“I know they technically say that’s overdone,” she said, “but that’s the way I like it. If I have to work at it, I don’t want to eat it.”

To a person, everyone there was having a great time, and it was impossible not to join them.

It’s at least the third time this summer that I groaned into the heat as I arrived at an assignment, and at least the third time that I left feeling oddly refreshed.

This week, it’ll be literal refreshment: I’m covering the “Minds at Work” lemonade stand, run by Owatonna third graders, who will donate the proceeds to Community Pathways of Steele County.

The event is Tuesday and Wednesday – as a cool front moves in.