Minneapolis Woman Seen Chasing Melons Down Street

What an irritating trip to Costco. Always difficult on a Saturday, made worse by the pouring rain. I went there specifically to buy wine and a cantelope. It turns out that cantelope is only sold in packs of three, which is awkward but I bought them anyway. And then I went to buy the wine and discovered that Costco closes at 6 p.m. on Saturdays. It was 6:05. I picked up a bunch of wine from the liquor store by my house, and when I arrived home I loaded myself up with my purse, my briefcase, the wine, and that damn bag of cantelope, which broke (of course) and they went rolling down the street. One is still under the car. I did not feel like getting under there to dig it out. So now I'm feeling grumpy.

Summ is throwing an engagement party tonight for Victor & Arica. I promised to bring some appetizers (currently in the oven) and wine. So I better get moving. If you're looking for some entertainment tonight, head over to First Amendment and check out the Beyond Recognition show. Shad is doing a print demonstration, there will be live music, etc. I will be there later. Much later.

Update: Summ & Adela throw a sweet party. The place had erupted into salsa dancing before I arrived at 7:45. Victor and Arica are amazing dancers. Actually, everyone was awesome except me. I felt very... white. Shad and I took ballroom dance classes several years ago, but it did not go well. Anyway. Shad's show was fun, too. I gotta buckle down and get a bunch of homework done, now. Toodles! (Oh, and P.S. I rescued the melon from under the car.)

Juice Unleashes Cuteness

Natalie finally talked her parents into coming to visit and we had a super time. She and I had a nice long chat this morning while Kate was in the shower. I am the only one who is able to understand what she is saying, which is frustrating for her obviously. She told me she wants to move in with us immediately. (She also complained at length about her t-shirt, which she thinks is embarrassing, but not as embarrassing as her mismatched socks.)





Here she is, totally content and happy and gazing at me in awe and adoration.



She is trying to fly away from Crazy Aunt, though, who can blame her?



We were kickin' it with an all-night dance party. Natalie told me it was her first rave and she said it was super fun but wanted to know where we keep the pixie stix.



I just realized I never get pictures of Kate with Natz. This is probably because we steal the baby from her arms as soon as we see her and don't give her back until she's ready to leave. So anyway, here is part of Kate's face with a giggly Natz. Yay!

Beautiful Weather Takes Edge Off Gloominess Caused by Spring Break Ending

What a marvelous, dreamy day. I went for such a long walk this morning that I had to call Shad to drive me back home. It smells like California, I said. I was going to say it smells like Montana, he said. Is a west coast wind blowing into North Minneapolis? I don't know, but I love this weather. I love it I love it I love it. And I loved loading new tunes on my ipod and walking outside without my jacket. This afternoon I dug into my fabric stash and sewed a new shirt; I want to make a dress, too, but I became so torn about which fabric to use that I threw my hands up. Whilst my brain puzzles over this quandary, I am going to grab my book (Sandra Cisneros: Caramelo) and a glass of wine and head out to the patio.



Angela was in town for a few days so I had the ladies over to celebrate her birthday. A delightful time, and fun to catch up with some of Angela's friends I haven't seen in awhile. By the way, party planning 101: Make sure spouse is not filling house with noxious fumes on day of party. OMG. I arrived home at 5 p.m. to find smelly toxins permeating the entire house. I threw open the windows and doors and immediately began roasting garlic (subterfuge!). Groan! I am quite sure this is not how normal people live.

My adorable niece is staying with us Tuesday night! (Oh, and her parents too.) Shad sweetly offered not to fill the house with toxic fumes on the day of her visit.

New York Drunk Dialers Give Juice a Run for the Money

Truly one of the best drunk dials I have ever received, you guys. Bravo! SBB: Basically a full minute of total incoherence. dL: Have you been reading Jack London? jL: Surprisingly articulate given the circumstances. You have inspired me to continue improving my craft. I'm sad to report it has been weeks since my last drunk dial...

Student Crazed After Nearly 24 Hours Without E-Mail Access

My school's email is CRAP. I have not been able to access it all day. In fact it has been acting up the last couple of weeks. I feel like I have been cut off from the outside world. My heart is palpitating and I am breaking into cold sweats. I am languishing in the dark ages and can only communicate through this blog that no one reads. Um...I think I am getting a rash.

Toxic Fumes Wage War in Minneapolis Home

Shad and Co. have been screenprinting in the basement and the house is now filled with toxic fumes. As I entered my home this evening, I realized that a full-blown battle was raging between the vaguely citrus-y chemical fumes rising from the basement and a mysterious rotten odor likely emanating from the refrigerator. With the screenprinting fumes clearly in the lead, I walked into the kitchen to fix dinner and was suddenly overpowered by the rotten food, which, thanks to some investigative work by Yours Truly, was finally traced to some chopped cilantro on the second shelf that was promptly thrown into a bag and sent out to the dumpster with spouse (who was later invited to return). Windows were thrown open, a pot of coffee thrown on. That the smell of fresh brewed coffee could beat out the chemicals was obviously a pipe dream. Perhaps I'll roast some garlic? My light-headedness does not make me bitter about the toxic episode, even though Shad and Co. have fled the premises for the evening and have left me alone with my pot of coffee. I love being surrounded by creativity and I find it life-giving (if cancer-causing) when things are being made in my home. Hoooray for chemicals!

I like eye contact. I realize that some people look at mouths, and I can see the benefit in that (the slight twitch in the corner of the mouth can help you anticipate a person's next words, for example), but I still find it kind of asocial not to look someone in the eyes when you are talking to them. Anyway. I had a three hour meeting today with a man who had the most intense eye contact I have ever experienced. Very sincere man. Very. Sincere. Well, no way was I going to back down. So I met and sustained the eye contact. It would have been an intense experience if our meeting was one hour, but it was THREE HOURS. It left me feeling kind of weird. Not creepy weird--I don't believe I was a special recipient of the eye contact, I think it is just his manner--but I felt like I had engaged in some kind of extreme sport, and I was slightly invigorated afterwards like it was a neat game I wanted to play again.

Billionaire Astronaut Seeks Domestic Perjurer for Indiscreet Poultry Encounters

I recently chuckled my way through a book of essays by David Rakoff called "Don't Get Too Comfortable." It was not as good as I hoped it would be (it had such potential!) but it was pretty funny, and alas, his vocabulary brings me true joy. The book, according to its cover, is about "The Indignities of Coach Class, the Torments of Low Thread Count, the Never-Ending Quest for Artisanal Olive Oil, and Other First World Problems" and it basically makes fun of excess. Anyway. I was fondly reminded of the book when reading the news about Martha Stewart cooking up roast quail for her billionaire inamorato to eat in outer space. What a waste of a perfectly good bird. (I'm not talking about Martha.) What is wrong with the freeze-dried ice cream?

Minneapolis Couple Valiantly Fights to Maintain Control Over Fourth and Final Clean Quadrant of Dining Room Table.

So, as many of you know, Shad runs his own business, and I am in law school, and God Help Us, sometimes things just go to shit around this house.

As testimony to this, I present: The Dining Room Table.



I love this table. It love that it is tall, I love that we can squeeze 12 people around it for a dinner party, I love to fill its entire 54" x 54" surface with tasty foodstuffs. But it is a strong witness to the general neglect of all things household-related.

Every now and then, I am hit with a strong feeling of "I was not raised this way." For example, I get I-was-not-raised-this-way-feeling when I am ordering my fru fru Starbucks coffee or when I let the dirty dishes sit for a few days. Or a week. Or two weeks. And I get this feeling when I look at this table, which has not been cleaned off in a month and a half.



Quadrant One was the first to go, obviously. It is in the natural pathway connecting the front door to the bathroom & bedrooms. So as we enter the house and, in my case, run to the bathroom because I can't seem to hold my bladder for more than two hours, we dump things here:



So we've got shopping bags, receipts, printed out recipes, partner-less knee sock. Typical homeless crap, right? No big deal. I've got no problem giving up this quadrant. You have to put the miscellaneous crap somewhere.

Next to go is quadrant two: the work area. Sure, I could put my laptop away at the end of the day, but why?



So this section wasn't that hard to give up, either. This left us with half the table. And I must say, we held on to that half for a good couple of weeks. But our neighborhood library recently re-opened, and I had to go get some books, and...



Okay, okay! We stack the books in quadrant three. And this leaves us with the last quarter of the table. Still a fair amount of space. If we push the encroaching crap aside, we have just enough room to enjoy a tasty little dinner of balsamic chicken with avocado salad, as we did tonight.



And we are keeping this quarter of the table well-scrubbed, polished, and crap-free.

I am hosting a little dinner party next week while Angela is in town, so I guess I am going to have to clean this sucker off. Dang.

Popcorn Quality Deteriorates in Direct Relationship to Skyrocketing Prices

Why does it cost $30 to go to a matinee? Why does popcorn cost seven dollars? Why does the popcorn taste worse and worse every time I get it? Am I just being crotchety?

Anyway. We saw Pan's Labyrinth today. Wow. What a beautiful, powerful movie. I'm so glad I saw it in the theater.

After Sampling Entire Catalog of Thrilling and Silly Ring Selections, Woman Chooses Dignified Ring Tone Commensurate With Maturity and Gray Hair

Yes. Top news of the hour: I have switched to the very respectable ding-da-ding-da-ding ring tone.

It was warm today and I noticed when I got home from work (at 8:30, puke) that some snow had melted and then frozen into a thin and slick sheet of black ice on our sidewalk. I immediately called Shad to warn him of the danger. Then I changed into my cotton pajammies, poured a glass of wine, and prepared to cozy up with the ol' bar application, which is due on Thursday. (Please, friends, do not be offended that I did not call to invite you over to enjoy this mindblowingly awesome Friday evening entertainment with me.) Then I realized I had left my laptop in the car, so I threw on some shoes and grabbed my gloves and ran out to get it (still in my jammies; very iffy behavior, I realize) and PROMPTLY slipped on the ice and nearly fell on my ass (caught self at last second; ouch, wrist). So damn predictable. Would not have happened, I am certain, if I had not called Shad to warn.

And now, a WOULD YOU RATHER question:

Would you rather (1) walk to the government center (a mile!) without your ipod, OR (2) just before you get into the elevator at work have one of those coughing fits where your throat gets so dry you can barely breathe and you certainly can't talk and tears leak out of your eyes AND THEN, as you are standing there, trying to breathe, with your head down, desperately trying to compose yourself (or hide!) and with the (poetic?) tear streaming down your face a senior partner gets on the elevator and says hi to you and you most certainly cannot return the hello or even look like you have not been crying your eyes out about the saddest thing ever?

Naturally, both things happened to me on the same day this week and obviously, both experiences were tops.

Let's see, what other exciting news can I relay? I know you are at the edge of your seats. Oh, I know, I know. An updated picture of the most adorable niece ever:



I have put this picture on my desktop and have fallen into the incredibly annoying habit of making everyone look at it. God, she's cute. I wish she lived with me.

Craft conspiracy last night, which is always a blast. We made really neat beads out of paper and then strung them into groovy little necklaces. I wore mine today and totally dig it.

Well I'm sure I've done more embarassing things in the last couple of days but thankfully I have temporarily forgotten about them, so apparently I have nothing else to report. Have a great weekend!

Lunch Time Chili Cook-Off Leads to Very Uncomfortable 1:30 Tax Class

I sit between Matt and Jason. At the chili cook-off, they were having a contest to see who could eat the most.

This is not going to be pleasant.

Symposium Nightmares Start Again

The second (and last) symposium I am planning will take place next Friday. I can't wait for it to be over. (I am, of course, excited for the event itself, too.) Last night I had a long string of nightmares: a million things I had forgotten, people making noises and disrupting the keynote speaker, no one ate the food, no one showed up, the keynote got nervous and stopped speaking and insisted on walking up and down all of the stairs (four flights) two times to get her bearings back while everyone waited and then the security guards asked her to leave because they thought she was crazy and I had to explain who she was, etc. etc. etc.. I woke up at 4:45 and could not fall back to sleep. Apparently this blog is turning into a forum for me to whine about my sleeping disorder. Nice.

Wine-Lover Never Learns

The last few nights I have managed to convince myself that if I have a glass of wine with dinner, I will have no problem getting my homework done after.

The last few nights I have consumed said glass of wine, taken a swig of NyQuil (cuz I'm still sickly), gone to bed immediately after dinner (like, 8 p.m.), and slept better than I have in months (which is to say I fell asleep within the hour and woke up only 3-4 times in the night instead of a million).

The homework is still not done, of course.

Tonight I waited until after dinner to drink the glass of wine. I have convinced myself that if I sip it while doing my homework, I will stay awake. I will get the work done. I will...

I am sleepy.

Damn Haskells and their $5.99 wine clearance bin.