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Snow Day No Way

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Yesterday was supposed to be Snowpocalypse. More than a foot of snow, starting around noon and running into the next day, everything cancelled, etc.

It made for a sense of anticipation in the morning. My friend Mary came over in the morning to look at the kitchen at the Hague House, and had some fantastic ideas (plus I love spending time with her, as Patrick says, she has great energy).

I had been trying to schedule a time to look at some office spaces in Landmark Center for a potential client move, but both my schedule and Amy's (the ED at Landmark) have been crazy. The snow day sense meant that some meetings got cancelled, so I was able to get over and find some good possibilities for them. I love the sense of place of that building and can't believe it was almost demolished.



It also seems I know half the tenants there, so it was like old home week. So much so that I was able to nab an impromptu lunch at the new Afro Deli with my friend Elyse.

And later in the day Patrick an…
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Ben Folds

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The perfect response to a day with some hard news was to go out with friends and and see Ben Folds with the Minnesota Orchestra (and dinner at Monello beforehand was perfect, thanks for the tip, Kate Baxter-Kauf!)

My friend Katharine had a New Years Resolution a few years back to see more concerts. Though that has not been one of my stated resolutions (which tend to deal with dinner parties and cocktails), it has been on my mind, and over the past year Patrick and I have seen some fantastic concerts — including Billy Bragg, Amanda Palmer, and Mary Chapin Carpenter with Shawn Colvin. So when Elaine asked if we wanted to see Ben Fold we jumped at the chance!



We don't get to Orchestra Hall often enough; I was ruminating on this during the opening Brahms piece. I used to go more when I worked for arts organizations that get comps, but truth be told I'm not all that well-versed in classical music and don't prioritize it it enough when it's not made easy for me. In fact I th…
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Good Morning, Leah

It's winter in Minnesota, which means the mornings are cold and dark. Every morning the dogs wake when the heat turns on, Beatrix wakes early and puts on her clothes and crawls back under the covers for awhile, and and we stumble around to quickly get out of the house with everything seeming too dark and early.

And every morning I think of Leah.

Leah had a judgey streak and once when I complained about the dark winter mornings, she laughed at me for Beatrix's late school start time and said her girls were at the bus stop at some god-awful time (I think 6:30?) for their 7:30 start time. And then, for a few weeks, she sent me morning bus stop pictures.

And then once she laughed at admitted that maybe she was just jealous and missed the days of sleeping in.

Beatrix's school starts earlier now and so those dark mornings seem all the more sleep-deprived (or maybe it's that I am older and sleep less). And they make me miss that dialogue with Leah all the more.
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Aspirational Things

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I may be So Saint Paul, but there's a little of the South Minneapolis refined hippie in me (which might be why it's still kind of hard for me to think of selling the Sheridan house, though the practical me realizes it has to happen). For many years, I've always thought that, sometime to prove to myself I've really "made it," I would buy myself something at Larue's, where all the clothes are fanciful and one of a kind and cost hundreds and hundreds of dollars.

So today I was passing by it between clients and just decided to pop in, and there was a great big sale rack. Which is where I found this adorable dress (that sadly does not photograph well) marked down from $348 to $49.



So does that mean I have officially made it?

Or are other things the signal that I have, like making another batch of lefse this week — the second batch in 2 weeks — because Beatrix wanted to share it with Girl Scouts and I kind of wanted to eat it? Sometimes I think my car is that k…
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Illuminate

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We got our first Science Museum of Minnesota membership right before Thanksgiving for a very simple reason — we were going to Chicago, and wanted to go to the Field Museum and the Museum of Science and Industry, and our reciprocal membership saved us a ton of money.

(It also gets us into places like the Bell Museum and The Works here in the Twin Cities — who knew? And our Walker Museum gets us into places like the Swedish Institute)

So when a dinner party canceled tonight we headed over to check out their Illuminate exhibit, which was a ton of fun. Everything we tried, from the Sportsology exhibit to the light legos to hanging out with Dan the TRex, turned out to be a lot more fun than expected. We spent over 3 hours there without even realizing it.



Then we headed over to Public, because our Belly Up membership also expires at the end of the month, and had some fantastic cocktails and desserts. Now we're home for cookies and the series finale of His Dark Materials.

My family is ama…
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Lefse

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It's not Christmas in my family without lefse. My grandmother used to dramatically state "I made 12 lefse today!" as she drowned her exhaustion with a scotch-and-water. My mother would roll out out into pangea-shapes (perhaps not purposely) while swearing a blue-streak usually reserved for games when the North Stars were losing, while I grilled it. The first Christmas after my mom dies I burst into tears saying "I don't know how I'm going to make the lefse," which is how Patrick rallied and became America's only black lefse-maker.

This year we have a smaller group than usual, but I think we still made enough. Beatrix even began to learn how to roll it out (I stuck with grilling).


There's something very zen about the whole experience, honestly. Getting the feel of the dough right. Rolling out out so it's not so think in breaks up, but not so thick that it's too doughy. Grilling it so it's just right on each side. There's the time …
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When Things Take Longer

Everything today ran behind, which was hard because it was a tightly packed day.

The photoshoot for Beatrix's headshots thing morning ran 2 hours, not the 45 minutes I had expected. But he was able to get hundreds of great photos of different looks, and I loved watching my kid vamp for the camera. She loved his set-up and wants to ask for photo lights for Christmas next year. And it was 2 houses down from my grandparents' former home, which made me very nostalgic.

The Erin Murphy house party we went to ran long (which was good because we were late due to the photoshoot). Which allowed us to hear her talk about why she's running and have a great conversation with her. I'm 100% With Her. She's amazing.

The performance of The Nutcracker that we attended today went long because we went backstage to see Beatrix's friend Flannery after the show. Flannery was amazing, as were my friend Tracy's daughter and my friend Momoko's daughter and son. We got to see a t…
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