all that's past is prologue...

Tonight, after a Mental Health Minnesota meeting, I took my 9-year old date (and her stuffed dog, which looks real and surprised quite a few people) to downtown Minneapolis to attend the opening night of a client's show. (The show, by the way, is Rhythmically Speaking and it's pretty great — runs through Sunday, highly recommended.)

The show was at the Illusion Theater, located on the 8th floor of Hennepin Center for the Arts. Which is a place I know inherently, in every fiber of my being, because it's where I started working in theatre over half a lifetime ago when it was the Cricket Theatre.

It's the place where Jay taught me to add cinnamon to the coffee urn and to never chew ice over the intercom. Where Shirley and Camille had a bottle of champagne delivered to their dressing room on Sunday nights written into their contract, and where they taught me to appreciate it (I miss you, Camille). Where I hauled rapidly growing puppy TC from the Time and Chance set every n…

I'm now 50. Still wasn't the easiest transition, but as I had joked, "It beats the alternative." And then a friend passed away of pancreatic cancer on Saturday morning, and I woke up to the news on Charlottesville,  and I realized it really DID beat the alternative.

My birthday was lovely. My friend Jennifer's free fabric sale. Brunch at the Hewing and a truly lovely production of Sunday in the Park with George atthe Guthrie with Patrick, while Beatrix hung out and learned how to train dogs from our friend Cheryl. A walk around Como Lake. A fantastic dinner for all 3 of us, including Beatrix in a tiara, at the Lex (I joked that between the matinee and the Lex Patrick picked places that made me feel younger). A 10pm Fringe show of the amazing Fourth Wall Ensemble with Fruit Flies Like a Banana. And the next day I got to celebrate with a volunteer event with some awesome people at Second Stork (more on that later). Great calls and texts and emails and FB messages a…

It's the last night of my forties. It's a night remarkable for its ordinariness — Patrick is rigging at circus, we had a pool party, Beatrix is in bed, I am sitting in the dimly lit living room at Summit with Coya and a cocktail. Cicadas sound outside like every August night I can remember in this house. The upstairs hall light glows pink and I remember so clearly sitting on the rug up there in my shortie cat pajamas that my grandmother made me on a night so exactly like this that there is no way that it was 47 years ago.

I've thought a lot about turning 50 and I am still not at all at peace with it. Almost all my earlier life I have been the young one doing things, remarkable for achieving things at an early age. Now I most definitely am not. I don't even know what to achieve next.

I'm painfully ware that my mom was only 68 when she died. Patrick says, and rightly so, that that does not mean I will die at that age — I could go tomorrow, or at age 103. But neverthe…

Things that mean summer (even if I have not done them all yet, hopefully I will get to them!)

-  patio drinking
-  swimming
-  pool parties
-  Open Eye Figure Theatre Driveway Tour shows
-  Izzy's/(Grand Old Creamery)
-  BBQs
-  "Old Gladhills" (lemonade/vodka/St. Germaine — or just me)
-  rhubarbaritas
-  sangria
-  gardening
-  the cabin
-  Grand Old Day/(Paws on Grand)
-  various other street festivals
-  walking the dog around the block at night
-  sitting on the front porch
-  neighborhood "Patio Nights" parties
-  Songs of Hope
-  Picnic Operetta
-  Fringe
-  Alexis Bailly Vineyard
-  night markets
-  National Night Out
-  farmer's market
-  outdoor concerts/movies
-  girl scout camp
-  taproom patios
-  garage sales
-  walking around a lake
-  Circus Juventas summer show
-  summer camps for B
-  watermelon/peaches/plums/cherries
-  outdoor festivals
-  birthday
-  baseball (Saints)
-  reading in the hammock

What does summer mean to YOU?

In a given week, I may be at over a dozen clients. While it's great that I usually have a designated space at each one, it does mean that, between the clients and my home office, I'm often carrying around a lot of pieces of paper that need to get from one place to the next.

That situation gets exacerbated depending on client capacity. Some clients don't have fax machines. Others don't have scan capability for me. At still others, I end up stalled because I don't have a file folder, or a window envelope, or a plain white envelope. Sometimes I need a stamp. Sometimes I need a power brick for my phone. Sometimes I need to file and there are no folders. Or I don't have a sharpie for labeling, or a pencil. Any of these things can stall me for a full work session, or throw off a schedule, or delay a check getting in the mail that day. It's incredibly frustrating.

So today, I took an adorable hedgehog bag that Elaine Powell had gotten me for Christmas, and filled …

Since Patrick has been rigging every circus show, it means that evenings and weekends have been just me and Beatrix, like some kind of low-rent Thelma and Louise. This weekend alone, that meant Target, Noodles and Company, the Ramsey County Library, Whole Foods, Nordrsaga, brunch, Paws on Grand, an Open Eye Theatre puppet show at our friend Maggie and Stephen's, our friend Kevin's birthday party, a new donut shop, Izzy's, and a few other errands. In other words, a lot of time in the car discussing things.

Some of the topics from this afternoon alone:

-  Might all people have super powers like Wonder Woman and they just don't know it until they are tested?
-  Seeing a woman whose hijab blew off and was she concerned people saw her hair, and what was the line between showing your tradition in dress and being sexists because girls have to wear traditional dress and boys don't.
-  Who our secret Hamilton crushes are (don't tell anyone but hers is Leslie Odom Jr.)
-…