all that's past is prologue...

My parents divorced when I was two, and my dad purchased the duplex at 4109-4111 Sheridan Avenue South in Linden Hills not all that long after that. Which is to say, while I grew up "So Saint Paul," there was also a part of me that was from Minneapolis too. As I grew up, we hung out there every Saturday, and while my dad took afternoon naps I made fairy gardens in the yard, made "pens" from the fake bamboo growing everywhere, or climbed to the top of the big cedar tree outside. I hung out upstairs with his tenants, or next door with the Orfields and the pig or turkey they had at that time. Every summer I spent a couple of overnights there, sometimes with friends — where we could sit on the front steps and talk to boys as they walked past. One time I spent there I got really sick, and went through 6 of my dad's t-shirts worn as nightshirts as I puked all night. I made little cubbyholes for "The Borrowers" to find things. My room was (and is to this da...

The weather this afternoon was perfect to sand and varnish the doors. Found the sander. Brought it from Summit to Ashland. Found out I needed smaller pieces of sandpaper. Sanded the doors, taking cat-petting breaks. Went to the basement to get the marine varnish. Varnish had dried up. Grabbed the back-up varnish. Also dried up. Went to Frattalones. No marine varnish. Millenial sales help guy did not seem to know the difference between indoor and outdoor, polyyuruthane vs. other finishes, stain vs. varnish. Looked through all the options while trying to touch as little as possible. Missed 7 Corners Hardware a lot (Frattalones tries, but they have been striking out on old house needs). Purchased what seemed to be the best option. Came home, varnished the doors. Look great. Peace is restored. Another project that's been on the to-do list for a long time checked off. Front Before: After: Back Before: After:

You know what? I have to say on a personal level, we've kind of got this. We're spending good time as a family together. We're reading a lot. We're finding a way to have (distanced) time with friends that is in no way as frequent as before, but that means a lot more. We're cooking good food. We're doing some house projects. We're visiting sunflower fields. We have a collection of masks. We're getting good work done. We're escaping to the cabin. In a lot of ways it's hard — and things that would have been hard before, like the enormous leak that took out our kitchen ceiling, are that much harder. But in general, we're getting it done. Which stands in stark contrast to our leadership, at all levels. Though Beatrix's school seems to be handling the myriad issues well, their communication has been terrible. I've not heard a word on the situation from my city council member, Dai Thao. I hear a few talking points from Mayor Carter...

It was the early 1990s, and I was serving as an election judge for the first (and only) time. I was not cut out for a day that went from 5am to 9pm, of counting write-ins by hand, for being constantly "on" serving people — those judges are heroes. At the same time, it was an incredibly rewarding experience to see people come out to vote, to register at the polls (MN has same day registration), and to feel great pride in my country. It was at the training when I asked "What about the absentee ballots?" The answer - "We count those, of course. If we have to." But I could not suss how they knew if they had to. That same question came to my mind when I voted for Wellstone in 2002. I was going on tour with my theater company and had cast my ballot, and then the plane crash. I went down to the election office to retrieve my ballot and write in Mondale, and was told I could not because Mondale had not been confirmed as the candidate yet. It took several min...

Though there are scores of taprooms in the Twin Cities, we rarely have time to take Brutus out to a couple of them in a day. On vacation at the cabin, though, there's more leisure time, and so we could head out to a few. Brutus was All In for this turn of events: We first hit Copper Trail, which has been a reliable standard for us in Alexandria over the year. It used to be located in an industrial park, which was kind of ... industrial park-y. But late last year they relocated to a more central site, and this was our first time to visit the new place. Brutus approved: In comparison to city covid-cleanliness standards, theirs were a little lax, and the patio seemed somewhat thrown-together. But the beer was good — Patrick had a Belgian and I a hoppy IPA, though we actually switched — and it was nice to all sit and enjoy some vacation beer-and-patio time. We give it a solid 3 out of 5, maybe higher. Besides, afterwards we could walk over to the Big Ole statue — because wha...

So, like everyone else, my bucket list has become a little...less ambitious...this year. So I think when I decided that visiting a sunflower field was on it, Patrick was a little dubious. But one of the Fish Sunflower fields was on our way up to the cabin, so all six of us (3 humans and 3 dogs) stopped on Sunday morning. And it was incredibly worth it. ETA: added Beatrix's pictures, which are awesome.

So, Lawless is one of our (Patrick's and my) favorite places to go, topped only by the bars at Martina and Coquito (because Adam, Dustin, Marco...) — and Stillhart is way up there too, because Olivia.... But needless to say, other than picking up Hustle Packs, we have not been in a LONG time. They recently re-opened for outside service, so my one birthday request was to get a drink there. And the winner part of course is that the patio is dog-friendly. Brutus has only been to taprooms, never a distillery. Let's just say that he realized that now he was Living His Best Life. Lovely outdoor setting, great drinks. I had the Minnesota Vice, Patrick went with his usual old-fashioned. Good social distancing, lots of sanitizer. It loses a little of the Lawless touch because there was not fancy glassware, and part of the fun is sitting at the bar kibitzing with the bartenders and watching them make drinks (not that I have whiled away many hours doing just that...) But i...

One of the main reasons that the Summit house has not felt as much like "home" as the Ashland house is that it's not as art-filled. Everyone who has ever visited Ashland knows that our walls are filled with art. So luckily, with my friend Bethany's help and some pieces scored fro the BST board, I've been able to spice up Summit a little. I got this great tile from someone off the BST board. My mother loved owls, so it really resonated with me. I really love how it makes the mantle look planned in the space, giving my home some of the arts-and-crafts sensibility back. I also hung up this wind chime Ximena gave us over the fountain I set up outside, though I don't think it's in the right spot to catch wind actually. It may go over to Ashland (art that goes between homes is especially great). Bethany gave me some fun art for the guest bedroom: And a quartet of pieces I love on my dresser that I wake up to every morning: ...

My husband Patrick wrote a great piece about the danger of the WhileWeAreAtIts this week. Go ahead and read it; I'll wait. He's got a lot of good points. Especially in the technology field that he often works in, the WhileWeAreAtIts can easily sink an entire project. The way they can delay a project's ending is astounding and problematic. In any project, they need to be accounted for. Our major house project this summer has been redoing the floors, and they have inspired quite a number of WhileWeAreAtIts. The refrigerator was empty — time to really clean it out and get rid of the random condiments. The closets were empty — time to repaint and add some shelving space. We need a new guest room/covid room (because let's be serious, we are far more likely to use it for covid isolation than a guest room) bed. Beatrix needs a new bedroom set. Time to deep clean everything. Let's frame those porch portraits. The library needs a new valance. (As an aside, look at the...

I have to say, the restaurant at 498 Selby has always been one of my favorite places. Whether it was Zelda's, the Chocolate Moose, or Engine House #5 when I was young, I loved going there with my mom (great desserts). I enjoyed the several iterations of Chang O'Hara's (remember the fondue? and the illegal upstairs?), and much as I jokingly called it the Flaccid Gnome instead of the Happy Gnome (due to the sign), I always loved it there as well. I remember great double dates there with Patrick and Eric and Christy, having out there one night in 2004 when I really needed it with Dan, and hanging out many a time with Chuck. So I was incredibly sad to see it close. Luckily, my heroes Brian and Sarah Ingram, the nicest people to ever open a restaurant, saw what a loss it would be and consulted some with Justin Sutherland to open The Gnome . I don't seem to get the same soft opening invites I used to get in the Before Times, but we managed to get a reservation for the openi...

First of all, let's acknowledge that there are no ideal ways to send our kids back to school in the fall. All the options suck. They are unsafe for the kids and the teachers, or they leave kids at home meaning someone likely has to supervise them, or they are a mix of the two — but nothing is great. And every single family is trying to do what's best for them, and likely has an opinion about what *should* be done based on what works best for their family. But WHAT IF this is a chance to really re-imagine everything we think we know about school? What if it's a chance for kids to (be forced to) be more responsible for what they learn? What if it actually allows them more one-on-one time with teachers to develop that relationship? What if it restructures things so that those kids in the middle of the class, the quiet, rule-following ones that don't normally drawn attention to themselves, are given more of a chance to participate? What if it changes the balance...

One thing I've discovered during covid is, that though my to-do list is long and seems to get longer every day, knocking off a quick "make your world better" project is a big uplift. And for those I have found free sites (like on FB or NextDoor), to be a great help in this. Contactless pick-up, right in your neighborhood, FREE — what's not to like? Today, I picked up these great, arts-and-crafts styled vases that I filled with flowers from our yard. Over the weekend, I got a lovely dwarf mock orange bush and some big catmint plants to fill some gaping blank spots in the yard. I also picked up some lovely, Crate and Barrel dishes and serving pieces so that now all our dishwater at Summit matches and is all coordinated. Patrick is especially excited about the pasta bowls (Beatrix thinks we still need some better cereal bowls). And then I gave away all the mismatched, chipped, or otherwise unwanted stuff. So here's my challenge to you. it doesn...

This summer, we undertook one of the biggest project of our house — we had all the floors redone. It was long and drawn out — though we had a fantastic floor guy, with some various delays on his end and ours it has taken since June. But it was so worth it! (I had a post about the first floor a few weeks back, you may remember). Our house was built by Sarah T. Chapin in 1886. A fashionable Victorian lady, she did what many did at the second time. The second floor had wide, virgin pine boards as a subfloor, over which could be tacked a hygienic painted floorcloth. Protected you from the corona, and everything else. Over the years, those floors had been painted, and covered with plywood, and stick-on tile, and everything else. We had replaced the flooring in our bedroom and Beatrix's room, on either end of the hallway, but the middle bedrooms and the hallway remained their dirty, gritty, cat-smelling selves. At one point (in the 1990s) I had painted the guest room floor in an atte...