all that's past is prologue...

We used to do A Lot. It's been sad when I've gone over pandemic posts to look back at my last weekend blog post before lockdown, or the social media posts from that week before, when Beatrix was in Tech Week and we went out to dinner every night. I've missed that, even as I understand completely why things have changed. This weekend had a glimpse of that. FilmNorth is one of the handful of physical sites across the country for the re-imagined Sundance Film Festival this year. Last night we got to help set-up a little, in a very distanced way (more on my thoughts about that another time.) And today I spent most of the morning on a (zoom) panel, which was incredibly rewarding (more on that later too). It kicked into high gear this afternoon, though, when we attended "Cold World," which is my friend Theresa's brilliant idea benefitting Forecast Public Arts. At 2:00 today, a collection of very Minnesotan-looking cars pulled into an empty parking lot in the indust...

 I hate the helicopters. They started in earnest last summer, during the uprisings. Before then you would hear the occasional copter, more often than not headed to the pads at the hospitals, and you would stop and think "I hope they make it."  But in June, the police helicopters and the news copters flew overhead, sometimes mixed with the sounds of the chants from the street — but more often at night, when the noise of the blades was all the more apparent in comparison to the quiet of the curfew. And then they stayed for the summer. For awhile I was told it was a temporary covid response, that police were being pulled of the street for fear of infection and they were utilizing the helicopters more. And now it's literally almost every night. A constant whirring, often loud enough to shake the windows. The Citizen app has stopped even bothering to note it. You can't tell me that there is that much news to cover, or that there is so much danger that the police choppers n...

I really want to talk about the inauguration, actually. But I am still letting that sink in. And one thing that was made very clear to me today was the thought "What and I going to do, EVERY DAMN DAY, to try to make the world better and to heal this country?" So I guess that means it's time to talk about PPP loans. Honestly, I was under such trauma from these back in April I was hoping I would never have to think about them again. Rushed applications for a new program that no one understood. Portals that were overwhelmed and shut down (sometimes in the middle of an application), a program that ran out of money and got replenished but provided a lot of stress, harried bankers, places who should not have taken the loans (I am looking at you, Ruth Chris Steak House) and gave it back, non-profit boards who did not understand the program and were suspicious of it, a worry about debt, a confusion over who was eligible, unclear forgiveness terms, changing documentation — it was ...

I mostly work from home right now, going into clients briefly about once a week (and even in that case, there's only one client I go to where others are present when I am there). And as you might know, Minnesota has just this week "re-opened," allowing restaurants and bars to open at 50% capacity, youth sports to resume, etc. From mid-November until January 11th, bars and restaurants could only serve outside, and I'll admit to stopping at my favorite taproom for drinks around a fire pit a couple of times. When I was running between clients on Monday, it was totally different, kind of crazy town. People were out everywhere, filling restaurants, bars, etc. Parking lots were full, music was playing, people were gathered everywhere. It was almost as if covid had been declared eradicated. And it looked great, and I really wanted to go out and for it all to be normal again. It all looked so easy. What would it mater if I sat down and took off my mask and had a drink? But th...

A few years back it was all about "hygge," but it looks like coronavirus has made a lot more Minnesotans (and for sure our family) interested in "friluftsliv," or "free air life." Everywhere you looked this weekend there were people sledding, skiing, skating, walking, and just enjoying the outdoors.  Friday and Saturday, Patrick and I went on walks through the neighborhood. On Sunday, Beatrix wanted to go skating.  Now, for the past several years, we've gone skating about once a year, always at the little rink at Nathan Hale park on Summit. It's great — tiny Beatrix would bundle up, Patrick would go skating with her, I would run around the edge of the ice in boots, and we always had the ice to ourselves. But now budget cuts closed that ice, so we had to go to a real rink. Groveland had just opened for the season and was a madhouse, so we headed to Desnoyer. And going to a real rink meant I had to get up on skates — for the first time in 40 years! I...

 One of my NY resolutions was to clean out storage areas in the house, so yesterday we attacked the "Christmas closet." My friend Ben swears that every Saint Paul homes has one of these weird basement closets. Whether they were used for storing canned goods or torture rooms of what else who knows (it's not the coal room, the chute was in a different part of the basement). We originally used ours for wine but it did not really give a cozy, wine cellar vibe (and once we realized we were never going to go down to the basement to cozily sip vintage wines anyway), we moved the wine storage to a more accessible area and put the Christmas stuff in here, kind of higgelty-piggelty. Add in two factors: 1. My family has a congenital box problem. Boxes *must* be stored in case they come in handy later. My grandmother even marked them helpfully as "empty." When you open a gift in my family, the box is almost never indicative of the gift. 2. My dad was a Christmas hoarder. Fu...

 Well, without our usual New Years Day parties to go to, we had more time on our hands today. So Patrick and I started out the day with a 2-mile walk. Then some "pampering" — new color to my hair, painted my nails (it's been forever since I've done that), soaked my feet, and mother-daughter holiday-themed masks. I really miss clothing exchanges, so set up a "traveling bag" clothing exchange — we'll see how it works. I am in desperate need of some wardrobe inspiration. We also played an escape room game, while Patrick made some cabbage and some vegan hoppin' john for good luck. Some reading time, and I even got my first batch of W2s printed and ready for the mail tomorrow. Seems like a good start to 2021!