all that's past is prologue...

This weekend was sort of a "back to the before times" kind of weekend (and it was great)! Friday night, there was a "Star Seeds" kickoff at FilmNorth — Missy Whiteman and Darryl Alexander Cole are brilliant! Then we got to stop at King Coil Spirits for their soft opening, which was incredibly delicious, in both the food and the drinks. Sitting on the patio, looking out over the Lake Monster patio and all the activity going on in the area on a warm fall night was just about perfect. I'll meet you there anytime. Sunday we had yoga, and then I headed to the Film Forum , held at the Securian Lounge at CHS Field. It was a wonderful, lively conversation! The Forum concluded with a networking event at Lost Fox. I then ran home and joined Patrick for Circus Juventas' Volunteer Appreciation Night, held at the Wandering Leaf taproom. They are dog-friendly, and two of our favorite bartenders ever — Olivia from Lawless, and Chris from Saint Paul Brewing — are now there...

Our yard at Ashland had kind of suffered all summer with the heat and the drought and the new roof (sorry, neighbors!). Plus we spent most of our resources dealing with Summit (picture below of the brand new winter pool cover that we just dropped EVEN MORE money on for our Summer of Expense). So today after yoga we worked on it all afternoon. Here's the before pic: Patrick had big plans for grass in the front, so got 15 bags of topsoil and mixed it with bee yard seed and put it down. I thought if we were doing that we should at least clean up the front beds, and also divided some iris to replant and give to a friend, and dug out some of the wild roses for her as well (if any of you need any wild roses, PLEASE let me know and I'm happy to dig some up for you! That bed has become completely overgrown!) We filled several yard bags with waste, and got the whole yard looking much better (even if the reseeded part resembles a grave...) (Suddenly looking at the after picture does not ...

In a break from the snarky, how many places have you lived? I spent from infancy through senior year of high school (with a brief interregnum at my mentor Hazel's place) at 1358 Summit, which we still own. Two years of dorms at Tufts (Haskell and Tilton Hall). A year in London in apartments in West Hampstead and Maida Vale (hey, Dave Stewart was our neighbor!) Back at Tufts for senior year in an apartment on Belknap Street. Spent the summer after senior year subletting a professor's garden level apartment. Back in London off of Finchley Road. Taipei on Jen-Ai Lu, and then left it for a short while (where I was mainly really sick and don't remember much) and then back. A place with Elaine at 593 Laurel. Then bought 627 Ashland. (Please note this does not count any mostly-living-at-but-not-on-the-lease places with various exes. I laughed out loud when West Hall at Tufts was changed from male-only to co-ed and the first women to live there stated they were "the first wome...

I might be on a curmudgeonly roll this week. Blame the change of seasons or allergies or something. My friend and neighbor attended the Saint Paul "Budget Listening Session" last night. It ... was not well attended (clip from Pioneer Press reporter Fred Melo): I should have gone. I'm interested in how budget decisions are made. But I am relatively tuned in to these things, and I embarrassingly did not know about it (I also had a board meeting, but I digress). We're constantly told that we should be involving the voices of the people who are not ordinarily heard, and I agree. Every arts organization I know is trying to reach people who don't normally hear about what they do. So how does the council do the same? Patrick suggests a postcard to all city residents. FWIW, I suppose there might be a card of that kind in the "to deal with" mail pile. What I DO know is that as a city volunteer (Vice-Chair of the Cultural STAR board), I didn't get an email, an...

Last night, Beatrix was still at the Renaissance Festival (thanks, Val!)and we had just finished the pantry project, so we decided to go out to celebrate. We wanted to go to Eastlake Brewery because it was closing (sob!), and we thought some stalls at the often underwhelming Midtown Marketplace might still be open (contrary to the example cited by Ward 1's worst possible candidate Suz Woehrle, Midtown is not a great success story, but I digress). When we got there, and pulled into the axe-murderer-dead parking, we realized it was even worse than expected, and the whole marketplace area was closed up — yes, at 5pm on a Sunday. We actually found an open door to Eastlake — which was hopping! — and had a final beer, but we were hungry, so we started thinking of places to go to eat. El Norteno - closed on Sunday. Same with a few other taco places nearby. Taco trucks often don't have much that is vegetarian. Peppers and Fries and High Hat have recently jacked menu prices up A LOT; p...

This blog post informs me that a full pantry clean-out was one of those #pandemicprojects we last did in March of 2020, in those heady days when we thought that covid would last two weeks and we could just stay home. Which seems forever ago and also last week. Our friend Michelle called us to tell us that the pantry moths we were trying to eradicate would likely not leave without full flamethrower action, and she was right — we've been battling them off and on since then. So it was time for another pantry cleaning weekend. I'm embarrassed to say that some of the food from the last picture was still there (reader, we threw it away this time). When you look at the picture, it does not look many-hours-of-work better. But I promise you that it's an improvement.

Most people care deeply about where they love, but our block is something special. Though settlement in Saint Paul generally moved west (and also east) from downtown, it skipped over the enormous Josiah Selby farmstead, meaning my area (Holcombe's addition to Saint Paul) is one of the oldest neighborhoods in the city. One block north is the oldest house in the area (1858, though you would scarcely realize that due to alterations), and also the 4th oldest park in Saint Paul, originally set up as a day market for the neighborhood. Due to the way the streets jog and with the school at the end of the street, my block of Ashland (currently an ironic name due to the loss of ash trees citywide; it was formerly Hennepin) is just one block long from Dale to St. Alban's. It's actually kind of a varied block, as many of the original homes were lost due to an early urban renewal effort. At the far end of the block are several medium-sized apartment/co-op buildings, and at my end are ma...

As we end a Labor Day that was pretty much spent actually working and moving things back to Ashland, here's a tribute to some of the small things we've gotten done this week. Framed the Vermeer poster we got at the exhibition (using my Ikea birthday coupon to get the frame for cheap at Ideas as well!) Finally got up the 100-year plaque we got from the Macalester Groveland Community Council for the Summit house: Found homes for *almost* everything we cleared out of the garage (anyone need patio umbrellas?) Look how great that headboard looks in someone else's home! (it was so nice if them to send me the photo!) Patrick finished the trim on the marvelous deck he built earlier this summer:

Today, after yoga, Viv treated us all to some of the pizzas from Lake Monster's about-to-open sister establishment, King Coil Spirits . They imported a super-fancy new pizza oven which I was all like "Well, how good can it be, really?" The answer is "VERY good." They open fully at the end of the month (though pro-tip, you can go to Lake Monster and scan and order it from the tables there now). Then tonight, my friend Krista came over and brought her granddaughters to swim. She brought Carbone's pizza, which was also delicious. We ended the night with an ice cream run to Dream Creamery (and now it feels like I have an ice cream food baby...)