all that's past is prologue...

 Decided to work a little harder to regain hope in politics this weekend. The Biden/Harris cut-outs on Summit are back! Signed up for a postcard-writing assignment. Picked up our Friends of the Saint Paul Library sign and added it to the yard line-up. Got a new t-shirt: And, best of all, went down to Macalester to hear Elizabeth Warren speak! (could not get past the barrier because contract tracing, but the nice guard let me sit on top of the hill, so this was the best pic I could get. I could hear her perfectly though!) ETA: And ended the night by watching "What the Constitution Means to Me" with the family, which has me in tears about both politics and missing shows/audiences.

To be honest, we spent most of the day cleaning the garage, but that's not ready for the big reveal yet. However, I did get to knock a small project off the list by cleaning up the plant table! Recently I have picked up some really nice pots, so I wanted to be sure that those could be seen. I trimmed off some dead leaves and such as well, and gave everything a good watering and leaf cleaning. I have the feeling that all my orchids are root bound, but I didn't go so far as to address that issue. I also picked up a quite large fiddle-leaf fig at Aldi yesterday for just $12.99, so have to suss where to put that. And we have 2 large hibiscus trees we are going to try to overwinter.

When my dad died, we donated his body to the University of Minnesota's Anatomy Bequest Program.  His ashes have been sitting around, actually, for awhile since they have sent them back; I really need to get organized and get a niche at the cemetery (that said, one of the things I cleaned out of my dad's was his grandmother's ashes, sitting on a shelf, so apparently it's a family trait....) But I was glad I still had them, because I recently found out that Vandalia Glassworks offers very cool memorial glass art that incorporates ashes. I really wish this had been around years ago, because I get my love of glass from my mom, and she would have loved the idea. (I even looked into trying to extract some of her ashes for that purpose, but it was basically a no-go from the cemetery). I finally took care of sending them in the ashes recently, and so today when Beatrix had  along-anticipated coffee date fall through and was upset, she and I went in (after first stopping at Bla...

Despite our several incidences of "Corona Cleaning" deep cleaning, we have had a hard time keeping up with everyday cleaning. Part of it was living in 2 places all summer, but most of it is the weird issues of everyday life during a pandemic — all 3 of us trying to keep up with work and school that is sometimes from home and sometimes elsewhere. Add in pets and scarcity of things (why on earth has Target been out of Comet cleaner for the last 6 weeks?) and sanitizing protocol and such, and it's been a lot. Today Patrick spent some time running around to various home improvement stores looking for things he needs for Hague (see earlier comment about shortages), while I got a start on some catch-up cleaning here. When he got home, we were able to do some things together that we had put off, like glueing loose chair joints, laying down rugs and rug pads for the fall, and generally cleaning up. It's not perfect, but it's nicer; the main rooms are at least moderately c...

 Oh look, it's fall and we're still doing pandemic projects! (sign courtesy of my friend Ann) We started the day helping out at Lookout Park, doing the fall clean-up with neighborhood friends. The geraniums we were taking out were still blooming, so I decided to take home some to cheer up our back yard. I also revealed, at that point, that I had collected some plants people were splitting. Some of them were ground cover, which inspired Patrick to get on a project he had long wanted to do, cleaning up the borders of our front walk. (the one on the left is the finished project, on the right is yet to be done). I planted the water iris and serviceberry I had gotten, but needed Patrick to got holes big enough for the weigela. This is just a temporary place; there are 2 actually, and they will go over to Summit next year. But it inspired me to clean up our back weed area off of the alley. Next year I would like to put a raised bed in here. We did take a little break to walk down wit...

While Patrick was being a good citizen tonight and attending a town hall meeting about a neighborhood issue, I grabbed Beatrix after rehearsal and we headed to the river. Every 12-20 years or so they apparently close up the lock near the Stone Arch bridge so that they can inspect the footings. I say "apparently" because I've never noticed this happening before, but this time I really wanted to see it. So, apparently, did the rest of the Twin Cities. We found a spot, jumped over the "Danger - Do Not Enter" chain at the top of a rickety staircase, and joined the throngs of people (and dogs) headed down. And it was apparent, pretty much as we got to the base of the steps, that it was worth it. There were throngs of people down there, climbing around, crossing the water on rock paths, playing music, digging up rocks and artifacts, just sitting and watching the river. Someone (and I'm sorry, I forgot who) said on Twitter yesterday (paraphrased)  - "What if t...

We had not been to City House since it had been Red River Kitchen, which we felt bad about. It's close by, and fun to watch the water. But I have a soft spot in my heart for Mattie O'Reilly's places, so when he was not running it anymore it kind of fell off our radar. But on Saturday, they were having an end of season special, where everything was $3, and I can't resist a bargain, so we headed down! We should have arrived hungry, because their food was all just $3 too. Instead, we just sat on the patio and had drinks, a perfectly serviceable Bauhaus Wonderstuff and a kind of overtly sweet Hurricane that was really a lot more like the Tequila Sunrise that was also on the menu. But again, $3, so who's to complain? The view across the water was pretty, even if the day was kind of cold and gray and not patio-condusive. As usual, Brutus made lots of friends. There were no cookies provided, but we brought our own, and he was ok with that.  We'd give it a solid 6 or 7...