Friday #14: September 2, 2016

The better to seed you with, my dear

So we have come to the inevitable finish…the last week of Summer Hours…the Bifocal Friday season finale.

And of course, nothing says summer send-off like the Minnesota State Fair.

Drew and I had plans to go on Saturday, because we had tickets to the Weezer show. But all the annual excitement and build-up to the Fair had us thinking about a project we had kept meaning to do all year and hadn’t gotten around to yet…SEED ART!

The crop art show in the Horticulture Building is a State Fair highlight for most Minnesotans, and we are no exception. So we decided this last Bifocal Friday would be the day we would finally become seed artists ourselves. Too late to enter in this year’s fair of course – and maybe our quality won’t even be up to snuff for entering in next year’s competition. But we felt compelled to give it a go.

I had taken the whole day off – in fact, most of the week because it was my birthday week. So we set out early Friday morning seed shopping. Well, actually first we started with coffee at Ma Petite Cheri bakery in the Seward neighborhood of Minneapolis. It’s a sweet little spot on Franklin Avenue that we’d never been to before, and the coffee was good but sadly the promise of the Croque Monsieur-style pastry was not fully delivered upon. We took our coffee to go and strolled Milwaukee Avenue, that historic vest-pocket treasure of a neighborhood, two city blocks of perfectly preserved small homes built in the 1880s on quarter-sized lots which front onto a grassy pedestrian mall with no direct automobile access.

Onward to the Seward Co-Op Grocery, where we knew we would find bulk bins of edible seeds of all sizes, shapes and colors. Here’s the bounty we ended up with:

Back home, we poured everything out into little bowls, got out our various glues and tweezers and picks and pushers, and got to work.

 

Here’s how mine turned out at the end of the day: a Dios de la Meurte head in honor of the change of seasons coming up soon as we turn the corner into fall and winter.

Drew’s representation of his HandEye Creative business logo is still a work in progress – those individually aligned grains of Forbidden Black Rice take forever to maneuver into place, and the Split Red Lentils are a real challenge to wrangle.

What has NOT been a challenge has been to find something fun and interesting -- new and different or old and cherished – to do with my Bifocal Fridays. I’ll spend the next nine months working hard five full days a week, and dreaming of next summer’s adventures.

Friday #13: August 26, 2016

On the road to the best museum you’ve probably never heard of

My boss had been recently extolling the virtues of an unexpectedly good art museum in the rather unlikely locale of Winona, Minnesota so I decided this week’s Bifocal Friday would be a road trip downriver to check it out. Even without the tantalizing promise of a destination like that, a drive along the Mississippi is one of my very favorite ways to spend a day – or thirty.

Some of my readers may recall another writing adventure project of mine, when I took a month’s sabbatical from work and family in 2006 and drove down one side of the Mississippi all the way to New Orleans and back up the other side, exploring the towns and sights along the way and blogging about “one golden thing” every day. If you care to embark on another arm-chair adventure with me, here’s the archive of that: Mississippi Gold

In any case, I never tire of the river’s story and I never cease to marvel at the day’s wonder that can be experienced with just a few hours of driving south from Minneapolis-St. Paul.

I generally prefer to make my way over to the Wisconsin side for the downriver journey, crossing over at Prescott where the St. Croix River merges with the Mississippi. The road hugs the river through Prescott and then curves around farmland and small industrial railroad and sand mining towns like Diamond Bluff, Hager City, and Bay City before you hit scenic pay dirt beginning around Maiden Rock.

Down through the quaint and artsy town of Stockholm, then just a few more miles to Pepin, home of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s “Little House in the Big Woods.” Through Nelson, with its cheese factory that’s been making cheese for over 100 years, and to Alma, where I stopped to visit a few shops and galleries. The town offers an incredible view from the Buena Vista park that sits high atop the bluff and looks down on the Army Corps of Engineers Lock and Dam #4, and at what seems like a little O-scale model railroad and shipping town below.

After Nelson comes Cochrane, which you would hardly notice except that it has a consolidated area high school. And then Czechville, which I actually never HAVE noticed except right now when I’m looking at a map to refresh myself on the place names. Then just before Bluff Siding I cross back over to Minnesota and come into the city of Winona, home to one of Minnesota’s state colleges and apparently home to this amazing museum I’m about to see.

Did I say amazing? I meant freakin’ AMAZING!

The Minnesota Marine Art Museum sits alongside the river just north of the old industrial section of downtown Winona, on eight acres of gardens and grounds. 

Built in 2006, it is a beautiful state-of-the-art facility designed to house the incredible marine art collection of Bob Kierlin (founder of industrial supply company Fastenal) and his wife Mary Burrichter, along with many other pieces that are on loan to the museum.

The common thread to the substantial collection (primarily paintings), is that the piece must include a body of water big enough to boat on. The water doesn’t have to be the central focus of the piece, but it has to be present in some significant way. There are the sailing ship scenes you would expect – but then there are seaside and waterlily and river drifting and factory working and pretty girls wading by the likes of Monet, Frederick Childe Hassam, John Singer Sargent, Paul Signac, van Gogh, Camille Pissaro and Renoir, just to name a few of the Impressionist superstars that snuck up and hit me on the head right here in River City. 

Then there’s Picasso, and oh here comes the Hudson River School crew and American masters like Winslow Homer, George Bellows, William Glackens, and modern wonders like Georgia O’Keefe. All that AND a special exhibition of tattoo art in the sailor tradition!

It truly was a mind-boggling and wonderful encounter for such a small town as Winona, population 27,500. And another reminder that putting on the spirit-bifocals and focusing on something new can have big-time results.

Friday #12: August 19, 2016

Learning to Let Go

Not-so-secret admission: I’m a bit of a control freak. Nowhere is this more evident than in the relationships closest to me. My friendly ex-husband came to my housewarming party recently, and when I dispatched him to the liquor store mid-festivities to grab another bottle of something, he joked as he went, “We’re not even married anymore and she’s still ordering me around.” That kind of thing doesn’t sit quite as well with my new partner, and because I recognize that it’s not a healthy tendency in its extreme, I’m continually working on reining it in more appropriately with him. (I guess the idea of “reining in” your controlling tendency is like a reverse-oxymoron or something, but that’s the metaphor that first came to me. Go figure.)

Anyway, it’s something I’m working on, and it’s been a good process, an important process for me, learning to be more flexible and go with the flow. There are still occasional flare-ups as we learn to live together in our new home – and in fact we had one this past week – but progress is ongoing and I’m slowly finding the freedom and peacefulness that letting go of control and cultivating flexibility can offer. Because of course nobody’s ever really in control of much, if anything, when it comes right down to it; and clinging too doggedly to that pursuit is an exercise in futility.

So I was pleased that this Bifocal Friday found me pleasantly going with the flow. I’d planned to enjoy another beach afternoon with my 14 year-old and his buddies and their moms, but the weather was bad. I thought maybe bowling instead, but if there’s one thing you really can’t control it’s the will of a bunch of a teenagers. The prevailing choice of the boys was to go trampolining at SkyZone and then see the Bourne movie by themselves, so off they went. There was a loose Plan B afoot for the moms to have lunch or happy hour later in the afternoon by ourselves, but that was a little slow to materialize and I didn’t mind the unscheduled time to putter around the house cleaning a bit and reading my book while the rain fell.

By 3:00 there were three of us mom friends who were ready to converge, and I drove over to Salut on Grand Avenue to meet them. The rain had lifted, and we were able to sit outside on the patio and enjoy each other’s company along with some good pomme frites and a pint. It was a great couple of hours of conversation, in which new and deeper layers of each other’s personal onions were revealed and discussed between us, taking these relatively new friendships to yet another level.

After lunch, I met Drew for a short round of golf that was cut even shorter by another round of rain. My drive was solid, although my short game peskier than ever, and overall I was slightly hindered by the fact that I’d forgotten my golf shoes and was wearing a pair of rubber sandals. But the whole thing was enjoyable while it lasted, and we got a rain check out of the deal so it was essentially a free round of golf.

Casting about for something else to do with our rainy evening, we grabbed my older son and the three of us headed out to the neighborhood movie theater to see “Florence Foster Jenkins,” which delighted us all. I don't often get to spend a Friday night with my almost 18-year old, so that was an added bonus. I have to admit, staying in the moment and letting go cheerfully of original plans led to a day of unexpected fun. 

Friday #11: August 12, 2016

My Ultimate Friday

The sport known as “Ultimate” was invented in 1969 by a group of students in New Jersey horsing around a parking lot. Today it’s one of the fastest growing field games anywhere, with thousands of high school, collegiate and club teams around the country and an estimated 7 million players around the world.

Played with a flying disc (Frisbee is the brand we all know and love, but competitors today simply call it a disc) the game is now played on a soccer-sized field with end zones similar to football. The disc passes from player to player; when you catch the disc you have to stop running immediately and can only pivot in place for 10 seconds before throwing it again. The goal is to score by catching a pass in the opponent’s end zone.

My 14 year-old Jack has been playing Ultimate competitively for just a year at school, but is completely hooked and recently stepped away from his previous dedication to soccer to pursue Ultimate at as high a level as he can. That included gaining a spot this summer on the team that would represent Minnesota in the national Youth Club Championship tournament this weekend. Eighty teams from around the country descended on our own National Sports Center in Blaine, the largest youth sports complex in North America, to flick their way to the top.

The competition started early Friday morning with 7:00am warmups, so I took the whole day off to be there with Jack. Ultimate is a non-stop action game that swivels between offense and defense, running and passing, speed and stillness, in the blink of an eye. It’s said to require a higher level of cardiovascular fitness than any other field game, and the drills these guys run through just to warm up for a match involve more exercise than most people get in an entire week. And then in a tournament like this, they played three 90-minute matches back to back the first day, and then for two more days after that.

It’s hard to imagine how they do it, but they sure have fun doing it and it’s a blast to watch. Lots of action, lots of fast scoring. This wasn’t the first tournament I’d attended, but it was the first one at this competitive level, and it was intense. It has been a real pleasure to watch Jack grow and develop in his athletic skills, driven only by his own personal goals and intensity. To watch him take his training so seriously, from regular practices and scrimmages to his own commitment to weight training and skill-building and running for fitness in his off-time, and even to considering the health of what he eats and drinks off the field.

It is also a pleasure to witness the softer side of the sport, known as “The Spirit of The Game” which  involves several unique components. For starters, the game is totally self-officiated – if you feel you need to call a foul against you, you do so, and then you have to work it out with the opposing player until you’re both in agreement one way or the other. The coach doesn’t get involved, and there isn’t a referee. It’s cool to see the players talking it out calmly, often giving each other the benefit of the doubt. And then after the game – sometimes during a timeout in the middle of the game – both sides join in a circle with their arms around each other, alternating players from each team, and have a little pep rally with each other. The winners give the losers a little token of their esteem – in our team’s case a “mini-soda” – recognizing players they thought performed exceptionally well or exhibited the best spirit. It’s a pretty wonderful thing to watch, and I wouldn’t have wanted to be anywhere else this Friday but sitting in my folding chair cheering with the other parents at the sidelines.

Friday #10: August 5, 2016

If you are a woman and you’re reading this post, I predict that I can instantly and significantly lower your blood pressure by uttering three magic words: “Girlfriends cabin weekend.” Just thinking about one makes you smile and take a deep breath in and out, am I right?  

As one friend put it, “Health insurance should cover this.”

I’ve been lucky enough to have had dozens of girlfriends cabin weekends over the years, at different places, different times of year, and with different groups of women – some members practically unchanged for 25 years and counting, some overlapping and morphing together over the years, some falling by the wayside as friendships and circumstances shift over time. But always full of simple adventures and memories that sustain us for the days and years to come.

There was the one that started out with a bang when I hit a deer on the way up north in the late Wisconsin twilight. Fortunately (for the people part of the equation, at least) I was driving a friend’s impenetrably huge Olds 88 rather the little tin-can of a car I had at the time. No one has ever let one the other girls forget that she kept frantically repeating, “All we can do is call the DNA, just call the DNA!” “Umm, do mean the DNR?” somebody asked. “WHATEVER!” While everyone’s blood pressure was certainly on the rise just then, the rest of the weekend was relaxing enough to bring it down to a pre-deer-incident level.

And then there was the time somebody from the deep south showed up with a huge crate containing the entire contents of of their liquor cabinet and said sweetly, “I brought the cordials.” (That might have been the same weekend we did shots of Goldschlager and somebody kissed the girl next to her with a little more enthusiasm than we typically show for each other in that way.)

And the time we sat on giant rocks at the edge of a cold Ely lake eating chocolate cake with our hands and watching the northern lights put on a spectacular birthday show just for me.

The time somebody used up most of the freezer space with freshly-pumped breast milk.

The time I was on the Atkins diet and too weak to climb the stairs from the sauna back up to the house.

The time somebody got waaaaaay too emotional and spent the whole weekend sobbing uncontrollably, which instituted a strict “no-crying-on-girls-weekend” policy that has been strongly enforced to this day.

The time we first tried the incredible “Glacial Rain” treatment at the Aveda spa. And the time we did our own spa treatments and I was 8 months pregnant and made a gigantic mud mask with cucumber “eyes” on my towering stomach.

The few years we devoted to crafty activities like scrapbooking pictures of our kids, until we devolved back into everyone’s most comfortable mode: eat, talk,  drink, and laugh.

Maybe we’ll thumb through magazines or crossword puzzles or knitting baskets while we’re doing it. Maybe we’ll take a break to ski or hike or boat or swim or skate or hot tub or pedicure or massage, depending on that year’s particular accommodations and financial constraints. But always: eat, talk, drink, and laugh.

This summer’s getaway to an old friend’s cabin in northern Wisconsin was no exception. It started at noon on my Bifocal Friday, and was as lovely as any weekend could possibly be.

We marveled over the décor of this “Voyageur Village” model house from the

70s, which has been blessedly left intact by my friend’s family all these years.

We floated and swam from the pontoon boat for hours on end.

We enjoyed a greasy breakfast out at the local diner.

We picked just the tiniest fraction of the wild blackberries that
run rampant along every wooded meadow lane.

And we nearly peed ourselves playing Cards Against Humanity late into the evening.

(No pictures thankfully available).

In the end, we came home a little more physically tired than we’d been going into the weekend, but surely a lot more soul rested.

Friday #9: July 29, 2016

There’s been a particular theme running through our household all week. Nobody can find their phone charger. Everybody is quietly taking everyone else’s when they’re not looking. Somebody has a charger cord but somebody else took their brick. There’s a cord for an iPhone 6 but not the Android. Somebody needs an old-style iPad cord. Somebody’s ex left their charger and needs it back. The transformer strip in the kitchen isn’t working and things that were supposed to be charging aren’t. Some people aren’t responding to their messages because their phone is dead, and some people’s mother is getting really mad about it.

By Friday afternoon it had reached something of a low-grade fever pitch, with the added insult of the wi-fi blinking in and out and compromising everybody’s ability to get their particular tasks done – and most importantly (for me), compromising Drew’s ability to finish his work on the computer so we could get started on our afternoon adventure.

But finally about 3:00, start we did. Fortunately, we didn’t have to go far to get completely away from the pressure of all this new-fangled technology breathing down our necks. Or at least to an older version of it.

Just up the street a couple miles is the “Creative Enterprise Zone,” the western-most section of St. Paul's University Avenue corridor that’s remaking its industrial past into something of a steam-punk future. From the post-Civil War years until the mid-1900s, this was one of American’s largest industrial and commercial freight areas, with a convergence of rail terminals servicing nine separate freight lines. Today there’s growing local interest in transforming this heavy industrial heritage into a lively mixed-use residential and business district, with a focus on becoming a place where people make a living by their often intensely old-school creative capacities.

One of the very best examples of this was in action today at a place called Studio On Fire, which was hosting a Grand Opening and Steam Roller Print Fair.

We Love St. Paul

Celebrating their recent move to Saint Paul, Studio on Fire is a young company that specializes in the aging art of pressure-based printing. Letterpress, foil stamping, engraving, all done to the highest standards of the craft for agencies and clients around the world. 

The place is filled with the smell of ink and metal, and the shiny black and chrome beauty of a dozen old Heidelberg presses from the 40s and 50s. 

\

We peer up close at gold ink getting ready to go on an embossing press, and I take a turn running off a hand-cranked sheet-fed poster to take home.

But the title draw was the steamroller printing happening outside. Large hand-carved wooden letters were laid out on the ground and inked with a giant squeegee. The letters were covered with a white sheet, then a layer of carpet padding, then a sheet of plywood. Along comes the steamroller, and VOILA!

\

The kids and young adults who participated in the process got a first-hand, larger-than-life lesson in how the printing process works at its most basic level. And it didn't require a USB port or charger.

Raymond Avenue Revival

Hungry for a late lunch, we wandered down the block to Raymond Avenue, where a cluster of sweet shops, restaurants, and local businesses perches on the far western edge of St. Paul.

 

Drew browses his latest favorite vinyl store, Barely Brothers Records, and I buy some new old table linens at the mid-century modern vintage shop Succotash. We settle on Foxy Falafel for lunch, which is cool and dimly quiet inside in contrast to the hot humid day outside.

 

After lunch we walk past the original Key’s family restaurant, past the hardware store that’s been there since 1920, past the neon-lit Sharrett’s Liquors, and up University Avenue a block to one of my favorite haunts, Twin Cities Reptile.

It’s the largest reptile specialty store in Minnesota, and I used to go there regularly to buy mice and later large rats for our Peruvian Rainbow Boa. It’s still fun to stop in occasionally and see the stock they have available. Today I had a nice chat with one of the employees, who was well acquainted with my friend Karl Hermann, a lifetime snake breeder and serious hobbyist who sadly passed away last year from cancer. It was sweet to reminisce about Karl while watching this hungry snake have his dinner, just as I’d done so many times with Karl himself.

And now for something completely different: Tarzan the Musical

Last but definitely not least, we capped off our day’s adventure by seeing my son Spencer perform in Tarzan the Musical with the Highland Park Community Theater. It was a beautiful night out at Como Pavilion, and he did a great job playing Tarzan’s father (briefly and tragically), plus rocked the ensemble with his interpretive plant dancing. 

Love that kid and his enjoyment of the performing arts. Even if he can’t keep his phone charged.

Friday #8: July 22, 2016

I’m tired

Not of summer, nor certainly of my Bifocal Fridays. Just bone tired the last few weeks. Partly it’s getting to the age where an easy, solid night’s sleep begins to elude me more regularly than occasionally. Partly it’s the houseful of teenagers to simultaneously worry about and work for and enjoy. Partly it’s a rich social life that seeds my calendar with so many joyful outings and adventures, some of them more joyful and more late-night than I can sustain indefinitely. Partly – and in no small part – it’s the deep troubles in the world that seem to be washing up in a relentless rising tide that is making everyone scared and angry and tired. And this week, too, it was partly the heat – in the high 90s for many days running – that was weighing me down and making me sleepy.

So when Friday afternoon rolled around, I came home at noon, took off my damn bifocals, and promptly slept for a solid three hours. I didn’t regret a minute of it.

Seeing nature

Of course, an afternoon nap is doubly sweet when you have something fun to look forward to. And I was looking forward to going to the Minneapolis Institute of Art with Drew later in the afternoon to see the much-touted exhibition, Seeing Nature: Landscape Masterworks from the Paul G. Allen Family Collection.

It was a beautiful show that lived up to MIA’s promise (and it will be be on view until September 18 if you want to see for yourself):

“Spanning 400 years, this spectacular exhibition illuminates the rich and varied approaches in European and American art to the landscape genre. Featuring 39 landscape paintings drawn from the private collection of Microsoft co-founder and philanthropist Paul G. Allen, including masterworks by Claude Monet, Gustav Klimt, David Hockney, Edward Hopper, and Georgia O’Keeffe. Lovers of of French Impressionism and Neo-Impressionism will find these styles well represented.”

It’s hard to imagine one person actually owning all those paintings, and I’m struck by the “one-percenter” aspect of that – and Paul Allen is probably even in a much smaller fraction of a percent than that. With a net worth of $15.8 billion, the most recent Forbes 400 Rich List  puts him at the 26^th wealthiest person in the United States. Whether you envy or despise or admire somebody with that kind of money -- or Paul Allen himself, specifically -- you have to admit that the guy (and undoubtedly his curator) has great taste in art. And if you’re anything like me, you probably have to feel some sense of gratefulness and joy that someone is able and willing to acquire and preserve and most importantly share this treasure with other people.

Two of my favorites: Klimt's White Birches and Monet's En Paysage dans L'ile Saint-Martin

Speaking of sharing art with the world

I have to back up a minute. On our way to the MIA, we stopped downtown to see a personal friend who has shared an incredible body of work with the world, though his means are much more modest.

Drew first introduced me to Daniel Corrigan when we had him over for dinner and a game night. We’re all avid Scrabble players, and we now play Scrabble online together regularly, and see each other occasionally at one event or another.

Corrigan is the longtime staff photographer for First Avenue, the iconic Minneapolis rock club. For decades he shot pretty much every act to come through the doors, including legendary local bands like Babes in Toyland, Husker Du, the Replacements, and none other than Prince himself. He captured them all with a style that is equal parts gritty, raw, and tender. In recent years, Dan has been the subject of a Pitchfork documentary, as well as the Minnesota Original series. His work will be highlighted in the book Heydey: 35 Years of Minneapolis Music, coming out this November from Minnesota Historical Society Press.

In recent years, Dan has morphed into a role maintaining the First Avenue facility, that deliciously dingy place we all love so much. He is still frequently found behind the camera, though. On this particular Friday, it was his birthday, and he was giving his friends a gift. He had extended an invitation for any of us to come down to First Avenue and have our picture taken. 

We parked downtown at the old Dayton’s ramp – I can’t think of it any other way – and stopped in at Candy Land to buy him a box of mixed treats for his birthday. Braving the hot-town-summer-in-the-city pavement temps, we  crossed Hennepin to meet Dan at the Depot Tavern. The Depot is next door to the First Avenue/7^th Street Entry clubs, and owned by same. In its previous incarnation, First Avenue was an art deco style Greyhound Bus station built in 1937 and called The Depot.

Dan’s photos line the wall of the Depot, and we found him at one of the back booths, quietly welcoming us in his sweet, low-key way. He led us through the back storage room and into the service garage where he had a stool and a fan set up against the concrete walls. I could imagine the hubub of all the bands that had pulled into that space to unload their gear over the years since First Avenue opened in 1970.

But in fact, I didn’t have to imagine very hard, because all of a sudden a musician friend of ours came running up to give me a hug. Olivia Quintanilla is a super-talented young cellist who is currently playing with Useful Jenkins, a contemporary acoustic band with a bluegrass foundation. Tonight Olivia just happened to be making her debut appearance playing the First Avenue main room. That’s totally a bucket-list thing for any Minneapolis musician, as she reiterated to me with an excitement that was tinged with a little exhaustion, coming to the night as she and the band were from a long series of road gigs. Although we couldn’t make it back to the show that evening, it was sweet to see her and I know they rocked the house.

And of course, Dan rocked the photos.

Wrapping up the afternoon with Nighthawks

After our shoot with Dan and the MIA show, Drew and I stopped at Nighthawks Diner & Bar at Nicollet and 37^th for a happy hour nosh. Among the many great places along "Eat Street," Nighthawks is one of the best lately. I had a crazy good chicken and pork belly slider, and Drew had this super amazing foot-long hot dog.

Back home for the rest of the evening, I may have even gotten a good night’s sleep.