Our new place

Once clm left us for higher, drier climes and thinner air, we lived in Cry-STAHL for a month, then found this place and moved in time for September. Today I told Trisha that I feel a little bit like we live in a dollhouse and someone might fold it open at any moment just to mess with us. Let me show you what I mean.
This is what you see when you walk through the front door. Sometimes my computer's in the bedroom where it belongs, but today there was a fantasy basketball draft and if you had come just a few minutes earlier, you would have seen Nate's brother at my computer and 5 more laptops (with associated male drafters) plugged into the power strip that's lying in the middle of the floor. This is the dining room and the doors that go to the hallway (left) and the kitchen (right). Just got that jade plant back from a friend who lives a couple blocks away. She kept our plants until the first freeze and then called us to say that the house looked like a jungle and there would be nowhere to stand at the party she and her roommates throw every Halloween so could we please come retrieve them? Plants look better than they have ever looked. I think they will regret the change in custody.
That is the rest of the dining room. I wiped the window down inside and out this morning. We don't really get any direct sunlight so every little bit counts. The other great feature is that fence you can see through the clean window. We have a band of squirrels roaming the neighborhood and there is inevitably at least one perched on that fence and usually several more visible, usually battling each other or grooming their tails. This band includes a fancy pantsy albino squirrel who has not yet posed for a picture. Keep your eyes out, though, it's coming.
This is our kitchen from the other door. It is, in fact, a fun-sized novelty kitchen. The window in here got cleaned today, too, before I got distracted by the egg bake and catalogs that Trisha brought over when she showed up to visit while the draft was on. Not-so-great features of this kitchen include a stovetop that has spots that are so hot they will BURN you if you touch them even when the range is not on. When the range IS on, it smells like gas. Also, cupboards do not close all the way. Great features include our gigantic magnet collection. I'm working on breaking up my Shakespearean "hate" and "love" sets to add to the magnetic poetry already on the side of the fridge. Another great feature of this room is the giant picture of The Phantom (of comics, not this opera) over the stove (not pictured).This is our hallway gallery. Ncd made it; I enjoy it. It includes the triumphant return of the "Bobblehead Hall of Fame" which has laid low (in a box) since we moved from Pleasant Ave to Emerson Ave, but now it's back, leaner, meaner, and better than ever. At ncd's birthday party we tried to get rid of the HOF rejects, but surprisingly we found almost all of them hidden around our house once the guests left. Weird.
This is our bathroom. The lighting is great, but the water in the shower is never, ever warmer than lukewarm. Hideous. Do you think I can make it through the entire winter just kneeling by the tub and washing myself racoon-style? Well, cast yer vote and I'll let you know cause that's my plan.
This is our bedroom. Note the bookcase headboard. That is how you know we hold membership in the M****n clan. The bed is two Ikea twin beds screwed together. I have only torn my leg open on the exposed boards once in the two months we have lived here. Major, major success.

And this is our backyard. Not shown in this picture is the dumpster where ncd saw his first raccoon...when he threw a trashbag on top of it.

And this concludes your tour of the new place.

Still hangin' on!

Hi all.  I'm up late trying to make something impressive for the tough-to-please writers in my second "mod"...that's "hour" to everyone I know.  I will be showing them a clip of the movie, "Stranger Than Fiction" tomorrow in which Queen Latifah's assistant character gives Emma Thompson's writer character the business (something like: I've helped 20 authors complete 35 books and I have never asked the publisher to extend a deadline.  I don't like loud music, I won't tolerate narcotics, but I will help you finish your book...)  Anyway, they are suckers for film clips and I know they haven't seen this one and most of them will think it's lame, but it serves my purposes exactly and I'm quite sure I'll nab a couple of 'em by comparing myself to Queen Latifah!

Here's a picture from the brunch the Sunday after ncd's youngest brother's wedding last weekend.  Sweet--there's an ephelant on the coffee carafe!  

I'm more than halfway done with my student teaching placement and almost halfway done with the part where I teach full-time.  Last week, my cooperating teacher suggested that I talk to a teacher who's going on maternity leave in February to see if she's lined up a long-term sub yet. I saw said teacher in the copy room this morning and she seemed like she'd at least consider me as a possibility.  That would start in February and extend through the end of the year.  That would be sweet.  Well, that's it for this update.  I've gotta write lesson plans and get meself to bed.

Love yous.

I'm alive!

I'm also loving life.  Just got our internet up last weekend and it has been running...sometimes.  Still, it is veeery good to be connected to the series of tubes again.  I love student teaching.  I love it.  While you are waiting for future posts, I am putting this out there.  It's hobo cat.  I saw hobo cat approaching while I was standing on the bridge across the greenway.  I ran to the other side and captured this image.  All hail hobocat.

Finally, Vacation!

So imagine it is August 1st (because it is in this post). ncd and I learn that Humphrey Terminal of the MSP airport thinks it would be a nice tribute to fill the flower beds with electric purple something-or-other to cheer on the Vikings, I assume. I wish I had taken a photo of this phenomenon because google images renders nothing. We flew into Seattle's airport after a flight that was so hot it almost caused me to spontaneously combust. ncd maintains I was asleep the whole time, but that is inaccurate, I was awake an accutely aware of the dangerously high temperature inside my skin. It should be noted that the mechanism for homeostasis in my body is broken. This has been observed on numerous occasions. Simply drinking a cool drink usually requires speedy application of a wool sweater, just for starters.

But I digress. We got a cab with a very friendly cab driver who was originally from India and held forth on the unspoken rules of cab lines and the responsibilities of both drivers and passengers in those lines. Then he told us about his horoscope and his son's. Where he comes from, parents hire a specialist to issue a horoscope shortly after one's birth. His said that he would leave the country. But there was a back-up: if he did not leave India, it said he would be a police or military officer. His son's horoscope predicts that he'll be a millionaire. After that, he quizzed us, "What do you think karma means?" and then explained to us how our idea was correct. Eventually we found our way to my cousin, a, and her husband, b's, house. We found our room on the tippy top floor with their surf boards leaning in a corner, turned out the homemade lamp glowing softly through colorful glass, and fell asleep.

The next day (8.2.08) the four of us set out to walk a trail that wound around Talapus and Olallie lakes. b took a dip in the lake, but the rest of us stayed dry. Actually, it was perfect t-shirt weather when we were moving.

We stopped for lunch atop a ridge from which we would have had a view of Mt. Rainier had it not been deliciously misty. As we snacked on Hint of Lime(R) chips and passed around the sandwich fixings the Gray Jays began to flutter in as if this were a scene from The Birds. a squinted her eyes at one and said menacingly, "I see you," before turning around and commenting on their aggressive habit of stealing food right out of one's hands if one is not vigilant. Several moments later, she felt feathers on her cheek and Nate was flinging chips into the rocks and cursing at one.

We arrived back in Seattle with time to change our shoes before a dropped us off at the Safeco field for the Mariners-Orioles game. All during our hike, ncd held forth on Seattle sports answering questions and addressing topics ranging from the fan capacity of baseball vs. football stadia to the selling of the Sonics. a + b keep up on sports as much as I would if ncd were not around to keep me well-informed on all things athletic (which is to say, not at all). ncd was assuring b that we didn't need dinner as we'd eat at the game and was shocked when b imagined aloud the pricey hotdogs we'd eat at the game. ncd assured him that one of the points of visiting stadia far and wide was to sample the unique local fare. Indeed, we had some famed coastal...um, garlic fries...AND this delicious chowder bread bowl!

ncd was excited to see this guy pitch. I see from his uniform in the picture that his name is Hernandez.

I was excited to see him warm up by throwing 80-90 mph pitches about 12 feet away from me.

ncd: excited that I agreed to get tickets 13 rows behind home plate.

me: excited to be close enough to see forms that can be plausibly interpreted as humans rather than GI Joes dressed up in baseball uniforms. Also, baseball is much more interesting when ncd is telling stories about the origins of the guy pitching, tales of the hitter's injuries, and sordid accounts of various trades, weaseling, and squabbles of the shortstop, left-fielder, and 1st base coach. I am, of course, making all of the "specifics" up because I am not some sort of genius repository of riveting sports facts like ncd. I did successfully recite the numbers that correspond to the players' positions...and got, like, 8 out of 9 right. So maybe I am a genius...

ncd: excited that they show what has happened thus far in an inning on a screen in case you were gone getting beer and your SO doesn't know what the hell is going on and can't fill you in

me: excited about the wave.

ncd: hates the wave (there's a very principled argument behind it) but grudgingly admitted after 5 times around the stadium that its strength and continual sychronization was "pretty amazing. If we were in Minnesota, the upper deck and the lower deck wouldn't be able to keep it together past the gap in the outfield." Seattle, consider thyself praised with faint damning.

me: excited about the rally jig

ncd: amazingly...excited about the rally jig. Says something about people winning him over with committed rally jigging.

While we wait for this mean machine we try to visit Pyramid Brewing (right across the street from the stadium), but I had left my wallet and I.D. in my other bag. Don't worry--this will all come wackily full-circle in the end.

But back to the back end of the Corolla: b assembled this custom trunk with diamond plate and mad welding skills. For some reason this makes me find the sticker depicting the impish jedi, labeled "toYoda", displayed on the dashboard quite appropriate. I'm still working out the metaphor between Yoda and this uniquely equipped car, but I'm sure it's all going to come together for me once I sit quietly for awhile and channel the Force.

To be continued...

Limbo

You guessed it, andi, CLM and clm both reside in the west now. clm's longterm plans are up in the air, but getting to that altitude, I've found, always helps a girl get her bearings.

Mom and Dad helped us ALL move out (a Herculian feat which also required help from one of ncd's brothers and our friends, a-tiberius & drizzle). ncd and I, however, had nowhere to move our stuff. After a skirmish with Pods, we ended up renting a storage space and taking some stuff to drizzle and rf's house in Crystal (cry-STAL, as drizzle calls it). They are graciously letting us stay with them and their dogs. The move happened on a Thursday, just to make things complicated...and on Friday evening ncd and I left on a week-long vacation we attached to our friends' wedding in British Columbia.

Our first stop was Seattle and with any luck I'll be able to post that installment this afternoon.

Thursday, July 31: Elegy for the Emersonian Era

When we moved into our duplex a couple of years ago ncd hauled a load of stuff to Goodwill. When the hippie guy working there asked for his address, ncd gave him the new Emerson Ave. address which prompted hippie to reveal that he also lived on Emerson and to elaborate, "It's the Emersonian E-ra." Dude. And now the Emersonian Era has drawn to a close for us.

You might imagine that the Emersonian Era drew to a close after a battle that involved unicorns and trolls. Perhaps you're thinking that good triumphed against evil, or at least that a wizard shook hands with a nyad at the newly established river border between empires. Little do you suspect that 2 fearless humans traveled cross-country to have a summit with their middle daughter on topics ranging from philosophy/theology to reckless and wanton mistreatment of the environment. Fearless Huwoman and her youngest daughter had to visit a medicine man for advice on their ailments. It was discovered that Fearless Huwoman suffered from a pink eye and was given healing herbs. Fearless huwoman's youngest offspring could not be helped. It is well-known that red hair obscures a healer's ability to examine one's aura. However, it is also generally accepted that the few red-haired offspring who manage to survive usually become powerful enchantresses with special power to heal themselves and others.


To be continued...

I'm Beck...as the New Zealanders would say

As soon as I figure out how to extract pictures from the beginning of my trip from my camera, I will post posts. In the meantime, congratulations p, j, & kbh on the arrival of a! Thanks for the pictures!

Keep your hands and and arms insiiiide the armchair...

Rachel and Aaron were wedded by the shores of Gitchi Gumi on Saturday. KKBobcat, ncd, and I drove up together.

The warm July wind blew through our hair (because we don't have air conditioning). We made a stop at the Pamida in Two Harbors for supplies and then made an unsuccessful visit to the Liquor Barrel nearby. This photo shows a hopeful Kris giving the thumbs up, but alas, no suitable libations were to be found inside. We discovered the problem a little further up the road where we stopped at another place. There were no lines in the parking lot of the combination grocery store/liquor store so ncd drove to the far end of the parking lot and pulled in next to the only other car there. On our way to the door, we passed a stocky woman smoking a cigarette.

"Could you have parked farther from the door?" she asked.

We acknowledged that no, we could not have, and ncd noted the lack of lines and admitted and offered his confusion as an excuse.

She said, "That'll teach you to leave the city!"

"How'd she know we're from the city? " KKBobcat queried before the trio of travelers almost died laughing.

On our way back we would pass the same woman leaning against the rail, smoking a cigarette. We would laugh heartily, note the seascape she was overlooking, and acknowledge that there are much worse places to bide one's time.

That evening we arrived at the rehearsal dinner and made merry on the bluffs above the Great Lake as the sun set.

Suddenly, the bride: "Look!"

The assembled revelers followed her outstretched hand with their gaze...

...and lo and behold, it was the moon rising out of the shining waters.

It rose quickly and quietly...

...and remained, silent, beautiful, and triumphant, watching over friends and loved ones talking late into the evening.

Saturday dawned inside of a cloud. The sun shone brightly while ncd and I did some yoga by the beach, but remained swaddled in vapor. We assembled, at the appointed time, by the shores of Gitchi Gumi, by the big sea waters which were not shining, but instead cloaked in enchantment. We listened to our friend Michael's fingers waft meditatively over the strings of his guitar and eventually fade into the sounds of the waves washing over the dark pebbles on the beach and the songs of birds invisible in the hush of the trees.

We began to pass the rings among us. Warming and holding them as longer portions than I will post here were read:

Song of the Open Road by Walt Whitman

Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road,Healthy, free, the world before me,The long brown path before me leading wherever I choose...

...The earth, that is sufficient,I do not want the constellations any nearer,I know they are very well where they are,I know they suffice for those who belong to them..

...Allons! whoever you are come travel with me!...

...Allons! we must not stop here,However sweet these laid-up stores, however convenient this dwelling we cannot remain here,

However shelter'd this port and however calm these waters we must
not anchor here,

However welcome the hospitality that surrounds us we are permitted
to receive it but a little while...

...Will you give me yourself? Will you come travel with me? Shall we stick by each other as long as we live?

They shall!

And there was much rejoicing!











(and shuffleboarding)

ncd and I (mostly him) served as DJs at the reception. We'll be reprising our role at Susz's wedding in a couple of weeks.

Better Living? Through Gravity, Water, and Engineering

Let's forget yesterday's post every happened.

Unfortunately for you, today's post will not be any better. However, take comfort in the knowledge that, unlike yesterday's post, today's is being generated on an ergonomically correct keyboard. While that makes my fingers happy, all it means for you is that tehre wlil be way mreo tpyeos. Now, let's get down to business.

I know you are dying to know about the picnic, but nothing exciting happened. In fact, in order to have SOMEthing to write about to keep this unprecedented 3-day streak alive I'll have to take you to the weeks-back. Dooodledodoodledodoodledo...

On a Sunday several weeks ago ncd and I decided (as we often do) that Sunday should begin with an old people showing* of some movie or other. As luck would have it, public transit was slow because of a detour around the Gay Pride Parade route. We decided we would not make the move and ended up at the Stone Arch Bridge(SAB) instead. Many* of you MPLS residents have watched boats go through the locks from the SAB and admired the way the falls look like this scene from PJ's* LOTR*. But did you know that you can take a tour that gives you VIP-style access to stunning views of the lock, the falls, and information provided by a bona fide park ranger in an authentic hat (instead of the Cliffs Notes informational plaques provided on the bridge)? No, you are not. Here's why: the Army Corps of Engineers (ACE) is actually more interested in marketing to trolls than to you, the human public (see exhibit at left). There is not a sign up ON the SAB, only down by the actual ACE building.

People, we took the tour. And I am here to tell you it was bonkers great. We had all of our burning lock questions answered. For example, "Do you think that they're really annoyed when they have to fill up/empty out the lock for 1 kayak?" ANSWER: "No. There is only another 3 miles or so of commercially navigable river beyond these locks so the traffic is slow compared to other locks. If you don't want the ACE to get bored, you will paddle your kayak up and pull the line to request portage."

We got to walk right out on the lock!

The two locks at St. Anthony Falls (SAF) don't have numbers because they are so young. They are U(pper)SAF and L(ower)SAF. Lock 1 is downstream by Ford Motor Co. (where the Mississippi and Minnesota converge, Mama). By young, I mean that LSAF was completed in 1956 and USAF in 1963. We neglected to ask WHY, at that late date, with the number of transit options that were available, it was decided that getting another 3 miles along by river was worth it.

We watched The Paradise Lady head down river (she was equipped with automatic doors a la Star Trek: "kssh kssh"). Here she is getting ready to exit. Chumps watching from the SAB haven't her since she disappeared from view several minutes ago.

The lock fills at about 5 feet a minute through clever use of gravity and some pipes that measure 10 feet across. I don't remember what astronomical number of gallons that is. In addition to being young, these locks are also comparatively small--they only hold 1 barge at a time.

As you can see, the miter gates at the upstream end are much shorter. We walked across the bridge formed when they come together to get a closer look at the falls. As we walked across we got a good look at

1. I don't know/remember what these are called, but they are designed to keep things from running into and damaging...

2. ...the tainter gate. Tainter gates are used for other purposes, but in the lock, it usuall stays as it is in this photo unless there is a flood situation in which case the miter gates would be left open and the tainter gate would be raised along...

2A. ...this track to allow free flow of water through the lock.

This is the view from the other side. In the 1860's a tunnel connecting mills on either side of the river collapsed and caused a huge whirlpool that sucked land (and large chunks of mills) into the river. It almost destroyed the falls and it took years to re-stabilize the falls. During that time the first "apron" covering the falls was conceived as a way to stop erosion that caused the river to move upriver by about 4 feet each year. Now, the water slides smoothly down the concrete apron and the nubs (that create the galloping horses effect when straight-on from the bridge) at the bottom are in place to disrupt the flow so that the momentum of the water is broken and it doesn't erode the sandstone from underneath.

After our tour of the lock, we walked around on the new trails down by the mill ruins. Here is a view of the ruins from the Stone Arch Bridge and one up close from one of the new boardwalks. From above, we could see some big fish lurking in the warm, motionless waters by the ruins. I've always wanted to get right down by those gates--mysterious tunnels whip the current of my curiousity into a white froth! Being up close didn't render much more information about the terminus of the tunnel, but I did get to watch a couple of sparrows showering under a drip falling from the greenery.

Having passed such a pleasurable hour taking a tour (they run every half hour!) we spent the rest of the day as tourists in our own town. More to come. But now it's time to drive to Lutsen. Until later, dear readers!

*Any showing of a movie that happens before noon. By 10 a.m. early-rising elderly people have had coffee, eaten breakfast, read the paper front to back, done the crossword, and had time to look at each other and get bored enough to say, "So...what do wanna do?"

*In this context, "many" means maybe 2...possibly 3...including me.

*Peter Jackson

*Lord Of The Rings

If you have suddenly turned into a St. Anthony Falls geek, follow these links...

A book...in pdf format courtesy of the National Park Service. I haven't read it, but I'm interested. So far I've discovered that you have to type the next number chapter into the address in order to advance chapters. There's got to be a better way, but I can't figure it out.

ACE's St. Anthony Falls informational page. This fills in some of the historical information we got on our tour.

MPLS Library page is short and has some cool pictures.

Wikipedia has some neat photos and art. I shan't vouch for the info. I think I found more authoritative stuff elsewhere.

No time to proofread, so just tell yourself that if I had read over it I would have recognized the proper use of "to" and "too" or spelled "adn" "and"....etc.

Picnic

That's where I'm headed in about 25 minutes. We're getting out early to head up the street to a park and eat burgers with our co-workers. To fill in the moments of my life between yesterday's post and today's that are a mystery: we packed some stuff. ncd made turkey burgers stuffed with blue cheese topped with olives and mushrooms. I put stuff I purged while packing out by a curb near our old house where people will take anything that is free. Seriously, anything. When were moving out of there we put out dirty clothes that had been festering in black garbage bags in the haunted basement for months...just to see what would happen. The result: people are crazy for free stuff. So I'm pretty sure that even though it rained all morning, everything will be gone when I drive by again.

Tomorrow will involve work and then a northward trek for a wedding in Lutsen. But while you wait for those photos...here is a picture I took on the way to the bus stop recently. Aaaaand all this was gone the next day. That's a lot of shoes (and track jacket) to go up and come down over the course of 24 hours. This prompted me to look up the story about shoes over a powerline signifying a drug hook-up in the area. I always wondered how a potential customer would narrow down the possibilities to just one house and distinguish between a real drug compass and a copycat. But snopes.com says that there are about a bazillion supposed meanings of shoes over a powerline. Thanks snopes. I just like to say snopes. I would like to name a puppy snopes...."Heeeere Snopes. C'm'ere Snopes. Hang on Snopesy, hang on." Aaand daydream over. (I warned you you'd be getting more of this kind of tripe. Just thank your lucky stars it's not real tripe.)

Besides, it's clear from this photo taken a couple days later that the residents of this neighborhood are not lawless hooligans. Rather, they are cute mushrooms... who like to tag their likeness on United States Government property mailboxes...hmm.

Okay, it's picnic time, people.

Oh you're actually reading!

I'm thinking of putting less pressure on the blog. I mean, it has a really cumbersome name that makes you expect to see Jabba the Hut. So from now on, I will only post things that suck. No, not bad facts of life like, "It's been raining for 5 days and there's sewage backed up all over my 2nd floor apartment's floor,"* just writing that is bad. So, expect increased swooning over sunsets and slo-mo frolicking in vast open fields. All the just-barely-censored inner monologue you can take (and more!) as expressed by my fingers.

*Indicates pure fabrication. Expect more of these, too. They're like spice and I shall be administering them with a Spice Weasel. Yes, and if you want a spice weasel of your own I just discovered that you do not have to wait for them to breed. Learn how to make a fake here: BAM! And if you would like to know more about the origins of Spice Weasels, go here. See, now we're a real blog, folks. Just LOOK at all those LINKS! Okay, I'll knock that off. I hate it, too.

...oh...and more T-Rexes and evidence of clm's acting prowess (if she were male, I would just call it prow' 'cause I'm old school). Dig this:

Ghetto->Fabulous

Sorry I missed writing yesterday. I had a great trend going...for two days. Tuesday evening, clm did come to yoga which included some innovative morphed Sun Salutations. Afterward, I waited for the bus with her......and ncd came to pick me up. He and I went to atr + tlh's house. ncd made pesto chicken pasta and some fruit & cake concoction for dinner. He and atr watched finals basketball; trisha and I sat on the porch. Trisha listened to my lunatic ravings about work. The only thing worse than living it, I'm quite sure, is listening to me hold forth on the subject for FIVE years (trisha is very VERY patient...and looking forward to my career change, I'm sure). Trisha shared her wisdom on a variety of management fronts and we enjoyed her porch-top pot garden and candles. We also enjoyed Sophie Cat's bug-pouncing and screen-climbing (trisha not so much on the screen-climbing front).

On Wednesday the morning happened and then I went to mail some books to a mysterious book buyback internet place. They are paying me approximately four cents for my books, but that's fine because they are also paying postage for me to send my books away (which is all I really want). I realized that the walk to the post office and back was not nearly going to fill my lunch hour so I continued to walk. I walked west, then north on Montreal to the fabulously tall walking bridge, then up and over:

I wound around through a park next to the golf course where I saw signs for an emergency facewash station (what a relief! One never knows when one might get sprayed in the face by a wayward can of Coke or maybe some bear spray.)

When I wound around into a nearby neighborhood and began heading back in the general direction of the office I discovered streets with the same names as the ones in the neighborhood where I work. Only in this area the houses are manses, the lawns are immense and immaculate, and the shady boulevards indicate that the Eleanor St. here is perhaps in another dimension from our Eleanor, near which someone's car was stolen out of a liquor store recently...with their 5-year-old daughter in it (not harmed). Once I found my way back to the office, I realized that this lush, plush neighborhood is the bluff I gaze at from the office window. However, when I look at them, I'm always imagining prehistory: dinosaurs roving the bluffs and floodplain of the Mississippi (or "RAAAAR" as it was known to them).

Then: "RAAAR! I, T-Rex, have mated with a river otter to start a NEW RACE!"

and Now: This house.

Sassafras

I hope that my communications today are identified as "sassafras" instead of crabby, but I guess that is in the ears of the listener because truly, I was quite respectful while also being assertively truthful (unlike last week, when I repeatedly wished that my brain could beef up the myelination to speed the "SHUT UP" command). Today I was just defending the honor the finest dental staff in Saint Paul so I figure that justifies a little sassafras.

Last night after work I walked up the street to meet ncd in downtown Saint Paul. He rode his bike from Minneapolis and beat me by quite a lot. I conversed with my friend jrn on the way in. She's finishing the school year in a Catholic elementary school in CA and has to write 35 report cards by the end of the week and move to a new room for her new job as Reading Specialist next year. Good to hear she's found a way to fill her spare time now that her 8 zillion graduate classes are over for the summer.

Nate and I walked past these GIANT WRENCHES (above, not at right) on W 7th, through downtown, over the bridge, past the Wabasha Street caves, to Boca Chica where we ate delicious dinner with "McParty" who was up from Iowa to pick up her wedding dress, and some other fab friends (at right).

Nothing much to report from this morning. Here's a shot of the first bus I ride in the morning pulling up. I'm pleased that the 53 (1st bus) and the 54 (bus I ride after I get off the light rail) have been upgraded to swanky double buses. I explain the upgrade to myself by citing record ridership, though I suppose I have no definitive evidence. This morning a man sat down next to me and had a conversation with himself about the length of the stop, muttering about the time and glancing at his watch. I studiously ignored him since he did not solicit seat partner participation and continued to read the paper. I was surprised by what a normal grandpa-type he was when I got off the bus at the light rail and had a chance to look at him. I often have difficulty suppressing my inner monologue, and I suppose once I look grandmotherly, perhaps I'll have just ceased trying.

jkd, RDA kidnapped me for Chipotle lunch today which was (literally) just what the dental assistant ordered. No pictures of that--shame!

Nothing much happened after lunch. Dr. Phillippi called. He is on a cross-country bike extravaganza. He has already survived a shoulder injury which necessitated riding a bus across the western part of Virginia and Kentucky, and he just recovered from an ear infection to get back on the road this weekend. He had his first tent sleep last night and awoke refreshed this morning to bike across the Kansas state line. He's staying in Pittsburgh tonight and unfortunately will continue across the southern part of Kansas and therefore will not see BAK bikers...right? Too bad. He is a social being and he could use an audience for his endless supply of jokes...or just the sight of other people, it sounds like.

Dental Office Basement Yoga (DOBY) tonight. I should see if Ceara's gonna show up. She performed many a midweek Sun Salutation this week so I hope she does.