I love my job but I realized as I was driving up my driveway tonight that I feel a big relief on Friday evenings; it’s almost as if I’ve had a weight lifted off me. I think this means my body somehow knows I’m inching closer to retirement.
What are you up to this weekend?
Two iconic restaurants in St. Paul will be closed by the end of this week. This saddens me, because I love a good neighborhood restaurant, and hate to see them replaced by the chains or the glitz that seems to accompany so many newer restaurants. (Even although I’ve never lived in St. Paul, these two were well enough known that I had made my way there all the way from Robbinsdale.)
The St. Clair Broiler, a burger and malt place (visited by Al Gore), closed at the end of September after 60 years in business. Back in the late 70s, we used to meet a St. Paul friend for a burger at the Broiler, followed by a movie in a theater on the same block, if memory serves. A St. Paul Pioneer Press article reads: “With the recent boom in neighborhood restaurants, staying competitive has been a concern for the Broiler, which underwent an extensive menu change and decor refresh in 2015 in the hopes of attracting some younger customers. Apparently, the gamble didn’t pay off, as the restaurant was no longer profitable…”
And it breaks my heart that Muffuletta is closing this weekend, Nov. 11 being its last day after a run of 40 years. A European style bistro, its wonderful outdoor patio was a huge draw in the mild months of the year, and the indoor space was cozy in the winter. If I could, I would drive up for one last brunch with a friend (including a nice glass of wine), followed by shopping at Bibelot and a tour through Micawbers Bookstore, both on the same Como Avenue corner. Apparently upcoming street construction is a factor, but even this icon hasn’t been a money maker for some years. Sigh.
What are some of your favorite places that are no longer with us?
I have mentioned before that I serve on a regulatory board that ensures that the members of a certain profession practice ethically and are appropriately licensed. My job on the board is to approve continuing education requests. The licensees need a certain number of continuing education hours every two years to keep their licenses to practice. Trainings have to meet certain requirements for content and presenter qualification. I am the one who has to make recommendations to the entire board whether such requests are approved.
We have reached the month of license renewal , and I am amazed how slapdash some of the licensees are in submitting their continuing education requests for approval. Some wait until the last minute before submitting the requests, blissfully unaware that they have missed the deadline for final Board approval. Others send in approval requests with insufficient detail of their trainings, and then don’t respond to my entreaties for more information.
It amazes me that the quite well-educated people who we license don’t pay attention to important details that, if ignored, could mean the loss of their licence to practice, or a else hefty fine for all the bother they have caused the Board. Who acts like this? Perhaps I am naive, but really, this make no sense!
When have you been flabbergasted?
today’s post comes to us from tim.
you know i am finally there.
i don’t want to listen to the news anymore…
houston had a flood. did you hear?
donald trump had a thought… did you hear?
not only did I hear it i can’t shut it off.
my tv station in the morning plays the same story every 15 minutes from 4 am until 7 when they hand it off to the new york team who tells the national story of the day 2 or 3 times before i can get away and listen to it on the radio.
then I see all the pop ups from internet news, yahoo, google, whoever I have on my email news blasts
from huffington post or email blasts from my senators or local political folks, or people I like to hear from.
i have begun to do podcasts and downloaded music to stay away from the antimotivational news
but the twins are doing good, the lynx are wonderful again cmon lindsey whalen… and the vikings don’t suck yet. the timberwolves should be really wonderful this year. the soccer stadium is going to be fun and
the joy through sports seems shallow but it is kind of like taking pride in the guthrie theater and the minnesota orchestra or the st paul chamber orchestra the voyageurs national park, minnehaha falls or the fact that we have winter.
lots to pay attention to out there in the world. the news knows what people say they want to know about but i wonder if there would be a place for the good news station on the dial. i know i’d tune in.
what do you love most about the trail?
On my trip to Madison last weekend, I went to the Dane County Farmers’ Market on Saturday morning. It is a four-block affair that rims the capital building. You can enter the market from any of the incoming streets but my friends explained early on that you can only go one way at the market.
As we were there pretty early (6:30 a.m.) and it wasn’t very crowded I didn’t understand the rule about one-way. And it’s not a posted rule either, so that made me want to turn and go the other way very badly.
But after about an hour of very leisurely looking, tasting and shopping, it had gotten very crowded; that’s when I realized the intelligence of the one-way rule. At that point it would have been very awkward (and inefficient) to try to go against the crowd. My friends told me that in another hour, it would be even worse!
It was a great market – all local folks, no re-sellers. I ended up with a purple cauliflower, a chili-cheese bread, a little tiny apple pie, cherry tomatoes that taste out of this world, squeaky cheese curds, another cheese w/ Kalamata olives and some multi-colored potatoes. A real score!
When have you gone against the grain?
Today we had summer fun at work. Out on the big patio, all the tools and t-shirts were ready for tie dying so we just wrapped up our shirts and squirted away. And I got a temporary tattoo (logo for our summer program). None of this has anything to do with my actual job, but it was fun and made the day go by a little faster.
What activity makes your work go faster?
Today’s post comes to us from Linda.
Something in the picture above seems ominous. Or perhaps omenous. But what does it mean? Wikipedia tells us:
The Romans, unlike the Greeks, considered that signs from the left were usually favorable and positive, while signs from the right were seen as adverse and negative. However, under Greek influence this procedure began to change and eventually lost its universal weight, meaning that each omen case was to be examined separately.
Left or right? Good or bad? Discuss.
This weekend’s post comes to us from Jacque.
Recently I received the content below as an email from a friend who lives in Florida:
You can retire to Phoenix, Arizona where …
OR
You can retire to California where …
OR
You can retire to New York City where …
OR
You can retire to Minnesota where …
OR
You can retire to The Deep South where …
OR
You can retire to Nebraska or Iowa where…
OR
FINALLY you can retire to Florida where …
What area would add to this list?
I don’t like shrimp. They are bottom feeders. Harvesting them in the wild is destructive for the ocean floor. I don’t like their taste or texture.
Now I find that 150,000,000 shrimp will be raised annually in my home town in southwest Minnesota, in an ecofriendly “shrimp harbor”. They will fatten on local corn and soybeans in a covered, 9 acre factory that will use less water than the old meat packing plant did in its heyday. The harbor won’t smell. It won’t pollute. The shrimp will be free of disease and antibiotics. I hope all the promises made by the company are true. I wonder if we can call such shrimp “sea food” or if we will need to find a different descriptive phrase for it.
I am amazed at the technology behind this, and glad for the positive economic impact it will bring to the town. I still won’t eat shrimp, though. I can’t get past the texture.
How do you like your sea food?
We have a variety of shops: cheese, socks, pie, underwear, candy, Cracker jacks, Three Musketeers, peanuts, toast, jam, fish balls, ice cream, chocolate, books, Gold mine stock, swamp real estate, Brooklyn Bridge, air, pet rocks, nails and screws.
What should we name our little mall? Should we open on holidays?
Trail Baboon 