Art, Business, Media, Stories, Uncategorized

Protecting Good People from Bad Art

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When in my early twenties, I escaped the “mundane and uncultured” Midwest and found a temporary mecca in exotic 1970 San Francisco:  the ethnic restaurants, funky bars, antique shops, art museums, concert halls, and the art fairs (which I’d never seen before). After a couple of years in the crowded city, I opted for Half Moon Bay environs –  45 minutes south of S.F. on the Pacific Coast – a town of (then) 5,000 souls,.

There were the schools, a library, a “general store”called Half Moon Bay Feed & Fuel, a bookstore, a few restaurants. Forclassical music, there was the Bach Dancing and Dynamite Society at the Mirimar Beach Inn. But the center of the art world at the time was the fall Half Moon Art & Pumpkin Fest, where I bought my first local art – a soft leather-bound journal, and a wonderful pottery bowl in my favorite shape.

My next two locales were Brooklyn, NY, and Minneapolis, so of course there were plenty of opportunities to find art (and art fairs). Now that we’re in Winona, MN, I’m aware that I never really needed to leave Small Town Midwest to find art – or maybe it “grew up” while I was not looking. This town, and many other surrounding ones (Lanesboro for one), have much to offer culturally.The ads in my Big River Magazine reveal that every little town along the Mississippi has some kind of art gallery or art center, wonderful sounding restaurants and cafés, community theaters, independent bookstores, charming B&Bs, wine bars, and often a natural foods market.

When we were on our road trip Southeast in September, we traveled some back roads for a break from the freeways. I love traveling through the small towns, and I found the same kind of variety of cultural opportunity. One example would be the in historic downtown Paducah, KY – Paducah Area Painters Alliance Gallery – whose byline is “Protecting good people from bad art.”

Do you have a neighborhood or small-town art center nearby?

Where is your favorite place to view the visual arts?

home, Media, Stories, Technology, Travel, Uncategorized

Getting a Lyft

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The weekend post comes to us from CrystalBay.

I have increasing anxiety about driving after dark, so I decided to scope out Lyft. I couldn’t figure out how to use the app to determine the cost of being driven to the few locations that I regularly go to. After messing around for half an hour, I decided to order a ride because then the price would pop up. My clever plan was to then immediately cancel it. The problem, however, is that I couldn’t figure out how to cancel it!

Within minutes, Jeff texted he’d be here in ten minutes. I called him directly to cancel, explaining what I’d done. Two minutes later, Amy texted she’d be here in five minutes. I again called her to cancel. Three minutes later, Tom called saying that he was pulling up in my driveway! I told him my woe story and he showed me how I could use the app, then mentioned that each canceled ride had cost me $5. Altogether, I’d just lost $15 because of not understanding how to use this app. What still troubles me is that, after my initial call canceling, other drivers kept coming. I wondered how many more would show up.

The good news is finding out that, between here and Navarre, where 90% of my needs are met, Lyft only cost 87 cents!

What technologies have challenged (or defeated) you??

Family, Food, Gatherings, holidays, Uncategorized

Leftovers!

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Photo credit: Steven Puetzer / Getty Images

YA and I have done Thanksgiving with the same folks for all of her life so I don’t know about anybody else’s traditions, but at our festivities, everybody brings some Tupperware (or cheaper equivalent!) and then after the meal, we divvy up the leftovers. Our favorite leftovers include mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes and sage dinner rolls.  YA wants the potatoes; I want the sage rolls.  Here’s my favorite leftover recipe:

Juju’s Sage Rolls w/ Cheese
1 sage roll (or two if you’re counting this as a meal)
1 not too skinny slice of cheese (your choice)
Butter (or mayo or mustard)

  1. Heat up the roll a bit, either in the toaster oven, the microwave or even the regular oven if it’s already on for something else
  2. Pull the warm roll apart (breathe in deeply while you do this so you get the sage smell)
  3. Slather on the butter or mayo or mustard
  4. Add the cheese
  5. Eat with your favorite day-after-Thanksgiving beverage!

What’s your favorite way to deal w/ leftovers?

 

Family, Fifty Words, holidays, home, Kids, pets, Seasons, sports, Stories, The Baboon Congress, Uncategorized

Happy Thanksgiving!

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This is a straight up-homage to the day. Not the turkey and football filled day, not the sweet potatoes and pilgrim hat day.  For those of us who don’t practice thankfulness as often as we should (including me), today is a day to help us do just that – practice thankfulness.

You’ve heard it before – what are you grateful for?

 

Family, Food, Stories, Uncategorized

Spilt Coffee

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At Caribou this morning Nonny and I spilt an entire cup of coffee while navigating the “add cream and sugar” part of the transaction. Very quickly two gals jumped in to help, with napkins and a little towel that one of them asked staff for.  Between us we wiped and wiped and eventually got it all cleaned up.  I thanked them profusely and asked them if they would come later to my house and do my kitchen floor.  One of them stopped at our table a bit later as she was leaving to say “have a nice day” and Nonny was surprised to realize that she wasn’t an employee.  I said they were both just innocent helpful bystanders – which had made me all the more thankful at the time.

What the last kindness someone did for you?

Family, gardening, Nature, Seasons, Uncategorized, work

Leaf Vortex Conspiracy

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YA and her boyfriend raked the leaves yesterday. If you live in the Twin Cities you’ll be saying to yourself at this point “the last yard waste pick up was two weeks ago – why did she wait so long”.  Well, I’ll tell you why.  I live next door to the tree that waits until every other tree in Southwest Minneapolis has dropped its leaves to start shedding its own foliage.  Every. Single. Year.

In addition, we live in a leaf vortex, right in the middle of the block. My neighbors to the south routinely have 5-6 bags of leaves, my neighbors to the north 4-5 bags.  My house this year – 20 bags.  I really think that my neighbors have figured out a way to get their leaves to blow into my yard at this time of year.

It doesn’t help that I detest leaf raking. Actually that’s not quite true.  I don’t mind the raking part.  It’s the bagging part I don’t like, especially now that we have to use paper bags; the paper bags are so unwieldy and hard to fill.  This is kinda how I feel about yardwork… I don’t mind the work, I just hate the clean up.  A perfect gardening day is when YA follows me about and bags up all the weeds and detritus from my work!

Anything you’re sure of, even if it doesn’t make sense?

 

100 Words, Uncategorized, Words

Illogical Pronunciations

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Husband and I were leaving the grocery store in a snow storm last week when we decided to carry the bags instead of push the cart through the slush.  It was then I asked “why is the u in those words pronounced so differently?  Why are push, cushion, and bush pronounced that way, and why are slush, brush, and rush pronounced the way they are?”

Husband seems to think that push and cushion are of French origin , and that accounts for the pronunciations. I am not sure. Languages are so interconnected.  I know that “Good butter and good cheese is good English and good Fries (West Frisian, as spoken in the  northern Netherlands)”.    English is just so illogical.  I wonder if all languages are mongrel like English, or is English unique?

What words flummox you? What are your favorite and least favorite words. 

Family, History, home, Kids, pets, Uncategorized, work

Cleaning Up

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I don’t like cleaning. Organizing yes but cleaning no.  When I was living in Milwaukee I audited a class at the University of Wisconsin called “The Politics of Housework”. This was a LONG time ago but one of the things I remember about the class material was that housework is deeply dissatisfying for almost everybody due to its repetitive nature.  The housework never stays done.  No matter how earnestly you mop the floor, the dogs are going to wipe their muddy paws on it, probably within an hour.  This theory was very validating to me.

When YA was little, a co-worker asked me once how I get everything done and I replied “my house is dirty”. She laughed until she realized I was serious.  Then she laughed some more.  Any time I have a list of things to do, I can guarantee that cleaning is at the very bottom.  One of the upsides of entertaining a lot is that I’m forced to face the cleaning so my house doesn’t become a reality tv series.

With Nonny arriving on Monday, we’re in the last couple of days of getting the house clean (again). YA and I have a pretty good catalog of chores and luckily she likes to clean more than I do.  But mopping is still at the bottom of the list.

How do you get yourself to do the housework?

100 Words, Art, holidays, Movies, Music, Songs, Uncategorized

Let’s All Go to the Lobby

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The holiday movie season has started; I just saw that Fantastic Beasts 2 is out now. I will admit that I haven’t yet seen the first Fantastic Beasts; I’m a marginal Potter fan so not excited about seeing it in a theatre with the cost that entails.  But the concept of a pre-Harry world is appealing to me so I’m looking forward to seeing it one of these days when Netflix or one of the cable companies picks it up.

Who would star in a prequel of YOUR life? Theme song?

 

books, Food, Gatherings, Stories, Uncategorized

Dairy Ephiphany

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Thanks to Charles Dickens for setting the scene….

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way — in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.

And in the midst of the chaos it sat, surrounded by its golden foil wrapper. Artisanal butter – a golden yellow color, soft and salty.  It made believers of us all.

Do you have a secret indulgence?