When I first moved to Minnesota I was told that you’re not a Minnesotan until you drive to Wisconsin on a Sunday for liquor. I guess I’m official now.
It was 10 a.m. and the liquor store was packed with Minnesotans.
Hudson is underwhelming but things start to look better once you cross back over to Minnesota.
Downtown Stillwater is adorable. I could see myself living in Stllwater once our lease expires in Nordeast. The boyfriend will probably be less enthused about the idea…
My last visit to the Varsity Theater was under very different circumstances. It’s still a great venue.
The tequila shots made the cover band more interesting.
I’m more likely to take Gertrude places because she doesn’t scratch up the upholstery of my car like a certain someone.
The cuteness is just a bonus.
My Florida friends don’t understand it, but Minneapolis is really pretty during winter.
Today was an exciting day because I got to walk the dogs with gloves on! Just in time too – it’s a bit nippy.
I spend an embarrassing amount of time at Dunn Brothers. It’s a local coffee chain but each store feels like an independently run coffee shop (in a good way.)
The Basilica of St. Mary is one of my favorite buildings in Minneapolis, although still haven’t been inside. The amount of streets and highways near the basilica make it difficult it photograph without a traffic light or onramp in the way.
We tried a new Vietnamese restaurant by the Townhouse recently. The best part of the trip was the coconut drink which was served in an actual coconut.
Tader and I decided to order the “seven courses of beef” dish which was way more food than we needed.
The hideous Christmas lights have continued to infiltrate my neighborhood. I would take pictures but the flashing Santas, reindeer and snowflakes may give me a seizure.
The Minneapolis Mill District is one of the neighborhoods that I sometimes pass through on the morning dog walks. It looks sparse because the roads are so wide. Nice condos and restaurants though.
Winter is upon us and it is pretty obvious which of my neighbors use too much lawn chemicals.
So it’s Thanksgiving and I’m in the ER with a hipster mustache.
The end of Movember can’t come quick enough. The handlebar mustache makes me look super sketchy and the ER nurse is glaring at me because I look crazy.
I’m in the ER because our early morning trip to the dog park went horribly wrong. I’m at the dog park watching Gertrude play with a puppy when I hear screaming behind me. There’s a pileup of dogs and Harley is in the middle of it. A woman screams.
I jump in with the other dog owners and reach into Harley’s mouth to pull him off of a mutt. That was a mistake and my finger gets torn up. I’m told that the other dogs are fine and that my hand is the only casualty of the dog fight.
No more dog parks for Harley. Ever.
Dragging my dogs to the car with a bloody hand is super awkward. The dumb mustache didn’t help.
Four hours and seven stitches later, I am off to Walgreens for antibiotics. Juggling the hospital paperwork with my banged up hand and facial hair makes me look super sketchy. The pharmacist glares until she realizes that I’m not looking for drugs, just clueless.
My index finger bone is also fractured. Apparently my finger nail is completely gone and the bone was hanging out. Ugh. I’ll see if I can get into the orthopediatrician’s tomorrow.
Gory pictures after the jump.
I took an epic trip across the metro yesterday. I saw a big pleather murse at the Mall of America H&M a while back and decided it would make a good gym bag. Of course I decide to buy it just before rush hour…
A quick google search on my phone leads me to the Roseville mall, which turns out not to have an H&M.
My navigation then suggests the Woodbury mall. My phone says it’s 20 minutes away but I find out that the Woodbury mall is actually close to 20 miles away, which isn’t a 20-minute drive at 4:30 p.m. on a weekday. I eventually get to Woodbury Lakes, which should be called Strip Mall City, USA.
The Woodbury H&M doesn’t have my bag and a cute salesgirl sends me off to the Maplewood Mall H&M.
The Maplewood Mall is about 12 miles north. It’s a long trip at 5:15 p.m., especially when there are two pileup crashes. The pileups are rather confusing because the roads aren’t slick. I think the cause is speeding commuters coming upon stalled traffic…
I eventually make it to Maplewood and a confused employee finds a bag that looks like it hasn’t been touched in months.
This bag is actually black. It’s covered in dust. The cashier tells me he’s never actually seen anyone buy one of the murses. I don’t dare ask how long it was rotting on the shelf.
I find myself lingering at the Maplewood Barnes and Noble, which is close to H&M. I gravitate to the Nook counter and randomly end up buying a Nook tablet.
I was back at a more local Barnes and Noble this morning because my Nook wouldn’t let me buy any books. I eventually learn that the Nook is fine and the problem is with my card.
My bank has my check card frozen because I lost it and requested a new one two weeks ago. The bank customer service rep couldn’t explain to me why my new replacement debit card is frozen for identity theft protection purposes. This is particularly confusing because I had to call and activate the new card with my account information and Social Security Number…anyway these are my first world problems.
I eventually got the card and the Nook tablet working. My first e-book is John Grisham’s The Litigators.
The dog walks haven’t gotten difficult yet. Only a slight chill over the bridge.
This is the same bridge with the Frankenstein monster. There’s a Dunn Brother’s Coffee at the other end, so it’s worth it.
I know, I know. I watched Food Inc. a while ago and didn’t make the switch to organic meat. It turns out that rampant animal abuse wasn’t enough to get me to switch to organic meat, but salt was.
My grumblings about salt started a few weeks ago and culminated last night when I realized that our canned soup from Target had 111% of the daily recommended allowance of salt in it. I also realized that every processed thing in our house was bathed in sodium or high fructose corn syrup.
Even our 98% fat free turkey hot dogs are packed with sodium. One turkey hot dog link has 470mg of sodium or 20 percent of the daily recommended value. I was grossed out so I decided to switch to organic meat. Besides not having the hormones and animal abuse associated with it, organic meat also has considerably less sodium.
Buying organic meat at the local grocery store was difficult. I couldn’t find it at first until the butcher lady informed me that they only had “natural” chicken and small packets of organic ground beef hidden somewhere amongst the normal meat.
I eventually found it. What a miserable little package.
Despite the cosmetics of the package, it was delicious.
I then had the problem of a pantry full of canned food that I wasn’t not going to eat. I looked over the cans and realized that seven were already expired. Canned food takes a long-ass time to go bad, so I obviously don’t eat enough of it anyway. I gathered the good cans and brought them to the Aliveness Project, the local HIV/AIDS food shelf.
And yes, I realize the irony in donating unhealthy food to sick people, but I didn’t want to waste it and the food shelf doesn’t accept fresh food in anyway.
Also, to ease my guilt about donating the sodium-filled cans, I called the food shelf and offered to buy the kitchen fresh food. The cook thought it was a rather bizarre request and told me that he’s never had anyone offer to buy food for the kitchen before. He only requested lemons and cilantro, so my healthy contribution was rather meager. Maybe they’ll want something more substantial next time?
And the snow came.
That’s the Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank, one of my favorite buildings. I haven’t seen the Occupy Minnesota protestors out there for a while. Maybe winter has done them in? Anyway, the building looks even better in winter.
The gig’s up. Tomorrow it snows. That means I’m spending as much time outside with the dogs as possible today. I took the dogs on a long hike by the Mississippi.
