Monday in Linden Hills

I am on holiday and I am spending it close to home.   A good choice.  The afternoon weather has turned a bit overcast, but it doesn’t feel like heavy weather.  That’s almost a disappointment, actually.

I have the propensity to rally behind over-the-top weather.  If we’re experiencing a streak of snowy weather, I want more snow.   Heavy rain?  Why not some more?  Let’s go for a record.  Same for bitter cold, high winds, wild thunderstorms (a favorite), and dense fog.  Make it something to talk about.  That weather is best.

There’s something exciting about extremes.  In fact, other than stretches of heat, sunshine, and drought, I like extreme weather streaks.  And I only find heat and sunshine uninteresting because I lived in Tempe, Arizona, for ten years.  Droughts simply are not a good idea unless you live in a desert.

When I see the last bands of persistent heavy rain disappearing from a weather radar with only clear skies behind, I feel disappointed, almost a sense of loneliness.  So I hope for maybe just one more deluge before things calmer, more tepid days return.  Maybe some lightning and thunder, too.

Until then today has been nothing less than a decent one away from work.

Should I tell you about my walk in the woods?  Why not.

I notice from time to time deer tracks that appear to show a deer dragging a leg a little.  I have seen this before, not just recently, so I wonder if it is a way deer walk.  I doubt it.  More likely one of the deer is somewhat lame.  Although it is more common to see this dragging print in the snow.  Perhaps deer just get a little lazy and shuffle along like a bored kid impatiently trailing behind busy parents.

Not a warbler. It’s a cardinal.

The birds were out and so were the birders.  I chatted with two.  The first birder told me he was watching some sort of warbler.  I just nodded, pretending to know exactly what he was talking about.  He also corrected my owl identification.  I have been seeing — and hearing — barred owls, not great horned owls.  Although I do know for a fact that I have spotted great horned owls more than once in the woods and heard them in the back yard.

I took quite a few photos.  My camera works great!  But I need a tripod.  When on deep zoom, my ability to steady the camera doesn’t last long and with uncooperative birds that is proving to be a problem.  Still, I get a semi-decent picture from time to time.  As they say, even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in a while.

Going down the trail I noticed some bright white stuff on the ground beneath a tree.  I got excited.  It looked like egg shells.  Here was my chance, I thought, to find a hidden nest and earn some birder bragging rights.  Surely above these broken fragments of egg shell there was something special.  The pieces looked large, like potato chips. But no nest.  It made no sense until I got closer and saw that my discovery was a torn up styrofoam cup.

Barred Owl

Nonetheless, I think my instincts and logic deserve a compliment.  It could have been what I thought it was.

The second birder I encountered had a camera bigger than some beer coolers I own.  He had a tripod out of simple necessity.  (Have you ever tried to hold a beer cooler steady?  It isn’t easy.)  He told me he was photographing some bird nesting in a hollow tree.  Instinctively he seemed to know that the species would be irrelevant to me.

I did show him a couple of my pictures, however, and he seemed to be more than polite about them.  Feeling smug and chatty, in the whispering birder sort of way, I also commented on the “morning” warblers I learned about from the other birder.   When I came home and looked them up in my bird guide, I discovered they are mourning warblers.  I suspect the guy with the giant camera wouldn’t have noticed my mistake.

I do have a Sibley Guide to birds.  It is great, however I can’t really carry that in my back pocket.  I am thinking of getting a field guide, but I’m not sure if I really have the patience to stop and look up a bird.  And none of the serious birders seem to have a guide stuck in a back pocket.   I don’t want to look like a dork.

I wonder if I should get a photojournalist’s vest instead.

I’m not sure how I will finish my holiday.  Perhaps I will find time to embark on my Big Ambition.  I should probably check in at the bar, however, and make sure nothing has changed.  And I do have a couple clients I want to call.  Strangely, I tend to like making calls on my days off.  Those calls seem so unworklike.  I like that.

Whatever it is, I have to decide soon.  The afternoon is running fast and I have a very acute obsession with time, recently, especially the lack of it.  That Big Ambition can wait no longer.  To make something of a high art reference, these are indeed the days of our lives.

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Linden Hills Celebrity

Several days ago, I eavesdropped on a conversation at a local coffee shop between a realtor and an older couple.  She was trying to convince them to reconsider a house in my neighborhood.  The couple, however, was set on looking at other homes in an adjoining Edina neighborhood.

The realtor persisted, selling the neighborhood more than the house.  Obviously a couple that thought too highly of ever-striving Edina.

The realtor didn’t let up.  In a last ditch, allmost exasperated effort, she described Linden Hills as a highly educated, high-income celebrity neighborhood.  And that made a difference — to me, at least — it made me ask:  Why aren’t I a celebrity?

Quite a preoccupation, one burdened with deep responsibility.  But first, ff I am going to be a celebrity, I need to come up with something to do.  A guy definitely doesn’t want to become an accidental celebrity.  Even being Steve Harvey is better than being an accident.  No, you want to be in control of celebrity.  So I am seeking answers.

What shall I do?  I am open, however there are some restrictions.  First, I don’t want to be recognized as much as known.  I will only appear on The Charlie Rose Show.  And I will not be the Grand Marshall in any parade as a favor to an ex-wife or ex-girlfriend.  Other than that, what have you got?

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Event Promoters Take Note

I heard a loudspeaker calling out names and numbers from down by the lake this morning and that was enough to get me outside to see what was going on.

The key here is I already knew what was going on, it was another race.  We have races on a seemingly weekly basis around Lake Harriet.  Signs had been posted for over a week and those of us in the neighborhood know if its Saturday, there’s likely a race down by the lake anyway.

But hearing the event nagged at me.  It created interest in the event.  I felt like I was missing something, even though it was only another race and one that I already knew about.

So I filled a go-cup with coffee (skipped the whiskey this time) and wandered to the band shell to see what was going on.

Guess what I found.  A 10-K race!  Quelle surprise!

Even a jaded guy like me can get fired up and motivated by a little activity.  I had a good time watching the runners and bought cookies from a girl scout.  A good start to the day.  If I had not heard the announcer, I would have gone through this morning having completely forgotten the event.

Just a little extra often is enough.  If it sounds like something going on, it registers as something going on.

Ok, let’s move on to something else…

Saturday Morning in Linden Hills

I am a brilliant guy, especially when no one is watching.  This is especially true while I am asleep.  Last night’s dream will be hard to top, but me being me, I’ll best them the next time I sleep.  (I choose to say whatever I please.)

Take last night.  In one dream a couple falls in love on a plane.  The pilot is a bit of an eccentric, however, and decides he is going to back into the gate at the terminal and so he turns the plane around at 30,000 feet and starts flying backwards.  As the plane approaches the runway — weaving through skyscrapers and highway overpasses — the couple looks out the plane’s review window, where they are sitting together, and realize if the plane crashes, which appears inevitable, they are done.  The sequence ends with a woman painting portraits of the couple.  She is working on the woman’s portrait.  And it is a beautiful painting, a gorgeous painting…and that’s what I want to take credit for.

Who really was painting that portrait?

It was my dream after all, isn’t that right?  Everyone has dreams about planes flying baackwards through a city to the airport, but who has dreamed such a beautiful painting before?  Leonardo de Vinci?  Monet?  Frida Kahlo?  Rembrandt?  Grandma Moses?  George Waters?  No…me.  Your tour guide, Uncle Fracas.  And you were not there to see it.  Disappointing.  But trust me, it exists.  I saw it.

Don’t forget the small things

This post really isn’t about Saturday morning in Linden Hills.  It is true, I am in Linden Hills and it is Saturday morning, but I haven’t yet been out.  It appears to be a gorgeous morning, though, just a bit of icy mist and a bright hazy sun.  The view to the lake through  bare branches calms the nerves nicely this time of the year.

Perhaps later I will restock on some basic supplies.  Cinnamon rolls, coffee, and a late breakfast of soft boiled eggs at Tilia. Although I just whipped up a satisfying omelette of my very own.  Eggs, cream, spinach turkey, and cheese washed down with a mix of orange and grapefruit juice.  It is hard to top, although Tilia indeed does come very, very close.

(I should check in at Tilia and see if I stopped in when I was sleep walking the other night…)

No, I’m not quite sure what Saturday in Linden Hills will bring.  Not even sure what I should do next.  I’ll have to consult my post-it note.  I put things on post-it notes, usually very basic things, so I won’t forget them.   Then I post the note where I won’t miss it.  It is a good system, if you remember to pay attention and follow through.

Let’s check the list.  What’s first?  Boil Potatoes.  Well, it is a good thing I have the list.  I would have forgotten that one.  Don’t forget the small things.  You never know what might come from them.  They might seed a beautiful dream.

What else is on that list?

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It Must Have Been Quite a Night…

It must have been quite a night.  That’s all I will say.  I woke up with my flashlight.

I vaguely recall getting up at some point and looking for something.  Maybe I thought I would finally find that lost ring and get rid of it.  I am not sure.  But clearly I was dream walking.

Usually when I dream walk I tie a sheet around my neck and patrol the neighborhood.  Captain Procrastination!  I don’t recall the details of that either, but from time to time I wake up with a bed sheet tied around my neck, cape-style. Hhow else would you explain this?

And why would my neighbors cross the street rather than meet me on the sidewalk the day after this happens?

Captain Procrastination has nothing to hide.  He fights crime and save cats in trees.  That’s it.  That’s what he does.  And he only wears a cape.  (Socks in the winter, maybe.)

Speaking of winter.  Where is it?  I am ready for winter.  Why?  Because I think Captain Procrastination, just might maybe push a car out of a snowbank or two this year.  Let’s get it on, the cape that is, and do something this year.

Changes in Linden Hills

With new people come changes, good and bad.  We have our newly restricted parking on the corner which — if it actually makes that corner safer — well, ok…that might not be a bad thing.  I remain on the fence about a new development on 43rd and Upton.  I am not convinced it is an entirely bad thing.  But some people are pretty upset about it, almost irrationally so.  After all Linden Hills is a city neighborhood and not a wide spot on a country road.

The one change I cannot warm to is the new Settergren’s Hardware.  Sorry.  And now we are losing, Bayers, the neighborhood’s longtime, family-run hardware store because of it.  I have been in Settergren’s and it is what I expected.  Big, bright, and cold.  It feels suburban.  They do try to fit into the Linden Hills way of things a bit, but that feels contrived, like a false smile on a murderer’s face just before he jabs a knife in your back.

Well, the knife did fall and it fell directly in the back of Bayers.

A sense of place is also a sense of routines for me.  (Maybe that’s why every other post on this blog is about my daily walk in the woods?  I don’t know.)  And this winter I had a nice routine.

I think of cool weekend mornings.  Wake up, scramble some eggs and make a breakfast sandwich or two, brew a pot of coffee.  Those were good mornings.  There truly was a sense of place then and there.

Mornings were best when they included a stroll into Linden Hills; wander into the bakery next to Bayers, grab a caramel roll for a week-long snack — I am getting them with nuts and raisins again now — and then go into Bayers.  Even if only to smell the woodsoap and grab a small bag of that horrible popcorn, you had to stop in at Bayers.

Plus you can always find something to buy in a hardware store; whatever it is, you’ll need it eventually.  Cleaner is a good thing to have, maybe duct tape or a few incadescent light bulbs while you can still find them.

Bayers made it even easier to buy stuff spontaneously with their new pantry filled with good stuff, like Heggie’s Pizza.  The four-cheese pizza was our usual choice.  This might not be fancy co-op fare, but you can dress it up nicely and feel good about selecting an item or two from The Pantry.  The key to light shopping on the fly is keeping things simple.  Never fill more than one bag with goodies.

So with a bag half-full, it would be time to wander back toward home, maybe stop at Coffee & Tea for more Five Star Roast, then the obligatory stop at Tilia for a mimosa and wine.  Perhaps even more breakfast.  Hard to resist sometimes.  Poached egg on toast or biscuits and gravy.  It sounds good and it is, especially when you let yourself laugh and be fabulous.  Everything is so damn good.  And with all of this accomplished before returning home, restocked and re-fed, feeling just a little light and happy from the wine, one is ready for making decisions about the rest of the day.

Now a big piece of that routine is gone.  I can’t see myself “wandering” over to Settergren’s.  It isn’t the kind of place you wander to anymore than you might consider wandering to Home Depot.  Yes, they do have a farmer’s market over there that one might enjoy.  I guess it is ok as far as farmers’ markets go, but it is…I don’t know…a bit flat.

Maybe I’m just pouting.

I am sure I’ll find a way to make up for it.  I still pick up my caramel rolls, coffee, and breakfast in Linden Hills.  In fact, it is hard to imagine anything that might keep me from it.  Nevertheless, I’m not much about how some things change…or how they go away entirely.  Sometimes it makes sense to sort things out, one way or the other.  When some things go, I hope they will come back, but I don’t see Bayers coming back.

Stopping and Parking in Minneapolis

Odds are good if you know someone from Minnesota you know a lousy driver.  The sad fact about my home state is just that.  Minnesotans truly cannot drive.  (Name a world class Formula 1 racer from Minnesota.  Quick.  See…?)  Harold’s friend Maude looks like a blue ribbon driving instructor in comparison with most Minnesota drivers.  I speak the truth.

We are equally as bad at stopping and parking.

In my neighborhood parking and stopping is important.  We have narrow streets designed for an era when driving on a residential street meant you were moving at a relatively safe 25 miles an hour.  Today that speed counts as a roll-through stop at most controlled intersections.

One of my new neighbors reached the point of action.  She started an online campaign and petitioned the city and got some new “No Parking” signs and fresh yellow paint on the curbs, and in the process she eliminated 4 or 5 spots in this already space-staved neighborhood.

(Was that a run-on sentence?  Pretty good one though.  It gives you a sense of what driving is like in Minneapolis.  A perfect grammatical rebus of sorts.  Let’s continue on.)

The real villain is Bad Parker — no relation to Fess Parker — and his following of wayward fumblebutts.  Look at this Honda family van.  One van.  Two spots.  When I rule the world — and don’t think it can’t happen — these cars won’t be towed, they’ll be recycled.

Where is Godzilla when he’s needed?

But as bad as the parking situation is around here, stopping in fact is a much bigger problem.  No one stops at stop signs.  No one.  I do, of course, but I am unique.  Other than me…well, I cannot think of anyone else who does.  School buses don’t stop.  Young blonde women with big hair driving Pontiacs don’t stop.  (No surprise there.)  Priests and nuns don’t stop.  Bishops either.  Politicians and bartenders keep rolling.  Grandma can’t stop.  Even the police don’t stop.  In fact I doubt my neighbor who achieved a parking victory with City Hall stops.  In Minneapolis it is what they call an identity; it is true in itself in every form, people in Minneapolis don’t stop at stop signs.  That’s it.  It is true.

So now let’s go back to my neighbor who had the parking spaces removed the sake of safety.  Ah ha!   Haven’t we all been ruined by a genie promising the happiness of three wishes fulfilled?  Indeed.  My neighbor carelessly sought and found her wish granted.  I’m going to argue now that this was a mistake.

When we had cars parked on this corner, people were — most people were — forced to slow down because they could not see the intersection.  Now they have a clear view.  The result?  Well, recall the 25 mph roll-through at stop signs I pointed out earlier.  No need to worry about that at this intersection anymore!  Save the brakes and zip through at a cool 35.

The argument for removing the parking spaces at this corner was safety.  Cars drove too quickly and pedestrians were blocked from view by parked cars.  That sort of thing.  This is all very quaint, as if people in cars give a damn about pedestrians in the first place.  But I sympathize with my neighbor’s efforts.  We live in a motorist asylum here in Minneapolis, a place where the genetics of the native stock is more geared toward sleighs and wheelbarrows than cars and trucks.  (Check the phone book.  See any Italians in there? )  So any effort to make driving safer is…well, a sporting good show, but likely not much of a result.

I’ll just leave with this.  When parking, please ask yourself, are you a follower or are you special?  Be like me, be unique.  Don’t be a follower of Bad Parker (no relation to Fess).  And when you come to a stop sign, please … please, please, please…on behalf of all of us who have been hit, please stop.

And stay the hell out of my neighborhood!  No…just kidding.  Just having a little fun with you.  Come and have some fun.  Go to Tilia.  Great place.  I am the fun good-looking guy at the bar.

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Mast-Head Watch: Not a Whale in Sight

I nearly posted a link to a Garmin map that tracks the walk I took tonight.  It took quite a bit of time to figure out a way to post it, then I thought…do I really want to post a map showing where I walk?  Hell, why not!

Actually, I have decided against it.  A moment ago I deleted the post.  And now I feel grumpy.  Tired.  Disappointed.  All too familiar.

This was a typical walk-along-the-lake-and-into-the-woods kind of post.  I have a few dozen posted here already, I am sure.  And my photos were not quite as good as others.  I am afraid my camera phone is growing tired.  Focus is not one of its strong suits any longer and light exposure is all fuddled up.

It was a nice walk, though.  I did see a doe and two fawns and I wrote about that.  Sounds dull, I’m sure, but I did a good job.  (You see I discovered this gap in the fence where the deer crouch down and scoot under the chain link…I watched two go through while the third seemed a bit confused and lost…he eventually found his way to the other side.  Happy reunion.  Drama worthy of a book about a white whale, of which I have read very little today.)

I took pictures of mushrooms and roses.  I commented on the compost at the rose garden.  (It smells like a mix of tobacco and plums, not an unpleasant scent at all.)  I took pictures of artists painting in the park.

And I complained about the heat.   I complained about the heat a lot and wondered if whiskey might make it better.  Oh, my writing about this was especially good!  I can’t recall what I wrote, but I can tell you what inspires me.

When I think of awful heat and smothering humidity, I think of old southern men, Depression era, of course; old southern men sweating in seersucker suits, poorly tied ties, and Panama hats.   And I think of whiskey.

Perhaps it is unfair to whiskey — or maybe the old men — but sticky heat is old man whiskey weather in my mind and I think it might be time to see how they mix, if they do.  Of course Minneapolis is a city where it is tough to have a good time.  You can’t stroll the parks with a flask of whiskey, for example, but you can always carry some in your stomach.  So I have decided that one of these hot steamy nights I’ll have a shot or two and go for a walk.

I might take a chance and put a small flask in my pocket, too.  What harm can a guy do taking a nip in the bird sanctuary?  Maybe the shadows will speak to me differently if I do.

That will have to be another day.  It is quite late now.  I do feel a bit better having taken a few minutes to write something.  It is a recovery of sorts, a recovery from a lost post.  It was the map that had troubled me in that post.  Nothing more.  I had my story all laid out along the Garmin track.  I shouldn’t have been so quick to trash it.  I didn’t feel right putting my map on the table, however.

Plus there is something about the map that is especially interesting to me in a strange, taunting sort of way.  I uploaded the map of tonight’s walk and at the end my route, the track jumps down the block and ends in a place which is not mine.  When I saw where it landed, I smiled and felt a little sad at the same time. True to Freud, this strange glitch truly touches the uncanny.  (You’ll have to trust me.)

It has been a very still, quiet week.  Maybe the heat has something to do with it.  Nothing seems to stir, but everything is hot to the touch.

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July 4, 2012…A very brief report.

It has been a firecracker of a week.  Hot, too.  Ends all too quickly and I find myself trying to adjust to work.

I was in Marine on St. Croix with good friends, it is a tradition I enjoy a great deal.  In reality not much changes from one year to the next — the narrative is pretty well set — but I do wish I had more of it to enjoy now that I am back in Linden Hills.  (I should have done a better job with photos.)  Right now it is very simple…I am having a hard time kick-starting my old routines.  Even today’s walk in the woods was a little underwhelming.  (So damn hot, muggy.)

Day Three. A cold creek was still the best seat in the house.

While out in Marine, on the other hand, there is a swimming pool, a river, and cold clear creeks to enjoy, all pushed along by a steady flow of beer and icy drinks.  It is all so good a guy doesn’t even mind dipping his hand into a bag of chips to discover that a dozen wet kids have already done the same ahead of him.  They taste the same.  And sleep…why I haven’t slept so well in months.  (cf. “steady flow of beer and icy drinks” maybe?)  Of course I looked a little rough — unshaven, sunburned, and at peace — but it all felt great.  This is a holiday you can both dress up and dress down, after all, and be natty regardless of what you care to be…

The Fourth of July.  A very brief report.

Fireworks and more fireworks.  Beer and brats.  Swimming pools and a river.  All shared with friends.  Thanksgiving has always been my favorite holiday.  I might have to reconsider.

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Sunday Breakfast

Not much on my mind today.  Not much to say.  Writing about nothing seem to be my most popular posts, however, so why don’t I tell you about my breakfast.

I steamed a pinch of fresh spinach and scrambled it in with a couple of eggs and large spoonful of diced tomatoes.  By chance I happened to have some cheese in the fridge and grated that in with a some fresh ground black pepper.  It made for a very satisfying breakfast and I enjoyed it with a brimming cup of French roast from Coffee & Tea in Linden Hills.

Lunch was a bit more pedestrian, but perfect for the season.  I picked up some locally made hot dogs — the old fashioned style that should be the only hot dog anyone buys — and steamed one.  Steaming is the best way to prepare hot dogs.  I also had some corn that was surprisingly good and fresh.  I mixed it with butter and salt.  Sliced a tomato and sat down for a good summertime lunch.  Mustard is a must with this, of course, and it is best served with a soft drink.

I made an awesome vinaigrette for a salad this afternoon, too.  I wish I could remember exactly how I did it, but it turned out well.  One more tomato, a lot of spinach, carrots, and cauliflower.  Black pepper and cheese (I happened to find some more) my salad was set.  Very good.

Not Sure Which Picture I Like Best

I’m not sure what I’ll do for dinner.  Maybe stroll down to Amore Victoria for a little pasta.  I’m not in the mood for more cooking.  I am finishing the last of a bottle of Brunello I bought on a splurge.  A nap might be the result.

I am waiting for the storms to develop later anyway.  Right now there isn’t even a hint of stormy weather.  The clouds are too ragged and thin. Until they start to look more like cotton candy, the atmosphere is too mellow.  But once they begin to pop, the storms should develop quickly.  That’s what I am looking for.

Did I mention a nap?