Filed under: Minneapolis
On Thursday the girls and I went with our Galway friends to the Quaking Bog in the Theodore Wirth Park in Minneapolis. Our Galway friends (Kevin, Quinlan, Brenna, Rowan, and KC who didn’t come to the park) lived in Galway last year while we were in Dublin. We met up with them a few times.
Anyways, Kevin and crew are good sports. I had been wanting to go to the bog – it’s way on the other side of Minneapolis. And for those who don’t know, St Paulites generally don’t like to drive too far outside their own domain and we’re not comfortable in Western suburbs. But we made it and it was cool.
The Theodore Wirth Park has a wild flower garden, bird sanctuary, beach, bog and more I’m sure. The not-so-great part is that you kind of have to drive from one part to another. OK maybe you don’t have to drive if you don’t have six kids, the youngest being one – but we had to drive.
The bog was kind of cool – muckier than I expected. There is a bridge/path you can walk around on the bog. The kids were trying to figure out what was under the bridge the whole time.
Next we went to the beach – mostly because the beach had a bathroom. No one was wearing a swimsuit but that didn’t stop kids from diving into the water to try to catch fish. The weather was perfect. It’s always fun to visit a new park and I wasn’t the one who had to chase the one year old; so it was a nice day.
Filed under: Minneapolis
I’m doing some blog catch up today. Last Friday Patrick and I went to the gallery opening at the Chambers Hotel. They are having a great RNC-related show of political art. Unfortunately the art opening was Saturday – not Friday.
They do have some cool art anyways – like the picture I took with Patrick and the head. It’s a sculpture in some kind of soft plastic by Evan Perry. Except that it is oversize it is frightening realistic. Almost too creepy to touch. Also we had a nice drink at the bar. The other time we went to the Chamber’s bar the clientele was way too snooty for me – but this time no one bugged us and the staff was super pleasant.
Afterwards we went to the suburban hinterlands for a Normandale Faculty party.
Filed under: Minneapolis
I am very annoyed with myself for not bringing the Flip Video to the El Vez show. He was great as always. He sang my favorite Suspicious Minds/Immigration Time – and he added a Ready-Steady-Go Gen X riff to the song.
The Elvettes were great as always. The crowd was about half the size of the Christmas shows – but that was OK with me. However, had I know the crowd would be smaller I would have definitely brought the Flip Video. Oh well, next time.
Filed under: Minneapolis
The Lynches are visiting from Chicago. We were happy that they came on the first Saturday of the month so that we could go to the Walker for the kids’ activities. The theme this Saturday was recycling. The kids made two art projects – one was pasting fish pictures on bottles. The other project was a nature sculpture, where there started with a stick and glued leafs and things to stick.
We also enjoyed running around the sculpture gardens – and we went into the art gallery to see the talking dolphin and a few other quick looks at art – we saw a Warhol, Chuck Close and Jasper Johns.
Filed under: Minneapolis
A week or so ago Patrick and I went to see The Secret Fall of Constance Wilde. I loved it! It was very dark – very dark. It’s about the life and times of Oscar Wilde from his wife’s perspective. He did have a wife!
The play went through his rise and fall and kind of followed darkness in Constance’s past that she felt led her to stand by her man. Sarah Agnew played Constance. I’ve always been a fan of her work.
More recently we went to see The Government Inspector. It was very silly. I’ll give that the theater was filled on a Wednesday in July, which is impressive. But to me the show was just silly.
We started the day at the St Paul Farmers’ Market, which is always fun. I had to laugh to myself when we were there as a just thumbed through my friend’s copy of Stuff White People Like and farmers’ markets were pretty high on the list.
After that we had lunch at Bruegger’s. I feel like that too could make the white people list.
Then we headed to a Bastille Day party at the Jeune Lune. I think it was done by the Alliance Francaise; well I hope it was a fundraiser for them. It was super expensive. Unfortunately there also wasn’t a ton of things for the kids to do.
After the event, we headed to Grandma and Grandpa for dinner and a game of Clue. That darned Kate won again!
Filed under: Minneapolis
OK maybe we should get season passes to the Walker. We went on Thursday because, well it’s free on Thursday also we wanted to see the Trisha Brown dance.
Sadly they don’t allow cameras but I can tell you what I saw.
The Trisha Brown group was interesting. It was less dance and more performance art. There was a wall with giant peg holes and three performers who slowed climbed around the giant peg board. There was a video behind them mostly of a cityscape – but eventually we saw a baby butt. So that kind of made the show for Aine.
Kate remembered an artwork from last year when we used to frequent the Walker. She has a good memory – but unfortunately one of the security guys told us that that piece was in storage.
Filed under: Minneapolis
On Saturday we got our act together early and we went to the Free First Saturday at the Walker Art Center. The big thrill was creating their prints. They each got cardboard and rubber that they could cut up to paste to the cardboard to use as a printing block. Then a steamroller drove over the paper to create a print. It was cool. The Walker is trying to create 1000 prints over the summer – and now the girls will be part of that big art exhibit.
Another cool thing was the Trisha Brown dancers. We didn’t see much of their show; I’m hoping to go back on Thursday to see more. But we did see one of the dancers walk down the side of the Walker. It was fun to see but he made it look so easy – in a scary way.
We also went to see the Design for the Other 90 percent exhibit, which was really great. I wrote about it in a work blog so I won’t re-write it here.
We had a great day. Then we went to lunch with Aunt Mary and Anita to celebrate Aine’s birthday. The girls were glad to do something so like home. (I know for some people a home cooked would be like home – but restaurants are much homier to us.)
At night Patrick and I went to the Guthrie to see The Secret Fall of Constance Wilde. It was a great show – very somber and dark, just like I like a play!
The 4th of July is always a tricky holiday with kids – you just never know who’s going to be able to stay awake for the fireworks. You spend half of the day hoping everyone makes it and the last two hours praying that everyone falls asleep.
We spend out day at Minnehaha Falls – an offshoot of the Mississippi. We forgot the camera – but we’re bringing it next time. They have fixed up the park a lot. We had lunch at the restaurant in the park then we walked down the creek to the part where we could do wading.
On the way home we stopped in at Wabun Park, where they have built a new wading pool. Next time we head out to Minnehaha we may rent a big bike, ride around, skip the creek and go wading in the new pool.
We did manage to get to the fireworks at night.
Last Saturday Patrick and I went to the Sculpture Garden at the Walker, one of the local art galleries. The Walker is predominantly modern art, which means I love it and Patrick doesn’t. But we both enjoyed the Sculpture Garden, most famous for the Spoon and Cherry.
Over the summer the Walker is also hosting an artist-created, environmentally-themed mini golf course. We got there just as they were closing. The people were funny and said they had decided when we were crossing the street that they would let us play if we asked but that we were the final golfers. So we played the quickest game ever – and tied.
After dinner we had a light dinner at The Heartland, a very nice restaurant close to out house. It was good as always. Their cheese plate is perhaps the best in the city with cheese from – where else – Wisconsin.
Then we headed home – but lucky for me the neighbors were having a gathering in the back yard. So while Patrick went to bed I talked to folks for a while. It was nice to be home.
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