10 Questions About…

All of the Treacy cousins met up for the annual Christmas Pizza party. I think everyone made it, which is fun. Every year we meet up at Broadway Pizza in Minneapolis. And this year we proved that we met in all sorts of weather. The snow was really coming down, In fact I think we were all about 30 minutes late.

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There was a great Groupon on the multi-people bikes at Minnehaha – so we went. I kind of forgot that I don’t really like bikes when I went for this – but I was quickly reminded once we got going. It’s hard to pedal a bike with 5 people on it – and Patrick’s a good biker. But it was beautiful day. And there was a fun historical recreation at one of the houses around Minnehaha. OK, recreation might be over stating it – but the girls got to play some old fashioned games. The Historical Society does a great job on stuff like that.

For folks who don’t know Minneapolis, here’s a quick description…

Overlooking the Mississippi River, Minnehaha Park is one of Minneapolis’ oldest and most popular parks, attracting over 850,000 thousand visitors annually. It is located at the intersection of Hiawatha Ave. and Minnehaha Parkway.

OK I’m catching up with summer highlights. A fun highlight was the Flutag in the Twin Cities. People build vehicles that’s supposed to fly off a ramp and into the Mississippi. Here’s the official description from the web site…

Red Bull Flugtag challenges teams of everyday people to build homemade, human-powered flying machines and pilot them off a 30-foot high deck in hopes of achieving flight! Flugtag may mean “flying day” in German, but all these crafts ultimately splash into the waters below. They are judged not only on their flight’s distance, but creativity and showmanship as well.

The really amazing thing is that 90,000 people showed up to watch it. The population of the city is only 300,000. So 90,000 is quite a feat. They flew the flying machines off a ramp built on Harriet Island – so really anyone on the shores could see pretty well. So even though it was clearly a ton of people it didn’t seem too crowded – once we parked anyways.

You can see our other short but sweet videos here:

The girls and I went to the Bakken with Uncle Billy. We are kinds of spoiled about the Bakken and our fakey Catholic school holidays so we were not pleased to have to share our private museum. But it was fun. Uncle Billy was the mind ball master. Lunch at Snuffy’s after was the least healthy – most tasty meal I’d had in a while.

First Patrick and I went to see A Streetcar Names Desire. I didn’t know the story and had never seen the movie. It was very good. It is a great place to see a show.

One day we all went for the kids’ day at the Guthrie. We got to hike all around the theater. It was fun to talk to the costume person. The work they had done for some of the costumes was so amazing ad detailed. Then the necklace was held together with a safety pin. I was delighted to see that some of my wardrobe is so Guthrie-like.

We got our pictures taken in the Little House on the Prairie costumes.

We went one weekend to the Fat Tire Bike Festival. Patrick and the girls got to ride some tricked out bicycles. But the best part was the sword swallower. You can ask Aine about it any time and she’ll tell you. The guy swallowed a sword that had to be 3 feet long. Kinda creepy, kinda cool. Also on stage were some burlesque-type performers. That may have been Patrick’s favorite part – again kinda creepy. We kind of lost him when they were up on stage but we found him again later exactly where we left him staring up and drooling.

OK I’ve been a total slug about the blog since we’ve been home. Partially because I’ve been so busy with work; partially because it’s about 400 degrees here and we have no air conditioning and that does not lend to computer work. But I’m in the car and have a chance to catch up…

The Walker! We have been there a few times in our month home. They have really great activities. Aine, Kate and I went one Saturday morning to make our 3D map additions. The Walker was creating a big 3D map in the field next to the gallery. Kate and Aine each created pigs from the State Fair, which we then got to post on the map.

A different day we went to see some bands outside. It was produced by the Walk Teen Council, but there were a few families. We had fun playing with the hula hoops and thing in the outdoor space. The girls even participated in a big art project where Aine and Kate answered question about their community and told about a place they wanted to go. Kate said Cost Rica, which was no surprise. Aine said Pennsylvania. The was news to us.

We also got to hike around the Sculpture Gardens with our cousin Will – well really Will is maybe the girls’ second cousin, or cousin once removed but we’re going with cousin.

My other big activity back home with seeing Macbeth at the Guthrie. Macbeth was the shortest and bloodiest of Shakespeare’s plays. This performance was particularly bloody! It was directed by Joe Dowling who always seems to take a show as far as it can go – and then a little bit. I hadn’t seen Macbeth in years. I found it a little bit tough to follow, which I think was a sign of how tired I was. I would go into greater detail but I know I have a PG audience.

I went to the show with friends Kathleen and Bernadine. We had a very nice dinner at Spill the Wine beforehand.

It was great to be home –mostly it was 10 days of work. Well work and really good restaurants. But one night Dad and I went to see Bob McChesney (founder of FreePress.net) and John Nichols (Washington correspondent to The Nation.)

They were in town promoting their new book: The Death and Life of American Journalism. They were interesting because of the tremendous amount or research they had clearly done and their perspective. They had a couple of points that I noted. First that the idea that the constitution was intended to be revisited every 20 years or so. That answers a lot of questions.

Second, they promoted uncensored government support of the media. They pointed out that countries that supported the media had more civic engagement and other great things that naturally I’ve forgotten. But they had an idea that each citizen should have $200 in government funding to give to a nonpartisan, nonprofit news source. I love that idea. Someone in the audience was worried that other people would give their money to the wrong resources, like to sports coverage – but they had clearly had that question before. They pointed out that sports coverage is rarely nonprofit. They added that most people would give their money to a news source – even if they never really read the news source. Because most people appreciate that access to information is essential. While the questioner looked skeptical, I think they had a goodpoint.

One of my favorite Christmas traditions is going to see El Vez with Billy and Anita. This year I signed us up to get a picture with El Vez before the show. So we’re kind of like the famous people. Before the show we had a yummy dinner at Solera. And we got a sneak peek at life in Sex in the City watching the other people at the bar. I’m pretty sure we were the only ones drinking beer and certainly ate more than anyone else at the bar.

Back to El Vez – the show was really different this year. To start he played with Los Straightjackets – not after. It was a great mix. I tried to take some video during the slow songs; I danced during the fast songs. The Elvettes were new. Billy was pretty quick to pick up on that one. He had to move during the last few songs to be nearer her favorite Elvette – Lisa Maria.

There were lots of great costume changes. I was super sad that there wasn’t a secret set after the holiday show – but it was a great show. What was fun about the after show was that there was an ages disco. There was some really awkward dancing; one guy brought his own hula hoop; and there was one good break dancer.

And here are some more videos:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_sKYlGUFZI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NE8widG4c9w

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBOTeKAtvY4