10 Questions About…

On Friday night we went to a party for Failte Minnesota at the Ford Union Hall in St Paul. My only wish was that there had been more people. The last time (the other time) I was at the Union hall was for a wedding and this felt like a wedding too – in a good way.

The food was great. The beer was cheap. The music was fun. They got people out on the floor to do a haymaker’s jig. Aine signed up right away – she was the only one from our family to sign up. Luckily she’s not shy and the dancers all helped her along. Naturally her partner ended up being a grandpa-age guy who was well over 6 feet tall.

There was a quiz on Ireland and it was tough – but Patrick got the most answers. Shocker! He was not the only Irish person there but he knows a lot. He got 4 wrong out of 20 or so, which meant he guessed wrong each time he guessed – because he knew the rest.

On Saturday night we had two of the event planners over for dinner – Mary Sue and Jim Brooks. It was fun to hear their perspective – but really I thought they had done a great job.

So we had the Election on Tuesday. It took me 15 minutes to vote – There was a line and that’s unusual in my neighborhood but 15 minutes isn’t bad. If I had waited until 10:00 I think I could have walked right through.

Throughout the campaign we had no phone calls and no door knockers contact us about the Election – until the last 48 hours. Then we had several door knockers, all for Obama.

The girls and I went to Grandma and Grandpa’s for the results. We started watching at 6:00, which is when the polls our East close. It looked like a close race for the first 2 hours. We got some emails from Ireland, which was fun. You kind of forget that people are watching from afar.

Nothing had been decided when I took off with Kathleen and Sheila to the DFL headquarters downtown. First it was fun to go with Kathleen who knows everyone. I knew a few online reporters but she knew everyone. Second it was fun to be with a big group when they called the winner.

One funny thing – the kids did nothing related to the Election at school. No mock debates, no mock votes. They were told that votes were secret, which I guess is true. I hope that the older kids did something. I’ll have to ask a babysitter. I think they missed an opportunity – but then my own alma mater made the same mistake on a much larger level.

So I had planned to see Kings of Leon on Saturday night, but they were sold out. So I looked around and saw that the Beastie Boys were playing at the Roy Wilkins. So I got tickets. What I didn’t know was that originally this show sold out in 3 minutes. I must have caught Ticketmaster at just the right time and they must have released tickets on the day of the event. (It was the Rock the Vote concert. So by the time they planned the event the big places in town were booked.)

So we got to go! The Roy Wilkins holds about 5,500 people. We were on the floor! And we got progressively closer to the stage as the bands progressed. So the video I got of Beastie Boys is better than Tenacious D. That being said, it’s still not the highest quality.

The Roy Wilkins is an amazing place to see bands because it is so small.

All of the bands were great –t he highlights were the Under Pressure cover by Ban Harper and Tenacious D and Sabotage by Beastie Boys – or maybe No Sleep Til Brooklyn. What was great was they prefaced the song by saying if you know who Rod Carew is, you’ll like the next song – making us old guys feel cool.

After the concert we went to a party and that was fun too.

And if you want to see more, here’s a link to my playlist from the show:
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=24124269A3F88C3F

Halloween was a big day of fun. Everyone got to wear costumes to school. It was an amazingly warm day, which never happens in Minnesota. I am sure that this is the first time it has been above freezing when the girls have been trick or treating here.

We went to a fun pizza party at a neighbor’s house and then everyone took off for the houses. Lily got 125 pieces of candy. I think she’s the only one who counted them all out.

So they were out for about an hour from 6:30 to 7:30. We had trick or treaters to the house pretty much over the same span of time. The last trick or treaters came at 8:30. At 9:00 we turned out the lights.

There were tons of parties going on – but I stayed home and worked. It wasn’t a lot of fun but it was nice to get caught up on a few things. Work has been amazingly busy!

Once again I’ve fallen down on blogging from home. Part of the reason is because it’s just not as exciting to talk about visiting every park in St Paul, which is a lot of what we’ve been doing lately – but I’ll try to come up with a few posts that are more specific.

On Saturday we ended up at the Halloween festivities on Grand Avenue. Those Grand Avenue events are always fun. The kids got their faces painted at Wet Paint, got flowers and candy from Johnsons Flowers and then we headed to Ramsey Junior High. We were just in time for the costume contest and Aine got to spend a lot of time in the bouncy castle. The weather was perfect!

Last Sunday we went to get our pumpkins with Grandpa. We went to Apple Jack’s in Delano. Unfortunately we went on the crappiest day of the year. It actually snowed – not snow that stays on the ground, but cold snow nonetheless.

So we were pretty quick about picking out our pumpkins. We also enjoyed some apple pull-aparts, which are really good. Then we went back to Grandma’s house for lunch.

Sunday night I went to book club. Luckily no one really read the book, so I didn’t have to feel bad. Kate, the host, made a super amazing meal, which ended with homemade bread pudding with caramel.

On Sunday we had a shower for Anita – who is expecting a baby on November 18. It was fun to see my some of cousins for the first time since we’ve been home and it was fun to see Anita’s family. Here are some pictures:

On Saturday night we went to see Tyrone and Ralph at the History Theater with our neighbors Mary Sue and Jim Brooks. It was opening night – so that was fun. It’s the show about the building of the Guthrie Theater; Ralph Rapson was the architect.

So the play was right up Patrick’s alley. Joe Dowling was there and Patrick was able to talk ot him. The show was fun. It might seem as if the topic is pretty specific, but that’s the History Theater. Last year we saw the play on Baron Von Raschke at the History Theater with my family.

I won’t say which show I liked better – they were both fun.

On Sunday we went to the Science Museum; we’re members. We went specifically to learn about lakes because Lily had a test on lakes later in the week. Well, we didn’t know it but the Omni movie was on the Great lakes. So, we went to see it – because as members not only do we get free admission, we get free tickets to the Omni Theater. So you can quiz us on Sturgeon and what they are doing to ensure that their survival in the Great Lakes.

Otherwise we just enjoyed all of our favorite things at the Museum. (Aine is still waiting to see herself on the news – based on the Museum’s newsroom.)

Last night I went to the River Rocks Festival with Anita. The weather was perfect. We got free tickets. The bands were super fun. We saw a crazy woman who tried to tell us that we were standing in her space. I’m not sure that she quite understood the nature of an outdoor concert – but mostly we were glad not to be her.

I took some video mostly of Mike Doughty and Semisonic. I would have taken more but my batteries were running low.

See the other Semisonic videos:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hw9jiBxEJgI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KViD_-SGKGc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5GmQjXJo_oQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fk83MPuCFcg

More Mike Doughty:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tD38veejZuQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jiizzBdKCuM

And one of the McNally Smith bands: