10 Questions About…

It’s catch-up time for the blog. We arrived in Dublin yesterday – but before I post anything on the Dublin trip I am making myself catch up on the last two months of posts. They will probably be brief.

Peeps – we did our traditional Peeps dioramas for Easter. And like last year, I left it too late for us to get into the Pioneer Press Competition. So we weren’t big winner – but it was fun and it was an excuse to eat Peeps earlier. We also took a trip to the Mall of America – where we visited the Peep Store. Well, we didn’t really visit – but we did at least get a picture.

It’s been a funny winter. It’s February 1 with predicted temperatures in the 40’s! I think we’ve had 8 genuinely cold days all winter. So we were glad to get out and enjoy the Winter Carnival Ice Sculptures before they melted.

For readers outside of our area… St Paul has celebrated a winter carnival since 1886. It’s happens over the last week of January and first week of February. It is kind of a fun gage of weather. Like trick or treating, I can always remember the weather for Winter Carnival events. Last year it was cold and snowy. And while this winter has been warm, it was kind of chilly when we were looking at the sculpture – but I think that kept the crowds down – or rather moving. I suspect lots of people came to see the art – but hustled right through and didn’t linger.

We saw a few of the sculptures being made, which is always fun. The range of sawing tools, and melting tools and detailed tools and axes is kind of amazing. The sculptors generally appear to be dressed for the weather – in fact I’d like to know where the get some of that fleece – but it seems that inevitably there’s a time when you have to take off the gloves and use your hands. It’s cold work. But as the pictures demonstrate – it’s worth it. The hard thing is that the sculptures are particularly beautiful in the sun – but harder for me to capture on film.

Oh added extra bonus (for us) this year’s Winter Carnival was the Beer Dabbler – think outdoor wine tasting with great bands – except swap out the wine for beer.

Last year we went to the Red Bull Flutag – and I will give it to those guys – they know how to do it big! This year they have brought the Ice Crash Course to St Paul. The Ice Crash Course is 1300 feet of a downhill ice skating race track. It is hardcore. Aine and I went to check out the course this afternoon. I don’t’ know what I was expecting, but I completely forgot that Red Bull does things big.

The course starts at the Cathedral and winds down across Summit and down towards downtown. It is sheer ice. And it’s very steep in places (both going up and down) and there are a lot of intended bumps. In a million years I can’t understand why anyone would want to skate down it – but I’m now seriously tempted to go back to watch it!

I love TEDx talks. Last week I dragged Lily to her first TEDx talk event at the Minnesota Science Museum. It was actually a Youth TEDx – the speakers seemed to focus their talks to reach younger attendees – although not too much and not too young. Here are my quick notes from the session

AnnMarie Thomas – How are Makers Made?

Thomas spoke about the importance of letting kids disassemble and build things to learn how to design. So much of the focus of education these days seems to be on theory or even moving hands on experience online – when really some kids (future makers) would benefit from a screwdriver and a little benign neglect. I wish Aine had Thomas as a teacher.

Greg Tehven – The Unleanring Curve

Tehven took a year off a successful career at age 25 to find himself. The idea was to take time to focus on today and yourself not just what you do – and that sometimes you learn (or unlearn) the most when you open yourself up to help from others. Kind of a funny presentation since I’d say lots of people in the room were parents – and so by definition we have to work towards the future of our kids. And the kids in the room, almost by definition are working on the future too. Maybe I just wasn’t ripe to hearing about chucking it all in to live for today – although I certainly was up for it when I was 25.

Solome Tibebu – How Anxiety Saved Me

It was very interesting to hear about how Tibebu and her issues with anxiety. I think it was a powerful example for some youth in the room because I think certain ages are more susceptible to being anxious about everyday life. It was interesting to hear how the message in your head (my hands don’t need to get washed again) can be overridden by the message in your body that wants to wash your hands continually. It sounds as if learning the physiological effects of anxiety was beneficial was helpful for the speaker – again a reminder for mentors and kids that just understanding how and why things happen can help take the edge off.

John Turnipseed – Fix the Damn Roof

Turnipseed was the most powerful speaker of the day. He spoke about just how a roof is an essential infrastructure for a house (or building) a father is an essential infrastructure for a family or kids. When your father is absent or as he put it, your father is the boogie man, the kid falls apart. He said he has 30 family members in jail for some degree or murder. He himself has been arrested for 10 adult felonies – but he had been turned around by strangers who showed faith in him. It started when he was young and in jail. Someone in jail was a bodybuilder. Turnipseed asked if he could teach him how to lift weights and the guys said he didn’t work with dummies. Come back when you have your GED. A month later Turnipseed had the GED. There were other mentors along the way – but eventually the right mentor helped Turnipseed turn his life around. His focus was on the power of a trusting stranger and getting the right message. He didn’t remark at the character of someone who grows up without a roof and yet is ever open to receiving a helping hand – but I think that’s important too.

Did you read A Wrinkle in Time as a kid? It’s the best book ever. And it’s really a lot more scifi than I normally like – or have ever liked. I don’t want to blow it for you if you haven’t read it – but the idea is that you can travel through time by folding time as you might fold a table cloth. So if you think of an ant crawling from one end of a table to another – you can picture creating an easy shortcut by folding the tablecloth so that the two ends meet.

Anyways, A Wrinkle in Time was showing at the Children’s Theatre and I saw that tickets were on sale so I got them. Aine and I liked the show – the others are all theater snobs. I was surprised they didn’t like it more. To start, it was all a lot more Dr Who than I remembered. (I am not a Dr Who fan; everyone else in the house is.) The special effects were a little seizure inducing – but I think you have to do something to signify moving through time.

The main character is pretty whiny. I think maybe that cut just a little too close to the bone for our middle schoolers.

So it seems as if we trick or treated about a dozen times this ear. We trick or treated in Highland Village on Saturday, on Grand Ave on Sunday (both involved trick or treating to shops) and then the girls struck out on their own on Halloween.

I’m in the car for a while so finally have some time to catch up on the blog – starting with the super cool Halloween show we saw. It was in Hidden Falls (shores of the Mississippi in a park any Highland Park kid would know). A group called Barebones does a great outdoor show every year. Every year I swear were going to go. This year we did!

To start, the show is outdoors at night. It’s a full performance, puppet, dancer, acrobat show – and the audience moves with the show. An impressive feat considering the huge crowd they got. The show began in waiting room for the afterlife, which was run like an HR meeting. The premise is that a jet from Japan was scheduled to crash, but didn’t. So room in the afterlife has opened for those of us in limbo. So the good news is that we’re headed for some place good; the other news is that we’re headed for a Buddhist afterlife.

Then the book of the dead is stolen – and once that happens we’re stuck in limbo and no one on Earth can die. The visuals were great. Lots of good vs evil type stuff. People on stilts, acrobats hanging from trees, huge structures unfolding and live music. It was a chilly night – but that was OK since we were sitting very close. It was a great show for families – although with the trekking around in the park, I felt bad for folks with strollers.

It’s definitely on my must-do list for next year!

‘nuff said.

Do you remember tubes of plastic you could use to make balloons? They came in primary color and the deal was that you squirt out a blob, put it on the end of a straw and out it up? If you used these you can probably remember the very strong, very toxic smell. It kind of make me light headed just to think about it.

Well we found this for sales in Hamley’s in London and saved it to share with our cousins. They were as much fun as we remembered – in that it’s nearly impossible to blow up the balloons. They are weirdly slimy and sticky and after about 20 minutes you feel a little sick and dizzy.

Just a quick nod to our visit to the food trucks in St Paul. They are there Wednesdays at lunch time. We went with Grandma and Uncle Billy. I love the idea of the food truck. Affordable, fancy-ish food in bite-sized portions.