Filed under: Minneapolis
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.
Filed under: Minneapolis
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.
Filed under: St Paul
The River is as high as I have ever seen it. I tried to take some pictures. I really took pictures for the girls back in Ireland so I took pictures of things that I thought they would recognize. I don’t know that the pictures are super impressive if you don’t know what the River usually looks like in these places. They were expecting near record-breaking heights (or would that be depths) for the River – but the River crested on Wednesday, a foot short of expectations in St Paul.
The amazing thing is that despite the high levels of water there has been little to no damage. Rover Road is closed near both downtowns but we walked by these areas are they seem OK. The bridge in Stillwater was closed the other day.
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- boarding up route to downtown buildings
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- see larger version to see 1965 water mark in distance
OK this is a big long rant – but since I had the platform to say how feel about American Airlines I thought I would use it. (Most regular readers can probably skip it – if anyone with a connection to American Airlines happens to see it, you can know that I will happily pay more to avoid your airlines and I’m very sad that I have two more overseas journeys scheduled with you.)
I left Cabinteely at 6 am on Sunday to go home. When I got to the airport I waited in line for 2 hours because the plane had been delayed for 5 hours. It sure seems as if they could have emailed or texted that info out to people. It sounded as if the plane hadn’t left Chicago so they knew it wasn’t going to arrive in time. (We heard multiple excuses for the delay – starting with maintenance, which is something I hate to hear. If there’s a problem with the plane – please use a more trusted plane!)
Because the flight was delayed I missed my connecting flight from Chicago to Minneapolis. They could find me a flight to St Louis – but I had to point out that wasn’t very helpful since I was going to the other Saint city. I did get an 8 euro credit at the restaurant. A breakfast is 9 euros – it’s that kind of attention to detail that really puts American Airlines on the map. Luckily for me I had plenty of euros and dollars – but the plane was 90 percent Americans. I suspect many of them left the last of their euros at the pub the night before! What I didn’t have was an adapter. I had calculated that with 7 hours on my laptop battery that I should be OK to leave the adapter behind for the kids (with my Irish cell phone). So I had a computer for half of the day.
Also American Airlines flies small planes overseas. They are turbulent and no private computers/TVs in the backs of the seats ahead of you. For folks who don’t travel overseas often this may sound petty – but it makes a long journey to try to watch a tiny TV from the window seat 8 rows back.
So you’re probably think getting from Chicago to Minneapolis would be pretty easy. That’s what I figured. What are there – 40 flights a day?! Nope. They could get me nothing. I am still in Chicago. (I left Cabinteely 27 hours ago.) I have a flight at 11 am. That’s 7 hours from now.
But the worst of it is how absolutely rude the American Airlines staff were. The folks in Dublin were just unhelpful and unapologetic. The flight attendants were fine – but I had a little room for them since I assume they were on overtime. (Of course they were being paid to be on the plane while the rest of us paid top dollar for the pleasure – but still I only saw one rude comment from a flight attendant. So that’s not too bad.)
The clincher really is that they made me line up *again* to get a standby ticket from Chicago – but they wouldn’t put me on standby. They would only book a ticket for the next day. So I have to line up in Dublin and Chicago for the same thing?! And the guy at the counter could not have been meaner. In fairness, I know I got the meanest guy. One of his coworkers moved the barrier ropes – and he started yelling at those of us in line for doing it! (Whacko!) Then when she admitted to doing it – no apology to us. He started by yelling at me for being in the airport on the wrong day. Remember – I’ve just arrived from Dublin. I pointed out that he was looking at my return info. (No apology.) Then he snaps at me because I have no ticket. The Dublin folks said to get one in Chicago. Finally he realizes that my problem was that the plane was delayed – I have not done anything. But still no apology, and no helpfulness. So then I kind of lost it, which always helps but I hate to fly and now I have to do it all over again in 7 hours.
Do you think American Airlines looks for the mean people or trains them for the wining American Airlines spirit?
Luckily Katie was able to get me and I am staying at her house. So it was a fun bonus to see the Lynchs – but I had 3 meetings scheduled tomorrow morning which I may or may not be able to reschedule. (That’s’ assuming I am able to get to home tomorrow.)
Filed under: St Paul
Christmas seemed even more hectic than usual in many ways. The storm of the century was predicted days before Christmas, which actually closed a number of places and caused the Chicago to leave a day early. Turned out, we did get a foot of snow between December 23 and Christmas. It was pretty! Some of our regularly planned activities did go on as usual…
Big Christmas Party
We had our annual Christmas party the Sunday before Christmas. Patrick’s stew was a big hit. We had a bunch of new people come – like some high school friends of mine who I were delighted to see. The nicest thing was that we had the basement set up for kids so the house felt a lot less crowded – and a ton quieter.
Cinderella at the Children’s Theatre
We saw our annual show at the Children’s Theatre with all of the Treacy’s. This year it was a Cinderella pantomime. It was very funny. Most of us loved the step-sisters, Pearl and Dorkus. Aine and Bridie loved Cinderella.
Presents
Another big highlight was opening presents! It was definitely an electronic year for us. Partially that’s what everyone wanted; partially that’s usually easy to pack for a 6-month stint in Ireland.
Filed under: St Paul
So I work with a fun company (Learning ZoneXPress) that does nutritional curriculum, games, posters and stuff for schools. They have a great series of foodscape cards, posters, stuffed animals… Foodscapes are animals and other things created from fruit and vegetables.
Anyways, LZE has started to post ingredients for Foodscapes! So we took on the challenge and create our own cauliflower and broccoli sheep. Ours do not look as good as the originals – but I have to say that Aine ate the rest of the broccoli over the next two days so maybe we’re going to start making more foodscapes.
Here are our creations!
Filed under: Minneapolis
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
Filed under: St Paul
The girls were worried that we wouldn’t see any snow before we left for Ireland. That would not have made me sad – but in the end we did get snow. All told we’ll have almost a month of snow before we go back to Dublin.
The girls built a kind of fort in the front yard. And we spent a good day sledding in Grandma’s backyard. Unfortunately, Lily had a little run in with a bush. We’re hoping it won’t leave any scars.
Filed under: St Paul
Lily has been taking trombone for two years now. I voted for the flute – or anything else that’s easier to carry but Lily wanted the trombone. She has been great about practicing and I was really proud of how well she’s been playing. Actually the whole band concert was very good.
The video is a little shaky – I hired a videographer who would be able to sneak into the front row – but the sound is good.
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whtOWjUHxD0]
Filed under: St Paul
On December 5 we took a tiny trip to the Grand Meander – specifically we went to see the penguin. I love that Grand Ave has events like that – and it’s so close we can walk.
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