End of Summer

You know summer is coming to an end when the state fair begins. In fact we are already half way through it. I haven't been in a few years and I don't plan to go this year...maybe next year. I'm just not feeling the pull of the chocolate dipped jalapeno peppers or deep fried apple pie. Most of the summer long music events in downtown like Tuesday's 9 Nights of Music, Thursday nights at the Ordway or Music at Mears have come to an end and well, I feel pretty stuffed with all the summer fun. The weather has changed into far more moderate temperatures and I'm trying to get out in nature as much as possible before winter arrives. On the river downtown, besides the usual working barges, pleasure boats continue to cruise the river and will do so well into the fall. Even if you don't have a boat it's a good time to be out near the river and you don't have to go very far upstream to feel the wilderness of the river and see wildlife. Crosby Farm & Hidden Falls Regional Parks and Snelling State Park all are excellent quick escapes from the urban thing. I've been at Snelling twice in the last two weeks and both times have spotted bald eagles on the river banks. I shouldn't be surprised. Bald eagles can sometimes be spotted drifting on the air currents around the highrises in downtown. We are fortunate to have one of the larger populations of eagles in this part of the U.S. Try the three mile hike around Pike Island at Snelling. The bench where the Mississippi and the Minnesota Rivers converge is a beautiful spot to sit and look downstream, watch the few folks fishing there and perhaps see some of the wildlife that lives on the river.

View from Harriett Island

A week ago Sunday I walked across the Wabasha Bridge to the Irish Fair at Harriett Island. The backdrop of the city along the river on a blue sky day is a spectacular setting for any event. There was the usual assortment of food and drink vendors, arts and crafts displays, Irish dancers with curly haired wigs, and musicians at multiple stages singing Irish tunes. One tent had a dog exhibition going on that included terriers, water spaniels (looks like a poodle, don't call it that to the owner) and of course the Irish wolfhound ....the big big dog that hunted the wolf to extinction in Ireland so many years ago. My building has a 30 lb dog limit and it might be hard to sneak it in without neighbors noticing. Even though in terms of population the German and Scandinavian ancestry wins out, St Paul feels like it has a large Irish community especially with in your face landmarks like the Cathedral....and of course the pubs. The newest pub in downtown won't be Irish however. The Amsterdam Bar and Hall is due to open this September in the old Pop/Fhima restaurant spot. Can they break the curse of that location? I think so if they just give people what they want which is basically interesting beer choices. A week ago the Mayor's office gave an open to the public speech at the Amsterdam location about the coming year's budget. I stopped by to mainly see the construction progress of the space. I was greeted with a copy of the menu and a coupon for a free Broodje (little Dutch sandwich). I didn't stay for the Mayor's speech (too many folks in suits and the construction odor was unpleasant), but I will be back when they open in September to collect my Broodje. When I think about Dutch food I think herring and Belgian style fries. Those are on the menu, but Loempia, the little Indonesian spring roll is on the menu too. Now I'm excited. I remember "Lumpia" from my time living in San Francisco when a Filipino coworker brought them to potlucks. I dreamed about those for years but can't remember now why they are different from any other crispy fried spring roll. Guess I will find out in September.

Tracks Arrive in Downtown

At the August Downtown Council's monthly happy hour someone asked if I owned a car. Some years ago after moving to downtown from the suburbs I gave up my car in an attempt to go car-less. I gave my aging Toyota away to an organization on Como Avenue that teaches auto skills to youth. I thought that sounded like a good idea. After my donation I took the bus back to downtown. At first I did all my errands in downtown, but eventually I expanded my walking range up to Grand Avenue walking all the way to the Grandview for an occasional movie and Mississippi Market for groceries. I occasionally rented a car when I really needed one. During that time I lost 10 lbs from all the walking I did. Taking the bus to the Mall of America, downtown Minneapolis and the airport.....all easy, but getting around to other places in and outside of the Twin Cities can be difficult. My experiment without a car lasted less than a year before I bought another one. While I like having access to my car, I use it less and walking is still a huge part of my lifestyle of living in an urban environment. About a month ago on an evening walk, I spotted the light rail crew bringing in one of the first rails to be placed on 4th street. It seemed like a low-tech operation. The rail was slowly dragged on rollers set up in the street. I was surprised how the block long piece of metal curved to make the bend around Kellogg Avenue. Now when you walk down 4th Street, tracks are in various stages of being embedded into the newly prepared street. Closer to downtown the space left after the demolition of the buildings at Cedar and 5th Street, you can see the metal posts that have been driven into the ground showing the curving path that the train will take from Cedar Avenue to 4th Street. The work to reconnect the skyway at Cedar and 5th is in progress too. That link is scheduled to be back in place by November.....an important section to getting to the library before the winter weather gets serious. I don't know how I will use the light rail system in the future. Next year downtown should have a green bike station courtesy of Nice Ride MN....maybe I will bike to the U of M and return via the light rail. All these new options make going car-less ever more possible in the future.

Hot Afternoon

Yesterday the Lowertown Roots Music Festival began with Mariachi Flor y Canto at one in the afternoon. The temperature and humidity was fierce but folks with lawn chairs in hand began to filter into Mears Park in spite of it. Several songs into their set they began to sing La Cigarra a song that sounds like it should be about smoking cigars, but is really about the cicada, the grasshopper with the unusually long life and known for the sound that the male makes when it beats its belly like a drum. I first heard La Cigarra on Linda Ronstadt's 1987 album of mariachi music dedicated to the Mexican heritage of her father. I remember hearing her sing that song and others with Mariachi Vargas on one of the morning shows when the album debuted....and I've loved it ever since. Flor y Canto did an impressive rendering of La Cigarra....and they sang it in the hot sun decked out in traditional mariachi suits. That means long skirts and jackets for the three women singer/violinists and full suits for the 3 guitarists and 2 trumpet players. At one point the lead singer complained about her attire and the polyester fabric of her costume. I wanted to shout out "summer weight wool will breathe honey"......maybe I'll post something on their facebook wall. The afternoon continued with a variety of roots traditions like gospel and bluegrass, but I left the park and didn't return until headliner Greg Brown took the stage at eight. It was still warm out and there must have been close to a thousand folks in the park by then. I'm not very familiar with his music but I had the feeling that most of the fans in the audience had heard him sing songs about flying his freak flag and fat boy blues before. He didn't seem like he had a weight issue and I thought he looked pretty trim in his cool wifebeater shirt. The evening ended a few minutes early when the festival organizers warned the audience of approaching thunderstorms to the north. The fans did not want to leave until Greg played one more song and he agreed. Warning sirens went off about twenty minutes later and finally lightning arrived to end what was a great beginning for the first annual Lowertown Roots Music Festival.

Mrs Peabody Nearly Melts

Mrs. Peabody who had nearly melted away yesterday is beginning to recover nicely thank you. I won't go into all the statics associated with our recent heat wave like dew point, heat indexes, record breaking stuff and all that. It is enough to just record it as hot and set it in your mind so that you can retell it in twenty years. But that is over now and downtown residents can actually walk outside. Children can play once again outside. Not only that but ovens can be used. The faint smell of warm chocolate chip cookies wafting through the breeze up to my balcony as I sat outside enjoying my third cup of coffee tells me that things are back to normal. Praise the whatever that our collective misery has passed.

Littering Butts???

Someone is a little pissy about the cigarette butt litter on our downtown streets. I noticed this stenciled sidewalk graffiti by the Union Depot several weeks ago and now there are several more around town. This one is labeled 1.1 so maybe others are 1.2 and so forth. I was contemplating the cigarette butt issue myself about a month ago as I was entering a door on Minnesota Street leading to the skyway. There are always folks smoking there since we turned them out of buildings a few years ago. There is no receptacle there for butts and I doubt that many smokers feel compelled to hang on to it until one can be found. Some businesses put out containers and I wonder if their outside areas are a little cleaner. One winter at this same skyway entrance I came across someone urinating on the sidewalk where I wanted to walk. As I recall I made somewhat of a negative comment to the gentleman and he responded "well....ah, you're fat". I guess he told me. Perhaps this downtown artist whom I shall call "The Squirrel" also does not want to risk direct confrontation by the offending butts in town.

Summer Read

Marcie Johnson, the conscience of Peppermint Patty sits quietly reading in Rice Park while her other friends like Charlie Brown, Linus, Lucy, and Schroeder strike playful poses in nearby Landmark Park. It seems fitting that Marcie should be located nearer to the downtown Central Library just across the street. The downtown library is one of our great assets and an easy way to find that great summer read. A few weeks ago I began to contemplate (again) that I should read some of those books that "the experts" say I should. I could call it my book bucket list....and so I hit the fiction section under A's and B's. A for Austen and Pride and Prejudice and B for Buck and The Good Earth. I finished The Good Earth easily and treated myself to The Lovely Bones by Sebold before beginning my first Jane Austen novel. I have to admit I'm struggling a bit and maybe I'll just pop in the movie....I think I can get that at the library too. I'll take the 6 part mini series staring Colin Firth. Sometimes we forget that the library is not really free. We pay for it in our property tax so you pay whether or not you use their services. This week I brought home a selection of magazines too....got to get my money's worth. I picked out an assortment of 2011 issues of The Atlantic, The New Republic, Smithsonian, Bon Appetit and Rolling Stone. I can get tips on baking best-ever brownies while trying to understand an article on democracy and why the world is becoming less free.