Like Lemmings Off a Cliff?

As odd timing would have it, an old friend of mine, who happens to have been my stalwart companion when it came to city-love and anti-suburbanism back in the day, is also moving to the country this summer. We were the a-holes that used to make fun of people who wear sweatpants to  go shopping, and now we’re both guilty of wearing yoga or pajama pants, which, despite being somewhat more flattering, are still the modern counterpart to sweats. And, despite the millions of times that we smirked sarcastically at what we deemed “suburban” mannerisms, both of us have made a pit stop in the suburbs on our way out to the country. I would like to correct my youthful self right now by noting that neither my recent clothing choices nor my living arrangement actually means that I have, as previously assumed at age 23, “given up.” Therefore I offer this piece of advice to young people: try not to be too snobby in your 20’s, it will probably come back to bite you in the ass later.

 Awhile back I was having a quick conversation with the aforementioned friend about the progress of our moves, and actually used the phrase “like lemmings off the cliff,” as if, in keeping with our old attitudes, we’re moving to the country to die. The ad that Christina Kelly quotes in this post on her blog Fallen Princess also came to mind:

At the entrance to the Holland Tunnel, there was an obnoxious ad for a storage company.  “The suburbs have bigger closets,” it said. “Perfect for you to hide your dreams in.” I was kind of obsessed with the placement. What was the point? Would it be good for business to insult a customer base you have already lost?

The point is that I think that for anyone who has loved the city, and has identified herself (perhaps a little too) strongly with it, there is some angst associated with moving out of it. Unfortunately, though the first two stages of city grief are standard (1. Shock,  2. Pain/guilt), the third embarrassingly immature stage (3. Anger/bargaining) is really about whether or not it’s still possible to be “cool” outside of the city. And, as Ms. Kelly discusses in the post quoted above, does moving out really mean that you have given up on your dreams?

To mostly-get-over phase 3 of city grief I needed only to examine whether or not I was actually living out my dreams in the city; which also requires actually looking at all the drawbacks that one ignores while one is in love. For example, I nearly had an aneurism trying to complete the simple task of picking up a coffee for my brother in Uptown last weekend. The traffic is insane. The parking is atrocious. It is over-crowded and loud and dirty and a general assault on the senses. How could it take over 45 minutes to pick up a cup of coffee in an area of the city that probably has the highest coffee-shop-per-capita in the state?! Ugh. I will not miss that part (though, living there it is much easier because then you walk or bus everywhere. But my point is that it is crowded and overbearing!). You just have to deal with a lot of people on a daily basis, and that can often get stressful: constantly having to explain yourself/your needs, having to be patient with/understanding of other people’s needs. These are things that all human beings have to do, but when you have to do it 10 times as much, it can really wear you down and make you crabby and sometimes even a little less human yourself.

 Also, because of the number of people observing/judging you on a daily basis, you have to put a lot more effort into keeping up your “cool” – whatever contrived/competitive persona you may emit because you have to protect your soft innards from the assault of awareness that happens every day. When I lived in the city, most days I felt sub-par. I felt frumpy. Maybe because I gave up a lot of my contrived persona before I left there (being over 30 and all), but it really did not do wonders for my self-esteem, which really didn’t do much for the whole “following my dreams” bit. The fact that it is possible for me to feel like I look normal (even good!) when I’m in the country really frees up a surprising amount of mental space for other things.

Finally, and this is sort of a mix of my first and second points, the stress was getting to me. When I think of all of the places in the city that I will miss with my whole being: the museums, the music venues, the restaurants, etc., I realize that when I live in the country I will probably go to most of those places as often as I did when I lived in the city. When I’m really honest with myself, I spent most of my time in the city (outside of work): a. drinking, either at bars, at home on the porch with my husband, or at friends houses, or  b. hanging out at parks with my dog.  I wasn’t exactly being the poster girl for following one’s dreams. I was neither actively pursuing writing/art nor working in any focused way on cleaning my life up so I could have a family. I was basically drifting along in the psychic fuzz created by overstimulation.

So, maybe I’m just not that driven variety of person that thrives well in the city. Maybe I’m just not the sexy-shiny type that everyone is trained to want to be. Maybe moving away from the city isn’t so much about giving up, but is rather about letting go. I guess we’ll see. I’m aware that it is just as easy to romanticize the country as it is the city. I know that living there is going to be a lot of work in other ways, and that it will have its own stressors and challenges. I’m just thinking and hoping that it’s possible that the stillness that comes with increased physical space will be exactly what a person like me needs to actually thrive instead of just live.

Farm Update

You may recall, if you have ever read this blog before, that one of my recent-ish posts explained (including helpful flowchart) that Dave & I will be taking over the homestead at my family’s farm pretty soon.  What it did not mention is that my grandma didn’t have an end-of-life plan other than, apparently, dying quietly at home one day while nobody was watching. Since she’s not a farm cat that is sneaking away into a field to die, and her family actually loves her and takes care of her and checks on her, that is not what happened (much to her chagrin – man it’s pesky to have people all “carin’ about you” and stuff!). Anyhow, there have been a lot of arrangements to be made and extensive work to be done. It took about a month to get most of Grandma’s things (items of some use/beauty/value) moved into her apartment. It took another month or so to get her remaining stuff out of the farmhouse. And for the two months we’ve been chipping away at the many, many repairs/renovations that need to happen there before we move in. These include:

• Scraping wallpaper off in 5 rooms (4 rooms done)
• Painting almost the entire interior of the house including all woodwork, most ceilings, and the insides of closets (3 rooms done, 3 rooms to go)
• Pulling up carpet in 3 ½ rooms (done- I pulled up all the carpet in the back of the house myself, and it turns out that’s a real bitch.  But I have to say, I did feel pretty badass wielding my crowbar!)
• Paint & install base shoe around floorboards in all rooms where carpet came out.
• Refinishing hardwood floors in 3 ½ rooms (2 ½ done)
• Installing new (well, gently used) kitchen appliances (we have the stove and fridge, but the electric needs to be redone a bit, so they’re not hooked up. Still need a dishwasher).
• Stripping old-school  linoleum in kitchen
• Wainscoting in ¼ of kitchen
• Re-grouting kitchen tiles
• Having bathtub refinished
• New bathroom cabinet/lighting
• Installing new water-filtration system
• Tearing down all the wood paneling in the basement family room to make way for fixing the foundation

Those are just the items that need to happen in the house before we move in. There is still plenty to do outside as well! Thus far Dave and I have mainly been responsible for most remodeling decisions and my mom and I have been mainly responsible for implementation. David and his brother have been primarily responsible for sanding/re-finishing the wood floors (which has been the project from hell for numerous reasons). Also, my dad nearly killed himself tearing the wood paneling down in the basement. He is on serious restriction for any further work involving his back (well, we try to keep him on restriction, though he raked up yard debris all day on Sunday, which is no picnic for the back). My uncle and dad have been mainly responsible for legal/financial/repair decisions and associated running around.

We’re aiming to move in on or around June 1, so we’ve been busting ass to get things done, while each still maintaining our normal work schedules. That is why we have not seen most of the people we love for several months and why we will not be making any plans to do so in the very near future. Life has been chaotic and we very much miss having any kind of routine and/or fun.  We just have to keep reminding ourselves that this is a finite project and when it’s done we’ll have a beautiful place to live!

Before/After photos forthcoming!

Haute Dish, Minneapolis

My fingers almost froze & broke off trying to take this photo because it is -100 degrees in Mpls. right now. Just kidding. But it feels that way!

The January Ladies Who Brunch was at Haute Dish in Minneapolis’s Warehouse District.

When you walk in the door, it feels like a euro-pub:

Which is O.K., because it kind of is (but in Minnesota)!:

The Ladies waiting at the bar for our table

The large breakfast cocktails that you see in the photo above are mainly “Pacifier: cava, orange, granny, campari.” The list of brunch cocktails was tantalizing. Unfortunately, I was having some stomach issues that day and wasn’t feeling the alcoholic beverages. I tasted a pacifier, though, and found it pretty delish. But the drink that will bring me back for sure is this. Behold!:

Damn skippy that’s a chicken wing on that bloody!

Yeah. That made me sad that I didn’t feel up to the vodka. Though I did come ’round to having my usual mimosa by the time the food arrived. It was good, but nothin’ spectacular. For brunch I ordered the Rueben Benedict: corned beef, charred cabbage, pumpernickel muffin, 1000 island hollandaise:Man, it is really too bad that I wasn’t feeling well for this, because I think that my upset stomach skewed my perception a bit. This was maybe a bit too heavy for an uneasy belly. I should have known; but I’d been looking forward to trying this particular dish for weeks, so I soldiered on. Everything was cooked perfectly. The corned beef was melt-in-your-mouth. BUT, once again…I was wanting a bit more zing. Just a tad more 100o Island in the hollandaise? Maybe more of a sauerkraut feel to the cabbage? I dunno. Apparently I’m big on “zing” lately!

Thanks to the stomach, I didn’t do much tasting this time round, but the blintzes looked pretty!:

I really want to go back to Haute Dish when I’m feeling better. Everything looked really good, and I think my read wasn’t as dynamite as it would have been had I not been nauseous!

Despite it all, though, good times were had with my beloved ladies!:

 

Defining a Good Life: Spirituality, Part 2

Now that I’ve caught up a little on writing about what’s been happening in my life, I want to return to sketching out what this blog is all about: exploring the definition of the good life. The last topic from my clarity page that I started to tackle was spirituality. In the last entry I wrote about what my idea of spirituality is. Now I guess I should think about why I think spirituality is important for living a good life.

This part is, I think, much more straight-forward than part one. Basically, when we practice spirituality it brings our awareness of being part of something greater into focus. It doesn’t matter so much what our practice is. It can be going to religious services, but it can also be hiking, reading inspiring books, breathing, yoga, volunteering, dancing, cooking, meditation, or pretty much anything done with awareness and intention.

 Awareness that we are part of something greater can both inspire us to do more with our lives and to make us realize that our lives are not such a big deal. When I spend time in the presence of greatness; whether it is the awesome greatness of nature, or the greatness of human ability, if I am paying attention there is no way that I won’t be inspired. I am aware in those moments that I am a special piece of all that lives, but I’m also aware that all other living beings are as well. I am both big and small. The more I can be aware in that way, the happier I will be, because all the petty little things that stress me out and piss me off can be put in the context of just being ever more minute details in the span of a large life, and a larger world, and an infinite universe. On the flip side of the coin, awareness of being part of all that exists, and that I am no more or less special or important than anyone else provides greater inspiration to love myself and others. To be kind. To be respectful. To work hard in ways that make the context of my relationship with others and the world a context of love and peace, rather than struggle and stress.

Spirituality is not necessarily about God, or what you think about God or your idea of God. It’s about being a part and how important that is to our happiness and well-being.

“We humans are social beings. For this reason it is hardly surprising that most of our
happiness arises in the context of our relationships with others.”

~Dalai Lama

Random Trip

After all the chaos of our lives for the last three months, we got to go on a trip. The employees of the clinic my husband works for went to a wellness business conference in Las Vegas, and I got to tag along. It hasn’t been financially possible for us to go on a vacation together since our honeymoon five years ago, which was a road trip. We haven’t been on a plane together since we got engaged in the Virgin Islands almost seven years ago. Therefore we were pretty excited about the opportunity to get the heck out of here!

We had fun on the trip, but honestly, Vegas is not so much my kind of town. I don’t like gambling, for one thing. I don’t have the attention span for it. I can’t afford to go to the shows there, or really to take part in any kind of Vegas glam. It is kind of amazing, but it’s the kind of amazing that also grosses me out a little. It is excessive in all possible ways, and I really prefer and support simplicity.

When I go on vacation, I like to have peace; either relaxing on a beach or in a cabin chair, doing some kind of activity in nature, or wandering around museums. Maybe some drinks in a dive bar or a pub, but not epic nights of partying. There’s enough drama in my daily life; I want to go on vacation to get away from it! Vegas is totally overwhelming to me! Also, to top it all off, we were there during a cold snap. The average temperature in January is 58 degrees. It was 35 degrees the entire time we were there. Meh.

Anyhow, despite not really liking Vegas, we did have some good times. We went to a gala at the Voodoo Lounge on top of the Rio hotel:

Had some excellent meals, saw a lot of the cool hotels:

Glass ceiling at the Bellagio.

The Wynn = The Prettiest!

Goofing around at the Wynn

The Luxor was Dave’s favorite.

The Paris as viewed from the Bellagio

(How do you like my big man-hoodie? Comfort, not style, on this trip!)

Once Dave was done with the conference (he really dug the conference!), we had some decent laid back date time. Date time equaled sitting by the gas torches on the outdoor patios at Fat Burger and the PBR Rock Bar drinking beers and people watching. Because I guess, as John Prine & Iris DeMent sang: “We’re not the jet set, we’re the old Chevrolet set!” I leave you with the view from Fat Bar:

2012: The Parts That Didn’t Suck – Foodie Edition

Aside from going to a spat of shows, I also made it to several great restaurants in the last few months of the year. The first one was actually right before the Mike Doughty/Dave Foley Wits show. SSS and I had dinner at The Gray House in Uptown. The décor there is stylish; kind of a combo between bistro and pub, and it is indeed quite gray. However, the dark colors give it a warmth that combines nicely with the minimalist furnishing and lack of decorative pieces. The server was very nice and knowledgeable, though she did disappear for about an hour after dropping off our entrees.

Here’s the cheese “plate.” Gorgeous with some inventive flavor combos:

This is my entree. It was one of the specials that night, and I don’t remember what it was called, but it was bigoli pasta (I think!) with tomatoes, brie, and a sauce that included a drop of chili oil. The server said it was mild, but it was hot for me! The brie saved my mouth. It was good, but probably not something I’d order again.:

 We also split the fingerling potatoes. That’s an egg on top! Mmm…:

In October I went to Blackbird in South Minneapolis with a couple of girlfriends. I didn’t think to take photos, but I just want to say that I LOVE the atmosphere of that place! Eclectic and antiquey, but also somehow modern and light. We had a leisurely brunch, which for me included The Norske Scrambler (scrambled eggs with smoked salmon, dill & creme fraiche) and a mimosa. The scrambler was very high quality food, and it was good, but I did want it to have a little more of some kind of acidic flavor to balance out all the basic flavors in the dish. Maybe more dill? Some other herb or spice? I dunno. Maybe it’s my own fault for ordering a Scandinavian-style dish; they’re not exactly know for their zing! Also, the mimosa was tiny for the cost; Just a champagne flute for $7. Not worth it when they have a great beer list available! Despite the complainy tone of my writing here, I would definitely go back to Blackbird many times (it wasn’t you, Blackbird, it was me!).

After the brunch at Blackbird I had the most obvious but brilliant revelation I’ve had in a long time: Why aren’t we doing brunch every month? My girlfriends and I all need girl time, and we’re ALL foodies. It just makes sense! So, the Ladies Who Brunch group was born. So far, it has been SO FUN to get together and hang out and eat delicious food in different restaurants that we don’t normally go to. It is quickly becoming one of my favorite days every month!

The first place that we went as a group was The Lynn on Bryant, also in South Minneapolis (*all photos from The Lynn were taken by SSS!):

The décor had a very Swedish feel to it: bright and minimalist but with lots of wooden textures.

We had many beverages:

Sampled this wonderful almond creampuff:

Berry stuffed french toast – magnifique!
 Pretty presentation of eggs florentine. Those potato cakes (I had one too!) were perfect – so crisp and salty and lightly herby:
This is my breakfast, softscrambled eggs with ham and goat cheese. The carmelized onions really brightened it up and made it delicious:

The second place that the group went to was Wilde Roast at St. Anthony Main. This place is mildly flamboyant in the style of its namesake (Oscar Wilde); lot’s of velvety and brocade textures and rich dark colors. But it is also cozy and unpretentious somehow. It was nice to look out the window and see the cobblestone street and the snowy trees by the river.

All of the food was excellent. I had the Crab Cake Benedict (Eggs Benedict is my very favorite breakfast. A couple of the girls and I were talking about doing a “tour de Benedict” and just always getting whatever benedict is available and comparing!) with smoked Gouda hash browns. Super-rich, and super-amazing! Also, we split the crème brûlée French toast. Oh my god. Perfection! But so rich that we couldn’t even finish it when splitting it amongst four people, so someone’s kiddo got a nice treat! Finally, there was a nice selection of cocktails, but I went with my usual mimosa. This place knows how to serve one! In a parfait glass with a strawberry. Mmm…

Looking forward to Haute Dish this month!

2012: The parts that didn’t suck – Rock Edition

So my last post was kind of about how hard October – December sucked. BUT! Some really fun things also happened. The first is that I had a little resurgence of my live-music-junkie past. First I went to see my old celebrity boyfriend (circa 9th grade), Evan Dando (The Lemonheads), at First Ave. with my BFF from highschool. The songs are simple, but they will never not pull on my heartstrings. Who can resist “It’s a Shame about Ray?” Also, from what I actually saw of his face (when he didn’t have his hair over it), he hasn’t changed a bit!  :

The Lemonheads were actually the first of two bands we saw that night, and the second one shocked the hell out of me. It was the Psychadelic Furs, and I had no idea that they were such a thing still! As a child of the 90s, not the 80s, I was really only familiar with the songs that had been featured in John Hughes movies. There is no possible way that Hugh Grant has not modeled some of his smarmy-but-awesome dance moves off from lead singer Richard Butler:

That is how this guy actually dances! It is like a parody, but it can’t be because he’s the original! It is EPIC! I was completely tickled; I couldn’t stop giggling and looking around at the enraptured faces of the 40-somethings around me! :

Shaking it for the ladies!

So Many hand motions!

Leaning dreamily

The  next show I went to was Passion Pit at First Ave. with my husband. I think Passion Pit’s music is fun for dancing, but the show was too packed for dancing (sold out), and unlike most of the crowd (who looked to be 15-25), I am too old to jump up and down in one spot in place of dancing for hours at a time. The music is not interesting enough to me to stand still and listen to because it’s pretty lyrically vapid. So I went to the upstairs bar and watched on the screen while drinking giant Red Stripes. My husband, on the other hand, stayed downstairs and bounced to his heart’s content:

Then there was Mike Doughty (celebrity boyfriend in my 20s!) & Dave Foley (who is the wittiest!) on Wits at the Fitzgerald Theater. My old-time partner in crime, SSS, very generously offered me a ticket and we went together and rocked it out. But first, we had to make it through the light-rail construction zone in front of the theater:

This detour sign is pointing the wrong direction!

Here’s Mike with his guitar!:

Listening

Thinking

Responding

Giggling helplessly at Dave Foley (just like we were!):

The final show of 2012 was Mason Jennings, at First Avenue again. Unfortunately, I didn’t manage to grab any good photos of him. Mason is a very important artist in my life because he basically wrote the soundtrack for my relationship with my husband. We were both completely obsessed with his self-titled album and Use Your Voice the first two years we were dating. Then we walked down the aisle to his song “Be Here Now” (which he played that night at First Ave.). We’ve seen him play many times together, but that night my husband had the flu and couldn’t go. I was super-bummed about that. However, I was still with two of my besties from college, and it was a fantastic show.  It was a little more stripped-down than the last few times I saw Jennings.  A lot of it was just him and his guitar, which is what I want to see with a gifted lyricist.

It was so great to be able to spend a lot of time in one of my happiest places in Minneapolis over the last few months of last year. I am definitely planning on keeping it up in 2013. Live music just brings me too much joy to say “I can’t afford it.” I need to make it a priority!