Filed under: Minneapolis
A week or so ago Patrick and I went to see The Secret Fall of Constance Wilde. I loved it! It was very dark – very dark. It’s about the life and times of Oscar Wilde from his wife’s perspective. He did have a wife!
The play went through his rise and fall and kind of followed darkness in Constance’s past that she felt led her to stand by her man. Sarah Agnew played Constance. I’ve always been a fan of her work.
More recently we went to see The Government Inspector. It was very silly. I’ll give that the theater was filled on a Wednesday in July, which is impressive. But to me the show was just silly.
We started the day at the St Paul Farmers’ Market, which is always fun. I had to laugh to myself when we were there as a just thumbed through my friend’s copy of Stuff White People Like and farmers’ markets were pretty high on the list.
After that we had lunch at Bruegger’s. I feel like that too could make the white people list.
Then we headed to a Bastille Day party at the Jeune Lune. I think it was done by the Alliance Francaise; well I hope it was a fundraiser for them. It was super expensive. Unfortunately there also wasn’t a ton of things for the kids to do.
After the event, we headed to Grandma and Grandpa for dinner and a game of Clue. That darned Kate won again!
Filed under: St Paul
The girls and I went to the Dragon Festival at Phelan Park on Saturday. They made dragons out of egg cartons, which they enjoyed. We saw a few martial arts exhibits. It was interesting to see and hear how the roots of what we saw really started with self defense, but the movements have become very fluid and calming. We saw a few dances, mostly Hmong dancer – but I think that was out timing. The costumes were beautiful.
Sadly they had run out of egg rolls been the time we wanted to eat – but the good new is that there were plenty of mini-donuts.
Filed under: Minneapolis
OK maybe we should get season passes to the Walker. We went on Thursday because, well it’s free on Thursday also we wanted to see the Trisha Brown dance.
Sadly they don’t allow cameras but I can tell you what I saw.
The Trisha Brown group was interesting. It was less dance and more performance art. There was a wall with giant peg holes and three performers who slowed climbed around the giant peg board. There was a video behind them mostly of a cityscape – but eventually we saw a baby butt. So that kind of made the show for Aine.
Kate remembered an artwork from last year when we used to frequent the Walker. She has a good memory – but unfortunately one of the security guys told us that that piece was in storage.
Filed under: Minneapolis
On Saturday we got our act together early and we went to the Free First Saturday at the Walker Art Center. The big thrill was creating their prints. They each got cardboard and rubber that they could cut up to paste to the cardboard to use as a printing block. Then a steamroller drove over the paper to create a print. It was cool. The Walker is trying to create 1000 prints over the summer – and now the girls will be part of that big art exhibit.
Another cool thing was the Trisha Brown dancers. We didn’t see much of their show; I’m hoping to go back on Thursday to see more. But we did see one of the dancers walk down the side of the Walker. It was fun to see but he made it look so easy – in a scary way.
We also went to see the Design for the Other 90 percent exhibit, which was really great. I wrote about it in a work blog so I won’t re-write it here.
We had a great day. Then we went to lunch with Aunt Mary and Anita to celebrate Aine’s birthday. The girls were glad to do something so like home. (I know for some people a home cooked would be like home – but restaurants are much homier to us.)
At night Patrick and I went to the Guthrie to see The Secret Fall of Constance Wilde. It was a great show – very somber and dark, just like I like a play!
The 4th of July is always a tricky holiday with kids – you just never know who’s going to be able to stay awake for the fireworks. You spend half of the day hoping everyone makes it and the last two hours praying that everyone falls asleep.
We spend out day at Minnehaha Falls – an offshoot of the Mississippi. We forgot the camera – but we’re bringing it next time. They have fixed up the park a lot. We had lunch at the restaurant in the park then we walked down the creek to the part where we could do wading.
On the way home we stopped in at Wabun Park, where they have built a new wading pool. Next time we head out to Minnehaha we may rent a big bike, ride around, skip the creek and go wading in the new pool.
We did manage to get to the fireworks at night.
Filed under: St Paul
Our very kind neighbors (the Brookses) had a welcome home party for us. It was great to see lots of neighbors. Lily took pictures for me.
Last Saturday Patrick and I went to the Sculpture Garden at the Walker, one of the local art galleries. The Walker is predominantly modern art, which means I love it and Patrick doesn’t. But we both enjoyed the Sculpture Garden, most famous for the Spoon and Cherry.
Over the summer the Walker is also hosting an artist-created, environmentally-themed mini golf course. We got there just as they were closing. The people were funny and said they had decided when we were crossing the street that they would let us play if we asked but that we were the final golfers. So we played the quickest game ever – and tied.
After dinner we had a light dinner at The Heartland, a very nice restaurant close to out house. It was good as always. Their cheese plate is perhaps the best in the city with cheese from – where else – Wisconsin.
Then we headed home – but lucky for me the neighbors were having a gathering in the back yard. So while Patrick went to bed I talked to folks for a while. It was nice to be home.
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