Filed under: St Paul
So one of the things I missed most when we were in Ireland was the Roller Girl bouts. So last Saturday night we all went. We went with Anita and Uncle Billy.
The Roller Girls skate in the Roy Wilkins. It’s flat-tracked roller derby, which I think has to be a lot harder than a banked track.
Here’s the scoop on the bouts. Usually there are 2 bouts a night (well game night). Two teams play each bout. There are four 20-minute periods. The teams that skate first also skate third. There are several jams in each period. A jam is a scoring opportunity and it lasts 2 minutes or until the lead jammer calls time.
So each team has a jammer, pivots and blockers. Only the jammer can score. The object of the bout is to get your team jammer out ahead of the other team and each time the jammer laps the rest of the group, the team scores.
OK, I don’t really know the nuances – but that’s about it. You can bump and block out other skaters. The skating this time was markedly better than when we left and that blocks looked super painful.
We caught some of the match on video.
Filed under: St Paul
Sunday the girls and I went shopping with Grandpa at Rosedale. Mostly we tried to get out of Patrick’s way so that he could work on his PhD. I’ll be glad when he gets that done. (It’s not for a while.)
We had a nice dinner at some place with a revolving door – that was kind of the highlihgt for the kids.
Filed under: St Paul
Saturday night Patrick and I went to Forepaugh’s – they recently updated the whole place. It will always be the sort of place that Patrick likes more than I do – but it was very nice. We started with bacon-wrapped shrimp – so how can you go wrong.
After that we went to a show called Hot Ink at the MN Museum of American Art in St Paul. It was all comic books and graphic novels. I thought it was cool. Two of the artists were older than me, otherwise it seems as if they were all born in 1985. So not only is it fun to see the art form but it’s fun to get a feel for what people who are (slightly) younger are thinking about the world.
Lily got a “how to draw cartoons” book out of the library last week so I thought she would enjoy this and the themes weren’t too adult. We’ll see how long the show is there.
Filed under: Minneapolis
So how does a mom make it up to 3 girls when she has been gone for work all week? Well by waiting in line for an hour to go into the new American Girl Doll Store for the MOA Grand Opening. We were in the shop about half the time we spent waiting in line.
The cookie shop from the MOA gave out cookies in line so that took the edge off –a nd was such a good marketing move! The people in line were in a good modd and the line was ever-growing so we were always ahead of soemone, which makes it easier.
We didn’t buy anything. I’m prety sure we were the only ones who went through who didn’t buy. I do have some dieas for Christmas but we knew going in that we weren’t going to buy.
The shop is not as big as the one in Chicago but it was nice. After the tour we went to lunch at the Twin City Grill and that’s always fun.
Filed under: Minnesota
I have started a fun project with Extension Services and the NWAF. They are doing poverty reduction programs in various communities throughout Minnesota. Part of the program is to get community members to blog about their experience and progress.
I get to train the bloggers and offered technical assistance. So Grandpa and I hit the road last week so that I coidl do train 3 night in arow. The people are great and it is fun to see different parts of Minnesota – more fun when you are traveling with somoene – but it is tiring!
Filed under: Minneapolis
Sunday night Patrick and I went to see Shadowlands at the Guthrie. It’s a biogrpahy of CS Lewis, who wrote the Narnia series. It’s about how he met his wife and their short life together – I won’t go into the details and ruin the surprise for anyone who was thinking about going.
It was good maybe a little long, but good). It’s a tear-jerker – although I was too tough to cry. But the story is good and the stage was amazing!
Filed under: St Paul
- st martin day
On Sunday we went to a St Martin’s Day festival at the Landmark. It’s a German festival. We made lumiere-type lights and then walked around Rice Park. It was beautiful, but cold.
St Martin (not the real one) showed up on a horse. Most of the significance was lost on us – but we had some excellent struedel.
Filed under: St Paul
On Friday night we went to a party for Failte Minnesota at the Ford Union Hall in St Paul. My only wish was that there had been more people. The last time (the other time) I was at the Union hall was for a wedding and this felt like a wedding too – in a good way.
The food was great. The beer was cheap. The music was fun. They got people out on the floor to do a haymaker’s jig. Aine signed up right away – she was the only one from our family to sign up. Luckily she’s not shy and the dancers all helped her along. Naturally her partner ended up being a grandpa-age guy who was well over 6 feet tall.
There was a quiz on Ireland and it was tough – but Patrick got the most answers. Shocker! He was not the only Irish person there but he knows a lot. He got 4 wrong out of 20 or so, which meant he guessed wrong each time he guessed – because he knew the rest.
On Saturday night we had two of the event planners over for dinner – Mary Sue and Jim Brooks. It was fun to hear their perspective – but really I thought they had done a great job.
Filed under: Minneapolis
Once again I’ve fallen way behind on the blog – that’s because I have been on the road for almost two weeks for work. But to catch you up on our fun since the Election…
We went to the Wild Rumpus to see some band that sang about Harry Potter. They were the pre-teen heart throbs of Hogsworth. Actually they were pretty good but the girls weren’t super interested because there are so many more interesting 4-legged creatures to see at the Wild rumpus. Aine chased the big chicken. Everyone was interested in the chinchillas – who smelled, A LOT!
We couldn’t see the mice under the boards but I’m sure they were still there. And there was a lizard that looked like a 2-headed lizard. I don’t think it was but that’s what it looked like. We tried to take a picture but it never really came out.
I have to say that the Wild Rumpus is a cool shop – it’s in Linden Hills, which always seems so hard to get to – but worth the trip.
Filed under: St Paul
So we had the Election on Tuesday. It took me 15 minutes to vote – There was a line and that’s unusual in my neighborhood but 15 minutes isn’t bad. If I had waited until 10:00 I think I could have walked right through.
Throughout the campaign we had no phone calls and no door knockers contact us about the Election – until the last 48 hours. Then we had several door knockers, all for Obama.
The girls and I went to Grandma and Grandpa’s for the results. We started watching at 6:00, which is when the polls our East close. It looked like a close race for the first 2 hours. We got some emails from Ireland, which was fun. You kind of forget that people are watching from afar.
Nothing had been decided when I took off with Kathleen and Sheila to the DFL headquarters downtown. First it was fun to go with Kathleen who knows everyone. I knew a few online reporters but she knew everyone. Second it was fun to be with a big group when they called the winner.
One funny thing – the kids did nothing related to the Election at school. No mock debates, no mock votes. They were told that votes were secret, which I guess is true. I hope that the older kids did something. I’ll have to ask a babysitter. I think they missed an opportunity – but then my own alma mater made the same mistake on a much larger level.
10 Questions About... 