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As if Uncrustables weren't bad enough....

Blimps are Still Awesome!

Craft Sunday :: Volume 2 & McCarren Pool

Yesterday my friends and I had our second installment of Craft Sunday. I decided that our craft of the day would be to make dream catchers. The prep was pretty easy (the supplies can get pricey - but you'll have leftovers), and the craft itself was good for all levels.

Colleen telling us how she once tickled a llama with a peacock feather while at marine biology camp.

Colleen was the star of the day - her precise knitting fingers definitely gave her an advantage. However, the great thing about dream catchers is that they look awesome even if you don't do everything perfectly so really everyone left with a really awesome hippie craft.

After 4 hours of booze, bagels, cupcakes and cookies we decided to go to the last concert ever at McCarren Pool. I guess the city is turning it back into a public pool next year. Yo La Tengo was playing so the line to get into the concert was completely insane and wrapped around the park.

Somehow Jane got a secret password from a friend and so we went to the VIP entrance and told the guard "We are here for the naked dodgeball." and all 8 of us slipped right in.

Minnesota :: Thursday

Ah, Minnesota. It's a wonderful state. I flew into Minneapolis late Wednesday night and spent Thursday and Friday in the Twin Cities. On Saturday my sister and I drove up to Duluth, MN and communed with nature for a couple days. Then it was back to St. Paul Sunday night and I shipped off early Monday morning. Here are some highlights from my trip...I wish I was still there!

On Thursday and Friday I drove my sister to work at the University of Minnesota and then afterwards I would get an iced coffee. It was awesome cause it was cold pressed.

On Thursday I went to the American-Swedish Institute. There was an exhibit of all the Queen's ball gowns, which was kind of fun. It wasn't a mind blowing museum, but still neat.

The coolest thing was that the museum was a former residence and there were 11 porcelain stoves in the mansion that had been ordered from Sweden. I would love to have just one!

At the musuem I picked up some Swedish treats. I grew up eating Swedish pancakes - my next door neighbor's family is Swedish and whenever I would sleepover his house his mom would make them for us in the morning. And then I got this Swedish facial soap that is made with egg whites. I have been looking for something to spruce up my skin, but I hate chemical stuff from the drug store so I decided to give this soap a whirl. So far I love it.

Later in the day I went back to Como Park while I waited for Jaime to get off work. I got a little artsy.

I discovered empty snail shells all along the bank of the pond. At first it was cool....

...then I felt them crunching under my feet like the cockroaches in Indiana Jones and I got really freaked out and got the hell out of there.

Jaime and I went to Stella's Fish Cafe for dinner and it was awesome. We ate crab dip and coconut shrimp till we were bloated and had to roll to the car.

Afterwards we took a walk in the park and a weird girl told us to look at the moon. Glad we did because it looked really cool.

Minnesota :: Friday

Friday I dropped Jaime off at work and went back to Como Park, but this time I went to the Conservatory and to the Zoo. Both are free to enter, which is amazing and a big change from NYC.

The Conservatory is kind of like the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. I loved walking around.

The Zoo was sad. I hate zoos and I should have listened to my gut and not gone in there. I do not believe in capturing wild animals to cage them up in unnatural settings in order for people to go and gawk at them. It makes me really sad - even "good" zoos (nature reserves and animal rehabilitation centers are fine though). The Como Zoo was fine, but there is definitely not enough space to keep gorillas, giraffes, zebras, lions, tigers.... seeing a giant male gorilla spacing out on the cement floor of a glassed in cage breaks my heart. It has nothing to do with whether or not the people running the zoo love the animals/take good care of them - it's just not fair to lock wild animals up like that.

Anyway, the Conservatory was great.

Nice use of succulents:

For the evening I decided we were going to go to Nye's Polonaise per the request of my friend, Colleen, who made me promise we would go. The front room is a slightly dive-y, but awesome, bar. It is here where you can dance to the music of The World's Most Dangerous Polka Band. No joke. They might be old, but they will play the hokey poky for all the youngsters.

When Jaime's friend/internmate, Lindsay, showed up we went into the formal dining room. This is where the late-night magic happens. It is very 70's and reminded me of the restaurant in Fast Times at Ridgemont High. The food is Polish - and not like the Polish food I get in Greenpoint. This is very heavy on the gravy. We ate like our lives depended on it.

There is also karaoke. An old lady plays the piano a la Billy Joel and sings along to every song. There is no television - instead you read the lyrics from a sheet of paper while sitting at the piano bar. It's pretty freaking great. We were too busy eating massive amounts of gravy to make it up to the bar. There is also a man (not shown) in the corner that I am positive must sit there every single night - he looks very pissed off most of the time, but he will mouth the words to every single song. The only performance we saw him applaud was of 2 girls singing "I Will Survive". Go fig.

This was a very enjoyable night and I demand that anyone visiting Minneapolis must go to Nye's Polonaise. Just don't order the spinach dip - my sister and I will eat just about anything - especially dips - and this thing was sick.