Walking the Streets

I am really enjoying living in uptown.

Take tonight. I got home from work, walked to a friend’s place (4 blocks) and took care of some bid-nass. Then I walked over to the mill(3 blocks) to hang with some peeps and ran into more peeps. It was like a giant Easter marshmellow fest. After, I walked to the grocery store(3 blocks) to buy fixin’s for my infamous Tirima-psuedo. A dessert that is probably the second cousin to tirimasu, and in high demand (I have been told I cannot leave IB unless I finish my documentation and bring tirimasu). Then I walked home(1 block). 11 blocks. In about a mile of walking, I accomplished what would have taken 30 times that of driving from my old place.

I also feel safe walking around. I love night walking, but didn’t do a lot of it in Nort’ Minneapolis. Something about the gunshots and sirens and super high crime rates. But here, I am pretty much guarenteed to be more violently abled than 75% of my surroundings. And I’m a pretty tiny and peaceful person. And people say hello. It’s a foreign concept to much of the Twin Cities. But I was greeted on my walk by many people and a dog (that almost peed on me).

It’s such a diverse area. It’s the place where hipsters and hippies and everything in between are all smooshed into this little 20 block radius and told to play nice.Emma Bull said in War for the Oaks that Uptown was the feet of Minneapolis… where Minneapolis dances. But I would add that Uptown doesn’t just know one dance. It knows many dances, and combines them all into something that is exotic and familiar and absolutely mesmorising to me.

As eluded to earlier, I purchased makings for my tirima-psuedo. As the cashire was checking out my goods (the purchases, not THOSE goods), he commented “you’ll have to invite me over for cheesecake when you’re done.” “Not cheesecake.” “Tirimasu?” “A variation, but yes.” “Is the shortbread soggy?” “Nope. that was the first thing to go.” “How?” “I don’t use shortbread.” “But you have something to replace it.” “Yes.” “Will you tell me?” …and then I told him the secret. The one I spent much time perfecting. He said he would let me know how it worked for him. Then he told me where I could get real Marscapone.

About 4 blocks away.

Critical Review and Other Horrors.

This popped up in my iGoogle this morning:

“In real life, unlike in Shakespeare, the sweetness of the rose depends upon the name it bears. Things are not only what they are. They are, in very important respects, what they seem to be.
  – Hubert H. Humphrey”

Who the hell are you to judge, Hubert? Who are YOU to judge? If we named the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome “Stinksville,” I bet the same number of fans would show.

Speaking of fans and shows, Shakespeare’s Land of the Dead is holding steadily as one of the top fringe shows, which weirds me out a bit, but I’ll take it. Come judge for yourself. U of M Rarig Center Thrust on these dates:

Sat., Aug. 2 @ 1:00 p.m
Sun., Aug. 3 @ 5:30 p.m
Tue., Aug. 5 @ 10:00 p.m
Wed., Aug. 6 @ 7:00 p.m
Sun., Aug. 10 @ 7:00 p.m 

Zombies at 10pm? Holy crap is that going to be awesome. If you can’t make that, consider this post your reminder that we have a show tomorrow at 7pm, which is going to be packed with my friends, which will also be awesome. You know what’s not awesome? This horrible zombie joke I’m going to tell you.

Q: What does a vegetarian zombie eat?


A: GRRRAAAAIIIIIINNNNSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!

The show is better, I promise you. But now I have some “brain food” for you. (why the hell do people let me keep a blog? seriously, you guys. this is ridiculous)

I have medical issues that have taken a lot of research by a lot of people over several years, and is still left unproperly diagnosed. However, they can come to some idea how to treat symptoms and possibly help myself out. I have had several experts tell me that fish and seafood are quite possibly the best things I can do for my body. It has to do with the Omega-3’s. I don’t get it all, but everywhere I turn, I hear “omega 3”. Infact, the best food for me to have is sushi.

Right. I can afford sushi every week. Can I get a prescription for that?

The problem I have with seafood is that I’m pretty picky about my seafood. I hate the “fishy” taste of unfresh fish. Makes me queasy, which kind of defeats the purpose of eating it. And good fish takes a lot of prep. I have little to no time for such tom foolery.

But not all seafood is fish. The other day, I was at a super target (it wore a cape), and I found the holy grail. And sitting right next to it was a 16oz package of peeled, pre-cooked, de-tailed, de-veined shrimp. Now, I love shrimp. I love shrimp more than Bubba Gump. No lie. And shrimp is full of Omega 3’s, and other things my body could really use.

So I have now added shrimp to my regular dietary rotation. Today, I made Linguini Alfredo with Shrimp. It took me 20 minutes, and that was mostly waiting for water to boil. To be fair, Alfredo from a jar (and almost any dairy) probably isn’t good for me. But screw it. It was delicious. And it was a zombie’s dream meal. Brain food and GRRRAAAAIIIIIINNNNSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!

Okay. Stop reading. Go see the show. I’m pretty sure I left all my funny there.

Tags: Grains, Brains, Shrimp, Zombie, Pasta, Alfredo, sushi, Omega+3, Hubert+H+Humphrey, Shakespeare, Shakespeare’s+Land+of+the+Dead, Fringe, Fringe+Festival, Minnesota+Fringe, iGoogle, Rose, name, seafood

Not helpful.

I have two cute kid stories for you… both stories about my own. Because he IS cute, and damned if I’m going to let that kind of opportunity slip by me.

We went to a Baby Shower today. After things wrapped up, it was my little boy playing with the children of one of the hostesses. Since no one else had need of them, the coolers became toys, and water got splashed and ice got thrown.

For those of you who have not met my son, I will tell you right now… sometimes, he is a bit of a pansy. And kind of a cry baby. This is the boy who swore off goldfish crackers for two weeks because he felt guilty for eating them after he had assigned personalities to them and played with them a bit. He was so guilty over this, he cried for about half an hour straight. He is slowly toughening up enough to where he may be able to function in society if he should so choose. But he is still an absolute wimp when it comes to pain.

So my recently turned 8 year old got clocked in the head with a large piece of ice. It hurt. A lot. He cried. A LOT. (Ice is a bitch to get hit with, so I get it. But still) Tears streaming down his face, he comes to me, and I check him for blood and feel to see if any bumps are forming. Not that I expect there to be any but it is reassuring for him. It usually helps when I can do something that should make it all better…

Every parent has this moment. It’s the moment where they feel like they should have their parenting rights taken away. They fight it, but the urge takes overe, and there is nothing to be done…

There we were, my brilliance in tears, me looking for a way to reassure him, me going through the list of things that I could do for my poor child’s bonked but not bleeding, probably-not-even-going-to-get a-bump head, and then I start laughing. I keep going, which doesn’t help. People are looking at me funny, my child’s tears continue, and I am laughing. I sober up enough to offer the one thing I could think to do for a head that had gotten hit by a flying projecile and could possibly cause a bump…

“Jared, *snicker* would you like some ice for your head?”

I really hope I didn’t scar him for life with that. I know the ice didn’t.

Tags: ice, parenting, brilliance, my+son, bump, sensitive, pain, cry+baby, cry

Sometimes I’m Too Smart For Me

It’s true. An example of this would be like if I put tin foil on the bottom of my oven so I could bake a pizza directly on the rack without having to scrub my oven afterwards. So, let’s say I did this. And lets say that I was going to put extra mozzarella on my pizza, cause I love cheese. And let’s say that I put the pizza in the oven before putting the cheese on it. And let’s say I realize it right afterward, so it’s already on the rack…

If I were in this situation, I would pull the rack out a bit so I could put cheese on the pizza. Cause If I can keep from having to figure out how to remove the pizza, the better. See? Thinking. Only I’m not always the most graceful, so I would probably, while sprinkling cheese on my pizza, accidentally get some on the door of the oven, melting and then burning there, negating the fact that I had laid tinfoil along the bottom to keep from having to clean up a huge mess.

I’m not saying that I DID do this… about 5 minutes ago. Just that it’s something I WOULD do.

Tags: pizza, smart, cleaning, oven, cheese