Saturday, May 29, 2010

views from a different coffeeshop

My sons Jon and Tom are currently in England for two weeks of sightseeing. Got an email from Tom yesterday that they had just been to Stonehenge, which he says "rocks!". Good to know.

Here on the domestic front, it's a Saturday morning of a long holiday weekend, the weather perfect. Jerry and I wandered over to the Espresso Royale coffeeshop, which has sort of become our new coffeeshop hangout, just a couple blocks from our condo. Now that spring is here, we are loving our neighborhood, where there is so much variety of downtown life nearby. Tonight we're going to a Minnesota Orchestra concert, Orchestra Hall being just a block away, with our friends Tomoko and Norm, who are visiting from Seattle.

The condo feels more and more like home, a home where we could live for a long time. I hope! I don't need any more years as disruptive as the past one has been.

And I'm feeling more and more like I'm getting back to normal. Whatever normal for me is.

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

dusty, rainy

We're in the new condo finally, even though some of the work by contractors is still being finished. It's hard to keep up with the dust. I'll be so happy when the last one of them is gone and we can give the place a good cleaning.

Meanwhile, around us, it's been raining here for several days. Rainy and chilly. April was way nicer than May has been so far. Earlier this evening, it stopped raining but the skies were still very threatening. I decided to take a chance and walk over to the gym, six blocks away at Target Center. Target Field, the new Twins stadium, is next door to Target Center, and when I came out of the gym, the straggler scalpers were trying to get rid of their last tickets for tonight's Twins game (The game had already started). A scalper talked me into spending eight bucks for a decent ticket, and I thought, what the heck, why not?

So I went to the game, spent nine bucks on a brat and a bottled water, and sat among the huddled masses in their blankets and hooded sweatshirts. The new stadium, everybody agrees, is great. An outdoor baseball game on a beautiful summer will be perfect, but this was not one of those perfect nights. I enjoyed the outdoor-baseball ambience for several innings until my hands got too cold and the White Sox scored five runs in one inning, and I was out of there, walking quickly back to face the dust.

I guess I'm one of those fair-weather Twins fans you hear about. But I do admit, I love having the stadium nearby.