Mice

Yes, mice.

Sigh.

So... quite awhile ago our neighbors spilled a bag of birdseed in the basement, and didn't get it cleaned up until recently. I had told them the extremely abbreviated version of the Mouse Wars horror stories, but I must not have been convincing enough, because the birdseed, and the mice whose tails I would see darting away from it when I went down there to do laundry, stuck around. I figured the first floor was a barrier between us and the vermin, and that the neighbors would get serious when they were invaded.

Apparently that happened sometime last week, and I feel both sad for them and a bit distraught that they were providing the mouse buffet for so long.

Anyway, yesterday, the invaders made it to our floor, apparently via the radiator pipes. David saw one, and went to the hardware store for steel wool and expanding foam. Although our current place is far better sealed than the last one, it is still a century old, and it looks like the mice were using those radiator pipes as their private heated highways, entering through the gap in the hardwood floor. (Also! I just remembered what David told me yesterday: that when our neighbor saw where the mice were entering the basement, he mixed up cement to seal up the hole. The mice tunneled through the wet cement. They are a surprisingly formidable enemy, for one so small, incompetent, and incontinent.)

So. David plugged up the holes. (The Small Dog was also very interested in the expanding foam; his sniffing around resulted in a little moustache that appears to be semi-permanent.)

But then, last night, I saw a fat little mouse running along the living room wall by the radiator. I shrieked, and may have continued shrieking each time the mouse moved, as David (drawn by the noise) and I stalked it as it ran to the other radiator before disappearing behind the fridge.

I ended up staying up really late as I prepared for today's first day of classes, and as I sat alone in the otherwise silent house, I could hear mouse-y scratchings behind me in the darkness. It finally appeared again, returning to the radiator and those newly-sealed pipes before running under a chair. I opened the front door, hoping to shoo it out, but it disappeared. I tried again when the mouse reemerged (all the while, maintaining what I considered an admirable silence!), but it disappeared into the office. Unable to find it, I--resignedly but determinedly--walked down to the basement and retrieved my store of mouse traps.

I set one with peanut butter, left it just outside the office, and headed to bed, leaving David a warning note. He reported this morning that the trap had its intended effect; the fact that I didn't have to witness it or bear away the results is just one more reason I love that man.

There have been no sightings today, and we're crossing our fingers that the one we saw was just a lone individual who had the misfortune of being on the wrong side (our side) of the new seals. Yeah. Fingers crossed.

On a happier note, it has been ridiculously warm here recently; today was sunny and nearly 50°! I ran errands on my bicycle this afternoon, and it was euphoric.

Also, this is Disaster Kitchen post #777--auspicious!

Crema

A few weeks ago, David and a friend and I biked to a cafe about a mile and a half from our house, called Crema. We had brunch on their uber-charming patio, and then, because it was so irresistible, we had some homemade ice cream from their impressive display. Since then, David and I have been back there twice for frozen treats.

Tonight, we stopped in after dinner at the Minnow. We shared a triple scoop(!): strawberry basil sorbet, topped, at the scooper's recommendation, with banana ice cream and pineapple mango basil sorbet. It was amazing. I'm not a huge banana fan, but the ice cream tasted like banana bread batter smells--buttery and creamy and delicious. The pineapple mango chaser had just the right amount of fruity tang--plus the clean, herby hint of basil.

"This place is as good as the Patisserie!" I gushed.
"It's better," David said.
"Better?" I asked.
"It's not in Walla Walla!"

When I recovered from laughing, I said, "I would blog that--but half the people who read my blog live in Walla Walla!"

David didn't care, and here I've gone and blogged it. Walla Walla people, I love you! I love your patisserie! And when you come visit me here in Mpls, I'll take you to Crema and you can judge its wonders for yourself!

Tuesday

Perfect Summer Tuesday Date Night:
Thanks to David for the pictures, off his phone!

1. Ride the Greenway to the Longfellow Grill for sweet potato fries and an apéritif

Longfellow

2. Bike to the Birchwood Cafe for dinner (black bean quinoa burger) and dessert (cornmeal cobbler with peaches and berries)

Bike bridge at sunset

3. Bike to B & E's to pick up this week's CSA share (eggs, Romaine, and strawberries!)

On the Greenway

First carrot!

4. Ride home, admire the garden, and eat the season's first dragon carrot!

Summer Weekends

Arnold Palmers--the drink of summer!

David at Old Arizona

Me at Old Arizona

Northern Spark
Last weekend was the Northern Spark Festival, a dusk-to-dawn celebration of art held at various locations around the Cities. It was also unbelievably gorgeous, with cloudless skies and temps in the lower 80s. David and I biked to one of our favorite patios (Old Arizona) for dinner, then to another favorite patio (Black Forest) a few blocks away to meet up with a friend and plan our festival approach.

Plotting our festival course

The three of us biked downtown, arriving at the Stone Arch Bridge in time for the opening festivities. Minneapolitans love their summer and their summer festivals, and everything we visited--outdoor installations, interactive pieces, performances, galleries, and more--was extremely well-attended.

We headed for home around 1:00 a.m., after the line to a piece we'd hoped to see downtown was too long to be borne in our exhausted state, but things appeared to still be hopping. We only made it to a fraction of the venues, but what we saw was very engaging, made even better by the shared experience of seeing it against the background of the city, shared with such a large community.

On the Stone Arch Bridge

Crowds at the opening ceremony

City lights reflected in the Mississippi

Open Streets

Pedestrian bridge on the just-established River Lake Greenway

This weekend was another inaugural festival, the Open Streets "ciclovía" on 20 blocks of Lyndale Avenue. For four hours, between 10:00 and 2:00, those two miles were blocked to automobile traffic and opened to throngs of bikers, skaters, and walkers--in surprisingly large crowds, especially as today was quite cool and overcast.

My new T-shirt

Along that stretch, restaurants, boutiques, and cafes opened their doors and set up sidewalk displays and there were performances by musicians and artists. There were also booths and games by various groups, including a reverse race (who could go most slowly without putting a foot down) and homemade ice cream (churned by pedal power on the back of a bike riding the strip!) by our beloved Nice Ride.

David by the rolling bandstand

For such a simple concept, it was almost unbelievably fun. Hipsters, dirty hippies, young families, seniors on cruisers, and everything in between swarmed the streets together, mingling happily with the officers who guarded the

At the southern end of the strip

intersections. We saw a chain of six recumbent bikes, linked to each other and peddling happily along like a many-wheeled caterpillar, and two bikes pulling a platform with a band performing live music--a piano, drums, and bass! Getting to ride along such a fun part of the city, without having to dodge cars, and surrounded by so many fellow citizens and bikers, filled me with so much happiness that I may have gotten a wee bit teary.

Hydrant drinking fountain

As I told David, it was two of the things I enjoy most about running marathons--getting to see the city from the unusual and intriguing viewpoint of the street, and the sense of shared community--but without the pain of actually having to run.


























Pictures from yesterday (which was sunnier and warmer!)

Brunch at the Aster Cafe (patio!)

David and his bike at the downtown farmers' market post-brunch

Snapping the city skyline on the ride home

Heading home after an evening ride

DST

So Daylight Savings Time isn't all bad.

I had time before my usual 8am Sunday hot yoga to put together my sister's amazing cherry peach bread pudding so that it was ready when I got back. David and I had gone to the 9:40 showing of Get Low at the Riverview last night (which I thought was quite good), so the extra hour of sleep was decidedly welcome (as was the sunshine).

Of course, the fact that it was pretty much entirely dark here by 5:00 is a bummer. But before darkness fell, David and I made the most of an unseasonably warm day by packing a picnic and Nice Ride-ing around town. The Nice Rides go away for winter at 10pm tonight, so we tried to hit as many stops as we could today as a sort of last hurrah. We ate our sandwiches in the warm sunshine in Gold Medal Park, where we could hear the roar of the dome a few blocks away as the Vikings tied, and then in overtime won, their game.

Certainly gaining an hour in the fall is nicer than losing one in the spring, but overall I don't care for it. The evenings were already feeling long and dark, and although more daylight in the morning is nice, the whole thing mostly just feels like the knell of impending, interminable winter. (Which, I do realize, sounds somewhat ironic given today's jauntings about in the 65° sunshine, of which we've enjoyed an unseasonable amount already this autumn.)

At least I don't have kids to worry about! Good luck to those of you who have to deal with their schedules!

Montréal

So I'm in Montréal this week, where tomorrow, if all goes as planned, I'll get to experience the two artworks I've been trying to see for more than a year! I got here Monday evening, and took today to explore part of the city.

I did a 15-mile training run on Saturday, and rode Urban Assault the next day, so I was already pretty sore before I decided to hoof it around town. I started out (after a walk to the studio where I have my appointment tomorrow) with a climb up Mont Royal, the highest point in the city and conveniently located in its own massive park across from my hotel. If I'd been smart enough to stay on the nicely graveled trails, it would have been a slightly longer, but certainly less strenuous hike; instead, I somehow ended up scrambling straight up a good chunk of the wooded hillside, on "trails" that petered out into nothing but rocks and mud. I was both a sweaty mess, and terribly relieved, when I hit the proper path again near the summit, and stayed on it for the rest of my time in the park.

I ended up going down the opposite side of the mountain, heading through downtown and touring the Musée des Beaux-Arts on my way back to my hotel. I have lots of pictures that I'll try to share here (though sadly I can't get them to upload on David's little lappy). I also have lots of Urban Assault pix, which those of you on Facebook may already have discovered, but at the moment I am thoroughly exhausted. I don't know how many miles I walked and hiked today, but it felt considerable on my sore legs and feet.

Tomorrow's the big day for seeing the artwork, so I'm off to bed!

Flugtag!

This year, St. Paul was one of the four locations for Red Bull's annual Flugtag event, in which contestants compete in teams to launch the farthest-flying, most creative, human-powered flying machine, with the greatest amount of showmanship. Several months ago when David found out it was coming to our neighborhood, we thought it would be pretty great to go watch it.

At brunch with my running buddy and her partner after our 13.1 mile run Saturday morning, the four of us debated whether or not to go. David and I had thought until a few days beforehand that it would be held at Lake Harriet, an easy bike ride from home, before discovering that it was actually at Harriet Island--a doable, but much longer, bike ride. Oops.

However, our friends had information that a mutual friend, house-sitting his mom's condo for the weekend, was having a little Flugtag party, from a deck in direct view of the Flugtag action. We decided to drag our tired selves over there to join the fun for a couple of hours.

I'm glad we went! Traffic on the way over was horrifying (the Twin Cities have been shutting down stretches of both freeways many weekends this summer for construction, packing already overcrowded surface streets), and parking was even worse, but our friend's location really was great, with a view of the ramp from which the crafts launched over (and into!) the Mississippi and the crowds on the island behind them.

We missed the first few flights, and most of us were, tragically, in the condo kitchen when a huge roar went up from the crowd for the tenth team in line. When we piled onto the deck to see what had happened, we saw a fantastic-looking WWII bomber-style glider in the Mississippi, with its pilot triumphantly paddling his arms out the side. It turned out to be the world record setting craft, trouncing the previous record (set in Austria in 1995) of 195 feet (and the U.S. record, set in Nashville, with a flying banjo, of only 155 feet), with a 207 foot flight!

This three-minute video of the highlights is great if you have the time; otherwise, you must check out the video below of the record-setter, with volume if at all possible: the announcer's unabashed and delighted hooting is my favorite part. Just before the video cuts to the crowd at about 15', you can see, at the left edge of the frame, the condos from which we were watching.

Mumsie & Dad's Visit

Guys, I am ridiculously behind. My parents were out here nearly a month ago and I still haven't posted about our adventures.

Here are a few highlights of the long weekend:

• The superfantastic salads Mom and I ate at the French Meadow after I picked her up from the airport on Friday and our subsequent drive around the Chain of Lakes
  
• The unbelievable storm Friday night that sent torrents of thigh-deep water rushing through the street along the south side of my block--which, naturally, David and I decided to go run through. There was totally an impromptu neighborhood block party, with people taking pictures, helping push out stalled cars, and dodging trashcans swept up by the current.
• Dad joining my running buddy and me on the first four miles of our nine-mile run (he did two more and met us back at home)
• Visiting Minnehaha Falls and exploring new hiking trails (some of them unfortunately a bit soggy from the previous day's storm)
  
• Watching the USA-Ghana game at Pancho Villa (where Dad insisted on cheering for Ghana! I was disappointed with the outcome, but admit that it was quite the entertaining match)
  
• Dinner at Loring Pasta Bar to celebrate Mom's birthday--with a balcony table that afforded fantastic views of the restaurant and kitchen
• Five-course Sunday brunch at the historic Nicollet Island Inn to celebrate Mom and Dad's birthdays
• Explorations of old Saint Anthony Main, the Stone Arch Bridge, Mill Ruins Park, and the Guthrie Theater
• Downtown St. Paul, their side of the river, and milkshakes and fries at Mickey's Diner
  
• Riding brand new Nice Ride bikes around the lakes and to the Walker Sculpture Garden
  
• Walking around Loring Park and downtown in absolutely stunning weather (and the urchin who befriended Mom as she walked around the gardens)
  
• Touring the Minneapolis Institute of Arts
  

Thankfully David snapped quite a few shots with his camera phone, as I only remembered to take the proper camera a few times. You can view the entire gallery, with captions, here.

Chicago

This weekend, I was in Chicago and Urbana-Champaign. I presented at a conference that I had signed up for primarily in the interest in having my department reimburse me for visiting Ellen, and which I had been cursing over the past few weeks for causing me to write, and then completely re-write, a paper that would figure little in my actual dissertation.

However, to my great surprise, the conference ended up being the best I've ever attended--despite the fact that the organizers' laptop wouldn't read my DVD and I had to show the clip on a television cart, and that they had no way for me to advance my own slides, so I had to indicate each of my approximately 45 slide changes to the guy running the laptop. The organizers were helpful and friendly, the presenters gave interesting papers and asked smart questions, and there was even a nice lunch on Friday. It was great.

On Saturday afternoon Ellen and I rode bikes, hiked, explored one of UIUC's fantastic round barns, and later made delicious Indian food. Sunday we took the bus into Chicago and spent the afternoon there before I caught my MegaBus back to Mpls (one of those overnight affairs, made more delightful by an entirely sold-out bus). I am back home exhausted from a weekend that was full, exhausting, and completely worth it.

All the outdoor photos are courtesy of Ellen (as were the bike I rode and the jacket and helmet I wore).

Saints and Song

Here, at Ellen's request, is a picture of her posing on her bike in my living room when she visited a few summers ago. I like the way the lamp makes a halo behind her head and her pose makes her look like a saint: Ellen, Patron Saint of Indoor Bikers. A few more pictures from the trip are here.

Yesterday, I sang karaoke for the very first time! It surprises even me that it had taken me this long, since those of you who know me at all know how prone I am to song. I was pretty nervous, but did have fun and was assured afterward that it was great. I think I'll try it again!

David, though, stole the show. He was the second-to-last act of the night, and went up not even knowing what his song was, after friends sneaked his name in. He totally rocked "The Joker," and impressed everyone. Awwwww.

Confessions

Today I rode to school for the first time since September. And that was the first time I'd ridden anywhere since I got back to Minneapolis after the summer! David has biked more than me, since he rides around the lakes while I run around them. It's embarrassing.

I'm embarrassed.

Another confession: my pad thai was definitely less-than-mindblowing on Sunday night. I overcooked the noodles, so they were mushy, and then over-sauced the whole thing, so it was too salty. Go ye therefore and avoid these mistakes.

Another one: today I went to save the document of ramblings wherein I finally put in my first 15 minutes, and discovered I didn't even have a folder entitled "Dissertation." It's my fourth year of the PhD program. This confirms my general feeling of failure.

Again: tonight instead of going to the program at the art museum that I'd had on my calendar for weeks, I wimped out and made potato pizza and fancy salads and we stayed in and watched The Brothers Bloom on Netflix.

Another: I just remembered that I was supposed to do a bunch of preliminary reading for tomorrow's symposium. The presenters are famous and I'm pretty excited about the whole thing... but I probably won't do the reading.

Since I'm on a roll: recently I have a fear that I'm consistently making grammatical and stylistic errors in my writing, as though I've lost the ability to copy-edit my own stuff. It's alarming.

And, as you already know, I had, accidentally, already screwed up NaBloPoMo by only the SEVENTH DAY of the month.

There it is.

UAR x2

Because I am a sucker for punishment, today, exactly one week before the Twin Cities Marathon, I rode in my second Urban Assault Ride. Last year, my partner and I had both been doing a respectable amount of biking (it helped that I'd actually been using my bike as my primary means of transportation, whereas recently I've become woefully spoiled by David's car!), but this year neither of us had really biked at all all summer.

Still, we had a great time (though I'm rather tender, and will doubtless be all sorts of sore tomorrow), and made it to all but one of our check-points (an improvement over last year!). Unfortunately, like last year, I did run into some mechanical troubles. It wasn't a spike through the tire, thankfully, but I did manage to bend my front fender when I stopped suddenly and caught it on my foot. That caused it to rub on the tire, which meant it felt like I was gently braking for most of our ride out(/uphill) to REI. Thankfully, on the way back I found a gas station garage that let me borrow their pliers so that I could remove and toss the offending fender, and had a much more pleasant ride thereafter.

This year, whether because the course was arranged better, because we'd actually completed the quiz and ended up in the first wave, or because the check-points were better equipped to handle large numbers of people, we spent hardly any time waiting in line for the activities (which included a toss/catch game involving wet sponges and a laundry basket that rested on one partner's shoulders [with a hole for the head!] and the "plunger paddle" where both partners sat on a longboard and paddled to stations using a toilet plunger).

Afterward, David and I went to a gamelan concert in St. Paul and then to Pancho Villa with my UAR teammate for burritos.

Oh, also! For the race, we made shirts. I couldn't find a "Ciao Ciao" graphic online, so I recreated one using the classic Coke logo. I thought they turned out really well. We're working our way up slowly; next year we'll make all the checkpoints and wear all-out costumes!

David's pictures (plus some of my partner's) are here:

Roadtrip I

So I'm in Walla Walla! David and I arrived Tuesday night, and I'm settling in nicely. Heather has even offered me a bike for the summer, and once I've picked that up I'll feel even more at home.

Friday night, David and I uploaded the 2400 pictures we'd taken on the trip, and although Paul and Ter saw all of them (we set Picasa's slideshow timer to one second per image, and even so it took close to an hour to get through all of them--and P&T deserve medals!), I'm trying to be more selective about what I post here.

To start off, here are the shots we took between Portland and Boise, beginning on Friday afternoon when we skipped out from the conference a bit early after I'd given my paper. Saturday we did the PSU farmers' market, hung out with friends at Mount Tabor and Joseph Wood Hill parks, and celebrated the news about my fellowship. Sunday we spent some time with David's cousins before heading up to Seattle, where we hung out and ate dinner with The Rockstar. Monday, after spending the night with April and Chris, we took the ferry to Seattle, where we met up with Dee, shopped a bit, and got to see The Rockstar again at his day job. Tuesday, after a run, breakfast, and coffee with April, David and I crossed the pass and made it to Hermiston in time to meet the family for dinner. Wednesday morning, after a wonderful but too-short visit there, we stopped in Walla Walla for an even shorter lunch visit (where I met The Peanut for the first time!), and then had dinner with Jan, Dennis, and Maddy before stopping for the night in Boise with David's cousin.

Here are the pictures (click here for larger versions and to leave comments):


More to come (eventually)!

Firsts

A few firsts for today, in order of occurrence:

• Running to and around both lakes and back with A, during which we averaged a spectacular* 8:30 pace over 9.43 miles!
• Noticing that Band-Aid now embosses their boxes with braille
  
• Watching Doubt at the Riverview (pretty good, very well-acted, and definitely thought- and conversation-provoking)
• Carrying half a dozen local organic eggs (safely) home from the co-op on my bike, three in each jacket pocket

Not a first: being so exhausted after a morning long run that I vaguely hurt all over and sort of want to cry, not from pain or emotion, but from tiredness.

I still have six finals to grade. Back to it.

*This is relative, of course, but for me that pace is definitely spectacular.

Revisited

This past week has been a little nuts.

Wednesday, I gave a two-hour lecture on Picasso to the prints class for which I've been TAing this semester. (My friends at school said, "What do you know about Picasso?" The answer is, before prepping this lecture, basically nothing--especially about his prints. Now, after a whole lot of reading and PowerPointing, I know a little bit.)

Monday, I had to submit material to the dissertation workshop that met today, so I wrote a draft of my Portland presentation.

Today, in addition to presenting at workshop, I also had to return the 65 3-5 page papers my students had turned in two weeks ago, but which I hadn't really touched before the past few days because I'd been preparing that Picasso lecture.

They take their final exams next Wednesday, and I'll have 65 of those to grade in a single week, because I'm flying to Portland the next Thursday.

But, before then, I have a week of relative relaxation to make up for last week's craziness. I thus have time to catch you up on last week, which in addition to crazy lecture prep, writing, and grading, involved a VISIT! From David!

Wednesday after I picked him up at the airport we went to the Mall of America, ended up having the picnic I'd packed on the seventh floor of the West parking garage (my favorite place in the MOA, returned to school for my lecture, and then ate with my neighbors at Pancho Villa. Thursday, we had even warmer and more gorgeous weather, so we took the bus downtown, wandered Nicollet Mall and the farmers' market, explored Mill Ruins park, and enjoyed an appetizer outside at Spoon River before meeting a friend at a theater downtown for the live broadcast of This American Life. Friday, we went for a run around the lakes, biked to the Walker sculpture garden and back, caught a film at the historic Riverview, and had a lovely dinner at Jasmine 26. Saturday, we met friends for brunch, ate tamales at the Midtown Global exchange and poked through the booths, took the Greenway to the river and discovered a trail I'd never noticed before that goes clear down to the water, and then attended a friend's birthday party. Sunday, David had to fly home, but we got brunch at the Bad Waitress and still managed to get him on his plane in time (if only barely!).

You'll notice (especially those of you who have had the tour!) that I definitely have my favorites when it comes to showing people around town. It's slightly different without a car; whereas I took Paul and Ter and Ellen, on their respective visits, to my favorite Indian restaurant in the suburbs, that wasn't on the itinerary this time around. However, we were able to bus and bike pretty much everywhere else with ease--and the carless tour does present a unique way to see the city!

I had to work slightly more than I would have liked to, but David was a good sport and even helped me assemble and format the slide list for the final exam. I didn't do any of my own writing or grade any papers, which sort of caught up with me after he left, but now I'm caught up and won't be deluged again until next Wednesday! That's plenty of time to revise the Portland paper and pack for that trip.

If you're interested in pix from the visit, David has posted the highlights here:

On Spring Biking

Ride to school in the snow; arrive damp and muddy.

Ride home from school in the wind; arrive sweating and weeping because a spring gale is both warming everything up and whipping debris (liberated from the snow that has been collecting and covering it all winter) into my eyes.

Ahhhh, April.

In any case, thank goodness we're done with March for another year. I think things are on the upswing!

Things That Are Awesome V

Things That Are Awesome (Spring Edition):

• Warm weather! Monday it was 67° and I ran in shorts. It was especially awesome because it was a full 70 degrees warmer than it had been the previous Wednesday (on which I refused to bike to school, because subzero biking is one thing in January or February, and another thing altogether in March).
• Warm weather biking. It is so much easier to bike when you're not fighting snow, ice, a bitter wind, and/or your appendages freezing off. In the past week I've been early to two events because I had underestimated how long it would take me to bike there. It just feels so easy.
  
• New earrings. Does anybody recognize these? I'm just curious. Although they're huge, they're so light and delicate that I can hardly feel them.
  
• Spring break. I only have to be on campus for class one day a week, so having the week off school wasn't a huge change (though the break in University e-mails and related random events was awfully nice). The best part has been socializing with people from the department: two happy hours, one Soup Night, and a brunch, so far. One of the happy hours was even outside! Having a spring break that actually feels like spring rules.
• Being spoiled. Because I was so stressed about the applications, papers, and grading I have to get done, David surprised me by booking and treating me to an aromatherapy massage at this fabulous converted mansion in my neighborhood. It was 90 minutes of wonderful, and left me feeling amazing. Oh, and as if that weren't enough, just after I got back home, UPS delivered this from him, which made me laugh out loud (note the card):

Yep. So far, spring has me feeling so good that I kind of don't even care about the mice anymore ('caught the third one a couple days ago). Even billing my landlord seems like too much trouble, when the sun is shining (and your comments to that post were awesome, by the way!). Life is good.

Mail!

It's been like Christmas around the 'Kitchen lately! Yesterday, my Christmas present from Ellen arrived. The packaging was beautiful, of course:

And what was inside was even better:

That's right, it's a scrolling LED sign with a pin on the back! She said she was hoping it would arrive in time for my Milwaukee conference, but I reminded her that it might be even more appropriate for my Pop Culture conference next month. I'd show it to you with something actually on the screen, but the batteries appear to be dead and I'm having trouble getting the back off to replace them.

Then today UPS delivered the brand new U2 album, which a little bird (David) had sent because they're my favorite band of all time. Awwww:

And finally, just when you'd think it couldn't get any better, the US mail delivered a huge fuchsia bubble mailer from Teri, containing this awesome T-shirt from their favorite gelateria in San Francisco:

Vuoi means "do you want to"; guess what cucchiaio means!

Finally, lest you think I'm the luckiest girl in the world, here is a picture of my bruised left hip, courtesy of my most recent biking misadventure:

The quarter was Ellen's idea, to demonstrate scale. So I'm clearly not quite the luckiest--but definitely feel very loved.

Overwriting

Today a friend and I went to Maria's Cafe for brunch, where I had a delicious chocolate chip/strawberry pancake and too much coffee. The waiter, who had said, when I initially ordered two pancakes, "You know they're as big as the plate, right?" also pointed out, when he delivered the one I did order, that it had originally had a smiley face, and showed me where the chocolatey eyes had been.

Maria's is on Franklin just a block or so up from where I wiped out on Friday. The roads are thankfully much clearer, and I got there and back without incident. My left hip has developed quite an impressive lump, and is currently mottled shades of blue and purple, but what's even weirder is that my left shoulder--the back of my deltoid, I think--has knotted all up; I seem to have pulled something as I went down. Still: I've had an amazing winter biking run, all told, and intend to continue, albeit with renewed caution.

I hadn't been down Franklin in a couple of days, and to Maria's for a couple of years. But the inimitable Miss Mandy has got me thinking about the idea of overwriting old/unpleasant/outdated memories, and I think the idea has promise.

And here are a few pictures from the weekend (alas, none of my pancake)--black beans and rice, sun on snow, and window ice: