Stories

"Forty-three years old, and the war occurred half a lifetime ago, and yet the remembering makes it now. And sometimes remembering will lead to a story, which makes it forever. That's what stories are for. Stories are for joining the past to the future. Stories are for those late hours in the night when you can't remember how you got from where you were to where you are. Stories are for eternity, when memory is erased, when there is nothing to remember except the story." ---Tim O'Brien, The Things They Carried

I like to think that that is why I write what I do.

PRIDE and 3 good things

It's PRIDE in Minneapolis. I miss my boys that have all moved away to the bigger and bolder cities of Minneapolis. I wait for the year that they are all back in town and we can do up this weekend like we used to. Until then I celebrate without them but in honor of them. And in honor of choice, individuality, friendship and love.

I went to pride today with my beau and his girls. That was fun. We wound up in my usual spot on the same block as Rock Bottom Brewery. I have friends that I see once a year at that same location, a friend's parents come prepared with Bloody Mary's and we have a gay old time. Pun intended.

3 Good Things about Pride
1. The gay families that march in the parade. I get all misty eyed every time. Everyone deserves to be loved. No ifs, ands, or buts. There are people walking with signs that say "I'm proud of my lesbian daughter." and "I love my gay dad." Just makes my heart smile.
2. The people watching. There are some outrageous outfits, some shirts that should have stayed on the hanger, some skin that should be covered. But that is one reason this weekend rocks, you can go out like that because there is always someone dressed more worse than you.
3. I really think this is a weekend full of love. You see it in all forms, holding hands, kisses, hugs, laughter. We truly do live it up right. We eat, drink, and be merry.

A reason to celebrate June 21st

I have rarely celebrated Father's Day. My dad hasn't been around to do so. No need for sympathy, I don't feel bad for myself. I have had great role models in my life to stand in as a father figure. And I feel blessed that they were and still are there.

But this year, I had a reason to celebrate. I'm dating a father and he's so good at it. He loves his girls so much and it makes me fall for him even more. He's caring and compassionate. He'll sit and talk with the older daughter, just talk. And she shares things that are important to her with him. She confides in him and he holds her words carefully within. Their level of trust is so lovely to watch. And the little one, he takes her in his arms and she snuggles into his shoulder with a sigh of comfort. He rocks her to sleep and you can tell he doesn't really want to put her down. She'll dance in her car seat and he watches in the review mirror with a sense of wonder.

For this Father's Day he and I took his girls out in the canoe and paddled through the lakes. We stopped at Hidden Beach and went swimming and got some ice cream from the ice cream man. It was peaceful, calming and fun to just be with him and the girls, the whole reason we were celebrating that day. He was so grateful for the day, the gifts, just to be with his girls. He's a good daddy and those little chicas are proof of his love.

I'll take two tickets to paradise please.

This is surely added to the list of places I have to go before I die. But before that however, is the lottery I must win in order to go to said places. Ahhh well, a girl can dream.

Click here, it's AMAZING!!

a more mellow post

So after my rock star weekend, here are my more mellow 3 Good Things on this HOT Tuesday.

1. My beau's apartment and his AC. And even more than that, he welcomes me in with open arms and a smile. Literally.
2. Homemade chicken soup for dinner. De-lish!
3. The fact that I have tomorrow off! I'm not in need of a day off which makes the fact that I have one that much better! I can choose to be lazy or to be a productive member of society for a few hours at least.

Have a wonderful evening and stay cool! Here's to a fantastic thunderstorm tonight!

We became ROCK STARS this weekend!

It started on Friday afternoon with a goodbye happy hour for a friend from work who is moving back to his homeland of Portland, OR. We had a few beers and good greasy food at Liquor Lyle's. Seriously, I love living across the street from that bar. A total hole-in-the-wall with a great look to it. Not to mention 2 for 1's 3 times a day, pool, darts, a jukebox where if I yell "Someone play some music!" a few minutes later someone is picking out songs. After Lyle's we went downtown to Peavey Plaza for a free concert from a local band called the Hopefuls. My mom used to take me down to Peavey all the time when I was little and I would dance with no shame. Just like I did on Friday. My friends and I danced like our life depended on it. With a stop across the street at Brit's for a beer in between sets. That was my Friday.

Saturday came with an early sunrise and my beau and I had no idea what it had in store for us. My BFF Ryan was in town for the birth of niece/nephew #4 and we had brunch plans at The Egg and I. My BFF and my beau got to meet, which meant a lot to me. All went well. My beau is quite good at just enjoying a moment. So he sat and listened and laughed while Ryan and I got caught up. It was so good to see Ryan, with him living in NYC our time together is limited. But fabulous nonetheless.

And this is where it gets good. My beau and I didn't know what to do after brunch, we had the whole day ahead of us. So Liquor Lyle's it was until we could think of something else. And yes, it was 2 for 1's. SCORE!

Well let me lay out the rest of our day for you.

GARAGE SALES WE STOPPED AT
2 and we would have gone to more except those 2 totally killed my buzz so we made a different plan.

BARS WE HAD A DRINK IN
1. Lyle's
2. Old Chicago (we're trying to do their World Beer Tour)
3. William's Pub
4. Stella's (on the roof top no less!)
5. Cowboy Slim's (yes, that bar I fell in last summer.)

BARS WE WENT IN BUT DIDN'T CONSUME ANY BEVERAGES
1. Famous Dave's (used the potty and took a spin on the dance floor)
2. Cafeteria (a new bar in Calhoun Square. There was a line out the door to get into the elevator to get up onto the rooftop. Ummmm no thanks. I however did climb out the huge window to leave rather than fight my way through the crowd of the newest place in town.)

ITEMS WE PURCHASED ON A WHIM
1. A dress that looks so fantastic on me! And guess who picked it out? My beau. It hangs in all the right places.
2. And a leather coat for my beau. And 7 brand leather coat. For $20 at that! And he looks goooooood in it!

ROCK CONCERTS WE SNUCK INTO
1. Rock the Garden! Yep, we are that awesome! I live a few blocks away from The Sculpture Garden, it had been going on for a few hours, people were starting to leave, and we thought "Lets try and get in." So I just asked people leaving if we could have their bracelets. "Sure" was their response. Two free entrance bracelets, 2 beers at $4 a pop and front row at the end of a rock show sounds like a stellar time to me! And whats better?! We chatted with security, a few of The Current's DJs, took a stroll through backstage just to see if we could. And we did. We got free beer and free food from the vendors afterward just by being brave enough to go ask.



WEDDINGS WE CRASHED
Only one. And when I say crashed I mean we were walking by Suburban World Theatre in Uptown, was told there was a wedding inside, almost continued on our way, but were encouraged by guests standing outside to go in and grab a beer. So we did. We had a beer, danced through a few songs, wished the bride a congratulations, signed the guest book (and I believe I signed something like "Awesome music + good beer + wonderful friends + a happy couple = Happily Ever After. Signed The Wedding Crashers." and i could be paraphrasing here. We didn't want to wear out our welcome so after that we left.

And we made it home thanks to the bus. Another great thing about our rock star weekend? No hangover! The next day was Father's Day. That was so great it deserves another post.

But my 3 Good Things ain't got nothing on this weekend! It was all AWESOME!

Day 3 of 3 good things

In keeping with my promise to myself, today's 3 good things.

1. Target's digital photo printing capabilities. While I have joined the digital camera world, I have yet to develop any of the pictures I've taken. But I needed some photos developed and Target's whole digital kit and caboodle was awesome. So easy, fun, and quick! Not to mention cheap! I'm going to do that more often.

2. Left-overs. I've had left-overs my whole life. And I actually like the first meal re-heated. Today I had the stir-fry my beau and I made last night. And it was just as tasty as it was last night with our boxed wine. I didn't need to buy anything to fill me up at lunch time today.

3. My cat. I used to say that that when you come home dogs are like "OHMYGOD!! I FORGOT HOW MUCH I LOVE YOU! LOVEYOULOVEYOULOVEYOU!" and cats are all "Bitch, you woke me up." But my cat greets me at the door when I come home. Yes, he drives me nuts when he has what some NM friends called "the heebie jeebies" where he just runs and jumps all over things. But mostly he's a sweet cat and it's nice to get the head bump and rub when I pick him up and say hello.

3 Good Things, day 2

Today's 3 good things

1. COFFEE! I went to a wedding on Sunday and didn't get outlandish drunk but certainly haven't caught up on sleep since then. So my coffee this morning, after working over 3 hours of my shift first, was heaven. I did learn at one point to drink my coffee before I go to work, but apparently I didn't learn it well enough. I choose to sleep a few more minutes than drink my coffee. Well, that and I don't have any in the house at the moment.

2. I have a fabulous new piece working in my head, that has the possibility to get published locally. This stems from last night when my beau and I went to Liquor Lyle's, we frequent that bar a lot. And we were chatting with the bouncer who has gotten to know us and were informed it's against the rules to dance in that bar. UMMMM EXCUSE ME?! That has to be a joke. Nope, totally serious. So this piece is on how absolutely ridiculous that idea is.

3. THE SUN IS SHINNING! I like the rain and all, but Christ, that was becoming uncalled for. And Mother Nature had better keep her rain drops in their holding cells through the weekend. My beau and I have plans to enjoy the canoe and the lakes again.

3 Good Things, revised

I was going over my past blogs and was reminded of my "3 good things a day" posts. (You can check out my bitterness, my old posts from a different time and my old 3 good things a day posts here.) When I was living in NM I was very unhappy and had decided to force myself to find 3 good things a day to write about and take joy in.

I don't need to do that now. My life is happy. But I also haven't been writing. Like nothing. I am too busy living my life to write about it. So I'm reverting back to my ways from the desert. But for very different reasons.
1. To get myself to write again.
2. Because one can never have too many good things
3. Because I want to be able to look back and see how great this time was.

So my 3 good things for today, in pictures no less.

This guy. My beau. Us. I have never felt so at ease, comfortable, cared for, wanted, admired, beautiful, hilarious and simply happy in a relationship. We click.


This is a Lotus Flower that I pulled off of a Lily Pad whilst canoeing with the fella above. Flowers are good thing number 2. There are funny looking people, ugly animals, bad architecture, some things you just don't want to look at. But flowers are always pretty.



I took this as we floated through a sea of Lily Pads. It was just so calm and serene. Good thing number 3, how calm I feel, inside. And how I can find that calmness looking out at the rest of the world.

That kind of work, not my thing

Yes, I serve coffee and manage others who serve coffee for a living, but man alive, am I glad I get to leave my work at my job! We belly laugh every day at my job, we people watch, we chat with our cool regulars, we share things about our lives and get advice from each other. It really is a great work environment.

But today this woman.... she irritated me today so badly I almost wanted to slap some sense into her. Literally slap her.
1. I was on a phone call when she rudely interrupted me.
2. She comes up to me and complains about the lack of outlets in our cafe while I'm on the phone. (In her defense, we have no outlets in our cafe like most coffee shops do. But A. not my fault and B. when we were made into a book store from being a bank, sitting in a coffee shop wasn't the IN thing to do, outlets weren't a necessity.)
3. She insisted on asking 4 other people where she could plug-in, like the first person who answered was lying to her. We all gave her the same answer "Over there, under the windows."
4. She kept saying we were a Starbucks. WE'RE NOT A STARBUCKS!!
5. When I got off the phone call, I found her and tried to reasonably explain what I was trying to tell her all the while trying to have my phone conversation too.
6. She wouldn't listen and kept saying she was working, lost important documents and crucial emails.

DUDE, if you're working, maybe you should be at work!!!

Now, I know there are many possibilities here. She did have an accent, European something, (I was to ticked off to really take notice), so she could have been working while here on vacation. Wow, does that suck. When I'm on vacation, I don't work. Period. I'll take a phone call if someone has a question, but work is work and doesn't join me on my non-work days. She could be here from her European home for work. But then shouldn't she be at a desk with her American-based workers doing the stuff she came here for? She could be playing hookey from the office, but if that's the case, why is she working at all?!

My point here is not to bitch about this stupid-I'm-not-listening-to-the-woman-who-works-here lady but to restate how glad I am that I don't have that kind of stress in my job. Sure it's stressful at times, but that is usually done when my shift ends. I have days I don't want to go to work, but so does everyone else. Yes, I'd love to make more money and have thought about going back to school. But today, I am quite content that I manage a coffee shop for a living.

A GREAT day

Yesterday was Memorial Day. And that was a day that my mom usually called to remind me to call my Grandpa, the WWII vet, and wish him a happy Memorial day. Didn't have to call this year. Very odd. Yet I did call my Grandma Jan and wish her a happy one, that day may have been hard for her without Gramps. I can't fathom waking up without your partner of many many years and learning to go about your life.

On a slightly more uplifting note, I had a wonderful Memorial day. I spent it with my beau and his kids. We got up early and went and picked up my mom's canoe, after a stop for McDonald's breakfast. It was late morning when we got the boat in the water, the lake was filled with people, bikes, boats, smiles, cold drinks, laughter. We canoed through Calhoun, Isles, and into Cedar. Took a peek at Hidden Beach, said hi to all the fishies near the surface of the water, enjoyed the shade under the bridges and trees.

And it's not a trip to a Minneapolis lake without some ice cream from Lake Harriet. Seriously, best ice cream in town. And yes I think it's better than Sebastian Joe's, partly for it's prices. We sat and people watched and shared our ice cream with the little one.

And as if we didn't have enough water time, we decided to go swimming once we got back to the apartment. Which I always enjoy and so do both kids. The 3 (his girls and me that is) of us are total water babies and now that we have rafts it's so much more fun!

Then it was dinner time, bed time, wine time. I could have days like that with those exact people over and over again!