If you can guess how many ounces of caffeine were consumed by KitKatKnit and friends on their roadtrip last weekend, you could win a goodie bag! Leave your guesses by midnight PDT, June 26.
I’m sure we all have little oddities that amuse us, right? One of mine is the congruence of geometry and geography. Sometimes they’re obvious…
And other times, maybe not so much.
“Oh, Mom – Euclidean geometry is so yesterday.” -Mayhem
“Are you sure you want to call me silly, Mom? Absolutely, positively sure?” -Chaos
“Silly! Well, I never.” -Mayhem
Thanks, everyone, for your kind thoughts and words yesterday. I think getting out in the sunshine with my camera did help a bit.
Do I dare admit how worried I am that so many of you thought the knitted object my 16-pound cat was playing in yesterday was thong underwear or an athletic supporter?! 😮 Ye gads! I’m sure sending knitted underwear to elephantiasis victims would be noble, but…
And boo-hiss to bloglines for taking over 12 hours to pick up yesterday’s post! 🙁 I’ll just note that Google Reader tends to pick up my posts in less than 30 minutes…
If I hadn’t gotten divorced after a year of marriage and a year of separation, today would be my 19th wedding anniversary. Yup – that boggles my mind, too.
In a shocking twist, we actually had nice weather this past weekend. True, we did have a ginormous thunderstorm Saturday night, but no trees blew over on my condo, no tornado or flooding left me homeless, and no hail damage was added to my car.
During the lovely day on Saturday, I spent some time wandering around the neighborhood. Not that my picture is perfectly straight, but can you see the crazy leaning light pole of Pisa action going on there?! Here’s hoping the power wires keep the pole upright.
Is it just the Twin Cities that have these giant Adirondack chairs around? I’ll have to share some pictures of the others I see regularly.
This mobile is in front of the same building as the “Three Bears” chairs above.
I think May’s favorite part of the weekend was any time we weren’t having thunder and lightning…
“…zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz…” -Mayhem
Thanks to furiousball for the great lolcats caption for yesterday’s picture – head on over to lolcats and vote for Mayhem!
I have a great weakness for bags. Sometimes they work out for me, but usually they don’t. In order to not ultimately end up buried in bags I’ve only used once or twice, I’ve added a For Sale page. Check it out! (Update: Bag sales are pending – thanks for your interest!)
You’ve probably heard about the crazy weather we’ve been having here in Minnesota for the past several weeks. On May 31, we had several bouts of crazy, damaging hail. Since then, I’ve seen cars that now have the surface texture of golf balls. My car only got a few hail dents, for which I consider myself quite fortunate – maybe now I’ll stop cursing that messy tree I park under?!
Anyway, my insurance agent mentioned that I would be contacted by the “Catastrophe Team.” Just a few short hours later, I saw this (although not my insurance company) set up in a parking lot in one of the harder hit areas:
My goodness, I won a few more contests! First, I was one of the lucky winners of Karen’s birthday haiku contest. Did Karen do a great job nailing my interests or what?! Thank you, Karen!
“Oh no, wee black kitties trapped in plastic!” -Mayhem
The wee black kitty magnets were rescued from their plastic peril, but were immediately imperiled again as Chaos wandered by.
*dum de dum de dum* -Chaos
“Big kitty, be careful!” -Mayhem
I also won Kerry’s bird naming contest by… not naming her birds. *blink blink* Kerry let me choose from a gorgeous array of sock yarn – this particular skein (STR in “Lagoon”) will make perfect socks for a family member who loves STR socks… Thanks, Kerry!
“Big kitty, can you smell it? This yarn has been near birds! Maybe there’s a bird hiding in it…” -Mayhem
“Has anyone ever mentioned that you’re a bit excitable, Mayhem?” -Chaos
Wendy’s giving away a copy of The Tenth Gift. Contest closes 4 pm EDT, June 5.
I love to see things that give you glimpses into Minneapolis past.
A look at Minneapolis present – embiggen for maximum amusement…
With their “come one, come all excepted” policy, is it any wonder they went out of business?! (If you click, you’ll also see their very interesting walk in policy – “welcome by appointment.”)
“Hmph. Mom took my toy away, so I’m sulking. She should’ve listened to all of you! Oh well, at least the big kitty has mostly stopped biting off my whiskers. Don’t they look great?” -Mayhem
“Mmmm… whiskers… Hee hee, I’ll sneak up on her when she’s not on the blog.” -Chaos
Moraie is celebrating her second blogiversary with a contest. To participate, leave her a comment guessing what number the blogiversary post is and identifying the guy in the linked picture. She’ll take guesses until midnight PDT, May 20.
Yesterday it actually felt like spring! (Everyone ok after that shock?) I headed out into my neighborhood to get to know my new camera better and take a few somewhat random pictures.
I hope you embiggened that last picture for maximum amusement. 😉
“What do you mean, it defeats the purpose of towels on the furniture if I’m under the towels? Why do they call it FURniture then?” -Mayhem
Every time I post pictures of murals in my neighborhood, people comment that Minneapolis sure seems to have a lot of murals. Interestingly, I’m not sure I’ve posted pictures of many murals from outside my walking neighborhood… and not even all of those! Plus, they keep changing. Remember that Mountain Dew mural? This is what it looks like now:
Sure glad I got pictures of it before they changed it!
Intermedia Arts is always doing something interesting with its facade.
Penn Cycle has a mural in a narrow alley, which is hard capture due to the angle.
This is the Dunn Brothers Coffee offering:
It’s hard to tell if this is a mural or graffiti in the Planet Soccer parking lot, isn’t it?
“Hey, Mom, you wouldn’t mind if the big kitty and I painted a mural on that boring white wall in the living room, right?!” -Mayhem
I went for a lovely walk around Lake of the Isles last Thursday evening – it was sunny and +50F!
Can you see the pickup truck on the ice?! Intellectually, I know the ice was still pretty thick – but with water pooling on top of the ice, driving around on the lake sure didn’t seem like a smart thing to do.
There were some guys fishing and hanging out on the lake, too.
Apparently nobody read the signs first… (Thanks to Brigitte for mentioning this story about one of these handy dandy red boards being used to save some people who fell through the ice on Lake Harriet on Sunday!)
Although, considering how bad the potholes were on Lake of the Isles Parkway, maybe the lake was the best choice! 🙂
“Wait, go back to that last picture a minute – is that a duckling crossing sign? Can you bring us back some ducklings next time you go to the lake, Mom? May and I will take good care of them, promise.” -Chaos
Congratulations to Jenn, who was lucky random number 50 in my caption contest!
Friday it was bitterly cold (-11F when I was trying to go to work); yesterday it was sunny and +50F. I had my windows open and I could hear the sound of melting everywhere. (If you’re not from a northern clime, melting sounds like water dripping and running outside… because it is, for the first time in months.) (Oh, my car? By the time they got to it yesterday afternoon, it started just fine – must’ve been a frozen fuel line. *sigh*)
I went for a walk yesterday afternoon so I could enjoy the lovely weather. Not surprisingly, I took a few pictures as I wandered around. Here’s a mural on the side of Caffetto Cafe.
Even the liquor store has a mural, probably in homage to Grain Belt Beer and the now defunct Minnesota Brewing Company.
This mural on the side of a laundromat must refer to the more traditional mountain dew…
Would you get your hair cut here?! I sure wouldn’t. Embiggen to read the sign…
The cats were briefly interested in the open windows, but they quickly became bored due to lack of birds.
“Hmph. No birds. Plus you keep flashing that thing in my face. My life sucks.” -Mayhem
Saturday was gorgeous in the Twin Cities – sunny and in the mid-30s. I tossed on a lightweight jacket, grabbed my camera, and headed out for a walk around the neighborhood.
The sky was divinely blue.
Mmmm… coffee…
Some neighbors were out and about, too. 😉
And I found plenty to contemplate as I wandered. Do you need to buy two dresses to get a pair of flip flops? And spend $200 to get a pair of boots? How many people just leave with their one boot or flip flop?
“Darn it, that time Mom almost busted me traveling through the wormhole between Cyn’s place and here! Must be more careful…” -Mayhem