I spent two springs down in TX after Xena and Babalouie were born. As March Madness babies, Megan's maternity leave was over before the school year so I moved down and spent the months of May getting to know the grand-babies. As a born and raised Minnesotan, I was familiar with heat and humidity. Spending May in Texas taught me first hand that MN heat and humidity, compared with gulf coastal heat and humidity is like comparing a picture of an elephant on your wall to a stampede of elephants through your living room. They're not the same at all and one is exponentially worse to live through.
I've also lived in North Dakota through the winter and I've gotta tell you, it's worse than here in southern Minnesota. You haven't survived -30 till you've done it with a 50mph wind that never stops blowing.
I finished painting my office before the heat wave. Good thing, as even the 'odor free' paint isn't something you want to use with no windows open. The office looks great and knowing it's also clean as a whistle with every corner of it dusted and scrubbed out, is very satisfying.
For anyone who wonders: life here in southwest Minneapolis is pretty normal. Uptown, the neighborhood north of Lake Calhoun* has seen a lot of turmoil. Gun fights, drag racing...its basically mad max up there. But that's a few miles away and none of the mayhem has come south of Lake Harriet. Unlike last spring, we don't even see any smoke on the horizon or police helicopters circling downtown when we walk the lake, which we try to do every day. I can hear the drag racers on 62 and 35 while I'm watching TV on my porch at night.
Kids: my city has been accused of institutional racism and the blame has been laid on the police dept. The mayor has been in hiding for a year and the City Council won't address the issue of who hired, trained and had oversight of the egregious police dept. Since MPLS has been an exclusively Democrat run town for 60 years, I think I know why no one will answer simple questions like 'Who exactly is responsible for all the racism and incompetence?' I'm not saying vote Republican, I'm just saying DON'T VOTE DFL. Ever.
During our last election, I'm pretty sure there was at least one candidate running for the Unicorn and Rainbow platform. I wish he'd/she'd/ xi'd won. Couldn't have done a worse job of it as the current sad joke, Jacob Frey. Seriously, if there's a worse mayor in the world, I'd really like to know who that could be.
In other news, I had BoopityBoop with me this weekend! Katie and Adam went out for dinner Friday so the girls came to hang out with me. We had dinner, then went to the park across the street. They really wanted to dig in the sand, so each of them spent a considerable amount of time digging through the toy box choosing the proper bowls and spoons to dig with. It was hot and sunny and I'm counting the days till the fill the pool, which never did open last summer due to Covid hysteria. We came around the corner of the park house, past the pool and discovered...a huge sand pit surrounded by a construction fence.
No playground.
Now that the trees between my house and the playground are filled out, I couldn't see that in the last 48 hrs, the entire playground had been torn out. Even the sand was gone. Apparently a playground that couldn't have been 20 years old is too old for this neighborhood.
I can't help but think the park board could find better uses for city resources than replacing perfectly functional park equipment in high end neighborhoods. Is every single park in the entire city in better shape than ours? I find that hard to believe. In fact, I'm beginning to think I may be watching institutional racism in action.
Meanwhile, houses in this end of town are still selling in days for ridiculous sums of money. A remodeled house a few blocks down from us just went for over half a million with no yard, no view on a busy street just off the highway. I don't get the appeal of living in a town in flames with no police department but...
Yes I do.
When the city first went up in flames last year, Jay and I began looking out of town. I'm on Zillow every day and I can't find a single place that has as much as we do right here. So, we've got no cops...that hasn't been a problem yet. We do have shotguns, so...Yay, Second Amendment!
Jay and I have been in this house for almost 30 years and we've tailored it to our needs so our list of dealbreakers is long. Any place we live needs trees, a western view, a park nearby, a lake nearby, bike paths, a nice outdoor space, a deck or patio, shade...inside it can't have too many stairs (split levels need not apply) a fireplace, a nice kitchen, two spaces for TV watching, studio space for me, office space for Jay, a good view and a walk in shower. I haven't worked this hard for this many years to downgrade my work space. If we found a place with great views, the rest of it could be fixed. If we sold our house for the ridiculous sums our neighbors are getting, we'd have plenty to work with but every day we walk around Lake Harriet and say "we're not leaving."
Saturday, Katie and I took BoopityBoop to the beach and MJ and her kids joined us. We began with ice cream at the Bandstand and walked on over to the beach. It was sunny and 98 but a strong breeze blew across the water, cooling off the beach and as I said before, no humidity. It was fabulous!
Summer is here, the wedding is less than three weeks away and life is grand.
*it's spelled Bde Mka Ska but prounounced 'calhoon'