Fringe Festival Day 1

The Minnesota Fringe Festival kicked off yesterday and I was able to attend 4 shows. I love, love, love the Fringe Fest, even though last year was the first year I attended. After seeing a couple shows last year I was hooked. This year I bought the Ultra Pass which lets me see as many shows as I want. I'm hoping to see 20 or so this year.

Last night I saw four shows. The first wasn't very good. The second was a fun comedy based on a Greek tragedy called Agamemnon. It was great and I'd recommend it to anyone. The third show was a great dance performance called Passage. It was fun, dramatic, hilarious and beautiful all at the same time. And a woman fell of the stage, which was exciting, and not part of the show. Finally, I saw Blue Ribbon Burlesque. A very adult show, it was pretty cool. There was juggling, dancing, singing, a live band and naked ladies.

So, off my list comes one dance show, one Burlesque and four fringe shows. Not bad for a night.

Adding Miles -FAIL

I decided to go rollerblading today. I thought to myself, "it is good exercise, I'll get some miles in, and I've always liked doing it."

So, I headed out to Hyland Lake Park Reserve in Bloomington. I chose this spot because I knew it had nice trails and would be less busy than the Lakes. I didn't know how my balance and stopping would be, so I wanted to be far away from large numbers of people who I could hurt or embarrass myself in front of.

I put on my safety gear: helmet, knee pads, elbow pads, and wrist guards. I laced, buckled and Velcroed up my blades and headed out.

I was very wobbly at first. It had been at least 6 years since I had been on them, but I got moving pretty well pretty quickly. I made it about a quarter of a mile, when I encountered trouble.

I was heading down a hill when I noticed that the trail was heading into a parking lot and had a stop sign. I applied the break, and nothing happened. I applied the break again, and I barely slowed.

I realized I had a choice to make. I could continue down or I could try and stop myself in the grass. Continuing down meant hopping a curb at the end of the trail and speeding into a parking lot. I'd probably fall in the parking lot. Stopping in the grass meant moving on to the grass and running on my skates until I slowed myself. I had done this before, but wasn't confident that I'd be successful this time.

I chose the grass. I made it about two steps before I totally wiped out, ending up in the bushes. I hit my right knee hard. My glasses fell off my face. I got scratched up on my legs. My pride was destroyed.

My knee hurts tonight, as does my right arm. But I'm already thinking about trying to head out again. I used to be able to stop in a variety of ways, so I need to go to a parking lot and practice before I hit any hills again. Anyone know any flat, flat, flat places to skate?

Stella For Sale

I need to sell my scooter. It is one of my goals and we could use the money. So here it is, my official ad for all of you.

For Sale:
2004 Stella Scooter
1100 miles. 4 speed manual transmission. 150cc 2 stroke engine.
Gets about 75 miles per gallon, maybe more. Can go over 55 mph.
Could use a tune-up, but runs as is. $2300 or Best Offer.
You need a motorcycle license to legally drive it. You would need a motorcycle permit to test drive it. With the permit, which is only the written exam, you can drive during the day all you want, but you must wear a helmet and no passengers.

It is a super fun scooter. It is very fast and gets great gas mileage. I put a basket on the back and can carry a lot of groceries/beer/toys.

We have two and we just don't use them as much as we should. We are down sizing to one.

Volunteer 100 Hours

Earlier this year, I was a volunteering machine for Second Harvest Heartland. I volunteer for their special events and had a short, but fun run. I haven't stopped volunteering for them, but there hasn't been a lot of options this summer and I have had prior commitments for what there were. I'm sure it will pick up in the fall, but right now, I have the volunteering bug.

Today I attended a volunteer orientation for Open Arms of MN. Open Arms provides wholesome meals for people with HIV/AIDS, breast cancer, MS, and ALS. The meals are packaged for a week and delivered directly to the homes of the participants.

I chose to start volunteering for Open Arms for a variety of reasons. First, I like cooking. I'll be working in the kitchen on a weekly basis cooking. It is perfect for me. Second, they were local. I was only interested in volunteering for an organization within biking distance of my house. Third, and this was a huge reason, they are flexible. There were lots of cool volunteer opportunities out there that specified 10-2 on Tuesday or Saturday afternoons only. I needed to be able to do it after work and to be somewhat flexible. Open Arms has multiple shifts every day. While I hope to have a regular shift, I'll be able to fill in if I have time on other nights and times as they have space. Finally, I fully support their cause. Food and hunger issues are very important to me.

Tonight, I found out some additional cool things about the organization that I love. They are hoping to switch to an all organic menu in the future. They use local farmers a lot in the summer. They have a African Meal since they have so many clients from Africa who have different ideas of comfort foods. They can customize any meal for a client. And they provide food for the whole family, including kids' meals. How cool is that?

Next week I have a food safety class and then I get to start volunteering regularly. I'm pretty excited.

100 Miles

We walked around Lake Harriet tonight. That puts me over the 100 mile mark. Sure I'm only at the 10% mark toward 1000 miles, but it is further than I would have been if I hadn't made this goal.

Minnesota Zoo

We had a very busy weekend starting with me drinking too much on Friday night at a party for our friends Pete and Manda who were in town from the Bay Area, hiking yesterday around Fort Snelling, and today wandering around the Minnesota Zoo.

I hadn't been to the Zoo since I was in elementary school and I was a little skeptical. But I wanted to get some exercise today and CJ wasn't up for any of my other active ideas, so the Zoo it was.

And it was great. We were there much longer then I expected and we saw everything except the farm animals. The current exhibits are Africa and Russian Bears. Very cool. I will be returning.

The first thing we saw was some monkeys:
Then we got on the monorail, transportation of the future. The monorail brought us around and we realized we wanted to see everything.

There were sleeping bears:

And some African animals:


And big cats:


And a prairie dog community with cute prairie dogs:

We watched a kind of cool bird show. Here's a crane. I love cranes:

Some random animal, from China I think. I like it:

We got to see a bunch of coyotes get all wound up. It was cool.

And there was an American Eagle with a broken wing you could get very close to:

A pretty great day and one more tourist attraction off the list.

Pretty Dinner

Walleye with Whole Foods brand "Asian Fish Seasoning" pan fried. Chard sauteed in a bit of rice vinegar. Curd rice* which is leftover Chinese takeout rice with yogurt and tomato pickle. Tomato pickle explanation can be found here.

*It may not be officially curd rice, but what it is what I call curd rice.

Frontenac State Park

Jeff and I headed to Frontenac State Park for a one night stay last Thursday. Frontenac is located 10 miles South of Red Wing on Lake Pepin.

The campground, and most of the developed parts of the park, are up on the bluffs, overlooking the lake. When we got there, Jeff and I hiked down the 400 feet to the lake so he could take a swim.
It is a very pretty lake (which isn't really a lake, but part of the Mississippi) with lots of very large boats on it. Jeff loved the water, but by the time we got down there, my legs were shaking. That didn't bode well for my hike back up those 400 feet.

But I took my time, and took lots of pictures.
Here's one of Jeff:
And another of a cool raptor of some kind:
We spent the night, and in the morning headed over to check out the picnic area so Jeff could run around. It is the prettiest picnic area I've seen.
We headed back that morning for my exciting 4th of hanging out with Jeff and his friend Sadie.

Fail!

I failed to read 4 books last month. Summer just isn't when I get into reading. And we spent a week sleeping/living on the floor of the living room because of the heat, which just wasn't conducive to reading.

So... I'll restart that one in the fall.

I've also failed to lose weight. So, it seems I'm heading back to WeightWatchers next week. I HATE WeightWatchers, but I know if I just show up to the meetings the shame will get me to lose weight. Anyone want to go with me? Wednesdays at the Midtown YWCA.

I failed to finish the gift I started for my friends Angela and Andy who just had a little baby boy. Maybe it will be a Christmas gift.

Fail. Luckily have still have two more years to meet these goals...