Sunday in the Suburbs with Andy

I have absolutely nothing scheduled for my Sunday.  This is new, odd…and a little wacky.  No commitments, no trips, no engagements.  What I’ve got on Sunday is Andy, at home, in Minnetonka, with Grendel. Between now and Sunday, though, I have a dinner with family at the Longfellow Grill tonight, a Strawberry Celebration at our CSA farm, Featherstone Fruits and Vegetables, Saturday afternoon, and a late show of “The Hangover” Saturday night.

Sunday, I may want to rest.  But, it seems like such a waste of a day.

What some people may never have gotten to experience is the complete sense of being untethered as a singleton.  As far as Sunday is concerned, my only responsibility is my dog.  I need to wake up sometime in the morning, take him out, feed him…then…I can do that again sometime later…then…I should do that at least once more before bedtime (sans feeding).  That’s it.  That’s all I need to do on Sunday.  I don’t have to wear anything more than rags, brush my teeth, comb my hair, or even feed myself.  I can fall off the radar of the world.

Exciting, huh?  To have absolute power and freedom.  Nobody making any demands on my time…influencing my decisions…whining to go to McDonald’s…sweetly asking a bedtime story of me at 7:30pm.  Are you jealous?  Waxing poetic over your days of being single and unfettered? Wondering what such a state of being would be like?

I often live under these lax guidelines to living.  Decisions are made only by me.  A mistress of my own universe.  The world is my oyster.  I am its pearl.

So, what’s up for Sunday?

Other than taking down my task list, I will offer up another list of possibilities:

1. Go ELCA Lutheran Church Shopping.  It’s been on my sociocultural task list for too long.  Note: Do not sign up for a choir at this time.
2. Visit old friends at former Catholic Church in St. Paul just for my heart’s sake.
3. Start State Park Sunday and take stickered Jeep to a nearby park for romping with Big G.  Aim for Taylors Falls area.
4. Find a flea market that’s open on a Sunday but not all the way up in Brainerd Lakes Vacation Land.  Hell, I could go to a flea market in Vacation Land.  What else is there to do?
5. Go to St. Paul Farmer’s Market.  Try not to spend money.  Remember…no dogs; last time was spent walking around the block over and over while companion shopped.
6. Hit up MIA and visit my Henry Singer Sargent paintings.  Skip Walker–it’s just not my taste.
7. Walk around the St. Anthony Main area.  Try not to let Grendel sniff his way off of the Stone Arch Bridge.
8. Tour Lakewood Cemetery.  There’s a fabulous walking tour (PDF).
9. Romp around the arboretum.  It’s been ages.
10. Spend the afternoon in Stillwater.  I love me some art galleries and antique stores where I can price out my inheritance one dish at a time.
11. Go to Franconia Sculpture Park and see the installments that have appeared since my last visit two years ago.
12. Lest I be remiss and forget my LGBT friends, there’s the Pride Parade in Minneapolis.  It’d be my first…and there’s always time for a new first.

So, which one would you choose for a free Sunday?  (I listed twelve as I wouldn’t expect you to pick either of the first two…they’re fairly specific to yours truly.)  All of the options are quite affordable and accessible.  The biggest expense might be gas or a couple bucks for admission, but we’re not talking about a matinee at The Ordway and dinner at Forepaugh’s.  Things aren’t too far for a day trip and as close as ten minutes from Minnetonka.  Some would involve a dog or children, but most probably wouldn’t hold the attention span of a young homo sapien terribly long.  The weather is supposed to be about 78 degrees and partly cloudy…but no rain.  Other always-options are walking around Lake Harriet or Lake Calhoun, sitting at a coffee shop in Bryn Mawr, romping around Minnetonka Mills, checking out the dog park at Minnehaha Falls, going to see “Star Trek” or “Wolverine” or “Transformers 2,” or sitting at home watching my free cable.

Put yourself in my shoes.  You can do any one of those 17 or so things I’ve listed.  Well, there are more than 17 when you consider that you’d have to choose which coffee shop, which lake, which dog park, which movie…  Your options are many, your freedom is unbridled.  Your decision?

Yes?

It ain’t easy being me.

I’m stymied.  I’ve got less than 48 hours to figure this out.

I’d love to know what you’d choose to do out of the list.  Or, tell me something I’ve missed.  Ideas are welcome.

And, let me know if you’re interested in attacking Sunday with me.  That way, we can narrow down the options together.  We can put the top back on the Jeep and get twigs in our hair as we adventure through the Twin Cities.

Have a wonderful weekend, friends.

No Cabin for Young Canine

I meant Friday’s post to exude the rest and relaxation that the weekend at the cabin was supposed to provide for my life…and perhaps it did.  I’ll tell you, though, that’s not how it went down.  I’ll give you a one-word reason why it was neither restful nor relaxing:

Grendel.

I love my dog.  Very much.  But, he is not a cabin dog for many, many reasons:

Grendel’s an escape artist.  Though my little shadow can’t stand for me to be out of eyesight, he will bolt to Tijuana the second he senses his leash is not on him and there’s a whiff of freedom in the air.  Then, all I see is a sassy blonde butt galloping off into the sunset.  It’s happened twice–once at the cabin, once in St. Paul.  Both times, I required reviving upon his return.  I must add at this point that it was my Hero Dad who found Grendel, both times, and against all odds.  My dad also came up with an idea to “slow him down” by tying him to a brick to make him easier to tackle should he try to run.  I nixed the idea as I imagined the carnage left in Grendel’s wake as he ran with a brick attached to his 40-foot flourescent orange tie-out cord.  Shudder.

The cabin doors do not close.  It’s a fishing cabin that was built over 50 years ago.  The floors are uneven and the screen doors definitely do not snugly fit into their casings.  Grendel knows this.  And, he watches for his opportunities to make a break.  One of the two exits must be blocked, completely, by a wooden door thereby also blocking out sunlight.  The wooden door is necessary since Grendel knows his nose can nudge the screen door open and the world is his oyster.  The other door has to be latched from the inside, so all humans have to ask to gain entrance from the deck while the unlatcher hangs on to Grendel’s collar as he squirms toward the light.  Sure, I’ve got him microchipped, but what I really need is a GPS tracking unit on the bugger.  I blame the fact that, in dog years, he’s basically my 25-year old younger brother who’s testing his boundaries…it’s just that the a night in the klink doesn’t usually end in euthenasia for twentysomething humans.

My mother referred to my father as Grendel’s “grandfather” this past weekend.  This has nothing to do with the cabin.  This does, however, mean that my mother needs some time away from my dog to think about what she’s said.

Grendel rolls in things…usually odiforous.  While walking on beaches, he has to be carefully monitored as he hones in on dead fish.  Once they’re on his radar, he’s hellbent for them.  But, this time, there were no fish.  He just took the opportunity–once sopping wet–to roll his 30-inch long self down the sand dunes over and over.  If you have kids–or ever were a kid–you know the anguish cased by sand-on-scalp.  Think of your own scalp…as a kid or now.  Let’s use our alegebra now.  To get Grendel’s area, we take L x H x W.  I’m too algebraically challenged to consider circumference (my Special Ed teacher mother and Math teacher father have tears in their eyes they’re so proud of me now).  Back to Grendel.  30″ x 13″ x 9″ = 3,510 inches.  Now, multiply that by 1,000 to account for all that blonde hair.  Now, add water and sugar-sand (practically the powder of the beaches in the Caribbean) that adhered to those follicles and that skin.  Now, divide by 5,280.  Grendel was covered in over 6.5 miles of sand.  I don’t care how whack my math is…that, my friends, was tracked into the cabin, into my bed, into my Jeep, into my apartment, and pretty much clogged my bathtub drain upon bathing him.

My dog is a lowrider Tick Magnet.  If he were a car, he would have adjustable hydraulic suspension and be blasting some sort of West Coast Hip Hop.  As it is, his collar says “Bajito y Suavecito,” or “Low and Slow.”  He snurfles his way along the cabin boardwalk, the driveway, around the perimeter of the cabin-on-cinderblocks…looking for vermin.  Being only about 13 inches tall but over two feet long, he is the epitome of “Bajito y Sauvecito.”  In the tall grasses, Grendel gives the woodticks plenty of surface area on which to attach…both from above and below…like the rain in Forrest Gump…even sideways.  As I pulled off over 32 woodticks over the course of fewer than 48 hours, each one was announced by number…and type: “14…dogtick!”  “24…dogtick!”  “26…deertick!” I pulled the 26th off of me.  I circled the bite with a pen.  The only available pen was an eraseable pen that my mother uses on crossword puzzles.  Regardless of pen, I have a Lyme’s Disease test scheduled for Wednesday.

During a storm in a flimsy fishing cabin, Grendel’s owner gets spooked, but Grendel gets spooked worse.  During the middle of the night on Saturday, the most insistent flash of lightning and crack of thunder made me cringe…but the suffocating crash landing of a furry chin and throat across my face scared the shit out of me.

Grendel’s not good at being flexible or sharing.  Usually, I get the left side of the bed and Grendel gets the right.  He doesn’t understand that my placement might not be based on “which side of the bed” but “what is closer to the door.”  At home, I’ve had to train myself to sleep on the left side of the bed, though the door is on the right.  It’s taken months and I’m still not quite there.  But, at the cabin, the room is about half the size of my own…with one window…and darker wood paneling.  I can’t stand it.  There’s no room to move around the bed on foot, so I have to crawl over the bed to get to my spot.  Nuh-uh.  I get the door side.  This didn’t fly with the dog.  At first, he just kept doing his heavy sighs.  Then, after a midnight bathroom run, he just took my spot.  After that, I tried pushing him over and he “went limp” in silent protest…whenever he pulls that, even his tail is dead weight.  Finally, when I got my spot back he gave up and jumped to the floor…leaving me dejected but victorious.  That was, until I moved my feet slightly toward the center of the bed and he jumped up and took my footspace.  For the rest of the night.  In the morning, I awakened to a happy dog at the foot of the right (door) side of the bed…while I slept across it diagonally.  As you wish, dear dog.  As you wish.

Basically, Grendel cramps my style at the cabin.  There’s no hanging on the deck since he’d be trying to dig up the planters and boardwalk in search of those rascally chipmunks.  There’s no swimming because, if tied up by the dock, he’d be rolling in sand or, worse, fish.  There’s no sleeping comfortably with him vying for my spot all night…or completely smothering me during a storm.  There’s no freedom in moving between the outdoors and indoors since Grendel’s aspiring to be the next prisoner to escape “The Rock.”  And, there’s no sense (cents) to him being there…literally.  If I did the cost-comparison, boarding him for two nights at Bed & Bone (camp) would cost half as much as both his and my Lyme’s Disease tests coming up later this week.

It’s a no-brainer.  That dog’s going to camp instead of the cabin, next time.  He’ll be much happier.  So will I be.

God, I love this guy:

Speak for Grendel. Leave a caption for his sentiments in this picture in the comments section. I'll arbitrarily pick a winner and republish the photo with that caption.

Art-A-Whirling

On a lighter note, I’d like to share some photos from Sunday’s Art-A-Whirl.  Art-A-Whirl occurs one weekend a year in Nordeast Minneapolis when the NEMAA (Northeast Minneapolis Arts Association) gets the entire artist community of Nordeast to open its studio doors…and let us tromp through their galleries and personal working spaces.  I love it.  I’m pretty hit-or-miss as to whether or not I get around to seeing it, but was able to get it on the books early enough to reenact whirling with Eric and Pierre two years ago.

Grain Belt Brewery - Tracks to Nowhere, photo by Eric.

Grain Belt Brewery - I Picked My Room, photo by Eric.

It's "friendly" beer. See? Photo by Eric.

Downtown Minneapolis Under Blue Sky, from the California Building, photo by Andy.

Scandynavian's Next Art Purchases, art by Potek Glass, photo by Andy.

My Kind of Window Box Vegetation, at the California Building, photo by Andy.

A lovely day, fantastic art, and even better company.  It’s not often that I start the day making Herby Omelettes and a Dutch Baby, go to Art-A-Whirl, find that Potek Glass still rocks so hard, dicuss whether or not the word “lugubrious” is appropriate for particular artwork, grab an iced coffee in Bryn Mawr, and hit an ALDI in North (not Nordeast) Minneapolis.  I kind of wish it were, though.

And, a hearty “thank you” to the nice Minneapolis Police Officer who stayed at the ALDI until we got into our vehicle at  7 minutes past closing time.