Dear Minneapolis, I am madly in love with you.
As usual, I will attempt to condense this weekend’s immense awesomeness for the sake of time and not rattling you with a wordquake. Friday, I didn’t want to surrender my work parking spot due to its nearness to the Aquatennial block party, so Jane (who was headed out of town to the bachelorette party I wanted to attend, but didn’t want to miss another summer weekend in my city) and I went over to Kieran’s for happy hour to wait for the friends to show. We walked in and found Kirby at the bar. Bill arrived, Cin arrived, a server came up and asked me if I had been at the Hexagon the previous night, covered in handprints (yes, yes I was), we picked up another couple people in our group through some means I still don’t understand, and then it was time to mosey on down to the block party. I had no interest in slamming my mostly-full Jameson-and-ginger-ale-which-should-really-be-ginger-beer, so Kirby ran to get me an illegal to-go cup and we did a quick trade in the bathroom. Oh, we’re smart like that. Bill, Cin, Kirby and I hassled the Marines on the way to the main stage, because the Navy had a giant simulator-robot parked on 3rd Ave, while the Marines had a pull-up bar they seemed loath to use. It was 96 degrees outside, but still. We saw White Light Riot, ate three cheese curds and forgot the rest of the package somewhere, then wandered off to explore the rest of the block party, by which I mean we went to gawk at the country fans at the K102 stage. Bill took off for Peavey Plaza with plans to meet up with us later in the evening, Kirby took off drunk on his bike, and Cin and I walked back down to chillax on some grass we found in front of a building with a waterfall. We met up with Sean and Christine, but lost them shortly after Semisonic came on. We met an annoying dude who shooshed us because we were laughing while he taped the show, and then we met the Aquatennial commodore, who seemed totally fine with me fingering his epaulets. We only stayed for a couple songs in Semisonic’s set, because I’m not a big fan, I mostly just consider them a big part of Minneapolis music history, and seeing them live so many years later is a big deal. We set off down Nicollet towards the Day of Music events at Peavey Plaza, encountering Adrianne and her new man along the way. We stopped for dinner and drinks at the Newsroom, which featured a brie en croute that was the cheese equivalent of sex. Bill arrived and we were off to see the New Standards at Orchestra Hall at 11. Now, even though I was dozing off in my chair during the show, it was indeed awesome; my sleepiness had nothing to do with their performance. In between shows, we went up and found box seats really near the stage, so we got to see Low up close, and the sound was unbelievable. The problem with shows in more formal venues, though? The chairs. I hate sitting down, and I hate not being able to dance. But still, it was great. And? A weekend of free concerts in Minneapolis, dudes. Seriously. Amazing. We went across to Brit’s in time for last call, said goodbye to Bill, and Cindi and I wandered back over to see A Whisper in the Noise. We only made it through two songs, though, because we were so distracted by the crowd of emo kids sitting around. We decided to call it a night around 2:30am. On Saturday, it had reached 100 degrees by the time Kaye and I got to lunch at Cafe Latte. Somehow, the heat seemed not at painful as it sounds, or perhaps I was just too entertained all weekend to notice. We went to the Science Museum with the intention of seeing Body Worlds, but it was sold out until far too late in the day. We stayed to see the Omnitheatre movie about the human body (at which Kaye said EWWWW about 15 times), a show about perception, and I watched a 7-year-old kid successfully drive a barge into St Paul. That barge-driving simulation is going to be the death of me, because I can’t do it. Bastards. Later, Cindi and I went to see White Light Riot again at the Triple Rock because they were headlining this time; the show was great and the crowd was amusing, as they’re mostly in the 18-to-20 set and really really self-conscious about things like dancing and enthusiasm. We both bought CDs, and then eagerly set off on what was becoming our most critical mission of the summer: to purify ourselves in the waters of Lake Minnetonka. (If you don’t understand why, I’m very sorry for you.) Since we hadn’t the slightest clue where to do so without reasonable fear of being apprehended, we consulted with a tattooed boy at the gas station in Orono, then a guy out smoking behind the Narrows in Navarre (asking ourselves the whole time, ‘what the hell are we doing in Navarre?’), who turned out to be from Miami and was therefore completely useless advice-wise, if hot. We decided to seek out another bar, as the Narrows had a $5 cover and scary clientele, so we set off down a random highway and soon found ourselves in MOUND. For the life of us, we were unable to locate another bar for far too long, as if the wealthy set didn’t know how to party at all; we did see many liquor stores, so maybe they just drink alone at home. Anyway, we turned down the main street in Mound and found the VFW. And while I knew we were unlikely to find someone to give us skinnydipping advice at that particular locale, it was just too good to pass up. I mean, the Mound VFW? How often are you going to find yourselves there on a Saturday night? You have no choice but to go. As we approached the front door, though, we heard an explosion behind us. We reeled around and saw fireworks in the sky, quite nearby. Suddenly, the fact that there were cars parked absolutely everywhere made sense. So we headed off down the street towards the fireworks display instead. It seems Mound was having a little civic festival, shooting off fireworks from a barge in Lake Minnetonka to the usual sounds of Lee Greenwood and The Boss. We sat down on the beach to watch; I’ve never been that close to fireworks before! Not only that, but we had found our purification spot. We just needed to wait for the town to head home, or perhaps come back later at night on a different date. We walked back up the VFW for time-killing and entertainment. We got a lot of stares as we hopped on stools at the bar, but otherwise it was fine. The bartender was cool, even if he didn’t even know what county he was in. Cindi’s beer was $1.85, and my bombay sapphire and tonic was $2.50. We kind of loved the VFW. I went to the jukebox and picked out the best-ever three-song playlist of the moment: the Commodores, Purple Rain, and of course Don’t Stop Believin’, because every jukebox-playlist is totally incomplete without Journey. We had our Purple Rain-inspiration, and set off for the lake shortly thereafter. After some hurried debate over whether this was really a very good idea or not, we sat down on the boat launch, stripped, and jumped in the lake. The water was perfect, and I’d stayed in there all night if it hadn’t been for fear of the Mound police and my recent history of run-ins with the po-po, none of which were arrest-worthy, and yet still far closer to the authorities than I prefer to get; I’m honestly scared of the police. Anyway, we were fine! We got half-dressed while still waist-deep in the lake, were even prepared with a towel, and ended up only with sand in our underwear and the lovely scent of the lake. We laughed all the way back to Minneapolis, where we ended the evening at Lyle’s, sandwiched between Travis the ex-Marine and his friend the ex-Army-dude, and his other friends who said things like “I gotta hit the head.” Travis made me promise we were there regularly, so they’d be sure to run into us again. Sure thing, dude. You and half the city. Walking out the door of Cindi’s apartment, I saw a girl waving wildly at me from the other end of the hall. She was there with her four nowhere-near-as-drunk friends, who were embarrassed about her friendliness with strangers. I kind of loved her. We talked for a minute, and then I realized there’s one phrase I’ve been saying to people constantly in recent months, like it was the thing to do: ‘where were you guys at tonight?’ Like, it’s how you compare entertainment notes or something. It’s funny. Sunday, there was glorious sleeping-in, followed by walking in the rainstorm to get coffee, followed by the picking-up of Cindi and Kaye, because we were on a pre-party mission. Now, this makes sense to us: on Thursday, Katie declared that we should have a waterfight on Sunday, because it was supposed to be 100ish outside. Kaye decided we needed to drink mint juleps on the patio while we were doing so, and obviously we should dress up like old southern women. This meant we had to wear big floppy hats and giant sunglasses. So that’s exactly what we did. So, the seven of us had our mint juleps and a few pitchers of greenies in the midst of bombarding each other viciously with something like 400 water balloons, crappy squirtguns, bottles and buckets of water, and the garden hose during three separate water fights. It was pretty much the perfect Sunday. This week, I am going to cling to my free Tuesday night, and use that to make it look like my apartment has not been abandoned. And now, I will repair to the Y and beat up the heavy bag, for it’s totally got it coming. Jenni