God, I love this time of year in Minneapolis.
Monday, I was deep in the evil clutches of PMS all day, not wanting to talk to anyone, lest I end up throwing them through windows or under the wheels of moving vehicles. After work, I went right to Gigi’s, grabbed The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle from the back of Miguel, got myself an iced coffee, and sat in the sun for an hour, reading. After that, all homicidal urges had subsided. Stephanie came over later, and we walked and walked, around Lake Harriet and half of Calhoun, and by the time I got home, I had returned to my normal state. Which is to say: I felt awesome again. The sun and the out-of-doors? They are the best therapy ever. Yesterday, I was a working-fool (the weird thing about PMS is that it makes me insanely productive, probably due to my lack of interest in communicating), and then I went to lunch with Chele, who always makes me laugh so hard I cry. It was so gorgeous outside, creeping towards 85, and so painful to be inside working. The solution was obvious. I met Cindi for coffee at Sebastian Joe’s, where we decided that the best possible thing we could do with our afternoon-off was to go see the world’s largest ball of twine in Darwin, Minnesota. I dare anyone to come up with a better idea than that. We set off down highway 12, and quickly discovered that everything along the way RULED. Cindi fell in gas-station-lust with the heavily-tattooed guy behind the counter in Orono, and I fell in love with the fact that I could buy premium gas for less than $3/gallon out there. We passed miles of farm implements, camo ATVs, roadside taverns, and cute little towns, finally arriving in Darwin. Darwin has one street (the aptly-named ‘First Street’), and it consists of a few houses, a post office, three bars (two of which are closed), and the twine ball with associated twine-ball museum. We pulled up in front of the twine ball and were standing there sending phone-pictures to the internet when an old guy pulled up in a pickup truck and asked if we wanted to go inside to see it. Well, DUH. It turns out he was the twinekeeper! He unlocked the pagoda, and we went inside. I don’t think I’ll ever forget the smell of the giant twine ball (a good smell, don’t worry). We even got to touch it; he just told us to not tug on it. After that, he unlocked the twine ball museum, and took us on a tour. We bought souvenirs (to include shotglasses, hell yes) and toured the place, which was basically a completely random collection of anything related to the town’s history. The guy had a funny mix of enthusiasm and mockery: he told us the town was very proud of its baseball heritage, because they won a state tournament in the 1930s. We loved him. We stopped at the post office to get postcard stamps, then headed across the street to Bob’s Country