Congeniality: Part II of Telecommuniculturey in the Twin Cities

I didn't sleep well last night, which was purely my own fault.


I went to bed with A and K. (Well, not WITH them, you understand [because we're NOT THAT WAY], but technically at the same time as they did.) But then, of course, I was itching to write about Flaming Guns of the Purple Sage while the details were still fresh in my mind. And then I was feeling guilty about the delicious peanut butter chocolate bars that I had at Luce after the show, so I decided to do some Yoga. By then, for some reason, my brain just wasn't in falling asleep mode. I drifted in and out of sleep from about 3:00 AM to probably 5:30 when REM seemed on the horizon (uh, the phenomenon, not the band). And then A decided to put a box of nails in the dryer and turn it on two doors down from my room. (Really, she had pants that were not at optimum dryness, but my precoffee Neanderthal is not rational.)

PCN got up for good around 8:30, and A and I sat, had coffee, chatted, and knitted until near 11:00 AM. We then set out to find lunch at Turtle Bread Company, where we took an outside table and scared the nice (I'm sure) young (I'm positive) fellow behind us away from the New York Times and the place entirely by talking about the state of our underwear and asscracks in the perilous days of low- and mid-rise jeans.

From there the two of us and my hot new lexie barnes knitting bag (which is dope, yo, and came with a llama [alpaca, actually, but all camelids are one]) strolled over to Needlework Unlimited, where I nodded cooly at all the yarn, partly because my new bag is that hot, and partly because the bitches didn't have Last-Minute Knitted Gifts, so I couldn't load up on yarn for the hourglass sweater. A did emerge with a magazine chock full o' patterns flattering to the booblicious.

It was in this yarn store that A first formulated her completely false hypothesis that it is my presence that leads her to such utterances as "And the puppy got out. Well, he didn't mean to get out. Well, I think he meant to get out. But we didn't mean to LET him out." I just patted her on the head and told her she was my little anti-Chomskyian ace in the hole. Innate grammar, my disproportionate ass.

As we returned to the car, we saw a very cute dog that was QUITE CLEARLY being abused by the people sitting near him and petting him affectionately as they sipped coffee in the pleasant afternoon sun. I was up for a rescue, but A has a heart of stone. We drove onward to the chi-chi Linden hills neighborhood and yet another Local Yarn Store, Linden Hills Yarns (no website, sadly). Once again, I stood firm in my nonpurchasey resolve as someone with an already alarming stash made a purchase. But this is FOR A PROJECT, she claims.

Afterward, we ducked into into Wild Rumpus, which is, as advertised, the coolest children's bookstore in the world. Among their impressive collection of, well, books, they also boast a chicken, an adult manx cat, the fuzziest manx kitten EVAR, a wide variety of birds, an aquarium in place of the bathroom mirror, and the world's most pissed-off chinchilla. Every single word of the preceding sentence is true, incidentally. Oh, and they were playing the Putumayo American Folk CD, featuring, among others, Nanci Griffith, Patty Griffin, and my recently rediscovered love, Lucy Kaplansky. I also scored a copy of Unexpected Magic, a collection of Diana Wynne Jones stories that I did not have.

We wandered further to a kind of crunchy, munchy home wares store that also featured baby clothes that were too cute by half (onesies with matching hats with ears, tails, etc.). They also had "Maggie's Og Ctn Camisoles," but Og considered them to be suspect, given the smell of cinnamon about the place. Og much preferred the lovely Bibelot store, where A would not let me buy the Shoes of my dreams, even though they were 30% off way too much money. I plan on blaming her when I get in trouble for wearing birkenstocks and my flying pigs dress to my aunt's wedding.

Brutally wrenched from the only non-Chuck Taylor, non-Dr. Marten shoes without monkeys on them that I will ever love, I sulked and had only a cappucino at Sebastian Joe's, where we sat and knit until the sun discovered our location and recommenced trying to kill me. (Please note, my copy of the shirt exposing the sun's evil plot was, I believe, purchased from the highly superior Munky King site.)

We returned to the old homestead to take the resident Wolf for his long-promised walk. As we toured "the hood," A discovered at several points that she is not tall enough to ride the "This Real Estate is for Sale" ride, given that all the cunning little boxes containing informational sheets are placed roughly 12 inches above her reach. I happen to believe that this is by special arrangement with K who is all about follow through on the on-going Homestead Improvement Plan.

And speaking of K, as we pointed our sadly arthritic wolf homeward, we discovered that he had returned from the salt mines. Likewise a colleague of A (hereinafter denoted A-prime) was feeling brave enough to ask if we'd like to have dinner. I feel certain that this indicates that my hostess never, ever talks about me.

We tragically went with atmosphere over guaranteed quality in our choice of dining establishment. The Loring Pasta Bar proved to be asa cool looking as all my native guides had promised it would. However, I can now tell you from experience that you do not want to be served by A Former American Idol Also-Ran who has fallen on hard times. A-prime's salmon was unexpectedly coated with stuff that would kill her. Our drinks appear to have been drawn from the well of lost souls with a thimble. And most tragically, apparently one would have had to choke a bitch to get another basket of bread and/or the check.


When we finally escaped (after a mandated visit to the "coolest bathroom in the world" [my second visit to the facilities supposedly holding this title, intwo very separate locations, I'll note]), we fed the meter and thought we'd wander for a while. In our wanderings, we passed Kafe 421, which had been one of A-prime's first suggestions for dinner. A, in her typcial revisionist way, later claimed that she had nixed it on the grounds that it was spelled with a "K," despite the fact that all three of us heard her exclaim in surprise that it was spelled with a "K" when we walked up.

Tonight was the night that Kafe 421 redeemed Dinky Town (that, like all other parts of this post, is 100% true). We were seated immediately and the best waiter ever informed us that their bottles of wine are half price on Mondays and Wednesdays. Although our original pick (Brancott Pinot Noir) was not available on account of distributor flakery, our uberwaiter recommended the Gaia Notios Red, which both K and I found quite pleasant, particularly for a Greek wine.

We had great dessert (Samana---a chocolate lava cake---for me; key lime pie for K; chocolate mousse and strawberries for A; and ice cream, strawberries, and a flower that may or may not technically have been edible for A-prime) and excellent service (despite the fact that I kept devolving into Muttley laughter at every fresh piece of evidence that the supposedly completely sober A ought not to be birthin' no babies this evening, should such an eventuality arise) that never even hinted that we might be unwelcome, though we left more than 15 minutes after their official closing time.

In summary, none of you bitches had as good a day as I did, nails in the dryer notwithstanding. Also, I think I'm ready for NASCAR, given all the product and business placement here.