Category Archives: Tales of the Neighborhood

Tales of the Neighborhood

In which I venture downtown

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It’s been ages since I was in downtown Minneapolis, so yesterday after work I wandered my way downtown. I found a few Project Spectrum pictures, such as this blurb advertising the new City Center – if you look closely, you can see me reflected behind the “o” in “people.”

A map kiosk on Nicollet Mall, illustrating the somewhat confusing streets of downtown.

The Foshay Tower, as reflected in the IDS Center.

The famous spot on Nicollet Mall where Mary Tyler Moore tossed her hat in the air in the credits of the show.

And away from downtown, here’s the other, very Project Spectrum side of that cat-infested billboard. I love how the cat butts stick up over the top! (As always, click on the picture to see it better.)

I finally finished my Meilenweit Cotton socks! I confess to making sure I finished them in June, so they’d be both May and June Project Spectrum…

“You shall pay for the bib incident! Pay in snagged socks! Bwah ha ha!”

Alongs, Tales of the Neighborhood

L is for…

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Library. I love the public library. I only live about six blocks away and I’m at the library two to three times every week. (And no, it’s not just because of the cute guy who works there. Sheesh.)

The old Walker Library. It’s been a thrift store and a spa and is currently sitting empty and for lease.

Across Hennepin Avenue, the new(er), mostly underground Walker Library.

The library is underneath this lawn!

While Chaos has never been to the library (I’m thinking he would be a bit disruptive), he is very fond of library books…

Project Spectrum, Tales of the Neighborhood

Walking around the neighborhood and a possible scandal

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Whew, it’s been hot here in Minneapolis – 97F yesterday! When you consider we had highs of 45F only 10 or 12 days ago, I’m sure you’ll understand why we’re a bit stunned.

Anyway, here are an assortment of images from my neighborhood, taken over the past week. Most are Project Spectrum greens, but there are a few that just intrigued me.

A verdent mansion along East Lake of the Isles Parkway

Thomas Lowry Park, which is very small indeed.

Feet on a light post in the park

Mannequins – it freaked me out a little to get home from taking this picture and discover that Jeanne had just posted a picture of a mannequin from her neighborhood…

A control box for stoplights (pretend it’s April, since I missed taking this picture last month!).

Green, green Gulf

Van parked outside the local hip hop shop

And the possible scandal – pictures of a black cat… but not Chaos. Meet Richard, who was out for a walk when I was:

He was really too busy to stop for pictures or witty commentary.

I’m off to enjoy a lovely (albeit warm) day off from work. Chaos is enjoying the air conditioning, which I finally turned on late yesterday, having had enough of his dead kitty on the tile floor impersonation. Have a wonderful Memorial Day for those in the US (and I think it’s a bank holiday in the UK?)!

Randonymity, Tales of the Neighborhood, Those Cats

A winner, flamingos, and a very odd billboard

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Congrats to Heide, who was lucky random number 68! Her caption was “Fibery, mousey goodness. Yum!” Heide, drop me an email with your address if you haven’t already. Thanks to everyone for playing and for the kind words on my blogiversary! You so know that there will be other contests in the future…

Yesterday was lovely here in Minneapolis – sunny, not windy, and warm but not too warm (too warm is coming this weekend). I took my camera along as I walked around Lake of the Isles after work and quickly realized that it’s pretty easy to take Project Spectrum May pictures right now, since everything’s very green.

This heron is my favorite statue near the lake.

I’m quite fond of little Peavey Fountain.

Curious about what the sign says? It’s worth a read – not every fountain is a memorial to horses who died in World War I.

This house on the southwest side of Lake of the Isles has a flamboyance of plastic flamingos in its front yard every year. The flamingos “migrate” around the yard during the summer, clustering in fanciful arrangements.

This picture wasn’t taken around Lake of the Isles – it’s a billboard near work that amuses me no end. See those cats? They’re statues! When the billboard went up, there were only a few cats. Each week, more cats are added. Very clever advertising strategy.

“Give me a break, Mom. Why would cats be that interested in a fishing lure that’s obviously not for catching tuna?”

Contests, Tales of the Neighborhood

In which I seek orange and yellow in my neighborhood

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Mrs Pao has been taking some great Project Spectrum-related pictures during her walks around her neighborhood and has inspired me to do the same. So on Saturday, I grabbed my camera and headed over to Lake of the Isles – one of my very favorite places to walk in Minneapolis. (You’ve already seen one picture from that walk.)

The city of Minneapolis, known for its many lakes, doesn’t have any privately owned lakeshore. Most of the lakes have small parks with walking and biking paths around them. So all of the large houses around Lake of the Isles are set back away from the lake, on the other side of a one-way parkway encircling the lake. I thought this yellow stucco villa with orange tile roof fit the PS bill nicely.

Minneapolis also has lots of sculpture around – here’s a very cool pale yellow propellor peeking over a wall – doesn’t it look like it’s blowing in the wind?

It’s a little early for ducklings, but we’re prepared.

Some nice bright safety features that I noted during my walk.

Although we don’t have any greenery at all yet, people getting into the Easter spirit provided some spots of color.

We’re big on Charles M. Schulz here, since he was born in St. Paul.

Some paintings brightened up an alley:

And this sad sun mosaic seems to be waiting for greenery to hide behind.

“Where were you?! I was so worried. What if you didn’t come back in time to feed me?!”

Randonymity, Tales of the Neighborhood

Ah, the joys of work

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Today was one of those vaguely surreal days at work. It started with my coworker Andrea calling me at 6:15 am as I was fumbling around, getting into my car with my work stuff. Andrea was already at work, but alas, she’d arrived there with a large nail in her tire. So I picked her up at the tire place on my way in.

Then at 8:30 my boss stops by and asks if I can follow him to the Volvo dealer so he can drop off his car for a 7:30 am oil change (time delay due to his excessively cryptic Outlook reminder taking over an hour for him to decipher – note to self re: making clear Outlook reminders for personal events). Okey dokey. At least it was all breaking up the day more than usual.

Sidenote: Altho I live in an urban area of the Twin Cities (Uptown Minneapolis), I work in a very suburban area – here’s a picture from the elevator lobby on my floor. Yup, it was as cold as it looks – I think maybe 15F at the time of the picture.

In the middle of the day, I rebooted my computer, and in retaliation my computer refused to acknowledge the perfectly functioning keyboard attached to it. That took LAN Support about 45 minutes of goofing around with three other keyboards, and resulted in my 2nd new keyboard in two weeks (the original keyboard having died in a tragic early morning mocha accident). While LAN Support was puzzling over my persnickety computer, I took the opportunity to take a picture of a recent addition to my cube clutter (approximately 3″ tall), procured entirely due to the black cat on it:

Later in the day, a painting appeared, leaning against the wall in the lobby on our floor. This was interesting because we’ve been in this space for over three years, so why start decorating the lobby now? Apparently there was some disagreement among folks on our floor as to which way they hoped the painting would be hung (should the painting ever move from leaning against the wall, that is). Throughout the afternoon, the painting was moved from position 1 (artist signature in lower left corner)…

to position 2 (artist signature in lower right corner)…

and back. I personally never saw anyone moving the painting, so for all I know, the painting itself was waffling.

And here I am (at home at least), still logged on and working… It’s a sad state of affairs that having to work on a Friday evening caused absolutely no disruption in my personal life, other than to the cat’s feeding schedule and my baby knitting schedule.