Part of the fun of knowing the lovely Lily is all the keen Mexican treats she brings. I took two bad years of high school spanish. I don’t speak spanish at all, if I tried to order something in spanish I’d end up with a live goat and a hair dryer. So, Lily sends and brings a plethora of treats for me, everything’s in spanish.
Now, I can’t speak spanish or really even understand it spoken. I do have an odd talent for reading it, not well, of course, but slowly. I sound out the words, figure out what the root might be and using the root and the context I can usually muddle out the meaning of most things.
Of course, it does not help if you are trying to make a glass of tamarindo Tang and the unit of measure translates to ‘soup spoon’. What the hell is that.
The other fun thing is that I am pigging out on Herdez Salsa Verde! I’m a happy little piggy. She brought 8 million different kinds of salsas. Sadly, I am the whitest of the white girls in america and the salsas from Mexico are just too too spicy. Even the Del Monte salsa verde is too hot. I’m such a wimp. Lily and I will have to set up some sort of underground salsa railroad. I’ll be funneling so much money to Calexico in exchange for so many unmarked cases that the feds are going to get involved.
Let’s see…anything else?
Watching “The Day After Tomorrow” is a little upsetting in light of recent weather events. It’s a bad movie to be sure, but still, weird to watch cities being destroyed by the weather.
Heavy rotation in the car right now. Lovely and sad song.
Also, don’t you love days when your hair looks good?
Soon the chochobo will be home!

Okay, here’s our not-so-quick rundown….
Friday:
I leave work at noon to give me a couple hours to finish vacumming and clenaing things up a bit. I have yet to learn the biggest vacuuming lesson of all. if you are going to vacuum you MUST bring Ghengis outside and walk him around until every single turd in his entire body is out. Period. the second he sees the vacuum he will run around with poops falling out of his butt. He’s not squatting and pooping, no, he’s running around in crazy blind fear with poop falling out all over the place. And you can’t freak out because if you do he will panic and run under the bed and it’s much harder to get turds out from under a king sized bed in a little bedroom.
Anyway, lesson relearned only to be forgotten next time.
I got bored and headed to the airport early and waited for Lily. I am not so smart. If i am bored at home where I have my computer and 2 wildly entertaining dogs and a dvd player, why would I be more entertained at the airport? I did learn that the roses from Chile arrived at the airport at 10:42 that morning and were SUPER FRESH and worth the price.
So, Lily finally lands and finally ends up at baggage claim and she FINALLY finds her bags and we hit the road. We head to lunch at a wonderful little coffee shop deli thingy recommended by Jessi. The food was great and the weather was perfect enought o sit outside, but half way through the meal i realized just where I was and I felt like I was invading on someone’s turf. I ate my food, encouraged Lily to eat hers (she starts talking and forgets to eat) and we went on our way.
It was a great weekend to be in minneapolis. The weather was beyond perfect, the leaves were changing, it was downright bucolic.
We headed over to Whole Foods where I filled a cart with everything I needed to feed lamb to five people.
I’ll post pictures later, but with the help of Lily i made my semi-famous rack of lamb dinner complete with fabulous appetizers and dessert (it’s very hard to whip up a zabaglione after so much wine).
David was a total peach (this is his theme for the entire weekend, he’s pretty amazing), he helped clean up and then made Lily’s bed.
Exhausted and giddy on wine we all headed to our beds.
Saturday:
Up! 3 people negotiate the bathroom and then we’re off! We head to Victors for plantain omelettes and mango waffles and black beans and rice and cortaditos and everything else wonderful and cuban. The whole time, David practices his spanish with Lily. We eat and eat and eat and laugh and share stories and generally have a good time.
Now we’re off to the Mall of America! We don’t look at much, we see a few things, wander a bit, I get coffee because 1 cubano and 1 cortadita was just not enough. We excitedly hit H&M and immediately freak at the crowds. I buy a metric buttload of hair accessories and Lily tasks David to get a purse off a mannequin!
Camp Snoopy is the ultimate goal of the day and we go get our points and wander in. This is where things got hard for me. I was tired. TIRED. and I don’t do well in crowds. I was completely overwhelmed by the place. First things first we go to the ‘Mystery Mine Ride’ which is no longer the Mystery Mine Ride, but the decor is the same. The MMR is one of those where you sit in a room with a crazy film playing and the chairs tilt all crazily giving you the illusion of flying about in the movie. They had “SpongeBob Squarepants: The Ride!” so you know I was all over that. Sadly, it was set up for little kids so it was not so exciting.
Lily and David like rollercoasters. I do not. I rode on the regular coaster as that is not much of a coaster, and David took her on the twisty freaky scary coaster and the axe thing that swings you around and flips you upside down.
Home to regroup for a few minutes then Honk Honk Noodle with Jessi and Ahmed! As per usual we ate til it hurt! We even ate these tiny octopusses that were super cute (but chewy).
Home again to relax for a little while! David practiced some songs then we went to Balls Cabaret and we got to see David sing. I’d never seen him perform there so it was a treat for me as well. In honor of Lily’s visit he sang the “I Don’t Like” song in Spanish, “No Me Gusta”. So cute.
We didn’t get to bed til almost 3am.
Sunday:
We wake up again (what’s with all the waking up?) and negotiate the bathroom and find ourselves at Cupcake, the happiest place on earth.
Remember when i hit the wall the day before? i never really recovered from that. Apologies to david and lily, i was too too tired and too too cranky. It’s hard to pack all of minnesota into a visit, and it was so important that we do this so lily could see everything!
I ate a cupcake, an apple and brie sandwhich and pumpkin creme brulee.
I completely gorged on desserts all day.
We showed Lily the capital building and found the portrait of Jesse Venture and all the others. Then driving up Summit ave, and the river and to the falls and I had an ice cream which should have cheered me up but my feet hurt and sometimes I am a 5 year old.
Then back home for a final bit of chilling before we sent Lily on her way home.
It was a beautifully fun weekend and Lily is such a sweet and charming girl. Also, she likes my dogs, she gets points there!

lily has been dropped off at the airport. Sad. So much to write about, so many many many pictures and delights. Will write about it soon.
Miss you, Lily.
Also, one year ago today i donned a dress, picked up a fella in a powder blue tux and headed to the classiest wedding i had ever been to. Happy anniversary Dena and Levi!!

Holy crap, so I got home last night and went to check my site to see if there were any comments on the new post and WHERE THE HELL IS THE POST??? Oh, right, I got all distracted while writing it then it was time to meet the girls for happy hour and I shut my computer down and forgot to post.
It’s for the best, I’m sure it was boring.
Cafe Du Monde is opening next week!!! YAYAYAYAY! I keep watching the news and seeing the little bits of New Orleans that i loved and it is heartening to see them coming back to life. It is heartening to learn that most of the panicky screaming by the media regarding the rapes, the mass murder of children, the mad max gangs roaming the streets, were overblown and untrue.
Lily is at the airport and preparing to get on the plane! Go lily!
Tonight I am making my lamb dinner for Lily and David and Owen and Shawn. I love the lamb dinner, the people who eat the lamb dinner love it. The lamb dinner is the shiznit!
Last night was happy hour with the girls from work (when i say that I feel like I work in the accounting office for a second rate medical insurance company located in a bland box near an interstate in the suburbs. I’m like 2 degrees away from knit coordinates from JCPenny and hosting Oprah’s book club in my living room on the weekends). We went to Mortimers. We were roundly hated by the bartender and we have no idea why!! We went to the counter, asked for our beers and paid, but she was surly! We weren’t drunk and unruly, we hadn’t even had a chance to become unruly! Also, an old, half-drunk guy tried to sell up angel paintings while we sat there. It was half priced thursday or so he says. We did not buy.
Also, the Sister Kenny institute used a stroke survivor to call me and ask me to donate money to the stroke research program. I felt bad. I told him to send the materials and I’d look them over. I have the hardest time actually saying ‘no’ so i just end up asking for materials to be sent to me.
Okay, chochachos, I have to do payroll so i can leave work early and get the house ready! Have a goodly weekend, I’ll post pics next week.

The weather, in it’s cryptic fashion, has decided to vomit its misery onto the land in order to purge itself for Lily’s triumphant visit. It was cold and drizzley and ugly today, but the weather channel promises temps near 70 for the weekend. Let’s keep our fingers crossed, this is October in Minnesota, anything can happen.
Also, Lily found my salsa verde. She’s a peach.
Today was my bi-monthly day of reflection and ponderences. The day I stop and wonder quietly to myself “how the fuck did I get from there to here??”. These are interesting days, not bad days at all, just good days that remind me that things don’t just happen, that there is method and causality and maybe a little magic. There are still things I don’t understand, but I’ll continue to dissect them.
And, of course, part of my life includes two dork dogs. maddie has finally figured out tug-o-war! I am so proud. I’m pretty sure she never really played with other dogs before and I’m also thinking her previous owners were not ones to get on the floor and play with her. Ghengis loves a good game of tug with one of the stinky dinosaur carcasses, but I can only deal with him draping a wet, empty polyester dinosaur over my hand so many times before i have to send him on his way. Somehow, he managed to get Maddie to take hold and keep holding. Maddie has also invented a game wherein she collects ghengis’ most loved toys and lays on them while he freaks out and snuffles her.
Speaking of snuffles…if you are going to get a pug, please for the love of god name it something other than snuffy or snuffleupagus. Seriously.
I need to finish the laundry, do the dishes, make some hummus, vacuum and generally make things look nice.
nice.