Fire In the Street

Dear Food Diary,


Congratulations!  Your ill-conceived and comically dangerous experiments have succeeded -- you've traveled back in time 19 days.  And with only minor damage to the very fabric of reality!  Well done.


Tonight, Christian and I went to see The New Pornographers at First Avenue.  It was the full eight-piece lineup (supplemented by a multi-instrumentalist dude with the wickedest cello-face I've ever seen.  He's like the Jonny Lang of classical string instruments).


I saw them open (as a six-piece) for Belle & Sebastian in 2006 and wasn't especially impressed as they chugged, all business, through songs off of Twin Cinema.  This time around I was struck by the band's professionalism and attention to detail.  With the exception of Dan, who only occasionally emerged from backstage just long enough to give an animated mutter through one of his tunes and down a beer, the group displayed both a workmanlike "we keep our heads down and plow through" approach to performing and a new (to me, at least) flair for the dramatic.  They delivered the most minor instrumental details from their two more recent albums and even managed roll out a intensity/emotionally-textured setlist.  Here are some pictures of them doing that.

  
After the show, we played some midnight tennis and went to the traditional place for a very early breakfast.

 "You know you've come from someplace filthy when you go into a Flameburger bathroom to wash your hands."

Seein' things that I may never see again.

So what do they have in Madison, aside from cows?


Statues of cows.

Odes to badger motherhood.

Odes to carnival food, pot-bellies, or possibly French imperialism.

At the Henry Vilas Zoo, they've got super-chill grizzly bears.

"Sup?"

Confused, displaced Antarctic penguins

Tiny prairie-dog pups

Banana-stealing chipmunks (this one was under our picnic table)

Animal love.

All this action was only half of one day in old MadTown, Food Diary.  There's more to tell, but I'll let you digest that (as it were) for now.  

When it lasted all day we would blast it all day.

Dear Food Diary,

Spring is here.  You and I have had our doubts for weeks, but it's not going to snow anymore.  We're free.

The ducks believe it.

The geese believe it.

The trees believe it.

I believe it.

Why won't you?

Every delight bloom we're marching through.

Dear Food Diary,

I've been spending a lot of time outside over the past month, getting ready to plant the garden and relandscape the front yard.  I dug up a ton (or two) of landscaping rock, then got a replacement ton (or two) of black dirt and carted that around, shoveling and raking it into a slope in the front yard.  I built another garden box, and a trellis, then hauled the leftover dirt into the backyard and shoveled some more.

Why the garden boxes?  Because our backyard is filled with hungry and terrifying creatures.  The individual creatures aren't both hungry and terrifying, BTW -- there are some that are hungry (rabbits) and some that are terrifying (mutant ninja squirrel, giant woodchuck).

The garden boxes are a defense against the rabbits, who over the past winter ate all of our front-yard shrubs, three arborvetae, two grape vines, a blueberry bush, and most of an apple tree.

I really like having rabbits in the backyard, on account of their cuteness.  But after they ate everything we own, I considered evicting them from the under-shed holes.  Turns out, I didn't need to.  A huge woodchuck moved in a couple weeks ago and started hanging out under our shed -- the rabbits also stuck around, eating the freshly green grass and casting spiteful glances at the woodchuck.

At first I was pretty thrilled to have an honest-to-goodness groundhog living in our backyard, then Sarah mentioned that she's seen how much wood a woodchuck would chuck -- and it's lots.  It had to go.

So I bought some woodchuck mace (yes, there is such a thing) and sprinked it near the entrance of the hovel holes.  The following morning I decided to flood him out, usher him out the front gate, then cement up the holes.

Woodchucks are fast.  And you can tell when they're pissed.  After about a half hour of tunnel flooding, the thing emerged, shook itself off, looked at me, and bolted for under the deck.  I chased it, not really thinking about what I'd do if I actually caught it.  It was moot, anyway, 'cause it scurried under the deck lattice, laughed, and gave me the finger.

I spent the next hour building a woodchuck corral and disassembling the deck lattice.  Eventually I was able to spook him out from under the deck, through the corral, out the gate, and into our neighbor's backyard.  Mission accomplished.

Wow.  That was a long story.  I've gotta get outside and start working on the firepit.

Last thing.  We went to the Twins game Monday, the home opener, and took the Northstar train.

Our view from the very last row of the rightfield-line upper deck.  Not too bad.

Lookie-loos looking on from the rooftop across the way from Target Plaza (behind rightfield).

Major League Baseball's fourth-largest HD replay screen.

Sarah's view of Major League Baseball's fourth most-giant dude.  It was hard to see the action (unless you count the dude as "action"), so we left our seats after the 5th and went wandering. 

After a minor feast at the Townball Tavern, we ended up downstairs, hanging out next to a column, with this view.

(Just Like) Starting Over

Dear Food Diary,

It's a new year -- a new decade -- and here we both are, having each survived thus far.  I guess congratulations are in order...  I'll be waiting for those.  You know where I live.

So what have you missed?  Well, I built a fort.  Actually it was more like I built a two-foot wall and dug a three-foot hole, but some people liked it.

We were down in the Hinter, at Sarah's parents' place.  We'd expected to be snowbound, but the snowpocalypse that was promised crept quietly by.

Anyhow, along the way I had a hand in a great Christmas dinner, and I used the other hand to carve a roast beast.

I made fresh horseradish by grating a root, mincing garlic, and adding a mix of rice-wine/apple-cider vinegar.

After dinner, we performed the traditional Christmas experiments with water and money.

Besides the science, Christmas magic! (awwww)

 

Monday I went to see Fever in the Ox and got to hang out with lots of people I know (plus some I didn't, and a couple I thought I did but didn't).  It was good to see and interact with everybody.  Also good to see Fever rock it out.

 

Dylan and MacKenzie were back in town briefly (I saw Dylan at the Fever show, in fact), so on the night before New Year's Eve, Sarah and I went with those two and Christian to the Shorewood Bar and Grill.  The name is a little misleading, since the place is Greeker than shit and super-delicious.  Great gyro meat there and an awesome scallop appetizer. After Shorewood, we played Rock Band at our place then later tried to hang out at The Otter, Grumpy's, and Our Bar, but found them all lacking in one way or another, so we ended up at Perkins, where I ate yet more (albino mozzarella sticks and a very solid chocolate shake). 

That's probably your favorite part of the story, huh, Food Diary?  Or the part you hate the most.  I can't even tell with you anymore.  I feel like we need to reconnect (or never see each other again).  Let's make that a goal for the rest of the year.  Deal?

All in all you missed out on some fun times, but I'm glad I didn't.  Maybe this'll be the decade where I make an effort to join people out in the world and have fun with them.

'Til next time (if there is a next time),

Matt

Monday to Sunday I hit all the clubs

Dear Food Diary,

I went to a Christmas party last night and ate one of the following things.  Guess which.

 

Busy Busy Bah Bah Bah

Dear Food Diary,

The past four days have been super-ass busy for the folks at my work -- me included.  I've honestly spent most of my waking hours working, driving to/from work, or eating.  That's actually one of the reasons Sarah crafted the Celebration of Pork on Thursday.  I was locked away in the office most of the afternoon, working orders.

Anyhow, while I was away at work on Friday (4:00 am 'til 7:00 pm), Sarah put up the Christmas tree and wrapped presents.  Pretty much all day.  Here's a sample of her efforts:

Then on Satuday I woke up grumbling because I knew I'd have to work most of the day again, but I got up and dutifully started my reporting anyway.  Round about 1 pm, Sarah and I decided to take a break from all the housework and workwork we'd been doing and head up to the Springbrook Nature Center for a jaunt around the trails.

We spent a lot of the drive up and the first few minutes of the walk complaining about how much work there was going to be in next few weeks -- lots of staring at computer screens, planning for family stuff, driving to staring at computer screens, driving to staring at family, stuff. 

Then we realized we were surrounded by an acre of actual work:

We were in the middle of a forest that had been essentially de-forested by a few fuzzy critters using nothing more than their goddamn teeth.  It makes clicking through internet orders or staring at chromosomes all day seem like chump work, and definitely nothing worth complaining about.

This doesn't really convey the extent of their strategic gnawing, but there was a lot of it.  And it put everything I've done in my life (with my teeth) to shame.

Speaking of teeth, after another day of (relative) work on Sunday, Sarah made a throwback meal.  It's a recipe we call "Devonshire Chicken" since that's where it was born.  ...oh, by the way, I'm talking about Devonshire apartment complex in Mankato, not Devonshire, England.  One of those places is full of mid-afternoon drunks with unintelligble accents who drive on the wrong side of the road and would sooner run you down than look at you... the other is in England.

This meal was pretty good though.  Chicken braised in stock, white wine, garlic, onions, and bay leaves, topped with sauted mushrooms.  

Anyway, Food Diary, I've got several weeks to go (hopefully) before the insanity at work lets up (hopefully), but I'd guess the worst of it is over.  And really the worst of it was like nothing compared to felling a fricking tree with my bare teeth, then dragging it (again with my teeth and tiny beaver legs) across the forest into the water and across the river to my damn dam. 

I think I'll make it.