Labour Day Weekend

   The Labour Day weekend has passed so it's time to catch up. It was hot here, by Minnesota standards, in the mid-30s. Rather than work up a sweat we laid low for the most part. Our weekend started with a United Nations dinner. Since neither of us felt like cooking I headed to the grocery store to put together a dinner of snacks:

• Italian cheese and olives
• Polish pickles
• Japanese sushi
• Chinese BBQ pork buns
• American crackers
• Mexican guacamole and chips
• Moscow mules from a variety pack of pre-mixed cocktails

  A balanced meal for sure. Protein, vegetables, grains, fruit... and alcohol which is also a vegetable. A vegetable? Well, if you're playing Twenty Questions which category does alcohol fit into? It's not animal or mineral. I rest my case. Dinner was great, by the way.

  Saturday started badly. First, September 2 is the beginning of duck hunting season in Minnesota. Since we're surrounded by lakes the hunters were out in full force at sunrise, blasting away with their Remingtons at flocks of unsuspecting fowl. If cats aren't waking us up it's rednecks with shotguns!. That was followed by the news Jimmy Buffett had passed away. I've been listening to him sing of the stuff of my dreams since 1977. It was like losing an old friend and it put a damper on my entire day, which was topped by watching the Blue Jays lose an eminently winnable game against one of the worst teams in baseball. Saturday. Blech.

  Sunday dawned more brightly as I was awakened by a particular cat that will go unnamed at 5:00 am, proven by this picture taken from the front porch:

  We spent a large part of the day enjoying the A/C (did I mention it was hot this weekend?) and snacking on the remnants of the U.N. Dinner. Once things started to cool off we headed out to the cool tub (I turned off the heater in the last episode, remember?) with margaritas in hand to toast the late Mr. Buffett. Well, they were actually mojitos. I'm saving the margaritas until last.

  Labour Day was earmarked for a trip to Minneapolis. We're only an hour away so figured a holiday was a good time to head downtown and check out some Atlas Obscura stuff. We hit up Spotify for some Buffett tunes and headed to the Sculpture Garden as that's where large, weird things are located and, well, we love large, weird things, like this:

... and me with a giant cock.

Made ya' look 😂😂😂. And this...

  You've likely seen it in Philadelphia, New York and other locations. Apparently Robert Indiana made a bunch of them and this is just one. Not the one.

  From there we decided to head to the Nicollet Mall downtown. Before we go further it's important we have a common frame of reference. When someone uses the term "mall" to describe a city street to me I conjure images of people walking on a closed street with shops, outdoor cafes, street performers, etc. Yes? No.

  The Nicollet Mall is designed that way, ie, closed street, lots of walking space, etc. but there's nothing there to see or do. There are many homeless people, if that turns your crank. There's the Mary Tyler Moore statue:

  It depicts an iconic scene from a classic 1970s TV show but, having stood on that very spot, I have no idea what about this place made her so happy. Maybe it was knowing she could go back to Hollywood after filming it, I don't know.

  You see, the secret thing about this mall is, it's indoors. Wait. What? If you look up you'll see the famous (sort of) skyways that link all the surrounding buildings above ground. There are no storefronts, restaurants, etc. at ground level, only the stone faces of office buildings and hotels. There's lots of stuff inside all these buildings at the mezzanine level but, because it was a holiday (did I mention no one was there?) they're closed. Bummer.

  So much for hanging out for a couple of hours with umbrella drinks at the sidewalk eateries watching street performers. We did get to see a disturbed young woman wearing a onesie with the trap door open screaming about how she didn't want kids, so there's that. We also managed to find the Bob Dylan mural, depicting the Minnesotan as he evolved through his career:

  I also spied this building which might be able to help with Penny's aversion to Miracle Whip:

  With that experience behind us we wondered how else could we blow some time here in the Big City? Why, the Mall of America, of course. To be fair, there are lots of lakes, parks, hiking trails, bike paths, etc. around Minneapolis but hiking under a hot sun on a humid 35 degree afternoon wasn't appealing. So we headed to the air-conditioned mall.

  Before I go further I feel it's important you, dear reader, get a feeling for driving in downtown Minneapolis. You see, the city streets are laid out in a bit of a random fashion, part grid and part jumble. In the 1950s and 1960s, when the government was building the Interstate Highway System they bulldozed large swaths of cities to pave them over and it appears Minneapolis's design didn't jive well with this method. It seemed every time Google instructed us to turn at an intersection it was immediately followed by an urgent command to cross four lanes of traffic to turn left at the next intersection fifty yards down the road. Fortunately it was a holiday as I can't imagine dealing with that during a busy rush hour. Oh wait. We're going to a Twins game next Monday. In rush hour. Can't wait. Anyway, the mall:

  I fear the picture doesn't do it justice. It's big. How big? It's the biggest mall in the U.S. and second to the West Edmonton Mall in North America. It's four stories of retail space with a hotel on one end and an office tower on the other and a two acre amusement park in the middle.

  The entire third floor is devoted to food courts and restaurants. It's big. It's so big that we aborted our tour through it because we were worried we'd get lost, roaming its miles of hallways deep into the prairie night.

  We did get lunch there, stopping at a Shake Shack. If you think that's a familiar name, you're likely remembering the scene from Grease with John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John at the amusement park. That's where they got the name. Now you feel educated, don't you? While sitting at a table in the food court I noticed this:

  I'm in favour of recycling but the idea of people sliding on this table wearing bowling shoes previously worn by hundreds, maybe thousands or others put me off a bit.

  With our big city experience behind us we sped back to our rural hidey hole for some peace and quiet. The Blue Jays won. We drank Palomas. The hunters ran out of ammo. All was right with the world. The heat wave is expected to break after today so cooler weather will get us out hiking and back on a golf course before next weekend's Jesse James festivities. If you didn't check it out after reading the last episode I'm not going to explain. And, "the dog ate my homework" won't cut it either. You'll have to stay after school and bang erasers together. I mean it. Later.