Shake it up

This week in St. Paul has been my kind of August.  The high temperatures have been in the upper 70s, the humidity and dew points have retreated sheepishly, and the breeze has been wonderful and laced with almost-fall.  I had to snap a photo as I was walking around St. Paul yesterday because at this time of year, the sky really is that blue and the clouds really are so puffy that they look cartoonish.  The only sky that comes close to Minnesota's in August is Colorado, where the color is always a rich, rich blue every time I visit--and the sky seems bigger on the plains there, too.

Anyone who knows me knows I'm no night owl.  In fact, I'm just lousy at staying up late.  I'm also lousy at sleeping late in the morning but need copious blocks of sleep, so that drives my bedtime earlier.  Before I go on and make myself sound like even more of a wet blanket, I'll get to the point.  If I can fight my internal clock tonight, I'm going to stay up late and watch the Perseid meteor shower, which peaks today and is one of the best meteor showers all year.  Astronomy is another long-time hidden love of mine, and I have a strange hodge-podge of constellation and planetary fun facts stored up thanks to Dayton Elementary's library.  I've only actually seen the meteor shower once, when we were on a family vacation way up north a long time ago, and it was amazing.  Tonight, I would like to drive out to the country far suburbs and check it out.

Yesterday, dangerously toeing the boundary of my non-night-owlness, I ventured out of my comfort zone and went to a play on a weeknight.  The Minnesota Fringe Festival runs just through this weekend, so I was running out of time to see my friend Isabel's play, Red Resurrected.  I grabbed a ticket to the 8:30 p.m. show and headed over to The Lab Theater in Minneapolis's Warehouse District.  I got there early, in time to wander around a neighborhood that I rarely explore and then in time to get way, way at the back of the line of theatergoers after my walk.

Here are the views from my walk--the Minneapolis skyline and the Mississippi River:

The Fringe Festival is something I've had on my should-attend list for at least three years, but this was my first show, and I had no idea what to expect.  I've heard people describe the festival as a wide spectrum of real hits and, well, real misses, and Isabel's play was a real hit.  I'm no theater critic, but Isabel is super-talented, I got completely drawn into the hour-long play, and the music and stage and acting was beautiful.  There you have it: go see it this weekend!

Next: I have been bouncing off the walls this week because I'm flying to California tomorrow morning for a weekend with my wonderful friend Nat.  Nat is getting married in three weeks!  I've seen her regularly enough since graduation because I've taken annual work trips to her part of the world, but my work schedule during those trips limited our face time to a short lunch every year. That's not enough!  I am so excited to spend a whole weekend with her (and her fiancé too!).

Last but not least, I had a Cherry Dilly Bar yesterday, and I think it changed my life.