Faith in Humanity restored - - Mpls Farmer's Market

One of those times when Mpls shakes off it's sometime-assholishness and shines as pretty as it should. Rows of awesome fruits and vegetables, families and couples and old people of all shapes and sizes and creeds: Hmong girls at the smalltownMN bratwurst stand. Tamales and farm fresh eggs. $2 Roasted sweet corn, and $1 tomato plants. A group of eastern Indian IT guys, shopping together; the man from Apple Valley who knows ALOT about hostas. People are friendly, transactions are all cash based and forever. There's samples (homemade pickles!) and you can ask questions.

The cold weather kept away the stubborn crowd masses that this state is so brilliant at (upper midwesterners love personal space, but yet, Minnesotans will press themselves into impossibly small spaces - - Grand Ole' Days, the State Fair - - just to go. This still astonishes me).

I am happy. I have tomato plants and hostas to plant, plus a $2 bag of cherries. (which may be one of my favorite foods in the world. Coffee, red cherries, fresh eggs, some chocolate. Rockin'.) It was Minneapolis, all idealized - - but with the backdrop of grey cold weather. It's like Philly and Portland had a baby, for one brief shiny time. Nice work, you Minneapolis, you.

It was a nice chaser to walking through The Nickolodean Universe at the Mall of America last night. It made me feel like an alien. An overstimulated, astonished alien. I DON'T GET IT, but if I ever have kids, they probably will. This is also the Twin Cities, and probably where more of the future lies than in the Jen-idealized version of Minneapolis. Inner grumblings of my parents, who never took us to theme parks of any kind (Wall Drug doesn't count), but made sure we stopped by every army fort and museum from here to Yellowstone. I am my parents' kid. Sorry possible future children of Jen - - we shall not have fun. ;)

Today is the Brave New Youth's last performance for the 2008-2009 season. Realized that I've been coaching the youth, fairly consistently (there was that one spring I missed, three years ago, when I started at the Museum) for 8 years. That's... um.. good. And silly. I'm hopefully a lot better at it than when I started. And speaking of such things, I'm also now old enough to basically be one of their parents.

They're better than us all. Nothing to do with me - - everything to do with them. 4 p.m., Brave New Workshop in Minneapolis, Free!

(It's followed by a potluck, and I'm bringing egg salad and red cherries - - basically, I'm taking the kids what I would want someone to bring to me. Possibly unfortunately, I tend to have the food leanings of an 85 year old man. Some braunschweiger and a shot of Ouza would round out the entire taste experience.)

Onward.