Our fair city

Have you heard about the idea to stimulate the economy by picking three of your favorite businesses to frequent? I love it: Guilt-free splurging. My choices revolve around food: Lucia's To Go, Galactic Pizza, and one more TBD. My son chooses to stimulate the economy with strawberry crepes at Lucia's, and usually a three-bite mini-cupcake. I can't imagine this event at the Mill City Museum won't be crazy-chaotic, but I'm still penciling it in to support Lucia:

Family Day: Build a Mill City
April 19, 1 to 4 p.m.
Spend the afternoon taking in family activities and performances about the people, places and things that made Minneapolis what it is today. Join Chef Lucia Watson in the Baking Lab for a demonstration connecting children to food with recipes to make together at home; make a mini Minneapolis landscape book with Minnesota Center for Book Arts; take in a performance by History Player Franklin Steele, who arrived in 1837 and contributed to the building of St. Anthony; enjoy the music of Minneapolis’ many cultures with Macphail Center for Music; use blocks to build a Roman arch like the ones in the nearby Stone Arch Bridge; make a mini herb garden to take home with Mill City Farmer’s Market; get wet using the Water Lab’s "Build a Mill City" table; make an "Exploding Washburn A Mill Book" to take home; and view the exhibit "From Mill to Museum," which explores how the Washburn A Mill was re-built as a major museum.
Cost: Program included with museum admission of $10 adults, $8 seniors and college students, $5 children ages 6-17. Reservations are recommended, call 612-341-7555.
Built within the ruins of the Washburn A Mill, a National Historic Landmark, the award-winning Mill City Museum chronicles the flour milling industry that fueled the growth of Minneapolis. The story comes to life through the eight-story Flour Tower, Water Lab, Baking Lab and other hands-on exhibits.

The museum is located at 704 S. Second St. in Minneapolis. Hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays (open until 9 p.m. Thursdays) and noon to 5 p.m. Sundays. For more information, call 612-341-7555 or visit www.millcitymuseum.org.

The Society’s calendar of events is posted on the Internet at events.mnhs.org/calendar. The web site also has information about all of the Society’s programs, museums and historic sites. To request a free guide to museums and historic sites, call 1-800-657-3773.

The Minnesota Historical Society is a non-profit educational and cultural institution established in 1849 to preserve and share Minnesota history. The Society collects, preserves and tells the story of Minnesota’s past through museum exhibits, libraries and collections, historic sites, educational programs and book publishing.

Baby Marion

"Can I see your hair?" someone asked my preschooler yesterday.
"I don't have any!" he said, whizzing by on his bike.

He shaved it off three weeks ago as an act of solidarity with his baby cousin, Marion, who was undergoing chemo.

Last Friday, I walked into his room to tell him that Marion had died. As I pulled him onto my lap, I started crying, and he said, "Did Baby Marion die?"

I'd gotten a lot of good advice on handling this topic, so I answered his questions honestly and briefly, and then we finished getting dressed.

Throughout the weekend, we discussed memorial services, cremation (he's decided that, like me, he wants his ashes scattered over the lake), and how most people die after they've lived many, many years.

Thinking about and seeing death through a child's eyes has helped me cope with the reality of my niece's death -- that, and some hard training runs (I'm doubly glad I have the half-Ironman to train for and distract me).

The one question that keeps coming up, though, is the one I don't have any answer for: "But why did Baby Marion die?"

happy vernal equinox

Ever since we set the clocks ahead an hour, we've been prepping the kids: "Pretty soon, you'll get to go to bed while it's still light out! Won't that be fun?" Rudimentary lessons in astronomy ensued, but it's unclear how much was processed. "How do they make the days change, Mom?" my son asked the other day.
So when the sun passes directly over the equator tomorrow, we'll be taking note. It might prove to be inevitable, but I'm hoping to forestall 9:30 p.m. summertime bedtimes.
We'll also be celebrating the first day of spring, even though we're wearing our parkas and mittens again today. Soon enough, we'll be banking our "green hours," storing up enough time in the sun to last us through next winter. (The National Wildlife Federation recommends one hour of unstructured outside playtime -- green hour -- a day. If your kid thinks of a blackberry only with a capital B, check out this blog post about exactly how endangered even the language of nature has become.)

If all else fails, I'll be heading out to buy some room-blackening blinds.

Gymnastics 2.0

Here's the link to my new favorite circus school. (It's true that I tend to overuse the word "favorite," but in this case, it really is my only favorite circus school.)
We checked it out during the open house last weekend, and now I cannot wait to sign the kids up for classes. My preschooler is enjoying a gymnastics class at the Y right now, but this is gymastics kicked up about 18 notches.
Grandparents, no need to worry: the trapeze, hige-wire unicycling and fire-juggling don't start until at least age 6.

The curious incident of the disappearing Yaktrax in the snowstorm

I remember running in Central Park one snowy day while I was in grad school. The park was beautiful...and empty. It was actually a lovely day, from my Minnesotan perspective, but I didn't see one other person during the course of my run.
Tuesday night, I set out for a loop around Lake Calhoun in the midst of a windy snowstorm. All winter, I'd been thinking how smart it would be to carry my Yaktrax down to the running path in case the path hadn't been plowed. So, congratulating myself on my foresight, I set out. The path seemed OK, so I left them at the bottom of the stairs and started running.
About 800 meters later, a woman passed me. For some reason, I looked at her shoes. She was wearing Yaktrax just like mine, which, I figured, must have been why she was whizzing by me. (Also, seeing as I'm no longer breastfeeding, or pregnant, and I wasn't pushing either kid in the babyjogger, I had no other excuses. So I was happy to attribute it to the Yaktrax.)
As the wind whipped and the snow pelted me, I nodded to other runners and bikers. That's how it works in Minnesota: You head out in horrible conditions, and you're always affirmed by the presence of others. We all act the same way we would if it were 60 and sunny. And really, it wasn't bad, until I started mistaking pools of blackness on the path as asphalt and discovering that in fact, they were deep puddles of slush.
Nothing unusual for a March run -- in fact, I was enjoying the fact that I'd left in daylight at 6:30 (!) -- until I got back to where I'd left the Yaktrax.
They were gone.
I wonder if someone mistook them for running's version of Minneapolis's new bike-sharing program?
Anyway, if you see any when the snow melts, let me know.

Porta-potty panic

(Image via Wikipedia)

Apparently I've been thinking about the economy more than usual: Yesterday, while calculating the distance to the next port-a-loo, I reminded myself how lucky I am to live in a city with not only a network of running and biking trails (something I always took for granted until living in New York City, New Orleans, and California), but a trail system dotted with port-a-johns. I'd even say they're essential for pregnant and post-partum moms (I remember planning routes past construction sites during my last pregnancy when I ventured away from the city limits. And there were multiple times when I needed every one of the five portable toilets around Lake Calhoun's 3-mile loop.)

Then, I panicked. Those Biffies cost money: What if recession concerns prompt Our Fair City to cut back on its public service amenities? Won't the extra portalets be the first to go?

Admittedly, it's a first-world concern (but slightly less indulgent than some, like whether my grocery store has cut back on the free sushi samples, I'd argue. I mean, in the Peace Corps, personal latrines set the American volunteers light-years ahead of their neighbors in hygiene).

Then I started taking stock of other ways the recession could affect running: I can't imagine any remaining independent running stores will survive, for example. Other than that, running seems relatively recession-proof: A pair of shoes, and you're good to go. I think I can safely flush my concerns down the toilet, so to speak.

Nurses know best

Great news. This very blog won a spot in this list of the top 100 "healthy mom" blogs.

I'm hoping that downing my skim-half-caf-half-whip-to-go mocha as my recovery drink after my 34-minute run this morning qualifies me as "healthy."