I just got back from Andy and Erin's wedding which was fully satisfying. More adorable couples and babies than a barren divorcee could shake a fat bitter finger at. And all those towns that start with "M" (Minneapolis, Morris, Madison) were charming, and I wasn't frisked on either flight.
Here are two things I learned to love on this tour of Midwester M Towns:
The Current a groovy public radio music station in Minneapolis/St. Paul and some other town south of there. They play stuff kinda like what Pete puts on his CDs and I steal from Higgins -- at least, a lot of the same bands to my ears. If you hear sucky stuff it's probably a local band because they play quite a bit of that, too, but you have to love them for it.
Why can't we have something like that in Portland? I mean, I love and I mean LOVE KBOO (I gave them $100 this year and got an awesome baseball cap) -- but there's a lot of times when I just want to listen to actual semi-normal music, and I'm too lazy and brain dead to pick it out myself, so thank you, The Current, and your webcast. Maybe if you give me a baseball cap I'll give you money.
Speaking of radio, if not the midwest, have I already plugged Shane and Arne's DocTalk radio show on this blog? If not, here it goes: DocTalk is a radio program in which they interview all kinds of interesting documentarians. It's genuinely interesting, and I'm not just saying that because they're my cousin/friends and I like documentaries. You can listen through Pirate Cat radio if you're in some tiny obscure geographical area called the Bay Area on Tuesday nights -- like, hey, that's TONIGHT! (although I'm not sure what's up with that since I thought they were in Portland this week), or you can listen to the webcast or, like I do, the Podcast. The sound quality isn't always totally awesome, but it's not totally annoying, either.
I'm kind of curious: are my friends listening to webcast radio shows, and if so, which ones? I feel like it's something I only just kind of discovered, although I used to listen to something called Hober a few years ago. Let me know ...
OK -- back on topic: So, the other thing both Kathy and I grew to appreciate, if not actually want to marry: Quiznos especially, for me, their Black and Blue salad or, as Kathy called it, my beef and beef blood salad. Yum! Actually, I think I may have had one too many beef blood salads too many on the way back. The Denver airport Quiznos is a little suspect and the salad I got was just ... I donno. Kinda icky. Even for a salad with hunks of beef on it. So I don't know if I'll be eating there again any time soon. But for road food, it was just fine. Delicious, even. OK -- Kathy and I spent 45 minutes on our road trip trying to find one in some godforsaken hell hole of a strip mall along I-94 on our way from Madison to Minneapolis and finally located one between the Walmart and the HomeDepot -- and we didn't regret it!!!
So that's my report from the three Ms. I'm sure people gave me some great ideas to blog about (as well as this cold -- coff, coff), but I've got some work to do so I'll have to come back to them.
Hey Mary,
Glad to be along with you on this journey and to share in these delicious and melodious revelations. And I hope that my low-blood-sugar mood swing to the dark side in our search for Quiznos added to the horror and the drama of that quest in a way that the Holy Grail of Beef and Blood at the end was even more legendarily glorious.
xoxo, Kathy
I know there were some more great ideas that came out of this trip and I'm trying to remember them. I know one was to reorganize the calendar around brand new seasons that correspond to fishing. Instead of boring ol' Spring, Summer, Winter, Fall there would be Crawfish, Shrimp, Mussel, Crab or something like that.
I also had the idea for fantasy wedding pictures. Instead of having to go to a location like a gazebo for your wedding pictures, you could do them in front of a green screen and then project lovely scenes behind you like the Eiffel Tower or the Brooklyn Bridge. Wouldn't it be fun to make it look like you got married on seven different continents all at the same time?
Anyway, that's all I can think of for now.
xo, Kathy
Hi, everybody.
I had an idea this morning. Mary's biggest fans should all get together and design a bumper sticker that says, "YOUR IDEA SUCKS," along with the Lightbulb/Mary logo and www.marysgreatideas(dot)com off to the side. I also suggested to Mary that all of us pitch in and. . . uh. . . pay.
T.
HEY MARY! CHANGE MY "(DOT)" TO A "."
Actually, you could make one for me for about $3.00 at Cafepress. If you really cared you would have done it already.
What, did no ideas come out of the Morris leg of the trip? How sad. Sorry about freaking out about the pillowcase, which turned out fine. Hope your hair is too.