On Cities

07 March 2010

I barely watched the Oscars tonight.

This is quite a difference from the past. The Academy Awards used to be our family’s Super Bowl.  Jennifer and I would watch them start to finish. I kept track of all the winners on a handy ballot check-sheet that came inside Entertainment Weekly. A couple of times, we staged Oscar Parties, one year even offering a prize for whichever guest picked the most winners. For a time, Jennifer and I even made it our goal to see every Best Picture nominee. This began in 1998, when we went to the theater five times: three times to see a movie based in World War II (Saving Private Ryan, the Thin Red Line, Life is Beautiful) and twice to see a movie with Queen Elizabeth (Shakespeare in Love, Elizabeth).

In fact, it wasn’t until 2005 that, for the first time, I missed the bulk of the awards show. My wife was pregnant with Owen at that time, and we had only lived in our house a few months. My brother-in-law and a friend of ours came over that day to assist me with some jobs around the house. I turned on the Oscars when the prgram began, but we were still busy hanging sheetrock.

The last time we did anything special for the Oscars was in 2008. Jennifer bought some party trays of food, and we each picked out a special drink. We set Owen’s little table in the middle of the living room and the three of us watched Oscars together. We had had a stressful couple of weeks, as we were in the process of moving, so it was fun to settle down in our house one last time before we had to get busy packing.

But tonight…nothing special. Maybe it’s because we’d hardly seen any of the movies, and some of the movies we did see were ones that I, at least, didn’t care for (Precious).

08 March 2010

We moved out of Big Lake two years ago today. That means it’s been two years since I’ve been in the town. Which, I think, is kind of funny, because it seems like I never go too long without visiting all the other towns I’ve lived in. For example, I used to live in Burnsville, and, just a couple of weeks ago, I drove to Burnsville to get my hair cut. I also used to live in Apple Valley, and last weekend I was in that city to stop by a friend’s house. But Big Lake…I don’t really see myself stopping there ever again. About a year ago, one of my co-workers invited me to her house-warming party in Big Lake, but I didn’t go. Apart from that, I haven’t even had a reason to visit.

In short, Big Lake = crazy life anamoly.

09 March 2010

There was not much food in the kitchen today, so we planned to go food shopping this evening. When Jennifer came home from school, she said she didn’t feel like making dinner, so I suggested that before going to the grocery store, we first go to a restaurant. This met with hearty approval from both Jennifer and Owen.

We didn’t want to drive far, so we drove over to Shamrock’s. After barely squeezing in to a parking spot, we walked into a very loud restaurant. It was crowded. I asked the hostess for a table, and she said there’d be a half hour wait. “Really?” I asked, surprised that a restaruant would be so busy on a Tuesday evening. She said: “Yeah, because of the Wild game.”

So, um, I guess that qualifies as an explanation. Maybe the Wild switched from the Excel Energy Center to Shamrock’s for this season?

So we walked out.

My wife spotted a very non-descript pizza place (Hot City Pizza) across the street, so she and Owen walked over there while I moved the car. We walked in to this particular dive, only to find a very tall man yelling at the employees. Well, he wasn’t really yelling, it was more like stern talking. He was upset, I gathered, because his son had parked in Hot City’s parking lot earlier in the day and met up with a friend who was dining at the restaurant. The two of them then got in the friend’s car to go somewhere, leaving the son’s car parked in the lot. So, the pizza place employees had the car impounded.

The father’s position was that the restaurant has no signage saying it’s illegal to park in the lot if you’re not eating there. One of the cashiers, who spoke very broken English, argued that there is a sign outside. But the father went outside and discovered the sign was on the south side of the building, and his son had parked on the east side.  The father asked for the restaurant owner’s name and number. The employees were not very forthcoming about this. They said things like: “He no here right now.” and, when pressed to give the name, only gave the first name. The father announced to everyone at the restaurant: “If you’re gonna park here, it’s gonna cost you $325.”

Meanwhile, a woman who arrived after we did, butted ahead of us and, when it came time for her to order, decided to air her support for the restaurant’s position. The cashier just politely nodded…after all, he already agreed with her.

The three of us, after listening to all of this and staring at the menu for five minutes, decided to leave.

I know that part of the appeal of Minnecrapolis and St. Paul is supposed to be their charming little hole-in-the-wall restaurants, but what you don’t find out until you actually go into one of thes places is that charming is defined as: “Terrible service, high price.”

We drove to Trader Joe’s, bought our groceries, and ate at home.