Reviews, Recipes, and Random Slices of Life

So, I have some trouble telling people apart. It's a standing joke at our house that I think "all white people look alike" (I have this problem slightly less with people whose skin tone has a wider range). I frequently confuse those around me when I try to identify which movies I've seen actors in--almost always I agglomerate a couple of actors.

However! Today it's not just me. It really is the Day of the Doppelgangers.

This morning at Spyhouse, I saw what I first thought was a good friend. fayde assured me that it was not. I am still not wholly convinced.

( See if you 'recognize' her. )

And then in the skyway doing a courier run, I saw my mother-in-law. Ten years younger, 30 pounds lighter, but the resemblance was uncanny. I stopped and stared. It rather disconcerted her, I'm afraid.

...I wonder what they're here for?

A man on the bus, in his early 50s. He was wearing a leopard-print fur shirt, a leather and fur coat, a huge gold chain, heavy rings on both his hands, and--yes--a hat with a twelve-inch feather in it. Pimping it old-skool!

• 15:28 Fellow coffee-shopper talking about seismic or volcanic events, cuneiform, and cracking some code.
• 15:31 Other coffee-shopper, to girl he seems to be on coffee date with: "I don't swim. I'm sure if I fell out of a boat, I'd learn."
• 15:40 Girl on date just said she feels like she has "so much to live for." Back away slowly.
• 15:51 Guy on date just raised his arms in the air as if to say, "Goal!" I think this means he thinks he's scoring.
• 15:53 He said he wanted to see her sarcasm. She says, "I generally don't release it the first time I meet someone."
• 15:59 Dear dude on date: "I don't think I'll get married until I'm 35," is the *wrong* answer.
• 16:00 She talked him into admitting that 30 was "a good age" to get married. This is hilarious.
• 16:06 Guy to date: "I'm usually the one who has random animal facts."
• 19:02 Typo of the day: "coffee ship."

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Now I really want to find more places with great acoustics where people go for first dates.

You know you're in Minnesota when it's 10 degrees outside, and you think, "Wow! It's wonderful that it's so warm!"

And then throughout the day everybody is commenting on how warm it is.

Who comments on RSS feeds?

The same people who talk back to voicemail messages, I suppose....

Seen sitting on a bench in downtown Minneapolis.

In downtown Minneapolis, I saw a man taking photographs of his cellphone against the backdrop of glass skyscrapers. That's right, ladies and gentlemen, of his cellphone. He was using a really nice camera, too.

?



I'm thinking of starting a new community specifically to post the good things about the Twin Cities. Not another "where's the best place to party?" and "will somebody please give me money?" community. No, this one would be for posting the good, the beautiful, and the random. Incidents of random kindness, or weirdness. Photographs of the beautiful and the strange. The small things...the only things that matter. Ephemera. Detritus. Conversations overheard on the bus. Accidental performance art.

What do you think?

Unpleasant Things:
* attempting to transport a large rubbermaid storage tub on an express bus at rush hour
* being asked how many hours I can work this weekend
* a news report on a recent rash of robberies--in a neighborhood only a couple of blocks away
* thinking about the shambles of a story (not Vicesteed) that I'll have to hack, slash, and stitch back together
* fifty boxes of scanning coming into the office
* the high cost of prescription medication that isn't covered by my health insurance
* Christmas decorations going up before Thanksgiving
* America becoming a second- or third-rate economy
* It being too cold to do pseudo-chin-ups on bus shelters (metal + bare fingers = bad)

Pleasant Things:
* sugar cookie-scented candle
* happiness about new ghostly short story
* audiobooks
* bacon
* being wished a creative good morning by the female bus driver who has a voice made for radio
* orange-gold nail polish
* not having to plan Thanksgiving
* shopping lists
* parmesan cheese
* practicing Tae Soo Do forms and shoulder rolls on the lawn outside of work during my breaks--and seeing my breath hang in the air
* Faith and the Muse (music group)

Amusing Things:
* Busses with "Kneeling Bus" stickers on them
* The degree to which a co-worker sings out-of-tune--bad enough that I can notice it. Note: only amusing for short intervals
* Esquire temp service
* misreading "Gentle Transitions" as "Gentle Transvestites"
* an Arby's employee who appeared to be chugging special sauce straight from the bottle
* seeing TSD people and not having them recognize me (this time)
* seeing only the top half of people in a second-story gym. Of particular note was the flailing arm that kept reaching up to window height as if it belonged to a drowning person trying to signal for help.
* high-caste female brewers in ancient Peru