Stranger in my own country

Remember Rick's Market? I found these pics I took back, when, around 2004, 2005? The friendly neighborhood grocery store when I used to live in Northeast. Lots of memories in that place, including the time I broke my ankle and my friend Amy helped me grocery shop. It wasn't trendy but it was friendly. I knew I had to take photos before it was torn down for the Lunds and Cobalt Blue condos. That brick building used to be a school. It was hard to imagine at that time what the new space would look like. The bar next door to Rick's moved across the street and the bar across the street changed names, used to be the Union. I wrote a poem at that bar - I'll include it below. Thanks also to 5 am, where this poem appeared summer 2005.

At the Union

At the Union Grill & Bar,

the beers are flowing at 11 am.

CNN replays trails of white plumage

across the Texas sky.

Seven astronauts perished this same week

17 years ago.

What was I doing then?

Same as the country,

not paying attention.

Then the explosions came,

nameless faces

all too real after a short encounter

and my gut rumbled

every time I saw their image.

As a little girl, I thought someday I'd get to outer space.

Figured out how old I'd be in

the year 2000.

Back at the Union it's almost noon.

Gravity keeps me hostage

to another beer,

another blind date

with a stranger in my own country.

Where is this eagle? At the Minneapolis Convention Center park. This is an original artifact from the 1927 auditorium - there were originally four posts which had inscriptions relating to citizenship that were located on the four corners of the auditorium. Two of the eagles currently reside at the park entrance from 2nd Avenue and the other two are across the street from the Convention Center entrance. There is a small sign that explains the history near this statue. It had me thinking as to the year the convention center was built - that would be 1991. I didn't get to Minneapolis much growing up, as I lived in St. Paul so I don't remember the auditorium. I do remember the St. Paul Civic Center and some of the events there in the adjoining auditorium.

round and red and ripe

It must be summer. I have my first ripe tomato! Okay, this is a big deal since it's the first one on my balcony for my new place. Figure in the plant (purchased from the farmer's market downtown), soil, pot and lots and lots of daily watering. That small tomato will be well worth it on the next salad. Sigh....




Here is a poem called MAY that I have on a postcard



This will be the season
in which time stretches before us
like the recesses of space itself,
the season in which leasure
swells like a slow tomato,
until it's round and red and ripe.

--from Verlyn Klinkenborg's "The Rural Life"

A rural girl at heart living in the city, that's me.

What are the other signs of summer?

Should I mention the gin and tonics at twilight with my "intimate other"? (I found that term in a textbook - like it) Azure sky, full moon, planet Mars - the moon moved from one side of the church steeple to the other in the space of a couple hours as we sat on my balcony.

Reading "Russian Mythology" outside. Reading anything outside.

Playing hooky from work. Dang, have to go in shortly. Planning the next vacation.....

It's not the MN Orchestra...

More on that remark later.

The July 4th weekend - or Independence Day - is when everyone is out of town. Those of us who prefer to stay in the city are left with peace and quiet and few offerings of things to do with whoever is left. The man I'm in a relationship with left the city as well, unexpectedly, so I had a bit of a writing retreat, which turned out to be mostly getting organized. Independence Day is not exactly my favorite holiday and I would prefer those in charge just change it to a weekend every year and give us all a long one and leave it at that. When I did venture out I went up to my apartment roof on the 35th floor and watched the fireworks with strangers. A bit surreal - at least a dozen, maybe even twenty or so clusters of color and pops sounding off on the horizon above the Minneapolis city lights. One by one they had their grand finales as the smoke hung low.



On the 5th Lynette mentioned that she was asked to play violin

as part of the 331 Club's "Le Cirque Rouge Cabaret & Burlesque" (there she is in the photo at right). No, it's not the Minnesota Orchestra, but a campy, vaudville-like act with a hostess in a Marilyn Monroe accent and a safety pinned dress and several ladies of the evening flashing their body parts at the audience to the jazzy music. The guy in a tux onstage perfomed his 'innocent' act as he gathered the tossed articles of clothing from the stage. I came a bit early to get a seat at the bar so I wouldn't have to stand and met a nice woman who works at the Swedish Institute.



Sunday was uneventful. Hanging out with my kitty, just the two of us. Here she is enjoying her perch on the table on the balcony.

Summer at the MIA

Shadows and light mix at the Minneapolis Institute of Art's garden area where I spent a Sunday morning.

Marquette Avenue

An apartment window 'display' on my walk to work - Marilyn Monroe, Spider Man giving the finger, Garfield, a Jesse Ventura doll. I love how this person is making their statement to the world, as it all fades in the sun from winter to summer.

Below......doors on Marquette Avenue...............

Rods and Cones

No, this is not a planet. Or a mammogram. The images are my right and left retinas.

The back of my eye, behind the pupil...the small circle in the middle is composed of rods and cones, the whitish circle is in my eyeball oriented near my nose. I was at the Retina Center this week, having my eyes poked, prodded and photographed, and of course I asked if I could have a copy.

I looked up the definition of retina: The retina is the light-sensitive layer of tissue at the back of the inner eye. It acts like the film in a camera -- images come through the eye's lens and are focused on the retina. The retina then converts these images to electric signals and sends them via the optic nerve to the brain. The retina is normally red due to its rich blood supply. An ophthalmoscope allows a health care provider to see through the pupil and lens to the retina.

I've worn glasses since third grade, and contacts since I was 16, so that's almost 30 years of having something on my eyes. When I started with them there were only hard lenses and I had to be on a wearing schedule and I remember taking them out and putting them in every 2 hours while I was at school. I'm at the point where I have 20/25 vision with contacts, we can't correct it anymore and I have to wear glasses over my contacts for driving and distance vision. If you're wondering, my contacts are at minus 10. I'm also getting a bit of blurry vision and halos at night, which is the start of cataracts. I have had all this verified in the last few weeks in the hopes that maybe my health insurance would cover the cost. No such luck - my vision has to be 20/40 CORRECTED or I'll have to be 65 on Medicare. I can't have regular lasik surgery, I have to have "natural lens replacement" where they put the lens in my eye. It's similar to cataract surgery and then I will never have to worry about cataracts in the future. Unfortunately, all this costs $4,000 per eye - so until I have an extra 8 grand laying around, I'll continue to see as well as I can with my contacts and glasses.

The composer Bach went virtually blind with untreated cataracts. My cat, Tex, went blind from high blood pressure and various other health issues. I suppose the U.S. government will be photographing everyone this way if they keep reacting in fear since the blood vessels are unique for everyone. I don't take my sight for granted - when one sense is weak, other ones compensate, but since I'm also hard of hearing, I think I have an extra-sensitive sense of touch.

I remembered a poem I wrote a few years ago - here it is below - while I was thinking about rods and cones..........................it was the year that June Carter Cash passed away - which happened to be the same night as the lunar eclipse. I saw the moon from the Stone Arch Bridge over the Mississippi River, in Minneapolis on a warm summer night.

Lunar Eclipse
by Jules Nyquist

The highest goal that humans can achieve is amazement.
- Goethe 1810, Theory of Colors

Tonight Minneapolis transpires into rods and cones
under my pupils.
A city wearing a white halo, offering me steps of gold.
My bicycle takes me to the middle of the Stone-Arch bridge
where I pause.
Purple thoughts tangle in my wind-blown hair and
I realize, for the first time,
that if I jump off this bridge
into the weeping wake
floating with the river glass,
it will be okay.

Full moon lays bare in the Northeast,
her white light signals my resurrection.
She bobs from the fisherman’s unseen boat
in a sea of indefinite color
that lacks a word for blue.

The divine is hidden
but on this night
everyone is coming out to watch.