滑溜溜的錢 。。。

Today was awesome!  It's really the first time I've had any fun since I got here, and it lasted all day long.  This morning started bright and early at 9:00 am.  Wait, I was supposed to leave at 8:15 for a YSA flower planting service project at the temple!  Whoops.  So my morning was a little more leisurely than it should have been.  However, that ended up being a good thing because it meant I had time to practice.  Almost done learning my Scarlatti, and I think I've finalized the choices on my Albeniz.  Now I really have to decide on the Prokofiev.  To play the 6th Sonata, or to spend my life wishing I had?  That is the question.

About 11:15, I decided to go out on the town, so I plunked down on the couch and looked at what there is to do in Minneapolis.  I found a neat modern art museum, the Walker, and five minutes later discovered that I could get $20 student tickets for CATS if I bought them an hour before the 2:00 matinee!  With that, I zoomed out the door around 11:40.  It only takes 20 minutes to get downtown from here, which is practically around the corner, and the freeway goes everywhere in the Twin Cities so everything's really convenient.  The Walker was neat - mostly modern, and one exhibit entitled 1964 where everything was originally created/painted/sculpted 1963-1965, mostly in 1964.  A lot of it centered around the Kennedy assassination, and there was some Warhol and Jasper Johns (one of his American flags and a few other things).  One of the photographs in the museum from about ten years ago had a really cool concept.  It was of a Japanese woman in her living room looking out the window into the night.  This Japanese photographer went around and put notices in people's mailboxes asking them to stand in their living room during a specified interval one night with all the lights on and the curtains drawn so she could photograph them anonymously.  She never met them, but she just went to the house and if they were standing there looking out she took the picture.  Interesting, huh?  Anonymous portraiture.

The Walker also had a nice sculpture garden just outside, the coolest sculpture being a giant cherry on top of a spoon bridging a pond!  No climbing, unfortunately.  The cherry stem sprayed water.  The sculpture garden must be popular around here - a wedding party and a group of high school prom kids were taking pictures with the spoon and cherry while I was there.  I would prefer pictures with the temple, thank you!

From there it was a mile to downtown, so I walked to the theater and bought my ticket, then had lunch at a cafe called Cosi.  Was its inspiration Cozy or Cosi Fan Tutte?  Who knows?  It was tasty, though.  A few thoughts on CATS: it was entertaining.  It was more of a production than a traditional musical, meaning it relies more on special effects and big dance numbers than plot or character development/solo numbers, but you take that for what it's worth and it's still a good show.  I'd never seen it before, but the singing was decent for this production of it, and the dancing was excellent.  I probably won't see it again live, but it was definitely well worth my student ticket!  My seat was in the main orchestra, about a third of the way back in the center section, so also pretty good.  My favorite cat?  Mefistofelees; he didn't sing at all, but his dancing skills were fantastic.  He twirled on one foot for a good minute, and his costume was all black glitter.  Nice.

The show being over, it was time to head home, with one stop along the way.  My last bike was stolen before my mission, and I've really missed having one this year, so I tried some out at a bike shop last Saturday, and I found one I liked but had to think about it for a week, being a large purchase etc.  I think the beautiful weather today (70's, breezy, sunny, couple clouds here and there) convinced me that buying a bicycle is definitely a smart move, so I stopped on the way back and took a chunk out of my bank account.  It's gold, like the Golden Nugget!  Talk about coordination there.  I justify it by saying it's my birthday present to myself (3+ weeks early!).

But the fun doesn't end there!  As soon as I got back, Matt and the kids started clamoring to do something fun, so we ended up going to this mini golf place half an hour away 15 minutes after I got home.  I got second place, but only by one stroke!  Curses.  Ice cream after that (mint chocolate chip, chocolate brownie chunk, hot fudge, whipped cream), and that brings me to the present.  Not quite...a game of Ticket to Ride found its way in after mini golf, in which I soundly defeated my opponents with my Emden to Osterreich strategy (those passengers really make a difference, if you know what I mean).

Too much fun for one day?  No, it should keep me sane for the week ahead.

English title: Slippery money...