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Plunging In
Mar. 19th, 2005 08:05 pmI have been chided for not posting by a Scribblie. This is not always effective, but often it is.
To wit, a meandering account of minor events.
On Tuesday last my mother and I had agreed that we would drive to 38th and Hiawatha, put the car somewhere, take the LRT downtown, and go to the Dayton's Flower Show. (I don't care what you call it. They can pave the entire place with Frangimints and it will still be Dayton's to me.) When she arrived to pick me up, on a glassy blue morning that was cold as only March can be cold, she told me that my brother, who has been staying with her for the winter, had decided to leave that evening and wanted to see me first. So we met him at Zumbro's, in Linden Hills, and had lunch there instead of wandering vaguely downtown in search of food we could both eat. The sound system was playing something that might have been Russian dances, and two people at the table next to us were talking partly in a language none of us recognized (this means it wasn't Spanish or French or German and it probably wasn't Italian or classical Greek) and partly in accented English. We talked about hawks and birds and publishing, and told my brother goodbye. Then my mother and I did drive to 38th and Hiawatha.
I had not yet ridden Minneapolis's minute light-rail system, though I had noticed it cropping up when I put a possible expedition into the bus company's Trip Planner. I was a little shocked to see that there was not even so much shelter as one gets from a glassed-in box to await the bus. There was a machine on the platform from which one could buy tickets if one could figure out what bits of it to press, and if one could read the already-scarred and scraped plastic shield over the screen that provided the instructions. It printed little tickets for us that were essentially the same as a bus transfer, good for two and a half hours.
The train was a jaunty two-car affair in the same colors (blue and yellow) as the pedestrian poetry bridge over Lyndale Avenue that connects Loring Park with the Guthrie Theater complex. This gave me a curious sensation of being about to watch something Shakespearean. My mother remarked with great pleasure that, what with the music and our fellow lunchers and the machine on the platform and our being able to actually take a train downtown, it felt almost like having travelled to Europe. The ride was much smoother than the bus, and there were LED screens that announced the next stop, as well as a computerized voice that also did that and told you, in addition, which side of the train to get out on, a matter that had often vexed us when taking the Tube in London.
The theme of the Flower Show was Music in the Garden, and while this sounds pleasant enough, it was something of a mistake. From a distance all was well. We could smell hyacinths and lilies and primroses as soon as we got off the escalator on the eighth floor, and there was a light overlay of tinkling chimes and a few piano notes. The closer we got, however, the more cacaphonous the sound was. To the chatter of adult conversation and the occasional shriek of a child were added the clamor of three pianos, five or six automated windchimes that flashed lights at one from time to time, the ponging of small children banging on xylophones, and the mixed sounds of a lot of squeezable soft objects that would make water- or bird- or who-knows-what-sounds when activated.
It was nice to see green things growing. There was a quite glorious double hill of very blue primroses; I've seen photographs of wetlands where they grow just that way, up and down and up again. The big bed of Stargazer lilies was handsome too, and I was delighted to see pink and white roses. In addition there were some well-grown cedars and some silver-dollar eucalyptus trees, and a curious exhibit set about with whole and crushed seashells called something like "The garden under sea," which featured desert and coastal plants set out to look as if they were underwater; there were a lot of small crouching succulents and also plants with wavy seaweedlike leaves, asparagus fern and some aloes and a kind of twisted dark-green grass. There weren't enough labels on the plants, however. Eventually the noise got to us and we fled through a gift shop crowded with people of all ages testing out small percussion instruments, jingling windchimes, and banging on more xylophones.
We really enjoyed our train ride home.
P.
To wit, a meandering account of minor events.
On Tuesday last my mother and I had agreed that we would drive to 38th and Hiawatha, put the car somewhere, take the LRT downtown, and go to the Dayton's Flower Show. (I don't care what you call it. They can pave the entire place with Frangimints and it will still be Dayton's to me.) When she arrived to pick me up, on a glassy blue morning that was cold as only March can be cold, she told me that my brother, who has been staying with her for the winter, had decided to leave that evening and wanted to see me first. So we met him at Zumbro's, in Linden Hills, and had lunch there instead of wandering vaguely downtown in search of food we could both eat. The sound system was playing something that might have been Russian dances, and two people at the table next to us were talking partly in a language none of us recognized (this means it wasn't Spanish or French or German and it probably wasn't Italian or classical Greek) and partly in accented English. We talked about hawks and birds and publishing, and told my brother goodbye. Then my mother and I did drive to 38th and Hiawatha.
I had not yet ridden Minneapolis's minute light-rail system, though I had noticed it cropping up when I put a possible expedition into the bus company's Trip Planner. I was a little shocked to see that there was not even so much shelter as one gets from a glassed-in box to await the bus. There was a machine on the platform from which one could buy tickets if one could figure out what bits of it to press, and if one could read the already-scarred and scraped plastic shield over the screen that provided the instructions. It printed little tickets for us that were essentially the same as a bus transfer, good for two and a half hours.
The train was a jaunty two-car affair in the same colors (blue and yellow) as the pedestrian poetry bridge over Lyndale Avenue that connects Loring Park with the Guthrie Theater complex. This gave me a curious sensation of being about to watch something Shakespearean. My mother remarked with great pleasure that, what with the music and our fellow lunchers and the machine on the platform and our being able to actually take a train downtown, it felt almost like having travelled to Europe. The ride was much smoother than the bus, and there were LED screens that announced the next stop, as well as a computerized voice that also did that and told you, in addition, which side of the train to get out on, a matter that had often vexed us when taking the Tube in London.
The theme of the Flower Show was Music in the Garden, and while this sounds pleasant enough, it was something of a mistake. From a distance all was well. We could smell hyacinths and lilies and primroses as soon as we got off the escalator on the eighth floor, and there was a light overlay of tinkling chimes and a few piano notes. The closer we got, however, the more cacaphonous the sound was. To the chatter of adult conversation and the occasional shriek of a child were added the clamor of three pianos, five or six automated windchimes that flashed lights at one from time to time, the ponging of small children banging on xylophones, and the mixed sounds of a lot of squeezable soft objects that would make water- or bird- or who-knows-what-sounds when activated.
It was nice to see green things growing. There was a quite glorious double hill of very blue primroses; I've seen photographs of wetlands where they grow just that way, up and down and up again. The big bed of Stargazer lilies was handsome too, and I was delighted to see pink and white roses. In addition there were some well-grown cedars and some silver-dollar eucalyptus trees, and a curious exhibit set about with whole and crushed seashells called something like "The garden under sea," which featured desert and coastal plants set out to look as if they were underwater; there were a lot of small crouching succulents and also plants with wavy seaweedlike leaves, asparagus fern and some aloes and a kind of twisted dark-green grass. There weren't enough labels on the plants, however. Eventually the noise got to us and we fled through a gift shop crowded with people of all ages testing out small percussion instruments, jingling windchimes, and banging on more xylophones.
We really enjoyed our train ride home.
P.
