A Seriously Good Tuesday

Tonight was just completely enjoyable. I almost feel like I'm on vacation, I'm so relaxed. While I couldn't seem to find anyone to join me, I set out after dinner for a walk and some ice cream. I headed to downtown Linden Hills and got a scoop of Pavarotti (banana, caramel and chocolate) at Sebastian Joe's and ate it sitting outside while reading The Onion and Citypages.

I was walking home along 43rd Street past the library when I saw the Minneapolis Parks & Rec movie screen set up in Linden Hills Park. I walked to the popcorn table and asked what movie was playing, and a very enthusiastic man told me, "Breaking Away. If you haven't seen it, you won't regret it."

Since it's National Night Out and all, there were about 100 block parties happening, but not on my street. "My block is all apartments," I told the enthusiastic man. "People just try to avoid each other."

So I walked a few blocks home, grabbed a blanket and a stadium seat, sprayed myself with DEET (I know, I know--and it's dissolved my toenail polish!) and headed back to the park. And I'm so glad I went! It's a seriously great movie. Everything in it just felt so genuine, and it featured the dad from what might be my number-one movie of all time, Sixteen Candles. As a bonus, it really cooled off after 9 and the world didn't feel like an armpit anymore.

And I walked home around 11 p.m. and felt totally safe (well, maybe a little worried--I'm me, after all) being out by myself for a change. I mean, this neighborhood wouldn't hurt a kitten. While I used to be pretty fearless about walking at night by myself in high school, college made me too sensible and I drive most places after dark now (to be fair, my suburb of Milwaukee is also incapable of hurting a kitten). But I think I was just so relaxed after an impromptu night of ice cream and walking and a good movie that I couldn't be bothered to really worry about it. And walking across a baseball field at night in the summer, kicking up grass clippings with your flip-flops and hearing the crickets chirp, it's pretty much impossible to not relax just a bit. Work has been on the shit side this week and I could have been thinking about that, but I wasn't. Didn't want to. And I'm not going to.