In Which: something is happening in the tomato patch

Here is a caterpillar, hanging upside down next to a little tomato:

It's a monarch caterpillar, hatched from an egg on a nearby milkweed plant. Why there are no monarch butterflies in Montana? There are no milkweed plants. Milkweed is the only place monarchs lay eggs, and milkweed is the only food the caterpillar eats. Jon Drew has made sure there are lots of milkweed plants in the parents' back yard:

So, the next day, look what is found hanging next to the little tomato:

It's well camouflaged, this little chrysalis. After a few days, there were tiny golden dots on it - too small for me to take a good picture of. When I checked it a few days later, I could hardly find it, because the tomato had grown so much:

I'll keep you posted - on the chrysalis and the tomato.
posted by the librarian

In Which: the librarian gets a card

Not just any old card; a library card. I love how the Minneapolis Public Library System acronym and the abbreviation for Minneapolis are the same: MPLS. Now I can put books on hold, and use the computers, and otherwise mess around in the library.

This room upstairs has new fiction, mysteries, and some other stuff I haven't looked at yet. The circular staircase is now gone - since 2001 said the librarian, but I swear I was just on it last year. He was about my age, so I suspect his memory as much as I suspect mine.

Dad and I have a plan to go downtown and get a look at the new Central library sometime.


Meanwhile, here is how I'm getting around these days:

Jon leaves this bike in Mom and Dad's garage for visitors to use. Today I rode around Lake Harriet.

This is actually the walking path, but you get the idea. It really wasn't too crowded considering it's the Fourth of July. Later, Jon and E came over and we played cards. I lost both games, as usual. Ah, well, there's always next time.
posted by the librarian

In Which: the librarian gives Fatty Kitty a heads up

Dear Fatty Kitty,

I hope you are well in Montana. I hear it is in the 90s; not good for kitties. Just wait until you get to Minneapolis, where it gets in the 90s and then it is humid. (Sometimes I hear people in Montana complain about humidity - they don't know humid.) I expect to do a lot of brushing on you. Even I have too much hair here.


Yes, you are coming to visit here for a few months, while I hang with Mom and Dad. If you're nice, Mom will give you a ride on her walker...but you have to be as nice as Alice. They're used to nice kitties here.


Sincerely, Your librarian.

In Which: the librarian goes on a walk with a high school buddy

What kind of a person returns a poetry book to you after 30 years? An old friend, that's who.

A couple of years ago I received an email from Lisa Dean, with whom I graduated from Southwest High School in 1974. She wanted to know my address, because she had a book to return to me. I knew the book exactly: by Canadian poet Mariam Waddington. I didn't remember the title, just that it had a poem called "The Eight-Sided Barn." I had never forgotten the book, and Lisa hadn't either. She sent it back in an envelope that I had sent her over 20 years before, with a picture I'd drawn of Montana with a star for Whitefish, so she'd know where I was.

We got together this morning, where Sheridan Ave. hits Lake Harriet, and took a walk around the lake. The shorelines of the lakes in Minneapolis are all public property. You can still have a big house "on the lake" (across the street), but the bike paths and walking paths, beaches and shorelines are public. Having grown up with that resource, it irks me that Whitefish Lake is ringed with private homes. It's a huge mistake and a disservice to the community to develop lakefront that way.

It was so reaffirming to catch up with Lisa. She told me about graduating from St. Catharine's this spring with her daughter: here's a picture of four generations of Dean women. We plan to walk again Saturday, this time with her granddaughter. Here's to good, old friendships!

Hey, speaking of toasts, I'm planning on making this recipe from today's Taste section in the StarTribune. I'll let you know how it goes!
posted by the librarian

In Which: it is Too Hot

And since it is too hot, I will post a cold picture of a giant snowman.


Nancy and Christy posed by it in order to show how giant it really was. Whoever was living on this corner of 51st and Queen Ave. South last January gets the credit for this amazing example of snowman creation.

There. I feel better already.
posted by the librarian

In Which: we recall the weirdness that is Minnesota....

The headline today on the front page of the Minneapolis StarTribune:

THEY'RE BACK
AND THEY'RE AFTER
YOU

This headline refers, of course, to mosquitos. For the full story of these Minnesota monsters, click here.
posted by the librarian

In Which: it's a wonderful day in the neighborhood

Where I'm at right now
(says the librarian, since Fatty Kitty is lording over his domain in Whitefish - his servant emailed saying he enjoyed writhing on the sidewalk the other day - "yoga" he calls it)
is in the Linden Hills neighborhood in Minneapolis.

44th and Abbott Ave South to be exact. As you look up Abbott Avenue, you see trees. In my childhood they were giant elms that formed a canopy across the entire street. Dutch Elm disease took its toll and the city planted a variety of trees to take the elms' places.
The Linden Hills library hasn't changed much on the outside since I used to go there and get my Beverly Cleary books. It's on the National Register of Historic Places, so they've restored it rather than tearing it down.


The roof is made of slate slabs in various colors and is my favorite part of the building - besides the spiral staircase inside that only librarians could use. Imagine my surprise to find out that patrons can now go up the magic stairs. Ooooo, I just had to do it. I found a comfy reading room up there, and my brother-in-law was reading the newspaper! Who knew?


In my day, the neighborhood was partially defined by St. Thomas Catholic Church and school - that's one reason every block was crawling with kids. We had five, and had neighbors with six, six, ten, and four children, respectively. The tiny families on the block only had two or three kids, and they were always shyer and less rambunctious children by dint of never having to fight over the mashed potatoes, I guess.

Back then, this violin shop was a corner store called Branson's with a tiny soda fountain.



And this bakery located two short blocks away was Langer's grocery store where I used to buy candy bars for a nickel. It was conveniently located on the way to and from school, but closed early, unlike the corner store.

And the school, Audubon Elementary (Go Orioles!) is back in business after being closed for a decade or two - but it's now known as the "lower campus" of Lake Harriet Community School,

Younger children went in doors to the left - the "new" part of the school in the sixties. In third grade, you went to the old building on the right. I wonder if the halls still smell the same? There was a carnival every year put on the by the PTA with a house of horror (aka Mrs. Pascoe's first grade classroom), a fishing booth, and a cakewalk. I won a cake at the cakewalk. My big brother Jon offered to take it home for me and the cake was never seen again...unless you count the crumbs around his mouth.
posted by the librarian