One more beautiful weekend

Saturday was gorgeous. I do believe this is two weekends in a row of Perfect Fall Weather. Let me look back at last weekend's post. Yup, looks like it was, if I read under all the grumbling about colds. So, let this stand as proof against my usual memory of fall in Minnesota: one gorgeous weekend followed by endless clouds, darkness and snow.

Other than that, nothing of note to report. Spent the morning biking and yard-saling. Bought a pretty paisley scarf for a quarter and 2 very nice bike panniers ($5 for the pair). Logged more than 9 miles on the bike computer, which I have set to reflect the total number of miles since I bought the bike. I'm thaaaat close to turning over 4,000 miles!

Richard's foot is healing. Now it's just a sore foot rather than a crippling disability. He's making use of the fine weather to finish laying the stones on our new backyard patio. He put the marine varnish coat on enough of the picnic furniture so that we can set it on the patio and it's looking pretty nice!

Boggle online (for free!)

Join my new obsession! Online boggle tournaments at . Tournaments are not in realtime - somebody just posts a set of game rules (e.g., 5 games, 5x5 board, 3 minutes to play, words must be 3 or more letters) and an ending time. Your scores are posted as you play, and totalled up at the end. Flying Joe and Baroness always win. I'm fighting to be at least 3 from the bottom. It's fun. Don't worry about the required registration - they won't spam you.

Well, one and a half weekends, anyway

OK, I guess we haven't proved it is possible to have two full nice weekends in a row during a Minnesota fall.

Since the weather was dismal, Richard and I decided to repeat the "Sunday afternoon at the art gallery" mini-vacation. The Calder Exhibit at the Art Institute has moved on, replaced by the Old Masters from the Wadsworth Athenium exhibition.

Apparently this Connecticut museum was able to put together a stunning collection of 17th and 18th century paintings at a bargain price during a period when such paintings were "out of fashion." It is hard for me to imagine a time when Caravaggio was ever out of style, but I have a weakness for enormous melodramatic paintings rendered in heartbreakingly minute detail. Apparently the erstwhile curator of the Wadsworth Atheneum shared my taste. If you like that sort of thing, don't miss this show. It's not a huge exhibit, but can easily take two hours to view properly. $8 admission.

Afterwards, we tried out another Eat Street restaurant: the White Lily - the other new restaurant in the old Butler Drug building. I picked the nice new restaurant with the big windows over all the little cozy hole-in-the-wall eateries on the same block, thinking it would be more cheerful on a dark day. When we stepped inside and found another of those dreadful urban-chic restaurants with bleak empty walls, polished grey floors, and open ceilings traversed by pipes I wanted to turn around and leave. Is it possible to decorate a room in a less inviting style? I don't think so. But the place was empty and the waitress/hostess was so glad to see us that we couldn't just walk out. The food turned out to be very good, and elegantly presented. It's a combination Vietnamese/Thai restaurant. Yes, these are two very different cuisines, and no, they haven't tried to blend them somehow. There are 2 chefs, one Vietnamese and the other Thai, and they have split the menu into two separate sections so there is no question whose dishes are whose. We probably should have ordered one entree from each section of the menu just to give both the chefs something to do, but we ordered two Thai dishes. The seafood pad thai was tasty enough, but nothing out of the ordinary. The yellow curry (chicken, potatoes, carrots, and onions in a mild coconut curry sauce) was utterly delicious. We also enjoyed the house tea, which was pale yellow and slightly peachy in flavor.