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Come to my new site:  http://mangolanegirl.blogspot.com

Our Saturday started out at Davanni’s for a lunch of Italian pizza and green iced tea.

It was such a beautiful sunny day with a high of 84 F that we decided to forget about the movies and embrace the outdoors at Cedar Lake, where lots of people were swimming, canoeing, sunbathing, and fishing.

After hours of sun and water, we headed back to downtown Nicollet for the Annual  BBQ and Blues Festival. We grooved to the blues, had mango sorbet, dined al fresco with Famous Dave’s grilled ribs, coleslaw, corn muffin, and Samuel Adams beer, and called it a night at 9:30 PM.

My MA studies is taking up much of my sunshine time.  I am quite resentful, but I’m trying to manage my ill-feelings towards it.  Today I did some research for one of my MA papers at the children’s section of the Minneapolis Library.  I was too shy to sit on the tiny chairs. I was so happy to see some of the books that I’ve read in my childhood…kinda like seeing old friends again.  Research aside, I was also making a mental list of children’s literature that I will coax my own kids to read.  Maurice Sendak’s Where the Whild Things Are, is one of those.

Then as I’m often wont to do, I visited my favorite aisles of fiction where works by Umberto Eco, Margaret Atwood, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, well, and Salman Rushdie to see if his Midnight Children is available, sit.  Finally decided to pick up the only book by Marquez in this library that I haven’t read yet, The General in His Labyrinth, a historical fiction about the Great Liberator,  Simon Bolivar.   I have judged this book unfairly - it is actually a very absorbing book, so far as the 40 or so pages I’ve read today tell me.

Lovely summer’s day in my neck of the woods.

Walked out in a top and skirt, bare-legged.  My patent tortoiseshell sandals got compliments (again) from three people.  Every time I wear them, people stop me to exclaim how cute or pretty they are.  Two kids actually followed me, or rather my shoes, whispering ‘look at those shoes’ over and over again like I could not hear them, as I was walking towards the library.  I was flattered and amused…amused because the pretty sandals were in fact biting my small toes after hours of walking.   My husband is puzzled, too, at this, and asks, “What’s so special about them?”  Hmm, let’s just say they’re the first pair of patent footwear  since Grade Six of Leyte State College years that I’ve picked up for myself.  That I’ve admired them at the store for two months before buying them clues you in as to how seriously I’d shopped for them.  I’m thinking of retiring them, perhaps along with the matching tortoiseshell sunglasses, in a museum for posterity.

By the way, did you watch last night’s riveting Game 4 of the LA Lakers vs Orlando Magic NBA Finals? I was screaming my lungs out without the sounds actually coming out coz the hubby was beside me having an overseas business conference.  It went on to overtime again. The last minute of the match I watched a mere 2 inches from the TV screen.  Laker’s Derek Fisher was man of the night with his last-second 3-pointers.  Game 5 this Sunday.  Bam and Jon are you watching?

Drove 20 minutes to Minnetonka two Sundays back.  Then walked along the beach with Ben and Jerry’s ice cream.  Mango sorbet for me.  Strawberry cream for him.

Here are some fruit and flowers that we bought from Nicollet’s Thursday Market.  They are fresh and organic.

It has been months since we last dined at the  nearby Irish pub and resto, Kieran’s. They have well-prepared food, all kinds of drinks, and live Irish music.  After some hedging on my part, we finally decided to have our Saturday dinner there.  He had his Sheperd’s Pie while I had my fish n’ chips.  The star of the meal was the sinfully delicious dessert. Traditional bread pudding topped with raisins, Irish cream custard and Bushmill’s cream sauce. I cannot stop thinking about it.

I have noticed that many of my Minneapolis posts are weather-related.  Having lived a decade in all-sunny Bangkok prior to Minneapolis, I never bothered with the latest Farenheit or Celsius updates.  But in Minneapolis, every dip and rise of the temperature matters.  I actually check the weather before going out.

It is officially summer!  The past two weeks have warmed up the whole state, some towns even went up to 100 F!  Sunning is everyone’s favorite pastime these days.  But this weekend, gentle rains gave the lakes and the trees their much-needed moisture.  So though we ended up spending our weekend indoors ( restaurant, cinema, Walmart, and Rainbow), we didn’t feel too bad.

I kick myself for choosing the new Ben Stiller starrer ‘Night at the Museum: Battle at the Smithsonian’ for our weekend cinema date.The whole plot and dialogue bombed.  I kept wincing at every punch line because each one was just lamer than the previous.  And I actually yawned several times throughout the movie.  I never yawn in a movie theater. I’m wondering how Part 1 was.  It must have been much better to have warranted the production of  a sequel.

Last weekend’s movie was Pixar’s ‘Up, Up and Away’, which we watched using the 3-D glasses that came with the movie tickets.  The theater was packed (and it never ever gets packed like this over here!), and there were kids around us. It felt like being in a kindergarten class.  It was also my first time to watch a full-length 3-D movie, and it was such a fun experience…well, fun, and quite touching too. I had to hide my tears three times so my seatmates wouldn’t   notice.  Thankfully, they didn’t.   I had to surreptitiously wipe my tears off my 3-D glasses.   There were also moments when I had to restrain myself from extending my arms out to touch the film’s 3-D characters, which, at various points, seemed to be right in front of my nose.

There are three more summer blockbuster movies I’m looking forward to watching - Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, Johnny Depp’s Public Enemies, and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.  I  never joined in the Harry Potter mania, and I have only recently (these past 2 weeks) watched the five previous Potter films from Netflix (DVD-BluRay rental service).  I felt I had to catch up somehow, and the hubby thinks I’m actually becoming a Potter scholar since I’ve also been reading a lot of the Harry Potter story and background on wikipedia.  I now even know how Hermione and Ron are ‘predestined’ to marry each other.

OK, I should get going.  Game 2 (LA Lakers VS Orlando Magic) of the NBA Finals has gone into overtime. I think I should focus on Bryant.

I hope your weekend was happy and safe.

Guests of CNN’s Larry King are talking about David Carradine’s mysterious death in Bangkok, Thailand.  The manager, family and friends insist suicide should be ruled out. They suspect foul play.  However, Thailand’s respected forensic expert says (source: Bangkok Post) he might have died from auto-erotic asphyxiation.

Very very sad end to the formidable antagonist in Kill Bill.

I met up with my hubby near his office for  lunch at Eddington’s Soup and Salad Restaurant. We each had soup.  I had Wild Rice in a bowl; the hubby had Chicken Tortilla in unlimited serving.   We had our soup with their hot and yummy bread sticks.

And I finally wore my latest chiffon outside with my Levi’s and sky high sandals (I would have worn my patent black sandals but these taller brown ones are actually more feet-friendly, especially for a 2-hour walk). It is a breezy summer day outside. My afternoon promenade lasted 2 hours  culminating in a rather intimidating ware view at Neiman’s.

Now I really must study.

One of the clothing fabrics that I feel suit my body type and personal style is chiffon.  It is lightweight, flowing, layerable in winter and just perfect for warmer weather.  A chiffon top provides just the right amount of see-thru for my shy-but-wanna-be-sexy moments.  Chiffon blouses don’t bulge or widen your body. However, I have to treat them as delicate pieces as they snag easily.  I also NEVER put them in the washing machine. I wash them as lovingly as you would your expensive lingerie.  If you take good care of them, they last years and years.

I have about ten chiffon-y tops, and I think I would like some more in my wardobe in the future.

My newest chiffon acquisition is this full-sleeved tunic made from silk. It is mostly black but with lines of purple, blue and  green.  The back is halved in black and brown.  

I am undecided what to pair it with for my summer outings, but here it is worn with black shorts and black patent wedges.

Pardon the big hair; I am weaning myself out of rebonding and hair irons.  So here I am in my full healthy wavy hair.