Day 32: Cloudy with a chance of meatballs

Soggy fields--low yields!

Actually, just cloudy...again.  Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs is the title of children's picture book in which food literally falls from the sky.  This summer, however, rain and a shortage of sunshine are apparently threatening the state's crops.  Gracie and I had a chance to see a few flooded fields full of stunted crops yesterday when we went on an adventure with my oldest son, Nate, to pick up the Iraqi art from the Navigating the Aftermath exhibit at the Emmy Frentz Arts Gallery in Mankato--the tour's second of an eventual seven stops, each featuring the work of Iraqi artists and a showing of Nate's documentary film The Unreturned.  For four years as a graduate student and teaching assistant and then as an adjunct with a one class assignment, I drove down to Mankato a couple days a week.  I was very glad to stop making that drive at the end of those four years, thanks to other adjunct work at Normandale Community College, much closer to home.  Yesterday, despite the flooded fields and periodic downpours, I again enjoyed the drive through Chaska, Jordan, Belle Plaine, LeSuer, and St. Peter.  Having had her dinner right before we took off at 5 p.m. (just in time to hit rush hour!), Gracie slept, securely tethered in her special harness to the seat belt in the back seat of the car. [Hearing Dog Pamphlet, page 16: "Never have your dog sit in the front seat.  The force from an air bag would injure a dog and could cause death."] 

We only stopped once at an impossible to ignore plant store in St. Peter with a large display of pinwheels out front.  These were the cloth variety and included tractors with spinning wheels, fish leaping out of churning water, and flowers with twirling petals.  I felt I had to have one for my garden.  "A lot of people buy these to frighten away animals," the owner assured me.  "Some have suggested adding noise makers, though," she added.  I immediately imagined attaching pieces of pop-can metal to the tail of the bird with the spinning body I had chosen.  "The last one like that," the owner said as she rang up the sale.

The Emmy Frentz Arts Gallery

A dark but not unpleasant jaunt along the river (that oddly flows north here so that going down the state is going upriver), we were in Mankato, which, unlike Belle Plaine, appeared to have changed little in the years I had not been there.  The Emmy Frentz Arts Gallery  is an attractive little building in lower Mankato (the older part).  By the time we got there, the gallery was closed for the day.  Nate had a code to get in though.  I fastened Gracie to my belt with my carabiner, and we went to work taking down the art works and wrapping them up for transport following the excellent directions provided by one of the partners on the Navigating the Aftermath project. After a brief attempt to turn this job into something more playful, Gracie settled down.

Add artichokes and spinach and you have our pizza!

According to Nate, the best restaurant in Mankato is a pizza place a few blocks from the gallery: Dino's Pizzeria.  Naturally, that was the next place we stopped.  I was glad I brought Gracie's rug with us.  The place had large booths like the rib place we visited over the weekend; however, the floors were uncarpeted and not a very inviting surface for Gracie to settle.  It had rained a bit too, so she was a little wet.  The dog blanket was all we needed to remedy all that though.  Like the good dog she is, Gracie slept while we shared a pizza, some salad, and quite possibly the best dessert I have ever eaten: blueberries and a soft Italian cheese baked in cake, served hot with ice cream.