Book-It, Buses, and Beers

Thank you docent for just barely getting the name of the museum in the photo and yes...those are GIANT fake frogs on the railing about to attack

Don't hate me. But I like Fall. I like Winter. And this weekend though it was sunny and nice out I was relieved to see a about a dozen leaves changing colors in the Minnesota countryside. That doesn't mean I am going to stop applying my daily sunscreen (because daily moisturizing is very important) or stop slowing my roll as I go by a Dairy Queen. But it does mean I am going to wax poetic about some fun times had this past Winter (early Spring really)with SAGL and Betsy Wetsy.  

Not so long ago Betsy Wetsy made the "most smartest" move a woman could make. She moved to Uptown in Minneapolis. And with her move she gained two free bus passes from her "generous" landlord. 

Now having never used the city bus (don't judge the poor thing - she comes from royalty I think) she reached out to her two pauper friends, myself and SAGL, to show her the ropes of the more pedestrian life. We decided to make a day adventure out of it.  

SAGL suggested we travel the foreign lands of Dinkytown. For those not in the know Dinkytown is where the kids who are striving for a higher education at the University of Minnesota live. There are bars, frat houses, fast food, theaters, herpes and other cultures there.

We met up at Betsy Wetsy's new pied a terre and ventured to the first bus stop. With the confidence of a q-tip with a new hip, Betsy Wetsy climbed the bus stairs and popped her cherry. Again.  

Ten minutes later and anticipation through the roof we arrived in Dinkytown. I had taken the pleasure of planning out our day, but keeping it secret so as to not spoil any of the fun. 

First on our riotous sojourn we hit the Bell Museum of Natural History.

It was a taxidermy DREAM! So many furs that could have been put to use as muffs. Shit - I mean it was so wonderful of those select Minnesotans to donate the dead animals to teach me more about life outside my bedroom window. Seriously though...pretty cool place. Check out these NSFW photos of our misadventures in learning.  

Yeah we were sober at this point in the day. We are just this much damn fun to be around.

After visiting the kind people at Bell Museum we ventured to The Book House in Dinkytown - this joint could suck you in for hours. We're talking doubled up books on shelves and some nice Comic-Con  loving gents behind the counter. At this point I decided that we needed a challenge added to our adventure. I declared that we could not leave until we each purchased a book. 

Books in hand we needed protein STAT. Down the street we ventured to The Loring Pasta Bar.

More bar than pasta I have only been here once. They have Pimms and we all know that is a sure sign of a well established joint. Loring Pasta Bar is nice. The staff was wonderful (read:flirtatious with all of us). And the burger was enjoyable and to quote Betsy Wetsy, "I mean I gave up something for Lent. I gave up Vegetarianism". That and a few cocktails we had to hit the pavement again.  P.S. Betsy Wetsy is back on the Veg folks. She did not fall off the wagon.

This time we were going for ice cream. Annie's Parlour (google it - no website but people talk about it) was pretty damn good. We each ventured to try something different and walked out a little more gassy.  

Not to be outdone by a little gas. We circled the block to get things moving and stopped at our final destination.

The Kitty Kat Club was almost completely empty except for a really sad bachelorette party (it was like 4 pm - who starts a bachelorette party at 4pm?) and a few crazy locals. Thankfully this gave us the total attention of our barmaid. She was kind enough to throw away a nasty ass drink that she recommended and she also regaled us with readings from our Book House bought books.  All in all we were pretty well warmed up by the time we left The Kitty Kat Club. So much so we maybe got on the wrong but back to Uptown.

The lesson of this blog post fan(s). Venture out in your own city. Get drunk at 3pm on a Saturday. And buy books. I know you used to only read because you got a personal pan pizza from Pizza-Hut with Book-It. You can still do that. But now you just need to buy your own damn pizza.  Read people. First my blog. And then a book. And then the blog again. 

Party on...