This weekend I did a bit of local site seeing in Stillwater and Minneapolis with my mum. It’s always nice to get out and about and do things that tourists do, even if what you’re doing is just down the way and you might pass by the thing on a somewhat daily routine. But, it’s amazing what you can see if you open your eyes, look, and view things in a way that you may not have viewed in quite the same way before.
I was on a mission, however. I have a butter dish that doesn’t quite go with my kitchen’s aesthetic. Imagine, if you could, yellow walls, green canisters for coffee and flour, blue towels, broadly-striped curtains, and outlined-less prints. I suppose things don’t necessarily match, but they go. Unfortunately, I have a kind of teal butter dish with a shell on top that doesn’t quite go let alone match.
So, the first stop in Stillwater was a really quite fantastic antique shop called American Gothic Antiques, a shop I’ve been to before. This is quite the gem of an antique shop. Unlike it’s neighbor across the street, Midtown Antique Mall, American Gothic is the kind of antique store that doesn’t have, as a small 10 year old boy in Midtown exclaimed, “Humongous junk.” American Gothic actually seems to bother to hold a standard to the things they have for sale (i.e. they sell bits of bric-a-brac you actually want). And they also seem much more fairly priced, too.
The first thing that caught my eye was a set of metal plant stands, unfortunately, not a butter dish. This tends to happen in antique stores. You never really know what to expect to take out of them even if you have a strategic mission. I’m somewhat obsessed with house plants, however, and need places on which to place the plants. I’ve got three hanging from the ceiling (a Boston fern, a spider plant, and a Christmas cactus). I’ve got one sitting on the floor (a snake plant). I’ve got one sitting on top of a radiator (an oak leaf ivy). I’ve got three on stands (a poinsettia, a cactus, and a peace lily). And then two that didn’t really have a place (an African violet and another cactus) for which these plant stands were perfect.
Upstairs, I came across a marvelous set of LPs. I filed through all of them and found some more wonderful gems: Billy Idol, the Police, Duran Duran, Asia, and U2. I’ve been longing to find XTC’s Black Sea on vinyl for quite some time, but it wasn’t to be on this particular day. It’s out there somewhere, obviously. I just need to happen upon the right store on the right day. And this wasn’t the right store and the right day to find the right butter dish either. Still, it’s out there somewhere, obviously.
A sojourn to Stillwater wouldn’t be complete without a little trip to the waterfront to view the lift bridge. For some reason I momentarily forgot that it was spring, and that with spring comes swollen rivers, and that with swollen rivers comes swallowed embankments. It’s still fascinating, the natural swelling of rivers that gets interrupted because of concrete or steps or walls. And always a site to see, though, flooding. Lamp posts in the middle of the river, if not a wood.
The other place that is worth a visit is Tremblay’s Sweet Shop. It’s right by American Gothic, and its window display is always tantalizingly magnetic. They had these fantastic wads of chocolate and pecans (they called them pecan turtles), spherical confections of more chocolate filled with peanut butter or fudge, and then more fudge that lied about the place like overweight caterpillars that slowly oozed themselves out of giant bowls. But, caterpillars that tasted of decadence and sin.
Speaking of sin, we decided on a whim to check out the basilica in downtown Minneapolis. I’ve been meaning to go inside for quite some time. I’ve driven by it, biked by it, walked by it countless times, but I’m not entirely sure if I ever went inside. Today was the day. As we made our way inside, I was surprised how many other people were going inside. I glanced quickly at their service times to discover they’ve got several services on Sunday, and we happened to arrived ten minutes before the 4:30 one began. So, there we were, my mother and me (fallen away Catholics), going to mass. It was all very strange.
It’s a gorgeous building, however, as much as I disagree with the idea of spending opulent amounts of money on something that should really be much more modest, as befits a carpenter of limited means. (Indeed, why have buildings at all?) However, I suppose in building such decadence they created some jobs and employed some people who got some money in their pocket, so that’s nice.
Even still, I was amazed at how much the building rejoiced in the goddess. She was everywhere. Very central. The usual statue of Jesus crucified was a small affair off to stage left, as it were. But Mary was idolized very prominently above the altar, and there were countless stained glass windows (well, I suppose you could count them) chronicling her life (if she were, indeed, real to begin with). It is the Basilica of St. Mary, after all, but her prominence was still staggering. Having been raised Catholic, I understand how important Mary is to followers of this persuasion, but this seemed beyond measure. But in a good way, somehow.
It’s always strange going back to a Catholic ceremony. For years and years it was fun to go to church because I rather enjoyed the obsessive compulsive nature of Catholicism’s mantras and hand motions and regalia. Now my obsessive compulsions are met through video games, Dr. Who, and music, but at one time Catholicism helped to fill part of that gap. But, every time I do go back, I’m reminded that I’m glad I left. It’s just not for me.
But for millions of others, it is for them. And that’s just fine.
A pity about the Dark Ages, Galileo, women, and gays, though.