This Weekend: A Novel

Apologies for the long gap - we've been terribly busy and now we're going to tell you all about it...

Thursday marked my first trip to Uptown. Julia was getting her hair cut at a salon in some warehouse that looked remarkably like something you'd find in Shoreditch. "Walk down Lake Street," she says. "There are loads of cool shops along Lake Street." So I walk along Lake Street. I walk for quite a while and all I see are diners and parking lots and I find myself wandering into the road and getting confused with which way to look for traffic and I'm feeling, well, disappointed.

Until... There in the distance I see an Urban Outfitters. My heart skips a beat. She's right! There are shops! They might be three miles down the road but there's an Urban Outfitters! I run across the street - I'm still not sure if it's a mirage - and yes, there it is. "Can I help you?" says a friendly shop assistant. "Why yes," I say. "Could you tell me the limit on how many items one can take into the fitting rooms at a time?" "Oh, there's no limit," she says. "You just go ahead and take however much you like in there." "However much I like?" I ask. "Oh yah, for sure," she says...

So it's about an hour, give or take fifteen minutes, until I'm done with my haircut. I text Rose to find out where she is. Urban Outfitters, she says. So I say I have to move the car and could she let me know in about five minutes where she is. She informs me that she'll still be there, definitely. Great, I think. I park in the Calhoun ramp and make my way over to Hennepin, to the shop and wander in. She's not on the shop floor, I figure she must be in the fitting rooms. I wander back look at the fitting room doors. "Are ya lookin for someone?" asks the shop assistant. "English girl," I say. "Curly hair." "Oh," says the girl, indicating a door. "She's in there. Yup." The girl goes back to folding rejected clothes. "Rose?" I call. "I'm nearly finished," she says, "just need to get some different sizes." "Great," I say.

Then I'm waiting and I'm looking at these little retro mirrors on the outside of the fitting room doors. I examine my haircut, but my reflection is obscured by a number written in whiteboard marker on the mirror. Same problem on the next mirror. And the next. I realise that these numbers must be the number of items in the room with the person. The first door says 5. The next, 2.

Rose's says 29. Twenty nine. XXIX. Wouldn't it have been more convenient to simply use the room as the shop and use the shop as a fitting room?

I got overexcited and had to be dragged out the shop and up the elevator to Stella's Fish Cafe. After a snack and a small faux pas I made by putting my hand up to get the attention of the waiter (I've been told that's very rude here - it implies that the staff don't know what they're doing), we headed back for a Polish supper and a few games of pool (see previous post).

To be fair, though we didn't know it at the time, the waiter didn't really know what he was doing, so no harm, no foul. And Rose did get some fabulous stuff.

Anyway, so the next day was Friday. We met my mother, brother and my brother's girlfriend at beautiful Cedar Lake in Uptown Minneapolis. We brought veg and fruit and potato salad and Dana and Manda brought lovely chicken which they'd made that morning (mmm) and crisps (American crisps!) and so we had a lovely picnick complete with pink lemonade. We left for home to get ready then for the evening -- a night out with the girls and Kyle.

After both chosing LBDs and black heels, doing hair and applying makeup and other such ablutions we got in the car with twenty minutes to drive a twenty five minute journey. And I had no cigarettes. I had booked a taxi, you see, to go from Heather's flat to the restaurant at six pm. Heather, who is a sweet person, was worried that we would miss the cab. I was momentarily concerned that she was confusing "taxi" for "train" and then I realised she hated to make the guy wait. So I told the guy about the little excess tip he'd be getting and he was happy as a lark. And thus we were on our way.

Looking fabulous as ever we met with Eryn and Kyle, who had kindly agreed to drive so we could all drink. We dined on the roof of Solera Restaraunt in downtown (see photograph), a Spanish-American tapas joint. Much of the food was excellent. The company was infinitely more so. The cute little waitress was kind enough to take the photo above, in which Kyle is doing his best impression of a pimp. After dinner we headed over to Grand Avenue and spent the remainder of the evening at Billy's (a bar, not a person's house), sitting outside and nattering. Alex, Heather's dude, and some of her friends came by as well which was lovely. Photos will be available, taken by all parties concerned, on facebook at some juncture in the future.

Being English at a bar in the Midwest certainly draws attention. I had to say to one man, who upon hearing me speak started extolling my virtues to anyone who would listen, "You only like me for my accent," followed of course by, "My perfect boyfriend in London appreciates me for who I really am. I'm not just a pretty voice, you know."

The man cried and dragged his sorry carcass away while muttering something about losing the will to live.

On Saturday we were hungover, and most of the day was a blur for me. I woke up later on when we spent a lovely evening singing musical theatre songs at Julia's Mom's, on a piano which Dana had very cleverly tuned. Just like being at home then!

The blur was mainly seeing my extended family, throughout which Rose was a trooper. Or just too dazed for it to make any real impression on her. Whichever's fine.

That's enough writing for one morning - let's go to the pool!