"Oh yes, I'm so very Mary Tyler Moore!" (name that movie!)

Oh my, it's been a while! I'm ready to start blogging like I mean it, now that I'm in full summer mode. I just got back from a work-related trip to Minneapolis (home of Mary Tyler Moore), and I'm pretty happy to be a Californian. No offense to the fine folks of Minnesota, but I'll take my sunny skies and 2 hours from everything life over gray skies and mugginess any day! Bottom line: If I can't be at the beach, Yosemite, the mountains, or San Fransisco within 2 hours of my location, I don't want to live there.

But I can now say I've been there, and I even get to add a new ballpark to my list.

The Metrodome

Metro, meaning "metropolitan, or of a large city." Dome, meaning "the weather stinks so bad here, we have to take this stuff indoors." I kid. It's not a bad ballpark. I kid again. Baseball in a dome is just wrong, wrong, wrong. They are getting their new stadium next year, which will be uncovered. Good luck!

The highlight of the ballgame was seeing a cute set of 4 year-old twin girls in their Twins regalia on the light rail. I told them that I had 4 year-old twin girls. They were unimpressed, and a bit grumpy-looking. Maybe they don't like baseball in a dome, either. Bottom Line: 4 year-old twins from Merced, California are way, way cuter.

We also got to experience The Mall of America. Holy commercialism, Batman! That place is HUGE. I think I may have wanted to buy something, but I was a bit overstimulated and overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of stores, shops, Cinnabons, and amusement parks to even begin to figure out what it was that I wanted. So I did what any true consumer would do: I bought a chocolate-covered Twinkie and called it a night. Bottom line: A mere bite of a chocolate covered Twinkie will sit like a rock in your stomach all night long, and make it very hard to sleep.

I did, however, get to have a grand adventure with these two ladies for three whole days. Bottom line: They rock socks!