The girlettes wanted to go on a field trip downtown, to see the rushing waters of the Mississippi River.
"It's for school," they said. "It's historic."
I don't know that it's historic? (no), but with the snowmelt of a very snowy winter, the river waters are "above normal" and are near flood stage in the city.
The field trip destination was the pedestrian-only Stone Arch Bridge (used to be a railway bridge. Completed in 1883 it's the second oldest bridge on the river, and formerly the center of the milling industry that built the city).
The bridge overlooks St. Anthony Falls and the lock & dam there.
The water was raging! Its spray dotted my glasses.
You can hear its roar in my 11-second video:
Three dolls were with me, but I only let PennyCooper out of my backpack for fear they would fall in. (Or jump! I could hear them squeaking about Huck Finn... They wouldn't mind at all if they were swept up in the water, but I would.)
I ran into a dear friend, Jill, who'd also come to see the water. (There were lots of other people looking too.)
Jill and I held up our cameras to take selfies at the same time:
We talked about aging, and it was cheering because we feel the same way: IT IS REAL.
Jill's only a few years older than 62-year-old me. We both said we feel the realities of aging in our bodies--death is not just an idea anymore.
She and her husband are looking into euthanasia options, should they need them.
"It's complicated," she said. Looking at the river, she said, "Might be easier just to jump in here..."
LOL, yes.
I said I could easily buy poison from the dealers across the street from the thrift store.
We've got to Be Prepared or lose our chance, right?
People say they want to kill themselves under x, y, z conditions, but then they get caught out (or change their minds--fair enough! Life wants to live).
But with dementia, say: if you don't leave in the early stages--should you want to--soon you lose your ability to choose.
(I totally don't think we should feel we have to kill ourselves if we get dementia, but the reality is, if you don't have good support (or even if you do), dementia can get grim... Who knows? It's an individual thing. Anyway, I want to think about and discuss with friends these things before they surprise me, which, really, could happen anytime now. Though I hope not.)
I walked back across a smaller bridge traversing a side channel, where the river goes around Nicollet Island. I had to look up its name--the Merriam Street Bridge, built in 1887.
(What I don't know about the City is a lot.)
They loved the orange buoys. The water is calmer here, but it's traveling very fast. You can see it pulling around the outer buoy.
Afterward I went to Starbucks by the river and had an oatmilk latte. I took a mirror selfie in their bathroom--I love these black with yellow-stripe buttons that I sewed onto my old jacket made by Bemidji Woolen Mills. (Another piece of Minnesota history--the mill started up north in 1920 and is still in the original family.)
Sonnet Distraction
And now, off to work. I'd been dreading Monday morning's staff meeting (we have these maybe quarterly),
but I came up with a great coping mechanism:
I worked on writing a sonnet during the meeting!
I could hear what Big Boss was saying, but the sonnet distracted me so he registered kinda like an adult in Charlie Brown cartoons (woaaah whwaaah).
Ha! I looked it up--the adult voices are made with a rubber plunger over a trombone's bell.
What was he saying? He was talking about negotiation among coworkers, and alongside some stuff he'd Xeroxed from a business site he put a couple quotes from the Bible--Paul instructing Timothy? maybe? on handling divisions in the church.
So, so weird.
Not all of us are Christian, but even if we were... Why run a retail business this way.
After five years of this nonsense that never goes anywhere, I am done with listening to him.