Holy moley, I applied for a job

I got up at 8:30, had Pop-tarts for breakfast, threw a few things in the wash and went for a bike ride. I took the 7 mile loop I invented last week, and was about halfway when I saw this little furry thing in the middle of the sidewalk. I wondered what had died and stopped to investigate, but then it wiggled and continued moving and I saw it was a mole. I don't know if it was an adult or a teen; it was about 6 inches long and 3 inches wide. And hopelessly lost. The trail is only about 6 feet wide, but the little thing couldn't seem to find his way to the grass. I poked it with my shoe and it only scurried toward me. Hopeless. I watched it flounder for about two minutes before it finally found the grass on the south side of the trail and tried to burrow into it. It did eventually get itself mostly covered, and I continued on my way and finished my ride. I'm getting calluses on the tops of my palms under my middle, ring and pinky fingers.

I took the nail polish off my toes (my life is so exciting) and took a shower. I'm always a little alarmed by how dark my hair is when I first dye it, but I know it'll lighten up in a couple of weeks. It's nice to have my head smelling almost-normal.

I discovered today that my second toe on my right food is longer than its counterpart on my left. You can't tell from this photo, because my left foot is not visible, but it's a fact.

I went down to the basement where it's cold and watched Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 and wished I'd come up with the idea for Harry Potter. But I suppose it's enough to have gotten to enjoy it and have the books come out as I grew up. It was exciting. Midnight releases! I don't think kids get that level of excitement today. Plus now people would just download it to their Kindles or Nooks or iPads or whatever at midnight by themselves. Lame.

I went with Karen and Breanne and Hazel to The Bulldog, this place in lowertown St. Paul, for happy hour (half-price!) appetizers. We split pulled pork sliders, bean/chicken/cheese quesadillas, deep fried cheese curds and battered green beans (my favorite). Then we went to this week's Nine Nights of Music. It wasn't very good. First of all, it was 90 degrees and high humidity, so we were all melting. The theme was "Rondo Days," in recognition of this neighborhood that got torn down in 1959 to make way for I-94. Hello, it's been more than 50 years. Only 5 people there even remembered Rondo (based on a show of hands, which I counted). It was jazz, rhythm and blues and just not as zesty as last week's mariachi. Then Hazel was running around being unhappy and screaming and people were giving us looks. Prepare yourself for 17 seconds of jazz:

We did get to spend a little bit of time in the museum that hosts the event on its patio. It had some interesting exhibits, like one about the I-94W bridge collapse that happened in Minneapolis a few years ago, one about Native American kids being assimilated into white schools in the early 1900s, and others. It was a lot more kid-friendly than the High Deseret Museum could ever hope to be (and that's okay, because this one was kind of "too much fun" really, or I was just too old to appreciate a lot of the hands-on aspects of it).

Inside the tipi was this video projected onto a screen where a Native American explains that stereotypes are inaccurate.

Hazel brought this pink thing into the tipi to sit on. We went to see where it came from...

The buffalo anatomy puzzle. Of course. Hazel had its intestines.

When Karen and I got home after dropping off Breanne and Hazel at their house, I got to work finishing my resume and applying for the St. Cloud job. I didn't include a cover letter or any work samples. I think I'll email the contact for it tomorrow to introduce myself; I didn't want to send a vague "to whom it may concern" along with my resume. And part of me just isn't sure this is what I really want. I do want to gain experience and have a job, and I don't mind Minnesota, but I'd rather be closer to home. So I didn't intentionally shoot myself in the foot here, but I'm not actively running for this like I would for something in Oregon or Utah, so I admit that just filling out the form and attaching a resume was lame. But it was still a good experience to apply, as it got me to partially update my online portfolio and to completely update my resume. Now I can focus on actually gathering samples of my headlines and editing, which will make me better prepared for future jobs. And who knows? Maybe they'll contact me after all.

I didn't realize it would take me three hours to get all the application stuff together. I was going to watch 101 Dalmatians (animated), but it's now midnight and I should get some sleep so I can get up and go running early in the morning before it gets so hot that I want to die (basically 9 o'clock).

Last thing — this TwinCities.com (Pioneer Press online) survey made me smile. I voted "Curse the heavens."