A Relaxing Weekend

I had a pretty good weekend. I actually didn't do a whole lot but those tend to be the best weekends. So Saturday I went to the Twin Cities Book Festival. It was cool. There were about 50 authors there and I walked around and talked to some of them about their books. Some were interesting, some weren't. The sole black author there (an older man - maybe in his 60s) stared me down and called me out before I had even got within 10 feet of his table. His book was a personal memoir about his life in Africa and he tried to convince me that I should buy the book because there was a chapter on NYC during the two years he lived there (sorry, that's not compelling enough for me). He also tried to persuade me by telling me his book talks about what its like to be a black person in Minneapolis. Again, not compelling. I already know what that likes - I'm living it. He was nice enough though and the book did seem like it was probably interesting, I just wasn't compelled to part with $18 to read it. I did take his plugger though so I may buy it later. I ended up buying about 8 used books from their book fair sale. One is a memoir by a girl from the Bronx so of course I bought that (I know, double standard but it seemed much more relatable - if that's even a word).
The weather here was beautiful on Saturday and I had half a mind to go sit out in the park near my apartment and read but then I thought about how I had a laundry list of things to get through in my apartment, so I came back home. I spent most of the day indoors getting my apartment in order then I took a nap for a while. When I woke up it was 7:45 and I was supposed to meet one of my Wharton friends and her boyfriend at 8:15 to go to the General Mills get together. It turned out, it was not a wine and cheese event like I thought - it was a progressive social. 6 new General Mills brand managers all live in the same building so they each opened up their apartment for 30 minute time periods and had food and beverages from a certain part of the world. Every 30 minutes the group moved to another apartment or supposedly another "part of the world." It was a really nice concept. There were a lot of folks though so at times it was very packed. We got there in time for region #2 - Hawaii (we had missed Italy which was hosted by a friend of mine who interned with me at Target last summer and now works at GM). We stayed through region #3 (Spain) but since they weren't quite adhering to the 30 minute rule (we were in "Spain" for about an hour), we bounced after that.
Sunday morning, true to my word, I got up and went to the 7:45am service at Fellowship Baptist Church. I wanted to go to church early so I could have the rest of the day to myself. Church was fine, although I kind of had a negative first impression when I walked in and the older man who was folding programs asked me if I need an envelope (for offering). When I said yes, he handed me one, and his face lit up and he said "Welcome to Fellowship!" I wondered what the response would have been if I had said no. I started getting "money hungry" vibes. Not good. Overall the people weren't particularly friendly and the sermon was nice but I didn't get a whole lot out of it. The pastor was an interim pastor so who knows when they will find a full time pastor. After service, I went to the supermarket and was back home by 10am. Nice.
I spent the rest of the day cooking (yep, at it again - I even baked chocolate chip cookies with walnuts), and bumming out in front of the tv. Between Saturday and Sunday, I continued my movie marathon, watching Breakfast at Tiffanys for the first time ever (umm, I'm still confused as to why that is a classic - Audrey Hepburn played a spastic golddigger who got a Cracker Jack box ring engraved at Tiffany), and Catch Me If You Can with Tom Hanks and Leonardo DiCaprio, which was pretty good. I think tonight I'll get back on my Tyler Perry kick with Why Did I Get Married and Madea's Family Reunion, both of which I've seen already but they're hilarious enough to watch again.
Back to work this week. My mentor is in LA later in the week so she gave me some projects to work on in her absence. I also have my presentation on Friday. I stayed late tonight to make some progress on it. It's coming along. Until later...