Instagram Instafame. No vehicle required.

I’ve never lusted after fame. Yet it found me, on a very tiny scale. Is that an
ox·y·mo·ron?

noun a figure of speech in which apparently contradictory terms appear in conjunction. (e.g. famous on a tiny scale)

It began with snow, snow, and more snow on top of the snow we had already collected this winter. More than Minneapolis has accumulated on a single day since 2011 (according to Fox 9, source of the photo below). Enough snow to make driving inconvenient and portions of streets impassable to average vehicles. This is what I've been waiting for since I sold my Ford to experience the city car-free. Streets I can ski on!

A phone call inviting me to dinner was answered with an enthusiastic,
“Are we skiing?!?!”
“Yes. If you can meet me at my place in 10 minutes.”

Fortunately I’m a quick enough xc-skier, even one-poling it (maybe I’ll tell you later). Just outside my back door I strapped on my skis and flew across a snowy landscape that had previously been an orderly set of streets and sidewalks. En route to my friend’s house I noticed a school bus revving it's engine, stuck in the snow.
[Skis: 1, Vehicles: 0]

My friend had shoveled a path from his back door to the alley and was ready to join me. As we glided through the snow covered streets, we noticed someone trying to get their vehicle unstuck. I opened with, “Want to change those tires to skis? We have four skis here!” He chuckled and declined when we sincerely offered assistance. Living in Minnesota, you learn to navigate whatever the weather brings. That is, once your vehicle will actually move again (he was still stuck when we skied out of sight).
[Skis:2, Vehicles:0]

After skiing almost two miles we arrived at a cozy locally owned diner. Not quite ready to de-ski, I did a loop around the patio area. This attracted the attention of their social media staff, who captured a couple shots on her phone for an Instagram post. As I entered she greeted me with, “I totally creeped on you through the window. You were so adorable out there. I do the social media posts here.”

This cameo on a business’ Instagram page led me to FINALLY join the site. If you follow me, @mininthecity know that I’m experiencing a learning curve using Instagram and its recommended photo editing apps (Layout, Boomerang, Textgram). As I develop my insta-personality, I’m finding fabulous grammers (is that what Instagram users are called?) to learn from.

And now, the rest of the story… while we were leaving the diner an employee (the aforementioned creeper) was stuck in the parking lot. True to his Minnesotan nature, my friend helped shovel out the vehicle before we skied away.
[Skis:3, Vehicles:0]

I’m happy that my first promotional appearance is for a business with values I believe in. The diner's sustainability practices include a solar paneled patio roof and on-site gardens to harvest fresh ingredients from. They even have rooftop beehives. For an environmentally conscious busy bee who loves honey, that’s something to buzz about.

#sustainability #winter #life #nature #story #ski