Just A Peck 0048 // Grand Opening, Games, Guthrie

6/7/26

Welcome to the latest issue of Just A Peck. I’m glad you’re here!

JOURNAL

I drove down to the Twin Cities last weekend for the Grand Opening of BigBadGameStore. It’s such a cool space with a great team, the game selection is top notch, and the rentable gaming room with a touchscreen table surface is pretty amazing. I left with a “Special First Edition” bag filled with new board games and TTRPGs.

Inside BigBadGameStore at the grand opening

The rentable gaming room with a touchscreen table at BigBadGameStore

Playing Jaws. (I extracted the air tank!)

Progress on the deck stairs is going so slowly, but I’m about a third of the way done.

We went to see The Comedy of Errors at the Playhouse on Friday. So many talented friends involved in this production!

On Saturday, we headed to the Twin Cities again. Jody and I caught Little Women at the Guthrie, a new Lauren Gunderson adaptation.

Jody and me at the Guthrie for Little Women

Then we spent time with the kids (our real reason for the trip). Kaylee couldn’t join us because a show she is stage managing had auditions this weekend, but we soldiered on without her. We visited the Game Store again, played one of the new games (Hot Streak, a game in which you place bets on terrible off-brand mascots having a foot race), and had our Monthly Movie Club discussion. This month’s movie was Apollo 13, one of Alex’s picks.

Spending time with the kids in the Twin Cities

WHAT I WATCHED THIS WEEK

Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949). An embarrassing blindspot for me, with Alec Guinness playing every one of the eight members of the D'Ascoyne family who need to get bumped off for the protagonist (a pre-Jeeves Dennis Price) to inherit the dukedom.

Apollo 13 (1995). Our family movie this month. I haven't seen this in probably 20 years, so it was fun to revisit. This has to be Ron Howard's best movie by a significant margin. Ed Harris is a steely-eyed missile man.

WHAT I READ THIS WEEK

Finished:

Writing as a Way of Life, by Brian Morton. A series of short, lovely pieces about "art, craft, and devotion" based on Morton's many years teaching writing at Sarah Lawrence.

Hark! A Vagrant, by Kate Beaton. I also finished the first collection of Kate Beaton's iconic comic strip. I'm not sure what prompted me to pick this up. I guess I just miss the days when a new Hark! A Vagrant post was a collective reason for celebration. Still hilarious.

Drowned Hopes, by Donald Westlake. Every time I read a Dortmunder novel, I wonder why I don't read more Dortmunder novels. This has to be one of the later ones, and I laughed out loud multiple times.

In Progress:

Gödel, Escher, Bach, Hofstadter
Hollywood: The Oral History, Basinger, Wasson

MEMORIES

Five Years Ago:

During COVID, for a variety of reasons, three of our kids (Corey, Spencer, and Kaylee) moved home, and Alex and Kelsie were able to join us often. After becoming empty nesters, it was a surprise extended reunion that let us spend a huge amount of time together. Five years ago this week, that reprise came to a close when both Spencer and Corey departed — Spencer to Maine for a gig and Corey to the Twin Cities and his new apartment.

Fifteen Years Ago:

We were at Kaylee, Spencer, and Corey’s dance recital in Spooner.

And Spencer graduated from middle school. Look at that proud fella!

QUICK LINKS

WHAT I'M EXCITED ABOUT

LOON is opening Sondheim’s A Little Night Music this week. I’m so excited for this one — mostly because the show itself is wonderful, but also because my awesome friends Kate and Patrick (among others) are involved! I feel so grateful to have a life filled with talented friends making art.

Ole & Lena’s Wedding is on at the Boat Club. (Even more friends are involved in this one!)

MY FAVORITE QUOTE OF THE WEEK

"My husband plays the trumpet, which is a sort of loud pretzel originally invented to blow down the walls of fucking Jericho and, later, to let Civil War soldiers know it was time to kill each other in a river while you chilled eating pigeon in your officer's tent twenty miles away, yet somehow, in modern times, it has become socially acceptable to toot the bad cone inside your house before 10:00 a.m. because "it's your job" and your wife should "get up." What a world! If one was feeling uncharitable, one might describe the trumpet as a machine where you put in compressed air and divorce comes out, but despite this — despite operating a piece of biblical demolition equipment inside the home every bright, cold morning of his wife's one and only life — the trumpet is not the most annoying thing about my husband."

— Lindy West

That’s it for this week. Stay safe, friends. Thanks for reading!

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