Melanie called this morning and invited me to brunch with her and Crabby Dave.  Dave was crabby this morning because Melanie wanted to purchase some metalwork to attach to the side of their stucco house for decoration. 

Their destination was a home and garden shop called Twiggs at 4753  Chicago Avenue South in Minneapolis, which sports a large assortment of unusual indoor and outdoor merchandise. Inspiring!

I thought the effect of a rustic decoration against stucco would be beautiful, but practical Dave pointed out that rusty iron leaves marks on stucco and who can live with that?  Now, I hadn't thought it through when I suggested to Melanie that the big, blank space between her windows would look great with some type of architectural accent.  My decorating suggestions and the extra work they create are some of the reasons Dave is so fond of me. 

They went outside to confer about the Egyptian detail pictured at the top of this article, while I hung around inside taking pictures. It turned out Crabby Dave had a solution.  He decided to hang the metalwork in a manner that keeps it from touching the stucco.  Dave is a very gifted woodworker, so the solution came fairly easily to him. 

With that settled, we wandered down the street to Michael's Cafe where Melanie and I shared The Athenian, a Greek inspired frittata of eggs, leeks, feta cheese and spinach.  Yum.  The neighborhood at Chicago and 48th Street is delightful. 

I would have been happy to sit outside and watch the traffic go by for some time, but there were more pressing matters.  Melanie had to go save lives and I needed to buy a cake.  Big old Minnesota.  So much to see and so little time to do it.