NEW Adventures in the Life of Brenda #3: Crosstown Construction in my Backyard

I happen to live in a very lovely neighborhood with lots of gardens and old, classy houses. We have an amazing hardware store (that can even give lost sisters precise directions to the airport), a remodeled auto-garage that sells frozen custard, a greenhouse, a mom-and-pop coffee shop, a corner barber, a Russian art museum inside an old Spanish mission, Minnehaha Creek with its hundred or so miles of trails and trees and parks that border it, and some of the cheapest gas in the city all within 2 blocks of our apartment building. I am continually thankful for this quaint and quiet neighborhood with all its quizzical quirks!

However, yesterday started a long-overdue project in the city of Minneapolis. It is the untangling of the 35W-Crosstown interchange, starting with the demolition of the Diamond Lake bridge. It began last night around 10pm with what felt like a small earthquake. The little handles on the dresser in the bedroom were rattling, the closet's sliding doors were shaking, even my glass of juice had little lapping waves. And it continued all through the night. Now Jon and I have become accustomed to the airliners and jets en route to the airport that fly rather low over our apartment every 15 minutes or so, but this was new. The rattling didn't stop. The shaking didn't stop. In fact, as I am typing this I can watch the window blinds shiver and feel tremors through the couch cusions with the accompaniment of what sounds like train cars banging together. This will be the norm for the next 48 hours straight at which point I am hoping the noise will be limited to the daytime hours only. For any of you that might be thinking I am exaggerating the noise, let me show you an official diagram of where our apartment building is located in relation to the construction:

Notice me hanging out of the window on the 3rd Floor shaking my angry fists.

Now, don't get me wrong!! I am very thankful something is finally being done about this intersection. But since the new bridge won't be finished until next year (about the time our lease is up...) it comes at a bad time and as a terrible inconvenience.

But alas, since MNDot didn't bother to give me a survey about what I think about all this, all I can do is complain here. So thank you for letting me rant and rave! I think I'll go outside with a bag of popcorn and watch the demo. At least it provides some quality entertainment :)