Relative Something

It was with heavy hearts that Cyndie and I recently learned one of our most revered pizza restaurants back in Eden Prairie, Gina Maria’s Pizza, had abruptly gone out of business, closing all four of its locations. It felt like another indicator of our aging was being manifest before our eyes.

“Remember the good old days when we were able to buy pizzas from Gina’s?”

Back when I was working in Plymouth, MN, I would order a half-baked version of our favorites and bring them home whenever it was my turn to cook dinner.

When Cyndie would come home to visit the year she worked in Boston, MA, she would order a pizza while still at the airport and pick it up on the way, carrying a fresh deep dish in the door when she arrived.

Well, to our great relief, news got out that a manager from two of the locations had acquired the recipes with the blessing of the former owners and arranged to reopen the Eden Prairie location under the new name “Pizzas Gina,” which I think is brilliant.

I happened to be in EP yesterday to attend the funeral of the mother of one of my high school classmates, and the church was just down the road from our cherished pizza place. From the parking lot of the church, I ordered a rendition that, back in the day, Cyndie would have been able to speed dial her phone and ask for “the usual.”

With 30 minutes to kill, I took a slow drive to the cul-de-sac location of the house I lived in during my middle school and high school years. I almost remembered the family names for each of the houses along Cedar Ridge Road. It’s been over 45 years since I lived there, but plenty of the same trees I used to mow around were still in the yard of our old house.

Dinner last night was as delicious as ever. Maybe even more so, after a period of thinking we would never be able to taste our old favorite again. We are so grateful that the previous owners supported the new family’s efforts to keep the recipe alive and reopen the restaurant under a slightly different name.

If you ever find yourself in Eden Prairie and are a fan of pizza with an incredibly rich tomato sauce, make a point of ordering from the new Pizzas Gina on Mitchell Road.

As our typical (early) bedtime approached last night, Cyndie’s phone received multiple alerts from an app monitoring the intensity of the aurora in our location, so we took Asher out for a late walk to check it out. At the high point of our driveway, we lay down to ease the strain on our necks while staring at the sky.

We expected to see the radiating colors to the north, but we found that the display was happening straight up over our heads and stretched across the sky from west to east.

Some lingering clouds infringed on our viewing a little bit, yet they also occasionally added some interesting drama to the spectacle. We experienced an impressive combination of reds and greens. The show we enjoyed rivaled some of the nights when we were in Iceland last year.

I also spotted a shooting star/meteor streak, adding to my wonder and awe.

It all seemed a fitting compliment to our special treat of a favorite pizza dinner. Pretty much out of this world!

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