Category: In This Together

Rebel with a clause

That was a nice surprise. Knowing I’m not firing on all cylinders, a friend just dropped off a book she knows I’ll love, showing she clearly has my number. I edit the world (I find typos on manhole covers), though over the years I’ve managed to rein in the obsession when avoiding overcorrecting English language learners. This will be a welcome relief after a tense novel set in WWII France, and I have a feeling I’ll be laughing at myself.

The source of our beer

Dinner at Forgotten Star Brewing Co., beer and burgers, sitting outside at a picnic table with friends. Life’s good.

Summoning my inner Karen

The street was deserted: no electrician, no work truck, no one in sight. So, I summoned my inner Karen (or is it Kevin?) and immediately filed a report through the Minneapolis 311 app. The meter was live, meaning the bare bus bars exposed at the back of the box were actively carrying current, which is more than enough energy to kill a curious child. It looks like the abandoned attempt of a wire thief, which has become a rampant issue across the city.

Lunch in a former tractor factory

Walked over to Chloe, a French-style bistro, for lunch with friends. The building was once a tractor factory, now repurposed as a hotel with two restaurants. The face sculpture is fashioned entirely from welded bicycle chains. Toward the back of the photo, an atrium cuts up through five floors, letting in natural light.

Safe harbor

My big cycle ride today was just two blocks to Open Book for coffee with a friend I’d normally be cycling with. Open Book was serving as a polling station for the primaries, but with no masked government agents lurking, my friend and I talked freely. We chuckled at the image of the prez hiding in an airline catering container, fairly confident we weren’t offending anyone at the adjacent tables.

Supporting science at the U

Like most Thursday evenings, we retired to a local hostelry to compare our days. Dwight had been volunteering at the U’s greenhouse, as he does every Thursday, where he dug a hole for a bog liner for orchids and other plants that like having wet feet. Meanwhile, I had been volunteering my body for medical science (and my own self-interest) at the U, just as I have daily for the past two weeks.

George Forster: an anti-hierarchical Enlightenment mind

Spent a full day being observed for my second dose of the study drug: plenty of time to finish The Traveler, a biography of polymath George Forster (ethnographer, travel writer, political radical, …). Aged 18, he joined Captain Cook’s second voyage. He defied prevailing Enlightenment thought by rejecting human rankings and hierarchies, maintaining that being a good or great person “is not bound to any particular place on Earth or to a privileged tribe.” Amen to that.

A community’s values

After a cycle ride and cuppa with my friend, I made my way through Seward, a neighborhood where it was no surprise every stop sign had been carefully changed to “STOP ICE” and lawns carried community-minded messages. I couldn’t stop myself thinking administration officials must have never read the Beatitudes despite claiming their love of the Bible. “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness… Blessed are the peacemakers.”

Breathing unhealthy air

Viewed downtown through smoky air on our usual Sunday morning walk. American and Canadian firefighters are working side-by-side to control blazes in Minnesota’s Boundary Waters, even as the president threatens to impose tariffs on Canada over their forest fire smoke, a power he actually lacks. Meanwhile, the administration is busy rebranding terms like “climate change,” canceling wind farm developments, and promoting the construction of new coal-fired power plants.