Category: In This Together

Wallet Found, Owner Missing

Dwight found a wallet lying in the street containing 22 cards. There was no phone number or email address inside. Found phone numbers online and sent each a text asking the recipient to describe what they had lost. So far, no taker. Click through to see an official, easy way to return a wallet.

Spirit of Peace

Met friends at the Lake Harriet Bandshell. We walked to the Rose Garden and then the Peace Garden, where we stopped at this origami bronze sculpture, “Spirit of Peace.” This week marks the 78th anniversary of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Tea, Scones, and Conversation in a Garden

Cycled over to the University of Minnesota’s St. Paul campus for a lovely morning of tea, scones, and conversation in a garden used for teaching. Dwight volunteers at a teaching/research greenhouse, and I got to meet a fellow volunteer, two research students, and the Curator.

Renewing Lake Street

A man in a car shouted, “Good job!” as he drove by the construction workers on Lake Street. “Thank you,” one of the workers replied without pausing his work. I didn’t mind having to push my bike past the construction. Lake Street has been through some tough times, now it’s coming back.

Minding Our Ps and Bs

In the Somali language there’s no P (puh) sound, so we reviewed the difference between puh and buh (B) sounds. (With puh, you can feel your breath.) The definite article (the) is another challenge for Somali learners: in Somali it’s a suffix to the noun, so it’s too easy to forget to use it in… Continue reading Minding Our Ps and Bs

Milwaukee Avenue Historical District

On my way to Coastal Seafoods for my 20% senior discount, paused to admire the lovely car-free Milwaukee Avenue Historical District. In the 1970s, the federal government planned to replace this neighborhood with apartment buildings, but clever local resistance forced the feds to back down.

Appositives

Until today, as a native English speaker, I was familiar with the concept of an appositive, though I did not know the term. Discussed the concept of an appositive, a noun or noun phrase that follows a noun and further defines or identifies the first noun, just like in this sentence. Worked through examples with ESL learners without the assistance of Google.

REAL ID

Walked over to Hennepin County Government Center with a bundle of identifying documents to renew my REAL ID-compliant driver’s license. Many people are still opting for the cheaper standard licenses which will no longer be accepted by the TSA to board flights in 2025.

Air Quality

On our Sunday morning walk, the air quality seemed to be improving as we looked towards Downtown from Boom Island. Yesterday, we could smell, taste, and see the smoke pollution from the Canadian wildfires.