Category: Living

Birders

Walked along a tributary of the Mississippi where my friends temporarily joined a group of birders. I learned this is the best time of the year to hear bird songs.

A New Ramen Restaurant

“Discovered” Tori 44 in a St. Paul neighborhood. They make their own noodles, which pushed the dish up a notch. I’m slowly collecting places around the Twin Cities serving decent versions of my favorite comfort food.

Categorized as Eat

Blue Tarps in a Park

The homeless at [Tokyo’s] Ueno Park were up early Monday, with hundreds of the park dwellers quietly disassembling their tents and packing their belongings onto carts soon after dawn.Pushing carts laden with their possessions, they plodded toward a small empty plot hidden by bushes and trees.Around 9:40 a.m., about two hours after completing the evacuation,…… Continue reading Blue Tarps in a Park

Top-Up Time

It was time for my quarterly top-up at the Frauenshuh Cancer Center. Together with another drug, it continues to suppress tumor.

Categorized as Cancer

Poverty and Homelessness in Japan

This afternoon I was a couch potato devouring a new novel, in translation: “Tokyo Ueno Station.” It depicts poverty and homelessness in Japan and deepened my understanding of scenes I’ve glimpsed in Japan. As I expected, the ending was not happy.

Crawfish Boil

It was perfect weather for a New Orleans-style crawfish boil at the home of my in-laws. The food was tipped onto the table, and we picked food up with our fingers. The table was covered in plastic, rather than (traditional) newspapers. These days, our newspapers are digital.