I don’t do bucket lists or trips of a lifetime. Places are not to be consumed like products; the journey is not an inconvenience. Travel is iterative: each trip is a prototype for the next time I visit an area; there’s no pressure to tick off all the boxes.
Category: Living
Boxing Day
Posted Boxing Day: A Day for Selling Vacations. When I was growing up in England, the day after Christmas was a day for relaxing and eating leftovers. Television advertising, finally freed from promoting the excesses of Christmas consumption, switched to hawking packaged vacations.
A Day for Selling Vacations
When I was growing up in England, the day after Christmas was a day for relaxing and eating leftovers. Television advertising, finally freed from promoting the excesses of Christmas consumption, switched to hawking packaged vacations.
Christmas Goodies
Grateful for friends and their decadent homemade treats from here in Minnesota and England (that wonderful Christmas cake). Not shown: the best homemade lefse (all gone).
Keeping Christmas Local
Tree designed and crafted in Minneapolis from Minnesota deadfall cherrywood. Four-season lamp (winter side showing, stained glass) designed and made by a colleague as a retirement gift for Dwight. LEGO snow village designed and built by Dwight, destined to be torn down and rebuilt next year. The snow is rescued polyester fiber packaging.
Kurisumasu Sushi
Gyaru peace sign (mandatory in Japanese selfies), in front of a boatload of sushi at a family lunch today. I’m wearing a Yokohama soccer team shirt, reminding my brother-in-law and nephew of a fine evening in a Shibuya (Tokyo) bar.
Santa’s Been to the ATM
Carefully curated Christmas presents for our teenage nephews were about to be tastefully packaged in envelopes. Our entire Christmas gift shopping.
Merry Thursday
It’s Thursday, so we crossed the road to Maxwell’s for dinner. Dwight’s Summit Extra Pale Ale next to my Surly Furious IPA, both local brews.
The Jingle That Won’t Die
Another day, another labyrinth dedicated to consumption: Menards, where I traversed acres of aisles hunting for components for a lighting system for our vertical garden. In the process, I acquired an earworm: “Save big money, save big money, when you shop Menards.”
Scandinavian Bounty: IKEA and LEGO
After walking with a friend around the vast Mall of America, popped into IKEA to return a lamp because it’s not dimmable. After meatballs and mash, got lost in a labyrinth of merchandise, feeling oddly guilty for not purchasing a $1.49 Bolmen (toilet brush). Eventually found my way back to the light rail station via the LEGO Store.