Microblog

Looked out at the sun setting over Downtown back home from our usual Thursday dinner out. My day hadn’t gone as planned. Yesterday, I got an email letting me know the school was closed today for Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar. So, while Dwight worked in the university greenhouse, I unexpectedly hit the trails.

Tonight at the Guthrie’s A Doll’s House, I anticipated the moment the central protagonist, Nora, walks out into the snow, leaving her home and loveless marriage. Earlier, I had learned from the Guthrie’s study guide that this depiction of Nora was groundbreaking in 1879. Back in the elevator in our building, we had to reassure a neighbor who had attended the performance that Nora was seeking a new life, not ending her own.

Cycled through South Minneapolis with a friend on a route loosely themed around racial justice, stopping here at the former home of Harry Davis, Sr. He was a civil rights advocate in a racially divided Minneapolis from the 1940s and throughout the turmoil of the 1960s, and in 1971 became the city’s first Black mayoral candidate. The city is applying to have this house added to the National Register of Historic Places.

Mailing in our ballots for the November election and getting a COVID booster this morning felt like acts of resistance against the Administration. Its adoption of Project 2025 policies, which restrict access to mail-in voting and vaccinations, intentionally and disproportionately burdens people with limited resources.

Halfway through our Sunday walk, we crossed the bridge connecting Nicollet Island to Boom Island Park, a trail section that used to be a railroad line. A tiny, bright splash of red in the trees, just visible in this photo, reminded us that it’s officially fall.

On 38th Street, my attention was caught by origami butterflies decorating power poles. Each pole also included an upbeat message like “In every setback there’s an opportunity for joy,” “Let gratitude be your compass in times of uncertainty,” and “Keep your face always toward the sunshine, and shadows will fall behind you.” Truisms, maybe, but joy, gratitude, and hope are often choices.

…sometimes I even put it in the food. (I think I’ve used that line before.) Forgot to take a photo as I went about my day, so here’s me cooking dinner.

I’d been looking forward to this yakisoba bowl at Zen Box Izakaya all day. I’d left home for school as the sun was rising after a late night (for us), and I’d taken on an extra class, a reading group. But it was a joy to work with the adult learners, always in good spirits, always trying hard despite fitting in their classes with family and job commitments.

Walked over to the Guthrie for the first production in the Dowling Studio since its closure due to the pandemic. The new play, The Ruins, is mildly surreal and explores themes of living well and dying well: I’m still figuring it out. Here, one of the two actors was already on stage as the audience filed in.

Both my friend and I felt the last few miles of this year’s longest bike ride: a round trip on the Dakota Rail Trail from Wayzata to St. Bonifacius. We earned our lunch of coffee and salted caramel cheesecake, which we enjoyed in St. Bonifacius before burning it off on the ride back.

Spotted Bigfoot, a fraternity mascot, shuffling through the university. The barriers had been installed for crowd control for tonight’s Turning Point USA anti-anti-fascist rally at Northrop Auditorium.

Dwight brought these home from the farmers market yesterday: African eggplants, grown by farmers originally from West Africa. While cubing them, skin on, I noticed their internal structure was a little different from a conventional eggplant, but decided to go with my original plan: microwave for six minutes at 60% (as I usually do with eggplant), then saute in a pan before adding them to a slow braise. Dwight gave the final result a thumbs up.

As I rode my bike on a random ride, I turned onto roads I don’t remember ever traveling. At the edge of a rail yard, empty railcars faced off against piles of container trailers and containers. In the distance, the towers of Minneapolis competed with an abandoned grain elevator.

After giving up on finding a local or national Antifa office, I cycled in search of something tangible about the anti-fascist cause. Flags were at full staff at Sheridan Memorial Park when I paused at this sign commemorating American anti-fascist fighters of World War II. I appreciate how this park honors ordinary, working-class people, like Howard Weller (mask, complete with oxygen tubes) from Northeast Minneapolis, without glorifying war.

Measured the reverberation in our main room: double the optimal time for clear conversation. This echo problem clashes with our preference for minimal furniture and hardwood floors. My suggestion of a huge stuffed Gund elephant, like one I once saw at a Hokkaido airport, did not convince Dwight, so we’ll keep searching for more understated solutions to mitigate the echo.

Cycled upriver with Dwight and a friend visiting from the UK to Anoka, a four-hour trip that included a stop at a fine bakery and another stop to admire an extraordinary Halloween yard display. In Anoka, after beer and snacking on appropriately unhealthy starters, we took the Northstar Line back to Minneapolis. We’ll all sleep well tonight.