Microblog

​Our neighborhood izakaya, Zen Box, is closing, sending me on a quest for decent replacement ramen. Today’s nameless stop scored a 2/10. It was supposed to be tonkotsu; the broth had the color, but none of the required texture or flavor. I took a photo, but here’s something more palatable: new copper catenary for a light rail extension, which I saw while cycling to that nameless place.

The trees of Gold Medal Park were starting to look threadbare as we headed out for our Sunday morning walk. Occasional gusts of wind sent leaves flying. All reminders of the inevitability of winter and motivation to do some planning for winter travel.

It’s Sausage Saturday! That means sausage and cabbage for dinner, but we’re mixing it up a bit. We’re having red cabbage instead of the usual green, and swapping the movie for a stage play: I’ve cued up a National Theatre (of Great Britain) production of Harold Pinter’s “No Man’s Land” starring Ian McKellan and Patrick Stewart. Of course there’ll be ice cream in the intermission.

Walked into Orchestra Hall for pre-show drinks ahead of a Minnesota Orchestra concert featuring works by Kurt Weill, Saint-Saëns, and Ravel that were not The Threepenny Opera, Carnival of the Animals, or Bolero, respectively.

Over the years, I’ve learned it’s important to avoid over-correcting English Language Learners and focus on the primary learning objective. When marking sentences today, the goal was semantic comprehension: using vocabulary words correctly in sentences. It took effort to assess their grasp of meaning and context while being lenient on other mistakes. The impulse to correct everything is powerful.

Discovered Fawkes Alley Cafe, hiding at the end of an alley. I learned it’s located in a building that originally housed the Fawkes Auto Company car salesroom when it opened in 1911. The cafe is a nonprofit that supports the community by mentoring its employees and funding youth soccer for underrepresented communities. My Americano, served in a ceramic cup, was near-enough perfect.

Dwight had delicately suggested my dress shirts were getting a little ratty, so I visited Nordstrom Rack at the Mall of America but left empty-handed, resolving to buy them online. I recovered from my shopping fail by picking up Japanese Kit Kats from Ebisu, exercising unusual restraint around the LEGO store, and greatly enjoying the Swedish meatballs with lingonberry jam, mash, and veggies at IKEA, on special for $2.99.

Cycled on a rail trail from Hopkins to Excelsior on Lake Minnetonka with a friend. At 318 Cafe in Excelsior, we refueled with coffee and the best ever apple coffee cake, warm from the oven. Energized, we cycled back to Hopkins.

On our Sunday morning walk, the low sun drew out long shadows, bringing to mind Haruki Murakami’s exploration of the subject. I’d recently read both “Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World” and its core-story reworking, “The City and its Uncertain Walls.” In both novels, the protagonist is detached from his shadow, making me wonder: how long would it actually take me to realize mine was gone?

On my walk, I was distracted by the sound of raindrops on corrugated iron coming from the ruins of what was once the world’s largest flour mill. Behind me, a Halloween fun run was underway, following the Mississippi before crossing Stone Arch Bridge. Some runners were wearing fanciful costumes, and a bystander carried a handwritten sign: “You’re running better than the government.”

Waiting for the train to pass on my way to my Friday gig, I used a slow shutter to contrast the train’s dynamic streak against the huge, immobile mass of the stadium and the static, cloudless sky.

As is often the case, I learned something about English in the classroom today that I only knew intuitively. A few specific verbs, like stop, remember, and quit, change their meaning when followed by an infinitive versus a gerund. ‘Stopped to go’ and ‘stopped going’ have different meanings. In fact, that difference might even make the bathroom gerund example in the photo nonsensical.

Tonight, two accomplished artists we’ve seen before at the Dakota: Dee Dee Bridgewater accompanied by Bill Charlap. Their performances were relaxed, low-key, and wonderfully spontaneous. They focused on The American Songbook with no set list, leaning heavily on scat and improvisation.

​The rain decided it was a day for a skyway walk. With almost 10 miles of these elevated pathways, I find it best not to plan a specific route. Instead, I set a target: today, the convention center. But the circuitous skyway system had other plans, offering me my city from many different angles.

Cycled with a friend to St. Paul. Stopped at Cosetta’s where we admired their enormous display of cakes and pastries, and selected a couple for ourselves. Followed the Mississippi on the return and admired the fall colors.

A Mississippi backwater on our Sunday morning walk offered impressions of the season.