Journeys 3.1

Today I was back in the classroom and found a card waiting, signed by my students. It’s a two-way street; I get so much out of it. Meanwhile, Dwight was at the University greenhouse today and has recently added a gig at Hennepin County Medical Center assembling kits (needles, condoms, etc.) for people with substance use disorder. I’ve also just added a gig: tutoring an adult learner in reading comprehension.

I had to go check there wasn’t a baby in this stroller left in our building’s basement. It seems a parent moved the baby to a car seat and drove off, forgetting the stroller. Once, while in line at Honolulu HNL, the people ahead of us checked their bags then walked off into the crowds, leaving their baby. The check-in agent quickly noticed, climbed over the scales, and ran after them.

With a high in the 80s, it was time to pump up the tires, lube the chain, and get out on the trails with a friend.

It’s finally springtime in Minnesota. When I came home from an appointment, tulips had magically appeared on the kitchen island and this bathroom. Tonight we’re firing up the BBQ for the first time this year–Dwight’s roasting squash.

We modified our usual Sunday morning walk along both sides of the Mississippi because three out of four bridges are currently being repaired or replaced. Here, a new pedestrian/cyclist trail is being built above the entrance to a dock then through a tunnel under Plymouth Avenue (just beyond the crane). The tunnel will lead to a recently opened park, Graco Park. The Minneapolis park system is a big reason we live where we live.

Tonight: Puccini’s Turandot, performed in concert by the Minnesota Orchestra, two choirs, and eight soloists. A much richer sound than a pit orchestra and a smaller chorus could ever achieve, even at the Met. Much like so many operas, the plot of Turandot is daft, but that isn’t the point.

After a late night arrival home I took it easy today by finishing a biography of the Japanese artist Foujita. In the 1930s he embraced the influence of the fascist regime and later became Japan’s top official war artist during the Second Sino-Japanese War and the Pacific War. Postwar there was an almost immediate backlash from fellow artists and the public against his propagandist work.