Celebration Amidst the Existential

With the psychological assaults of layoffs, loss of patent exclusivity, and more layoffs, all magical economic forces far beyond my control, work has been overwhelmingly soul-crushing as of late and time off was sorely needed. How kind of an old drum corps friend of mine to get married at this opportune moment! The wife and I decided that we should celebrate their nuptials and take a few days off to explore a part of the country neither of us have been to before.

We have two extremely different styles of preparing for a trip; one of us likes to plan well in advance, make reservations, and create backup plans, all packaged into a neat and lovely itinerary. The other likes to get on a plane, show up, and see what's going on in the moment. That being said, I do like to make an effort to acquire basic historical and cultural context to a place I will be a guest in. So I made my perfunctory investigations (a single Wikipedia search and local area scan via Apple Maps) on St. Paul, Minnesota.

St. Paul is the capital city (and here is where I had to remind myself the homonym difference between capital vs. capitol) of the state, is built around the confluence of the Minnesota and Mississippi Rivers, and named after the (surprise!) Catholic chapel built in the original settlement. This seems like a philosophical and perhaps even moral antithesis to its previous name, Pig's Eye Landing, named after the popular local tavern. You may also be familiar with the term the "Twin Cities", a moniker most often referring to the cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul which reside on opposite sides of the Mississippi River. We would later learn from the Minnesota American History Museum (the "M") that it also has a classic-as-apple-pie American history of military colonialism to remove the native peoples that were already living here (the Dakota and Ojibwe) followed by various waves of immigration, perhaps most notably Hmong immigrants from Southeast Asia. Lastly, I imagine that the murder of George Floyd and the wanton kidnappings and killings by ICE come to mind when you hear the name, "Minneapolis".

Preparing for the trip was not especially enjoyable as I was scrambling to get everything done on a work from home day while simultaneously packing and getting the house ready, all before grabbing our scheduled Lyft ride to the airport. My wife also woke up with a sore throat and we had to see how it would progress over the next several hours. I've decided that a silly tradition I want to conduct on each notable trip is to take a picture of our cat before leaving. I did this for our/my secret engagement trip to Italy a few years ago and I often look back fondly at that photo:

Getting through security with TSA pre-check was a breeze, and we found ourselves with a little over an hour to kill and got an early dinner. The flight was uneventful (I had a funny window seat with one window a little to far forward and one a little too far behind me), and we landed, grabbed a Lyft, and used our digital key to access the hotel lobby, then the elevator, and finally our hotel room, all without speaking to a soul. Doubly so in fact, given that our Lyft driver was deaf or hard of hearing which the app informed me of once the ride was accepted. It even showed me how to American Sign Language a few words which I used to communicate, "thank you" when we were dropped off.

Under the influence of NyQuil, my poor wife got terrible sleep, and I got terrible sleep because of the intermittent sounds of the room's air handler starting and stopping along with random repeated interruptions of almost-quietude with the sounds of... sliding furniture above me, I think(???). Maybe some snoring from either or even both parties were involved.

With my wife's acetaminophen-infused liver and with the confidence that she was not contagious given my healthy state (a quandary we rightly agonized over and we understand that our methodology was far from foolproof), we proceeded to enjoy the most lovely wedding. The venue was spacious and inviting and this one particular bartender made the best aperol spritzes (half the glass was aperol). The bride was stunning (yay Dana!) and the groom was garbed in a glorious velvet suit. We got to catch up and party with another dear drum corps friend and her boyfriend whom we've yet to meet. Us two drum corps people immediately began to commiserate with a couple of other drum corps friends of the now-wife. It's no joke that in fact, before we even properly introduced ourselves to each other at the table, we spent a good 10-15 minutes spilling out all our drum corps trauma—sorry—bonding moments over our cult—sorry—our well-regulated team-building competitive activity. I assume my wife was used to this, as was the not-drum-corps wife of one of the other guests at the table. Two other delightfully notable things about the wedding were the use of the minor league stadium's electronic billboard, shining bright all day and night with a picture of their dog and wedding deets. And we closed the reception with pizza! What a splendid day.

It did not take long staying in and exploring the heart of downtown St. Paul to observe a few things. There is a stark contrast between the beauty of the physical architecture along with progressive implementations of segregated bike lanes, and the distinct lack of people on the streets in tandem with the seemingly endless empty ground floor commercial space. Despite all the high rises of banks and apartment buildings, our Sunday people encounters were the few well-kempt people walking their dogs around the "luxury" apartment buildings and the few unhoused people, also hanging out with their dogs (I did have to watch out for the errant pile of poo while walking). To be fair, this was Sunday.

We enjoyed checking out the local bookstores (the day before was Independent Bookstore Day!), the cafes for a good cuppa, and as previously mentioned, the free admission to the M (we made our cash donation on the way out). The M had a gallery devoted to the Upper Midwest's native history of 2-Spirit, Native queer, gender expansive artists, which was really cool to see and learn while taking in the stories of the art and the artists behind the work. 2-Spirit members of native tribes (this term is not universally used among all native American peoples, such is language) could be highly regarded members of their community as they embodied a third gender and could be great leaders, warriors, artists, or medicine people.

Another unmissable observation: a community of everyday normal people who had and continue to have to put their lives on the line to protect their families, friends, and neighbors.

Here I am, a tourist in a place that is not exactly a hotbed of tourism whose people have suffered greatly from Temu Meal Team 6 who get to act out their violent fantasies against families and neighbors who cannot fight back, lest they invite the wrath of the full power of the federal government. Or as we saw, suffer the immediate and deadly consequences of giving incel losers a badge and a gun with the ability to kill with impunity and without any tangible repercussions.

So what am I, a transient, to do in such a situation? I guess all there was to do was embrace our consumerist society and spend our money locally and tip well.

Anywhoo... Existential dread aside (or more accurately, suppressed as a quiet undertone during our time there), we capped the trip off with experiencing the local gastronomic invention of the Juicy/Jucy Lucy (a burger patty with cheese inside) and spent basically a whole rainy day at the Mall of America in nearby Bloomington. Using the bus system to get to and from the mall and our hotel was a $4 breeze. Thank you public transit. Besides food, we actually did not buy anything at the mall. Willpower! Inside the Mall of America are both a whole-ass amusement park and aquarium. The aquarium was full of very normal scientifically backed statements about the impact of climate change on habitats. How refreshing.

Finally, we grabbed our overbooked flight back home where they offered $300 Visa gift cards and two people immediately took it. Amateurs! Don't take the first offer. It was another uneventful plane ride, as they should always be. Time to get back to thinking about raising my AI score at work.