a walk in the neighborhood

It was warm enough for a walk outside without a coat, so I decided to order pizza online and go pick it up at the local pizzeria. It's not gluten-free, but it's been a year since I've had real pizza, since Aldi's disappeared and I couldn't get their frozen gluten-free pizzas any more. I may pay for this indulgence later with twitches or cramps, but I'm ready to treat myself regardless.

On my way there, I first passed another home (2 houses north of me) that's for sale. Here's a listing for it. It's cheap, because it still needs work done inside. It has been uninhabited and under repairs for years. I can't vouch for the condition of the building, but I'm happy to invite peaceful neighbors to live here on the block. Does anybody want to move here? We'll eventually get a light rail station within easy walking distance.

I passed an empty lot under construction. It makes me sad, because that empty lot was previously used for urban farming. It always had many rows of vegetables growing there. That's gone now, as this new home construction replaces it. That lot is diagonal across the intersection from the little library that I've mentioned before. It's also next door to what I previously thought of as our official red light district. The back door to the house next to it had an actual red light, and I'd see a random guy occasionally waiting around outside it.

When I got to the pizza place, they had a sign up: "No Guns! No Masks!" That's new, or at least new within the last year. Because this was a new kind of trip for me, it threw off my routine, so I forgot my N95 mask anyway. I'll have to start bringing my Woody Knows nostril filters from now on, I guess. I'm not surprised when physical security interferes with medical security, but at least I have a semi-trustworthy workaround available to me.

Anyway, it was a cool but above-freezing day in Minneapolis today. I've so far managed to avoid putting seeds into dirt indoors. I'll try to wait another week or two. There's always that small chance that we'll get snowfall before May.