Waking up at 3 this morning wasn’t so bad today because I hit the sack at 10 after an hour of practicing French. After my return from France last October I wanted to keep working on it because nine months of study didn’t come close to giving me the gift of French for our trip through France. I was disappointed but not surprised. I’d listened to a polyglot (multi-lingualist) online and she said it took her about two years of hour-a-day study before she could become a conversationalist in a new language. I had vague but serious plans to spend a couple weeks in France this summer (after that second year of study) in some corner where no one spoke English. Medical issues have derailed those plans. Maybe in 2020. Meantime I keep up my “entraine toi” (practice).
Had I set practice aside I’d have had an hour a day to blog. Goodness knows bloggable features have continued to pour over my head like Niagara. Ironically, I have engaged in some lengthy Facebook debates over the past two weeks. If it was easier to take the debate out of Facebook and post them I’d be strongly tempted to do so. I enjoy the back and fourth. And I’m more persuaded that America has lost the habit of give and take. We all see the splinters in other people’s eyes.
I didn’t rush to the computer to blog this morning. I got up and shoveled out of yesterday’s snowfall. That took an hour and a half. I have to leave in an hour for our church men’s group. I’ll lead the singing today as we hear Duluth’s former Mayor Don Ness talk to us about his new work for the Ordean Foundation. Ah, but since I finished my show shoveling a snow plow has just put a huge pile of snow in front of my driveway. When I stop blogging I’ll go and shovel myself out again.
Yesterday I did turn in a column for the Duluth Reader. Its titled something like My sympathy to Ilhan. Its not really about Congressman Ilhan Omar, however her recent stint as a punching bag prompted me to resubmit a column I offered the Reader three years ago. The Duluth News Tribune joined the dogpile in today’s paper. I wish they were as high and mighty where President Trump is concerned.
I also smiled to myself reading about the St. Louis County Board following the Duluth School Board’s example and forking over money to atone for their foot dragging turning over Pete Stauber’s business email. They were as anticipated innocuous. They were also public property.
