DV: Delta (Airlines) Volente

DV is usually taken to mean "Deo Volente, God willing." It's a great excuse to avoid personal responsibility, as in, "I'll met you at 6:30, God willing." Or, more precisely, "If the road is congested, it's not my fault if I'm late."

I've been happy with Delta Airline's MSP-PDX on-time performance while traveling that city pair a few times in the past month. Prior to a couple takeoffs at Minneapolis/St Paul, MSP, we had to pause at a deicing station. Enough slush time was left in the schedule for the flight to make it to Portland, PDX, on schedule.

Tomorrow I expect to be home, on time, for dinner with my partner, DV (Delta Volente).

Travel Gear: Mesh Stuff Sack

On a train or plane, it's good to have stuff immediately to hand.

My solution is a mesh stuff sack that closes with a drawstring and toggle. It's light and durable, it keeps things together, and I don't leave random possessions behind when I disembark. My partner and I have been traveling with the same sacks for decades.

When I board, I drop the sack on my seat and stow my backpack in the overhead. I then sit with the sack sandwiched between my back and seat. Flight attendants never ask me to stow it.

Once I'm settled, the sack and its contents fit in the pouch along with the safety card and airline magazine.

Trains and Planes and Earworms

I don't know how road warriors do what they do, year in, year out.

My temporary home, Portland, Oregon, is a wonderful place, but I've been experiencing an earworm filled with loss and longing as I walk to work.

Wikipedia defines an earworm thus:

An earworm, sometimes known as a brainworm, is a catchy piece of music that continually repeats through a person's mind after it is no longer playing.

Studies have found 98% of individuals experience earworms, so I don't worry about my earworms. Generally they are simple music, and reflect my mood.

Road Warriors

Tomorrow, I'll be sitting in an airline club, tuning out the other road warriors. "Just checking in" phone calls to the home office shouldn't last twenty minutes.

Extreme road warriors cluster around departure gates. One may be begging for an upgrade, others are making sure they board ahead of the next-lower class. A common topic of conversation is so-called status: a Diamond ascertains he's chatting with a Platinum.

Airlines know what they need to do to breed loyalty.

Immersion Blender

We have a simple rule in our kitchen: if we buy a new piece of equipment, something has to go.

We go a long way with good knives and a couple decent pots, and we don't use many gadgets. But I do like my immersion blender, and have been using it for over ten years. 

I can make a creamy soup in a few minutes from ingredients in the freezer:

Stock (see previous post)
Mirepoix (see previous post)
Leftover roasted vegetables (e.g., carrots, sweet potatoes, squash)
A spoonful of tomato paste (for acid, color, umami)
Salt and pepper

I just heat all this up, then blend right in the pot. The result is better than canned.

I never make the same soup twice. For example, spices, or fresh ginger (stored in the freezer), or garlic move the soup around the world.

Other dishes I make with the immersion blender include eggplant dip and a surprisingly good banana chocolate "ice cream." The "ice cream" is actually:

Bananas, a little past their prime, saved in the freezer, thawed slightly
A couple good heaps of cocoa powder
A small amount of milk to help everything to grip while it is being blended

Cleanup is minimal compared to the mess made transferring liquids to a countertop blender.

Palm Springs Hiking

Palm Springs, CA, is surrounded by mountains and lovely trails: good reasons to be there last week.

There are downsides to hiking in the Palm Springs area:

• Too much driving to trailheads. It took one to two hours.
• Days are short at this time of year. When my partner and I were hiking around Palm Springs last week, the sun set soon after 4:30 p.m.

But there are upsides to being in Palm Springs in early December:

• Comfortable, dry climate. The average high in July is 108°F, but in December, the temperature reached the low 80's. At higher elevations, the temperature was in the 50's. 
• Cheap digs. We stayed in a comfortable resort for close to one-third of prices charged later in December through the rest of the winter.

Urban Hike: Early Nordeast Houses

If I didn't know better I would walk right past this unassuming house. It looks to be about the right size and style for Nordeast (Northeast Minneapolis), and it's in a typical neighborhood.

A typical Nordeast neighborhood has a bunch of churches and bars. There's five churches within a couple blocks of this house, and plenty bars within staggering distance.

The house was built some time in the 1850's through 1870's making it one of just a handful of houses in Minneapolis surviving from that time. The Minneapolis fire of 1893 destroyed more than 23 surrounding blocks, but somehow spared this house.

Northumbrian Beauty

When I tap "beauty" into the Google search box for my photo collection, I get a flood of too-easy, stereotypical beauty. There's enough sunsets and mountaintops to induce indigestion in even the most hardened tourist.

But the picture at the top of this post is top of the search results.

It's October 2015. I'm standing outside the Fenwick department store in Newcastle upon Tyne, north-east England. Instead of the usual merchandise or animatronic Christmas displays, the windows promote generic looks. In front, two strangers march in lockstep, neither likely to use the advertised products, at least not in public.

The Remains of a Tree

In the past few days, a sculpture has appeared on my running route around Lake of the Isles (Minneapolis, MN). It's a defiant sculpture, but it's not the creation of an artist.

The remains of the tree wait to be felled and chipped: it was diseased, it has to go. New trees will be planted for the next generation.

But this week it makes a statement. An old, gnarled hand is giving the finger to xenophobia. Those who have squandered yet another opportunity to call on our better selves are beneath its contempt.

Note: "The Remains of the Day" by British novelist Kazuo Ishiguro is a good read.