A Clear, Cool Day in Minneapolis
Generally, I’ll avoid a play-by-play of my day, but the things I’m doing today lend themselves to thoughts about other preparations we’ve made or are making for our upcoming traveling.
I woke up before Dan (I almost always do) and took Jake for a quick walk down the block in front of our place. It’s a clear, cool day out – about 15 degrees F, but it doesn’t seem nearly as windy as it did last night as Dan and I walked home from the bus stop after seeing a movie (Transamerica) at the Lagoon Theater. I’m not a big movie person – and definitely not a movie reviewer – so I’ll just say that we both thought it was a very good movie and would recommend it to others. It’s good to see a movie that addresses transgender issues, which many people know so little about. However, in addition to being educational for me, the movie was also both funny and touching. OK, that’s enough; I promised I wouldn’t try to review it!
So, after the walk, I made pancakes using a recent favorite multigrain pancake recipe of mine. Making the pancakes reminded me that I needed to email my pancake recipes to Shawn, a friend of ours. So, I did that right after breakfast. With just over a month before we leave, if something needs to get done, I figure I better do it right away, or it might not get done.
After Dan got up, had some breakfast and got ready for work, I drove him to work. Over a year ago, Dan’s car got hit while it was parked on the street in front of our place overnight. The insurance company deemed it a total loss, and we decided not to replace it. We had talked about eventually getting rid of one of our vehicles before we begin our longer-term travels anyway. I really only used my truck on the weekends to travel out to Shakopee (about 35 minutes southwest of Minneapolis) to play guitar and sing for mass with the St. Mary’s, 5:15 Saturday evening choir. I ride my bike to work in downtown Minneapolis, which is about a 15 minute ride each way, and run as many other errands as I can using my bike. We’re also close to several bus lines that we both use frequently. So, we decided that we could get by with one vehicle, and – I must say – it has worked out just fine.
On my way home from dropping Dan off at work, I stopped at Cub to do some grocery shopping. About a month ago, I took stock of what I had in my kitchen for food, and made a list of the items that I should use before we leave. Then, based on this list, I came up with a list of food dishes that used these ingredients. Pretty much everything in the freezer would need to be used up, as well as things like dried beans, which I won’t want to cook while on the road. I think I’ll miss coming home from work (not necessarily the work part) to that smell of pinto or black beans cooking in the crock pot. Also, any ingredient that is used primarily for baking would need to be used up, as well. We’ll be making many of our own meals while camping, so any ingredient that can be used in a skillet dish or one-pot dish is fair game for being packed to go with us.
On my way home from the store, I dropped some percussion instruments off at Inez’ house (another percussionist in the band I’m in, the Minnesota Freedom Band). Our band will be performing before the glitzy Oscar party at the State Theatre in Minneapolis on March 5th. Inez will be playing mostly the various percussion accessories and wanted to get them organized for the upcoming concert. This performance will be my last (for awhile – I’ll be on leave from the band) before we leave. I will be playing primarily tympani for the performance.
Oh, yea – when I got home from the store, I took a couple pictures of the “Jake Platform” that I wrote about in a previous post. Here they are, along with a picture I took of Jake last Sunday:
Tags: food, jake platform, Pre-Trip
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