Month: February 2017

I like this state park. It is less than an hour from Minneapolis. In the winter when the park is almost empty of people it seems much bigger.

I drove out on Friday evening and was back within 24 hours. I like the idea of getting out there as soon as possible after work, being on the trails before anyone else on Saturday morning, getting in a full day of hiking, and then being home in time for a good night’s sleep in my own bed.

The apocalyptic snowstorm that was looming throughout the week never materialized. However, the low was about 16 degF, so I knew I had to prepare. I went in full wuss mode: I was 20 feet from my car. I doubled up on sleeping bags, sleeping pads, and pretty much everything else. I even stopped to grab a sandwich on the way there. I was aiming for enjoyment throughout. I wanted no tight moments.

Some things that helped me: peanut butter and honey English muffins. My synthetic balaclava. My thick Gordini mittens. My new sleeping bag liner.

Things that were difficult: getting my small campfire going. Flooded trails near the river. Very uncomfortable night-time erections (next time I will not sleep in my thermal underwear).

Here are my frugal calculations:

$7.70 for gasoline

$7 for a sandwich to eat by the campfire

$25.50 for the site

$5.40 for firewood

Total: $45.60.

There are way lamer things to spend $46 on.

I love my Instant Pot. I cannot believe how much utility I get out of this thing. I scored it on Amazon.com during a sale. The UPS guy said, “Are they giving these things away, or what?!” when he dropped it off. When I compare it to other things I have blown $70 on, it encourages me to be more clever with my money.

The device has revolutionized my meals and snacks.

– I eat vegetable and bean soups more often than I ever thought possible (total prep time: 15 minutes).

– I quickly hard boil eggs for a week’s supply of this convenient protein snack from nature’s cloaca. (The cloaca is a combination asshole and vagina, in the words of George Carlin. Although I should add, the male counterpart has one too.)

– I throw in a quarter of a thick beef steak with pepper, salt, oil and a bit of water and am eating it within 50 minutes. I keep these frozen so I never end up throwing out meat or eating more meat than I want to in a given week.

– I am still tweaking my whole chicken recipe but each one I’ve cooked so far has been tender, useful and delicious, for only $7 apiece.

– I very easily prepare beans, lentils, chickpeas, rice and pearled barley for all kinds of versatile purposes such as burritos, hummus and smoothies.

Outside of these uses – both creative and routine – I avoid stinking up my apartment which lamentably is carpeted. I use more of my raw materials and cut down on waste. For instance, I will cook up the steak and then use the broth remaining in the pot to immediately make a veggie soup. For the first time in my life I will buy those giant packages of carrots and celery and potatoes and use them all before they go bad. Finally, I use more whole foods and feel less and less need to buy pricey, shelf-stable canned mixes and broths.

Everyone should buy an Instant Pot! Or an equivalent electric pressure cooker of their choice! Also, everyone should know the term cloaca and insert it smoothly into everyday conversation!

There are three dense, transit-friendly developments proposed in my area that I see as really beneficial for housing, the environment, and quality of life:

http://riverviewcorridor.com/

http://www.ci.minneapolis.mn.us/www/groups/public/@cped/documents/webcontent/wcmsp-192028.pdf

https://www.stpaul.gov/departments/planning-economic-development/planning/ford-site-21st-century-community

One is for a transit corridor connecting people to the airport, the river, the Blue line (light rail) and downtown Saint Paul.

Another is a proposed apartment complex with a grocery store that would reopen Snelling Avenue south of 46th street so it is no longer a dead end. It would redevelop what is now a boxy warehouse-style building surrounded by a large parking lot.

The last is the redevelopment of the former Ford plant on Ford Parkway. This is a fantastic opportunity for dense, mixed development with a renewed connection to the river instead of a perimeter wall and a vast parking lot.

I’m thrilled about each of them. But already, the anti-everything crowd is organizing. At a recent community meeting I watched as a group shouted down the city planner and engineer as they asserted, based on actual studies, that the area can handle the projected traffic.

I read a letter to the editor in the Star Tribune that claimed grocery stores were not needed in the area and that the area’s traffic was already outrageous and intolerable.

I just walked by giant red signs opposing streetcars on the Riverview corridor on 46th street that homeowners had put up on their fences.

I guess they would prefer the status quo: four lanes of speeding traffic and the constant smell of exhaust fumes. The entrenched homeowners would like to deny people a place to live so that they wouldn’t personally experience more traffic. And the letter writer would deny a grocery store to a federally identified food desert because she doesn’t want to be inconvenienced.

Truly, some people are an awful combination of noisy and selfish. They see no problem with pulling up the ladder behind them. They think, “I got mine, fuck all the rest.”

The problem is, future residents have little voice in the process since they don’t know they might one day live in these neighborhoods. They are not as vocal as the entrenched homeowners who see every development as an infringement on their lives. To add to the hypocrisy, it is residents of single-family, detached homes who make the most car trips on average. I worry that the Ford site redevelopment will end up so watered down in zoning that only wealthy retirees can afford to live there. What if it turns out to be Saint Paul’s first gated retirement community?

I just hope local politicians have the sense to disregard the shrieking or at least take it with a great deal of skepticism.