travel – Page 7 – Life In A Word

Dreamy Las Vegas

DID YOU HEAR? The price of Super Bowl tickets dropped this week! That’s right, you and me will pay less for seats today than those jump-the-gun fans who got theirs ten days ago. The game’s in three days so we’ve got no time to lose! Let’s make our travel plans!

I’m gonna surprise my wife. I mean, I’m the bigger football fan, yes, but she’ll be so proud of me for getting our game tickets for less! And to celebrate “all things her” I figure, why not splurge on the rest of the trip since I’m saving money on the game? Once in a lifetime, I’m telling myself. Heck, by the time the Super Bowl comes to Vegas a second time she and I could be dead!

FIRST, new luggage. I want the two of us to be those people, where just a glance at their bags has you thinking, “Whoa, who are they?”. So, a quick trip to Tumi for a couple of their hard-shell packing cases ($1,500 per) and matching carry-on’s ($750). Getting the gold finish too, because you’ve got to look the part if you’re going to Vegas.

SECOND, airfare. I got me an itinerary lickety-split on Expedia, flying American. Leave Thursday, return Tuesday. Turns out we can’t get there direct since we live in the middle of nowhere but at least we can fly first class, for just $6,826, with only $600 in taxes and fees. Score!

THIRD, transportation to the hotel. I’m not about to show up at the front doors with Tumi luggage in a rental car so it’s limo service for us! My choice: a modest SUV for two (well, three, including our private driver). I know, I know, I could’ve gone with the BMW stretch limo that seats twenty-five, but what are my wife and I gonna do – run laps around the inside of it? Besides, the SUV is described as “… for the VIP who prefers discretion” and that’s a great way to describe my wife. Round-trip: $375, with $75 in tips.

NOW THEN, the hotel. Gotta be big and flashy, right? Can’t be going to Vegas and the big game and staying at a Motel 6. Let’s go with the Bellagio. I don’t need a suite but I’d sure like a view of those lovely fountains. The hotel website quotes five nights for a “1 King Bed Fountain View” at $10,113, including $3,144 in resort fees. Yeah, I winced a bit with the five-figure quote but then the website flashed, Jackpot! This is today’s low rate! so I felt much better. The website also added a ten-minute timer on the rate but no worries – I booked it in less than five! Makes the $300 room service dinners seem like nothing, doesn’t it?

In the days leading up to the game I’ll pamper my wife a little. In fact, since I love the view of those Bellagio fountains so much, guess what? I can order up a couples massage right there in the room! Only $650 for the two of us, including $110 of gratitude to the masseuses. Then we’ll be nice and relaxed for a dinner at, say, the Eiffel Tower Restaurant at the Paris Hotel (and another view of those fountains). We’ll start with Casco Bay scallops ($32), followed by mixed greens ($38) and the “Queen’s Cut Beef Tenderloin Filet Mignon” ($138), with a plate of accompaniments and sauces ($42). We’ll finish up with a couple of the house special “Eiffel Tower soufflés” ($44), and wash it all down with a nice enough bottle of red ($80). Another $110 in tax and tips calls it a night.

Now wait a sec’. Since when does anyone in Vegas “call it a night” after dinner? So I thought about taking my wife to a big-name concert at the new Sphere but then it hit me. ‘O’ by Cirque du Soliel is right there in the Bellagio hotel! Two orchestra-center seats: $657, and only $93 tax/fees!

FINALLY… what I’ve been building to for hundreds of words now – Super Bowl XVIII. I’ve never been to Allegiant Stadium before and this’ll probably be my only visit, so… No, I didn’t go completely off the rails (like seats on the fifty or a sky box) but I do want to see the plays up close and personal so it’s got to be lower bowl, at least the 20-yard line. Oh man, what a relief! I found the last pair of tickets in Section C137 for $29,000 out the door (only $5,000 in service fees!) A flame emoji and a blinking “selling fast” sign had me sweating but I managed to get ’em before the next guy! Don’t forget, these same tickets would’ve cost me even more just a week ago. Can I find a bargain or what?

(Yawn… stretch…)

Oh, uh… hey… it’s Dave, your, uh, “weekly blogger”. Holy cow, let me tell you, I just woke up from the craziest dream. I was headed to the Super Bowl last-minute, see, and everything about the trip was the best Vegas had to offer. Hotel, dinner, show, game tickets – the works. Now that I’m awake, I’m wondering what all that fun would’ve cost me. $53,598 comes to mind for some reason but I’m sure I didn’t “spend” anywhere near that amount. Just a crazy dream. Anyway, sorry to write and run but I’ve got to return a call to my bank, asking about unusual activity on my credit card.

Some content sourced from the CNN Business article, “Super Bowl ticket prices have dropped but they still cost a fortune”, and Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

Poor Little Ginny

Next Tuesday, if I could drag myself out of bed before dawn, I’d see the planet Venus hole-punched into the inky sky, low and bright. If I looked further I’d probably see Mars – dim but distinctly red. And if I really did see Mars I’d be sad, because I know Ginny’s up there, all alone, waiting for someone to bring her home. I’m sorry, Ginny… I’m so sorry. Nobody’s coming for you, not for a long, long time. Rest your rotors in peace, little helicopter.

Ginny (known more formally as Ingenuity) is a brave little helicopter. She may look like a nasty bug instead of something you’d want to cuddle with, but she’s quietly been filling up the record books with her remarkable achievements. Four years ago Ginny hitched a ride to Mars on the belly of NASA rover “Perseverance”. A few months after Percy plunked down on Mars, Ginny took her “first steps”. She spun her rotor blade into a blur, rose ten feet above the Martian soil, took a quick look around, and dropped right back to where she started. That brief maneuver earned her the title: “first powered, controlled, extraterrestrial flight by any aircraft”.

[Note: You can read about Ginny’s first flight in the post Whirlybird Wonder]

Ginny may not be easy on the eyes but I’m in awe of what she accomplished in her brief time on Earth (er, Mars). I should’ve paid better attention in science class. Imagine the teacher saying, “Okay Dave, here’s your assignment. I need you to design a mini-copter that can travel to Mars, perform a few lighter-than-air maneuvers, and be able to take a few photos at the same time. You’ll be at the controls back here on earth, so whatever communication mechanism you come up with needs to work over, uh, 140 million miles.” Cue my blank stare.

The smarter-than-I-am people at California’s Jet Propulsion Labs (JPL) designed little Ginny to do all those things. What makes her ten-foot hop on Mars so remarkable is this: the atmosphere up there is less than 1% as dense as Earth’s, so there very little to hold Ginny aloft. To put it another way, earthly helicopters can only fly to 25,000 feet. Ginny had to be designed to fly to 80,000.

Let’s call her “The Little Copter That Could”, shall we? Ginny was supposed to fly five times in thirty days. Five little hops in a month’s time and her mission would’ve been considered an unqualified success. But Ginny chose to be an explorer instead of an experiment. She flew seventy-two individual missions, further and longer each time than her JPL designers ever expected. She also captured images as she flew, so scientists could better decide where on Mars they wanted big-brother Percy to rove.

Ginny was more “alive” than any helicopter I’ve ever known. She cleaned herself up after nasty Martian dust storms. Her solar panels froze unexpectedly during the rough winters, rendering her unable to fly or even take commands, yet she still radioed “wellness reports” to Percy so the JPL people would know she was (barely) there. She made three emergency landings when her sensors detected trouble. And even when one of those sensors went dead, Ginny kept her rotors a-whirling on demand.

Ginny captured the shadow of her “broken wing”

Whatever happened on Ginny’s Flight #72 two weeks ago remains a mystery, one Percy hopes to figure out as he rovers back to her location. Ginny had been close to another landing when she suddenly stopped communicating. A day later the JPL team reestablished the connection to find Ginny resting comfortably on the Martian soil. Somehow she’d still landed on her feet. Somehow however, she also damaged a rotor blade. Ginny can’t repair herself so alas, her flying days are over. Now her waiting days begin.

Admirers like me refer to Ginny as “that little extraterrestrial trailblazer”. Haters call the dormant helicopter “the first piece of trash on Mars”. As long as Percy’s in her neighborhood, Ginny will keep sending her little wellness reports (even though she’s really not so well). I just hope the scientists at JPL are already hard at work on their next mission to Mars. A brave little copter is waiting to be rescued and brought home to the Smithsonian.

Some content sourced from the CNN article, “After damaging a rotor blade, NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter mission ends on Mars”, and Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

Setting Little Booklets Free

In Breaking Away, the charming little movie about bicycling and broken dreams, there’s a scene where Barbara Barrie talks with her son about her passport. She’ll never really use it, she says, but she carries her passport all the time so she can present it proudly if ever asked. With newfound hindsight, I should’ve held onto my wife’s passport as tightly as Barbara Barrie held on to hers.

If you have a passport, you know the drill. Every ten years you have to renew the little book. The process is cumbersome, even online, because the authorities ask for almost as much information as they did the first time around. Everything goes into the (re)application except a copy of your birth certificate. Three pages of personal information later, you print, date, and sign, attach an unflattering black-and-white selfie (no smiling!) and mail it in together with your expiring passport.

So far so good with the hindsight. But as soon as I went to the post office last October I made a big boo-boo; the so-called fatal error. The desk clerk convinced me to send the application through regular mail. “Save your pennies”, I remember him saying. “After all, you’re sending through one government entity to another government entity. What could possibly go wrong?” So I saved my pennies… and that’s the last I ever saw of my wife’s passport.

Did this machine eat my wife’s passport?

Okay, maybe not ever. Perhaps the little booklet eventually finds its way home after completing whatever misguided tour it’s been taking. Or maybe, as our travel agent was quick to suggest, it was mangled and shredded by the sorting machine of an automated postal facility. Or maybe #3 – the one that has me staring at the ceiling into the wee hours of the night – it’s the latest identity of the head of an international drug cartel.

Laugh or feign horror at my expense, but you can’t blame me for wandering to the worst case scenario these days. The outside of the mailing envelope said “National Passport Processing Center” while the inside contained what obviously feels like a passport. Easy pickings, especially for an enterprising minimum-wage postal worker. My recurring thought: why didn’t I fork over the fifteen bucks for a secure, insured, overnight envelope? Because I’m cheap, that’s why. Ah hindsight, thee be a cruel character.

Not that you’ll ever need it (because you’re learning from me) but there’s an easy process to report a “lost or stolen” passport. You provide as much information as you can and if you’re lucky the authorities identify and “decommission” the missing booklet, reducing it to mere paper and plastic in the hands of another. But that still left my wife with no passport, which meant filing a new (not “re”) application. Dig out the birth certificate, take another photo, make an in-person appointment with the local post office, and pay another application fee. Mercifully, I watched that application get sealed into one of those secure/insured mailers before disappearing down the conveyor belt.

My first inkling of identity theft hit when our credit card company informed us of a $500 charge from a merchant in Germany, a company I didn’t recognize (and couldn’t begin to pronounce). My second inkling hit when our travel agent tried to make charges for the trip we needed the passports for, and our other credit card was rejected. One inkling makes you pause, but two inklings? That pushes the big ol’ panic button. But the god of credit cards must’ve been looking down on me favorably because the first charge was cancelled while the second charge was only denied because our travel agent had an old card on file. In other words – to my knowledge – we’re talking random events instead of identity theft.

There’s a happy ending to this story. (Actually, it’s more like an intermission since the authorities sent me a letter saying my wife’s passport is still lost or stolen until it’s not.) We have new passports now, which means no renewal process for another ten years. Our compromised credit card was cancelled and replaced. And we froze our credit in case a “new wife” out there tries to open accounts. I’m not convinced that’ll ever happen but I’m breathing easier as the months pass by. And rest assured, I’m keeping our little booklets secure so nobody can, you know, “break away” with them.

Keeping Score at the Grocery Store

In the chaos of the supermarket a few days before Christmas, milk, eggnog, and a package of those Li’l Smokies sausages fell into our shopping cart. These items don’t usually find their way into our frig but the year-end holiday meals somehow demanded them. If the market wasn’t so frantic I would’ve also whipped out my phone to see if these purchases deserved my dollars. After all, just about everything we use in the kitchen (and bathroom) these days has a little numeric value lurking just below the surface.

Nacho Cheese Doritos are now a “5” in my world. You might say pretty good! until I tell you that’s on a scale of 1-100. But let’s say you choose Blue Diamond’s Almond Nut-Thin Crackers instead. The number skyrockets to 84. A roll of Wint-O-Green Life Savers earns a 28 while a box of Tic Tac Freshmints doubles the number. Nature Valley Granola Bars? 51. Heinz Ketchup? 33. And in the ultimate insult to products considered “food”, perfectly round Nabisco Oreos earn a perfectly round 0/100.

What’s with all the tallying, you ask? The numbers are simply the output of a little smartphone app called Yuka, which joined my personal parade of subscriptions last May. In the words of its young French founders (Julie, and brothers Francois and Benoît), Yuka “deciphers product labels and analyzes the health benefits of foods and cosmetics”. Plain English: Scan the barcode of anything in the supermarket and Yuka tells you whether to buy it or not.

Candidly, it wasn’t the numbers that sold me on Yuka. Rather it’s this: the app is completely ad-free because brands cannot pay Yuka to advertise their products. In other words, the numerical ratings I’ve shared are generated objectively, using common perceptions of the health benefits of ingredients. Yuka has rocked the small space known as my kitchen pantry.

Never is this overhaul more evident than with “cosmetics”, Yuka’s catch-all for everything you find in the bathroom. In the last eight months I’ve swapped out my deodorant, mouthwash, shaving cream, shampoo, and face wash for items with better Yuka numbers. Five products I used every day and purchased for years just went flying off my medicine cabinet shelves, replaced by other products that are healthier on and in me (including Aveeno’s facial cleanser, which earns a perfect 100).

Yuka (the name is a nod to Yucatán) is about more than scan-and-score. You can also simply search on products, mining a database of five million entries. Even if a product isn’t in the database you can enter the ingredients from the label and Yuka will give it a number. And if that number is lousy (like it is for your Oreos or my L’il Smokies) Yuka will point you to a list of alternatives with better numbers. Again, Yuka doesn’t recommend one product over another; it just presents the numbers for you to consider.

In a nod to the healthy habits of Europeans (who favor fresh foods), Yuka’s founders realized its app was most popular in America, where we are so fond of packaged products. So they packed up their French offices and French families and moved to the middle of Manhattan – temporarily – to better connect with their target audience. Eventually they’ll head back home but not before Yuka is sure to land on the smartphones of millions of Americans.

Here’s one more aspect of Yuka I appreciate: the founders take time to communicate with their users. In the eight months I’ve subscribed, they’ve sent me twelve emails with interesting articles about healthy eating, healthy “cosmetics”, and the entertaining evolution of their little company (which includes a dog as an employee). They also sent me a fun video of their first few days in New York City. And just last week I received a year-end recap of my app use (93 products scanned with an average score of 46). No advertisements and no product pushes.

The subscriber version of Yuka is $15/year (you can try a more limited version for free), which includes the convenient scan-for-a-score feature. Furthermore, your subscription dollars are what keeps Yuka in business, instead of funding manufacturers who’d like nothing more than to push their products on you. That’s just one of the reasons I now keep score at the grocery store.

The Give-and-Get Machine

This Christmas season, by tidy coincidence, our family’s Twelve Days of Christmas will give to us six family members, Five Gold Rings, four restaurant dinners, three neighborhood gatherings, two Christmas concerts, and a downtown parade of horses, dogs, and Santa. As if that’s not enough “get” this year, we’ll also have a couple dozen presents under the Christmas tree… most processed through the Give-and-Get Machine.

I’ll get to the Machine in a minute but let’s start with the exception. In early October I walked into a local retailer, picked out a gift for my wife, and handed over a credit card. In exchange, the clerk handed over my purchase in a small paper bag. I took it home, wrapped it myself, and – two months later – placed it lovingly under the Christmas tree. If you’re thinking, Man you went to a lot of trouble, Dave – I sure hope your wife appreciates it, then you, my friend, are a product of the Machine.

What is the Give-and-Get Machine? It’s technology’s approach to gifting. When you choose to give a gift this year, nine times out of ten you’ll plop down on the couch, open your laptop, and navigate to your favorite e-commerce website. If you don’t know what to give, you can choose between “Last Minute Deals” or “Top Picks for You” (based on previous spending). Once you decide, you’re probably less than five clicks from the finish line, especially if your recipient is in your “Address Book” and you’ve already stored your personal information. Add to shopping cart, choose delivery address, confirm purchase, and you’re done. But wait! You can also add gift wrapping and a message for a few more pennies. Well now, aren’t you the savvy gift-giver!

The convenience of the Give-and-Get Machine is undeniable. After all, my purchase in October meant a one-hour roundtrip drive, to a shop where I may or may not have found something. Add another fifteen minutes once I got home to wrap the gift and add the To:/From: tag. You, meanwhile, accomplished the same “task” in maybe ten minutes, with a mug of hot chocolate and a few keystrokes from the comfort of your kitchen table.

“Task” is the operative word in the last paragraph. Gifting should spring from the heart instead of the Task app of your smartphone, right? Gifting should be a choice, not a chore. Perhaps those of us who default to the easy-out Give-and-Get Machine are missing out on the real meaning of Christmas.

Admittedly, the Give-and-Get Machine includes some really nifty apps. If you’ve ever used Gift Hero (“The Best Wish List Ever”) you know what I mean. GH is the perfect solution for the family that exchanges gifts but has reached the age (or proximity) where no one knows what to get each other. On GH each of you creates wish lists and the lists are shared with everyone else. Once you choose a gift from another GH list it’s marked as “taken” to avoid duplicates. Most gifts are hyperlinked to merchant websites for easy purchase, and you can add notes like color, size, and quantity. Also, GH blocks you from knowing what has been taken from your own list by whom, so the element of surprise remains.

There’s an endless debate with apps like GH. I mean, let’s be honest, it’s easy to skip any and all effort to be thoughtful about what somebody wants for Christmas when you have their list right in front of you. On the other hand, you avoid the occasional embarrassing face-to-face exchange, where the recipient insists I love it when in fact they really don’t, and will probably regift it next Christmas.

Ultimately, the almighty dollar may be the decider between a gift from a store or the Give-and-Get Machine. My wife and I found a nice assortment of books and toys for our Colorado granddaughters this year, at stores we visited both near and far. We wrapped them all up, put them in a large box, and drove down to the post office. The clerk measured the box and its weight and informed me the shipment “had to go by plane” instead of anything cheaper. The cost was more than my annual subscription to Amazon Prime.

Maybe I shouldn’t be so critical of the Give-and-Get Machine after all.

It’s Thanksgiving Season (#4)

Well now, I told you the Thanksgiving season would fly by didn’t I? Those 23 days came, went, and BAM! here we are – Thanksgiving Day itself. Good thing you kept a Gratitude Calendar like I asked you to. You did keep one, didn’t you – the list of things you’re grateful for this season? No, you can’t have my list (who are you, that kid who copied off of others in grade school?) but I will let you read it:

WordPress, which allowed me to schedule this post ahead of time so I can spend Thanksgiving Day focused on much more important things.
Thanksgiving cards, purchased for family and friends before the torrent of Christmas cards pushed them off the shelves.
Our son, visiting this weekend all the way from Colorado.
Witnessing my beloved alma mater face Clemson on the football field (even if Notre Dame “didn’t show up”).
Today’s extra hour of sleep, even if I couldn’t manage to sleep for an extra hour.
Babysitting my granddaughter, even if she produced what I’d politely call a “blowout”.
Making it to the car dealership safely on a suspect front left wheel.
Repair of that wheel by mechanics who know a lot more about fixing cars than I do.
A perfectly still morning with the dog and a cup of coffee before easing into the day’s activities.
My mother, who was born on this day 95 years ago.
My body, which allows me to continue the regular, rigorous workouts I enjoy.
My wife, my endless source of love and laughter.
The quiet, peaceful, safe community I live in (and utterly take for granted).
A long-awaited rain shower, and hopefully the first of many.
The many entertaining blog posts from my “online family”: those I faithfully follow and who faithfully follow me.
The family and friends who keep us tied to our former years in Colorado.
A perfect fall day in Colorado, allowing me to accomplish the many things I had on my agenda.
The reunion of my wife’s family with her mother (a gathering that hasn’t taken place in over ten years).
A visit with my Colorado granddaughters, and the opportunity to walk my eldest to kindergarten the following morning.
A visit with my best buddy and his wife, and the realization our relationship will stay strong no matter the time or distance.
The countless workers in the airline industry who make travelling safe, including the singing traffic cop at the airport crosswalk.
The simple comforts of being back at home
My brothers and their families, who I will truly miss this year as they gather together in Williamsburg, VA.

And… that’s enough for today. You should be focused on family and friends anyway, not blog posts. Wait – one more thing – a throwback term to mix in with your Thanksgiving spread: requital (with the middle part of the word pronounced like “quite”). A requital is a return or a reward for an act of kindness. Here’s how Beethoven used it back when he was still making music: As a slight requital of your kind souvenir, I take the liberty to send you some variations, and a Rondo with violin accompaniment. Fancy, huh? Now, go impress your guests around the table by using your new word.

Oh, and if you didn’t keep a calendar of things to be thankful for? Seriously, what are you waiting for? C’mon, get grateful already!

It’s Thanksgiving Season (#2)

So here we are, nine days into the Thanksgiving season already. Didn’t the time positively fly (even with the extra hour last Sunday)? Have you already booked your travel to visit loved ones later in the month? Have you already made pumpkin pie (because you can never have enough pumpkin pie, so why wait until Thanksgiving Day)? Whatever you’ve done for the past nine days, I’ve already hinted at the three “F’s” of Thanksgiving: food, family, and friends. Now let’s add a fourth.

Not football. Not fun runs. The most important Thanksgiving “F” is full; as in “full of thanks”. You are thankful this season, aren’t you? If you joined my bandwagon from last week’s post, you already have nine reasons (or nine people) to be thankful for. Keep that list going until the big day, band-wagoner.

Now that you know the four (not three) “F’s” of Thanksgiving, let’s visit five facts you probably don’t know about the holiday. Here’s a morsel for your taste buds: the very first Thanksgiving feast probably included lobster, deer, swans, and seals. PETA and I struggle with those last two, but the list stands to reason because we’re talking pilgrims and Indians on the coast of Massachusetts, four hundred years ago, making merry for three straight days. Those flavorful “entrees” were abundant back then, with nary a turkey to be found.

Remember last week’s mention of Abraham Lincoln making Thanksgiving a holiday? That was in 1863, declared as every last Thursday in November. Seventy-odd years later, Franklin D. Roosevelt moved Thanksgiving Day one week earlier to extend the shopping season during the Great Depression. But some states pushed back on Roosevelt’s pushback so in the 1940s you had several years with multiple Thanksgiving Days (more turkey for everyone – hooray!) Eventually the compromise was made as we know it today: one Thanksgiving Day, the fourth Thursday of every November.

My wife and I love dinner in front of the TV, don’t you? But have you actually eaten a TV dinner? You know, the frozen full meal in a box, with the tiny portions of generic food in the partitioned aluminum-foil tray? Well, you can thank Thanksgiving for TV dinners. Swanson overestimated the demand for turkey one year, and in a totally give-that-person-a-raise move, converted 260 tons of leftover turkey into 5,000 hand-packed dinners, complete with dressing, gravy, peas, and sweet potatoes, at a mere $0.98 a pop. A year later they’d sold ten million of them. Voila – the birth of the TV dinner.

Trivia question: What teams always play football on Thanksgiving Day? Trivia answer: the Dallas Cowboys and the Detroit Lions. Better trivia question: What teams first played football on Thanksgiving Day? Answer: Yale and Princeton way-y-y-y back in 1876. I didn’t even know football was a sport in 1876. As for games played on Thanksgiving Day, I would’ve guessed they started like, a hundred years after that.

If your Aunt Betty spends a little too much time at the holiday punch bowl and thinks it’s funny to start gobble-gobble-gobbling at your kids, you might want to remind her females don’t gobble. Er, female turkeys that is. The signature Thanksgiving sound is reserved for the males of the species. Female turkeys have been known to purr and cackle instead. This is good information for your Aunt Betty (the purr , not the cackle).

Okay, enough what-you-didn’t-know fun for today. Let’s wrap with another nod to being thank-full (or, if you will, having “gra-attitude”). I love this time of year because Starbucks gives away free coffee. Okay, so they’re not really giving away free coffee. Instead, drive-thru patrons continue the seasonal tradition of paying for the car behind them (and driving off quickly so as to remain anonymous). I go to Starbucks more often just to participate (as payer, not payee). So, for whatever you are grateful for, share that happy feeling with the people behind you in line. Not a patron of Starbucks? Doesn’t matter; any drive-thru will do. So c’mon, get grateful already!

Some content sourced from the October 2023 Town & Country Magazine article, “14 Surprising Facts You Never Knew About Thanksgiving”, and Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

Not-So-Thruways

We live on a long, straight-run residential street, with the option to exit at either end to access the outside world. Close by, a cluster of our neighbors live on a short, stubby lane, where you won’t get very far before having to turn around and go back the way you came. A sign posted at their street’s entrance declares, “Not A Through Street”. It’s what the French – and we Americans – call a cul-de-sac.

In a rather desperate effort to come up with something Halloween-related this week, I landed weakly on “dead-end streets”. Of course, these tiny avenues are often very much alive. Cul-de-sac’s host a quaint gathering of houses, with a few on the straight run and even fewer around the end circle. The setup allows these neighbors to get to know each other easier. And with so little traffic, the end circle encourages kids to do what their parents normally nix: play in the street.

But maybe I shouldn’t paint/assume such a rosy picture (especially with Halloween right around the corner). What if your neighbor living right next door on that little end circle is someone you’d sooner see in a horror movie? Or what if the statistics are true: even more people are struck by cars on a cul-de-sac because of the assumed safety of a quiet street? Finally, consider the double-hyphenated phrase staring you right in the face. Cul-de-sac – French translation – “bottom of bag”. Suddenly your house feels like one of those throwaway candies you find deep down in your trick-or-treat sack.

I didn’t know “cul-de-sac” had such a negative connotation. I found it rather quaint because it’s double-hyphenated (and French). Curious, I went in search of other double-hyphenated words to see if I could find something more positive. Know-it-all. Word-of-mouth (which is often gossip). Son-in-law. Okay, that last one has potential. I mean, he’s only been married to my daughter for year now, so…

Here’s a really nasty double-hyphenated for you. Fer-de-lance. It means “head of spear”, which isn’t so nasty until you realize it’s the name of a snake; an extremely poisonous viper who lives in the tropics. The fer-de-lance was the killer (literally) in a 1974 movie by the same name. A movie I never should’ve watched at the fairly innocent age of twelve. Fer-De-Lance was the original Snakes on a Plane, only the plane was a submarine carrying a crate full of deadly creepy-crawlies. How’s that for Halloween-scary?

Like Fer-De-Lance, Cul-De-Sac was also a movie (1966), about “a hermit living with his wife in a large dank castle on an island… terrorized by two escaped prisoners.” Not exactly a romantic comedy, and no explanation of the film’s title, other than maybe this couple finding themselves at their ultimate dead-end.

Let’s circle back to the suburban version of the cul-de-sac (please!) Two addresses ago we actually lived on one. There were two houses on each side of the straight-run and four houses on the end-circle. We lived on the circle. Were we tight with our neighbors? No! Each of our driveways were long and steep so our houses were actually pretty far apart. I still remember how we’d greet our neighbors faithfully only one day out of the year. What day? Halloween, when we’d accompany our kids to their front doors.

We need to end this more-Halloween-than-I thought post on a positive note, so I don’t have you thinking about poisonous snakes and escaped prisoners. Cul-de-Sac is a locale on the beautiful Caribbean island of Saint Martin. It was also the name of a 1990s alternative rock band. And Cul-de-Sac was the title of “a light-hearted comic strip centered around a four-year-old and her suburban life experiences.” Okay, now we’re talking.

Some advice before I close. If you live on a cul-de-sac, I suggest you double-stock the candy this Halloween. After all, trick-or-treaters who make it to your dead-end street may find themselves going round and round the end circle without realizing what they’re doing. Keep an eye out for repeat customers.

Some content sourced from Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

Fresh-Breath Foods

There was a time, not so long ago, when the Girl Scouts knocked on your front door instead of standing outside your local supermarket, selling their popular cookies. My wife would tease me because I never had the heart to turn down the cute little uniformed kids on my doorstep. But let the record show, I really do like Girl Scout cookies. And if I had the money to buy just one box, it’d be the Thin Mints every time.

I’ve been a mint fan as long as I can remember. I’m not talking about foods (yet) so much as the flavor itself. Peppermint, spearmint, wintergreen, or even a fresh sprig right out of the ground – they all speak to me with a sort of spicy vibe. I find a food so “tasteful” when it’s freshening your breath at the same time.

For a hot minute I thought the Girl Scout Thin Mints were gone for good. A recent headline teased the departure of a “cult-favorite” cookie flavor and I feared the Mints had run their course. Instead, it’s the lookalike “Raspberry Rally” calling it quits. No harm, no foul. As long as I can still buy the Thin Mints (and an occasional Caramel Delite) I’ll happily fork over the $5 (now $6) a box.

Had the Thin Mints really been gone for good, I needn’t look far to find other fresh-breath foods. Who doesn’t like a scoop of peppermint or mint chocolate-chip ice cream? A pack of Mentos? Listerine? Heck, I’ll even settle for that gritty peppermint paste the hygienist uses to polish your teeth.

Minty consumables really do run the gamut. You’ll find over fifty global brands of breath mints, including Altoids (my favorite), Breath Savers, Certs, Clorets, Ice Breakers, Tic Tac, and Velamints. But put all of these together and you still wouldn’t come close to the Starlight Mint population. The origin of Starlights is one of the world’s great mysteries. Brach’s Candy claims their invention, but if so then why do they call them “Star Brights”?

If Starlights are too dime-store for your taste perhaps you prefer the softer texture of a “butter mint”. Butters are often found, individually wrapped, in the lobbies of fine restaurants (gone are the days where you’d just spoon yourself a handful on the way out the door). I’ve always thought a butter mint is caught in a quandary, Does it identify more as “butter” or “mint”?

Speaking of a refined palate, minty liquors make for some mighty fine beverages. The first drink my wife and I ever shared was hot chocolate and peppermint schnapps from a thermos at our college’s movie night. A grasshopper (and my wife has a killer recipe for one) is a fresh-breath milkshake made with crème de menthe. And the Kentucky Derby’s mint julep is more bourbon than mint but you’ll always find fresh sprigs garnishing the top.

If not the Starlights, my first introduction to mint was probably packs of Life Savers. There used to be several mint flavors of “the candy with the hole in the middle” including Wint-O-Green, Stik-O-Pep, and Spear-O-Mint. But when the trendier Mentos and Tic-Tac came along, Life Savers headed for the rear-view mirror.

No mention of mint would be complete without a couple of failures (at least IMHO). In the 1970s the makers of Starburst came out with a short-lived minty version called Pacers. They never worked for me because I always expected those chewy little squares to be fruit-flavored. Nabisco’s Oreo, which blossomed into 85+ varieties from their black-and-white signature sandwich cookie, include ones with green mint filling. No, just no. Oreos are meant to be the vanilla originals. Food-color them orange for Halloween if you will but don’t change the taste.

[Side advertisement: The next time I fly overseas I’ll have to give Jet Blue’s Mint class a try. Their individual “apart-mint” cubicles allow you to lie flat, with lots of cushions, a TV, and plenty of storage space for your carry-on items. Fancy, huh? All that’s missing is a chocolate mint on your memory foam pillow before you drift off to sleep.]

Here’s a chicken-or-egg question. Which mint came first, the flavor itself or the stodgy industrial facility which manufactures coins? I always thought it’d be cool to work in a mint. You’re handling millions of dollars every day and if someone asked what you do for a living, you just say casually, “Oh, I make money.” And If it were up to me I’d give all those coins a sweet-smelling scent on their way out the door so they’d be “freshly-minted” two times over.

Our Christmas celebrations used to include a box of Frango Mints, the melt-in-your-mouth chocolates you could buy at Chicago’s Marshall Field’s. These days we go with Williams-Sonoma peppermint bark. Our tree will always welcome a peppermint candy cane or two. And if a Girl Scout should ever knock on my front door again, I’ll be happy to help her meet her quota, because the Thin Mints will always be a breath of fresh air.

Some content sourced from the CNN Business article, “The Girl Scouts are discontinuing a cult-favorite cookie”, and Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

Map-Sap Goodness

A few months ago, authorities in New Zealand wrapped up a five-month sting where they confiscated the largest import of methamphetamine in the country’s history. Millions of dollars of the liquid stimulant were discovered in, of all places, a shipment of maple syrup jugs. Agents swapped out the drugs with water and let the jugs continue to Australia, where the recipients were quickly apprehended. Did this story captivate me? Why yes it did, but not because of a million-dollar drug bust. I pretty much stopped reading at jugs of maple syrup.

With all due respect to fruit, I think maple syrup is the better example of “nature’s candy”. After all, it’s essentially organic liquid sugar. If you have the tree, the tools and the time (a lot of time), you can tap your own supply. Simply drill a hole into the trunk of your sugar maple tree, hang a bucket below the opening, and let the goodness s-l-o-w-l-y flow. After you’ve collected what you need, boil off the water, filter off the crystallized sugar, and your pancakes or waffles are set to be topped.

If you prefer a more solid sweet, make snow candy like Little House on the Prairie’s Laura Ingalls did back in the day. Pour boiling maple syrup into short lines on a fresh bed of snow. Press Popsicle sticks into the lines. Then roll the cooling syrup around the sticks and voila! – a sweet handheld-treat. Last Saturday’s arrival of the fall season makes this confection seem extra appealing.

My very favorite doughnuts are maple bars

In the U.S., “real” maple syrup is not so common anymore. Years ago at my childhood breakfasts I was already consuming imitators like Log Cabin, Mrs. Butterworth’s, or Aunt Jemima (more recently known as “Pearl Milling Company”). These brands and countless others are known as “table syrups”, made from corn syrup and chemicals instead of anything found in a tree. They can’t even use the word “maple” in their names because of a consumer protection law known as the Pure Food and Drug Act.

Enough about the impersonators. Maple syrup’s rich flavor and density should be the preference to table syrup’s as long as a) Your taste buds can be reeducated, and b) you’re willing to spend a few more pennies. And maple syrup is just a step removed from some distinctive treats. Maple sugar candy is compacted maple sugar formed into small squares or maple leaves (delicious!) Maple taffy is what you get if you boil maple syrup past its liquid form. And for the truly obsessed (me), you’ll also find maple versions of toffee, butter, and liqueurs.

Let’s take a paragraph for a confection of honorable mention. Ever heard of a treacle tart? Yes you have, if you know the timeless children’s classic Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. In the story, the evil Child Catcher in the fictional village of Vulgaria tempts young Jeremy and Jemima Potts with ice cream, candy, and treacle tarts (“and all for free!”) Those tarts are small pastries filled with maple syrup, breadcrumbs, and a splash of lemon juice, served warm with a cream topping. Yum. Catch me if you can, Child Catcher.

If you know your flags, you can guess which country produces most of the world’s maple syrup. Canada accounts for fully 80%, with most of the sweet stuff coming from the province of Quebec. Vermont’s production is similarly dominant compared to other U.S. states. Both locales are northern climates, where sugar maple trees thrive in the cold winters. So as much as I’d like to channel my inner L.L. Bean by planting a maple tree and drilling a hole, donned in flannel shirt and snow boots, it’s never going to happen here in hot-and-humid South Carolina. Guess I’ll have to settle for a store-bought jug of nature’s candy instead.

Some content sourced from the Deutsche Welle (DW) article, “Authorities find drugs worth millions hidden in maple syrup”, and Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.