Today, we ate the Lazy Woman’s Sunday Dinner. Our dessert, Coconut Blueberry Cake was so easy, I made it late last night after a long bout of staring at a job list I didn’t want to finish.
This Smoky Bean Stew was a rapid-assembly wonder that cooked itself during my Sunday nap. This was one of those dishes where I swabbed my finger around the empty bowl, not to mention “cleaning” the soup ladle, to get every last sweet taste.
The recipe calls for lima beans, which raised objections from Mr. Kristen. I substituted cannellini beans; a white bean is a white bean. But apparently if its name is “lima,” it brings back dark days to him.
The bread is a make-do version of Crunchy Cheese Toasts, since I kinda forgot to add French bread to my shopping list. But I found some hamburger buns in the freezer and used those.
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But let’s move on to my rant for the day.
It’s about public trust, that quiet thing that’s always around, making it easier to do everything we want to do.
Public trust is me telling you “This stew was easy! And yummy!” and you taking me at my word, because you know I really made it and really ate it.
Public trust is pressing the “buy” button on eBay because you can be pretty sure that those sunglasses you ordered will show up, and that the charge on your credit card will match the agreed-on price.
Public trust is handing over your money at a parking garage and knowing you haven’t just been panhandled.
Since I love walking, I place my public trust in all the runners and walkers that post their routes online.
I tried planning my own routes. But there are surprises out there, like streets interrupted by creeks. Like roads that have no sidewalks or, even worse, no shoulders. Isn’t it fun to feel the breeze of semi-trucks blowing right by your elbow?
Yeah, there’s a lot that maps don’t show.
But MapMyFitness is full of routes that are tried and true. A real person walked down Elm Street, took a right turn on Columbia Avenue and survived. I can survive it too.
I even trust the routes that look impossible.
For example, there was the one that crossed Lake Shore Drive in Chicago.
Have you ever seen Lake Shore Drive?
It is eight lanes of madness. It is city people in a big hurry. It’s like they finally broke out of the congested Loop and now they can crank up the speed.
How much of a runner do you have to be cross that?
I took the bait anyway and, when I got to Lake Shore Drive, I found a lovely footbridge that lifted me right over all that traffic and set me down gently on the other side.
Like I said, there’s a lot that maps don’t show.
Thank you, my sporting brothers and sisters.
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Which brings me to a week ago Monday.
I tied my shoes and set out. I claimed one side of the street. The high school cross-country team claimed the other. The neighborhoods were modest but tidy. Children on scooters. Moms unloading groceries from their vans. Potted mums on the front steps and dried corn stalks tied to the porch railings.
I love this stuff.
The tricky parts are the off-road sections.
Which, on Monday, meant cutting through a parking lot along the walls of a big-box store. These aren’t my favorite maneuvers, but the short cuts are kind of like somebody letting you in on a local secret. Most people don’t know you can get to Grace Street this way. But here’s how you do it.
It would be two minutes of lonely parking lot, and then a real street again.
It would be all right.
The big-box, as it turned out, was a Jo-Ann’s Fabric. That’s better than an auto-parts store, or a liquor store. But the backside of any store is creepy, all the more when you find yourself walking in to a dead end with nothing to look at but loading docks. And chain-link fence clogged with climbing ivy. And an abandoned warehouse beyond that.
And no way to get to Grace Street.
I don’t want to know how stupid I looked, turning around and around in that dead end, staring at walls and fences.
But wait!
When I looked real hard, I saw a break in the fence, just big enough for a 9-year-old boy to squeeze through.
Which I did, because it was the only way to Grace Street.
Which turned out to be a place just perfect for bad doin’s. That abandoned warehouse? Yeah, guarded by a shut-tight electric gate with a rusted-over key pad. Beyond that, dark woods hugging the street. Scattered beer bottles. I would not have been surprised to find human remains.
On the map, Grace Street looked no longer than a staple. But it was a loooong walk, let me tell you.
Eventually, I broke out into open air again, with lawns and people and mailboxes. But the route also cut through the loneliest school parking lot you ever saw. The weeds sprouting up through the asphalt cracks left the impression that school was not in session. Probably hadn’t been since the era of flip phones.
Who invented this route? It had to be a man, because what woman likes lonely parking lots and creepy woods? Hello, rapist hideout?
My final reward for trusting Shortcut Sherman was a jaunt through a park. True to form, the map showed him ignoring the paths and cutting straight across to the next street over.
I assumed I was in for a simple hike over a broad green. There are lots of way to dash across a park. Walk through the gazebo. Hike behind the backstops, or in front, I don’t care. Take your chances on the frisbee field.
But no, Shortcut Sherman veered over to the hedges at the border of the park, blazing his own trail through the brambles.
By that time, I was done doing things Sherman’s way. I headed for the nearest busy street. I tramped out the last mile, mumbling I’ma track that man down! I’ma give him a chest wax!
What do you think Sherman’s problem was?
1. Painfully shy?
2. Running with a rip in his pants?
3. Looking for places to smoke a joint?
4. Other ideas????
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Next week, we’ll talk about a book that’s already a Netflix miniseries. Gee, that doubles the homework, oh darn.
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