Indy 500

An important feature of Memorial Day weekend is, of course, rain. We have it today, alternately misting, then sprinkling. Not much pouring to report, but the day is young. Over the weekend Sally and I attended a family camp north of Spokane, and it rained all day. To tell you the truth, it just seemed natural. I've spent so many Memorial Day weekends sitting in the rain that I scarcely notice anymore.

Once again this year I did not travel back to Indianapolis for the 500. That's also become a tradition, much like my brother Dick missing the family Thanksgiving gathering because of the opening of goose season. I actually thought about attending the race this year. I have two tickets reserved and paid for. Evan and I thought about a trip. However, that was before my precipitous decision to drive back to Indiana for Butler's appearance in the Final Four.

So, I watched the race from the comfort of a dry chair in Spokane. It was entertaining enough. There was intrigue at the beginning ("Florence Henderson is still alive? Jim Nabors is still alive? Tom Carnegie is still alive?") and drama at the end: The dominant car in the race was driven by a Scotsman named Dario Franchitti. No, the drama was NOT figuring out how a guy named Dario Franchitti ended up with a Scottish accent. The drama was Franchitti's figuring out just how slowly he could drive without being passed.

"What?" you may ask. "The drama was seeing how slowly he could win?"

I know, it sounds more like Sally and I trying to maximize gas mileage in Sheldon the SmartCar than it does the Indy 500. In truth it was a similar scenario ("scenario" is a Scottish word that means "libretto"). Franchitti didn't have enough fuel to finish the race at racing speed, so he kept driving slower and slower while carefully looking in his rearview mirror for his pursuers. The rearview mirror, as you may know, was first installed on an Indianapolis racer in 1911, featured on Ray Harroun's victorious Marmon Wasp. Harroun used his rearview mirror in the effort to go fast, safely, whereas Franchitti employed it in the attempt to win the race as slowly as possible.

In all humility, I anticipated this surprising outcome in a parody of Bob Dylan's The Times They Are a Changin' I wrote for a pre-race party years ago:

Pop-off valves on the cars keep them from going fast

Override it and you're liable to run out of gas

So the last shall be first and the first shall be last

It's a wonder that they call it racin'

Are the great days of Indianapolis past?

Oh the times they are a changin'

Times have changed. Like Soviet octogenarians propped up on the Kremlin wall to oversee the May Day parade, the ancient figures featured at the beginning of the telecast are still wheeled out to perform their familiar tasks ("Mary Hulman George is still alive?"). But the race has changed. They actually installed a limited use "pass button" on the cars this year to try to make the race exciting. (Imagine that... they tried to make an automobile race exciting.) But as Dario Franchitti's car rounded each turn yet more slowly, we knew that the Indy 500 had lost its luster. We employed our own "pass button" - the one on the TV remote. Thankfully there was a poker tournament on ESPN2.

Beercycling

Yesterday was a nice day to ride. That's saying a lot, given our very cool Spring. I rode to the UU church for the first time for a staff meeting. It really isn't all that far - just over seven and a half miles - but it required me to ride elsewhere. Isn't it interesting how going someplace new is both exciting and a bit daunting, as if there would be trolls under the bridge or ogres in the forest? Truth is, there were cars, and potholes, and hills, but not as many of any as to make the ride unpleasant. I'll do it again.

After a few hours at church I rode downtown and met Sally for the ride back up South Hill. Once home I brought in the laundry and Sally mowed the yard. We took the dogs for a short walk and then rode our bikes down to the Two Seven Public House for dinner and good beer. I had a pint of a hoppy cask ale from local brewery Northern Lights, and Sally had an Elysian Dragonstooth Stout. She couldn't resist the name, but the beer was pretty tasty as well.

At this point our strategy began to pay off. It is really nice to ride a bike home from the pub rather than wondering whether you're "OK to drive." We weren't tipsy, but didn't have to worry about it. Well, I suppose we were putting ourselves at risk, but what's the fear of an excruciating death when you're trying to avoid a DWI citation? I told Sally that we were beercycling, which seemed pretty funny at the time. Then we saw a guy on a tricked out Schwinn cruiser dangling a cigarette from his mouth as he passed in front of us. "He's bycigling" I said. "Maybe he should try Nicoride instead."

It all seemed pretty funny last night. It must have been something I ate.

Plum Cake

Last summer, at the height of the harvest, Sally halved, partially dried and froze some Italian plums for use in a favorite dessert, plum cake, based on Marion Barros' Original Plum Torte (recipe here). We love the cake, and decided we didn't want to wait for another harvest season to enjoy it. Today, for the first time, we made the cake using the partially dried, frozen fruit. The cake came out perfectly, and topped with creme fraiche is a taste delight. The plums?

Well, frankly, they were just a bit tougher than fresh plums, and also had a richer flavor. I told Sally that, made with fresh fruit, the recipe is indeed "plum cake." As such it would be well received at pot luck meals and other gatherings. Made with the dried fruit we'd have to call it "prune cake" and it might not be so popular.

Sally replied perhaps, given our age and that of our friends, prune cake might turn out to be more welcome than you'd think.

Toyota to Invest $50m in Tesla

Oh boy! Now you can unintentionally go from zero to sixty in 3.9 seconds!

Longing for the North... or Way South

It froze again last night. In anticipation of the event we covered the asparagus bed, the basil, and the flowers in front of the house. Sure enough, the sheet on the asparagus bed was frozen this morning, as were the tops of two of the tallest spears.

For the most part I love being a northerner. My tender skin has never handled sunlight very well, and thankfully, we don't have that much of it up here. I appreciate the northern European cultural mix that characterizes our region, as well as the bookishness that goes hand in hand with staying inside by the fire all winter. Besides, I just can't do the South. I used to love fried foods, but find my tastes are changing, excepting that little bit of fried salmon skin in the makizushi.

I sometimes wonder what would have happened had the South won the Civil War. The end of slavery would have come, but probably much later and at greater human cost. But going forth the Northern Union could have developed a society, culture and state free from the baggage of southern xenophobia. The problem is, Indiana might not have remained intact, and my kin hailed from the portion of that state that probably would have ended up in the South. And I would have lived to gaze longingly north toward the border, wishing I were from elsewhere, say, from British Columbia. Oh...never mind.

By the way, there was an excellent article about New Zealand on BBC this week. Here is a link.

Look at the Grass

My mother taught me, "If you have nothing nice to say, say nothing at all."

The Gift of a Spring Day

Pink dogwood blossoms

Reach skyward to spring sunlight

As if butterflies