'They' say it might snow in San Francisco tomorrow. It has not snowed in SF since 1976. In 1976, there was enough snow to give kids back then a chance to make a few snow balls, to see the ground covered in snow for a few hours. That is so different than snow in Minneapolis.
In Minneapolis, it snows quite a lot. Most people know this, I think. But everyone doesn't realize that the snow tends to stay, and just keep piling up throughout the winter.
I grew up in Chicago, where it snows every year, sometimes a foot or more. But no matter how much it snows in Chicago, most of the snow melts away within a few days. It remains a few weeks at the most, and even when it remains a few weeks, it is only on the grass, and not very high. Snow barely has a chance to get dirty and form a hard crust and, poof, it's melted away. It's still freezing, but the snow does not hang out and pile up.
Whereas in Minneapolis (and other cities in MN, of course), the snow rarely melts away completely during the winter. Sure, there is typically a January thaw, enough warmer days to get everything a little goopy. The January thaw tends to mess up the outdoor ice rinks and the cities don't usually regroom the ice rinks so after the January thaw they are lumpy. But folks still ice skate.
In Minnesota cities, the snow piles and piles. And after it is shoveled and stacked up, the piles get pretty high. A week or two of January thaw is not enough to melt these piles away. And the city grit tends to make them gray. Fresh snow gives everything a fresh look.
I had a garden when I owned a house in Minneapolis, a three-story Victorian surrounded by closely-packed three-story Victorians. I lived in a rare patch of Minneapolis that is actually on the National Historic Register because the original developers got a zoning variance to build houses much more densely than is typical in the Midwest. In most of Minneapolis, there would be two rows of houses on a block, with a street surrounding the double rows, and an ally down the middle, 'behind' the houses, whose front doors would face the street. But my littleilw
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
another tragedy of the commons
http://www.baycitizen.org/food/story/oakland-homesteading-school-caught/#comments
This link will take you to a tragic story.
I have been hearing about urban homesteading for a long time, decades. And for at least ten years, I've been reading about chickens in backyards in Brooklyn and urban farms in San Francisco. And all my lifelong life, I have felt a sense of ownership in the common language of American English. Surely if one thing belongs to us 'in common' it is language? In the mid-nineties, I remember hanging out with a woman participating in a program I was in who was launching urban homesteading in Detroit. Her focus was teens growing food on urban homesteads.
Some clowns in Southern California have trademarked the phrases 'urban homestead' and 'urban homesteading'. How is it possible for someone to assert ownership of ordinary language that belongs to the commons?
I have heard of urban homesteading for a long time. I never heard of the business that owns the trademark to the phrase until I read this story in baycitizen.org.
Take back the commons.
This link will take you to a tragic story.
I have been hearing about urban homesteading for a long time, decades. And for at least ten years, I've been reading about chickens in backyards in Brooklyn and urban farms in San Francisco. And all my lifelong life, I have felt a sense of ownership in the common language of American English. Surely if one thing belongs to us 'in common' it is language? In the mid-nineties, I remember hanging out with a woman participating in a program I was in who was launching urban homesteading in Detroit. Her focus was teens growing food on urban homesteads.
Some clowns in Southern California have trademarked the phrases 'urban homestead' and 'urban homesteading'. How is it possible for someone to assert ownership of ordinary language that belongs to the commons?
I have heard of urban homesteading for a long time. I never heard of the business that owns the trademark to the phrase until I read this story in baycitizen.org.
Take back the commons.
Monday, February 21, 2011
bus stops smoking
There might be a few square feet where this is not true but mostly you can't smoke in public in Berkeley.
I don't own a car. I walk a lot but I ride buses when I grocery shop. My main bus stop is outside a Peets coffee that has two comfortable park benches, facing one another, that makes for a nice mini-commons in the hood. Many gather there. And there are almost always smokers smoking. It's a battle ground. There are 'do not smoke signs' on every possible pole and there are lots of poles. Plus there is a bus shelter and, see above, you can't smoke within 25 feet of a bus shelter.
Whenever, and I mean whenever, I am waiting for a bus and a smoker's smoke drifts into my nostrils and, thus, my lungs, I ask the person to move twenty five feet away.15 minutes ago ·
I always do this. I smoked for a few years when I was young and stupid, so maybe that is why I am so repulsed by cig smoke. It makes me feel unwell to inhale it. Plus, it is illegal.
If you can spot a cop and get their attention, unless they are rushing to a crime-in-action, Berkeley cops will stop and ticket smokers. Well, if Berkeley cops pull over, the smokers disperse. I don't want anyone to get a ticket. I just want to stand at the bus stop smoke free.
And that's the law.
I don't use profanity. I don't speak abusively. I simply ask smokers to move.
Once in a great while, a smoker simply moves. It seems to me that the younger the smoker, the more civil they are when I ask them to move their smoke away from my lungs. And that's how I put it: I say "It is against the law in Berkeley for you to smoke here and your smoke is getting in my lungs. That's why we have the law. Will you please move?"
But quite a lot of smokers become angry and verbally abusive. I know what I am about to write will sound like a racist stereotype but the only smokers who have ever become angry and verbally abusive with me when I have asked smokers to stop smoking have been African American males.
There is a cute, middle-aged French guy who buys coffee at Peets and then steps outside to have a smoke with his coffee most days. When I ask him to put out his smokes, he ignores me and keeps on smoking. He's white. He does not say anything. He just ignores me and goes on smoking. Sometimes I will sit down next to him and start singing the most annoying song I can think of, like the national anthem. This cute Frenchman has asked me 'are you crazy? sitting here singing?' and I say "Why is my behavior more crazy than yours? You are sitting here invading my lungs, ignoring the law, ignoring my polite request for you to stop smoking. I want to make this space uncomfortable for you. It is not illegal for me to sit next to you and sing so that's what I am doing. I am supposed to care about you when you disreregard me? No. I won't cede this public space to you."
Once a woman with Frenchie held her lit cigarette out towards me, getting within an inch of my face, making a gesture that seemed to threaten to burn me with her cigarette. I threw some of my coffee on her cigarette to put out the light that she was threatening to burn me with.
Yeah. I know. Stupid fights. I don't know why I keep taking this stand.
If you don't know Berkeley, it might be completely mystifying. And my behavior is probably a little reckless. But I have noticed this: since Frenchie and his girlfriend threatened to burn me, which was a couple months ago, they have completely stopped smoking at this spot on my corner. This is my block. This is where I live. If everyone cedes the public space to people who disregard the rights of others, we have no public space.
But the African American middle-aged to elderly smoking males are the hardest. They tell me to mind my own business. Then I say 'your smoke in my lungs is my business'. And they say "No it is not your business." I have had African American male smokers tell me to mind my business after I have asked young white homeless kids to stop smoking near the bus stop. The kids move away. And, in the instance I am thinking of, the AA guy wasn't smoking at the time. But he kept yelling at me. And after a few exchanges, he began to demand that I shut up since it was none of my business. But I kept saying "how is this any of your business? And who are you to tell me to shut up? HOw is my talking your business?" and this guy kept yelling at me as the bus came and we boarded and he kept yelling at me after he followed me on the bus.
The bus driver pulled over at the next stop and ordered the guy off the bus. Man, that guy was spitting nickels, so angry that I had 'won'. Keep in mind: I had asked a young street kid with a backpack and a sleeping bag, sitting on the sidewalk in front of a business, smoking in the no-smoke zone to move. I had not asked the abusive, angry black man to do anything. I just had refused to yield to his demand that I 'mind my business'.
After she threw him off, the bus driver asked me what it was about and I told her a little. I said "He wasn't even smoking so how was it his business?" and she told me he is a smoker and that she has told him, many times, that he can't smoke at bus stops.
I know this smoking at bus stops things is small and stupid. I could ask the wrong guy to stop smoking and the guy could flip out and hurt me. I know we have to pick our battles. I know this is a stupid battle. But as long as non smokers put up with smoking in places where there are many 'no smoking' signs. .. . well, I won't do it.
I have campaigned in my building since moving here two years ago
Saturday, February 19, 2011
last night
A line of music from a song that was around, I think, when I was in h.s. is floating in my thoughts: last night, I didn't get to sleep at all. She goes on to sing about love and her foolish pride. Well, I have lots of foolish pride but none related to my failure to sleep well last night.
As soon as I snuggled in for the night, around 4 a.m. (I don't sleep regular hours), I swear that the very instant I burrowed into my down, a beeper went off. At first, I told myself it was my imagination. Then I heard it again and reasoned it came from another apartment. But it kept beeping.
One of my smoke alarms was beeping. Not because of smoke. Just an irritating beep.
I got up and found some ear plugs, the cheap kind you pick up at conferences, the kind that are uncomfortable in the ears but which do block lots of sound. I figured it was not a 'maintenance emergency', not a reason to awaken my building manager.
So when I arose around 11 a.m. I called in. After four hours, and another call to prod his appearance, the janitor came. It is surprisingly draining to listen to an unrelenting beep. It is a good noise. It is supposed to get your attention. It does. The janitor first put in an old battery. He had a bunch of 9 volt batteries and put in another dead one. So he had to come back. The second time, he put in three or four more duds before one worked. He did not separate out the dead batteries from good ones. He put them all back in the same pouch. He said the problem was he had not put the battery in exactly right but that was not the problem. He had used dead batteries. Duh?
Anyway. Life has a way of making your happy in unexpected ways. I am so happy not to hear the beep anymore. My home feels much homier now.
As soon as I snuggled in for the night, around 4 a.m. (I don't sleep regular hours), I swear that the very instant I burrowed into my down, a beeper went off. At first, I told myself it was my imagination. Then I heard it again and reasoned it came from another apartment. But it kept beeping.
One of my smoke alarms was beeping. Not because of smoke. Just an irritating beep.
I got up and found some ear plugs, the cheap kind you pick up at conferences, the kind that are uncomfortable in the ears but which do block lots of sound. I figured it was not a 'maintenance emergency', not a reason to awaken my building manager.
So when I arose around 11 a.m. I called in. After four hours, and another call to prod his appearance, the janitor came. It is surprisingly draining to listen to an unrelenting beep. It is a good noise. It is supposed to get your attention. It does. The janitor first put in an old battery. He had a bunch of 9 volt batteries and put in another dead one. So he had to come back. The second time, he put in three or four more duds before one worked. He did not separate out the dead batteries from good ones. He put them all back in the same pouch. He said the problem was he had not put the battery in exactly right but that was not the problem. He had used dead batteries. Duh?
Anyway. Life has a way of making your happy in unexpected ways. I am so happy not to hear the beep anymore. My home feels much homier now.
why unions?
speech from GM union strike in the thirties
First there is a commercial, sorry about that. Then you hear Marisa Tomei read the words of a union worker who was there. This is why we need unions. It's not just about the folks with public service union jobs. It's about all of us.
First there is a commercial, sorry about that. Then you hear Marisa Tomei read the words of a union worker who was there. This is why we need unions. It's not just about the folks with public service union jobs. It's about all of us.
Friday, February 18, 2011
self responsibility versus the commons
Is self responsibility an absolute? If each person is fully, solely and completely responsible for their own experience, when does responsibility arise for any kind of commons? In my view, every relationship has a commons, the shared space where two friends come together to relate, to mutually support one another's evolution, to mutually care one for the other.
Is all love self love? or is there something about love that includes (requires?) an other? Can one person in isolation lead a life of being loving without having any orientation to beings beyond one's self?
No. Of course not. The human commons is not just about sharing physical resources to live, such as food, water, shelter and clothing. The human commons is also about sharing ourselves with others. It is all about the shared space where relationships happen.
There can be no human commons without mutuality, without mutual caring, mutual support and mutual trust. Self responsibility is not an absolute. Like all aspects of nature, which is to say all aspects of the living system we each belong to, we are always interdependent. We are all dependent on the air we breath, trusting that it has enough oxygen to meet our need for oxygen. And we are all dependent on other people to be whole and independent. Maybe this is the paradox of self responsibility: yes, each of us is fully responsible for the self but we have a simultaneous, neverending responsibility to the commons, where human lives intersect.
Is all love self love? or is there something about love that includes (requires?) an other? Can one person in isolation lead a life of being loving without having any orientation to beings beyond one's self?
No. Of course not. The human commons is not just about sharing physical resources to live, such as food, water, shelter and clothing. The human commons is also about sharing ourselves with others. It is all about the shared space where relationships happen.
There can be no human commons without mutuality, without mutual caring, mutual support and mutual trust. Self responsibility is not an absolute. Like all aspects of nature, which is to say all aspects of the living system we each belong to, we are always interdependent. We are all dependent on the air we breath, trusting that it has enough oxygen to meet our need for oxygen. And we are all dependent on other people to be whole and independent. Maybe this is the paradox of self responsibility: yes, each of us is fully responsible for the self but we have a simultaneous, neverending responsibility to the commons, where human lives intersect.
Thursday, February 17, 2011
corporations
I bet law schools have changed some since I graduated in 1979. I wonder how corporations are addressed. Corporations are a big part of legal education. Pretty much everyone takes a basic course called 'Corporations' and such a course outlines general legal principals to have a corporation. But, if you think about it, quite a lot of what lawyers study to be able to pass the bar revolves around corporations. All first year law students take a two-semester course in 'Contracts', 'Torts' "Civil Procedure'. The education is not only about business law but most of it is about property rights.
They come right out and just tell you that the only purpose of a corporation is to make money for its shareholders. They come right out and declare that anything that is not related to making a profit is irrelevant to analyzing corporations.
I wonder if it's still like that. I wonder if modern legal educations contain any implication of ambiguity about such assumptions. The field of environmental law has emerged mostly since I finished law school in the late seventies. There is some public advocacy in environmental law, of course, but, without knowing anything about any job for an 'environmental lawyer', I bet that most jobs involving environmental law involve fighting over property, over money, over competing interests and underneath whatever is going on the real energy is about money, property, ownership, greed.
If we are going to restore the commons, we have to restore the values we share. The values we 'all' share is a commons, right?
Thinking.
They come right out and just tell you that the only purpose of a corporation is to make money for its shareholders. They come right out and declare that anything that is not related to making a profit is irrelevant to analyzing corporations.
I wonder if it's still like that. I wonder if modern legal educations contain any implication of ambiguity about such assumptions. The field of environmental law has emerged mostly since I finished law school in the late seventies. There is some public advocacy in environmental law, of course, but, without knowing anything about any job for an 'environmental lawyer', I bet that most jobs involving environmental law involve fighting over property, over money, over competing interests and underneath whatever is going on the real energy is about money, property, ownership, greed.
If we are going to restore the commons, we have to restore the values we share. The values we 'all' share is a commons, right?
Thinking.
the weather outside is frightful
A fire would be delightful.
It's raining cats and dogs in Berkeley today. And it's freezing. If I were sitting in my old house in Minneapolis, freezing in that bleak midwinter, I would still be imagining that it is always toasty in Berkeley compared to that climate. Back then, I did not realize how the human body adjusts to climate. When I lived in Minnesota, I could not have imagined freezing in fifty degree weather.
I think I am colder in Northern California than I ever was in the twenty years I lived in the frozen Northland.
Dry, sunny winters in Minneapolis.
When it is damp, the damp seeps into my whole being and I freeze.
Man, it's cold today. And the rain seems to come from all directions. My feet were soaking wet before I had walked one block.
On the upside, I left my building at 10:30, rode a bus to my doctor's, saw the doc and rode back home and was at my machine by 11:40. Efficiency.
I stripped off all my wet things and dove back under my down. I'm here for the day.
It's raining cats and dogs in Berkeley today. And it's freezing. If I were sitting in my old house in Minneapolis, freezing in that bleak midwinter, I would still be imagining that it is always toasty in Berkeley compared to that climate. Back then, I did not realize how the human body adjusts to climate. When I lived in Minnesota, I could not have imagined freezing in fifty degree weather.
I think I am colder in Northern California than I ever was in the twenty years I lived in the frozen Northland.
Dry, sunny winters in Minneapolis.
When it is damp, the damp seeps into my whole being and I freeze.
Man, it's cold today. And the rain seems to come from all directions. My feet were soaking wet before I had walked one block.
On the upside, I left my building at 10:30, rode a bus to my doctor's, saw the doc and rode back home and was at my machine by 11:40. Efficiency.
I stripped off all my wet things and dove back under my down. I'm here for the day.
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
perfect thread scissors
For a few years, I owned a great little pair of tiny scissors, the kind you use to pull out a seam. They are about the same size as manicure scissors but the blades are different. They were very handy and wonderful. I don't remember why I had them but for awhile, I used them a lot. I don't remember doing much sewing so I don't understand why I valued these scissors. I was living in Amherst, MA during my happy times with these scissors, which means my daughter was in College at Simon's Rock.
She came home from college, probably because the campus closed down, because otherwise she did not like to visit me. And she asked to use my scissors. I resisted. I said "I have a feeling that if you use them, you will lose them. You tend to lose my things."
A passive aggressive thing? or was she stealing? which is not very passive aggression. At the time, I thought she lost my things because of thoughtlessness, not intention. But who knows?
I gave in. She used the scissors. And they disappeared. I never found them and I combed my home.
Life is full of mysteries.
She told me, during the same years I lived in Amherst, which was only two years, that she used to steal money from me when we still lived in Minneapolis. I always emptied my pockets on the counter by the phone on the main floor. I did vaguely note, back then, that I seemed to run out of money. I gave her spending money. It never occurred to me that she stole. I wonder why she confessed? Did she want to hurt me by telling me she was untrustworthy? Was she warning me?
When she first came to Amherst from college, she helped herself to things around my home that she needed, like my hair dryer. Then I would go to use whatever she had taken and only find out that it was gone when I needed it. So I sternly forbid her from taking my stuff.
Then she actually needed a hairdryer and I told her to take mine and she said 'But you told me not to take your stuff" and I said "I meant don't take my stuff without asking, without telling, ask. I am telling you you can take my hairdryer."
It seems so easy to get a new hairdryer, right? I don't remember why but I ended up replacing the hair dryer I gave Rosie on that visit from a shop in the Port Authority in New York City. Amherst is not a retail mecca. NYC was only a few hours away. I went into the city from Amherst frequently, to soak up the art museums. All my life, I had read reviews of art in NY City museums. And I visited NYC before I lived in Amherst, of course. I have visited NYC many times. But having those museus right there was wonderful.
Once, on my first Thanksgiving in Amherst, someone at dinner mentioned the Rothko show was closing that weekend. I took the train to NYC the next day, and returned to Amherst on the same day, just to see the Rothko. It was worth spending the day on that train. And I think that is the trip I bought the hairdryer. I remember working through the Port Authority and scanning the stores, remembering I needed a hair dryer. It seemed like my best shot to get a hair dryer, even though, I imagined, I was going to pay a little more. By the time I spent some gas to drive somewehre in Amherst or, more likely, Connecticut where there was a mall and a Target, I might just as well spend the extra bucks for the prices in the Port Authority. I would pay for convenience, I reasoned.
I still have that hairdryer, actually. My kid has not entered my home in almost ten years so she hasn't stolen anything since then but my heart and mind.
She came home from college, probably because the campus closed down, because otherwise she did not like to visit me. And she asked to use my scissors. I resisted. I said "I have a feeling that if you use them, you will lose them. You tend to lose my things."
A passive aggressive thing? or was she stealing? which is not very passive aggression. At the time, I thought she lost my things because of thoughtlessness, not intention. But who knows?
I gave in. She used the scissors. And they disappeared. I never found them and I combed my home.
Life is full of mysteries.
She told me, during the same years I lived in Amherst, which was only two years, that she used to steal money from me when we still lived in Minneapolis. I always emptied my pockets on the counter by the phone on the main floor. I did vaguely note, back then, that I seemed to run out of money. I gave her spending money. It never occurred to me that she stole. I wonder why she confessed? Did she want to hurt me by telling me she was untrustworthy? Was she warning me?
When she first came to Amherst from college, she helped herself to things around my home that she needed, like my hair dryer. Then I would go to use whatever she had taken and only find out that it was gone when I needed it. So I sternly forbid her from taking my stuff.
Then she actually needed a hairdryer and I told her to take mine and she said 'But you told me not to take your stuff" and I said "I meant don't take my stuff without asking, without telling, ask. I am telling you you can take my hairdryer."
It seems so easy to get a new hairdryer, right? I don't remember why but I ended up replacing the hair dryer I gave Rosie on that visit from a shop in the Port Authority in New York City. Amherst is not a retail mecca. NYC was only a few hours away. I went into the city from Amherst frequently, to soak up the art museums. All my life, I had read reviews of art in NY City museums. And I visited NYC before I lived in Amherst, of course. I have visited NYC many times. But having those museus right there was wonderful.
Once, on my first Thanksgiving in Amherst, someone at dinner mentioned the Rothko show was closing that weekend. I took the train to NYC the next day, and returned to Amherst on the same day, just to see the Rothko. It was worth spending the day on that train. And I think that is the trip I bought the hairdryer. I remember working through the Port Authority and scanning the stores, remembering I needed a hair dryer. It seemed like my best shot to get a hair dryer, even though, I imagined, I was going to pay a little more. By the time I spent some gas to drive somewehre in Amherst or, more likely, Connecticut where there was a mall and a Target, I might just as well spend the extra bucks for the prices in the Port Authority. I would pay for convenience, I reasoned.
I still have that hairdryer, actually. My kid has not entered my home in almost ten years so she hasn't stolen anything since then but my heart and mind.
duh! doh!
So I bought a burger at Oscar's, a long-time local burger joint in Berkeley. And cheap, although they don't advertise that their meat is grass-fed and/or free-ranch, which is probably why they are cheaper. They are tasty.
So I bought a burger and hung around at the register waiting for the burger and waiting to cash in my two buck Megamillions winner. Usually I order, then pay, then sit and wait but last night, no one took my money. The cashier guy took forever to take the money of people being served ahead of me. And then when the next burger was ready, the cashier guy was confused about who it was for. He seemed to have forgotten that Oscar's has a drive-up window. It's not a modern computerized window with an intercom. The customer pulls up to a window and waits for the cashier to notice and then the window is opened manually.
So the cashier figured out the burger wasn't for me. He hands over the food, takes in a twenty, rings it up but then the grill guy cleared the register to take my money. But the cashier guy stopped him, so cashier guy could finish.
Cashier guy could not count the change. He got out pencil and paper, wrote down $20.00, then wrote down $7.82 and subtracted. Repeatedly. Also repeatedly, he started counting out the change, seemed to think the change was supposed to be $7.82 and when he realized he was mistaken, he started all over. And by starting all over, I mean, he too a new sheet of paper and started calculating. I saw, instantly, that the change was $12.18. Or else the cashier was subtracting the wrong number. I didn't see the bills and coins he was taking out of the register, counting laboriously and in obvious confusion.
So the grill guy finishes my burger and gestures for me to give him my money. But this rattled the cashier guy. When I brought up the issue of my two dollar lottery win, they both waved me off. My behavior distracted them, I think.
I don't think I was behaving inappropriately. I think the cashier guy couldn't count. The grill guy was Hispanic and English was not his first langauge, which says nothing about his ability to read and write, especially his ability to read and write numbers.
It was strange. Those two twenty-something (maybe the grill guy was thirty-something, but not by much) got rattled or something. Or else maybe the were high. But I don't think they were. I think the cashier guy couldn't add.
And my point? I have not had much interaction with people who struggle with basic literacy. Being able to make change is basic literacy, right?
A few years ago, my sister the high school English teacher, at least at that time, had lessons in her English class about food stamps. I asked her why food stamps in English class. She said the kids could learn English grammar, vocabulary and writing skills addressing any subject and many of the students were on welfare and food stamps and few of her students had much awareness of what things cost or how to budget. She said she had the impression that until she talked to them about food stamps, they had not really thought of how food stamps added lots of food to their households, had not equated dollar values to the food stamps. I'm not sure if this was true.
Back in the eighties, I ran a training business with a business partner who had dropped out of high school. She was plenty smart. She had completed most of the coursework for a masters degree somewhere, even though she had no college degree. She had a lot of training in the work we did and she was gifted and smart. Once I remarked to her about IQ's and my biz partner said she thought that the average IQ was much higher than commonly believed. She said she thought everyone had IQ's near hers, which was in the one fifties or one sixties. She said.
I remember wanting to believe her. She taught me a lot about process work. She knew a lot more about the work we did than I did, at least when we started working together. I am sure she was as smart as she said she was. But education is not about being smart. It really is, at least in part, about knowing things. You can have a scary high IQ but be unable to count change for a twenty dollar bill.
I had a summer job in college at a movie theater. I sold candy, sodas and popcorn. There was no cash register and sales tax was built into the pricing so I did not have to calculate sales tax. Within one day behind the candy counter, I instantly calculated change for any purchase and any proferred payment. I wasn't able to do this cause I am smart. All candy counter workers performed the same calculations. There was no cash register or adding machine. There was only a metal box to hold money.
I have not had much interaction with people who can't make change. It was weird.
So I bought a burger and hung around at the register waiting for the burger and waiting to cash in my two buck Megamillions winner. Usually I order, then pay, then sit and wait but last night, no one took my money. The cashier guy took forever to take the money of people being served ahead of me. And then when the next burger was ready, the cashier guy was confused about who it was for. He seemed to have forgotten that Oscar's has a drive-up window. It's not a modern computerized window with an intercom. The customer pulls up to a window and waits for the cashier to notice and then the window is opened manually.
So the cashier figured out the burger wasn't for me. He hands over the food, takes in a twenty, rings it up but then the grill guy cleared the register to take my money. But the cashier guy stopped him, so cashier guy could finish.
Cashier guy could not count the change. He got out pencil and paper, wrote down $20.00, then wrote down $7.82 and subtracted. Repeatedly. Also repeatedly, he started counting out the change, seemed to think the change was supposed to be $7.82 and when he realized he was mistaken, he started all over. And by starting all over, I mean, he too a new sheet of paper and started calculating. I saw, instantly, that the change was $12.18. Or else the cashier was subtracting the wrong number. I didn't see the bills and coins he was taking out of the register, counting laboriously and in obvious confusion.
So the grill guy finishes my burger and gestures for me to give him my money. But this rattled the cashier guy. When I brought up the issue of my two dollar lottery win, they both waved me off. My behavior distracted them, I think.
I don't think I was behaving inappropriately. I think the cashier guy couldn't count. The grill guy was Hispanic and English was not his first langauge, which says nothing about his ability to read and write, especially his ability to read and write numbers.
It was strange. Those two twenty-something (maybe the grill guy was thirty-something, but not by much) got rattled or something. Or else maybe the were high. But I don't think they were. I think the cashier guy couldn't add.
And my point? I have not had much interaction with people who struggle with basic literacy. Being able to make change is basic literacy, right?
A few years ago, my sister the high school English teacher, at least at that time, had lessons in her English class about food stamps. I asked her why food stamps in English class. She said the kids could learn English grammar, vocabulary and writing skills addressing any subject and many of the students were on welfare and food stamps and few of her students had much awareness of what things cost or how to budget. She said she had the impression that until she talked to them about food stamps, they had not really thought of how food stamps added lots of food to their households, had not equated dollar values to the food stamps. I'm not sure if this was true.
Back in the eighties, I ran a training business with a business partner who had dropped out of high school. She was plenty smart. She had completed most of the coursework for a masters degree somewhere, even though she had no college degree. She had a lot of training in the work we did and she was gifted and smart. Once I remarked to her about IQ's and my biz partner said she thought that the average IQ was much higher than commonly believed. She said she thought everyone had IQ's near hers, which was in the one fifties or one sixties. She said.
I remember wanting to believe her. She taught me a lot about process work. She knew a lot more about the work we did than I did, at least when we started working together. I am sure she was as smart as she said she was. But education is not about being smart. It really is, at least in part, about knowing things. You can have a scary high IQ but be unable to count change for a twenty dollar bill.
I had a summer job in college at a movie theater. I sold candy, sodas and popcorn. There was no cash register and sales tax was built into the pricing so I did not have to calculate sales tax. Within one day behind the candy counter, I instantly calculated change for any purchase and any proferred payment. I wasn't able to do this cause I am smart. All candy counter workers performed the same calculations. There was no cash register or adding machine. There was only a metal box to hold money.
I have not had much interaction with people who can't make change. It was weird.
weird line I heard on the street
Tuesday evening, walking through downtown in the rain, I came to a storefront with an awning so I stepped under the awning, to avoid the rain. I changed my course just one step over. There was a man standing there. I did not touch him or, I don't think, get anywhere near to touching him. He was also under the awning, at the end of it, sheltering himself from the rain, I think. I stepped under the awning just past him and kept going. I was also feeling dizzy, with an unusual back ache that was causing me to struggle to stand upright and just keep walking. And, as I stepped 'over', under the awning, I cleared my throat. I was not coughing. But even if I were, it is not illegal to cough on the sidewalk. What else can a coughing person do who is walking? Are they supposed to beam themselves up?
So I stepped over and heard this guy say "Oh no you don't, you fat white blob of nothing, don't you come over here and cough on me."
I'm pretty sure he was talking to me but his venom did not immediately register because I was rushing. The dizziness, the backache. Plus I was sweating profusely. I have an ongoing intense sweating thing that my doc says is related to menopause. It's been years. It comes and goes. I don't think its menopause. It comes over me in waves and I can go from being dry to soaking in a minute or two. Sometimes water drops literaly dream down my forehead and strangers will notice and ask me if I am okay. But it was dark, I was moving and no one saw my sweating, certainly not this guy. By the time he said that, my back was to him and I was a couple yards away and moving on.
Then I heard "Don't you spit that half gallon of your sour white milk on me". When he had voiced the first insult, I had heard it but told myself he couldn't have been talking to me. I hadn't done anything but I had cleared my throat. I considered looking back to see if he would have been looking at me just so I could be sure he was directing his unkind words to me. But I felt bad. I was worried about racing home before I fainted.
I did not turn back to see him. He sounded African American but maybe that conclusion is racist. I wanted to turn back just to see if he was black or if he looked homeless. I had not really registered him when I took the step under the awning. I had just registered a human standing still and I have measured my steps to avoid that human.
I think he must have been crazy.
When I heard that sour white milk line, I was a bit sickened. By the time he said that, I was at least ten yards away. I had not spoken to him, not exchanged looks with him. I had not done anything. His radar that had detected my movement 'towards' him was a crazy person's radar, I think.
He spoke in a flat tone, as if he were detached from the content but the content was smart, acidic and unkind.
I still kept moving, got to the corner and turned, got past being able to hear him. He had not raised his voice. He had spoken in a conversational tone. I am sure he was talking about me and to me.
And for a brief moment, I felt fear.
I even considered going back to the corner, stepping into the Starbucks and going over to where he was to see him from where it was 'safe', from inside the store where other people would be around me. But I still felt dizzy and ache-y, still wanted to get home to my bed.
I didn't do anything wrong but I felt like I had. I felt slimed.
So I stepped over and heard this guy say "Oh no you don't, you fat white blob of nothing, don't you come over here and cough on me."
I'm pretty sure he was talking to me but his venom did not immediately register because I was rushing. The dizziness, the backache. Plus I was sweating profusely. I have an ongoing intense sweating thing that my doc says is related to menopause. It's been years. It comes and goes. I don't think its menopause. It comes over me in waves and I can go from being dry to soaking in a minute or two. Sometimes water drops literaly dream down my forehead and strangers will notice and ask me if I am okay. But it was dark, I was moving and no one saw my sweating, certainly not this guy. By the time he said that, my back was to him and I was a couple yards away and moving on.
Then I heard "Don't you spit that half gallon of your sour white milk on me". When he had voiced the first insult, I had heard it but told myself he couldn't have been talking to me. I hadn't done anything but I had cleared my throat. I considered looking back to see if he would have been looking at me just so I could be sure he was directing his unkind words to me. But I felt bad. I was worried about racing home before I fainted.
I did not turn back to see him. He sounded African American but maybe that conclusion is racist. I wanted to turn back just to see if he was black or if he looked homeless. I had not really registered him when I took the step under the awning. I had just registered a human standing still and I have measured my steps to avoid that human.
I think he must have been crazy.
When I heard that sour white milk line, I was a bit sickened. By the time he said that, I was at least ten yards away. I had not spoken to him, not exchanged looks with him. I had not done anything. His radar that had detected my movement 'towards' him was a crazy person's radar, I think.
He spoke in a flat tone, as if he were detached from the content but the content was smart, acidic and unkind.
I still kept moving, got to the corner and turned, got past being able to hear him. He had not raised his voice. He had spoken in a conversational tone. I am sure he was talking about me and to me.
And for a brief moment, I felt fear.
I even considered going back to the corner, stepping into the Starbucks and going over to where he was to see him from where it was 'safe', from inside the store where other people would be around me. But I still felt dizzy and ache-y, still wanted to get home to my bed.
I didn't do anything wrong but I felt like I had. I felt slimed.
win the lottery
I'm playing win the lottery these days and I just won two dollars. I had walked down to the Gourmet Ghetto, thinking about a slice of Cheeseboard Pizza, which is too carb-y for my diabetes but sometimes I trick myself into the exercise. I walk down there, telling myself I can have pizza if I want. When I get there, I don't. I buy a teriyaki thigh at Poulet or is it Pollo? it's a store that sells great roasted chicken and lots of sides. One thigh was $1.87 at $8.50 a pound. Wow, huh?
Then I walked home, passing the temptation of Oscar's, which is a famous Berkeley burger joint that has been here forever. Their burgers are only okay and they don't brag about the meat so it much be corporate beef but they are pretty cheap. $4.50. I also try to resist Oscar's. The buns are a lot of carbs but if I have not eaten all day, which is often the case -- I have odd eating patterns these days -- I might indulge in an Oscar's burger.
Mostly, I go in to buy a lottery ticket. Today I checked my last lottery ticket. I won two bucks. Now I hope I win millions with the ticket I bought today with my winnings. That would be great.
I'd buy a house with some garden sun to grow vegetables. Maybe in New Mexico. I love California. I love the Bay Area but I don't want to live in far-far-remote suburbia and the city is too expensive, right? Well, if I win thirty million, I'll househunt in the city.
Or maybe something in New York?
When I first lost my daughter, and I thought she was living in New York, I started playing win the lottery. It was the only way I could imagine getting her back in my life: buying it. I would dream hunt for cool lofts in what I imagine as early-Soho but which is now super extremely expensive even for a major lottery win. I would endlessly debate: should I buy a cool place for her to live in and then present it to her or should I contact her, tell her I have millions and want to buy her love.
Then I realized I was 'dreaming' that the only way my kid would come back to my life was if I could magically afford to buy her love. Yuck, right?
Then I started dreaming of what I would do for myself. I guess I could dream that again. For a few years, I dreamed of buying a property that could be co-housing, like a really great apartment building or a row of townhouses or just a block of houses. It's a fun dream game. I have whiled away days and days planning my co-ho.
Now, I observe, I can't see myself in community. I see myself alone all the time. That sucks. I am sure I could buy friends.
I am unhappy if I am building a dream life around buying love, huh?
Then I walked home, passing the temptation of Oscar's, which is a famous Berkeley burger joint that has been here forever. Their burgers are only okay and they don't brag about the meat so it much be corporate beef but they are pretty cheap. $4.50. I also try to resist Oscar's. The buns are a lot of carbs but if I have not eaten all day, which is often the case -- I have odd eating patterns these days -- I might indulge in an Oscar's burger.
Mostly, I go in to buy a lottery ticket. Today I checked my last lottery ticket. I won two bucks. Now I hope I win millions with the ticket I bought today with my winnings. That would be great.
I'd buy a house with some garden sun to grow vegetables. Maybe in New Mexico. I love California. I love the Bay Area but I don't want to live in far-far-remote suburbia and the city is too expensive, right? Well, if I win thirty million, I'll househunt in the city.
Or maybe something in New York?
When I first lost my daughter, and I thought she was living in New York, I started playing win the lottery. It was the only way I could imagine getting her back in my life: buying it. I would dream hunt for cool lofts in what I imagine as early-Soho but which is now super extremely expensive even for a major lottery win. I would endlessly debate: should I buy a cool place for her to live in and then present it to her or should I contact her, tell her I have millions and want to buy her love.
Then I realized I was 'dreaming' that the only way my kid would come back to my life was if I could magically afford to buy her love. Yuck, right?
Then I started dreaming of what I would do for myself. I guess I could dream that again. For a few years, I dreamed of buying a property that could be co-housing, like a really great apartment building or a row of townhouses or just a block of houses. It's a fun dream game. I have whiled away days and days planning my co-ho.
Now, I observe, I can't see myself in community. I see myself alone all the time. That sucks. I am sure I could buy friends.
I am unhappy if I am building a dream life around buying love, huh?
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
I don't understand drinking alcohol
I never drank much. I tend to feel sick hungover after just one or two drinks. When I was about fifty, I sat a ten-day Vipassana silent retreat and the teacher, S.N. Goenka talked about not drinking. Anthroposophists, which is the closest thing I have to a spiritual faith system, believe drinking alcohol burns holes in your etheric body. Your 'etheric' is your energetic sheath, a layer that holds a 'kind' of layer between your physical self and your spiritual self. I am popping off. Serious anthroposophists would probably be aghast to read what I just wrote. And I am not a student of Buddhism or Goenka-gi's take on Vipassana so I am probably off in whatever I say there.
I heard a Vipassana teacher say 'drinking alcohol affects your work, your real work of being' and I patched that with the 'burns a hole in your etheric, matched with a lifetime of memories of headaches and nausea after just one glass of wine and I thought 'I'm done drinking'.
I will, in theory, have a beer on a hot day, with a friend, for the conviviality. I enjoy the taste of a good beer. I also enjoy the taste of good wine. And I think that organic wines don't leave me feeling sick. I don't really feel hungover if I drink 'hard liquor' but I've never really done that. I never really liked the taste of gin, scotch, vodka, bourbon, whatever. Do they have tastes? I'm fuzzy on the deets. It's been a long, long time.
I love the glam of fancy cocktails in fancy glasses. I love fruity tastes and bitter blends in sweetness.
But I never really got why so many people like to alter their consciousness with drugs. Alcohol is a drug, right? I just don't get the appeal of the drug aspect of booze.
This might seem unusual. I have four brothers and I think all of them are alcoholics. They would probably all angrily denounce that statement. Lots of alcoholics never end up in the gutter so they think they aren't alkies.
I heard a Vipassana teacher say 'drinking alcohol affects your work, your real work of being' and I patched that with the 'burns a hole in your etheric, matched with a lifetime of memories of headaches and nausea after just one glass of wine and I thought 'I'm done drinking'.
I will, in theory, have a beer on a hot day, with a friend, for the conviviality. I enjoy the taste of a good beer. I also enjoy the taste of good wine. And I think that organic wines don't leave me feeling sick. I don't really feel hungover if I drink 'hard liquor' but I've never really done that. I never really liked the taste of gin, scotch, vodka, bourbon, whatever. Do they have tastes? I'm fuzzy on the deets. It's been a long, long time.
I love the glam of fancy cocktails in fancy glasses. I love fruity tastes and bitter blends in sweetness.
But I never really got why so many people like to alter their consciousness with drugs. Alcohol is a drug, right? I just don't get the appeal of the drug aspect of booze.
This might seem unusual. I have four brothers and I think all of them are alcoholics. They would probably all angrily denounce that statement. Lots of alcoholics never end up in the gutter so they think they aren't alkies.
camping
I haven't been tent camping in over ten years. When I did go camping, it was in Minnesota State Parks. Park rangers enforced the rules and no campers were allowed to get drunk and party late and loud with boom boxes. Families are out there camping. Drunk boom box dancing keeps kids awake.
But there are a lot of federal campsites in northern Minnesota, like up in the Boundary Waters, endless miles of nature with no rangers. Drunken louts who, apparently, love nature and boozing camp here. If you are unfortunate enough to get stuck next such a party, you are shit out of luck. The people who behave these way seemed very aware that there was nothing other campers could do. What? Were you going to get up and stuff your kids in a car and go driving looking, probably futilely, for a ranger to shut the party down?
But there is one thing you can do. You can get up about five a.m. and make noise.
But there are a lot of federal campsites in northern Minnesota, like up in the Boundary Waters, endless miles of nature with no rangers. Drunken louts who, apparently, love nature and boozing camp here. If you are unfortunate enough to get stuck next such a party, you are shit out of luck. The people who behave these way seemed very aware that there was nothing other campers could do. What? Were you going to get up and stuff your kids in a car and go driving looking, probably futilely, for a ranger to shut the party down?
But there is one thing you can do. You can get up about five a.m. and make noise.
Wednesday, February 09, 2011
lightning bugs and free gold
When I was a child, we tried to stay out after dark in the summer time so we could catch lightning bugs. Lightning bugs are also called fireflies. They are flying bugs (insects?) that are only seen in the warmest months of midsummer in Chicago. They only came out when it was really dark and it doesn't get very dark in midsummer Chicago (at least back in the early-to-mid sixties) until late. Or what seemed very late to a six year old, or a seven year old. We had to fight to get permission to leave our front porches once it got dark. Going 'out' after dark was only for big kids. Gradually, 'we' got permission to go on the lawn in front of our house, and the houses on either side of us.
On my block growing up, there was a child my age in each of five houses in a row. Tammy, then me, then, when we were in the 7th grade, Nancy, then Patrick Snooks, then Bucky Cywinski. Bucky's real name was Richard but everyone called him Bucky. He had the most bucked teeth I have, to this day, ever seen. I asked him once if it bothered him to be called Bucky and he said he was okay with it, that even in his family, before he was old enough for school, he had always been Bucky, it was the only name he knew. And I took him at his word but, upon reflection, all these years later, I still wonder, what else could have have said? Was he supposed to organize a campaign to stop being called Bucky and draw even more attention to his negative trait? I always felt sorry for Bucky. I sensed that his parents didn't really love him. My parents were unevenly focussed on their parenting but even my semi-negligent folks would have campaigned against a nickname like Bucky. Maybe Bucky's parents felt helpless. Us kids formed the impression they were immigrants. There were lots of immigrants in our neighborhood, poles and slavs and other denizens of eastern europe fleeing post war starvation. The freshest immigrants did not go to Catholic school but they tended to be Catholic and went to CCD classes on Wednesday. Do public schools still send kids for a half day of CCD? In my southside Chicago, Catholic kids got let out of their public schools at noon on Wednesdays and came to Catholic school for religious instruction. And us Catholic school kids had only half a day of school on Wednesday. We ran until 12:45, to give the publics time to wolf down lunch and run over to our school. So, in general, we thought well of the publics because they gave us that half day on Wednesdays. But, also in general, we pitied the publics. We believed public school teachers didn't love their students, and didn't really care if the kids learned. We believed the Catholic school teachers cared more about us. Kids.
Although I was forbidden going past the house next door once it was dark on a summer night, it was hard to catch lightning bugs in front of my house because the street light was in front of my house and we didn't have any trees in front of our house. Two houses down, at Patrick Snooks' and then Bucky's, there were dense shade trees and no streetlight. Good for lightning bugs.
One of my earliest acts of disobedience was inching down the sidewalk to catch lightning bugs under the cover of Patrick and Bucky's tree canopies.
One night, I became determined to catch enough lightning bugs to form a gold ring. If you caught a lightning bug and pulled off their 'light' and rubbed it on your finger, and if you caught enough of them to go all the way around your finger, and make a thick ring of the gunky stuff, the next morning you would have a gold ring. As soon as I heard that fairy story, I knew it was a fairy story but I still wanted a free gold ring. Anything of real gold seemed very impressive to me. So, sending myself a lot of negative, shaming self talk, for killing lightning bugs and for being gullible, I caught several dozen lightning bugs, slimed their light all around my left wedding ring finger and slept with my hand carefully outside the sheet that night so as not to disturb my ring.
But I didn't tell anyone what I was doing so no one would laugh at me later.
And my parents never caught me down in front of Bucky's. I learned a few things that night. Instinctive knowledge. If you are going to break the rules, don't tell anyone. Certainly not my brothers who would have ratted me out. And certainly no boys, who would have ratted me out to my brothers. Maybe I could have told Tammy. Her mother did not let her off the front porch after dark, not when I was so young that I believed lightning bug lights could turn into gold rings. Maybe later.
On my block growing up, there was a child my age in each of five houses in a row. Tammy, then me, then, when we were in the 7th grade, Nancy, then Patrick Snooks, then Bucky Cywinski. Bucky's real name was Richard but everyone called him Bucky. He had the most bucked teeth I have, to this day, ever seen. I asked him once if it bothered him to be called Bucky and he said he was okay with it, that even in his family, before he was old enough for school, he had always been Bucky, it was the only name he knew. And I took him at his word but, upon reflection, all these years later, I still wonder, what else could have have said? Was he supposed to organize a campaign to stop being called Bucky and draw even more attention to his negative trait? I always felt sorry for Bucky. I sensed that his parents didn't really love him. My parents were unevenly focussed on their parenting but even my semi-negligent folks would have campaigned against a nickname like Bucky. Maybe Bucky's parents felt helpless. Us kids formed the impression they were immigrants. There were lots of immigrants in our neighborhood, poles and slavs and other denizens of eastern europe fleeing post war starvation. The freshest immigrants did not go to Catholic school but they tended to be Catholic and went to CCD classes on Wednesday. Do public schools still send kids for a half day of CCD? In my southside Chicago, Catholic kids got let out of their public schools at noon on Wednesdays and came to Catholic school for religious instruction. And us Catholic school kids had only half a day of school on Wednesday. We ran until 12:45, to give the publics time to wolf down lunch and run over to our school. So, in general, we thought well of the publics because they gave us that half day on Wednesdays. But, also in general, we pitied the publics. We believed public school teachers didn't love their students, and didn't really care if the kids learned. We believed the Catholic school teachers cared more about us. Kids.
Although I was forbidden going past the house next door once it was dark on a summer night, it was hard to catch lightning bugs in front of my house because the street light was in front of my house and we didn't have any trees in front of our house. Two houses down, at Patrick Snooks' and then Bucky's, there were dense shade trees and no streetlight. Good for lightning bugs.
One of my earliest acts of disobedience was inching down the sidewalk to catch lightning bugs under the cover of Patrick and Bucky's tree canopies.
One night, I became determined to catch enough lightning bugs to form a gold ring. If you caught a lightning bug and pulled off their 'light' and rubbed it on your finger, and if you caught enough of them to go all the way around your finger, and make a thick ring of the gunky stuff, the next morning you would have a gold ring. As soon as I heard that fairy story, I knew it was a fairy story but I still wanted a free gold ring. Anything of real gold seemed very impressive to me. So, sending myself a lot of negative, shaming self talk, for killing lightning bugs and for being gullible, I caught several dozen lightning bugs, slimed their light all around my left wedding ring finger and slept with my hand carefully outside the sheet that night so as not to disturb my ring.
But I didn't tell anyone what I was doing so no one would laugh at me later.
And my parents never caught me down in front of Bucky's. I learned a few things that night. Instinctive knowledge. If you are going to break the rules, don't tell anyone. Certainly not my brothers who would have ratted me out. And certainly no boys, who would have ratted me out to my brothers. Maybe I could have told Tammy. Her mother did not let her off the front porch after dark, not when I was so young that I believed lightning bug lights could turn into gold rings. Maybe later.
You're the one by Tracy Chapman
listen here
Some say you're crazy
Say that you're no good
Say your family's cursed with bad blood
But I think you're cute and misunderstood
And I wouldn't change you if I could
Let'em talk you down
Call you names
My mind's made up
It ain't gonna change
I'm sure in my heart
Happy and free
You're the one you're the one
You're the one for me
Some say you're bitter
Think you're mean
Uncouth untamed and unrestrained
But I think you're sensitive and sweet
Stay as you are don't change a thing
Let'em talk you down
Call you names
My mind's made up
It ain't gonna change
I'm sure in my heart
Happy and free
You're the one you're the one
You're the one for me
Some say you're bawdy
Wicked and wild
A restless useless juvenile
But I think you're funny and I like your smile
Want to be with you want you to stay awhile
Let'em talk you down
Call you names
My mind's made up
It ain't gonna change
I'm sure in my heart
Happy and free
You're the one you're the one
You're the one for me
A no account mixed up
Amount to nothing
A day away from a bum on the street
Some low class kind of royalty
That's what they say about you
When they're talking to me
Some say you're bad
A bad bad seed
You love to play with fire you love gambling
But I know what you love and I know what you need
And I like it when you play with me
Let'em talk you down
Call you names
My mind's made up
It ain't gonna change
I'm sure in my heart
Happy and free
You're the one you're the one
You're the one for me
Some say you're crazy
Say that you're no good
Say your family's cursed with bad blood
But I think you're cute and misunderstood
And I wouldn't change you if I could
Let'em talk you down
Call you names
My mind's made up
It ain't gonna change
I'm sure in my heart
Happy and free
You're the one you're the one
You're the one for me
Some say you're bitter
Think you're mean
Uncouth untamed and unrestrained
But I think you're sensitive and sweet
Stay as you are don't change a thing
Let'em talk you down
Call you names
My mind's made up
It ain't gonna change
I'm sure in my heart
Happy and free
You're the one you're the one
You're the one for me
Some say you're bawdy
Wicked and wild
A restless useless juvenile
But I think you're funny and I like your smile
Want to be with you want you to stay awhile
Let'em talk you down
Call you names
My mind's made up
It ain't gonna change
I'm sure in my heart
Happy and free
You're the one you're the one
You're the one for me
A no account mixed up
Amount to nothing
A day away from a bum on the street
Some low class kind of royalty
That's what they say about you
When they're talking to me
Some say you're bad
A bad bad seed
You love to play with fire you love gambling
But I know what you love and I know what you need
And I like it when you play with me
Let'em talk you down
Call you names
My mind's made up
It ain't gonna change
I'm sure in my heart
Happy and free
You're the one you're the one
You're the one for me
Mission Pie's Shaker Lemon Pie
Last winter, about this time, I discovered shaker lemon pie at Mission Pie. I had gone to La Taqueria for a burrito and stopped in Mission Pie, which is a few doors down. One of the owners is a former girlfriend of a former friend of mine and this admittedly tenuous connection prods me to go into Mission Pie each time I go to La Taqueria for one of their world class burritos. They don't use rice. I never get rice in any burrito, even though I know that rice and pinto beans form a perfect protein, which explains why Mesoamerica thrived for thousands of years on rice and beans. I consider rice filler carbs in an already overloaded-carb situation. They use humongous carb tortilla shells to make burritos: that's all the carbs I need. True, true enough, it would be better if those gigantic tortilla shells were made from high fiber whole grains. Is it possible to make a grained-based wrap from brown rice? Such a tortilla might not be as tasty as the classic white one but you don't really eat burritos for the shell, do you? You eat them for the mezcla, the mix of flavors. The tortilla is, basically, just what you use to hold all the yummy insides together.
Right?
Whatever.
So. I get my burrito and I go into Mission Pie. I have gone into Mission Pie many times now and most of those times, I get coffee and leave. I don't eat pie. In principle. The carbs in one slice of pie throws my glucose into the stratosphere.
Right?
Whatever.
So. I get my burrito and I go into Mission Pie. I have gone into Mission Pie many times now and most of those times, I get coffee and leave. I don't eat pie. In principle. The carbs in one slice of pie throws my glucose into the stratosphere.
