This time, it's my fault

It all began at the HippyDippyville farmer's market, which convenes each Sunday downtown. Sorry, in "Old Town," that's what the locals call this intersection of two streets with stores selling (mostly overpriced) antiques, tie-dyed clothing and incense, vintage clothing and sunglasses, and some restaurants (where you can have tofu even for breakfast). It's quite cute, but more tchotchkified than useful, if you know what I mean.

Anyway, the farmer's market. Lots of organic produce, local-esque, and the colorful denizens of HippyDippyville out sniffing, weighing, pinching, and buying it. After living in close proximity to the Berkeley Bowl and various Bay Area farmer's markets for years, my produce standards are unreasonably high for the east coast, so I don't really make a point of going -- how many pounds of $4.50/lb heirloom tomatoes does a girl need? But yesterday I was strolling about with a new friend, and found myself entranced by the collard greens. Not just because cruciferous greens are good for you, and because I love them all (except for kale -- why so goddamn curly? it seems excessive), but because these collard greens were the biggest I had ever seen. I give you Exhibit A.

I felt I needed other comprehensibly sized objects for comparative purposes, but my tiny little arms only extend so far,
so it kind of looks like I'm cheating. (Like the Peanuts oh-so-small kite that turns out to be not so high in the sky after all.) So although I consider myself more of a qualitative social scientist, I turned to quantification.

(Werlinsky, if you're reading this you can see that I still use those zoomies all the time.) There you have it: 18ish" in length, 14ish" in width. Comparable to a palm frond, no? The kind your loincloth-clad servant fans you with when the heat of the day gets to be too much. (If you are wondering if I compelled my friend to fan me with the giant collard green leaf like the aforementioned loincloth-clad servant, the answer is "yes, yes I did." Shameful, no? Imperiousness -- always the best way to build a social life in a new place.)

People, there's still more. A few stands down, I found myself once again entranced, this time by some decorative gourds. Now ordinarily I am not the kind of person who likes or buys the autumnal decorative gourd -- just like dried out cobs of multi-colored corn, I don't know what to do with them: what, an artful table arrangement? Then what? But these gourds, they looked just like birds. Slightly warty, oddly colored birds, yes, but birds nonetheless.

With the loan of some Playdo from Queen Esther, conveniently located one town over, this little flock now makes its home on my coffee table. Slightly more problematic is my friend the extra-warty green and orange little penguin, shown here in spooky Halloweeny mug shots.
Its bottom is excessively pointy (sorry, little penguin, TMI?), and I don't have the structural engineering skills necessary to get it to stand upright. So for now I'm carrying it around in the pocket of my black hoodie, and it's keeping me company as I give out treats to the neighborhood kids, so fetchingly becostumed. But now I too have felt the lure of moving vegetables up the animacy scale -- and it's pretty hard to resist.

Plant management

Today I found myself driving 20 miles (each way) into Northern Virginia on an alcohol run. The liquor laws in my new state are a bit on the arcane side - I won't bore you with details, but suffice it to say that my local Trader Joe's does not sell alcohol, but the one over the state line does. I decided that despite the high cost of gas (down to $2.50!) the trip was worth it, as the pickings in local wine and liquor establishments are, as they say, slim.

So as to not look like a total lush, I bought a few extra items as "disguise" (much like the orange juice or paper towels purchased at those times when you're just looking for female sanitary items or contraception). I'm sure the $10 of groceries really changed the checkout person's opinion of my $120 worth of wine, and also one wonders why I even care about her opinion of me or my shopping habits.

Anyway, there was a sale on alstromeria, "The Peruvian Lily" they're calling it now, so I got some ("even if she's a lush, she's a classy lush if she's buying cut flowers," the checkout woman was surely thinking) and put them on the table behind the couch. And, just as I should have anticipated, within seconds they were being menaced by the wee Giklet.*
The guilt is clearly visible in those oh-so-wide eyes, and moments later he even hung his head in shame.
Note that the shame and guilt didn't stop him for one second from nibbling on the (luckily not-toxic-for-cats) plant leaves. Which brings me to this plant, which just last week migrated from the kitchen window sill to the kitchen table - the ledge is too small to sustain the plant when the window is closed, and nights in the 40s mean the window is closed most of the time now. One week ago, the plant was lush, verdant, budding all over with new growth. Now it is scarred, mauled, and headed for certain doom.
Back in '98, the Giklet spent the first five months of his life outside in the wilds of the Oakland flatlands, and while he seems quite happy with his indoor life, and I'm sure there's a lot he doesn't miss (e.g., he won't touch any food that hasn't been thoroughly processed by Purina or Hill's Prescription Diet), I guess he misses hanging out under and feasting on plants. I don't have the heart to yell, so I suppose we'll chalk this one up as another sacrifice to the goddess Bast.

Now I think it's time for a disco nap - tonight I am going to my second Spookytown-area Halloween party, this one with a Psycho theme. I don't know what the hell I'm going to wear; one suggestion was that I go naked but for a shower curtain. I think it would be a bit chilly, though...

*Yes, that's a case of wine visible on the bench in the background.

Newsworthy (?)

Well, this just in from Yahoo News:

Their clout rising, blogs are courted by Washington's elite
Thu Oct 27, 4:00 AM ET

WASHINGTON - Beltway politicos, famously slow to adopt technology, are wooing blogs - all but Trent Lott...

I guess when I started this thing I made the right decision after all. I'll just sit back and see who comes a-courtin'...

Sickness and health

So on the one hand, having a cold is pretty unpleasant. But on the other hand, it provides an excellent opportunity for taking Benadryl (or its generic equivalent), which for those of us with sleep disorders is a blessing in disguise. Ah, the drug-induced sleep of the innocent, right up to the eight o'clock alarm! It almost makes the wastebasket of tissues next to my bed worth it.

European Travels: Krakow (for Catholics)

My parents were here this weekend, and I spent a long time with them looking through a photo album of ancestral sites I visited in Europe this summer, including my father's mother's shtetl, my father's father's shtetl, and the town in Germany that is a point of origin for his family, a town that we are, not coincidentally, named after. It was a really moving journey, and powerful in unexpected ways (lots of people have been reminded of Everything is Illuminated, even if I wasn't at the time), so I've decided to post a serial travelogue in those times when things get kind of boring here in the Spookytown outskirts.

We begin with Krakow. I had a week-long faculty seminar that started right after the spring quarter ended (all expenses paid, thanks CICS!!!!). I had bought a Rough Guide to Poland before setting out, and had also read some (many! I mean many!) of the readings for the seminar, but even so I wasn't quite prepared for the ubiquity, and oddness, of Catholic imagery in Krakow. Now, we all know that Poland is a pretty Catholic country, but did you know about the (seemingly natural) connection between monks and restaurants? Neither did I, yet the very night of my arrival we had our welcome dinner in this restaurant, which could only be reached after walking this gauntlet of monks.

I suppose they are inviting potential patrons to dine in the restaurant. But are they inviting? Or creepy? (The fact that I returned the next day to photograph them hints as to where I stand on the question.)
Rather than have a "closed" sign, as one might find in a non-monk-ridden establishment, here we have a scary monk statue-like object blocking the door to let you know that the restaurant isn't quite ready for your business.
In the end, the food was pretty good, if you could avoid the pork (difficult, and I have a feeling that those boiled potatoes were as tasty as they were due to the judicious use of lard, although on the other hand the pickles brought me right back to Brooklyn of the mid-70s). Other pictorial monks around town also suggested venues for fine dining, with some looking like they enjoy food more than others.
But note that everyone looks quite serious about their wine.

On a related note, if you're building a glorious chapel, why not embellish the doors with heads of religious figures?
Although you always have the option of full bodies on plinths, which are a bit more dramatic.
Even the robotic mimes in Krakow are monks, here in the Rynek Glowny (main square).
I didn't stick around to see what he did upon receiving money; I suspect self-flagellation to be more likely than popping and locking. Meanwhile, Krakow's favorite son also showed up in some unexpected places - his demise two months earlier may have contributed to a proliferation of portraits, although I unfortunately don't have any longitudinal data. Here he appears to be guarding both souls and shoes,
while here his attention is fixed on otherwise classy housewares and china as the station wagon on the street is fortuitously transformed, for a moment, into a silver Popemobile.
In the next episode of my Polish travelogue, the more Jewish side of Krakow.

Comments

My dear friend JL, living all the way out in Oaktown CA, just pointed out that it was too hard to post comments -- you had to register, get your own blog, give your blood type, etc. I had no idea! I thought people weren't commenting because they don't love me, or just don't care. (Of course, these are also plausible hypotheses.)

Anyway, I've fixed it. Now anyone can comment without jumping through a series of hoops (though you will need to jump through the anti-spam "word verification" hoop). So go ahead - let your voice be heard! Or continue lurking, that's ok too.

More randomness

Ah, so much to see, everywhere you turn. This place is in Spookytown proper, just around the corner from where I bought my running shoes. They seem to have a lot to offer.This was spotted on a station wagon parked outside Udupi Palace (weirdly enough, a sister restaurant to the Udupi Palace on Devon, and just as tasty). Why didn't I consider getting my degree from here? Probably would be better in terms of networking for jobs.

Finally, please note the decorum and dignity with which these halal meat animals conduct themselves. The chickens: regal, and in no way human-like. The cow: less regal, but surely relieved to be promoting turkey rather than beef.

Food? Or people?

I walk or drive by this eateria almost every day.
And every time I pass by, I think the same thing I always think when I see an anthropomorphized chicken: "Why do we do this?" In the last few years I've become, if not obsessed with, then at least really, really interested in anthropomorphized food.
Now I'm not vegetarian (although close, esp. at home), but it strikes me as incredibly bizarre that we would want to think of something we are preparing to eat as more human than it actually is. Aren't there, for most cultures, cannibalism taboos? Something like: animals and vegetables = food, humans = not food? So I would think the less human-seeming the food object, the more appealing it should be. But worldwide food marketing proves me wrong.

Even more bizarre, I think, are representations of inanimate food items that have been anthropomorphized such that they imply that the food item is so delicious it is about to eat itself. Here we have a street ad spotted in Utrecht this past summer. And this napkin, taken from an ice cream parlor in my old hometown in Germany.
Lust auf eis indeed. But anyway, the idea of reflexive cannibalism seems one step further into weirdness. I'm keeping a file on this now, so please feel free to send me your pictures and anecdotes -- I'll post updates when there are new finds to be shared.

Exploring

Yesterday I set out to do some more concerted exploration of just what these Spookytown outskirts have to offer. For a change of pace, I went on a hike that was kind of boring. It looked mostly like this:

Meh. The trail was not only blazed basically every five steps, with either a painted spot on a tree or a ribbon tied to a branch, but also every quarter mile found markers like these:

Let's just say it didn't feel very back country. Also, my expectations were raised by this map,
but the only person I saw on my 7-mile loop was a very abled 50-something guy, who passed me twice on his 15-mile run, which apparently entitled him to hit on me, somewhat excessively, in the parking lot. This intriguing sign, like his advances, also led nowhere:
Any ideas on what it could possibly mean? Anyway, the most
aesthetically pleasing thing in the forest turned out to be pine bark, slightly mossy, in dappled sunlight. For all that I am disdainful of Russian foto oboi, wallpaper murals made from enlarged photographs of nature scenes (usually either the Russian countryside or some tropical palm-treed island), I kind of wished I could replicate this in my home somewhere. You know, a darkish study with leather club chairs and a fireplace, and one wall with a repeating (but smoothly done) pine-bark-in-dappled-sunlight pattern. If they're doing it for ultra-realistic camouflage, why can't I do it for interior design?

After lunch, for a real change of pace, I decided to walk on over to my local strip malls and see just what they have to offer. I've been showing only pretty nature, or piquant aspects of semi-urban living, but really, I'm just half a mile from endless strip-mall hell which stretches from my intersection basically all the way to my turnoff for work (yes, I'm still driving, but a new walk-bus-walk commute should spring into action next week). Most of the Spookytown outskirts seem to be large streets (three lanes on each side + median) flanked by strip malls and fast-food outlets. But it turns out that, due to the Spookytown Metro Region's huge immigrant population, these strips malls are housing all kinds of interesting stores, and not just the monotonous offerings of my strip-mall suburban youth. For example, we begin with the strip mall closest to my house, about half a mile up the road. I had only noticed the 7-11, easily visible from the car. But it also is home to a 24-hour Salvadorean cafe (sorry, no 3am partying here, though, as its liquor license was revoked in January of 2004 due to: sales to minors, open containers, sales to the intoxicated, and sales during prohibited hours. And all this is displayed on a giant pink sign in the window. Oops.). More interesting for my purposes is the Vietnamese grocery store, where they sell, among other things, tripe. In a bucket. On the floor. I'm always fascinated by the canned goods in Asian food stores, even though I never buy any. This place also had an excellent selection of jarred items, although my photos (snapped in a hurry, as the store was packed and I didn't want to look like a weirdo) are too blurry to post. It's good to know that at my next social gathering I can serve Pickled Young Grapes, Pineapple Gel In Syrup, and Sweet Macapuno Balls (also in syrup). Just down the street was a tripe-free (but goat-meat heavy) market with a "tropical specialty." It was filled with Africans and Carribeans buying all kinds of exciting food products, like 20 lb. bags of fufu (much easier when you're not pounding it yourself), and any of the six kinds of yam (Brazilian yam, Peruvian yam, etc.) and three kinds of sweet potato on offer. People waiting on line at the meat counter (I decided to not look too closely at what was being sold) were dancing to the Little John song on the sound system, but a visit to aisle three had me thinking that they had stopped off there first and that was the explanation for the good mood.
I'm required to be drug free for work, so left that aisle as quickly as possible. There were all kinds of exciting things for sale in this strip mall complex; for example, these lamps reminded me that I need to start doing yoga again. In hell, apparently.











There were many lovely faux hair products, like these hair-scrunchies for holding your ponytail.
















This faux hair display was found at a shop called "Holiday Wigs." I don't know, they looked kind of everyday to me.













Here we see a lonely mannequin off to the side - she apparently has to model the velcro mini-mohawk. It's a good look for her, though.

















Last, but not least, we find this mini-display in the window of a Dollar Plus store (don't forget to click for a close up). The semiotics of this are just beyond me - I leave you all to your own individual readings.

Hunger

Some of us fasted today. Others of us did not:





















Looks like our baby spiderlet friends will soon be feasting on, well, whatever this disgusting insect-like object is. In other local fauna news, it's a bit colder today than usual, even inside (furnace issues), so we find huddling for warmth in the bedroom. Note the Renaissance-style triangular composition: the boys always have an eye for form.

Homecoming weekend

This weekend I went back to Chicago, mostly to see the Maye Queen run her first marathon (go Maye Queen!), but also to indulge in early nostalgia. "Too early!" said J-ka, "TOO EARLY!" And given that it's been just five weeks, she was probably right. But who knew I would have to overcome so many obstacles just to go back and (semi-masochistically) remember things the way they used to be? First, the dead car battery as I was leaving work for the airport. Then the unbelievable, flood-watch-inducing, torrential downpour added to the delight of Friday-afternoon traffic heading out of Spookytown. Throw in construction, and I was forced to call Stovie at his California office and have him talk me through an alternate route like a pilot talking down a 1970s disaster-movie passenger forced to fly a plane for the first time. But all the rushing was in vain, since my flight was delayed for 45 minutes. Which ordinarily wouldn't be a big deal, but I was connecting in St. Louis - ridiculous, yes, but cheap flights are hard to come by on marathon weekend - and my layover was but 20 minutes, with a 7:35 departure. We landed at 7:20, and reached the gate at 7:25. "I have to make that plane," I thought, "I'm meeting people at the Hopleaf at 9:30!" With motivation like that, and some judicious elbowing of passengers in front of me, I got out of the plane at 7:28 and began my headlong dash from C28 to C2. I ran and ran, and ran some more, knees pumping, backpack thumping, and got to the gate at 7:34. The door was closed, the AA employee tidying up. "I'm...(gasp)...on...(gasp)...that...(gasp)...flight...(gasp)," I choked out. We dashed down the gateway, already retracted from the plane, and as I stood on the edge, we slowly inched back out to the plane, which was preparing to back out of the gate. My friend (BFF!) knocked on the door, a peroxided flight attendant looked out in surprise, and he pointed at me as I held out my hands in a gesture of supplication. As they opened the plane door for me ("Watch your step," they said, since they hadn't quite linked gateway and plane once more), Blondie said to me, "It's your lucky day." "I know it is," I replied, "I know."

The things I do just to see you people.

So the Hopleaf was great, I got to drink one of my favorite Quebecois beers and see some of my favorite people. Friday quickly became Saturday (the Monsignor bore witness to my staying up past midnight) (as opposed to falling asleep in a bar before midnight, which he has also witnessed) and I bopped around town doing my usual stuff, except more hobo-esque, with my worldly belongings packed on my back. One theme of the weekend was visiting new homes. D-Dawg has finally made it back into his rehabbed house, and received with great joy his bacon-and-butter housewarming present. Mmmm, heart failure. The place is still en route to being done, but drool-inducingly lovely. The granite! The wood trim! The thematically-arranged-and-organized-by-color clothes in the walk-in closets! (So a man after my own heart.) Next it was off to the Ferret Machine's new Ukrainian Village palace for a "dots and stripes" party. He is a bit dotty, my friend:

Ladies, he wears the shirt so you'll want to rub his chest. Forewarned is forearmed.

I had planned on being stripey, but the combination of guilt-inducing e-mail (you could hear the sigh through the computer) and a lucky moment at a strip-mall Salvation Army down here meant wrap-dress dot heaven.


But I couldn't stay late, as it was off to Lake Shore Drive, where PJ and I relaxed in mid-60s splendor in the handsome Evil E's palatial abode, conveniently located just steps from the Frontrunners water station, where PJ and I were going to report for duty at a god-awful 6 in the morning the next day. Frontrunners, with its deadly combination of remarkable organization and Boystown fabulousness, regularly wins "Best Water Station" at the marathon. I'm guessing that this year was no exception, as hundreds of volunteers (seriously, like 300) gathered while it was still dark to set up Gatorade tables for the 40,000 runners soon to be streaming through. This year's theme was Hairspray, which is a pretty good theme for the tranny set, even if the soundtrack excerpts became tiresome.

I was a little disappointed when most people chose to wear the free volunteer jackets and hats rather than thematically appropriate attire (I had specially packed mine, though I hadn't had time to find my wig). Here PJ models his lime green hat and jacket combo from the Fall 2005 line, showing there's more than one way to look fabulous.


















A bit hard to see, bit this lovely queen managed to perch her hat atop her giant wig for a statement all her own.
Meanwhile, we were all busily setting up. The Gatorade needed to be mixed in giant orange cauldrons (we're missing just one witch here), and then paper cups were arranged on tables, filled halfway, covered with oaktag (posterboard for the rest of you) and topped with a new layer, with an end result of four tiers. Like a house of cards, but surprisingly stable.




















The first racers came through amazingly fast - first the men (and one woman) in racing wheelchairs twenty-some minutes in, and then, unbelievably, the first runners at 8:39. 8:39! Meaning that they had covered eight miles in thirty-nine minutes - the winner's pace was a 4:50 mile for the entire twenty-six miles. I realized as I watched them sprint by that I had never seen world-class athletes performing up close before. It gave me chills from head to toe, seriously - I guess that's what they mean by "thrilling."










Here is a demonstration of water-station technique. There was no time for posing once the runners started coming in earnest, though - just handing out drinks (you pinch with thumb and forefinger from the top, they grab with open hand from the bottom) and shouting out encouragement. I could only think of the stupidest things to say, like "good job!" and "good work!" and "woo hoo!", but decided sincerely meant encouragement was better than ironic wit. It wasn't about subtlety (in case the outfit didn't make this clear already).

By 10:30, most everyone had passed through, and it was time to step over rivers of yellow fluid (Gatorade is pretty unsettling when in giant puddles on the ground) and clean stuff up.












And look who placed ahead of 11,000 other runners!!! And got a medal!!! And is generally a rock-star like goddess! Here she is, Q of the M, with Colliculus and McFoolery looking on in admiration:

This is a woman who deserves my old apartment. And there aren't many people I would say that about.

Anyway, after eating post-marathon dim sum and visiting PJ's new Edgewater palace - so lovely that his tchotchkes are now objets, even the Tokyo-purchased Hello Kitty toothbrush holder (the man is lucky it wouldn't fit on my sink)- my little feet were tired and a bit traumatized by walking so much in hot pink fishnet tights.

So T-ka and I went for a Broadway pedicure, complete with bath salts and lotions and pumice and all kinds of footal goodness, where we sat and talked about men and pastries (what else?), and then I felt much better. Now I am back in Spookytown, and the feet and the soul are, if not rested, at least in better shape than they were before.