The Furious Spinner

Tonight Mario and I ate Chinese food, then brought home some soy ice cream which we inhaled while playing "Sorry!" Eating on this trip has been a challenge. I'm not complaining—just observing. (Why do people assume you are whining when you mention unpleasant events. Why aren't those observations as valid as the pleasant ones?)

If you are vegetarian (or eat like vegetarians when you go out like Mario and I do) or if you have food sensitivities, I would be very careful in Arizona. A few days ago, I ordered dal (vegetarian lentil soup) in an Indian restaurant after I made it clear we were veggie. The waitress brought the soup and I saw all these little dead chicken parts sticking up out of the dal like something out of a "Far Side" cartoon, and I said, "Are you sure this is vegetarian?" She said, "Oh yes, vegetarian." "Then what are these?" "Mushrooms," she insisted. "Well, these mushrooms just laid an egg in my soup." In all my almost half century on this planet, I have never seen dal with meat in it. Anyway, she apologized and then charged us double for our dinner.

On Sunday we went to another highly recommended restaurant. I asked if their rye bread was all rye, no wheat. "Oh yes, all rye." I got my meal along with wheat toast with little bits of rye in it. At least that waiter comped us, saying, "Since I almost killed you..." Which he didn't, but at least he understood.

Then today I ordered vegetarian taquitas. I got them and bit into them and it looked strangely enough like chicken. I asked Mario what he thought it was. "I don't know," he said, "but it's not chicken." Hmmm, "Something Guatemalan?" He shrugged. I got up and asked the waitress if she was sure the taquitas were vegetarian. "Absolutely," she said. "That's what I wrote." A minute later as I was chowing down on the rice and beans and pretending the not-chicken taquitas didn't exist, the waitress returned and grabbed my plate. The cook was very sorry. After lunch, I thanked him for the delicious food and teased him about the chicken. He smiled shyly. I remembered the husband of the owner of the restaurant had been imprisoned and tortured in Guatemala. If this was the same man, did he wonder how I could care about something as trivial as whether my taquitas were vegetarian or not? Thank you for the blessing of your food, kind people.

After our adventures searching down food, Mario and I often play "Sorry." My parents sent us the anniversary edition for Xmas; the pieces are wooden instead of plastic. I don't like many games, but this one is actually well-designed. It's amazing the things you come up with to do without TV. Board games, talking, reading, cuddling. I likes it. I'm going to try and stay off TV, but I ain't guaranteeing nothin'! I'm weak, man. Weak and simple....That reminds me of a teacher who used to come into the library where I worked and one day she said she liked coming to the library and seeing us and hanging out with the simple folk. She thought she was saying something nice, but she immediately realized how patronizing it sounded. Oops! We never let her forget it because, in truth, she meant it to be patronizing. She meant to say that she was educated and superior and she assumed she knew something about me and my staff, our education level, our views of the world. It was like we were natives in a village she occasionally visited so she could feel simple, too.

I'm glad we haven't had TV because I would have been watching the tsunami coverage nonstop and there's nothing I can do from here except send money or decide to go and help. I also would have watched the Dems pretend they were giving the new attorney general a hard time during the hearings. It was all theater. I appreciate theater when it means something. But all that Sturm und Drang for show is just irritating. It's not even good theater when it's only for show. It's got no heart. Good theater has heart. Good theater means something. Can move someone. Perhaps the impotency of the Dems will move people to foment something revolutionary.

Anyway, I'm glad I didn't see it all, particularly the lack of response to the announcement that they have stopped the search for WMD. I didn't get to see Bush say the loss of life and the destruction of a country isn't to be mourned because, hey, they got rid of a bad leader. Hmmm. He is so appalling and the world's reaction to him is so appalling that I am almost speechless. But foaming at the mouth isn't going to help. Only a creative energized social movement will help. A social movement that unites all of us on this planet who care about the Earth and her inhabitants. Because it is the environment that is at the root of so much of this turmoil.

As has been pointed out previously, if you want to see what the world will become if we cannot stop the degradation of the biosphere, one only has to look at Iraq. Remember, it was once the cradle of civilization and all that. Environmental degradation has brought it to its knees. Jared Diamond has a new book called Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed. He explores societies now and in the past to see why they collapsed, and he found that it most happens because of environmental factors—and the society's decision not to face and prevent the upcoming crisis. I haven't read the book yet, only heard him on NPR, but he talked about Iraq as being one of those societies which collapsed. If you want to see what Iraq is like today, you can always check out the "girl blogger" in Iraq. Every time I read her blog, I want to write and say how sorry I am for what my country has done to hers, but that feels so inadequate. I am so sorry. I tried to stop it, along with millions of other people, and we failed. I am so sorry.

Mario is reading No Matter How Much You Promise to Cook or Pay the Rent You Blew It Cauze Bill Bailey Ain't Never Coming Home Again by Edgardo Vega Yunqué. It's after midnight. Time for sleep. Didn't mean for this to go so long. Sorry about that.

Labels: Arizona, travel

All photographs and written material copyright © 2003-2008 by Kim Antieau unless otherwise indicated. May not be used without permission.