Saturday, August 22, 2009

alaska vegies




Last week I went to the one of the many local farmers' markets. Now I know many people don't associate Alaska with fresh produce. But we have beautiful and delicious vegetables, and more types than southerners would imagine. Big, expensive vegetables.

Last week I bought some carrots, cucumbers, and parsley. And I looked for cabbage. The usual table cabbages ( not the giants grown for competition every year) were way too big.

I love cabbage - raw or cooked. I can eat the usual supermarket cabbage all by myself in a week or two. And Alaska cabbages are remarkably sweet and tender. But huge.

So I thought about buying a nice Alaska cabbage. I would have to find three other people to share it with me. It was all too much to cope with.

Today I visited another farmers' market. I bought local cheese, mikunya greens, daikon, turnips. And a couple normal size cabbages, one green and one red. I asked the Korean farmers about them. "Pick early," they said. "Too big, no one buy".

Tomorrow, cole slaw with shredded daikon and carrots!

Saturday, August 15, 2009

health care reform and stupidity



I am trying to figure out the health care reform protesters. They don't look like wealthy hospital owners, cardiac surgeons, or imaging equipment executives. Most of them look like people who have jobs and the kind of health insurance which will bankrupt them after a trip to the emergency room, the birth if a baby, or an early and treatable cancer. What the hell are they defending?

It can't possibly be health care in the US today. This seems to be a new and mysterious battle in the culture wars, like creationists, vaccination resistors, and gay marriage opponents. Sarah Palin, of course, is right in the middle of it. I didn't think she would just disappear but this is even worse than I thought.

Maybe Charles Pierce is right in "Idiot America", when he says we have become a nation that values ignorance and superstition over knowledge and science.

And the health care reform they are objecting to isn't even the single payer or "socialized" model they are protesting. In fact it looks like a rather wimpy compromise instead of a solution. There are sound reasons why all other major industrialized nations have gone the single payer route.

Obama has only been in office seven months and I am already back to my old angry self!

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

happy to have herps



I came home from work today frustrated about my job and my life. I am a little embarrassed to report how much my reptile and amphibian pets improved my mood.

I have two great dogs. They greet me with enthusiasm after an absence of ten hours. But they are almost too much like me. They read my moods and respond to them. They know how to get what they want (food) from me.

Tonight we will snuggle in my bed and I will pet them and talk to them.

The herps really don't care about me. This is remarkably soothing.

I have been worried about the frog for six months. He has refused to eat more than once every six to eight weeks. I know that he is an old frog. I am at least his third human and I adopted him four years ago. So I have worried about frog palliative care and frog euthanasia Then a month ago, he started eating. Now he is up to two goldfish (and the occasional earthworm) each week. Tonight I cleaned an enormous poop from his cage and told him how pleased I was.

My brothers used to tease me about being easily entertained.

The king snake had eaten a mouse on Saturday. She was only a week past a shed and was so soft to touch and brilliant to look at that it made my day. She has bitten me twice,so I was pleased when she curled around my neck peacefully as I cleaned her cage.

On careful inspection, the corn snake didn't need anything. I turned on everybody's basking lights for the evening and thought about how grateful I was to be living all these creatures.