by Peter Rodman
"I like them both." She takes another bite of her bagel. Diana comes in the room; she sits quietly, listening, trying to understand what we could possibly be talking about. Sheila continues, "You don't like cauliflower either. You just don't like white food."
"I deny that vehemently," I say quietly. "Sour cream is okay."
"I don't like sour cream," says Sheila.
"I don't like it to excess, but I like it on some things," I say.
"But you eat tofu!" Sheila says with disgust. She attacks me with tofu when intellectual arguments fail her. "Yuk, it makes me gag."
"Yuk-o," agrees Diana. She has apparently picked up enough of the conversation to choose a side. But she remembers something and her expression changes from a frown to a faint smile. "Carol likes tofu." she says to herself.
Carol had been the fourth of our group. Years ago Carol, Sheila, and Diana would eat lunch Fridays. They invited me along for about a year before I accepted and joined them. Then they couldn't get rid of me. Carol took another job, calls occasionally. Does lunch every few months.
"What about sour cream?" I ask Diana.
"Oh, I like sour cream, but I shouldn't eat it." Diana shouldn't eat most things. They taste good.
"What about cream cheese?" I say.
"Oh, yes, that's good."
"And cottage cheese?"
"Wellll--" she says, cocking her head like a parrot. She doesn't say anything else, doesn't have to--her tofu frown is back.
"Cauliflower?" I say only to complete the list.
"Nope. Yuk-o," she says.
I summarize for the group:
"What we have here is a white food continuum. It goes from cauliflower to cottage cheese to cream cheese to sour cream to tofu. Sheila likes cauliflower, cottage cheese and cream cheese, but not sour cream or tofu. I like tofu and sour cream. Diana is our missing link. She binds the group together. Although she has a sad prejudice against tofu, she likes sour cream and cream cheese, and her good breeding shows in her dislike of cottage cheese and cauliflower. So as long as we stay together, we can eat virtually any of the white food group."
We were quiet for a moment digesting this snack of information.
"Carol likes cauliflower," Sheila remembers.
"--and tofu," says Diana.
"I remember seeing her put sour cream on her Mexican food," I say.
"She ate cottage cheese too," says Diana.
"Carol liked everything." I don't know who says it, maybe no one does.
The three of us connect together like a chain, we have more in common that we like about each other than parts to irritate us, so we stay friends. At times though, it becomes very clear that some parts of each of us are completely foreign and even disturbing to the other two. I'm not talking about food.
But Carol liked everything and bound us together with threads of laughter and shrugs of "oh, well--" The most thoroughgoing managerial nonsense at work was tolerable with her around; the most grating irritations became only things to laugh about. It was all okay--everything. That was the attitude she took to preserve her own peace of mind, but she shared.
And because she was unhappy, I was so glad to see her escape our group and find another job that would let her prosper.
"I miss Carol," I say.
"Me too," they both say at the same time. Or maybe no one says anything at all.
THE WHITE FOOD CONTINUUM
cauliflower
cottage cheese
cream cheese
sour cream
tofu
Cute Things Die Too
I was at work last Monday, and an odd smell was driving me crazy. I'd walk down the hall and in a certain area there was a strong, sweet, smell of flowers. Just at this one place in the hall. It was as if someone had emptied a can of spray air freshener on one spot in the hall.
I thought it was my imagination until I asked a woman if she smelled it. She said she did and thought it was her imagination. Neither one of us could identify the kind of flower we smelled.
But I kept looking, and behind a door kept propped open with a doorstop I found the source of the mysterious smell. Dead on the floor behind the door was the small, partially- mummified body of a sprite--a tiny fairy of the Tinkerbell variety.
The sprite had evidently gotten into the building on a Friday and couldn't get out. It must've flown the halls the whole weekend looking for some magical answer to its plight, but since this was a County office building there was neither nectar for it to eat nor magic to sustain it--only memos. So it died behind the door.
Cute things die. Good things die. But when the truly good and cute die, they do not smell like a dead you and a dead me. The odor of roses is often reported when the coffin of a saint is opened.
Primitive people hung dead sprites in their homes as early air fresheners. Although German May Wine is usually made with herbs and fruit juices today, the original recipe called for a dead elf to be tossed in the fermentation vat. When this is done today the word Totenkoboldverfahren appears on the label, and that batch is quickly grabbed up by connoisseurs.
Lest one get the wrong idea, not all magical little people smell good dead. Though I have never smelled one myself, people who have insist that dead leprechauns smell like used bar rags.
Man can be pretty rough on cute things in nature. At least once a year skunks have the urge to make more skunks. Unfortunately, boy and girl skunks like to meet and socialize on highways, and early in February it seems every skunk in the world has been hit some car or truck.
I myself have been guilty of countless hummingbird deaths--all because I wanted to make life better for the little cuties.
First I set up a hummingbird feeder and did everything according to package directions. I filled the feeder, and after the hummers found it, they visited often.
Then I decided to up the concentration of sugar to half sugar/half water. The hummingbirds kept coming. In fact, they wouldn't leave. They'd perch in the bush by the feeder, fly a few feet to sip my powerhouse nectar, then go perch some more.
After a while, they quit flying altogether. They'd waddle down the branch to the feeder like a bunch of ruby- throated Orson Welleses, then waddle on back to their perches. There was no flying backwards, no humming, and not even a modest body of classic movies to justify their existence.
These birds needed a weight-loss program. So I cut way back on the sugar and supplemented it with the latest aspartame artificial sweetener. It worked--sort of. The ounces dropped away from the hummers and they took to flying again, but I think the artificial sweetener did something to their eyesight.
The hummingbirds started hanging around fire alarm call boxes and stop signals, and poking their beaks in highly inappropriate red places. What really broke my heart was driving to work one day about three weeks ago. Since I was driving 55 miles an hour, just about everyone was passing me. A red Mazda RX7 blew by me doing at least 70, and right behind it were three hummingbirds, hot after what they obviously thought was a very fast flower.
The Mazda ran out of holes to squeeze through, made a panic lane change, slammed on the brakes, and two of the three hummers hit the back of the car. Their beaks stuck in the edge of the trunk and they were still hanging--dead or stunned--when the Mazda found a new hole and took off through the traffic.
And while half-blind hummingbirds bashing themselves silly or dropping from exhaustion in traffic is sad, what is tragic is the Big Lie of Elk Grove. The Big Lie is that there's no elk--it died--and there's no plan to get another one. The groves are going too; you can't build houses without breaking a few eggs, and trees block the view of the laguna. A Caterpillar D9 is one of the best egg-breakers around; it's no big deal to contour a grove or two, if only to give folks a place to stay until the freeway congestion clears up a little and they can move up from their starter home to something a little newer, bigger, and farther away from the dying core of old Elk Grove.
Per
sonally I think that those with the city's best variable-rate interests in mind snuffed the elk, buried it, and paved over the grave. It's easy to appreciate rural countryside, but rural countryside doesn't appreciate much.
Who (except the people who live there and the folks in Vacaville) wants a city named after an ungulate anyway? It just brings up pastoral memories. You can still find an occasional orange tree in Orangevale and Citrus Heights, and there are still roses in Roseville. But there's no elk in Elk Grove (cute idea for a town, but cute things die). Change the name to Laguna, after the subdivision. Laguna doesn't mean anything.
My Fingers Are Purple
My fingers are purple, and my lips, and a little bit of my chin too. I started picking carefully, looking for clean, firm berries, but soon got greedy and plucked the fruit with both hands--even the overripe ones that almost dissolved to juice on my fingers between the vine and my mouth.
I was riding my bike, you see. A July day, warm, with the sun slanting past noon, and a hot wind whipping up the dust. A good day to think about riding a bike and even a good day to start a bike ride, but a little too hot, glaring, and gritty a day to be in the middle of a bike ride and not exactly sure how much more there is to go.
I wanted it to be over with. I knew where I started and I knew where I was going, I just wanted to be there. I had done the breeze in the face clearing out the cobwebs, I had done the stretching of muscles cramped by weeks of inactivity, I had done the play of light through the leaves, the sensation of speed, and the wonder of nature. I did it and I was done with it, and now I was just pedaling the blasted bicycle to get home.
Patches of shade overhung the road at places and pulled at me. If I had water, I would coast into the shade and drank some, but going on made more sense without water.
A bird paced me as I rode--but without being obvious. It flapped and dipped and glided along the road ahead of me, stopping in a bush or a tree every 50 yards or so to let me catch up to it. About the time I was sure the bird was traveling with me, it flew away.
If I had been designing a world, I don't think it would have occurred to me to put in birds. Snakes, beetles, squirrels, dogs and people for the land I could have come up with. For the water, fish, eels, waterbugs, crabs and a few mammals. But who would have thought of a creature that can fly?
An animal that can live in one spot a while, then take to the air a distance, fold itself up, and live on another spot. Able to dive on and peck at cats (a noble undertaking). Able to sing. Who'd have thought? not me. Which is probably why I wasn't put in charge.
The bird distracted me from feeling sorry for myself-- just briefly--and I noticed a big mound of blackberry brambles off the side of the road. I rode on.
A little farther on there were more blackberries, closer to the road. A little farther and they were beside the road, actually cut back by the county, because they were a little too close. I could see the berries. The unripe red ones were easiest to spot, but there were shiny black ones as well. Finally, there was a spot where there were blackberries and a little bit of cast shade. I stopped.
The fruits were ripe, there were a lot of them, and I didn't have a basket, so I put them in a safe place. My mouth. The juice was warm.
I started picking carefully, looking for clean, firm berries, but soon got greedy and plucked the fruit with both hands--even the overripe ones that almost dissolved to juice on my fingers between the vine and my mouth. The juice started running down my wrist and had to be licked clean.
Most of the berries in easy reach were red or green-- someone had stopped there before me--so the ripe ones that were left were protected. Protected within the thorny canes, protected by a coat of dust or spider web, protected behind an actual spider web, with a spider in the middle. In fact, the richest clumps of ripe berries were directly behind spiders.
I didn't like the idea of putting my hand into an occupied spider web. It scared me at first. But then I realized that I was at least 10,000 times heavier than a spider and could probably take it in a fair fight. Not only that, but the spider had to realize that. No animal with even a glimmer of awareness attacks something 10,000 times bigger than it is.
When I swept aside the web, the spider would drop away and fade into the brambles. Except one, who was either blind or lacked the glimmer of awareness; she started climbing up a thread to my hand, and I had to drape her thread from a blackberry cane to keep her from doing something stupid.
I felt guilty about reaching through the spider webs, but the plant hangs berries there for animals to eat, and I'm an animal. Besides, webs get so dusty and tacky with cottonwood fluff and feathers, they don't fool any but the most myopic bug, so they need to be taken down once in a while so new designs can be installed.
Once I got over my fear, guilt, and distaste of dirt, greed took over, and I was pulling off berries with both hands. The proper way to eat blackberries quickly is to put one on your tongue, press it against roof of your mouth so the juice squirts, suck the juice, then spit out the pulp, seeds, dirt, spider webs. It goes very fast once you get the hang of it.
Before too long I'd harvested everything I could reach in my little patch of shade; my fingers, lips and chin were purple, and I was ready to go on. There were still a lot of berries left, but they were red and green. In a week, more would be ripe. Eventually the crop would run out--say in early August, but for the next few weeks there will be a steady stream.
And I saw that the black walnuts are green. By the time the blackberries are running out, the walnuts should be ripe. The wild walnut husks turn your hands black and the nuts are frustrating to open, but the meats are a gift.
Do Something Different
I get in a rut. I keep doing the same things without getting anything out of them. The things haven't changed-- work, visiting people, writing pointless columns, eating, sleeping--I'm just bored with them.
So I do something different.
I'm not talking about making sweeping changes in my life that will bring in the bucks (in the sense of dough, not doe). Or even permanent changes. Just a plunge into doing something slightly different.
None of this stuff will be the slightest use to a homeless person, or to someone in prison or a victim of a fatal disease. They are just things to do to get out of one of life's dry desert places. They worked for me.
Put up a bird feeder. Especially if you don't have any birds in your neighborhood, because they'll show up. Hummingbirds hang out in the valley most of the year, so a sugar-water feeder is good.
My father uses a seed feeder. His advice is to fill it once a week with enough seed for the birds to fling out of the feeder for three days, then let the feeder hang empty the rest of the week. This forces the birds to scratch around on the ground for the fallen seed and teaches them responsibility for their actions. Keeping the feeder full just encourages lazy birds who show up to eat their fill, scatter seed, then go hang out at the mall or flap around downtown bothering cats and pooping on cars.
Plant a garden. Something you can manage. Start with a one cubic foot bag of potting soil. Poke holes on one side of the bag for drainage, and slit the other side. Set it in partial sun and plant a dozen and a half radish seeds. In a month your crop will be in. Whatever else you put in your salad or on your antipasto tray, you'll be very aware of the radishes.
The good thing about gardening is eventually it's over. Houseplants can drive a person crazy ("Why are the leaves yellow?" "Do you dust the leaves?"), but when you're growing food, the job at hand is over when the food is harvested.
One other thing. By tradition and now by international agreement, only gardeners and farmers who plant in actual dirt wear hats. Hydroponic and container gardeners using potting soil don't wear hats.
Do the right thing. Take a walk. If you already walk, this won't do you any good. But if you haven't done it, take a walk at the day-change, dawn or dusk. It doesn't have to become a habit, just do it once.
Take a na
p. Unfortunately, the people this one appeals to should probably be taking a walk. But if it's been 25 years since you lay down for a daytime nap, try it. Twenty minutes is long enough. It's refreshing and completely reorients your outlook. If your boss complains, show him this essay and tell him I said it was all right.
Do someone a favor without him knowing it. This is great. It's all the fun of sneaking around behind someone's back and doing him dirt, but without the guilt. Nobody is supposed to know what you're doing, why your doing it, or who you're doing it for. You can't tell anyone afterwards. If you're caught, it doesn't count. If you wear a mask and a cape or leave silver bullets behind, you're probably not taking the suggestion seriously.
It's a chance to have a secret identity and be a force for good in the world. It could be picking up litter, correcting a coworker's mistake without pointing it out, or anticipating someone's problem and solving it before it becomes one.
For real excitement, force yourself to do an enemy a favor without him knowing it. The combination of secrecy and resisting the temptation to mess up the guy's life instead of improve it is a real soul-wrencher. But if you pull it off, you'll be astounded by how good you feel about your life, the world, and everything in it.
Listen to new music. It can be country western, classical, rock, or anything you never really cared for and can't see how anyone can stand. Find someone you know who likes "that kind of stuff" but who otherwise seems to be a sane person--reasonable, honest, cheerful--and ask him or her for the best record for a new person to listen to.
Or you can trust luck and browse a record store. That's how I got my Hank Williams, my bagpipe record, my Chopin nocturnes, and my Cab Calloway record. Try aboriginal, oriental, or Peruvian flute music.
The point is not to change the music you like. Rather, listen to the music for things to like. Turn off your mind and listen with new ears, give it the benefit of the doubt. If you ask a friend for a suggestion, also ask the friend why it's a good record. It could be you should be paying attention to the fantastic guitar work rather than the awful lyrics.
You may not play the record more than two or three times. Or ever plant another crop, or ever buy a second bag of birdseed. None of these suggestions need to be permanent changes in your life, just a quick change in direction for a little while--the way some people get married.