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chipotleAs I start this, it's just after 2 pm (local time, although my California-time laptop says 11 am) on Christmas day. Our family's tradition is a Christmas Eve dinner and a Christmas breakfast, so the holiday is effectively over for us. I'm sitting with my laptop and a glass of eggnog, which I'm sipping much too quickly, and I'm going to ramble.
Presents? I got most of what I asked for and many other things -- as also seems to be our tradition, most of them are clothes and odd trinkets (a bar of loofah coconut soup, a candle scented with patchouli and orange). I got a collapsible walking stick that also can serve as a camera monopod; I'm not sure it will fit in my luggage, though, and I have trouble believing they'll let me take it as a carry-on. I may take it to a packing store and pay them a bit to get it to me.
My mother and her SO have gone just about 100% vegetarian. The catalyst for this was health -- my mother had heart problems earlier in the year and was warned to cut back on fats, particularly animal fats -- but it dovetails into a long-standing interest in animal rights and environmentalism. This is something I've picked up from her after a fashion, although my heart lies more with wilderness protection and preserving/restoring spaces for predators. ("Chipotle likes big, wild carnivores" will not surprise most of you.) Among more conventional stocking stuffers and gifts, I've received three meatless "jerky" strips (shiitake, soy and seitan), "fair trade" coffee and -- a PETA celebrity vegetarian cookbook. No telling whether the celebrities are vegetarians, mind you: I have trouble believing that William Shatner maintains a low-fat diet.
I haven't had meat at home since I've been here, but yesterday when I went out driving I stopped at Steak'n'Shake for lunch. Shh. The drive was one of my characteristic random drives, and I went on another today after I started writing this, heading out west toward Spring Hill, the town I went to high school in.
Spring Hill is something I think of as peculiarly Floridian, although I'm sure it exists elsewhere: a planned retirement community started by a developer in a location expressly chosen to be the middle of nowhere, over time creating a suburb with no city. Now that the Suncoast Parkway (a toll road that goes through the middle of nowhere) is complete, Spring Hill could become a bedroom community for Tampa -- but it was already a town of 30,000, a town with no town center, no historical significance and little in the way of homegrown business. Its defining characteristic is that it has no defining characteristics. Oddly, it does have a Belgian microbrewery now ("brewers since 1731," the sign reads) -- which may be worth a visit on its own.
Now I'm back and waiting for (vegetarian) dinner, some ten minutes away. I'm contemplating a paradox in myself I've been aware of for years: I like to have friends around, and get irritable when I'm feeling consistently excluded -- yet I work and think best when I can have uninterrupted solitude. And I won't get that here, not at my mother's home. I know from past experience that unless I'm firm enough to risk unpleasantness, she will want to talk with me when I'm visible and every so often check on me when I'm not. Thirteen years ago when I ended up living here briefly after my college misadventures, I begrudged her that; now I don't -- not intellectually. Emotionally, though, it would still drive me batty.
So. It's after dinner now and I'm in the living room, listening to the casual pseudo-arguments between my mom and her SO that seem to be most of their conversation and having occasional comments directed at me. The song "Merry Christmas from the Family" by Robert Earl Keen is floating through my mind, which may be unkind, although perhaps it's better than the Arrogant Worms' "Santa Claus is Coming and He's Gonna Kick Your Ass." I'm thinking about new years' resolutions, which I rarely make -- but I might this year.
That's for another entry, though.
Presents? I got most of what I asked for and many other things -- as also seems to be our tradition, most of them are clothes and odd trinkets (a bar of loofah coconut soup, a candle scented with patchouli and orange). I got a collapsible walking stick that also can serve as a camera monopod; I'm not sure it will fit in my luggage, though, and I have trouble believing they'll let me take it as a carry-on. I may take it to a packing store and pay them a bit to get it to me.
My mother and her SO have gone just about 100% vegetarian. The catalyst for this was health -- my mother had heart problems earlier in the year and was warned to cut back on fats, particularly animal fats -- but it dovetails into a long-standing interest in animal rights and environmentalism. This is something I've picked up from her after a fashion, although my heart lies more with wilderness protection and preserving/restoring spaces for predators. ("Chipotle likes big, wild carnivores" will not surprise most of you.) Among more conventional stocking stuffers and gifts, I've received three meatless "jerky" strips (shiitake, soy and seitan), "fair trade" coffee and -- a PETA celebrity vegetarian cookbook. No telling whether the celebrities are vegetarians, mind you: I have trouble believing that William Shatner maintains a low-fat diet.
I haven't had meat at home since I've been here, but yesterday when I went out driving I stopped at Steak'n'Shake for lunch. Shh. The drive was one of my characteristic random drives, and I went on another today after I started writing this, heading out west toward Spring Hill, the town I went to high school in.
Spring Hill is something I think of as peculiarly Floridian, although I'm sure it exists elsewhere: a planned retirement community started by a developer in a location expressly chosen to be the middle of nowhere, over time creating a suburb with no city. Now that the Suncoast Parkway (a toll road that goes through the middle of nowhere) is complete, Spring Hill could become a bedroom community for Tampa -- but it was already a town of 30,000, a town with no town center, no historical significance and little in the way of homegrown business. Its defining characteristic is that it has no defining characteristics. Oddly, it does have a Belgian microbrewery now ("brewers since 1731," the sign reads) -- which may be worth a visit on its own.
Now I'm back and waiting for (vegetarian) dinner, some ten minutes away. I'm contemplating a paradox in myself I've been aware of for years: I like to have friends around, and get irritable when I'm feeling consistently excluded -- yet I work and think best when I can have uninterrupted solitude. And I won't get that here, not at my mother's home. I know from past experience that unless I'm firm enough to risk unpleasantness, she will want to talk with me when I'm visible and every so often check on me when I'm not. Thirteen years ago when I ended up living here briefly after my college misadventures, I begrudged her that; now I don't -- not intellectually. Emotionally, though, it would still drive me batty.
So. It's after dinner now and I'm in the living room, listening to the casual pseudo-arguments between my mom and her SO that seem to be most of their conversation and having occasional comments directed at me. The song "Merry Christmas from the Family" by Robert Earl Keen is floating through my mind, which may be unkind, although perhaps it's better than the Arrogant Worms' "Santa Claus is Coming and He's Gonna Kick Your Ass." I'm thinking about new years' resolutions, which I rarely make -- but I might this year.
That's for another entry, though.
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no subject
Date: 2003-12-26 06:07 (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-12-28 07:31 (UTC)Hey, I didn't know if you knew this, but Google Inc. appears to be hiring computer people in Mountain View, CA. I don't know much about software development, but I did see they have many different positions available. Just wanted to let you know!
no subject
Date: 2003-12-28 18:50 (UTC)Sorry to tag you this way, but I was browsing the web on kitsune information and came across your page. I'm quite impressed with your writing, and noticed you made reference and connected to my web page on kitsune lore. (Foxtrot)
So, two things -- mind if I make a link from my kitsune page to yours, and would you be willing to join my web ring with that page, so people can get further insight? I have been considering writing up a new version of my kitsune lore page, going into depth on them as trickster spirits, and teacher spirits (more or less the same, usually), and reflecting more on their connection to bhuddism and shintoism.
Just some thoughts. Well done!
no subject
Date: 2004-01-01 19:18 (UTC)Sure, a link from your page to mine would be appreciated. Thanks.
no subject
Date: 2003-12-30 08:50 (UTC)