Misplaced Message?

Still trying to figure out the method behind this tagger's madness. But perhaps the readers of Washington Hispanic are a better target for his message than I imagine.

Family History (or Lack of It)

Our sea shipment from France arrived ten days ago, 217 parcels worth.  And then last Friday, a truck pulled up with the stuff we'd put in storage four years ago including some quite practical items like our vacuum cleaner, lawn mower, and kitchen table.  All the clothes are in the drawers, the pots and pans put away, and books shelved but there are still stacks of pictures to be hung and a lot of odds and ends covering the dining room table and the basement floor, waiting for their fates to be determined.  The lion's share of these are family mementos, photos, papers, and sentimental treasures which hold great meaning to me but little value to anyone else. 

At some point, all of this stuff will become fodder for the recycling bin, that is, if they do not crumble into a thousand little brown and yellow bits beforehand.  Already, there are gaps in my knowledge about who's who and regrettably, almost all the people who could tell me the answers have passed away.

I know well who all the characters are in the photos above.  But this couple?

The photo came out of a box with memorabilia from my paternal grandmother's family but there's no indication as to who this duo might be.  The only markings on the back are the photographer's name and address.  And even that is a puzzle.  The photo was taken in Emmendingen in southern Germany although the rest of the relatives came from the north.   A lady with a far away look in her eyes, her husband (I'm guessing) who sports a half smirk -- their names and stories are forever lost to me.  And I guess that's how it's going to go for the rest of us.  Even so, I can't bear to part with them...just yet.

Home Grown Tomatoes

My life seems to have turned into an endless succession of unpacking, rearranging, filing, taking out the trash and the recycling, waiting on service calls, errands, and driving all over kingdom come.  More than once, I've said to myself, "this is not the life I signed up for."  I keep reminding myself that it's only temporary, eventually things will settle into a sense of normalcy, that my house will no longer look like a bomb went off inside, that there will be pictures hung on the wall, that I will no longer be driving up Rockville Pike or down U.S. 1, and children will be back into a routine involving people their own age.  It's not that I'm missing my life in France so much as I am missing the life of regular hours, a place for everything and everything in its place, and when there is time to enjoy the many gifts DC has to offer.

It's not all doom and gloom.  Among the things I have been enjoying is the summer's bounty of tomatoes.  We arrived back in town far too late to plant our own but fortunately there are plenty of farm stands around with baskets of red and green and zebra striped beauties in every shape and size.  For all Parisian open-air markets had to offer, a decent tomato was never to be found.  Now I'm reveling in BLT, salads, and sometimes just a simple slice with a smidge of salt.  Mmmmm.

Songwriter Guy Clark sure had it right:  "Only two things that money can't buy.  That's true love and homegrown tomatoes."

This Does Not Compute

I'll never understand this.  Would someone's brand loyalty dictate spending 10 cents more per gallon when these two stations are right next to each other?  Not across the street.  Not before or after the light.  I don't get it.

Clipping Coupons

Although I've been fortunate in my life to have never worried where my next meal was coming from or whether I'd have enough money to pay the rent,  I still know how to pinch a penny.  After all, if I don't over pay for groceries or clothes, there's more left over for fun things like travel, theater tickets, and a really nice dinner out.

I used to be pretty good at scouring the weekly grocery circulars, menu planning around the loss leaders, and maximizing my savings with manufacturer's coupons.  All that went out the window when we went to France where there were rarely promotions in the supermarket and the coupons were mostly for stuff I didn't want to buy anyway.  But now that we're back, I'm having a hard time getting back into the groove.  For starters, I have no idea what anything is supposed to cost anymore.  Is $3.99 a gallon a good price to pay for milk?  It's hard to know when you've gotten used to 2.75 euros for two liters.  (The math for the currency and volume conversions kind of breaks my brain.)  What does a steak go for?  A pound of zucchini?  A half gallon of ice cream?  What should I buy in the full service market and what's worth a trip to Trader Joe's or even Costco (which we recently joined to get some major savings on a new TV)?  And just how much time do I want to spend grocery shopping anyway?!!

So for the moment, I'm taking things slowly, one meal at a time.  Come to think of it, our grill comes out of storage on Friday and we could do burgers.  Excuse me while I go cross check the prices on ground beef.

Only in America

Only in America would you find:

A parking lot of oversized cars (full disclosure:  I used to drive a mini van but those days are now behind me).

A bible and the Book of Mormon in the top drawer of your hotel nightstand.

Presidential Chia pets.  



A grocery aisle marked "peanut butter."

 

The Greatest Nation on Earth

At the height of the Vietnam War, my dad, who normally abhorred the thought of bumper stickers, proudly affixed one to his car that read "Peace is patriotic."  And that's how he and my mom raised us:  proud to be Americans.   And yet, it wasn't a jingoistic kind of a patriotism -- it was a spirit of pride mingled with the duty to work for peace and justice, a notion that we, as a nation, could always do better.  

I am still proud to be an American (despite the national circus that has played out on Capitol Hill recently) but I sure wish our leaders would stop referring to the U.S. as "the greatest nation on earth."  The phrase is all arrogance and no ambition.  The World Health Organization ranked our health system 37th in the world, behind all of Western Europe and places like Colombia, Chile, and Costa Rica.  When it comes to education, the U.S. ranks 25th in math, 17th in science, and 14th in reading out of the 34 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries.  So go ahead, well up with tears when you say the pledge of allegiance or sing the national anthem, point to our can-do spirit and moments of courage and resolve, or advances in science, technology, and medicine.  But "greatest"?  That's one word best left out of our national rhetoric.