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shameless pleading

 

 

 

 

August 2014

Semper Ubi Sub Ubi

readme:

Well, there you go. Sic transit gloria Aestatis. As Groucho Marx is said to have said, “Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.” Speaking of which, what the hell have they done to bananas? I know I’m late to the party on this, but when I was a kid bananas were a staple of my diet, along with baloney sandwiches on white bread with yellow mustard. I ate baloney sandwiches for lunch literally every school day until I was 14; according to my mother, I insisted on it. Eventually we must have run out of baloney, because one day I woke up in some tattered Dickensian academy where they expected us to eat huge meals of roast beef and potatoes while wearing jackets and ties. Not my style, though the Boston Cream pie was nice. Anyway, bananas today are truly awful. They used to be smooth and slightly sticky with a strong pure banana flavor. Now they taste like cardboard and have a weird, grainy texture like damp styrofoam. Don’t get me started on cantaloupe.

Elsewhere in the news, we went for a walk down our road about a month ago, just as it was getting dark. This road is a typical rural two-lane blacktop, fairly level and straight, houses separated by huge corn and soybean fields, and without a lot of traffic, so it’s a good place to walk for exercise. I have a hard time walking around in stores without a cane or cart to lean on, but I do OK in a straight line. I now walk more slowly than I have ever seen anyone walk, but I plan to keep doing it as long as I can. Sometimes I wonder how I’d get around if we still lived in Manhattan. I used to love to walk home from work (Midtown East 50s to Upper West Side) in all kinds of weather. I could probably manage on the sidewalks, but I can’t imagine trying to cross the street. Anyway, walking is my best bet to be able to keep walking and avoid a wheelchair.

So we were passing some of the houses down toward the state highway when a gang of three cats suddenly appeared next to us from nowhere. Very weird. They clustered around my feet, meowing, while Kathy, who was about 30 feet from me, trudged on. I shooed them away as best I could and kept going. Last I saw of them they were running into the yard of a nearby house. A few minutes later, however, as it became completely dark and we were nearly at our own driveway, I heard the patter of feet behind me and one of the cats — just one — came racing up next to me. She (as it turned out) must have run for quite a ways at top speed to catch up. I noticed she was wearing a braided cloth collar and didn’t seem at all feral, and she was purring so loudly I could hear it from six feet away. But the last thing we need is another cat, and this one looked like it belonged to someone, so I did my best to shoo it away, clapping my hands and shouting, “Go home!” in a stern voice. It didn’t work. At all. She moved sideways a bit but kept pace with us, and when we reached our driveway she marched right up like she was going home after a nice walk. So, long story short, she’s now living on our front porch while we try to find her owners (yeah, checked PetFBI.com, vet checked for a chip, yadda yadda). It makes me sad because she’s such a nice, placid lap cat. Purrs constantly, maybe 4- 5 yrs old. I’m afraid somebody died or moved and she just got booted out of a car. That happens a lot out here.

This looks very cool. It’s a $49 TiVo DVR that lets you schedule recordings of free over-the-air (broadcast) TV programs, as well as stuff on Netflix Streaming, Hulu Plus, etc. The digital OTA sub-channel market is exploding, primarily due to soaring cable and satellite charges in an economy where many people are experiencing serious financial hardship. We get five broadcast channels where we are, with a total of six sub-channels, most of which show stuff  like either Bachelor Father and Mister Ed or old movies you’ve never heard of — lotta minor noir, which is cool. I could definitely do without 99% of cable/satellite TV. I’d miss Al Jazeera, which does some very good real reporting, although in my darker moments I’ve taken to calling it The Misery Channel. But CNN is a bad joke, MSNBC & Fox are flat-out unwatchable, and that leaves what … House Hunters? It’s moot anyway, because we have to cancel the satellite next week.

As usual, thanks to all the wonderful people who support this little circus with subscriptions and donations. If you can spare a few doubloons, please consider subscribing. And yes, it mortifies me to say that every month. But your support literally keeps the lights on around here.

And now, on with the show….

5 comments to August 2014

  • When we were very young, the commercial banana was the Gros Michel. But because bananas are not grown from seed, but from shoots, the plants are all genetically identical, so when the Panama Disease fungus came along, it spread like wildfire among the Gros Michel. Cavendish and Grand Nain cultivars are inferior to Gros Michel, but are resistant to Panama Disease, so that’s what we have today. There are worries that Cavandish and Grand Nain might be susceptible to some kind of black rot that is spreading, so growers are trying to breed a new type.

    There ARE much sweeter varieties out there, but they don’t ship or store well, so unless we go somewhere they grow, we’ll never taste them.

    Silk

  • YesWeHaveNoBananas

    Here in California, in the Mexican grocery stores they sell a mini banana like you describe: sticky to the point of being resinous, but at the same time slippery as all get-out, and full-flavored. But the taste is a little different than the “Chunky Monkey”-type flavor. I wonder if you can get those in Ohio. If so, you could see if they are more like the ones of yore.

  • Mike

    Perhaps you can thank GMOs for today’s bananas..

  • Magda

    That’s BOLOGNA (aka “mortadella”) sandwiches. Baloney is not edible in general… ;)

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