Monthly Archives: December 2009

Perfect As the Fourth of July

Posted by Tata on

Jumping Jesus on a pogo stick! Look what we found in Stop & Shop:

Panapen! That’s breadfruit, and it was sitting next to a basket of sugar cane. Panapen! I almost didn’t believe my eyes. I stood, rooted to the ground, trying to wrest Pete’s attention from a display of organic carrots, though shouting his name didn’t actually work. I may need a Nerf Pistol. Anyway, I picked a breadfruit by absolutely no criteria whatever since I’d never seen one before and dreaded the usual encounter at checkout. Last week offered a fine example.

Teenage Cashier: What’re these?
Tata: Tomatillos.
TC: What?
Tata: Tomatillos.
TC: Tomatoes?
Tata: No. These are not tomatoes.
TC: They’re not on my list. How much were they?
Tata: They didn’t say. I’ll go check again, but there was no sign.

[Musical Interlude]

Tata: Nope. Not a single sign.
TC: That’s okay. We just made up a price.
Tata: How did I get so lucky?

Fortunately, our cashier was a middle aged Latina just as overjoyed to find panapen as I was, but:

Very Nice Lady: How much were they?
Tata: I didn’t see a sign.
VNL: That’s okay. We’ll make it up.
Tata: I should buy a lottery ticket.

Daisy makes tostones de panapen. I can’t wait to try it.

Everything I Have In My Hands

Posted by Tata on

The lengthy episode with the car – while amusing – has become expensive, inconvenient and frustrating. This morning, AAA instructed me to wait for the tow truck with my AAA card and my car’s documents in hand. The truck driver put my car up on the rig. I asked if he wanted to see my documents, but he demurred: everything he needed was on his computer. As he drove away, I looked at the documents in my hand and thought, ‘Huh. That’s going to come up in conversation,’ and the mechanic called to ask did I, by any chance, have them? If I weren’t vain to the very core of my being, I’d consider sticking my head in the oven. But I won’t: imagine compounding a shittastic day with split ends.

Exactly. I could be driven to suicide, but not if it messes up my hair. That’s too much commitment.

Bow To the Target Blame

Posted by Tata on

For the last few weeks, I’ve been driving around with a car that throws hissyfits and shuts itself off in traffic, repeatedly getting the same tooth fixed because neither dentalwork nor BandAids stick to me, working on a PC that only plays music in 4:33 segments and a laptop with a dead disk drive, and I might be a little testy about all of it. Yesterday, I drove home on a flat tire and I couldn’t even be annoyed. At least, I was going to get a nap. Which I did. It was full of delicious sleeping, which is what we nap-takers and nap-havers enjoy about naps. Fuck that flat tire. I had logs to saw.

You: But but but – Ta darling, you can’t do that!
Tata: Watch me!

Not only do all the tires occasionally flatten themselves for the hell of it, but the front ones will not re-inflate unless the car’s jacked up. Pete figured that out. I figured out I could add air to my tires until I ran out of quarters and nothing changed, so last night, Pete jacked up the car in a light rain and re-inflated the tire I could not. And a good thing he did because the rear tire on the passenger side was flat this morning, just for fun. Fortunately, I was in a hurry and had just polished my nails, so I was highly motivated to limp to the gas station and wreck my plans.

Events have been like this for about six weeks. I’ve been too busy to even complain, which is ridiculous. I am an absolute champion complainer, and I’m neglecting my sport. Maybe I just have to complain faster, because at this level, one slip and the competition’ll take me out. Oh, all my beautiful Evil!

Let the Two Nineteen Pacify My Mind

Posted by Tata on

Digby:

The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the standoff with Iran and all the other obsessions with the mideast are at least informed, if not entirely motivated, by larger geopolitical efforts to maintain stability at a time of impending competition over resources and access to them – oil. Sure that’s simplistic, but it’s at the “heart” of what’s going on in the leadership’s “minds.”

We don’t talk about any of that because it might lead us to get serious about changing our way of life and evidently nobody important thinks that’s the right way to deal with the problem. And frankly, among many of our elites, maintaining a military presence everywhere is necessary to preserve American global dominance. Period.

If it weren’t for really good chocolate, I’d be in tears tonight.