Posted on by rjonakait

Uber All

I tend to think of myself as a city person, but that is not entirely true. City people take cabs or an Uber. I don’t. I have averaged perhaps one such ride a year in my big-city life, but on a recent day I found myself taking three Uber trips in the span of four hours.

The NBP also seldom rides in cars-for-hire, but he got the first Uber of the day and accompanied me. That efficient driver played what is now called the American songbook on his radio, and I recognized most of the music. Only as we approached our Manhattan destination did he speak. He addressed me and asked if I enjoyed the music, and I politely responded that I had. He said that he thought that someone of his generation would like it and that was why it was on. I said that I was surely of an older era than he, but then he said that he was born in 1947. I was surprised that at his age he was an Uber driver but did not say that. Instead I asked where he was from originally. His initial response was Israel and then added that he had been born in Egypt. He said that the Jews had been expelled from Egypt in the 1950s, something I did not know. He continued by saying that he had come to America in the 1970s. Pleased that I had liked his music, he made sure to tell me how I could get similar music, which started by asking if I had Pandora. I do not and said what was technically true, that I could get it. He showed me a list of channels that I apparently could subscribe to. (I like Johnny Mathis, but a Johnny Mathis channel seemed a bit much.) If I had known him longer, I might have had many questions for him. He left Egypt before he was ten. Did he feel Jewish then? Did he live a segregated life in Egypt? Who did he play with? What were his first reactions to Israel? What did his parents do? Why did he move to the states? What work had he done in this country? Why in his seventies was he driving an Uber? And many more if I had had a conversation with what seemed like a nice, interesting guy.

The NBP got us another Uber to go back home. This driver, perhaps around 60, seemed to be a native American and wanted to talk. We quickly settled on sports. His favorite teams were different from mine, but I know a little about a lot of things, and I was able to keep the conversation flowing. He said that he and his wife shared their one television, and he did not watch Sunday football at home because that was her TV time. He said that he lived in the Village, which is generally considered an expensive part of Manhattan, and I would have liked to learn more about how he managed to live there. He said that he had neighbors who contracted him to drive them to the Berkshires, a trip of around 100 miles. Our driver clearly loved the Massachusetts mountains and talked about their beauty, although he said that before GPS, he often had trouble finding his way back. I wondered, but did not ask, how much his neighbors paid for this service.

A few hours later I had to go back to Manhattan, and the NBP was not available. So for the first time in my life I ordered an Uber. I found that with only a few swear words even I could do that. This driver’s first name was Muktar, and we drove in silence for half the trip until a truck, for no discernible reason, did a three-point turn in front of us, blocking our vehicle. I heard “Unbelievable” from the driver, and while we waited, we started talking. I asked where he was from: “Sierra Leone. West Africa.” I am glad to have refrained from asking how he had learned his excellent English because I later learned that English is the official language of his home country. (I had asked the American-Israeli-Egyptian driver of a few hours before when and where he learned his excellent English. He said only when he came to America, which meant he did not speak the language before he was twenty-five.)

Perhaps I might have assumed the driver was Muslim because he was from Sierra Leone, but that would not have been an entirely safe assumption. I later learned that Christians comprise twenty percent of that country’s population. Nevertheless, I deduced that he was a Muslim when I first got in the car because I saw on the back of the front seat a rack containing three copies of the Qur’an inked with “Free” across the top of the pages. I was amused by a coincidence. At a stoplight I showed him the book I had been reading, The Islamic Jesus: How the Kings of the Jews Became a Prophet of the Muslims, by Mustafa Akyol. The book taught me that Jesus is an important figure in Islam, as was his mother Mary, who has a book or a chapter in the Koran named after her. Jesus is directly or indirectly mentioned over one hundred times in the Muslim Holy Book, which records his birth to a virgin after a heavenly annunciation and his performance of miracles. Akyol taught me that Jesus is regarded as a or the Messiah in Islam, but that only meant that he brought forth a special heavenly message to restore the true religion to its original, moral message, not that he was divine or part of the Godhead.

When the driver read the title of my reading material, he, without showing any arrogant pride in his knowledge of the Qur’an, started telling me about the Koranic passages about Jesus and Mary. I listened, pleased that it coincided with and affirmed what I had been reading. We chatted a bit about religion, and as we got closer to our destination, I said that I could never be a Muslim. Before he could ask, I said that there was no way that I was going to pray every day thirty minutes before dawn. I could see his smile in the rear-view mirror, and he said that there was a great power in the group prayers that enhanced a spiritual feeling. He asked if I also would object to fasting, and I replied that while it must be hard, I thought I could do that and find it beneficial. But as we neared the destination, I said that pre-dawn prayer was a deal breaker, and if Muhammad commanded that, he was just wrong. Muktar caught my eye and laughed.

We arrived at the hospital, and I said that I was going to the emergency room in hopes that they could save my life. He gave me warm wishes.

Posted on by rjonakait

Snippets

More bad news: Two recent studies conclude that mosquitos are more likely to land on those drinking beer than on other people.

The headline was a frightening thought: “Kissinger Turns 100 With His Brain as Sharp and Wise as Ever.”

Florida is limiting the ability of Chinese nationals to buy property. Should the many Jewish Sunshine State residents worry that they may not have a place to dine on Christmas?

A billionaire hedge fund guy said that a billionaire banking guy should run for president. Bill Ackman said that Jamie Dimon is “extremely smart,” respected by all aspects of the political spectrum, beloved by his employees, and a centrist. Ackman, without further elucidation, said that Dimon is “supportive of well-designed social programs and rational tax policies that can help the less fortunate.” And Dimon “is pro-business and pro-free enterprise.” Ackman did not mention that the natural tendency for business is to manipulate government for its own benefit and to seek monopolies and cartels. Thus, many businesses try hard not to be part of a free-enterprise system. Pro-business and pro-free enterprise seldom, if ever, go together.

Kurt Andersen, in Evil Geniuses: The Unmaking of America, A Recent History (2020), maintains that the optimal tax rate on high incomes is the rate that raises the maximum possible revenue. He reports, “Economic research shows convincingly that the self-defeating level of taxation is much higher than our highest federal income tax rate has been for the last forty years” or a top marginal rate of at least 48 percent and maybe as high as 76%.

I have heard often of the “undeserving poor,” but never of the “undeserving rich.” Aren’t there a lot in that latter category?

I went recently to Yankee stadium to see my first in-person game of the season. Many kids were also in attendance. After the sixth inning, we all watched what is now a ritual: the grounds crew drags the infield to the song “Y.M.C.A.,” but they stop and drop their equipment at the appropriate moment and do the arm gestures to spell out the song’s title. As I watched many in the stands, including many kids, join in, I wondered if this song is banned at sporting events in the Don’t-Say-Gay State.

The original video by the Village People of “Y.M.C.A.” did not include the movements to spell out the title. One source says they were created by dancers on Dick Clark’s American Bandstand.

Some people maintain that the song was only meant to be about playing sports at a YMCA and nothing to do with gay behavior, but that original video prominently featured the singers in front of a sign for Ramrod, a bar that sought straight members but not a straight clientele.

“In God We Trust” was the decal on the back of the truck. I doubted that meant, as it should have, the driver of the vehicle would never possess a gun for “personal protection.” I thought about the awkward construction of “In God We Trust,” and how it might be blue-penciled into “We Trust in God.” Then I wondered if there is a difference in meaning between “We Trust in God” and “We Trust God.” Sometimes, you must keep your mind occupied on I-80.

Posted on by rjonakait

O Sisters, My Sisters

I had not paid much attention to the brouhaha between the baseball team and the drag group until I heard members of a Fox News panel say that to re-invite the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence to Dodgers Pride Night was an attack on Christianity and religion in general. Jews and Muslims, one Fox commentator said, should be concerned because if they were coming for the followers of Christ, they could be coming for you.

In the you-can’t-win department, the baseball organization had invited the Sisters to a Pride night at Dodgers stadium. That caused on outcry. Then the Dodgers disinvited them. That cause another outcry. Then the Sisters were re-invited causing yet another outcry, including the “outrage” I saw on Fox News. I had not paid much attention to any of this. It seemed like a minor, local thing. Sports organizations do all sorts of things at their stadiums, including making kids dizzy by spinning around a bat pinned to the ground by their foreheads, sausage races, and playing what once were considered radical songs. But count on politicians and conservative news outlets to escalate the trivial into what they hope will be tremendous controversy. Marco Rubio, far removed from Los Angeles and (I am guessing) ballparks in general, issued a press release about some of this.

I don’t think that the conservative concern was because, according to their rather staid website, the Sisters for over forty years “have devoted ourselves to community service, ministry and outreach to those on the edges, and to promoting human rights, respect for diversity and spiritual enlightenment.” Who could oppose that? On the other hand, in today’s world, there is apparently something subversive in the latter part of the Sisters’ mission statement where they proclaim that “we believe all people have a right to express their unique joy and beauty.”

The real concern, however, is that (again from their website) the “Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence are a leading-edge Order of queer and trans nuns. . . . We use humor and irreverent wit to expose the forces of bigotry, complacency and guilt that chain the human spirit.” Although I have never seen them, I am confident that what is irreverent to a group of trans and queer “nuns,” is offensive and outrageous to many.

As with many such controversies, the supposedly offending group may have been bolstered by the episode. The Sisters report that they met with the Dodgers organization which offered a full apology, which the nuns labeled sincere. The Sisters continued in their statement, “This affair has been an opportunity for learning with a silver lining. Our group has been strengthened, protected and uplifted to a position where we may now offer our message of hope and joy to far more people than before.” They thanked all those who spoke up for them and concluded with injunctions that I hope even Rubio, Brian Kilmeade, Harris Faulkner, and all archbishops could agree with: “May the games be blessed! /May the players be blessed!/May the fans be blessed!/May the beer and hot dogs flow forth in tasty abundance!”

You might think that such graciousness would charm anyone, but then you must not be an unthinking conservative. Instead, the Sisters have been labeled a threat to Christianity and religion in general. This criticism, however, conflates Catholicism with Christianity and religion in general, and it conflates mockery of the Catholic church for its political stances with an attack on religious beliefs. 

Trans and queer people posing as nuns may seem to mock the Catholic church, but I doubt that Presbyterians and Methodists feel mocked. Catholicism is being satirized but not all of Christianity. Most important, however, is understanding why the Sisters use their “irreverent wit” to mock the church. I doubt that the Sisters are truly concerned about Catholic beliefs on genuflection or transubstantiation. These doctrines do not affect society at large.

However, I am sure that the Sisters are concerned about the church’s stances on sexuality. The mockery might be more constrained if the church limited its injunctions on same-sex relationships and abortion to its own church members. The church, however, does not show such restraint. It does not confine itself to labeling homosexuality, contraception, and abortion as sins for Catholics. Instead, it has sought to prevent same-sex relationships, contraception, and abortion for everyone in society. It has sought to impose its religious views on you and me and everyone else. I have a right to oppose such policies. That doesn’t make me anti-Catholic. It makes me in favor of a government staying out of the private lives of me and others. The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence may criticize these policies in a form different from others’ chosen methods, but they have every right to do so, and those who believe in American freedom should celebrate their ability to do so.

Posted on by rjonakait

First Sentences

“A brilliant flash broke the morning darkness on November 8, 2018, as strong winds pummeled a PG&E power line scaling the Sierra Nevada ninety miles north of Sacramento.” Katherine Blunt, California Burning: The Fall of Pacific Gas and Electric—and What It Means for America’s Power Grid.

“The Korowai Pass had been closed since the end of the summer, when a spate of shallow earthquakes triggered a landslide that buried a stretch of the highway in rubble, killing five, and sending a long-haul transport truck over a precipice where it skimmed a power line, ploughed a channel down the mountainside, and then exploded on a viaduct below.” Eleanor Catton, Birnam Wood.

“On April 3, AD 33—or perhaps three years before that—a quite dramatic event took place in the holy city of Jerusalem.” Mustafa Akyol, The Islamic Jesus: How the King of the Jews Became a Prophet of the Muslims.

“I stood in the sally port while the steel door rolled back with a clang and then I stepped through into the jail.” Michael Nava, The Little Death.

“Five years before a pair of bullets tore through his gut, Billy Joe Aplin reached over the silt-smeared water of the tidal flats with a boat hook to snare a small buoy bobbing near the grassy shoreline.” Kirk Wallace Johnson, The Fisherman and the Dragon: Fear, Greed, and a Fight for Justice on the Gulf Coast.

“Geneva Sweet ran an orange extension cord past Mayva Greenwood, Beloved Wife and Mother, May She Rest with Her Heavenly Father.” Attica Locke, Bluebird, Bluebird.

“The history of Cuba begins where history begins.” Ada Ferrer, Cuba: An American History.

“Maurice Oulette tried to kill himself once but succeeded only in blowing off the right side of his jawbone.” William Landay, Mission Flats.

“One of the biggest complaints about motherhood is the lack of training.” Erma Bombeck, Motherhood: The Second Oldest Profession.

“The train had left Sacramento some distance behind, and was now bravely beginning the long climb that led to the high Sierras and the town of Truckee.” Earl Derr Biggers, Keeper of the Keys.

“On the pivotal day of his presidency, Woodrow Wilson tried to clear his mind by playing golf.” Adam Hochschild, American Midnight: The Great War, A Violent Peace, and Democracy’s Forgotten Crisis.

“Mr. Bowling sat at the piano until it grew darker and darker, not playing, but with Tchaikovsky’s Concerto in D Flat Minor opened before him at the First Movement, rubbing his hands nervously, and staring across the shadowy room to the window, to see if it was dark enough yet.” Donald Henderson, Mr. Bowling Buys a Newspaper.

“There is a scheme afoot.” Senator Sheldon Whitehouse with Jennifer Mueller, The Scheme: How the Right Wing Used Dark Money to Capture the Supreme Court.

Posted on by rjonakait

Snippets

Recently there was a ceremony for Paul Ryan, the ex-Speaker of the House of Representatives, as his portrait was unveiled in Congress. Ryan touted his leadership in passing what he labeled his “white whale”—the 2017 Republican tax cut. Kevin McCarthy spoke and said, incredibly, that he had only wished more people had listened to Ryan’s concern about the national debt. Of course, that debt soared when Ryan was Speaker and Republicans controlled not only both Houses of Congress but also the Presidency. Part of the reason was that tax cut. Ahab’s white whale took his leg. Ryan’s white whale, tax “reform” that helped the really rich become even richer, ate up revenue and regurgitated a bigger debt. But, even so, some will praise him because he mouthed concerns about the debt. Of course, his plan was to abolish social security as we know it and to defund or slash programs for those who are not even a little bit rich.

Ryan concluded with stirring words: “Only in America would it be possible for a kid from Janesville to go from an intern to the Speaker of the House.” And I wondered how many countries have a Janesville. And how many have a Speaker of the House.

His Only-in-America speech, however, does not apply to everyone. Ryan did not mention that his path was aided by being born into a prominent, wealthy Wisconsin family.

Am I the only one who sees a strong resemblance between Hunter Biden and Aaron Rodgers?

After an extensive scientific survey on my walk to the greenmarket, I have concluded that a couple holding hands in my diverse neighborhood most likely consists of two white women.

Conservatives proclaim that there are only two sexes. Shouldn’t they say that a married male and female is a bisexual couple?

Heterosexuality is defined as attraction to the “opposite” sex. Are male and female really opposite to each other? Help me list all the ways men and women are alike and are different. Which list is longer?

On your “different” list did you say that men can walk by a shoe store without stopping to examine what is in the window?

New York City is planning to charge drivers for entering parts of Manhattan. A headline said, “Congestion Pricing May Give Break to Poor Drivers.” And I wondered why good drivers should have to pay more.

Walking the sidewalk cluttered with strollers and dogs in front of the greenmarket vendors, I heard a young couple behind me. She: “Maybe we could get a dog that you could take care of.” Long pause. He: “I was sort of thinking about that.” Another long pause. He: “But I thought we should be simplifying.” She: “When would a dog be simplifying?” I stopped to buy ramps, and the pair walked on.

The spouse, the NBP, and I were discussing the plight of our neighbors, a married couple. He has dementia, and she, after much anguish, placed him in a memory care facility. Things were fine for a while, but he became violent, had to be restrained, moved to a hospital, and sedated. This has been taking a heavy toll on his wife. I said that if such dementia ever happened to me, they should find a way to kill me. I said that I knew that this would be hard but that is what they should do. The NBP’s face was blank. The spouse looked thoughtful and then said, “That might not be so hard.”

Posted on by rjonakait · 2 Comments

It Happened One Night at the Biergarten

Tony later challenged preconceptions that I did not know I had, but I first paid attention to him when he said that he was going to be fifty-nine in a couple of weeks. I found out that his birthday was the same as the spouse’s and a few days after mine. Susan, the woman with him, then talked about astrological signs as if she were a believer.

I learned that she was a designer of burlesque costumes. She showed me pictures that featured beautiful masks but also some remarkable clothing. I said that she should design for professional wrestling, and she said that she would love to: “You know how much they pay for their clothes!” She has had a shop for five years in DUMBO, a trendy and expensive part of Brooklyn, so she must be having some sort of success.

Her twenty-one-year-old son was in college at Oswego, which I knew was part of the State University of New York system, but I did not know where that college was. She was geographically challenged and said something about it being north and west of Syracuse and on a large lake the name of which she did not know. Another patron of the bar said that Oswego was on Lake Ontario, which, I concede, is a large lake. I said that it must be cold up there, and Susan went on for several minutes about the time she visited her son at college in winter. She told me that he had started out majoring in zoology, wanting to be a veterinarian, but was now majoring in business with a minor in zoology.

I asked the soon-to-have-a-birthday-guy what he did. “Relaxing” was the reply. He continued that after twenty-five years, he had just retired from being a subway conductor. He told me that he had roots in Alabama near Mississippi where his father met his mother who was originally from Belize. He said that his daughter had completed college at a downtown Brooklyn institution, but she was still finding herself. She was taking more classes, but he did not say in what.

Tony told the owner that the bartender of several months, Cem (pronounced Gem), was a keeper. I concurred and said that I was surprised when a few weeks ago the thirty-eight-year-old Cem said how much he liked the movie The Best Years of our Lives. I was surprised again when the retired conductor immediately said that Fredric March was a great actor. He continued by saying that he was a big fan of old movies and the stars of yesteryear. We were soon discussing Barbara Stanwyck, Loretta Young, Lucille Ball, Gary Cooper, Spencer Tracy, Glenn Ford, Richard Widmark, Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, and many more. Eventually I asked Tony and Susan if it bothered them when they were young and watching old movies, that the films had few Black actors. Both immediately said “Yes.” Tony said there were Black films in the old days and mentioned Ethel Waters and Cabin in the Sky, but said that, of course, although he has a soft spot for Hattie McDaniel, there were almost no Black actors in films intended for the broadest audience. The discussion then naturally turned to the importance and talents of Sidney Poitier and Harry Belafonte. 

When Tony learned my name, he asked if it was short for Randolph, and I said it was. Then I told him my name was inspired by an old movie star. My mother had told me that she was convinced I was going to be a girl and had not picked a boy’s name. I lay in my bassinet cooing and gurgling (I am sure that I never cried) unnamed for days when my mother spotted a magazine article or ad featuring Randolph Scott. Liking his first name, she gave it to me. (There is no mention of my father in this story.) While Tony knew who Scott was, Susan did not, and in the modern way, pulled up a picture of him on her phone. Damn, he was good looking. I went on to tell them that there were rumors starting in the 1930s that Cary Grant and Randolph Scott who lived together were lovers. Susan seemed shocked by that possibility.

Just before leaving, I asked Tony for his absolute favorite movie from the distant past. He said he could not remember the title (we had both bemoaned the aging phenomenon of having facts on the tips of tongues that won’t emerge), but he said it starred Claudette Colbert as a runaway heiress and Clark Gable as a reporter. I said It Happened One Night, and Tony replied, “That’s it.” And again, Tony surprised me. I would never have guessed when I met this retired conductor that he would have heard of this movie, one of my favorites, too, an all-time great in this critic’s opinion, and one I have watched many times never failing to find it marvelous.

I had no conception when I came into the biergarten that I would talk to a designer of burlesque costumes or that I would meet a retired subway conductor who shared a birthday with the spouse or that I would talk with him about the 1934 movie that was the first, and still one of the few, to win the Academy Awards for best picture, actress, actor, director, and writing. (I have to make it a point if I meet Tony again to discuss the famous hitchhiking scene in It Happened One Night.) And various preconceptions about who might be an aficionado of old movies with Katherine Hepburn or Ann Sothern, Joel McCrea or Jimmy Stewart were definitely challenged. Perhaps this was just a reminder of what I should have already known: people are not always easy to typecast and movies have power in all sorts of ways over all sorts of people.

Posted on by rjonakait

Snippets

I have been watching too much sports, but I have noticed something important. Whoever scores last in baseball, football, basketball, lacrosse, hockey, or soccer game does not necessarily win. But invariably in tennis whoever gets the last point is victorious. So, to be a good tennis player, just win the last point.

If the United States is to become more like Florida, expect more breathing difficulties. A recent report documents that air quality improved across much of the country from 2015 through 2021. It, however, got worse during this period in Florida.

The pope said that women could participate in a meeting of bishops that will help the pontiff determine the future of the church. Only twenty-one centuries for this tiny step. God does move in mysterious ways. The pope, however, according to the news article, “remains adamant in his opposition to ordaining women as priests and cautious about making women deacons.”

Parental rights. That is the cry to keep the mention of gender or same-sex relationships out of schools. Parents, it is said, should decide how their children should be introduced to such issues. States are also loosening child labor laws under the banner of parental rights. Parents, not the state, should determine whether a fourteen-year-old can work at night in a meatpacking plant. However, states have been banning transgender medical treatment even if the parents would consent to it. I might think it is matter of parental rights to educate children on religion, but Texas is moving to post a version of the Ten Commandments in all classrooms. Parental rights don’t always seem to matter.

Kansas has banned transgender girls from competing in high school athletics. A news report said that there are three transgender people competing in girls high school sports in that state among the over 41,000 girls involved in such sports. I guess every more pressing problem in Kansas has already been addressed and resolved.

New York City still fascinates because it still often mystifies me. We old guys had lunch at a small hot dog place. We decided to move on to another place after downing our food to let others have our places. To our surprise, in that neighborhood we had trouble finding a suitable coffee house. After wandering a few blocks, I peered into a coffee and tea place and saw three or four unoccupied tables. The server, a young woman, said it was all right if we hung out for a while but notified us that their credit card machine was not working.  No problem, I replied.  The four of us came in, and I announced that I was buying.  The server, the only visible employee, seemed inexperienced, and it took a long time to produce a large espresso, a latte, a macchiato, and a bubble tea. I then saw a sign that said that no bills larger than a twenty were permitted. I only had a few singles and a $50 bill. I told her that because I was paying for everybody, it should be all right for her to take my fifty. She was hesitant but consented. I then bought $7 worth of herbal tea to make the change for the fifty even less. The total bill was $31.25. She calculated the bill by noting on a pad the price of every ordered item and brought out a calculator to get the tally. I dug out two dimes and a nickel and the single, which I placed down with the fifty expecting a twenty back. I sat down, and she brought over my change, which turned out to be two fives, nine singles, and four quarters. I wondered what kind of place this was. It did not accept credit cards but did not have a twenty in the till. I looked around and did not see a cash register. She started making the coffee drinks and said that they were out of milk. Was almond-vanilla milk okay, or perhaps half and half? Again, I thought about what kind of coffee-tea place does not have milk. We were there for ninety minutes. During that time only one other customer came in and quickly left. Twenty minutes later an older Asian lady walked in and said something to the server. I could hear the server say, “She left a while ago.”  The Asian woman turned and left without replying. This could not really be a coffee-tea place, I thought, but if it were a front for something else, I could not figure out what it was.

Posted on by rjonakait

Cooking with Home Schoolers (concluded)

Even though the market tour and cooking class we recently had in Yucatan were disappointing, that day still did significantly expand my experiences. I have learned that on a trip, interchanges with fellow travelers can expand my horizons. It is natural, at least for me, to have at least a few minutes’ conversation with the Australians, Canadians, Americans, Dutch, French, and Bulgarians I meet at historic sites or restaurants. And when traveling in a group, there are many and longer interchanges with fellow travelers in the breakfast rooms or on a bus or van. While traveling I have met an Italian professor specializing in Italian-American literature who introduced me to a novelist I later read; a heart transplant surgeon whose sense of humor coincided with mine; a retired fire captain who had a repertoire of Moth-quality stories; his friend who gushed as he showed me the pictures of the classic fire engines he had restored; a woman whose son was a number-crunching baseball analyst; a small town newspaperman with interesting insights on America; and many more.

Something similar happened on this trip, not because we were traveling in a group, but because of our accommodations. We stayed in a small condo complex that had apartments and freestanding villas. We walked through an unlocked metal gate to a courtyard with a swimming pool. Villas were on the sides and apartments facing the Caribbean at the far end. We were in a two-bedroom apartment on the second floor with a view of the water from a sunken living room and an adjacent deck. The view was beautiful, although the removal of one palm tree in front of the deck would have made the view even better. The place had comfortable beds, chairs, and sofas. The kitchen was well equipped but had inadequate lighting. The showers, however, emitted a puny stream. Water pressure, we learned, was a problem in all of Yucatan, but ours was especially bad. The water comes from aquifers laden with showerhead-clogging limestone. After a few days of dancing under the drops from the showers in an almost futile attempt to rinse off soap, the spouse got the showerheads replaced. The shower was not what I would call luxurious, but it was better than before. The split AC system was efficient although we seldom ran it except in the bedroom at night. All in all, the place had the feel of Old Florida, which I found attractive.

The complex had a social center, the pool, where conversations were struck up in and out of the water. The spouse had found the place on an English-language website. Not surprisingly, it was a North American enclave. The owners and renters at the condo complex we met were from the United States or Canada. The most interesting person was a surgeon from Milwaukee. He was originally from Indiana but he spent many boyhood summers in Wisconsin, and we swapped stories about old and new Wisconsin. And later, he helped convince me that I needed to go to an emergency room, a visit that may have saved my life. (But that is another story.)

Alma’s cooking class was also a place for a social interchange. The other family we shopped, cooked, and ate with were from Topeka, Kansas. I asked why the two girls were not in school. I was told that they were. Danica and Delaney were home schooled, and the mother said that the trip was part of their education. The girls had completed reading projects on Yucatan and the Mayans before coming to the peninsula, and the trip was another step in their schooling.

The family took many trips. All were preceded by assigned readings. The family had a goal of visiting all fifty states before the girls completed their home schooling.

The mother volunteered that her daughters had been attending a “Christian school,” which had gone into remote learning at the beginning of the pandemic. That had not worked well for the girls. They quickly completed their assignments and got bored. The parents wanted the girls to be challenged more and decided that they could do that through home schooling. The parents were members of a home schooling association, and both of them were involved in the educational instruction.

The father, a financial planner, was the bread winner. His wife proudly told us that he managed a $50 million portfolio. Many of his clients were widows who had not taken part in their family finances. Desmond said that few had even bought a car and were relieved that he would participate in such a transaction. He said his clients always seemed to want to buy a Honda, and he had helped purchase more CR-Vs than he could remember. This pleased the NBP who loves Hondas.

Although the car purchases may have been in Topeka, he said that he could work from almost anywhere with an internet connection. Thus, the family could travel extensively.

I went to the cooking class to learn about food, but instead what I really learned, yet again, was to check my prejudices. I had not given it much thought, but I am sure that I had assumed that there was something off about home schoolers. I probably thought I would meet with evangelism at least for home schooling; diatribes about the loss of “values” in the schools; coerced into praying before a meal; and ill-informed political and health comments. There was none of that. Yes, the family and its members were a bit precious and self-involved. (They asked almost nothing about the three of us, even though each of us in our own way, I assure you, is fascinating. But this did not separate them out from many, many other American families.) Mostly, the four of them just seemed nice and loving.

Perhaps that is why I did not tell them what I had once heard. At one of the times when there was a scandal because a teacher was having an affair with her high school student, a man said that he thought this was not a big deal because such sex had not been harmful to him when he was a boy. He paused, looked reflective, and continued, “But, then again, I was home schooled.”

And I forgot to ask them what food they would get when they got back home to Topeka. I wonder if any would have responded, “Bierocks.”

Posted on by rjonakait

Cooking with Home Schoolers

I try to experience local foods when traveling. Calvin Trillin wrote that, when in a new town, he would not ask for the best restaurant but instead ask a long-time resident what that person would want to eat upon returning to home after being away for a year or two. In other words, what was the local comfort food. And thus, as a result, you might have an ice cream potato in Coeur d’Alene, a breaded pork tenderloin sandwich in Kokomo, or chicken riggies in Utica.

I don’t know how to do this in a country where I don’t speak the language. Instead, I have found myself in markets pointing at possible palatable foodstuffs and indicating with gestures how much I want. This is always an adventure and sometimes a successful one.

Only recently have I done what I should have done decades ago—book a food tour at the beginning of the trip. That is what the spouse, the NBP, and I had done in Merida, Yucatan’s capital city, in pre-Covid days. In addition, there had been three others on the tour—a pair of medical doctors from the Netherlands finishing their training and–in the small world department–another Dutch doctor who had just finished up her training. She had not met the other two until that day. Apparently, Holland, while not that large, is not so small that everyone knows each other—not even the doctors. However, we all learned that there is a special connection between Yucatan and Holland. The Yucatecans love Edam cheese and use hollowed out balls of it for one of their signature dishes. According to Jose, the food tour guide, Yucatan recently sent representatives to the Netherlands to discuss Edam cheese.

Our food tour took us through the narrow, crowded passageways of the major food market of Merida where fruits and vegetables, honey and vanilla, spices and chiles are sold. (Another nearby market sold meat.) Food stalls were abundant, and Meridians crowded around them for lunch and snacks. Jose would stop and procure the specialties of an establishment generally not more than a few feet wide. We tried things we otherwise would not have and learned the difference between panuchos and salbutes, that turkey and venison are staples, what sopa de lima is, and that mole is not used. Instead, a black bean paste, sold in huge blocks in the market, is the base of many dishes. We went outside the market and had a terrific ceviche in a tiny restaurant followed by creatively flavored and delicious ice cream. This tour, coming at the beginning of the Yucatan sojourn, stood us in good stead for the rest of our stay as it encouraged us to eat items that we otherwise would not have understood on menus. As a result of the tour, we continued to eat panuchos at many places (they are similar to but different from salbutes—both are fried platforms for other foods, but panuchos have a black bean paste injected into them while hot).

From my standpoint that food tour had been satisfying, so going to a different part of the Yucatan peninsula, I looked for a similar but different local experience. I booked a rather expensive combination market excursion and cooking class in the home of a Yucatecan host.

First, we had to find that home, which was a forty-minute drive from where we were staying. One of the three of us was confident, incredibly confident, that she knew how to get to the location. We got lost. We eventually pulled up to a hotel to ask for directions but thought that it wiser to hire a cab to lead us to our destination. We were fifteen minutes late but found our host and a family across the street waiting in what until recently had been an industrial area in Playa del Carmen. After we apologized profusely, we walked a block. The host pulled aside a solid gate fronting the sidewalk, and we entered a courtyard surrounded by three or four buildings, each the home of one or more families. Through an open door in one of the buildings, and we were in the host’s kitchen and dining room, where we chatted for a few moments.

Alma, the host, talked a bit about the history and growth of the fast-growing city. After she explained what we would be preparing, we went to a market a few blocks away. I was disappointed. I was looking for a central, city market like ones I have visited in Florence, Barcelona, Istanbul, Budapest, and Merida where there are dozens and dozens of vendors selling all sorts of things I do not recognize. I wanted to see pyramids of unknown fruits and stretches of exotic vegetables with food stalls hawking unfamiliar prepared food. This, however, was only a neighborhood market equivalent to the ones where I buy fruits and vegetables several times a week in Brooklyn. We did learn a little about some new-to-me foods, but not much. After Alma bought a few things, others jaunted but I trudged (it was getting hot) back to her kitchen.

We then began to assist Alma and her aunt (or perhaps it was her sister) in the preparation of what would be our lunch. Guacamole was first. Alma had two rigid rules for this dish. First, use a mortar and pestle, never a blender. She maintained that blending altered the taste of the guac ingredients. (She did use a blender to make a marinade for chicken.) Second, no lime. This was to the chagrin of the two girls, ten and eight, who with their parents were our cooking companions. The girls loved limes and sucked any they could get their hands on. Perhaps those two were disappointed, but the guacamole was delicious.

We made our own tortillas. Alma’s twist: she colored part of the masa with beet juice producing a red tortilla or mixed with the non-colored dough for a binary effect. I, however, could discern no taste difference in the beet infused tortillas with the nonbinary ones. (In any event, I prefer wheat tortillas to corn ones.) Two presses were used to form the tortillas, a metal devicemuch like ones I have seen elsewhere and a larger, wood one, which I guess harkened back to older days. The product from each seemed to be identical.

We soon sat down to lunch eating guacamole and tortillas stuffed with the meat flavored with the marinade Alma had made. It was pleasant but also disappointing. I had not had the culinary discoveries I had been hoping for. The market was not what I had envisioned. I own a mortar and pestle, and although I seldom do, I know how to use it. I had not made a tortilla before, but I already knew the basics. The food was tasty, but nothing made me say, Oh, wow. Alma emailed us the recipes we had cooked as well as other ones. Even though I am a regular recipe-reader, I have not even looked at what she sent.

(concluded May 4)

Posted on by rjonakait

Snippets

The NRA recently had its convention. It is held only once a year. Mass shootings occur, however, more than once a week. And other gun crimes and gun suicides occur multiple times each day.

Guns were not allowed in the NRA convention hall when Trump addressed the assemblage. I did not hear any protests that this restriction violated Second Amendment rights.

Some people see gun possession as a God-given right, and a greater percentage of white evangelicals own guns than other demographic groups.

Sometimes people ask what type(s) of firearm(s) Jesus will possess when He comes back to save us. However, I don’t see how he will pass a background check; He was convicted of a felony.

I was taught it was demeaning and wrong to refer to a person as “it.” If so, I am confused how to refer to some people. The Supreme Court has told me that corporations are people with free speech and religious rights. What is the proper pronoun when I am referring to a corporation? Interestingly, the Supreme Court in the Citizens United decision referred to the corporation as an “it.” (I have previously written about pronouns in my post “People the Barricades! We Need a Pronoun Revolution,” June 28 and July 1, 2019.)

A physicist has posited that dark matter was not created in the initial Big Bang, but in another Big Bang a few weeks later. I am sure that there could be lots of questions about this hypothesis, but I wonder how time such as “weeks” was measured during the universe’s infancy.

Shouldn’t Dan Feyer be more well known, which means shouldn’t I have heard of him before this week? Recently he won the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament championship for the ninth time.

At a car rental place in Cancun, a clerk mistook me for a famous “announcer.” I had no idea who she had in mind, but I did not disabuse of her mistake. Perhaps, I thought, it will get me better service. That was my mistake.

If we are to make the rest of America like Florida, we will increase the nation’s infant mortality. Florida ranks in the bottom half of the states when it comes to baby deaths.

Watching a beer ad, I wondered, Why, if you have a good tasting beer, would you put a lime in it?

Phantom of the Opera, Broadway’s longest-running show, recently closed. I live in New York City and go to the theater frequently, but I never saw Phantom. I never saw Cats either. I have not seen Wicked. I have not seen Hamilton on the stage. However, I have seen Topdog/Underdog and Shucked.

New York has forty-one venues classified as Broadway theaters. Only six of them were built after 1927 although many of them have been refurbished over the last century. The peak of Broadway was from 1923-29 with more than two hundred new shows opening every year during that span. Forty-one new shows opened on Broadway from May 2022 through April 2023.