Daily Kup (My Life Circling the Fringe of the Working World)I applied for a job today. It's been a long time since I ran into something paid that sounded like I wanted to do it. This is a part-time telecommuting Engineering contract position setting up and administering a supplier quality function for the medical industry. Every word in there screams "Me!" I only hope that the hiring manager is hearing the same thing.
I am never going back to 70 hours per week of gut-crushing nonsense unless it was a short-term contract to reduce debt load. But for an sentence of undetermined length? Nope. Been there, done that. Done that. Done that. Finally learned.Pardon me. Are You Eating My Canvas Shopping Bag?
I've been shopping a lot in health food stores and co-ops recently. In addition to the quest for a healthier and more peaceful life, one reason for the shift is that my fluffy vest and sensible shoes do not look a bit out of place. If I had a mullet with a braid, I'd look like half the guys and a quarter of the women in there. I think they are women anyway.
I've been shopping a lot in health food stores and co-ops recently. In addition to the quest for a healthier and more peaceful life, one reason for the shift is that my fluffy vest and sensible shoes do not look a bit out of place. If I had a mullet with a braid, I'd look like half the guys and a quarter of the women in there. I think they are women anyway.
There are no fat people in health food stores. Go and look for yourself. Old people -- check. College students -- check. Denim and flannel -- check and check. Fat people -- not so much.
I'm a shareholder in the local co-op and my investment brought in about ten bucks last year. But so did my savings account.
It's a beautiful store where everything costs about half again what it should, other than the freshly baked bread which is awesome in the original sense of the word. It's enough to remind you that bread is actually food and not merely a fibrous delivery vehicle.
More mainstream (in that they have paper bags and don't stare at you if you forgot your canvas bag) is Trader Joe's, a grocery store not so far off the beaten path that shoes are unnecessary. Yes, it attracts the Birkenstock crowd but manages to be cool as well. And the prices are reasonable if you are a careful shopper. My husband is often reluctant to enter stores like this because he says that the food is not identifiable. He is not a fruit or vegetable person. He feels that the tomato sauce on pizza is sufficient vegetation for anyone. Of edible flora, he recognizes apples, bananas, strawberries, corn, potatoes, and green beans. Of those, he likes potatoes and corn.
The bakery is in the far back corner so I managed to lure him that far, though his exclamation of "What the hell is carob?" reverberated off the smoothie counter.
I liked to claim that these are all normal foods but produced without pesticides, artificial additives, penned animals or enslaved workers. Then I see products like this.Druid Circles? They are oatmeal cookies. No druids were harmed in the making of these cookies.
In pursuit of today's new experience, I bought the vanilla hemp drink. Seth Rogen and Woody Harrelson helped me carry it to the car. To quote the carton: Hemp seeds are a natural source of omega-3 ALA -- a good-for-you Essential Fatty Acid. This silky smooth beverage is also an excellent source of calcium and a good source of vitamin D, making it a good choice for those looking for a dairy alternative. As you bring the cup up to your lips, you smell the stuff when the cup is about three inches away. It smells like a vanilla candle melting a drycleaning bag. The smell is worse than the taste, and the taste reminds me of licking the dried grass (the lawn kind) caked on the bottom of a lawn mower. It is smooth however.
My doctor told me to lay off the cow milk unless I want more kidney stones. I guess you can say that I have a prescription for medical hemp drink. I got it from Willie Nelson.
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4 comments:
"Hemp Drink?"
So some clever stoner with a marketing degree (but I repeat myself) finally figured out something useful to do with his seeds and stems?
Back before "lo-carb" diets were popular, the ONLY place I could find low carb bread was the "Good Food" store. Yeah, the loaf of poorly-risen sawdust was $5, but it DID help put and end to the dreams of peanut butter toast that plagued my carb-starved sleep in the same manner that Cheerleaders once did. My leather motorcycle jacket, and pickup truck looked decidedly out of place among the (literally) unwashed aging hippies that loitered in the shop. Blank stares and furtive glances only once gave way to an under-the-breath "Oppressor" epithet.
I was curious about the advertised "Organic Free-Trade Toilet Paper" they sold. But never enough to find out exactly what that meant. Did organic mean they shied away from that synthetic TP made from fiberglass and old tires (wouldn't that be a positive? Recycled and all)? Or was it from "free-range" trees that had to be chased down before being ground into pulp? As for "Free-Trade," considering the price they charged for it, I don't think that free means what they think it does.
Larry in Rochester
I've seen the Hemp Drink marketed alternatively (and is there any other way?) as "Hemp Milk." Try wrapping your mind around the literal process of milking hemp! And such tiny stools for the seeds.
I had a friend back in the military-industrial complex in the old plowshares-into-swords days who bought a house with a shag carpet in the basement. The carpeting was very nasty and he and his wife pulled it up and dragged it into the backyard. It sat out there all winter and, in springtime, bloomed into a small forest of pot plants. They grew prolifically and stubbornly. Concerned for his security clearance, he weeded, mowed, and poisoned the things only to have more sprout.
And here I was under the impression that they were a particular tricky species to cultivate.
Almost all of my life has been spent in two or more of these categories at the same time: without funding, nerdy, with a security clearance, having kids around, grindingly busy. Hence, I don't really know. I'm a dismal representative of my generation.
This reminds me of a dinner conversation on the same subject that I once heard among octogenarians at a nursing home and their interesting houseplants. I'm putting it in my Blog Log to find a hook and post later. It's not as good as the poppy story but it's revealing.
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