Ripe

.

The apricots have mostly all tumbled off the tree. This year, I decided I was going to retrieve some of them. I ate some, I dried an armful, I made apricot-ginger chutney. It’s very good. The ginger gives it a nice bite. It also includes an entire onion so it’s sweet and savory. Yes, there are raisins too .


I put an apple in a paper bag to speed up ripening. There were still too many left so I gave a bag to some friends.

The gardeners who used to live here also left us two blueberry bushes which are now ripening. We put netting over them so the birds don’t eat them all and bits of aluminum foil here and there because we see a practice like that up at some of the Sonoma vineyards.

Got to keep up the antioxidant intake in these stressful times.


We’ve eaten an entire bowl already.



Posted in Modern Life Musings | Tagged | Leave a comment

Loot

I’ve shopped at the Walgreens on Broadway in Oakland. Many times. It’s across the street from City Hall, around the block from the Federal Building, a few blocks down from the University of California Office of the President.

I’ve bought Zyrtec there for my allergies, readers the day I couldn’t find my glasses, vitamins, a lipstick that I still have never worn. But I’ve never bought toilet paper there, and if I was granted a five or ten minute free shopping spree, I wouldn’t bother with the paper products aisle.

I saw pictures from the recent protests in Oakland when there was some looting. We don’t need to debate who smashed the windows – antifa, a protester, the boogaloo bois?

I saw two photos of young black men in hoodies, maybe they were teens, emerging from Walgreens with their arms full. The loot under one arm of each of them was a fourpack or two of toilet paper. I was stunned.

My response is to join the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. It’s been around since 1909.

Posted in Modern Life Musings | Tagged | Leave a comment