The Decadent Bourgeois Excrescence of a Corrupt and Doomed Economic System

[mallorys_camera]

The Angel of the Garden did not protect my tomatoes and habaneros from freezing.

###

Meanwhile…

I needed things to train my cucumbers over. Also, cheap reading glasses. That meant a trip to Ocean State Lots.

At the best of times, in the BC (Before Covid) years, Ocean States Lots was my least favorite store in the world because ugly! So ugly. But there’s no denying that as a bottom feeder in the world of retail—a liquidator in other words—Ocean State Lots contains many weird and occasionally useful things, so in pre-covid days, I would make a trip there maybe once every six weeks.

This was my first trip to Ocean State Lots in the AD (After Disease.)

To get myself through the Ocean State Lots shopping experience, I decided to play a game.

You are in a fabulous new theme park, I told myself. USSR-World! Recreating the shopping adventure as a citizen of Azerbaijan might experience it, say in circa 1966! Behold the empty shelves! Behold the endless lines! Behold the crudely made signage! Behold the colorless, shapeless garb of your fellow shoppers, heroic collective farm workers all!



I reject the decadent bourgeois excrescence of a corrupt and doomed economic system!!!!!

###

In other news, lengthy conversations with both the boys last night. Robin is so underground, it breaks my heart. But there is nothing, nada, niente, nichego, nenio, I can do about it.

Here’s hoping the new phone brings him a momentary spark of pleasure.

At least he and Max have embarked upon a reading project together: Gravity’s Rainbow. A book that I have never been able to plow through, since I’m wayyyyy too unsophisticated for post-modernism.

“Robin reads so much faster than I do,” Max observed. “So, he’s light years ahead of me.”

I’ve been toying with the idea of making a whirlwind, one-day trip to Ithaca. Leaving at the crack of dawn. Spending a few hours with Robin in DeWitt Park. Driving back down to the quaint and scenic Hudson Valley.

Spending nine hours in a car would be worth it if I could get to see my boo.

Here's my dilemma: I’d have to pee in transit, and I have no idea what the road trip restroom status is in the AD.

There isn’t any straight road connect to Ithaca. It’s all back roads, and even if it weren’t, I’d still take back roads most likely because I actually enjoy driving them whereas I loathe driving on highways.

Upstate New York is kinda like Alabama with snow.

Meaning there is much to like about it but also much to dislike, and one of the things to dislike is the gas station rest rooms.

I will have to give the quandary some serious thought.

Max is being sworn into the State Bar tomorrow by a California Supreme Court Justice in a virtual ceremony. Naturally, I will be in virtual attendance. And I’ll probably cry—unvirtually.

Comments

[rebeccmeister]

This immediately makes me think about pee funnels. Avoid restrooms entirely!

Pee funnels seem more dignified than adult diapers.

[mallorys_camera]

Yeah. Gas station restrooms sound like Certain Death to me!

Pee funnels it is! Though I'm sure it would take six weeks to order a certified pee funnel from (ulp) China, so I'm gonna have to scavange the local restaurant supply store. If it's open.

[rebeccmeister]

I have it on good word that oil changing funnels are very good. Get thee to thy local auto parts store! They have a nice, long spout for the purpose of diverting urine. They work best with a skirt. Discreet!

[mallorys_camera]

Wow! YES! Thank you! 😀 (So funny that the first thing I thought of when I thought "funnel" was "cooking" not "oil change." 😀)

[thisnewday]

"Upstate New York is kinda like Alabama with snow."

I'm from Erie, Pennsyltucky--as a truck driving friend used to call it--so I fit right in.

Have a safe trip...

[mallorys_camera]

Pennsyltucky! 😀 Love it!

[asakiyume]

LOLLL yesss, Alabama with snow! So right!

I was thinking about you this morning and thinking if you felt like a springtime drive you could come this way and we could walk with masks, 6 ft apart or something. The trick would be finding a place we could both park and walk that wouldn't be super crowded with other people doing similar.

What do you mean "so underground"? I only know of "underground" in the sense of like, subversive.

Your Azerbaijan analogy is exactly the one that goes through my head whenever I get to the supermarket. A balancing out of world experiences! Now we get to have the "today there is no X at the market" experience.

I tried Gravity's Rainbow and gave up after a page. Some cleverness is just not worth trying to understand, IMO.

[mallorys_camera]

I mean "underground" as in submerged into some place very deep inside himself.

Yes! Yes, yes! I would love to spend a few masked and socially distanced hours with you in some spring-like setting. Actually, that apple orchard we tromped around through last time we met up might be a good assignation spot (assuming I could find it again. 😀)

I'm not entirely sure what the inter-state driving protocols are like just at present. I can investigate. But, yes! Let's make this happen! 😀

[asakiyume]

Yes, assuming we are allowed to cross state lines without showing our internal passports and all that. (I assume we are as my sister is about to drive to NC to retrieve her older son, who ended up weathering the first portion in of the pandemic in the island compound of a South African expat for Reasons, but now that NY is ... experiencing less frequent deaths, she's bringing him back.)