Dear Readers with Soft Boundaries
October, 2020 I hope that all is well with you and those in your circle of trust. It’s going to be one of those blogs, I can tell. In advance, I thank you for tolerating this one. Spoiler alert: you are going to be reading some election poetry I wrote. This election reminds me of the time I tried clipping my finger nails in a Cuisinart while chewing tin foil. I just hope the poetry does not have the same emotional timbre. However, I am tired of doom-scrolling the internet for dire news on the election; and Covid; and the economy; and our cultural quagmires. I have just surrendered to the Higher Powers — I now accept all with equanimity. Bring it on home: I want to hear the fat lady sing!
[to my handful of foreign friends getting this message — the full American slang phrase is: “it ain’t over till the fat lady sings”, meaning it’s not over until the very end conclusion of whatever is going on]
I follow politics (and elections) like some people follow sports. As a trade-off, I guess, I do not follow sports. I started early as a political hound. I was an active volunteer for George McGovern in the fall of 1972. I was all of 15, but had a man’s voice. I volunteered at the local McGovern campaign office working a very early version of a phone bank. Making phone calls avoided me having to go knocking on doors to hear the variety of resident’s responses related to my age. I have been workin’ politics ever since.
In any case, my fevered brain wrote two – not one – but two poems, using the same whack-a-doodle mixed metaphor. The first effort is a modified haiku; the second, a more traditional stanza format. I am going to start writing poetry and finishing some short stories or longer pieces. You have been warned. This is my first effort at poetry.
Water is the Universal Solvent
I wallow in the tank.
Sometimes, I am the guppy
other days, I get by as the minnow.
Only one thing I know for sure:
The election is the glass.
This American fish tank has a November 3rd
“burst-by date” when the glass will
Shatter.
Then comes the deluge.Will the post-election inundation be the waters of rectitude Or the flood of despair?
The tank eels will slither down to the bottom,
hunker in the mud,
and await better days.
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** Somehow, these poem ties in with one or more of the Zen koans about ocean water and waves. Here is my favorite and I paraphrase from memory:
Two youthful waves were happily traveling together across the ocean. The two were laughing and joking as they passed through the ocean. They meet up with an old man wave, who stops to share some of his wisdom with the young ones:
“Sons, don’t worry about the end of your existence,” said the old wave. “Sure, you will eventually travel across the whole ocean and have a crash ending on the rocks of a distant shore. But that is not the end of you — that just means you have rejoined the water. You have returned to source, the ocean water.”
The two youth thank the old wave for his wisdom and moved on. The younger of the two waves was no longer laughing and talking, but was lost in thought. Eventually, he turns to his older companion and asked:
“What is water?
The Most Inexpensive Restaurant Meal in the World
I thought I had found the most delicious, cheap restaurant eats humanly possible in Peru. There, many Peruvian restaurants will serve a lunch “menu”; that is, an inexpensive fixed price meal where you choose from limited menu options. In the traditional restaurants, called picanterias, the “menu” meal can cost around $3.00, and maybe up to $4.00 USD ($4 = 12 Peruvian soles). The food is good and the entree might include the option of fish or a big pork chop or chicken or a vegetarian option. I have been in some real local neighborhoods where the menu price was as low as $1.50 – $1.75 USD. (5 – 8 soles). Generally, the “menu” would include a few choices for the first two courses: 1. a salad or an appetizer (such as ceviche, marinated raw fish) and 2. main entree, mentioned above. Plus, sometimes dessert is included. Desert is almost always a flavorful “gelatina” — what we call jello.
The pictures below are not your average working class picanterias. The one on the left is a restaurants for the locals. The dining al fresco venue on the right is more for tourists — notice the menu is in English. Both eateries are in the Sacred Valley surrounding Machu Picchu. They both serve a local fave – guinea pig.
I have also been to chicken soup restaurants in Peru that offer only chicken soup — that’s it. You can order whatever you want, as long as you want chicken soup. There are different sizes and qualities of ingredients but there is always a full piece of chicken (again the type and size of chicken piece depends on price) in a big bowl of soup with a side of rice, The soup counts as a big soup-meal. The soup price is about the same as the “menu” lunch: $1.50 – $3.00 USD
Then i got to Egypt. That’s where I found koshary, an Egyptian national dish and common street food. Koshary is a mixture of: rice, macaroni (remember Rice-A-Rani, “The San Francisco Treat”? Well, it lives on in Egypt), lentils, garbanzo beans and sometimes a little corn or tomatoes PLUS some great crunchy stuff on top. Then, the best part of this vegan delight is that you put delicious tomato sauce on top along with some vinegar and hot chili oil and dig in. Koshary is delicious. Cairo is filled with koshary restaurants and they all have the same decor — chrome seating and table. The bowls, plates and cutlery are universally made from the local, lead-based Poisonware or whatever the natives call it. JUST KIDDING. All khoshary restaurants that I have seen are very clean and use matching stainless steel plates, silverware, bowls, water jugs, cups, etc. The service is uniform: the khoshary Rice-A-Roni bowl is always lukewarm BUT the delicious, homemade tomato sauce is very heated.The water is very cold, but it is tap water. [By the way, but tap water is drinkable in Cairo, although a lot of foreigners aren’t buying it. I drink the faucet water, for example.]
Side note: the Covid rules now have most koshary restaurants serving food in disposable gotta-have-it size bowls stolen from Cold Stone Creamery. And the tomato sauce, vinegar, chili oil, all come in separate, tiny, hermetically sealed plastic bags. The restaurant only give you a plastic spoon as a utensil, so you try to open the little baggies with your teeth. You struggle while teeth-ripping the bag until it bursts open and you squirt your shirt. Covid is such a drag in so many ways. This one restaurant that I am talking about here, however, still serves koshary the pre-Covid way – in stainless steel serving ware, as evidenced by the photo.
Generally, koshary restaurants, all clean and nice by the way, commonly charge $1.50 to two bucks for a meal. Oh yeah, koshary restaurants commonly serve also ONE macaroni dish but those are the only choices on the menu — koshary or macaroni. The only other option you have is the size of your meal; either the koshary or the macaroni. But I found this delicious, full-service koshary restaurant off the beaten path, and it charges local prices only, less than $1.50
Below is the picture of my meal from this restaurant. Notice the all the koshary bells and whistles (chili oil, tomato sauce, etc.) ْUnfortunately, by accident I left out of the picture, the vinegar squirt bottle. This joint also gives you a small bowl of lightly marinated tomato slices on the side. Nice.
The cost at this delicious koshary den? Ten (10) Egyptian pounds, no tip or taxes required. Note: 16 Egyptian pounds = $1.00. What is ten pounds worth in USA money? Answer: Sixty cents — .60 dollars. Tipping is not expected, but I leave a five pound tip, a 50% tip, that is worth thirty cents. I am out the door for less than a buck.
That is the most delicious, low-price restaurant meal for me, ever. Many folks will have their own stories. Anybody got their own travel story to share of delicious, inexpensive food?
Pray for peace, internal and social, for the November 3rd USA elections. I have to remind myself of my new enlightened attitude: Let ‘er roll, rubber ducky!
Bonus Photo. The picture below was taken outside of the traditional Peruvian restaurant that has the guinea pig hutches in the background. This photo depicts my tour guide demonstrating how to play “sapo” a common game of whimsy and competition: more technically, a drinking game at bars. The goal is to stand behind the line and throw gold colored coins into the mouth of the frog. If you get the coin in the mouth, you yell out “sapo!”; and chug some of the local delicious hooch, called pisco, or the most popular local beer, Pilsen Callao
