Missouri trip, Day 3: Saturday

Sharon and I went grocery shopping. She turned into the parking lot of Wal-Mart, and I was so horrified that she left and drove to a local supermarket!

Today it was raining. Hard.

We went to an ethnic grocery owned by a local man who came from Iraq with his family. A pillar of the community. He recently got into some ridiculous trouble with some government agency just because of where he's from, despite being completely innocent. I can't remember the story now. Sharon told me in detail. Now I have to get the story from her again.

Funny how much the subject of Islam is coming up on this trip. It ordinarily barely exists for me. Apparently Friday night was something called "Eid," the celebration at the end of Ramadan. Sharon and U and I were walking in her neighborhood, and she saw a man and woman evidently dressed up for a nice evening out, heading for their car. The woman was dressed in Muslim-type clothing. Sharon told them, "Happy Eid!" They were thrilled that she knew that it was Eid. I had never heard of it. One of the most important days of one of the world's most populous religions.

What with Sharon moving to Turkey, the topic is coming up regularly. Sharon is atheist. Her fiancee is a moderately religious person in a country where Islam is the religion, so naturally that is his religion. His family is not religious. But the people of the country, apparently, in general are. Even though the separation of church and state has been very complete there pretty much throughout the twentieth century, even more so than in the U.S.

The market was marvelous. Such wonderful smells. They gave us some samples of their homemade baklava. Mmmmm. I bought a packet of spices from Pakistan. I don't know what it is or what to do with it; I can't read most of the label; I'll just put it in a pot with some meat and cook it and find out. I'm sure it'll be good.

Sharon bought ingredients for Turkish burek. Serbians have a similar dish also called burek. It's a layered filo dish made with cheese and spinach. Dill was one of the main seasonings. It was lovely.

We also did some baking. Ulysses helped. Ulysses found that Sharon had an apple Peel-Away corer and peeler. It was all we could do to keep him from peeling every apple in the house.

Visit to Sharon's, Day 2

Sharon couldn't start her car this morning. She said it sometimes acts up, but always starts after a minute or two. We all sat in her van for about 10 minutes while she tried and tried and tried and tried. Finally, Ulysses suggested, "Try the key!"

Very helpful.

It was the perfect day for the car to break down good, because we were there to drive instead. She called the mechanic for a tow, and they had it fixed by the afternoon.

We spent the morning shopping for knives and other kitchen equipment to equip Sharon with some decent stuff. Sharon wanted our advice. I told her that Don was mainly the person to get advice from. He's such a gearhead when it comes to kitchen stuff. We went to restaurant supply stores and a retail kitchen place similar to Bed, Bath and Beyond. What a spree!

We got a couple of things, but mostly Sharon needed some good knives. She got a lovely bamboo cutting board. She also got a special glove that you wear to protect your hand from getting cut while the other one holds the knife and cuts.

Sharon got a diagnosis of breast cancer this spring, and it had gone into the lymph nodes. She had an operation and lots of chemo. And I think radiation, but I'm not sure. She says it's critical that she doesn't strain the arm on the side where the cancer was, or get a cut on that hand, because she could develop a permanent swelling called lymphedema. Hence the glove.

In the afternoon, I dropped off Sharon at her chemo appointment. I lent her my precious copy of Good Calories, Bad Calories to read during the three hours she needed to spend there. I went to the Columbia, Missouri library to work on my Sandra Lee cover story for Brava. Mainly I realized just how much there was to be done in that article, and how far, far, far I was from finishing it.

After picking up Sharon, we went and got her car from the mechanic's. Fast work!

This was the day we got Sonic for lunch. It was so awful. Don blogged about it on his Blogging for Pancakes site.

Sharon and I stayed up late talking. I slept on the couch downstairs with Ulysses. Don got to stretch out upstairs.

Wifi! Sigh of relief.

We're visiting our friend in Missouri who has modem dial-up. All the wifi networks in range are password-protected. 

I'm in a study room at the town library now, to work on an article for a couple of hours.

I'm sure it's been said countless times already, but it's astounding how painful it is to be without easy, automatic broadband access! Just because I have this access, I feel a compulsion to post. And surf, and e-mail. 

OK, now to get to work.

Missouri trip, Day 1

Hooray! We're visiting Sharon, who's moving to Turkey at the end of the year.

We started out from the house at 6 am, and arrived earlier than expected, around 2:30. We took the route suggested by Google Maps when you select "Avoid highways." A lovely ride through Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa and Missouri farmlands and small towns.

Sharon, Ulysses and I drove to a park with a nice playground in the evening.

Ulysess loves the dogs, Savvy and Piper.

A different vegetarian, but I spoke up!

Folks were talking about making a lunch run to Qdoba. In case you don't know, they're a chain of Mexican fast-food restaurants owned by Jack-In-the-Box, a publically traded (NYSE) company.

One fellow, a vegetarian, asked, "What are the cookies like?" No one answered. "Hard or soft?"

He hadn't directed his comments to anyone in particular, and since no one knew the answer, no one felt compelled to respond.

"Does anyone know what Qdoba's cookies are like?" he persisted. "Does anyone know whether their cookies are any good?" Silence. "Are they hard cookies? Are they soft or what? What are they like?"

Finally, I spoke up. "I'll tell you what they're like." I took a deep breath. "They're made of sugar, cheap corn-derived sugar substitutes, refined white flour, and a whole bunch of high-tech, overprocessed, completely devitalized ingredient crap."

"Thank you, Vesna," he said. "I knew that."

I knew I was on the high ground. My breakfast had been local traditional sausage, free-range eggs scrambled in butter, mixed veg cooked with ghee and extra-virgin, organic coconut oil. My lunch bag was stocked with organic salad greens, homemade dressing, and local, rBGH-free cheese.

There was no arguing who was leaving the smaller carbon footprint today.

Several minutes later, he announced that he was leaving. "Anyone else want anything?"

"Yeah, pick me up a couple of cookies," I said.

He gave me the finger (not for serious).

I smiled a great big smile.