Free Hat

They say the best things in life are free, but as someone who just spent the last 35min looking at all the things people are trying to give away via Craig's list, and I would have to respectfully disagree. I mean, I have nothing against a free mini fridge, but when the catch is that you must first clean out the green, oozing molded food, I'm thinkin it might not be worth it. 

There were mattresses galore, and a rubbermaid bin someone was claiming had been converted into a hot tub, though I never did manage to figure out how that had occurred. Free contact lenses-- the person listed their prescription. I guess that works, I mean it's not like they had been used...but bricks? Who wants free bricks? I mean, free dirt is one thing, and free firewood is nothing to be sneered at, but free bricks to be picked up in the castro? I don't even want to know. True to form, though, the most disturbing finds I came across were also the simplest-- the couches. You may think a couch is a couch is a couch, free or not, but these were specimens not to be reckoned with. Discolored, moldy, and tatty, these couches take the cake. 

So, if the invading aliens hire you as their interior decorator, by all means make your selections accordingly from craig's list. I have no doubt that you can find a multitude of furniture options that can effectively infect the evil race with the bubonic plague. In any other circumstance, please remember: viruses aren't toys.

Apocalypse

This recent ginormous, insane heat wave has gotten me thinking about the apocalypse... or perhaps it was the eerie red smoke clouds that have been lingering near my house as the county on either side of my house has taken to catching fire the last couple weeks. I don't know, I'm not a doctor. Either way, I decided to do some research. 

Traditionally, I have been a fan of preparation. As my mother's perpetually overflowing tote bag suggested throughout my childhood, if you brought absolutely everything with you, you could never have any excuse for making impulse purchases... which made for some incredibly unexciting vacations in my childhood, let me tell you. Who wants a warm waterbottle and a squished sandwich for lunch at the fair? Geez. Nonetheless, preparation is a nice skill to be familiar with. Doing your homework on time will keep you prepared for tests, buying the appropriate items while you're at the store will save you from the inevitable: "shit. These cookies need EGGS don't they..." and so therefore, reading apocalypse preparation guides will keep you prepared for the zombie attack, right? Right? 

Item #1: The Zombie Survival Guide: Complete Protection from The Living Dead by Max Brooks.

This is perfect. If you are afraid of a zombie invasion in the vein of Shaun of the Dead, this is the only book for you.

Item #2: How to Survive a Robot Uprising: Tips on Defending Yourself Against the Coming Rebellion. By Daniel H Wilson.

I have yet to read this book, but I imagine it would be infinitely useful in the event that The Terminator should be the way the end comes to pass. 

However, it was not until I found this book that I became truly excited: How to Build a Robot Army: Tips on Defending Planet Earth Against Alien Invaders, Ninjas, and Zombies. By Daniel H. Wilson. 

Going on the offense? Sounds perfect!! Who needs to sit around and wait for zombies and robots to overrun the world when we can build a giant robot army to begin with?! Wait... Those are the robots that turn against us, aren't they? Drat. Now what? 

Hmm well, I suppose there is always giving some Utah-ian drunkard tons of electronic supplies and hoping he actually can create a warp drive... 

At any rate, in the meantime I'll be reading, hoping, and keeping stakes in my home, hoping against hope that this weather will let up. 

Insanity frightens cats, too.

Were you aware that mountain lions are afraid of gigantic people flapping their coats? Because I wasn't. So I learned something new today. We received a public service announcement from the Scotts Valley Police department warning us that a mountain lion had been spotted in our area. It recommended that, in the event of contact with a mountain lion, we pick up small children and place them on our shoulders to appear larger. Also, it said, if we were wearing jackets we should unzip them and flap them around, all while yelling and maintaining eye contact with the lion. 

Now, I think was is most interesting about this recommendation is that we are not encouraged to save the children. We are, in fact, using the children to help ourselves. Now, if the announcement had said something like 'pick up small children and run your ass off' it may have actually made a valid point. However, isn't picking up children to appear larger something like shoving your friend down on the ground and hoping that the lion will be so distracted by eating them that you can get away in time? 

Note to self: If there is a mountain lion near your house, invite over only your shortest friends, and make sure to learn the hokey-pokey.

The Farmer's Market

Perhaps I am bizarre, but there is just something so fantastic about being around all of that fresh food. I mean, don't get me wrong, I love grocery shopping in general, but going to the farmer's market seems to just stimulate the cooking gene in me. Whereas being in the grocery store tempts me with frozen pizza and ice cream, going to the farmer's market makes me want to cook. 

I used to go to the farmer's market every week, when I lived downtown. But then we decided to move to Scotts Valley to save money, and I got so busy with school that the farmer's market just became so far away. Now, with graduation behind me, and apartment hunting in Santa Cruz occupying my newfound free time, I get to safely indulge in my joyous marketing once more. 

There is one stall there that sells only homemade pasta. Ravioli, angel hair noodles, sauces, pesto, all of my favorite dinner foods right at my fingertips, and healthy as can be. How fantastic is that? Also, going to the farmer's market gives me the chance to make use of one of my bookstore impulse-buys from last summer: The San Francisco Ferry Plaza Farmer's Market Cookbook by Christopher Hirsheimer and Peggy Knickerbocker. It is organized according to season, and contains various recipes that involve each vegetable you are likely to find that season at the market. I adore cooking with fresh food, being somewhat health-obsessed myself, and so this book has given me all of the ideas I could possibly hope for. 

For instance, this peach bruschetta with blue cheese that I am just off to try. I have been home from the gym for almost an hour now, and it is definitely time for a snack. I'll let you know how it goes! 

The Title

I realize that the title of my blog isn't the most concise thing in the world. Hence, explanation:

I read a lot of Madeleine L'Engle's work as a kid, and Troubling a Star, was one of my favorites. This, of course, was before I went to college and really understood that the subtext regarding the fall of the sparrow that L'Engle uses throughout the book was based off the famous Hamlet quote: "...There is a special providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now, 'tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come-- the readiness is all." ( Hamlet Act 5 Scene 2, 217-224) 

Strange child that I was, I gave a lot of thought to the death of innocence. Not in a Blake-y sort of way, his obsession of children's innocence and the thought that it would never return. More, I thought of it in the way I saw it taking place all around me. Kids who were teased at school for wearing the "wrong" thing; were they the sparrow? How about when they took their quiet revenge, who was the victim when the downtrodden nerd had suddenly tricked the bully into sitting on a thumb-tack?

Really, the fall of the sparrow has Christian connotations, dating back to the Gospel of Matthew.  There are two, both in red:

"Look at the birds in the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?" (Matthew 6:26)

"Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father." (Matthew 10:29-31) 

Now, what I am most concerned with thinking about is what happens after the sparrow falls. When the ball drops, when the fairy tale ends, what then? Clearly, 'bad things happen to good people' as the horrid cliché goes. But then the people, the sparrows, seem to fall right out of the frame. They keep living their lives though, the sparrows. We look out over the abyss and see them all, us all, the dried skeletons of many sparrows. Their parched remains the echo of injustices past, with only subtle reminders to the rest of us of how they got through it. 

We "fall," we stray from God, turn to art, like Dorian Gray, or to pleasure, or to the business of family life. So these are my twilight wonderings-- the sparrow is long gone, but the question remains:

 What's for dinner?

How's that for postmodern jibberish?