Turning over a new leaf

I seem to be dealing with my breakup by eating a lot of pizza, toast, peanut butter, and ice cream.  So today I went to Berkeley Bowl determined to turn my eating habits around.  Here is the inventory:

• Zucchini
• Crookneck squash
• Tofu
• Tomatoes
• Corn on the cob (midwestern comfort food -- just husking it makes me happy)

• Bananas
• Strawberries
• Blueberries
• Mango

• Orange juice (for the screwdrivers)

I'm promising myself greens, salad fixings, and peaches in the future.

Not that I'm going to stop with the ice cream; I'll just have some healthy stuff in me first.

Love that rotten city

I had a surge of love for my little city tonight. I got home from work late thinking, "I want pizza for dinner." My choice was frozen Trader Joe's ... or Rotten City Pizza up the street. Until now, believe it or not, aside from driving by the Emeryville Public Market for a box of grease one night, I have not gone out to dinner after work. In my former home, I would make a quick take-out call and stroll down the street to pick it up. Here, not so many take-out opportunities. Plus ever since I've moved in it's been winter, and therefore dark when I get home, decreasing my desire to go for a stroll.

Well, it was dark tonight, too, but maybe not totally dark, and it had been light out recently. I strolled the block-and-a-half to Rotten City PIzza, enjoying the warm night (warm -- maybe that's why I hadn't gone out in the evening -- was it too cold?). As I approached, the door swung shut.

They were so sweet. The guy let me in, led me into the kitchen where they'd piled up the leftover cold pizza slices, and gave me a tour of the pile. He let me take my pick (one mozzarella/ricotta/pesto/arugula, one mushroom), packed it in a bag, and handed it to me at no charge. OK, you can think of all the reasons why he might not have charged me, but it was a very small town-feeling experience.

Snapshots from Miami

1.
You know you're at a good conference when, after the evening reception, one of your hosts quietly suggests that she'd rather order pizza delivery than find a place to go to dinner; an hour later finds 25 colleagues sitting on the veranda in a row, staring up above the palm trees at the lunar eclipse as it weaves in and out of the cloud cover ("Is it gone?"  "No, it's just behind a cloud.").  We ordered the pizza from a local place at 9:15, chatted joyfully, relaxed, as friendly colleagues and collegial friends.  The pizza arrived at 10:30.  Aside from being really hungry, we didn't even notice the time.

2.
My hotel has a bathroom the size of a postage stamp, but they don't hold back on the towels.  In addition to the towels hanging on the rack, they provide is a stack of three (bath towel, hand towel, and washcloth) on the shelf behind the toilet.   Since I need every surface I can get, when I arrived I took this lovely stack and moved it to the wireframe shelf in the closet.

The next afternoon I returned to my room to find that housekeeping had restocked me -- towel rack, plus a bath towel, hand towel, and washcloth nicely stacked on the shelf behind the toilet.  I took this lovely stack and moved it to the wireframe shelf in the closet next to the first stack.

That evening I returned to my room to find that housekeeping had restocked me again -- I hadn't touched the towel rack, but they gave me a bath towel, hand towel, and washcloth nicely stacked on the shelf behind the toilet.  I took this lovely stack and moved it to the wireframe shelf in the closet, placing it next to the first two stacks.  What did housekeeping think I was doing with all these towels?  I wrote a note and put it on the shelf behind the toilet: "No more towels, please.  (I put them in the closet.)"  I figured that even a Spanish-speaking person would understand "No more towels, please."  

Today I returned to my room at lunchtime to find that housekeeping had restocked me again.  They'd place the stack (not so pretty today) right on top of my note.  So I took this fourth stack and put it in the closet on a new shelf, since the first shelf was full.  I used babelfish to translate my note, and I made it into a little tent so it would be more obvious: "No mas de toalles, por favor. Estan en al armario."  We'll see what happens tomorrow.

3.
Miami Herald headline today: Castro Resigns: WHAT NEXT?"  And the teaser above the masthead: "State board approves teaching of evolution."  A big day for Florida.