Artificially Sweet Sorrow

I was in my favorite grocery store tonight, planning to pick up my favorite non-caffeinated, diet soda. This soda is not a well-known brand, but I have come to know and enjoy it over the past few months. It comes in interesting flavors, is only six calories a serving, is manufactured in a charmingly old-timey glass bottle, and is delightful to sip on warm summer days.

I happened upon it months ago one day in the corner of the grocery store, on some kind of special sale, near the kosher meats. That day I picked up a four-pack and I never looked back. Among the child-infested, yuppie-scum-complainer-soaked aisles of the store, I grew to look forward to my detour to the corner of the store to pick up this special soda. Week after week during these miserable shopping trips I have visited that corner, and week after week I encounter the boxes of soda stacked up high, like a cardboard-and-glass lighthouse in a storm.

Today, I approached the familiar corner, prepared to scan and pick my favorite flavors, or perhaps flavors I hadn't tried yet, or flavors I thought Mike3550 would enjoy.

Once at the stack, I surveyed my options. Lo and behold, there was only one four-bottle pack remaining. The rest of the stack was composed of a different, inferior soda brand, and non-diet versions of the brand in question.

There are certain things you come to expect in life. Apparently not included on that list of things are a job that can take you to retirement if you perform satisfactorily, protection from predatory companies, fair presidential elections in a democracy, elected officials who make an effort to deliver on strong campaign promises, labor leaders who act in the interests of their members, managers who can go a day without treating their employees like animals, a phone that lasts more than two years, and not catching deadly diseases from barnyard animals.

To my mind, grocery items that are usually well-stocked in your friendly neighborhood store should be able to go on, and stay, on that list. With all the stupid, unpredictable crap going on, someone should at least put out a warning - "We are selling the last of our ____ soda stock. We hope you enjoy it while it lasts." Or, "Starting next week, we will no longer carry ___ soda. We apologize for the inconvenience." Or, if they are just running low, simply: "We are running low on ____ soda. We should be in stock next week."

Grocery stores should learn to capitalize on the marginal value of someone liking one frickin' iota of predictability! Just one! I was so angry I wrote a haiku about it:

eagerly await
the one bright spot in my day -
- no soda! - hopes dashed.

Oh, and all you santimonious "at least you don't live in ___"-ers out there : please don't put this in perspective for me. Please allow me to wallow like a little piglet in artificial self pity over my stupid, inconsequential soda loss. Thanks.

A Girl and Her Racist Dog

Mike3550 is out of commission this week defending his prospectus. So I thought I would attempt to insert some blog posts between last week and next, bringing the level of discourse down from politics and neighborhood effects - all the way down, in fact, to topics like our stupid dog.

We've suspected it for a long time, but the events of this evening have pushed me to state publicly: my dog is racist. Tonight Dog and I are going for a nice brisk walk in our neighborhood, and it becomes apparent that someone is walking behind us. I turn around, and it is a tall Latino. Dog looks behind her, starts barking her head off for about five barks. I apologize, man laughs. Okay, I think, he's behind us, he surprised her, fine. But then I thought, wait, we live in New York City, not the postapocalypse. These sidewalks are busy. People walk behind us all the time. Just - mostly white people. This is, by the way, at least the fifth time she has singled out a Latino for her rage.

The rest of our walk goes nicely, without any hate/harassment. We get back to our building and get into an elevator. Who comes through the door - surprise! - but our nice new white neighborman and our nice new Indian neighborwoman. NEW neighbors. Would you expect some skepticism from Dog? She has never met them before. But lo and behold, she puts on the greatest kiss-ass puppy-eyes display known to man. She is a hit, and gets her chin rubbed and ears scritched. Score.

They get out on 3. We get out on 5. A Latino who doesn't live on our floor stands before us on 5. Dog freaks out. Barks as though the man is ripping apart my body and feasting on my entrails. In fact - and I've never seen her do this before - she lunges at him.

No one was hurt, thank goodness - she didn't really get on him, just near enough to provoke deep visible fear in the man's eyes - but the man got a profuse gushing apology from me and was very gracious considering an animal apparently wanted to end his life because he was standing there. Dog got some serious yelling and alpha-domination by yours truly.

I don't get it! I never thought of myself as a racist owner, but maybe I evoke barely perceptible tension when I'm around people who are different from me and she picks up on it. Maybe she turns on Lou Dobbs when we're asleep. Maybe the other dogs in our building are a bad influence. Maybe my racism is like a dogwhistle, and only she can hear it.

Shameful Addiction

Confession time: I enjoy, among other non-educational, non-news shows, Jon and Kate Plus 8. It's about two sets of IUI multiples--twins and sextuplets--growing up somewhere in Eastern Pennsylvania. (And those of you who know me, please spare me the argument that this is the time in my life when I am thinking about kids because a) it's not and b) I've been obsessing about shows like this for a long, long time.) So, it's time to break down my reasons for hunkering down with my watermelon slices and staring at this clan for hours at a time.

1. The energy level required to keep up with these cats is amazing. There are 8 children, and they are so young and loud, loud, loud. I get exhausted watching them.

2. Those fantastic Pennsylvania accents! I get really nostalgic thinking about my family in PA and my classmates at college in Philly.

3. I have so many questions! How will you pay for college? Braces? Really, how much neighbor help do you get? Free family babysitting? Do your neighbors resent you, because I cannot imagine that you are in a position to reciprocate? Do you feel guilty as the world population is exploding? I could ask them directly (they have email addresses) but my questions are too obnoxious.

4. The husband-and-wife spats remind me of the sniping between the older generation of Mr. and Mrs. E. I really like to watch it with Mike, because his most exuberant guffaws are reserved for Jon's most blatant public-humiliation at the hands of Kate--so close to home? It's sad to watch Jon look defeated in the face of the yelling, but heartening when he bites back. Mostly, it makes me miss living with my parents. Sick, huh.

5. Like living in Park Slope with cranky yuppie mommies wealthy enough for the Ford Excursion of Strollers, but without enough love to treat their neighbors and coworkers like human beings, watching this show is great birth-control. A parent's life is so different from my sleep-in, late-night, bar-going, traveling, carefree life that I love so much, and it makes me realize that having even one child, let alone eight, changes Everything. Perhaps if I got to spend more time with parents who manage to maintain some of that fun--traveling, date-night more than once a year--I'd be more tempted.

6. All the cord-blood, life-alert (C. Everett Koop!) and fertility treatment commercials.

Awfully Close to Home

Walking down the street last night, I found out that my neighborhood is going to be graced by the presence of Union Market. I had no idea what a Union Market was, so I went to their website to find out:

We are a neighborhood specialty food market—a one-stop shop for the best in fresh, prepared and gourmet foods. Union Market is a new enterprise that is a product of cooperation between the former Management team of one of New York's most prestigious food outlets, Gourmet Garage, including Mr. Marko Lalic (Former General Manager of Gourmet Garage SoHo), Mr. Martin Nuñez (Former Corporate Director of Operations and General Manager of Gourmet Garage 7th Avenue, West Village) and New York food industry veteran Mr. Paul Fernandez. Utilizing our combined experience of over forty years in the specialty food business, we developed the concept for a store that is Your Neighborhood Source for Fine Foods. That store is Union Market.

Sounds like it is not much more than a specialized version of Whole Foods. Though, I will give them this—rather than raze an entire block of existing units, they did just knock down walls between three adjacent storefronts to build it. It isn't going to be a giant gourmet big-box, but it does mean that "South Slope"^[*] has officially hit the yuppie radar screen. I guess it shouldn't be that surprising given that posts have been published about the southward creep of restaurants even after the original expansion of restaurants in the area, but I guess that the Union Market feels much more corporate than many of these other restaurants, food stores, etc. I'm just hoping that it doesn't expand too quickly in the next year and force us to find a new place. On the other hand, it would be valuable experience that I could chalk up to "participant observation."

^[*] South Slope is the southern most part of Park Slope. According to Wikipedia (which, I believe to be the most reliable source for things like this), "South Slope" does not exist as a formal neighborhood. However, as an indication for its in-between status as a designation not quite yet captured by the local real estate market, the Wikipedia entry for Park Slope (permanent link to revision) "South Slope" is mentioned as a bordering neighborhood that has become consumed by "greater Park Slope" as real estate agents have become "increasingly generous about the borders of Park Slope". ^return