Do you ever have this problem where, when you’re trying to drink wine, the fumes from inside the wine glass keep funneling up and burning your eyes?  So, you try to angle the glass, or angle your face so that that doesn’t happen, and then you just end up drinking wine with your eyes closed?

I’m just sitting here in bed at 2:00am drinking wine and thinking about that.  And then I decided to write a blog post about it.

…I’ll be 30 soon.

I’m sort of peripherally aware of the controversy surrounding this Four Loko caffeinated alcohol drink.  They’re banning it in NY, I think (as they did with Sparks before it)?  Here’s the thing, though – it’s just alcohol and caffeine, yeah?  I mean, probably not the best idea, but people are acting like it’s a mixture of ketamine and acid.  I keep hearing that children are dying and people are throwing themselves off balconies and what not.  Personally, I’m so caffeine tolerant/low energy that I can fall sound asleep standing up directly after consuming a venti red eye, but even normal people sometimes have a bottle of wine and a double espresso with dinner, yeah?  Or a few Red Bull and vodkas?  There’s nothing in this combination that makes people go starkers, so I don’t understand what the big commotion is all about. 

People have a tendency to make up reactions to substances; like how everyone – everyone!  – thinks they get a “sugar high” when there is absolutely no such thing at all.  So between that and the fact that I don’t really react strongly to a lot of substances, I tend to simply dismiss it anytime anyone’s going on about some craaaaazy food or beverage that makes you nuts.  For example, this whole meth thing:  I mean, guys, is it really the meth that’s to blame, or is it just that deep down, you secretly want to develop a terrible psychosis while all your teeth rot away?

What a horror is the need for daily bread!
This eating for life is a terrible deal.
I often think I’d far rather be dead
Than fix up and eat one more goddamn meal.

First, there is the coming by the stuff -
shop or scavenge, prepare or eat out,
The daily task of procuring enough
Eats hours from anything else you’re about.

Then, there’s mealtime preparation,
washing and chopping and getting out plate.
The time it all takes could make a vacation,
if the need for food should ever abate.

Then there’s the stinking, sticky kitchen,
the cooking smells, the piles of trash.
A simple meal of rice and chicken -
the counter, grimey; the walls, backsplashed.

Another hour dies in washing up -
this chore recurs all through the day -
the scrubbing and drying after you sup,
the putting all uneaten food away.

The ratio of food is never right -
sometimes we are bloated, sometimes hollow.
Only once a year do we feel light,
but sated – yet still, more meals must follow.

All this eating eats up piles of dough
Even if we do not count time lost.
My stomach is my wallet’s greatest foe,
It always wins, regardless of the cost.

A proper diet is a ton of work,
vitamins, calories, fat grams, nutrition.
Trying to eat right would drive one berserk,
And, gain or lose, you won’t please the physician.

Many times I’ve sworn I’ll kick the stuff,
ignore the pain and simplify my life.
But in a couple hours, sure enough,
A pounding head, a stabbing like a knife.

I drop what I am doing and I run,
and spend more time and money I can’t spare,
And eat and fill with gas, and have no fun
in doing what I must, but cannot bare.

Mayor Michael ‘No Fatties’ Bloomberg would like to remove soft drinks from the list of items that can be purchased with food stamps.

In general, I’ve been a fan of Bloomberg’s waistline-reducing initiatives, but I think this one is pretty ugly, however unintentionally. Obviously, there’s a stigma around using food stamps, and people who use them say it can be humiliating to grocery shop with them. Cashiers and other shoppers can be nasty and intrusive; people don’t think you should buy junk food at all, but they don’t think you should be able to buy pricey, healthy food, either.

Here, the health commissioners defend the measure in the Times:

This proposal to adjust the food stamp program is just one of many steps New York City is taking to reduce obesity. The city also has programs to increase the availability of fresh produce in poor neighborhoods; has set nutrition requirements for meals served in schools, after-school and day care programs and centers for the elderly; and has begun advertising campaigns to educate the public about obesity and nutrition. Taken together, these efforts will bring us closer to stemming the wave of obesity and diabetes in New York.

They, and other proponents of the ban, argue that soda isn’t food, and that there are many restrictions on the use of food stamps and this is one that should have been there all along.  But the thing is, it hasn’t been a restriction up until now, and this would be scoring a point about a mere symptom of a much larger problem at the expense of people who need additional social censure even less than they need a 2-liter of Coke. People on food stamps probably have other concerns currently taking precedence over kicking their soda habit, like, oh, say, getting off food stamps. Institutes that study such things say one of the big obstacles to digging yourself out of poverty is feeling like you have no control over your situation or your decisions, so further restricting people’s personal choices doesn’t seem very productive.

This very interesting blog post explains in detail how food stamps work in New York, and why this measure would be unlikely to produce the desired effect.

And here’s Sadhbhe Walshe in The Guardian:

On a recent shopping expedition (in my local C-town not some fancy organic joint), I paid $7 for a bag of apples, $5 for four oranges and $2 for one red pepper. Just those few items would eat up almost half one person’s weekly food stamp allotment. It’s no wonder, then, that people would opt for cheaper, high-calorie processed foods when money is tight.

The really frustrating part is that the reason that junk food and soda are so inexpensive (and therefore widely consumed) is that these products are subsidised by the federal government. All these foods contain high-fructose corn syrup, made from corn, which is a subsidised crop. So, while the poor are being frowned upon for their bad food choices, they are simultaneously being incentivised by misguided policy to make these choices. The hand that wants to take away is also the hand that giveth.

How much more sense would it make to subsidise the production of fruit and vegetables in low-income neighbourhoods, instead of Big Macs and 20-ounce Cokes and the like? That way, instead of imposing virtue on the poor, we could offer them a choice – and then try to move past the assumption that they might make a bad one.

Frankly, people need to stop talking about produce as if it were food in itself.  It has hardly any calories in it, so, while we should all ideally be eating a bushel of it with every portion of carbs and fat, the produce itself is extraneous to assuaging hunger. It’s more like a really elaborate, time-consuming vitamin. For example, last night after karate, I had a big bowl of brown rice, eggs, beans and cheese, and I also had a giant handful of spinach, a tomato and two carrots.  If I didn’t have any money, the first thing to go from that sentence would be the karate and the next would be the spinach, tomato and carrots, because, while they might be the most important part of that meal for my health, they’re the least helpful in my not going to bed hungry. Soda costs next to nothing, however, which is probably why it’s usually free where most people work.

Related Articles

• Let them drink Coke | Sadhbh Walshe (guardian.co.uk)
• Bloomberg: No Food Stamps for Sodas (theroot.com)

Thursday evening:

1. Pierogis and goulash at Karczma, to admire the dirndls and wood paneling.
2. Walk along the water front.
3. Drinks at The Diamond.
4. Drinks and free pizzas at Lulu’s.
5. Drinks at The Blackout, where we met a beer-drinking English bulldog named Soybean.

Friday:

1. In the morning (well, late afternoon), I went to work and my friends walked down along the waterfront, over the Williamsburg Bridge, around Chinatown and lower Manhattan, and then waited in a long Tkts line.
2. Lots and lots of soup dumplings, noodles and chicken in Chinatown.
3. My friends went to see Promises, Promises, and I went home to try to take a nap.
4. Drinks on the roof at Berry Park.
5. Drinks and free pizzas at Lulu’s.

Saturday:

1. Brunch at Brooklyn Label.
2. Down to Battery Park.  Ferry to Liberty Island and Ellis Island.  Much exploring.
3. Dinner (and magnum of wine) in Little Italy.
4. Viewing the city skyline and the bamboo climbing playground atop the Met.
5. An hour-and-a-half of crazy karaoke dance partying in a Koreatown room, complete with disco lights, tambourine and BYO beer.
6. Drinks in the East Village.

Sunday:

1. Bagel sandwiches at Peter Pan Bakery (we got up late and missed all the donuts).
2. Up to the Bronx, for one of our party to watch the last three innings of a Yankee game, while we drank in a nearby bar.
3. Over to 190th & Broadway to hang out with friends, drool with envy over their giant studio, play with their two puggles, and walk around Fort Tryon Park and look at the Cloisters.
4. Dinner at an Indonesian restaurant in Hell’s Kitchen.
5. Night walk through Times Square and Rockefeller Center.

Monday:

1. Take-out donuts, quiet time, staring at each other slack-jawed.

I mean, that’s a lot of stuff, right?  I had never been to the Statue of Liberty, or Ellis Island, or the Bronx, or the Fort Tryon area, and I feel like I really took advantage of my city.  Thanks to my partners in crime for your unflagging energy and delightful company!

Now, I’m off to Tennessee to loll around a cabin for a couple days, hike in the woods, visit my old dentist, and just basically do the opposite of what I did last weekend.  What a fun end-of-summer I’m having!

Last night, I visited the new Trader Joe’s in Chelsea, and it is sweet. The aisles are so big! The ceiling is so high! The space is so ample and bright! I am a long-time fan of Trader Joe’s, and I have been braving the throngs at the 14th Street location for a while now, even though it sucks there. Here’s a tip should you be so inclined to shop there: go at 9:45pm. The employees at Trader Joe’s work up to a certain hour past close anyway, so they don’t rush you to get out. You can shop freely at fifteen to close, and it’s nowhere near as crowded as it is every other time of day. Anyway, it’s not the lines that are a problem at TJ’s. Even though the lines wrap around the store, they move pretty quickly. What really sucks about the Union Square TJs is that you can’t get to any of the merchandise without shoving through the ever-present line, and this is not a problem at the Chelsea location.

Fortune has a long, interesting article about TJ’s, but it’s funny that they spend the first couple pages talking about why the stores are so popular without focusing on the main reason people go to TJ’s: low cost. They kind of cover this later, but they open with selection, and the friendly, small-town vibe. That’s great and all, but TJ’s is so popular in its demographic (students and young, urban, single broke people) because it puts paid to the whole “cheap, healthy or fast: pick two” conundrum. At TJ’s, you can get healthy, fully- or semi-prepared foods for low cost, which makes it the perfect store, even if you have to wait in line.

Also, TJ’s doesn’t have coupons or discount cards – the price is the price. Which, side-note, the whole discount card thing blows my mind, in that every single American consumer despises the discount (club) card system — nobody wants to give a store all their marketing information in exchange for sale prices, and then carry around a card all the time — but even though the entire spending population hates it, somehow every single store has adopted this system. I mean, what the hell? Why doesn’t the consumer have a vote here? It’s like we’re all serving the stores we shop at, rather than the other way around. I wish there were some way to coordinate everyone in the country to just refuse to use those damn cards, so the chains would all have to give up on that stupid system.

Ahem. Anyway, Trader Joe’s!

The friendliness of the employees wouldn’t be enough to get me to shop there if the prices weren’t low, but it is a nice benefit. I’m shy and don’t generally like to have to interact too much with the employees where I shop, but even I feel that it is more pleasant to shop at TJ’s then anywhere else. Turns out, the shocking reason why the employees are helpful and approachable is that they are really, really well-paid!

Store managers, “captains” in Trader Joe’s parlance — the nautical titles are a holdover from Coulombe (newly promoted captains are commanders; assistant store managers are first mates) — can make in the low six figures, and full-time crew members can start in the $40,000 to $60,000 range. But on top of the pay, Trader Joe’s annually contributes 15.4% of employees’ gross income to tax-deferred retirement accounts.

Apparently, the way to motivate employees to act as if they care whether they keep their job or not is to pay them decently. Who’d have thought?

When I first moved to NYC, I applied for a job at TJ’s, and I had to take this “simple” math test that included long division (I can’t even add or subtract, so I used my phone when no one was looking). So, presumably the employees at TJ’s must be fairly decent at the maths, even if they are occasionally so stoned, you have to count up your Clif Bars for them at the register (it’s charming, really). Also, the employees do all the jobs in rotation – they don’t have stockers and cashiers, and early-morning truck unloaders; rather, everyone does everything, which seems to work pretty well.

Anyway, it’s an interesting article. I didn’t know the company was so secretive, or that the owners also own Aldi. Also, the article cites studies showing that people enjoy a shopping experience more if there is a smaller selection, which doesn’t surprise me at all. And then there’s this:

Make no mistake: A typical family couldn’t do all its shopping at the store. There’s no baby food, toothpicks, or other necessities.

Really? Toothpicks – that’s what you’re going with there? Reporter Beth Kowitt must have recently quit smoking.

I don’t think I’ll ask her again…

• camped for five straight days and nights;
• biked 11 miles around the newly repaved Cades Cove loop;
• hiked a five-mile trail on a gorgeous day;
• saw 5 bears (2 were tiny, adorable bear cubs), 1 coyote, a couple of turkeys, and a racoon;
• played with 3 shockingly enormous dogs;
• witnessed several nights of synchronous fireflies mating, in the thickest, loveliest display I’ve seen in years;
• visited with my lovely parents, my fascinating extended family/family friends, and my oldest (as in longest-known) friend;
• attended Bonnaroo 2010, where I saw The National, Tori Amos, Brandi Carlile, Regina Spektor, They Might Be Giants and others;
• got about a thousand mozzie bites and (despite multiple 90+-degree days) only one minor sunburn;
• swam in a lovely saline pool;
• suffered through the usual crazy amounts of real-estate envy/life questioning that all vacationing NYers must experience;
• ate at a Manchester, TN restaurant called ‘The Tater Box’ while a bluegrass band sang about snake handling;
• consumed enough grilled meats of varying types to feed an army;
• drank enough alcohol of varying types to drown a navy;
• survived two flights of two legs each and checked a bag, and, for the first time in memory, had no delays, cancellations or lost baggage;
• read two novels and saw one movie; and
• took zero (0) photos.

I had fun, but I’m very glad to be home.  Thomasina didn’t remember me at first, which made me very sad, but she figured it out (and she is EVEN CUTER THAN I REMEMBERED!!).  I have my first night of karate tonight after two weeks of inactivity, and I’m a little frightened.

Entering the fair...

Crowds at the fair.

A pretty big fair, too - it spread off in all directions.

There was everything you look for in a fair…rides:

This ride spins everyone around very quickly.

…guys grilling meat…

Meat!

…women frying zeppole…

This lady was upset at me for taking her photo.

…patriotic frozen drinks…

Red, white and blotto!

…souvenirs…

Not sure what any of these are.

…tasteful novelty Ts for i bambini….

Pity the poor child.

…games, where you can win a half-dead goldfish in a Ziplock baggie…

Chuck's Live Fish

…firefighters, lest things get out of hand…

In addition to these firefighters, there were many groups of funny cops standing around, but they told me that if I took their picture, they would confiscate my camera.

…and garbage, without great piles of which no street fair in July in NYC would be complete…

Smells better than the zeppole!

…and finally, bizarre religious iconography!!

Giant, garish, totem-pole-like thing.

Man in a boat. (Don't be immature.)

Now, according to this video that my roommate found on Gothamist, these two religious icons are stars in a ceremony, in which they are lifted by gangs of fellows and danced toward each other, to the tunes of the Rocky soundtrack.  Please watch the video – it is something else.  Unfortunately, we did not witness this spectacle.

After exploring the street fair, we went out a-drinking in the East Village, after which we thought it would be good to get Pommes Frites.  Apparently, everyone else thought so, too.

Mmmm...Belgian fries up ahead.

We couldn’t find a handy stoop to eat them on, but luckily the nearby Max Brenner’s was closed, and someone had left some of the tables out!  We spread out our fare and felt very clever.

Sidewalk dining at 3:00a.m.! No wait.

The next night, I went to see Jigsaw Soul, a local band that always provides a giant, multi-media performance experience.

Jigsaw Soul

The audience.

The Jigsaw Soul dancers.

Shadow visuals.

Choreographed keg cup stacking.

One of several giant papier-mache bird heads.

More visuals.

After the show, we were famished.  Time for shawarma and falafel!

Mmmm, gyro-loaf!

After that, it began pouring, so we went over to Washington Square Park to watch the band and friends play dodgeball in the fountain.

Rainy Washington Square Park.

Hipster swimming pool.

It's all fun and games till someone loses a contact.

The next day, I was pretty tired.  I went for a long, lazy Sunday walk, over the nearly deserted Williamsburg bridge.

Bike and pedestrian lane.

After that, I ate a massive cup of ice cream, but I did not choose to document that with photographic evidence.  A pretty good weekend, overall.