Postcrossing friends
Although I have an exploding to-do list and already fantasize about having clones to take on all my work and hobbies, I’ve adopted yet another past time: www.postcrossing.com
I am the sole dinosaur with a 2 trunk-full stationary collection and a paper planner whilst my compatriots use text messages and iphones. I remember my childhood penpals with great affection. N, the cute Burmese boy across the street in 4th grade. He and I exchanged regular mail throughout college, and those missives brought unexpected smiles with into the pile of bills and junk mails for a decade of life. They now stand as a record of much more innocent days, and all the bad hairstyles and hard won lessons of adolescence to adulthood. These days the only regular recipients of snail mail are those who write back, primarily my Taiwan-was a Russian in a past life-cousin John.
Postcrossing organizes random people across the world to send real snailmail to others. For some reason it seems heavily populated by Fins in particular. They seem to love paper mail and fish dishes…maybe I should move there. The strangers have helped me gain perspective on what is my dismal little rat race. “Silicon Valley sounds so glamourous” they say. “California must be so amazing”, “Your picture looks so beautiful”. Ah. Nothing like the kindness of strangers.
An Italian student cracked me up by asking about local famous foods here. Hmm. That would be…Krispy Kreme donuts, I think. I had to respond that quite honestly my favorite foods here are either Chinese or Italian! (But we do have some famous oysters and crab over at that city by the bay.) Thus I have found an entire worldwide community of people, from the 12 year old in Spain who hand painted a frog postcard, to the Romanian M.D., who love collecting cards, receiving actual mail, and writing about foods.
I received my first postcrossing poem from Finland recently (She did include it in its orginal language, alas I am too lame to recreate the 35 different little accent marks):
Everyone who has held an ocean-smoothed stone,
knows that constant caressing
has a wonder-making power.
By: Finnish poet Tommy Tabermann
Crimes Against Poetry
Geez, I was about to start writing this entry and have been distracted by some idiotic banner ad about “Chinese secret weight loss - the shocking reason chinese women stay slim” or some b.s. like that. Fodder for another blog post surely.
What I meant to say, is that at the California Book Awards, Khaled Hosseini (author of Kite Runner) talked about his beginnings as an acclaimed, now world famous author. He mentioned making less than $4 an hour cranking our burgers at Great America theme park. Then another restaurant. And then his favorite stint: security guard. You tech workers know the type- they guy who site in your glass castle and scans your ID badge or makes guests sign in on a clipboard at all hours of day and night. Back in P’s Oracle days I made countless visits to the security guy nesting at the base of those gleaming turquoise towers. Hosseini said that the best thing about the job was that he himself was also under survellaince cameras, and therefore could not amend the boredom by sleeping, watching TV, reading magazines. But he could write and still appear presentable and employable. So he wrote reams of stuff and ”committed crimes against poetry.”
Well. That just struck me as funny as heck and true as can be. I won prizes for haiku back in elementary school, then soon lost interest in poems. I mean, for heaven’s sake - what IS a poem anyways? As a once creative writer (pre-dissertation, which causes mental rigor mortis), I shunned the stifling and prone to maudlin halls of poetry. No way could I be bothered with cryptic meanings, measures, and verse.
Yet now, in my more august years, every writing class I take features the same advice: read poetry. Each instructor, none of whom actually writes poetry, advises me to study poetry to truly understand the use of language. What seemed either stuffy or flaky in my youth, now seems wholly intimidating. Egads, if the words are pared and spare - I’ll be naked, revealed! Revealed as the undiscplined, untalented, wily nily shadow of literati.
Yet-”crimes against poetry”. I can certainly do that!
In fact, that’s it. I conquer my resistance and fears by hereby expressly seeking to commit crimes against poetry. There U have it, a disclaimer. Don’t say you weren’t warned.
We shall begin, with a bit of a limerick with which I kicked off my matron of honor speech:
There once was a boy from Kentucky,
Who met a mental health Georgia Peach,
They went from speed dating,
To talking,
about
love and marriage
on a beach.
Or how about this random September brain blip on BART:
She would sooner throw herself under
a bus.
Than succumb
to the cravings, longings, desires
so curious for a
Buddhist
of sorts.
So typical for a foodie
of sorts
all aromas and texture
sabor y rica
pero-
there is no eating allowed,
on the bus.
BTW, buses figure very prominently in my dreams. Usually in a bad way, i.e. being lost on a city bus to god knows where. Oh yes, in the landscape of my nightlife, I have been lost on countless buses in various universes, always alone. Which is indeed curious as I do not actually ride the bus!
I’ve probably been on like 5 city buses in the last 5 years max. Go figure.
Pie!
I’ve a strange fondness for banana cream pies. It’s really a rather crass dessert in the sense that it lacks depth, lacks aesthetic appeal. Sort of a Wal-Mart dessert in a Nordstrom world, a giant paper box amidst the fine china… But pies in general, Americana style, are sort of meant to be sloppy. Pie is a happily crusty, taste bud smothering endeavor unlike say, 89% cacao treats, fine tortes and sorbets, or even say, a fromage plate.
“That’s NOT dessert.” P proclaimed when my plate of fromage (cheese) arrived after a Parisian dinner.
“It is around here,” I replied. Heck, I can eat cheese ’til the cows come home, so to speak. Seems like a perfectly legitimate dessert to me. I could learn to like Paris.
Weeks ago I found myself craving a banana cream pie. All buttery crust and sweet goopiness. I battled away the urge, reminding myself how darned heavy each of those calories feel when I am running mile 3.
Then I took an old friend to dinner at A Cote in Oakland (whew, blogworthy in and of itself. YUM -o, and a beautiful fromage and wine selection might I say.) She arrived flustered, apologizing profusely for her lack of punctuality. I happen to be be married into an entire family on non-punctual types so her concern was quite needless. She confessed that she had bought me something, yet left it at home in her rush.
“Well”, I said, “Thank you. It’s the thought that counts, right?”
She promised to bring one next time. And then she told me: it was a banana cream pie, from a rather esteemed baker of such pies in Napa. Ooooooh. I told her later that actually, I am really fond of cream pies, and banana ones at that. Which makes no sense as bananas themselves are amongst my least favorite fruits (fabulous to eat before a long run due to their easily digestible traits, but all mush and blah compared to nectarines, watermelons, fresh figs, golden kiwis…)
Alas today I left work early. Due to a scheduling snafu, my probation lads did not show up. Seeing as how I happened to be in Hayward already, I drifted over the Marie Callender’s. Ah, Marie Callender’s, where Wendy and I have scarfed down countless fresh fruit pies since we were teens back in Cupertino. I’ve never had a memorable meal there in all these 20 or so years - but dessert is another matter altogether.
Well. Let’s buy one slice of pie to take home and share with P. That was my game plan. I pondered the glass case.
“That”, I said, pointing at a dark triple chocolate muffin the size of a bloated softball, “is a SERIOUS muffin. Holy cow.”
An older African American waiting for his pies starts to laugh. We both gawk at all the pastries so heavy with frosting that they flop over to one side, the muffins fit to serve 4 people. In my head I think this one muffin alone-likely enough caloric input for an entire day, available for under $2.00, explains the entire obesity epidemic. Then the man turns around with two whole pie boxes and informs me of the special sale today.
Oh. I didn’t realize. “I was driving by, and I saw the banner on the other side”, he says. He asks the smiley handsome Latino teen behind the counter how long the sale will go on. Typically this sort of insane pastry-bomb occurs 2x per year at Marie Callender’s for about a week and half each go. Frightening to me that I know this sale schedule oh-so-well. My sweetheart and I e-mail one another about it so that the probation work schedule becomes a pie sale pick up as well.
“Until like almost Halloween” replies the young Luis Miguel. The man and I stare at him. Seriously? “Yes. Almost 2 months this pie sale, we’ve never done it like that before.”
Alas, I come home with an entire cream pie to fatten up P and I, hoping a friend or visitor will come by and save us from ourselves by having some. So as you see my plodding banana cream pie butt struggling along at the upcoming half marathon - send regards to our frenemies at Marie Callender’s. And pick up a sale pie while you’re at it.
