New Joisey
So for those of you who don't know, I'm in Maywood New Jersey for two days to visit my company's head office. This of course requires me to make some:
Random Observations about New Jersey
1. The good lord gave the people of New Jersey two legs, for two good reasons. The gas pedal, and the brake pedal. I have been here for a day and a half, and have yet to see a sidewalk. Even in the fairly residential area I'm working in, they are few and far between. That's not true, the small commercial area I went to for lunch today had sidewalks...to facilitate people getting from their cars, to the places where they want to spend money.
2. This place isn't exactly a culinary hot spot, but damn do the little Italian delis make a fine roast beef sandwich. The authentic Yankees memorabilia on the walls was a nice addition to my truly New Jersey experience.
3. The average American I have seen here outside of my office has been...and there really is no nice way to put this...fat. I'm not talking a little chunky, or reubanesqe as, let's face it, many Canadians are. I'm talking "Sweet blessed virgin mother of God you are fat!" kind of fat. It's one thing to have a medical condition that limits your mobility to the point that you need a scooter...but if that medical condition is just the fact that your legs can not support the weight of you body further than from the chair to the bed, you would think that you would take steps to address the situation.

Those who know me well, know that I try not to be judgemental about my fellow man/woman. You probably also know that I frequently fail in this endeavor. Of course my usual socialist leanings are the source of this sentiment but: If one or two people you see in the Shop Rite are a little big, then you think, maybe they should do something about it. Right? But when you pass person after person in the Shop Rite on scooters that are labouring along under the weight of their passengers, it makes you wonder about the society that created, or assisted in creating this condition.

I will make this observation, in the Shop Rite, which is a grocery store that was admittedly a little down at the heels, I was struck by the difference in what space is allotted to what products. Normally, in any supermarket I would frequent, you would go in and the first thing you would see is a large produce section inside the front door that is large enough to be equivalent to at least two or three aisles. In the Loblaws in the Beaches, it's bigger than about 6 aisles and features lots of organic produce. But I digress.

The produce section here was the size of a normal aisle, so one row with produce on either side. And the produce is not what I would describe as top notch. I.e. I wouldn't feed it to Toast, even if he ate vegetables. And it was buried behind the toiletries and the cigarette counter.

Meanwhile on the other side of the supermarket was an entire aisle devoted to cookies. Every type of Oreo imaginable, some I'd never heard of. Next to it was the pop aisle, with nothing but types of sugary pop on both sides.

I know the good people at Shop Rite (SP) are only trying to make a buck and giving the people what they want, but please! Two aisles + of junk food, and one of sickly looking vegetables?

Don't even get me started on the number of fast food restaurants on the street where my Hotel is (Route 17). I know not all of New Jersey is like this. The neighborhood where my office is has nice little brick two story houses, and a little commercial street nearby with a post office, and a Mom and Pop deli (see above), and a little coffee shop, barber, and authentic Italian Pizza place. It still boggles my mind the sheer scale of commercial depravity that exists on the street where I'm staying.

One of the Managers drove me home, and I showed him where the Shop Rite was in relation to my hotel (about two blocks, maybe three), and he was shocked that I had walked there from my Hotel.

HELLO!!!!

Do you not see the connection between the 400 lb people on their scooters and the total lack of pedestrian facilities or attractions?

Seems basic to me, but then again, I'm a white, educated middle class male. So what the hell do I know?

Way to go Olympic Women's Hockey Team!!! Go Canada!

Am I the only one who noticed this?
So I was driving home this evening and saw a billboard which had a disturbingly large photo of a big juicy Big Mac hamburger, a large fries and a large MacDonald's soft drink. No big deal.

But the ad said "The Gold Medal Meal. Support our athletes with every bite."

I actually sprained my sense of irony and had to lie down for several minutes once I got home.

I would have given my eye teeth to have been a fly on the wall for the marketing brainstorming session where they decided that people could lend their support to the fittest, healthiest, strongest/fastest people on earth by strapping several pounds of grease, transfats and chemical flavouring agents straight on to their asses.

Donald Rumsfeld needs to hire these guys pronto. Because it doesn't just take bravado to pitch one of the least healthy foods available in North America in support of elite athletes. It takes an unwavering commitment to your client (in this case MacDonalds). It takes the courage of your convictions. It takes a total disregard for what the rest of the world considers 'reality', and a total lack of concern for who knows it.

Exactly what the White House needs if it's going to win the battle for people's hearts and minds in the war with Iraq. It needs this kind of fearless out of the box thinking. I can just see it now. Iraqis asked to be liberated from their oppressor. The weapons of mass destruction have been found, Al Zarqawi had them all along, and now he's prepared to use them! Or how about this...We don't want all that oil anyway, and we plan to dump it on the spot market at absurdly low prices in a totally selfless act of ridding ourselves of tens of thousands of barrels of this barrier to peace in the region.

See, the possibilities are endless. But to be fair, don't give the MacDonalds marketing guys the whole contract at once. Give them the Dick Cheney file, and if they dig him out of that one, THEN award the Iraq contract.

After all, if you're going to do business with the US government, you should really earn the right. Right Dick?

The Importance of Being Isaac
So this evening I was treated to a 15 - 20 minute lecture by a passionate, earnest, expressive speaker who entreated me over and over again to "Tamino, I got a ball to vote."

Or something like that.

It was rather difficult to make out what this speaker was saying, because the only words he uses with any regularity are: Mommy, Daddy, No (with Stunning regularity), Dirty (a comment on our housekeeping?), Ball, Up!, and Cookie (he is nothing if not predictable).

So this evening's lecture..well, my comprehension of it, but certainly not my enjoyment of it, was somewhat hampered by the language barrier. He doesn't speak much English, and sadly, I only know a few words of Isaac.

He did however walk away, and then come back over and over again as I laid on the floor in the basement, and every time he came back he would make his earnest entreaties, and look at me with the most serious and hopeful expression on his face.

All I could think of to say was "Of Course," and "I understand," mixed up with the occaisional "I know!" In retrospect, that might not have been the best course of action...with me not knowing exactly what it was I was agreeing to. Is he going to be furious now when he finds out that he does not get cake for breakfast every morning, and fed fresh strawberries for every dinner? What exactly have I committed to.

I figure that most Prime Ministers can't buy this kind of training. Years from now I'll be in a media scrum and I will think back to Isaac and his earnest lecture and I'll say, "Well, let's consider all the facts first, and then we'll make a prudent and fiscally responsible decision that benefits all Canadians."

Of course I might always say "Tamino, I got a ball to vote..." and just let the chips fall where they may.

Update
So the commute of an hour every morning and evening seems to be affecting Isaac as much as it is me. He apparently spends a few minutes each evening asking "Daddy? Daddy?" to which Noelle can only respond "Yes, Daddy's coming home soon."

It's heartwarming, really.

He has learned some new words, such as "all done" for when he needs to get out of the high chair, and of course "prune", because the apple didn't fall too far from the tree. Isaac actually quite likes prunes. In fact prunes throughout history have gotten kind of a bum wrap (pardon the pun), mainly due to how utterly dreadful prune juice tastes. Prunes themselves are quite sweet, and Isaac is so fond of stewed prunes (that sounds terrible, let's call them 'poached prunes'), that he often picks them out from amongst the bowl of cooked apples and raspberries, and leaves the rest.

There's no pleasing some kids.

So tonight, Noelle made Moroccan chick pea, cous cous and rice something or other, with Moroccan meat patties, and Isaac of course, was having none of it. So did we give him good ol' KD, or maybe Cheez Whiz on Celery? Hell no. Noelle fed him sweetened Ricotta cheese with poached pear slices.

Basically, she had some ricotta in the fridge from two weeks ago when she made lasagna, and she sprinkled some sugar on it, and boiled up some pear slices because pears are so totally out of season that they were like softballs, but in the end it was "Sweetened Ricotta cheese with poached pear slices." Whoever said 'the devil is in the details' was definitely in marketing.

It concerns me though...I mean my son's eating habits. I don't think I'll be able to face the phone calls when he goes to his first sleep over, and turns up his nose at hot dogs, and insists on caramelized pear and goat cheese whole wheat pizza. I'll be the laughing stock of Hamilton. People will just assume I'm gay, and that the whole "kid thing" was a total fluke.

I take some refuge in the fact that when Isaac was going to a previous day home, she did feed him KD and Cheez Whiz from time to time...in fact far more often than we would have liked, but he actually loved it. I think he was high on preservatives and sodium...but he couldn't get enough. So in the end I know he will not be deprived of "normal kid food". And if someone were to offer him Cheez Whiz on Wonder Bread, he would not turn up his nose.

However unlike other kids, he won't turn up his nose at Swiss Chard sauteed in butter with onions and garlic.

What is the world coming to?

Feline Palliative Care
Chima is dying. She has lost about 4 pounds, almost half her body weight, and nothing we do seems to help. She is, however not suffering. We stopped giving her the antibiotics, because they clearly weren't doing a thing (there were only a couple left), and she hates getting pills more than any cat I have ever met. So now it's just the slow decline until the end. We feed her with an eyedropper, and wonder when the time is going to come to take her to 'the farm'. I keep hoping it won't be on my birthday, but I guess that's a little selfish.

In the process however, have been some rather bright rays of sunshine. Clearly, Chima knows something is not right. She can't feel one side of her face, and can't eat properly. But she doesn't seem to be too hungry, and is content to just get smaller and smaller. But the funny thing is, she doesn't meow all the time, like you would expect her to, and she is purring louder than ever.

She is the only cat I have ever known, who purrs so forcefully, that her purr backfires on her, and she does this wierd snorting noise, and has to pause for a breath. She is doing that all the time right now. Especially at night when we are trying to sleep. She comes in and sits on Noelle chest, and purrs like crazy and kneads my armpit. It's driving us nuts (ok, Me nuts), but I don't feel like I can do anything about it, because I know in a week or two I am going to miss it like crazy.

I know buried in there somewhere is a message about seizing the day. Carpe Purrem, or something. When the whole thing is going in the commode, sometimes all you can do is hunker down and purr. Not a bad lesson.

One of our favorite comic strips of all time is an episode of Pooch Cafe where the main dog character says "If life gives you lemons, make lemonade." He then hands a glass of something to another dog to drink, who spits it out and shouts "That's disgusting." The main dog shrugs and says "Life gave me parsnips."

Life, in the last month, has given Chima a big bag of parsnips, which she is handling with amazing equinamity. I hope dearly that when the time comes that I know I'm not going to last much longer, I will have the presence of mind to look back on this week and go and purr and knead someone's armpit. At least that way I'd get to spend my last few days in a room with nice soft walls.