Scaffolding and Lentils

The scaffolding is up and Ducknik is in Minnesota at a family reunion. She phoned last night to say she had a burger with blue cheese on it for dinner. So we know she's not here, or she'd have been eating lentils.

Plot loves lentils, especially French lentils made with balsamic vinegar and feta cheese. Or, at least, he thinks he loves lentils. He would probably rather be eating a burger with blue cheese, but lentils are good for him. PLEASE tell Plotnik lentils are good for him, and also good for the Earth, you know, cows eating up most of the rain forest and all that.

The important part is that Duck can't stand lentils and refuses to touch them, so the lentils remain in the bag until Ducknik's gone. She also doesn't care much for licorice, or anything that tastes even remotely like it, like fennel or anise or tarragon, so that lets out Chinese Five-Spice Powder. And very hot food. Duck likes a mild burn, whereas Plotnik's taste buds seem to have been burnt off in recent years. He goes for enough chile to make him sneeze.

So tonight's dinner will probably be Vietnamese Roasted Five Spice Chicken, French Lentils and maybe a Mauritian Shrimp Curry. That's enough food to last the four days until she gets home.
He can sneeze as much as he wants and no one will know. And one more Brazilian cow can dance the Samba of Life.

Of course, that's the plan right now, but the Plotzers are playing the Phooladelphia Phools at 1:30 this afternoon. If the good guys don't manage to pull this game out today, Plot may just go drown his sorrows at the local burrito shop.

(THE OFFICIAL LINE is that The Plotzers will probably lose this game and every other game from now until 2014.)




There's a nice view from the top of the scaffolding, but nothing looks particularly different than it does from down on the ground. It's just higher. You can't say that about the stock market. Things look a lot different, the further down you go.

In the end, though, there is little we can do. It's the price we pay for living in a capitalist system where the winners get in and get out. We'd have done it too, if we knew how. They knew how.

Plotnik's high school classmate Mike Milken used his Big Brain to accumulate many fortunes on the backs of the people whose life fortunes he ruined. He went to prison for it, and now he's out and he's doing good things. Society doesn't survive without people doing good things. But why do they have to mess things up so badly first? Where are the good thoughts and contrite feelings when the system is being bilked?

You ask how did we get into this mess? It's more than greed, and big brains, and fancy-talking people who thought they were too smart for the room. We're all guilty. We all loved climbing the ladder when our houses became worth double or triple what we paid for them. And now?



Lentils, my friends. Ummm mmmm mmmm. You betcha!