Not-Bad Sunday

 I listed 20 things last night and went to bed hoping to wake up around 3, and in actuality woke up at almost 5. But it's the weekend... 

I fixed up my chicory coffee and tried one of the Amway energy drinks, not bad. I left here at a bit after 6, dropped off my pledge money at the temple, and got some Xylitol gum at Nijiya. The guy there was glad to see me "We haven't seen you for a while" and I said something like, "Yeah, I get busy and then realize I've not been to some place or seen some person for a week". 

I headed over to Cardenas market and picked out some things like cheese, a bag of pork rinds, a can of pickled carrots, and a big bottle of diet Sprite. It was busy and I got in line, and ahead of me were some guys buying a case of Dos Equis beer. One of the guys was counting change frantically and the others scratching through their pockets. I told them if they came up short, let me know. I think they got my meaning... 

The lady ahead of me was a Vietnamese lady with a cart full of eggs and veggies. She let the guys go ahead and they continued with their frantic counting of change. I took a dollar bill out of my wallet and handed it to them, saying something like, "Here! Guys have gotta have their beer, it's the weekend!" and since we didn't have much language in common, lots of laughs and smiles were exchanged. The change-counting stopped. 

The nice lady then let *me* go ahead because she had quite the cart of stuff, and then as I got to the checker she said something like it was very nice of me, and how she was at one time on food stamps (I said Yeah, I was on those as a kid, the paper ones) and one time her card didn't work and the person behind her paid and it was like $30. I told her how, when I was a kid in the 70s, if I was one penny short it was No Deal, I had to go home and find a penny. So I was familiar with the feeling those guys had, counting change, and even though I don't drink any more, I wanted them to be able to get their beer - it's Sunday! 

So it was a very nice time, there at the checkout. She told me the eggs were only about $3 a dozen which is good, and I said I'd just discovered that market, and it was all very friendly and chummy. Even the checker lady thought it was all cool. And, my purchases came to exactly the bills I had on me plus 65c in change which I had. So it worked out just right, I enthused. 

I rode back here, put things away, and hitched up the bike trailer to do some "civic duty" around here. I loaded up the stuff I'd left out for the bums that the bums didn't want, plus some other boxes that someone else had left out, and took this, in two loads, over to the place by the bridge. Then got back in here. Now the parking lot is nice and neat. 

I thought about my Cardenas market visit. When I moved here, I went to the now-closed Safeway downtown, also the CVS (also now closed) and pretty much "white" places to shop. I discovered Nijiya and started going there for the bentos and some things, then discovered Dai Thanh and the SF Market where H Mart is now. I was a huge devotee of the Whole Foods on the Alameda when it opened up, but once I discovered the Walmart on Monterey Highway which has most of the same stuff, I'm probably spending more there each week - and it's a very working-class, non-white place. 

In short, I've gradually migrated over to Asian markets and non-white markets in general because I like them more and I've also gotten used to there being very friendly interactions with the people working in the markets and fellow customers alike. And this is not the norm in "white" markets. In those, everyone's in a hurry, befriending anyone there is sort of "against the rules", everyone's a stranger and prefers it that way. 

"All business" as the expression goes, and often these places would even be unpleasant. I'm glad I'd already migrated away from them when covid hit, because those places apparently got a lot less friendly and especially to non-white people. When I read online about this or that nasty thing happening at a Safeway, I thought, "Am I glad I don't go there any more". 

My parents were not chummy with anyone in a supermarket, I think the idea was that they're "service workers" and not to be regarded as equals. That was whiteness as practiced in Southern California while I'm not going to assume that's the case in some small town in Wisconsin where everyone knows each other and have for generations. But my parents a modeled a behavior where you. did. not. befriend. the. servant. class. 

They both could have done much better in life if they'd been friendly instead of "all business" to service workers in Hawaii. I've mentioned before that my father would have done far better to quit the computer nonsense and join the carpenter's union and thereby have steady work at good pay. My mom could have networked and used her sewing skills to get a lot of sewing work, maybe even set up on her own as a seamstress. 

Hawaii is at least a bit less class-bound than the US in general just because everyone knows full well that they came there as plantation workers, just a half step better off than chattel slaves, and worked up from there. As for the actual Hawaiians, what few are left, with few exceptions they *were* slaves to their royals, and they left Hawaii in droves as soon as they were able to. So almost everyone there started from the bottom or their parents did, and fairly recently. 

I sifted and sorted 20 more things but they took more time than I thought they would so I didn't list them. But if I'm listing 20 things every other day that's pretty good. Dinner was shrimp and veggies boiled in "Louisiana crab and crawfish boil" then some butter put on. One bag of that "boil" is lasting me a long time, and it's really nice because you just cut up some veggies and some kind of meat, boil with the stuff, dump in a bowl and there's an easy dinner.