Corn Chips and Some Salsa

I absolutely love salsa, particularly fresh salsa. That is, there are very few canned or jarred salsa that I actually enjoy. There are many canned salsas that are tolerable, but fresh salsa has always been the way to got. The wierd thing about fresh salsa is that there are very few big chains that make it. So whenever we move to a new region, I begin a fairly exhaustive search for quality fresh goodness to eat on my corn chips. When I lived in Arcata it was Casa Lindra. The stuff is made locally and is positively addictive. I was completely heartbroken to find that CL hasn't made it this far east. Eventually I settled on a brand the Safeway we frequent always carried. It wasn't bad, but it was no Casa Lindra. We made due.

A couple of months ago Nellbot and I went on a road trip with some friends of friends in an RV. Somebody brought Mexican food and they had some canned salsa that blew my mind! I was pretty sceptical at first: Not only was it canned, it was in a pretty ghetto-looking package. But there were corn chips and salsa sitting in front of me, what was I to do? Eat a whole jar of the stuff, that's what. Herdez is a brand which is some sort of subsidiary of Hormel. I don't know if the stuff just gets imported from Mehheeco or if it's made to look that way, but you can see by the packaging that it looks like some sort of off-brand, grocery outlet-type food. You know, like Campbell's Gazpacho and the like. Check it out.We had the red salsa, in the middle there. Now we can't get enough of the stuff. We bought two jars of it on Monday. We ate one jar promptly after getting back from the Over-Wal-Mart. The next day we polished off the second jar. Wednesday, Nellbot broke her fish, Gillagain's tank and so had to go back to the Wal-Mart of DOOOOM (seriously, the thing is friggin' enormous!). I told her to pick up some more salsa as I scratched my arm in anticipation.

She came back with 2 giant bags of corn chips and six jars of salsa. We're down to 3 jars today. I ate one for breakfast. Anyway, if anybody out there likes salsa, give this stuff a shot. You should be able to find some with little trouble in your local grocery store since it's distributed by Hormel. Bon apetit!!!

This || Close To Jail

So Nellbot hadda' get her hair done today at the mall. While I was waiting I went off and got a tasty pretzel with nacho cheese, looked at movies, cool t-shirts, and some posters at various stores. I knew it was getting to be about the time that she'd be done so I headed back over to the get your hair done place and sat on the bench in the hallway.

Enter The Family. A family of four came in through one of the entrances from outside and started milling about the hairdo place. There was a boy of about 10 and another around 12-13. The 13 year old started wandering off toward's Macy's and the dad asked him where he was going. "Macy's," was the kid's reply. "Why?" asked the dad. I didn't catch the kid's response but whatever it was, the dad didn't like it because as the mom came out of the hairdo place he said, "If he talks back to me again I'm gonna' bust him in the fucking mouth."

Now, for those of you who don't know, I spent four solid years working with kids from the ages of 6 - 18. I did so because I believe passionately that, cliche though it may sound, they're our future. I feel our future generations need our attention now more than ever and that we need not focus solely on our own kids' well-being.

So naturally I bristled a little when I heard the guy say this. It wouldn't have been so bad if the guy had been letting of some steam out of ear shot of the kids. But the younger one was standing right next to the dad. There's no fucking reason for your kids to hear such things. As the older kid sauntered back the dad said, "You're just a fucking kid. Your opinion doesn't carry a damn bit of weight."

Then they were leaving. It took everything I had in me to not get up and beat the guy senseless. The last thing those kids need is to hear their dad tear into them about how they don't matter. I've been sitting here for a couple of minutes trying to find a way to express how enraged I was to see this asshole take something as incredible as his kids for granted and I just can't do it. I wanted to show him how it feels to not matter. All I wanted was to break him down and make him feel as worthless and helpless as his kids no doubt feel.

Anyway, I don't think I would have just given him a sound thump on the head or two: No doubt somebody would have ended up pulling me off of him. Since I have plans to raise our own children some time in the no-so-distant future, I felt that doing 3-5 for assault and battery seemed like a pretty bad idea.