Odd Sparrow, Lard

The sparrow in the muddy photo above was part of a flock that appreciated the weedy yard on a corner near here one afternoon. No offense, but I think it might be a mutant. That's cool.

I call it Snow Cap because after I saw it I went to Key Food where I witnessed the scene of a handsome couple asking a store stocker where the lard was, but the man wasn't sure. I overheard everything, couldn't help it, and knew there was lard in the back, I'd just noticed that blue packaging with the strange heart and mountains on it the week before. I think it read Snow Cap Manteca. So I told the lard seekers where the lard was, but they didn't believe me. They thought I was talking about shortening.

Anyway, I don't even know the difference so I shut my mouth. I wonder what most people who buy it use it for? Maybe prize winning pie crusts. Well, there's no fair around here presently, so no one will be winning anything. But I admit that I strongly feel it's time for a cakewalk. Or is the cakewalk over? I should have enjoyed it while it lasted. I'm in the mood to spend myself into oblivion.

Bag Recycling at Key Food, etc.

This plastic bag receptacle reminiscent of a Claus Oldenberg soda can is the newest improvement at the Windsor Terrace Key Food. I'm so glad to have a place in the neighborhood to recycle my plastic bags, it's giving me an intense whiff of suburban convenience I'm not accustomed to getting here. Of course, I know I need to keep trying to avoid relying on the bags but I usually flake out and completely forget to bring cloth bags when I go shopping. Still. I still do that. Old dogs...

Not so many people sit out on their stoops so part of what appeals to me about shopping there is getting a sense of the people from the neighborhood. Not just the ones that have kids who I see at the park but all of them. The young adults getting their first jobs, the older people who live in the neighborhood. People who were born and raised around here who a transplant like me doesn't easily get to know.

And then there's all the odd encounters that I've witnessed there, including what happened tonight when my daughter noticed a guy on line behind us waiting to buy a roast chicken. She saw him and started pointing, saying over and over again in her loudest voice "That man looks like my daddy!" I was very embarrassed and the guy with the chicken, who did look like her daddy, gave me a bashful glance. What do you say in a situation like that?

Years ago I heard some people who work there insulting each other over the intercom, which was sort of entertaining. And then I easily recall the two times I managed to buy a pound bag of sugar that was open enough to leave a trail of sugar around the store. Watch those sugar bags!

No one ever got mad at me for that, even when I turned myself in. I'm glad for the calm, orderly, more reliable way it is now. Some of the people that work there I've been seeing for so long I had unconsciously given them names without realizing it. But I've finally learned that the one I thought was Maria is actually Gladys, the one who I thought was Betty is really Jane, the friendly manager bears the unforgettable name of Micheal Jordan, and the one who I thought was the Mona Lisa is really named Marcina.

Key Food Wall Redone

It was a little like watching a manicure on a large scale, the stripping, the cleansing, the reinforcing, the recoating, the red reapplied. I found it far more exciting than I should have.

They were having problems with moisture leaking into the wall and causing the cement surface to crack. We have the same problem and I'm having people come over to give me estimates for repairs on Monday. Please let me know if you can recommend someone very good. The people that I spoke with didn't inspire my confidence.

This car, parked across the street from Key today, sure bounced some sunlight around. I included it because it seems to complement the Key Food wall aesthetic in some way.

Wonder Bread Truck at Key Food

When I was vacationing with the family in the Yucatan I saw a fellow gringo tourist wearing a bikini with a pattern so similar to the wonder bread look that I kept doing a double take. Does a wonder bread bikini exist? I hope so. There's something resonant about that, especially in an economy dependent on the liberal spending of wealthy visitors from the North.

Too Much Pork?

I saw this truck for the first time last week. It's just too much pork to see at one time, I think. Also, the meaty blue stripes on the truck make me think of blue pork, which is not something good to think of. For some reason I'm always seeing the average-szied Dorrito and Jelly Belly trucks in Windor Terrace, especially in the Key Food parking lot. Much larger trucks seem to unload in front of the Ctown on 9th in Park Slope.

Pet Toy for Baby Jesus

At Key Food I noticed that somehow this pet toy had gotten chucked behind the baby jesus candles. Was someone concerned the little rabbi didn't have enough to play with? It's not frankincense or myrrh, but it's pretty darn cute.

A Fine Can of Yams

Who's yams? Bruce's yams, ok? Damn, what a lovely can of yams. If you told me the label was designed by whoever does the Barneys ads in the NYT, I'd believe you. Damn.

Key Food must have sold several hundred of these yams over the last week, I've seen the stack sold down and replenished several times since early last week when I fell in love with this can at first sight. These yams that came to Brooklyn by way of New Iberia, Lousiana are billed as being good for the heart, and I can tell you that the health of mine has improved even though I haven't even opened the can yet.

How often do you see such a butch name treated with script, but not just any script. That script is as syrupy and chunky as the yams. I love the way the yams radiate the heat of some premium briquettes. I'm also a fan of the uneven kerning between the letters in YAMS, I'm so tired of perfect kerning. I give thanks for the drama of the Y that seems to be walking away from the A and the M, feeling like a third wheel. And the S just doesn't seem to have a clue.

So, who is this Bruce?

Bagaholic

Someone came across this site via the search terms "if you have any of these qualities you are a douche bag." I still feel like I don't really know in the most definitive psychological terms what that means. All I know is that I don't want to be caught up in figuring that out ANYMORE. I read somewhere that guys who wear pink Izod shirts with the collar up are douche bags. I think it would be the same for adults in tie die shirts and cowrie shell necklaces, so I've been looking out for people dressed that way, with some degree of affection. Because it takes a certain strength and entitlement to be willing to stand out like a sore thumb. I can imagine a whole cadre of men and women dressed like that parading down the street claiming their freedom to be themselves even if it makes some people uncomfortable or if they warrant the hairy eyeball from the black clad contemptorrati.

I wonder how many people dressed as douche bags for Halloween, I'm sure some did. Maybe Party City will come out with the sexy douche bag get up for next year's Ho-laween, which they can sell along with the sexy nurse, policewoman, biker, pirate, zombie, opera singer, Pikachu... If only I could douche my brain.

Meanwhile, I'm wondering if I'll ever get over my addiction to plastic bags. I have an entire cabinet stuffed with Key Food bags, they fall out when I open the door, and when I've got my act together enough to mail a gift to someone, I find the knotted bags make excellent packing materials. But I'm not delighted that I forget to bring some kind of cloth bag to the store every single time I step out to shop. I have a million tote bags with little animals on them sent as gifts for donating to the Nature Conservancy, etc., and they continue to gather dust in the closet. Because they don't make me feel hip.

Last time I was at Whole Foods I bought one of their light-weight canvas shopping bags for a dollar. I know I'll be a walking advertisement but I have to pick my evils so I went for their bag with an appealing rendering of grapes surrounded by copy in fonts I rarely see, so what the heck. I know, it's not Hermes, but I don't usually carry peanut butter in any of my designer bags, that is, I wouldn't if I had them.

Pumpkins Organic Market, in South Slope on the corner of 8th Avenue and 13th Street provides reused plastic bags, they meticulously fold the bags into small triangles that fit perfectly into the palm of your hand. They keep them piled up in an oblong basket by the register. It takes my breath away. It's hard for me to figure out how it could happen: that anyone living in this city would have the time to take something so insignificant and treat it with so much grace and thoughtfulness. But this thought is coming from the mother of 3 children. It's just one of the many eccentric and surprising things about Pumpkins that has won me over. Dropping in there also reminds me of entering one of those so called living museums like Williamsburg, VA or Historic Richmond Town in Staten Island.