Milk and Honey

The farmers market by my work has only a few weeks left to run. The woman from my favorite farm, Licking Creek, has been transfered to NIH. The handsome farmer who gives me discounts says he doesn't have greens--hardly anyone buys them, he says, so there's no point in even picking them. I buy a bunch of chard, which I'm cooking now, to have with pasta, in between typing and helping with homework. I never have chard. It seems like such a New England thing. Chaaahd. Like John Updike is saying it. The local honey guy has still has a big crowd around his stand. It makes me feel good to see a bunch of men standing around tasting honey from little spoons.

Hey, this just in: Nathaniel Mayweather's honey, Hyla, will be on Chelsea Lately again tonight, but with an ALL-REDHEAD panel. You know I'm not missing that.

Of course the sunshine isn't going to last: The Post ran this piece from a Chinese blogger about the melamine in milk horror. This blogger, a university teacher, visits the countryside, where her unsophisticated cousin tells her that the last crop of rice they grew was poisoned by pesticides, so the farmers took it to Shanghai and sold it. She doesn't know what to make of the story, or what to do:

"What could I do after I heard something like this? Where could I go to report the problem? I can't think of any official in this vast country who would patiently listen to me and try to address the problem. Most officials would probably regard me as insane if I went to talk to them....

"There are all kinds of things like this happening in the country. There's nothing I can do about it," I said to myself, trying to appease my conscience.

"How pitiful I am. I already know that my effort will be useless even before I take any action.... I am caught in the same situation as my imaginary, impassive official. Both of us are controlled by a curse and have lost the ability to take appropriate action . . .

"Trapped in this kind of silence and not able to do anything about it...I almost feel that I've become a pile of [dung], or a slave who only knows work but not how to speak. I chat and joke with people around me, but I am not able to talk about the biggest bewilderment on my mind."

This Kafka state is similar with the current cri$i$ (thanks to Professor of Osculation for the locution). It seems there's nothing you can say, nothing you can do. That's an illusion, as usual, created to make us give up our power. I hope it's not a dress rehearsal for the next big crisis, when there could be babies' lives at stake instead of just 401ks.

I just remembered we have some andouille left over. I'll put that in with the chard.

Photo: Daughter and I went to an arts festival and did Craft Projects. That one's mine. Blurry photo of collage. Moon, flames, trees, the usual preoccupations.