Monday, October 28, 2019

THE THIRD WORLD: MARIN COUNTY

Lunch today was an adventure, what with the electricity being out. Because PG&E knows they've got us over a barrel, and clearly wants to screw us. If they go down, we go down. Which means we're now officially living in the Third World. Unlike the folks in Alabama and Mississippi.

No power means no microwaves, no telephones (because the cable company got everyone to switch to their service), no refrigeration (so a delicious tuna salad sandwich was right out), no chilled beverages, no McDonalds (inedible anyway), no tea at work, and nothing but chips, crackers, and preservative-laden cookies.

No, I wasn't looking forward to a tuna salad sandwich, but I would've liked being able to look at it and then decide to abstain.


On Saturday I enjoyed a delicious burrito, while the power in Marin was still on. A welcome change from the alleged edibles at the local convenience store. And I wonder what the gentlemen who run that place ate themselves today, given that their refrigerators and microwave were also out. So no dhal, no makai di roti, no murgh makhanwalla, no rajmash, no sarson da saag, no luchadar paratha, no achari maans.

No dabbawalla.

Everyone's emergency survival kit should have these four items: Bottled water. Spam. Dry biscuits. Stool softner. One of the regulars told me he believed that he had thought of everything. Until he discovered that the coffee beans were not ground. No coffee till the lights go back on.

I advised him to get stoolsoftner.

I left Mississippabama before night fell. Fixed up eggplant curry with koftas and chilies, over rice stick noodles. Plus coffee.


Here in SF we still have power. We can watch the coming hunger games in the rest of Northern California on our teevees. While noshing on bags of microwave popcorn, and frozen pizza.


Joy.




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3 comments:

Uruguay Man said...

You write:

On Saturday I enjoyed a delicious burrito, while the power in Marin was still on.

What use is power on the Shabbat? You can't use it, anyway. You're shomer shabbat, aren't you?

The back of the hill said...

Not shomer shabbat. Because not Jewish. The hours of this blog ARE shomerdik, as a courtesy to several of my readers, which by now is a personal minhag.

The back of the hill said...

No posting between tea time on Friday and nightfall on Saturday.

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