I want to talk about Laura and my semi-annual trek to Washington D.C. to visit Laura’s sister and her kids. But first I have to mention a recurring dream that I have been having. And that is, I can play the guitar. In this dream I go out into crowds of people and I really lay down some licks on the guitar. So I want to know what this dream is supposed to be telling me. Maybe it is my message about eating the grains. I have to find a way to market it. While I am writing this, a gray bird with a red splotch at the top of its head slams into the window in my livingroom. And falls to the driveway dead. This is not the first time that this has happened. But a lot of the times the birds fall back and fly away. But many times I find dead birds in the driveway. The birds become mesmerized when they see their reflections in the reflection of the window. This day Laura and I got into a little argument when I mentioned that I was going to put a piece of red tape across the window. To save the birds from killing themselves. Laura thought that would make the house look worse than it already does. My argument was that the birds are more important than the appearance of my house. Eventually we will concrete everything and get rid of all the trees and birds. Maybe compassion has no place in the good ol’ U.S.A., the only superpower left. Something has to lie between this superpower conspicuous consumption and Third World misery. There would be so many jobs created in the shoe industry just by making a decent pair of shoes for the majority of people in the world who do not have any. Not to mention decent housing and clothes. Even an adequate supply of soap would keep some company busy for a lot of the people in the world who cannot even bathe appropriately. And of course food, it all begins with food. Everything else comes later. Which brings me back to my grains. I am pretty sure that I can make a profit selling dry grains for direct consumption even in the poorest countries. People smarter than me are going to find ways to save the planet while making money. There is really unlimited areas for economic growth in the third world and we can keep our standard of living. We are just going to have to get a little more creative in our thinking. If we can ever get enough food to the percentage of geniuses that are in any population, science will jump in larger strides than it is at present. The world could use a business model similar to Starbucks coffee. Only instead of coffee we could use grains and maybe even a whipped cream topping like a green tea frappacino. But seriously if any successful company can use the market to take over the world, somebody is going to do the same thing to feed the world for a profit. And once everybody is fed, education should come next. Then the whole world will benefit from the whirlwind of economic and scientific activity. I know that I got thrown off my initial premise for this blog by the bird smashing up against my window but these things happen. The next blog I will get into the trip to D.C. to visit family.

This was the first 4th of July I have had off in about 5 years. So I ran in the Brentwood 4th of July Firecracker 5K race. I trained for the race by drinking rum and beer the night before at dinner. I topped the alcohol off with a lobster dinner. A one pound lobster really does not provide all that much food. And it takes a heck of a lot of work to extract the meat from the shell. Which is not such a bad thing. It prevents you from really shoveling too much food into your mouth at once. You have most of the meat under the tail and then you have the meat in the pinchers, then the negligible meat in the legs. My rum came in the form of pina colada which was a slurpee mix with Barcardie rum. After two of these I switched to light beer because I knew that I would be running the next morning. They gave me coleslaw and clam chowder soup with my lobster so I was pretty full by the end of the meal. We ate in a place in the Strip District that had outside seating. About ten minutes into our meal one of the waitresses started bringing guys out to see why her car was not starting. Finally by the third guy, the engine was turning over but would not start. So I threw in my opinion of why it would not start. I told them that the fuel filter might be clogged dirty. I asked her if the engine had been hesitating going up hills. But she said that she did not think so. So we ruled out that theory. Then another guy came out and it started, which had us thinking. This all went on while I was eating my soup and Laura worked on her salad. She was parked directly in front of our table. Spontaneous social interaction like this can be the best sometimes. Because nobody has to suffer the consequences of being late for it. And you do not have to be on time for it either. Anyhow the only conclusion that we came to about her car was that Japanese cars rarely fail. After the meal Laura and I walked from the Strip to the newly built convention center along the river. It is a beautiful structure. There is an elongated fountain that runs down both sides of a walkway that stretches the entire length of the building that helps to cool the building. We then walked back to the car that was parked near the restaurant. We got home and I kept training for the race the next day by drinking a couple light beers. Since I could not sleep because I just finished working night turn, I watched the movie “The Terminal” with Tom Hanks. The next morning after having only 5 hours of jet lagged sleep I felt lousy. The last thing I wanted to do was run in a 5K race. But I told myself that it was the same deal when I teach on my days off. I never feel like doing it but something always keeps me going back. So we walked up to the race and Laura, me her nephew and his friend lined up in the back of the pack where there were a lot of beer guts and women with babies in strollers. It was a pretty hot day and people who lived along the race sprayed garden hoses to cool down the runners. We had to run down the main street for 2.5 kilometers turn around and come back. It was a little frustrating because the competitive runners were already turned around and heading back to the finish before I was half way to the turnaround point. At some point I lost the jet lag and the fatigue and was glad that I decided to run in the race. When I ran past the house of the holiday party where people knew me I raised my shirt and stuck out my gut and patted my flab. Some picnickers laughed at this. Some runners vomited from the heat. I stayed pretty hydrated from volunteers who handed out paper cups of water. Near the end of the race some lady pushing a baby in a stroller passed me which gave me a boost of confidence. But I kept my pace and finished the race in 33 minutes. It always feels good when it is over. I did not get to see who the man was who won the race at the awards ceremony but the woman who won had a pretty good sized set of tits and a pair of legs that looked like they were made of steel. Usually women who run competitively are flat in the chest. Some of the competitive runners headed over to the beer wagon to drink. I just wanted to hang onto the feeling you get after running. I picked up a banana but I did not even eat it. After all the prizes were given out, we headed to a parade picnic to put on the feed bag. Every 4th of July my friend, Manny, puts out a great picnic. And when I am off I can see some old and new friends. My dad came to the picnic this year. And since he grew up in this area, he had some nostalgic stories to tell. The food is always over the top. This year we had roast beef, 3 kinds of pasta salad, meat balls, ribs, coleslaws and salads and chicken. I built a pyramid of food on my plate. And gave half of it away to the people sitting under the tent that did not feel like standing in line to eat yet. My wife’s aunt handed me a non-alcohol beer after I inquired about her O’Doul’s that she was drinking. After eating, Laura and I socialized for a while and then we headed home to rest up for the evening 4th of July blade. Yes since I get so few holidays off from my job. We decided to make the most of the day and rollerblade in the evening. It was to be a informal rollerblade without much stopping or patrolling. We all met at the Giant Eagle supermarket in the Southside of Pittsburgh. About 25 of us showed up. It was still pretty hot with temperatures in the high 80’s. We decided to head into the eastern part of the city and then to turn around and head back into the center of town. Starting out we went over the Birmingham Bridge. There was no sidewalk, so we had to compete with cars on the bridge. After crossing we ended up on the parkway skating with cars going by at 65 miles an hour. The road got pretty steep and the going got tough. Everybody was pretty spread out. Like always I was pretty close to the back of the pack. I was feeling good, strong. The 5k race in the morning did not tire me out but made me stronger. Which falls into my belief that the more that we do the more we want to do. At the top of the hill about half of the group was really hurting from the hill climb. Many were laying down on the sidewalk. At this point the group broke into two and Laura, my wife, went ahead in the first group. And I stayed behind with the stragglers. When the leader of the second group decided to take a different route into town, I took off by myself to try and catch the first group. I ended up flying down 5th Avenue, the main drag in Oakland where all the Universities are located. I went over to Carnegie Mellon University hoping to catch up with my wife. Since it was a holiday there was not many people around and it felt good to fly through the campus on blades. There was nobody to be found. So I turned around and headed back towards town. All the while moving at a pretty good clip. It was a good work out for the second time that day. Heading back near the University of Pittsburgh, Otto, the guy leading the first group came out of nowhere to tell me that my wife decided to abandon the outing and was waiting for the bus by Hillman Library. I headed for the bus stop and there was Laura, when seeing me acted like she was crying. Turns out the first group went inside the University and took the escalators to a long hallway to blade through the corridors. My wife did not feel like going into the school with roller blades on. I could not blame her for bailing out. I thought it was a silly idea not to mention probably illegal. At the bus stop we decided to skate into town by ourselves and try and catch up with the group. Going down 5th Avenue again into town is the better part of the ghetto. People were sitting out on the steps of their row houses like they do when it is hot .All these people got a kick out of us skating past their homes. I hate to use the word poor when it comes to people because everyone in the ghetto looked pretty well fed. But these inner-city neighborhoods are a lot different than the surrounding areas. People always seem to be friendly when you pass by or show up on skates. We never did catch up with the group and when we got to the lower end of the South Side we started making our way back to the car. But first we stopped for a beer along the way at a bar next to Hooters. We took our skates off and sat on the outside deck. Beer never tasted so good. After the beer we took a path along the river and it was surprising to see so many people sitting along the railroad tracks waiting for the fireworks to begin, as we were skating in the opposite direction of the people who were walking towards the fireworks. Soon the fireworks began going off in the sky. And as we skated through the darkness we could look back and see the bright lights from a distance. And the further we got away from them the further apart people were. And it was a nice ambiance to be in. And one I will remember for some time to come…

Memorial Day and I am working the 3-11 shift at my regular job. I brought in some grilled hot dogs to lessen the pain of working on the holiday. We had to work in one of the ejector pits today. And I must say that getting into a tank of shit and piss with cock roaches all around is a humbling experience. Most of the sewage from the buildings goes out by gravity above the first floor. But in the basements the sewage from the commodes is gathered in a couple of big tanks and it has to be pumped up to the main sewage lines and out of the basements. Today we found one of the float balls in the tank broke off the rod that controls the pump that moves the shit up and out of the tank. So I put my rubber gloves on and I fished the broken float ball out of the shit .Then we unhooked the rod. There are two pumps and two floats per tank, so that you have a back up. The reason that I am mentioning all this is because I don’t think that you can write about food without talking about shit. And when you work in shit you know you earned your money on that day. So being the working class heroes that a lot of people think that they are, I thought I might get some glory too by reveling in the fact that I can get into shit. I can work in it but I don’t have to like it. And it reminds me that even when you go to the best restaurant in town and spend a fortune for that meal, it all ends up in a shit tank somewhere and it provides people like me with jobs. Another crazy thing happened on this Memorial Day. While I was working on a float of a different kind - one for an air-conditioning pump, my partner called me on the walkie talkie and told me to meet him in the plaza at the fountain pool. When I got there, to my surprise a squirrel had died standing up under water and had attracted a small crowd. It looked like it was still alive. While Jim, my partner, went to get a long pole with a net on it I struck up a conversation with some people in the crowd. I had one girl convinced that the squirrel was just holding his breath under the water. It dawned on me that I had never seen a squirrel in water of any kind and it looked kind of strange. I did see a squirrel drink out of a bird bath on one or two occasions. Everybody was trying to figure out what had happened. One guy thought he fell out of a tree. Another theory was he fell into the fountain while he was getting a drink. It was funny to me the way people were so interested in this animal tragedy. People were looking for some kind of connection with other people and this small tragedy gave it to them. Hell it gave it to me! What is lacking in the world of T.V. and cars that keeps us most of the time from connecting in any meaningful way. Then Jim showed up with the skimming net. He scooped out the little animal into a cardboard box and we gave him a proper burial in a dumpster. But not before I asked nobody in particular in the crowd if anybody had ever eating squirrel stew.

I taught at the former school for unwed mothers again. But it is no longer the school for unwed mothers but a school for all the kids in the City who get thrown out of their regular schools. Its not even located in the same school building anymore. Its in the building that used to be for the City’s gifted students. They moved it from the Hill District to the Homewood section of the City. One good thing that survived the move were the aquariums that contain oscar fish,catfish and some other ciclids. Another good thing about this school is the classes are all pretty small. As I recall the last time that I taught at this school the morning classes went pretty well but the afternoon classes got pretty rowdy and a female teacher had to separate me and one 10th grader who wanted to take my dignity away from me and the rest of the students and ultimatly himself. And I could not let him do it. I always have to let the students know, who want to play all the time, that a price has to be paid for that behavior. Both now and later. And this day was no different. The morning classes went pretty calmly. One girl in my first class was doing a internship at a funeral home and wanted to be a mortician. She told me jokingly that she hated living people she preferred dead people. Somehow the subject turned from biology to necrophilia. And one male student in the class showed his disgust with the rest of the class when he heard what the definition for necrophilia was. I guess having sex with a dead pearson is related to biology. I will accept any subject in the class as long as some productive thinking is going on. Somebody in the class knew the word for having sex with a dead pearson. Since the lesson plan for the day had to do with classification, I did not see any harm in letting a little spontanaiety in the class. Everything went pretty well in the morning, considering all these kids were thrown out of their schools. The afternoon classes were a different story. Maybe it was because the end of the school year was near but the kids got really rowdy. And a few of them wanted to argue with me. I tried playing a National Geographic video about unseen phenomena of the human body. It was about things like hair mites that are so small our nerves cannot detect them but they exist in our hair and eat hair to survive. They particlarly like the fat in mascara that women put on their eyelashes. I thought the video was fascinating until one kid threw a pencil that flew past my face. And I had to angrily throw him out of the class. For the next class I put a video on about cloning. Once again I thought the film was fascinating. But there was one kid in the class who was sitting in one of those chairs that have wheels on them. And he was pushing himself all over the classroom. So I had to debate with him to get him out of that chair. When I asked him who is going to work everyday to feed him, he did not like it. I had to remind that all the time squandered now will have to be made up in the future. I got right in front of him so that the whole class could here. And I said you can do it the easy way or the hard way. You do it the hard way but just remember that you are going to have to do a lot of catching up if you want to get a decent job. Maybe in these rowdy classes I should just forget the academics and put the film ”The Last Supper” on the video screen. Which is about the only successful slave revolt that took place in Haiti and resulted in the liberty of that country from Napoleons’s France. I saw this film in a Latin American film festival. The main theme of the story is about one slave who cannot be broken. And he rejects the white man’s religion and has a healthy respect for science but most of all believes in his ancestral religion and himself. That was in the time of my awakening when I started reading foreign newspapers and started watching films from other countries. All that left an impression on me. If you never look outside your own surroundings, how will you know if what you believe is true?