Things you learned but wished you hadn't...

You can't help but wonder what your kids have learned that you wished you hadn't taught them, if, of course, you have kids. 

Everyone says he or she won't commit the same mistakes one's parents made, and that may be right.  But rest assured, you'll make a whole batch of new mistakes and few of the old ones.

I can remember wandering around high school from class to class with a frown on my face because I thought that's the way people usually looked.  That's because my mother had a permanent frown from having to deal with my dad.  I can remember times when she had lots of fun, would dance to her favorite records, have parties and be enthusiastic.  As time went by, especially after we lived in Michigan, it all went away. 

One time I asked her why she hadn't divorced Dad, and she had a number of pretty good reasons, but I've always wondered if any of them had been worth giving up her joy in life.  You can't judge someone's reasons for doing things or not doing things if you haven't lived in that person's skin, so all I can do is speculate. 

Mom had a stream of complaints about Dad, her friends, other people's problems, as if she simply couldn't get by without finding some place to express an anger that surely had nothing to do with the things that bothered her.  She never put a stop to Dad's snide remarks made in public by answering him in public--a sure-fire way of short-circuiting people who try to hide behind good manners and decorum in order to get a jab in here or there without fearing a response.  Most people won't snap back at you in public, thus the protection. 

Once, after Mom had gone into the endless supplies of her best friend's faults, idiocies, and problems of the friend's own making, I asked her how this person could be her best friend if she was such a dolt and a pest.  The question seemed to leave her speechless for a minute or two, as if she had never wondered about that herself. 

I'm thankful I managed to get past that unfortunate style of relating to people; some of my friends are so different from me that it is puzzling how we get along at all, but we set everything else aside--political, religious, or family attitudes--and they just don't seem to matter.  A person can spout all kinds of silliness, but if the individual acts with a generous, caring spirit, what do the opinions matter?  As we say in Spanish, "Obras son amores", or it's what you do that shows your soul, not what you say.  Words are powerful, but they can also be cheap.

Again...

And so it begins again.

The unannounced policy of the state government of diminishing the military presence in the state and replacing it with the new state police is having the consequences anyone with two neurons still firing could have predicted: organized crime.

At our quinta, people began watching the house from vehicles, planning something--robbery, kidnapping, who knows?  The first problem was trying to report this activity.  The so-called emergency number didn't even answer; the state police number was "restricted".  The army and the marines did anwer their phones and take down our information, but they obviously have to report incidents of this kind to the state command center (yes, it works), which sent out state police who have been patrolling the countryside around the quinta for several days now.

Yesterday a man was kidnapped by a ski-masked commando from an upscale butcher shop on one of the main streets in our township, supposedly the safest one in the state.  But thanks to the epic stupidity of our state government at all levels, thanks to a do-nothing national congress (you think the U.S. congress is bad?  You aint seen nothin' yet!), municipal and state governments have become indebted for the next several decades.  We have police patrols that are out of action due to lack of maintenance.  It took the police fifteen minutes to show up at the butcher shop yesterday even though it is a scarce few blocks from police headquarters--one patrol, one policeman.  Fortunately the anti-kidnapping unit is in action, and they are the only ones who seem to capture criminals and rescue victims now that the army and the marines are in the back seat.  Some suspect they aren't even in the car any longer...

But let's talk about the state police.  This new, "elite" police corps has around 2500 people at the very most; it is well-equipped so far.  Unfortunately, some of its members have been involved in theft, in rape, and in kidnapping and assassination of a kidnapping victim.  I don't care how many people, victims themselves of an almost mythical level of wishful thinking, claim that these are just a few rotten apples, there is rot and then there is massive, horrendous, unimaginable decomposition that stinks to high heaven and beyond.  You can't claim to be using filters and high-level training when you wind up with members of a police force that are psychopaths.

The only thing standing between the citizenry of this country and the law of the jungle is the military.  The reason, of course, it that Mexico is next to the most prolific user of legal and illegal drugs in the world.  With breath-taking hypocrisy the United States thinks it can threaten Mexico with reprisals if we legalize marijuana here when there state after state is doing just that--legalizing it.  Didn't the U.S. learn anything from the Prohibition era?  Or does it not matter as long as the bloodshed is happening across the border and not within the U.S.?

There is a saying in Spanish: "Poor Mexico, so close to the U.S. and so far from God."  Maybe the two conditions are inevitably connected.

Misadventures with sourdough

This is the second time I have attempted to produce sourdough starter.  The first time, foolishly, I followed some idiot's instructions that were based on capturing "natural" yeast spores from the air in a batch of flour and water.  You capture stuff, all right, but I don't think it was sourdough yeast.  Some of it could even be seen with the naked eye, and when that happens, you'd better suspect it isn't yeast, natural or otherwise.

So I ordered some starter from a company that has the original San Francisco strain.  I followed the directions to the letter, and at first, the mixture of starter, flour and water bubbled and popped away just beautifully. 

By day two, however, all was not well.  You have to keep feeding this mixture as if it were some kind of damned pet--a very delicate, not particularly healthy pet that needs plenty of vet care and lots of love.  Something went wrong and the mixture developed a smell that was between tangy and god-awful.  There were some desultory bubbles making their way to the surface, sort of like swamp gas. A dark, watery liquid covered the surface too, and anyone wanting to make bread with this junk surely risked poisoning from who-knows-what bacteria.

So in order not to waste any more bread flour feeding this unspeakable mass, out it went.  You can't get sourdough bread in Mexico.  That means no sourdough biscuits, no sourdough pancakes...

However, there is a webpage that offers starter free from some guy who has, according to the users, the best starter in the world, a lively, bubbly, tangy product almost guaranteed...Problem is, if I send in my self-addressed, stamped envelope, there is no way customs is going to let through a suspicious envelope containing a slightly damp mixture of flour and some kind of white powder.