Following The Road

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Photo #578: Following The RoadLocation Taken: Western Montana
Time Taken: October 2012

My brain is full of the odd state I get into when something major ends. I’ve spent a significant amount of today thinking “This is the last time I’ll see them” or “do that” or “be there”. But it’s not a sad recollection of regrets and lost opportunities.

You see, where others would get sad, I get philosophical. I spent an even larger portion of today thinking on such deep topics as the meaning of life, the purpose of happiness, the reasons for religion. Nothing overly specific, and I’m not too likely to get into them here since I’ve decided to keep politics and religion off of this blog. But my favorite topic of thought was contentment.

If given the choice between being forever content and forever happy, I think I’d go for content. Sure, happiness might feel better in general, but it tends to blind you to problems. Whereas, if you’re content, you can find all the little spots where you’re not quite as content as in general and fix them, improving the life around you as you go. In the long term, your content state will grow to be more pleasant than being happy and stuck where you started. And I have no idea if that made sense at all. Philosophic ramblings tend not to.

But today, I was content. And I am looking forward to whatever the future brings, no matter what form it takes. I will follow this road of life I am on, taking side paths as needed, and always be intrigued by what is around the next corner.

  

It’s that place again! You know, the one with the water and clouds!

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Photo #577: Pretty PhotoLocation Taken: um… Canada.  The flat part.
Time Taken: June 2010.  I can look that one up.

Yeah, I hate doing it, but my brain’s refusing to come up with anything even vaguely resembling a thought.

So yay pretty photo time!  It’s a sister photo to another one I’ve posted, but you know what, with how gorgeous this particular sunset was, it was tough NOT to get a good photo.

And I think I’ll end this now before my brain completely forgets how to grammar…

  

Imagine staring at one scene all day long… Yeah, I know these shops far too well now…

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Photo #576: Cart ViewLocation Taken: Crownsville, Maryland
Time Taken: October 2010

It’s the last weekend of the Renaissance Festival. And, like I’ve heard from just about every other coworker who’s mentioned the fact, I’m both glad and sad it’s over.

On the one hand, after this weekend, I won’t have to stand around for eight hours at a time selling ices to whomever wants one, which usually means long period of standing around doing nothing, alas. And I’ll have my weekends back. Plus each and every work day is followed by a night when my brain just doesn’t want to function, which makes my posts on this blog a wee bit boring and challenging to finish. I’m fairly sure that’s my social phobia’s fault, by the way. Even on slow days, pretending to be an extrovert and then actually interacting with people takes its toll mentally.

And on the other, it’s a fun job otherwise, and I’ll miss it. I have great bosses who understand how to take care of their employees, and actually value us over sales. I’ve got a bunch of fun coworkers, and a nice horde of people who regularly pester me at my cart at slow times. And I’ve got a lot of autonomy in deciding how I work, far more than you’d expect for someone in a minimum wage level job. It’s also a lot of fun just being part of the Festival, making people happy.

Between the two, I think the “glad it’s over” camp slightly wins at this point, mostly because I’m getting really tired of getting up at eight in the morning and then standing around for eight hours far from all the lovely technology I’m addicted to. So sad, so sad.

Of course, now I have to find employment again… *shivers in terror*

  

Lobster Dinner for Zero, Please

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Photo #575: Lobster DinnerLocation Taken: Baddeck, Nova Scotia
Time Taken: July 2012

As I was standing around waiting for my mom to get through the line at the grocery deli, I randomly started looking at things and ended up watching the lobsters moving around their tanks in the nearby seafood department.

After marveling at the size of their claws, and watching the way they moved around a bit, I got to thinking.

Why do we sell lobsters live? And for that matter, why don’t we sell anything else live?

Now, this is definitely an American tendency. I haven’t visited other countries enough to have notices the absence or presence of lobster tanks, but I have been in numerous Asian grocery stores. And if they have any live seafood, they have hordes of species all swimming around waiting to become dinner. I’m always amused by the crate of crabs at the one closest to my house. It’s literally that, a giant crate full of live blue crabs scuttling around on top of each other.

I wouldn’t be at all surprised if one or another escaped every so often. But still, I live in Maryland, prime crab country, and I have never seen live crabs sold at any standard American grocery stores. But every one has a lobster tank, despite the fact that the local waters contain no lobsters.

I did try to find out the reason we sell lobsters live (aka I did a ten-minute Google search), but didn’t find much. Though I did find out that lobsters were cheap food for the poor for a very long time, since they just literally washed up on the beaches in hordes in the areas you find them, such as, you know, the area Europeans started settling the Americas. It was the sort of meat you only ate because you didn’t have any other options. And then it became a fad in New York to eat them, and the prices shot up, and they’ve stayed up for over a hundred years.

But other than that fun tidbit, I couldn’t find out any rational behind lobsters being sold and cooked live. Well, there were a few mentions of the meat become tough if the lobster dies, and that bacteria gather in the dead meat, but honestly, that’s true of any meat. Perhaps not to the same degree, but still, we don’t have fish tanks or crab crates in our grocery stores, much less live chickens. We Americans tend to shy away from being reminded that our tasty burger once wandered around eating grass, and that means our meat tends to be sold fully cleaned and prepared and whatnot.

Who knows, maybe it’s because lobsters are essentially giant sea bugs, and we just don’t feel bad about killing giant bugs or something.

I guess it’ll just stay another mysterious cultural quirk or something. I certainly don’t know enough about lobster to have more than a basic clue. I don’t like the taste, I find it far too expensive, and to top it all off, I’m allergic to the durn things. Get a nasty headache whenever I eat some.

At least that makes it an easy allergy to avoid. Well, as long as I keep my fingers out of the lobster tanks.

  

A Piece about Peace and Pinecones

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Photo #574: Peaceful PineconeLocation Taken: Skihist Provincial Park, British Columbia
Time Taken: June 2010

I am full of peaceful calm this week, so I think I shall give you another meditative piece today.

You know the type, the ones I don’t talk about, leaving you to stare at the photo and delve into its deep inner truths yourselves.

This in no way has to do with the fact that I really want to get back to playing Rune Factory 4, not at all…