You Can’t Fight City Hall
Posted by Moose on September 8th, 2008. Filed under: Uncategorized.My weekend was full of sun-dappled hikes in the Marin headlands, flea market foraging (I bought the pink teapot, but not the abundantly flowered hat that made me look like Little Miss Muffet), and hours of blessed sleep. (Also, these.) My Monday morning has included slamming the snooze button repeatedly and slicing open my thumb so it bleeds all over the desk. Maybe all over is a bit of an exaggeration, my thumb wasn’t lopped off by my letter opener to rest tragically in a pool of blood, but there was definitely a droplet. That almost landed on an invoice. Which is rather appropriate, now that I think about it.
Monday morning has redeemed itself (slightly) by offering up a plate of oatmeal chocolate chip cookies for my breakfasting enjoyment. My Weird-Ass Hippie Diet ™ may include shredding a raw zucchini, covering it in parmesan-less pesto and calling it a pasta dinner, but it does most emphatically NOT include passing up a plate of free cookies. Such effort would exceed my strength and leave me cowering in the nearest corner.
Speaking of said diet, I seem to be returning to my crunchy roots with a vengeance. I was having dinner with a friend on Friday night and he asked if I was religious. I told him I was raised in the Church of Hippie. It’s true: I was almost named Sunshine. My childhood dog was Freedom. My dad had a small refrigerator on the porch that housed a keg of beer. He drilled a hole through the door of the fridge so he wouldn’t have to expend any extra effort to procure his malted beverage. (Technically, I think that’s less hippie and more frat boy.) There were crystals in our house. Casseroles made with odd grains. A stringent ban on Oreos.
I rebelled against the Hippie when I was a teenager, but the Sirens of Patchouli are luring me back toward the rocks. I don’t have any crystals, but my natural deodorant (“all-natural” seems to be copywrite speak for ”doesn’t work, naturally”) and meditation attempts are worrisome.
At least I ate those cookies. Plenty of processed sugar and well-traveled white flour. Maybe I’ll go downstairs now and get some corporation coffee.
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September 8th, 2008 at 11:51 am
I really want an Oreo now.
September 8th, 2008 at 11:58 am
Your weekend = cheese fries with bacon
My weekend = stale melba toast
I’m VERY jealous! And I love hearing stories about your authentic NorCal upbringing. Southern culture and hippie culture always meet in the middle with hillbilly culture. The beer thing was veryyy familiar. The salt crystals for deodorant, not so much.
September 8th, 2008 at 12:10 pm
As long as you’re not making your own tampons. I’m not sure I could handle that.
September 8th, 2008 at 12:41 pm
Ew. Please do NOT handle that.
September 8th, 2008 at 12:46 pm
No, but you could invest in “The Keeper” (www.thekeeper.com I think). It’s about as hippie a tampon as you can get….I mean it’s reuseable!
I’m really digging your blog. I left Marin county 2.5 years ago and I miss it. Plus your writing cracks me up.
peace.
September 8th, 2008 at 1:41 pm
“well-travEled white flour.”
BRILLIANT.
September 8th, 2008 at 1:48 pm
I had a cat named Sunshine once.
September 8th, 2008 at 2:04 pm
I would love to be a hippie, but would fail miserably. I’ll just live vicariously through you instead.
September 8th, 2008 at 5:49 pm
Can I trade you for those socks? Say some super comfy (HAHAHAHA) hemp leg warmers and some LSD? No? Okay, how about Ralph Nader? Will you take Ralph?
September 8th, 2008 at 7:46 pm
Hippie + cookies is all right by me! Otherwise I’d be joining you in the cowering corner.
September 8th, 2008 at 8:24 pm
Ha! SVV and I used the word “dappled” many times this weekend and remarked on how it’s a word not used nearly as much as it should be. The three of us must have ESP(N).
Also, I was almost named Tree. Or Grass. Or Lake. Sunshine is far better. And I met a Sunberry when I was in LA a couple months ago–talk about Church of Hippie.
September 8th, 2008 at 8:54 pm
I am proud of you for eating the cookies.
September 8th, 2008 at 9:08 pm
Without ever having actually met you, your blog and photos have always given me the impression that there is something very Dharma Freedom Finkelstein Montgomery about you.
Back in the day I used to make a starch-free lasagna by layering rectangular slices of zucchini and eggplant (‘stead of pasta) between alternating layers of veggie crumbles in tomato sauce and ricotta cheese.
September 9th, 2008 at 5:54 am
You now seem an appropriate person to ask- have you ever done that “use a spaghetti squash as pasta” thing? Because I’ve always been curious about that. Not curious enough to say, buy a spaghetti squash, but more a general interest.
And I just got my candy! YUM! Thank you card cometh!
September 9th, 2008 at 8:07 am
You forgot to mention the tofu pudding….
And, yes, it’s true, we considered naming you Sunshine. But then your nickname would have been Sunny, and what if you turned out to be cranky?
September 9th, 2008 at 12:49 pm
My most recent dalliance with the hippie deodorant has taught me the devastating importance of the “lunch-time reapply” (performed awkwardly in a bathroom stall with a stick of deodorant smuggled in in my purse). Wearing natural fibres seems to help too…and so begins a journey down an ever steepening hippie path! (“I smell great, as long as I wear hemp and douse myself with patchouli!)
September 9th, 2008 at 7:38 pm
I believe I have been accused (on more than one occasion, mind you) of being “frat” oriented with regards to the delightfully useful approach of using an old coils-on-the-top refrigerator to store always available beer.
I state unequivocally that I was never part of a “frat” house, and even when asked to explore such, refused. Not enough time, too many jobs, too much school.
However, I do really enjoy a good beer!
September 10th, 2008 at 12:12 pm
One of the first things I fell in love with about Portland was its self-proclaimed “hippie culture.” Those Sirens of Patchouli are captivating, indeed.
I’ve always loved the hippie style, too. The braided hair, long skirts, natural earth-toned fabric, earrings carved from wood you whittled while dipping your feet in a nearby river in the summer-time. LOVE.
September 10th, 2008 at 2:38 pm
I love that both your parents commented on this post!
I will admit that living in Northern California for 6 years made me a little more granola-y than I was growing up in the cheese-laden Midwest. And I think it is a good thing.
September 10th, 2008 at 5:31 pm
You are SO a Sunshine.