November 2003 – Beans for Breakfast

Weblog Reading

The blog – this blog – is three years old today. At one point, it looked like this.

It’s also been about three years since I started reading weblogs regularly. I sat down to make a list of some of the weblog writing that has stuck in my head over that time, and then searched through weblog archives to look for those entries. I dug up a handful of the one’s I remembered and a few entries that I forgot, but that I’m including in place of those that I couldn’t find (or perhaps, those that I made up). Most of them are from the last year and a half; so I guess that I have a short memory.

11/12/03 What’s New, Pussycat?: The Trampoline
9/17/03 Ftrain.com: A Surprise Night
7/1/03 Use Your Hands: Are you a lucky person?
4/4/03 The Hoopla 500: For the Duration of This Cheese Sandwich
3/20/03 jeffschuler.net: bus stop: Tangier-Fes
1/31/03 thenyoudiscover: Grocery
9/10/02 Oblivio: News
9/9/02 Textism: After the Floods
9/6/02 Electrolicious: Part of It
8/14/02 Eeksy-Peeksy: Cemetery of Nonexistent Cemeteries
7/19/02 Oblivio: Meditations on Sweatin’ to the Oldies
9/13/01 lightningfield.com: 9.13.2001
8/11/01 little.red.boat: “Call it half past two in the morning.”

Bush Polishes Image

[Odd juxtaposition of newspaper headline & photo]

Seattle Post-Intelligencer

Debris

Myrtle Edwards Park

Raining

Westlake Center

Made-up girl undone by the rain.

A red raincoat, flared at the bottom. The left side is held down against her side by a pocketed hand. Right side swings open and shut with rhythmic swings of her right arm. She stops at the corner and pivots at the shoulders left and right, then left again, looking both ways without turning her neck. She fastens one snap at the waist and crosses on red.

A yellow light on top of a Qwest van flashes through the restaraunt windows across the street. The light is scattered across the rain-covered windows. Inside, an aproned waitress takes chairs down off the tables, preparing the dining room for dinner. The van pulls out from behind the building, turns left, and drives away, yellow light still flashing.

Bowl

Leilani Lanes

Dayment, out of context: “He’s Canadian and I’m vegetarian, so we never end up doing anything fun.”

Juice Drink

One of the shelves in Samantha’s fridge door is stocked with juice bags. The brand name and flavor of the juice is printed in big bubble letters on the front of the package. It says, “Capri-Sun Pacific Cooler.” Centered beneath that, in small print, it goes on to describe the contents as a “flavored juice drink blend.” I imagine the precise phrasing of that line was very important to someone.

For each of the last few Christmases, I’ve received nicely packaged boxes of non-perishables from Hickory Farms. Among the sausage logs, tea bags, and crackers, there are always two long rectangular forms. One is orange, it’s label says, “Cheddar Cheese Food.” The other is gray, and the label says, “Swiss Cheese Food.” It’s not quite cheese, it’s cheese food. I point that out every year, and it’s starting to get old, which makes it a tradition.

Back to the Capri-Sun, (manufactured by a popular tobacco company, by the way). There’s a line squeezed in beneath “flavored juice drink blend”. It says, “From Concentrate.” “From Concentrate” is lined up with the left margin of the preceding line and is printed in a smaller font size, so that it lines up perfectly beneath the first two words in the previous line. “From Concentrate” seems to apply only to “Flavored Juice” and not to the entire phrase, “Flavored juice drink blend.” I believe that the bag contains “Flavored juice (from concentrate) drink blend”, rather than “Flavored juice drink blend from concentrate.” The positioning of the type leaves the true meaning of the words oblique. It could be interpreted either way.