All the stuff below was written earlier; the management of this entry does not condone nor refute the statements … shit. Now I can’t remember that warning that comes with some movies and some TV shows, something about ‘Opinions expressed do not reflect … management ….” My reaction is always ‘Didn’t you guys watch this shit? Surely you must have an opinion. How very chicken-shit of y’all, unless, you know, you didn’t watch it.’
Going for one of my very last grandwhelp runs. He’s already damn close to the age where he doesn’t need a sitter, and, soon enough, the time after the next time I see him he will be a Young Turk Jesus I get confused which expressions of mine play where. I talk like an army brat, like I was raised all over by polite wolves. I’m a bit more reined in when I type; still, not everything translates everywhere. And, um, I might have made some shit up.
I didn’t make Young Turk up and it’s probably not geographic, just archaic. You either know what it means or you don’t and if you don’t there’s no sense in learning it on account of this might be the last time you ever see it used.
There’s a geographic version of an old saw I use that’s very specific to Clackamas County ---“God willin’ and the pudden’ ain’t swold” See there’s a crick called the pudding … Huh. At dinner the other night the grandwhelp was talking about someplace or other that me and my daughter are very familiar with. He called it something creek and we both said “Huh?” almost together and a few seconds later, again almost on cue “Oh, something crick.” It’s not really a geographic thing where either of us is from, though, the poor girl, learned American English from me. For me it’s that I don’t like the possibility of hilarity ensuing with homonyms unless I’m holding at least one rein of the hilarity. I don’t get a crick in my neck and doors don’t make cricking sounds, but a small river is a crick. The pudding is a crick.
Shit. I got grandwhelping to do.
Ground water. That’s where the water comes from. 400 wells dug into a water table known as the Saginaw Formation. They treat the sweet loving bejesus out of it. At the source it’s very difficult to contaminate the water; at the treatment points it appears it’s ridiculously easy to contaminate, even by accident. Huh, good thing I didn’t check with my bookie on the betting line on whether I was crazy or not, although the odds would have been even (fifty/fifty) I would have put my money on crazy.
There are a few things that in my mind qualifies a country as ‘First World’; You take care of your sick and your hungry and, I guess, build up an arsenal so overwhelming you never have to use it (Not saying I agree with the last, but it does seem to be a first world thing). There’s an old Buddhist saying; A man’s wealth can be judged by what he can do without. That’s sort of why food and medicine are important, even if, nationally, you don’t really give a fuck. I mean if your morals don’t bug you you should tend to the infirm and the hungry for the same reason you build up an arsenal; it looks like you have such a bounty of resources you can just give the shit away.
Nobody has mentioned this as a problem with Obamacare (people seem to have a vested interest in Yay yelling and Nay yelling). It looks like the plan of a country in trouble. It’s the equivalent of saying “We have nukes! We, um, just ran out of gas for the planes, so, for a mere six hundred a month, citizens get the privilege of running at you with a nuke in their pocket if you, you know, piss us off. And if you raid the Ukraine we will threaten sanctions, the subtext being we might run at you with our arsenal and throw it.”
In the rain forest the idea of running out of potable water seemed pretty dang remote, even during droughts. Here? I think they must have run out of potable water years ago. They really treat the sweet bejesus out of it. Geologically the State of Michigan is pretty damn interesting.
Oh, yeah, the water mains and sewage pipes were put in sometime in the 1920s. Not only did they have a bunch different town in mind, but, um, those things have a life span of fifty to seventy five years, at least in the 1920’s they did. So, from somewhere in the seventies until; right this fucking minute, whenever there was some flash of prosperity, they found something else to spend the money on.
Water is in the top three things needed to sustain life. It’s pretty dang important. I’m willing to bet there are, say, a thousand people in this town who are on some kind of diet having something to do their health (e.g. not just to lose vanity pounds) and they are drinking water with more chlorine in it than a hot tub at a rent-by-the-hour motel. The reason the motel does that is, well, honestly, spooge. Does an entire town have a water supply with something as unsavory as spooge? Sans disease I’m not sure that spooge is dangerous to drink; I don’t think anyone has gone underground to spooge in the water table. So, you know, what the fuck? The hot tub isn’t meant for drinking either.
I don’t know, I focus on small things, though, this isn’t really a small thing, the solution is pretty simple, I mean the immediate solution; I drink bottled water, smart water. A few years back it was all the rage for various media outlets to expose bottled water as the same or worse than what comes out of your tap. That really depends on where your tap is doesn’t it? My little shack in felony flats had pristine water coming out of the taps. It seemed silly to buy water that wasn’t any better than what came out of your tap. It also seems silly to make health decisions based on price. It’s cheaper to eat off the dollar menu at McDonalds than pretty much anywhere, yet, it’s probably more nutritious to go dumpster diving and even less expensive. There is a stigma to dumpster diving. Vanity and health often work at cross purposes.
I am the furthest thing from a health Nazi, just as I am the furthest thing from a feminist --- which is too say not that far (fur?) but not welcome. When it comes to us or them I’m definitely one of them, I mean not “us” with the health Nazis or feminists. I think drinking water flavored water made out of water is a pretty reasonable and achievable goal. And yeah, if push has to come to shove, I’d rather drop a buck fifty on Smart water than a buck on a McDouble and have fifty cents to, I don’t know, buy some cyanide? Oh, sorry, didn’t mean to swing on the clown’s nutsack, just saying. I’d rather drink clean water than eat, um, anything. If those have to be my choices. You’d really think it wouldn’t come down to either or --- and it doesn’t. I’m sure somewhere within a quarter mile of here someone has a quarter pounder and a glass of tap water. Spread it out further and there’s a least one person who has nothing because they can’t afford anything and a person who has nothing because it’s lent or someone said “Yes, those pants do make your butt look fat.” Those two will drink tap water.
It puts the how many die of smoking related causes into a bit of perspective, or, you know, any “health” related warnings. I’m pretty sure that non-smokers drink tap water here. And though I’d much rather have motorists driving under the influence of tap water than whisky, it’s a question of speed and how many they’ll take with them, not a question of health. Whisky is filtered; not “treated”.
Shit, I have things to do. My sister came to pick up my mom to go visit my dad. It’s nice to see my sister involved. The gnawing guilt I have for backing away is dissolving. If it would have been possible I would have stayed in Oregon. Ok, it was possible, but that particular guilt had rows and rows of gnawing teeth, like a platoon of sharks driven by Dobermans.
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