The TV was on in the other room when a local news segment came on that caught my attention. It was about school lunches, and how tightly regulated they are now in terms of quality, diversity, and nutrition. There was video footage of kids filling their trays at a local school, with what looked like pretty good stuff. I don't know if it's that the generation "in charge" now is broadly more concerned and attentive than those who administered my generation, or if nutrition science and activism has changed things for the better, but man, have things changed.

My cafeteria memories consist of "pizza" with dough an inch thick, ketchupy sauce, and a thin layer of cheese-like polymer. I recall a tray of taco meat swimming in a bright orange grease, with bits of cartilage in every bite. I recall soggy french fries, flavorless rice with a pasty residue, starchy chicken fricassee on over-cooked egg noodles, something with a name I can't recall but which can best be described as foodloaf, and then there are those two words that simply should not be the name of an edible: Monte Cristo. Trust me, these sandwiches were baaaaad. Even the chocolate pudding stacked near the end of the line was dreadful—so bad it was habitually ignored by all. And when kids ignore chocolate, it ain't chocolate.

And somehow, each year, all of the above was served by a different obese and unfriendly witch with a hairnet and moustache, as if these attributes were requirements of the job.

And I wonder, does "cafeteria smell" still exist like it did then? You know that certain smell that no words other than "cafeteria" can describe? No matter what's cooking, it's always the same.

..."Smells Like Cafeteria"...wasn't that a Nirvana B-side...?

Labels: recollections

Okay. This blog thing went from mildly cathartic fun, to a feeling of participatory duty, to a complete drag. It's just so terribly easy to ignore. Blogging was easier before I became a changer of diapers, but it's not just a matter of time and life's more important preoccupations. It's also the fact that I never had any ambitions for this site other than as an outlet to chronicle my thoughts, interests, and peeves, lest I forget them. Maybe you're like me, but I've always scolded myself internally for letting so many thoughts and ideas dissolve away. If I don't record things, they vanish like a fart in the wind.

There's a lot happening in the world right now that I've been "blogging" about via emails with friends or through my clenched teeth while I walk the dog. Things are stirring upstairs, maybe more than ever. I've just ignored this medium. I have a list of bookmarks that reaches to Andorra (or thereabouts), but even as I write this I don't feel that sort of kinship to this blog that I think you have to have to make a blog thrive. We'll see. Maybe I can make it a habit again.

Labels: at home

Ah, the Daily Show. Because there's always something funny, even in and about these not-so-funny times. And if you can't laugh, well...

Labels: Ha

I just have to follow up on that. I couldn't believe my ears when I heard that it wasn't just a sprained knee, or a sore knee coming off surgery, but a freshly torn ACL and double stress fracture of the tibia. That's what he won the U.S. Open, the hardest golf tournament to win, standing on—in a marathon of 91 holes.

He said afterward that it was his greatest victory ever. Uh, yyyea. It can never be said, ever again, even by the most nostalgic of Nicklaus fans among us, that Tiger is not the greatest champion of all time.

Labels: at home, commentary

I'm about to throw out a bunch of amazed accolades at Tiger Woods, which is to say, I'm about to say some things that have already been said a zillion times by a zillion people. But his performance tonight might be the single most amazing, singular display of mental toughness I've ever witnessed in sports. (And the only performances that even come close were done by him previously.) To do what he just did on the back nine with a badly sprained left knee—the knee that takes on all the torque—could not have been done by any other golfer, at any time, and at any age. There's no such thing as hyperbole when you're talking about Tiger Woods.

You shouldn't have to like golf, or even get it, to appreciate what this guy has done and continues to do. He's so good that it really can't be argued that it's out of bounds for fans of golf to say that we're lucky to be living in the "age of Tiger Woods". He will beat Nicklaus' records with considerable margin, and I don't think those records will ever, ever be broken. Operating at 70%, he's better than everybody else out there. If he doesn't win tomorrow it will only be due to that worsening knee. But he'll get it done, because nobody overcomes the adversity his sports hands him like Eldrick T. Woods does.

Nobody read that putt on 18 correctly all day. He aimed so far left Johnny Miller sounded perplexed. And it was the right line, the line that only he could see.

!

Labels: at home, commentary