1. Do not let children handle this product.
2. Use the right product for the job. There are certain applications for which this product was designed. Do not modify this product for a purpose for which it was not intended.
3. Maintain product with care. Keep cookware clean and dry when not in use, and follow instructions for seasoning to insure best performance.
4. Do not operate product if under the influence of alcohol or drugs. Read warning labels on prescriptions to determine if your judgement or reflexes are impared while taking drugs.
And a helpful note from Wikipedia:
"Bare cast-iron vessels have been used by humans for cooking for hundreds, if not millions, of years."
It was cold again this morning on my walk to work – 45 degrees according to Weather Underground. Midway down 14th Street I saw a cop standing on the sidewalk. A few seconds later a guy came running around the corner with some large item and took it inside a house. As I walked past I heard the cop ask him for a description. “So you saw him come out of your side door, and run that way? Yah. We’ve got a bunch of cars looking for him right now!”
I turned at the corner and kept going. A block later outside of the Jiffy Lube there was a cop car parked on the wrong side of the street. As I got closer another one pulled up. Then a third. They had a punk kid on the side of the road. He was surrounded, but actively denying any wrongdoing. You gotta be suspicious of someone in a sleeveless shirt when it’s less than 50 degrees outside though. I made sure to give him the evil eye as I passed.
It's Christmas time! Stop robbing people and be nice!
I turn and look at the lumbering kid approaching me.
“I lost my phone number…Can I have yours!”
“No.” An instant, knee-jerk response flies out of my mouth as I turn a cold shoulder.
I realize a few seconds later that I may have been a little harsh, but let’s break it down:
Do not call me “ma’am” if you want to hit on me. I know I look young, and you probably don’t know that I’m 10 years older than you are, but I know. And really? You call the girls “ma’am”?
Do not attempt to pick me up at 8 AM when it’s 46 degrees.
Don’t expect to get my phone number while I’m at a bus stop on Mission Street outside your Welfare to Work program.
And no, I don’t think you’re funny.
I won’t think you’re funny at noon on a warm sunny day either, but I might be more polite about it. Please make a note.
This morning was the coldest morning I’ve experienced in a while. I put on tights under my pants, a cashmere sweater, a scarf wound around a few times, wool coat, a little hat, and light gloves for my walk to Market and Van Ness.
The girl walking just in front of me was wearing a thin cotton dress, and while she had tights on, her shoes were some kind of huarachesque sandal deal. Her scarf was a loosely crocheted number draped over the back of her neck. She had her hands crammed into her pockets so hard her little wooly coat was open at the back slit enough to expose one side of her ass. She did however have on ear muffs. Maybe huaraches in winter is some kinda shabby chic thing I haven’t heard of. To me she looked rather unfashionable… and very, very cold.
No shit.
Didn’t you hear? Didn’t you read the schlock filled piece of non-journalism and find out that I’m Person of the Year? In a time of war, fundamental extremism of all denominations, near incompetents at the highest level of government, global warming acceleration, all that stuff, that me, here with this pointless blog, I am Time’s Person of the Year.
Doom is now available in a handy one size fits all.
There’s a ribbon of death winding through everything lately. Acquaintances and the family of friends, the fathers of coworkers, people I used to know but don’t know anymore. I know it’s always there, it just isn’t always so visible. To me, anyway. It colors everything with grey and dread. Even the sky is thick and grey with the weather’s spit. And for every senseless (to me, again) death darkens agnosticism into something even less hopeful. Friends and coworkers mourn their families in private. People in the wider social circle are gossiped about because no one knows what is going on and no one understands a chosen death. Old acquaintances are mourned privately but also publicly in newspapers and magazines with everybody watching. You say “there but for the grace of God, go I” but what you mean is “there could be my own father, my own best friend.” Because as bad as it is to know you’re mortal, the prospect of being left behind is worse.
I’ve read some more books. Farewell My Lovely by Chandler, Emotional Intelligence by Goleman, The Lady in the Lake by Chandler and something else I forget. I used to post readz.maz.org but no one ever readz readz no mo.
They aren’t my favorite Chandler’s, I guess I like The Long Goodbye or what’s that other one? You know the one. But yah, The Long Goodbye. There are just pages of crap you want to underline and say outloud in the course of your everyday life. That stuff might get you slapped, but you’d be cool.
The other is just another book about emotions and the brain and all that nonsense. Part of my post knife attack reading program. It also included numerous strange papers on stress response I found on the internet. The internet is the best.
Because influenza is a respiratory infection.
This is one of my pet peeves. Make a note of it.
I wouldn’t care but the flu is one of those things I’ve chosen to highlight as an area of extreme interest*. I just like plagues, viruses, bacterial infections, epidemics. I had never heard about the Flu of 1918 until a few years ago. I found it shocking that I had never heard of something that had killed so many people so I looked into it. Fascinating somehow. That lead to bubonic plague reading (where I learned interesting facts about the origination of property law in the 1400s) and episodes of plague in the New World, like post quake SF. There is just something about how these things enter the body and do their work that gets me hooked. Too bad I don’t have the motivation or (how do you say “give a shittitude” fortitude? yah that might be it) fortitude it would take to become some kind of bio researcher. Yeh, instead I languish away in an office with my double major in acting and dance. Awesome.
* Along with volcanoes and brain evolution and whole grains and whatever else I decide fits.