WHEN I GET IT RIGHT

This is my second wake-up in Estados Unidos después 3 semanas en Mexico. I’m slow to let go the Baja influence. Toast with avocado & banana for breakfast was all I wanted this morning: made fish tacos last night and will again sometime today. It was so natural without any of the Gringo television-network news; I didn’t realize how much I have to think about avoiding it on this side of the ‘Wall’. I love my country but not so much the people. I know both Mexico and Canada have their problems and that many of their residents think being an American would be so, so wonderful but I still tend to like them better, as a people, than I do the American stereotype. 

‘Dog-in-a-manger’ is a metaphor that dates back to ancient Greece. It alludes to a dog, lying on top of grain in a feed trough. The dog can’t eat it but it doesn’t want the horse to have it either. The metaphor depicts spiteful selfishness. It shouldn’t surprise me, people are both spiteful and selfish when their experience and their attitudes move them that way. The man with a loaf of bread and 6 potatoes is more alarmed by and more suspicious of the man with a loaf of bread and 5 potatoes than he is with the king. The most serious, perceived threat to one’s security is the person who is positioned to displace you in the pecking order, and that threat almost always comes from below; not from a falling star, but from a rising one. As a people, we have little or no pity for the man with only 5 potatoes. So when I’m in Canada or Mexico, or Argentina or even on Division Street in Grand Rapids, Michigan I’m looking for a common thread that makes us more alike than looking for a rank order discrepancy that creates hierarchy.  Sometimes I fall short, behave like a typical, arrogant American but when I see that in myself, I feel ashamed and change my act. I don’t like picking on America or Americans. I wish, I really do, that we as a people would set the bar for tolerance and inclusiveness a little higher. They say that travel is the best education and I think so. But if one never leaves the luxury of the resort and views working class natives as feral people, it’s nothing more than biased Bull Stuff.

Can you believe it’s Ground Hog Day already? When I realized the date I started getting a visual loop of sight-bites with Bill Murray defaulting straight to suicide to reboot the day and try something different than what wasn’t working at the moment. I loved it when he drove the car off a cliff, the look on his passenger’s faces. I’ll hate myself later but sometime soon, I’ll have to watch it again. Still, if you want a different distraction, February 2 is also “Wear Red Day”. It’s “Sled Dog Day” and “World Wetlands Day” as well as  “Candlemas” a Christian holiday celebrating Jesus youth; just what an old heretic needs. There is “California Kiwifruit Day”,  “Bubble Gum Day” and “Work Naked Day”, and it’s all going on today. At some point, age or otherwise, being naked in pubic changes from showing off to being made fun-of. When you get there, you don’t have to be reminded. 

I’m happy to be back where my smart phone and credit card work without glitches. I’m happy to see gasoline prices down and drivers actually stop at stop signs and lights, where cars have tail lights and use turn signals. I’m happy that I can make the correct change at the check out in a few seconds rather than make a reality show of it. Still, in a week or two I’ll be ready to jump off again, who knows where! My Español has bumped up a notch or two and I love it when I get it right.