A Very Immigrant Christmas

The Little Saigon market was pandemonium this morning. My mother and the other old ladies were all cutting in front of each other at the butcher's counter, everybody was elbowing each other out of the way for the best head of lettuce, etc. Mom even shoved her way past some disabled woman (who was using crutches and who was arguably a little person) as they were rushing for the 15-items-or-less line. It was a glimpse into the decades of trauma that these war-torn people have experienced. Every aisle was a jumble of carts and Vietnamese, and I guess you were supposed to just smash your way by if you wanted to get through it. It was scary. It's really no wonder they kicked America's ass.

Now my mom keeps referring to broth as "the juice." (I keep telling her that it ain't juice unless you squeezed it out of something, but she won't listen.) She also keeps insisting that broth has the same nutritional value as the meat from which it's made. Her ignorance is astounding. Still, it's nice to hang out with Mom for the holidays.

Cheeseburger Wasteland

Why isn't there an In-N-Out between Pinole and East Oakland?! What the hell? North Oakland, West Oakland, the Lake Merritt neighborhoods, Berkeley, Emeryville, Albany...this whole fucking place is crawling with burger eaters. There's so many goddamn French fries...I'm constantly having to make my way through smushed up French fries scattered all over the goddamn sidewalks; it actually slows me down. (One could easily slip and fall on that shit...totally fuckin' dangerous.) In-N-Out'd make a fortune here! We love special sauce. Are they stupid? Or is it some sort of a Christian thing (I've heard that they're owned and operated by fundies; I've even seen scriptures cited in tiny print on the bottoms of their cups), some faith-based scruple that keeps them away because the East Bay is pig Latin for the Beast? But if that were the case then the East Oakland and San Leandro In-N-Outs wouldn't make any sense. So what the hell is going on?