A post in which I prepare for my trip

I was a good boy and got up early to go to the dildonic quarterly meeting even though my boss wasn't in town. Mercifully, it was only about 45 minutes long. Work was very quiet today. I went and had my back cracked - BIG cracks today. We had a vendor come in and give us free lunch, which was nice.

I'm reading In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan right now. This is the second of his books I've read, the first being The Omnivore's Dilemma. I am struck again by how common-sense and down to earth his writing is. He seems to be the sole voice of reason in the sea of extremism that is food writing right now.

Of course, for years Diet for a New America has been the standard (or at least required reading) for anyone serious about improving their health, or looking for answers about where their food comes from. But John Robbins, the author, is a bit 'crunchy' even for me. His a vegan, and writes with the fervor of an ideologue. He also begins Diet (unfortunately, IMHO) with a series of anecdotal stories about the virtues and nobility of animals, that while presumably true, are obviously chosen to make the reader see the animals featured (many of them animals stereotypically regarded more as food than as actual living things) in a noble and/or anthropomorphistic way. While I am in sympathy with his viewpoints, the way he expresses them immediately both exposes a lack of objectivity, and colors meat-eating as 'wrong'. As I have discovered personally, many people are extremely volatile about their decision to eat meat. Americans, in my experience, seem to feel an exaggerated entitlement to consume as many creatures as they wish. It takes almost nothing to make them at best dismissive, or at worst hostile, to any other viewpoint. Robbins's approach, I feel, almost immediately alienates the people who most need to read this type of book. Even I, who agree with most of what Robbins says, found the book to be a bit strained and preachy in places.

Pollan, on the other hand, is not a vegan or vegetarian (in Omnivore, he details a first hand account of hunting wild boar for a hunter/scavenger dinner). He does limit the meat in his diet, but explains that he does so based on research and common sense, which he sets forth in a very calm voice. He has (again, in Omnivore) gone into the workings of the industrial meat machine. He describes the atrocities therein, but again in a matter-of-fact an non-emotional way, leaving the reader to draw his own conclusions about the morality or implications of consuming the end product of such a system. Defense is more an exposure of the rise and workings of the industrial food system, why it is bad for us, and how to make better food choices; once again, from a voice of reason and fact. Omnivore was an entertaining book and an informative read. Defense seems to be more about answers to the problems Omnivore began exposing.

***

After work today, I went about doing the errands I had planned. In the midst of them, the 'check engine' light in the car came on. And stayed on. The engine started doing this weird thing where it quit pulling, then started again. The light has come on for a minute or two before, but this was the first time it has stayed on while I drove around. I was near the dealership anyway, so I stopped in; but of course they were all going home and wouldn't do anything tonight. I made an appointment to take the car in tomorrow, and mentally sighed over a) yet another car issue; and b) something else to do tomorrow, a day already pretty packed. And of course, shortly after that, the light went off and the car was fine all the way home. So now I don't know what to do. It wouldn't be a big issue if I weren't headed out of town tomorrow night straight from work. I'm supposed to meet Mom in Statesville for dinner, and if I have to go to the dealership after work I have to find a ride, plus it throws my schedule all off. But I don't want to get stranded either. Grrrr.

I just stayed in, ate stuff out of the fridge (mostly), and packed tonight. I had already done all the laundry, so it wasn't a big deal. Gold Diggers of 1933 was on TCM. That's one of my favorites. So I listened to it as I packed, and then went to bed with Ruby Keeler and Dick Powell on the tube. I particularly like Aline MacMahon in that movie. But then I'm a sucker for a wise-cracking comic relief dame.