Personal Narrative

Things Missing – Supply Chain and Groceries

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I have had some first world problems for a while now.

Last night at the grocery store (Kroger chain) there was no iceburg lettuce. Zero. I resigned myself to paying the fifty cents more for the leaf lettuce. Iceberg lettuce has been of pretty poor quality in these parts for some time and I have seen small quantities or none at all as of the last few months.

Berries – I always toss a hand full of berries onto my shredded wheat every morning and the berry selection at the store has been awful or non existent as of late. I’m hoping that Michigan has a fantastic harvest (probably going on right now or very soon) as we are quite fond of the blueberries, apples, peaches, and other things that come from across the lake. We may even take a short road trip over there and pick up a bunch of stuff ourselves. But back to the berries. I have seen blueberries from all over the USA in the store (I always look at where my produce comes from) and also Mexico and a few other places. I wonder if there is some sort of supply chain disruption in berry world.

Anyways, let me know in the comments if you are seeing things missing, and don’t limit it to groceries if you don’t want to.

In industrial distribution world, we are still missing quite a few things but this is almost all a chip deal now. And the good news is that we are doing pretty well for the most part.

Tech

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It was a matter for discussion at the last ChicagoBoyz Zoom meet-up this last weekend; how the development and widespread use of ultrasound technology likely has reframed the debate about abortion, over the last two decades. Trent T. affirmed how some of his contemporaries had named their children early on in utero, already knowing the sex of the child, and were sometimes devastated with grief when the mother naturally miscarried; as devastated as they would have been if the baby died at birth, or as an infant. The baby their child was real to them. They had pictures in indistinct black and white; proof that their child was already a child, not just a clump of cells. The existence of the embryo, the child becomes even clearer, later in development.
The 3-D ultrasound of Wee Jamie in utero at seven or eight months was a stunningly accurate visualization of how he would look upon delivery some weeks later strongly-marked eyebrows, amazing-long eyelashes, curving lips that carried out the family resemblance to my daughter and myself, and affinity towards showing his feet to the observer. The only question remaining to us was what color his hair and eyes would be, once he was delivered. (The hair is light brown, the eyes at this point an indeterminant hazel. God only knows what it will say when it comes to the identifiers on his drivers’ license.) My daughter treasured those prints of the ultrasound sessions as she remarked now and again, if something happened to savage her pregnancy, they would be the only souvenir and proof she had that her son ever existed.

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Heatwave

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Yes, there is a heatwave going on in Northern Europe this week or at least, to them it’s a heatwave. To those of us who live in Texas, it’s just a normal summer, with temperatures in the 90s and reaching three digits. Supercilious Europeans, Brits and Canadians, and lunkheaded Americans like perennial tween know-it-all Taylor Lorenz are forever chiding us about our excessive air conditioning in homes, government buildings and offices, little recking that basically, most of the United States is on the same latitude as the Mediterranean and North Africa and without efficient air conditioning, large swathes of the southern states would just plain old be unlivable and no, in the South it’s not a dry heat, but a soggy and humid exercise in physical torment. So I do feel for those suffering Europeans and Brits, I really do. My brother and sister and I spent the summer of 1976 in Britain, which turned out to have been one of the hottest on record, rather like the heatwave this year. We accustomed to So-Cal summers didn’t at first really grok how unaccustomed the British public was to this kind of summer heat, what with the grass in the parks dying for want of water.

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Where We Spent Today

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It was a lovely day – we got there early, so as to be assured of a place to set out the umbrella and the blanket. We expected to beat a large crowd, which never really materialized. There were mostly families, setting up on the beach, or on the levels above the little cove, children and their parents, splashing about in the shallow water. The day pass is only good up until 6 PM, which probably cuts down on the rowdiness. The Air Force and the Army recreation services have a slice of recreation area on Canyon Lake, which is a short drive from San Antonio. The recreation area encompasses a small beach with picnic grounds adjacent, a dock and anchorage for small boats, rental cabins and cottages and RV spaces. Next year, we are thinking of renting one of the cottages for the 4th. Depends on how everything goes. We hope that things will go on in the Shire, as they always have, from day to day.

Anecdotes: The Exotic Airbnb

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The listing looked great. A luxurious rental tent with hardwood floors, nice furniture, attached enclosed bath and other comforts of home. The luxury tent was in a remote and extremely beautiful natural location. It looked fun – why not try it for a few days? There were many mostly glowing reviews and no negative reviews. A few reviewers mentioned the rough road leading up to the place. The listing itself was circumspect on this point. I messaged the host: Was it possible to reach his place in an ordinary rental car? He assured me that this would not be a problem, he had guests arriving in all kinds of vehicles including Priuses etc. He didn’t say anything else about getting to his place, so I went ahead and booked it as a stop on a planned road trip.

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