Back home again, in Indiana...

Back home again, in Indiana,
and it seems, that I can see ...

Um... lots of things. I've left California for now (more on that later) and have just arrived to the land of my birth. I was picked up at the airport by my uncle, who offered to take me out to dinner... bonus!

He wanted to go to Cracker Barrel, where they don't practice equal rights and where they put animal bits in the veggies just to piss off the vegetarians. (Seriously, check out the menu; lard (animal fat) in the carrots, bacon in the green beans, chicken stock in the soup & rice, etc., and who knows what they put into cornbread that makes it non-vegetarian.)

I politely declined, and I was able to talk him into Max & Erma's instead (it was the best I could do). How quickly I forget that this is the land of fat people and bad food. For example, I tried to order (from the menu) steamed broccoli, only to be informed that there is no way they can prepare it (or the other steamed veggie menu item) without butter. No way to do it!?!? WTF? I know healthy choices are not chosen here, but they can't steam veggies without drowing them in butter? Good greif, Charlie Brown!

My uncle teased me that there wouldn't hardly be any butter on them, and when they came, he offered up a floret. I chose one tiny piece and I felt like I was drinking melted butter from the tap ala Homer Simpson. Yuck! He could barely taste the butter, but then again, the restaurant put 1/2 a stick on his baked potato, so I guess after that, you wouldn't, would you?

I then looked around and noticed the percentage of obsese (not overweight, obese) folks around me, and I pitied them. Here they are, like my uncle, thinking they are doing the right thing by ordering broiled fish (broiled in butter) and eating veggies, but no... they might as well be eating a Snickers. Sigh.

On the inspiring side, it is wonderfuly warm and humid, such a welcome change from the comfortable, arid California air with it's freshly washed air from the Pacific. It is beautiful here, though not in a Big Sur kind of way, but in a "boy, the corn sure is 7ft tall" kind of way.