You know what I like best about those little single-serve packages of cereal, the ones they call Variety Pak? The inside plastic is now so tough you cannot open it with your bare hands, and even biting a corner nick doesn’t work. But the portions are exactly the right size to crush them up still in the plastic and add as all kinds of recipe filler. Crushed corn flakes for meatloaf, crushed shreddies for stuffings. Um, be careful because sometimes the same package which defied opening will burst when you are counting on it not to. We’re dealing with Kellogg’s here, so use your head. (But not to crush the flakes.)
Being out of reading material, I hopped over to Flamingo Plaza (on 64th Street just east of Lejuene in Miami/Hialeah) which has several large Thrift stores. Although they are stretching the word thrift these days. I found a replacement “P for Peril” and almost finished reading it in Denny’s. I had to leave because they had the air conditioning set for the staff again. They don’t seem to notice when people go out to their cars to get a winter jacket or parka. The author has great plots, because she never gives you enough information to figure out the perp, which doesn’t work in movies where they have to make it obvious that you overlooked it. She always has to wrap things up very quickly it seems. (She tends to have an issue with Yankee middle-class morality. The second wife is always an ex-stripper type of thing. Any unattached teenage female has unspeakable problems. Short men do not deserve good-looking wives. But it’s okay that (her) hero is divorced twice and shacked up with a loser. Kind of like real life.)
This place needs a bed. I never bothered with one, really. I either rent furnished or use my trusty air mattress to keep near the cooler floor air, a big Florida thing with me. No matter how warm the room, I shiver in my sleep if I don’t have at least a sheet over me. That is when I discovered a host of smaller shops not connected to Flamingo Plaza, but further north on East 10th Avenue. American marketing, I asked several places if they deliver, all of whom said yes, but later admitted they charged extra for it. Now I ask if they charge extra for delivery, because they don’t understand the other question.
I stocked up with all manner of goodies, a bookshelf, a microwave stand, all for less than $20.00, and all because I got the deal speaking Spanish. They are not used to gringos like me, a bargain hunter rather than some deadbeat who has to find the cheapest thing possible. Oh yes, there are all kinds of those in the area, it may be all the store sees in a given year: stooped-shouldered, stupid haircut, ragged clothes, walking off-balance, beady-eyed, mumbling to themselves, tattoos, hairy armpits. Their boyfriends are worse. Thus I tend to get extra attention and a real good price on things. It was also good exercise and makes my place look so much neater. Well, I had to clean up a bit to make room, so that helped.
Remember that Laundromat on East 4th? New owners. He does good iron work, so keep in touch. They gutted the place and put in good used equipment. Price is the same, and the place is far brighter. It was weird, open 24 hours but had no windows. I don’t mean walls, I mean the whole front of the building was windows that had been broken years ago and never replaced. You could enter through the windows. The new people have tied string across it, a signal they are going to, sadly, change all that. (Later, I saw the old owner walking into the place carrying supplies, so maybe not all is lost (Feb. 15, 2004).) They have got the oldest dollar changer I have ever seen. It weighs hundreds of pounds and it in an armored case with no instructions. I hope they don’t throw it away, it must be at least forty years old and makes a noise like a small pneumatic hammer when it accepts a dollar. The dollar must be upright, new, dry, and have perfect corners.
For once I did not go to the library. Did I mention I’ve read all the books that interest me at the JFK in Hialeah? Make that double, because I tend to read most reference books twice. One skim through, and a second slow read for the analysis. I fell asleep while doing my laundry, and the people left me alone. It was a beautiful 73 degree day. The book I had was a serious but academic study of criminal punishment. Trying to present both sides of the problems, the book never gets out of first gear. It does not understand that no two criminals are alike, so remained academic and futile. The death penalty does defer many crimes, but not all. Only an academic sees that as a problem. Only an academic feels a need to treat both categories equally. No, no, find out what works in each case and use it, no matter how unequal that seems on paper. They do not understand a greater evil, it is conditions in jail that are the greatest deterrent, whereas jail is supposed to be humane and rehabilitate. Further, it can be difficult to get a job after being in jail, dumb because most criminals can’t or don’t think that far ahead.
While I’m on the subject, I do not understand why ex-criminals cannot become practicing lawyers. [I could see them unable to join legal fraternties.] I mean, they have the experience, and what is the difference between a criminal and a lawyer anyway? Criminals also have the time and motive to really get into it. It is nonsense to outlaw practicing law without a license, it is almost self-contradicting. Membership should not be dependent of acceptance to some old-boy network in any field. But that is one of the clauses that makes the law and lawyers such a cheery, friendly thing in most social settings.
