misAdventures of Workmonkey 3.0

While eating breakfast this morning (by morning, of course, I mean 2 PM) at the local diner, a Jewish family of four took the table behind us. After several minutes, their order of two club sandwiches (one with bacon, one without) and onion rings arrived. After a few seconds of silence, I heard the old Jewish grandmother admonish (what I assumed was) her six-year-old grandson:

Old bag: "Simon! Don't eat that bacon!"

Simon: "Why?"

Old bag: "Because it isn't Kosher."

Simon: "But it tastes good."

Old bag: "You're father has explained this to you already."

Simon insisted on the great taste of bacon (as I was eating bacon at the time, I can attest to its tastiness), but to no avail. He was unable to enjoy the pleasures of bacon, at age 6. Why exactly? Because of some rules adult people made about 2200 years ago. Specifically, the rules against bacon (and other pork products) are spelled out in Leviticus, Chapter 11, Verses 7-8:

"And the swine, though he divide the hoof, and be cloven footed, yet he cheweth not the cud; he is unclean to you. Of their flesh shall ye not eat, and their carcass shall ye not touch, they are unclean to you."

Thus, thousands of years later, little six-year-old Simon can't have bacon. This is not a knock on Jewish rules, as rules exist across every religion, culture, and peoples. But I couldn't help thinking what a cheat it was for Simon to have to pay the price of the rules adults created thousands of years specifically intended to tell us how to live, eat, and play without pleasure. In Simon's simple mind, bacon tastes good, so he should be able to eat it. What is Leviticus to him? The adults around him carry the baggage of experience, and thus tried to teach him an important lesson early: There's a bunch of tasty food you can't eat and pleasurable activities you cannot do. Just accept it now, and don't question it, as people smarter and holier than you have already thought it all through. Just follow these rules. As Simon grows older, he'll learn thousands of more rules and restrictions that will strip his life of happiness, until he becomes the cynical, bitter, neurotic man identical to everyone around him.

I watched Simon reluctantly put down the bacon, and pick at his now porkless sandwich. I felt for him. All this human logic and thinking had deprived him of the simple act of eating a crispy strip of goodness. He couldn't even make it past six years of life without feeling the burden most of us feel on a regular basis. The funny part is, Simon's logic, even less two thousand years of development, was more more convincing than his grandmothers: Bacon tastes good, so he should be able to eat it. Unfortunately for Simon, and us, all of our years of thinking has ensured that our world is a whole lot less fun than his. Let's hope it's for something a whole lot better than bacon.

I sit here by the muted lights of our christmas tree, named Renee, as he is from Quebec. The South Beach diet must've hit up north, as Renee is much thinner and paler than last year's tree, Pierre. Apparently, there is a distinction between Douglass Fir trees and Fraser Firs. True, Douglass Firs (Renee) shed less that Frasers (Pierre), but they also look like they've been eating spinach and navy beans soup for a year. We put on a single ornament and Renee just about fell over. Lucky for us, as of tomorrow we're off to Scotch Plains, New Jersey (Union County, if you are trying to learn your New Jersey geography as much as I am) to celebrate Christmas Eve and Christmas. As of Wednesday, as you may have gleaned from dragonhair's blog, we're off to St. Petersburg, Russia to begin our ten-day break from America (which is much needed upon seeing how quickly Mike Huckabee is climbing the polls). The decision to go to St. Petersburg is partly a result of my recent proclamation to attempt a bit more adventure on my average vacation, both in location, reachability, and weather. Four straight beach vacations led us to the winter retreat, and four straight experiences in well-traveled, cruise-ship port towns led us to Russia. St. Petersburg isn't exactly the top of Tibet, but it isn't London either. Hopefully, it shows us something new. It is just a start, however. This trip will launch the travel 2.0 sequence of my next ten years. Intended destinations include Africa (Mt. Kilimanjaro specifically). China, and the Middle East. As much as I like Senor Frogs, I feel I've experienced enough shots poured my whistle-blowing mexican women to last for a least a few months. To capture the specifics of this trip, I am going to incorporate a new feature: The digital voice recorder. This will record thoughts and impressions until I can make it to a computer to do some writing. I do this for you, in the humble hope it will improve my blog writing. Maybe dragonhair will actually allow me use of some his photos for once, to allow for a full multimedia experience. So look for that. In the meantime, in the immortal words of Bing Crosby, happy holidays 2007.