Preparing meals in a home where someone is a vegetarian while the other one is not, can put a monkey wrench into any hope for simplicity when it comes to eating a meal. A meal plan is essential for me to see what I will be cooking in the coming days, as spontaneity is not always easy when trying to keep veggies exciting. To avoid a bland diet and eating out all the time to satisfy my need for diversity and lots of flavors, I try to work with a meal plan to see where our diet is headed and to see that there are exciting meals coming up. Keep in mind that at home, I eat a vegetarian diet along with Caroline.

Thank GOD for the internet; the cookbooks get expensive and rarely have a diversity of items that I’m looking for. The other problem with cookbooks is that they focus too much on bread, cakes, cookies, breakfasts, sauces, dips, dressings, appetizers, snacks, and desserts; I need real ‘meal’ type recipes.

Breakfast doesn’t need a meal plan. Most of us eat a vegetarian breakfast most of the time anyway. We start the day with a smoothie. Our smoothies are not only for breakfast but are also used to try to stay in compliance with the new food pyramid. My typical recipe looks like this:

½ cup Walnuts

2 tbsp Flax Seed

2 tbsp Wheat Germ

½ cup of Soy Yogurt

2 tbsp Flax Seed Oil

2 Cups Frozen Fruit (Blueberries, Strawberries, Banana, Mango, Peach, whatever)

2/3 cup Carrot Juice

2/3 cup Orange Juice

For Caroline’s glass, I added a heaping teaspoon of protein powder.

From this, we get part of our nuts, seeds, grain, protein, omega 3’s, fruit, orange veggies, and a good dose of vitamin C along with a bunch of other nutrients.

Some days, we also have oatmeal with a smoothie. Our preparation of oatmeal typically has some raisins or dried cranberries, a banana or a grated apple or strawberries, blueberries, or a peach.

Lunch is a play-it-by-ear meal. Often, Caroline takes leftovers to work, but at times will go out with coworkers and have a salad, baked potato, or veggie burger. I forage about town.

Dinner is a difficult meal for me; I was raised to have meat at dinner, and it adds the savory substantial item that veggie dinners are often missing for me. Here, I need a meal plan.

From spending more time in the kitchen, I have a good sense that a recipe is going to have the oomph I want for it to be satisfying or interesting enough to warrant trying it. Complex flavors are the key I’m looking for, not boiled celery with tossed pine nuts over tofu.

Here is my meal plan for the next week and a half:

Saturday – Homemade Gnocchi with Tomato Cream Sauce (Italian)

Sunday – Eat Out

Monday – Chick Pea and Potato Curry (Indian)

Tuesday – Homemade Green Corn Tamales and Refried Beans (Mexican)

Wednesday – Foul Mudammas & Pita Bread (Middle East Recipe)

Thursday – Gobi Manchurian (Indian/Chinese Cauliflower Recipe)

Friday  – Arroz Verde (Mexican Green Rice Recipe)

Saturday – Fire Roasted Corn and poblano Chili Tacos (Mexican)

Sunday – Eating Out – Meat Fix!

Monday – Tacos of Calabacitas (Mexican Zucchini & Corn Recipe)

Tuesday – Lathera (Greek Baked Veggie Dish)

Wednesday – Beet Curry (Indian)

As long as time allows, nothing in our kitchen is prepared in some far-off factory as a ready-made meal. I use dried beans as often as I can (yes, we have a pressure cooker to speed up the cooking of dried beans). I will make the gnocchi by grinding cooked potatoes, mixing them with flour, and shaping them myself. The tomato sauce is made using ripe Roma tomatoes, garlic, ginger, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, fresh basil, oregano, onion, and cream. For the other dishes, I will use fresh corn, green chilies, cauliflower, zucchini, spinach, cilantro, beets, potatoes, tomatoes, and various other ingredients.

For the longest time, I resisted the idea of a vegetarian diet, but since I tried cooking more and more dishes that both Caroline and I could enjoy, it has become a habit to use the freshest food items and to make a serious effort to try new things. My thought has been that if I am going to try making this or that, I should make the best effort to create something truly healthy. which has led me to avoid prepackaged convenience.

Shopping frequently, about 3 to 4 times a week, I am constantly looking at what the store has and what might inspire me. This is especially true when visiting ethnic groceries. If I find an item that looks interesting, but I am at a loss to know what to do with it, I will either ask anyone standing near me or note it for later when I can look up on the internet what it is and what it is used in.

Why are so many people choosing the state of Arizona as their next home? Most don’t know before arrival that they are actually moving to a state of Isolation. At first, they will assume that the neighbors have kept their distance out of consideration, allowing the newcomers to settle in. After a short time, most people will then make an effort to introduce themselves to the neighbors – if and when they are lucky enough to catch them during the 14.9 seconds their garage door is open. A year or more will pass before the transplants realize that no one wants to say hi and that this is a normal part of living here.

I don’t understand this mentality, though. I am at a loss as to why anyone would want to be so isolated. I question myself weekly, at times daily, why I am still living here. Anywhere else I go, people are friendly and ready to strike up a conversation, well, except for Las Vegas, that is. Come to think of it, I’ve not had many a conversation in Death Valley either. Maybe this is an issue of living in a desert.

With our near-barren landscape, we adopt a barren community mentality where just as cacti are spread apart and silent so then too will be the human inhabitants. Of course, this isn’t a rule but a fairly accurate generalization.

Wide swaths of the Valley of the Sun live under a cloak of silent transparency. Behind the gated entries lie our stealthier citizenry. These Arizonans can be spotted at dusk while visiting various establishments, still brandishing their invisibility-inducing dark glasses and human contact-repelling cell phones that, in combination, build an impenetrable fortress allowing for maximum anonymity. As quickly as they dart into the reality of space-time that is viewable by mere mortals, they are just as quickly gone and well-protected and hidden from prying eyes in their gated villas.

Clandestinely, the middle class who have yet to perfect their covert skills of movement without being seen are but amateurs at times forgetting to close their garage door or remove sunglasses at dusk, lose their cell phones, and, worst of all – live in homes on open streets where anyone might drive or walk right up and intrude.

As for the poor, hah, no skills whatsoever! They will answer questions from lost travelers, and ask how you are doing at dinner; heck, they have been witnessed to say good morning to strangers. I suppose ignorance goes with being poor, for if these unassuming, less fortunate amongst us had an ounce of sense, they would don the darkest glasses and, at a minimum, give the rest of us a talk-to-the-hand wave and quickly flicker out of existence into the vastness of the lonely desert.

We live here in Phoenix as moles. We have crawled into our little holes, and no one sees us, and we don’t even bother to come out at night. Our freeways are empty at 9:00 p.m. Monday or Saturday as the minimal nightlife and people venturing out of their caves is nearly an unknown quantity here.

Something is broken here: the heat, the sun, maybe the glare reflecting off half a million swimming pools causes some type of flare which is bouncing off what remains of the ozone layer, and evil waves are washing our brains, making us insipid, non-communicative shells of human beings who must escape the malevolent force which silences us to our neighbors.

Does a city require snow, blizzards, rain, hail, wind, tornadoes, earthquakes, or hurricanes for people to come together, befriend one another, and act like neighbors sharing in the culturing of a spirit to make the place they live in a happy, friendly, open, and caring community? Or are we dried up and shriveled inside from the heat that bears down on us two-legged raisins?

Having not watched television news for about two weeks following 9/11 besides the occasional silent news being shown in various restaurants, I was aghast at what I had seen over the past week on TV.

We still do not have television reception here at home by choice, so I have peeked in on other folk’s televisions to see what has been transpiring in New Orleans. Last Tuesday was the first look, and what I saw was the New Orleans black population running amok. Ten minutes was enough, and I moved on. Various conversations led me to realize that other people felt that only the blacks were looting, and the news had confirmed this for them. Curiously, I asked Caroline to phone her mother in Germany; in the German media, it was shown that both blacks and whites were looting – interesting.

By Friday, my curiosity was getting to me, so I made arrangements to visit someone to watch what a majority of Americans were seeing. On the way, I turned around, thinking that seeing the despair would lend nothing positive to my day. On Saturday, I could hold out no longer, and upon visiting a friend, I tuned in to Fox News and was shocked and astounded. Not by the images of the destruction of New Orleans but by manipulation from the media.

Fox News was playing melodramatic music, taking the news out of “news” and presenting a performance piece meant to wrench emotional reactions from its audience. Piecing together heroic and tragic pictures juxtaposed against dramatic music smacks of propaganda trying to manipulate a population of viewers into having particular “programmed” emotional responses. This must serve some purpose that the ‘powers that be’ within the corporate organization have found to be effective in attracting viewers; for me, I was repulsed.

Consider the definition of propaganda, quoted from Wikipedia, “Propaganda is a specific type of message presentation aimed at serving an agenda.” In this instance, the agenda is to reshape the views of the audience from that of betrayal through negligence from elected leaders into recognition that heroes are working to save the less fortunate, of soldiers and law enforcement taking a tearful-eyed victim on their shoulder, or a lonely boy hugging a trusted dog, all the while longing music kicks at the human reflex to feel sympathy – a radical manipulation if you ask me.

Next, from Wikipedia, regarding the purpose of propaganda, “The aim of propaganda is to influence people’s opinions actively, rather than to merely communicate the facts about something.” Excuse me, but the “news” is supposed to be about facts; even in this age of Fox News and the obvious slant to a conservative agenda, these people have an obligation to present the news as facts, with the audience deciding the meaning of those facts for themselves, instead what we have is music placed against heart-wrenching imagery causing viewers to reflect from an emotional stance instead of a purely logical one.

Hoping this was an aberration, I quickly turned off the sound and went about our visit with this friend. On Sunday, though, I found myself at my mother’s house, where my family was watching the events unfolding in New Orleans. The TV was tuned to MSNBC, and within minutes of our arrival, the “news” was being presented to the Coldplay song “The Scientist” with “moving” images from the disaster. This is beyond the pale; Americans are being manipulated by stupidity and yet continue to tune into this drivel.

When Hitler commissioned Leni Riefenstahl to present the images of heroism to a dramatic soundtrack and called the film “Triumph of the Will,” we denounced the movie as propaganda, thoroughly condemning the usage of such blatant manipulation. Today, our news organizations are free to use the same tactics against the citizenry of the United States so long as it builds patriotism and takes our collective mind off transgressions and weaknesses displayed by our government.

This is such obvious corporate protection of the images and feelings that the population might otherwise have of the government, and in exchange, the government throws tax breaks, shelters, and laws that benefit the wealthy who own and control these corporations so that a status quo allows both to thrive at the expense of us the less privileged middle-class majority of citizens who are all victims of our own stupidity to continuously be manipulated by such ugly propaganda.

This is a long-time friend, Kirk M., a.k.a. Capt. Kirk: part-time DJ, musician, odd jobber, and purveyor of other stuff. Kirk recently had the opportunity to spend some quality time with Sheriff Joe and his men at the infamous Tent City. After more than six months as a prisoner in our local jail, he was set free. Kirk failed to pay child support; truth be known, Kirk was unable to make enough money to pay the monthly payment from his pittance as DJ. So now he is to work odd jobs and forfeit most of whatever he makes so he can stay out of jail.

While in jail, Kirk learned the local Tent City hierarchy of prisoner politics and has shared with me what I am passing on to you today.

The jail is effectively divided into constituencies delineated by race, more or less, although the races are free to mix and befriend one another. The various ethnicities are as follows: Chicanos these are Mexican-Americans, who either by birth in America or by indoctrination are now Mexican-Americans, which are held to be in great contrast to the Piasas. Piasas are real Mexicans; they come from the homeland and are not Americanized like the Chicanos. Kinfolk are African Americans, and I am sure that true Africans would have their own grouping if there were, in fact, any held in the tents. Caucasians or whites are Woods, from the old term Peckerwood. Next, we have the Chiefs, who are Native Americans, and lastly, the Cheetos, who are the gays in jail.

These distinct groups are ruled by a Head, except the Cheetos, who are headless. The rules in jail between prisoners are very seriously enforced between those being incarcerated. Rules and regulations are important here as they keep peace in the yard, and more importantly, the guards keep their distance and would rather have the prisoners deal with infractions to make the guards’ jobs easier and to keep the jail population cool in dealing with the authorities. This can be a win/win situation.

When a rule is transgressed, the victim must report the violation to the Head of the group to which the perpetrator belongs to, not to their own group Head. Punishment is typically handled within the offender’s race to keep racial tension as low as possible in such a volatile environment.

If two races were involved in the violation, the Heads of the two groups would come into “Council” to determine the fate of the accused. There are three levels of an infraction: minor, major, and serious. In the case of major or serious rule-breaking, all group Heads might come together in Council in order to administer punishment.

The Heads carry out punishment with the usage of “Torpedoes.” A Torpedo is an individual chosen for their ability to knock someone out with a single punch. Each group Head employs three Torpedoes to act as the group’s rule enforcers.

For a Minor Infraction, a “Chin Check” is issued. This is a single solid punch to the chin that is intended to knock out the offender. The Torpedo who delivers this blow is from the offender’s own race to avoid hostility from the appearance that could arise from someone suggesting that a Kinfolk punched unfairly a Wood or a Cheeto. Examples of minor infractions are someone urinating on a toilet as opposed to into the toilet, digging in the trash, making your group look bad, or disrespecting a Head or a Detention Officer (a.k.a. D.O.). Disrespecting a D.O. brings the wrath of the officers down on all groups without discrimination and so the inmates enforce a level of respect for their jailers.

A Major Infraction is even worse news for the offender. This is when a “Smashing” order is issued by the Council. A Smashing will bring all three Torpedoes from his group to have a free-for-all. The recipient of a Chin Check will get up after a few minutes, but a Smashing will cause serious hurt as a reminder of the mistake for days to come. A major infraction is stealing and fighting someone from another race. Interestingly, no fighting is allowed amongst the men who are doing time, but this does not apply to the area where people in temporary lock-up are housed.

The Serious Infraction is the highest violation of rules and decorum. Punishment is going to come down with radical brutality. The Council issues a “Rainbow”. A Rainbow is the attending of all Torpedoes to mete out punishment. Typically, this involves approximately 15 Torpedoes knocking on the offender’s door. This cannot be good, and I believe most readers’ imaginations will play out the conclusion of such an encounter.

A Serious Infraction is defined as snitching or stealing a drop. A drop is an in-camp airdrop from the outside world where a “Quarterback” does a drive-by on the other side of the fence and chucks a delivery over the two fences to a receiver. In an incredible show of sensibility, 20% of the drop material is divided between the Heads who use it to supply the poor and indigent amongst the prisoners – this keeps lips sealed and the less fortunate loyal to the overall population.

Under certain circumstances, the above rules, which only apply to the main yard, are cast aside. Using the term “Punk” or “Bitch” opens the floodgates, and it is man-on-man, but only within the same race or group. A question left unanswered for me here is, what if a Cheeto calls a Wood a Punk, is a Cheeto only allowed to fight other Cheetos?

If you are in the secondary yard where drunks, weekenders, work release, or the recently locked up are held, no rules are in effect. This is where you “Man-Up” or “Roll-Up” and a recent arrestee might find they need to fight or ask for protective custody. Protective custody has its own problems, as this is known as “Punk City.” As a citizen of Punk City, you are now an honorary punk, also known as a bitch; this is bad news.

So, what happens when the Council fails to correct a problem or the problem is so big that the authorities must get involved? This brings out the “Turtles”. The Turtles are the Special Response Team (SRT) and are the yard’s worst nightmare. Turtles are big, really big, over 250 pounds each kind of big. Wearing full battle gear, the Turtles arrive with shin protectors, knee pads, stab vests, elbow pads, jackboots, shields, and other weaponry.

Turtles typically try to use non-lethal weapons to corral and control the situation. The first weapon of choice is the “Devastator” followed by the “Mega-Devastator”; these are fire extinguisher-like devices under great pressure filled with pepper spray. Next in the arsenal is “Paintball Guns”. These are no ordinary paintball guns; these use over 800psi of air to shoot the target, compared to the consumer version that shoots with only 300psi of pressure. The paintballs themselves are filled with mace. To maintain a safe perimeter, the Turtles are carrying shields fortified with edges that are actually Tasers.

Let the games begin!

Phoenix, what a hot, hot place we call home. Summer drags, stretched by the blistering heat so that by September, you no longer remember what cool is. Even if you leave the valley of the sun for cooler climates, when you return, it is still hot, and after a few days, it feels like it has always been a scorching heatwave. When the end of August rolls around, we start thinking, dreaming even, that we only have a few more weeks of this hot air that is so hot your eyes dry between blinks. It has to end soon; anyone who has lived through a few Arizona summers knows that after the first week in September if the temps are still over 100 (40 Celsius), things will get ugly as it appears that tempers boil over along with the mercury.

An interesting summer phenomenon here in Arizona is the carbecue. I heard this description one afternoon on some forgotten early summer day as a radio personality described the season’s first car fire – a carbecue. These flaming cars burn heavily black and nearly sink through the asphalt they burn on. Passing a carbecue is no fun task either as you can’t help but wonder, when does the gas tank explode?

Not as interesting but a very real problem is that of getting into a car that has been parked in the sun for more than 15 minutes with closed windows. God help you if you have leather seats and are wearing shorts. You wouldn’t believe that old cow skin could have thermal qualities that can blister your posterior. Or try driving with pinky fingers because the steering wheel has become a drooping molten torture instrument used to burn the palms of sinners. Shopping in the heat is also problematic. Thirty minutes in a hot parking lot when it’s 114 degrees (46 Celsius) and your car will be over 195 degrees (92 Celsius) when you return – do not put the eggs on the seats. With the air conditioning blowing full blast, you still cannot be comfortable that the cheese you just bought isn’t sweating, that the raspberries aren’t wilting, and if soy milk could curdle, it would be well on its way to cottage cheese.

Ceiling fans, floor fans, small desk fans, fans on computer components, heavy curtains, and the air conditioning blowing, it is still hot inside our homes. Although the temperature inside would be considered comfortable in any other part of the world, the outside seems to radiate a kind of heat particles that are carried through the walls by invisible gnomes who race around you, making you sweat in a 77-degree room (25 Celsius).

Trying to find peace, er, coolness, I change into shorts and settle down in front of my monitor. You would think I would have learned by now, but my attention to the screen and inattention to my derriere comes with a price. After sitting in a leather chair for 20 minutes, I get so stuck to the surface that no doctor has ever removed a bandage, no kid has ever removed the masking tape from their hair, and no woman who gets that Brazil thing will know the pain of trying to peel both thighs from the flypaper of a chair that has glued itself to my lower side with the power of stickiness only equaled by those urban legends of people freezing their tongues to a frozen metal pole. After prying myself free, I know I won’t let that happen again, at least for the next 10 minutes. Caroline laughs at me from her cloth chair.

It is 10:30 p.m. here in Phoenix, Arizona now and it is still 96 degrees (36 Celsius). Tomorrow, we expect 109, and the ten-day forecast says we will stay over 100. We started a week ago with the old song, “Why are we living here? Next year, we’ll be in Oregon, or Washington, or…”. Time for a cold drink.