Freddies

Gili Air, Tamarind Tree; Lombok 2009

While Osmany is working his way through the produce section, I look around. At the end of a wine aisle I see a bottle from God King Slave. The paperback books are on sale:  buy three (or was it two?) and get one free. I hope this doesn't presage the end of the paperback section, not that I buy books there very often. Paperbacks are now $10, which is a little rich for my blood.

I check out the corkscrews. There are a couple for $10 and one for twenty. Kind of spendy for a simple tool, and I want one that works really well, and without a demonstration or some reviews by people who have actually used one, I am not convinced. Amazon here I come.

So now I'm wondering if I am old, or poor or just cantankerous. Inflation seems to be getting stronger every day, witness the Dow Jones Industrial Average reaching some new milestone. My theory is that the interest that the government is accruing every year is basically sucking the life blood out of our currency. Multiply the government debt by the wages paid to working people and divide by the square root of Beezlebub and you will see that I am right.

In the produce section I find some Tamarindos, which I suspect contain Tamarind seeds, which reminds that there was a book by that title, and it turns out a movie as well.  So based on this feeble connection (I mean all I remember is the title, I don't remember actually seeing the movie or reading the book. It was kind of a long time ago.) I bought one. A tamorindo that is, not the book.

When we are checking out the cashier tells us that she used to eat these things, pod and all, though the ones she ate were fresh, or green, not dried up husks like the one we had. She was at pains to find the words to describe fresh versus dried, which makes me think she might be a recent immigrant, which was kind of odd because her English was accent free. Osmany told her the name of this weird dried up thing we had but his accented pronunciation went right by her, apparently incomprehensible. I would like to find out where she came from. And yes, she is young and attractive.

But back to the Tamarindo itself. Osmany tells me the taste is very strong. The cashier says they are very sour, and she likes them. To each their own. I am not quite sure what I am going to do with the one I bought. I've already gotten my money's worth out of it, any actual use would be a bonus. We'll see if any ideas pop up.