Stolen Persimmons

The other day I was running and I noticed a smashed persimmon on the sidewalk in my neighborhood, which lo and behold had fallen from a persimmon tree on my neighbor's (unfenced) lawn. There were, in fact, many persimmons on the ground, and I didn't take them but I did take note. Today there were persimmons at the farmers' market, but I couldn't quite justify buying them. There were, after all, FREE persimmons just a few blocks from my apartment. They were FREE, of course, only in the sense that they were small enough to carry and not nailed down, but still, the combination of two persimmon recipes in my Mennonite cookbook and perfectly good persimmons rotting away on my neighbor's lawn rankled, and this afternoon, stymied by my Frege paper, I went over there and took them. After all, the Mennonites say that "Giving someone a persimmon pudding is giving them a gift of love." Surely there could be no wrong in saving these persimmons from the sin of waste. I barely even had to step off the sidewalk! And, since I didn't end up with quite enough pulp to make the pudding in question, I'm probably going to go back tomorrow. Possibly in the dead of night.

But this experience, combined with my making apple butter last week (out of legitimately purchased, not stolen fruit), makes me really want a food mill. A food mill, it seems, can simultaneously mash and strain things. After forty five minutes trying to force persimmons through a fine mesh sieve with a soup spoon, I'm thinking a food mill is just what's needed. Apple butter is so easy (apart from that detail), so cheap, so universally beloved, and so low in sugar compared to other home jamming projects, that I see no reason not to make it every year forever, so a food mill might be a good investment. Or birthday gift.

Last night I went to Amity's for a debate party that turned out to be just me, Amity and her beau and her roommate, and one other HPS student. Cufflinks is in Indianapolis for a wedding (those X-ians sure are marryalish - a word Spellcheck has just approved, though Google does not) so I was able to let loose at during the debates with my liberal commentary. This made me feel excitingly daring - I should have thrown in a few "G.D."s for good measure. The debate itself was less exciting than I would have liked, though I think our guy did a pretty good job and it's nice to see McCain sticking to his strategy of misrepresenting and distorting Obama's record and positions instead of talking about his own. Amity has invited me over for the VP debate as well, which ought to be exciting. Especially if they get Tina Fey to be Palin again.

Yes We Can

I remember watching Obama speak at the Democratic National Convention back in 2004 and writing in my journal that I would vote for him for president some day. And now I have. It's nice when I'm right.

The Indiana primary isn't until May 6, but Obama campaign workers have been hawking this early voting thing and I figured why wait? They set up a temporary clerk's office in the Student Union and today people can go there and cast in-person absentee ballots. It crossed my mind that this would be a very clever scheme for some undercover McCain operatives - get all the Democratic college kids to cast fake ballots before they leave town for the summer, then swoop in for the kill at the actual primary. But this, I think, is fairly unlikely.

There was a long line at the polls this morning, and when I left it had grown longer still. There are also shuttles taking people to other polling places a couple of times a day, every day this week. It's really heartening to see such turnout, and it was also nice to see, as I signed out, the long list of D's on the signout sheet. The Dems are voting early in Indiana; let's hope it's enough.

I read a good piece on Obama recently in Commonweal, in which the author - I forget who it was - pointed out that speaking well is often a sign of thinking well, and that it will be much easier for McCain to dismiss Obama's rhetoric than to match it. Certain people I could name have said that Obama is full of sound and fury, signifying nothing, or as Cufflinks put it, that he says nothing at all but he says it really well. Whatever. I'm rereading this speech, and I feel the same way I did back in college when Obama gave me a glimpse of my America. I don't care that it's just talk - every time I see a chalking on the sidewalk that says "Yes We Can" it puts a spring in my step. So they're just words; well, this country was built on words. We're going to take America back. This is going to be great.