a compendium!

they have these trees here that shed bark pieces which are rather have smooth boundaries and non trivial fundamental groups, er.. i mean, they have holes in them.
and as you can tell by looking at the surface of the piece that peeled off.. this happens in layers, iteratively, as more exterior tree turns to bark, and peels..

there are some that are similar, but they shred like paper, instead of peeling so neatly.. i will try to get a photo of those kids too..

-soul veg.

a brief excursion to DC led us looking around the place for the Soul Vegetarian restaurant, which is the world's largest vegan restaurant chain. the restaurants are run by the african hebrew isrealites. they are vegan not because of their spiritual values, but simply because it is the simple honest way to treat your body well. their motto in tallahassee is-

"your health is your wealth!".

they are an interesting 'culture' (their phrase), who essentially emerged following the torah (the old testament), or perhaps the follow the full tanakh (hebrew bible).. i am not sure now that i think of it. but anyway, they follow it in a fairly broad manner, and claim a heritage as follows:

"As a direct result of their disobedience to the laws and commandments of God, the ancient Hebrew Israelites were held captive by various nations including the Egyptians, Assyrians and Babylonians. In 70 C.E. the remnants of The African Hebrew Israelites were driven from Jerusalem by the Romans into different parts of the world, including Africa. Many Hebrew Israelites migrated to West Africa where they, once again, were carried away captive - this time by Europeans on slave ships - to the Americas along with other African tribes people."

In 1966 our spiritual leader, Ben Ammi, had a vision that it was time for the Children of Israel who remained in America (the land of their captivity) to return to the Holy Land (the land of their origin).

there is a soul veg restaruant in tallahassee where juliet used to work (she is one of the few nonafrican hebrew isrealites to work there, if not the only). juliet and i have been to the one in atlanta (one of them, anyway..). we went looking for this one in DC, and when we finally found it, it was long closed up.. so, we stopped at an organic grocer a block or two north of there. they boasted vegan foods on their advertising window painting.. so, intriguedly, we walked over to it.
when we looked inside, the place was large, and completely empty.. . and then though i expected it to be locked, the front door was open. after walking in, we could see all the way to the back, there was a room, with lights on, and what looked like food laid out in a case.
sure enough, it was soul veg, in guerrilla restaurant mode. they had a wonderful selection, and were super-generous.. even giving us the gift of some free vegan steak (bbq sauce and seitan), which i was not very enthusiastic about eating (i am trying to keep away from highly processed foodlike objects), though i was enthusiastic about their graciousness..! thanks DC soul veg!

right so.. as we were driving away.. i snapped this photo of the side of a building where someone had drawn this:

-more DC
the photo below was my view in DC, waiting for my bus.. bothering the shit out of some people working the fancy restaurant inside. the place was pretty empty, and i came in, asking if it would be possible to get some coffee, and sit outside. the hostess personess acted as though i had asked her to co-sign a loan. then she asked a guy who was SUPER-watching the world cup game at the time if it would be alright... he answered, perhaps one word per second. he then commenced to apologize, asking me to wait for a bit (which i was of course very glad to), while he (i think) tried to pause the game on a tivo like contraption. this failed, and so he hurriedly made me a little pot of coffee.. and resumed his game watching.
i sat outside and worked a little (trying to figure out what a variant of the chaos game was doing (more on this later)).

it was lovely. then, upon reentering to pay.. they just told me it was alright.. that i could just go.
it felt just like this time when i was young. it was after dinner, and i was taking my plate into the kitchen, when i dropped it, and it broke. i immediately felt horrible.. and fully expected to be punished. my parents were quick to say that it was fine, do not feel bad, that i could just go on, and play in my room.. that they would take care of it. it was such an awkward instance of feeling unjustly like i was going unpunished for a burdensome trespass against another..
this is how much the kids in fancy hotels in DC love this soccer game.. (different hotel). i seem to be scowling.. but i think the facial expression is incidental..