The end of the earth

Still in New Jersey ... it's cold, and damp, and grey. Again, has it always been like this, and I just didn't notice because I was right in the middle of it?

I'm sitting here in the cold watching On Demand (which I remember totally changing my life a few years ago) - I've found an episode of Tony Bourdain's "No Reservations" about Patagonia.

Tony Bourdain just kills me. I enjoy his iconoclastic attitude and his experimental bent on food and cooking. That said, though, I'd rather swallow one of my carving knives - covered in broccoli - than have him over for dinner. He can be ... caustic.

In this episode he's starting in Buenos Aires and eating his way down to Tierra del Fuego. As I'm typing this, he's hanging out with gauchos at a campfire, discussing how even die-hard vegetarians begin eating meat in the Pampa. I can think of quite a few people who would approve of that work of goodness.

Speaking of vegetarians, I took advantage of KC's absence last night and tried the new Zen Palate in Princeton. I'd looked at the Zen Palate in Union Square for years but never actually went in. The food last night was good, but the experience was pretty funny. I consider myself pretty up on food and food terms, but the menu threw me for a loop. Wolfberry seeds? Soy nuggets? Virtual Buddha?

I've just watched the branding and castration of a few Argentine bulls. My whole-wheat noodle curry soup from last night looks better and better.

Bourdain keeps talking about drinking whiskey at the end of the earth. He's seen one end of the earth; I've seen the other. I've even got a t-shirt that says "Resolute Bay: It's not the end of the world, but you can see it from here." And I went north from Resolute.


So what does the end of the earth look like? During the endless day I saw gradations of the sky through shades of blue I didn't know existed. When the appalling weather let up (there's that perspective again, New Jersey's not so bad) the sun wheeled through the sky overhead, flirting with the always-visible moon that made sine waves across those many blues. It was cold, but clearly not cold enough. There's no mud like polar mud.

We had no whiskey, but I admit I found out why drinking lab ethanol is a bad idea. A very, very bad idea. But then again, putting six adults at the end of the earth without ... adequate ... supplies is also a very, very bad idea.

I wish I could spend my life traveling the world, eating, seeing, writing, doing, and generally experiencing things I couldn't make up. I wish I could just learn for the rest of my life, without worrying about taxes and mortages and the trappings of real life.

Until the day I'm independently wealthy, though, I've got people I love and work I enjoy. Isn't it a shame that you have to retire at the end of your life, when you're tired, instead of about a third of the way through, when you can still enjoy your freedom?