Clammy

Jack was right, or right enough, about the avocados. I wouldn’t say refrigeration “stop-actioned” them, but it definitely “slow-actioned” them, so that I had one perfectly ripe avocado ready to go every day, for my daily spinach salad that also has about two tablespoons of canola oil on it—my favorite dressing lately is canola oil, golden balsamic vinegar, salt, pepper and garlic. Yes, I know, I might as well go ahead and put chocolate sauce and whipped cream on top of a salad like that. (Or would it be better buried at the bottom, a surprise?)

One week’s salads featured late-season tomatoes and thin slices of red onion. They were tremendous.

I decided that Eucerin’s greasy lotion was not feasible for everyday use, and their non-greasy lotion smells a little strange and doesn’t seem to moisturize well at all. I happened to see a dermatologist not long ago and, fortunately, remembered to ask him about moisturizers.

He gave me a bunch of samples, all of which were pretty good, with the winner being Aveeno Active Naturals Daily Moisturizing Lotion. This stuff is outstanding: While it’s billed as being fragrance free, it’s not quite, but it smells OK to me, it absorbs almost instantly, and it moisturizes excellently. I apply it when I go to sleep, and the moisturizing properties last well into the next day. One feels positively clammy, not desiccated. It’s also cheap and easily to be had at Walgreens.

I have heard the idea of non-profit journalistic outlets mentioned a few times recently, which seems like a promising idea, as print journalism and publishing, rightly, wane (though it is going to be a painful day when The New Yorker becomes online only). I don’t know about the print edition of the San Francisco Chronicle (who reads actual newspapers anymore?) but its online entity, sfgate.com, is fairly lousy.

When you click on a link these days, half the time you get some other news organization, or, more likely, someone’s typo-ridden blog. They also feature a steady trickle of stories about cruelty to animals. I try to remember not to click on them, but a week or so ago, I clicked on one before I could think better of it and read the brief story. I now vow that I will absolutely never visit sfgate.com again.

I hate those kinds of stories, because they are upsetting in and of themselves, and they make me think about how many teenaged boys have done or will do the same thing (of course people of all genders and ages do ghastly things to helpless creatures, but I’m sure there’s a spike when it comes to a certain demographic), and I also think these stories inspire copycats. It bothers me so much. All I can really do is make sure to treat Hammett like a prince, which I do, and give money to PETA and the SPCA, which I also do.

I can also avoid eating animals and animal products, to a reasonable degree. At home, I now eat only the occasional dairy product (specifically ice cream and the bit of dairy in chocolate-covered almonds); when dining out or eating at someone else’s house, vegetarian is good enough. I don’t like to inconvenience my hosts and hostesses, but at this point, I can’t bring myself to eat flesh, thanks to PETA.

So, anyway, I swore off sfgate.com and figured that I would just go without local news, unless something big enough happens that the New York Times (online) covers it. I was therefore very pleased to hear (on KQED) that KQED and the Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism are embarking on a non-profit project to cover the Bay Area, which I believe is a harbinger of good things to come in many places.

I do also get local news from KQED, and just pledged to give them $12 a month to make sure I continue to hear Terry Gross, etc., for the foreseeable future. It seems to me that while radio journalism suffers when the economy suffers, and will end when the world ends or maybe even a bit before—public radio might not be the very last thing on earth—it shouldn’t be as vulnerable as print journalism. By the way, KQED has more listeners than any public radio station in the United States, a tad more than a station in New York City, where the number of potential listeners is much, much higher, so KQED is the most listened-to public radio station per capita in the country.