2001-04-11 - 6:24 p.m.

stopped by a new market on the way home from work today. ran into one of my neighbors there. she asked rhetorically "why is it people don't feel it profitable to open up produce markets in Oakland?" followed by "people gotta eat!"

we wonder that so often... we've lived in Oakland now for two and a half years. (not including the first ten years of my life)... when we lived in san francisco, you could throw a stone and hit a produce market. the closest thing to us before this place opened was the Grocery Outlet... yum... where everything expired yesterday, but hey who cares, frozen seafood for a buck! can't beat 'dem prices!

this new market is a godsend. i only hope we're able to give them enough business to stay open... even though webvan is great and convenient, i hate the fact that we rely so much on them. aside from getting food online, we've got to bus it over into Berkeley for the most convenient shopping (if you can call a crowded half hour busride convenient)... but you know, it's not all of Oakland that's like this... only the predominantly black neighborhoods. go to Piedmont, Montclair, Rockridge, even Fruitvale and Diamond districts... there's fresh food to be found... and plenty of upper and middle class families...

what do we get? well, i could throw a stone now and hit probably ten liquor stores and a dozen fast food joints... "what's for dinner mom?" "fried chicken, sour pickles, and 50 cent cola" people can't fuckin' live off that shit... not without who knows how many health problems.

gah! de facto segregation and economic/racial prejudice at its finest... i tell ya...

anyhoo, we're eatin' fresh greens and veggies tonight!

and hopefully for some time to come.

......................................

on another note, the women's clinic i work at suffered its first act of vandalism in several months... a couple people damn enar ripped the security gate of its hinges. luckily someone saw them and they ran away before doing too much damage. but cops didn't get called until after i left work, and who knows when they'll show up to do a report.

why do people feel that a woman's body is not her right? that the fate of an unknown organism is more important than that of a living breathing beautiful human being?

and why is it almost always men?

grrrrrrr