Saturday Musings 05.14.22

Happy Saturday.  Lots to talk about. 

Inflation is real, at least in the San Francisco Bay Area. $6.99 for both a pound of peaches at my local (higher end) supermarket and a gallon of gas. Tough one. De minimis elasticity on the price of gas; some stations charge closer to $6.00, but steep nonetheless. Better price elasticity at my local (San Mateo) farmers’ market. $2.00 per pound of oro blancos from one vendor, $1.00 per oro blanco from another. $2.50 per pound for peaches and apricots from another vendor, $4.00 per pound for organic peaches from yet another. Usually, and regrettably, prices are quite uniform at the farmers’ market, but, as noted above, there are still deals. Obligatory visit to my favorite coffee roaster, Liminal, above. Warmer today, tough call between a new Ethiopian drip and the nitro; opted for the former and added ice when I got home. Best of both worlds. Yes, $4 per 12-ounce drip is a bit steep, but I indulge once a week, and the drip is complementary when you purchase a bag of magic beans. The Peru El-Eden is my current favorite.

I visit the farmers’ market after my outdoor bootcamp class on the College of San Mateo campus. Great workout, with TRX, bosu planks, medicine balls, kettlebells, tire flips, and heavy rope. Today, the class consisted of women mostly in their 50s and 60s, and me. Usually, there is one more guy in the class. Recall Roy Kent’s yoga crew, for Ted Lasso fans. Today, to the chagrin of some, wanting to do one more round of tire flips I suggested one more round of exercises, after the instructor had said that we were done for the day. The tire flips were great, as always, and in the end, no one seemed to mind the extra round. 

I have been doing the outdoor boot camp since January 2021. At about the same time, and after more than 30 years of exercising apparently with suboptimal form and without any meaningful (to put it charitably) stretching, we engaged a personal trainer, the fabulous Alyssa, to plan and conduct outdoor at-home training sessions, every Friday at or near the end of the workday. The workouts are fun, innovative, and meticulously planned. Plus, I get to learn new, fun terms, like glute activation, my current favorite. Shivasana, for all of you yogis, is a close second. It is a pose of repose, at the end of the session. I try to do yoga once a week, usually midweek. Some weeks, like this one, it took particularly long to transition out of shivasana, and to return to the dreck of the week.

Speaking of dreck, on Putin’s order or assent, I am sure, the pre-trial detention of WNBA star Brittney Griner has been extended for another month. This is not a good time to be detained in Russia, and I can only assume that Russia and the US have yet to agree on the modern-day Rudolf Abel, for the exchange across the Glienicke Bridge. Suffice it to say, I am sure the demands will be maximalist on the Russian side.  

On Ukraine, well, we’re on day 80 (or so) of the war. The US Senate is working through a $40B package, not good for inflation, but necessary and the right thing to do. Technical difficulties (a non-functioning conference call dial in number) got in the way of a talk I was going to give yesterday to California IP attorneys, on the impact of the war on IP law (preview: the Russian trademark rights of Peppa Pig (apparently a favorite of Boris Johnson) are the first casualty). We will try Zoom next month. I have been asked to write an article on the same topic, for submission in June and publication in September. I will likely write it, but am concerned, given the fluidity of the situation, that it may become stale rather quickly.

Three more topics, if you bear with me (this being the downside of writing one post a week). First, European football, or soccer in the United States. After losing to Union Berlin last Saturday and to Bayer Leverkusen today, SC Freiburg still has the opportunity to play into the Europa League. Two weeks ago, Champions League, reserved for the top four Bundesliga clubs, was a distinct possibility. Despite exhortations, gesticulations, and yelling, I am sure, from the venerable Coach Streich, SC Freiburg could not muster a win (or tie) today. A Leipzig loss and Freiburg win would have given Freiburg the final Champions League spot. Leipzig tied. A Freiburg tie would have given Freiburg the number five spot and automatic entry to the Europa League. A Bayer goal, a crafty chip from probably 30 meters out over the head of the Freiburg goalie, seven minutes into stoppage time thwarted that. Commiseration Time, on this and the other side of the Atlantic. Still, all hope is not lost. Freiburg has an opportunity to make amends in the DFB-Pokal Final next Saturday. I will probably want to speak to Coach before then. 

More positively, AFC Sunderland advanced to the playoff final of League One, the third tier of English football. The top two clubs are automatically promoted to the Championship (second tier). The 3-6 teams are entered into a playoff. This year six points (over 46 games) separated the 3-6 teams. Super tight. The playoff format is at home and away. Sunderland won the at home game 1-0 and tied the away game, against Sheffield Wednesday (which, as I learned from Ted Lasso, originally only played on Wednesdays), winning on aggregate 2-1. Sunderland had been in the Premier League as recently as 2016-2017, before being relegated to the Championship, and then, the following year, being relegated to League One.  A fabulous documentary (Sunderland or Die) is available on Netflix on the travails of the club. I told a friend in London that I had watched and enjoyed it, and he asked, tongue in cheek, if it had subtitles. Sunderland is in northeastern England, and, admittedly there is a not insignificant accent. The game at Sheffield Wednesday was gritty, scrappy, gladiatorial, little to no rhythm, short on quality, far from the beautiful game. At some point, Sunderland must have realized that if it maintained the tie, it would advance to the one-game final at Wembley. As a professional footballer, I surmise that the third tier is probably the last place you’d want to be (of course, after the fourth tier), and so you can only imagine the dogged determination to secure promotion. In 2017, I watched a Galway United-Drogheda match when both were in the top tier of Irish football. 2,500-person stadium, 30 euros for four tickets, open seating, cold, rainy, mid-July. Tremendous game, hard fought, physical, probably a close corollary to League one. 

Second, local primary elections are less than a month away. I need to study my choices. Having choices is a blessing, although practically where I live the viable candidates are usually to the left and farther to the left. Mind you, I am an independent and voted for Biden in 2020. In my first presidential election (1992), if I voted, and I am quite sure that I did, I voted for Bush ’41. I am a moderate. If I had to choose an appellation (conservative or liberal), I would say that I am probably fiscally conservative and socially liberal. American politics seems to be governed at or by the extremes, which is unfortunate. I had read this week that J.D. Vance (Hillbilly Elegy) secured the Republican Senate primary for Ohio. Smart, well-spoken, but, like most politicians these days, probably not a bridge builder. I had seen him speak in 2017 in Washington, D.C., at a global privacy conference, of all places. The nexus to privacy was tenuous at best, but the book was a best-seller (albeit one that could have been half its length) and did a generally good job helping to explain the Trump ascendency. In short, I have work to do, to study my choices (however flawed) and make the best possible decisions. 

Last, but not least, I am making some progress in reading The Castle (Kafka), our current monthly selection for the Fiero Book Club. This one is slow, really slow. Walking in circles in chest-deep snow.  Running in circles in a small room. Dizzy and seemingly getting nowhere. It could be that reading this one late at night, the only time I could find, is not a good idea. One chapter at a time (at best). Maybe skip this one altogether. Recall, perhaps, that this was Kafka’s last book, and even more so, one that he did not finish. I will persist, but it looks like it will take more time. Suggestions, and comments,  welcomed. 

Until next week.