Running the gauntlet and Bernie Bott's Beans

I just got back from a quick trip up the Ave (University Way, for the non-Seattle people) where I was accosted several times. "Hi, can you spare 5 minutes for the environment?" What I said was, "Not today". And what I got back was, "Well, enjoy the sunshine". What I should have said was "Oh, I can spare more than 5 minutes for the environment. What I can't spare is any time for sarcastic little twits who are trying to guilt people into donating to their cause." That just annoys the hell out of me! Here's what I observed today at lunchtime - in Seattle, one of the "greenest" cities, in the University District, one of the most liberal neighborhoods in the city, no one, it seems, could spare 5 minutes for the environment. Everybody, on the other hand, was enjoying the dickens out of the sunny day.

And, completely unrelated topic here, I tried Bernie Botts Every Flavor Jelly Beans this weekend. In case you're one of the 6 people who haven't heard or seen any Harry Potter, they're jelly beans that come in every flavor, even disgusting ones. Being a jelly bean fanatic I thought I'd give them a try and, quite honestly, I didn't really think that they would make the nasty tasting ones. I looked on the back of the box and there was a legend, kind of like when you get Jelly Belly beans showing what each color meant. Besides more normal flavors like cherry and toasted marshmallow there was also listed black pepper, soap, earthworm, ear wax, vomit(!), booger(!!), dirt and grass. I looked carefully at the list of ingredients and the only thing that made me think that perhaps they might be nasty tasting was that black pepper was listed as an ingredient. I was cautious but first off mistook an ear wax for a toasted marshmallow. Eeuuuuwwww! I spit it out. Thankfully the booger and vomit are pretty easy to pick out and pick them out I did, not even daring a nibble to double check that the vomit wasn't tutti frutti, it's closest lookalike. It was actually pretty funny and fun too, although Erik thought I was being a bit wasteful, since I was tossing away every 4th or 5th bean. I had a big laugh. Well worth the money.