Your mother never took the Christmas lights down
Yesterday was medically grueling and frustrating and when I got out of the appointment before which I had not managed to eat anything because of the hurry-up-and-wait shenanigans of the MBTA, I thought I would go to the Time Out Market. It was right around the corner and the reviews were good. Inside it was cavernous and clangingly noisy and I had to take a couple of phone calls while already battened down against the thumping house music which is probably the reason my ears are hurting so badly today, but its restaurants all looked spectacular, like a sleek, chi-chi version of the Boston Public Market, and I stared at nori tacos and tinned cockles and deli sandwiches and finally made a decision and placed an order and took out a twenty to pay for it and at that point I was informed that the restaurant did not take cash. The entire market did not take cash. Which I had naively thought was, in this state at least, illegal. I was informed that I could buy myself a gift card and use that if I didn't want to use my own credit or debit card. I just stared at the server and then I put my cash back in my wallet and my wallet back in my pocket and I walked out of the Time Out Market and I cannot see myself returning even if one of their vendors sells tinned cockles in brine at a price I was willing to pay.
I walked to Mei Mei with my ears ringing and explained in a staticky voice that I was having a terrible day and would it be a problem if I wanted to order one of their scallion pancake sandwiches and eat it in and their counterman said not at all, so I ordered the pork-stuffed one with cranberry hoisin sauce and the non-alcoholic cider vinegar of a haymaker's punch to drink and asked if it would be too much food if I added a kale salad on the side and their counterman looked at me vibrating with pain and unhappiness and general overload and asked gently if I would like the free brownie or the free coconut-milk rice pudding for dessert. "Coconut!" I said gratefully. I took a table in the corner and read Richard O. Prum's The Evolution of Beauty: How Darwin's Forgotten Theory of Mate Choice Shapes the Animal World—and Us (2017) and right around the unique feathery stridulation of the club-winged manakin my name was called and I received a tray with an entire meal set out on it right down to the spoon for the rice pudding and I ate all of it while continuing to read about avian evolution and aesthetic selection and felt very taken care of. It was delicious and inexpensive and they took cash. I even managed to get home on a combination of buses and trains afterward that came more or less while I was waiting for them. Then I collapsed.
It took me forever to fall asleep, but I slept well into the afternoon which is unusual these days and dreamed in the meantime of a system of superheroes that must have been influenced by L'Engle's nephilim and seraphim, because people were invoking obscure angels for powers of shape-change and other supernatural properties. Mostly young people, some older, all marginalized, even in the dream a visible slap in the face to Evangelical Christianity that felt no one should have a right to the names of powers and principalities but themselves. It led to a standoff with the government at a local farm that I visit quite ordinarily in my waking life. I hope we won. There was also a girl who as far as I could tell was just Leviathan.![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
choco_frosh had left me a copy of Ursula Vernon's The Twisted Ones (2019) and a tin of sardines when I woke.
In terms of recent news, as countercharms to the ever-escalating horror WTF I am enjoying very much both the whale fall swarmed by octopus and the plasmodial slime mold at the Paris Zoological Park. I do not disagree with John Lithgow's assessment of the man in the White House, but I'm not sure I'd known he could draw and he does a mean caricature, entirely deserved.
I walked to Mei Mei with my ears ringing and explained in a staticky voice that I was having a terrible day and would it be a problem if I wanted to order one of their scallion pancake sandwiches and eat it in and their counterman said not at all, so I ordered the pork-stuffed one with cranberry hoisin sauce and the non-alcoholic cider vinegar of a haymaker's punch to drink and asked if it would be too much food if I added a kale salad on the side and their counterman looked at me vibrating with pain and unhappiness and general overload and asked gently if I would like the free brownie or the free coconut-milk rice pudding for dessert. "Coconut!" I said gratefully. I took a table in the corner and read Richard O. Prum's The Evolution of Beauty: How Darwin's Forgotten Theory of Mate Choice Shapes the Animal World—and Us (2017) and right around the unique feathery stridulation of the club-winged manakin my name was called and I received a tray with an entire meal set out on it right down to the spoon for the rice pudding and I ate all of it while continuing to read about avian evolution and aesthetic selection and felt very taken care of. It was delicious and inexpensive and they took cash. I even managed to get home on a combination of buses and trains afterward that came more or less while I was waiting for them. Then I collapsed.
It took me forever to fall asleep, but I slept well into the afternoon which is unusual these days and dreamed in the meantime of a system of superheroes that must have been influenced by L'Engle's nephilim and seraphim, because people were invoking obscure angels for powers of shape-change and other supernatural properties. Mostly young people, some older, all marginalized, even in the dream a visible slap in the face to Evangelical Christianity that felt no one should have a right to the names of powers and principalities but themselves. It led to a standoff with the government at a local farm that I visit quite ordinarily in my waking life. I hope we won. There was also a girl who as far as I could tell was just Leviathan.
choco_frosh had left me a copy of Ursula Vernon's The Twisted Ones (2019) and a tin of sardines when I woke.In terms of recent news, as countercharms to the ever-escalating horror WTF I am enjoying very much both the whale fall swarmed by octopus and the plasmodial slime mold at the Paris Zoological Park. I do not disagree with John Lithgow's assessment of the man in the White House, but I'm not sure I'd known he could draw and he does a mean caricature, entirely deserved.
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Thank you. It was a really good time for it.
(One of my neighbors is now taking out the trash while singing "Comfortably Numb" à la Dar Williams, which I am also enjoying.)
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Thank you. They're a lovely restaurant. The rice pudding had berry jam and black sesame seeds on top.
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I never have, either, but due to geography I don't get to them often, and this felt above and beyond. Thank you.
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Thank you! Yeah.
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I seriously don't know when Brutalism came back into fashion for interior design.
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I too would have thought it was illegal to not take cash. Honestly I still wonder if perhaps it is. I pay with card more often than with cash, but that detail is enough to put me off Time Out Market (which I had not previously heard of) just on principle.
However, the whale fall swarmed by octopus is GREAT. I'd heard of it but only seen one short gif, and the additional pictures and video in that link make me very happy.
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It was really unexpected and incredibly nice.
I too would have thought it was illegal to not take cash. Honestly I still wonder if perhaps it is. I pay with card more often than with cash, but that detail is enough to put me off Time Out Market (which I had not previously heard of) just on principle.
I don't think it can be legal. I threw the question into the state legislature: "No retail establishment offering goods and services for sale shall discriminate against a cash buyer by requiring the use of credit by a buyer in order to purchase such goods and services. All such retail establishments must accept legal tender when offered as payment by the buyer." A twenty-dollar bill is legal tender; I offered it and was refused. I don't see how the market was allowed to set itself up that way.
However, the whale fall swarmed by octopus is GREAT. I'd heard of it but only seen one short gif, and the additional pictures and video in that link make me very happy.
I'm so glad! I ran into it cold and was delighted.
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Many airlines don't accept cash anymore...not considered a retail establishment maybe?
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Ah. I looked when I got home to see if the cashlessness was listed anywhere obvious on their website and it didn't seem to me that it was, but I see that it's the tiny print at the bottom of the page reading "Time Out Market Cards Terms of Use."
I'm still not impressed.
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It is not a good workaround. I don't know how long they've been doing this, but I really hope someone calls them on it. This isn't what "accepting cash" means to the average customer.
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Yes. That is the traditional problem with gift cards, traditionally ameliorated by throwing cash at the difference. If that's not an option here, it runs at a loss for the customer and a cleanup for the house. (And the terms of service state that the purchase of one of their cards substantially limits your ability to see them in court about it, so good luck ever seeing your $1.92 again.) Perhaps it is meant to be such an unappealing alternative that it forces the use of credit or debit cards. I wonder what the benefit to the business is, other than the obvious class winnowing.
I don't know how long they've been doing this, but I really hope someone calls them on it. This isn't what "accepting cash" means to the average customer.
They opened in June of this year; I would assume from the start. It's not cool.
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They get your data, which they can then use for their own promotion or sell on to someone else.
Also they don't have to handle cash, which is probably convenient for them. But mainly the screwing you on the change from the gift card or getting your data to use or sell or both.
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Feh.
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Thank you.
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And the scientists freaking out about it! (Their own words).
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That is deeply endearing.
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Who does not like a whale fall? Our remains should all become octopus food.
I had not heard before that slime mold, among its other interesting qualities, has 720 genders. I went looking and found a fungus that has 23,000 of them.
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It's the only way to survive.
You're right about Massachusetts law, although I gather some restaurants are trying to find a way not to be covered by the law.
I take it that the market's loophole is the gift cards, which one can purchase with legal tender and then barter for food, but I don't think it's cool.
Who does not like a whale fall? Our remains should all become octopus food.
Like sky burial, only sea.
I had not heard before that slime mold, among its other interesting qualities, has 720 genders. I went looking and found a fungus that has 23,000 of them.
I hadn't heard of that! I do not actually know how gender is defined in fungi and should probably find out.
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Thank you! The combination was restorative.
*hugs*
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It led to a standoff with the government at a local farm that I visit quite ordinarily in my waking life. I hope we won. There was also a girl who as far as I could tell was just Leviathan. [personal profile] choco_frosh had left me a copy of Ursula Vernon's The Twisted Ones (2019) and a tin of sardines when I woke.
I laughed at the contrast there. I didn't expect the paragraph to end in sardines!
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Thank you.
I laughed at the contrast there. I didn't expect the paragraph to end in sardines!
I didn't expect to find them in my mailbox, but I'm not complaining!
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Apparently I missed an exhibition of his art at Harvard two years ago! I don't usually want the time machine for very recent things, but here we are.
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The whale fall is so great!
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It's just so sketchy!
I'm glad you found kindness elsewhere.
Thank you. I'm glad there was kindness to be had! It's important.
The whale fall is so great!
It makes me so happy to be able to see something like that.
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And then, of course, those panhandlers need to pay for food.
Currency exists for reasons.
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Yes.