Thursdays of Begrudging Respect: the beginning.

I've decided to devote Thursdays to things that don’t irritate me about Rhode Island. After all, no state is completely annoying,* and there are certain highly enjoyable things about the Ocean State that, as far as I know, don’t happen everywhere else. And so I was all set to write today about grilled bagels. Whereas in other places you can eat a bagel warm, toasted, or – ick – “raw,” in Rhode Island, when you place your order for one, you may be asked, “Want that grilled?” The only answer: yes. Yes, you do. You want whoever’s working the kitchen to take that bagel, slap some butter on it, and grill. It. Up. In some places, like my favorite breakfast spot, they don’t even ask; they just do it. Know what else? They’ll grill your muffin, too. And your scone. And it is nothing but right.

Anyway, I was prepared to go on and on about the magic of grilled breakfast breads today. Until I saw this:

State lawmaker faces backlash after criticizing student group
By ELLEN RATHBURN (2011-03-31)

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WRNI) - A state lawmaker is under fire after criticizing a student support group at Tiverton High School. Rep. Dan Gordon said members of the Gay Straight Alliance should be prohibited from meeting in the school, because it receives public funding.

Gordon claims the club, started by a student to address issues such as bullying, is an inappropriate use of school time.

"I don't think there would be much of a problem with bullying if kids weren't flaunting their sexuality in school" he says.** "I don't think that we should be promoting anything whatsoever that has to do with sexuality. Especially in a school that receives public funding."

Oh, I’m sorry. I was just rubbing my temples in frustration so hard that I touched my own brain. If you have the time and need a laugh, head on over to the thread that sparked this thing. Because, you see, it was a comment thread on a local feel-good article about a high school kid who went and launched a gay-straight alliance after-school group that prompted an elected member of state government to say, well, a whole bevy of gems, such as:

It doesn't matter if gay or straight, if sexual meet-up groups are being promoted in our schools rather than improving test scores, that school is failing.

Because test scores are the only things that matter! It’s okay if our public schools turn out nothing but jackass bullies and the people they victimize, as long as their NECAP scores are at or exceeding grade level. But I think the real beauty of this is that Mr. Gordon thinks the GSA is a sex club, formed to discuss topics like “Gay Sex: Isn’t it Awesome?” and “Pitcher or Catcher: Which are You?” while debating the merits of the kind of sex toys that would make you blush if you hadn’t fainted already. You know, instead of being what it actually is: an afterschool club devoted to engendering tolerance and acceptance of who people are at their core. He knows that the “S” in GSA stands for “straight,” right? Not “sssssssassy?”

Anyway. So why is this whole thing a source of begrudging respect? Read the other people’s comments. Most of them, that is. Some of the most intelligent and insightful ones are from high school students in Tiverton and elsewhere, while Mr. Gordon reverts to attacking their grammar and spelling and implying that their seeming lack of language skills is a result of “sexed-up” clubs like the GSA. I first heard about this on the radio this morning while I was driving my toddler to daycare, and after I startled her with a screeched “WHAT?!?” I thought, “Well, this will not stand.” And it won’t – not here. And that is nothing but right.

Meanwhile, this kid who started Tiverton High School's GSA? This Cynda Martin? What a kid. Her parents did something right. I can only hope that my daughter is as courageous in whatever she does with her life, as whoever she is. 

Go, Rhode Island.

* Except New Jersey.

** It's true. He said that. He really did.

Zeppole Day: RUINED.

People, this is an abomination:

The Rhode Island Department of Health said a salmonella outbreak appears to be connected to raw eggs.

The department said Sunday it has received reports of 25 possible salmonella cases connected to tainted pastries made by a Johnston bakery.

Health officials said the common thread appears to be the consumption of zeppoles, an Italian pastry similar to a doughnut, made by DeFusco's Bakery in Johnston. 

In fact, it is an abomination on three levels:

1. Zeppole should always be a force of good, not evil. Or sickness. Shame, shame on anyone who thinks or does otherwise.

2. A story about zeppoles in Rhode Island does not need to define the word "zeppoles." Channel 10, just because you are on the interwebs does not mean that you have an audience beyond state lines.

3. Zeppoles are in no way like donuts. Not here, anyway. 

Also, Johnston: you continue to suck. (No explanation necessary. Johnston knows what it did.)

Farewell, I guess.

I can't decide whether the Rhode Island Mall is a monument to survival or a place where commerce goes to die. It's been a ghost town since I moved here, with only the GNC, one of those stores that sell chain mail shirts and amulets, and that one DMV branch that was open for about 20 minutes on Saturdays, in addition to the anchors (Sears, Wal-Mart, and Kohl's). I'm told that back in the day, it was a bustling 80s-type mall with your Claire's, your Gap, and your Chess King, but today it's just a place for a few old people to walk. The escalators still work, even though they don't really lead to anything, there are photo booths for some reason, and it's church-silent because everything echoes deafeningly. But still, it's there. Last year's floods didn't touch it, while the Warwick Mall next door got hammered.

And now Stop & Shop, who's been quietly buying up all of the leases of the remaining stores, is kicking everyone but the anchors out, and the anchors won't even open up into the mall anymore. So what the hell is Stop & Shop going to do with it? Apparently, they don't even know yet, according to a waaaaaay too sappily nostalgic article about it in today's ProJo, which not only opens with a dumb non-question:

Who knew that footsteps could echo down Memory Lane inside a two-story enclosed mall.

but also calls old people out as liars:

While doing his 6 or 7 laps Thursday, Emelio DeFazio, 80, pretended not to care that the interior would be closed to walkers in less than two months.

“I’m going to buy a treadmill, anyway,” he said.

I say we seal it off for twenty years and then see what grows inside, like that abandoned book depository in Detroit.

What's wrong with this picture?

If you guessed that it lacks sorely in correctness of spelling and grammar, you are wrong. And a snob.* No, what's wrong is that I was unaware that a free donut was at hand! All I need is the store number at the top of the receipt I got for my coffee today... well, dammit. Excuse me while I dig through my trash can...

Did you see the clip of Miss Rhode Island at the last Miss America pageant, where she tells the world that Rhode Island has the most Dunkin' Donuts per capita in the country? Yeah, it was pretty awesome. Know why? Because Dunkin' Donuts is great. Thank goodness there are five within two miles of my house! Seriously. When I die, I want to be buried with a double chocolate donut around each of my fingers and toes, plus a Munchkin under my tongue in case there's some sort of ferryman payment to consider. In fact, speaking of donuts, I may need to go purchase several dozen to cram into my face tomorrow to stifle the weeping I'll be doing as I watch the snow that's supposed to fall all damn day.

*Hey, me too! We should hang out.

Zeppole Day!

Tomorrow is St. Joseph's Day. If you're Catholic you probably know that St. Joseph was the husband of Mary and adoptive father of Jesus Christ, and if you're Italian you probably celebrate the Feast of St. Joseph to commemorate how God, through St. Joseph, saved the Sicilians from a wicked drought. If you live in Rhode Island - Catholic or not, Italian or not - you know March 19 as Zeppole Day, the day God, through bakers, grocers, and restaurateurs, saved the citizens of this tiny state from a tasty cream puff drought by giving unto them, well, tasty cream puffs. Everywhere. In fact, my workplace even springs for trays of mini zeppole every year, and it's awesome. (They spring for Irish soda bread today, too, but who cares?)

Rhode Island Italians are unique, and I speak from some measure of experience, seeing as I married one. They indiscriminately omit vowels from the end of Italian (or "Italian") words, and occasionally change consonant sounds based on nothing at all. Almost all such words are foods. For instance: ricotta = ragott; antipasto = annapahs; prosciutto = projute; pizzi di patate = pizzi baton. (That last one is a mashed potato casserole-type pie thing that my husband's cousin Patricia makes, and it is fabulous.) As far as I know, Italians in Chicago and New York don't do this, and my theory is that when you're as isolated a community as Rhode Island is, your language evolves within, as it did with French in Quebec. (If you're wondering what my credentials as an anthropological linguist are, google the term "lighten up.") Anyway, it doesn't matter because almost every altered word is one for something delicious, like zeppole, which is, admittedly, pretty untouched, although I've heard them referred to as "zeppa" and even "tzeppola," with the "t" sound in front like tzatziki, because I guess it just doesn't sound Greek enough to some. But you know what, Italians? You pronounce things however you want, just as long as you keep stuffing pastry shells with sweet ricotta filling. Zeppole, canolli, whatever. Keep it coming.

There's a hellmouth under us, isn't there?

The new Benjamin?

Rhode Island, are you a high school? Are you a great big high school in a crappy neighborhood where some kid was elected student body president after promising to put a soda machine in the cafeteria, but then when his term began, he discovered that the school couldn’t afford a soda machine because it had a bazillion dollars in debt and no way to pay it? Seriously, Ocean State: what the hell? First, our Dickensian orphanage overseer of an ex-governor cuts social programs all to hell while maintaining tax breaks for the wealthy, who flee anyway. Then the outgoing mayor of Providence wins a seat in Congress and leaves his successor the delightful office-warming present of absolutely no money in the city cash box. Surprise! So now the new mayor is firing all the city’s public school teachers and looking for other creative ways to keep Providence from descending into all-out, every-man-for-himself-Lord-of-the-Flies-type chaos. Meanwhile, the state’s smallest, poorest town is in receivership and cultivating its distinction of being That Place You Avoid Driving Through. Of course, according to some, statewide failure of everything is preferable to even the tiniest tax hike, even if your tax bills are being delivered to your car, because that is where you live after you lose your house, and it’s like a little house anyway because your wheels were ripped off by gaping, years-old potholes so the car doesn’t really function as a car anymore.

Anyhoo, the real question is this: when Rhode Island’s situation becomes so dire that we’re burning our ripped-apart tires for heat and even Connecticut won’t annex us, what will be the currency of this new world order? Clams? Silly mobster nicknames? Cumberlandite? (That’s our state rock, don’t you know.) Or will it be something less tangible, like despair? Or cynicism? Ooh, please let it be the latter. I will own everything.

It's just none of your business.

It’s no secret that Rhode Island’s roads hate your car – specifically, your shocks, tires, and axles.  But did you know that those roads hate you – specifically, your sanity, happiness, and will to live – too? It’s true! Potholes are abundant and elephant-sized, especially now, when the freeze/thaw cycle is really hitting its stride, but add to that the absence of street signs or any of the usual tools people use to find their way from point A to point B, and you have a level of craziness unique to the Ocean State.

It’s not unusual to complain about the roads where you live. Everyone tends to think that where they live has the nuttiest drivers, the crappiest roads, etc. But I have lived and driven in Chicago, New York, Washington, DC, Jersey City, and Los Angeles, and in those cities I witnessed some drivers’ habits and road conditions that could charitably be described as cuckoo bananas. And yet they do not compare to driving in Rhode Island. Not even a little.

Forget the fact that drivers in this tiny state are the most aggressive I’ve ever seen, Manhattan cabbies included. The thing that makes Rhode Island really stand out is that the details of road travel, the kind you normally take for granted, are none of your business. Street signs? Forget it. If you don’t already know the name of the street you’re on, you shouldn’t be there. Protected left turn? No, there’s no green arrow light; if you don’t already know it’s a protected left, you will when every car behind you starts laying on their horns, because you should have known it already. Stop sign? It may not be real, so you may not have to pay attention to it. Other traffic signs, like “No Parking” or “No Turn on Red?” If they haven’t been there your whole life, they don’t count.

I work in an area downtown called the Jewelry District, because once upon a time jewelry manufacturing was the dominant business here. I believe that when our forefathers planned the roads in the Jewelry District, they took a handful of wet noodles, dropped them on a piece of paper, and drew up the plans according to how the noodles fell. In the Jewelry District, not only is the existence of street signs sporadic, but so too is the appearance of numbers on buildings. I was late for the interview for my current job because the building’s address isn’t marked anywhere. I even gave myself an extra half hour to get there because I had tried to find another address in the area a few days earlier, and after driving around for an hour I gave up and went home, weeping. Not a day goes by that I don’t see someone driving around the Jewelry District, slow and confused, looking for an address that is none of their business.

You have to rely heavily on landmarks to give someone directions. Much of the time, addresses are meaningless, even outside of the Jewelry District. The people of Rhode Island are generally here for much longer than any business, so directions often include things that do not exist anymore. You or I might tell someone, “Take 95 to exit 14, go straight at the end of the ramp, take your third right onto Jefferson, and then the house is #18, a blue ranch.” A true Rhode Islander would say, “Take 95 to the exit before the mall, and then just go and go, and then when you get to where the Apex used to be, start looking for a Dunkin’ Donuts on the right, not the left, and after you go by that and the gas station, turn right where the uniform store was. It’s a blue house, kind of like the one your uncle Jimmy lived in when he lived in Cranston. Remember? The kind with the door in the middle? Like that, but blue.”

Thank god for GPS.