rebecca soble

I went to the Carrefour in Maltepe today, enjoying the feeling of being in a large supermarket with wide aisles and big selections.  I don’t know why I’ve never gone there before, it’s an easy ride on the minibus from my house.  But being three days before payday, my budget is tight so I bought just 8 things (fruit, veg, sandwich materials for workday lunches + some “garden spirit” scented tealight candles on sale for 3TL).  I went to the checkout and was pleased to find one reasonably short.  I got in the row, waited, put my things on the conveyor, and waited a bit more.  Then a woman came behind me and had also started putting her items on the conveyor when the cashier told her that this particular checkout was 5 items or less.  The cashier was very strict about this and made the woman leave.   I just watched.  I hadn’t realized I was in a restricted lane (the sign was very high up) and was wondering when the cashier was going to notice that I too was over limit.  In the meantime another woman came behind me and was discussing with the cashier whether 10 items would be okay since 5 of them were the same (5 packets of the same brand of mallo-cookies, yuck).  When it came my turn to check out, the cashier finally realized that I also had more than 5 items and she was about to get strict with me too, I could tell.  By this time there were two people behind me and it would have been a real pain in the patootie to retrieve my basket, refill it, back out, and get in another lane where everyone had carts piled high.  I had an inspiration:  I started talking in English.  “I’m really sorry, I just didn’t realize!”.   That was all it took, and she made an exception for my extra three items and let me go through.  As I took my change, I said (in my best English) “Thank you VERY much!” and smiled.  Nevermind that I understood every conversation around me and once I saw the sign knew exactly what it said and could have spoken to the cashier in Turkish.  Sometimes you’ve just gotta use your opportunities.

FWIW I think the “X items or fewer” concept is great, but I think the X should be closer to 10 or 12.   There’s a big difference between someone with a basket-ful and someone with a cart-ful.  If I have 8 items, is it better for me to be in the limited-item lane or fuming in the lane with people who have 50 items?  Here’s a nice solution I saw online, at another Carrefour (a French supermarket that has gone global) in Shanghai.  If you have a basket, you can pass through.  If you need a cart, find another lane.  I suppose someone could cheat with two baskets, but who wants to carry two baskets?

BTW the sign in the Maltepe Carrefour was about the same color and height as that one in Shanghai, but sideways to the checkout lanes rather than readable straight on.  I would have had to come to the checkout lanes from near the entrance in order to read it.

Ok, that’s enough about supermarket checkout lanes. 

Emrah and I spent two days in Bursa, one touring around old buildings (where I became obsessed with patterns in stonework), and the other at 1634 meters.  (More pics on Facebook or Flickr).

Several times, standing in the falling snow, I stopped to listen … and heard absolutely nothing.  It was splendid.

Today Emrah turned 30.  He seemed relatively okay with it, though this morning he said “yarim yoldayim” which basically means he thinks he’ll die at 60.   Just one year ago I arrived back in Turkey to celebrate his 29th birthday after 3 months at home in the US, so today is a quasi-anniversary as well as a birthday.  While I’m missing my family more than usual these days, I’m also amazed at how quickly this year has passed.  And overall, it’s been really good.

Today was sunny and warm, something I never take for granted on the last day of November.  To celebrate both the birthday and the weather, we took the Banlio Tren out to the last stop (Gebze) and then hopped a quick dolmuş to the fishing village of Eskihisar (thanks RG for the idea).

On the train

The hisar in Eskihisar is not open to the public apparently. But here’s a closeup of a closed gate.

Another view of the eski hisar in Eskihisar.

I should have asked Emrah to open his mouth and pretend to eat the boat!

An old house. Emrah took this pic - he really likes old houses.

Hello - anybody home? Another old house.

Me with the fishermen. Notice the cats slinking nearby on the lookout for some fishy snacks.

There are a lot of fishermen in Eskihisar.

Seaside.

Together at the seaside. Thanks to the guy who took the picture.

Sunset.

In the evening, watching the boats.

Evening, a nice view of the marina with the hisar behind. Not sure what setting Emrah was using on the camera to get the nice graininess.

Another photo with nice graininess.

Some things absorbed from the internet.  I’m a serious political news addict at this point - I predict withdrawal systems will start Nov 6 (I’m 7 hours ahead of east coast news here, and probably won’t sleep next Tuesday night)…

1.  An opinion post from Slate.com discussing the difference between a President’s need for cool-headed thinking and judgment and a fighter pilot’s need for bravery and skill, and how the latter doesn’t necessarily qualify one for the former.  It includes a really interesting abbreviated historical look at how JFK made his decisions during the Cuban Missile Crisis.  Worth a read!

2.  Check out these photos of Obama taken by Callie Shell.  They are mostly from the primary campaigns but are very touching and give more depth to Obama’s image.  The one of him with the mother of a solider killed in Iraq brought tears to my eyes.

3. Taking advantage of the building election excitement, I’ve been discussing the topic in some of my English lessons — not just Obama/McCain bio and policy differences but also the US Presidential Election process, our Electoral College system being the only of its kind in the world, I’ve found most students are fascinated by it and eagerly discuss the pros/cons etc.  There’s a very clear video from www.commoncraft.com called “Electing a US President in Plain English” (also available here with subtitles, great for weaker students, and there’s even a transcript here).

—

PS.  It occurred to me the other day after hearing the phrase “working across the aisle” for the umpteenth time that perhaps we might have more bipartisanship in the US Senate if in fact they de-segregated themselves.  Why do the Democrats and Republicans feel the need to sit apart in the Senate Chambers?  Wouldn’t there be more cross-party discussion (or at least opportunity for it) if they all intermingled?    From Wikipedia:

One hundred desks are arranged in the Chamber in a semicircular pattern and are divided by a wide central aisle. By tradition, Democrats sit on the right and Republicans to the left of the center aisle as viewed from the presiding officer’s chair. Each senator chooses a desk on the basis of seniority within his party.

During a conversation with now-famous Joe the Plumber, Obama made the following statement:

“My attitude is that if the economy’s good for folks from the bottom up, it’s gonna be good for everybody … I think when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody.”

I’ve heard a lot of huffing and puffing lately about this statement, including McCain picking up on it during the debate/campaign trail and spinning it around to mean Obama is pushing for some underhanded socialist takeover of our country.

But I see it 180° differently, I think it would be a GOOD THING to spread the wealth around a bit.  Currently our country has huge differentials (in wealth, assets, power, income) between the wealthy and the rest of us (middle class, working poor, economically distressed) and I see absolutely no problem with trying to even it out a bit.  (Check out this page for some good visuals and explanations - but there are lots of others too, search the web for “wealth distribution” or “income distribution” and decide for yourself.)

My guess is that there are a lot more of us struggling folks out there who agree that our country can’t be purely market-driven trickle-down (a policy which clearly — to those of us who are seeing it from close up anyway — has left the bottom folks struggling more than before) and will vote Obama into office.  This election is a chance for the voice of the common people to be heard by the millions over the voices of greedy free-market capitalists.  Go vote!

(I sent in my absentee ballot on Monday - go Eric Massa!)