Maudlin Morning Mind Meandering

I should know better than to have "deep thoughts" before finishing my morning coffee, but it's just one of those things - once it's already happening, it's too late to prevent it.

On my way to set this morning I noticed that someone had strewn rice on the sidewalk. Perhaps as a "traction" measure for possible iciness (much like kitty litter). I don't know how effective it would be, but hey there it was.

Then I thought maybe it had been left out for the birds. Now, I had always been told you can't feed rice to birds because it will swell in their stomachs when it comes into contact with bodily fluids and cause the birds to explode. But I've also heard that is just a bunch of poppycock.

But then I thought, well, what about the birds in Asia, where the rice is grown. Do they not eat the rice? I thought that to be unlikely, but thinking of that led me to this.

As I walked to set, drinking my fancy Dunkin' Donuts Hazelnut Latte - and don't even get me started on how difficult it was to obtain that in the Washington Heights location

"How many sugars?"
"Uh, one?"
"One?"
"Yeah."
"Milk or cream?"
"What? It's a LATTE."
"Oh." (insert unintelligible muttering here between employees)

- I couldn't help but think about the people who must have farmed this rice, backs permanently bent, getting their few hours of listless sleep right now. People who could be just like me, only they were born to rice farmers in China. People with dreams and desires...people. For this rice, so easily bought in the store and tossed nonchalantly across the sidewalk so us poor New Yorkers wont slip, or worse, to fatten the pigeons.

It's strange how I can depress myself by thinking about how good I have it.

So let's look at a kitty, instead: