The Secret Dutch Conspiracy for Global Domination

Do you work?

I mean, do you go to some place of business five or more days a week where you perform set tasks in the company of at least several other people? A place with a restroom, a break room, and a regular schedule of breaks and lunch hours (even if you don't have time to take them)?

Yes?

Then you've probably been up to your neck in cookies lately. Good cookies, bad cookies, ginger cookies, chocolate chip. Rum balls, snickerdoodles, spice cookies, butter cookies. Shortbread, oatmeal, peanut butter, biscotti. And meringue.

The break room table sags and groans with the weight of plates, bowls, platters, boxes, and chests of cookies Cookies so hard they'll blunt your teeth. Cookies so sodden with butter that they're as floppy as jellyfish.

Because it's the holiday season. And everybody brings cookies to work, including you. For the joy of the season and the joy of giving? To show affection for one another? Well, maybe. Partly.

But mainly, because you made too many cookies at home and need to ditch some on others before you explode trying to eat them all. Or because Aunt Franconia shipped you a three-pound box of her justly infamous maple shortbread squares and you've gotta get them out of the house before your arteries brick up for good.

So you bring yours. And everybody else brings theirs. And you can't resist theirs, and they can't resist yours. And you all spend two weeks snacking compulsively on the sugary cookie buffet in the break room until your stomach acid is at a permanent low boil and your belly fat bulges over your belt. And your blood sugar is peaking and crashing so often that you can't actually do anything but play that idiot Microsoft Solitaire game.

Somewhere, a Dutchman is laughing.

The word "cookie" comes from the Dutch word koekje, which means "small cake." The Dutch introduced cookies to America back in colonial times. They knew we were destined for greatness, and so they planted a time bomb in the American culinary repertoire.

So now, for at least one month a year, the white-collar workers of America are made logey and useless by snowdrifts of tasty but debilitating treats. And they make bad, bad decisions.

Why do stupid things happen most often at the end of the year? Why do bald-headed treasury secretaries dump hundreds of billions on banks to make them lend money -- which they don't -- and why does Congress allow it? Why do Detroit CEOs think it's a good idea to take their corporate jets to Washington to plead poverty before hard-faced senators? Why do people who owe thousands decide to go even deeper into debt to buy the latest iPhone or a flat-screen TV?

Gotta be the cookies. You just know the GM CEO had a plate of chocolate-frosted butter cookies in front of him on final approach to Reagan International.

And crafty Dutch financiers, long-inured to the deleterious effects of cookies by centuries of natural selection, wait for the financial system to crash so they can swoop in and take over global finance and make everything nice and orderly and profitable again. And Dutch. Six weeks out of each year, we're at their mercy.

The fiends.

We must all do what we can to fight Dutch financial hegemony. My small part is this recipe for pretty delicious chocolate zucchini cake. It contains very little fat, fresh nuts, dark chocolate (good for the heart), and would almost be healthy except for the cup-and-half of sugar. But you can eat a hefty chunk of this stuff and still feel good afterward: stomach un-roiled, brain still clear, energy intact. And it makes a great combo with raspberry sherbert or sorbet.

I will say that this is an "adult" cake: not overly sweet, heavy on the dark chocolate. Grown-ups who want taste instead of sugar will like it a lot; kids, not so much. But there are ways to make the recipe kid-friendly, and I'll give them at the end.

Chocolate Zucchini Cake

3 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tablespoon ground cinammon
1 teaspon baking soda
1/2 teaspon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cup white sugar
3 eggs
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup apple sauce
3 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups shredded zucchini (or chopped really, really small)
1 cup chopped walnuts
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Rub a film of butter inside two 8x8 baking pans and sprinkle with flour. (Exact pan size doesnt matter; I often use a 9x9 and a loaf pan, and it works fine.)

2. In a large bowl, combine flour, cocoa, cinnamon, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Mix well. When you're done, the mixture should have a uniform appearance.

3. In a separate bowl, combine sugar and eggs; beat until well blended. Add oil and apple sauce and vanilla; beat again until combined. Stir in zucchini.

3. Add flour mixture to wet mixture; stir just until moistened. Stir in nuts and chocolate chips. Spoon evenly into loaf pans.

4. Bake for 50-55 minutes, or until toothpick or knifeblade inserted in center comes out out clean, without bits of half-baked cake clinging to it (streaks of molten chocolate chips are okay). If you're still not sure, check whether the edges of the cake have pulled away from the pan; if they have, it's done.

5. Cool in pan for 10 minutes; then remove from pans and cool completely on a wire rack or large plate.

This recipe is pretty robust; you can vary almost everything except the leavening, flour, and zucchini. As for doing the mixing, I just use a wooden spoon.

To make this recipe more appealing to kids, for example, increase the sugar to two cups and decrease the cocoa to 1/4 cup. Also use semi-sweet chocolate chips instead of bittersweet.

If you don't have applesauce around, just increase the oil to one cup. But it's lighter with the applesauce, sits easier in the stomach, and tastes a little better.

Didja Get the Memo?

It was a Friday morning; but it was also the day after Christmas and thus a day off work for me. So I got up early to go to the gym instead of getting up early to go to work. I hardly ever sleep late anymore. It's one of the things that I don't like about aging.

The gym was moderately full with people doing treadmill penance for Christmas dinner, and with the usual middle-aged muscleheads who'll lift 'til they die, and even with a personal trainer or two and their clients. The trainers are independent businesspeople, but they have some sort of arrangement with the gym to use the facilities.

One of the PTs was working a client on the other side of the pulley cage from where I was grunting through my ab pulldowns. This guy is as hard as nails and handsome. But a little battered, too, like an over-testosteroned Ken doll (Barbie's boyfriend) that's been left out in the sun for 40 years. "Ken" is a jittery guy, always moving, always spitting out words in short, rapid bursts. He pushes his clients hard, but not excessively so.

Attractive female clients, though, Ken doesn't push quite so hard. He likes talking to them, and it slows down the workout a little. But the women don't seem to mind because although he's got a lot of miles on his odometer, there's still a testosterone-supercharged Ken doll under that crinkly skin.

This morning's trainee was indeed a woman, heaving into view of 50 but trim and dirty blonde and attractive. Maybe not quite the Barbie doll type, but definitely Barbie's less flashy friend Midge 30 years on. I sensed that she made Ken's hormones' combust, though he stayed as professional and (more or less) gentlemanly as ever. But there was a lot more chitchat than usual.

So they were talking back and forth about life and such, and I hear "Midge" say, "I'm tired going out with the guys I meet at meetings," she says. "I mean, there are a lot of hot guys at AA, but I don't trust any of them."

"Date NORMALS!" Ken said. "I KNOW what I'm sayin'. I DON'T meet women at AA. Why go out with somebody from a MEETING when there are 100 NORMAL woman I can get next to?

"I'm beginning to see that," said the woman. She sighed. And I staggered off to the pullup station and stopped listening. It's pretty damned easy to hear 12-step gossip in Santa Cruz.

Back before email, back when people communicated at work by dropping hard-copy messages in the in-boxes on each others' desks, we would have said that Midge "didn't get the memo." The memo that reads "Never, ever go to bed with anybody who has more problems than you do." That one's a classic, one of the three great mistakes (along with eating dinner at a restaurant called Mom's, and playing poker with a guy named Doc).

On the other hand, Ken and Midge were both in AA; so they at least must have gotten the memo that reads "Excessive drinking just makes your problems worse." Maybe not as soon as they'd have liked, but it did get there eventually.

There are hundreds of memos, and the reality is that they never all hit your in-box right away. Sure, some memos are with you from Day One. Others -- Day Fifteen Thousand. And some of them may never arrive.

Did you get all of these memos? Hope so, but this list is only a tiny fragment of the MemoVerse:

• It's not okay to sleep with your partner's best friend.
• Regular personal hygiene is a necessary part of life.
• Repeatedly showing up late for work leads to unemployment.
• Men: If a woman tells you on the first date that she's high maintenance -- believer her and get out of there.
• Women: If a guy tells you on the first date that his hobby (whatever it is) is the most important thing in his life, believe him and get out of there.
• Repeating the same mistake over and over is kind of crazy. (Attachment: If your romantic interests have all been jerks or bitches, it's not just bad luck.)
• Save up money before spending it. (Attachment: Credit is not money.)
• The guy who speaks loudest in meetings usually doesn't have a clue.
• Pointing out people's mistakes will not make you popular. (Attachment: Popularity isn't everything.)
• Take people at face value -- unless they're asking for money or sex.
• Real estate always goes down. Eventually.
  

As I got to about age 50, memos started arriving regularly. It's not like I hadn't heard the advice before. But it finally sank in how they actually applied to me.

In recent years I've been getting little "pops" of realization along the line of, "Hey, you know that nagging problem that pops up wherever you go? YOU'RE CAUSING IT!" And I won't say my life has turned around, but I'm a little more in charge of it all than I used to be.

This kind of perspective is the one thing I like about getting older, and it more than makes up for not being able to sleep late anymore.

But I really to know what brings about these rather tardy flashes of insight. Is it just a matter of piling up enough life experience? Or, after 50 years, does the brain finally make enough cross-connections to efficiently sort through the tottering stacks of memories and extract some icky truths from them? I don't know.

Mid-life crisis? More like mid-life opportunity. Now if I can just make some real progress before Social Security kicks in.

Hey, you fiftyish ones out there: gotten any good memos lately?

The Good Fight

Love downtown Santa Cruz or hate it, something's always happening. It was six o'clock in the evening; the sky had turned black. Air felt like icewater on the face. On a night like this, smart people should head home from Christmas shopping, or nestle down in a restaurant or club.

And yet pedestrians swirled across the streetscape like leaves in the wind. Shoppers, couples, a crowd of gawky young people gulping pizza from a sidewalk by-the-slice window. Families with children were everywhere, even on the scuzzy end of the street down by the bars and thrift stores and "Meth R Us" scene by the bus station. Careworn travelers humped giant backpacks down the street to God knows where, or huddled in doorways, talking.

And suddenly the other side of the street was crammed with people. They walked an orderly line in the darkness, holding candles in paper cups. Hundreds of them.

What the hell? Fundamentalist Christians come downtown to witness to the sinners? A Take Back the Night march? Anti-war protesters?

I'd know soon enough. They crossed Pacific down by the Salvation Army. The line of twinkling lights turned and marched in my direction.

There were hundreds of them. They were a river. And they were silent. But now I knew what they were marching for:

Bystanders were as quiet as the marchers: a friendly wave here or there; a thumbs-up; a word of encouragement called softly by this person or that.

And the marchers were just folks. That was their most powerful statement, and they didn't have to say a word. Look at us -- we're just folks, like you, and we want to marry. Or we want our sons or daughters or brothers or sisters to marry who they want.

I had to get up the street, but they filled the sidewalk. And the parade went on and on.

So I jumped into the stream of people and marched along with them. Why not? They were good company to be with. And it sometimes makes no sense to stay a bystander. So we walked several blocks together until I peeled off to rendevous with Rhumba at Bad-Ass Coffee.

The right of gays to marry came with the stroke of a pen by Supreme Court justices, through the efforts of a few lawyers. It came too easy, and the gay population and their friends became too complacent. They celebrated; but they didn't stay vigilant, didn't keep working to convince other just how right their cause was.

And the well-funded cultural conservatives waged a campaign of fear and doubt and made enough people nervous enough that Proposition 8 passed, and made same-sex marriage illegal once again.

Still, gays and their supporters should blame no one but themselves. They had let down their guard. They didn't fight hard enough. They said, "It's over."

And now they know it wasn't, and they're out on the street with determination. And this time they will not stop fighting. That silent parade I became part of is not going away. And now the other side, the "sanctity of marriage" conservative Christian crowd, is saying, "It's over. Go home."

But it's not over. It may never be over in our lifetimes. But victory this time will be the sweeter, and more enduring, because it will be hard-fought and hard-won and taken for granted by nobody.

And it will happen. If you had marched in that parade, you'd be sure of it.

In a Lonely Place

It was a curiously forlorn place: an empty parking lot between a gas station and a motel. Somebody had parked a battered old Mercedes in the lot, and left it. The wind blew dead leaves across the asphalt and piled them up against the doors of the adjacent coffee shop.

I walked over and took a good look at the restaurant: locked up tight, "for lease" sign in the window, completely deserted. It was a typical Denny's: a gaunt structure of metal frame, glass, and dingy stucco. Somebody had covered the Denny's sign with a cloth banner reading "Scotts Valley Diner."

I peered in the windows. Except that it lacked any food, the restaurant looked as if the staff had just stepped out for a minute. All the restaurant equipment was clean, shiny, ready to go. The tables and counters were set with napkins and tableware and saltshakers. A stack of menus sat on the cashier's desk.

The only sour note was an empty water bottle that lay on its side on an otherwise clean and orderly dining table. Perhaps it had been there for months. Power poles cast black shadows across the worn pavement and up the side of the building. Cars zipped by in the distance, but few passed near.

It was one of those cold, clear mornings when the sun shone so brightly that it burned the color out of everything. The brilliant light and dark shadows turned the restaurant into a set for a film noir: one of those high-contrast black-and-white crime movies made right after World War II where evil lurked in inky shadows darker than outer space.

In a good film noir, the protagonist is an average guy who suddenly finds himself isolated and doomed for reasons he can't begin to understand. His friends have abandoned him or can't help him; he's completely isolated. All he try to do is find out who's destroying him and maybe take revenge on them before he himself goes down in a storm of gunfire in some lonely place. Like the parking lot of a vacant coffee shop in in quiet end of Scotts Valley. Early on a Saturday morning, when no one's around and no cars ever stop.

Fortunately, I wore no trenchcoat, carried no gat with two bullets left, awaited no showdown with hulking goons in a black sedan. Nope. Instead, I walked back to my very-Santa-Cruz Toyota hybrid and climbed in next to Rhumba, who was knitting.

We were there to buy a knitting machine. I'd just gotten out of the car to stretch my legs while we waited for the seller.

I have written that if Rhumba lusts for any object besides myself, it is the knitting machine: a strange contraption of shuttles, needles, masts and gears that allows one to knit at great speed assuming that the blessed thing doesn't jam. But of course, they all do. A lot.

Rhumba has a flock of knitting machines, all bought used on craigslist or ebay. The blamed things are so balky and complex that most people give up on them after a couple of projects. So the Internet marketplaces holds a plethora of near-new knitting machines at prices that -- let's just say that there's no good reason to buy a new one, ever.

Today we were there to buy -- just one more. Honest. Just one. Rhumba hooked up with a Los Gatos woman on craigslist who was selling a particular type of machine that Rhumba doesn't have -- like-new, of course -- for a couple of hundred bucks. It'd been $300 originally, but by the time Rhumba responded she'd reposted the ad with a new price of $200. Well -- fine.

She'd agreed to bring it to us if we'd meet her halfway. A quick study of Google maps showed that the parking lot of an abandoned Denny's in Scotts Valley was about as close to halfway as we could find. It was right by the freeway, besides.

After I got back in the car, we sat for a few more minutes. Rhumba checked the time; the buyer was late. But you've got to be flexible for arrangements like this. People have lives, you know. So we waited a bit longer.

Finally, a smart-looking SUV pulled into the lot. The seller had arrived.

She was a fit, well-put-together woman in her late 50's. Short and slim, she wore the casual clothing of the well-off: down vest and fitted denims, a little tasteful jewelry, good shoes. She wasted no time in producing the machine and presenting it to us. Like most people who bought new knitting machines, she hadn't used it much. "I made a couple of blankets, and that was it. I got into jewelry."

"Are you still making jewelry?" Rhumba asked. .

"No, that was a long time ago when I lived in Cupertino. I had a house there, but I sold it two years back."

"2006? At least you probably got a decent price back then," I said. .

"I made a lot of money, but it all went to pay my debts," she said. She shook her head. "Poof, it was gone." She lived in an apartment now.

Rhumba examined the knitting machine. All was well.

"$200, right?" I took ten twenties out of my wallet. Always cash for these things.

"Thank you," she said. There was a pause. "I'm behind on my rent."

I put the knitting machine in the trunk like a good husband, then returned to where Rhumba and the woman chatted. The woman held a cardboard box.

"I wanted to show you some of my jewelry" she said, meaning the jewelry that she used to make. The box held necklaces and earrings made of strung beads. She offered it, not quite looking at us, eyes downcast, head slightly ducked down.

And it came to me that she was pleading, even begging -- please buy my stuff. Help me make my rent.

Whatever her situation was now, she'd once been a person of means and resources and position -- the car, the clothes, her manner had all said that. And it had come to this. Offering whatever she could spare in exchange for ready cash.

It came out that her landlord had given her a warning: three days' notice.

The pieces were nice enough, respectable -- the sort of thing you see at craft fairs, and rarely buy. And in fact she had made them for sale, years ago. They still carried faded price tags.

But we had just spent $200. Yes, we'd gotten something for it. But there are limits.

We admired it all and said "No, thank you." The awkward moment passed and we parted on good terms.

I'm not sure what we could have done -- spent an extra twenty, an extra forty, all the cash in our pockets? It wouldn't have gotten her out of whatever spot she was in, I think. Lost job? Investments gone south? Medical bills? Who knows. But she was at the top of a slippery slope, and she knew it. Oh how clearly she knew it.

A friend at work fell into a spot like that this year. The reasons aren't important. She hit a rough patch, lost all her money. And suddenly she stood on the edge of eviction. And once you lose your place, and your credit rating along with it, it's hard to claw your way back to a respectable life that needs first and last month's rent, a security deposit and a credit check.

With Rhumba's assent, I stepped up and helped her out. Others did, too. Her life is still the stuff of soap operas, but she kept her apartment and she still has her job. It's good to have friends in hard times. When the roof of your life falls in, it's good not to be alone.

But what if you are, indeed, alone? And all you've got left is a moderately nice car and some spiffy clothes and an empty bank account. And a tiny apartment at a good address that you can't afford. And no job.

And you're in a lonely place with no help. And the color leaches out of the world and the shadows turn black as night, and events conspire to destroy you for no reason that you can understand.

So Rhumba and I drove back to Santa Cruz and a multicolored house full of cats and glass and yarn, and the woman drove back to Los Gatos into her personal film noir. And I know how it may end.