Layers

Bad news can come like phyllo dough. When finally baked up and presented from an oven, after all the preparation, the kneading, filling and folding are over — the work — the pastry may simply taste bad.

The number of flakes are infinite. The amount of layers are impossible to calculate, and as you dig, thinking, "ah, here at last is the end of it," it all ends up crumbling apart.

It's quite late in the day, lunch for many already, to be playing out a self-indulgent baking metaphor on a blog.

Let's not forget that this blog has (never?) led to any remuneration; lately, it has induced me to donate money to a stranger's medical bills. Not much. Recently I gave KCUR $10 more than to her, and I gave $10 to SNKC. The Kansas City Museum (Friends Of) got about $27 this year, on top of my usual membership … I think … their fiscal year is impossible to trace; membership might be individually annual — and poorly tracked — and they were audacious or ignorant enough to allow a hidden (non-standard) PayPal fee in the secondary campaign for shipping, though nothing was mailed my way.

I think those are all my 2009 501c3 givings. Actual work, unfortunately, is not deductible as an in-kind or any donation. Way back in my head there must be something that half-believes in the "good works," which Martin Luther did not, or in karmic balance. We have not reduced our tip percentage, though we might be dining out less. I have chipped off about $100 to give to a few things I believe in during a time when resources are inadequate. I might be responding to the generosity of hundreds of people in the community 'round here who have chipped off in my direction, based solely on belief.

Oh, and I bought some art this year, too. About $200.

So, an hour later, after the puffs and sambousas and spanakopita have been picked apart and hastily digested with a friend, she drifts back into the third person, decides nothing really has changed and gets back down to somewhat boring and somewhat tarnished brass tacks.

It shall be fine someday when they shine.