avocado questions, veg cred, adulthood defined

I've loved avocados all my life.  When I was young, I would buy them, then lose track of them.  Life was difficult and confusing.  I would buy an avocado and a week later remember it on the counter, a brown mummy. 

I could have a hard time knowing when an avocado I bought was really ripe--stem end seemed ripe, but then most of it was still hard.  Or I would think I did well, then cut into my avocado and find out it was all rotten bruises. 

I really do think some are doomed from the beginning--I can do everything right, but still the avocado will be a fail--never ripen right, or all yuck.

I think avocados can be the most delicious food in the world, their creamy buttery green goodness, or the most disgusting food in the world, bruised rotting dumpster mush.  Kinda weird--a bipolar fruit.

They can be ripe but kind of latexy, or ripe and very oily and nice.  They can rot a tiny bit on the stem and get those brown lines through them--still might be tasty, but it can look bad.  There can be a bruise or two I can work around, or I can think the bruising is minimal then find it's bad, give up, and throw the whole thing away.

I can have some uncertainty, then cut an avocado open and see I hit the jackpot--it's gorgeous and perfect.  I exclaim something happy to Ming from the kitchen. 

He usually eats the seed half.  I used to remove a seed with my teeth, but I think I'm too old for that now.  I'm going to snap a tooth off--gotta stop.

But I think they should be treated as a vegetable.  I should get veg cred since they are green, plants, and not sweet.  I like them in a salad.  On some tacos maybe.  A fatty treat topping on some grain--rice or quinoa.

Becoming an adult for me was about being on top of things enough to do well with avocados.  I liked to eat half an avocado with salt.  I love to eat avocado toast, sometimes with tomatoes.  I've had guacamole times, in my life.  A brief phase of this avocado-based green vegan pasta sauce with lemon and fresh basil.  Sounds great, but I think I never got it right, or it was more of a fantasy.

A long time ago in Santa Barbara, there was a pizza place I went to that served avocado as a pizza topping.  That was delicious.  They might have been grown locally.  I remember driving on the freeway past hills covered in avocado trees, their abundant dark, beautiful leaves and valuableness.

It's our final night here at the house we're housesitting.  I asked Ming if he was sad to leave, and he said no.  "Are you happy to leave?" I asked.  He said no to that too. 

Mom asked me if I'm sad to leave over txt hours later.  I told her no, we're full.  The city is brutal.

I asked Ming, "Are you normal, here?"  This is the land he comes from.  I noticed a lot of elders walking around who look like his mom.  We decided maybe Ming's demographics are normal here, but he's different, inside.

Our last sunset here, the colors were pinker in the actual sky, but this can give you an idea.