Overheard in a coffee shop

I can't send this in to Overheard in New York because it happened in Des Moines, but I thought it warranted repeating.

Three local politicos are having breakfast at the counter.

Local mayor: I'm going to see "The 300" this weekend.
Journalist: I hear that it's good, except the guy who plays King Leonidas always shouts the end of his sentence. (Imitates King Leonidas) We're going to go UP THAT HILL!
Lobbyist: (rolls eyes) He's been doing that imiation all week.
Journalist: Well, I imagine it would have an effect on his personal life. (imitates again) Ok kids, have a good day AT SCHOOL! Honey, I want to make love TO YOU!
Mayor: Would you shut up about King Lentitis.
Lobbyist: Lentitis?
Mayor: King Lentitis, King Colitis, whatever.
Journalist: I'm not getting ENOUGH ROUGHAGE!
Mayor: My kingdom for some lettuce!

The widow's mite

In church on Sunday, the pastor preached on the Bible verse where Mary breaks open expensive perfume and pours in on Jesus' feet. In John's version, Judas scolds her for using the perfume in this way, when it could have been sold and given to the poor. Jesus tells them to leave her alone, and praises her for the beautifully extravagant gift, even saying "Wherever the gospel is preached in the whole world, what she has done will be told in memory of her."

Recently, my sister-in-law sold the trailer she and my brother owned for just $1000. She knew the couple who bought it, and that they were just starting out, as she and Jeff had been. Now Janet and Jeff had a history of being very bad with money, and easily taken in and scammed, so her parents and others have scolded her for her terrible business sense. Her response: "The two of them reminded me of Jeff and I, just barely trying to get by, always playing catch-up. If they could have this boost, at least have a place to live, paid for, then maybe they'll be all right." If she and Jeff couldn't have that life, she wanted to give it to someone else.

Adios, Southside

This was a weekend of goodbyes, including my brother's funeral and less profoundly, the last day of my Southside job.

Chris Rock has said that in every town, there are two malls - the one the white people go to, and the one the white people USED to go to.

In the Des Moines area, there are at least 4 huge malls - each one, frankly, filled with a lot of white people. But Southridge Mall is definitely the oldest and most diverse. It's got eighties-style fixtures, a carousel, and a busy food court, where you can watch kids play and listen to old people talk politics. A lot of random stores moved in after the chain retailers gave up on the location - instead of Gap, BabyGap, and moreGap, you find Suenos Felices (it means Sweet Dreams - filled with frothy quinecera dresses and sexy outfits for going out dancing), the Filipino grocery store, a used book store, Southwest Expressions (tacky cactus-themed items for your home), the Western shop (cowboy boots and hats), Chu's Hairstyling (my personal favorite - Chinese hairstylists actually know how to cut straight, thick hair), the Democratic Party Headquarters (during election season), the glass shop (every conceivable kind of glass animal), and Extreme Nightlife (clothing for work, if your work involves a stage and a pole).

But it's not just my love of kitsch that makes Southridge interesting to me. While this is the part of town that many consider to be dying, the bustling immigrant community and abundance of small businesses make it feel more alive than the engineered "town square" communities of the ultra-posh Jordan Creek area. At my bank, there is a black teller, a hispanic teller, and the hot gay teller with whom I bond over a shared interest in theater. The South side is one of the few places in Des Moines where you can find this kind of diversity - sure, there are pockets of this or that ethnicity living all over town, but in no place do these different groups live and work together as they do on the South side. Good ol' boys work right next to immigrants, with women as their supervisors. There's conflict, to be sure, but their simple, hard-working lives give them a lot in common. Southsiders seem to share both hardship and hope.