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One thing overlooked in the widespread condemnation of Rush Limbaugh's comments on Donovan McNabb: Rush may have been off on the racial stuff (blame the OxyContin), but McNabb really sucks right now.

Really, really sucks.

I know some of it is his receivers' difficulty getting open, and some of it is Andy Reid's abysmal play calling, and some of it is a pourous offensive line, but even with all of that, he can't run and he can't throw. He can't. Look at the tapes. The guy's clueless and getting worse. And once again, with his back to the wall and needing to lead his team in the clutch, he... fumbled.

He can recover, but he'd better do so soon. In the meantime, it's painful to watch.

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The grocery workers around here did go on strike today, or, more precisely, they went on strike against one chain (Safeway's Vons-Pavilions subsidiary) and two others (Albertson's and Kroger's Ralphs division) locked their workers out. That led to the sight today of the staff of our local Ralphs with picket signs at the entrances to the store, laughing and waving to passing cars and yelling at those who crossed.

I saw that and I wondered how long the smiles and laughs and camaraderie would last. These people are not experienced at striking, and most don't really make a huge salary- the high hourly wage is offset by the paucity of hours (most arent full-time). After a few days of this, they'll be hurting a little, financially and emotionally.

That's, after all, what the chains are hoping. This strike isn't about wages as much as it is that the chains want to off-load the costs of insurance onto the workers without a commensurate raise in salary- in other words, an effective pay cut. And I can't blame them for wanting it- heath insurance costs are out of control. You pay more for it and get less coverage, and it's only going to get worse.

It's really one of the most important issues nobody's addressing, because the obvious answers either won't work (socialized medicine) or aren't working (letting insurers dictate costs). Any halfway solution- setting price controls on services rendered, for example- won't fly, because if you limit revenues, you limit salary, and prospective doctors would rather work in a field where their earnings potential isn't artificially limited. Essentially, there's no solution.

Except one. Imagine this:

High speed, continuous transportation from anywhere in America to the Canadian border.

You take the plane or bullet train, you walk across the border, you collapse in pain, they take you for treatment, and the Canadians pay for it.

Hey, they owe us one for the Iraq thing.

Uh oh, I have the sniffles. Excuse me while I head north. Let freakin' Chretien pay for it.

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Down day today.

Lots of existential angst, lots of stuff with which we had to deal, lots of little aggravations, the kind of day that reminds me that I'm not necessarily who I think I am. I know that people look at me and think, OK, middle-aged guy with wife-house-mortgage-job-car-cat. I don't FEEL like that guy. In the mirror, I am. In my mind, I'm somewhere between 12 and 30, still a kid.

Age isn't important, we tell ourselves, and that's true to an extent, but you can't outrun time. As much as I think I'm still a child, free of mundane and aggravating responsibilities, I know I still have to work, have to pay the bills, have to pay taxes and get the groceries and pick up the mail and meet deadlines and be an adult, just the way my dad did and his dad did and dads and moms and people everywhere always have done. I'm not Peter Pan, I'm not really the overgrown kid who exists in my mind. I'm a responsible adult, and that means that no matter how blue my mood gets, no matter how crappy a day I'm having, no matter what indignities and sadness and anger may arise, I gotta suck it up and get things done.

Which I do. But I reserve the right to whine about it. That's the kid in me.

So we went over to the Starbucks up the road at the end of the day to decompress. Fran suggested it- I'm not a coffee drinker, so I tend not to hang out there, but it seemed like a good idea. And it was. We sat there talking about life and the road here and the future and we watched the sun set over the Pacific and the fog roll in off the water and it seemed cinematic, if that's a word. We talked about how we got here and where we are and what might come next, and I kinda just took in the moment. The moment was this: I am that middle-aged guy with a wife-house-mortgage-job-car-cat, with a great wife-house-mortgage-job-car-cat (OK, not the mortgage, but everything else is great). The kid's still in there, too. And this evening, whatever else may be happening, at this moment, right now, I'm sitting at the edge of the earth with a cold drink watching the sun go down with the one I love beside me, and there are worse ways to end a blue Monday.

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No matter how misguided I may ever be, no matter how wrong, no matter how stupid or off course or quixotic or confused I may get, I will never, ever be as deluded as Dennis Kucinich.

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The grocery strikers were out on the picket line again today, lingering at the driveways into the Ralphs on Hawthorne Blvd., waving and laughing. I noticed that the parking lot behind them was fairly crowded with the usual Mercedes and BMWs- it looked an awful lot like a regular shopping day.

I wonder how long people will stick to the boycott- obviously, several people are ignoring the pickets (and at a nearby Pavilions store, it wasn't easy to actually find the strikers at all). On one hand, I understand why the union's upset- they're being asked to pick up a share of their health insurance costs without a commensurate pay raise, so it's effectively a pay cut. On the other hand, who in the rest of the workforce gets to not only have 100% of their insurance premiums paid by the company, but also has no copayments? Do they understand that the rest of us have always had to pay? I'd hate to lose something I had for years, too, but I don't think they realize how unusual their deal was.

Over the years, the public has become less and less tolerant of job actions. These strikers are starting out with a lot of support from people like me simply because we know each other and like the workers and don't want to see them hurt. But if this goes for a long time, there's going to be a point where the public just throws up its hands and crosses the line. I'd put the over/under at two weeks, three at the latest. People will go out of their way for a couple of weeks, but at some point, 20 minutes each way just for a loaf of bread and a bottle of grape juice is just not going to be worth the trouble anymore, not if it's just to support people with a better deal than you have.

We drove by after sunset and the strikers were still there, unlit, shadows skulking along the sidewalk. They weren't laughing and they weren't waving. For their sake, I hope they can go back inside soon. Everyone else might not be so patient.

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I swear, the moment I saw the fan interfere with the foul ball in the Marlins eighth, I knew what was coming next. Mark Prior or no Mark Prior, I knew that the Marlins were going to win this game. I knew because these are the Cubs, and this is what happens to the Cubs.

Crack open another Old Style, Harry, it's going the distance.

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We needed a few food items, but we weren't going to cross the picket line at Ralphs, so we decided to go to our nearby Trader Joe's. Mistake, not because there were lines- there weren't- but because the locusts had descended on the joint and the shelves were cleared out. People who had never set foot in the place were suddenly snatching anything and everything, and our favorites- the cheeses, the nuts, the breads- were all gone.

OK, plan B- Whole Foods Market. We never go to Whole Foods, because they're a) expensive and b) crunchy granola, if you know what I mean. We don't eat that stuff. If it ain't got Polysorbate 80, it ain't for us. But necessity is the mother of going into strange markets, and, besides, it was just across the parking lot from TJ's, so we went in.

The first thing you notice about a health food supermarket is that it carries virtually no brands of which you've ever heard. None. Well, OK, they had Bull's Eye BBQ sauce and the beer was all familiar, because it's hard to get too Vermonty with beer. But the rest of the place was, you know, alien. Like the Bizarro World Safeway. The labels look amateurish, everything is a slightly paler color than it should be, and there's tofu. Lots of tofu. Several varieties, many brands, prepared and uncooked, in sauce and plain.

The stuff you want? Sorry, only NPR listeners feel comfortable here.

We were not the only disoriented shoppers. Several- most- of the people in the store were holding packages and staring at them with quizzical, what-the-hell-is-THIS looks on their faces. Many threw caution to the wind and were lined up with full carts at the checkout stands, but I knew what would happen to them- they'll all get home, rip open the bag of no-animal-fat VegeSnacks and dig in, only to realize halfway through the bag that it has no taste. Nothing in that store has any taste except for some of the cakes. Their pies and tarts and breads- awesome. Excellent. Everything else? Weird. Brand X. Not even Brand X. Call it Brand Pi, or Brand Tilde or something else. Brand X is too familiar.

We abandoned the cart and got the hell out of there.

Eventually, we broke down and bought a few items at the ridiculously overpriced gourmet market just to get through the next few days. And we've already plotted out trips to the nearest non-strike, non-weird supermarkets for the weekend. They're a long drive away, but it's what we have to do. If a grocery doesn't even carry Ruffles, it's... it's not a grocery.

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Golfers are awful drivers.

OK, that's a gross generalization. In fact, it's based entirely on observations of people who drive to and from two local golf courses. Every time- EVERY time- a car cuts me off at high speed on Crest Road and veers all over the road, then either runs the red light at Hawthorne or stops and sits at the green light and fumbles with his car phone, oblivious, the car eventually turns into Los Verdes. Every time someone is driving at least 15 miles above the speed limit through the landslide zone on PV Drive South, they turn into Ocean Trails.

Is it THAT important to make your tee time?

No.

So stop it.

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The grocery strikers and management are not talking. No negotiations, no mediation, no nothing. It looks like a long one. A VERY long one. Weeks? Try months.

What did I say about the over/under on masses of customers crossing the picket line? It may not be more than a week before people get tired of going way, way out of their way to buy their food. Here's the progression:

Outset: I like the people who work at our market and everyone deserves good health coverage. I distrust the owners and suspect them of trumping up the threat from Wal-Mart and non-union groceries to bust the union.

A week into it: I sympathize with the workers, but we're running low on some staples and Bristol Farms and Costco don't carry the brands I like. I don't want to drive 20 minutes to How's or Food 4 Less, and those places are madhouses right now anyway. But I'll stick with it for now- I don't want to disrespect the nice people at my market.

Two weeks in: Hey, the pickets aren't looking- maybe I can sneak in and... no, can't, but I might go to the Albertsons in Redondo and cross THAT line, because they don't know us there...

Three weeks in: You get 100% of your health coverage paid by your employer and NO CO-PAY? And you're complaining because they want you to pay $15. a month for FAMILY coverage? Take a look at MY insurance bills! And you're making $12. to $18. to swipe Chips Ahoy packages over a scanner and make change? Out of my way! I need Bumble Bee Solid White and some Junior Mints!

Unions often overestimate the goodwill they have from the public. This union needs to know one important fact: the public does not have unlimited patience. You have only a couple of weeks to get everything in order before people start to stream back into the stores. They're not against the union, they're not pro-employer, they just want to buy their milk and ground beef and TV Guide. I'm not saying that's right or wrong, it's just the way things work. The clock is ticking.

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Not to beat a dead horse, but we finally went to a non-picketed, union, full-service grocery today, because we needed stuff that the gourmet and granola markets don't carry.

Oy.

First sign of danger: no carts. I had to search the parking lot before finding one. I was lucky- I saw people wandering in the parking lot fruitlessly looking for something in which to carry their groceries.

Second sign of danger: the moment we went in, we saw checkout lines curling around corners. The world was shopping at this store, all at once.

This market had been picked over. Entire shelves were emptied, and the stockers were not keeping up. Elderly customers unfamiliar with the store's layout meandered slowly through the narrow aisles, clogging traffic, confusedly looking at items with brands they'd never seen ("Springfield?"). I didn't like the produce, the beef, the chicken (fresh skinless chicken breasts are not supposed to be that shade of yellow). We ended up filling the cart anyway; it took about a half hour just to check out.

While I was queued up, some guys in the next line were chatting about the strike. One was a striking worker at an Albertson's, the other a sympathetic if misinformed soul:

"I'll never cross! They're trying to, you know, cut by 50 percent, cut the... things. And they're making everyone part-time!"

Ah, no, but thanks for playing.

They also said that the two Food 4 Less stores nearby, also not being struck, were cleaned out of everything. One said that the store we were in had been like this since the strike began, and will be far worse on the weekend. They agreed that this was a good thing, that the public will not cross and that they'll shop at this overcrowded, low-stock, expensive market until the strike's over, however long that takes.

No again, but here's the home version of our game.

Shopping like this is a nightmare. You can't get everything you want, you have to drive 40 minutes round trip out of your way, the meat sucks, the service is understaffed and overwhelmed... how long do they think people will put up with this?

Forever, apparently. The union is now threatening to shut down the Big 3 chains' distribution centers so no food can be delivered to the struck stores. So what they want is for consumers to have no food- the open markets are devoid of stock, and the struck markets will have no food, either. It's for our own good, right? No, it's for THEIR good, so they can continue to have all or most of their insurance and medical costs paid instead of kicking in money like the rest of us.

Driving past an Albertson's on Hawthorne, I saw the pickets. I also saw a stream of people going into the store right past the picketers. The union has the upper hand now, but every day people have to wait in interminable lines at the "approved" markets, every day they have to go without their favorite items is a day closer to the union losing that advantage. It may be happening faster than they expected.

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Amusing.

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Rocks.

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