Getting prepared to leave in a couple of days for my first driving trip/mini-tour in 7 years. After making a few stops on the way to visit friends, I'll get to Naples, Florida over the weekend for a duo concert with Geoff Gallante on Sunday. Then 4 additional nights (in a row) of retirement community programs, ending with Gainesville, GA on Thursday. Hoping to get home late the following evening, so I can be in reasonable shape for a gig in Lewes (Shore Jazz at Jerry's Seafood) on Saturday. Reasonable shape is yet to be determined, and this trip will tell me if I've still got the juice for this. So it will be an adventure. But the real thing that motivated me to make this post is my procedure for getting my vegetables when out, or one of them; lunch at Golden Corral (that and supermarket salad bars). I'll load up my plate with 6 or 7 different hot vegetables, then go back for more. It's not gourmet food at all, but still it's a bit magical. And the last few times I was there (I don't do this so often when home, but on occasion), I was struck with the idea of common man indulgence. For starters, you'll generally find a greater percentage of overweight folks there than on your typical street corner. All you can eat, and then some. And the lunch price, if you don't care about the dinner meats that up the ante later in the day, is accessible to most. It's a feast, of it's own kind, for one and all. And for whatever reason, when at a Golden Corral is when I'm the most struck with the concept of how blessed we are to have this unending supply of food, and how indifferent many of us can be to those hungry folks in other parts of the world who may never see anything like this a day in their life. While this is our everyday. Golden Corral, of all places, is where I am more strongly reminded of needs and inequities around the world. Of course, this opens up the big, and often divisive debate of what we ought to do about it. These days, I'm less about wrapping myself in opinions (mine or others) and more interested in being present, learning, and being led. And I think that's probably the point.