Standing at the counter, having a mid-morning snack, proving that, like peanuts (or is it potato chips), you "can't have only one" pistachio, I got to thinking about a bus driver in Palo Alto.
He had a bag of sunflower seeds in their shells. He would pop an entire handful into his mouth and, a very short time later, would neatly empty his mouth of the shells into another bag. In would go another handful. Out would come the shells. And so on.
I am not sure if he ate each seed as he dislodged it from its shell or if he collected all the seeds in his mouth and ate them in a bunch.
I was fascinated. My ability – dare I say expertise – at shelling sunflower seeds and pumpkin seeds without using my hands was a proud point of my childhood, but that was one at a time. Missed opportunities!
And I missed seeing a fair amount of Palo Alto because my sight seeing was focused in the bus.
So as I was shelling - by hand: teeth need to be considered more now - the pistachio nuts (and are they not delicious and are we not lucky to be able to have them now – heck, anytime – they do not grow here as far as I know – will have to ask google) that bus driver came to mind.
Then the image of lychee hulls and seeds tossed around the base of trees in Chinatown popped to thought. And the skill in splitting the skin of a ripe one open with a fingernail just enough so that the fruit can be squeezed out and popped into mouth without dripping the juice onto fingers and clothing.
Then I was reminded of the walnut left on the picnic table at Hill Cottage in Toronto by Poppy, the resident squirrel, who would watch from the fence as I found it and cracked it open with a convenient rock and ate it and commented on how good it was. And then, of course, as she knew I would, I went indoors and came out with a handful of peanuts which she would take, one by one, and shell, and eat as I watched. Then leave the shells to blow away in the wind.