)
Peeling a grapefruit reminded me of California. I grew up moving back and forth between the south San Francisco bay area and just north of Sacramento. There were orchards still then, though far fewer than there had been just a decade prior to my birth. The orchards didn't grow citrus - those were found further south - but they used citrus oil on the trees to keep bugs away.
I learned that one could peel a grapefruit and eat it like an orange while sitting in front of a computer at my dad's house in Sunnyvale. I had never entertained the possibility of eating a grapefruit in any other manner than cut in half and dug out with a spoon. Since then, 95% of grapefruits I've eaten have been peeled and sectioned like oranges. It was hot that day I ate the grapefruit in my dad's office; this was during the summer the monitor broke due to excessive use during a heat wave (i.e. introduction to the GUI of the internet by me), slowly turning purple over a month. I think I was grounded for that. It was 1994.
