Because I don't have enough problems in life, I tend to make some up. Ever since I was a kid I've wondered about heaven. I do this in spite of having a firm and solid understanding of life after death as being living on a cloud in a world of pretty much white and gold.

When I got a bit older, although how much older it's hard to say, I began having troubles with my notion of this trouble-free afterlife. Leaving everything else aside, I began worrying about the logistics of heaven, and my limited, human understanding has created dilemmas only God can untangle.

A big question I have is with people's age and state in heaven. I'm not expecting any corporal bodies, mind you, but I can't imagine a heaven that would work for everyone involved.

Will my parents, when I meet them in heaven, be as old as they were when they died? That might work for me, but I don't think it's the way they'd want to be for all eternity. Maybe they'd rather spend eternity being thirty or so, like I would.

There ideal life, which I'm guessing is what heaven would have, may be when all their kids are children, when we were all together. That would make me about six, say, and I'm not sure my idea of heaven would meet up with that.

I may want to be in my thirties and married, a great time in my life, but what if my ex has an idea of heaven that doesn't include me at all? What if one of my past girlfriend's notion of heaven includes me as a lifelong partner? Do I have to stay with her, even if I don't particularly care for her?

There is, it seems to me, too many possible conflicting ideal lives. I'm willing to grant God the ability to sort them all out, maybe using some utilitarian principle, but I can't imagine any heaven that isn't as full of compromises as it is harps.

Although I don't believe in the biblical prophecies of apocalypse or the return of Jesus to judge the quick and the dead, that doesn't prevent me from putting an assortment of things into the category of signs the world is ending.

Today I had one such thing.

I've been hassling with a cold the past few days, nothing major, just phlegmy and headachey. So, as I often do when I feel like this, I thought some homemade chicken soup would be in order.

At the supermarket, they had everything I needed, sort of. I looked over the bags of chickens and found one small enough to fit nicely in one of my pots, but that would still infuse the water with life-preserving, chickeny goodness, which I understand to be a function of chicken oil and fat. I was tempted by a free-range, organic chicken, but since I can't really taste anything, the extra money would be a waste. I'm not sure if the organics have anything to do with it, but subjecting a free-ranging chicken to slaughter adds that extra bit of malevolent sweetness to its firm, supple flesh.

The chicken I bought, one that had no doubt been raised in a cage and never even glimpsed the sky, probably wanted to die and obviously never had any life it enjoyed.

The leek assortment was small. Not only were the leeks small, but there weren't many to choose from, and I think I snatched up the only one worth having. Carrots were a snap, I had no problem grabbing a shallot and a bunch of green onions, but I was stopped in my tracks when it came to celery.

This store, Vons, is known nationwide as Safeway, and is not some little local grocery store. They have everything, including mystery shoppers, and I always like to check the board by the manager's station to see how well the store did on its last shop. But, this particular Vons, on this particular day, did not have celery.

Or, rather, to be precise, they didn't have any "regular" celery. I looked all over the rather substantial produce section several times, and there wasn't even a bin or place for celery.

But they did have organic celery.

At about three times the cost of the celery I wanted.

I looked again, but it was a senseless gesture because I'd done a very good job the first couple times. Nope. Only organic celery.

If food produced in quantities to feed the nation and the world is no longer being produced, I don't see a good future for us, only a rather bleak and frightening one.

Maybe all the celery got burned up in the fires we had. I heard that about avocadoes, but I wasn't looking for avocadoes. Tomorrow I'll make my soup, with this organic and much better celery, but I doubt I'll even notice it.