Quick and Easy and Almost Vegan

Garbanzos, kale, and tomatoes are the basis of this tasty stew, served over rice or quinoa and topped with sour cream swirled with spicy harissa. 

1 red onion, thinly sliced

3-5 clove garlic, sliced or chopped

Olive oil

1 can garbanzos (14 oz. more or less)

1 can diced tomatoes (also 14 oz.)

2 large handfuls chopped kale

2 tsp. tumeric

Salt to taste

Sour cream (or use a vegan substitute)

Harissa paste (could substitute Gochujang or some other spicy condiment, maybe Chili Crisp?)

Saute the onions in olive oil till beginning to crisp, stir in garlic and cook another minute. 

Dump in the can of undrained garbanzos and the can of tomatoes. Add the tumeric and then the kale. Stir till kale begins to wilt, then cook till the tomatoes begin to break down and form a sauce. Salt to taste.

Serve over rice or quinoa. Top with a liberal dose of Sour cream and harissa.

 

Epsilon Minus

 (This was written some years ago. And here we are today, as the GOP gut environmental protection, education, and health care. But, hey, the DOW is over 50,000.)

I recently re-read Brave New World, Huxley’s dystopian vision of a future in which humanity is managed to produce an optimum number of various classes to fulfill various functions. At the bottom are the Epsilons – capable of little more than serving as an elevator operator but programmed to be happy in that function.

Then this morning, I heard on NPR a snippet of a program. Climate change, it said, is projected to have the effect on the world population of lowering life expectancy and intelligence—children’s brains don’t develop well in conditions like famine and pollution. (See Flint, Michigan.)And it occurred to me that those plutocrats who are pushing the horrific policies of the Republican Party—gutting environmental protections to boost corporate earnings--are playing the long game here, as surely as the managers of Huxley’s future poison the future Epsilons in (artificial) utero to stunt their development.

Safe in their climate-controlled gilded towers, the plutocrats don’t fear the effects of climate change. Their children will always eat well. And if the masses grow slowly weaker and dumber, well, someone has to clean those gilded towers and service those air-conditioners. And Fox News can be relied upon to tell the masses how very happy they are, in this brave new world.

Pretty Pink

 

Up Close and Personal

Getting up close and personal with furniture stirs up memories. This little rocking chair, for instance, was given to our older son, back when we were still in Tampa but preparing for the move to NC. 

One of our students (I think it was Leslie Mead) told us that it had come from NC and was locally made of rhododendron branches, and she and her family thought it would be nice for Ethan to have it.

It traveled back to NC with us and was much used by three-year-old Ethan and later by Justin. And now it sits by our heater and is one of Josie's favorite reading spots.

This old cedar chest also came from Tampa. Just before moving, we were looking for a cedar chest and answered an ad in the newspaper. The seller was an older lady who, as it turned out had known John's grandfather. She was intrigued that were were moving to NC and told us to be sure to have a mud room--which we eventually did.

The chest was painted black--even its brass hardware, but John stripped  and refinished it. It's a beautiful thing and very useful--it holds most of my quilt collection and serves as  a coffee table.

I look around our house and it's full of memories--things from our parents and grandparents, things we've made or been given. Things that we're so used to that we hardly see them any more -- until we get up close and personal with the cleaning rag.

 

That Familiar Feeling

(Not my photo, alas)

All winter long I've been ignoring the dusty scruffiness of our house, concentrating, for the most part, on staying warm. But as the temperature rises and the days grow longer, I find myself in the old familiar mode of Spring Cleaning.

As if in a trance, I pull out the Liquid Gold and begin anointing the various bits of wooden furniture in the living room and dining room--chairs, tables, an ancient trunk, a secretary, two chests of drawers, a curio cabinet. . .

It's a slow process. My back begins to hurt after a bit and I have to sit down with a heating pad till the pain subsides. I could push through it but have learned that it will get much worse if I do. So I use my resting time to re-read a Harlan Coben mystery.

Meanwhile, John seems to have been struck by a similar urge. He has varnished surfaces in the mudroom and now he has pulled the kitchen table out to the porch and is refinishing the top.

It's a welcome seasonal affliction--like birds nesting, bulbs sprouting, forsythia blooming.

 

How Time Flies

 

Not So Silent Sunday

Prosecute all those implicated in the Epstein Files.

Get rid of ICE as it is now --no masks, no searches without judicial warrants, no racial profiling, full accountability.

Get rid of the ICE concentration camps--a festering sore on our country.

Campaign finance reform is sorely needed so that our country is not controlled by the 1%.

"Clean" coal is not clean. 

Vaccines prevent measles and polio and many other diseases. Snorting cocaine off toilet seats isn't actually a recommendation.

When the AG is tracking the social media of perceived enemies, we should all be concerned.

Be aware that the GOP is trying to suppress voting and make sure that your registration is up to date. 

Impeach all the lying hypocrites in this corrupt administration! 

 

A Galaxy Nearby

I was filling the bird feeder on our deck and the patterns on the weathered siding caught my eye.

I'm not sure why the knot holes show up so brilliantly, but they make arresting patterns.

I'm easily entertained.

Happy Valentine's Day, fellow earthlings!

 

Dear Sirs

                                  

To my senators:

The so-called SAVE Bill is a thinly disguised attempt at voter suppression and a thinly disguised poll tax. Women, the elderly, and the economically challenged will be hardest hit by the demand for birth certificates with married names, or expensive to obtain  passports. 

I urge you to vote AGAINST this repressive bill.

I also wish to note my disgust at AG Bondi's recent  performance in which she attempted to deflect questions about the (badly botched) handling of the Epstein Files by praising rises in the stock market.

It's obvious this regime's focus is on enriching and protecting themselves and their wealthy donors.

 How long will you support these immoral grifters?

 

Warming Trend!

Tuesday morning dawn gave promise of a fine day.

And it was! Pleasant enough (around 60) for John to find things to do outside, for me to take the dogs out for a brushing, and for us both to enjoy adult beverages before dinner, sitting on the porch and enjoying the view.

The clouds were a forecast of Wednesday's  early morning rain, but that passed and the sun returned. Things are looking up!

 

Waltz Me to the End of Time--repost

That? That piece of sheet music came from Miss Annie's house. After she passed away back in '65, the property went to a nephew who lived in Alabama. He came and  spent a few days going through her things, packing up what he wanted -- there was the prettiest little writing desk -- and then he had some dealer come in and take away the rest of it so they could put the house on the market. 

 The nephew was named Charles, if I remember right, and he was real nice.  I asked if I could have that music to remember her by and he told me I was welcome to it. He let me take some of her books too. He said he'd never known his aunt and had been surprised to get the lawyer's letter saying he'd inherited her property. He asked me all kinds of questions about Miss Annie and I told him what I could.

Miss Annie was  the sweetest old lady you ever saw and when I was growing up I loved to go visit her. We would sit in the parlor and have what she called cambric tea --  mostly warm milk with a little tea to color it -- and fresh-baked ginger cookies and sometimes  she would play her old-fashioned music box for me. How I loved to hear that funny, faraway sound . . .  


Oh, at first she seemed older than the hills to me -- though I don't believe she was much over seventy when she passed. She was white-haired and stooped over and wrinkled up like one of those apple dolls they used to make. But her eyes were bright and when I'd been around her a bit, it always seemed as if  there was a girl my age hiding inside that old body. 

Miss Annie had the merriest laugh . . . like silver bells ringing.  And I could see from the photograph of her on the mantlepiece that she'd been a beauty when she was young -- tall and willowy with light hair done up in one of those pompadours they wore back then.  There was a photograph of a handsome young man in an old fashioned uniform there too and she kept the two kind of turned to face each other. 

When I asked her who he was, she told me that his name was Darby C. Bell  and that he was the love of her life. . .  they had been engaged when he went off to fight in World War I -- and he had died in France.

I didn't know what to say...I think I was afraid she might start crying. But she seemed not to mind talking about him and she showed me her engagement ring  -- a round amethyst circled with pearls. She said her fingers had grown so knobbly with arthritis that she couldn't get it on anymore so she wore it on a chain around her neck and inside her dress. 'Next to my heart,' she said.

  

When I went home that evening, I asked my mother why Miss Annie had never married.  Mama smiled.  'You're not the first to wonder. According to your grandma, Annie could have had her pick of fellas after her fiance died. But she was independent -- Darby had that house built before he went off to war and his will left it to her along with enough money that she didn't have to marry. 

'It was a puzzle to everyone as the years went by -- your grandma said all the neighbors thought at first Annie was mourning Darby and after a spell, she' d have enough of loneliness and say yes to one of the men that was after her.  But the funny thing was that she never seemed really to mourn, not really. She was always as bright and cheerful as she is now. And every night  in summer, when the windows were open,  they'd hear the sound of that music box. . .

'I guess some folks mourn differently than others,' Mama said and sent me to wash my hands and set the table.

After supper that night,  I recalled that I'd left one of my school books at Miss Annie's.  Mama and Daddy and  Tommy were watching Hogan's Heros when I slipped out of the house into the chill November air.  I hurried across the road and up to Miss Annie's porch where a lamp still burned in the window. I just hoped she wasn't getting ready for bed. 

I was about to knock on the door when I heard the faint sound of the music box and Miss Annie's silvery laugh. Puzzled, I stepped to the window and looked through a slit in the Venetian blind.

I could hear the music more clearly now -- a lilting waltz -- and suddenly Miss Annie came into view --  twirling slowly about the parlor floor. Her right arm was stretched out to the side and her left was bent up as if her hand rested on the shoulder of an invisible partner.

It was so silly . . . and so heartbreaking -- this bent over old woman waltzing with an imaginary partner.  Somewhere between tears and laughter, I watched . . .

And as Miss Annie circled in front of the lamp at the window, I could see her shadow on the opposite wall . . . 

Straight and willowy and graceful, Miss Annie's shadow waltzed in the arms of  the shadow of a tall young man. And the music played on and on . . .

 

A Drop of Golden Sun!

                                                                  

I took these pictures at the end of a blessedly sunny day which had melted most of the snow. But it was almost 4 and the sun was slinking along the southern ridge, as is its wont at this time of year.

We still have an iffy six or so weeks ahead--we can never forget the Great Blizzard of '93, aka the Storm of the Century, which was in March, during Spring Break. But we have a delivery of K-1 on its way, as well as propane promised for this week, and the temperatures are rising so that we can do without the space heaters in the greenhouse and the basement, and we don't have to leave the water dripping. Progress!

 

Danger! Danger!

 The upside down stamps are a tiny political protest as I pay bills. I miss the old days when I didn't wake up every morning wondering what new outrage the Orange Egoist has in mind for our poor country.

There are so many but what I suspect matters the most for the continuance of the US as a democracy  is the attack on voting. One is the proposed SAVE act which mandates burdensome requirements to register to vote--a birth certificate and/or passport. For married women or transgender persons whose legal name is different from that on their birth certificate, this could prevent their voting. And quite a few folks don't have their birth certificates. Or passports. SAVE also mandates that state officials purge their voter rolls. 

According to Heather Cox Richardson, the Brennan Center for Justice estimates that if SAVE passes, around 21 million Americans could lose their votes.

And then there's the proposal recently floated to have ICE thugs at the polls. This would have a chilling effect on all citizens of color or "other" ethnic heritage.

When the GOP fears they may lose, these are the tactics they employ. And recent Democrat gains have them running scared.

The House will be voting on the SAVE bill this week. Time to contact your representative and make your feelings known before it's too late.

 The Orange One says the GOP should "take over" and "nationalize" elections. Or, he muses, maybe we don't need elections at all. . .

Danger! Danger!