TRYING TO GET BACK TO NORMAL

 

 

Can you remember way back when every day was not about Trump?  There was a time when we had a normal life.   A time when we didn’t wear mask and idiots did not scream and rant about their freedoms.

 

Last week my thirteen-year-old bread machine (Breadman Ultra) finally gave up the ghost.   Yesterday I purchased a new Cuisinart bread maker

 

 

I would have gone with another Breadman, but they now have such bad reviews I changed brands.   The paddle system in the new Breadman machines is a bad design and a real headache, and the machine quality is not the same. 

 

Last night I made my first loaf of basic white bread and the Cuisinart works great.

 

  The machine beeps at the end of the second knead to remind you to remove the paddle, or allow you to reshape the dough for oven baking. 

 

Just like any other endeavor, baking bread in a bread machine takes practice.  The machines are fool proof; but to consistently turn out good loafs you have to learn to adjust the water and flower during the first kneed to reach the right dough consistency.  After that, the world of homemade breads is unlimited.  

 

Like planting a garden and heating with firewood, there is something about making homemade bread that is comforting: tying us back to another time before technology took over our lives – a time of stability and calm.    And home made bread taste better and is healthier than the ‘bakers fog’ they sell at the supermarkets. 

the Ol'Buzzard  

Trump Fatigue

 

I published this in the local e-paper:

I am so looking forward to getting back to some form of normality; to a day I can turn the television on and don’t have to hear Trump bragging about how smart he is, or how great a job he is doing, or attacking some imaginary enemy; a time when Trump isn’t grabbing the headlines with some outrageous action, or his desecration of some democratic norm; a time when every day, all day long, it is not about Trump - Trump - Trump.

Those of you in the Trump cult can build a shrine to your Glorious Leader in your home; hang his picture on the wall and surround it with Confederate flags, Russian Flags, white supremacy and Neo-Nazi memorabilia.  Build an alter for your red hat or have MAGA tattooed on your forehead; but please, give the rest of us a break, don’t make the next four years about Trump – Trump – Trump and how he was cheated out of reelection, even though he lost the popular vote by seven million votes. 

 

 I don't agree that we need to give the Trump Cult Loyalist a pass.   Trump is a racist, supported by the KKK and neo-Nazi, he has colluded with Russia where he has financial interest, he has used his office to enrich himself and his family, he is personally responsible for an out of control pandemic that has killed a quarter of a million Americans, he has tried to overthrow the results of a legitimate election, he has made our country weaker by placing unqualified loyalist in major positions of government, he has vilified the free press, he has encouraged anarchy and even violence from his rabid supporters, he has threatened to jail political rivals, he has destroyed the United States standing over seas with our allies...

I know that his supporters live in the alternate reality of Fox News and other far right propaganda networks, but the damage and destruction to the norms of our democracy perpetrated by Trump will be a problem for our democratic system of government for decades to come.   Trump has taken a wrecking ball to a democracy that has taken two-hundred-and-fifty years to build.  Trump supporters who have blindly followed the Glorious Leader are, in the end, responsible.   

the Ol'Buzzard 

JUST WATCHED ROCKY HORROR FOR THE UMPTH-TEEN TIME

 

Enlarge for best viewing

Perhaps this is how Trump sees himself leaving the White House. 

Every once in a while I have to recycle through my favorites.

the Ol'Buzzard

I AM NOT A STRANGER TO DIY PROJECTS

 

 

Most of my life I have been in the financial position that if I needed something done, I had to learn to do it myself.    I have learned carpentry, plumbing, electrical wiring, gardening, masonry and automobile mechanics through books and manuals. 

 

My work is not professional quality, but I have always been self-sufficient.  

 

Yesterday I installed an Andersen Storm Door that I purchased from our local lumber company.  There are three versions of this door; Rapid Install which takes 45 minutes, the Rapid 2 Install that takes two hours and the Professional Install that is not DIY recommended.   I purchased the Rapid Install – 45-minute door, that comes mostly assembled.  

 

I began the installation yesterday at 11-o-clock, on a damp, cold, overcast morning.   Three hours later I completed the installation.  

 

My wife always rolls her eyes when I am beginning a project and tell her how long I expect to take to complete. 

 

I don’t doubt that this door can be installed in under one hour; but I’m fucking old.  And that’s my story and I am sticking to it. 

 

the Ol’Buzzard  

DRACULA'S CHILD

 

Bram Stoker’s Dracula is a classic.   Most people have seen one of the many movies; but if you haven’t read the book, you have missed a mark in literature.  

 

The way the book is written is fascinating in itself.    It is a period piece; a story told through a reproduction of letters, journal and diary entries.

 

The end of the book leaves a lot to be answered.  It is not a ‘happy ever after’.    The lives of the people involved have been altered and their future is veiled in a fog of uncertainty.

 

Dracula’s Child, by J. S. Barnes, tries to pick up the story where Stoker left off.  It is written in the same form, and is a good read; but, like all second acts, does not have the depth of the original.   

 

Still, a good read, if you like the macabre, to distract from the craziness of the final throws 2020.

 

the Ol’Buzzard

  

I WAS RAISED A RACIST

 

 

I wasn’t consciously a racist/ white supremacist; but I had been raised in the cult.

 

Racism is like Christianity – it is a cult.

 

You are born to parents that are members of the cult.   Your aunts and uncles and the adults in your orbit are members of that cult.  You are taught by adults to walk, to talk, to use the toilet, and what is considered appropriate in the cult.  You don’t question your nurture, because it is the norm of the cult.

 

My grandmother raised me.  She was born in Mississippi in the late 1800’s.  Her uncles fought for the glorious south in the Civil war.  The white racist Mississippi cult did not celebrate the fourth of July, because that is when Vicksburg fell to Yankee aggression.   As a child, my friends and I dressed up in Confederate uniforms and paraded in Vicksburg on Jefferson Davis’ birthday.   We did not hate, or even dislike black people, we had been taught that they just were not our equal.    

 

 We went to church, we said the prayers, we sang the songs and we drank the Cool-Aid, because that is what was expected of us.

 

I left Mississippi when I was eighteen and never returned.  It took me nearly two decades to realize the fallacy of my indoctrination.   

 

It is like becoming an atheist after you have been raised in the church; when you finally question the logic of your beliefs and find them lacking.

 

 

 the Ol'Buzzard

 

A CHANGE IS AS GOOD AS A REST

 

THE BROTHERS GRIMM MYSTERIES 

A light book to read is as good as meditation.   Especially in times of stress, we can take a step out of reality and walk into the world of fantasy.  

 

Paula Brackston (The Witches Daughter) has published a new series, The Brothers Grimm Mysteries, under the name of P. J. Brackston.

  

Hansel and Gretel, now grown and middle aged, are famous for having survived the witch’s house as children.   Gretel has become one of Bavaria’s most famous private investigators.

 

If, as a child, you were raised with Grimm’s Fairy Tales, you will relish the continuing story of Hansel and Gretel.

 

Brackston’s web site list the books out of order. Actually, the first book of the series is Once Upon A Crime.

 

I feel sorry for the majority of children, now days raised on Sponge Bob SquarPants, computers and Face Book.    I was raised at a time before television, when parent’s read to their children – and children read books. 

 

the Ol’Buzzard