I ain’t got nuthin’ to say.
Friday Night Open Thread
Jersey Mike’s is what is for dinner because A.) I did not feel like cooking, B.) I have nothing but ingredients in the house that require cooking so see A and C.) I bought a several lb bone in lamb leg roast for 7 dollars from Fry’s the other day and it is currently on hour 24 of being marinated and will be cooked tomorrow, so I know we are having a very rich in flavor and composition meal then so a simple sub is what we did for tonight. That was a long paragraph.
Met a fellow Balloon Juicer in Mesa today- WE WERE DOING A DEAL- I picked up a couple of pieces of vintage Revere Ware from them, and mentioned while chatting we should do a meet-up. I generally don’t think of them because well, to be honest, I don’t really want to meet you or anyone else, especially not in public. But I do remember that I always have a pleasant time and that everyone seems to like them, so we should probably do one. I shall consult with the wife on a time that is good for her and get back to you all.
I was blathering on twitter today about how politics is so fucking easy right now- you can sort of tune out for days or weeks on end because unless the issues really interest you, they don’t really matter. Politics is right now, for me, the most clear cut it has ever been in my lifetime. You’re either with the flawed but generally good hearted party of fuckups, or you’re with the Nazis.
It’s just that cut and dried. I mean sure, keep up on the nuances of the topics if they interest you, but really, you don’t need to. You don’t really need to keep up on every LGBTQ issue. The Republicans are against them. All. Even the mention of them. You don’t need to know the ins and outs regarding abortion. The Republicans are against them and birth control and more. You don’t need to know the grim details of climate science. The Republicans are going to block anything to make it better.
I mean, it’s just that fucking simple. You either want a future that is the current fucked up status quo or better, or you are with the party that wishes it was still 1857 and they were still riding the ether high of Dred Scott.
It’s that fucking simple. How did we get here? It’s complicated. It was a lot of things, but we’re fucking here now. We’ve got the normal human beings on one side, and we’ve got the beared maniacs sitting in their pick up trucks screaming into the video camera that they are just furious they can’t use the n word and fuming they can’t say indian style and have to say criss cross applesauce. They’ve either never heard of the phrase “the lotus position” or if by chance they have it’s too pussy for them to say. I didn’t realize it then, but having a black president broke the ever loving brains of several generations of white fuckers.
So yeah. Biden’s old and imperfect and so are a lot of the Democrats and yes I wish they were younger and took more action and yes fuck Merrick Garland.
But they’re not fucking Nazis.
Thursday Night Open Thread
I see that the Justice Department has provided the media and Republicans with a both sides defense on documents to use in their fluffery of Trump, with a bonus dig at Biden’s mental health. So that’s fucking awesome. I remain very concerned about the Fall election. It’s clear that it does not matter how well things are going or anything concrete, a lot of people just want to burn shit to the ground and a lot of people just want to carry out their vengeance porn on the poor and minorities and those different than them.
In other news, I didn’t do anything today. I mean I worked, and I made dinner, and now I am baking brownies, but other than that I did nothing of note. Cleaned some litter boxes. Carried some palm tree debris around back. But other than that, just pissed and moaned about the rain and my back like a proper old person.
I did get to use my brand new to me antique nut cutter (or vintage) that I got for free at the estate sale. Like a mason jar contraption with a screw on lid with a plunger that crushes nuts up. I’d never made brownies for Joelle before, but she had mentioned in passing that she liked walnuts in them, so I crushed up some nuts and threw them in.
I like a good single use tool. I know with the need for economy of space in a lot of apartment kitchens multi-purpose tools are preferred, but I like to live in a world where a good tool has a place even if it can only do one thing. Plus, the more complicated things get, the more likely they are to break, and the less likely you are to be able to fix it. Especially with electronics.
I guess that’s all I have to say tonight.
Wednesday Night Open Thread
Another busy day today. Had a bunch of work work to do and then a bunch of things I wanted to do around the house. I wanted to go in and clean out the detached laundry room and organize that because that is where we have decided to store all the dog and cat crates and the like when animals are not in transit. Because Joelle always has lots going on in the dog side of things (owning her own, picking up strays, etc.), she has a bunch of crates and I brought a bunch and well you get the point- they need someplace to go. More accurately- I need for there to be a place for all of them to go. They are perfectly fine where they are. I’m the fucking lunatic who needs for their to be a place for them to go.
It occurred to me while cooking dinner that if the reason the Republicans in the House were going to impeach Mayorkas was for ostensibly not doing his job, does it not logically follow that the Republicans should impeach themselves for not being able to do their fucking jobs? Whatever.
Dinner was good- nothing sensational- thawed out that steak that I got a couple weeks ago at Fry’s and reverse seared that with some mushrooms and onions the way Joelle likes, and I was in the mood for fries so cut up a couple russets and double fried them. Not the most heart healthy meal, but whatever. My bag of vegetable scraps in the freezer is full so I needed the bone from the steak to make beef stock, and it was cheap since it was in the freezer.
One of the things that I noticed here that is weird is I kept seeing little colorful balls of stuff stuck here and there on the ground by the sidewalks. Especially if they had any vegetation/weeds and a rock garden- it really stands out there with the contrast. So I looked, and realized that it is dryer lint! And I realized this isn’t a problem near me because we’re not that close together and we have birds snagging that stuff up the moment it comes out to build nests. As it is I hang balls of cotton from my trees and have to replace it several times in the spring and summer.
The only birds I see with any regularity down here are the gi-FUCKING-normous pigeons that chill on the power line behind our house. When I sit in the back yard with the dogs, they are always out there. Also, I regret to inform you that Joelle is a bird racist and does not like pigeons. I asked her why and she said “Because they shit on everything” while scrunching up her nose and all I could think was you just agreed to take Thurston full time and I have never seen anything shit like he does.
Whatever. I like the pigeons and throw them bread scraps when we have them out in the front yard. We kinda fucked pigeons over, people did. We domesticated them and used them for food for thousands of years and then for communication and took them everywhere and now they’re feral but still almost completely reliant on human activity, and are who they are because we made them that way. So they kinda got a raw deal from us. And I understand the hygiene and sanitation implications. But still, they don’t deserve the hate.
Speaking of feral, here is a picture of Max:
He was looking down at all the dogs and debating violence. Vicious panther- a real bastard, that cat.
Monday Night Open Thread
The combination of all of the posts today about the Republican bullshit has me just so sick of it all. It’s always the same. On fucking everything. The only thing that changes are the items under consideration and the faces. It’s the same over and over and over again, the only thing mildly interesting about it this time is that it occurred in relative proximity to the actual Groundhog Day. Live long enough you get to see the issues recycle. Fuck, we done a go around with prayer in school this year?
And Mistermix is right it’s a terrible fucking bill. Meanwhile, Israel doesn’t need any money they’re pretty much bouncing rubble at this point, Ukraine desperately needs fucking money and weapons and not only that the display that we’re with them for real. Although anyone who has ever read anything about the Kurds would know better than to trust the United States- we’ll fuck you over in a heartbeat and then spend the rest of eternity telling you it was your fault. That’s just who we are.
Another cold front and some rain are moving in, so I wanted to spend some time cleaning up the back patio and did, and then we had dinner. Joelle has some show she has to watch with her friend Buzz, so I am sequestered in what Joelle calls the “Den of Iniquity,” aka the small bedroom that has my desktop and new antique chair (THAT I FUCKING LOVE).
I don’t remember if I have mentioned Buzz before but the easiest way to do it is to describe him as Joelle’s Tammy. They have been best friends since the 90’s when they were on the road with bands in the Pittsburgh area. At any rate, he lives up in Anthem, and his parents live nearby having recently moved here (last six months) from Mt. Lebanon in the Burgh. Their names are Tony and Pat aka Topat. So if I ever mention Buzz or Topat that is who I am talking about. Didn’t want to throw in new characters without a proper introduction.
I’ve made a command decision that I am not doing shit with the yard. I’ll do that when I come back in the fall. There’s just too much other pressing things to do that can be done for free. The most expensive thing I intend to do is paint, and I think I can keep that under a hundred. Joelle has repeatedly stated she can not believe how different the house looks and feels, and I don’t think I am even a 1/4 of the way done. The outside can wait another year.
I need to do a major product endorsement right now. I also need to do a disclaimer- I have no idea what is in this stuff, I have not looked at the label, and I will not because I do not want to know. But I swear to everything that is holy, Chef Merito’s Red Fajita seasoning is fucking amazing.
For those of you on the east coast, you know how obnoxious everyone from Maryland is about Old Bay seasoning? I feel comfortable saying everyone who has ever known anyone from Maryland has had a jarring encounter with them when they profess their love for the shit and you find out they put it on everything. It may be a regional thing, but it is true and also beyond parody. Honestly shocked there has never been an SNL skit about it.
At any rate, my point was that if Old Bay seasoning tasted like Chef Merito’s Red Fajita seasoning, then their love for it would totally fucking make sense. Because Chef Merito’s is amazing. When I make fajita’s I walk by the kitchen at least ten times picking slices of pepper and onion out of the skillet and eating them.
I’m gonna try it on a sear pork loin and see how it goes. How about that?
Sunday Night Open Thread- AND OH YEAH THE GRAMMYS OPEN THREAD
I’m tired and cranky and got a lot of stuff done today and I also think I got the most sun I have since I got here. It wasn’t near the hottest it has been here since I arrived, and there was a great breeze, but I could feel the intensity of the sun. I’ve been in places where the sun felt like this- when I spent a month in Devil’s Lake North Dakota doing Combat Engineer training circa 1993-94, the sun felt just like it did today. I left North Dakota with one of the best tans I have ever had, and I don’t think I was ever hot the entire time I was there. Weird, that big sky.
Speaking of Devil’s Lake, I had some of the greatest steaks I have ever had on a Reservation nearby the Army post. Another thing that I always wondered about is we spent a lot of time in training dealing with explosives, and I learned how to do some pretty crazy shit with just det cord and blasting caps, but of particular note was that we spent an entire day mixing diesel fuel with fertilizer being taught how to make fertilizer bombs to use as cratering charges. Within a year or two of my training, that fucking scumbag Timothy McVeigh blew up the Federal building with none other than a massive fertilizer bomb. Like I said, I wonder if they still teach that in the Army.
While I was out running an errand today I was in a plaza, and there was a teeth whitening place. I guess they have those independent of dentist’s offices now, but that’s not the point. What caught my eye was this fucking cry for help:
Jesus christ, we may have to face the fact that we’ve broken millenials and gen Z. How the fuck did this get through the ad department- “Life is short and in the end there is only pain and sadness and death. Also, we bleach teeth.”
Fucking hell.
I’m off to make dinner- fajitas, what else- and then maybe watch some tv and go to bed. Here’s a picture of Steve for ya:
*** Update ***
I bigfooted Anne Laurie so took it down, dinner was great, watching the Grammys, and fuck the Republicans for what they are doing to Ukraine.
Sunday Night Open Thread- AND OH YEAH THE GRAMMYS OPEN THREADPost + Comments (174)
Saturday Night Open Thread
This post is a shout to everyone who read my post earlier in the day and mentally thought to themselves “there’s no fucking way they are getting all that done” because you are tonight’s big winner. And a hearty fuck you to all of you, btw.
At any rate, to elaborate on what is going on, Joelle’s living room has the front door (that we do not use) and is connected to the galley kitchen with a door to the carport (that we do use) and on the other side connects to the hallway to the two bedrooms at the end, the bathroom in the middle, and a sun room that we call the dog room that connects to the patio and the backyard. We had a bunch of indoor outdoor 50’s tiki furniture that was gifted to her in that room that I picked up in Flagstaff a couple weeks ago.
So what we did is we threw out her aged couch and end table that she wanted to get rid of (that she put on FB marketplace and was GONE in an hour) deep-cleaned the living room, chose our paint colors from the samples we put up, and cleaned the tiki furniture and moved it into the living room temporarily. Tomorrow we are deep cleaning the sun room/dog room, and then while she is at work next week I am going to pain the sun room and the hallway. Once those are done, we will move the tiki stuff back into the sun room/dog room, and then we will paint the living room. Exhausted? Me too.
I was a spaz all day long and could not figure out what Joelle wanted me to do and she is quite frustrated with me right now, but what can I say, it’s a fucking package deal. I was unwittingly working against her because I thought we were painting the living room first- the list never got made, btw.
Another thing I keep forgetting is that I am an ogre. I would have no problem living for a week with the living room completely torn up and there being no other “space” to live. I mean I can get to the kitchen, the shower and shitter, the office, and the bed. What else do I need? Not all people ‘live’ like that or can just completely blot things out.
The other thing is that she is also very sentimental so this is all a big deal for her. I’m not so much. I look at something and scan for threats and utility, and in that order. Aesthetics follow, to varying degrees. She doesn’t think that way. She just has a different worldview that I will never fully understand but can respect and need to learn to get better at being sensitive to or in a couple years you might hear Josh Mankiwiecz on Dateline talking about a woman who slowly poisoned her husband to death by putting thallium in his topo chico. At any rate, the temporary living room with sunroom furniture while we do the other room and hallway. From the front door angling across the room to the galley kitchen:
A side view from one of the tiki seats against the wall.
And from the galley kitchen door:
If you look at the first picture, yoiu will see a picture of Marilyn Monroe, except it is not! It’s Joelle back in her youth when she worked in Wheeling and someone asked her to be a hair model. I think she looks like Ana de Armas in the picture:
At any rate, that was today. Currently I am researching textured walls to figure out what the fuck they are made of and what I can do to hang a picture or shit in them without destroying them.