Life of Wry

Let’s hope the comeuppances keep on coming up

I mean seriously, republican women? This is your guy, your hero, your savior.. the one sent by god? Hate ta tell ya… you been duped.

Roses are cool.

Have I blogged the Swedish birthday song before?

Ja, må hon leva!
Ja, må hon leva!
Ja, må hon leva uti hundrade år!
Javisst ska hon leva!
Javisst ska hon leva!
Javisst ska hon leva uti hundrade år!

Loosely translated:

Happy birthday to you! (Literally translated, Yes, may she live)
Happy birthday to you!
Yes, may she live a hundred years!
Of course she will live!
Of course she will live!
Yes, she will live to be a hundred years old!

Wasn’t that fun?

Anyway.. it’s my birthday. My 68th one!

Loved today… a walk to coffee with Vicki (and some great political conversation); a gorgeous walk this afternoon down by the creek with me; dinner out with Jim (Seasons with its new chef), and back home for a lovely, tangy lemon cake that Jim made for dessert. Plus a great conversation with Peter, another with Matt, missed calls from several others, lots of texts, emails, cards, and, of course Facebook messages galore. Sweet day. Very nice to be remembered by so many. Thanks, nice people.

Some photos on the day… (and boy was it nice to be taking long walks in the sunshine and having the time and space to stop, take it all in, take some pics (whilst listening to a fab — and hilarious — podcast).

A wet branch smooshed into the sidewalk, the water leaching out to create the effect of a leaf outline:

Matt sent flowers…

Bunches down by the creek:

I love these next two….

In the redwood grove..

A birthday self portrait… note hat protecting super sensitive peely face, and a jacket tied around my waist because it’s so warm (like, low 50s)!

A buncha guys I came across on the track.. row boys!

Jim’s beautiful lemon cake…. (I’m three)…

The sun sets (actually, the full moon rises) on my birthday..

On this drippy, rainy day, I thought it was a good time to check out a photo exhibit installed at Logos, a local (quite cool) used bookstore. Hard for me, because the subjects of the photos were bugs.. and worse, beetles. Beetles, gorgeous as they are to entomologists, are repulsive to me. It’s just one of my phobias.. hard-shelled insects. Not sure why that fear imbedded in me, but.. there you go. My old buddy Larry (whom I met when he tuned my beloved (inherited) baby grand piano over thirty years ago) sent me an invite and I felt somewhat obligated to attend. He’s a skilled photographer and I knew it would be a thoughtful, worthy exhibit, but, you know: beetles.

I steeled myself and attended. There were 40 enlarged photos mounted on the walls high above the bookshelves. Safe. I was grateful there were all kinds of non-beetle insects! I think, out of the 40 photos, only 3 had beetles. One was even kind of cool… a bright, iridescent blue beetle face, but I didn’t spend too much time on him anyway. Definitely another couple that were cringe-worthy.. but the majority were flies, bees, wasps… things like that.

Here were a couple faves… this dragonfly wing:

And these two little sleeping bees:

Funny you can see books, and even me, in the reflection. I hadn’t noticed that… so meta.. me photographing a photograph. And I’m sure in that process, esp as my camera is an iphone, a lot of resolution is lost. But trust me, these photos are remarkably crisp and detailed in person.

Tonight was the 2024 campaign season kickoff for a wonderful organization — the Bay Area Coalition — an informal consortium of progressive grassroots political action orgs in the greater Bay Area (including Davis). BAC helps coordinate the work of I-don’t-even-know-how-many orgs, so that there is a sharing of knowledge, resources and effort. Sister District Yolo and Indivisible Yolo are both members and we all benefit from the connection and networking.

The zoom meeting tonight had nearly a thousand attendees. A THOUSAND ATTENDEES! We are all volunteers working with our various orgs, all committed to a favorable outcome in the upcoming presidential election (and some key downstream elections, as well). The guest speaker was Professor Heather Cox Richardson (Boston College) and she was as clear, informative and inspiring as always, (tonight in zoom-person, rather then in email newsletter form)! I was SO inspired. SO glad to have attended (even as I had to put the coverage of the New Hampshire primary on hold for a whole hour).

Since about 2017, I think, I’ve been reading Heather’s nightly commentary on the day’s political events. I’ve shared some of her pieces here. They consistently offer incredible clarity and very helpful perspective on our daily dose of crazy. Most useful is her comprehensive summary — always so articulate — and her reality check on the unrelenting hysteria we are subjected to with a lunatic seemingly always in the news, and a news media that can’t seem to see the forest for the trees. She cuts through all the noise. As an historian, she also places the events of the day into historical context, letting us know our times are not uniquely dire.

Well, except now. These are uniquely dire days and the election later this year really will have a bearing on the viability of our noble experiment in democracy.

Deep breath.

Anyway… here’s a screen shot:

I could write lengthily about her comments, I took lots of notes .. but I gotta turn in. I will say, if anyone reading this wants to listen to her presentation, BAC has a youtube channel and I imagine tonight’s meeting will show up there soon (it’s not there just yet, but I know it was recorded).

Coincidentally, fennel was one of the words on today’s NYT Spelling Bee. I was one word, ONE WORD, away from Queen Bee… I got fennel and 32 of the other words, but missed flannel. Sad.

But this blog is about the soup I made tonight that made use of all parts of the fennel — the bulb, the stalks and the fronds. If fennel is on a recipe’s ingredient list, I usually (always) skip it because I don’t know how to cook with fennel. Tonight I overcame my fennel aversion. Brave.

Not as challenging as celeriac, I admit, but intimidating nonetheless.

Actually.. not hard at all. Gave it a quick wash, then commenced to cut… divided into its three parts…

Coarsely chopped the bulb, thinly sliced the stalks and finely chopped the fronds. Then gathered the other ingredients: andouille sausage, olive oil, chic broth, garlic, s/p, spinach. Tortellini will be added toward the end and parmesan will be sprinkled atop.

Looks amazing, huh?

It was!

~~

Note: I made this on Monday, but posting it on Tuesday because I couldn’t blog last night because I has such a raging stomach ache. No idea what caused it.. my beautiful soup?? I can’t believe that, but hoo boy I was hurting. We have leftovers, so I’ll see if it happens again on round two.

Every Sunday morning for years, and I do mean years, Jim’s ordered the French toast at Bernardo’s. And because I’m not as habitual, I order different things every time — sometimes eggs, sometimes oatmeal, sometimes pancakes… everything but French toast, because that’s Jim’s order.

A couple months ago, I thought, why the heck not try the French toast?! So I did. And now I see what all the hoopla’s about. Bernardo’s has got the best French toast ever.

I’ve been ordering it ever since.

They say Biden’s got an age problem. I am among those who wish the dems had a more vibrant leader, but I sure don’t question his capacity to do the job.

This guy, on the other hand, gives me great anxiety…. in his own confused and unintelligible words, I present the likely republican nominee for leader of the free world (from a “speech” at a rally last night in New Hampshire):

“By the way, they never report the crowd on January 6th,” Trump told the audience. “You know, Nikki Haley, Nikki Haley, Nikki Haley, you know they, do you know they destroyed all of the information, all of the evidence, everything, deleted and destroyed all of it. All of it because of lots of things, like Nikki Haley is in charge of security. We offered her 10,000 people. Soldiers, National Guards, whatever they want. They turned it down.”

(Nikki Haley was nowhere near Washington that day. He is confusing her with Nancy Pelosi, about whom he’s lying anyway; she was not in charge of security.)

“We’re…going to place strong protections to stop banks and regulators from trying to debank you from your—you know, your political beliefs, what they do. They want to debank you, and we’re going to debank—think of this. They want to take away your rights. They want to take away your country. The things they’re doing. All electric cars.”

Get that man a cognitive test, stat.

No picture today, because that would just make y’all sick.

Reaching back into the archives, yet again, as I don’t have anything to blog about.

So… on January 19, 2009, we were deep into Obamamania, following the November 2008 election of our nation’s first black president. One of the symbols of his campaign was this.. remember?

Apparently, we were all making customized Obamicons. There was a website where you could upload a photo and they’d Obamacize it for you… I made these:

And, since I’d just retired.. I also made this one:

And oh man… I wish we could be in that heady state of political-societal-patriotic bliss again! A time when we were so inspired and proud of our country. Remembering Obama’s messages of hope and unity. It was a time when we felt moved by the depth of our president’s intelligence and humanity, and comfort in his honor and dignity. We felt like we were in good hands.

Having not too much to blog about today, I went hunting in my photo archives for a suitable on-this-day photo and found this one from six years ago.. January 18, 2018.

Deep, deep sigh. We’ve been in this hell for a long time.

But/and on the subject of staying engaged in the political process because our democracy is in a world of hurt, today I…..

1) attended a Zoom meeting with Lachrecse Aird, a candidate in Virginia who we helped elect who addressed her constituents (and me) this afternoon just days ahead of the opening session of the VA State Senate. I was interested in seeing her in action after raising money for her, writing postcards for her, making phone calls for her, and meeting her for breakfast when I was in VA last Fall. She is a rock star! After seeing her conduct this meeting and discuss the bills she’s already drafted and the committee’s she’s been assigned to and the progressive priorities she’s got for the upcoming legislative session (sensible gun laws, reproductive rights, climate action, health care, etc), I am so pleased to have spent my valuable time getting her elected. Never mind she was part of the Blue Wave that regained both houses of the VA state house this past November! Go progressives!

2) gathered information for a friendraising/fundraising letter that I am drafting that will be sent to about 200-300 people locally that will raise money to support two exceptional organizations that are on the ground in Michigan dedicated to educating and registering voters who will support progressive causes and candidates. These letters typically raises thousands of dollars that we give directly to these orgs so they can be max effective in their fantastic efforts!

3) joined the IndivisibleYolo phone banking group which will meet every Thursday evening from today until election day and which will be focusing on six California central valley congressional races. These races were chosen because there is a very real chance — even a likely one — that a strong ground game will successfully flip these seats from red to blue. Our calls — known as voter touches — are part of that needed ground game. That will go a long way toward flipping the US House of Representatives, which today is controlled by the most non-functional grandstanding republicans in history. These republicans care not a wit about governing; time to put the dems back in charge! These six seats in California WILL make a difference in the critical effort.

So… I feel good about that.