Sharing the World with the Undead

2018: Reflections on Me and Dad, sandwiched between random thoughts, while Dad Explains the Universe in Red, Redder, Reddest Sound Bites

(That’s not Commie Pinko Red, that’s Republican Red. This man was meant to take his guns to rural Montana or Idaho, closing the chained gate behind him.)

Old. So old, my dad. Anti-Trumpers? EVIL. Shoot them? He’s not quite sure yet. Incarcerate them? If they get in Donald’s way, then…  Whatever. Deport them. Bleach them. Let the zombies have them. Dad Limbaugh Hannity’s on, explaining life inside his bubble.

Mom: Quiet. Small words. Short thoughts. Peace and ice cream. Red velvet muffins. Cookie trail crumbling across ancient threadbare carpets. Smile. I’m here. Gloats zip by, forever monologue. White noise world.

Morning. Porch. Bricks hold the door. Nuclear heater blasts silent heat. Solar sun-catcher pilgrims wobble wobble wobble. Radio NOISE. Breadcrumbs. Woodpile. Squirrels, and probably racoons and big, fat Norwegian rats; shred more bread. We don’t waste food here. Seagull. Crows. He holds out his hand. Vitamin C, C, C. The crew of the Good Ship Tacoma House may go deaf from that radio, but no one will get scurvy. Pliers. Why? (Jocelyn: very old dog.com/net/org attempting new tricks) Drip drip drip; dad monologuing endless politics in the dark. I get him more coffee; I wish I could drink that much coffee.

Meanwhile, I think rest, teaching, students, friends, randomness and projects. Endless open lakes, dragons, unknown games and gamesmanship, ice cream (one whole freezer, full), ears, white noise, tinnitus, blah, blah, talking, without even knowing the way, open tired, Priscilla, Samuel, Ben, Shaun, Dan and Mike, Ginger, Jason, Ronnie, boxes, box cutters, way finder, any finding, days, sweats, cotton, stuff so much stuff, panic, pressure, release, freedom, Jon Kabat Zinn, feet, therapy pool, massage, nails, hair, lips,  blankies, mommies, time, time, time, zebras, hoofprints, trackers, zoos, zombies, freedom, bleach, bleach, spray nozzle, dead ants, roaches in boxes, education, permutations, emasculations, desecrations, footwear, bona fides, authenticity, forcefulness, use the Force, Luke, find the tomatillos Luke, faces, races, where will it take us? Darkness, I-5, bears, pain, fix pain. No gain. Time inside out.

Later, lovingly, I will doordash my aging parents the shrimp fried rice they love. Or maybe a sausage omelet with extra gravy on the hashbrowns. I go to check the coffee pot, then cut mom a delicious chunk of Costco chocolate muffin.

Zombie phrase of the day: You can make a brain latte with a blender. Ooohhh gahhh bahhhgg uhhh bain ahhhattay ihh uhhh behhhdehrr.

Only three masks here

A church manifesting faith

I’m not sure in what.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________

Covid has come and seemingly gone, though it remains to offer an occasional lesson. Here is mine for today: When someone posts on social media to say, “I have Covid, please cheer me up,” the right response is not, “I had it. I still can’t hear or taste although taste is getting a little better. The big problem is I am still foggy and can’t think.”

That’s an ironically non-thinking response or perhaps a narcissistic one. I immediately thought of pregnancy disaster stories. “My sister had to be life-flighted to (Big-City-Here) because she was hemorrhaging so badly. No one thought either one would survive!” is not an appropriate share. Not even with best of intentions. Not until well after the baby is born. Maybe not even then.

Here’s a question to start with before speaking or hitting the send button: What will make my friend/acquaintance feel better right now?

Yes, we all screw up in conversation sometimes, especially when we listen in order to talk, rather than listening so we can learn. But sharing with a kindly purpose in mind, instead of a desire to rack up “likes” or other cybertokens of popularity, can help this one-upmanship from blasting off in a blaze of misplaced self-aggrandizement.

Another starter sentence:

How can I help him/her/them/ze/per/this person?

As we story and journey, sometimes it’s good to just gobblefunk a little with words.

Reader, maybe make a list of words that capture how you feel right now. I’ll start:

I feel like an armadillo (got to get across the road but somehow that sense of urgency is just not there…)

a message in a bottle bobbing down the the time stream

weary pilgrim, tired of lifting my heavy staff

slug giving virtual hugs and advice to overly complicated vertebrates

ent staring up into the rushing waters

astronaut mouse tethered a tiny spaceship staring at billions of stars

magnifying glass watching the sun turn paper below me into a soft shade of brown

cork-stopped jar etched with a fairy whose lantern is waiting for a match

thin voice dissipating in an expanding political void

secret dancer straining to hear the music, making up new lyrics as she goes.

Some days just flash by

Scent of burnt time descending

Toward dreams we forget.

Book of mindfulness

But mindfulness does not hide

Inside little books.

Life is what you get

While episode five unfolds

And the phone goes ding!

How odd to think that an era of this length has ended. Elizabeth was queen forever. She knew Churchill. She met thirteen US Presidents. She ruled for the entirety of my life, day by day, crisis by crisis. And her people loved her.

What next? She can’t be replaced. Charles is … well, Charles. Camilla is So-Not-Diana. William’s stiff upper lip might as well be made of granite and Kate just barely seems like more fun than William. The more lovable younger brother moved to the US with his indulged wife, who has been making a fair amount of trouble for the stiff-upper-lip-we-do-it-this-way crowd. And Andrew… oh, Andrew. I can’t say the royal family is a mess exactly, but it’s hardly ready for Prime Time.

Still, I guess we are not in position to raise much of a fuss here.

And then there’s the issue of the pee tape that Putin may or may not have in his possession. This blog supports Better Leadership All Over the Place. We will miss Queen Elizabeth.

Ingredients

Ample pinch of saffron – approx ½ teaspoon if you have longer, wavy threads

Marjoram, oregano, thyme, turmeric and a bay leaf. See below

4-5 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

(Additional olive oil as needed.)

1 onion, medium sized, diced

1-2 cloves garlic, minced

1 1/2 cups short grain rice

3 cups chicken stock

1+ red, yellow and/or orange pepper, medium sized, diced or cut into strips. I prefer small strips.

1 chicken breast or 2-3 chicken thighs, cut into larger pieces (keeps it moister) then coat with flour, paprika and garlic powder before cooking in 1 tbsp oil)

1 pound sausage, cut into 1/4 inch or slightly larger rounds – andouille is more classic, but I like a sweet chicken sausage. A good Polish sausage is fine too!

1 pound cooked shrimp, peeled and deveined, tails on – med large or larger. If using frozen, they must be thawed first.

½ cup frozen peas or peas and carrots

1 lemon, cut into wedges

Salt and pepper to taste

Directions

If you want to be fussy, take a generous pinch each of marjoram, oregano, and thyme and then cook (but don’t scorch) these in oil to bring out the flavor. Add a bay leaf. (You can just throw all the spices into the chicken broth, though.)

Take the chicken pieces and add to a bowl with 2-3 tbsp flour, 1 tsp paprika, garlic powder, salt and pepper to taste. Mix chicken with flour mix until chicken is coated. Then add 2-3 tbsp olive oil and mix chicken again until coated thoroughly.

Pull out a large frying pan. The one above is 14 inches. Add about 1 additional tbsp of olive oil to pan. Cook chicken only until pink is gone, turning with tongs. It will cook more in broth later. Remove chicken.

Over a medium to high heat, add 1-2 tbsp olive oil to the frying pan. Then add onion and cook until translucent.

Add garlic and cook for 2 more minutes.

On medium heat, add all of the rice and stir frequently. This technique is known as ‘parching’. By heating the rice for 3-5 minutes prior to adding any liquid, the rice will essentially become “thirstier,” and soak up more broth. Add one teaspoon turmeric.

Once the rice is hot, CAREFULLY add half of the chicken stock and the saffron and other herbs/spices. The pan is hot and liquid could spatter/vaporize quickly. (My husband would add three tablespoons tomato sauce. I would skip the tomato sauce.) You want the liquid to completely cover the rice.

Stir occasionally and bring to a boil. As the liquid is soaked up, add more stock.

While slowly adding stock to keep the rice ‘wet’, add in the bell pepper. I use red, yellow and/or orange peppers. You could use green peppers, but I’m not a green pepper fan. Spouse is OK with green, though.

Add in the sausage and chicken. Stir occasionally and be sure to bring back to a boil to ensure the meats heat all the way through, about 10-12 minutes. Add broth to keep rice hydrated. (This time can be shorter with cooked sausage since you already cooked the chicken, but you do want to get the rice to the right consistency. I’d go by whether the rice seems right. You want the rice to be soft with a tasty brown crust on the bottom of the pan.)

Lastly, add the shrimp and peas or peas and carrots. I embed the shrimp in the rice and sit the peas on top. The shrimp will only take about 3 minutes to cook thoroughly. As soon as it is done, remove the pan from the heat. Let it rest covered for at least another 5 minutes.

Garnish with lemon wedges.

Piece of advice for today: Don’t buy the first year of the new or better product. The first year of the new boiler, dishwasher or hovercar should be tested by People Other than You.

Not that we haven’t met some nice guys while they fixed the new boiler problem. Did you know there is a “boiler buddy” that will fix short cycling of your boiler? Here’s the blurb:

“Boiler Buddy buffer tanks are designed to be used in heating systems with low-mass boilers, geothermal, chilled water, or low-mass radiation. The Boiler Buddy tank is a factory insulated and jacketed storage tank that adds mass to the system and provides the necessary buffer to prevent short cycling of the heat source. It also serves as a hydraulic decoupler, separating the boiler loop from the system loop and provides an excellent location to eliminate unwanted air. “

Ummm… Should have bought the old-fashioned standard boiler or waited a few years until they worked out the kinks of that new thing in the basement. But kudos to the persons who took advantage of the marketing opportunity that demanded a “boiler buddy.”

Zombie Phrase for the Day: I need glasses but the eye doctors always run away.

Ahhhhhdeeeedd adddusss buhhduhhh ayyyydahdah ahdihhhd uhhhhnnnnndd uhbay.

Ummm… yeah. So true here. Zoom is about the easiest platform I know but Zoom is out of favor in many districts due to privacy concerns.

I’m pretty sure that one reason why parents and students are massing to fight the possible evil of masks is that some issues are too complicated to parse out and manage easily. A proliferation of apps in a world where many parents are not technogeeks, or interested in finding the keys to Geekdom, will be daunting to parents. I suspect some parents have launched war on the Western front because the Eastern front is simply too fraught with weirdness. Too much Kracklezam only intimidates that mom or dad who doesn’t live on their laptop and can’t stand remote meetings.

As I read posts yesterday between people who were looking into homeschooling, I thought maybe Technoweirdness was part of the many parents making homeschooling recommendations, combined with the fact that many parents would love a viable remote option for when people got sick etc. — but instead they get Kracklezam.

We don’t educate parents enough. No one can besnoggle a snork until they learn what a snork is and maybe have some practice besnoggling. Snorks also provide a reason to fight about masks. Sometimes people just feel like they have to fight about something, and masks is a thing we kinda, sorta understand.

At least until the government decides to explain them one more time.

(It took how long to decide that cloth masks were next to useless?)

Longevity? The following email is littered with factual errors: “Fact Check-Post states wrong ages at which several inventors died.” See Fact Check-Post states wrong ages at which several inventors died | Reuters This post should remind us that people are just making up their own factoids at an astounding rate. But here are the factoids in Eddie’s email, all with an obvious agenda:

“1 The inventor of the treadmill died at the age of 54

2 The inventor of modern gymnastics died at the age of 57

3 The world bodybuilding champion died at the age of 41

4 The best footballer (SOCCER) in the world Maradona, died at the age of 60.

5 James Fuller Fixx credited with helping start America’s fitness revolution by popularizing the sport of running died of a heart attack while jogging at 52 years of age

BUT

6 The KFC inventor died at 94. Colonel Sanders.

7 Inventor of Nutella chocolate and nut spread died at the age of 88.

8 Imagine, cigarette maker Winston died at the age of 102.

9 The inventor of opium died at the age of 106 in an earthquake

10. And the Hennessey Liquor inventor died at 98.”


Eddie’s Conclusion:

“The rabbit is always jumping up and down but it lives for only 2 years and the turtle that doesn’t exercise at all lives 400 years.

So, take some rest, chill, stay cool, eat, drink and enjoy your life.”

Jocelyn’s Conclusion: 1) Relaxation and rest don’t get enough respect or attention. An occasional snort of bourbon with fried chicken never seemed to harm my now 95-year-old dad, who remains a big fan of ham and cheese omelettes and hashbrowns with extra gravy. 2) We should never trust the internet.

The “inventor” of opium lived thousands of years ago according to A History of Opium | History Today “Opium has been known and used for more than 7,000 years.” Exactly what earthquake killed that opium addict anyway? Richard Hennessey actually died at 76 — admittedly a ripe old age in the 1700s. And the big question of the day: who are the turtles who never move? Let’s be clear: I could write and publish an article on immobile turtles right now. Or I could invent facts about ADHD rabbits. I could easily invent sources. Maybe I could even FIND sources.

(I tried the search “can rabbits suffer from ADHD” and the first response was a possibly malicious website about CBD use in rabbits, followed by Do Rabbits Get Depressed? 7 Common Reasons Why | Hutch and Cage)

Moral of the story: If the post/email/tweet etc. says what you want to hear, it’s best to be especially careful. But falsehoods are not always entirely untrue, either. There’s simply no substitute for actual thinking, combined with an occasional Google search.

Zombie phrase for the day: ADHD dogs seem to be everywhere.

AhhhhDuhhhAAhhhchdDuhhh dahhhgggzz deeeem duhh beehhvehhrwehhhrr.