Living Well

Posted on by accordingtohoyt

Today I’ve felt better than in weeks. From the fact that I still had to take ibuprofen to subdue a headache, I don’t think I’m fully well, but way better than yesterday.

How do I know? For the first time in weeks, I did what used to be the morning routine: pre-prep for dinner (lunch is usually snackish, as we’re both working.) In this case, it’s a little more than pre-prep, as I have beef stew in the crockpot, and einkorn sourdough leven resting to make French bread to go with.

Cooking and writing are linked for me, and if I’m sick, I can’t do either. For some reason it’s easier to convince myself I’m sick, not just lazy, if I skip cooking.

BUT here’s the important thing, they shut down at the same time. And what I eat becomes a matter of indifference, which means I eat a lot of canned stuff (not a normal thing.)

So, you should blame this post on that.

Look, the idiots have control of all the big structures. And their big push is to…. create a war on things that work. (Okay, contributing to this post is the fact that the dishwasher in new to me place is a bizarre piece of cr*p that proclaims it’s “eco-wash!” on the side, in big letters. (Yeah, if/when we have money, it will be replaced, but I’ll be honest, all the last 5 dishwashers we bought were crap. the last good one we bought in 1991 and it was great.)

Also a war on people that work. Their regulations/push is to remove effective people from the market place and replace them with people who view work as a kind of sinecure. This is probably because their minds are organized much like those of 3rd world country peasants who do view work as a sinecure. Work comes with privileges, not obligations in their heads.

(And I’m not diving down that rabbit hole, but this probably has to do with self-esteem education and never being given a reality check.)

This is why they can come up with inanities like everything that makes you an effective worker being “white supremacy” or “privilege.”

A few years ago, I’d have said that their intention was not to make you miserable, but I’ve revised that since. The left has always hated people, but they used to think they did that “for your own good.”

I don’t think they do any longer. Instead, they’re finding excuses to make you miserable in the service of some greater good. The Earth-worship has been the biggest one, leading to crap doesn’t clean or cook, or– And now of course covidiocy. There is no excuse for barring treatments that weren’t killing anyone, even if you don’t think they’re effective. And there’s zero excuse to make everyone wear face masks. Or trying to push a vaccine with horrendous side effects for an illness that is not killing even 1% of the population. (Yes, yes, every death is a tragedy. But death is still a part of life. You can’t avoid all deaths. And you have to ask what the cost is to other lives — and deaths — to protect crazily against a not very dangerous cold. Look, the plague that ate my January wasn’t COVID, therefore it doesn’t exist, but it’s at least as nasty as persistent. These things happen.) Masks are utterly non-effective. There might be some point trying them, if this were the Spanish Flu. It would at least give comfort. But this ain’t the Spanish flu, and they’ve gone on too long for anyone but the utterly brainwashed to believe in them. So, they’re just humiliation cosplay. “You have to act like a moron, because it amuses me.”

Same with the recent totally insane push to force people to eat “plant based” and bugs.

We DO NOT HAVE A FOOD SHORTAGE. Sure, it was predicted by the same loons who thought we were overpopulated. BUT THERE IS NO FOOD SHORTAGE.

There is a shortage of food in the grocery stores, yes, but that’s a DISTRIBUTION PROBLEM (as it is btw in almost all Marxist regimes.)

If it were a straight up supply problem of too many people, too little food, the push for “plant based protein” (And none, none of them are good for you long term, sorry) and “eat bugs, peasant” might make some sense. (It wouldn’t actually, because both plants and bugs take more resources to grow/are more expensive.

But that is not the problem. There’s plenty of food. The problem is DELIVERY of that food to where people can buy it. Because the idiots in charge have borked energy production and are using eco-rules and covidiocy to make it impossible to transport things. Because all Marxists are crazy in the head about distribution. Marx thought it was “exploitation” to charge more for something you bought and transported, so they all think that. It’s like he was patient zero for stupid economic thought and it communicates by reading his barely coherent even after editing ramblings.

So, what’s the point of trying to force people to eat vegetable based — harmful in the long run, if only in terms of reduced vitality — or truly icky stuff, like bugs?

They hate you and they want you to be unhappy.

No, they really hate you and they want you to be unhappy. They’re taking away conveniences that allow you to live like the kings of old could only dream of. And they force you into humiliation play. And they want you to hit bugs and live in sewer pipes that are repurposed (yes, I’ve seen that) and–

So we’re waiting, still on that awkward stage. I think they already know they’re going to lose long-term. Subconsciously, at least, because their “religion” won’t allow them to admit it to themselves. Which only makes them crazier and more destructive in the long run.

This will end, one way or another.

But until then, what can you do?

You can live as well as you possibly can. Note my activities this morning. Yes, I could have heated a can of food, but if we have to eat — we do — and I’m feeling well enough to cook, I’m going to make our meal this evening fun and an experience that would cost a lot of money we don’t really have at a restaurant.

Now, because of how they’ve borked the economy, doing this kind of thing requires learning, but we live in the most information-rich and education-rich time ever.

Sure, the information streams are corrupted, but there are free videos on cooking tasty meals for all budgets and levels of issues with food, as well as for all levels of experience. The same for repairing machines (and some of you are getting into “how can I 3-d print parts to improve this machine.” GOOD FOR YOU) and for if you wish making fancy clothes, or whatever.

Now, your time is not infinite. None of ours is. but there’s usually something you can do every day, ranging from small to great, that will make you and those around you feel better and live happier lives.

I suggest you do it.

Multiple streams of income. Multiple streams of activity. Multiple streams of learning. As the man said, specialization is for insects.

Do that which sparks joy, even if it’s a little thing every day, like, oh, cleaning something really well, or doing an extra little step that makes something you have to do just…. better.

The idiots who are trying to control everything are profoundly sad people who have killed their own ability to experience joy, and now run around looking for ever greater power and ways to make others miserable. As though that would help.

Make them truly miserable. Do everything you can to make your life and the lives of those you love better.

Be creative. Be happy. Be joyful.

Go.

195 thoughts on “Living Well”

  1. Something that struck me, they’ve built systems that don’t do anything, and have been breaking them with the covidiocy.

    There was an interview with a British high schooler that went a bit viral where she melts down because school cancelled her A-level exams, and the newsies in the room can’t understand what was bothering her about it.

    It hit me, the British exam system is a fake gate. The kids are told all their lives that doing well on your exams is the gateway to success and prosperity, but all the adults who are telling them that known it is garbage. So the adults don’t see any problem at all slamming that gate in the kids faces. To them, it means nothing, even as they’ve spent their whole working careers conditioning their students to think that it does.

    I wonder how many of those kids on the receiving end of this are going to realize how badly they’ve been lied to, and how they will react when they do?

    2. Mine reacted by doing zero work. Why bother. Why test? Why jump through any fake hoop? Why even learn for its own sake, if you can’t get a job because the govt pays people to not work, and you have >=3 strikes against you in identity politics. Heck, why even get out of bed?

      Drawing them back from that has been extraordinarily difficult, as teens are already biased toward refusing to participate in what they view as hypocrisy.

      And this is coming from Christian homeschooled kids who have not worn masks and even fought their way to shaking the adults around them to start up school band and choir music instruction again in October 2020, and whose church was normal by July 2020.

      They don’t have a long enough past to see the ebb and flow. They don’t have enough friends or a long enough time horizon to have suffered and survived. They have almost no trust or faith to buoy them up.

      They may see there’s possibilities for connection now between friends. Fun to have, games to play, right here right now. But reaching for something? That’s built on a trust in the future. They don’t have it, and no one can give it to them now, as they looked behind the curtain and found not even a man as competent as Oz.

        1. We’re going to have to hold on for them. But I worry.

          My grandfather was born in 1910. Lived in Chicago all his life. Lost a job at a grocer in 1929 after the crash, when his boss said he could only afford one employee, and the other man had a wife and kid. My grandfather didn’t have a job again until 1940 (nor did he have a wife nor kid until then, either.) He kept that one job all his life until retirement, never even looked for another. Didn’t buy a home until his adult daughter bought them one to live with them in the 1990s.

          I’m not saying my grandfather’s life didn’t have meaning. It did. The other side of my family are refugees from WW2, DPs, who managed to have far more gumption and fight, a combination of mental illness and upward mobility. Not the malaise, but the trauma of war, wrecked them, but they went from having lost everything and physical starvation to success.

          I don’t know where I’m going with this, other than we need to find ways to teach our kids that fighting changes their outcome, even if only spiritually.

          Ever read To Build A Castle? Bukovsky talks about how busy he is outside if the prison, with so much to do, knowing they’ll send him back any moment. He talks about the prison survivors learning how not to give into the malaise of prison time but fighting to account and make good of every hour. We need to do that, too.

          1. Little in public school motivated our son to do anything beyond the minimum. Do not know where he got that … 😉 Not true. Might be me. At least for HS. However we motivated our son. Multiple ways. Some pushing, some “talking”parental whining, some incentives. And a few classes with bonuses … I’ve mentioned the Electric Cars and the regional races the students participated in before. He is established enough now that the current situation is something even he just shrugs his shoulders on. Work will do what work is going to do. Prefer to not be let go, as his not vaccinated status will be a determent on the job market, at least for now. OTOH he has saved almost everything since he started his post college working career.

            Hubby and I? Well we are retired. Inflation is troubling. But it was in the ’70s and ’80s when we were starting out too. We survived that. We’ll survive this. More worried about mom. She doesn’t have the cushion. As long as her pers and SS pretends to keep up with inflation, and her vehicle doesn’t quit on her, she should be okay.

  2. I read an online article the other day (unfortunately, I can’t remember where) that suggested the food supply problems are largely due to a shortage of packaging. One of the examples used was eggs. Eggs are a popular product, and packaged in different ways depending on where the eggs will be used. Eggs going to someone’s home are in the familiar cartons we see in the supermarket. Eggs going to a restaurant are in massive cartons that the average home owner wouldn’t want to buy if it were even legal to do so (and state law frequently bans it). The issue, according to the article, is that egg consumption in restaurants has dropped dramatically, but consumption at home has made up the difference. This has greatly increased the demand for the supermarket cartons. But production is unable to make up for the increased demand. This means that while there are plenty of eggs, and there’s demand for eggs, there aren’t enough containers to fill and stack on store shelves to meet the demand. And thus we get shortages at the consumer end.

    1. Yes. The packaging for cuts of meat at the store couldn’t keep up with demand… that isn’t the only strain on the meat supply, G-d knows, but it’s one.

      See also: there’s one factory that makes the single-serve packages of yeast. One. It’s in India. When it shut down for a while, you could get 3-lb bricks of yeast, but not so much on the one-packet-per-loaf.

      This can be seen, sometimes, in briskets being offered in thick, industrial vacuum packaging instead of the usual pretty presentation… they can get it, they just can’t get it pretty.

      1. the company that packages yeast was marked as essential… but the company that makes and prints their packets was not.

    2. *nod* For a good few weeks in the early part of the covidiocy here in Texas, there were a number of local restaurants – which couldn’t open to serve meals – they were operating as small-scale grocery stores, re-selling the supplies that they couldn’t turn into meals. I thought it was pretty inventive of them, and they could at least make something from the circumstance.
      Glad you’re feeling better!
      Today I am working to keep up with a couple of projects, as bad-bad-real-bad weather is supposed to hit us this afternoon and tonight, and everyone has vivid memories of last years Snowmagedden. Intermittent power for four or five days, no water for three, and six inches of snow on the ground for days. My daughter and I have stocked up on supplies, and made certain that all the chargeable stuff is ready to go, that we have plenty of batteries, candles and oil for the lanterns, and a couple extra bottles of propane.

      1. During the full restaurant shutdown, the local (Eugene), Texas Roadhouse was issuing uncooked meat cuts, 4 servings per box, and their cooked rolls in dozen packages. We did this twice before they went to full takeout meal requirement. More expensive to get our meat from them, than same meat cuts from Costco or our nearby meat market. (Rolls do not count because their rolls are unique.) We were supporting a restaurant we like going to (way too much … but …).

        1. One of the delis here, and a fancy sandwich shop did that. They sold cold cuts and other things retail, and bought finished baked goods from another shop that could do “wholesale”, then added a little and re-sold them alongside the groceries. It worked, and all those businesses are still running.

      2. So did a lot of our local restaurants as well. Different supply chain, and we were warned to use the bread ASAP (less preservatives, if I recall).

        Americans are notorious for going over, around, and through-which is why despite all the stuff happening, we aren’t particularly in terrible shape. Bad shape, yes. But not terrible.

    4. Eggs going to restaurants are in the big grey flats, you can buy those flats at wal-mart here. Most states don’t have CA’s weird laws on eggs.

          1. Yes. California is really unhappy that people can leave and then ignore their laws.

            Oregon (Portland), and Washington (Seattle), are taking turns with California, the “hold my beer, watch this”, with “bettering” whatever California has started. No specific examples. But interestingly enough although rebuilding is happening up the McKenzie (Holiday Fire), and Middle Fork Willamette (Detroit Fire), it is sure being slow walked. Not all of it is lack of Fire Insurance, or the latest cost of building materials. Yes, a lot of listed properties too, and that is just what can be seen as driving along the highway.

            1. Hopefully the Sixth(?) Circuit will tell California that they can’t demand people in other states follow rules they never voted on.

    5. The restaurant cartons are five dozen eggs. You can buy ’em at Walmart (our local Hutterites use it as one of their standard packagings) or at Costco, in both Montana and California. I’ve never heard of the 5-doz pack being illegal anywhere (if they were, CA would be first in line). The main difference is they’re mediums and misshapens that aren’t pretty enough for consumers.

      1. Costco and local Kroger (Fred Meyer) has the 5 dozen eggs option too. Well Fred Meyer is suppose to, that space is often empty now days. But Costco has been well stocked.

  4. “Work comes with privileges, not obligations in their heads.”

    I don’t understand. If you could elaborate, Sarah, it would be appreciated.

    2. I think she means that in the leftist mind (or mediaeval mind) work equates to a social position with privileges commensurate with that social position, but without enforceable obligations to be productive or actually do the supposed job. A job becomes an entitlement rather than a contractual obligation. This is how a power elite builds a compliant class structure.

    3. Look, I grew up in a country where working as a shop clerk comes with being able to get things cheaper for you and all your friends. You can’t be fired. If there’s an opening, you get a friend/relative in. This goes on at all levels up from there.
      This is the way the left views jobs. People have a right to “good paying jobs.” whether they can do them or not. And the important thing is the payment and privilege.
      So, minimum wage must make “a living wage” because it’s not a place to learn how to work, gain skills and move up. It’s “a good job” that “you have a right to.”
      This doesn’t work at all. Not even vaguely. Because jobs are a negotiated thing.You do something and someone pays you. They can’t fit that in their heads, so they end up with “we pretend to work, they pretend to pay us.” (And yeah, the article is compact, otherwise it would be ten times longer.)

      1. Yes, America is famous for not doing that. Not that they aren’t trying to turn us into a tribal “honor” culture to be useless like the rest of the world. My parents were well off, well middle-class and lived very comfortably. I was poor (I earned as much as 6K per year) until my mid 30’s, and still paycheck to paycheck for much of my life. I’m well-off now (at least until they turn us into Venezuela).

        That’s how it’s supposed to work in America. You earn your way into comfort. BTW my definition of well-off is paying bills as they come in even before they’re due and looking for someplace to invest my surplus, not buying fancy cars and living like a pop-star.

        1. When I started flying, if I could pay all the bills on time, and get groceries, I was golden. When I did well enough to save a little for bad times, wow! I was rolling in dough. And that’s how it was/is supposed to be. You start low and work your way up, and you CAN work your way up.

          1. Exactly.

            NOW we have a pretty good safety net. But we sure did not start that way. In fact we started in debt, not only school loans but had to borrow to go to work. Won’t say we had years of living to our income, because that wouldn’t be true. Years of living to ONE pay check, or less, because we had to. We knew we were looking at years of annual lack of work or act of God lack of work, so one paycheck was saved to deal with that. Okay. Did not count on 35 years worth (for the one who stayed on that career trajectory, at worst it was suppose to be 5 or 6 years), or one of us changing careers. ALL on non-inherited money. On not particularly high individual salaries, or combined gross salaries, nor in low cost living area (not SF, LA, Seattle or Portland either, but not considered low cost).

            My point is, even now, one can work themselves up from nothing, to a comfortable retirement. Easy? No. Doable? Yes.

            We started our journey 1978. You know that decade that the pundits are comparing the start of the 2020 decades to?

        2. I think the debt is different. My children have no student debt and can, thus, live on very little. My daughter is 25 and she and her husband own their own house and have a nice nest egg building. He does very well and she does OK but number one son has a nice bit put by too and he earns very little. Did they have a lot of student debt, well, they’d be like their friends unable to get married and stuck in a fugue.

          This is not an argument for debt forgiveness, but it is the source of my rage, and it is rage, against the whole ruling class. All those useless administrators are expensive and they’ve managed to run the world’s most successful con against an entire generation.

          grifters gonna grift.

          For Bob. Evergrande has issued an identification notice. they’re looking to identify exactly who their creditors are. It’s a step in restructuring. On the other side Auyuan, another property developer defaulted this morning and the still investment grade Country Garden had real difficulty raising money. So far it looks as though China is trying to kick the can down the road and engineer a soft landing by stiffing the foreign creditors and stripping the assets out of the firms into the local government. Doesn’t change the fundamentals though.

      2. Or as someone explained about how jobs work in Africa, it’s not about the work or the paycheck, it’s about the free stuff you can get for your relatives. And the similar positions you can find for your relatives. So naturally nothing works and nothing gets done, unless it promotes yet more grift.

    4. I’ll wait for Sarah to elaborate, but I get it. Completely.
      I had to look up “sinecure” and it’s a perfect word.
      I’ve seen it most strongly in and around government service.

    5. I once worked with a new hire at $WE_BUILD_SCALES that claimed to have a Master’s Degree, but obviously had no experience in.. anything His first few questions were:

      – “When do I get my private office?”
      – “When do I get my raise?”
      – “How do you make Netscape displace Chinese?” (Ox figure out Big5 in a few minutes, should Mr. Master’s Degree already know?)

      And then there was the matter of him being hired as a programmer. How, I have no idea. It seemed he’d go around asking different people for help until anything he needed was written… by everyone but him.

      1. then there was the matter of him being hired as a programmer. How, I have no idea. It seemed he’d go around asking different people for help until anything he needed was written… by everyone but him.

        –
        One repeated compliment I got as both a developer/programmer and programmer was “You delivered!” First time I thought they were kidding. One of my first projects on the job. Not quite an inexperienced newly (ish, it had been 9 months … something about a new baby the night of graduation exercises meant putting off looking for work 🙂 …) Not inexperienced because I was working as a programmer as I got the CS degree. Note, they weren’t kidding. Heard it a lot over the next 31 years.

        I think my last employer is particularly having a hard time dealing with new employees this way. The only three new employees they have been able to keep since I was hired, were IT (two, one of which is transitioning to programmer, for reasons), and one who started as a programmer but now is more sales/demo, and training, and on the road. Not a single new programmer has been able to stay with them. One made it 4 years. Still do not know why he quit.

        The kid transitioning to programmer is a retired head programmer’s kid. Had the IT training. But they know he is a new programmer and needs a lot of hand holding, plus he can go to dad (paid or not, dad won’t let him fail). The other new programmers, it isn’t quite sink or swim on your own. Company expects new programmers, regardless of experience, to take over 6 months to a year to be able to program in the system without asking for some help. But in a way it kind of is sink or swim, because so under staffed. It is easier to do what is asked about than explain it, again, and again. Trust me. That was my job for the last 10 weeks. (Four of which I was using up vacation, and last two weeks were 1/2 time. And no I did not “push” hours. Why do you ask?) OTOH maybe I was just a lousy programming tutor … (um, no). When I started I took 4 weeks then I was at the expected 6 months to year mark. But then too, I had 20 years of “sink or swim” system design, development, and programming, no one around to ask for help on any system. Figure it out. At least this system there were people I could go to and say “which library?”, “Um, what am I missing?”, rarely, but they were there. Questions were more – “This is what the client says is suppose to be happening, but this is what the code is doing. Code is be working correctly.” (VS client saying this is how it is suppose to work, this is what it is doing, and it is wrong. Easy, fix it.) Or, this is an accounting issue, is it correct? Add a switch for this client? Or do I tell the client that it is working correctly, shouldn’t be changed or added, and here is why.

        1. What’s changed is young people spend 17 years in school learning what they call ‘rubrics’. Instead of ever being asked to work a problem, to have to figure out what is being asked, to digest for oneself what’s important to know (and to score poorly on an exam when you don’t figure this out), instead, everything from K through high school and now even college is spoon fed. The “rubric” is the grading document. It tells you exactly what you need to do to earn these points. Partial credit abounds. It breaks down what it is you need to do to solve a problem. Worse, students are given “study guides” that tell them what will be on the tests they pattern match. When they can’t, they solve by Google and pattern match in the answers. Mostly college problem they simply cheat using chegg. End result is they’ve never had to figure out what it is they need to figure out, and if Google doesn’t give the answer in top three hits, they’re stuck, like an ant with a rock in its path. They have no tools to go around, or even to ascertain what to do when they’re stuck. They’re blank.

          1. Never being able to work a problem and solve it without knowing the answer is a huge problem in programming in general. A huge problem with the last company I worked for.

            1. In programming, half the time you don’t even know the question. Specifications? What is, specifications? You’re the professional, you’re supposed to figure it out!

              1. “And I will…. at $250 per hour while I gain the knowledge of someone who’s been working at your company and using this system for about 5 years. Minimum.”

                1. $250 per hour

                  –
                  Blink.

                  Wow. I knew I was underpaid …

                  half the time you don’t even know the question. Specifications? What is, specifications?

                  –
                  Yes. Both.

                  1. Yep. Of course, one reason I started out by getting a double major in accounting and IT was so I had enough of an understanding of the information that needed to be gathered and organized, and the processes a business had to perform, that I knew what debits and credits were, etc. Most IT people in my experience don’t have any sort of feel for what they should be asking.

                    1. getting a double major in accounting and IT

                      –
                      Well that is why I got hired by IP Western Timberland Division. They (their words not mine) asked for the moon, someone with both a degree in Forestry (mine is Forest Management) and a degree in Computer Science (have that too, plus a pure data processing programming 2 year degree), and experience in both. Plus was willing to work in Gardiner Oregon. Well okay, flunked the last bit (wouldn’t have been smart, but could have driven to Gardiner). At least I knew where Gardiner was. (Job was moved to Veneta.)

                      Accounting is easy for me. Only had the basics not the full CPA training. I am sure it gets harder. It was what I was switching to when one of us had to get out of Forestry early ’80s. I got talked into computers instead (long story because it sure was not a tract I ever targeted). But do understand what I don’t know. So I can ask the correct questions. Last system I worked on was a government cost accounting system for city, county, state, and federal (tribes). Started with public works, now covers a whole lot more. Originally I relied on clients on how they thought the system had to work. Paid off. I mean I had no idea what “Use Tax” was. (Hey I’m in Oregon, born and raised!) In fact with new users when they had a Sales Tax question (like how to change the percentage), my standard joke was “What is sales tax?” Followed by “You do know where we are located?” It was interesting how many do not realize that Oregon does not have sales tax! I also had pages of notes on calculations, how worked, and why. What can I say. I’m lazy. I hate researching more than once. Documentation was good on what entries were. Really, really, short on how used and why. Did leave my notes behind on the shared employee company public drive. Are they used? Who knows.

              2. Specifications are those things you write to, that get denied upon delivery, because you wrote what they said they wanted instead of the thing they imagined but didn’t write down.

                1. Specifications are those things you write to, that get denied upon delivery, because you wrote what they said they wanted instead of the thing they imagined but didn’t write down.

                  –
                  Ah heck. Even if they had written down they imagined but didn’t write down as their specifications, the resulting program would be denied upon delivery … Because they Do Not Know What They Need!

  5. May your dinner be wonderful, and nourish body and soul, and you feel better on the morrow.

    As for me and my house, we will… come up with something. Lunch was sausage gravy made from scratch with einkorn flour, with browned-up bits of baby bella mushroom that needed using, served over artichoke hearts.

    I have a fryer chicken (bough on sale at .39 cents a pound, stuffed in the deep freezer) defrosting for tomorrow, but haven’t thought about dinner yet. Given how cold it is, I might crack a bottle of good red wine, and start beef bourguignon in the oven, cooking down for several hours.

    1. I found out I have three hams in the deep freezer. Heaven only knows what I was thinking. I suspect next week I’m going to take one out and figure “ten different meals from this.”
      (I think what I was thinking was “there will be holidays, and what if I can’t find!”

      1. Making a small batch of Senate navy bean soup tonight, with leftover ham from the nice, thick ham steak we had last night. I never used to make soup, but I didn’t used to like beans, either.
        Told my beloved we ought to get the local grocer to cut up a ham in thick steaks and freeze ’em. The one we ate last night was the only slice left in the Publix when I dropped by.

        1. Oh, oh, this one is funny! One of the new Korean food bowls at Wal-Mart is called “Army Stew,” packaged in appropriate camo colors. It’s budae jjigae, which was made from all the US army food that got slipped out the door by US people to hungry Koreans, during the Korean War.

          So Spam is an traditional ingredient. Vienna sausages and wieners are traditional ingredients. And various stuff, like ramen, baked beans, and American cheese, has become part of the recipe.

          I have not yet bought the Wal-Mart kind, but basically all stews and soups are very forgiving. That is the lesson of budae jjigae.

        2. I always make soup in cold days. I’m down to making enough for three meals now, but yeah. I need to either learn to cook less or get a freezer for the cooked stuff “to use later.”

          2. My wife forgot to take meat out to defrost before going to bed last night, so I made beef vegetable soup with noodles for dinner from the canned stuff. It was tasty and hot and filling, perfect for a frigid day like today.
            Better yet, there is leftover soup for tomorrow, though we’ll need to make some more noodles or rice to go with it.

          3. Check Lowe’s, we got this back in October, and I have been very impressed with it. Very light, you can’t turn it upside down to clean/drain and then turn it on right away– has to settle 24 hours after turning upside down, or it could break– but it gets VERY cold, and doesn’t use much power, and like I said it’s LIGHT.

            That, and the Ziplock 4-cup boxes, work really well for saving soups.

            1. Mom got the 5 cu ft version from Lowes. We had the 9 cu ft version … it lasted 14 months (grumble). Finally got this from Costco https://www.costco.com/midea-7.0-cu-ft-convertible-chest-freezer-with-interior-led-light.product.100737199.html which is currently (locally anyway) in the warehouse for $199. Defrost is, turn it off, and pull the drain plug … Who am I kidding, just turn it off, and towel out the puddle of water. Which is what mom does with her small one too. No tipping involved.

        3. Is there a version of that that doesn’t depend on potatoes? I’ve discovered that beans don’t seem to impact my blood sugar, but potatoes do.

      2. Usually for me, I was thinking “On sale cheeeep!”

        Although this leads to “I have four fryer chickens and a turkey in that deep freezer. Self, we ought to use those, so we can actually stack other things, because those are not neatly stackable shapes!”

        1. I just finished cleaning out (and turning OFF!) the deep freeze. In the bottom, buried under all the detritus; two turkeys, five hams, 20 pounds of butter, 15 pounds of hamburger, 20 pounds of cheese and 5 bags of yeast. Approximately.

          All in bottles or given away, now.

      3. Just finished our Honey Baked Turkey. Only have one more meal for the Honey Baked Ham. Ordered them online, well because I like Honey Baked and can’t get them locally. Worked out even though dinner was canceled. Good thing I Really like Honey Baked. Also got the smallest boneless versions I could get.

        But, yes. Know what you were thinking.

        I even had an option to have ham cuts out of our 1/2 hog from this year. Timing would have been close (prior two years it has been After the holidays). I can cook a good ham but prefer Honey Baked. Better off having the hams cut into other cuts.

        1. Yeah, we still have about 2 pounds of frozen smoked turkey breast from Thanksgiving; I need to thaw it out and use it in something.

    2. Being Christian Orthodox, there are long fasting periods during the year where the only animal protein allowed are fish (sometimes) or shellfish (shrimp and grits, anyone?). During fast-free periods, we tend to buy pork (boneless ribs, sometimes loin chops) in large packages for about $2.80-$3.20 a pound, then portion them out into sandwich bags before freezing them. For chicken, 10-pound bags of thigh and leg quarters at $.79 per pound (was $.69 just a few months ago). Again, subdivided before freezing.

      1. I buy the big packages of ground beef at Costco, divide them up into 1/2-pound lumps (I cook for myself mostly, your size may vary), run them through the vacuum sealer, and throw them in my chest freezer. I do the same with the less-expensive Costco steaks as well.

        1. I do the same – buy in bulk, part it out in quantities sufficient for a meal for two, vacuum seal it, label and date and throw into the garage deep freezer. I love to buy the whole pork loins, slice them into segments for chops and roasts. The same with the salmon cuts in the club pack.

          2. I think I either need to start with a never-frozen salmon or maybe just a better salmon, because the last time I bought a salmon filet from Costco and cut it up into single servings and froze them, they thaw and cook up kind of tasteless and tough.

            1. salmon burgers / salmon cakes. You add plenty of other flavours, and binder, and fry… serve up with something green and dip or condiments, and it hides the taste of “cleaning last year’s salmon out of the freezer before this year’s catch.”

            2. With any meat make sure it was not prior frozen. It does exactly what you report. Harder at Costco lately. At least Costco is really good at having packaged “fresh” Salmon marked as “prior frozen”.

            3. Restaurant supply for the win. (I know, one of the few nice things about Oregon taxes is the lack (mostly) of sales tax, thus wholesale is moot.)

              We a) buy 5 pound chubs of frozen 7% fat hamburger, and when it’s time, $SPOUSE makes up 1/4 pound burgers and I’ll grill them medium-to-really rare. Nuke before serving, and we’re good.
              b) They sell packs of wild Keta Salmon, in 6 ounce fillets. Thaw, coat with a BBQ sauce and grill on the George Foreman for 3 minutes. Comes out nicely, and it’s a good change from the normal salmon cakes made with canned salmon (and gluten free bread, because we must). The fillets aren’t cheap, but as a monthly treat, it’s great.
              c) Deli turkey cut into dinner-sized pieces, frozen. Works well, and some of the varieties are gluten-free. (Not all; we’ve learned to read labels like a hawk.)

              And yes, we have offgrid power available for the ‘fridge and freezer.

        2. I do the same with Costco hamburger. 1/2# packages, then pull 1 to 3 packages (son also uses them during the week). Now we have 1# ground pork to replace hamburger in chili, meatloaf, or spaghetti, type dishes (i.e. anything with a sauce). Also will take an entire package and make hamburger patties up, individually wrap, and group freeze in gallon Ziplock bags; these are not precooked, just patty sized and shaped. That, Costco frozen chicken tenders, canned soup, and a couple of other bulk Costco options that son likes, allows him to pull out what he wants to cook, for his portion sizes, during the week, at 3 AM (sometimes, if appropriate, he even remembers to pull before going to work so no need to microwave thaw before barbecue or stove top cooking). Also allows me to pull two portions for dad and I. Less expensive than buying smaller versions at Kroger or Safeway.

  6. I agree, we don’t have a food shortage, but I think it would be prudent to prepare for one. Supply and demand. Fair exchange. The farmers, the ranchers, are gonna grow less if they can’t, due to delivery problems, sell it. Also our beloved leaders are encouraging a preponderance of drones, ne’er do wells, (Here’s your whatever relief check Skippy, do spend it all in one place, we’ll print more more just for you!), and drones don’t do windows, or fieldwork.

    I was reading the other day, and again today, according to life insurers there is a 40% increase in daily death rates, as of the 3rd quarter of last year, 100,000 excess deaths per month. Many blame it on Bill Gates, et al, vax to reduce population. I don’t necessarily buy it but I’m not ready to deny it either. Scott Davison, CEO One America (Life insurer), said; “We are seeing, right now, the highest death rates we have seen in the history of this business – not just at OneAmerica…”.

    Hopefully yep, things will get better, meanwhile, yep, live well but be careful. Look both ways crossing the street, or the country, or your driveway.

    3. Wait until they force farmers to use only electric powered equipment to plow fields and to harvest crops. It will be even worse than the electric trucks California is mandating.

      Meanwhile, the leftists are suing in the People’s Republic of New Jersey (PRNJ) to try to get a court to order faster elimination of “carbon pollution” (i.e. essential to life on Earth CO2), effectively asking a Court to order the de-industrialization and end of use of fossil fuels in NJ.

      They truly hate western civilization and want to completely undo it, starting with the industrial revolution.

      1. If they can postulate a magical flavor of carbon specifically associated with humans, and requiring the murder of humans to prevent the ‘kill everyone’ consequences of the magic carbon, why can’t we postulate an even more magical flavor of carbon specifically associated with communists, and requiring the murder of communists.

    4. What he said. Natural gas is the primary input for making fertilizer. So guess what Europe did when the price of natural gas went ballistic this fall? Shut down all the fertilizer plants!
      Now, we frack over here, so while the price of natural gas is up, it’s up from historic lows. We frack for oil. Natural gas is a byproduct. There’s a reason why you can see the Bakken and Permian fields from space … all the natural gas flares. But with Europe’s fertilizer plants not running, you can bet they’ll be competing for the fertilizer that gets made on our side of the pond.
      Cue no fertilizer for spring planting in 3 … 2 … 1 …

      1. Apparently people on this side of the pond are already feeling the pinch, and are switching from corn to soybeans and the like.

        1. So, if the farmers put in more soybeans and less corn, what happens to the price of livestock feed in the US and tortillas in Mexico?

    5. I’m hearing it’s harder to get parts to keep ag equipment running, and the fuelish policies from TPTB are making things worse. Because of various reasons, I’m seeing local cattle getting replaced by sheep and goats.

      1. Yep parts in general, not just ag equip. My son lost a ‘U’ joint and some on a, relatively, new Dodge. Replacement part acquisition went for 3 days “We’ll have it shipped up from Anchorage, to 3 weeks, “They don’t have it there it’ll come from the states.” to 6 months, none in stock, back ordered.

        1. Inlaws have a NEW 5th wheel sitting in service waiting for repairs now for weeks, and looking at months. They are living (sleeping in) a 11′ Lanz truck camper. They’d been doing the southern snowbird gig, and northern summer camp hosting, with intermediate time at their “base” (her, now, 90 year old mother’s home). Until her mother fell and broke her hip a few years ago. They sold/traded in the motorhome for a 5th wheel which didn’t work out. Traded that one in for a smaller 5th wheel, which had furniture failure, quickly (neither are particularly big people and they were petless at the time, not now, but were then). Picked up the truck camper because now they are limited to shorter trips, permanently at base camp, not worth pulling the 5th wheel everywhere. They have no idea when they are getting the 5th wheel back (vehicle lemon laws do not apply).

        2. I have a miniature machine shop I’ve been accumulating in my outbuilding. While I’m not really set up to make parts yet (only an old old mill, a lathe, and minimal tooling), and no time whatsoever to do it, I’m sort of curious about the *sorts* of things local farmers might need made. If you could post drawings of what you’d need fabricated, it’d be interesting to me.

          1. This was just a U joint (necessary in almost any drive train) MadR’Sci.

            Parts could be easily cast, I think your milling machine would be suitable to make the castings accept the drive shaft splines. Needle bearings would be best but I suspect babbitt would work if push came to shove.

            Most of such could also be turned on a metal lathe from bar stock rather than cast but turning 1438 1/16th by half inch needles to tolerances of 1/256th of an inch from stainless to build needle bearings would be a female dog, hence old fashioned babbitt bearings -grin-

  7. There’s an old story -I think by Kuttner or Kornbluth – where Earth has been torn from the Sun and turned into an aliens’ starship. The humans live in a carefully controlled society where ritual and manners are supreme. Youmlearn in the course of the story that mankind has been kept alive to provide organic components for the aliens’ computers.
    The point I recall, though, was that humans were kept on a carefully restricted diet, and one reason for it was to ensure they had enough energy to function, but not enough to rebel. That may, possibly be a factor here. But honestly, I’m not sure our betters are that competent.

  8. There’s something I like to call the “food bowl” mentality of many on the left. They don’t know how their food gets to their store, they just know it’s there for them to consume. They sneer at truckers who don’t want to take a jab that is increasingly showing dangerous side effects. They cheer and hope the truckers lose their jobs.

    Then their food bowl is suddenly going to be empty. And they’re going to demand that the government do something. And when their food bowls remain empty, then things are going to get interesting.

    2. I hope 10K semis do indeed appear in Ontario and surround the Canadian capitol. And I hope they surround the Prime Minister’s house and all honk at random intervals all night. Because if we have it bad in the US? Canada’s going to have it worse if the “vax or no drive” policy goes through.

      1. If they really want annoy Mssr. Trudeau they should drive around and honk alot and brake only using the Jake brakes or equivalent. Those things are louder and more penetrating than most truck horns 🙂 .

      1. And once they impose eating bugs, they will then want to ban it as cultural appropriation, of someone.

  11. Thinking of Marx as patient zero. That’s good! Too bad they’ve taken away all the effective vaccines. (Must be a story there somewhere.)

  13. I recommend reading Joan Didion’s commencement address to the class of 1975 https://news.ucr.edu/articles/2022/01/10/joan-didions-lost-commencement-address-revealed. I’m not a particular fan of Didion, but she said some things that would horrify the left today talking about people living in social constructed realities rather than in the real world. “There’s an objective reality, there is an objective social reality. Take it on faith.”

    Today watched part of a discussion with 2 men who think they are women and a sane man. He kept asking them to define woman, and they refused, insisting being a woman is whatever you think it is. And the audience applauded these crazies. Our political class has crowned Humpty Dumpty king.

    1. Today the crazies were on Instagram complaining that they were having nightmares after being “ambushed” by Dr. Phil.

        1. I know I should feel bad about laughing at the suffering of the mentally ill, but in this case I just…don’t.

  14. Also a war on people that work. Their regulations/push is to remove effective people from the market place and replace them with people who view work as a kind of sinecure. This is probably because their minds are organized much like those of 3rd world country peasants who do view work as a sinecure. Work comes with privileges, not obligations in their heads.

    (And I’m not diving down that rabbit hole, but this probably has to do with self-esteem education and never being given a reality check.)

    I think it’s because they’re effectively raised by paid educators with a high rate of hired-for-non-skill-related-reasons, especially in subcultures that are known to have a lot of abuse and cover-up of the same.
    (Not teachers; it’s a philosophical difference. A teacher will teach if they’re breathing.)

    Competent people are a threat– both to those who were hired for something besides doing the job, and to abusers who don’t have that hook of insecurity to manipulate people with; abusers are *good* at this.

    1. When my wife was a chemistry undergrad, the only person she knew who had a C average in her chemistry class wanted to be a teacher. She certainly wouldn’t have made it as a chemist. Later when she became a teacher, she saw the consequences of that in her colleagues, frequently nice people but not very knowledgeable. If you’re truly educated, you have an obligation to teach your own children, not rely on government day-care even if it is the well-meaning variety, and even if you’ve been forced to pay for it anyway. I know, some people let their kids go to govvie day-care and then they have to slap the silliness out of them when they get home. That’s a metaphorical slap BTW.

      2. et their kids go to govvie day-care and then they have to slap the silliness out of them when they get home. That’s a metaphorical slap BTW.

        –
        Yes. It is called insuring homework is completed and REVIEWING such homework. Then if not math or vocabulary (straight forward correct or not), if the writing is “wrong” (but not) then teach them how to work around that with the “correct” answer. Kind of an “I know the answer you want regurgitated, here it is, but it is BS because” only polite. (We may have been both the most hated and the most liked parents of most of our son’s teachers. Weren’t the only parents in that category. It was a small group.)

      3. If you are truly educated you have an obligation to teach – period. Be a mentor/advisor to less experienced folk in your profession, pass on wisdom by story and example in your religious congregation, lead your neighborhood, etc. AND teach your children, whether they are home-schooled, private/ parochial schooled, or public schooled.

        1. I try to fulfill my obligation to teach with my LinkedIn posts https://www.linkedin.com/feed/. Also I have some that I can’t share outside work, but I put them on our corporate shared drive and point people to them. One of those is my work biography, A Geek’s Progress, Navigating a Software Career from the 80s to the 20s. Covers not just software but seeing how business is done looking back over 40 years.

            1. Well I can’t publish it because of firm policy even though over half of it takes place at other firms. Swapping war stories with another developer however? If you send an email to my spare email at fhood9744 at google-eyed mail with an introduction, I can probably provide the first chapter about the early 80s, and you can see if you find it interesting. d is about as non-descript a nom-de-plum as can be, but I know from our other comment threads that we share a certain background. I can always swear you in as a temporary, unpaid employee.

              1. Sent a message. JIC it goes to spam, or you don’t get it. My email is dporter729 at google mail.

                1. Didn’t get the email, but I sent you the first chapter. at your address noted above. Sometimes gmail plays mysterious games. Let me know if you don’t see it.

                2. Ah, I see the problem now. I gave you my spare email. That one I use for my cell phone. I always believe my phone is compromised. I would never enter a password on my phone that went to anything I couldn’t afford to lose. Forgot to look at my spare account. Sorry about that. Sent my reply from my real non-business account, so you might be confused when you see it.

                  1. Got it.

                    Responded. Not briefly either.

                    Would love to see more. Plus …

                    Love meeting you too (virtually that is).

    2. “Competent people are a threat.”
      A thousand times THIS.
      The people who can’t help but love working and being as productive as possible are generally hated. In my experience.

    3. Competence is White Privilege. It’s RRRAAACISSST!!! to:

      Show up for work
      On time
      Sober
      Every day, and
      Do the work!
      ———————————
      They’re the Experts! They only sound stupid to you because you’re not as Educated as they are.

      1. Doing school work and having self control, too.

        Seriously, these guys’ ideas are straight out of really stupid racists back when Twain was a kid.

  15. Speaking of “plant-based”, I read Saladino’s The Carnivore Code. I liked all the stuff about how good for you it is to eat meat (there’s a reason the title appealed). However, he makes vegetables sound downright dangerous. Anyone else read it? It would require a re-read for me to follow all the organic chemistry implications. If you read it and know biology, what did you think?

    1. Vegetables are dangerous.

      The animal strategy to avoid being eaten often includes run away.

      Plants don’t have that, they rely heavily on poison.

      This is not obvious to us, because one of the human niches is eating small amounts of a variety of plants, and safely digest the minor amounts of a wide range of poisons.

      It is really important not to eat large amounts of a single plant.

      Also, a strong dislike may be a specific sensitivity.

      1. So, you know that some plants are great at soil remediation, right? Good at uptaking heavy metals…

        This includes kale. Which is great to throw in soup if you’re low on minerals, but given it’s not exactly a wonderful food that people de4sire to eat en masse, this was no more than a passing side mention.

        Then the kale smoothie craze hit, allowing people in search of social virtue points to eat far more kale than a human could or should. We started getting cases of heavy metal poisoning. Usually lead, sometimes Selenium…. the self-administered poisoning was via 6+ kale smoothies/day.

            3. Grampa Pete liked kale, but Grandma made him cook it in the garage because of the fragrance. Not sure I’ve ever had it.

              1. My ex was of Portuguese descent, though our esteemed hostess might disagree with that as her ancestors were from the Azores, so I’ve eaten many meals with kale, fava beans, linguica or chourice, and I’m sure many other things I’d be unlikely to be able to name.

                1. One of my aunts by marriage’s mom had a thing for serving kale and pinkelwurst for Christmas.

                  The problem was that she didn’t make all that good of kale or pinkelwurst. Not horrible, but not appetizing, and you got served a huge portion of each.

      2. I have those sensitivities in response to a lot of “natural” foods, including cashews and avocados. For sensitive people, too much is too much, so that part of the book spoke to me.

        1. Oddly enough, some testing of food allergies revealed that foods I stopped willing eating back when I was a child were in fact things that I should not be eating.

          1. I had extensive testing done and very much to my surprise I had the exact opposite results. My favorite foods that I ate every day like lemons, almonds, bananas, cranberries, every single grain, beef, dairy, eggs and chicken were all causing me a severe amount of inflammation.

            Tomatoes, green peppers, and peanuts are fine.

            I would never have discovered that on my own. I hated tomatoes and green peppers since childhood. But since I have been eating things I should and avoiding things I shouldn’t my health has made a dramatic turn around.

            I’m even getting the hearing back in my right ear. The audiologist told me I would never hear out of that ear again because of the nerve damage.

          1. My wife and I have increased the carnivore portion of our diet a lot recently for reducing inflammation. It seems to be working.

        3. Cashews are related to poison ivy, so sometimes people who are sensitive to one are sensitive to the other. (It’s on the shells, and that’s why they won’t sell you cashews in the shell. Also the thing with the weird red and green cashew dyes.) Same thing with alligator pears and mango peels.

    2. I haven’t read it, but I’ve learned enough about red meat to understand it’s nearly the perfect food.

    3. Haven’t read it, but I am reminded of a cartoon (I think it was Calvin & Hobbes) where Calvin (I presume) was hungry, found nothing, and declared, “I’m so hungry I could eat a vegetable.”

    4. ALL plants are poisonous, but it’s a matter of dose, degree, and a given species’ ability to process or tolerate those toxins. Thus humans can eat what kills cats. Goats can eat what kills humans. As a general rule, the more carnivorous, the less tolerance, and v.v.

  16. Dishwasher hint. Government has done a lot of damage to functionality. We had to buy one for house we sold and house we bought, sigh. If you read the customer reviews you might find a setting that is more functional. The one we got works best on sanitize, not auto, then we always open it to air dry because they have ruined the dry function. It does take 2 + hours ( not efficient or green except they say it is) to run a load.

    1. None of them have been efficient or green. The amount of insulation decreased the inside space to the point this three people household runs four loads a day. It’s ridiculous.

      1. We have a 2014 vintage Frigidaire Gallery dishwasher. Had a problem with gunk clogging a pressure switch (due to funky water/detergent combinations), but they did a fix and sold a fixit kit.

        We use it every other day on “energy saver mode”. It heats the water internally if necessary, so winter runs are about 100 minutes long, with summer about 10 minutes faster.

        Recommended.

          1. Indeed. I bought a GE Café dishwasher a couple of years ago — which was a bit pricey but I get a discount from where I work — and it takes 3.5 hours for a full load (about 1.5 of which is the dry cycle). BUT, it gets the dishes clean without having to pre-scrub every single one, unlike my prior “classic” Whirlpool, and they come out hot enough to be painful.

    2. That reminds me, you’ll also want to run the hot water to make sure it’s hot first. Apparently most IS dishwashers don’t hear the first rinse, just pull from the hot water tap. That lets them save power budget for later rinses which will always be after you’ve gone away to do something else.

      1. I’ve had luck with cutting back on the detergent. Apparently they formulate it so that a full dispenser can handle extremely hard water. If your water isn’t that hard then a full dispenser leaves a lot of detergent floating around to leave residue.

      2. I had a dishwasher die because of this: Some chip was near the heating coil. If you ran it on cold water, the chip fried. The repairman told me to run the water until it was hot before starting the dishwasher.

        I filled it full of snow. Killed it. Got it repaired. Filled it full of snow. Killed it. Got it repaired. Filled it full of snow. Killed it. Invoked the lemon law and got a different brand. I’ll never buy another Sears product.

          1. Reminds me of one of the Mike Holmes shows. Family’s new house has leaky bathtub in the 2nd floor bathroom. It’s a cheap stamped sheet-metal tub. Dad is a big guy, like about Mike’s size. When he gets in the tub, the thin sheet metal flexes enough to crack the glass coating. Water seeps through the cracks, the steel rusts, so the tub starts leaking after a few months.

            Family complained to the builders. They sent out a crew to fix the water damage and replace the leaky tub — with another cheap sheet-metal bathtub. THREE TIMES they went through the motions, then refused to fix the FOURTH cheap bathtub when it inevitably started leaking.

            Between labor and material that one house cost the builders more money than they saved by using cheap bathtubs in a dozen houses. If they had just put in a proper cast iron bathtub when they replaced it the SECOND time, they would have saved money. But, no, couldn’t do THAT. Makes too much sense.
            ———————————
            The original builders had been sufficiently alien that their rubble couldn’t even lie in a heap right.

            1. My ex and I watched all the Mike Holmes shows on cable in the couple years before we bought our “fixer” house. A friend offered us a cross-stitch as a housewarming so we had her make this:

              Mike Says Make It Right

        2. I’ll never buy another Sears product.

          –
          We’re on our second Kenmore (Sears) dishwasher, in 32 years. Had one Kenmore stove and microwave set for 28 years. Three sets of Kenmore washer/dryer sets over the last 43 years (first set lasted almost 18 years, subsequent two sets, 12 years each). Now the stove/microwave/washer/dryer are all Samsung as the Kenmore brand had disappeared when Sears went under. I guess it got picked up under another brand, but IDK who. Other than the name it isn’t like Kenmore were really different than whoever was actually making it (don’t think it was Maytag, but it was one of the considered “better brands”).

          Your pain was real. It happens with the best of brands.

  17. I bought an electric tea kettle a month ago. It has a clear carafe with blue led lights around the bottom. Very fancy. 24 bucks at Target. Heats 1.2 liters of water to boiling in less than 3 minutes. My regular tea kettle on the stove took 20 minutes for some inexplicable reason.

    My hubby was very amazed watching it. I told him Brexit gained traction because of things like rules that made electric tea kettles so environmentally friendly that they wouldn’t even boil water. And why should some other country tell you how to boil your water? Or if you were even allowed to boil water?

    He agreed but then said, “I’m not sure I find it comforting that the eco-tyrants ruining our stuff are locals. ”

    Don’t ask him about new style gas cans. Just don’t.

    My version of living well has been giving myself permission to buy the cooking paraphernalia I never did while the kids were all home and homeschooling. My next splurge is going to be a digital kitchen scale to replace my old crappy kitchen scale. I absolutely love to cook. But it is even more fun with the right equipment.

    2. The gas cans can be made useful with kits for replacing (wink) the nozzles of the old style cans. They just happen to come with a couple different pieces, one threaded for old cans, one threaded for the “improved” cans.

    4. British tea kettles heat much faster than American ones because their power is ~240 volts instead of our ~120 volts so they generally use 2800 watts as opposed to our 1500 watt versions.

    5. See if you have a Rural King near you, I got some nice metal gas cans that WORK and don’t spill gas everywhere, nice solid handles too.

      Just checked ‘Zon, metal gas cans, Justrite brand looks close.

    6. “Don’t ask him about new style gas cans. Just don’t. ”

      Finally found a style that actually works well… with a beer-tap type spigot that you can turn in any direction, and control flow with a handy button. Ain’t never goin’ back to whatever the hell they did to ’em.

  18. I made a pillowcase out of a cute, old, mouse chewed ironing board cover, today. And mended a pair of capri pants that the hem had come out on one side. And the only part I didn’t enjoy was that the stupid polyester thread acted like spliced cotton thread and kept balling up and snapping in making the pillowcase.

  19. I’m inspired to cook Beef Bourguignon this weekend. I’ve made it once and loved it so much I almost made myself sick eating so much.

    I’ve recently taken an online course about beef from the beef industry people (beef masters or some such), and it talks about the industry from bull to butcher shop. So informative, so wonderful. Beef is on my table nearly every day. Because of it’s nutritional value it’s a bargain. Plus, it’s just me I have to provide for, and that’s pretty cost effective.

    I made some cholla bread around Christmas. I have to be careful because I’ll eat a half a loaf if I’ve got some good butter.

    You’ve inspired me, Sarah, and I’m glad you’re feeling better.

    Life is good.

    1. I made it for dinner tonight. 🙂

      Skipped the potatoes and carrots as I didn’t have any and didn’t feel like going grocery shopping, did mini sweet peppers. celery, mushrooms sliced into quarters, and rough-chopped onions instead. And only used half the bottle of red, because the recipe is a sacrilege! Who thinks you’re going to put the whole bottle in the dish, and none in the cook? There should at least be enough left for one glass with dinner, and one glass in the cook while cooking…

      Served over cauli rice, and it was wonderful.

      1. An entire bottle of red wine?!? Ye doggies. Unless you’re making sangria or Gluhwein for a crowd, or you’re cooking for a small family of 12 teenage males, you don’t need a full bottle of red wine in stew-adjacent dishes.

        1. You know those stupid little plastic/paper bottles of wine that they sell in 4 packs or 6 packs or airline sizes?

          That’s almost exactly the right size for a lot of crockpot dishes. It’s not bad wine, and you don’t have to spend a lot of cash, or waste a good bottle on something normal. Plus you can easily choose if you want red or white for the particular dish.

  21. I have a rare chance to finish my degree, and I know it’s a white-collar union card (that, and I also know most of the stuff but I don’t have the paper for it). Especially around here and especially these days, you need to have the white collar union card.

    I can pinch my nose and survive the next fifteen weeks to finish my degree and get my sheepskin. All I have to do is not laugh in one of my classes about how Orange Man Bad ruined the media (well, he did, but not in the way that they think).

    1. Good luck.

      Now. Besides not laughing. No sarcastic remarks, not even subliminal or think it. Do not want to have to wonder “did I say that aloud?”. No biting of lips, tongue, or cheeks, where they bleed.

      Been there. Done this. Granted 35 years ago. Didn’t have to worry about Orange Man Bad comments. But being an older student, even only late 20’s, was, um, … different.

        1. I think I am a better student now than I was then.

          –
          I know I was a better student the second time around. No doubt. Amazing the difference between 17 – 22, and 28 – 32. 😉

  23. I can cook, but I can’t bake. I’m chronicling the journey, Learning 2 Bake – from Scratch, if you want to laugh at me. I _think_ I’ve got cookies. Bread is coming along (unless I do something stupid; bread pans are the size they are for a reason). Cake is a wistful dream.

    On the living well side of things, Monday was beautiful and concrete was poured. Next Monday, the hot tub arrives (purchased in September, but better January delivery than June). Tuesday the electrician arrives. Hopefully filled that day – for some reason the outside water pressure basically isn’t; crossing fingers that the temperature will be above zero (doesn’t seem significant enough to warrant prayer). Wednesday will be warming up. I’m very excited for Wednesday evening!

    I’m loving the “so electricity hogging that Colorado banned it” computer.

  24. I had a bad date (as in epically bad; we split after a supper at a local restaurant and never communicated again, after having apparently hit it off through emails and telephone calls … yeah, nothing beats the personal touch) with a guy who was a lecturer at a local community college, I think, although it may have been a four-year college. He was lamenting how his students just seemed to expect having all the answers put out in front of them. They didn’t know how to do research; following the bird-trail of clues through something like the Readers’ Guide to Periodical Literature, to go on a deep dive through bound stacks and microfilm archives. They seemed to expect to have the facts of a situation presented to them, passively. No work for them required.

  25. Stew today, with bread now baking. I can’t claim to have been inspired by this post, because I put the frozen beef in the fridge to thaw the night before I saw it. (I prefer to give frozen beef time to thoroughly thaw, even if I have sometimes started cooking it when half-frozen.)

    But echos. (And “Make Appliances Great Again!”)

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