Some reading I find powerful

 

Gabe Fleisher, a sophomore at George Mason University in D.C., writes a column five days a week titled, “Wake Up to Politics!” He’s celebrating the twelfth anniversary of the column, which means he started it at ten or eleven. He has established such a reputation that he is respected by people liked historian Doris Kearns Goodwin. I truly recommend his newsletter—it’s bipartisan to the extent that I frequently hope he’s wrong, but it is always fair.

Today he ran a link to an excerpt from the new memoir coming next week from Valerie Biden Owens, Joe Biden’s sister. I sat at my desk reading, with tears streaming down my face. The excerpt chronicled the night his first wife and baby daughter were killed in a horrendous automobile wreck, his two boys left badly injured. And then it follows with the days in the hospital, the uncertainty about continuing his newly won seat as a senator from Delaware. Not only is it heartbreaking stuff, it will convince you, should you have any doubt, that, as Lindsay Graham once said, “God never made a finer man than Joe Biden.” (We don’t know what changed Graham, but that’s another story.) Here’s a link to Gabe’s column, and you’ll find the link to the excerpt at the end: Wake Up To Politics  I want you to know Gabe, and I want  you to know Joe Biden and the kind of man he is—bright, dedicated, kind, compassionate. Not the picture the right would have you believe of a demented, senile, corrupt man who is at the bidding of Barack Obama and George Soros. Please!

I’ve been thinking a lot about President Biden lately. In a tragic accident, highly respected columnist Eric Boehlert was killed last week. His last column was about why the press is against Biden. He put the finger on something that bothers me. There are two general assumptions gaining currency for all the wrong reasons.

The first is that Democrats will lose the House and the Senate at mid-terms. History supports this, except in a couple of instances, but history has not seen a situation like this where daily we learn more about the corruption of the “former guy” and his followers and cohorts. They clearly tried to stage a coup, to overthrow a democratically elected leader. Trump is under investigation by several branches of authority. So far he has dodged charges, but there is no way this man is innocent. But in the face of that Biden has low favorability ratings, in large part to media skewering the message. Hunter Biden’s laptop is falsely big news; Donald Trump Jr.’s infamous memo to Mark Meadows fades quickly from the public eye.

History has not seen either such a worldwide battle between democracy and autocracy. It’s not just in our country, but my take on it is that so many in this country are wide awake (okay, that awful word “woke”) to the dangers facing us. I’m counting on them to turn out from the county to state to national level.

The other myth that the press promotes is that Democrats are incapable and inefficient. You constantly read lines like, “The Democrats need to get their act together,” or “Democrats better learn to play politics,” or similar things that reinforce the image of a bunch of doddering old men led by a senile man who hides in his basement. Nothing could be farther from the truth. It’s like celebrities—those who lead ordinary, responsible lives are not news. But let a salacious story come up about an affair or a drug overdose or Will Smith’s slap to the Chris Rock’s face, and the press is all over it endlessly. Democrats don’t make good copy because they are hard-working, honest, determined; Republicans make terrific copy because they lie a lot, they are outrageous, and they play to people’s fears.

So that brings me to another column I’d like you to read if you don’t already: Letters from an American by Heather Cox Richardson. Richardson is a historian at Boston University, and her daily column often traces the history of political developments, how the history impacts us today. Her column this morning is particularly meaningful: it lists Joe Biden’s accomplishments as president, and contrasts the failures of the “former guy.” It is a revelation,

There, you have your reading assignments. I wish I could make all those who claim Biden is ruining democracy and America and trump was great and accomplished so much read these works. But I’ll start with you, my friends.

Cooking cheers me

Ravioli dinner with
pear/radish/blue cheese salad
One of my few truly gourmet meals

A friend posted recently that after a spell of illness and no energy, she was now back to cooking again and surprised at how much better and more energetic she felt. I think that’s true for me. Cooking renews me.

A confession: I had a pity party yesterday. It had been three days since I had seen another human being, except for two minutes when Jordan, masked, whisked in to deposit grocery bags and once when she came to stand on the patio and talk across the distance, which doesn’t make for easy conversation. It’s clear to all who read my blog that I adore my dog, but her company is not the same as seeing another human, talking with someone. Plainly, I had cabin fever. I was mad at Covid, mad at the cold weather which keeps patio guests away, mad at the rodeo which exposes my family (or so I’m convinced) to omicron, mad at the world in general.

And I wasn’t cooking. I was tired of “pick up” dinners—scrambled eggs, leftover soup from the freezer, a salmon platter. Those things are okay for lunch, but I want a proper dinner. The last good dinner I cooked was meatballs and gravy for the family last Sunday—I kept a portion for me, sent most of it into the main house, and got back enough for leftovers for Monday lunch. I have to say they were extraordinarily good.

It all changed today. In the early afternoon, Jordan and Jacob, masked, brought out the toaster oven/air fryer the children gave me for Christmas. While they unpacked and installed, Jordan made me sit far across the room. The Breville (that’s the brand)  now sits in splendid glory on my counter, unused, because I haven’t had time to read the directions. But the first thing I will fix is lemony chicken drumettes. I can hardly wait. But first I have to read and digest the directions.

My new toaster oven/air fryer
Hoping it ups my cooking game

Tonight, Jean came for dinner, and I got to cook. For some reason I had a dozen wild mushroom/truffle ravioli in the freezer—Christian won’t eat mushrooms, and Jordan’s diet doesn’t allow pasta. Jean got the brunt of my experimenting again. After much online exploration, I decided to serve them with brown butter, something I’d never made before. My report is that if you brown it slowly, as I did, it takes a long time and a lot of stirring, but I was leery of burning it. My big mistake: I added the garlic, didn’t have the tiny bit of spinach suggested, though it would have been good, didn’t want the chopped walnuts (to me they would have been the wrong texture), and—big goof! —forgot the rubbed sage that should have gone in the butter. Still, it was really good, although I could have cooked the ravioli just a tad longer. We ate six, so I have six to cook another time and add the sage.

I accompanied this with a salad of sliced pears, sliced radishes, and blue cheese in a lemon/olive oil dressing and garnished with watercress. I did that particularly for Christian because he loves radishes. I thought it was terrific. Waiting for Christian’s verdict, since I sent some into the house for them.

But I was energized, enjoyed Jean’s company, felt good about the evening.

I have set myself a goal of a thousand words a day on the third Irene story that I’m working on. That, of course, depends on whether or not I have a thousand words worth of inspiration. Today, with having to proof the 28-page neighborhood newsletter and keep up with emails, I managed 991 words. I don’t think I’ll agonize over those last nine words. Maybe tomorrow I can do 1009. Then again, I have set myself another goal—clean out those two out-of-control drawers in my closet. And sometime, I have to do my tax stuff.

Tomorrow, per request, I’m going to cook a beef stew. I am now a convert to an air fryer, but don’t talk to me about InstaPot. I have no room for it, and no patience for the learning curve. I will cook the stew the old-fashioned way—long and slow, all day. I’ll use a recipe I adapted from a popular mystery series set in a coffee house. Yes, it calls for marinating the beef in coffee. Since I don’t drink or make coffee these days, I’ll have to have the Burtons run two cups out to me. But I made this last year and remember that it was good.

I wouldn’t say the world looks better to me tonight. I have a lot of loud opinions on the political scene in America—and the crimes. I may feel I need to rant someday soon but meantime I suggest all of you who are on Facebook read the columns of Heather Cox Richardson, a historian from Boston University. Her last three columns will make you realize how close we came to a coup, how extensive the planning for that was (no, it was not at all spontaneous), and—wait for it—what a roaring success Biden’s first year has been. I can’t repeat that too often!

And me? I’ll be making stew. Long and slow.

A long day, a lazy day…and some political naivete

 

Sophie, listening to what I have to say

Yesterday was a long day. Jordan’s allergy were severe, and she took the day off and stayed in bed. I’m spoiled—used to her popping in and out periodically during the day. Gave me great empathy for those who live truly alone and went through long days of quarantine with no human contact. I had just a smidgeon—Jordan came out in the morning to tell me she was taking the day off, Jacob came out in the late afternoon chasing a dog who, with inadequate bathroom manners, is not supposed to be in the cottage, and Christian came out about seven bringing me the dinner he brought from King Tut. Other than that, it was me and Sophie—so glad to have her to talk to.

Last night was long too but not unpleasant. One of life’s many pleasures to me is lying in your bed, all cozy and comfortable and safe, listening to thunder roll overhead and a steady rain come down. I understand some parts of the Metroplex got hail and damage and I am so sorry about that, but here it was just rain—no wind, not much lightning that I knew. Just that thunder. As my mom used to say, “The gods were bowling.” Sophie was not nearly as pleased as I was.

Today all I wanted to do was sleep—maybe it was being awake so much in the night, but I kept trying to sneak a nap and Sophie kept demanding I get up. I got distracted from my morning routine making a “night-before” salad this morning that I should have made last night. Threw my whole schedule off, and I did no proofreading today. As a result, my conscience is suffering a bit. Not badly, though. I think I’m ahead of schedule.

I have had a political epiphany. It now seems I was incredibly naïve to think that once Joe Biden was president and trump gone, things would work themselves out. Not so. I cannot wrap my mind around the lies most Republicans are telling themselves about everything from who was responsible for the January 6 insurrection (no, it clearly was not Antifa and BLM) to the Big Lie that trump won the election in a landslide and it was stolen from him. They apparently can’t do the math that ties a raise in the minimum wage to the exponential rise in the cost of living, and they are opposed to COVID-relief, for reasons I yet cannot understand except that they, who gave the 1% huge tax cuts, claim we can’t afford to help those who work for hourly wages. They blithely ignore the record in some states where a raise in minimum wage has had widespread economic benefit. They also ignore that small businesses, about which they profess so much worry, suffer when people have no pocket money to spend.

If you read Heather Cox Richardon’s daily column, which I recommend you do (Find it on Facebook among other places), you learn that Biden’s approval numbers are astoundingly good. He’s doing the things America wants—vaccinations, legislation to help those who are struggling to feed family and pay rent, restoring environmental protections, the list is endless. Most Republicans, on the other hand, seem to have a death wish for their party and have dug in their heels as the literal opposition party. They have no plan, no platform, except they are opposed to Biden and Democrats.

The big trouble with Republican gaslighting is that the gullible among them believe what old white men like Ron Johnson, Louie Gohmert, Rand Paul and others say. And I’m not even talking about the extremists, though I did hear the other day about someone who claimed Biden has been dead for years and what we see is a clone who will be replaced March 4 when trump is inaugurated again. Oh, and they want to blow up the Capitol Building during the as-yet-unscheduled State of the Union Address.

Whatever will become of our beloved country?