Thank You, Mr. Trump

This tumultuous year ends with the Dow down in a record(The Dow fell 5.6%. The S&P 500 was down 6.2% and the Nasdaq fell 4%. It was the worst year for stocks since 2008). Trump likes records. He is always either making stuff up, "Highest pay raise the military has every gotten," or he is flat out lying, "Biggest crowd at an inauguration ever." How does anyone know the difference between making stuff up and flat out lying? Sometimes he uses numbers and sometimes he uses his gut.

For the troops in Iraq he just made stuff up out of whole cloth. Anyone who has ever been in the military, been married to someone in the military, had a child in the military, or been a child of someone in the military knows that pay raises are more automatic than by design. Besides that, Trump cannot, despite his own braggadocio, give pay raises to anyone unless it comes out of his own pocket (which with this guy it never will). Any rise in pay has to be voted on by the same group of tired old men who have made government the spectacle it currently is. Beyond that, a 10% pay raise is preposterous. Unless the troops listening to him were completely clueless, even they knew that was a flat out, bald faced lie.

Another lie that Trump's team is spreading is that Melania is the first first lady to visit a war zone. I know that many people are brain dead as far as history goes, but there are multiple photographs and even movie reels of Eleanor Roosevelt visiting troops all over the world in what were far more dangerous situations than Melania came close to. Eleanor was only one of many wives to visit the troops. Eleanor visited them far more often than Trump seems likely to and in far more dangerous conditions, although he seemed freaked out by traveling with lights out. Didn't do him any good--plane spotters recognized his plane.

I have finished the piecing and layering of the current project but because it is so outside my comfort zone I hesitate to have my husband take any pictures yet. It has a tentative name of "Taormina" because it reminds me of seaside Italian towns with its colors of sand, sea, waves, and flowers. But I am not going to expose it to public view yet. I did machine quilt a little bit today--as I expected my trapezius muscles are very tense and I already know I have to figure out how not to catch my basting threads.

My husband has already gotten his hormone antagonist shots. His radiation therapy begins in about six weeks. In the meantime, we bought a different house because of multiple factors including our dog dying and not having enough room for our art. We originally thought that we would be able to remodel the spring house to accommodate the art; then we thought that we would remodel the house to accommodate the art; then we loathed and feared our neighbors in equal amounts to make either of those choices seem ridiculous. So we will be moving again but within the same state this time.  The new project was a very fancy stable, carriage house for a huge estate that was converted fairly quickly in to a private home. It is from 1901 so quite modern compared to our current nearly 300 year old house.

For us 2018 cannot be gone soon enough. If we hadn't had bad luck this year we wouldn't have had any luck at all. I even told my husband I wasn't making o-zoni since it was pretty clear that faint hopes never did have a chance in 2018. One of our sons is carrying on the tradition in SLC however. That's probably because he is getting married this year.

So thank you, Mr. Trump. Your sheer incompetence has left crops rotting in the fields, the Dow ending at an historical low, our allies abandoning us for more reliable partners, but also with a Democrat controlled House and more women than ever before representing Americans.

Happy New Year everyone--it all looks like up from here on the ground.
   

Merry Christmas!

This has been a tough year but the spirit of Christmas always lightens the load. Merry Christmas to everyone and happy quilting in the coming year.

A Long Time Ago

My first "crush" was oddly enough on Dwight Eisenhower. While he was the president for two terms, he famously warned the nation about the dangerous alliance of the military industrial complex. Now that Trump has named Patrick Shanahan as the Acting Secretary of Defense in a remarkable show of pique, that danger becomes even more evident. Shanahan was never in the military. Now that isn't necessarily a prerequisite for heading up the Defense Department; his primary if not only expertise comes from working at Boeing where he started after getting two masters degrees from MIT--one in engineering and one in business.

So what does he bring to the table that is of value to defending the country? It's got to be that he knows how to make money out of weapons systems.

Making Danish and Pie

This morning has been devoted to baking or preparing to bake. My husband helped with baking an apple pie. He always peels and slices while I make the pie crust. He laughed because last night our youngest son, the professional chef, called to ask for the flour to fat ratio of the pie crust. I also started the process of making Danish. (Perhaps it isn't capitalized when it's pastry.) This is the first Christmas in a long time that I haven't had a young person helping with the dough.

My husband was diagnosed with prostate cancer about two weeks ago. After a series of scans and consultations, he has started the process of treatment that ultimately leads to five weeks of daily radiation therapy. So far there are no known metastases as all the scans were clear. His older brother died of an aggressive form of prostate cancer several years ago but that does not seem to be the type he has. Fingers crossed everyone is right.

I am working on a paper pieced quilt that I hope to machine quilt. The arm issues about which I wrote in my last entry make hand quilting more painful and since this is a pieced quilt I thought I would try machine sewing. I will let you know how all that works out.

Banana Republic

Trump has done many things that seem inexplicable and repulsive to me but his comments about the HuaWei executive arrested in Vancouver now top the list. He said he would be happy to use her as a bargaining chip in his ongoing economic tit for tat with China.

What?!!! Since when is the United States not a "rule of law" country?  If the telecom company was guilty of breaking the law, then the law should be allowed to proceed. Canada is a rule of law country as well so if Trump makes weird and unwarranted threats they will have no reason to extradite her to our country. While we may not have always lived up to our ideals, I hope we haven't become a rogue nation under the orange dotard.

"...one may smile and smile and be a villain!"

Shakespeare is remembered for the plays he wrote but most people never read them in their entirety. Yet we live in a world that still contains smiling villains and encompasses the treachery and power that Shakespeare describes. So we may remember lines and themes and neologisms more than the entirety of his works, but we understand completely what he means when we see Vladimir Putin and Mohammed Bin Salman grinning and high fiving each other at the G20.

Petulance Personified

Trump is at the G20 summit in Argentina, no doubt making friends as usual. All the press people noted that he walked by MBS and Vladimir Putin without exchanging greetings but the press must be the only ones who ascribe meaning to such a petulant gesture. We know he is not angry with either of them as all of his public pronouncements have been in the, "Maybe he did, maybe he didn't" or "he denied it strongly" realm. So not greeting them can't signify displeasure. More likely to be, "You guys know everyone will give me a hard time if I greet you" column-- Apparently holding his breath until he turned blue worked for him when he was younger. Whiny and sulky are his main personality traits.

Who's The Dummy Now?

The title of this entry references a movie that most people never saw but it expresses my exasperation with the language of Donald Trump. I like words, I like language, I like how various languages express culture. Trump often says things or tweets things that are moronic and I don't mean moronic in that they express dumb ideas but that they are moronic in that he expects people to listen and/or believe him. So he starts calling the media "fake news" and then claims that other people call the media "fake news" and then says that everyone is calling the media "fake news" because by that time his original statement has been repeated ad nauseam so in a very narrow sense he has circled back on his own language to make people believe that what he says is the consensus.

Today he declaimed that there are people in the migrant caravan who are called "grabbers" who pick up children along the way, apparently meaning that literally, to try to get a more favorable outcome when applying for asylum. He repeated multiple times that these people are called "grabbers", that other people call them "grabbers", that he heard the term from someone else but that "grabbers" is colloquially understood in Honduras and El Salvador.

Oh come on! Who is the dummy now? These are people who speak very little English but somehow use English language words to describe desperadoes in their own countries. Trump not only is moronic, he thinks you are too.

Turkey Mushroom Soup

Many people end up making turkey soup from the carcass of their Thanksgiving bird. We do that as well but we usually then jazz it up as turkey mushroom soup. Taking the broth that you make from your turkey bones (if you have never done this just put the carcass in a large pot with water to cover, carrots sliced, onions sliced, celery sliced, a good handful of parsley, one or two garlic cloves sliced, and a small number of peppercorns just whole). Bring to a boil and then simmer for at least three hours. You then strain off the solids and chill the broth so you can get the fat off the top. You can pick the turkey meat off the bones and put it in the broth but my husband always thinks that meat is old and tasteless at this point so we save some meat from the dark and light portions to add when we add the sliced mushrooms in the next step.

Then put in a bunch of bay leaves. These can be fresh or dried but a good number is what gives the broth a good winter aroma and taste. Add the stems of one package of fresh mushrooms chopped up and simmer for at least 30 minutes. Check for seasoning at this point. It might need both salt and pepper. About 30 minutes before eating, bring the soup up to simmer again and add all the mushroom tops sliced, and about 1/2 cup of dry sherry cook for 20 minutes, add up to 1/2 cup of heavy cream and heat through. Now you can thicken this with the classic egg and cream or you can use cornstarch or a roux made by melting butter and stirring in flour or a combination of these methods. Some people like their soup thicker and some like it thinner so how much you do is individual. Do warn people that there are bay leaves so they don't accidentally swallow a whole leaf but they are pretty big and visible so it shouldn't be a huge problem.

Another Paragary's Dish

Don't pay any attention to the title because I did not ever ask Paragary's for this recipe so I could not be intruding on their business, but in the course of writing about Paragary's noodles previously, I had occasion to look them up. Online references abound but what stood out from most of the mentions was that folks wanted to know about the mushroom and cheese salad.


Since I had that during our visits to Paragary's when we lived in Sacramento, I had already come up with my own version.

First make a nice lemon vinaigrette with the juice of one lemon, one small garlic clove crushed, some fresh ground pepper, a teaspoon of Dijon mustard, a half teaspoon of good salt, and about a half cup of very good olive oil. The ratios are loose since the juice of one lemon varies, but the oil should be about four times the lemon. Stir in some chopped chives or finely sliced green onions and about a tablespoon of finely chopped parsley.

Slice very fresh white mushrooms into 1/4  inch slices (should be easy for quilters),  If you are prepping ahead of time (don't do this too far ahead but a couple hours is okay if...), squeeze a little bit of lemon over the mushrooms to prevent oxidation. Any more than about a quarter of a lemon will cause it to wilt the mushrooms so be judicious, and toss generously.

Cut some very good Swiss cheese (Emmenthaler or good Gruyere) in to matchstick pieces and toss with the mushrooms. Cover and refrigerate until ready to serve--remember that two hours is the maximum time before serving.

Wash some nice salad greens. This can be to your taste but we like red leaf lettuce and butter lettuce and sometimes arugula. Arrange this on salad plates.

Toss the mushroom mixture with the vinaigrette--use your own judgment about how much to add but err on the light side. Place the mushrooms and cheese on the greens and serve.

Another Leftover Day

Even though we only cooked a very small turkey, there are still plenty of leftovers of everything except the brussels sprouts. That's because it is easy to limit the number of brussels sprouts prepared and they don't really lend themselves well to leftovers unless you just pickle them. Today my husband is making turkey cottage pie from an old Gourmet cookbook recipe. In essence you just chop up the stuff you like such as carrots, onion, and celery (typical start for so many dishes), then add whatever leftover meat, dressing, and gravy you want depending on how much you want to make. Don't use leftover dressing if you put oysters in it. Cook over low heat until nicely mixed and nicely warmed. If you used an oven proof pot, top with leftover mashed potatoes, drizzle with butter, and bake at 375 for about 20 minutes until the potatoes are warmed and browned. If you didn't use an ovenproof pot then put the saucy mixture in an oven dish deep enough to hold everything and top with the mashed potatoes drizzled with butter and bake. Very satisfying on a cold day and you get to use your leftover cranberry sauce on the side.

Paragary's Noodles

Paragary's is now a restaurant chain in Northern California, but when I ate there it was just one restaurant near CSUS. This is a recipe inspired by a meal I had in the mid to late 80's when my husband and I lived in Sacramento. The original meal was presented by the server as a way for the restaurant to use up leftover duck back before even foodies didn't necessarily eat duck. I never relied on a recipe to make most foods other than baked goods. I cannot say that I am gifted but I can certainly discern spices and other ingredients in a dish and then either replicate that dish or adapt it to my own use.

As the original of this dish was already leftovers, I knew that it would be good for a variety of leftover meats or even for vegetarian or vegan applications. Since I had the original duck version we have used the basic idea for duck, pork, chicken, turkey. It could also be beef though you couldn't expect the beef to be rare. The recipe is based on the Chinese recipe of Noodles Both Sides Brown which as far as I know is like bouillabaisse--there are as many recipes for that as there are houses in France. So you can start with a standardized recipe for Noodles Both Sides Brown or you can use these guidelines but the results will be good regardless.

No matter what meat you have left over, cut enough for your meal into pieces that can be picked up by chopsticks--approximately 1 inch by 2 inches but cut fairly thinly. Put in a bowl and add 1 tablespoon soy sauce, 1 tablespoon mirin or rice wine, 1/2 teaspoon sugar and stir. Leave to marinate for at least an hour.

The fun part is deciding what vegetables you use. We always follow the Paragary's lead by starting with strips of fresh eggplant fried quickly, Chinese cabbage, snow peas, shallots sliced thinly or yellow onions sliced thinly, shiitake mushrooms or other fresh mushrooms, and on and on. Go with what you have in the refrigerator but keep it fresh and crisp.  But you can go all American by using celery and onion and broccoli. You get the idea.

Depending on how many people you expect to feed you will need one or two packages of  Wel-Pac dried Chow Mein Noodles. Cook according to package directions.  Drain and toss with some salad oil to keep it from sticking together.

Seasoning sauce--Mix together 2 tablespoons soy sauce, 2 tablespoons mirin, 1/2 teaspoon sugar, some fresh grated ginger, one clove of garlic crushed, and some sriracha or other Asian hot sauce to taste.

At this point you can go read a book until about 15 minutes before you are ready to eat. Put your noodles in  one fry pan with a little oil and brown on the bottom over medium heat. At the same time, start heating up/cooking your other ingredients, starting with the meat. When your noodles are browned on one side, flip them to the other using a plate or a pizza pan or something to help you flip the noodle pancake. Then just let that brown while you proceed with the other ingredients. When the meat is warmed through add your onions and cook until they are soft--they don't have to be brown, then add your other vegetables in the order they take to cook. For us that means the mushrooms, then the Chinese cabbage, then the snow peas. Each ingredient takes about 90 seconds. When you have done that, and your noodle pancake is ready on a serving platter--at this point it should simply slide out of the frying pan without flipping--add your seasoning sauce and stir for about another 90 seconds and then pour it over the top. Serve at the table giving everyone some noodles and some other stuff.

If you have any questions about this you can look up a Chinese Noodles Both Sides Brown or add a comment to this entry and I will reply. This is a leftover meal that rivals the first serving.

Prep Work Done

The pecan pie comes out of the oven in five minutes. The potatoes are peeled and waiting. The brussels sprouts are washed and sliced. The stuffing is made and chilling until it is time to put it in the bird. My husband made the cranberry sauce and peeled the onions for baking. I made the broth for the gravy yesterday. The rest of the day awaits but I don't think I want to do more sanding or priming today. Thanksgiving dinner is more about organization than it is about cooking skills but the house already smells delicious.

Give thanks for all that is good and hope for the rest to be better. Happy Thanksgiving.

We Give Thanks

This will be the first Thanksgiving in many years that we haven't eaten with our sons. We did move away from them but that freed them to open up their own calendars instead of depending on ours. That was fine with me because even though I liked cooking for Thanksgiving, I had grown to resent the massive cleanup that no one seemed willing to help with. My husband always insisted on doing the dishes but none of the sons or their wives/girlfriends helped.

We will still be roasting a turkey with all the trimmings because we like the leftover meals almost as much as the original. There is turkey cottage pie, club sandwiches, Paragary's noodles, chop suey, turkey soup. My husband always says I am a genius with leftovers but that's probably because my mother wasn't. Her leftovers were just that--warmed up originals without being creative. Sometimes I cook the first meal simply to have the second.

But my sons will scatter to the winds and that is a good thing. Neither my husband nor I ever wanted to return home after we left for college--most of our friends were the same and live in very different places from their parents. For some reason the next generation stayed even though they weren't the generation that still lived in the basement and had mom do the laundry. Our sons moved out of the family home but they didn't leave Salt Lake City. We didn't have the same ties to Utah that they did so we left. This Thanksgiving one son is in Sicily rock climbing and one son is helping out at Hell's Backbone Restaurant in southern Utah to close out their year. Good for all concerned.

Proper Decorum

Last week a federal judge ordered the White House to return the hard pass access to Jim Acosta, CNN's White House reporter, because Acosta had been denied due process. The lawyer representing the White House claimed in court that Acosta was rude and boorish at which statement CNN's attorney laughed because he said that Trump was always the rudest person in the room so what standard was being demanded. So the White House announced that they would come up with standards for all of the press that would need to be followed if one wanted to remain in the room.

Naturally the boor in chief showed his class by tweeting that " Little Adam Schitt..." shouldn't complain about acting AG Whitaker not being confirmed by the Senate.

Keep it classy, Donny.

Family Heritage

Some folks have a family heritage of service and some don't. Trump comes from a long line of draft dodgers so it's no surprise that he found a little rain too much to take on Armistice Day (Veterans Day). Just how Macron and Merkel and all the other dignitaries made it out to the cemetery remains a mystery as does Trump's real reason for skipping out since the story has changed at least three times. Then when he did make it home in time to honor the service of others as presidents before him have done through visits to the Tomb of the Unknown or even hospital visits to Walter Reed, he stayed at the White House watching Fox News and blaming Democrats for the dive in the stock market.

Now he has a new term, "Presidential Harassment". No one really seems to know what that is but Trump thinks he can make it into criminal charges. Jim Acosta and CNN are suing him and his aides for their action in taking away Acosta's press access. We could make a new Trump doll--yank its chain and it whines and pouts.

My Mohs Surgery

I had my Mohs surgery this morning. As far as I know everything went smoothly. The dermatologist didn't indicate any particular special issues or anything.  If you want to know what to look for in this particular basal carcinoma or what the surgery and outcome look like there is a video online of a man who had the same lesion and the same surgery and resection. This video is not for the faint of heart but if you think you have skin cancer and want to know what it looks like the very beginning shows the lesion clearly.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xK6kvcMcnwc

Malted Milk

My husband has always been a huge chocolate malted shake fan (for those not from the US that's a blended ice cream and flavor drink). When I read that malted flavor was the new fad taste in kitchens (good because I loathe kale) I told him and we jokingly talked about how a chocolate malted could be translated into some other dessert. One of the chefs featured in the fad article made lemon meringue type dessert but with vanilla malted milk on top. That didn't appeal to either of us, perhaps because we like regular lemon meringue pie and lemon shortbread cookies and couldn't imagine the addition of the malt.

But we ended up making a chocolate malted French silk pie--seriously rich but very delicious and a malted chocolate icebox cake. My grandmother actually attended the Fanny Farmer cooking school in Boston when my grandfather's company sent him up to manage their plant there. I don't remember her ever cooking anything, not even toast, but my mother always talked about her chocolate icebox cake.

You don't need me to give you recipes for stuff that's out there but just think about how you can boost a dessert if your husband likes malteds. 

Yet Another Photo

I think I have written before about my husband and how he is one in a million. He not only likes quilts, he even enjoys going to quilt and fabric stores, often picking out fabrics all on his own. He is also the fellow who insisted I have this blog and who takes all the photos. So he insisted that I needed another photo, one where the quilt was hanging rather than lying on the floor on the ground.

The changes that I made to Sue Garman's design include rearranging the blocks to suit my own idea of balance, eliminating a couple of blocks and substituting some of my own choosing (I wanted hearts in each corner so two of the heart blocks are either Jeana Kimball or Eleanor Sinkiewicz), removing some minor elements and adding some others, and D2 block is an adaptation of a Jeana Kimball design. I also eliminated the final dogtooth edging and substituted the scalloped edging. The fabric choices and colors are always up to the maker unless it is a kit so those are different from the original as well. The end product is substantially the same but also noticeably different. The slight bend on the side comes from it running in to the handrail.

The most amazing difference between my husband and most other men is that he likes to shoe shop with me and often picks shoes for me without ever looking at the prices. As I said, one in a million.

Finished!

The quilt is done after nearly two years. If you have finished a long project like this then you know how odd it is, almost bereft but certainly a large gap.

It was still drying on the floor, one of the few places in the house large enough. My remaining dog, Tucker, seems to like it.

Not Quite Ready For Prime Time

I finished the quilt today. It isn't ready for its unveiling since it has to dry from its bath to get rid of the blue pen and whatever dirt, blood, and debris ended up on it during its 22 months in my various houses. So come back tomorrow for photos of the finished product.

In the meantime, Trump is trying to rile his base with all sorts of spurious ideas and ridiculous proposals. It is clearly working since in the past 4 days there have been heinous crimes against Democrats, news organizations, Jews, and blacks. And once again, Trump did not pull the trigger nor did he contact any of these folks directly but when you send messages to fringe groups you should not be surprised if some of the fringe unravels.

Halfway Around

I don't know how anyone else does binding. Truth be told, I have never taken a quilting class and have had very little exposure to other people's quilts except in museums or shows and more in museums. So when I first started quilting I had no clue what I was doing. I had sewed for years, made my own clothing, even made some sport jackets for my husband (despite flunking the sewing unit in home ec in junior high). But quilting, like most endeavors, has its own vocabulary and its own expectations.

All of my knowledge of quilting came originally from magazine articles that used to be more common decades ago. So when the instructions said that the binding needed to feel well stuffed, I thought stuffed meant what it normally means and my first several bindings were as fat as cording with me patiently stuffing fiber fill inside the small space that binding provided. It's no wonder that I ended up despising binding. I did learn that well stuffed only meant that the binding needed to fit the cut edge of the quilt nicely.

Then there was the whole continuous binding debacle. At least it was a debacle for me. Continuous binding is still a very commonly taught and accepted technique but after several years of knowing that my bindings were just that little bit askew, I decided to start making bias strips and proceeding from there. It takes more fabric but it makes an enormous difference in the end result. I should add that I am the person who complains to the museum that their painting is 1/16 inch out of true so continuous cut binding would never be right for me.

So I cut 2 inch strips on the bias and sew them by hand to assure myself that everything is straight and smooth in both the binding and in the end product. Since I have started that, my bindings end up straighter, better, and my quilts end up hanging straighter as well. I should have known this from the start because men's tailoring depends on the most intricate hand sewing that is never visible but has a huge impact in the finished product.

This is only my second quilt with a scalloped edge though I have done a few with a wavy edge. Halfway around I am satisfied that everything was measured correctly and that everything was given the proper amount of tug around those curved and biased edges. We'll see when it's done if that is true.

Round the Post and Heading Home

I applied the binding to the front of the quilt and joined the loose ends in a mitered joint. I began the turning process and got approximately three scallops done so I know how it will look. Stay tuned to this blog for the final result which should be in two days. The scalloped edge is a pain in the neck but it does enliven the quilt.

The man who wants to be speaker of the house of representatives,Kevin McCarthy, posted a tweet claiming that Jews wanted to buy the election three days before the disgusting events in Pittsburgh. He deleted his tweets as soon as the news reports came in but that certainly doesn't mean that he deleted his feelings about Soros, Bloomberg, or Steyer. We are already in early voting with Georgia officials preventing old black people from going to the polls.

I can guarantee now that I don't want to live in the world that Trumpettes support. What is happening is disgusting and despicable but we do have a chance to vote these creeps out.

Looney Tunes

When I lived in Utah I went to a few political rallies with my youngest son. Both of us decided to stop going because the crowds at the rallies were decidedly odd, sort of like the weird guy on the subway that you know you don't want to sit next to. So it wasn't surprising at all to me that the fellow arrested for sending out all the pipe bombs was not the sharpest knife in the drawer or that he had his very own MAGA hat and a van covered with pro-Trump stickers.

That's one of the primary reasons for Trump to soften his rhetoric. It isn't that it causes people to be crazy but that some crazy people might end up doing really stupid and/or dangerous stuff. I have a daughter in law with obsessive compulsive disorder. She is a nice woman and she and my son are still very much in love but her actions aren't always rational. If she were always rational she wouldn't be diagnosed with a mental disorder and mental disorders are just what the terms says.

I trimmed the quilt today and measured and marked the scalloped edge. I also made yards of binding so tomorrow I can get that process started. It's a queen sized quilt so it will be a few days.

Done But Not Done

After 22 months of work with interruptions to make five other quilts and foreign travel and moving 3000 miles, I finished quilting my Baltimore Album today. I didn't finish the quilt as it needs to be trimmed and blocked and bound and washed but this was a major step forward. This blog entry could also be titled, "Housekeeping Whenever, Quilting Forever" as the picture shows my lack of attention to some of the daily chores in order to get to this point.

Slime Balls

Lou Dobbs, Rush Limbaugh, and Donald Trump all blame Democrats for the rash of pipe bombs sent to...Democrats. Then in Wisconsin, Trump started by calling for national unity but then moving on to saying that national unity could only happen if the media stopped criticizing him. Sounds like the wife beater who says, "Don't make me hit you again."

Try This Now

Many people have been going to my September 5, 2017 post about the mock puff pastry adapted from the Silver Palate cookbooks. A couple of days ago I made the pastry to encase seasonal apples because my husband loves my apple pie but I wanted to try something that wasn't apple pie this time.

So go back to September 5, 2017 for the recipe or go to the Silver Palate cookbooks for the mock puff pastry recipe but remember that ice cold vodka instead of water works way better since the vodka doesn't cause the same problems with gluten as the water. So no tough pastry and delightfully crisp results.

Then what I did after prepping the pastry was I asked my husband, who is the prime beneficiary of any dessert I make, to peel and slice the apples. I had a pan ready on the stove with some butter melted and the pan heating up. As he peeled and sliced he added the apples to the pan. This ended up having a benefit to the dessert because some of the apples cooked longer and became almost applesauce and some of the pieces were still somewhat crisp when they went in to the pastry. I seasoned the apples with some cinnamon, added some golden raisins, stirred in a couple of tablespoons of butter and a quarter cup of sugar and cooked everything after the final apple addition for about 15 minutes. I wanted to cook the apples before encasing them because the pastry doesn't cook as long as a pie and I wanted the apples to be fully cooked. 

We only used half of the recipe of pastry but I sprayed an eight inch cake pan with cooking spray. then rolled out the half of the pastry into a rough square and put it in to the cake pan with the corners hanging over the edge. Then I put the apples in the middle and folded the pastry over the apples.

With the oven pre-heated to 425, I cooked the pastry apple combination for 35 minutes. It was fabulous.

If It Doesn't Sound True...

Yesterday Trump reported on a phone call that he had with the Saudi king. Now, forgetting for a minute that this was certainly in translation and may or may not have been the king since he is in his 80's and supposed to be suffering from dementia, Trump flat out stated that the king denied any involvement in the disappearance and possible murder of Jamal Khasshoggi, even suggesting that rogue elements had been responsible.

When the dog eats your homework no one believes you. These "rogue" elements arrived en masse at Istanbul's airport, drove in embassy cars to the embassy, left Turkey as a group, were connected to the Saudi royal family as security people, and happened to bring a bone saw with them to Turkey. Then, just before Turkish and Saudi investigators entered the embassy yesterday, a large cleaning crew, dressed in hazmat suits left the embassy.

Strong men, whoever they are, make denials to Trump and he sycophantishly nods his head in understanding. Dog meet homework.

Numerous Oddities

Yesterday Trump was quoted as describing General "Madddog" Mattis, the current Secretary of Defense as a Democrat who needed to leave. The entire world should be very afraid if that happens since Mattis is one of the few adults in the room who have also been through combat. Trump and Bolton, neither of whom saw combat duty although Bolton did serve 18 weeks in Louisiana as part of his National Guard requirements, spend other people's lives with abandon. As an Army brat and a Navy wife my view of jerks like that is colored by what seems to be their privilege. It is always easier to send someone else to do a job you don't want to do than to go yourself.

Bolton is a hawk, a serious hawk who thinks the US military might has only one purpose--to punish with military action those who disagree with the US about pretty much anything. Unfortunately there are plenty of people who agree with that view. With Trump leading the way, the entire world looks like a nail to the military's hammer.

Then, in another version of how low can you go, Trump said that it didn't matter if the Saudis killed Jamal Khashoggi as far as the multi-million dollar arms deals go because the US economy depended on arms deals to survive. So two jerks who never got closer to a firing line than a range want to abdicate their moral responsibility to stand up for human decency along with freedom of conscience and freedom of the press so that the US can continue to sell weapons to countries that kill the innocent and punish the truth tellers.

Donald Trump, jr, chimed in with a decades old photo of Khashoggi with mujaheddin in Afghanistan during the time when the Russians were trying to subdue Afghanistan to open their own front in that area. Junior (you thought he was the smart one) declared that the Saudi journalist, who had a green card to live in the US after serious vetting, deserved to be assassinated because he sided with terrorists. Hell and damnation! Back about the same time as the photo was taken, my seven year old son wanted to dress up as a mujaheddin because they were the "heroes" fighting against Soviet oppression. I guess it's still hard to tell who the players are without a program.

Probably Posted This Before

My husband and I just finished dinner. The weather has changed here in southeastern Pennsylvania and the outdoor temperature never got above 60F. We knew this was going to happen so we put a few items on our weekly menu* to address the drop in temperature. One of those dinners was Pork and Green Bean Stew, a recipe I adapted from a Gourmet Magazine article that came out just prior to the Barcelona Olympics. Gourmet doesn't exist any more but my husband and I still enjoy our version of this Spanish dish.

Pork and Green Bean Stew

A small package of boneless spareribs or something similar cut into cubes
1 small yellow onion chopped medium sized bits (about half an inch on a side)
A couple of small shallots chopped fine but not superfine
At least two and up to six garlic cloves minced or crushed (in Utah the garlic cloves were smaller and here they are bigger and my husband and I like garlic)
A couple of sprigs of fresh thyme, a couple of sprigs of fresh oregano
1 can of chopped tomatoes (about 14 oz)
1/2 cup white wine
1 cup chicken stock
1/2 to 3/4 cup pitted Greek olives (the original recipe was for Spanish olives that you pitted but I streamlined)
1 cup fresh green beans cut or snapped into 1 inch lengths

olive oil
salt and pepper

1 potato chopped into cubes This is separate from everything else because it is not in the original recipe at all but we like the stew to cover all the bases from protein to starch so we add the potato.

Brown your pork in batches in a heavy pot in some olive oil seasoned with a little salt and pepper. Remove to a plate or bowl and add the onions and shallots to the pot. If you need a little more olive oil add some but cook over medium to medium high heat until they are soft. Add the cubed potatoes if you are using them and cook for five minutes. Add the garlic and the herbs and stir for a couple of minutes until you can smell them in the air around you. Add the white wine (I always use dry vermouth because Julia Child always said that was appropriate) and cook until reduced by half. Add the chicken broth and cook until reduced by half. Put the pork back in to the pot and add the pitted olives. Stir in the canned tomatoes and simmer for about 30 minutes. At this point the stew itself should be very aromatic, reduced to a nice consistency and just waiting for the green beans.

15 minutes before serving turn the stew back on, throw in your fresh green beans when it begins to bubble around the edges, and cook for 10 minutes after that. The beans will still be nicely crisp and green. Taste and adjust for seasoning of salt and pepper. Serve with crusty bread.

After all the travails that my husband and I have endured to live in this house, we have decided to do a smaller remodel and sell. We still plan to stay near Philadelphia but for many reasons, including the death of our beloved dog, we don't want to invest in this neighborhood. I will give more updates as they happen. 

Mohs Surgery

I am of northern European extraction, primarily Irish and German, so I am pretty fair-skinned. But I am also an older woman and back in my youth no one wore sunscreen. Add to that the fact that I was a competitive swimmer most of my life up to the age of 53 and that means I have been out in the sun not only a lot but often in sun environments that are harsher than the norm. South Texas is pretty brutal with very little cloud cover, California has sun most of the time, Utah has less sun though not by much, but where we lived was around 4600 feet above sea level so the natural filters for sunlight were fewer.

Anyway, my body is sort of the gift that keeps on giving for dermatologists. I am lucky enough to not have had melanoma yet (though a sister did), but I have a constant battle with squamous and basal cell carcinomas. The squamous cell ones are no big deal at all but the basal cell ones, while usually slow growing and not quick to metastasize, do spread if allowed to grow. I went to a dermatologist here on 10/2 simply to establish a relationship in my new home and have my body mapped. I had been to my previous dermatologist in Utah in April so didn't expect there to be any surprises.

That's why my scheduled Mohs surgery is a shocker. I have a basal cell carcinoma under my right nostril that needs more attention. The doctor here cut off and out a great deal in order to send tissue to the pathology lab but she says I need to get the Mohs expert in to complete the job. Not at all what I was expecting. I feel like calling my old doctor and asking him to review his notes.

Banksy's Gone

The art world was stunned when Banksy's painting of a girl with a red balloon shredded itself as soon as the auction hammer fell for $1.4 million dollars. Banksy's message sent at the same time was, "Going, going, gone." Banksy is supposed to be British though no one knows for certain but I know an artist who many years ago had a very large work on display in a gallery in Salt Lake City, a self-portrait, that shredded itself while everyone watched. My friend's shredding was done very slowly by hand cranking a shredder through which the art was rolled as a sort of performance piece during the run of the gallery show. I was mildly perturbed by the act but he owned the piece and it was his statement. He, like many artists I know, believes art should be more ephemeral than permanent. I don't know the whole story behind the Banksy event but he might feel the same as my friend.

Apropos of Nothing

My husband has our computers set to show photos on the home page. Today a picture he took in Florence last year popped up. There are numerous porcelain and china museums throughout Europe and my husband and I enjoy visiting them not only for the beauty of the goods displayed but for the technological innovations that usually accompany the objects. We tend to take ideas for granted, an attitude that seems to have grown to encompass more than technology these days.

In any case, there is a cup and saucer from the collection in Florence. The color combination is delightful and the expertise of the manufacturer is undeniable.

Factions

The United States constitution and the Federalist papers (one seminal and legally binding and the other a guidance written by a faction within the founding fathers) both warn against factions. Given that the Supreme Court constantly and continually and even continuously focuses on the originality of the language. So when the original document castigates factions, to what does it refer?

Keep in mind that the original document didn't even want the President and the Vice-President to be elected as a ticket or combination. The original thought was that the two men (and, yes it would have always been men in the late 18th and early 19th century) could find commonality if they were forced to by the will of the people. It didn't take long for factions to destroy that idea (which coincidentally was also part of the French Revolution's Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite, but that's a whole different story) leading to political parties (factions) from the very early 19th century and moving forward.

So over the centuries of the United States existence, there have been many different factions. There have been clashes between these factions since the Constitution was amended to allow for the election of a faction, that is the election of two men who both represent one faction and whose  election is intended to move the goals of that faction, rather than a compromise of ideas as envisioned by the original document.


What  I am trying to point out here is that all those originalists who want judges to be originalists as well don't really go back to the original document nor to the original ideas of the writers. Political parties end up being destructive of the common weal, an idea that was central to the Revolutionary War and central to the arguments and disagreements that gave all of us the guiding principles that have unfortunately been destroyed in modern times.

That's the real reason we have the Electoral College and once that reason was destroyed by the factions that the document itself decried, the Electoral College should have been either eliminated or amended. Unfortunately what we have now is a Frankenstein's monster that only gives advantage to the factions that the original document despised.

Don't get me wrong. I cannot stand any of the Clintons and as far as I know that includes their grandchildren. But that is one of the by-products of factions. We are bound by the document we have and as long as factions have all the money and power we are helpless to  overcome them.     
   

No Recourse

Mitch McConnell, unfortunately one of the homeliest men I have ever seen, flat out stated today that it didn't matter what happened with the FBI investigation--there will be a vote on Friday regardless of whether the investigation is complete or even reported to the senate. There you go all you Trumpettes--that's what Republican leaders think of your concerns and complaints. Because I know for a fact that it isn't only Democrat females who get groped, get propositioned, get sexually abused. It doesn't matter that McConnell wants to elevate Kavanaugh before the facts are in.

I sincerely hope that Flake understands that it does matter and not just to me but to millions of women. He says he feels obligated to vote for Kavanaugh because he is a conservative but there are dozens of qualified conservative judges who not only do not have questions about their past hanging over them, but their actions in the present staining their reputation. When he confronted Senator Klobuchar belligerently I knew for sure he had done what Blasey Ford claimed because he exposed himself (no pun intended) as a man who bullies women. She had not been confrontational at all; her questioning was more collegial than I had anticipated and far more personal, but Kavanaugh was ugly and angry--he practically spit at her with his contempt.

In the meantime Trump and Trump junior claim that all young boys are in danger now. Really? In danger if they grope, abuse, or rape women? Part of me certainly hopes that is true and part of me wonders what those two did when they were 15--17. I have three sons and all the women that they have dated and married have praised them as paragons of understanding. Even the young women I have tutored over the years bemoan the fact that I didn't have more sons because mine are "woke". I deplore the slang  but I understand the sentiment.  

Expectations

Although I have tried most of my life to be an optimist, the last dozen years have pushed me in to cynicism and depression. My husband and I were talking about a variety of topics this afternoon, everything from the Eagles' game to the Kavanaugh situation. Clearly both of those topics are depressing but since neither of us is a diehard team fan we found some hope in the Eagles loss to Tennessee. If the path to the Super Bowl doesn't look assured, it always is more interesting.

The Kavanaugh debacle is a different matter. Both of us expect nothing at all to come from any FBI investigation of Kavanaugh. There are too many restrictions on the search. NBC reported that Trump had restricted the investigation to only Ford and Ramirez but Trump rebutted that reportage to say that NBC was spreading fake news again. Then the White House had to admit that Don McGahn, whose last day was supposed to be today, had told the FBI that they couldn't widen the investigation to include any other witnesses, regardless of whether those witnesses were for sexual assault or alcoholic abuse. McGahn is supposed to be the biggest insider pushing Kavanaugh so it's plausible that he is responsible, but the mere fact that Gorsuch got chosen over Kavanaugh implies that there are problems with Kavanaugh.

In any case, both my husband and I fully expect the FBI questioning to be fruitless. Even if a dozen witnesses testified that Kavanaugh had been stumbling drunk with his penis out of his pants on numerous occasions both in high school and at Yale, he will be confirmed.

All that means is that women who have daughters need to educate those daughters early. If anyone, male or female, tries to abuse you, raise your voice. Do it loudly and do it proudly. We cannot fight back if we don't report; we cannot stop abuse if we don't expose; we must stand up to bad behavior.

Kavanaugh

I couldn't force myself to watch all of the spectacle of the various Kavanaugh hearings. From my point of view there was little up-side to any of the proceedings. Watching various senators posture and preen turns my stomach regardless of which side of the aisle the senator sits. So I don't know how much of what is available as information online was revealed in the testimony. For example, did Kavanaugh explain why it was all right for him to admit to underage drinking (the drinking age in Maryland was raised from 18 to 21 when Kavanaugh was still 17 so he could not have been legal at any point in high school)? Did anyone ask him what was meant by, "What happens at Georgetown Prep stays at Georgetown Prep?" We all understand what that means when it is a reference to Las Vegas but does it mean the same for pubescent boys in suburban DC?

Anyway, long after Kavanaugh was a teenager, when he was a mid-30 something lawyer in Bush's White House, he helped organize a summer sailing trip with men friends through a concatenated series of emails. After numerous tasteless jokes of sexual innuendo involving multiple topics the trip happened and the final email, after the sailing was over, was "...a note from Kavanaugh himself: “Reminders to everyone to be very, very vigilant [with regard to] confidentiality on all issues and all fronts, including with spouses.”

Perhaps Republicans can be persuaded that the bacchanal wasn't one and that Kavanaugh and company discussed state secrets, but that is not what that email says to me. How about you?

Clueless

Last year when Trump spoke at the UN he said he was tired of other countries laughing at the United States. This year the leaders of those other countries laughed at him and he just didn't get it. Probably tomorrow after someone explains to him what really happened, he will probably send out angry tweets or threaten someone.

When I Was 15

When I was 15 I was in high school with a bunch of boys, not at a tony girls' private school, but the behavior was not much different from what is reported as the norm in Maryland. Do I believe Dr. Blasey Ford over Kavanaugh. Yes, but it's not because I think he is a slimy liar. It's because as the Texas GOP mother said on camera yesterday, "That's what boys do." I don't mean all boys. I am positive my husband never behaved that way when he was 17 because he didn't behave that way when he was 19 and 20 when I met him AND he never drank--still doesn't.

But when I was 15 I was one of the few girls in my class who actually needed to wear a bra. I was a 34C and very conscious of that fact. If I wore anything even remotely low cut, say showing some collarbone, the boys all acted as if I had a "Kick Me!" sign on my butt. One morning before math class a boy in the class tried to throw wadded up paper down my front and grabbed at my chest. The teacher was not in the room yet but when he did come in he saw all the red marks on my neck and chest and asked me if I was all right. Everyone in the room had seen this kid, being an aggressive jerk so I certainly had witnesses and possibly support. And it's that "possibly" that is the sticking point even now when I think back about it. I didn't even want to have breasts at 15 and the thought of having to go to the office and tell the male principal and male vice-principal what had happened seemed too punitive to me, the innocent party. I would have done anything to avoid that scenario so I lied and said something about a rash.

Years later my mother played bridge with this kid's mother for the first time. The woman, who back when I knew her couldn't have melted butter in her mouth, told my mother that her son had such a crush on me but I was too sophisticated and mature for him. Oddly enough, that boy and I were the two youngest students in our grade because we had been promoted. We were both 15 and 16 as juniors in high school and 16 and 17 as seniors. Some sophistication.  

Unhinged

When Trump took office he average 4 lies a day for a while (the first 100 days), but apparently he was having so much fun he decided to up that ante, for what specific reason is unclear but for the most part he hasn't turned off his base. On September 7th, he made an astonishing 125 false or misleading states in 120 minutes. But his average of lies per day is now over 30 and he has broken the 5000 lies mark since taking office.

So? That's apparently what the typical Trumpette asks when reading true statements like those but it is also a question I want to see answered. Today he tweeted that Democrats have made up an elaborate lie about the deaths from Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico last summer. He says the 2900 estimated deaths attributed to the hurricane and its aftermath are completely bogus and that the researchers and statisticians from George Washington University who compiled the numbers are simply counting old people who died.

Now as I have written previously, I have been through a couple of hurricanes and my old hometown of Corpus Christi went through several in the 45 years that my parents lived there so I understand that sometimes deaths attributed to hurricanes can be a little confusing. Do you count the guy who had a heart attack when the tree fell on his house even though the tree didn't hurt him? Do you count the fellow who was electrocuted when the live power line fell in his yard and he cut it with a power saw? How about the car accidents that the slick roads and high winds contribute to? And in Maria's case, there were many people who were left without electricity and died of heat exposure, or kidney failure because the dialysis machines were inoperable or unreachable. There were premature babies who died because the hospitals could not get supplies. Whether Trump likes it or not, all those deaths are hurricane deaths even if they happen after the storm passes and even if they aren't death by high wind  or high water.

People died. People who had families, people who would have lived at least a little longer if Maria had not hit Puerto Rico. Don't let Trump diminish the impact of that.

Memories

Here is an old photo I thought folks would like. The Museum of American Folk Art doesn't exist as it did then but I have no idea what happened to this particular treasure.

That's me on the left standing way closer to this top than anyone should have been allowed, but this visit to NYC was back before the now demolished new building went up. You can see the heart embroidered on the elephant trainer's uniform. That's the foundation for my theory about the quilt. I did make this quilt several years ago and what fun I had doing so. 

What Are You Going To Do?

"I think it's embarrassing for the country to allow protesters, you don't even know which side the protesters were on," Trump said. "But to allow someone to stand up and scream from the top of their lungs and nobody does anything about it is frankly — I think it's an embarrassment."

Would it matter which side the protesters were on? Could the side they espouse determine the response? It certainly does at Trump rallies where anyone from the other side gets manhandled and muscled out of the space. But should it matter that someone who disagrees with a government official shows up to protest that person?

Of course the answer lies in the Constitution and in the behavior of the protestor. Each of us is granted by the Constitution the right to address the government (in whatever shape or form that takes be it in person or by mail or electronic means, for redress of grievances). The Constitution is vague on what grievances so it has been generally understood to be any form of disagreement.  But the Constitution says that the address itself should be peaceable, so no weapons nor threat of violence. It doesn't say one cannot protest. It doesn't say one must be polite.

If we had not protested the English crown's treatment of the colonies, we would not be the country we are. Protest is at the heart of our nation's birth and it's at the heart of our hope for the future. We know what kind of country, what kind of government we expect. Or at least we used to.

Where's A Good Lawyer When You Need One?

Trump upended the norms yet again today in his tweets. It has long been understood, probably because so many of our presidents have had legal training, that interfering in ongoing prosecutions is unwise if not outright forbidden. Trump not only castigated the attorney general of the US but tied current prosecutions of two congressmen to the elections.

You know who does that? Leaders of banana republics. While I don't expect all the Trumpettes to stand up in protest to Trump upending the common understanding of the legal system, I can hope that the Republican lawyers in government condemn these statements. Even they understand that our common reliance on normal behavior in the legal system supports and strengthens our country. If they don't decry Trump's tweets, we are doomed. Are the two congressmen guilty? That's up to the legal system including juries to determine. Does Trump behave irrationally when he wants his justice department to hold off prosecuting people for purely political reasons? Consider what would happen if the judge asked each defendant what his political affiliation was before he made any determination.

Shameful

John McCain's Washington memorial happened today and Fox News reported that Meghan McCain and Barack Obama had both insulted Donald Trump.  Seriously, that was the headline from Fox--that the daughter of the man who had just died and a man who had been invited to eulogize him had insulted Donald Trump.

How fragile is his ego? How fragile is Fox's ego?

What were the grievous errors that Fox (such a reliable arbiter of sense and sensibility) identified? Meghan McCain said that her father would not stand for anyone who didn't understand that the United States had always been great, had always stood for values. Barack Obama warned against relying on demagogues who use rhetoric to inflame public opinion to the danger of everyone. Neither of them named a target but Fox has gotten so sensitive (little snowflakes) that as soon as someone stood up for the true values of the United States, Fox ran for the hedges and the scurrilous response.

I have just been reading an article in the London Review of Books about the BBC radio broadcasts during WWII. It makes fascinating reading because of the clear comparisons to demagoguery and propaganda. 

Apparently no one at Fox ever took Latin--De mortuis nihil nisi bonum.

Welcome to Pennsylvania, Part Two

My dog was poisoned on Friday. He died Friday night. He is not the first dog to die in this neighborhood this summer so no one believes that these are targeted killings. Rather the suspicion is that someone is putting out poison for other critters who then excrete the poison or die in someone's yard to be eaten by other animals. My husband and I had observed multiple dead animals on the roads on our daily walk, from birds to squirrels and snakes who did not seem to have any qualifying injuries. We had talked to the neighbors but thought that our animals were safe since we didn't have electronic collars on them nor did we have doggy doors and so monitored their outside visits. But somehow this past Friday, in the early dawn Watson ingested poison. Neither of us know how Watson ate poison. But he did, and he died. He was only seven or eight years old. We don't know for sure because he was a rescued dog from the Park City animal rescue.

Everybody loved Watson and Watson loved everybody. He was a gentle soul discarded by his first owner because he wouldn't hunt. His best friend was not our other dog but our Maine coon cat. There is surely a special place in hell for the person who puts out poison in a neighborhood full of animals and children. Rest in peace, Watson.

What A Guy

The younger Duncan Hunter, a Republican congressman from San Diego County, who "inherited" the seat from his father, was indicted this week for multiple counts of misusing campaign funds, a federal offense. Hunter fils and his wife overspent his income and used campaign money like a slush fund that they could tap whenever and wherever. Now there hasn't been any trial yet so the presumption of innocence is on his side, but he has already released two separate defenses. The first is that this is all a deep state conspiracy against him because he supports Trump despite the fact that the DoJ is headed by Republicans appointed and approved by a Republican majority. His other defense is that he didn't do anything at all, that it was entirely his wife's doing, thus throwing her under the bus.

Forget the "few, the proud, the Marines" motto that he espoused his whole life. Forget the "till death do us part" vow that he undoubtedly swore to when he was married. No more Semper Fi in that marriage.Forget any loyalty or honor--throw your wife under the bus when it suits your political exigencies.

Inner Blocks Complete

I finished quilting all 16 blocks of the album quilt today. While that is a momentous step there are still the four very elaborate borders to go. I have gone through over 600 yards of quilting thread so far. These days that doesn't even sound like much since machine quilters use many times more than that, but it is still a great deal of thread. My new favorite hand quilting thread is YLI pure cotton thread from Japan. Very silky feel and doesn't split when threading the needles.

Just to remind you what the 16 blocks look like I have added a picture that I have shown before. I still think I will be done by Christmas and with any luck even before that.

Please Pay Attention

Ralph Peters, who spent some time as a Fox news analyst after retiring from the US Army as a lieutenant colonel, has been publicly pointing fingers at Fox since announcing his resignation. Today he went in the other direction, making pointed and directed comments about Trump. For so many of us who are about the same age as Trump (72), Peters (66) and me (68), the state of the country is of paramount interest and importance. When Trump makes calls to make America great again, he is calling for a return to when Joseph McCarthy had the country calling for loyalty oaths and blacks and other racial minorities, women, the disabled, and the lgbt community were either disenfranchised or despised or both. Roy Cohn was a personal mentor to Trump and if you don't know who or what Cohn was, you would be well served by finding out.

Today Peters declared, "This is a distinctly un-American president who really doesn't seem to like America very much, certainly doesn't respect it. And he's a president who appears to be enthralled to a foreign power, a hostile foreign power."

Trumpettes, you need to decide if you want an America that lives up to its ideals or an America that does go back to Trump's childhood.

When Truth Isn't Truth

Rudy Giuliani, Trump's current personal lawyer, went on "Meet the Press" this morning and flat out said that truth was not truth. Giuliani was being pressed about the meeting in Trump Tower before the election that Don Jr. had accepted. The person who contacted Don Jr.told junior, according to the emails that junior shared with congress, that the meeting was with a lawyer with contacts within the Kremlin who had dirt on Hillary Clinton because the Russian government supported his father. You don't have to believe me when I write that because junior shared the emails with Congress and they are easily available online. If you need me to tell you how to search for stuff you are too confused to continue.

So when Chuck Todd asked Giuliani and Giuliani started his remarks by saying that junior didn['t even know the lawyer was Russian or if she had contacts within government in Russia, he was lying. He knows he was lying but he is being a lawyer, trying to parse words even when the words are there for the whole world to see. The Trump team is like the cage of chimpanzees at the zoo who throw their feces at visitors because they are upset at the spectacle they present.

Giuliani can't throw enough kaka at the wall to convince me but I already know that Trump supporters eat that kaka up.

How Many Enemies Does It Take?

Trump is now saying that the next name on his enemies list is Bruce Ohr who will soon lose his security clearance.

Prior to inauguration folks theorized that Trump was a narcissist. Those traits are still evident and still govern his behavior, but now he is showing signs of paranoia. Unfortunately he is hurting people with his behavior and I don't mean John Brennan who will endure anything Trump dishes out and give it back in spades. Every step he takes informs the thinking public not only of his frailty but of his ignorance. Will he go down in history? Absolutely. Very far down.

Bless The Honest Man

Admiral William McRaven who oversaw the Navy SEAL incursion into Pakistan that ended in bin Laden's death came out forcefully against Trump's actions in stripping Brennan of his security clearance. In addition to praising Brennan as an honest patriot who had devoted his life to this country, McRaven said, "Therefore, I would consider it an honor if you would revoke my security clearance as well, so I can add my name to the list of men and women who have spoken up against your presidency,"

Trump, who comes from a long line of draft dodgers and service avoiders, after all, that's how his family ended up in the US, will find some way to denigrate this man, you can make bank on that. If all you Trumpettes find that acceptable you will have earned any disparaging title given to you. The United States aspirational goals are not a reality show to find winners and losers. When Trump wins, everyone loses.

My one consolation this week is that the neo-Nazi freak from north central Pennsylvania now has two votes against him in any national contest.

Shame The Devil

So many strands of nefarious doings that it is hard to keep one's sense of humor. Yesterday, after a brief trial that was marked more by the judge's interference than by legal brilliance, the Manafort case was given to the jury. Despite repeatedly telling the defense that they could not rely on special counsel accusations nor hint of any tie to the Trump notion of a witch hunt, the defense went ahead and said that this was a selective prosecution caused by the government's obsession with destroying Trump. Judge Ellis who twice had to be reminded of his errors during the trial (once for reversing his own statement about a witness remaining in court and once for ignoring the statute that governed the bank fraud), was overly mild in telling the jurors that they shouldn't try to impute any motive to the government's prosecution. In some ways that is okay since Manafort has another trial starting next month but it is beyond shocking that a judge could be so manifestly prejudicial to one side.

Yesterday Trump revoked John Brennan's security clearance. Initially he claimed that he was doing so as a precaution to keep US security agencies safe. But then Trump, who wouldn't recognize truth or irony if they jumped up and bit his fat pink cheeks, told the Wall Street Journal that he stripped the clearance because he saw Brennan as one of the instigators of the "witch hunt". Since Trump doesn't even believe his own intelligence agencies, it is risible that he wants to protect them. Then it underscores again, as if anyone with any semblance of intelligence needed the reminder, that Trump cannot tell the truth to save his soul or shame the devil.  

Tell The Truth

Rudy Giuliani said on TV that facts were in the eye of the beholder. Of course given his recent reversals he will probably claim he never said that or that he meant something different from the perceived sentiment but that is pretty incredible. Yes, eye witnesses to crimes often report different things, but facts are not simply mistaken testimony. Two days after the inauguration Kellyanne Conway said that Spicer presented alternative facts and the entire world laughed at the notion. Now we have become inured to lies in a way that is dangerous for our democracy and dangerous for us as individuals. If there is no objective truth then we have no need for laws of any kind from the biblical sort to our Constitution.

How do we fight back? Tell the truth. This isn't debatable. Just tell the truth.

Beyond Appalling

Laura Ingraham let loose in a tirade that declared that the US was turning into a place that she couldn't recognize. I don't have cable news and if I did I doubt that I would turn to Fox except to see what the other side of the political spectrum is seeing and thinking. But her comments were so vile and reprehensible that the next night she declared that she didn't align herself with David Duke or his minions. So how does she support her call to arms when she says that America doesn't look the way her listeners want it to look?

My family's history covers most of the history of the United States. Maternally and paternally I have relatives from the early years of the country and the man I married has a paternal grandparent who founded Mendon, Massachusetts before the dawn of the 17th century. But that doesn't make any of us better than people who came much later, including my maternal grandfather's parents who came to Binghamton, NY, in time for his birth in the last quarter of the 19th century. My husband's Japanese grandfather wasn't allowed to become a citizen and his American wife lost her citizenship when she married him because of the laws current at the time.

All of us in this country, that I really learned to treasure when I was five years old and coming back from Germany where my father had been stationed with the US Army, owe a debt to every single immigrant who endured prejudice like the prejudice that spewed from Ingraham's mouth. How does she explain it to her adopted children, one from Guatemala and two from Russia? 

Great World Leader

Trump is demonstrably a moron but he outdid himself when talking about the United Kingdom. That's because he doesn't seem to know the difference between the United Kingdom, Great Britain, or any of the individual countries. He said during the world cup competition that he was glad that the Brits were playing as England because he missed cheering for England. Apparently his mother, a Scot, was a real fan of the monarchy who had all the doilies and other memorabilia. That's why he was so eager to meet her even though he showed up late and then showed her his backside.

That's the example we now have to follow.

More Than Seven Lies A Day

There are lots of people who like to keep track of the most arcane information, akin to how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. In light of that, the latest tracking of Trump's pronouncements finds that he lies on average more than 7 times a day, a statistic that is more than shocking. But what is more appalling is that his adherents believe him at a much higher rate than they believe their own families. 90% of Trumpettes believe what he says while only 67% of them believe their own family members.

The Devil Made Him Do It

Paul Manafort's trial began yesterday with jury selection, opening statements by prosecution and defense, and testimony of first witness. Since this was just the beginning of what is expected to be about two weeks of testimony, not much has been revealed but the defense opening statement did show their apparent tactic. They have two main ideas, the first of which is that Rick Gates, Manafort's right-hand man, was the real mastermind and instigator of anything that happened in the Republican lobbying firm the two men ran. The second idea, focused more on the tax evasion and bank fraud part of the charges, alleges that Manafort had no choice in using illegal bank reporting and fraudulent claims to get loans because his Ukrainian clients insisted that he do so.

So if someone asks you to do something that you know to be illegal, but that is the only way you can get that person's business, then you are obligated to become a criminal (sarcasm). I don't know about any of you but that sounds both like an FBI sting or the most juvenile defense in the world. It tops Giuliani's "There was no collusion but collusion isn't a crime," by at least a few degrees.

Selective Deafness In His Own Echo Chamber

I have written many times about the dangers of Trump's attacks on the press. This week the publisher of the New York Times went to Washington to talk to Trump in person about the same idea. Sulzberger didn't make any comments about the tete-a-tete preferring to keep their interaction confidential until Trump tweeted this:

"Had a very good and interesting meeting at the White House with A.G. Sulzberger, Publisher of the New York Times," Trump wrote. "Spent much time talking about the vast amounts of Fake News being put out by the media & how that Fake News has morphed into phrase, 'Enemy of the People.' Sad!"  

After that tweet, Sulzberger came out very forcefully, correcting the record of their conversation. Not only did the two men not have a meeting of the minds, Trump's characterization of the discussion is written by someone who apparently thinks the little voice in his brain is an entirely different person. When someone quotes himself as if he were quoting someone else there is no reasonable response except the rapid indignation of Sulzberger.


Sulzberger said he accepted the meeting to raise concerns about "the president's deeply troubling anti-press rhetoric" and that he told Trump his language was divisive and "increasingly dangerous." 

Now Trump is tweeting that Sulzberger revealed private information by responding to Trump's nonsense with the truth.

Giuliani Past Sell By Date

Candidate Trump notoriously declared that he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and no one would care. This utter disregard for consequences isn't simply a sign of Trump's grandiosity; it describes those who vote for him as well. Case in point--Rudy Giuliani. Last week the Trump tam waived privilege on certain dealings with Cohen. At the beginning of this week, Michael Cohen's attorney released the taped conversation between Cohen and Trump that apparently outlined how they were going to "catch and kill" the publication of Karen MacDougal's story. So first the Trump side sends out Giuliani to try to convince listeners that the tape doesn't say what most of the world thinks it says. Then last night Giuliani declared that Cohen needs to be very careful because he will be disbarred (surely he is past that point anyway) if he continues to release privileged conversations (where privilege no longer attaches), and that in any case Cohen altered the tape prior to its release.

So there are so many competing narratives just in a few days of Giuliani's appearances on television that the rational human will discount absolutely everything that Giuliani says. As Judge Judy always says, "If it doesn't make sense, it isn't true."

But the Trump voter nods his head because the whole point of being a Trump voter is to pick the guy who hates the same people you hate.

Demagoguery and Bluster; Me Or Your Lying Eyes II

Trump has been saying that a free press is the enemy of the people for more than his term in office. He started before November of 2016 and enough people believed him that he won the electoral college. But Trump's lies have also been growing, both in number and scale and his free press description is simply the same lie repeated. But when he does get caught in lies as with the Cohen tape of Trump agreeing to pay Karen MacDougal when he swore that he had not done so, then Trump really doubles down on his repulsive language and behavior.

On a side note about his comment today that the tape ended abruptly and didn't reveal if had said something nice one has to wonder what that might have been. I mean after he agrees to make the payment, even trying to convince Cohen to pay in cash thinking no doubt that cash could not be traced back to him, what is left for him to say? "You know Michael, Karen is a really nice young woman who loves me." Or perhaps, "You have always been on my side, Michael, and I know that you are helping me now." I mean what is there to say after you discuss with your lawyer how you want to pay off the Playboy bunny you have been banging but do so in a way that prevents her voice being heard? In all fairness MacDougal had been paid by the parent company of the National Enquirer but Trump wanted to prevent anyone from buying the rights to the sleazy story from them so he bought those rights for $150K. So strictly speaking it wasn't a payment to the woman in question but that's pretty much splitting hairs.

Anyway, Trump spoke to the VFW, giving another one of his campaign style presentations. He didn't promise better health care or fairer treatment or even jobs for veterans. What he said was:

"Stick with us. Don't believe the crap you see from these people, the fake news. ... What you're seeing and what you're reading is not what's happening."

Stranger Than Fiction

The US House of Representatives and the speaker of the house, Paul Ryan, promised a vote on a comprehensive immigration bill before the August recess. The problem was they had not written the bill at that point. So they started the process and started whipping up the votes without completing the language of the bill, a fairly normal procedure. This time they hit a huge snag though.

Now keeping in mind that there is a great deal of sentiment, especially in Republican circles, against illegal immigration as the foundation of most of society's ills from crime to welfare, which sentiment drives the comprehensive immigration language. So on the face of it, one expects the Republican party, who dominate in numbers in the House, to write a bill that does all it can to stop or at least slow down illegal immigration. But hold on and maybe hold your nose. Lobbyists from the California Farm Bureau (full disclosure-my husband worked for the CFB for a while) have come out strongly against the two bills that are currently being written and discussed because both versions require all employers, including farmers, to use e-verify to guarantee that any employee is legally able to work in the US. Not only is the Farm Bureau opposed to guaranteeing legal workers but they have described verifying legal status of workers as "socialism".

You can't make this stuff up.

Trump said that US taxpayers would benefit from his tough trade rules including his tariffs. So how does a regular taxpayer benefit from $12billion dollar bailout of US farmers who are losing money because of the tariffs? How does a US taxpayer benefit from Whirlpool, among other companies, raising its prices at least 25% and possibly more because of Trump's tariffs? Donald J. Boudreaux, economics professor at George Mason University described Trump's tariffs as "economic suicide".

You can't make this stuff up.

 

Need More Evidence?

Last week Trump was forced to "correct" a couple of statements, one made in Helsinki and one in response to a reporter's question, about whether he believed that Russia was behind the 2016 election tampering. Now of course everyone knows the correction wasn't really real, and Trump is still Putin's poodle. Last night before he blasted Iranian president Rouhani he tweeted that the Mueller investigation was a hoax. Since all the intelligence services have concrete and verifiable evidence that the tampering was not a hoax and was orchestrated by Russia at the behest of Putin, Trump's late night tweet undermined his own team's "correction" of his statements. Then came the Rouhani blast to deflect interest.

Whiplash is the least of our worries with Trump.

90% Of People Are Crazy

It was reported today that 90% of Republicans think Trump is special. Registered voters in the Republican party are not by any means a majority of United States voters but the very idea that 90% of that group still thinks Trump is the bee's knees astounds me. Don't they care that he cozied up to Putin? Don't they care that he continues to attack our freedom of the press by labeling the press as the enemy of the people, echoing Stalin when he does so? Don't they care that he didn't even consult with his NSC chief when he invited Putin to Washington? Who the hell do they think is supposed to keep the United States safe?

Does anyone remember the confusion after 9/11? Who was supposed to be reporting to what and which services were supposed to talk to each other and which weren't? Dan Coats didn't even know that Trump had invited Putin to Washington and if you think Trump is better at national intelligence than Dan Coats you really need to see a doctor.

The economy is heating up so the Federal Reserve raised interest rates. So what does Trump do? He excoriates Powell because he thinks that Powell's move advantages China. Never mind that the Federal Reserve is supposed to be above politics (that's kind of the point of having a Federal Reserve). Trump just cannot let anyone else control any other part of anything. The last man in the WH who did that was Carter and that didn't end well for anyone's pocketbook. Inflation is already hitting US pocketbooks. Do you think Trump cares?

He always brags that he went to Wharton. There are two Whartons at Penn--one is the undergraduate degree program and the other is the Graduate School of Business. Trump did two years at the undergraduate level (because he couldn't get in to Penn after high school), but that was only for the undergraduate degree. Given that Penn undergraduate degree is still a liberal arts degree, his two years there weren't focused on the deeper parts of economics or theory or even anything that could equip him to understand what Jerome Powell understands.   Don't count on Trump understanding economics, or history, or even geography. Does he know where Montenegro is?

Anniversary

It is not my wedding anniversary but next week will be the 50th anniversary of my husband and I meeting. It is easy to remember because it happened just a few days before his birthday so when his birthday rolls around we know we can celebrate our anniversary as well. He was in NROTC and had just come down to Corpus Christi for his flight training requirement after being in Little Creek, Virginia, for his Marine training. A friend of his hooked us up via letter (remember those) and I arranged to pick him up for a weekend away from the base in an air-conditioned house with a swimming pool. I remember looking at him and thinking, "That poor guy looks like he could use a shower." He told me later that he had just taken one but of course the barracks weren't air-conditioned and it was nearly August in South Texas. I also thought that he had the roundest head I had ever seen, a fact that was painfully obvious because of his Marine haircut.

Naturally no one expected anything to come of this. It wasn't even supposed to be a boy meets girl sort of thing, just hospitality. But here we are fifty years later.

Just One Block

Here is a photo of just one block that is completely quilted.

I really like the batiks of the pears and peaches and the watermelon looks nearly real.

Some Call It Treason

Trump stood next to Putin today and said that he believed Putin when he said that Russia had not interfered with the US election. This despite Putin saying in Russian that was translated for everyone that he had wanted Trump to win and had taken steps to see that happen. Trump went on to blame the United States and Obama and the DNC for the election meddling and went on to say that the intelligence services were not doing a good job. Stunned Republicans in Congress all made comments condemning Trump's statements with some saying that it was treason. I didn't read any comments from Democrats yet.

Of course none of them have the cojones to do anything about it.

There is a quilt shop in Newark, Delaware that sounds interesting. It's about a 40 minute drive away from my house so my husband and I plan to go there tomorrow. And yes, my husband likes to go to quilt shops. He likes to look at all the fabrics and designs and he has been all over the western US and western Europe going to quilt stores with me. He really liked the one in Edinburgh. So I will let everyone know about The Blue Hen Quilt Shop after we visit tomorrow.

There Was A Time

There was a time that news organizations held off on criticizing the White House occupant when he was overseas. It was supposed to be bad manners and worse diplomacy. But Trump cares nothing for norms and his followers, all you Trumpettes, love him for it. So when Trump says while overseas that news organizations are enemies of the American people, it is only fair to point out that Trump is a lying, philandering, stupid, and vile sack of excrement who is deeply in debt to Russians. News organizations are not the enemies of all Americans, and the ones that Trump excoriates are among the good ones. And yes, all you Trumpettes, I do make a point of reading opposing views and I do make a point of watching at least Fox News Sunday. I even had a comment read on air on that show.

He is going to Helsinki tomorrow to meet with Vladimir Putin, to whom he owes his election. If you don't understand how that works, then you are a prisoner to social media. That's understandable since even intelligent people are prisoners to social media and Trump supporters are definitely not in that group. Inflation is up, and up quite sharply. World tensions are higher than ever but Trump thinks that's fine because American defense contractors are making more money.

I am making good progress on the quilting. It's funny that so many women have made this very same quilt, more or less, and for the last few years at least one version has won multiple prizes. But when I think of how the machine quilting was done on the quilt two years ago at Paducah, I look at my blocks and smile because I am sticking to the old fashioned style and focus.

Played Like A Fiddle

I have been avoiding writing about Trump and his world view because I find the topic distasteful and defeating, but Pompeo's visit to North Korea, that is still going on, brought on comments from North Korean spokespeople, who you can bet are vetted by Kim Jong Un, that have been reported in the press. The statements, even in translation, are very funny in an uneasy and unsettling way.

We all know that Trump came back from Singapore proudly exclaiming that he had a new BFF and that everyone could sleep more soundly now that he, Trump, had conquered the NK demon. What was curious even before the June meeting in Singapore was Trump's nasty little letter and NK's quick subsequent acquiescence to the meeting even after that nasty little letter. Of course Trump thought it meant that Kim recognized his strength and might and Trump really wanted that Nobel prize so when he got that oversized letter (which many people thought was intended to emphasize Trump's small hands), he fell over and chortled. As has been reported, he never read the letter.

Then he came back to pronounce the whole sleeping soundly nonsense but as soon as he left, NK began revisions on launch sites and uranium enrichment sites and did so deliberately and without trying in any way to hide the activity. So when Pompeo spoke to NK yesterday, one of the negotiators on the NK side made sure that his own statement was very public--"I don't think you slept soundly last night." That was only one of the obvious, very obvious, digs at Trump who thinks he knows how to negotiate deals when all he has ever done is drive everyone else into penury or bankruptcy.

All you Trumpettes own this f'n mess--that's your guy playing way out of his league. You better hope that the monster in the mansion doesn't blow us all up once he understands how he has been played.

The Center Is Quilted

The center four blocks are completely quilted now and I am moving around from there. They look great with added details and the quilting also makes the applique really stand out. It always seems weird to me when I am quilting during the summer and sitting under a big quilt during the current weather is occasionally tough. We do have air conditioning but it doesn't keep up that well with the humidity which has been above 75%. We purchased some very cool small room dehumidifiers, and they work well but I am used to about 12% humidity, especially in the summer. Utah is so dry we had to add water to the air to keep all the furniture from cracking and splitting. Oh well, my skin feels very soft and silky here which at 68 is not a bad thing. The heat has let up a little today as well so our morning walk wasn't as tough.

Happy Fourth of July

My poor coonhound will probably have a nervous breakdown before all the fireworks stop. Every night for a week there have been booms and bangs in the night. We tried giving him benadryl but it didn't help much. Last night my husband slept in the room with the dog just to make him feel safer. I know the fireworks are supposed to represent the "rockets red glare, the bombs bursting in air" but this is getting very old.

I finished the third block yesterday and started on the fourth, the giant tableau of fruit. Although it is tempting to leave large pieces such as the watermelon unquilted that would mean a big blank area. I do like the quilting though I think I need to get a quilter's light. There aren't any overhead lights in this house and the table lamps are not ideal.

Magical

My husband's poison ivy rash made his sleep very fitful which in turn made my sleep non-existent. The big upside to that was I got up in the pre-dawn hours and let the dog out. The fireflies were out in force, some in our yard winking and blinking, but thousands and thousands in the forest primeval across the road. It reminded me of seeing photo flashes at a rock concert. I haven't seen fireflies since I was 9 years old so greeting the day with this amazing performance was just magical.

Welcome To Pennsylvania

The title of this entry is meant ironically as we have been here for nearly three months. But I had to laugh because we had to go to the store this morning. What items were on the list? Well we needed to buy mouse traps for the rodents that have been pooping in my kitchen. We had to buy ant traps for the ants that are trying to invade my kitchen. And my poor husband had to buy calamine lotion for the poison ivy he got clearing out some weeds that the previous owner had let run rampant. Now she may have let them run rampant because she knew they covered up the poison ivy but there is no way in January, when we bid on the house, that there would have been any evidence of poison ivy and there certainly wasn't any disclosure of the noxious plant nor of the rodent problem. I am not sure if ants are supposed to be disclosed.

I have never had poison ivy or poison oak though I have lived near both in multiple places. My husband is almost as sensitive to the stuff as my poor brother was who could walk across the street from the plants and break out in oozy welts. My husband is only slightly better but he suffers tremendously. I don't know if it is possible to hire someone to clear the plants out of the yard and I am not sure it would do much good since the woods around us are filled with the stuff.

Moving On To The Third Block

I finished the Album block and started on the ship block. That one probably won't take as long since it has few fiddly details. I do plan to quilt in planking on the side of the ship, but there are just two small flower sprigs to contend with. Most of the block is background.

The World Turned Upside Down

Trump announced the date and place of his meeting with Putin today. Before he did so he tweeted that Putin swears to him that he did not interfere in the 2016 election. Despite every known indication, despite all of his intelligence agencies guaranteeing that it was Russian involvement and from the top, Trump believes Putin.

Isn't that swell. All you Trumpettes who worry about democratic socialism don't seem to give any credence to what will destroy the United States. "Don't trust the newspapers, Putin is a good guy, the only good news is Fox News."

You can apologize after you wake up from your stupor.