My slight obsession with food in general, delivered boxes of food in particular

 

I'm not sure exactly how it started but a few months ago I subscribed to Every Plate. You probably know about these services -- clients receive each week a box of uncooked, un-prepped food that you turn into a meal for 2 or 4 people in 45 minutes or less. I love them. They are the answer to a prayer I didn't even know I had. 

How do I justify paying someone else to shop for and plan meals? It took a while but I think I have.

Then my daughter gave me a "free" box of food from Martha and Marley, and a friend gave me one for Blue Apron. Then I tried Home Chef and Hello Fresh. So for about 2-3 months we've had these dinners.

I'm in the process of cutting back to just one weekly delivery of 3 meals, which will be Every Plate. The plans are all quite similar except for price and Every Plate is the least expensive. I'm also hooked on giving away "free" boxes of food to friends and family, which the services promote heavily. 

Several friends have used these kits in the past and quit for various reasons, including not wanting to generate so much plastic waste, or not wanting to invest 30-45 minutes chopping and stirring, or simply not willing to pay someone to do what you can do yourself. 

I've justified the expense because I'm spending way less money each month by not going out to dinner or lunch with friends, the meals are so much more interesting than what I've been slapping together and flinging on the table each night, and as a bonus my husband is learning to cook! 42 years married and suddenly he's interested in cooking.

By the way, if any of my readers--all half dozen of you--want to try one of these services, let me know in a comment. I'll get your email and send you a free box (the catch is that you have to pay for shipping, $9, with your credit card so they have your billing info and consider you a client. But you can cancel after the first free box). 

23 more days until that deadbeat is out of DC and I hope he never comes back, although he's threatening to be here on Jan 6 when Pence counts the votes and declares Joe our president. It's been torture to know that he's been sleeping and eating and tweeting just 10 miles from my home. Creepy. I propose that the White House remove everything from his bedroom, fumigate, repaint, and turn it into a storage room. No human should ever sleep in the same room he slept in.

My path

I didn't exactly create this path in my backyard but in a way I did. A stone path has been there for about 20 years, maybe a little less. But over time the stones sank, or they were overgrown, and were sometimes hidden under grass or weeds. So I dug them up, one by one, filled in soil or rocks underneath each one, added a bunch from elsewhere in my yard, and raised them up. I also changed the path's direction in places to avoid shrubs that had grown over the path. I wish I'd taken a before picture.

There are dozens and dozens of such tasks I can do in our backyard, side yard, or front yard. See all that ivy way in the upper left corner surrounding the white door? I should pull all of that down. Spending so much time at home since March I've had lots of time to survey my various overgrown yards and make decisions about what should be done. Mostly cutting back vines. I'm not at all good about follow-through. So doing this path repair was quite fulfilling. I'm now working on thinning out a large patch of forsythia, a shrub I heartily dislike but tolerate. 

Very nervous about the election today. Here's my guess/prediction as of 4:30 pm. Biden can win with either AZ or PA. Trump has to get PA to win.

It's November first twenty twenty

Well we're finally here, almost upon the election. Am I nervous? Yep. By Tuesday I expect to be on high alert, feeling very engaged, on guard, attentive to news updates. Am I over-dramatizing it all? No doubt. 

Almost 4 years ago in the days before Trump was inaugurated I entitled a post The last of my political thoughts until 2020. "Since I seem to be blogging again... I wonder if I can restrain myself from posting about politics. I'm gonna give it a try."

Well, I did give it a try. The result was that I blogged very little in the 4 years of this horrible presidency. I never stopped blogging but too often I started to write and found myself talking about him. Such a waste of everyone's time. So I managed not to talk about him (much) but only by just not blogging at all. I'd like to blog daily. Why not? Or at least regularly. I certainly don't have much to do each day.

Here's my baby granddaughter, yesterday, all 15 pounds of her. She's a 4-month-old delight!

 

 

I thought she was a kitty or a mouse for Halloween but was told that she was a character from the Japanese animated movie My Neighbor Totoro. She attended an outdoor party in the courtyard of their apartment building in Brooklyn. Nice old building with a lot of nice old residents. She was cooed over, at a social distance of course. I'm jealous.

 

I

The Evil in the White House

DJT today:

Has @BubbaWallace apologized to all of those great NASCAR drivers & officials who came to his aid, stood by his side, & were willing to sacrifice everything for him, only to find out that the whole thing was just another HOAX? That & Flag decision has caused lowest ratings EVER!

 

Tim Miller, The Bulwark dot com, today:
"There are only three ways to interpret Trump’s remarks: 1) He is purposefully instigating racial tensions because he believes it will help him politically... 2) He is a racist with no self-control... 3) He is too stupid to realize what he is doing..."

These are some of my many passionflowers. Three or 4 years ago I planted one little cutting from a passionflower vine. Now they are completely out of control. A post on this exciting topic to follow.


 

“Please, please, please, we’re begging you here, just put an end to it immediately."

From The Onion:
EVERYWHERE—Claiming that they just couldn’t stand this bullshit anymore, Americans across the country confirmed Friday that someone, anyone needs to please, just make it stop. “Please, please, please, we’re begging you here, just put an end to it immediately,” said sources, noting that it had all gone way, way too far and they would do almost anything for even a few glorious minutes of respite. “We’re on our hands and knees, pleading with you to make it all go away once and for all. What’s it going to take? Jesus Christ, just stop it! Stop it right now!” At press time, sources confirmed that they knew deep down it was never going to stop.

The last of my political thoughts until 2020.

From the mouth of Kellyanne Conway:

“Why is everything taken at face value?” she asked. “You can’t give him the benefit of the doubt on this and he’s telling you what was in his heart, you always want to go with what’s come out of his mouth...."

This explains everything. It's the new world order. We aren't supposed to listen to what our next prez says or believe our lying eyes when he acts. Kellyanne will tell us, for the next 4 years, what our prez really means and thinks. I see. If I could block him from my thoughts and off the pages of the news I follow I would do it.

Since I seem to be blogging again -- but only in the early (this is early to me) morning when I first read the news -- I wonder if I can restrain myself from posting about politics. I'm gonna give it a try.

The picture is some impromptu wall art that my daughter made on New Year's Eve at a small party. She's not taking this whole election sitting down. She's mad as hell and not getting over it.

Oh come on..

Ivanka Trump — who’s supposed to be running her dad’s “blind trust” — wants to move to Washington D.C.

 

Everyone needs a hobby.

Some people watch TV or read books or talk to friends. Others check Facebook several times a day, or more. Me? I keep track of the GOP poll numbers, especially the numbers for Donald Trump and Ben Carson. I'm rooting for them both, although I must confess that I'm mostly rooting for Donald. [Disclaimer: I'll vote, as always, for whatever Democrat is running.] 

This is the way they look today (Donald in blue, Ben in red). Whew. Three days ago -- see second graph below -- I was sad because Ben was, for the first time, creeping up on Donald.

 

 From 3 days ago:

Tonight Donald will be hosting SNL, as many people know. Not everyone of course; many people have rich and full lives and don't need RealClearPolitics.com to bring them entertainment. 

Oh, and while I'm confessing. Today I finished reading "Nancy Reagan: The Unauthorized Biography" by Kitty Kelley. Loved every word of it!  In writing about Nancy's superstitious nature, Kelley wrote: "[Nancy] slept with her head and feet facing north and frequently knocked on wood." There's an image I won't soon forget -- Nancy in her bed with her feet AND her head facing north. 

It's junk food for the brain day and night around here.

Maryland gets no respect.

 

The caption reads "Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders and an unidentified man backstage at the Iowa Jefferson-Jackson Dinner. Photo: Associated Press." 

Alert to AP: That unidentified man is Martin O'Malley, former governor of my small, modest, ignored, but grand state of Maryland. He's running for President. I admit he's bland. I couldn't pick him out of a lineup. But come on, AP!

She's back! Let it begin.

Palin said, “It is a significant step, of course, for anyone to publicly announce that they’re interested. Who wouldn’t be interested? Who wouldn’t be interested when they have been blessed with opportunities to speak about what is important to this country and for this country?”

Still, Palin said that she is not yet ramping up a national political operation. Instead, Palin said, she is contemplating her political future and does not feel rushed to make a final decision.

Lately I've been thinking, in a general way, about the up-coming presidential primary/ nomination/ debate/ election season. But I wasn't prepared for Palin to pop back up. Fun!

Will Tina Fey appear on SNL tonight?

Like dogs? Easily amused? Check out John Oliver's video of a recent Supreme Court discussion.

I'm still in mourning over the upcoming loss of the in-character Stephen Colbert on the Comedy Channel. But at least I now have John Oliver on Sunday nights.

Matt Taibbi writing in Rolling Stone. I agree.

What we Americans go through to pick a president is not only crazy and unnecessary but genuinely abusive. Hundreds of millions of dollars are spent in a craven, cynical effort to stir up hatred and anger on both sides. ...a process that involves two years of relentless, suffocating mind-warfare, an onslaught of toxic media messaging directed at liberals, conservatives and everyone in between....

In every race there are now not two but three dominating figures – the Democrat, the Republican and The Process, and we're raising whole generations who hate The Process far more than they like either of the candidates. Mainly for grim commercial reasons, we in the media manipulate people to stay wired on hate and panic-focused on the race for every waking moment....

Most of us suck so badly at our jobs, and are so uninterested in delving into any polysyllabic subject, that we would literally have to put down our shovels and go home if we didn't have poll numbers we can use to terrify our audiences. ...

Full article here.

Illustration: Victor Juhasz

Truth embedded in comedy.

Santorum crept along, low in the pack and then, bam! he got attention, it leveled off a bit, then bam!

I like to study charts like this. I see the purple inching toward the brown until, finally, they blend into a brownish-purplish blob in Tampa.

Caricatures on playing cards circa 1996.

These bad photos (I could have done better but I didn't feel like it) are of the Newt card from a deck I found while sorting through some junk. I'm not sure I get the joke. I get that the "L" and "R" are for Left and Right (right?) and I see the arrows pointing up. Is the joke that Newt will take either a leftish or a rightish position depending on which end is up??

I agree.

Ha!

James Carville and I "would like to take a moment to revel."

Gleeful words :

"Your new front-runner is one of your old front runners, Newt Gingrich. I would like to take a moment to revel: I cannot personally tell you how pleased I am to see old Newt rise to the top after listening to all of your nauseating, sickening lectures on the evils of government and the importance of family values."

Dwight Schrute! What are you doing there?

I wonder if Supreme Court justice Sam Alito will show up for next week's State of the Union speech.

Two years ago when Pres. Obama wisely criticized the horrible Citizens United v. the FEC decision during his State of the Union speech, Justice Alito famously (infamously) mouthed "not true." So now we know that this decision led to the Super PACS which make me (and Stephen Colbert) sick. So will Alito show up at next week's SOTU? Will Obama look him in the eye and say, essentially, "see?! I told you so asshole." No, none of that will happen. Obama's too cool. But if Alito's there I'll be yelling it at the TV set.

Ugh. I know it's rude and will offend some people, maybe even people I know and love, but Ugh, Ugh. Ugh.