Eggs Pomodoro Rides Again!

     Now there's a pulp story you'd not forget!

     But what it was last night was dinner.  I like Eggs Pomodoro, especially when the weather is cold.  It's a tasty, hot, filling meal that doesn't take a lot of effort to cook.

     Start with the base -- here, Italian sausage, fresh mushrooms, sliced fresh cherry tomatoes, onion and half a green bell pepper.  The sausage and green pepper each got a little chipotle powder.  The sausage went in first and I drained the fat immediately after adding the mushrooms.

     When that's done, pour good pasta sauce over it and stir; I found a nice imported tomato/basil version marked "no sugar added."

     Once that's bubbling, add the eggs and cover until they're done enough to suit you.  Tam didn't want any, so I kept them to one side.

    We devoured our dinner, so no photo of the plated version.  But there is this:

     Leftover sauce can come back as omelette filling the next morning.  It's as good in eggs as eggs are in it!

Adventures In...Panic?

     I spent nearly seven hours in the Emergency Room yesterday, with what at first appeared to a heart attack but turned out to be....well, they don't know.  Possibly lingering effects of whatever I had last week.  Clear chest X-ray, nice EKG, no weird heart-attack enzymes in my blood work.

     We're not going to play doctor, so I won't bore readers with a list of symptoms.  (I loathe the kind of "amateur doctoring" many people indulge in, so comments are off and that does not mean you can go to another post and comment.  Look, if medicine was that easy, it wouldn't pay so well.)

     Other than intensity (often quite lower for women), it was a good fit to a heart attack and I will be following it up.

The President Was On TV Last Night...

     Or was it the night before?  I didn't watch.  Federal politics have become a tired joke to me.  Are we living in Mencken's "great and glorious day?"  I don't know.  He wrote::

     The larger the mob, the harder the test. In small areas, before small electorates, a first-rate man occasionally fights his way through, carrying even the mob with him by force of his personality. But when the field is nationwide, and the fight must be waged chiefly at second and third hand, and the force of personality cannot so readily make itself felt, then all the odds are on the man who is, intrinsically, the most devious and mediocre—the man who can most easily adeptly disperse the notion that his mind is a virtual vacuum.
      The Presidency tends, year by year, to go to such men. As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron. 

     It seems harsh, hopeless and -- despite the hand-wringing pontifications of pundits in the Press -- not exactly here yet. Can't kid you, sometimes I think we'd be better off with an honest and self-aware moron in the White House than the kind of egos that run for the Presidency.  Yet it's such a lousy job that without that excessive dollop of ego, who would want it?  Live over the store on 24-hour call, and whatever you do, no matter how clever you are, no matter how glib you are, no matter what a great salesman you are, right around half of the electorate will loathe you and three-quarters of them will blame you for anything that goes wrong.

     Oh, I know -- your guy, whoever he or she is, is essentially all right, despite a few foibles.  It's those other bastards, or perhaps stubborn or sneaky or personally-ambitious underlings, or the devious activities of the opposing party. (And the same is true of Congressthings and Governors and so on all the way down.)  But it always is; the only thing that changes is the color of the choir robes and the flavor of the promised pie in the sky.

     Google and Toyota and handful of other big multinational corporations are pleased you feel that way.  Me, I wonder what Adam Smith would make of it.  We're richer than ever; this world feeds more of the hungry than ever before, infant mortality is way down and we've nearly eliminated the killer diseases of the past.  Influenza remains slippery and the planet keeps coming up with new ways to kill us, or pulls old ones out of the back file and loads them onto modern transportation, but looking from Smith's day, we've built a paradise -- a loud, rude, garish paradise, to be sure, but a paradise nonetheless.

     Why aren't we happier about it?

TV Keeps Running Lawyer Ads And Funeral Home Ads Back To Back

     "Are you dead, or do you know someone who is?  Are you pestered by annoying relatives in the Afterlife?  Stuck in Purgatory?  Were you sent to a worse Hell than you feel you deserved?  Yama and Mictēcacihuātl may be able to help!

     "Our team of highly-trained intercessors, mediators and death-cult priests go to work on your case at once.

     "If you've been unjustly zombified or fatally exposed to vampirism against your will, there is a legal remedy!  Concerned your heart may outweigh a feather?  Worried it might become Ammit-chow? We know the right spells to prevent that!  And remember, there's never any fee (other than a small portion of your soul.).

     "If you need help after death, remember the firm of Yama and Mictēcacihuātl, leading you through the Afterworld!"

Populism And The Cult Of Victimhood

     There's been a small furor over a Tucker Carlson monologue, from Left, Right and points between.

     To me, it's more of the same-old, same-old, the same tired nonsense the more obnoxious rabble-rousers on the Right and Left like to trot out about "bad leaders" and "they" who are keeping you down, and possibly kicking you down to begin with.  It's crap.

     First off, if you need some damn leader to follow or loathe, please look for a new hobby and/or a better religion: this is the United States and our "leaders" are supposed to be doing the legislative and executive grunt work or making sure the streets run on time and the criminals are kept on the run, not to mention avoiding foreign entanglements and providing for the common defense.  They're not supposed to be shining examples on a hill in the sunlight whom you should aspire to emulate.  Most of them are lawyers who weren't all that good at practicing law and thought writing laws might be easier; the evidence suggests they don't have much knack for that, either.

     Second, the person with the largest responsibility for your troubles, the most power to do anything about them and the greatest interest in fixing them is the person you see in the mirror every morning.  Maybe your bootstraps or biceps are so weak or worn that you need a hand up; there's nothing wrong with that, but you have to reach out for it and keep on reaching -- and not to pick your benefactor's pocket, either!

     Third, this is the kind of politics that leads to trouble.  See the run-up to World Wars One and Two if you need examples.

     The ignorance of history is going to make us relive it in full color, 3-D and with plenty of missed meals.   If people knew more history, they wouldn't be so keen on the possibility.

The, Er, Goober Stuff?

     If things about or pertaining to the person and office of a Governor are "gubernatorial," does that mean persons who run for the office are "gubernauts?"

Feeling Better

     There's a long list of things I need to do, most of which are long overdue.  Today, I'm going to try to accomplish a few of them.

Recovering, I Hope

     Yesterday started okay, but stalled about 7:00 a.m., when I ran out of energy.  Today is better, which doesn't take much.  Still not sure what it was, since the sinus phase mostly passed in the first day.  Some mild flu?  Possibly.

Still Sick

     Started getting ready for work and I am too unsteady.  Sneezing, blundering around -- at the very least, I'd be a cow in a china shop if I tried to work today.

When Sinuses Attack

     Maybe it started yesterday at work -- in the afternoon, I was increasingly unsteady and unexpectedly sleepy.  Maybe it started that evening, when I was stumbling and sneezing.  At one point, I came a little too close to falling down the basement stairs, but caught myself just in time.

     Whatever.  I awoke in the night, as women past a certain age do, and once up and mission accomplished, my nose felt stuffy.  Cleared it, laid down -- and woke up fifteen minutes later from a dream about being in a shipwreck. My nose was bubbling like a percolator.  "Ah," think I, "My sinuses have cleared!"

     Yeah, no.  Did the obvious, went back to sleep and not a half-hour later, my spacesuit's got a bad rebreather valve, or at least it did until it woke me up and turned back into full sinuses.  And so it went.  After the fourth or fifth time, I gave up and stayed awake, tissues not far away.  I was kind of stumbling into doorways when I was getting up to clear my nose anyway.  That approach worked, or seemed to, until a sleepy and mildly irked Tamara appeared in my doorway to remark, "If you're going to sing, I'm going to give up on my last ten minutes of sleep and start my day."

     Had I been singing?  H'mmm.  Yes, I had.  And perhaps not softly. How does that happen?

     Survey says...  Fever!  This was confirmed fifteen minutes later, when I was making coffee and Tam was questioning the continued presence of a largish cardboard box in the kitchen.

     "Bobbi, what is even in this?  Can't we throw it out?"

     "Oh, I need to check it first."

     Tamara started to open the box.

     I warned her, "Oh, don't do that!  It's full of packing peanuts.  They get all over and you'll kill me!"  And I began to giggle.

     N.B., despite the provocation they present, Tam has never killed me or anyone over plastic packing peanuts.  I quite doubt she ever will.

    So yes, I'm unwell.  I'm going back to bed.

New Year's Day Dinner

     You can, in fact, grill corned beef brisket. It tastes great! I'd become frustrated with simmering; it's too easy to overcook.

TAMARA KEEL PHOTO

     The corned beef should be rinsed very well before cooking. You might even want to soak it to get some of the salt out. Apply the contents of the seasoning packet to the non-fatty side before you cook.
Use a pan on the center of the grill bars and no coals directly under it (or only a few); they're all pushed to the sides. I let it cook for a half hour with the fat side down (and could have gone longer), then turned it over, covered it loosely, and added half a cup of of hot water. Checked it every thirty minutes, adding hot water if needed. Took a couple of hours for the center to reach 160 degrees F. I added four shishito peppers for the last twenty minutes or so -- had them left over and figured it couldn't hurt
.
      It was cooked over hardwood lump charcoal and some hickory chips. Now I'm going to have to try this with a plain brisket!

     On the side: carrots, onions, potato and cabbage, simmered in lightly salted water and served with butter and pepper.  Start with boiling water, add  carrots and onions first, followed five minutes later by quartered potatoes, then a head of cabbage cut in six wedges five or so minutes later.  Ten to fifteen minutes later, it's done.  You can tell by the potatoes going soft.  Cabbage will be tender but not rubbery.

Happy New Year!

     Weelcome to the far-future year 2019!  Let's take a tally, shall we?

     -Television is still not 3-D.  However, the screens are huge, the colors are true* and the resolution is nearly as good as film.  An awful lot of the programming is still, well, awful -- but the same could be said of books, plays and films.

     -There is no Lunar colony.  There is no Mars colony.  There's a space station, but it's government business only these days.  On the plus side, it's a whole lot of governments working mostly together.  Occasionally there are two space stations, but the second one is run by a government the others don't much trust, which decided to go it alone.  That's going to be a problem, eventually.

     -There almost is commercial space travel.  Passenger flights may begin this year.  Downside, they won't go anywhere, just up and back.  But we had barnstormers and balloon demonstrations long before commercial air travel, so don't give up hope.  Commercial cargo and communications satellite flights to orbit have been around for a long time (remember SeaLaunch?).  SpaceX is doing well as a government contractor, with United Launch Alliance (ULA) and OrbitalATK nipping at their heels. Blue Origin is making good progress as a commercial space transport company.  Watch this space!  Well, that space.  Space in general, watch it.

     -The rich are getting richer faster than everyone else is getting less poor, sometimes a lot faster.  Many people think this a problem.  If enough of them decide so, they'll make it everyone's problem.  Meanwhile, fewer people are starving; fewer are dying in childhood.  I keep wondering if the trade-off's not worth it, a handful of people living like Emperors in exchange for a steadily-increasing number of people doing okay.  History suggests you don't get anything but a change in bosses if you simply expropriate the assets of the extremely wealthy and hang a few as an example to the others -- and you don't get anything but a mess if you start working your way down the ladder, "equalizing" by main force.  Angry men, hungry men, men convinced they're not getting a fair shake are generally not amenable to logic; the "big picture" means nothing to parents with a house full of hungry children.  Nature -- yes, even human nature -- generally fixes this by population reduction, war and disease being the best-known means.  When you have a choice, choose wisely.  When you don't, run like hell.

     -Cars are better than ever; roads and bridges suck.  I'm sure this means something but I don't know what it is.  Do road-use taxes (on fuel and the like) go into the general fund, or are they earmarked for the roads?  The problem with public funding is that "economy of scale" keeps scaling up, and an increasing percentage of it seems to vanish into administrative overhead.

     -We still don't have flying cars.  We do have smartphones, which many of us can't keep ourselves from using while driving.  This is why we shouldn't have flying cars, at least not 'til they get that self-driving thing worked out.

     -Speaking of telephones, you have one in your pocket.  It can even make "picturephone" calls, but most people don't bother.  In fact, many people don't bother with the talking part either, and prefer to use telegram-like methods -- texting and Twitter.  Who could have known the only objection to the personal telegraph was the need to learn Morse code?

     The future isn't what it used to be.  It's better -- and worse.