August interlude

Let me say this about that: when pigs fly.

I was thinking the same thing about seven years ago when Trump descended the escalator and announced that he was running for president.  Fat chance!, I thought but I also felt a chill run down my spine and a toxic worm of a thought that, however unlikely, he just may pull it off.

For all of the craziness of Trump's years in office I think we got through it quite well.  There were no big and drastic changes and it was like a veil was lifted and much of the distasteful, real life, political sausage-making was revealed.  Would we have otherwise  known how full of shit and sleazy many of those in Congress were?  It's a lot easier to distinguish the good guys from the bad guys since Trump came on the scene.  Where it goes from here I can't say; still not watching the news much but the "raid" on Mar-a-Lago was quite entertaining.

-----

Remember the murder hornet?  Well, it's no longer politically correct to call it that.

Too damn bad, I say.  Names can come and go but it doesn't change the reality of the object named.  I can see changing a name if it's blatantly offensive to certain groups but otherwise I think it's a waste of time.  People are going to call things what they're used to calling them, I think, for instance, Sears Tower.  You south-side guys probably remember that street at 4000W that was later named Pulaski Road.  It took quite a while to stop calling it Crawford.  In a humorous aside, my sister's kids couldn't believe what we used to call Brazil nuts.

-----

I don't know if I have written about my cataract surgery three years ago.

I recall reading something about it, and a couple of months ago I went to the archive to find it to help me prepare for my own surgery.  Not much help from the archive except that it was comforting to know that it's not a big deal.  And it wasn't a big deal at all; in a couple of weeks I'll be getting the other eye taken care of.

-----

The kitchen adventures continue.  After a few short weeks my first batch of sauerkraut is ready.  Not bad but it could use more of a punch.  The texture is weird because it is raw and uncooked; heat will kill all of the probiotic goodness but I'm not sure how I can stop the fermenting process.  This was a fun project but now I have more 'kraut than I think I can handle; maybe freezing will work.  I should be planning for next years state fair.

Remember my sourdough adventures?  Unless you're baking a lot bread it's a big pain, you have to keep feeding it and it grows and grows, you end up with too much.  But I read that you can dry it out the starter and it will last indefinitely, and by golly!  It's true.  I had some dried sourdough starter from last winter that I stored in the freezer and it came back to life, big time.  It seemed more robust after its long nap so I dried it out again to see if it would still wake up.  And it did, better than ever.  Just like the guy in Jurassic Park said, "Life finds a way."