Everything's Temporary

Almost two months since I've posted!

I guess one could say I'm temporarily away.

I've been artmaking and housewifeing.

I've been preparing for (and hiding from) some life-changing events.

My dad has been ill for quite a while and is now in and out of nursing homes and hospitals.  Hopefully he can recover enough to move on to an assisted living facility.  I'm thinking his attitude is not positive lately.  I'm not sure how I would feel if I were 85 and had lost my spouse of 60 years and my home of 50 years.

As for homes, when my husband and I moved to State College, PA, 15 years ago, he planted a (mental) flag and declared we would retire and die here.  As I said in my title, "everything's temporary." Announcements to come later.

Hopefully, I will soon post regularly again.  I just have to get back in touch with my old, sarcastic, inner self.  That part of me has been worn down to a nub.  I must nurture it back to life.

Three Men and an Attitude

Master Chef "Hosts"

I like food.  I like good food.  I am especially fond of very good food.  When I leave my little burg for an urban excursion, I research the restaurants well in advance of reaching my destination.  And, if the food is not up to snuff, oh well.  Better luck next time.  I won’t be lugging along a trunk full of attitude just so I can unleash it on restaurant employees that cannot meet my bloated expectations.

I’m not fond of reality television shows.  I like good shows. I prefer someone to write a good story, create a layered environment, and round up a herd of good actors to perform.  There is a great wall between the “reality” of today and my choice of programming.   But there are times one just wants to turn on the television and get a quick entertainment fix.  After a three-day walking and eating visit to New York City, the hubby, his mother and I were relaxing in front of the tube.  What to watch?  A show about food?  Sure!   And then we stumbled across Master Chef.  A roomful of amateur contestants ready to cook, and three big, flaming assholes reading to judge their attempts at culinary greatness.

Master Chef was a huge disappointment to me.  There were three judges.  I have only two hands.  Therefore, I was short one middle finger.  Am I the only person left in this country that does not think insulting others is funny?  Sure, those contestants expected critiques of their cooking.  And they expected that those that could not perform well would be eliminated.  Don’t all of these reality and talent shows follow the same formula?  A roomful of pretties waiting to be knocked off one by one?  What I did not expect was for three grown, supposedly respectable men, to act like complete dicks.  At least Freddy Krueger had a deeply-set issue prompting him to turn on others.  Individually, hosts Gordon Ramsay, Joe Bastianich, and Graham Elliot have built food empires based on restaurants, books, television shows, and wineries.  Together on Master Chef, they are three unpalatable turds on a plate.

As I see it, a chef cooks, trains and educates.  They take raw ingredients and form them into beautiful, tasty piles of sustenance.  It is an art form.  The best should be and are looked up to by us lesser life forms.  We want them to feed us.  To share their joy of cooking.  To educate us about their ingredients.  Etcetera.  I don’t feel that a chef needs to spread the knowledge that they would do better in life by running a string of S & M clubs.

No, I don’t think that any of these three men would notice or care that I don’t support their empires after seeing this show.  I don’t want to eat in their restaurants.  I don’t want to buy their books or wines.  I don’t want to watch their ugly, catty Master Chef show.  I prefer a larger entrée to a larger ego.  In my world of eating food and watching food television, these three have just been eliminated.  If this is the direction gourmet food is heading, I’d rather stick to Stouffer’s. 

More Tasty Treats for Americans

I'm really not sure what those with a sweet tooth eat in other countries, but in the United States, we eat this:

The Gummy Bacon is actually strawberry flavored.  The Roast Beef gum is roast beef flavored.  I'm not sure about those gumballs.

The hubby spotted this display while in California.  He sent a photo of the gummy bacon and my daughter strongly encouraged him to buy her some.

Check it out through the "Bacon Viewing Window."  Bacon sells.  We LOVE pork fat products here.  And if we're not eating pork fat, we are eating things that look like it.

Strangely, this candy is made in China.  Now we know what the Chinese think of us.  They just want our cholesterol levels to go through the ceiling and for us to fall dead on our faces and they will take over.  Bwah ha ha ha ha ha!!

All American

In the freezer case at your local Sam's

While stopped at a traffic light on our main street of crappity crap, I hear the tell-tale clanging of a flag breezily flapping on a flagpole.  Sure enough, I spot it over the trees.  Which business has this flag on their property?  McDonald's, of course.  Hmmmm, I wonder what other businesses fly the United States flag.   The only other one I see on this street is at the Waffle House.

Is eating crap food patriotic?!?  I'm thinking so.

My hubby and kid went to Sam's the other day to get our bi-monthly bulk items.  He told me they had seen something frightening and had a photo to show me.   Mmmmmmmmm.  Breakfast of (non)champions on a stick.  I guess this makes it far easier to eat while watching those morning programs.

No, there is no flag on the box (that I can see) but it is red, white and blue enough for me.  And the brown of artificially colored gray matter that comprises those sausages and pancakes.

Salute the box, fire up the microwave, and settle in for an hour or two of fine dining and Fox news.

I'm thinking this is not what they are eating in Paris.

Early

Well, it's 5:30 am and I'm heading out the door to work at the polls for the primary this morning.  Oh, it's gonna be dull.  For once, I miss Rick Santorum.  Couldn't he have just hung around a little bit longer?!?  No doubt he was afraid of losing out to Romney in his "home" state of Pennsylvania.

And we're expecting snow.  And nobody of any consequence is running against Bob "I'm doing what the Bishop wants me to do" Casey.

I'm expected a handful of elderly and some hopeful students.

And I have to inform the folks that, come November, if they don't have a photo ID they aren't going to be able to vote.  Yep.  All of those students who wish to cast multiple votes -- can't do it.  Those voter-fraud-happy-hat-wearing old men better be able to cough up the proper identification.  And as the first volunteer in line to help our voters, I'm going to get an earful.

I'm looking forward to tomorrow.

Is it Spring Yet!?!

Well, I suppose the withdrawal of Santorum is like a tulip bulb ready to bloom. A fresh promise for the future.

But, frankly, everything else is still wintery to me.

Wednesday I had some errands to do. Errands usually take me to Target, because aside from Target, there's nothing else but Wal-Mart. I'm NOT going there.

There I stood in the parking lot, ice pellets peppering my face and blurring my vision. Target lay across the frozen tundra to my left. Past three abandoned strip mall stores. In the gray and icy distance stood the brooding hulk of Kohl's, right past the empty lot of dirt and rock. Further into the murky gloom stood the fucking new Cracker Barrel. The sight of this shopping hell turned my shoes to lead and my heart and soul to black stones.

So, unless Santorum changes his mind, I'm pretty much shutting up until I feel warm again. God knows when that will be.

Can't we hang the pope hat next to the KKK hood and keep that closet door closed!

It seems that, lately, we are all promoting ourselves to “constitutional lawyer.” We all claim to know exactly what our founding fathers meant when penning the Constitution. The vast majority of who are weighing in on the U.S. Constitution have no formal education or training to do so. But this seems to be stopping nobody.

So, now I’m hopping on the “I’m a constitutional lawyer” bandwagon. Let’s discuss that Freedom of Religion thing. Why? It’s just a little bitty bit of the first amendment to the U. S. Constitution. A mere 16 words applying to religion in this country. Want to see it? Here it goes:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

I don’t see that it has anything to do with contraception, the good (or not-so-good) folks working down there at the Blue Shield offices, or requiring a European Catholic man to lead our wayward statesmen.

Seems to temporarily-self-appointed-constitutional-lawyer me, that the first amendment states that the government cannot pick one church to rule us all. In law speak that’s the “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion” part. The second part, “or prohibiting the free exercise thereof” seems to say that if you want to pick a religion to believe in or if you want to just stay home and say your evening prayers you’re welcome to do so.

That’s it!

But it seems as if the Catholic Church has done a bit of over-interpretation.

If we’re all going to be forced to fall in with the Catholic Church, then why the hell did our ancestors come to this country in the first place? Are we going to let all of that hard work (of our ancestors) disintegrate under the iron hand of the Catholic Church?

After centuries of fear of control by other countries, are we now going to let the Pope dictate how our country is run? We are letting a man who is not a citizen of this country rule approximately 68 million of our people. This man is not our elected leader. Do these 68 million Americans think the Pope is a congressman living in a suburb outside of Detroit?

THE LAND OF THE FREE is being eaten by a “holy” man in a ridiculous hat.

Ladies and Gentlemen, no one in this country has the right to tell you not to use contraception. NO ONE. No group, entity, faction, denomination, flock or cluster has the right to tell you not to use contraception.

I’ve been a regular voter for 30 years. Not once have I seen the Pope on any ballot. Never. Nor has anyone else in the country. But way too many of us are voting for him one way or another. Are these people forgetting that their ancestors came to this country to enjoy individual liberty? And now they are going to sign over these liberties and those of their offspring to the Pope?

Freedom of religion means that an individual can believe in God, Jesus Christ, trees, mother nature, aliens, and themselves. Or not. If an individual wants to dedicate his or her life to a church, fine. If they do not wish to use birth control, I will not attempt to take away their freedom to procreate until their eyes bleed, or to abstain until their eyes bleed even more. However, I will NOT stand to have them group together in the millions (or more if we include the rest of the world) and get their business up in my bedroom or my uterus.

The Catholic Church does not have the right to control my reproductive parts. The Catholic Church does not have the right to control the reproductive parts of its members. If the members of the Catholic Church choose to be sheep then I cannot stop them. I do, however, refuse to become part of that flock. I will not be governed by them.