First Rain

The first fall rain, 19 September about 8 am this morning as the front of a weak Pacific storm made it's way into California. Seems pretty normal to me but the Catalpa Tree is starting to turn colors and other trees about town are similarly donning their Fall manner of dress. Nice, I like fall colors and the coming of winter even in a sublimely gentle climate like California's. The big flat wet Pacific storms will follow and snow will fall 10 feet deep in the nearby Sierra Nevada mountains in the course of the next 6 months or so.
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The Political Season is upon us, it's also The Crazy Season. Wingnuts, mostly on the far right of the Republican Party are trying to wrest public opinion from the Teed Off Partie groupies who are nutty beyond belief. They are so stricken with Racism, hate and strife they need serious anger management classes...daily! I have long decided they are not fit to govern anybody, least of all Americans with any education or sensibility at all. They object to everything, anything, everybody who doesn't think exactly their way, there is no centrist Tea Partier. The Republican Party has been long hijacked by the far right and the religious wingnuts who join them. We shall see where this all leads. Not good folks. Not good.
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Trying scallops with vanilla sauce again tonight, with candied orange baby carrots and boiled/roasted fingerling potatoes. The vanilla pan juice sauce didn't come together correctly last week when I made the same dish. Not enough vanilla flavor, I refuse to pay the 8 dollars a vanilla bean so I used Bourbon Vanilla extract, far cheaper but without the punch I wanted. I'll make a different style sauce tonight, probably a white sauce or béchamel and caramelize the scallops a bit more as well...
1 minute per side was just not enough, they were slightly undercooked, so two minutes in a 450 degree skillet this time. That should do it. Tell you later!
H

What's The Use?

You know I love a good philosophical argument, a rousing political or religious one is wonderful too. Alas, in the current atmosphere in the United States I find it increasingly difficult to have these exchanges. Its no longer stimulating or fun, it has become serious, even between friends. I have long and dear friends who will always have that status with me, I respect and admire them for their viewpoints and willingness to share them with me. I believe they hold the self-same thoughts as I. I say that and yet some of the content of our exchanges anger me and my responses, them as well. We do not live in like worlds, we see it differently, unalike, convoluted from each other, different and distant. Still I respect the discourse itself yet feel I must back away during these times to protect us all from the loudness of our screams. The United States has never been an easy to understand place; it's politics, it's belief system, it's modernity, it's past. The anchor drags along the bottom as the ship drifts this way and that. This could be the time of the 2nd revolution in the US of A. I am far to old to join the active battle for the hearts and minds of the populace. The right has it's points, the liberal leaning Democratic left, always weak in the US, is suddenly ahead of the game while being pursued vigourously by the Republican and religous right. The current financial situation has polorized the public. Red or Blue, Right or Left, Secular or Not. Yet we are all citizens of this great country, a star among the nations of the earth, un-perfect but stiving to be so. This season of discord will pass, times ahead will reveal themselves to be better and more dynamic. These are the doldrums of our nationhood, the teenage years of angst and separation. We abound still, financial crisis or not, the world IS our oyster. Our culture is complex and yet accepting of those unalike and wanting. My optimism counters the pessimism of the times, I think I'm right and that we will accend to a greater place and time. My friends will remain my friends, to confound them, to confront and create angst in them is not my desire. Creating hope and confidence in the future is far more a goal, a toast to tomorrow for them. Maybe there's a chance for us all.

Oh and here is a groove from Mr. Willie Dixon, oh how he can play the Bass! Wow!

H.R. 3962: The Great Unknown...KaChooo!

You know I sneeze sometimes for no reason I can see, smell or observe in any way. Not just once either, maybe 3 or 4 times then the storm of sensation subsides and I'm my ol' self again. Not bad, and who doesn't enjoy a good sneeze now and again?
I won't be bothering a doctor in my trusty Kaiser HMO with this little annoyance as that is exactly what it is, an annoyance. I have a dear friend though who has a funny shaped area on her shoulder, about 3/4" in rough diameter and IF she had the healthcare as outlined by this newly passed House Bill # 3962 she would be able to see a doctor and get it looked at and possibly cured on-the-spot by freezing or excising it in some way familiar to doctors and that would be that. If she were so lucky to be in France today she could do the same at a very low cost to her personally even though she isn't a citizen. If she were an actual citizen of France this service would be free or nearly so. Here? In the US of A, Ha! Go give all the details of your financial status to the kindly clerk and when they ask if you have insurance, which they surely will, and you say "no", you might be turned away! Yes! True. We could test this to prove it for myself and my friend very easily but we would have to go to the Emergency Room to do so as no doctor is coming forth on a Sunday morning, believe me! In France however they will come to you! Yes! Really! It's no Big Deal and they come right away! Best health care system in the world says The World Health Organization. The Best! See this link for not so trivial information: http://www.photius.com/rankings/healthranks.html
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I watched the Tube the whole afternoon and into the evening yesterday as one gas bag after another restated his or her opinion of HR 3962 seemingly without ANY direct input from their so-called constituents except for one soon-to-be-lonely representative of the Republican kind from the state of Louisiana, he voted yes. He said many of his own constituents were poor and without insurance and it made him vote as he did. Gee, I wonder...what do all the other 215 Republicans have for constituents? Rich I guess, loaded with insurance policies, fine doctors, plenty of money for drugs and supplies, a Lexus or Mercedes to drive them there and tons of plastic with high limits to insure a positive financial result for themselves and their medical problem of the day. I'm cynical, yes, very...and those 215 disingenuous and heartless bastards deserve to get nothing from this administration for the next 7 years! If I were King...nothing, nothing, nothing! They would starve.
I'm not being fair am I? My friend's growth or whatever it is isn't fair either and by-the-way neither are any of the 215 bastards that voted the way they did in full knowledge of the truth of the situation...they represent (or should!) many, many poor and disenfranchised in these United States and to once again be the party of No is absolutely shameful. I'm ashamed for each and all of them. Now for the Senate version and finally anorther vote on the combined bill sometime in December I hope.