Month: November 2018

We picked up our vegan Thanksgiving meal at Whole Foods.  It looks spectacular!  Ron, who left the house without breakfast, got himself an egg and cheese English muffin sandwich.

Ron treated us to a spectacular box of pastry from Pain d’Avignon, but he wasn’t happy with the coffee selection at World Market.

Since we were in the area, though, I was able to pick up a loaf pan and a box of taffy at Christmas Tree Shop.  Ron got beer at Trader Joe’s.

We moved funds between banks to cover any unexpected shortfalls.

On the way home, I wanted to get more insecticidal soap to keep down the aphids on the hibiscus.  Mahoney’s was out, but I lucked into exactly what I wanted at Aubuchon.

As soon as we unpacked the van, Ron did a transfer station run to make room in the truck bed and got his glasses adjusted at the optical shop.  In the meantime, I harvested herbs and tied them for drying.

We headed back out to Edgewater to mow, both the back and the front yards.  We brought our mower and a gas can so we could both work.

Ron drove us to Cumby so I could fill up the truck.

We spent about 5-5 1/2 hours total at Edgewater this past Saturday and Sunday removing leaves from the front and back yards with rakes, a blower and tarps.

I finished up the front of our house this morning. Did some work in the back over the weekend.

I bought a load of sweets – candy, ice cream, cookies – and made the mistake of scarfing down a half of a chocolate bar, an ice cream sandwich, cookies, a piece of bread and some juice.  This was after eating lunch.  I got very, very sick.  What a fool!

Em got hired for a job in Redmond, which is about an hour commute from where she lives.

We did the usual yesterday: laundry, changed sheets, transfer station run. I did another run this morning with yard detritus.

Ron had a positive appointment with his doc and a good Fitness session.

I made a pot of quinoa and roasted both cauliflowers and made “steaks” with a coating of milk, flour, paprika, panko and 57 sauce.  Ron says it is tasty.  I hope to try it tomorrow.

I stood out with M2R this morning and to my amazement, recognized one of my coworkers from a former employer.

I made a sauteed vegetable (sweet pepper, onion, mushroom, zucchini) and egg dish for breakfast/lunch.

We brought a gallon of cider to the Wampanoag Thanksgiving feast, which was great.  We had a second brunch there: squash soup, blueberry slump, cranberry cake, Indian pudding.  Got to see my fellow former candidates Trish and Brian.

We had enough daylight and stamina to clean up the leaves in the front yard at Edgewater.

Ron got pizza for supper.

We picked up some great produce, bread and other items at the FFP, including a giant head of cabbage.

Afterwards, we wandered around the Sippewissett campgrounds.  They’ve sold their property and are liquidating furniture, linens, housewares, tools, small and large appliances and pavers.  We didn’t find anything we needed or couldn’t live without.  Everyone there was extremely helpful and friendly.  Pretty spot, hope it doesn’t get turned into something grotesque.

We had cheese sandwiches and tomato soup for lunch.  I cooked down some almost gone-by tomatoes for sauce.

Not a terribly productive day.  It was cold and raw so not much incentive to do outdoor work.

Ron made a big bowl of coleslaw for supper.

Ron especially enjoyed his fitness class today.  He had a conversation with another participant, an 87 year old man, about Swampscott.

We worked on the yard again, in advance of rain and/or snow.

Got the lawn mowed and more leaves raked out of the flower beds.  Did a little pruning and weeding as well.

I vacuumed the bedrooms and Carolyn’s rug in the new room.

We did the Thursday laundry.

I picked up a couple of books on reserve at the library.

Peter asked us to drive Robert home.  I met two of Robert’s tech guys.

Started snowing after we got home.  Ron was horrified.

Ron told me yesterday that he’s been depressed “for weeks”, thinking erroneously that his mother died in November (it was October 1959) and that he was responsible for her getting cancer.

I wrote to Betsy about this.  She took time out of her very busy life to tell me that three women, including Ron’s mother, all of whom worked at the Rindge telephone office, died of cancer.  It seems likely to her that they were exposed to carcinogens from the well that supplied drinking water to that office.

Ron got a call this morning that his Williams Sonoma card had been compromised.  He was fortunate enough to get a competent person at Comity to nuke the charges and disable the account.

Our candidate kindly dropped off my “Common Sense” banner.

It occurred that we had two containers of cottage cheese, so I made two pies with it, a savory: spinach, mushroom and cheddar and a sweet: custard with raisins.

After getting Ron’s Mashpee library card squared away, I signed up for Kanopy yesterday and added the channel to our TV today.

Ron picked up on a freeze warning for tonight/tomorrow and shut off the outdoor faucets.  He was smart: he hung the hoses on a tree limb about 10 feet off the ground to drain.  I put the reel in the shed.

We were unexpectedly efficient, bringing recyclables and used clothing to the transfer station, dropping a book off at the library and moving money between my two banks to cover the mortgage on Edgewater.  Had a long (13 minute) chat with Patrice about real estate and other things.

Ron made hot toddies for us.  Kind of waste of whiskey if you ask me.

We spent a good part of yesterday mowing, blowing and raking leaves in advance of today’s rain.

Used today’s down time to clean up old clothes and paperwork in our bedroom and un-kludge the mess I made of this blog’s media library.  Still can’t find pics from January through August 2011.

Did a little more genealogy research around Elisabeth Sherwin Carlton Todd but couldn’t find a connection to Betsy’s family.  Sent her the incomplete tree to see if any of the names look familiar.  Meanwhile, I messaged another Ancestry member who’s included her in his tree.  Hope we can figure this out!

Made oatmeal.  Ground up the last of the tomato sauce, leftover spaghetti squash, Italian seasoning and turmeric for soup.

 

The brilliance of American propaganda.
Here’s a list of Obama’s accomplishments –
* Gave Bush absolute immunity for everything.
* Launched 20,000 air strikes his first term.
* Repealed the Propaganda ban, making it legal to spread government propaganda via news outlets.
* Signed the Monsanto Protection Act into law, thus doing the exact opposite of labeling GMO’s as promised.
* Pushed for the TPP Trade Pact.
* Did a TV commercial promoting “clean coal”
* Opened up deepwater oil drilling, even after the BP disaster.
*Opened up dumping fracking wastewater directly into ocean.
* Bragged about his use of drones – I’m “really good at killing people.”
*Assassinated 4 US civilians with drone strikes.
* Deported a modern-record 3 million immigrants. More than all other presidents combined.
* Used Espionage Act to prosecute more whistleblowers than all previous administrations combined.
* Sold $30 billion of weapons to the dictatorship in Saudi Arabia.
* Promised $38 billion dollars to Israel while committing humanitarian crimes against Palestine
* Despite campaign pledges, planned a $1 trillion program to add smaller “usable” nuclear weapons to the US arsenal in the next 30 years.
* Dropped bombs in 7 Muslim countries.
* Didn’t bring justice to Wall Street for the economic crash.
* Backed neo-Nazis in Ukraine.
* Despite campaign pledges, did not close Guantanamo.
* Put troops on the ground in Syria, despite 16 times saying “no troops on the ground.”
* Started a new war on terror – this one on ISIS.
*Admitted to directly funding ISIS, and other terrorist groups
* Said, “I believe in American exceptionalism with every fiber of my being.”
* Started a new war in Iraq.
* Initiated, and personally oversees a ‘Secret Kill List.’
* Supported Israel’s wars and occupation of Palestine.
* Deployed Special Ops to 134 countries – compared to 60 under Bush.
* Drastically escalated the NSA spying program.
* Signed the NDAA into law – making it legal to assassinate and imprison Americans w/o charge or trial.
* Signed an agreement for 7 military bases in Colombia.
* Opened a military base in Chile.
* Touted nuclear power, even after the disaster in Japan.
* Mandated the Insider Threat Program which orders federal employees to report suspicious actions of their colleagues.
* Defended body scans and pat-downs at airports.
* Signed the Patriot Act extension into law.
* Started covert drone war in Yemen.
* Continued Bush’s rendition program.
* Said the U.S. is the “one indispensable nation” in the world.
* Waged war on Libya without congressional approval.
* Started a covert drone war in Yemen.
* Escalated the proxy war in Somalia.
* Escalated the CIA drone war in Pakistan.
* Sharply escalated the war in Afghanistan
Added
Enacted deceptive unaffordable health care (ACA), instead of providing affordable healthcare, that was designed by healthcare industries with their interest in mind. His greatest accomplishment is to force everyone to buy health insurance for which they can barely afford the premium much less the deductible making ACA the most sweeping price of corporate welfare ever enacted in the
Don’t forget:
* Allowed Citigroup to pick his cabinet
* Ignored Standing Rock.
* Flint, Michigan.
* complete silence on election fraud committed by DNC
* protected DWS
* killed the public option rather than use it as a bargaining chip to get better health care.

https://www.theguardian.com/…/barack-obama-legacy-presidency
https://www.counterpunch.org/…/obama-a-hollow-man-filled-w…/
http://www.dividedstates.com/list-of-obama-failures-of-ob…/…
https://www.counterpunch.org/…/barack-obamas-great-tower-o…/
https://www.counterpunch.org/…/face-it-progressives-obama-…/
https://nypost.com/…/its-time-to-face-facts-obamas-presid…/…
https://www.stpete4peace.org/obama-fact-sheet
http://www.okayplayer.com/…/cornel-west-criticizes-obama-fo…
https://www.salon.com/…/cornel_west_he_posed_as_a_progress…/
https://www.theguardian.com/…/barack-obama-legacy-presidency
http://www.dividedstates.com/list-of-obama-failures-of-oba…/
https://www.businessinsider.com/barack-obama-michelle-obama…
https://ghionjournal.com/my-political-awakening/
https://www.counterpunch.org/…/obama-a-hollow-man-filled-…/…
https://www.youtube.com/watch…
https://www.longislandpress.com/…/obamas-legacy-historic-w…/

Betsy and David treated us to an evening of fine open mic performances at the Rindge Meeting House this past Friday.

Earlier, Betsy, Ron and I took a walk to the United Church of Jaffrey grounds and then visited the Monadnock Inn, where we met the new innkeeper and the chef, who is a friend of Betsy’s.

On Saturday, we looked for ancestral gravesites at the Meeting House Cemetery in Rindge.

I found the grave of Isaac Wood, Ron’s Minuteman ancestor.  It’s also listed in “Find A Grave”, which is good because the photos there are a lot better than mine!

It was cold and windy, so we didn’t stay long.  We returned to Jaffrey to say goodbye to the Trimbles and made a stop at the state liquor store for a couple more bottles of a nice white that we’d bought the day before for a hostess gift along with Bailey’s for Cathy and Cindy.

After a bit of floundering (my shotgun mojo was not working), we found the parking lot where we were to meet James.

By luck, we stumbled on The Chatta Box, a surprisingly good Asian restaurant in a nearby strip mall, for dinner.

We enjoyed a fine meal and a lively conversation with James about his academic studies and why he’s pleased with Bridgewater.

Heard from Em, she had a good interview for a receptionist job, and was invited for a second on Tuesday!

Today we did most of the usual: NY Times, transfer station, laundry.

More genealogy research on Ron’s family, including the DAR records for his Minuteman ancestor Isaac Wood.

Have restored almost all of the missing WordPress image files.

Confirmed our medical/prescription plans with Cal.

Finally returned the dystopian speculative fiction collection, Harlan Ellison’s first.

Attended the pro-Mueller MoveOn standout in Falmouth.

Did some filing; paid a bill; emailed vonHaam’s office about bloodwork; bumped up our AAA membership for no charge through March 15.

Did two loads of laundry and some grocery shopping.  Got some very good deals!