Excited that tonight X & I jointly decided on our menu for Xmas day: tourtiere – a two-crust pork pie – with X making his OWN crust, no Pillsbury involved… and coconut cake – from the Best Recipe!
Did you stay home today? 100%
What local business or charity did you support? Daily Planet. We never even eat there. But I heard they were trying to raise funds to stay alive. I like giving money directly to those in need.
What’s for dinner? Leftover night
Or I’m too lazy.
Did you stay home today? Popped into JCAT for my pickup.
What local business or charity did you support? JCAT
What’s for dinner? JCAT
Did you stay home today? Of course I did, it was nine degrees out.
What local business or charity did you support? Blake Hill Preserves. I’m on a roll!
What’s for dinner? Wonderful black bean soup, one of my favorite things to do in the instapot. But I ate too many tortilla chips.
Also, today I was raised & bonused! Normally we celebrate this yearly event by running right out to Trattoria D’elia and ordering an entire bottle of wine. Can’t really do anything comparable this year that would feel special. We already have plenty of bottles of wine in the house and get takeout seemingly all the time.
Did you stay home today? 100%. Tuesday is normally a takeout day, but X opted for frozen lasagna because it’s so frozen outside.
What local business or charity did you support? Now I’m getting into the spirit and seeing little things that might make X smile. I got a spruce-tip infused maple syrup from a Vermont producer of course.
What’s for dinner? Frozen lasagna.
Here’s the progress on the Warm Color project. The one on the far right is the blend of the four shown top to bottom.
And here’s the Rat’s Ass – OK, Rat’s Head:
Did you stay home today? Was in town but strictly outdoors
What local business or charity did you support? Ariel’s Honey Infusions – bought a jar of Lavender & Vanilla honey to make a little gift for X; I think he will like it.
What’s for dinner? It was a steak & cabbage stir-fry, from NYT – OK, that’s two recipes per week over two weeks I’ve been giving the NYT column a try. Recipes were pedestrian when not disastrous. I satisfied my curiosity; I can do better.
Did you stay home today? No, Sunday is danger day
What local business or charity did you support? I just bought some sauces from Angry Goat Hot Sauce partly because I like the name.
What’s for dinner? A chicken and bok choy dish baked on a sheet pan; from NYT’s 5 Dishes to Cook This Week. Will be ready shortly. Note I am always a week behind, so I am really cooking 5 Dishes to Cook Last Week.
Postscript: Well THAT freaking didn’t work! My bok choy turned to cinders! What is wrong with you, NYT!? I always regret straying from the Best Recipe people.
Good thing I started early. Time to improvise another vegetable.
by Justin Farrell
I usually go through life feeling very wealthy. I also generally think that I live in a beautiful place. It was hard to hold onto either of those feelings reading this book about billionaires in Wyoming.
This is a sociological study undertaken by a Yale professor in Teton County, Wyoming, the most economically disparate county in the nation. He speaks with the rich – the very, very rich – and, through interpreters via a social services organization, the poor as well.
It’s repetitive, and he uses his favorite quotes and figures of speech over & over. “Razor-thin margins,” “buzz-kill”, etc. For a sociological report, it’s a very good read; but you can tell he’s not a professional author, which in a way is a good thing.
Here are the takeaways:
– Ultra-wealthy people use nature to increase their wealth (conservation i.e. NIMBYism) and prestige (the county is home to over a hundred non-profits). They procure easements, protect their property from nearby development, and get brownie points among each other for starting foundations.
– Ultra-wealthy persons want very much for us all to think of them as “just folks.” They dress down, and think of themselves as being chummy with the non-wealthy people in the community. I kept thinking of Stephen Colbert putting his arm around some unfortunate token, pointing at him with a big grin on his face. “Look, here’s my Poor friend!”
– Through communing with nature, right outside their multi-million dollar homes, and hobnobbing with the lowly plebes, rich people attempt to achieve personal self-transformation.
– Their philanthropy is geared towards conservation and the arts. Helping out the poor of the community is kind of a “buzz kill” and doesn’t get many of their dollars.
And then, doing all the grunt work to keep their kids fed, cars maintained, ski lifts operating, etc. is, surprise surprise, an underclass of Mexican immigrants. These guys really don’t have much to say, good or bad, about their rich overlords – except that they are decidedly NOT pals. It’s fine that they’re wealthy. They probably worked hard and deserved it. Those of the working class are just trying to get by and it’s all fine.
That is my impression by & large of how the interviews with the poor went down, though he does dig up people who express anger and wish to work for more systemic change.
Meanwhile, back in my modest, definitely sub-million-dollar home, living my middle class life in the overcrowded east, I achieve a certain humble self-transformation of my own… ( 
)
Did you stay home today? Trash, library pickup, all outdoors
What local business or charity did you support? TBD
What’s for dinner? TBD
Still working on the Warm Color project.
I signed up to talk to a teletherapist. And I decided to do ancestry.com. Both of these decisions out of boredom.
Yesterday:
Did you stay home today? 100%.
What local business or charity did you support? Really dropping the ball.
What’s for dinner? Leftover Chinese
I’ve been in top form, but this afternoon I just crashed.
Here’s a picture; it’s a corner of my office. I was aiming for a pic of that little Xmas cactus bud. Yeah I know all my friends with Xmas cactuses have big behemoth amounts of blooms as soon as advent starts. My guys just give me these little buds, just as Xmas approaches and, I LOVE them, they are MINE.
Yesterday:
Did you stay home today? Yes, sent X to pick up the Chinese.
What local business or charity did you support? Oriental Wok
What’s for dinner? Oriental Wok
Today:
Did you stay home today? Yes, popped over to the library but it was curbside.
What local business or charity did you support? Supported a New Mexico charity instead to satisfy a friend’s birthday wish.
What’s for dinner? I improvised a kind of turkey chili over grits.
That’s right, Beatrice! She and her Mom are back to being two peas in a pod, like she never left.
Did you stay home today? Yes, but X had to go to Lowe’s for a part for the heater.
What local business or charity did you support? Gosh, I’m pooped tonight. I bought plenty of Lake Champlain chocolate yesterday.
What’s for dinner? Sausage & Pepper Pasta with Broccoli – my second foray into the NYT “5 Dishes to Cook This Week.” These dishes have been pretty pedestrian. I guess they never promised you “voila” fare. They are just trying to give you five reasonable things to cook in a week.
Tytania 