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Asthma UK has set up a crisis management group to track the progress of the virus. Calls to the charity are increasing daily, said Emma Rubach, head of health advice at Asthma UK.
“We know that the risk to people with asthma from viruses like coronavirus is higher than the general population, so we are encouraging people to make sure their asthma is well-managed,” she said.
Article
Saturday, February 29, 2020
Asthma & Virus
Louis Armstrong
My whole life is happiness. Through all my misfortunes, I did not plan anything. Life was there for me, and I accepted it. And life, whatever came out has been beautiful to me, and I love everybody.
Louis Armstrong
What Speed is your Life?
I woke up thinking about "What speed is your life?" Mine is at a walking pace. Yours?
The Citizens Academy
The Citizens Academy class is fantastic. I LOVE it! The 4 officers each have distinctively different personalities. They teach it together and obviously take great pride in and LOVE THEIR WORK and that's what makes the class so dynamic. I think a piece of me loves imagining having the job. And this is true for everyone in the class.
Apples Don't Fall Far from the Tree
It's a sad moment. I realize a number of longtime friends have become their parents. I suppose there was a danger of this all along. These friends were so smart I didn't think they would. I have watched them become parents, and grandparents but I am troubled to discover those who have now become the very people they loathed and rebelled against.
Rumi
It's your road and yours alone. Others may walk it with you, but no one can walk it for you.
Rumi
Plate and Glass
On my big walk yesterday I found a beautiful dirty diner plate on the curb with a white plastic fork on it. I could tell it was a diner plate probably Buffalo or Syracuse China. I let it be as I was just starting my walk. Two hours later, on my way home I found a beer glass in the shrubs at the cemetery. It had white ink a silhouette of a blue heron Stony Creek Brewery painted on it. It was tipped over and filled with dirt. I picked it up and shook the dirt out and put it in my red vest pocket. As I neared home I passed the diner plate again and picked it up. When I came inside I immediately washed them with hot soapy water and added them to my collection. My husband is amused that I pick up stray animals, stray furniture, stray clothing and stray silverware. He was not surprised.
Friday, February 28, 2020
believe them
“I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
― Maya Angelou
“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.”
― Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
“What you're supposed to do when you don't like a thing is change it. If you can't change it, change the way you think about it. Don't complain.”
― Maya Angelou, Wouldn't Take Nothing for My Journey Now
“When someone shows you who they are believe them; the first time.”
― Maya Angelou
“We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty.”
― Maya Angelou
Courage
“Without courage we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency. We can't be kind, true, merciful, generous, or honest.”
― Maya Angelou
Krugman: Our Worst Fears Confirmed
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/27/opinion/coronavirus-trump.html
Opinion
When a Pandemic Meets a Personality Cult
The Trump team confirms all of our worst fears.
Paul Krugman
By Paul Krugman
Opinion Columnist
Feb. 27, 2020
Early in his political career, Pence staked out a distinctive position on public health, declaring that smoking doesn’t kill people. He has also repeatedly insisted that evolution is just a theory. As governor of Indiana, he blocked a needle exchange program that could have prevented a significant H.I.V. outbreak, calling for prayer instead.
And now, according to The Times, government scientists will need to get Pence’s approval before making public statements about the coronavirus.
So the Trumpian response to crisis is completely self-centered, entirely focused on making Trump look good rather than protecting America. If the facts don’t make Trump look good, he and his allies attack the messengers, blaming the news media and the Democrats — while trying to prevent scientists from keeping us informed. And in choosing people to deal with a real crisis, Trump prizes loyalty rather than competence.
Maybe Trump — and America — will be lucky, and this won’t be as bad as it might be. But anyone feeling confident right now isn’t paying attention.
The River
“Only when you drink from the river of silence shall you indeed sing.”
― Khalil Gibran, The Prophet
Prophet
“If you keep on saying things are going to be bad, you have a good chance of being a prophet.”
― Isaac Bashevis Singer
Chess
“We all play chess with Fate as partner. He makes a move, we make a move. He tries to checkmate us in three moves, we try to prevent it. We know we can't win, but we're driven to give him a good fight.”
― Isaac Bashevis Singer, The Collected Stories of Isaac Bashevis Singer
500 Reasons
“There are 500 reasons I write for children.... Children read books, not reviews. They don't give a hoot about the critics.... They don't read to free themselves of guilt, to quench their thirst for rebellion, or to get rid of alienation. They still believe in God, the family, angels, devils, witches, goblins, logic, clarity, punctuation, and other such obsolete stuff.... They don't expect their beloved writer to redeem humanity. Young as they are, they know that it is not in his power. Only the adults have such childish illusions.”
― Isaac Bashevis Singer
Story Teller
“A good writer is basically a story teller, not a scholar or a redeemer of mankind.”
― Isaac Bashevis Singer
Chasm
“Every creator painfully experiences the chasm between his inner vision and its ultimate expression. The chasm is never completely bridged. We all have the conviction, perhaps illusory, that we have much more to say than appears on the paper.”
― Isaac Bashevis Singer
Night
“Night is a time of rigor, but also of mercy. There are truths which one can see only when it’s dark”
― Isaac Bashevis Singer, Teibele And Her Demon
Dorianne Laux
I tell my students what I tell myself, write every day, even if it’s only a few lines, an image, a funny rhyme, a snatch of overheard conversation. All this is like chopped vegetables for the soup pot or witches cauldron of poems. And I tell them to read, read, read, and imitate the poems they love. I have tried to respond to every poem I’ve ever loved and it has served me well. Poetry is like church to me, and when I read a good poem it’s like the preacher calling out to the congregation, asking for a Hail Mary or a Hallelujah or Amen!
DORIANNE LAUX
Hidden Figures
“Katherine Johnson knew: once you took the first step, anything was possible.”
― Margot Lee Shetterly, Hidden Figures
“Sometimes, she knew, the most important battles for dignity, pride, and progress were fought with the simplest of actions.”
― Margot Lee Shetterly, Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race
Jamie Lombardi
Losing a loved one is, as Aurelius says, something that could happen to anyone. But not everyone remains unharmed by it. We mourn, we are not unaware of what we’ve lost. But what we’ve gained is the perspective that ‘true good fortune is what you make for yourself’. We hold tighter to each other, to the truth that life is fleeting, and that each moment of joy that finds its way to us is a gift to be treasured. And, perhaps most importantly, we learn that, while we don’t get to decide when we get shipwrecked, we do get to decide what we rebuild out of the debris.
-Jamie Lombardi
is an adjunct faculty member of the Philosophy and Religion Department at Bergen Community College in New Jersey.
Simone de Beauvoir
‘When I was a child, when I was an adolescent, books saved me from despair: that convinced me that culture was the highest of values.’
From The Woman Destroyed (1967) by Simone de Beauvoir
Hong Zicheng
"Happiness in comfort is not real happiness.
Happiness in the midst of hardship,
one sees the true potential of the mind."
— Hong Zicheng
Afraid
“We are afraid to care too much, for fear that the other person does not care at all.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt
“To handle yourself, use your head; to handle others, use your heart.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt
“You can often change your circumstances by changing your attitude.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt
“Beautiful young people are accidents of nature, but beautiful old people are works of art. ”
― Eleanor Roosevelt
“If someone betrays you once, it’s their fault; if they betray you twice, it’s your fault.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt
“The reason that fiction is more interesting than any other form of literature, to those who really like to study people, is that in fiction the author can really tell the truth without humiliating himself.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt
The Purpose
“The purpose of life is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt
“It takes courage to love, but pain through love is the purifying fire which those who love generously know. We all know people who are so much afraid of pain that they shut themselves up like clams in a shell and, giving out nothing, receive nothing and therefore shrink until life is a mere living death.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt
“Many people will walk in and out of your life, but only true friends will leave footprints in your heart.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt
“No matter how plain a woman may be, if truth and honesty are written across her face, she will be beautiful.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt
No One
“No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt, This is My Story
“A woman is like a tea bag; you never know how strong it is until it's in hot water.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt
“Do one thing every day that scares you.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt
“Do what you feel in your heart to be right – for you’ll be criticized anyway.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt
“You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, 'I have lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.' You must do the thing you think you cannot do.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt, You Learn by Living: Eleven Keys for a More Fulfilling Life
“The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt
New Day
“With the new day comes new strength and new thoughts.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt
“Do not stop thinking of life as an adventure. You have no security unless you can live bravely, excitingly, imaginatively; unless you can choose a challenge instead of competence.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt, The Autobiography of Eleanor Roosevelt
“Happiness is not a goal...it's a by-product of a life well lived.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt
“Life was meant to be lived, and curiosity must be kept alive. One must never, for whatever reason, turn his back on life.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt
“Life is what you make it. Always has been, always will be.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt
“It is not fair to ask of others what you are not willing to do yourself.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt
Friendship
“Friendship with oneself is all important, because without it one cannot be friends with anyone else in the world.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt
“Never allow a person to tell you no who doesn't have the power to say
yes.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt
“Never mistake knowledge for wisdom. One helps you make a living; the other helps you make a life.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt
Eleanor Roosevelt
“You have to accept whatever comes, and the only important thing is that you meet it with the best you have to give.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt
“What could we accomplish if we knew we could not fail?”
― Eleanor Roosevelt
“In the long run, we shape our lives, and we shape ourselves. The process never ends until we die. And the choices we make are ultimately our own responsibility.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt
“A mature person is one who does not think only in absolutes, who is able to be objective even when deeply stirred emotionally, who has learned that there is both good and bad in all people and in all things, and who walks humbly and deals charitably with the circumstances of life, knowing that in this world no one is all knowing and therefore all of us need both love and charity.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt, It Seems to Me: Selected Letters
Temples of Noise
Music is about as physical as it gets: your essential rhythm is your heartbeat; your essential sound, the breath. We're walking temples of noise, and when you add tender hearts to this mix, it somehow lets us meet in places we couldn't get to any other way.
Anne Lamott
You Can Tell
“You can tell if people are following Jesus, because they are feeding the poor, sharing their wealth, and trying to get everyone medical insurance.”
― Anne Lamott
Water Wings
“Sometimes grace works like water wings when you feel you are sinking.”
― Anne Lamott, Grace (Eventually): Thoughts on Faith
The Best Part...
“I still encourage anyone who feels at all compelled to write to do so. I just try to warn people who hope to get published that publication is not all it is cracked up to be. But writing is. Writing has so much to give, so much to teach, so many surprises. That thing you had to force yourself to do---the actual act of writing---turns out to be the best part. It's like discovering that while you thought you needed the tea ceremony for the caffeine, what you really needed was the tea ceremony. The act of writing turns out to be its own reward.”
― Anne Lamott
Gratitude
“My gratitude for good writing is unbounded; I’m grateful for it the way I’m grateful for the ocean.”
― Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life
You get your intuition back...
“You get your intuition back when you make space for it, when you stop the chattering of the rational mind. The rational mind doesn't nourish you. You assume that it gives you the truth, because the rational mind is the golden calf that this culture worships, but this is not true. Rationality squeezes out much that is rich and juicy and fascinating.”
― Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life
when your hearts break
“There's a lovely Hasidic story of a rabbi who always told his people that if they studied the Torah, it would put Scripture on their hearts. One of them asked, "Why on our hearts, and not in them?" The rabbi answered, "Only God can put Scripture inside. But reading sacred text can put it on your heart, and then when your hearts break, the holy words will fall inside.”
― Anne Lamott, Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith
Found
“We begin to find and become ourselves when we notice how we are already found, already truly, entirely, wildly, messily, marvelously who we were born to be.”
― Anne Lamott
The Problem
“The problem is acceptance, which is something we're taught not to do. We're taught to improve uncomfortable situations, to change things, alleviate unpleasant feelings. But if you accept the reality that you have been given- that you are not in a productive creative period- you free yourself to begin filling up again.”
― Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life
How?
“But how?" my students ask. "How do you actually do it?"
You sit down, I say. You try to sit down at approximately the same time every day. This is how you train your unconscious to kick in for you creatively. So you sit down at, say, nine every morning, or ten every night. You put a piece of paper in the typewriter, or you turn on the computer and bring up the right file, and then you stare at it for an hour or so. You begin rocking, just a little at first, and then like a huge autistic child. You look at the ceiling, and over at the clock, yawn, and stare at the paper again. Then, with your fingers poised on the keyboard, you squint at an image that is forming in your mind -- a scene, a locale, a character, whatever -- and you try to quiet your mind so you can hear what that landscape or character has to say above the other voices in your mind.”
― Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life
Becoming Conscious
“Becoming a writer is about becoming conscious. When you're conscious and writing from a place of insight and simplicity and real caring about the truth, you have the ability to throw the lights on for your reader. He or she will recognize his or her life and truth in what you say, in the pictures you have painted, and this decreases the terrible sense of isolation that we have all had too much of.”
― Anne Lamott
Point
“You don't always have to chop with the sword of truth. You can point with it too.”
― Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life
The Glue
“Man is born broken. He lives by mending. The grace of God is glue.”
― Anne Lamott, Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith
The Road
“The road to enlightenment is long and difficult, and you should try not to forget snacks and magazines.”
― Anne Lamott, Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith
Tell the Truth
“If something inside of you is real, we will probably find it interesting, and it will probably be universal. So you must risk placing real emotion at the center of your work. Write straight into the emotional center of things. Write toward vulnerability. Risk being unliked. Tell the truth as you understand it. If you’re a writer you have a moral obligation to do this. And it is a revolutionary act—truth is always subversive.”
― Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life
Best Advice
“E.L. Doctorow said once said that 'Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can see only as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.' You don't have to see where you're going, you don't have to see your destination or everything you will pass along the way. You just have to see two or three feet ahead of you. This is right up there with the best advice on writing, or life, I have ever heard.”
― Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life
Uncomfortable Things
“It's good to do uncomfortable things. It's weight training for life.”
― Anne Lamott, Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith
The Circus
“You can get the monkey off your back, but the circus never leaves town”
― Anne Lamott, Grace (Eventually): Thoughts on Faith
You Stay Trapped
“Forgiveness means it finally becomes unimportant that you hit back. You're done. It doesn't necessarily mean that you want to have lunch with the person. If you keep hitting back, you stay trapped in the nightmare...”
― Anne Lamott, Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith
British Bingo Slang
Number Nickname Explanation
1 Kelly's Eye The pun is military slang;[3] possibly a reference to Ned Kelly, from Ned Kelly's helmet, the eye slot resembling the number 1. Also after the Valiant comic strip "Kelly's Eye" where the eponymous Kelly possessed a magic amulet.
2 One little duck. From the resemblance of the number 2 to a duck; see '22'
Me and you Romantic rhyme
3 Cup of tea Rhymes with "Three"
You and me Romantic rhyme
4 Knock at the door Rhymes with "Four"
5 Man alive Rhymes with "Five"
6 Tom Mix[2] Rhymes with "Six". After Tom Mix, a star of silent-era Westerns
Half a dozen[4] A common phrase meaning six units (see "12" below)
7 Lucky[4] 7 is considered a lucky number in some cultures
8 Garden gate[4] Rhymes with "Eight"
9 Doctor's Orders[4][5] Number 9 was a laxative pill given out by army doctors in WWII.
10 (Boris's) Den The name refers to whoever currently resides at Number 10 Downing Street.
11 Legs eleven[5] A reference to the shape of the number resembling a pair of legs, often chicken legs specifically.[6] The players often wolf whistle in response.
12 One dozen A reference to there being 12 units in one dozen.
13 Unlucky for some A reference to 13 being an unlucky number.
14 The Lawnmower The original lawnmower had a 14-inch blade.
15 Young and Keen Fifteen rhymes with keen
16 Never been kissed[2] After the song Sweet Sixteen and Never Been Kissed
17 Dancing Queen ABBA's song Dancing Queen has the number mentioned in the lyrics.
18 Coming of Age Eighteen is the age of maturity in the UK.
19 Goodbye Teens Nineteen is the age after which people stop being teenagers.
20 One Score A reference to there being 20 units in one score.
Getting Plenty Rhymes with "Twenty"
21 Key of the Door The traditional age of majority.
22 Two little ducks The numeral 22 resembles the profile of two ducks.[6] Response is often "quack, quack, quack".
23 The Lord is My Shepherd The first words of Psalm 23 of the Old Testament
24 Double dozen 12 × 2 = 24. Refer to 12 above
25 Duck and dive Rhymes with "(Twenty) Five", and is made up of a "2" - resembles a duck, and a "5" - resembles an upside-down "2".
26 Two and six, half a crown Pre-decimalised currency in the UK. (See half crown)
A to Z A reference to the fact that there are twenty-six letters in the alphabet
27 Duck and a crutch. The number 2 looks like a duck (see '2') and the number 7 looks like a crutch.
28 In a state. "Two and eight" is rhyming slang for "state".
29 Rise and Shine Rhymes with "(Twenty) Nine"
30 Burlington Bertie Reference to a music hall song of the same name composed in 1900, and a more famous parody (Burlington Bertie from Bow) written in 1915 specifically the line: "I'm Burlington Bertie I rise at ten-thirty".
Dirty Gertie[1] Common rhyme derived from the given name Gertrude, used as a nickname for the statue La Delivrance installed in North London in 1927. The usage was reinforced by Dirty Gertie from Bizerte, a bawdy song sung by Allied soldiers in North Africa during the Second World War.[7]
31 Get Up and Run[1] Rhymes with "(Thirty) One"
32 Buckle My Shoe Rhymes with "(Thirty) Two"
33 All the threes[4]
Fish, chips and peas
34 Ask for More Rhymes with "(Thirty) Four"
35 Jump and Jive[2] A dance step
36 Triple dozen 3 x 12 = 36. Refer to 12 above
38 Christmas cake Cockney rhyming slang
39 Steps From the 39 Steps
40 Life Begins refers to the proverb 'life begins at forty'
43 down on your knees This was a phrase that was made popular during wartime by soldiers.
44 Droopy drawers[5] Rhyme that refers to sagging trousers.[citation needed]
45 Halfway there Being halfway towards 90
46 up to tricks rhyming
48 Four Dozen 4 x 12 = 48. Refer to 12 above.
50 It's a bullseye! Referring to the darts score.
Snow White Referring to 5 – 0, it’s off to work we go
52 Danny La Rue[8] A reference to drag entertainer Danny La Rue. Also used for other numbers ending in '2' (see '72' below).
Chicken vindaloo[1] Introduced by Butlins in 2003.[1]
Deck of Cards Number of cards in a deck
53 Here comes Herbie 53 is the racing number of Herbie the VW Beetle. Players may reply "beep beep"!
54 Man at the door Rhymes with "(Fifty) Four"
55 All the fives[4]
56 Shotts Bus[4] Refers to the former number of the bus from Glasgow to Shotts.
57 Heinz Varieties[4] Refers to "Heinz 57", the "57 Varieties" slogan of the H. J. Heinz Company.
59 The Brighton Line Quote from The Importance of Being Earnest.
Also, 59 was the starting 2 digits of all original Brighton telephone numbers[citation needed].
60 Grandma's getting frisky Pretty close to a rhyme with 'sixty'
62 Tickety-boo Rhymes with "(Sixty) Two"
64 Almost retired A reference to the former British male age of mandatory retirement - specifically being one year away from it.
65 Retirement age, Stop work[2] A reference to the former male British age of mandatory retirement.
66 Clickety click[5] Rhymes with "(Sixty) Six"
67 Stairway to Heaven Coined by Andrew "CIP" Lavelle
68 Pick a Mate Coined by Edward James Mackey II
69 Anyway up, Meal for Two, A Favourite of mine[2] A reference to the 69 sex position.
71 Bang on the Drum[2] Rhymes with "(Seventy) One"
72 Danny La Rue[2] Rhymes with "(Seventy) Two"
73 Queen Bee. Under The Tree. Lucky 3[9] Rhymes with "(Seventy) Three"
74 Hit the Floor Coined by Ann Fitzsimons
76 Trombones[10] "Seventy-Six Trombones" is a popular marching song, from the musical The Music Man.
Was she worth it? This refers to the pre-decimal price of a marriage licence in Britain, 7/6d. The players shout back "Every Penny"
77 Two little crutches[10]
Sunset Strip From the 1960s television series "77 Sunset Strip". Usually sung by the players.
78 39 more steps 39 + 39 = 78. Refer to 39 being "39 steps" above.
80 Gandhi's Breakfast "Ate nothing"
81 Fat Lady with a walking stick The number 8 is supposed to visually represent a lady with ample bosom and hips, while the number 1 is supposed to visually represent a walking stick
83 Time for Tea Rhymes and scans[11]
84 Seven dozen 7 x 12 = 84. Refer to 12 being "a dozen" above
85 Staying alive[12] Rhymes with "(Eighty) Five"
86 Between the sticks Rhymes with "(Eighty) Six". Refers to the position of goalkeeper in football.
87 Torquay in Devon Rhymes with "(Eighty) Seven". Torquay which is in the county of Devon, rather than one of several other Torquays which were elsewhere in the British Empire.
88 Two Fat Ladies[13] The number 88 visually represents a lady next to another lady. Refer to 81 above. Players can reply with 'Wobble, wobble.'
89 Nearly there 89 is one away from 90 (the end of the bingo numbers).
Almost there
90 Top of the shop[4] 90 is the highest (top) number in bingo. Shop refers to the entire game of bingo (and also rhymes with "top").
Kafka
“As Gregor Samsa awoke that morning from uneasy dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect. . . .”
Anne Lamott
“I think joy and sweetness and affection are a spiritual path. We're here to know God, to love and serve God, and to be blown away by the beauty and miracle of nature. You just have to get rid of so much baggage to be light enough to dance, to sing, to play. You don't have time to carry grudges; you don't have time to cling to the need to be right.”
― Anne Lamott
Life Being Lived
“Clutter and mess show us that life is being lived...Tidiness makes me think of held breath, of suspended animation... Perfectionism is a mean, frozen form of idealism, while messes are the artist's true friend. What people somehow forgot to mention when we were children was that we need to make messes in order to find out who we are and why we are here.”
― Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life
You are Lucky
“You are lucky to be one of those people who wishes to build sand castles with words, who is willing to create a place where your imagination can wander. We build this place with the sand of memories; these castles are our memories and inventiveness made tangible. So part of us believes that when the tide starts coming in, we won't really have lost anything, because actually only a symbol of it was there in the sand. Another part of us thinks we'll figure out a way to divert the ocean. This is what separates artists from ordinary people: the belief, deep in our hearts, that if we build our castles well enough, somehow the ocean won't wash them away. I think this is a wonderful kind of person to be.”
― Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life
The Truth
“Your problem is how you are going to spend this one and precious life you have been issued. Whether you're going to spend it trying to look good and creating the illusion that you have power over circumstances, or whether you are going to taste it, enjoy it and find out the truth about who you are.”
― Anne Lamott
Writing
“Writing and reading decrease our sense of isolation. They deepen and widen and expand our sense of life: they feed the soul. When writers make us shake our heads with the exactness of their prose and their truths, and even make us laugh about ourselves or life, our buoyancy is restored. We are given a shot at dancing with, or at least clapping along with, the absurdity of life, instead of being squashed by it over and over again. It's like singing on a boat during a terrible storm at sea. You can't stop the raging storm, but singing can change the hearts and spirits of the people who are together on that ship.”
― Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life
A Library
Daniel Handler said, "A library is like an island in the middle of a vast sea of ignorance, particularly if the library is very tall and the surrounding area has been flooded."
Tell your Stories
“You own everything that happened to you. Tell your stories. If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should have behaved better.”
― Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life
Anne Lamott
“You will lose someone you can’t live without, and your heart will be badly broken, and the bad news is that you never completely get over the loss of your beloved. But this is also the good news. They live forever in your broken heart that doesn’t seal back up. And you come through. It’s like having a broken leg that never heals perfectly—that still hurts when the weather gets cold, but you learn to dance with the limp.”
― Anne Lamott
Thursday, February 27, 2020
Yorkshire Tea + Vera
Perhaps because we've snuggled up to the library dvd collection of Vera with our pup and blankets each night but I'm crazy for tea.
Monty Python
Monty Python
Slumlords, housing profiteers
Slumlords, housing profiteers have nowhere to hide under Hartford’s new rental licensing program
Article
James Baldwin
It was #books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, or who had ever been alive.
JAMES BALDWIN
Portland Oregon Building with Trees Attached
New SE Portland building covered in living trees
The building is called “The Tree Farm” and will house office space and retail shops.
Author: KGW Staff
Published: 6:07 PM PST January 28, 2020
Updated: 8:50 AM PST January 29, 2020
PORTLAND, Ore. — A new building visible from the Morrison Bridge is turning heads and raising questions.
“There are more than 50 trees in steel containers outside all six floors,” said architect Ben Carr.
The trees on the building, at Southeast 3rd Avenue and Morrison Street, are on a drip system and will be pruned once a year.
“The design puts the trees at the ledge of windows so when people look out of their offices, they’ll see green,” said Carr.
The weight of the containers presented some design challenges but with the project nearly complete, Carr is pleased with the results,
“It feels good to bring some color to a once gray spot in the neighborhood," he said.
The building is called “The Tree Farm” and will house office space and retail shops.
Authoritarian Government
Each of us is born into their own country. I see the nuclear family as our first government. A country with government leaders. What kind of parents did you have? What country in the world was like the parents who raised you?
truth or disclosure
Aletheia (Ancient Greek: ἀλήθεια) is truth or disclosure in philosophy. ... Aletheia is variously translated as "unclosedness", "unconcealedness", "disclosure" or "truth". The literal meaning of the word ἀ–λήθεια is "the state of not being hidden; the state of being evident." It also means factuality or reality.
Aletheia - Wikipedia
Lemon Arugula Pasta
https://www.marthastewart.com/355548/whole-wheat-spaghetti-meyer-lemon-arugula-and-pistachios
Delicious! I was shocked how fantastic this recipe was. The lemon cuts the intensity of the cheese and it really is creamy and just delicious. We ate it as a main course. I have made it several times and with several kinds of cheeses. The first time I only had Parmesan and it was still spectacular. Hint: Make homemade pasta, it is worth the effort. Fresh pasta soaks up the sauces perfectly.
Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt Quotes
“Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.”
“Believe you can and you're halfway there.”
“It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed.”
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”
“The only man who never makes mistakes is the man who never does anything.”
“When you're at the end of your rope, tie a knot and hold on.”
“People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care.”
“Courage is not having the strength to go on; it is going on when you don't have the strength.”
“I am a part of everything that I have read.”
“Knowing what's right doesn't mean much unless you do what's right.”
“Nothing in the world is worth having or worth doing unless it means effort, pain, difficulty… I have never in my life envied a human being who led an easy life. I have envied a great many people who led difficult lives and led them well.”
“To educate a person in the mind but not in morals is to educate a menace to society.”
“In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing. The worst thing you can do is nothing.”
“Keep your eyes on the stars, and your feet on the ground.”
“Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far.”
“A vote is like a rifle: its usefulness depends upon the character of the user.”
“Whenever you are asked if you can do a job, tell 'em, 'Certainly I can!' Then get busy and find out how to do it.”
“Never throughout history has a man who lived a life of ease left a name worth remembering.”
“When you play, play hard; when you work, don't play at all.”
“It is only through labor and painful effort, by grim energy and resolute courage, that we move on to better things.”
“People ask the difference between a leader and a boss. The leader leads, and the boss drives.”
“Far better is it to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure... than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much, because they live in a gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.”
“Let us rather run the risk of wearing out than rusting out.”
“Far and away the best prize that life has to offer is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.”
“The best executive is the one who has sense enough to pick good men to do what he wants done, and self-restraint to keep from meddling with them while they do it.”
“With self-discipline, almost anything is possible.”
“The most important single ingredient in the formula of success is knowing how to get along with people.”
“The boy who is going to make a great man must not make up his mind merely to overcome a thousand obstacles, but to win in spite of a thousand repulses and defeats.”
“Big jobs usually go to the men who prove their ability to outgrow small ones.”
“Nine-tenths of wisdom is being wise in time.”
“Old age is like everything else. To make a success of it, you’ve got to start young.”
“Courtesy is as much a mark of a gentleman as courage.”
“I care not what others think of what I do, but I care very much about what I think of what I do! That is character!”
“No man is worth his salt who is not ready at all times to risk his well-being, to risk his body, to risk his life, in a great cause.”
“This country has nothing to fear from the crooked man who fails. We put him in jail. It is the crooked man who succeeds who is a threat to this country.”
“A stream cannot rise larger than its source.”
"It is impossible to win the great prizes of life without running risks, and the greatest of all prizes are those connected with the home.”
"If I must choose between peace and righteousness, I choose righteousness.”
"Peace is normally a great good, and normally it coincides with righteousness, but it is righteousness and not peace which should bind the conscience of a nation as it should bind the conscience of an individual; and neither a nation nor an individual can surrender conscience to another's keeping.”
"All the resources we need are in the mind.”
"Our chief usefulness to humanity rests on our combining power with high purpose. Power undirected by high purpose spells calamity, and high purpose by itself is utterly useless if the power to put it into effect is lacking.”
"There is only one quality worse than hardness of heart and that is softness of head.”
"In life, as in a football game, the principle to follow is: hit the line hard.”
"The men and women who have the right ideals... are those who have the courage to strive for the happiness which comes only with labor and effort and self-sacrifice, and those whose joy in life springs in part from power of work and sense of duty."
"We need the iron qualities that go with true manhood. We need the positive virtues of resolution, of courage, of indomitable will, of power to do without shrinking the rough work that must always be done.”
"At sometime in our lives a devil dwells within us, causes heartbreaks, confusion and troubles, then dies.”
"We must remember not to judge any public servant by any one act, and especially should we beware of attacking the men who are merely the occasions and not the cause of disaster.”
"Order without liberty and liberty without order are equally destructive.”
"Character, in the long run, is the decisive factor in the life of an individual and of nations alike.”
"Every reform movement has a lunatic fringe."
Winston Churchill Quotes
“The whole history of the world is summed up in the fact that, when nations are strong, they are not always just, and when they wish to be just, they are no longer strong.”
“It is no use saying ‘we are doing our best.’ You have got to succeed in doing what is necessary.”
“We shape our dwellings, and afterwards our dwellings shape us.”
“It has been said that Democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.”
“Politics is more dangerous than war, for in war you are only killed once.” – Winston Churchill
“It is a mistake to try to look too far ahead. The chain of destiny can only be grasped one link at a time.”
“When I am abroad, I always make it a rule never to criticize or attack the government of my own country. I make up for lost time when I come home.”
“I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat.”
“Dictators ride to and fro on tigers from which they dare not dismount. And the tigers are getting hungry.”
“Employ your time in improving yourself by other men’s writings so that you shall come easily by what others have labored hard for.”
“A fanatic is one who can’t change his mind and won’t change the subject.” – Winston Churchill
“I have never accepted what many people have kindly said, namely that I have inspired the nation. It was the nation and the race dwelling all around the globe that had the lion heart. I had the luck to be called upon to give the roar.”
“Without a measureless and perpetual uncertainty, the drama of human life would be destroyed.”
“Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.”
“An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile – hoping it will eat him last.”
“Solitary trees, if they grow at all, grow strong.”
“I am easily satisfied with the very best.” – Winston Churchill
“Say what you have to say and the first time you come to a sentence with a grammatical ending – sit down.”
“Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say: “This was their finest hour.”
“Do not let us speak of darker days; let us speak rather of sterner days. These are not dark days: these are great days – the greatest days our country has ever lived. ”
“The English know how to make the best of things. Their so-called muddling through is simply skill at dealing with the inevitable.”
“Continuous effort – not strength or intelligence – is the key to unlocking our potential.” – Winston Churchill
“War is mainly a catalogue of blunders.”
“In war, as in life, it is often necessary, when some cherished scheme has failed, to take up the best alternative open, and if so, it is folly not to work for it with all your might.”
“No one can guarantee success in war, but only deserve it.”
“If one has to submit, it is wasteful not to do so with the best grace possible.”
“All the great things are simple, and many can be expressed in a single word: freedom; justice; honor; duty; mercy; hope.”
“Curse ruthless time! Curse our mortality. How cruelly short is the allotted span for all we must cram into it!”
“Without courage, all other virtues lose their meaning.” – Winston Churchill
“We must beware of needless innovations, especially when guided by logic.”
“One ought never to turn one’s back on a threatened danger and try to run away from it. If you do that, you will double the danger. But if you meet it promptly and without flinching, you will reduce the danger by half. Never run away from anything. Never!”
“Success is never found. Failure is never fatal. Courage is the only thing.”
“Victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory however long and hard the hard may be; for without victory there is no survival. ”
“History is written by the victors.” – Winston Churchill
“We shall draw from the heart of suffering itself the means of inspiration and survival.”
“The problems of victory are more agreeable than those of defeat, but they are no less difficult.”
“My most brilliant achievement was my ability to be able to persuade my wife to marry me.”
“I am prepared to meet my Maker. Whether my Maker is prepared for the ordeal of meeting me is another matter.”
“The English never draw a line without blurring it.”
“It is a good thing for an uneducated man to read books of quotations.”
“The price of greatness is responsibility.” – Winston Churchill
“There are a terrible lot of lies going about the world, and the worst of it is that half of them are true.”
“To build may have to be the slow and laborious task of years. To destroy can be the thoughtless act of a single day.”
“The farther backward you can look, the farther forward you are likely to see.”
“You have enemies? Good. It means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.”
“In finance, everything that is agreeable is unsound and everything that is sound is disagreeable.”
“If you’re going through hell, keep going.”
“A state of society where men may not speak their minds cannot long endure.” – Winston Churchill
“This is the lesson: never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never — in nothing, great or small, large or petty — never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.”
“There is only one duty, only one safe course, and that is to try to be right and not to fear to do or say what you believe to be right.”
“It is a fine thing to be honest, but it is also very important to be right.”
“I like pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals.”
“Never hold discussions with the monkey when the organ grinder is in the room.”
“The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.”
“Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference.” – Winston Churchill
“We shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.”
“Never, never, never believe any war will be smooth and easy, or that anyone who embarks on the strange voyage can measure the tides and hurricanes he will encounter. The statesman who yields to war fever must realize that once the signal is given, he is no longer the master of policy but the slave of unforeseeable and uncontrollable events.”
“What is adequacy? Adequacy is no standard at all.”
“Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.”
“We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.” – Winston Churchill
“Those who can win a war well can rarely make a good peace, and those who could make a good peace would never have won the war.”
“It’s not enough that we do our best; sometimes we have to do what’s required.”
“Healthy citizens are the greatest asset any country can have.”
“We shall not fail or falter. We shall not weaken or tire. Neither the sudden shock of battle nor the long-drawn trials of vigilance and exertion will wear us down. Give us the tools and we will finish the job.”
“Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened.”
“I never worry about action, but only inaction.” – Winston Churchill
“It is wonderful what great strides can be made when there is a resolute purpose behind them.”
“We shall show mercy, but we shall not ask for it.”
“Success is not final, failure is not fatal, it is the courage to continue that counts.”
“All the greatest things are simple, and many can be expressed in a single word: freedom; justice; honour; duty; mercy; hope.”
“Personally I’m always ready to learn, although I do not always like being taught.
“Great and good are seldom the same man.” – Winston Churchill
“The first duty of the university is to teach wisdom, not a trade; character, not technicalities. We want a lot of engineers in the modern world, but we do not want a world of engineers.”
“The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.”
“When the eagles are silent, the parrots begin to jabber.”
“History will be kind to me for I intend to write it.”
“Christmas is a season not only of rejoicing but of reflection.”
“Everyone has his day and some days last longer than others.” – Winston Churchill
“Politics is the ability to foretell what is going to happen tomorrow, next week, next month and next year. And to have the ability afterwards to explain why it didn’t happen.”
“If you have an important point to make, don’t try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time-a tremendous whack.”
“Do not let spacious plans for a new world divert your energies from saving what is left of the old.”
“All I can say is that I have taken more out of alcohol than alcohol has taken out of me.”
“If we open a quarrel between the past and the present, we shall find we have lost the future.” -Winston Churchill
“Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm.”
“I may be drunk, miss, but in the morning I will be sober and you will still be ugly.”
“Courage is rightly esteemed the first of human qualities because it has been said, it is the quality which guarantees all others.”
“Every man should ask himself each day whether he is not too readily accepting negative solutions.”
“The power of man has grown in every sphere, except over himself.”
“Out of intense complexities intense simplicities emerge.” – Winston Churchill
“The greatest lesson in life is to know that even fools are right sometimes.”
“Writing a book is an adventure. To begin with it is a toy then an amusement. Then it becomes a mistress, and then it becomes a master, and then it becomes a tyrant and, in the last stage, just as you are about to be reconciled to your servitude, you kill the monster and fling him to the public.”
“The truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end, there it is.”
“Broadly speaking short words are best and the old words when short, are best of all.”
“To improve is to change, so to be perfect is to change often.” – Winston Churchill
“I am never going to have anything more to do with politics or politicians. When this war is over I shall confine myself entirely to writing and painting.”
“Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak, it’s also what it takes to sit down and listen.”
“There is always much to be said for not attempting more than you can do and for making a certainty of what you try. But this principle, like others in life and war, has it exceptions.”
“Every day you may make progress. Every step may be fruitful. Yet there will stretch out before you an ever-lengthening, ever-ascending, ever-improving path. You know you will never get to the end of the journey. But this, so far from discouraging, only adds to the joy and glory of the climb.”
“If you have ten thousand regulations you destroy all respect for the law.”
The English coastline near Cornwall at the start of a new day
“Success is going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.” – Winston Churchill
“In the course of my life I have often had to eat my words, and I must confess that I have always found it a wholesome diet.”
“Everyone has his day, and some days last longer than others.”
“In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies.”
“The empires of the future are the empires of the mind.”
“There are two things that are more difficult than making an after-dinner speech: climbing a wall which is leaning toward you and kissing a girl who is leaning away from you.”
“I have never developed indigestion from eating my words.” – Winston Churchill
“Difficulties mastered are opportunities won.”
“I am certainly not one of those who need to be prodded. In fact, if anything, I am the prod.”
“There is no time for ease and comfort. It is time to dare and endure.”
“We are masters of the unsaid words, but slaves of those we let slip out.”
“Nothing in life is so exhilarating as to be shot at without result.”
“Let our advance worrying become advance thinking and planning.”
“A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.” – Winston Churchill
“No crime is so great as daring to excel.”
“I always seem to get inspiration and renewed vitality by contact with this great novel land of yours which sticks up out of the Atlantic.”
“We are stripped bare by the curse of plenty.”
“A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.”
“Ending a sentence with a preposition is something up with which I will not put.”
Churchill
You will never reach your destination if you stop and throw stones at every dog that barks.
Winston Churchill
Tactical Manuevers
After 4 years of dog poop 10,000 piles of shit, fostering, kenneling dogs and no dog ever having a leash or receiving a walk, my neighbors were read the riot act about the feces farm. Now of course they are mad at me. I am using the front door to avoid them. It's wonderful to have options. I may even move my trash bins to the front. I could avoid them for years like I did with Kevin and Big Guy.
Absentee landlords DESTROY a CITY. Luckily our city takes this seriously and can and has, cracked down. They have pushed out bad landlords in the past and will do it again because that's the origin of the problem. Bad landlords just care about money and do not want any laws bothering them. They attract bad tenants who want the freedom to hide from any and all responsibility. A match made in HELL.
Absentee landlords DESTROY a CITY. Luckily our city takes this seriously and can and has, cracked down. They have pushed out bad landlords in the past and will do it again because that's the origin of the problem. Bad landlords just care about money and do not want any laws bothering them. They attract bad tenants who want the freedom to hide from any and all responsibility. A match made in HELL.
Quarantine Pasta
A friend gave me an electric pasta machine with various dyes for shapes. The machine is so darn noisy....I take it out every few years and end up remembering why I never use it. but my freezer full of semolina and spinach is begging me to try again. If we get quarantined we can make a years supply of pasta.
Happy Birthday John Steinbeck
“I wonder how many people I've looked at all my life and never seen.”
― John Steinbeck, The Winter of Our Discontent
“Maybe ever’body in the whole damn world is scared of each other.”
― John Steinbeck, Of Mice and Men
“All great and precious things are lonely.”
― John Steinbeck, East of Eden
“There ain't no sin and there ain't no virtue. There's just stuff people do.”
― John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath
“I believe a strong woman may be stronger than a man, particularly if she happens to have love in her heart. I guess a loving woman is indestructible.”
― John Steinbeck, East of Eden
“And now that you don't have to be perfect, you can be good.”
― John Steinbeck, East of Eden
“It's so much darker when a light goes out than it would have been if it had never shone.”
― John Steinbeck, The Winter of Our Discontent
“I got you to look after me, and you got me to look after you, and that's
why.”
― John Steinbeck, Of Mice and Men
“But the Hebrew word, the word timshel—‘Thou mayest’— that gives a choice. It might be the most important word in the world. That says the way is open. That throws it right back on a man. For if ‘Thou mayest’—it is also true that ‘Thou mayest not.”
― John Steinbeck, East of Eden
“And this I believe: that the free, exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing in the world. And this I would fight for: the freedom of the mind to take any direction it wishes, undirected. And this I must fight against: any idea, religion, or government which limits or destroys the individual. This is what I am and what I am about.”
― John Steinbeck, East of Eden
“All war is a symptom of man's failure as a thinking animal.”
― John Steinbeck
“What good is the warmth of summer, without the cold of winter to give it sweetness.”
― John Steinbeck, Travels with Charley: In Search of America
“Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple and learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a dozen.”
― John Steinbeck
“And the little screaming fact that sounds through all history: repression works only to strengthen and knit the repressed.”
― John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath
“I was born lost and take no pleasure in being found.”
― John Steinbeck, Travels with Charley: In Search of America
“Try to understand men. If you understand each other you will be kind to each other. Knowing a man well never leads to hate and almost always leads to love.”
― John Steinbeck
“I believe that there is one story in the world, and only one. . . . Humans are caught—in their lives, in their thoughts, in their hungers and ambitions, in their avarice and cruelty, and in their kindness and generosity too—in a net of good and evil. . . . There is no other story. A man, after he has brushed off the dust and chips of his life, will have left only the hard, clean questions: Was it good or was it evil? Have I done well—or ill?”
― John Steinbeck, East of Eden
“When a child first catches adults out -- when it first walks into his grave little head that adults do not always have divine intelligence, that their judgments are not always wise, their thinking true, their sentences just -- his world falls into panic desolation. The gods are fallen and all safety gone. And there is one sure thing about the fall of gods: they do not fall a little; they crash and shatter or sink deeply into green muck. It is a tedious job to build them up again; they never quite shine. And the child's world is never quite whole again. It is an aching kind of growing.”
― John Steinbeck, East of Eden
“There's more beauty in truth, even if it is dreadful beauty.”
― John Steinbeck, East of Eden
“It has always seemed strange to me...The things we admire in men, kindness and generosity, openness, honesty, understanding and feeling, are the concomitants of failure in our system. And those traits we detest, sharpness, greed, acquisitiveness, meanness, egotism and self-interest, are the traits of success. And while men admire the quality of the first they love the produce of the second.”
― John Steinbeck, Cannery Row
“I guess there are never enough books.”
― John Steinbeck, A John Steinbeck Encyclopedia
“I have always lived violently, drunk hugely, eaten too much or not at all, slept around the clock or missed two nights of sleeping, worked too hard and too long in glory, or slobbed for a time in utter laziness. I've lifted, pulled, chopped, climbed, made love with joy and taken my hangovers as a consequence, not as a punishment.”
― John Steinbeck, Travels with Charley: In Search of America
“To be alive at all is to have scars.”
― John Steinbeck, The Winter of Our Discontent
“Do you take pride in your hurt? Does it make you seem large and tragic? ...Well, think about it. Maybe you're playing a part on a great stage with only yourself as audience.”
― John Steinbeck, East of Eden
“When two people meet, each one is changed by the other so you've got two new people.”
― John Steinbeck
“My imagination will get me a passport to hell one day.”
― John Steinbeck, East of Eden
“Anything that just costs money is cheap.”
― John Steinbeck
“It seems to me that if you or I must choose between two courses of thought or action, we should remember our dying and try so to live that our death brings no pleasure to the world.”
― John Steinbeck, شرق بهشت
“As happens sometimes, a moment settled and hovered and remained for much more than a moment. And sound stopped and movement stopped for much, much more than a moment.”
― John Steinbeck, Of Mice and Men
“No man really knows about other human beings. The best he can do is to suppose that they are like himself.”
― John Steinbeck, The Winter of Our Discontent
Wednesday, February 26, 2020
Cavatappi + Kale Supper
Tonight I made cavatappi pasta and kale at the same time (3 minutes) in my instant pot. Then I added Adobo and cheese and olive oil, red pepper black pepper and salt. So good.
Update: Today, I added juice and zest of a lemon too!
Update: Today, I added juice and zest of a lemon too!
Homemade Pumpkin Spice Waffles
Homemade Pumpkin Spice Waffles
Using just 2 bowls, make these homemade Pumpkin Waffles a part of your Fall breakfast tradition. With warm spices and yummy pumpkin they're a must make!
Author: Kylee Cooks
Ingredients
1 1/2 cups flour
1 Tbs baking powder
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1 Tbs pumpkin pie spice or 1 tsp each of cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger
½ tsp salt
1 cup canned pumpkin puree not pumpkin pie filling
2 eggs
3 Tbs butter melted
1⁄4 cup dark brown sugar
1 cup milk plus extra if needed
Instructions
Heat your waffle iron.
In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, pumpkin pie spice and salt.
In a medium bowl whisk together the pumpkin, eggs, butter, brown sugar and milk until well combined.
Make a well in the dry ingredients, and pour in the wet mixture. Mix together until JUST combine, being careful not to over mix.
Your mixture will be thick but pourable. If too thick add 1/3 cup extra milk.
Pour batter into waffle iron, and cook according to waffle iron directions (my Belgian waffle maker will take longer than a regular iron).
Remove from waffle iron, serve with butter and maple syrup.
Devour
Biscotti di Vino
Author Notes
This traditional family-style recipe is common in many regions of Italy with variations per area. This simple, almost biscuit-like biscotti is perfect to serve with fruits and cheeses while enjoying wine or after dinner with espresso and cordials —cucina di mammina
Prep time 10 minutes
Cook time 45 minutes
Makes approx. 24 biscotti
Ingredients
1 cup red wine (full-bodied) Chianti
1 cup vegetable or olive oil
4 1/2 cups flour (unbleached)
3/4 cup sugar
2 teaspoons salt
2 tablespoons baking powder
Directions
Place all the dry ingredients in a large bowl; blend together. Create a center well in the flour mixture and pour in the red wine and oil. Using a fork or mixing spoon, slowly start to blend the dry and wet ingredients until all are combined and the mixture begins to come together as a dough.
The dough will be a bit sticky and oily; but easily able to roll and form. Roll small amounts of dough into a rope and form into a circle; pinch the ends together to complete the shape.
Set oven to 350° F. Once all the biscotti are formed and ready; place them evenly spaced (about three rows) on an ungreased cookie sheet.
Bake for 20 minutes at this temperature and then reduce the oven to 300° F and bake for about 15 to 20 more minutes until they are light golden brown. Remove from the oven and let cool. Store the wine biscotti in a sealed container; they keep very well in a cool, dry place or you can freeze them and thaw for later use.
The Interview
I walked over to my meeting. It wasn't raining and I enjoyed the 2 mile walk as a chance to look around and think. When I arrived I was surprised at how ugly the area was. I passed a few drug dealers and overgrown and battered yards. The only signs on the premises were about picking up dog poop. They were homemade signs poking up from the dirt and scattered leaves. There was no indication which way was the main entrance. I tried the left door and it was locked So I rounded the building and found a door propped open. I entered. It was dark and cold and nobody was around. I found a man seated at a computer. He didn't turn until I walked over and addressed him. We chatted a bit. The woman who made the appointment with me was away but might return. I received a tour of the dingy unlit, unheated building. When the woman arrived she seemed alarmed. We sat in an even colder room. I put my purple fleece hat back on. "It's glorified summer camp, are you still interested?" I was shocked by her statement. She was inviting me to bail before I said a word. Not a good sign I thought.
How to Prepare
How to Prepare for the Coronavirus
Wash your hands. Keep a good supply of essential medicines. Get a flu shot. Experts offer practical tips on how to get ready for a possible outbreak.
Experts advise people to use their common sense, including frequently washing hands and getting the flu vaccine.
Brownie, you’re doing a heckuva job
the president is not interested in the science, in the details of addressing the epidemic, in hiring the right people or anything else with which normal presidents would concern themselves. He is interested that the markets are spooked, which could hurt his reelection chances.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/02/26/trump-has-no-clue-what-do-disaster/
Democracy Dies in Darkness
Opinions
Trump has no clue what to do in a disaster
A municipal worker in Tehran cleans a commuter train on Wednesday in an effort to curb the spread of the coronavirus. (Atta Kenare/Afp Via Getty Images)
Image without a caption
By
Jennifer Rubin
Opinion writer
February 26, 2020 at 7:45 AM EST
The Post reports: “Top White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow told The Washington Post late Monday that investors should consider ‘buying these dips’ in the stock market amid the coronavirus panic.” Trying to hype the market did not work. “Less than 24 hours later, the Dow Jones industrial average would fall another 879 points, bringing [President] Trump and Kudlow’s economic advice — at least in the short term — under greater scrutiny.” The report continued:
The rosy sheen that Trump, Kudlow, and other White House officials have tried to express about the economic impact of the coronavirus outbreak has now collided with reality: The coronavirus is spreading, quickly, to more countries. It is killing more people than expected and wreaking havoc on global supply chains. Efforts to detect and contain it have failed. . . .
Trump is highly concerned about the market and has encouraged aides not to give predictions that might cause further tremors. He is expected to talk to officials on Wednesday, said aides, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations.
Mind you, the president is not interested in the science, in the details of addressing the epidemic, in hiring the right people or anything else with which normal presidents would concern themselves. He is interested that the markets are spooked, which could hurt his reelection chances. It never seems to occur to this crowd that if you hire the best people, stick to the facts and punish corruption and incompetence, the results will speak for themselves. But wasn’t this always Trump’s business style? Hype the steaks, sell chewy meat. Hype the airline, go bust. Hype the university, don’t deliver.
Meanwhile, Rush Limbaugh, recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom from Trump, promulgates a ludicrous conspiracy theory that the virus is a “weaponized” cold meant to bring down Trump. It is all about covering for Trump and blame-casting, the public good be damned.
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Trump’s penchant for lying and self-promotion gives rise to the understandable concern that he is not telling us the truth about the virus, allowing scientists to speak openly or taking sufficiently bold action to stop what is becoming a fast-moving disaster. (“White House officials’ efforts to contain the economic fallout from the coronavirus have created new political hazards, as they publicly downplay the threat while other federal officials with a background in health and diseases are warning of more severe consequences for inaction.”) At times like this, you do wish loyalty were not the sole qualification for a job in the administration and that Trump’s reelection (which he pegs to the stock market) did not swamp basic issues of national security and public safety.
This is what authoritarian states do in a disaster (see: Chernobyl). The priority is on maintaining the facade of infallibility; the result is a worse disaster that would have been preventable had leaders understood the most valuable tool in disasters is often transparency and the free flow of quality information.
Trump has always treated natural disasters as platforms for photo-ops and self-congratulation (as in Alabama, where he is popular), or for carrying out vendettas (as when a mainly Democratic locale such as California or Puerto Rico is involved). We have learned that the disasters Trump touts (A caravan invasion!) can be less than what they appear. The pretexts for action (Imminent threat of attack by Iranian Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani!) do not always check out. The president’s priorities are often skewed so that legitimate needs (e.g., military housing) take a back seat to his political stunts (the border wall). His budget cuts (e.g., foreign aid to countries from which refugees are fleeing) are often not aligned with our budget needs.
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On Monday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), in a written statement, blasted Trump. “The President’s request for coronavirus response funding is long overdue and completely inadequate to the scale of this emergency,” she said. “For almost two years, the Trump Administration has left critical positions in charge of managing pandemics at the National Security Council and the Department of Homeland Security vacant. His most recent budget called for slashing funding for the Centers for Disease Control, which is on the frontlines of this emergency. And now, the President is compounding our vulnerabilities by seeking to ransack funds still needed to keep Ebola in check.” In other words, Trump has neglected the details of governance, put people in charge who are not held accountable for their results and tried to make up with it by spewing gibberish.
Voters expect the government to get fundamental concerns about public health and safety right. President George W. Bush never recovered from the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005 because Americans saw the results of incompetent, out-of-touch leaders who tried to put a happy face on a disaster. (“Brownie, you’re doing a heckuva job.”) Trump should be worried by a lot more than the stock market. The public is seeing the price they pay for a narcissistic and utterly incompetent president. In cases like this, it is the president who takes the blame.
Madness of King George
King George’s Blue Urine Gives the Color Royal Blue New Meaning
King George III had a killer combo of crazy and blue urine!
— February 16, 2018
King George III’s Royal Blue Urine
In 1810, King George III slipped into pure madness and was soon forced to retire from public life completely. He may be best known in the history books for being the king who lost America, but did you know he had blue urine?
Could his mental illness and pools of blue be related? It could all come down to a genetic blood disorder called porphyria.
Driven to Madness
Many historians attribute George’s madness to a genetic blood disorder called porphyria.
The state King George III was in during the last decade of his life forced his son to take the throne. The former king had lost a majority of his sight and was in constant pain. His once worldly and rich vocabulary quickly diminished, as he began constantly repeating himself and writing long, confusing letters.
It is also rumored he would walk around completely nude.
On top of it all, the blue urine…
For Porphyria’s Sake!
In 1969, a study published in Scientific American suggested King George III suffered from porphyria, a disorder caused by an over-accumulation of porphyrin which helps hemoglobin, the protein that moves oxygen throughout the body.
In some cases, porphyrin is excreted in the urine, giving it a purple hue. In rare cases, like George’s, urine is blue.
Acute porphyria can seriously affect the nervous system. Symptoms include hallucinations, delirium, insomnia, anxiety and even paranoia. To top it all off, the king’s doctors might have worsened this condition and its symptoms by treating George with doses of arsenic, basically poisoning him.
With a reputation for being a little off the rails and the flow of a Smurf, the theory of King George III having porphyria leaves you asking if you believe it…or not!
Melody Moezzi
In Rumi’s words:
Become the sky and the clouds that create the rain, not the gutter that carries it to the drain.
Of course it’s easier to be the gutter than the sky, to imitate rather than to create, but imitation builds cults, not communities. It may seem counterintuitive, but true community demands originality, not conformity. I know this firsthand, because every time I write something new it helps me feel less alone, reminding me that we are all inextricably linked to and through a sacred spark within each of us.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/26/opinion/rumi-poems.html
How a Persian Mystic Poet Changed My Life
My father recited Rumi to me as I grew up. I finally chose to listen.
By Melody Moezzi
Ms. Moezzi is a writer and activist.
Feb. 26, 2020, 5:00 a.m. ET
To Make a Goal
To make a goal of comfort or happiness has never appealed to me; a system of ethics built on this basis would be sufficient only for a herd of cattle.
Albert Einstein
Sambal Oelek
sambal oelek, an Indonesian chile paste
if it's at your grocery store,[...] you should give sambal a try. It lasts forever, it's great stirred into mayo or ketchup, it gives salad dressings a kick, and it's a cheap and easy substitute for fresh or dried chiles in your cooking.
Article
Broccoli
I love broccoli. I measure everything against the cost of broccoli. Last night I chopped up 8 heads of broccoli and put them in my largest cast iron frying pan. I added olive oil, sesame oil, fresh garlic and fresh ginger. Then I added bullion and soy sauce and chianti. It was so good I ate it for breakfast.
Rose McGowan
Rose McGowan: Weinstein 'could be one of the biggest serial rapists in history' Article
Elie Weisel
Writing is not like painting where you add. It is not what you put on the canvas that the reader sees. Writing is more like a sculpture where you remove, you eliminate in order to make the work visible. Even those pages you remove somehow remain.
ELIE WIESEL
A Reader
“A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies, said Jojen. The man who never reads lives only one.”
– George R.R. Martin
Half your Mind
“At least half of your mind is always thinking, I’ll be leaving; this won’t last. It’s a good Buddhist attitude. If I were a Buddhist, this would be a great help. As it is, I’m just sad.”
—Anne Carson
To Care
To be a good writer, you not only have to write a great deal but you have to care. You do not have to have a complicated moral philosophy. But a writer always tries, I think, to be part of the solution, to understand a little about life and to pass this on.
ANNE LAMOTT
Machinery
Stay away from the machinery of the modern world. It will ruin your imagination.
WILLIAM H. GASS
Brecht
"Art is not a mirror held up to reality but a hammer with which to shape it."
— Bertolt Brecht
Tuesday, February 25, 2020
Nikki Giovanni
Writers don’t write from experience, though many are resistant to admit that they don’t. I want to be clear about this. If you wrote from experience, you’d get maybe one book, maybe three poems. Writers write from empathy.
NIKKI GIOVANNI
Nick Cave
Liz, I would like to think that "Girl in Amber" went some way toward releasing both my wife and me from the paralysis of our grief, as you suggest it helped you. I would also add that it has been my experience that although we are all, in some way or another, imprisoned by the events of our seemingly intractable pasts, in time, patient time, we heal.
Nick Cave, The Red Hand Files ISSUE #85 / FEBRUARY 2020
Monday, February 24, 2020
Absentee Landlords
Absentee landlords destroy a city. It's a strange phenomenon. The bad tenants look for the bad landlords and together they try to hide from rules and regulations and slowly but surely they destroy the city. The bad tenants want to get away with selling drugs and hoarding animals and the landlords just want their money. It's that simple.
Stay in the Moment
"The ability to stay in the moment, to investigate it through my own body and mind, was what I most needed to learn at that point in my life,”
"To stay within my own experience more fearlessly."
- Jane Hirshfield
Off Guard
I think one of the reasons I like writing first thing, early in the morning, is because that’s when I’m a bit sleepy, a bit off-guard, and I just put the words down on the page without thinking too much about them. When you’re wide awake, you’re thinking about how you sound to others. There’s the impulse to please or to sound cool. We all have that. So I like to put a block of words down while I’m half-asleep. I’ll use the word blah a lot—“He walked with the blah across the blah and blahed his blah until”—and keep moving, not worrying about the sentences or even making sense. Then I’ll chip away at the block of words later, when I’m awake and critical.
KEVIN BARRY
Sunday, February 23, 2020
New Christopher Benson Paintings
CHRISTOPHER W. BENSONNew favorites, all of them!
https://www.bensonstudio.com/
Paintings and works on paper by Christopher W. Benson.
Old favorites, Truchas#1 and Roswell#2
Langston Hughes
Let the rain kiss you. Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops. Let the rain sing you a lullaby.
Langston Hughes
Appreciate
Let us learn to appreciate there will be times when the trees will be bare, and look forward to the time when we may pick the fruit.
-Anton Chekhov
Uncle Vanya
“You're an intelligent educated man. You can see it's not thieves or fires that destroy the world; it's hatred, hostility, all this petty squabbling...Shouldn't you stop complaining and try to make peace?”
― Anton Chekhov
Sincerity
“There should be more sincerity and heart in human relations, more silence and simplicity in our interactions. Be rude when you’re angry, laugh when something is funny, and answer when you’re asked.”
― Anton Chekhov
The Illness
“If many remedies are prescribed for an illness, you may be certain that the illness has no cure.”
― Anton Chekhov
Essential
“You are confusing two notions, "the solution of a problem" and "the correct posing of the question". Only the second is essential for the artist.”
― Anton Chekhov
Lisel Mueller
“I sat on a gray stone bench
ringed with the ingénue faces
of pink and white impatiens
and placed my grief
in the mouth of language,
the only thing that would grieve with me.”
—Lisel Mueller
Leaving Chicago
Black Families Came to Chicago by the Thousands. Why Are They Leaving?
There is an exodus of African-Americans from Chicago. Hardis White, 78, is one of those who left, and three generations of his family wrestled with staying or going.
Article
Good Advice
Excerpts from "How to be Perfect"
by Ron Padgett
Get some sleep.
Eat an orange every morning.
Be friendly. It will help make you happy.
Hope for everything. Expect nothing.
Take care of things close to home first. Straighten up your room
before you save the world. Then save the world.
Be nice to people before they have a chance to behave badly.
Don't stay angry about anything for more than a week, but don't
forget what made you angry. Hold your anger out at arm's length
and look at it, as if it were a glass ball. Then add it to your glass
ball collection.
Wear comfortable shoes.
Do not spend too much time with large groups of people.
Plan your day so you never have to rush.
Show your appreciation to people who do things for you, even if
you have paid them, even if they do favors you don't want.
After dinner, wash the dishes.
Calm down.
Don't expect your children to love you, so they can, if they want
to.
Don't be too self-critical or too self-congratulatory.
Don't think that progress exists. It doesn't.
Imagine what you would like to see happen, and then don't do
anything to make it impossible.
Forgive your country every once in a while. If that is not
possible, go to another one.
If you feel tired, rest.
Don't be depressed about growing older. It will make you feel
even older. Which is depressing.
Do one thing at a time.
If you burn your finger, put ice on it immediately. If you bang
your finger with a hammer, hold your hand in the air for 20
minutes. you will be surprised by the curative powers of ice and
gravity.
Do not inhale smoke.
Take a deep breath.
Do not smart off to a policeman.
Be good.
Be honest with yourself, diplomatic with others.
Do not go crazy a lot. It's a waste of time.
Drink plenty of water. When asked what you would like to
drink, say, "Water, please."
Take out the trash.
Love life.
Use exact change.
When there's shooting in the street, don't go near the window.
Ron Padgett, excerpts from "How to be Perfect" from Collected Poems. Copyright © 2002 by Ron Padgett.
Canine Verbal Prodigies
A Border collie in Norway learned the names and categories of her many, many toys, just by playing a game with her owners.
Article
Temperature Scarves
“Clearly climate change is a concern and part of the zeitgeist of anxieties today,” he said. “Knitting is a comforting and meditative way to channel all those anxieties.”
Article
Suing Shangri-La
"Even if I can just change, change the outcome for even one person, just to prevent everything I went through, it's worth it to me," she says.
Article
A Cathartic Role
“I’ve never been very risk-averse — for better or worse, obviously,” he said. “Regarding ‘The Way Back,’ the benefits, to me, far outweighed the risks. I found it very therapeutic.”
a “total breakdown” on set after completing the scene.
“It was like a floodgate opened up,” O’Connor said. “It was startling and powerful. I think that was a very personal moment in the movie. I think that was him.”
Story
Saturday, February 22, 2020
know very little about badness
“A silly idea is current that good people do not know what temptation means. This is an obvious lie. Only those who try to resist temptation know how strong it is... A man who gives in to temptation after five minutes simply does not know what it would have been like an hour later. That is why bad people, in one sense, know very little about badness. They have lived a sheltered life by always giving in.”
― C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
No Ordinary People
“We meet no ordinary people in our lives.”
― C.S. Lewis; Inspirational Christian Library
Recurring Dreams
I should get goldfish tank
I should sew a vest
I should adopt another dog
I should...
I should sew a vest
I should adopt another dog
I should...
Truth
“If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end; if you look for comfort you will not get either comfort or truth only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin, and in the end, despair.”
― C.S. Lewis
Lessons
“God allows us to experience the low points of life in order to teach us lessons that we could learn in no other way.”
― C.S. Lewis
Where you are Standing
“What you see and what you hear depends a great deal on where you are standing. It also depends on what sort of person you are.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Magician's Nephew
Modern Educator
“The task of the modern educator is not to cut down jungles, but to irrigate deserts.”
― C.S. Lewis
The Problem of Pain
“Mental pain is less dramatic than physical pain, but it is more common and also more hard to bear. The frequent attempt to conceal mental pain increases the burden: it is easier to say “My tooth is aching” than to say “My heart is broken.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain
New Book, Old Book
“It is a good rule after reading a new book, never to allow yourself another new one till you have read an old one in between.”
― C.S. Lewis
those who keep silence hurt more
“I have learned now that while those who speak about one's miseries usually hurt, those who keep silence hurt more.”
― C. S. Lewis
Andy and Abby
My neighbor was walking up the drive with her two young kids calling for her two cats Andy and Abby. "My roomate and I fought this morning and she stormed out and left the door wide open at 5:AM. She does that when we fight. The cats must've gotten out," she said. "She also stole all my money."
"Sounds like she may have taken the kittens with her," I said.
"Yeah."
"I will let you know if I see them but call the animal control officer Tiffany and she'll help you," I said. "Here's the number,"766-1212#9."
"Will she give my cats back they're not spayed, I didn't have time to do it yet," she asked. "My cats are emotional support animals for my son."
"Just call the police station and ask for Tiffany the dog officer. Tell her everything you just told me. Tiffany is good. She will help you," I said.
"Thanks."
After my walk I came home and spotted dry kibble in a dish on the sidewalk left out for the kittens. Last night I read notices about her cats on twitter. I hope her roommate comes back with the cats for the sake of the children. They must've had the worst school vacation ever.
"Sounds like she may have taken the kittens with her," I said.
"Yeah."
"I will let you know if I see them but call the animal control officer Tiffany and she'll help you," I said. "Here's the number,"766-1212#9."
"Will she give my cats back they're not spayed, I didn't have time to do it yet," she asked. "My cats are emotional support animals for my son."
"Just call the police station and ask for Tiffany the dog officer. Tell her everything you just told me. Tiffany is good. She will help you," I said.
"Thanks."
After my walk I came home and spotted dry kibble in a dish on the sidewalk left out for the kittens. Last night I read notices about her cats on twitter. I hope her roommate comes back with the cats for the sake of the children. They must've had the worst school vacation ever.
C.S. Lewis
“Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art.... It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things which give value to survival.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves
“Eating and reading are two pleasures that combine admirably.”
― C.S. Lewis
“I can't imagine a man really enjoying a book and reading it only once.”
― C.S. Lewis
a cup of tea
“Friendship ... is born at the moment when one man says to another "What! You too? I thought that no one but myself . . .”
― C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves
“You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me.”
― C.S. Lewis
“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves
“Some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again.”
― C.S. Lewis
Every Test
“Every test in our life makes us bitter or better, every problem comes to break us or make us. The choice is ours whether we become Victim or Victor.”
-Anonymous
My Invisible Disability
My invisible disability is a gift.
It taught me how to listen with my heart;
How to see the sorrows of men;
How to speak words of humility;
How to smile in trials;
How to count the blessings;
And taught me how to love.
My invisible disability is my strength.
-Amy
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