Lenten Blogging 2022: Day 10

No getting around it: this past week, from last Saturday on, was pretty craptacular.

How bad?  Something happened that has prevented me from driving for the most part, until further notice.  No, not a speeding ticket or anything like that.  I haven't had a ticket in... wow.  Over ten years now.  Not since I racked up those three in less than a month and a half (with two of them in Virginia on consecutive weekends... hey I was eager to see my girlfriend what can I say? :-).

I like... I like... to believe that things are getting better though.  Why do I say that?

My cooking skills leave much to be desired.  It's not that I'm a BAD cook per se, it's more like... well, I'm intimidated by the kitchen.  It all goes back to that Boy Scout Jamboree, and my night to cook for our troop.  I put WAY too much salt into the mashed potatoes.  So much so that it's rumored that the ground where we dumped it at is still too barren for foliage to take root (sort of a mini "Devil's Tramping Ground").

Yes, I've blogged before about some excursions into culinary experimentation.  Recently I wrote about preparing wild boar baby back ribs.   That was pretty easy though: laying the ribs on a foil-lined pan and cooking for two hours.  Very little preparation at all.  I think the most complicated dish that I've documented on this blog has been baking a pecan pie... and I got that recipe from a friend in Belgium.

Ever since then I've been a little scared to make more than a Chef Boyardee pizza.  I won't deny it: my diet has mostly consisted of frozen food, Subway sandwiches and Cocoa-Pebbles.  But with inflation hitting hard and less money to spend on "extravagant" cuisine, I'm having to learn to overcome my fear of the kitchen.

So that brings us to tonight, and what I did for dinner.

I had no idea what to make for dinner, just that I was hungry.  Tammy - my dachshund - was getting hungry too.  No, I didn't want Chicken McNuggets again.  We've had that twice already this past week.

Then I remembered that I had some spaghetti - the kind you find on the pasta aisle of any grocery store - and some sauce and parmesan cheese.  Christmas gifts from a friend who wants me to cook more for myself.  So that's what I endeavored to do.

I knew enough about cooking spaghetti to know that you break the noodles in half before you put them in the water.  And after Googling it I learned that you put the pasta in the water after it's started boiling.  Eleven minutes later the spaghetti had finished cooking.  A heapin' amount of sauce and cheese later and it was all finished.

And, I surprised myself by how good it was!  Making it myself, somehow made it even better.  It was easy-peasy Japan-esy.  And now I have another dinner to add to my (admittedly small) repertoire.

But you want to know what the best part of cooking spaghetti tonight has been?  It's been discovering that Tammy loves it too.  I had no idea that a dog could enjoy pasta, but apparently she does.  So now there is something I can whip up in the kitchen, that she and I can enjoy together.  Much healthier than sharing McNuggets too, no doubt.

So, that's today's post as part of blogging every day for Lent this season.  I have an idea of what tomorrow's post will be.  In fact, I'm about to watch another episode of it now.

More later.

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Lenten Blogging 2022: Day 9

Longtime friend of this blog Doug Smith found something around Christmas that, I've been looking for a reason to share.  Nothing much going on today so for your culinary enjoyment, courtesy of BBQ Pit Boys, here is their video on YouTube depicting the brewing of a fine batch of Brunswick stew!

Brunswick stew is practically a staple food of the rural South where I come from (north-central North Carolina) during the autumn and winter months.  Many groups like churches and Boy Scout troops make stew to sell as fundraiser, and lots of people enjoy inviting others over for stew that they've made in pots like this one (or even much bigger).  A big stew is an all night affair, with cooking starting as early as 6 p.m. and going on through til 7 the next morning.  It's also a communal event, with people slicing onions and potatoes to put in the pot.  And taking turns stirring the pot from dusk to dawn (often with a cold wind blowing).  Nothing like a big steaming hot pot of stew to keep you warm through the night.

Anyhoo, the BBQ Pit Boys do a fine job showing how Brunswick stew is made.  This is certainly not something you'll find at McDonald's or even Texas Roadhouse.  This is, as one of the crew says in the video, "good living".

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Lenten Blogging 2022: Day 8

Last night I found myself enjoying the camaraderie of a local chapter of the Rotary Club.  I've never been to one before, but I have friends and family who have been Rotarians.  They do a lot of good work, like their endeavoring to eliminate polio forever.  They are probably NOT like what Peppermint Patty thinks them to be...

But anyhoo, it was quite a nice evening.  The highlight of which was special guest Bob Dotson.  He had a regular feature on NBC's Today Show called "The American Story" for forty years or so.  Last night Dotson shared some of the stories that he covered in his time crossing the country countless times.  Dotson has a book out now, and he actively maintains his website My American Stories, which is said to contain EVERY story that he has covered.  Yowza!!

Maybe if I get to be an executive type one of these days I can join Rotary.  Seriously, I was the most dressed-down person in the whole place last night.  But what can I say?  I'd just come in from the job and my particular career involves lots of field work.  But my friends insist that I could join the Rotary Club anyway.  We'll see :-P

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Lenten Blogging 2022: Day 7

Of all the photos that have come out of Ukraine in the past two weeks, it's the one most heart-wrenching to me.  The photo that says it all about what that evil bastitch Vladimir Putin has done to that country.

I came across it on Facebook.  On one of the many dachshund-related groups that I'm a member of there.  It was a few days ago.  And I've been thinking about it a lot.

It's a photo of a Ukrainian woman, fleeing the destruction.  In her arms, she is holding her dachshund.  Keeping it safe amid the turmoil.

I saw that photo and it damn nearly broke me.

I have a dachshund also.  Her name is Tammy.  She turns ten years old one month from today.  She and I have been through a lot together.  We look after each other.  She's been there for me through a lot that's happened in my life.  And in return, I like to believe that I've given her a good life.  I'm hoping that we have many more years together (dachshunds can sometimes live to be twenty, maybe a bit more).  Tammy sleeps in the bed next to me every night.  We curl up together.  I can't imagine my life without her, and I know that one day I'm going to hurt very much when she is no longer with me.

I saw the picture of that Ukrainian woman and her dachshund, and it broke my heart.

Why is this war happening?

I don't agree with Lindsey Graham on everything but he's right.  Someone in Russia needs to KILL Putin.  Needs to blow him away or slip some polonium into his salad or whatever.  He is a madman.  A lunatic who God only knows what he's going to do with his hand over the button that could launch three thousand nukes at the civilized world.

I don't know much.  But I know this:

In Ukraine, tonight, a woman is desperately holding onto her dachshund.

And it pisses me off, what has happened to her and her country.

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Lenten Blogging 2022: Day 6

The price of gasoline here in South Carolina shot up twenty cents between 8 this morning and 4:30 this afternoon.  It is now $3.99.

Let's go Brandon!

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Lenten Blogging 2022: Day 5

I'm getting concerned.  I thought doing a post a day would kickstart my "old" writing skills back into play.  Five days into it and I'm nowhere close.

The last time I was able to channel the really inner parts of my intellect, was before I left my old home in 2016 and headed west.  I don't think that experience has anything to do with losing my writing ability in earnest.  If anything it made me a deeper, more broad person as a whole.  But as soon as I got back I had an issue with my medication and...

That's what I blame most for what happened to me.  The meds.  They keep me suppressed.  They help me hang on to some semblance of normality.  But they also rob from me a measure of spirit.

I've been trying to overcome the effect of the meds.  Have been working toward readjusting my mind around them.  But they are so pervasive, so very permeating into my neurobiology.  But little progress has been made.

So maybe with a little self discipline, and applying myself to the task, maybe that will help me where simply trying to evade the meds has failed.

What do I miss most?  Being able to write about God.  Being able to write about my relationship with Him.  I've lost that most of all.  Maybe that I lament that, is some evidence that I haven't lost it.  Maybe the fact that I'm writing about that right now, proves that I still care.  And maybe if I care about God, maybe He still cares for me, too.

See you all tomorrow.

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Lenten Blogging 2022: Day 4

Got back a little while ago from seeing The Batman.  It may take a while to process this thoroughly.  It's definitely a change-up from what we've come to expect from Batman on film.  Director Matt Reeves has crafted what is easily the most jagged, grim and dirty Batman story we've seen on the big screen ever.  And though some of his choices to slaughter some of the mythos' most sacred cows are disconcerting, even so I found myself completely enthralled by this movie.

It's not perfect.  There will never be such a thing as the perfect Batman movie.  But I would rank it right up there with Batman Begins (2005) and Michael Keaton's Batman from 1989.

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