COVID Update and Commentary

COVID is surging in Tennessee again, and Governor Lee has leaned into the narrative that everyone needs to simply not worry about the virus and let it burn itself out, adamantly refusing to re-declare a state of emergency which would allow school systems and municipalities across the state to implement mask mandates. Our legislature, duty-bound to Tennessee's evangelical population to exploit crises in the advancement of extreme political position, has declared COVID officially over and continues its attack on public education, public health, public assistance, and anything which might be deemed helpful or beneficial to anyone or any thing that isn't white, conservative, and fundamentally Christian.

As of today, Tennessee has the highest COVID death rate per capita in the United States, and Jack watches the obituaries for Smithville and McMinnville daily, speculating about who died of COVID and who didn't die of COVID. 

Our new normal is weird.

COVID19: Words on a Saturday Evening

As much as I thought we probably weren't out of the woods when I stopped my routine "COVID 19"-themed posts back in the spring, I clung to hope that people would be responsible enough to get the vaccine and wear masks around other people to minimize the destruction of this mess.

Nope. Right now, DeKalb County's vaccination rate is closer to 25% than 30. Our numbers are back up. We currently have 90'ish active cases.

A bunch of folks are ready tell you that they're just being smart and not falling for any of that science stuff. Because those science people will trick you with facts and truth. 

They've done their own research. They've googled and googled and googled some more until they found an obscure something-or-other to support their specific belief. 

Others have decided they won't give Joe Biden and Democrats the satisfaction of surviving the pandemic and are willing to die - or allow their children to die - for the spite of it. 

COVID19: Vaccinated, Easter on the Farm, Photos of the Girls

Even though the COVID19 is still with us and will be for a long time, I'm not going to preface my titles with it any longer. We've been isolating and taking precautions for a year now, and this is our new reality.

Jack and I have received both rounds of the Moderna vaccine, and while we still have about ten days before we have maximum protection, the relief feels sweet. 

That said, there's still no place I want to go and nothing I want to do other than some serious hanging with Sis and the girls. Mom and Dad and I got huggy last week, and the situation feels overall better, but  news of dangerous variants and Canada on lockdown and young people now at increased danger of illness, death, and transmission have me on high alert. All of us really, and all I can do is hope that everyone stays as safe and well as they can. 

We had Easter on the farm last Saturday (the day before Easter) with Sis, Chris, and the girls coming for a longer, visit with inside-time and a more normal feel to it. Because Jack and I are not quite protected, we had to hang back and refrain from hugs, but that time's coming with a couple of birthdays - Bea's and mine - later in April.

I was so excited about seeing everybody and volunteered to make a beautiful and perfect strawberry cake using a recipe from Jack's side of the family. I filled it with strawberry jam and was on Cloud9 about how much everyone was going to love that cake. Until I dropped it putting it into the car. At least it landed right side up, and aside from some grime from the side of the car that scraped off easily enough with a spatula, it was fine and tasted delicious.

Mom posed with the big spruce tree in the yard. It was our first Christmas tree after we moved into the house 1978. Forty two years now! It's huge and beautiful. When I posted the photo on Facebook, my friend Mike commented, "It's a Christmas tree with the angel at the bottom." 

We all love kitties. This is Mom's cat, Bingo.

COVID19: Meatloaf on a Sheet Pan

Jack and I have talked about how a meatloaf might work as a sheet pan dinner, and this week I fetched some homegrown beef from the freezer at Mom and Dad's and gave it a whirl. The result was exactly on target, and Jack says it's maybe the best meatloaf he's ever eaten. 

I think the difference is in what the sauce/glaze does at 450 degrees on a sheet pan. 

I stirred together well three tablespoons each of ketchup, mustard, brown sugar, and red wine vinegar with a couple of big grinds of black pepper and pour-smeared it over the top of the meatloaf. Roasting caramelized it into shiny, sweet-savory coating which was a delicious complement to the meatloaf, which was standard fare - hamburger, bread crumbs, handful of oats, squirt mustard, dry mustard, ketchup, dehydrated onions, garlic salt, black pepper, Worcestershire sauce, what am I forgetting? 

Anyway, just a regular meatloaf. On a sheet pan with vegetables. 

It looked like this:

A pound of hamburger yielded a meatloaf loaf big enough for dinner plus leftovers for a couple of  meatloaf sandwiches. 

Jack and I have lately been diligent about "eating a rainbow" of dark-colored vegetables daily when possible, and sheet pan dinner helps us make it happen. This pan looks like a whole bunch of food, which it kind of is, but it's not too much. and it's healthy stuff - one beet with the leaves and stems chopped and cooked underneath, a small white onion, four thin slices of purple cabbage, two carrots, four strips of red pepper, eight spears of asparagus, four mushrooms, eight pieces of broccoli, and fifteen and a half green beans. 

Count it yourself the pieces yourself if you don't believe me. It makes a nice bowl of food. 

Mom and Dad gave us a great set of "pasta bowls" for Christmas, but we've only used them for pasta twice, even though we use them every single day. They're also great for rice and sheet pan dinner. Also, pie. 

This is from a different night, but the effect is practically the same. Roasty and toasty. 

COVID19: We're All Glad Spring Is Here

Today is the official start of spring, and I couldn't be happier about it.

Winter wasn't awful weather-wise, but it wasn't great in the overall view. We know a lot of people who have lost loved ones to COVID in the past three months. Some of our friends and their family members continue to struggle with the long-term impact of having COVID themselves and don't know if they'll ever feel vital or even well again. I want so much for the coming season and summer months afterward to bring hope and health, a much-needed respite, to all of us.

Earlier this week, the US passed the 100 million vaccines mark, which beats the goal President Biden set when he took office on January 20th. Mass vaccination clinics were staged in cities all across the nation today, and the Nashville folks at Nissan Stadium (where the Titans play) vaccinated 10,000 people. 

Here in DeKalb County, the health department is moving its vaccine operation to Alexandria in hopes of expanding access to people who aren't close to anything but I-40 since there are three vaccine clinics here in Smithville. My fingers are crossed that three months from now at the beginning of summer, we'll have a considerable percentage of people across the state and nation vaccinated and safer practices implemented for all of us.

Springing forward last weekend gave Jack and myself a big boost. It always does once we've adjusted to the different boundaries of morning and night and where fall the needs of the daily routine.

Weird as it seems, the cats anticipated the return of Daylight Savings Time by getting hungry about 45 minutes early in the week-plus leading up to the change.

COVID19: We're Vaccinated!! Also: More Tasty Grub, Storage Container Follow-Up,

Jack and I got our first dose of the Moderna vaccine earlier this week (Tuesday), and even though we'll need a booster in 4 weeks then 2 more weeks of waiting for immunity to develop, we feel such relief that our every conversation circles back around to how good we feel to be underway with the vaccine series.

When I called Mom and Dad to tell them we'd gotten our shots, Mom answered and yelled, "HOORAY!" as soon as she heard.

We're all feeling relief about lots of things these days. Jack generally wakes up a bit before I do. He checks the news and gets caught up while I'm doing my yoga-sprawl and cat calisthenics, and it's wonderful to ask, "What's happening today?" and hear mostly things that make sense from the national headlines. 

Whew. Sigh. 

We've been thinking and talking a lot about the one year anniversary of the last time we did all kinds of different things, because those dates are hitting the calendar like bugs against the windshield on a foggy July evening. 

The last time we went to WalMart in person is a year ago this coming Saturday. The great hunkering-down was about to start. 

The last time I hugged Lucia and Beatrice was a year ago this past weekend, and that's a long time. Our visit, though, sustains me until we can again hug and waller-around slumber party style. 

I got fancy with a batch of pizza dough last weekend. Not really fancy. I added a tablespoon of olive oil to my typically lean (i.e. no fat) ingredients just to mix things up a little bit. We used to make pizza dough that way all the time - like, every single batch, but I switched to a no oil variety back in the spring after a conversation with my buddy, Matt, about different ways to make pizza. He uses a lean dough, and I gave it a whirl, we loved it, and that's where we've been for the last ten or so months. 

My most-used cookbook's recipe for pizza dough is very much like our old recipe with olive oil, and when we were jonesing for pizza over the weekend, I made that dough. It was fine and the pizza was delicious, but neither Jack nor I prefer it to pizzas with lean dough crust.  It baked-up crispy and beautiful, but the back-crust lacked the chewiness we normally have even with a thinner pie. It was delicious, a little bland - I didn't get enough salt in the dough - and something to make again for some other purpose.

After the first pizza - the recipe makes two pies - and our clear preference for lean dough pizza, I decided to use the other crust for pigs in blankets. 

We had four hot dogs on the verge of loitering in the deli drawer, so I wrapped them in half of the remaining dough. I stretched it into a rectangle then used the rolling pin to create a 4" x 12" strip of dough. Using a metal ruler as a straight-edge, I cut the dough into 4 1"-wide strips. Each strip was wrapped "tennis grip style" around a hot dog with the edges barely overlapping/touching. 

Once they were wrapped, I gave them a roll on the board to smooth the edges before moving them to a parchment-lined sheet tray to bake for 30 minutes at 450 degrees. Before sticking them into the oven, I brushed the tops of the blankets with egg yolk (1) and water (1 T) and sprinkled them with Maldon salt.

They were super-delicious and looked really cool, like little tennis racquet handles:

They were without a doubt the best-looking pigs in blankets we've ever had, and like I said, super-delicious, but the dogs, which plump when you cook'em, also shrink as they cool, so by the time we got into our second dog, we had to position a finger over the bottom hole to keep the pig inside the blanket.

Next WalMart order, I added Johnsonville Beef Brats, the pre-cooked ones that look like hot dogs, and they were exactly what we needed for the best pigs in blankets we've ever had. We'll be buying these again. We rarely eat hot dogs, but when we do, we want a good one, and this is our new favorite.

This one.

Question for the foodie philosophers: Is a pig in a blanket a pig in a blanket if it's actually a beef thing? I say, "Yes," but that's just me.

When I got our repeat pigs wrapped and rolled and ready to go, there was still a little wad of dough left, so I scratched around in the fridge and found a few brave spears of asparagus who volunteered for snack duty. A brushing of egg wash on the pastry dough, a sprinkle of Maldon on the pigs, a sprinkle of sesame seeds on the 'gus, and 35 minutes later, we had the cutest, tastiest little snack for supper. 

An egg yolk mixed with a splash of water makes them shiny and gold.

In follow-up to my storage dilemma, these airtight storage containers from Amazon are great. Mom got some back in the summer and has had nothing but good things to say about them, so I broke down and actually bought something new. I'd been using a combination of glass jars, and while there's lots to love about jars, they break. They don't stack. They're not as easy to clean. You can't scoop out of a jar. I fell immediately in love with the first set and have picked up another with different sizes containers. Find them here:

https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B08LFWV8JW/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o04_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

COVID19: Happy Valentine's Day

COVID19: Weekly Roundup

I don't always summarize the events of the week, but since I haven't written anything that's stuck to the wall in several days, here we go:

Groundhog Day came and went this week. I don't know whether little dude saw his shadow or not, because the sun was in and out that day. What time does he check the weather anyway? We were supposed to get a hard taste of Arctic blast next week, but the forecast has changed, thank goodness, and the coldest temp will be around 20 instead of around 10. At those extremes, a few degrees one way or the other makes a difference. 

Monday, I read that the United States has passed a milestone in that we now have more people vaccinated against COVID than sick with it, and that's the best news about COVID19 I've heard in awhile. Mom and Dad have now received both rounds of the vaccine. My friend Ward's father, Nate, who celebrated his 94th birthday today has now been vaccinated, too. Sis has had one round and will soon be much, much safer at work. Chris has had both of his for some time. With his work, he was exposed and had to quarantine multiple times since last spring. 

Our family is fortunate to have dodged the virus and maintain fairly well on so-far-so-good juice. Jack and I just have to wait our turn to make our appointment, and hopefully by April, we'll all be in safe situations for getting out and being about.

As long as I can start hanging tight with the family again, I will be fine. There's no place I'm dying to go outside the family. Sis and Chris have had all kinds of home improvements done - that was before the pandemic - but I still haven't been over to see them. Beatrice has a new cat, Mustard Pickles, who matches our cubs, and I haven't gotten to meet him yet. 

The dentist. Gosh. That's a place I want to go - to the dentist for a cleaning. The great and wonderful Phyllis has retired - sad face - but the other hygienist, Beth, is a kind and professional person and a treasured friend to boot, so it's all gonna work out. My teeth are in pretty good shape to have not been "in the chair" since late 2019. My daily routine is to always, always, always do a full 6 minute brushing with the Oral B/Braun and follow it with a 750 ml tank through the WaterPik. My teeth look and feel good, my gums are tight, and everything feels good in there, so I'm not going to sweat too hard about it. 

We've been without a clothes dryer for a month now. Yes, that's beyond "weekly update," but we only reached a critical point today when I received e-mail notification that payment for the heater I ordered has been refunded to my PayPal account. *insert heavy, ragged sigh* 

I ordered the replacement part early into this breakdown, too. The day we realized the dryer wasn't heating, I did what everybody does these days - I posted about the problem on Facebook. Different friends posted about their own experiences with DIY and fixing things themselves. They shared links to helpful YouTube videos. Our friend Willy was provided enthusiastic encouragement and convinced us that yes, we CAN do this ourselves. I looked up the part, we ordered from McComb's Supply in Lancaster, PA, because they had it in stock for the best price. Expedited shipping was $9. Jack said, "Go for it."

When the heater hadn't arrived by last Friday, I called and spoke to a man named Carlos, whose first question after I introduced myself and outlined my problem was, "Wow! Are you from Kentucky?"

I don't know anything about his intent, but it sounded an awful lot like, "Damn, you're really a hick, aren't you?"

I first requested that he cancel the order, then changed my mind as the next cheapest heater is $50 more, but y'all know we get what we pay for most of the time, and here we are four weeks later with a dryer that doesn't heat and a closet full of towels that feel like porch and patio carpeting scraps. Air drying is definitely the way to go with somethings. Towels aren't among those things. 

Tomorrow, I will deal with finding the correct part and getting it on its merry way. Some things can wait a day, and after a month, one more day isn't going to hurt. 

Josie has a new dog bed, and after some initial beagle'ish-ness, she's decided it's exactly what she's always wanted.

COVID19: Sketchy Bernie

By now, y'all have all seen the photo of Bernie Sanders at the Biden-Harris inauguration. He was bundled up in a Burton parka (made in Vermont), hand-knit gloves gifted to him by a school teacher, a disposable blue mask, and regular-looking trousers. 

When he first walked down the steps from inside the Capitol, he carried a large manila envelope, like he had stopped by the office to grab his mail for a look-see while waiting for the big event to get underway. I feel that to my bones because it's exactly the kind of thing I'd do during the pre-game for a wintry hoedown and needed to keep mind off how freaking cold my ears are getting.

I use the word delightful a bit much, but it most accurately expresses how I felt the first time I saw #comfyBernie was trending on Twitter along with the photo.

For the sake of history and to practice my figure sketching a bit, I added this quick doodle to my little green sketchbook of current/events politics. I decided I needed a separate book for things that might distract or detract from the chill vibe of my regular sketchbook.

COVID19: One Week In and All is Well

Joe Biden was inaugurated as the 46th President of the United States on Wednesday of last week, January 20th, and I feel so much better.

This is a bad sentence because it is vague - better than what? the English teacher writes in the margin, and I raggedly sigh, because the last four years have left me in a better place than where I was before. I  can't be more specific than that at the moment. 

I'm sure I'll get back around to some thoughts'y-feelings'y stuff as I unpack the constant anxiety, dread, and anger I've shouldered since late 2016, and for now, I'm happy to sleep at night knowing that the President of the United States isn't championing taking away my ability to buy health insurance through the marketplace or viewing me as an "enemy combatant" for my strongly-feminist social justice advocacy or willing to use the nuclear codes to settle a score or bomb a hurricane.

Knowing that adults who have experience managing the complexities of our government are managing the complexities of our government goes a long way toward a good night's sleep around here. 

COVID19: Onion Pie

I'm competing in the Chopped Christmas Virtual Challenge that the local extension office is hosting through Facebook. Three weeks of preliminary challenges - appetizer, entree, dessert - will determine the three competitors in the final challenge with the winner to be named sometime around new year.

Participants are given the same set of required ingredients and a deadline for creating a dish using them. Photos and recipes are submitted to the extension office and posted on the UT-TSU Extension Facebook page, then the public according to Facebook votes, an assessment by three neutral judges is made, and a winner and runner-up from each week's competitors are chosen. 

For the first week's required ingredients were cream cheese, onions, garlic powder, cranberries, and pecans. Because I've been having so much fun lately with pastry and making a pie of some sort every few days, I came up with the idea for a Cranberry-Pecan Crostata. I made a scruffy puff pastry-pie pastry hybrid, and by "scruffy," I don't mean it looked rough or haggard - it was flawless - but the  method of pulling together and folding pastry with a massive load of chilly butter to create layers and layers of deliciousness isn't stuffy, overly-precise, or labor intensive. 

After rolling out my pastry, I used a ruler to lay out a perfect rectangle, trimmed away the ends, and created a folded edge. An egg, garlic powder, salt, and pepper were mixed into softened cream cheese before I spread it across the pastry. Toasted pecans, reconstituted dried cranberries, and slices of red onion completed the crostata. I brushed a beautiful egg wash around the edges and crumbled some flakes of Maldon on for good measure.

I thought the resulting creation was beautiful, and Jack said it looked like something in Southern Living, but it didn't catch the eye of the folks on Facebook in a good way. I got less votes than anyone else by a fairly wide margin, and I continue to consider the futility of trying to sell onion pie to the masses, no matter how good it might taste in real life.

Because it did taste fantastic!!

COVID19: Cousin Marcie

Jack's cousin Marcie is a hospital social worker in Ft. Myers, Florida and among the handful of people that Jack and I talk to semi-regularly on the telephone. She's also among the handful of people who have spent the night here.

She's a kind and thoughtful person, and COVID19 has made her job a whole lot harder in an area which, like Tennessee, is seeing a surge in cases with no real end in sight. 

Marcie grew up in McMinnville and has the mountains in her spirit, but she's at her best in the ocean breeze. 

To let her know how much we love her, I painted this picture for her. It's big - 12 inches square - and based on a photograph her husband, Chad, took one day when they'd paddled to a stretch of isolated beach somewhere off the Gulf of Mexico. The canoe was hand-built by one of her grandfathers and is one of her most treasured, cherished possessions. It's also a hell of a canoe. 

COVID19: Let's Talk about Shoes

We had snow yesterday. It was that beautiful kind of steady snow that covers the tree branches and makes the ground white but mostly melts and doesn't make the roads dangerous. I call it "friendly snow," because it isn't treacherous or threatening as long as you watch your step and don't take stupid chances where the ground might be slick.

That will probably be the only snow we get, because I also ordered winter boots yesterday. 

I went to Amazon to look for something entirely different, but before I was finished, I'd scored Cyber Monday deals on shoes for both Jack and myself as well as Christmas presents for Sis and Chris. My holiday shopping has been more on schedule than recent years, and it feels good to be mostly finished here at the beginning of December. 

The boots I've ordered are purple and lined with dark grey fake shearling. They were less than twenty dollars, and I'm more excited about them than I probably should be, but I haven't had winter boots since I was a kid. This is going to be a whole'nother ballgame when it's time to walk Josie or do laundry. 

My favorite winter shoes ever were these things called "hut scuffs," which were insulated clogs with soft, gummy soles for walking on icy porches and whatnot. They came with extra liners, and I wore those shoes until there were holes in the soles. Jack and I both had a pair which we bought on final clearance from either Campmor or Sierra Trading Post back in pre-Croc days before most men, especially rural Tennessee men, wore clogs. Jack was on board from the get-go, because he's all about comfort and function, and if nothing else, clogs are comfortable and functional. 

He's wearing clogs at this very minute.

My clopping-around-the-house shoes have, until very recently, been a pair of worn out Keen sandals with stepped-down backstraps, I didn't realize just how much they were hurting my feet until I stopped wearing them, which was Thanksgiving. When we were at the farm, I slid my feet from my shoes and started rubbing them pretty aggressively. Mom asked what was going on, and I told her how much my feet hurt on a regular basis and how I probably need to get some new shoes to wear around the house. I told her about how much I'd loved the hut scuffs and showed her my worn out Keens.

She told me that she'd just gotten new house shoes from Amazon and retrieved them from the house. They were plain blue scuffs with bright chartreuse lining and lightweight waterproof soles. They looked huge, so I slid my big dawgs into them. With room to spare, I told Mom the shoes are obviously too big for her and claimed them for my own. 

As soon as I got home, I logged ordered just like'em for her in size medium. They came in the mail today, and we dropped them off (along with a little bag of hand pies) at the farm on our way to pick up groceries.

COVID19: Safe Distance Thanksgiving on the Farm Photos

 

COVID19: 1979 Thanksgiving Trip to Michigan - Part I

One year we went to Michigan for Thanksgiving. 

1979.

I don't remember what "the family car" was at that time or why we borrowed Ma-Ma Harris' car, but we went in the Nova and traveled in tandem with Uncle Bill, ex-Aunt Doris, Billy, and Brent. They were in a gold LTD station wagon, and we all left from Smithville on Wednesday afternoon. 

I remember being sorry to leave school at lunchtime, because Mr. Hyde was going to do his famous chain reaction demonstration in the aquarium in his classroom that afternoon. He had a big aquarium - maybe 40 gallons - but it didn't have any fish in it. It was mostly just a big, empty aquarium in the corner of a 9th grade science classroom, but once a year, Mr. Hyde would set about a hundred mousetraps, arrange them in the floor of the aquarium, then drop in a ping-pong ball to demonstrate what a chain reaction is. 

The plan was for the adults to drive until they were too exhausted to wiggle, then we'd check into a motel and finish the rest of the trip on Thanksgiving morning, which seemed reasonable, since the Michigan relatives drove to Tennessee more often than the Maryland cousins or Aunt Bobbye and Uncle Clyde, who lived in Houston, and the way they talked, traveling to Michigan and back wasn't that much more of a deal than going to Knoxville or Chattanooga. 

Dad got pulled over for speeding by the Kentucky Highway Patrol south of Cincinnati. That was the first time I was ever in a car that got pulled over, and 40 years later, the flash of those blue lights is bright  in my memory

Dad did get a ticket, and he felt bad about it because we were in Ma-Ma's car - like it was going to count against her on her permanent record - and even way back then, I think the thing cost nearly $80 to resolve. 

We stopped somewhere for a snack and to regroup after the ticket ordeal. Uncle Billy had pulled over, too, a mile or so down the road to wait for us to catch up and ended up getting questioned by the same trooper about what he was doing and why he was pulled over and was he traveling alongside those speeding people from Tennessee with the same last name. 

At the end of the day, we stopped north of Cincinnati but not as far north as Dad and Uncle Bill had hoped we'd get. 

COVID19: Chicken Pot Pie

Saturday, we got our bi-weekly box of produce from Misfits Market, and I should have taken a picture of the inside of the box to show you how pretty everything looked. 

After a couple of glitchy deliveries - one box got lost in transit and one was missing a couple of items - we're back on track. This order had mostly familiar things that we use on a regular basis - salad greens, sweet peppers, big round onions, small red onions, and cabbage. We also got bok choy, Bosc pears, a couple of avocados, a bunch of radishes, a bag of pearl onions, and a small head of radicchio. The gold beets Jack had wanted were apparently not a go, so our box contained two celery roots as a substitution.

We've not had celery root before, but I've seen them used on cooking shows in savory dishes where potatoes, turnips, and other root veggies go and had no reservations about cubing-up one of those puppies and adding it to this huge and delicious chicken pot pie.

I normally use a potato but substituted the celery root, and it was fantastic. The flavor was very subtle and mostly appeared as a bright, nutty note. The cubes were creamy but didn't lose their shape or get mushy like some potatoes are wont to do. If I hadn't known what it was, I probably would have guessed it was a mild variety of turnip. 

The pearl onions were fun to prep. I made an "x" at the bottom end of each one then plopped them into boiling water to blanch for a few minutes before getting shocked in a bowl of ice. The beautiful little "pearls" blip out easily with a pinch and squeeze from the top and are what you need in a pot pie. The recipe I loosely reference whenever I make pot pie is one by Ina Garten, my kitchen spirit guide, who strongly suggests using pearl onions, because they're sweet, tender, and have a gentle flavor. 

Before the pandemic, Kroger could be a reliable source of inexpensive pearl onions in the freezer section. Fresh ones tend to be priced as a specialty produce item, seasonal, and not particularly in demand by cooks in this part of rural Middle Tennessee. When pearl onions were offered in the "pick six" section of our Misfits Market options, I selected them first and said, "Ooooo, pot pie" and made other choices accordingly.

The substitution of celery root was happenstance and well-fated. We'll put that in the box again. It would be great in all kinds of soups, a mash with beef or pork, roasted in the oven like potatoes. A new thing to taste and explore.

COVID19: Happy Birthday All Around - Scorpio Edition

Dad's birthday was the same day as the election. Mom's was today. 

Two Scorpio parents.

I'm not into astrology enough to know what that means and had to check with Google to be reminded what sign influences those born in the first three weeks of November.

Scorpio, according to the few sources I checked, is strong-willed, sensitive, and nurturing. They are also most compatible with Pieces and other Scorpios, so there you go. Mom is one of the most strong-willed people I know. Dad is, too, but he's a lot more subtle. I looked to see what sign he's closer to than Mom, and it's Libra, and according to the internet, Libras are charming and beautiful, and they are driven to orderly, balanced, aesthetically-pleasing things. 

Chris' birthday is two days after Dad's. Sis is a Pieces. 

So, there you go.

Happy Birthday, November people I love. 

COVID19: Viral Thoughts on a Sunday Evening

The progression of COVID19 cases here in DeKalb County continues to climb. We're at 971 as of today, the 15th of November, which is spitting distance of a thousand.

DeKalb had 18 new cases. Yesterday, we had a record 51 new cases. The day before that, it was 6. The trendline is shifting steeply upward. The schools start back with in-person learning tomorrow after a two week quarantine break due to sick students and staff. 

Privacy concerns keep the flow of information from being immediately helpful, and contract tracing is spotty. 

Some people say they can't imagine what the period between Thanksgiving and the end of January is going to look like, but I can. I've spent hours with co-workers writing plans and testing them with table drills and staffed walk-throughs at various hospitals in preparation for worst case scenario situations - tornadoes, floods, the collapse of the power grid, anthrax, a radiation incident or nuclear disaster, civil unrest. And, yes, pandemic.

COVID19: Greetings from Tuesday Morning

The election is over. Joe Biden is the President-elect, and the first good bit to bubble to the surface was  relief.

Relief.

Pennsylvania called the result just before 10:30 on Saturday morning. We hadn't been up for long, and when I logged onto Facebook, my friend Jeffry had just posted the wonderful news. He's a stickler for facts, so I knew he was telling the real deal. Jack came in from walking Josie to find me with happy tears streaming down my face. 

Later in the morning, Nevada called the race for Biden. Georgia is also showing blue. There's no way for Trump to make up the difference in the votes, but he's raising a big stink about it. I'm not worried at this point. The election is a done thing, so I'm just going to sit here in the corner and wait for everybody to get over the sting of butthurt. 

Facebook is awash with stinging comments from Trump supporters who feel that the election is being stolen, and some are planning a mass exodus to a competing platform which promises no censorship, no fact-checking, and no liberal bias. Good riddance, I say. Don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out. 

A friend sent me a message earlier and asked if I wasn't going to take at least one victory lap around Facebook about the result of the election, and I told him that I just don't have it in me this time around. I'm posting pictures of the beautiful trees in the woods behind us and a bunch of different pies I've baked. What's more American than apple pie? and each one shouts USA!! in its own special language. I've made a post or two about how generally grateful I feel these days. 

Trump has damaged so much, including relationships between people, and as glad as I am about the result, celebration seem out of place with the pandemic spreading like wildfire and many Tennesseans, including our governor, unwilling to accept the result of the election. 

Governor Lee questions whether or not God would put a Democrat in charge after all the wonderful work Donald Trump has done over the last four years. In my daily call to his office tomorrow, I'm going to remind him that the will of the voters of the United States determines the outcome of the election. He has managed to be a successful businessman, but he certainly doesn't have a good set of leadership skills for governing a state. He seems hesitant to make any move that hasn't been seeded by Trump Republicans at the national level. 

Ben Carson has COVID now. That was in the news today. He was at the election night gathering at the White House along with members of the administration who have tested positive and others, like Betsy deVos, who deserve to test positive. He has sold out his brothers and sisters and disavowed the suffering of his own people. If he pulls a Herman Cain and dies, there will almost be poetic justice in his passing. 

Speaking of poetic justice, I nominate Justice Clarence Thomas for the Black Republican COVID19 Death trifecta but only if he dies after 1/20/2021. That's inauguration day (and a palindrome, like taco cat and god dog) Joe Biden will get to replace him. With Merrick Garland. Or Barack Obama. 

I get chills just thinking about it.

COVID19: An Apple Pie Photo Essay

Apples from Griffin's Produce in Smithville.

Jack and I bought these on election day.
Arkansas Black, Mutsu (!!! my favorite), Rome

This Rome has beautiful snow-white flesh,

and there are lovely blushes of red inside.

These have tart flavor and give the pie 

some fun, red color as it bakes.

The Mutsus are HUGE. 

This may end up being a big pie.

Swoosh!

Three tablespoons brown sugar.

Two teaspoons cinnamon.

I hope I have enough pastry.

A pass with the magic rolling pin.

Two or three passes.

Whoof. That's a lot of apples.

PattyCake, PattyCake... Wait.

This isn't a cake.

This is a pie.

A really big pie.

A big, delicious, apple pie.

Yum.