Working From Home

Calypso is monitoring my meetings. 

An Important Meeting of Great Importance.

 This popped up as a Facebook memory and I thought I'd share it here. This was a gathering of my closest male friends to help me decide who would be my best man. Actually it was me delegating to them the task of choosing my best man. I believe it came down to a poker game, which Jacob "won". 

All great men. All good friends. I sure do miss everybody.

Some of the finest men I know (and me). with 

Jacob Morton

 and 3 others at 

Castaway Cove World Headquarters

.

Memories

 This photo came up in my Facebook Memories, but since I'm not doing Facebook I thought I'd share it here. This was from the first Swashbuckler's Ball that I did not help organize. I needed a break so I got to attend as both a VIP guest and a performer (as percussionist and village idiot for the Bilgerats and Pyrettes). It was a lot of fun to be able to stop and talk to people and enjoy the event rather than running around all night putting out fires. 

CORRECTION:

It turns out this was from the last Swashbuckler's Ball I DID organize. The one at the Portland Art Museum. It was a smashing success in every way but one. We lost serious money on that venture for the first time ever.

Remember, remember the merciless oppression of Catholics in 17th century England

 It never fails to amaze me the weird duality of Guy Fawkes Day/Night. From the Wikipedia article:

"Guy Fawkes Night, also known as Guy Fawkes Day, Bonfire Night and Fireworks Night, is an annual commemoration observed on 5 November, primarily in the United Kingdom. Its history begins with the events of 5 November 1605 O.S., when Guy Fawkes, a member of the Gunpowder Plot, was arrested while guarding explosives the plotters had placed beneath the House of Lords. Celebrating the fact that King James I had survived the attempt on his life, people lit bonfires around London; and months later, the introduction of the Observance of 5th November Act enforced an annual public day of thanksgiving for the plot's failure".

The impetus behind the gunpowder plot had to do with the persecution of Catholics in England. You'll recall that the Protestant Reformation was either caused by or resulted in Henry the 8th's divorce from Catherine of Aragon, and things got pretty rough for Catholics for quite awhile after that. This is not to say that the Catholic church wasn't guilt of a lot of heinous fuckery - and indeed they still are - but your average Catholic on the street was taking quite a beating due to the schism between the Protestants and the Catholics, and our boys involved in the Gunpowder Plot (of whom Guy Fawkes was a relative bit player) had had enough. I'm not going to postulate on what the world would be like if the plot had succeeded, but one would imagine that things would have gotten WAY worse for Catholics, rather than better.

But back to the weird duality. So we know what the gunpowder plot was and why Guy Fawkes Day is celebrated, but why has his image become synonymous with opposition to authority and promotion of anarchy? He's no longer seen as a traitor, but as a symbol of resistance to oppression. This may or may not have started with the 1980's comic (and subsequent movie) V for Vendetta, but regardless Fawkes' transformation from papist traitor to anarchist poster boy is one of those weird things that happen in history.

And you know how I like my weird.

Groundhog Day. Again

 

How long was Bill Murray's character stuck in his Groundhog Day loop? I've read estimates ranging from 34 to 10,000 years. It feels like I've been stuck in my own loop for years now, but, unlike Phil Connors I don't seem to be learning anything from it. Just the same day, over and over again, with the only differences being the food and the pajama bottoms. Emails, video conferences, invoices, bids, cooking dinner, being excited when Janet gets home, eating dinner, watching a movie, going to bed. Repeat. Weekends are slightly different but we can't really go anywhere or do anything, so they feel like more of a small glitch in the cycle than anything meaningful or memorable.

It's said that ''Groundhog Day'' perfectly illustrates the Buddhist notion of samsara, the continuing cycle of rebirth that Buddhists regard as suffering that humans must try to escape. If that doesn't sum up 2020 I don't know what does. As we sit and wait to find out if our country will go back into an endless loop of anger, hatred and failure, it seems like we should be learning something, but we never do. America is in mortal decline, I have no doubt about that, but watching it fall is like watching an endless film loop of a building being demolished. It falls, it's back to normal, it falls again.

And so it goes.

Chicken Soup for the Soul. And the Tummy

 I keep a "soup bag" in the freezer in which I store chicken bones and vegetable trimmings. When I'm running low on bone broth I toss the contents of the bag into the Instant Pot and make a new batch, which I keep on hand in a McMenamins beer growler in the fridge. My broth is always really flavorful and makes a great addition to recipes that need broth. 

Today I used my broth to make a batch of chicken noodle soup. I sauteed a diced onion, several multicolor carrots, 4 stalks of celery and 3 cubes of Dorot frozen garlic (love that stuff!) and got it all nice and caramelized, then added my most recent batch of broth and the meat off some leftover Cornish game hens. Brought it to a boil and added a couple of bundles of lo mein noodles and bingo! Comfort food for the week. I'll send some with Janet for lunches, too.

Leaving Facebook

 The current political climate has made Facebook too toxic for me, so I'm taking an indefinite break. I set up this blog to give me a place to rant and say what I want to say, even if nobody ever reads it.