On Not Writing

I do not know what to say. I have had a lot to say for years now. Nothing. I feel suspended in goo just waiting for the other shoe to drop. I hope I will improve. I hope our Democracy survives. Mostly I am taking Buddha's advice. "Think about other things."

It is also true that what does come from my fingers on social media is scary to type and feel and think. Yes, this is me the nonviolent conscientious objector snowflake saying, if a man with a gun and no formal insignia frightens and puts you in fear of injury or death, you kill him. That is your right and responsibility to yourself and fellow citizens IMO.

In the meantime, have some Dave Brubeck. I had the pleasure of listening to the Quartet on a June evening, under a tent, as the Delaware River flowed on by. Anybody else remember The Music Circus? "Music hath charms to soothe a savage breast." - The Mourning Bride, by William Congreve.

Flying on Thanksgiving? Shave your legs. - with Updates below the Flower Colophon

UPDATES BELOW: There is a new change in procedure at TSA since I wrote this seven years ago. Groping has gotten more sincere. Time to try my solution? Illustration from Second Story Window.

                                       

Flying on Thanksgiving? Do not even think about it. Stay home, make some hot chocolate and get out the popcorn. There is going to be a big strike at airport security. The Transportation Security Administration folks are groping the genitals of adults and children.

I am for a major civil rights action. But I say: Do not opt out of the scanner and make them grope you to protest, even though it surely will mess things up bigtime.

Too tame for me. Too much chance you will make your fellow humans mad. Make them mad and they will not support your cause. I say, give the people you are going to inconvenience some bang for their buck.

Take off all your clothes when you get to the first scanner. Every stitch. Then bend over and spread your cheeks so everyone in the airport can see your Stuff. Revolve slowly while bent over so there is a 360 degree view for everyone. Be careful, it is easy to fall down while doing this. Go slowly. Give them the Full Monty.

If you have not been tazed and/or arrested at the end of your revolution (yes, this is a pun and I intentionally committed it), calmly stand in line and put your clothes back on. Make everybody wait. Let everyone take pictures.

I think we could pay people to do this, if we have to. I did it in high heels on New York City bars for money, so I know you will not have a problem finding personnel. Be sure to have the protesters revolve (revolt?...revolutionize?) in more than one airport.  Ask patriotic porn stars to do it pro bono. Everybody wants to make a contribution.

Problem solved. Probably take about three weeks for The Suits to construct a backdown narrative and get it out there to The Media. Be the best political caucus race and general circus you ever saw. Think of the jokes on late night TV. Problem solved. Maybe I will run for President.

I wrote the initial essay above about the Transportation Safety Authority in November 2010 when folks were considering a huge protest. It is seven years later. Maybe they have gotten worse? Maybe it is time to do it my way? More information at the links.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/10/10/dying-woman-tsa-wanted-to-check-under-my-bandages/

A woman who’s dying of leukemia says that agents with the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) at Sea-Tac Airport in Seattle forced her to lift up her shirt in front of a crowd so they could check underneath her bandages.

Disabled cancer patient slammed to the ground by TSA guards, lawsuit claims

Hannah Cohen, 18, was on her way home from St Jude’s Hospital when a scanner went off and led to incident that left her ‘physically and emotionally’ injured

Hands On with the TSA's New 'Enhanced' Pat-Down Procedure
The government goes for second-base. By JOHN MCCORMACK

I'm not a crazy ACLU-type. I've had no problem with body-scanners or previous TSA pat-downs. In 2009, a terrorist famously smuggled a bomb in his underwear aboard a U.S. flight. But an agent of the state should probably only touch a citizen's genitals seven or eight times if the agent has reasonable suspicion, and not because a machine is malfunctioning or calibrated, intentionally or unintentionally, to detect explosives on everyone who is tested.

I am a 'crazy ACLU type' and a rape survivor. I would announce before pat down 'Touch my genitals and I break your face.' Then do my best to break the face. I do not fly. 

Nick Sings Dixie

Way down South
In the Land of Cotton
Racism there is kind of rotten.
Oy vey!
Oy vey!
Oy vey!
It's Dixie Land. 


I am so sorry to report that Nick Vanocur has died. He is sorely missed by friends and fans. 

Mint Julep Oracle

This little essay was written in March of this year. It has become a lesson to myself that one never knows where Karma will take us all in June. Read more at Axios...

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said Saturday that he plans to honor the committee's "blue-slip" rule for the Trump administration's move to nominate Jay Clayton as U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York.

Why it matters: Graham holding to this policy — in a clash over one of the highest profile districts in the country — would mean that Clayton's nomination would not be able to advance without approval from home-state Democratic senators, per the Washington Post.

Sometimes I write a perfect sentence or two. Just perfect in every syllable. Not often. But once in awhile. And then I find I have nowhere to put it. Sentence just hangs around. Has Trump destroyed the word perfect? But I digress. I wrote:

Ms. Lindsey dipped a manicured finger into her mint julep, held it up to the breeze and detected a seismic shift in the political universe. Belle's have such exquisite sensibility

Perfect. Maybe if I do the same finger wave with my morning coffee and the breeze from the hole in the floor, I can find out why hundreds of Russians are reading here again. And why, when I mention them, they all go away.

“Man is a mystery. It needs to be unravelled, and if you spend your whole life unravelling it, don't say that you've wasted time. I am studying that mystery because I want to be a human being.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky

Cruising for Containers - Ghetto Garden Fabulous

When you garden in a small area like a city garden, the terrace of a hi-rise building or an alley, you can gain or increase planting space by using containers. We have even developed a phrase for this avocation: container gardening. Yes, you can grow potatoes in a laundry basket. Perfect use for a busted basket.

If you go to your standard garden store and price containers, you may find them costly. I mean, it is triage. What do you want more? Exotic new plants or fancy containers?

So many choices in life. How stylish do you want to be? Some people like funk. Some people like glitz or techno. Or whimsy.

So I thought I would present you, cher Readers, with some creative, varied and unusual containers I have gathered from a glorious google tour of the NET container gardening universe.

Look at junk with a creative eye. Anything you have that will hold soil is a possible container. Use industrial horse troughs. Use those capacious old aluminum pots from the thrift shop.


Do not forget that you must punch holes in the bottom of any container you plant in. Do not drown the Petunias.

The Kitchen Fairy Garden below is one woman's answer to the Fairy Garden craze. Ghetto Garden Fabulous!

I think the choice of all white flowers of different textures and heights for all these old silver containers is the work of a gardener with exquisite taste and a sense if humor.

Signs of the Month - September 2014 - FUCK THE POLICE !

Given what's going down, I thought it was time this came 'round. 
                          
This post has musical accompaniment. See below. 

Look sharp below for the graffiti poster's sign. It is not immediately evident. The guns kind of get in the way. 

Off the Pigs! 

I have not had occasion to say that since the 1968 Chicago riots. Feels good. Real good. 

Setting a Boundary

I can be quite rude and I do not mind. I have no shame. Thank you God. Why am I so mean? Why are you so nice?

The Universe or God (take your pick) often arranges to flout me (teach me) in odd ways.

I have a Shrink. Doesn't everyone? In the 20 years we have been working together, she has given me a direct order twice. Those directions were: "Don't fuck him." and "Stay away from your family." She trusts me and she never pushes my defiance/anger button.

I come from an alcoholic Catholic family with sexual and mental health issues. I am one of the bipolar members who spent ten years drinking and drugging. I have no idea how normal folks behave. We, Shrink and I, spend a lot of time establishing boundaries and rehearsing boundary setting. We talk things over.

My Mother used to do sexual checking. Once she made me remove my underpants so she could check if I had sex, after she dragged me down the street and into the house by my hair. I was twelve and a virgin. Consequently, I do not respond to the feelings of humiliation or embarrassment well at all. Not at all.

I have been attending AA meetings since 1980. I do not go often anymore since my Sponsor died, but I still drop in occasionally to get a therapeutic dose of humility. Humility is not the same as humiliation. Folks are friendly and often come to say Hello if they do not know you.

So this woman asks me "How much time do you have?" People are proud of their time sober. I reply with an AA bromide "I have today. How are you?" The woman launches into a tale of her 30 years of spotless sobriety, never a slip, etc. etc. Then she starts telling me basic shit you teach to Newbies. And I had been coming to the rooms since 1980. And no one sane would lecture a Newbie like that anyway. We are trying to assist Newbies not scare or shame them.

I do not know why, but she pushed my humiliation button. I want credit for those years, even if I was slipping and getting drunk once in awhile. I was still learning. I still had a desire to get sober which is the ONLY REQUIREMENT for membership in AA. I know something about how to get and stay sober. I just stood there and listened, furious, humiliated and smiling. Smiling. I know, now that I have studied interpersonal violence, that she triggered me. I was overcome by a tsunami of shame.

I looked at her closely while smiling. A few lonely folks come to visit at AA who never had a drinking problem in their lives. They come for the fellowship and the coffee. They talk the talk but have never walked the walk. And this lady? One of them. Lady yammered on and I stood there. I had no creative response. I just left. And I fumed and paced for days. By the time I got to talk to Shrink, I was still upset.

When you first start setting boundaries, there is no way to be elegant about it. If you tried to set a boundary in my family, you got beat up. Or you had to beat somebody else up. So you do the best you can.

For a long time, I ran away. That was an awesome defense I learned from the Surrender Group. Works for most situations but not all. I needed a simple-to-get-out-of-my-mouth, reasonably polite and nonviolent way to say NO! Some thing I could get out even when triggered. Some thing that would not include endless explaining.

And Lady Shrink gave me the simplest and the sweetest boundary setter of all. "Mary," she said "Say NO THANK YOU." And the light dawned. This is an all purpose defense.

Saying NO THANK YOU and smiling (and leaving if necessary) works. The abuser has no comeback. What can they say? They just stand there.

No Thank You is so easy to say: polite, nonviolent and thorough. And I can usually get it out of my mouth even when I am furious, scared, humiliated, etc. And it works well with trolls who just want to argue and take offense at trifles. 

No thank you. I'm a Barbie girl, in my Barbie world. No thank you. You will drive them boundary banditos up a tree. Peace.

Signs of Recovery

THE 7 STAGES OF TRUMP GRIEF: 

1. omg 

2. this is so bad 

3. yep still so bad 

4. we are going to die 

5. help 

6. somehow even worse today 

7. omg

 - Anonymous

I have stopped screaming at the television. I think maybe I can talk again.

This man speaks to our condition.

rod •

Ronald Reagan told us we cannot trust the government, and then to make sure we get the point, the GOP puts the biggest liar and ultimate bullshitter on the ticket. Because they have been conditioned to the point that they don't know who to believe, tons of people decided that since everyone in government lies, we might as well have the best liar available. We now have a government that is sheer dishonesty, starting at the top. Ass holes who will say anything for a buck, line up to defend a man whose credibility is absolutely zero. Fake news, fake president, fake everything. Welcome to the new America, land of bullshit.

Who am I to believe?

CIA did Abu Ghraib and made us war criminals. FBI gave us James Comey. Who gave us Snowden? Trumpus is a demented liar and a gift from Putin. Intelligence EPIC FAIL. Again. Potentially worse than 9/11 terrorism going down. Fascism going down.

We have Russia or "some 400 lb. man sitting on a bed" playing 'see what we can hack' with American 'TV programs. Just a nasty joke, you say? Russia can hack the massive electrical grids. Given how much distrust they have created using stochastic terrorism among Americans, two weeks of no power = ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE. omg.

POLICY NOT PENIS - or - HE HAS RISEN

Donald Trump has broken all kinds of norms during his presidential campaign, but he just went to a whole new level this morning by tweeting what is supposedly an image of his private-parts. The tweet was quickly deleted but not before being retweeted over 5,000 times. See more here... 

Clayton Jones is the Editorial Cartoonist.

I searched for Trumpolini's pee-pee-pic. Alas, it really has been deleted.

So I let the MAGIC OF GOOGLE work for me and I found lots about the Donald's pee pee. He keeps it very clean.

It is so huuuge it can double as a flagpole. Daily Call cartoon by Mark L. Taylor, 2015. Open source and free to use with link to www.thedailycall.org

And when necessary, Trumpolini wears his raincoat and practices safe sex. 

Our Leader - he has a penis* and he uses it. 

*and it is huuuggge.

 

April Showers - It is Raining Gardens in Philadelphia

I do not tire of old standards especially when they are mine. Repeating this as a public service. The PWD is moving its content. I have written to them and when I get new information, I will correct the links in this article.

The Philadelphia Water Department has some excellent information about Rain Gardens. You can make that boggy place in your front yard a thing of beauty and help clean and conserve water. Once planted, such a garden is maintained with little to no effort.

The photograph is a rain garden in Philadelphia, designed by Edgar David. Rainwater that flows from the house roof to the stone cistern is used to irrigate an intimate collection of woodland plants. You can read more HERE. 

Spring is here. I am ordering Herb Seeds. It is raining gently outside. I am getting that Happy Green Feeling. Now for some Velvet Fog. I repost this every April because I am a fan of Mel Torme, gardens, soft April rain and elegant jazz.

Musical Interlude for Attitude Adjustment - Ode to Joy

There are two means of refuge from the miseries of life: music and cats. - Albert Schweitzer

"Over the years, Beethoven's "Ode to Joy" has remained a protest anthem and a celebration of music. From demonstrators in Chile singing during demonstration against the Pinochet dictatorship, Chinese student broadcast at Tiananmen Square, the concert conducted by Leonard Bernstein after the fall of the Berlin Wall and Daiku concerts in Japan every December and one after the 2011 tsunami.

It has recently inspired flashmob performances at public spaces by musicians in many countries worldwide, including Choir Without Borders's 2009 performance at a train station in Leipzig, Germany, to mark the 20th and 25th anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall, Hong Kong Festival Orchestra's 2013 performance at a Hong Kong mall, and performance at Sabodell, Spain." - wikipedia

Make an Effective Covid-19 Mask at Home

Remember the Good Old Days? They will be back. 

I miss everyone. 

Photograph Courtesy of  u/brianbo402

You can make a contribution to the health and safety of your family and friends. I have some of these materials because I sew. If you sew, and you have a lot of these materials at home, and if you are really gung ho to make a contribution, sew these masks for healthcare workers. Sew one for yourself so you can go shopping safely. You can sew it by hand. The doctor says they are a bit more effective than the standard commercial N95 mask.

My friend, LarryM, posted that hepa filters may be impossible to find because retail markets are closed. Do not despair. You can make an effective mask with ordinary materials. Maybe not effective in the operating room under a viral shower but damn effective just the same. See the videos below:

New Doggerel. Cheap and Vicious.

“If you want to get rich from writing, write the sort of thing that's read by persons who move their lips when they're reading to themselves.”
― Don Marquis

Doggerel is cheap, vicious and mighty satisfying. I cannot stop. Delicious.

Georgie Conway Pudding and Pie.
Went on TV and made Trump cry.
Roughed Trump up with a few choice words.
I think we ought to give Trump to the Kurds.
I for one would sigh with relief.
What a terrible Commander in Chief.

Trumpy Trumpster
He's Putin's man.
Sucks Putin's dick
Like no one can.
Putin calls out "Bozhe ty moy!"
I just love my American toy!

Quotations of Note - No Food for You

If I want to stop poisonous partisanship, I have to stop jumping on political opponents with glee and disdain. So hard to be civilized. And so important.

Trump wants to take food stamps from the working poor. Spectrum of thoughts below the video which supplies relevant facts. Yes, Virginia, there are facts. 

When the people shall have nothing more to eat, they will eat the rich. 

Jean Jacques Rousseau

Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom, pride, fullness of bread, and abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters, neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy.

Ezekiel 16:49

If you're in trouble, or hurt or need - go to the poor people. They're the only ones that'll help - the only ones.
John Steinbeck

Puritanism: The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.

Henry Louis Mencken

There are people in the world so hungry, that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread.
 Mahatma Gandhi

RawDog Doggerel in Process with Music

I wrote this because Chatty asked me to. Kentucky Derby Theme. These verses are a work in progress and I will add to them as my Muse allows.

chatty Cherry The Tart • wow, my hubby and I are trying to get a Kentucky Derby boycott going, our first idea was Bye Bye Derby to the tune of bye by birdie, any ideas. I think if the derby was boycotted by enough people, everyone suffers in Kentucky and it will all be Moscow Mitchs fault and his own Kentuckians will vote him the hell out.

chatty Cherry The Tart •
The hub is pretty good too, between us we can come up with a verse or 2. Like get Grim Reaper in like BY BY DERBY, the Grim Repear has to go, maybe a line of him and Toyko Rose (Elaine I know she Chinese. Also we have to get Rand in there somehow. Hub creating hashtag plus a statement on why we're doing it. Thanks Cherry the Tart (love it)

I provide the Songs whose meter I have appropriated. RawDogs like me claim traditional right to be political, vicious and rhythmic only. Well behaved? Good luck. I do not think PP&M will mind. They were Social Justice Warriors.

Super Bowl swaps single-use plastic for aluminum cups at concession stands BY MORGAN GSTALTER

Rhyme scheme of Stewball. Come on RawDogs. Help us out.

Randy Pall is a Senator.

I am sorry he's mine.
He wants my healthcare.
So he can drink wine.

Moscow Mitch is his Buddy.
Sits on his high horse.
Hangs out with them Russians.
The aluminum of course.

Maybe this. But it is awkward. Rhyme scheme and meter of Who Let the Dogs Out is intricate. So one has to nip and tuck.

When the party was nice, the party was bumpin’
Yippie, Yi, Yo
Randy Pall was havin’ a ball.
Hey Yippie, Yi, Yo
Whistleblower came and chapped his dupa.
Now Randy he tattling all over the Mall.

Refrain: Who let the dogs out?
Woof Woof Woof Woof etc.

Eat your Greens for Good Luck in the New Year

This Gumbo works nicely in a crockpot. Serve in soup bowls with Rice and Louisiana style Hot Sauce. Easy to do and tastes fine.

Throw it together and let it simmer for hours. Yes, you can do it on the top of the stove, but why? This is more you-have-to-cook-dinner-365-days-a-year cooking.

Forgive the brevity and lack of direction - sometimes I get these recipes written down on the backs of envelopes. The Greens are the best part of this Gumbo for my taste. Green for Good Luck.  

Gumbo Verde

1 pound smoked or garlic Sausage, sliced in bite size pieces

2 cans of Navy Beans

1 can Beef Consomme with 2 cups Water

1 package frozen chopped Mustard Greens (10 ounces)

1 Onion, chopped

1 Bell Pepper, chopped

2 clove Garlic, chopped (optional)

Salt and Pepper to taste

Saute the Sausage with Onion, Bell Pepper and Garlic. Combine Sausage mixture with the Consomme and Water, Beans, Greens. Add Salt and Pepper to taste. Simmer slowly until the Beans become very soft and the Gumbo is thickened thereby.

Feel free to substitute cannellini or pink beans. You can use turnip greens or collards.

Potluck Panic? Make Xmas Eve Salad.

This is the time of year when Folks throw ( office, church, garage, AA, bowling team, study group, etc.) POTLUCK parties. That can be a problem if you cannot cook, or if you are too lazy to cook much, and some other fortunate Soul snags the Chips & Dip or Beer & Soda contributions.

This Salad can be your saving grace. You do not have to cook but only prepare the fruit with care and combine carefully. Everyone will think you are a whizbang gourmand. And if you are Vegan, you will have something you can eat. Use the videos on you tube on how to cut up fruit or not. There is more than one way to skin a Potluck. Happy Holidays!

Ensalada de Noche Buena

4 small Apples, cored and sliced
4 medium Oranges, peeled and separated in sections
3 cups of canned Pineapple, drained
4 small Bananas, sliced
3 tablespoons Sugar
2 tablespoons Lemon Juice
Romaine Lettuce leaves
2 cups canned Beets, drained
1/4 cup Peanuts

Combine the first six ingredients in a large bowl, cover and refrigerate until they are cold. At the moment of serving cover a salad bowl with the Lettuce leaves, mix carefully the Fruits and the Beets, and place the mixture over the Lettuce. Sprinkle Peanuts on top and serve immediately. Serves 12.

NOTE: Always wash your hands before you prepare food. Be sure to drain the canned ingredients thoroughly.
Some folks, my friends remind me, may be allergic to peanuts. So I would offer them on the side, roasted and salted, as a garnish. 

Merry Christmas Megan Pasty Pudding!

I have not watched even a clip from The View in a year. I cannot bear to look at Megan McCain or hear her petulant voice. I had to watch this one because I heart Nancy Pelosi.

Truth? I am a Roman Catholic. I want to bury my size 8 shoe, with ferocious joy, so far up Ms. Fatty Tit's dupa my shoelaces would tickle her uvula. There. I said it. doG forgive me. Tell your truth and shame the Devil.

I know - I am an evil body shamer. An rude intolerant slut. Sue me. I am also bipolar. On a bad day and presented with the opportunity, I might succumb to an evil impulse. I must avoid the "occasion of Sin." Ergo I do not watch the show. No point in arousing My Beast. Discretion is the better part of valor.

I wish my family and church had been the kind of Roman Catholics who taught "heart full of love." I think that oversight was a sort of "lace curtain Catholic" jawn. I remember terrifying Nuns and princely Priests. The Priests had these cords with big knots around their waists they beat themselves with at night, we were told meaningfully. All the better to beat you with, my wee Pumpkin. No one actually ever hit me. I was scared all the same. 

There were so many of us kids. Nuns had little clickers we were taught to obey. Click click = genuflect. Click click - stand. I went to Bethany Presbyterian to be a Girl Scout. I was taught Art and Basketmaking by Republican Miss Petty of the Junior League, social justice warrior. I remember sane Republicans. 

I have no shame. God loves me absolutely. I had to learn that from Nancy Horan, AA and the Quakes. God bless us everyone. Merry Christmas. I am working at Peace on Earth. It has to start with me.