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.