Huzzah!
26/07/20 07:44
It really does look like we're going to have a bumper crop of tomatoes this year. Not sure if it has to do with better and more frequent waterings or maybe it has more to do with the bag of horse manure that I worked into the soil early on in the season. I can't believe how tall the plants are never mind how much fruit they may or may not be producing. And the fruit looks to be plentiful from my vantage point so it all bears watching and maybe even a little more watering here and there to make sure that we finish the season strong.
I have yet to designate a proper container to hold our delicious little friends until they turn into the rosy little red globes that we love to pop into our mouths until our cheeks reveal their contours. Until that happens, they will continue to roll around unconstrained on our kitchen counter top. I'll pluck them from their stems prematurely on occasion and let them ripen off the vine. I'm not sure which option, on the vine or off the vine, is the better of the two or which one produces the sweeter fruit so I may have to try both and see which one works best.
While I'm delighted that we had the work done in the basement to replace the insulation I'm now giving a little thought to what to do next. If moisture played a role in the diminishment of the quality of the existing insulation over time then I should be thinking about solving that moisture problem if there is such a thing. The first step will be to place a humidity gauge down there to make sure that we do in fact have a humidity problem. If true, the next step would be to look into getting a dehumidifier set up down there. Talk about having a dizzying number of options. There is a lot to consider.
The last thing I need in my life right now is a chore that has me going into our basement and emptying a water container every day. I'm not sure if that would even be required but I'll know more when I get my first humidity readings. Assuming there is a humidity issue, there is no good way to empty the water from a yet to be set up humidifier since we have no sump pump or alternate drainage so this may a question for the professionals. Doing nothing is seemingly not a good option either since I'm not wanting to see our recent investment go to hell in a hand basket for the want of a decent humidifier.
I was thinking about joining a phase three study for one of the coronavirus vaccines. Just for shits and giggles really. One of the studies is in the Boston area so that is probably a non-starter since I don't want to have to travel into the city to get what could be a placebo rather than the real McCoy. If I'm going to put myself out there as a guinea pig I suppose I want some assurance that it's worth the time and effort. That's not how these types of studies work, Johnny Boy. It's a crap shoot. I suppose I could just say that I'm advancing the study of science when it comes to inoculating the masses against this nasty virus. I really do need to find a study closer to home. That could be a challenge.
In the meantime, we wear our masks when we go into places and we keep our distance from other people. I don't have an issue with the mask thing and it's become something akin to second nature when I'm out and about. You just don't think of it. Where I differ from my better half is that she thinks if you're not wearing a mask you deserve every bit of ridicule and shame that the masses can throw at you.
If it's feces they're throwing then so be it. Let me cut to the chase. She's a mask nazi. There, I said it. She's bought into the hyperbole hook, line, and sinker. If I'm a moderating influence at all, you wouldn't know it from the vitriol coming out of her mouth when she sees someone violating the rules out in public.
Nancy won't go into a store where the employees aren't wearing masks. I could give a good god darn. I don't judge them one way or another and if that is what they choose to do then that's fine. I have my mask so I'm not likely to catch anything from them so who cares. Really, who cares?
And it may be true that some folks don't wear a mask because they haven't drank a sufficient amount of the Cool Aid served up by the main street media and their taskmasters in the democrat party. They've got fear playing on a loop 24-7 and it all goes away when people go to the polls to elect Joe Biden in November of this year. You just wait and see.
You can bet your bottom dollar that if a democrat president was coordinating and rolling out what Trump has been rolling out when it comes to putting together these efforts to create public-private partnerships etc. in order to solve this coronavirus issue that the media would singing his praises day in and day out. Instead, the public is fed a daily dose of hysteria in an effort to create the illusion that Trump is not only doing nothing but rather that he is slow rolling or stonewalling efforts to bring the full weight of the government to bear in order to protect the American public. Nothing could be further from the truth.
I don't hold the mask nazi thing against Nancy just so you know. I worry that she's getting her information from all the wrong places. When you get your information from places like the Boston Globe and the New York Times then you have to understand that they have an agenda when they write their stories.
They are not likely to write anything flattering or positive about Trump and, in fact, they are likely to skew stories to make Trump look bad. Like I said, they have an agenda. As hard as I try to tell Nancy to expand her horizons on subjects like the coronavirus by considering other sources, her inclination is not do that. I can only do so much.
Nancy's new puzzle arrived in the mail yesterday so she's a happy camper. The puzzle pieces have been removed from the box and are now laid out in a larger cardboard box in our garage in order to air out the pieces. It arrived in the mail stinking of high heaven with a pungent plastic smell that is unnatural at a minimum and unnervingly likely toxic to anyone within ten feet of breathing it in at worse.
It didn't help that the pieces, all 1,000 of them, were stored for safe keeping inside a hermetically sealed plastic bag. She should have known that opening the bag would unleash a stench of epic proportions and she could have taken the appropriate precautions. Holding the pieces at arms length isn't going to get the job done.
My darling really is at loose ends when she has no puzzle to work on. She's at a bit of a disadvantage now that we're in the midst of a pandemic because her usual sources for such puzzles are places that she just won't go into anymore. She won't take a chance that one or more of the puzzle pieces of the second hand puzzles that she used to delight in poring over now threaten to infect her with the coronavirus.
I tell her, in so many words, that she is being just a bit irrational but my comments fall on deaf ears. Knowing how important having a puzzle on hand is to her, I've even offered to go into these places to find a puzzle for her. She's having none of it. So the new puzzles come with their own problems scents and smells being front and center. The good news is that scents and smells go away. Maybe they don't really go away. Maybe you just get used to them so they all of a sudden seem less permeating, less caustic, and less annoying. Whichever the case, it's a familiar pattern by now so the drill is always the same. It's funny how that works.
In our visit over this past weekend with Mrs. G the topic of lobster rolls came up. We were telling her about our good luck down at Rye Harbor where we had the chance recently to pick up a couple of nice lobster rolls. It only dawned on us after the fact that Mrs G had somewhat recently expressed a fondness for lobster rolls and french fries. This harkens back to conversations we had with her during a time when visitors were not allowed at her facility due to concerns about the coronavirus.
The entire compound was essentially on lockdown. "If only I could leave this place for half a day, that's what I would have", we remember her lamenting. Her focus was primal and our charge for any upcoming visitation was clear: We would bring her a nice lobster roll and she would have it with or without the fries. Fries, after all, don't travel well and cold fries don't cut the mustard. I'm paraphrasing, of course.
In retrospect, we shouldn't have gone on and on about how good they were. You could see the blood draining from her face as she too recalled earlier conversations on this very topic. I don't think she thought us inconsiderate, or worse yet, mean, for reminiscing although she may have been a little curious as to why we hadn't remember those very same conversations and maybe the promises we made and now, failed to keep. We were probably caught up in the moment as it were and while we're never really at a loss of words during any of our meets and greets we have on occasion lost sight of things maybe we shouldn't have.
I'm back here the next morning the day after writing the above mentioned paragraphs trying to pick up where I left off. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. The music is different, the day is different, the mood is different, everything and nothing is the same. I'm thinking that writing about lobster salad betrays my white privilege and my sense of shame and entitlement is overwhelming.
None of that is true. It isn't true because I don't subscribe to any of it and nor should you. The only guilt I feel is the guilt I maybe feel for not remembering that Mrs G wanted a roll and we whiffed on it. Not intentionally, mind you. No siree, Bob.
I enjoyed watching a good bit of Bill Barr's testimony before Congress yesterday. Why Nadler, the corpulent chairman and the penultimate never Trumper, thought it was a good idea to have Barr appear before his committee I'll never know. It was largely predictable but the lunacy of the left was on full display as they attacked Barr time and time again for doing his job protecting federal courthouses and other institutions from attacks by far left groups like Antifa and other malignancies plaguing our democrat run cities.
These leftists represent the party that wants to assume power in the Fall by keeping the House, winning back the Senate, and installing one of their own, Joe Biden, as President. Why anyone in their right mind would want these people running our government is a question that every American needs to seriously consider before going to the polls when that day arrives.
Bill Barr asked a very important question of the democrat members of the Congress when he asked the question, "Why can't we just say, you know, the violence against federal courts has to stop? The response from the democrats seated in the gallery? Crickets. Fucking crickets.
The democrat members of Congress condone the violence. Make no mistake about it. They are actually hopeful, and someone even stated this in the hearing, that one or more of the "soldiers" hired to protect the federal courthouse from the rioters will be goaded into killing one or more of the rioters.
There is nothing they would like better than to recreate a Kent State scenario where the government will be seen as overplaying their hand resulting in the deaths of one or more "protestors." Every good cause in a revolution needs martyrs. While I would prefer to see tanks and napalm in response to the insurrection, I nonetheless applaud the troops for their restraint in battling the forces of evil night after night on the streets of Portland.
I have yet to designate a proper container to hold our delicious little friends until they turn into the rosy little red globes that we love to pop into our mouths until our cheeks reveal their contours. Until that happens, they will continue to roll around unconstrained on our kitchen counter top. I'll pluck them from their stems prematurely on occasion and let them ripen off the vine. I'm not sure which option, on the vine or off the vine, is the better of the two or which one produces the sweeter fruit so I may have to try both and see which one works best.
While I'm delighted that we had the work done in the basement to replace the insulation I'm now giving a little thought to what to do next. If moisture played a role in the diminishment of the quality of the existing insulation over time then I should be thinking about solving that moisture problem if there is such a thing. The first step will be to place a humidity gauge down there to make sure that we do in fact have a humidity problem. If true, the next step would be to look into getting a dehumidifier set up down there. Talk about having a dizzying number of options. There is a lot to consider.
The last thing I need in my life right now is a chore that has me going into our basement and emptying a water container every day. I'm not sure if that would even be required but I'll know more when I get my first humidity readings. Assuming there is a humidity issue, there is no good way to empty the water from a yet to be set up humidifier since we have no sump pump or alternate drainage so this may a question for the professionals. Doing nothing is seemingly not a good option either since I'm not wanting to see our recent investment go to hell in a hand basket for the want of a decent humidifier.
I was thinking about joining a phase three study for one of the coronavirus vaccines. Just for shits and giggles really. One of the studies is in the Boston area so that is probably a non-starter since I don't want to have to travel into the city to get what could be a placebo rather than the real McCoy. If I'm going to put myself out there as a guinea pig I suppose I want some assurance that it's worth the time and effort. That's not how these types of studies work, Johnny Boy. It's a crap shoot. I suppose I could just say that I'm advancing the study of science when it comes to inoculating the masses against this nasty virus. I really do need to find a study closer to home. That could be a challenge.
In the meantime, we wear our masks when we go into places and we keep our distance from other people. I don't have an issue with the mask thing and it's become something akin to second nature when I'm out and about. You just don't think of it. Where I differ from my better half is that she thinks if you're not wearing a mask you deserve every bit of ridicule and shame that the masses can throw at you.
If it's feces they're throwing then so be it. Let me cut to the chase. She's a mask nazi. There, I said it. She's bought into the hyperbole hook, line, and sinker. If I'm a moderating influence at all, you wouldn't know it from the vitriol coming out of her mouth when she sees someone violating the rules out in public.
Nancy won't go into a store where the employees aren't wearing masks. I could give a good god darn. I don't judge them one way or another and if that is what they choose to do then that's fine. I have my mask so I'm not likely to catch anything from them so who cares. Really, who cares?
And it may be true that some folks don't wear a mask because they haven't drank a sufficient amount of the Cool Aid served up by the main street media and their taskmasters in the democrat party. They've got fear playing on a loop 24-7 and it all goes away when people go to the polls to elect Joe Biden in November of this year. You just wait and see.
You can bet your bottom dollar that if a democrat president was coordinating and rolling out what Trump has been rolling out when it comes to putting together these efforts to create public-private partnerships etc. in order to solve this coronavirus issue that the media would singing his praises day in and day out. Instead, the public is fed a daily dose of hysteria in an effort to create the illusion that Trump is not only doing nothing but rather that he is slow rolling or stonewalling efforts to bring the full weight of the government to bear in order to protect the American public. Nothing could be further from the truth.
I don't hold the mask nazi thing against Nancy just so you know. I worry that she's getting her information from all the wrong places. When you get your information from places like the Boston Globe and the New York Times then you have to understand that they have an agenda when they write their stories.
They are not likely to write anything flattering or positive about Trump and, in fact, they are likely to skew stories to make Trump look bad. Like I said, they have an agenda. As hard as I try to tell Nancy to expand her horizons on subjects like the coronavirus by considering other sources, her inclination is not do that. I can only do so much.
Nancy's new puzzle arrived in the mail yesterday so she's a happy camper. The puzzle pieces have been removed from the box and are now laid out in a larger cardboard box in our garage in order to air out the pieces. It arrived in the mail stinking of high heaven with a pungent plastic smell that is unnatural at a minimum and unnervingly likely toxic to anyone within ten feet of breathing it in at worse.
It didn't help that the pieces, all 1,000 of them, were stored for safe keeping inside a hermetically sealed plastic bag. She should have known that opening the bag would unleash a stench of epic proportions and she could have taken the appropriate precautions. Holding the pieces at arms length isn't going to get the job done.
My darling really is at loose ends when she has no puzzle to work on. She's at a bit of a disadvantage now that we're in the midst of a pandemic because her usual sources for such puzzles are places that she just won't go into anymore. She won't take a chance that one or more of the puzzle pieces of the second hand puzzles that she used to delight in poring over now threaten to infect her with the coronavirus.
I tell her, in so many words, that she is being just a bit irrational but my comments fall on deaf ears. Knowing how important having a puzzle on hand is to her, I've even offered to go into these places to find a puzzle for her. She's having none of it. So the new puzzles come with their own problems scents and smells being front and center. The good news is that scents and smells go away. Maybe they don't really go away. Maybe you just get used to them so they all of a sudden seem less permeating, less caustic, and less annoying. Whichever the case, it's a familiar pattern by now so the drill is always the same. It's funny how that works.
In our visit over this past weekend with Mrs. G the topic of lobster rolls came up. We were telling her about our good luck down at Rye Harbor where we had the chance recently to pick up a couple of nice lobster rolls. It only dawned on us after the fact that Mrs G had somewhat recently expressed a fondness for lobster rolls and french fries. This harkens back to conversations we had with her during a time when visitors were not allowed at her facility due to concerns about the coronavirus.
The entire compound was essentially on lockdown. "If only I could leave this place for half a day, that's what I would have", we remember her lamenting. Her focus was primal and our charge for any upcoming visitation was clear: We would bring her a nice lobster roll and she would have it with or without the fries. Fries, after all, don't travel well and cold fries don't cut the mustard. I'm paraphrasing, of course.
In retrospect, we shouldn't have gone on and on about how good they were. You could see the blood draining from her face as she too recalled earlier conversations on this very topic. I don't think she thought us inconsiderate, or worse yet, mean, for reminiscing although she may have been a little curious as to why we hadn't remember those very same conversations and maybe the promises we made and now, failed to keep. We were probably caught up in the moment as it were and while we're never really at a loss of words during any of our meets and greets we have on occasion lost sight of things maybe we shouldn't have.
I'm back here the next morning the day after writing the above mentioned paragraphs trying to pick up where I left off. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. The music is different, the day is different, the mood is different, everything and nothing is the same. I'm thinking that writing about lobster salad betrays my white privilege and my sense of shame and entitlement is overwhelming.
None of that is true. It isn't true because I don't subscribe to any of it and nor should you. The only guilt I feel is the guilt I maybe feel for not remembering that Mrs G wanted a roll and we whiffed on it. Not intentionally, mind you. No siree, Bob.
I enjoyed watching a good bit of Bill Barr's testimony before Congress yesterday. Why Nadler, the corpulent chairman and the penultimate never Trumper, thought it was a good idea to have Barr appear before his committee I'll never know. It was largely predictable but the lunacy of the left was on full display as they attacked Barr time and time again for doing his job protecting federal courthouses and other institutions from attacks by far left groups like Antifa and other malignancies plaguing our democrat run cities.
These leftists represent the party that wants to assume power in the Fall by keeping the House, winning back the Senate, and installing one of their own, Joe Biden, as President. Why anyone in their right mind would want these people running our government is a question that every American needs to seriously consider before going to the polls when that day arrives.
Bill Barr asked a very important question of the democrat members of the Congress when he asked the question, "Why can't we just say, you know, the violence against federal courts has to stop? The response from the democrats seated in the gallery? Crickets. Fucking crickets.
The democrat members of Congress condone the violence. Make no mistake about it. They are actually hopeful, and someone even stated this in the hearing, that one or more of the "soldiers" hired to protect the federal courthouse from the rioters will be goaded into killing one or more of the rioters.
There is nothing they would like better than to recreate a Kent State scenario where the government will be seen as overplaying their hand resulting in the deaths of one or more "protestors." Every good cause in a revolution needs martyrs. While I would prefer to see tanks and napalm in response to the insurrection, I nonetheless applaud the troops for their restraint in battling the forces of evil night after night on the streets of Portland.