Dirty Tricks and Desperation
We used to scorn Richard Nixon for his Dirty Tricks, called him Tricky Dick. This week the Republicans make Richard Nixon look benign. Ramaswamy invokes an abusive mother against his opponent, Amy Acton. Trump has the DOJ file a suit saying they are going to challenge the election of Mary Peltola in Alaska., and threatening to confiscate ballots in California. Locally, candidate Ashley Hofberger sends out postcards telling her electorate her opponent is a Unitarian and NOT A CHRISTIAN who wants to turn us all into Unitarians (gasp)! If it all didn’t have such serious consequences, we would have to laugh. It gets so tiring being outraged.
When you are a party whose entire time in power has been spent self-enriching, creating Executive Orders and laws that enrich your own family, stripping environmental protections from your citizens, and corrupting the objectivity of the Justice system, betraying historical allies, cozying up to dictators, FIRING THE WATCHDOGS, and vilifying the Free Press any time they expose an inconvenient truth, of course you sink to the vilest of responses – lying, cheating, bullying and changing the rules, the tools of the callous corrupt.
The Spruce: All the 2027 Colors of the Year
I love 1440.com, a news compilation service that is a great connector to lesser-known news. Today they mention an article in Spruce.com in their Etcetera column, my favorite part of 1440.com on the 2027 Colors of the Year.
From my point of view, most of the colors are very dreary, very grey, in a time I believe we need more light and hope, but this too shall pass.
Benjamin Moore: Webster Green
Little-Green: Marle
California Paint: Quiet Peace
C2: Pueblo
Behr: Grounded
Glidden: Artifact
Graham and Brown: Rose Earth
Dutch Boy: Deep Rooted
And finally, some offering more hope:
Sherwin Williams: Celery
Clark And Kensington: Vantage Point
Valspar: Cottage Door
Even the lighter choices have darker undertones! There is no right or wrong here; we all have our own responses to color. You may find these cozy and comforting. It;s probably the Alaska girl in me, I want LIGHT in my house!
Friday Date at Joe Patti’s
Joe Patti’s is a gem, but not an undiscovered gem. We like Joe Patti’s for a lot of reasons, not least because of their great variety of seafood. It is also our go-to for a quiet Friday evening supper of clam chowder or gumbo, fresh-baked sourdough bread, a smoky tuna dip, and assorted gourmet items we love.
Joe Patti’s has been around for a long time, with a prime location on the Pensacola Bay waterfront, a huge pirate ship and a huge-er American flag facing Main Street road, and a genuine Joe Patti-made fishing boat parked next to the store, great for photos. I’ve never seen that ship leave the dock.
It isn’t just tourists and out-of-town guests who get a kick out of Joe Patti’s. I learned on my first Christmas Eve in Pensacola that getting there at 6:30 a.m. was not early enough; most of Pensacola had representatives already in line to pick up seafood they had pre-ordered for Christmas weeks ago. I knew another Patti outlet, which saved my Christmas. The lesson stuck. I order ahead and pick up before Christmas Eve day.
Joe Patti’s has a lot of touristic memorabilia, a deli, a great selection of spices, herbs, condiments. charduterie items, a dessert section, all kinds of frozen delicacies and – an ice cream and coffee bar. And that is where Adventureman and I head after we pick up our chowder and sourdough bread for supper. My first time at the ice cream bar, several years ago, I tried the raspberry sorbet, and was blown away. It was so tasty. I did not let the taste blind me to the sweetness; I watch my sugar intake. I ordered a small cup, and only one scoop. It’s enough. Joe Patti’s charges for ice cream by the weight – Adventureman and I each get a cup of ice cream and we never spend more than $5. What a deal.
Joe Patti’s also has small sample sizes of ice cream free for children – this isn’t just a spoonful; it’s maybe a couple of ounces of ice cream.
You can pay for your ice cream right at the coffee/ice cream counter, and not have to wait in the lines waiting to pay for fresh fish on ice.
We take our ice cream out to the car, which we park on the dock, and eat it as we look out over the inlet, the fishing boat, and the new land fill being created just a short distance across the water from Joe Patti’s.
Friday, we watched an oil services boat come in – holding our breath that a storm wouldn’t blow up suddenly; the circular thing towers over the boat, making for a top-heavy load. Someone knows how that circular wheel functions, but not us. It’s just a novelty, scrolling across our view, entertaining us as we finish our ice cream. Normally, we only see herons and egrets and assorted small water birds flying in and out.
Always worth a trip:
If it’s August, it Must be . . . Halloween??
In the olden days, when we were Cold Warriors, guarding European borders from the evils of the Soviet Union, smart military wives started Christmas shopping in August. We knew we were up against deadlines; any gifts going surface mail needed to be mailed by mid-November. “Last minute” would need to be sent by Thanksgiving, or, horrors, the first week in December, but that is cutting it very close if you want your gifts to actually arrive in time.
You get so you start your shopping in January. We didn’t earn buckets of money, and we could do well by dollar-cost-averaging over the ten months leading up to Christmas. The bases all encouraged us to plan ahead, put things on layaway, make wise decisions – all year round. Knowing the barriers, the custom is to help the service people deal with the challenges of a life of – you know – service.
Finding Halloween had come to our Base commissary the second week in August, just as school is starting, was new to me. We are in the United States! We shouldn’t need to be thinking two months ahead for Halloween!
Pensacola is a Navy-centric community. We have Navy bases here, a solid community of Navy families and Navy retirees, and of course, the beloved Blue Angels. So I am wondering, too – where is the outrage? Where is the pushback when the leader of our nation tells the sailors and their families that they haven’t been in the Straits of Hormuz long enough? Where is the outrage when he dismisses complaints about food shortages, supply shortages, and mental health problems from being at sea for such a long time with no respite?
There are traditions against complaining, so if the grumblings are being heard, there is a real problem. Our military is used to self-sacrifice. It’s the nature of the service. If they are complaining, we can’t tell our military people to just suck it up. We have to listen.
This war has been going on for months, with countless declarations that the war is over and the Strait of Hormuz is open, only to discover, again and again, that it is not true. Over and over, it is another big fat lie.
Wrap it up, guys.
“You Watch, Gas Prices Will Drop Like a Rock!”
I filled my tank this morning with gas about 60 cents cheaper than last week.
I am very puzzled; gas prices fell “like a rock” the day after Trump said that as soon as peace was achieved, prices would drop like a rock. So quickly! I’ve seen prices go up overnight, but I have never seen prices go down so quickly!
We have a Memo of Understanding, not a peace treaty. We have identified areas of discussion (undisclosed) that the US will negociate with Iran over. We are in a poor position for negotiating.
From Wikipedia: Donald Trump announced the withdrawal of the United States from the Iran nuclear deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), on May 8, 2018.
Which Iranians? Are they all on board? Are they the leaders of the country?
How will this treaty be any better than the Obama treaty Trump withdrew from in 2018?
How much will this cost the American taxpayers?
Who has made money off of this war? Who has been hurt?
How much has this war cost the world? How has it damaged our Trump-punched alliances?
I filled my tank because I know our strategic reserves are nearing depletion. I filled my tank because I don’t believe the truce will hold – it hasn’t held so far – and I filled my tank because I believe it is more wires and mirrors, trying to fool us into thinking things are better than they are.
Morocco Malta and the Med: Concert at St. John’s Co-Cathedral in Malta
This was a lot of fun, mostly because it also involved walking along Malta’s main street at night.
A concert in one of the most beautiful and unusual churches in the world – Saint John’s Co-Cathedral, and everyone’s first question is “what is a co-cathedral?” I don’t pretend to understand this explanation from Wikipedia:
St. John’s remained the conventual church of the Order until the latter was expelled from Malta with the French occupation in 1798.[12] Over time, the church grew to equal prominence with the archbishop’s cathedral at Mdina. In the 1820s, the Bishop of Malta was allowed to use St John’s as an alternative see and it thus formally became a co-cathedral.[13]
It seems to have to do with two bishops sharing a church.
Yes. This church is spectacular and unusual and has a Caravaggio. The squares in the floor are vaults where Knights of Malta are buried.
The concert was truly lovely, instrumental and vocals, beautifully done.
I was fascinated by this very manly, muscular John the Baptist.
Caravagio’s Beheading of John the Baptist:
I love the whole idea of this. Malta attracts a lot of large cruise ships with young people and has a lot of active things for them to do. Creating a good orchestra and choir attracts also an older crowd, and gives us a chance to support the Valletta community in a meaningful way while we get a chance to sit and absorb the music in a beautiful cathedral we might be rushed through during the day. This gives us time and space to truly appreciate our time in Malta.
Saying Goodbye to Al Marai Coffee Cups
All my nomadic life, I have had to sift, sort and weigh the value of my belongings – literally. As an Army wife and later a corporate wife, I had a weight allowance as we moved from country to country. My life was full of leaving things behind – friends, churches, social groups, jobs, my identity – as well as belongings.
Unlikely items made the cut. In 2003, when we moved to Doha, Qatar, I discovered a nearby store, the LuLu (which means lovely large pearl), where a gallon of Al Rifai milk came with a free coffee cup sturdily taped to it. I was delighted. I’ve always believed good design does not necessarily correlate with price – and these cups were a perfect size and had these wonderful scenes from Doha life, where there was a dhow harbor in the center of town, dhows in the harbor, and camel races with human riders on Saturdays. Look! The dhow coffee cup even has a wind tower in the background.
So yesterday, Christmas Day, as I opened two beautiful new coffee cups, one from Giverney and one from Barcelona, my husband looked at me sorrowfully, and approached the subject gently.
“It’s time we give up the Doha coffee cups,” he said.
“They have served us well. They are over 20 years old. They were free, probably made in China from materials we don’t even want to think about. I use them all the time, and even as I do, I wonder what might be leaching into my drink.”
I know he is right. There is no marking of any kind to indicate origin. After all these years, marks are appearing where we have stirred for twenty years. And yet – these cups have served me loyally. They are still bright and unmarred. I love their memorialization of a slower time in Doha. And I have options.
At Christmas breakfast, I have the cups out on display and offer them to my son. He is a discerning collector of first editions by selected authors, first edition Legos from the space exploration collections, edged weapons, and selected items that catch his attention. He also knows how to buy and sell on the Internet when he wants to refine his collections.
He expresses interest but does not take them with him. Their departure, however, is Christmas Day chaotic – bags full of presents, the food divided to be used for quick meals in the coming week (even our grandchildren contributed to our Christmas Eve dinner, my grandson a crab dip and my granddaughter a wreath made of crescent roll wrapped little smokies. My son, who was never interested in cooking, astonished us with a baked Brie!) and last-minute check-ins on upcoming family plans.
I am a patient woman. I know those cups deserve to find new appreciation in a new home. I believe my son will get involved but if not, I have other options.
Update: This is what it is like to be me. It is not that I am getting older, it is that I will tell you things I believe to be true, and they are close, but not the same.
My friend Yusuf, below, said he thought it must be Al Marai, and that sounded familiar. AdventureMan said maybe really we should keep the cups, and as he handled them, He found Al Marai logos on the cups. Not just one. Two on each cup.
In our family, we are all very very sure we are right. When we are not right, we are required to humbly state it. I was wrong, so very very wrong; the cups were labeled, Al Marai, not Al Rifai, and YOU, Yusef and AdventureMan, were RIGHT.
And we are keeping the cups!
Born Every Minute
One of my neighbors on NextDoor had seen these advertised around, and it was surprisingly inexpensive. He ordered, and, very chagrined, posted when it arrived, that it is just a box with a fan in the back and a tray for water. It is, indeed, a “cooler,” not an air conditioner, and has minimal effect.
I laughed, but occasionally I have also bought things which sounded too good to be true, and truly were – not what they were hyped up to be. Glad I’m not the only one.
JoAnn Gives Me a Breath of Hope
Just when I had begun to think our USA culture of tolerance and inclusion was a thing of the past, I opened my e-mail this morning to discover an ad from JoAnn fabric with Ramadan offerings.
It doesn’t get much more middle-America than a trip to JoAnn fabrics, where people are buying fabric to make their own clothes, re-upholster their own furniture or make their own quilts or Easter wreaths. I was delighted.
Here are some of the fabrics they are offering for our Muslim friends who are about to celebrate their month of fasting en route to the Eid.
How cool is that?
Pantone Colors for Spring and Summer 2021
I love color. I work with color in my quilting. To me, color makes all the difference, and one of the best part of living in different cultures introduced me to widening my ideas about what colors can be used together. We all differ in our preferences. I don’t have to like all these colors, but there is one I like a lot.
The one I like a lot is called Fairy Wing. I would have called it Rose Quartz; I’ve always loved the subdued natural stone. My Mom’s best friend in Alaska had a fireplace surround made out of Rose Quartz; it was a knock-out. I think countertops of Rose Quartz would be gorgeous.
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Early Voting in Florida
