This 'n that

 I worked yesterday and unfortunately, Prickly Pete was thrown into our group.  We also ended up with Gentleman Bob, whom I adore - he's quite the sweetheart!  So it was a double edged sword.  I think I've described Pete.  He went into a crazy rage... it's probably been a couple years ago now... over something stupid and it was focused on me.  It was at the airport and I just got in my car and went home, called Jessica and asked her to please put me in another group, which she did.  She even put me in the group I asked for!  I've had to work with him a few times since then, but usually only in very large groups, so it's been easy to steer clear.  But yesterday, there were only 5 of us, so I was concerned that I would be forced to interact with him and that made me nervous.  I've been posting a lot of anti-Trump stuff (the man gives us a LOT of fodder!) and I think Pete's whole problem with me is my opinions on Trump.  So I was a little worried that if he's been privy to my posts that he may have just been waiting for the moment he could lay into me again.

At the end of the day, 3 of us were sitting at a dealership waiting on Gentleman Bob and Pete - as it turned out, I was told by Todd (the chase driver), Pete's car went back to 9W, so he was done and gone and wouldn't be coming to the dealership.  I breathed a sigh of relief.  Todd knows my feelings about Pete and asked, "So what was it that caused the fallout between you two?"  I told him that I was pretty sure that the blowup scene was really just Pete's pent-up resentment about my opinions about Trump.  Now I know Todd is on the Trump side of politics, and I know he's heard me talking about Trump with Gary (we're on the same page), but he's not the type to jump into a conversation that could be controversial and cause tension.  Todd is more of a peace-keeper and just would never do anything to rock the boat.  But he's made a few comments that made it clear he's on the "right" side of things.  And that's ok.  Abraham would say we're both right because there's really nothing wrong going on here.  It's all working out...

Anyway, after I told him what I thought it was about, I told Todd I knew he was a Trump supporter and I didn't have a problem with that and didn't want it to affect our friendship.  He said something about democrats and how he thought I was "smarter than that". I explained I am NOT a democrat - I am registered as an independent and I've voted for both democrats and republicans over the years.  And, in fact, if the pubs had come up with a decent candidate either this time or last, I would have voted that side of the ticket because I abhorred Hilary and Biden was just too damn old. But he quickly put up a hand and said, "I really don't want to talk politics and get into all that!"  And ended the conversation, which I think was probably wise.  Because I really was feeling very insulted by that "I thought you were smarter than that" comment.  If I had felt like being mean back, I could have said, "Well, I thought you had a soul"...  But it's really not in my nature to be mean.  I've done it in anger a few times, and I always feel like a read cad after, so I try to be careful not to be insulting or mean.

I think I will try to believe that Todd cut off the conversation because he realized he crossed a line with that comment.  And it wouldn't surprise me if he apologizes for it next time I see him.  Todd's a good and sensitive guy.  And here's the point where I used to say "which surprises me that he's a Trump supporter".  But not anymore.  Gentleman Bob is as well. And I could name a few others that are kind and seemingly good people.  The ones that really shock me are the Christians - I'm not talking about the people who go to church on Sunday.  I'm talking about the ones that live the life, not just show up on Sunday.  Pat, a guy I work with, who is retired from the Mission and whose wife still works there.  He spends a lot of time still helping the homeless and downtrodden.  Lee, who only works now and then these days, who volunteers a lot for Habitat for Humanity and is one of those people you can "feel" is super righteous.  That awesome people like that don't see what I see... it shakes my faith in humanity.  How do they turn a blind eye to the blatant evil that he perpetuates?  I worry that there's some sort of mass brain washing that has occurred that has caused these otherwise empathetic, reasonable, smart people to not see the truth.  And how did so many of us avoid being brainwashed?  I refuse to believe that it is simply that there are so many hard-core republicans that they would rather a super-terrible human being of the republican party run the country than any democrat, no matter how decent.  I know there are those, but I've always assumed that the vast majority of people would vote for who is best, or at the very least, who will do the least damage...

Ok, time for a new subject.  The fear is overwhelming me and I need to move on to something more positive. (Un, that would be ANYthing!)

*******

I didn't get back, probably because I had trouble coming up with a more positive subject!  It feels like the state of our country has been an all-consuming subject for me.  But, here's what I had to say early this a.m...

I'm sitting here at 4:35 in the morning. Yesterday, it was 55° and balmy at 11:00 as I left to go meet Merry for lunch. It was a bit surreal when I passed a sign above the interstate that said "BLIZZARD WARNING 8:00 p.m. to 3:00 a.m. ALTER TRAVEL PLANS". I wasn't even wearing a jacket! About 4 four or five hours later, it started to rumble around. No lightning to speak of, at least none that I saw. But it rumbled for probably an hour and then started raining. It was coming down pretty hard for a while. So hard that I have two places in my greenhouse that were leaking. I've had a leak in one particular spot for a long time, but these were two different spots! I guess I'm going to have to deal with that this year. Anyway, it was probably around 5 pm that I stepped out to bring in my garbage can from the curb and the temperature had dropped about 15°. Still not bad except the wind was really starting to blow, so it felt colder. Before I went downstairs around 7:00, it was starting to sleet - they were saying it was snowing in other parts of the city. And the wind was even worse. They were predicting gusts from 50 to 60 mph! And they were not kidding! When I was downstairs watching tv, I could hear the howling through the back door over my television which I keep pretty darn loud! (I like that theater effect...) By the time I came up around 10:30, it did look like a full-blown blizzard outside. The windows on the north were covered with sleet, ice, snow... it's like it in attached itself to the glass. Couldn't see out the windows. But I could on other parts of the house... it was definitely a horizontally driven snow. And actually by then, there wasn't a lot of snow coming down. I'm not sure how much more came down after that. They thought it would quit sometime in the middle of the night but continue to blow. Anyway, I was in bed when I was awakened by the generator coming on. Later, when I got up around 3:30 to get back into the chair, I called OPPD to make sure that our area had been reported and it said that it went out in our area at 1:13 a.m. And it's still out all around me and the generator is still going. It's loud, but I'm sure grateful for it. Of course I didn't stop to think that when the electricity kicked off, it takes a generator about 10 seconds to kick in (so that it's not kicking on for one of those blinkouts), my main heater in the greenhouse doesn't automatically come back on. And I discovered a couple of days ago that my oldest heater in there has stopped working. I was kind of hoping it that I could wait until next fall to replace it, but I think I better go ahead and do that. I just have to decide if I want to replace it with the same kind or something else. Anyway, I've been up since 3:30, warming the stove up to 400 and then opening it and blowing the heat into the greenhouse. I think that howling wind is making it colder than it normally would be at this temperature, so I went down and got my bathroom heater and brought it up. Once we get through tonight I think it'll be fine with just the main heater, but you never know this time of year. I'll go ahead and get the new heater ordered.

I probably won't work the rest of the week. They didn't call me today thankfully, not that I would have gone if they had! Tomorrow's supposed to be warmer, but there will be remnants of this snow and I don't want to have to trudge between cars that have a few inches of snow between them. Not to mention clearing windshields, etc. And then Friday they're calling for a 70% chance of more snow. I guess it'll be another week of mostly staying in and out of it! It's been a weird few years for weather! First we go almost all winter without any precipitation whatsoever, and then we start getting it and keep getting it. I'm not complaining, we need the moisture. But it sure would be nice if it would just wait until it warms up a little and then have a rainy day, or even a few! Wishful thinking!

Wi-Fi is down as well. That just went down about half an hour ago and I got that reported as well. Sounds like it should be up around 5:30 or thereabouts. I'm actually dictating this into an email that I can copy and paste into my blog once Wi-Fi comes back up. And right now, I'm just concentrating on trying to get the greenhouse warmed up a bit. A few more rounds of the oven heat should give it enough of a boost so that the third heater I put in there can get some warmth going. I sure feel blessed that I was able to get that generator! I'll probably go back to bed here in a bit for at least a couple of hours.

I made some tomato soup last night that turned out absolutely delicious! Now I'm no fan of tomato soup. Mark loved Campbell's tomato soup which I always thought was kind of gross! So when I fixed myself something like fish that he wouldn't eat, I'd fix him tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwich. Then I tried Progresso tomato soup and it was better, but I still wouldn't go out of my way to eat tomato soup. But I've been seeing pictures of what looks like really good tomato soup, and I found this recipe on the internet that sounded very simple and didn't sound like a huge batch so I figured if I didn't like it I wouldn't feel horrible about throwing it out. I couldn't believe how easy it was and how outstanding it is! Of course it's not like you're cooking it from scratch, cooking the tomatoes themselves. Even if I was a big fan of tomato soup, I probably wouldn't do it that much from scratch! I made it very close to the what the recipe called for, just tweaking it a bit for my own tastes. A little more salt, a nice heaping teaspoon of Italian seasonings, more sugar than it called for and a little more heavy cream than I called for. Wow wow wow did it turn out awesome! I'll have to include my tweaked version when I get this loaded onto my blog. When I find a new and delicious recipe, I always wish my Mom was here to share it with me. Mark was an old stick in the mud when it come to trying new things, but that year that Mom lived with me I so enjoyed cooking for her!

Easy-Peezy Tomato Soup

 2 T. butter

 1 med. onion, chopped

 2 cloves garlic, minced (I use a garlic press for max. flavor)

 2 cans (14 oz) tomatoes (I prefer fire roasted)

 2 c. chicken or veg. broth

 2 T. sugar

 1 tsp. salt (a little less if you prefer)

 1/4 tsp. black pepper

 1 rounded tsp. Italian seasonings

 1 c. heavy cream

Melt butter and saute onion and garlic a few minutes until soft.  Add tomatoes (with juices), broth, sugar, and seasonings and stir well. Simmer uncovered for 15-20 minutes.  Remove from heat and use an immersion blender to puree the soup - I prefer mine a bit chunky, but you can continue until it is completely smooth.  Add the cream and put back on low heat and reheat slowly, but don't boil. 

I'm a little freaked out by a noise in my bedroom. Now this noise only happens when the wind blows seriously hard like it is now. The noise is in the very corner, north west corner, and sounds like it's something in the wall. It sounds like boards shifting. I'm not exactly sure how else to describe it, but that's how it sounds. Like maybe the frame is moving just a bit. It's something new that I've noticed in the last year. Of course it seems like we've had extraordinary winds the last year or two and maybe that has loosened something up in the framework. I don't think it's anything that anybody could do anything about without opening walls either from the outside or the inside, and I don't see wanting to resolve it that bad. I mean, unless it starts leaking or I see damage to the wall, I guess I don't see any reason to mess with it. But it is a very weird sound and if I'm lying in bed it can wake me up.

And with that, I think I'm going to see if I can get a couple more hours of sleep. I'm feeling bad for my neighbors who are probably by now getting cold. I think most of these houses have more insulation in them than mine does, but with this wind, it's more penetrating. I hope the electricity comes back on soon!

xxxx

I'm up now and just before I got in bed, I got a text from Cox that said we probably wouldn't have wi-fi back on until after 9 a.m. And just about as soon as I laid down, I saw lights come on at my neighbor's behind me.  But I waited and the generator didn't go off.  I have neighbor's in the other direction who are up by 4 a.m. on weekdays and their lights were not on, so I guess everyone was still out in my row.  By the time I woke up at 7:45, the generator was off, so I'm guessing it was about a 5 hour outage...

I went online and ordered another heater just like the one in the basement that I got a few months ago.  It seems to work well, and I may just order yet another one before fall to replace my oldest heater, which doesn't seem to be putting out much air.  Maybe it's in need of a good cleaning, but I would have no idea where to start!

It's now mid-afternoon and the sun is shining.  The wind isn't as vicious, but it's still blowing pretty good.  My snow removal buds haven't been here yet and I'm wondering if they plan to come.  The sun may have it melted by the time they get to it!  But there's a nice little drift right in front of my porch.  

*******

I guess I need to get this published because every time I sit down to write, I get distracted and end up walking away and not getting back to it!  It's now Thursday. I woke at 6:30 in the bed - usually, I'd just stay up, but I was SO stiff and sore, I decided to hit the chair for may half an hour.  Two hours later, I woke because Pearl was sleeping on the top of the chair back and fell!  This is the second time this has happened in the last couple weeks.  You know, cats seem to love sleeping places like that and I've always wondered how that doesn't happen a lot... I know they are graceful and well balanced, but when they're sleeping, I can't figure out how their muscles stay... well, let's call it "aware" of how to hold them in place.  But Pearl is 17 this year and she has definitely aged.  She's skinnier, she has an "old lady" voice that's kind of gravelly (mine is that way a lot, too!) and she really has a lot of trouble getting up on things.  (I put a chair next to the bed, and I've got steps in front of her favorite spots...) Anyway, this fall doesn't seem to have hurt her, but I'm going to put a pillow or rug on the floor back there to soften the landing next time...

It won't be long that plants will start growing and blooming and maybe I'll have something of real interest to talk about.  At least I hope so!  This has been the weirdest winter with my total disinterest in my plants.  I've managed to maintain (not lose) the ones in the house.  But the greenhouse is a different story.  I have to FORCE myself to go out there and no matter how bad it gets, I can't seem to motivate myself to care.  I'm actually feeling a little bit of relief mixed with the guilt when I see another plant that has died.  The herd is getting thinned!  I can't decide if that means I let myself get overwhelmed by too many, or if it means the state of our country and politics has me so beaten down that I just don't give a damn anymore.  

Well, I'm off to get coffee, and since I may get "distracted" ... PUBLISH!