Fudge

What a crazy week.  Shane, Carolyn's son, was visiting and the time flew by.  He's back home, in New York, now, and recuperating from proving a younger guy can outwork an old fart.  But, us old guys are a little wiser and the proof of that is it was MY backyard that was used as the proving grounds.   Thanks, Shane.  After he left, there was a void around this joint that could be filled only one way - by making about six pounds of Chocolate Fudge! 

There are a ton of recipes for making this treat from the Food of the Gods, and I am sure mine is the best.  When I got it, the first step involved mixing several ingredients.  I'm not gonna tell you how to do it 'cause then yours would be as good as mine.  I will, however, let you know that after making a couple of batches, I added a Preamble to the thing.  The first order of business on the revised instructions state "Start with an empty dishwasher."  Proper execution of the instructions requires the use of enough kitchen stuff as to almost completely fill the appliance.

Chocolate has been with us for about one thousand years.  It wasn't really chocolate back then, it was Cacao.  The earliest record of the bean comes from the Mayan Indians, who thought the Cacao tree indeed was of Divine origin.  The Latin form, "Cacao" is a Mayan word that really means "food of the Gods".  Of course, we modern folks can't get anything right so we corrupted that word to the present one, "cocoa".  The Mayans made a drink by mixing the Cacao beans with Maize and peppers that was allowed to ferment and then consumed during religious ceremonies. 

After the Mayans were rapted, the Aztecs continued man's love affair with this bean.  They couldn't cultivate the crop - they lived too high up the mountains - so it was a relative rarity in their culture and was highly treasured.  Slaves could be paid for with very small amounts of Cacao, and the Aztec emperors collected the beans as taxes.  They also drank fermented mixtures of it during ceremonies. 

Beans were much more highly valued than gold or silver, and when Cortez, the Spanish conqueror of the Aztecs, looked for treasure, he found the Emperor's vaults filled not with gold and silver, but with Cacao beans!   The Aztec word for them was "Xocolatl", which the Spaniards found difficult to pronounce.  The name was changed, and "chocolate" was born.  Sugar and vanilla were added to the Aztec concoction, and Cortez sent the first batch back to Spain.

Shortly after, the beans, instead of the liquid mixture, were dried and shipped back to Spain, where they were ground and sold in a powered form of chocolate.  In 1657 the first of many Chocolate Houses opened in England.  It took another hundred and fifty years, but eventually the Dutch figured out how to extract the bitter cocoa butter from the beans, and twenty years later, in 1847, chocolate, as we know it today, was produced. 

I thank the Good Lord I did not have to wait 1000 years for the batch I made today.  A quick trip to the store, an hour at the stove, and six pounds of the  "Food of the Gods" now rests on my kitchen counter.  Well, there's about five and three quarter pounds there now - Muffy must have been at work. 

Western civilization has improved some things.

Blogger Problems

Sorry, guys.  I'm having trouble with blogger today.  It seems I'm not worthy enough to post comments on my own blog, so I'm dealing with that issue today.  Knowing just how extremely skillful I am in all things computer related, I expect to be dealing with this until I'm in an old fogies home. 

I plan to work on this til I get tired and maybe write a new post tomorrow.  If someone has experienced this problem, please email me with appropriate fixes  forrest@bendbroadband.com  .  I try to post a comment, am told to sign in, and then sign in, and then sign in.................*$@&^ computers!

Work Out - Part 2

"So, Forrest," said my 45 year old son in law, "What ya got going today?  Put me to work!" 

Wasn't it wonderful to be 45 years old and full of energy?  There were so very many nails driven and screws set during that era of my life.  Ideas - Projects - Activity.  I'm sure most of the work has been demolished or remodeled beyond recognition by new owners, but it doesn't matter - what matters is that it was built.  By me.  I made a mockery of the Third Law of Thermodynamics everywhere I went.  I built.  These days it takes a rather healthy shove to get me started on a new project.  Shane was up to the task. 

"Well, Shane, I've been wanting to dig out the last two stumps so I can plant new trees," I told him.  "And, one of these days I plan to tear down that cross fence that divides the back yard.  I want to level the area where the last guy kept his dog and lay some sod." 

"Cool', he said, Where's your tools?"

"In the garage - your guess is as good as mine.  Try somewhere around the end of the workbench for the larger stuff - shovels and what not.  The smaller junk is on the bench or somewhere in an unmarked box.  Good luck."

Fifteen minutes later he emerged from the den of confusion carrying an armload of tools and started digging.  I watched for several minutes as he applied the shove of guilt.  I guess I applied that all by myself; I hate watching someone do my work while I'm kicking back with a cup of coffee.  Not quite awake, I fumbled with the sliding door, then stumbled over to where he was digging up the universe.  A black hole could not have kept up with the way he was annihilating matter in his path.  I'm just saying, the shovel was a blur.  Guess my coffee hadn't quite kicked in yet. 

Soon, both stumps had been pulled, the fence had been demolished and the pavers and rocks that defined a no longer needed path had disappeared.  I managed to wake up in time to help stack the excess lumber along the side of the house.  As the wax slowly melted from my eardrums - for you youngsters, that's a morning fact of life in an old guys life.....get used to the idea - I heard him ask, "What's next?" 

"Let's take a break while I think about it", I replied.  So I sat while my brain continued to spool up to speed, and drank deeply (and slowly) from my second cup of coffee while he fidgeted.   Finally, I felt I was in control of both my brain and mouth.  "Well, Carolyn picked out a couple of trees she likes when we went to the nursery the other day.  I guess we can run over and pick them up.  Then we can put them in the ground."

For the second time this morning he said,  "Cool.  Let's do it."  So we did.

I knew what was coming next from his mouth, as we finished all the work I had planned to keep me busy for the next couple of months, so I headed him off at the pass.  "Hey, I've got an idea.  Let's go see some of the town." 

Youth knows no limits.  I was hobbling, two bluish pills had passed from my mouth to my stomach.  "Cool", he said.  "Let's do it.  I'll help get Mom ready to go."


To Boomer:  Sorry, but blogger has decided  I am no longer worthy of commenting on my own blog!  I'll try to fix it.  Meanwhile,  I think I saw the guy you mentioned when I turned 60 and he adjusted gravity higher again.  I was waiting, gun in hand, for him the day I turned 65.  He's a pretty sneaky guy; he waited until time for my nap before rushing in to crank it up some more.  I hope you neutralize him before my 70th.  Can't stand much more!

Mother and Child Reunion

I woke up this morning and went straight to my desk.  After firing up my trusty, and soon to be replaced, 8 year old computer, I hit favorites and went to a decent flight tracker.  Sure enough, United 257 was in the air, bearing, among others, Carolyn's son in the general direction of central Oregon.

Everyone with a TV and electrical power is aware Mother Nature is totally upset with the way we're running things and She's letting us know who's boss.  Well, at least She's letting us know just who is in charge of the Midwest and Mississippi River Valley.  Since we in this household are blessed with the cursed TV and managed to pay the power bill last month, I am aware of the fury being unleashed in those parts and wanted to be sure Shane was in fact on the way. 

For some strange reason, which I suspect has a lot more to do with economics than of passenger comfort, United wanted to tempt nature, tick off all it's clients, and land it's littleliner in Chicago.  From there, everybody jumped into an Airbus 320 which needed to land in Portland, I guess to consult a map, before arriving here on it's way to somewhere else in a different direction.  You figure it out.  I'm tired.

Next, a quick peek at one of several thousand readily available weather maps got me worried.   There were tornado warnings, huge thunderstorms and generally miserable conditions forecast for Chicago, exactly the place United thought Carolyn's son needed to be. 

Somewhere between my ears came a vision of Shane shaped like a shinny metal ball.  He was trapped inside a pin ball machine, bouncing between posts on a map of the United States, and the flippers were miniature Airbus 320's.  The posts off which Shane was bouncing were labeled with the names of cities, and a nerdy looking guy with huge round glasses, wearing a United Airlines uniform, was operating the flippers and screaming at the top of his lungs, "Too much gas!  TOO much gas!"

Well, you guessed it.  Shane's connecting flight from ORD to PDX was delayed four hours while the weather passed.  Naturally he missed the next flight.  Only through the most intelligent of guile, was he able to secure a seat on a different craft to complete the journey.

Now, any pilot can figure out a better way to get from there to here.  All ya need to do is set the autopilot doohickey on the GPS to a heading of 284 degrees and fly for 1827 nautical miles.  Then you land the plane.  Any weatherman could have first looked at the forecast storms, the above route, and determined the plane would have flown well north of all the mess, no drinks would be spilled, and the time required to complete the trip would have fallen from 10 hours (not counting the delay and missed connection, which added another five hours) to 3 hours and 42 minutes.

Bean counters rule the world, and it's because nobody wants to pay for service.  We settle for crappy performance with our airlines, our hammers and our kids lead-paint coated toys.  We have to.  All the money's gone.

The best part of this whole story is the smile on Carolyn's face when her son walked through the door.  We arrived home from the airport in time for him to watch me try to fire up the BBQ for the first time this year.  Then, he was able to spend some time with his mother while I ran to the store for more propane.  Who the Devil opened the valve while it was in the moving van?   Such mysteries plague my life.

The rib eyes were fantastic, baked potatoes and broccoli rounded out the meal, and the Mother and Child Reunion was the highlight of this year so far.  I love to see her smile.

Half Human

Carolyn's oldest son is coming to visit with her tomorrow.  He lives with his family in the great lakes area of New York, so they see each other less often than they would like.  Carpentry, plumbing and roofing in residential construction kept him busy for years, but he had to change careers awhile back. 

Times are tough in that area, as they are almost everywhere, and he's had to adjust to a much lower paying job, maintaining the buildings and equipment of an assisted living facility instead.  He works harder and for many more hours than he did before, and he does it for less money.  About the only relief he's had lately is his family has gotten a little smaller.  His oldest daughter graduated high school and joined the Coast Guard.  One less mouth to feed, but before his forced career change, she had planned on college.   That's been delayed for her, but she has a stiff upper lip.  "After my enlistment," she says, "I'll be eligible for a college benefit."  I hope that's still true several years from now. 

He has not seen his Mother for the last several years, and the first meeting has me a little concerned.  He's aware of her condition, and they talk on the phone so he knows how the disease has affected her speech.  But, nothing can prepare him for what he is going to see when he steps into the terminal and she's there to greet him.  His memories of her four years ago are of a nimble dancer, quick on her feet and in her wit.

All that has changed, she can no longer walk on her own, can not focus her eyes, and has trouble with the most mundane of tasks.  I've been through "The First Sight" before - with her youngest son.  And even though he had been better prepared, and only 14 months had passed since their last visit, tears were the order of the day.   Tomorrow is going to be rough on him, and I feel sorry there is nothing I can do to ease the way for both of them. 

You see, I understand what it's like to live a thousand miles or more from a slowly dying parent.  It happened in my life just last year.  Torn is the word, that is what will happen to him.  He will be torn.  His family is in New York.  His family is in Oregon.  He needs to be in both places and can not be. 

We now travel all our lives, living first here, then there, looking for work, a better life - what have you.  This is a new way of life for our species.  We used to travel in search of a better life with our family and our tribe alongside us.  Family and friends were there for the entire journey, not just for a few years.  That no longer happens, and it's taken a toll on us as human beings and as a society. 

 We are no longer complete human beings, we're torn.  All of us, to one degree or another, and it's not a good thing at all.  It allows us to be mean to others because we no longer belong to a tribe.  We're individuals, and can do as we wish, not as we need to do to survive and maintain membership in the human community.  There's a whole book that can be written about this, but do me a favor.  Think about it a little on your own. 

Have we been torn to the point we're only half human?


 

Third Parties

My grandfather was a Democrat.  My father was a Republican.  Having never thought much about it one way or another, I registered as a Republican and cast my first vote in any Presidential election for Richard M. Nixon in 1968.  A guy needed to be 21 to vote back then, and I missed the '64 elections by a little bit.  About the only thing to learn from this is a guy in his twenties is not yet smart enough to vote.  That, I guess, makes it alright to let teenagers vote too.  Might as well enfranchise eight years olds.  They couldn't do much more harm than I did at the ripe old age of twenty-three. 

So, yeah, this whole mess is all my fault.  Had I not voted for him, Hubert Humphrey would have won, we would still be on the gold standard, and solar power would account for more than half of the electricity generated in this country.  No one would know the meaning of "Rat-Fink", Karl Rove (That's right - George Bush II's Karl was involved back in the Watergate years - we just can't seem to rid ourselves of roaches.) would not have seen the national spotlight for at least a while longer, and the office of the Presidency would not have been so tarnished in these modern times. 

My one vote, back in 1968, sent us on this bad trip, and I wish I could take it back.  A bunch of us do.  But, for the last twenty years I've tried to make up for that one vote, cast at a particularly brainless time in my life.  I have voted only for third party candidates in national elections since 1992.  Had I done that in '68, Pat Paulson would have gotten my vote and the world would be more like the Coke commercial. 

I worked hard to get Ross Perot on the ballot and then voted for him even after realizing he was a bit more than flaky.  How is it guys like him get to be billionaires?  My vote has gone to Ralph Nader several times, and I almost voted for Barr in the last election.  But, when I found myself gagging over the thought of any of the choices in 2008, I skipped the election.  It's the only one I've ever missed, and that's a real sorry state of affairs.  The best vote the last time around would have involved pulling my pants down in the middle of Wall Street and taking a large dump on the stairs in front of the NY stock exchange.  But, fat people should never pull their pants down in public.  It's disgusting. 

It's starting to look like that just may again be the best vote in the coming election.  But, November 2012 is a long, long time from now and there may be one or two surprises between now and then.  Yogi, or maybe Niels Bohr, said something along the lines of  "It's hard to make predictions, especially about the future."  and I agree.  Anyone who attempts to do so tempts fate, and runs the risk of making a fool of himself.  Well, it just so happens that I am not afraid of seeming foolish so I'm gonna go out on a limb. 

I Predict:  The reality of the 2012 election will have very little to do with the expectations we have of it in May 2011.  The likely candidates may not yet be on the scene, one of them may have the title "Colonel", and the outcome may not be constitutional. 

This nation, my friends, is completely schizophrenic.  If you happen to be laid off or retired and have some time, here's a little experiment you can perform in your own living room to see for yourself..  Watch Fox Business News, with the current weeks reporting on "Makers vs. Takers", for ten or fifteen minutes, and then switch to MSNBC.  The news on that network is about varying percentages (from the high 60%'s to the low 80%'s) of folks in various states who are opposed to "reforming Social Security and Medicare."  The anchors on that network are asking why the Repubs are dead set on committing suicide while the anchors on Fox are asking why we haven't already killed these "entitlements".  The divide between the two positions is monumental, and shows just how ruptured our society is.

We in this house have resolved the issue.  There is sufficient food and other items I consider essential to get us through a six month period within easy reach.  If needed, a vast store is available within a days travel time.   

My family considers me to be a little "touched" most of the time because of my thinking on this subject, so in no way should you act based upon our preparations.  It's OK to be a little quirky some of the time, but few folks are ready to be considered a little "off."  It so happens that my family is populated with very reasonable, left brained, Fox loving folks.  I display some of these traits some of the time, so it's OK with them for me to be quirky.  Every family needs someone over whom to shake their heads.

So, if you think an extra ton of rice, beans and sugar belong in your garage, always be ready to be the butt of a joke.  And, set aside enough for the family members who live nearby.

Leftneck

I'm a Leftneck, and darned proud of it!  Finally, after today's reading, I can describe my political viewpoint in one word!  That's no big deal to those of you who happen to be Dems or Repubs.  And even Inds and Libs have had one word that sorta describes their bias for quite a while. 

That is one luxury I have yearned for with all my being for the last twenty years.  A person will ask in in passing just how I view things in life, and it usually takes me half an hour to explain.  Now, when asked, I can proclaim "I'm a Leftneck" and let it go at that.

I know what you're gonna say.  "What the heck is a Leftneck?"  Well, there's a guy, Morris Berman, who has summed it up much better that I ever could.  http://morrisberman.blogspot.com/

Be happy for me; I now have a word that fits.

Update.  Morris has written much more since I posted the link to his site.  You now will have to enter the word "leftneck" in the search space at the upper left on his page to discover my political view.  What a treasure hunt!  Yes?