Cooking, With Gas?

Posted on January 16, 2023 | 2 comments

I’ve always believed that government has a limited role in our lives, but this is ridiculous. I near retirement age and the new House majority wants to take away my Social Security and Medicare. And I don’t even have them yet!

Finally get my near dream stove? CPSC wants to take it away because a small child I do not have, may have a chance of getting athsma.

I grew up in the sixties and seventies with some really crummy electric stoves. Too hot, too cold, not reactive enough. One goes from unable to boil to furiously boiling over. Water cleans up easily, milk not so much.

While not currently a professional chef, or certainly of the medical profession, might I ask the folks in government who purport to care about our health to consider the question of ventilation before banning gas stoves outright. Even banning new gas stoves is an issue for me, because I like to cook and electric coil stoves just don’t cut it for me.

I live in an apartment, a nice apartment that comes with a top-of-the-line gas stove with four round and one oval burner and a double oven. One burner even has enough BTU’s to get pasta water to boil quickly. But the vent, unlike in private homes, does not vent to the outside, only in on itself. For air, I have to open a window which is not possible some times of the year because of extreme heat or cold weather.

Kitchens are designed with cooking in mind. At least some of them are. Some I’ve had are so small and badly designed that they’re practically useless, others so large that walking is the principal activity. My time is spent preparing food. Favorite winter meals include a stew that requires pre-cooking of the ingredients top of the range, then a long slow cook in the oven. I don’t want to waste time taking a pot off the stove because it’s in danger of boiling over and holding it until the burner cools down. So, please consider the need for appropriate ventilation in all homes before banning gas.

Here, our maintenance department keeps us in air vents for the HVAC system. We don’t use them because they’re cheap. We buy our own MERV-14 filters at $18 a pop, that even catch COVID! Air and circulating air is important, and we have our own fans for the (air-conditioned) summer and three humidifiers that put 4-5 gallons of water back in our environment these cold winter days. Knowing the quality of our air and how things like stoves, gas or electric heat, washer/dryer et al would be nice so that we can assure a healthy interior living space.

There are many things to consider before an outright ban on gas stoves. Let’s put on our thinking caps and see if there’s a way to keep us and the planet healthier, together. Cheers! Dee

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64

Posted on January 11, 2023 | 1 comment

…Send me a postcard, drop me a line

Stating point of view

Indicate precisely what you mean to say

Yours sincerely, wasting away

Give me your answer, fill in a form

Mine for ever more

Will you still need me, will you still feed me

When I’m sixty-four

(The Beatles)

Guess what this year was? Yes, my 64th birthday. I’m already not supposed to collect Social Security until sometime between age 66 and 67. Medicare has been a big question, but now both are even bigger.

See, the Chaos Caucus of the United States House of Representatives wants to eliminate the two programs I’ve spent money funding my entire life. And if they can’t do it by holding the budget and debt limits hostage, they’ll eliminate the IRS and its payroll deductions, and fund what is left of the government they haven’t decimated by a consumption tax.

I’ve worked for state government, the legislature to be exact, and I believe in a moderate government that does what cannot be done otherwise and pretty much leaves people alone to pursue their own lives as long as they don’t endanger others.

When kids are going hungry because their parents can’t afford to send them to school with a lunch, government should step in. Ditto when old people expect some money to live on and protect their health without dying in the poor house. Oh, I forgot, we don’t have poorhouses, that would be a social safety net like requiring business to offer paid parental leave.

I mistrust politicians by nature, ditto lawyers. With regulations and transparency, we, the people can endeavor to keep them honest and on track with what we’ve hired them to do. for us. What we voted for them to do, as our representatives.

All this to say I don’t give a whit about Hunter Biden’s laptop. As a voter, I embrace voting rights and the ability to force legislatures to do the people’s business by referendum if they won’t do what they say they’d do. I don’t know what “owning the libs” means in terms of constituent services. And I truly don’t understand why likes on social media make politicians money when they’re not doing anything to keep the lights on back home.

As far as I see it, old people who care about our future and that of our children must be educated about what our representatives do, hold them accountable, and vote them out if they lie to us or pull a bait and switch. If they tell me they care about health care, inflation and crime, do something about it. Don’t spend my money investigating investigators. Do something real, care about your constituents. If you do that one thing, you won’t have time for all this folderol. Vote! Dee

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Bravo C-SPAN!

Posted on January 9, 2023 | Leave a comment

Imagine being an A/V professional at the U.S. Capitol, working for the House. House rules say you have two fixed cameras. You set them up, monitor them all day, every day. The Chamber is mostly empty, save for unknown members speechifying in front of empty seats to show their constituents how much they (don’t) matter inside the Beltway. Yawnfest.

All of a sudden there is no Speaker of the House, hence no rules. What did we get last week? Never-before seen conversations between AOC and Paul Gosar, of all the strange bedfellows to watch. Shortly before the 15th vote to elect a Speaker, two majority members nearly came to fisticuffs on the floor of the House!

All of a sudden, C-SPAN is must-watch TV! Hallelujah! Of course, these professionals will be put back into their cages as soon as a rules package is adopted.

I remember there being some opposition to having cameras in Congress back in the day. Then members got used to it, and used it to communicate with their constituents. Now I think having an open forum would be good for the American people, if only to show how our hired representatives are spending OUR money.

If this were to happen, all the “action” would move to the back rooms and we’d go back to the smoke-filled rooms of yore before FOIA and Open Meetings laws and letting the sun shine in.

I won’t go into this new House and its priorities, only to say that many of the rules that are proposed to be passed today will have an extremely deleterious effect on our country and national security. Until the rules change, I hope that C-SPAN will bring it all to us in living color. Cheers! Dee

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Belonging

Posted on December 20, 2022 | Leave a comment

Growing up, there’s always a need to belong, to a family, in school, everywhere. In this fractured USA, we still need to belong. I only wish that it was belonging in the sense of a greater good and camaraderie, not excluding “others” and encouraging silos of like-minded individuals.

We moved from a small village out to the country, where of course up in the hills it snowed earlier than in town so I came to school dressed in hat, boots et al and was laughed at by the other kids. Likewise, choir and orchestra required a white blouse and black skirt to perform. Of course, everyone had a cheap polyester black skirt to wear but me. Poor me, I had to wear a black watch plaid kilt from Scotland so I wasn’t like all the others. I’d kill for one of those kilts now!

There were greater differences for me but I won’t go into them. OK, just one. I was raised Catholic but Dad was Lutheran. Mom checked out the schools and chose public because it offered a better education than the Catholic school. So we had to walk to CCD every week for religious education.

We walked with two kids of like age, my little sister with the girl and me with the younger brother. They made such fun of him and I told him to ignore them, we would tell our own stories and forget about their meanness. Twenty years later I heard from the sister, thanking me for taking her gay brother under my wing and protecting him from the other kids, including herself. They ended up best friends. I certainly didn’t know he was gay at the time, or even know what the word meant, but he was different. So was I,

Parents love telling their kids they’re different. Remember saying “all the kids get to stay out until dark, why do we have to come in early?” only to have them say “You’re not like all the other kids.” How is that an excuse, Doesn’t work for an eight year-old or eighteen.

In this season of giving thanks and sharing, I hope that you enjoy your uniqueness in the knowledge that different people can coexist quite nicely and it makes for a richer experience for all. Enjoy the holidays with much cheer, Belong! Dee

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Go Bulldogs!

Posted on September 6, 2022 | Leave a comment

I just read that Fisk University, an Historic Black College and University (HBCU) is the first to field an Elite women’s gymnastics team. It’s about time! There’s so much talent out there and now at least some girls/women of color will have a chance to succeed in this fine sport.

Before Title IX whenever the gleaming wood floor of the boys gym was replaced/refinished we girls had to go sit in temporary classrooms because it was unthinkable that the boys go without exercise for six weeks.

After Title IX and even now, there remain vast inequities in how girls sports are funded and treated. The boys still had wood floors in their gym and we had linoleum tiles over concrete, so I lived my high school gymnastics “career” with constant shin splints from the vault.

My parents thought it necessary to pay for private piano lessons. That was in the sixties and seventies when public schools still had music programs, so my violin lessons and orchestra and choir were included. I also had to attend private ballet lessons for comportment, or as my mother told me, so I wouldn’t grow up walking like a truck driver. But most parents couldn’t afford that for their kids.

Outside of the high school gymnastics team, of which for some ungodly reason I was made captain, I chose to also take lessons at a private gym owned by a former Olympic champion. That wasn’t deemed necessary by my parents so I taught the little kids two classes each Saturday so I could take my class for free. I was never a good gymnast, but I fell in love, as did many young girls, with Olga Korbut at the 1972 Olympics, and I made a very good captain and teacher regardless of my limited athletic abilities.

Now little girls have so much to look forward to as they strive to emulate Simone Biles, Dominique Dawes and many others. I wish the girls at Fisk much success. Go Bulldogs! Dee

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Memories

Posted on August 25, 2022 | 1 comment

When a loved one is gone, he/she tends to come back via memory at the oddest times. It’s always welcome to remember a favorite moment, saying, quibble or foible.

A couple of weeks ago my sister asked for an old recipe. Since we moved, I found and cleaned up an old plexiglass 3×5 card holder with recipes I started collecting in high school. Many are from my Auntie L, who not only cooked us many family meals over the decades but catered for our family’s formal work receptions as well. She had one rule that moms everywhere should use with young children. “Try it! Then I’ll tell you what’s in it.”

I learned not to ask the ingredients first and allow my taste buds to be the judge. First thing she used it on was a bleu cheese dip for a party. I hated that cheese, but loved the dish so incorporated it into my repertoire.

A prime example that reminds me of her every day is the dictionary in the “loo.” She always placed one in the powder room (she was a high school English teacher) so to use the loo, we had to ask politely, then upon our return give her a word, its meaning and use it in a sentence.

In our new place, I’ve a large powder room so I expanded on the theme. I brought in one of my husband’s nightstands that were hand-made by his great-grandfather and placed several books atop, along with a decorative plate of Mom’s. The current Loo Library includes the aforementioned Webster’s Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary, The City of Florence, The Prince and for a bit of light reading, James Patterson’s The Chef. Also Orwell’s 1984 and Mythology by Edith Hamilton.

Wouldn’t you know it, a friend used the loo and suggested a complement to Sun Tsu’s The Art of War with The War of Art, by Steven Pressfield. It’s about breaking mental blocks to unleash creativity, by the author of many books which include The Legend of Bagger Vance. This book is required reading or recommended reading in all the military academies. News to me, so I recently purchased it to add to my collection.

Now here’s the strange one. Auntie L was known, on our annual family reunions, to rearrange hotel furnishings and pictures. She always made it better but we were aghast, as kids, that someone could do that. I came to thank her for it later on. Mom was in the hospital after her first cancer surgery. She was on morphine for the first time and a particular painting on the wall of her hospital room gave her nightmares. Auntie L went to a local art museum gift shop, bought a calming poster and taped it over the offending artwork. It made a difference.

I know there’s no canidae in our family gene pool but my dog has become an Auntie L with bed linens. I make the bed and she always has to help me fluff the down comforter. Once settled, all the pillows situated atop, she waits for me to leave. Then she rearranges everything to her specifications. Mostly knotting it all up in a ball. Upon my return, I merely say “thanks, Auntie L.”

Thanks for the memories. Hang in there, teachers! Especially English teachers. Until we can get the banned book situation under control, perhaps the fact that certain books (even the Bible, in one Texas school district) are banned, it may induce students to read them! Cheers! Dee

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Toto

Posted on August 3, 2022 | Leave a comment

We’re back in Kansas! I clicked my ruby slippers three times and now Auntie Em and everyone on the farm made sure I have reproductive rights and can even have a career when I grow up! Wow!

At least I know how to go back to Oz and return when it comes to securing my right to have my vote counted fairly in true democratic fashion as the Constitution intended. Or maybe we can do it all on our own. All we need are strong women who don’t want to go back to the dark days of kings and queens, or back alley abortions.

What, Toto? Yes, I’ll try to get you some more local dog parks, too.

I’d better hang on to those ruby slippers, they sure came in handy. Cheers to democracy! Dee

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Make Wisconsin Trump’s Again

Posted on July 10, 2022 | Leave a comment

And again. Again. Again. Again. Again.

I’ve been voting for over forty years and have never wondered what happened to my ballot once it entered the local precinct office. I do here. Never before has a losing candidate spent nearly two years trying to invalidate 3.3 million votes in one state.

I thought it was over after the last time Trump called Robin Vos, Republican Senate leader, to try to make him get the friendly (to Trump and Vos) legislature recall and invalidate our ten electoral college votes, and that was a couple months ago.

But no, the fat lady hasn’t sung yet. First our trusty (ahem) U.S. Senator Ron Johnson, who’s done nothing for the past six years but deny COVID and call for investigations into Hunter Biden, oh, and run for reelection, wanted to hand-deliver fake elector certificates to former V.P. Mike Pence on the floor of the House on 1/6/21. And not just a fake certificate for his own state of Wisconsin but for another state as well. Bravo, Ron, you represent your people so well.

Now the State Supreme Court has invalidated drop boxes so when I drop my absentee ballot into the box in the elector’s offices downtown, my husband has to keep the air conditioning on in my car for the dog, then we have to switch places and he has to go to the 5th floor in the creepy elevator and repeat the process because otherwise I can be arrested for “harvesting” ballots.

Our former governor Scott Walker made sure the place was gerrymandered so the Democrats will never see power in the legislature, now the Supreme Court is taking up a ridiculous position that only the legislature can decide on electors, voters be damned. If we don’t keep a Democratic governor, Wisconsin will cease to be a democratic state in that voters will no longer choose their elected officials and electors for the Electoral College.

Aside from Milwaukee and Madison, this is principally a rural state, they don’t call us Cheeseheads for nothing. Drop boxes were a godsend during the pandemic when we had no vaccines and no therapeutics for treating COVID-19. It wasn’t a conspiracy, it was a public health crisis.

If you don’t think we’re backwards yet, consider that the abortion law that is now in effect, since Dobbs was overturned, hasn’t been revisited since 1849. Yes, 173 years ago. I told my husband that if our votes no longer count and a woman’s health is worth nothing, it’s time to move. But first we need a Democrat for governor, and to get rid of Sen. Ron Johnson.

I just got a button that says “Vote like your life depends on it, because it does.” Never truer than now. Vote! Dee

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Wisdom and Books

Posted on June 4, 2022 | Leave a comment

It’s graduation time once again, sending another flock of young minds out into the world, always a hopeful premise. Living near a major university, I find the streets littered with everything fleeing new alums no longer need, the stuff that doesn’t fit into a trash bag or the parents’ SUV.

Sofas and mattresses line the curbs of old family homes turned student housing near campus. As to books, that’s another matter. I think I used to recycle my used textbooks through the college bookstore, having kept them remarkably free of damage or excessive highlighting. Some were retained. My aunt was an English teacher, so I never threw away a book.

While walking dog Lulu yesterday I passed a Little Free Library that had in it a copy of The Odyssey. Wow, that’s been a while. I imagine a graduate looking forward to finally getting rid of this classic while dumping it unceremoniously into the repository, only to have a senior citizen look at it with glee and bring it home to enjoy, despite its copious margin notes and highlighting.

For my father’s 70th birthday, his girlfriend took our families on a sailing yacht through the Ionian Sea tracing the route of Odysseus. It was a wonderful voyage but I haven’t read the book since college. Last year, I invested in another copy of Edith Hamilton’s classic reference, “Mythology.” I must have been foreshadowing my encounter with this local Little Free Library!

I even took the first lesson in modern Greek on Duolingo, where I’ve been doing my best to butcher both the Italian and French languages since the onset of world COVID.

One man’s trash is another man’s treasure, indeed. When one gets old and still chooses to learn something new every day, I hope that translates into wisdom. We’ll see once I re-read The Odyssey.

How about this, we do learn from history…. so, why not have a local Banned Bookstore? I don’t think current knowledge-haters want to stand in the public square burning books. But I may be wrong. Who knows what we’re headed for if we choose not to stand up for our democracy.

Perhaps I’ll read to Zoe about the first known fictional pet dog Argos. If I left home and Lulu was still around twenty years later, would she be the first to remember me? Somehow I doubt that kind of loyalty that she thinks only belongs to whomever filled her food bowl this morning. Read your history! Dee

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Thank You, Rep. McMorrow

Posted on April 25, 2022 | Leave a comment

Last week, Michigan Representative Mallory McMorrow spoke out regarding a hateful attack against her by a supposed colleague. She spoke forcefully and eloquently about her background and how those who say they’re “for” kids by banning books and shunning everyone other than white males from privileged upbringings does a disservice to children in particular and our nation as a whole.

We currently live in a democracy, if we choose to fight to keep it. A democracy is signified by our votes for people who are supposed to represent our interests, all of our interests, within the bounds of our Constitution. To this day, Donald Trump is still trying to get Wisconsin politicians to nullify all 3.3 million of our votes, have the Republican-led legislature substitute its vote for ours and put him back in the White House. That’s not legal or constitutional, but our former president wants it anyway.

It is in our best interest as a nation to have every American who is eligible to vote, to vote. I’m even considering supporting Universal Voting in order to fix all the problems that current politics and gerrymandering have wrought. What can I do to make sure that I and other disenfranchised voters get our say?

Rep. McMorrow listed her qualifications. Here are mine. I am a straight, white, married, college-educated quasi-suburban senior citizen. I grew up in a village of 400 souls, all white. I learned about tolerance from my parents. Kids would call on Dad every evening to play ball and his rule was “everyone plays.” Girls got to play, even toddlers were carried around the bases to great applause when they got a home run.

I learned to read at age five and soon tired of kiddie lit. My aunt was an English teacher and we had a decent library in town so I learned about race from reading To Kill a Mockingbird, the horrors of war and genocide in The Diary of Anne Frank, and life in Death Be Not Proud. Our public school wanted to change to phonics for reading education and two mothers objected as we were already reading, so two of us brought our own books to school and read in the back of the classroom while the other kids learned the curriculum. My reading pal Steven only read kid-level books about sports. My choices at age 6-8 were my own, with some input from parents and Auntie L.

Divisiveness and hatred have come out from under their rocks beginning with the Trump presidency, giving credence to “both sides” of white supremacy. I was always a bit different and longed to be the same as all the other kids but settled for being different and accepted as such. And I always helped others feel as if they belonged as well. Years ago I heard from a grade school classmate. She and her little brother, my younger sister and I used to walk together from school to CCD (Catholic religious instruction) every week and the girls would taunt the boy mercilessly. He and I would walk together and let them know it didn’t bother us. Turns out he was gay, and his sister thanked me for treating her brother so well when she was being so mean to him. They’re now best of friends.

So what can we do about today’s unfortunate situation? Here’s what I plan:

I will vote and make sure my vote is counted and not vetoed by politicians who only want power.

I will only vote for candidates who support my right and the right of all eligible voters to be heard.

I will vote against any politician who has/had anything to do with legislation to curtail the right to vote and work to assure that all elections are held fairly and democratically.

I will vote against any candidate who discriminates against or tries to shame persons of another gender, color, religious background or sexual orientation.

I will vote against anyone who espouses ludicrous conspiracy theories. If you want to slander me by saying I’m intimately involved with martians who live on a spaceship in my back yard, you’d better darn well have proof.

* * * *

America is the land of the free, a melting pot by design. We should expect growing populations to be represented in our democracy. Calling everyone you don’t like a “pedophile” for no reason, won’t work for long. Ask Henny Penny, who kept telling all the villagers the sky was falling until they didn’t listen.

And stop hating groomers. My dog goes to hers for a nail trim every month and there’s nothing nefarious about it. And I use a hairbrush and comb every day. Aren’t those considered grooming tools?

Seriously, these personal attacks must end. Politics is the give and take of ideas, including the idea of compromise. Political opponents are just that, not enemies. This vitriol, constant spreading of hate and misinformation has no place in our society, no matter how much money it makes these politicians or companies spewing it.

Ms. McMorrow said it best in her conclusion, and I concur. “Hate wins when people like me stand by and let it happen. I won’t.”

Do something positive for your country today. And pray for Ukraine, Dee

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