Jan Is Alive And Well And - Working Her Butt Off

Hola darlings!

Just a quick note to let you know that I'm still here.  Primarily one of my brothers and I have been working to get our mother's house ready for sale.  Our other four siblings have vanished into the ether, or so it seems.  I've been putting in 3 or 4 days a week of between 4 to 6 hours a day, not including a 2 hour bus round-trip when my brother isn't available to give me a ride (he is still working a full-time job).  This entire thing has been - overwhelming.

Today I started painting the plaster acanthus pattern crown molding in the living room and hallway from the living room leading to the bedrooms, bath, and kitchen.  I spent a couple hours yesterday going up and down a ladder taping off and I'm glad I did, because let me tell you, painting acanthus pattern crown molding is no easy task and I slopped paint all over the tape for the first 10 minutes or so of painting.  I worked on it off and on from 8:15 until 1 p.m. when I dashed out to catch a bus to start my journey home.  I was tired and my arms hurt from working "up" and "over" despite balancing precariously on the third rung of the step ladder to get me to eye level.  And, my left hand kept cramping from holding the brush for so long.  I do not believe I have dibbed and dabbed so much in my entire life.  So many nooks and crannies to get paint into!  And this is just the first coat (and may be the only coat, for I'll be damned if I get up on that ladder again to add a second coat of paint to molding in a house we're selling).  I managed to get two "lengths" of molding painted (one length and one width of the living room); one more each of length and width to go in the living room, and then the hallway area which, by the time I get there, I should be able to do with my eyes closed and paint with the brush between my toes.

I haven't forgotten chess, darlings.  I am sponsoring prizes for female participants in the Milwaukee Summer Chess Challenge hosted by the Southwest Chess Club.  I'll post more about that later - if I stay awake long enough and remember to do it; these days I'm running rather exhausted and decidedly distracted.

I leave you with this.  Let me make it plain.  I HATE DONALD TRUMP AND EVERYTHING HE STANDS FOR.  HE IS A FASCIST AND WOULD TURN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA INTO THE 21ST CENTURY EQUIVALENT OF NAZI GERMANY.  HE IS AN EVIL EVIL EVIL PERSON AND NEEDS TO BE STOPPED.

Spittle-Drooling Gutter Slime Running for Republican Presidential Nomination

How do I really feel about 2016's crop of Republican/Tea Party/Nazi presential wannabes?  If you haven't figured it out yet, you shouldn't be here reading this blog, darlings!  Not even the Idiot Bloviator Cruz's statements today about global climate change being based on "psuedo-science" could displace the Big Mouth Kewpie Doll With Bad Hair from the front pages.

Cover page of The New York Daily News, courtesy of Vox.

Oh My, Oh My...President Obama to the Republican Caucus: Kiss My Grits

I think this song pretty much says it all...

Election Night - and a Good Chicken Breast Recipe

Hola darlings! Since I do not have cable or satellite television, I am rather limited to my choice of prime time television viewing tonight. All of the major networks and one of our PBS channels are featuring election coverage :) As I was taking the bus to the office this morning, I had a passing thought - more a daydream than anything rooted in reality - that John McCain would give a concession speech by 10:00 p.m. Milwaukee time tonight. We'll see. In the meantime, I'll be interested to learn - probably not until much later because the polls don't close for at least another hour in California - what the estimated percentage turn-out was for eligible voters across the country. I tried a chicken breast recipe tonight that turned out great - absolutely delicious! I've had grilled chicken breast that's been dry and tasteless, and fried chicken breast that is greasy and soggy. This one came out crisp on the outside (before I melted a slice of swiss cheese over the top, yum!) and moist but cooked through inside. Here's the recipe - since I was only cooking one chicken breast for myself, I disregarded the amounts given in the recipe I found online. This is my wing-it (har!) version: Called for flour - I didn't have any - I forgot, I tossed it out a few months ago because it was so old it couldn't possible have been good anymore. But I did have some not quite so old generic baking mix in the cabinet (think Bisquick), so I tossed some of that in a shallow bowl, added lots of salt, pepper and non-salt Mrs. Dash spice mix. Stirred around. In a separate bowl mixed up one egg (no seasonings added). Washed and dried the chicken breast (skinless), then plopped it into the egg bowl, both sides, then tossed it into the dry mix bowl, first one side and then the other. Shake shake shake, then back in the egg mix on both sides once again. Then into the dry mix on both sides a final time. Plopped it into a hot frying pan to brown both sides. I used Pam vegetable oil spray because I'm counting calories, although the recipe called for frying in vegetable oil. The Pam did smoke up the pan a lot, but it also browned the "crust" on the chicken just fine. My total cooking time was perhaps five minutes. Put the browned chicken breast into a glass baking dish and tossed into a preheated 350 degree oven for 25 minutes. I pulled it out of the oven, tented it for about 5 minutes with aluminum foil to let it cool but keep it moist, then put it on a plate, added one slice of swiss cheese over the top, and microwaved it on high for 60 seconds. Now that I think about it, I probably could have just put the swiss cheese on top of the just out of the oven chicken before I tented it to let it rest, and it would have melted without nuking. It passed the taste test, but perhaps could have used a bit more seasonings in the dry mix. It was cooked through, but very moist and tender. The swiss cheese added an additional layer of flavor. The coating was just a bit crispy, not dry and not soggy. One rather smallish chicken breast and a cup of green peas filled me up for supper!

Hola! Thoughts on Voting, Etc.

No Friday Night Miscellany tonight - I'm just too wound up by the non-ending "news" about the election. Pray Goddess it all ENDS on Tuesday, I'm so sick of it all. The commercials are the worst - some are outright lies, others are blatant distortions, still others are almost relevant by pointing out differences in potential policy approaches (those are few and far between). I've had enough of both Presidential candidates in the U.S. running large frigging pep rallies all around the country. It's like - snore - so what? I'm tired of hearing John McCain's "My Friends," sick of Sarah Palin's phoney corn-pone accent, bored with Biden's too-wide smile (does he wear a toup???), and impatient with Obama's equanimity. I want to see a little PASSION, Mister! And what if I'm one of the millions of people in this country who does NOT own a computer or have internet access? How do I find out about the candidates' stands on issues then, heh? Someone who wants to know will NOT generally find in-depth analysis of the candidates' respective stands in their local newspapers (unless one happens to subscribe to The New York Times, The Chicago Tribune, or The Washington Post), and certainly not from political hack ads on television and radio being paid for by the campaigns, the respective national party organizations for the Democrats and Republicans, and various private organizations. On the plus side, I have been extremely pleased to see as much as one-third of the potential electorate casting early ballots during this election. I did the same. I voted early in 2004 but I had to do so in person at City Hall - not a pleasant experience, as there were several hundred other people already standing in a snaking line in City Hall's small atrium when I got there at 4:00 p.m. after taking off work an hour early on purpose just to vote. It took hours! I didn't get home until 7:30 p.m. that night - I live less than a mile away from City Hall. I suppose I waited too long and I confess I had not educated myself enough on the process, so I don't know if it would have been possible THEN to send in an application for an "absentee ballot" (they don't call it "early voting" here) and vote by mail, which is exactly what I did this year - convenient, painless, easy. I downloaded the "application" from the internet from the City Clerk's website, filled it out and mailed it in. I could have faxed it but - call me old-fashioned - I felt uncomfortable with the idea of doing so. Yeah, I know, doesn't make sense - can't explain it, it was just one of those things, darlings! In Wisconsin, one does not have to provide a "reason" for casting an early ballot, so one does not have to come up with a "dog ate my homework" type of excuse. I got my ballot a week ago last Thursday in the mail and mailed back to City Hall on Monday of this week. It's done, and I feel glad, happy - and relieved - to have done my citizen's duty. Only silly thing - you need a WITNESS! Yeah - I mean - how silly is that - as if one couldn't cheat about the witness? There was an enclosure with the official ballot along with a postage-paid return envelope (taxpayer dollars at work, finally an expenditure I benefit from!!!) explaining that I had to exhibit my BLANK ballot in front of my witness, then vote in secret (I made my witness cover her eyes and swear she wasn't peeking), I filled out the ballot in #2 pencil, folded it up, placed it in the envelope and sealed it. Then I signed and then my witness signed and provided her address as requested. I wonder - do they check those addresses of every "absentee ballot" witness to see if they're valid or not? How would they do it if, say, a person is a renter and not a property owner (so no property tax bill data base), not a driver, as I am not (therefore no drivers' license data base to check from), and not a person who has voted in the past several elections - or ever voted, for that matter (therefore does not show up in any state-wide canvass of local voter registration lists). Hmmmm...would that mean my absentee ballot would be thrown out? Oh oh, now I'm getting paranoid. Hmmm... At any rate, I am glad for the early voting opportunity and the ease of execution to vote early in Wisconsin. Thank you, Wisconsin! In other states the process has been much more problematic, and I'm worried about that. If people come to vote early and are confronted with long lines that will take hours to work through, will they be daunted and just go back home without voting? And if they do go home without voting from early voting, will they show up at the polls next Tuesday? I live in a suburb of Milwaukee; Milwaukee has opened a large early voting center downtown, where a lot of people work and, I have to say, readily accessible by bus from any part of the city. I understand, on average, 1500 people a day have been voting since this center became available - but I don't know how long it has been available. But you know, any amount of congestion that early voting relieves from the polls next Tuesday is a triumph; as I understand it, "experts" are predicting the largest nationwide voter turnover - over 63%! - in more than 40 years. I suppose I'm being naive, though, in praying that there will be no legal challenges filed by partisans of Republicans and Democrats caused by legitimate and illegitmate reasons for discarding votes, or sending people home without voting, or mysteriously disappearing ballots or - oh Goddess, this is all giving me a headache. You'd think we were living in a third world country where stealing elections is commonplace! Geez! I'm going to go relax in one of my comfy wing chairs now, with a glass of wine, and open up "The Fire" where I left off a few days ago. I'm doing my first pass through Neville's novel slowly, savoring every moment...