Wednesday, February 24, 2016

Wednesday--

No snow yet but it is very early (just after 5am). Mom had weather alerts for winter storm and lakeshore flood warnings. We are too far inland to be affected by the possible floods but the snow--we will simply hibernate. Newest weather report (6:40 am) puts us under a blizzard watch not simply a winter storm warning. New update (8:30 am)--snow started about an hour ago with the dry, pellet kind and has transitioned to flakes. It is sticking on the rooftops and cars but not as much on the grassy or paved areas--yet. Another update (10:45 am)--the pace of the snow has picked up and the wind has too. It is coming fast enough to accumulate on grass and sidewalks. Update the fourth (2 pm)--the blizzard has arrived. I don't know if it meets the technical definition of "blizzard" but the snow is piling up, falling heavily and is wind driven. To my mind, that is a blizzard.

A couple of days ago I became so disgusted with the table cloth I pulled it all out and started over with a new plan to adjust the pattern. It is supposed to lie flat and the instruction say you can make it any size by simply repeating the last two rows. Not even. It ruffles up so some how I have to adjust to take out the fullness that develops. We'll see how my idea works out.

The bread went well yesterday with a couple of glitches, neither of which are fatal. First I made the full recipe since I hadn't done this bread before. I suspected it would make a very large dough ball and I was right. I split it and froze half for later. I can thaw it, let it rise and bake it just like frozen loaves in the grocery store (if they still carry those). Then I had to gently work the loaf out of the dish because I didn't get one small section greased well enough. I managed to do it and made a mental note to line the dish with greased foil next time so I can simply lift and peel to get the loaf out. It tastes really good so I will be using that recipe again.

So Trump won Nevada caucuses. I have a new definition of schadenfreude: the joy of watching Trump throw the Repthuglican establishment into panic. Unfortunately, that is coupled with the fear he might actually win the Presidency.

I just saw an interesting headline on Naked Capitalism. I won't link because you can find it easily enough. It referred to San Francisco as "Baghdad by the Bay" because of the rise in "cop on black" violence. Not long ago we had a firestorm in Chicago because Spike Lee released his film Chiraq and the powers-that-be were upset at the implication that the Chicago street were as dangerous as Iraqi battlegrounds. I wonder if some of the politicians and other movers-and-shakers out there are equally insulted. Some claimed Lee's  film glorified gang violence because they were too culturally illiterate to identify the film's lineage--the Lysistrata. The Aristophanes comedy was, probably, the first anti-war protest more than 2000 years ago. He did with the Lysistrata exactly what Leonard Bernstein did with Romeo and Juliet--brought it into the modern world to tell a story about our modern conditions. What's old is new again.

I do love this story. Couldn't get victory but did get a measure of revenge.

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