No Hapologies
This way to the helipad!
I like Hillary. I’ve been her supporter for a few presidential cycles. On her mailing list I think you’ll find me in the “Old School” section. I got seniority. And, depending how things go, she probably has my vote in 2016. The “probably” is a subtle hint that my vote is not ironclad. Not this time around.
Some people give Hillary a lot of shit. Some I agree with (to some extent). Some is just stupid, crass, and mean-spirited and falls under the category of “My Side Good, Your Side Bad” politics.
Me? I prefer to call ’em like I see ’em. And this is one such case.
Uniform Injustice
The place where I come from is a bit unusual. It’s a place in the Pacific Northwest where you can still go out and stake your claim. Literally, thanks to the General Mining Act of 1872. Yes, 1872. As in 141 years ago. Yes, just seven years after the Civil War. Outdated much?
Some miners will stay up in the hills year-round, utterly alone, and living in shacks with no electricity. Every few months they drive their pickup trucks into town and load up on supplies. Then it’s right back into them thar hills.
As you might imagine, that kind of lifestyle combined the total lack of human socialization can make them a bit eccentric. I hope to experience something similar on my one-way mission to Mars. (I’ll use the 1872 law to stake a claim in the cargo bay and shoot anyone who trespasses under interstellar law.)
Meanwhile, I have a person in my life who acts a lot like this. Allow me to introduce Emily, our former landlady. She’s elderly and lives alone in the hills outside of town with her cats. And, like her distant miner counterparts, she’s a bit eccentric.
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The Persistent Gardener
Vegetation portrayal.
The other day the world came and took a shit on our front door.
Wow. Have I mastered the art of the literary opening or what? -Ed.
Anywho, we came home and found a flyer had been stuck in the front door of our house. Just like I documented recently, our house is always Under Siege.
Yes, sadly, so far we haven’t been able to raise the money for guard towers with machine guns and snipers. Maybe I should list my modest home defense project on KickStarter? How much would you donate?
It was an 8-1/2″ x 11″ piece of standard printer paper. This flyer was done on the cheap.
For those keeping track, that’s two warning signs already and we haven’t even talked about the content of the flyer yet.
Already hating the guts of whoever was responsible, I finally took a look. It was a B&W ad for a landscaper dude. It was amateur hour all the way. Even I could have done a better job. And the most prominent part of the ad? A blown up and grainy closeup photograph of the dude’s face. Maybe he was part real estate agent, too?
Strike Three! Strike Four! Yer outta here, chump!
I googled the guy’s name and found that he had been cited by the state for landscaping without a license. Yup, yup.
That’s about the time my wife muttered something about needing yard work done, picked up the phone and gave the guy a ring.
HOLY MOTHER OF GOD!
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Où êtes-vous, Roquefort?
There’s blue cheese and then there’s Roquefort. I developed a penchant for the latter during three years of French class. Oui, oui!
Blue cheese is a general classification of cow’s milk, sheep’s milk, or goat’s milk cheeses that have had cultures of the mold Penicillium added so that the final product is spotted or veined throughout with blue, blue-gray or blue-green mold, and carries a distinct smell, either from that or various specially cultivated bacteria. Some blue cheeses are injected with spores before the curds form and others have spores mixed in with the curds after they form. Blue cheeses are typically aged in a temperature-controlled environment such as a cave. Blue cheese can be eaten by itself or can be crumbled or melted into or over foods. (Source: Wikipedia.)
Roquefort is a variety of blue cheese, but to be called “Roquefort,” by law, it must be “aged in the natural Combalou caves of Roquefort-sur-Soulzon.” According to legend, it was in those very caves when a young man, tempted by a beautiful girl, abandoned his lunch including ewes’ milk cheese in a cave. When he returned to the cave a few months later, he was startled to discover that the mold (Penicillium roqueforti) had transformed his forgotten lunch into Roquefort. Viola!
Only the French could have such a romantic backstory about the invention of a cheese.
The other day I was thinking about First Meal. I’ve been spending a lot of my time planning what I will eat after my 39-days of Abyss Island are over. I’ve taken to calling it First Meal and it has assumed legendary importance in my life. The odds on favorite is currently homemade fried chicken. Oh yes.
I was thinking about this when I remarked to my wife, “You know what I want to eat for First Meal?” She just rolled her eyes. “What the hell ever happened to Roquefort, anyway? I used to look for the official seal, then poof. One day it was just gone man.”
Well, I think found out what happened. And, believe it or not, the trail leads right back to George W. Bush. Holy moldy! Son of a bitch!
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Bonus Round: Launch the Mutant Now!!
Main screen turn on: Bonus round is now. All your votes belong to us. Make your time. Somebody set up us the bomb.
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Blockages
Oh, crap. I’m sitting here looking at a blank page and I’ve got a serious blockage.
What? No! Not that kind. Jeez. What do you take me for?
Seriously. I’m drawing one big blank over here.
What’s the big deal? I could miss a day, right? Well, right now, I’ve successfully blogged 920 days in a row. My streak of continuous posts started way back on October 5, 2009. That’s right. 920 days without a break and never Freshly Pressed. I’m obviously going for the world record. Let it be known that I’ll go to any length to be pathetic.
How much more, WordPress? How much more? Please let me know when I’ve achieved the longest Freshly Pressed drought of all-time while posting daily at the same time. Now that is something I would love to stuff and shove on the mantle. Something to be proud of.
Since I got nothing, I’ll simply go off an a couple of random things. We’ll start with presidential wannabe emails.
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A rose by any other name
The No Child Left Behind Act did exactly what it said it wouldn’t do. It created a system that was gamed by some to the detriment of our kids.
The Clear Skies Act reduced air pollution controls, including those environmental protections of the Clean Air Act, including caps on toxins in the air and budget cuts for enforcement.
Shouts from the Abyss 
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