First Snow of 2021

I got to see a pretty snowfall this morning. 

It is Sunday and the time was already 8am when I got out of bed. I opened the blinds and saw that snow was falling moderately hard. Snow is not unusual for central Virginia, but this was the first snow of the winter. 

During the night, I had difficulty sleeping so I arose from bed and went to the living room. I gathered the frozen-dinner cartons I had saved for the recycle bin, and I fed them one by one into the fireplace and applied flame to them. I had a nice, warm fire going for a while. So these frozen-dinners served me twice, first as nourishment and then as a cheery fire.

I hope your morning was as pleasant.

Snow Job

Years ago, I had to go to a job interview in Burlington, N.C. I would soon be a new college graduate, an electrical engineer, and this was my first job interview.

Virginia Tech is located in the mountains of southwestern Virginia. I had to drive to Burlington, and to do that I had to drive over a mountain range.

All this time later, I can't remember the roads I took. If I speculate, I would guess that I took U.S. 460 east to Roanoke and then U.S. 220 south to Martinsville, and then Va. 87 into Burlington. I remember a few things about that trip.

I was driving my 1960 Plymouth. The weather was snowing. I was in a line of cars going up a mountain pass. At the head of the line was a big black truck. It wasn't a semi-truck, it was something like a big dump truck, as I recall. The road was slippery. Once in a while a car would slide off the road. The road was banked toward the mountain, so thankfully when a car slid off the road, it ended up against the side of a hill. The line of cars slowly grew shorter as, one by one, cars slid away.

Sometimes the wind blew hard and there was a sudden whiteout. When that happened, I could see nothing outside of my car. I couldn't see the vehicles in front of me. I couldn't see the hood of my Plymouth. Looking into my rear view mirror, all I could see was gray light coming through the snow covering my rear window. Visibility was zero. I could only apply brakes and stop, and hope the cars behind me did the same thing. Then the wind would calm somewhat, the wipers cleared snow from my windshield, and there was the hood of my car again, and there was the car ahead of me. Everyone was stopped. 

But not for long. The big truck began moving up the mountain again with the ever-shortening line of cars trailing behind it like ducklings behind their mother. The Plymouth had good traction. I had gotten the car out of places where I thought for sure I would need a tow. The truck continued up the mountain, and the number of cars between the truck and my Plymouth dwindled. The number of cars behind me dwindled, too.

Not every car slid off the road. Many drivers gave up and turned back. Eventually (and incredibly), the only vehicles left climbing that mountain pass were the big truck and my Plymouth. I had pressing business in Burlington. The job interview was important and I had to get there. 

I finally came down the other side of the mountain and onto flat land. I sped along the snow-covered road alone. No other cars were on the road. I couldn't really see the road; all the land was white. But I could discern where, approximately, the road was located beneath the snow. I could tell from the fence that ran alongside the road. I could tell from the bridges crossing over the road. I would aim for the empty space between bridge supports and I could be pretty sure I was on the road.

I made it to Burlington and checked into a cheap motel. The man at the front desk informed me that a night there would cost me eight dollars. I didn't have eight dollars on me, because I was a poor college student and I couldn't lay my hands on more than five dollars. (I had already bounced a check for that amount.) I offered him a check, but he declined. I told him I would pay him when I checked out the next day.

I slept the night in the motel room and the next morning I went to my job interview. That afternoon, as I left the building with one of the employees, I asked if I could get eight dollars from him. He said I could. So I wrote him a check and took the eight dollars and went to the motel and paid my bill, and I drove back to Blacksburg, to Virginia Tech. I got the job. I would be working for a missile guidance system engineering department. I think the pay was $750 per month. When your money is so tight that you bounce $5 checks, $750 sounds like a lot. I was thankful for it. And I was thankful for that 1960 Plymouth that pulled me over that mountain pass, through wind and snow and whiteouts, when the chips were down.

Paul Mauriat

The song of the day is 1968's Love is Blue (L'amour est Bleu) by French orchestra leader Paul Mauriat. The song is his million-selling remake of André Popp's "Love is Blue", which was #1 for 5 weeks in 1968.

Dinner

I blog about a lot of mundane topics, so I may as well blog about my dinner tonight. 

I'm single and I don't like cooking, but I do like to eat nutritious food. I like tasty food. So what can I cook tonight that is healthy and tasty? As I made dinner, I took a few photos with my phone. So here we go.

I prepared veggies for juicing: Carrots and cukes and beets and celery. The juicer makes quick work of them.
 

I put the juice into a couple of clean jars, formerly peanut butter jars. The screw caps seal in the freshness, as they say on TV. I put both jars into the fridge to cool down. One is for today and one is for tomorrow. It's about as easy to prepare two servings as to prepare one serving. So each serving contains approximately 2 ½ carrots, ½ cucumber, 1 beet, and 1 celery rib. (I stir-fried the leaves and stems of the beets last night and ate them with ... well, here I have to take a detour to last night's supper.

So here we are at last night's supper. I have beets, and I chopped white onion. I stir-fried the onion with the beet stems, which turned the onion a pinkish color. I also stir-fried the beet leaves. They're the most nutritious part of the beet. Don't take my word—look it up!

This was the first time I had cooked beet leaves and stems. When I was finished cooking and plated the meal, it looked like this. You see the white onion is stained pink from the beet stems. The beet stems must be cooked until they are tender, although if they are a little chewy you just have to chew a bit longer and they will dissolve to nothing. You will not be spitting out any beet stems. 

The beet leaves are also on the plate, and they are also good. I didn't know how they would taste, but if I had cooked a second helping, I would have eaten it. These are the greens from 4 small beets, and like any greens they cook down a lot. You should, of course, wash the stems and leaves before cooking them, or you may be eating some dirt with your meal.

Now I started cooking some chopped white onion in an electric wok with a tablespoon (or so) of sesame oil. The wok's temperature was set to 300F°. 

This is a medium white onion cut into pieces about 1 cm per side. That's about a half inch for you die-hard fans of U.S. customary units.

 

 

 

 

After I added sesame oil the white onion adopted a brownish color, as that is the color of sesame oil. Toasted sesame oil is even darker brown. I'm not sure what the difference is, or if there is a difference. Maybe the toasted variety has a stronger flavor. Again, something for my readers to look up on Google. 

Stir fry the onion for 10 minutes at 300F. 

Now I throw 8 ounces of spinach leaves on top of the cooked onion. It fills up the wok nicely. The spinach leaves will cook down quickly. Continue stirring the whole shebang for a couple of minutes.

While you're cooking the onion and spinach, get a piece of salmon going in the frying pan. I used cooking spray and it eliminates the oil splatter you get when you put something wet (fish) into hot oil. Later, when the fish is about half cooked, you can add a tablespoon or so of your favorite oil (I used extra virgin olive olive, or EVOO as that woman on TV calls it) and got no spatter at all.

Of course, I could have used a spatter screen but experience has shown me that they are all but worthless. Drops of hot oil pop through the screen; the screen simply breaks the drops into smaller drops.

At first, cook the salmon skin-side down. I say that as if it were important. I'm just pretending to know what I'm doing here. But really, I'm winging it. I'm always winging it.

After a while, flip the salmon over so that it can cook from the other side. Give it another few minutes. Now, I'm not winging it when I tell you this. You have to turn the fish over in the pan, or it's going to be over-cooked on one side and raw on the other side. Trust me.

I start with the skin-side down and cook it a while, flip it over for a few minutes, then flip it again because if it's thick you can get the fish-side too brown and you might burn it. The skin-side is more resistant to burning.

Of course if you burn it, just tell yourself you're eating blackened salmon. Which you are, just not what the restaurant serves.

So here's the salmon skin-side down again, and the cooked onion and spinach beside it. Now that the spinach is out of the pan, I pour about a tablespoon of oyster sauce on it. Oyster sauce is a little sweet and a little salty. I won't tell you what it's made of, but the name of the stuff is a giveaway.

The spinach is ready to eat, and the salmon is ready to eat. Now just put them on a plate side-by-side. That works a lot better than stacking them like hot cakes, but I suppose you could do it that way, too.

By the way, I'm making dinner for tomorrow night at the same time as tonight's meal. So what I'm cooking is twice the amount I plan to have for dinner.

And here we are: dinner. Or supper. Or dinner.

Usually for salmon I'll make up a quick drizzle from melted butter and lemon juice. But this salmon came from the store pre-spiced. It has brown sugar, honey powder (honey and sugar), salt, black pepper, paprika, parsley, red pepper, and white pepper. 

Though I used stir-fried spinach and onion for my side dish, you could use rice and vegetables and lemon wedges. You could serve the fish with mashed sweet potato and roasted veggies. You can serve the fish with chocolate chip cookies. I don't care. I say, go crazy. Enjoy yourself. Just as I enjoyed eating my meal and creating this blog post about it, garnished with lots of photos. 

Enjoy, and bon appetit!

P.S.
Dessert:

 

 

 

 

Luciano Pavarotti

The song of the day is Nessun Dorma ("Let No One Sleep") by Italian operatic tenor Luciano Pavarotti. The song is an aria from Giacomo Puccini's opera Turandot.

Memories

Running down the beach in the sunshine, feet splashing through surf,

Playing tennis all day, all summer,

Hiking into the gorge, walking beside the river all day, climbing out of the gorge,

Hundreds of feet above, afternoon sunshine inflames colorful autumn trees,

Arising from bed, early morn, gazing at mountain peaks poking through fog,

Nailing tent stakes into the earth, swimming in a pristine lake,

Making love inside a car when the temperature is two degrees,

Windows rimed with frost from hot breath,

Campfires, hay bales, friends, marshmallows on sticks,

Long walks through forest,

Boat lingers at anchor and I lie on deck in the afternoon sun,

Canoe floats through a deep river gorge, trees hundreds of feet above,

Sweat runs into my eyes,

Taking a pretty girl somewhere I can't afford,

Brakes squeal, crash of steel on steel,

A passenger jet lifts off the runway, climbing quickly, homeward bound now,

Places and times I shall not pass again,

But I have them in my head, I have them now and I always will.

Don't Hurry Be Happy

It is quiet in my house. The only sounds are the flickering fire in my fireplace and the tinnitus in my head. The only light in my room is my computer screen and the fading, dancing firelight on the wall opposite the fireplace. I feel content. I live in central Virginia, 132 miles south of the nation's capital, about two hours at interstate highway speed, but there is not enough money in the world to tempt me to drive there.

When I was 19, I had a job in Bladensburg, Maryland. I drove there on Monday morning and returned on Friday afternoon. I drove a 1955 Chevy. It had an inline 6 cylinder engine, and the cylinders were badly worn. It burned a quart of oil every 20 miles. I could fill the engine with oil and drive about 100 miles and the "Oil" lamp on the dashboard would light up. Then I had to stop and add oil. 

On Monday morning, I would drive north on I-95 to the DC Beltway (I-495) and then I would take the Beltway around DC.  I lived in a rented room in College Park, just inside the Beltway on the north side of DC. I worked for a company in Bladensburg, a community you might have difficulty finding on a map were it not for the name on the Bladensburg High School.

Come Friday afternoon, I would head for the Beltway. The on-ramp was always packed with commuters and it usually took 20 to 30 minutes on the on-ramp to get to the actual Beltway. My old Chevy poured out blue smoke from the exhaust. No doubt drivers behind me hated me, but there was nothing I could do about it. The cylinders were badly worn, the piston rings had almost no compression, and the engine needed rebuilding but that required money I didn't have. 

When I got on the Beltway I took the I-95 exit and drove 132 miles south at speeds rarely below 85 mph. I passed everything on the road. I passed cars, I passed trucks, I passed buses, I passed 18-wheelers. Nobody passed me. Nowadays on an Interstate highway, 85 mph is nothing. I've driven to central Florida from Virginia and back at a relaxed 85 mph on I-95, and everyone was going the same speed. But in that far-off day it was not as common.

Although 85 mph sounds fast, it doesn't seem fast after I've been doing it for a while. It feels like I'm going about 35 mph. I find myself wanting to go faster, but I know I'd be inviting a speeding ticket, and maybe a reckless driving ticket, if I did. So I crawl along at 85 mph.

I did have an incident on I-81 in the Shenandoah Valley. I was driving north when a cop came from behind me and signaled a car that was two cars back to pull over. It did. Then he pulled up beside the car that was behind me and signaled it to pull over. It did. I knew he was probably going for a threesome, so I stepped a little harder on the gas. I wanted to give him a choice. He could ticket the two drivers he had pulled over, or he could catch me and ticket me, in which case those two drivers would be long gone when he got back to them. So he could choose: one ticket or two tickets. He chose to ticket the two cars that had pulled over and I continued up the interstate.

There was a time in my life when it seemed to me like I was always driving somewhere. It seems as though for years I lived my life on four wheels. Maybe that is why I don't care for long trips now. I've done enough of them. I'll stay in my house, and visit neighbors I can walk to, and if I go on a car trip, it's two miles to the grocery store for food and two miles home. It's one mile to the hardware store for paint or caulk or plumbing supplies and one mile home. 

That's my speed now: 25 or 35 in town, and 65 on the interstate where 65 is the law. I drive in the right lane and let cars pass me. I've spent too many hours being in a hurry.

Respect

I got up late today—5:30 a.m. It's 34° outside. It's the blue hour, that hour before dawn when everything has a shade of blue about it. This is Martin Luther King day in the US, a federal holiday, so no mail today and federal offices are closed and banks are closed, too. 

I got up and went to my PC. I checked the news and read an editorial. I watched a couple of YT videos. I defrosted a freezer biscuit: a frozen nugget of sausage, egg, and cheese wrapped in tasty carbohydrate. The biscuit had just the right balance of protein and carbs to send my brain back to sleepy time. So I crawled back into bed and drifted into slumber.

Time passed, but I was dead to the world.

My eyes opened again, and I found myself looking directly at the clock beside my bed. It displayed 9:09. For a split second my foggy brain thought I had slept the day away and now it was 9 p.m. But no, it was still morning. I swung my legs over the edge of the bed and stood up. The day was sunny and 39°. On the way to my PC I grabbed a bottle of Savia Aloe Vera drink from the fridge.

The Savia drink is sweet. You can dilute it with water if the sweetness overwhelms you. A friend in Costa Rica introduced me to it, and later I found it on the Hispanic food aisle at Walmart. Aloe Vera juice is reputed to have health benefits, but I don't know what, if any, benefits might be found in the Savia drink. For what it's worth, you can see bits of Aloe Vera gel suspended in the water in the bottle.

My first order of business is to take an online Spanish lesson. I'm studying (re-learning) Spanish on a website that is multimedia. Sometimes it plays samples of spoken Spanish and asks me to type what I hear. No problem—or, no hay problema. But I do have complaints. For one, when they tell me to type what I hear, and I do, sometimes they tell me I am wrong. How can I be wrong? I typed what I heard, just as they asked. If it isn't what they wanted me to hear, then that's on them. I'm just listening and typing. Maybe their instructors should speak more clearly.

When I was in high school, in those long ago days of yore, I had an excellent Spanish teacher. Her name was Mrs. Pulley, and she had the best diction of anyone I've ever heard. I wrote about her in a blog post here. I never knew her first name. Back in those days of yore, students had respect for their teachers and would never think of addressing a teacher by his or her first name. It is like using Tú and Usted in Spanish, a distinction that also seems to be slowly disappearing. Even my Spanish-teaching website teaches me to say Tú with barely a mention of Usted. It's a distinction that shows respect—a nicety that is, in its own way, dying in my country, too. Small children, who visit with their parents and who don't know me, can now call me by my first name, and their parents see nothing wrong with that. The child isn't taught respect because the parent was never taught respect. And where does that lead? Apparently, it leads to a country where people have no respect for anything—not for lives, not for property, and not for their own government.

If Jesus were still amongst us, he would look at the world and say, "Oy vey!" Except, of course, he would say it in Aramaic.

January Thaw

For the past few days, the weather has been nice. Cold at night, of course, but 50-ish during the day. In fact, some trees are budding out—the beginning of new leaves. The trees think it is springtime. Foolish trees, they have no brains and cannot read a calendar, so they don't know that we are merely going through a warm spell in winter.

At this hour it is dark and 25°F outside. That is -4°C. Very cold, but not extreme. It is not uncommon for outside temperatures to fall below 0°F during winter. But January in central Virginia is a strange month. One week will be very cold and the next week will be mild enough that a jacket is not necessary. The warm spell is called the "January thaw." The cold will return.

February is the colder month, where temps drop to 0° and a gusty wind over the chimney makes the furnace roar. Although I have a boiler, not a furnace. The difference is a furnace heats air and a boiler heats water. Despite the name, home-heating boilers are usually "hot water" boilers and they don't actually boil anything.

My room is lit by the LED monitor on my desk. A space heater blows hot air at my bare legs. It feels good. I feel blessed to have a house around me, with heat and water and food. What more can a person ask for? I don't understand people who travel thousands of miles to break things that aren't theirs, hurt people they don't know, and get themselves put into prison, when all the while a warm house in winter and a cool house in summer is all a person needs to be content. Foolish humans, they can never find contentment because they don't where to look.

You can't find contentment if you look for it in the world. You have to look for it in yourself. If you let your mind wander to the worries of the world, your contentment may be lost. Worse, you may find yourself lost. This life is the only life you are guaranteed to have. Why not choose to enjoy it?

Just Another Day in the Neighborhood

I looked at the morning news for inspiration for a new blog post. But the Trump-inspired insurrection is consuming all the air in the news media. It's big news in the nation's capital, but elsewhere in the heartland you wouldn't know anything untoward had happened unless you turned on the TV news or picked up a newspaper.

Life is normal. Working people go to work. People at home wash and dry their clothes, and clean and dust their homes. People go shopping, cook meals, go through the fast-food drive-through, and order take-out pizza.

People go hunting and fishing. They drive or fly to vacation spots. They watch YouTube videos. They study Spanish or French or Italian or Chinese on language-teaching websites. Some even write blog posts in the cold, dark hours of early morning.

The TV news media doesn't present a true picture. It's like a magnifying lens, focusing on and enlarging part of what is in the news, until that news appears to be the only thing happening in America. For 99% of Americans, nothing has changed. Covid-19 and vaccinations are the important news. Local news is important, too: business hours that have changed, morning road accidents that have re-routed the morning's drive-to-work traffic. The world still turns, the sun still rises and sets.

People in foreign lands should not let the news spook them about traveling to America. Unless you travel to the nation's capital, you probably will not know that anything unusual is taking place. For 99% of Americans, all the weirdness is taking place on their TV screens, not on their streets. People work, people play, and life goes on.

To quote Bobby McFerrin, "Don't Worry, Be Happy."

Olivia Rodrigo

The song of the day is 2021's Driver's License by 17-year-old Disney star Olivia Rodrigo.

I Don't Get It

I would like to ask one of those Capitol rioters a few questions, starting with, "What do you want?"

"What do you want that you cannot get? Is the government keeping you from being happy? How is it doing that?"

Because, although I can see that these people are very upset, I don't know what upsets them. 

The Black Lives Matter people I totally understand. They don't want to get shot by police. That's a reasonable request, and the police and the BLM people should be able to work out some kind of understanding. 

But the people who looted the Capitol look well-fed. They have clothes. Some drove to D.C. in their own cars, and some flew long distances to get to D.C., so they have money. Why are they so unhappy? Why are they so unhappy that they are willing to commit serious crimes against America? Why are they so unhappy that they are willing to go to prison? Because some of them definitely will go to prison.

I know they think, without any evidence, that the election was stolen by Biden. If so, if Biden and his people were able to steal a national election without leaving behind any evidence, even in districts that were being run by the opposition, then I'm quite impressed. If Biden and his people are smart enough and clever enough to steal a closely-watched national election, with observers from both parties at every polling station, then I think he deserves to be president!

But of course, he didn't steal the election. People voted, and the results came in, and Trump lost. Every four years since the founding of the nation, someone has lost a presidential election.

Some of these Trump "supporters" should be writing novels, because they are great at spinning conspiracy theories. And they believe those theories, without an ounce of evidence.

But I want to get back to my original question: What do they want? Who or what is hurting these people so much that they want to overthrow the government? Everyone has their own gripes about the way the country is run, but most people are not so unhappy that they prefer prison or death to living within the laws of this democracy.

And finally, I'd like to ask some of those rioters who are so unhappy, have you called your Congressman? Have you talked with his office staff? Have you written to your Senator? Did he respond? Have you attended any of the meet-your-Congressman meetings that they hold periodically? In other words, have you tried working within the system before you decided to throw it away—along with your life?

Because a lot of angry people are doing a lot of talking, but I still don't understand why they're angry. I don't understand what they want that they don't have and cannot obtain. Maybe some of them could put together a list and post it online and then the rest of us can read it and think about it. And then we'll say one of two things. We'll say, "Now I understand." Or, more likely, we'll say, "Those mo-fo's are crazy!"

Friday

Today is Friday, January 8, 2021, one day after the failed coup attempt by Trump worshipers/anarchists.

Today's weather forecast looks like this:

I can see that today is not going to be a good day for walking, but tomorrow is looking good. Today is looking good for other reasons, but not for walking. Today looks good for staying inside and having a fire in the fireplace, and doing some writing, and possibly doing some housecleaning or even washing clothes, which requires multiple trips to the cellar where the washer and dryer are located. The staircase is spiral, and there is no handrail, so care is required. Every time I wash my clothes, I wonder if this will be the time I end up at the bottom of the stairwell with broken bones. But I cross my fingers and journey to the cellar.

I got up at 3:30am today. I watched some of the national news and I've concluded that those people who invaded the Capitol are morons. In fact, calling them morons is an insult to morons. They made no attempt to cover their faces, and one man was wearing his company employee badge (his boss saw the photo and fired him). 

What were their plans if they got into the Capitol? The obvious answer is that they had no plans. They got into the Capitol and trashed some offices, carried away some items, committed some minor vandalism, but had no plans on what else to do. It reminds me of the dog that chased a car and then the car stopped. The dog caught the car but what could he do with it? Nothing. Dogs don't think that far ahead.

Those D.C. rioters had plenty of time to make plans, but they didn't think any farther ahead than the car-chasing dog. But I should add, it may be that they hadn't planned to invade the Capitol until Trump egged them on to do it when he attended his rally. And he did egg them on. He even told the crowd he'd walk down the street to the Capitol with them. The crowd got very excited, but of course Trump didn't walk to the Capitol. He went back inside the White House and watched the riot on television.

Now people are talking about impeachment and the 25th amendment, but with 12 days left in the Trump administration, I think that kind of talk is pointless. Five people are dead including a Capitol Police officer, and I think even Donald Trump suddenly understands that when you play with fire, someone can get burned.

Old Time Elections

It appears the Election Show has broadcast its finale. Quoting the BBC news:

Discussion on Gab and Parler, social media platforms popular with far-right groups banned from Facebook and Twitter, featured threats that anything other than Congress overturning the outcome would lead to "patriots" having to rescue their country from traitors, communists, Satanists and paedophiles.

My question is, is this list of "traitors, communists, Satanists and paedophiles" in increasing order of evil or decreasing order of evil? Are pedophiles more evil than traitors or are traitors worse than pedophiles? Are communists more sinister than Satanists or are Satanists worse than communists? I'm just asking.

Can we imagine this exchange?

"You're a traitor!"

"At least I'm not a communist!"

I suppose the absolute worst would be a communist traitor.

This guy looks like an upstanding, reasonable, and law-abiding citizen.

"Only in America," I am tempted to say. But other countries have their own crazies. You don't usually see them because they are not normally invited out by the Head of State.

It's now Thursday and at 6am the crazies appear to have dispersed and returned to their homes, hospitals, and psych wards. A few have gone to the morgue. Death is a risk you take when you break into the nation's Capitol and loot, vandalize, and threaten legislators while Congress is in session in that very same building. Maybe that fact wasn't obvious to Trump supporters.

I miss the "old" America, the one where people were normal except for the occasional eccentric geezer who would chase kids out of his yard while holding an unloaded shotgun (for the intimidation factor). Supporters of a candidate who lost didn't riot and try to take down our democracy. I grew up in Olden Times and when we held an election the winner gave a speech and the loser walked away, and then it was on to new business. People scraped their "Vote For Whomever" stickers off their vehicles and drove to work. Nobody got crazy and nobody died. Everybody was cool with the outcome of the election, because that's how democracy is supposed to work. And that's how democracy used to work in the USA.

Yup, I miss those days.

In God We Trust

In American politics, some Republicans have charged, without evidence, that the recent presidential election was fraudulent. They say votes were miscounted or not counted. That is an assertion that conceivably could be proven true (assuming it is really true), although no proof has been found at this point in time.

Democrats have asserted the opposite. They say no fraud was committed. That is an assertion than cannot be proven. It is a well-known fact that, in general, you cannot prove a negative.

For example, consider the statement, "Black swans exist." That statement can be proven simply by showing the world a black swan.

Now consider the statement, "Black swans do not exist." That statement cannot be proven because in order to do so, we would have to prove that we have examined every swan in the world and none were black. But how can we prove we have examined every swan in the world? Maybe a black swan was hiding behind a bush. There is no way to prove we have examined all swans, therefore there is no way to prove that no swans are black.

Likewise, there is no way to prove we have counted every vote. We believe we have, and we have found no evidence to the contrary, but lack of evidence of something is not proof that something doesn't exist. Lack of evidence of black swans is not proof that black swans do not exist. (And in fact, black swans do exist!)

There is no way to prove that this election, or any election, was fair and honest. Regardless of how open and accessible the election was, we cannot prove any election was totally without fraud. We cannot prove a negative.

Republicans are playing a game with us. They want proof the election was not dishonest. They demand proof of a negative, proof that something does not exist, proof that something did not happen. I cannot prove election fraud does not exist any more than you can prove that Sasquatch does not exist. We may be able to prove fraud happened, but we can never prove that it did not happen.

In God We Trust is the official motto of the United States of America. There are times when we have to rely on trust, because trust is all we will have. Accusations of election fraud have been thrown out of court more than 50 times. Judges know that proving fraud happened, and not proving it did not happen, are not the same thing. Not even close.

Thoughts

Recently, I've been waking at 3 a.m. despite going to bed at a late hour. So last night I sipped a sleep potion before I went to bed. It was given to me and said to be from foreign lands where mystical spells are used by wizards and, possibly, the Watcher in the Water, but of that I cannot speak. All I know is this potion is reputed to be a powerful sleeping potion and I was assured I would not awaken at 3 a.m. again. And it worked. I did not awaken at 3 a.m. today. I awakened at 2:45 a.m. I'll admit I didn't see that coming.

So I sit at my computer, bathed in darkness and quiet, and think many thoughts, but nothing that is worthy of a blog post. Eventually I return to bed, to lie awake and think. A friend thousands of miles away sends me a text and my phone, lying in darkness on the dresser beside me, lights its screen and beeps at me. I pick up the phone and I have a short conversation. Afterward, I lie in bed, holding the dark phone in my hand. Time passes, and I bring the phone in front of my face and punch it awake. I begin talking to it. This is what I tell the phone:

"The time is 6:13 a.m. and it is very dark, outside and inside. I'm lying in bed, having given up trying to write a meaningful blog post. I am thinking thoughts that are mostly trivial. I'm thinking about Legacies. I think most of us who are mature in our thinking want to leave behind a legacy. We are not immortal... we do not have an infinite amount of time ahead of us. I think most of us would like to leave a mark on the world, to do something good for the world. Instead, the vast majority of us will disappear without a whimper. After one or two generations no one remembers us unless we were really outstanding and even if that were the case they will mostly just remember our name. Consider Henry Ford. He founded the Ford motor company but what else do we know of him, what else do we think of him? He left behind a name and a business but the rest, for the most part, will disappear from our consciousness without a trace.

"And what of the very wealthy? What of the millionaires, what of the billionaires? What of those acquisitors of wealth who cannot possibly spend wisely their billions before their own ends arrive? What kind of Legacy will they leave? What about the billionaire's second cousin thrice removed who squanders inherited millions on European mountaintops and wingsuit fantasies with no thought of earning so much as a penny? They don't have to earn their living because a wealthy person's Legacy made it possible for them to live the life of a parasite, living off the wages of underpaid workers they never knew who are long dead now. I have to wonder, in my own way, am I any better? The world's answer will be no. But I am more concerned about the answer of my better angel. What have I done, how have I helped, how much have I learned, and will it be sufficient when the time arrives for it to matter?

"The time is 6:32 a.m. and it is very dark, outside and inside."

The Election Show

I got up at 3AM again today. I walked to my dark living room and turned on the TV news. The Election Show was on. It's on every morning. Senator Whats-His-Face was giving his morning spiel, that daily Republican lament: "We was robbed!" I'm so tired of the Election Show that I turned the TV off.

For a long time (by "long" I mean since November, not since 3AM) they talked about crooked voting machines. Then the lawyers from the voting machine companies put all the right-wing news shows on notice that they (the news shows) were about to be sued for libel. Suddenly, retractions began sprouting like dandelions in the spring. According to those same news shows, the voting machines were fine and dandy, and had been all along. 

The latest segment of the Election Show features a phone call of Trump attempting to strong-arm the Georgia Secretary of State to throw the Georgia election count to Trump. Trump said it would be easy. Just go in front of the cameras, Trump told him, and tell the nation, "We found some more votes for Trump. Someone had put them in the laundry room and they fell behind the washing machine and no one noticed. But we counted them and there are exactly enough votes for a Trump victory." Sure, everyone would believe that.

I can't believe so many Americans want our country to go down that same road that tinpot dictators take. Trump lost. I'd like to tell him to take his loss like a man—or at least like Hillary Clinton. She didn't cry and moan about having the election stolen. And remember, she really did get more votes than Trump—almost 2.9 million more votes. And still lost the election.

Biden got 7 million more votes than Trump. He won. There was no fraud. Fifty court cases have been thrown out because there was no evidence of fraud presented in any of them. Many of the judges were Republican. Some of those Republican judges were appointed by Trump. Yet all of them did the right thing and dismissed the cases for lack of evidence. A judge can't overturn an election when there is no evidence of wrongdoing. 

Anyway, that's my mood at 0-dark-hundred. My readers are free to disagree. That's what the comment section is for. Use it. But do us a favor and don't make claims you cannot prove. Don't point us to conspiracy websites, don't repeat hearsay. Tell us what you saw, tell us what you heard. If you have proof of election fraud, you can be a star on the Election Show.

First Sunday 2021

It's 3am. No, not now as you read this, but now as I write this. 

I woke up and got my day going at 1am. At 1:30am I heard the rain begin. It didn't rain yesterday but it seems like it rained for a week prior to yesterday, and now it's doing it again. The forecasters say today will be the last rainy day for a while. It will be nice to see the sun again.

There's a new law in my state (Virginia). As of January 1, drivers can be stopped and ticketed for having a cell phone in their hand. They don't have to be talking or texting. All that's required is holding a cell phone. For drivers, a mobile phone is the Forbidden Object. I guess people are tired of distracted drivers on cell phones crashing into other drivers and killing or maiming them, so the state's General Assembly has taken the nuclear option. You can still use a cell phone for music or navigation, and even for talking, but you have to set it up before you start driving. I predict crashes will increase rather than decrease, because drivers will not only still be talking and texting, but now the indifferent driver will be looking around for police cars as well as looking down at the phone that is now in his/her lap.

There are many other new laws effective January 1. The state's minimum wage, currently $7.25/hr, goes to $9.50/hr and will continue to increase each year until reaching $15/hr in 2026 (if the 2024 General Assembly approves). Attention Virginians: you see what happens when you elect Democrats to the General Assembly? Before you know it, hourly workers are making enough money to live on! Fortunately, the state sells lottery tickets so people with excess cash have a way to get rid of it.

I have a friend who has a lady friend who gambles. Over the last several years she won about $56,000 at a casino called Rosie's. She paid taxes (I assume) on her winnings. And what did she do with the remainder of her winnings? She gambled it away—all of it—at Rosie's. Such is the life of the dedicated gambler.

I made a New Year's resolution of sorts: to do more toward straightening up my house, getting more exercise, eating healthier. Why are these things so difficult? Typically, my New Year's resolutions last about three days. And then? 

"What do you mean, frozen pizza isn't a health food?!" 

"What do you mean, two liters of soda every day isn't healthy?"

"A can of Beanee Weenees is too considered a health food. Isn't it?"

I don't want to overdo my health regimen. If I wanted to go nuts about exercise, I'd be washing my dishes every day. It feels like exercise when I'm doing it.

It's still dark. It's still raining. The temperature is rising; it's already 45° outside. (Today's high is supposed to be 48°.) I am thinking of gathering all the cardboard from my recycling container and setting fire to it (the cardboard, not the container) in my fireplace. I'll watch the flames for a while, then I'll go back to bed. Today is Sunday and everyone knows Sunday is a day of rest. By Divine law, I am not permitted to do anything today that might resemble work. I think it's okay if the microwave oven works for me. I have frozen health food in my freezer that needs defrosting. For example, I have frozen sausage and egg and cheese croissants. See that—if it were a biscuit it would be unhealthy junk food, but just by giving it a French name it even sounds healthy. Bon appétit!

It's raining really hard now.

New Year 2021

It's 5AM on New Year's Day now. That's 5AM in central Virginia, which is important because it's 2AM in California and midnight in Hawaii. We have time zones because Earth is round, so it can't be noon everywhere or midnight everywhere. If Earth were flat, it would be less complicated, because there would be only one time zone: Earth Standard Time.

Today begins a new year. I'm reminded of Cass Elliot's song, New World Coming.

There's a new world coming
And it's just around the bend
There's a new world coming
This one's coming to an end...

Yes, 2020 is fading. It's probably still 2020 in Elbonia, but the rest of us are waking up in 2021.

New Year's Eve was a miserable day. I shouldn't call any day I live through "miserable," but it was. It was chilly, it was wet, it was dreary. I felt depressed all day. Today's forecast is for another chilly, wet, dreary day, but maybe I'll light a fire in the fireplace and things won't be as depressing. Maybe I'll keep the Venetian blinds closed so that I can't see the dreary day, and inside my house there will be warmth and flickering firelight. I'll read a book. No, I'll watch TV. Oh hell no, I'll watch YouTube videos. And I'll munch on something tasty.

It's a New Year, let's all treat ourselves to a day of pleasure. All except for those who have to work, and they have my sympathy. When I was a boy, I delivered the morning paper on a bicycle every morning including New Year's Day. Some days were snowy, and many days were rainy, and many of those rainy days were in winter. Icy cold rainwater would run down my plastic-coated raincoat and onto my bare hands and in a short while my hands would feel freezing cold and numb, like I was dipping them in ice water. It was Miserable with a capital M. I don't think you can pay today's kids enough money to do that kind of job. Assuming that kind of job still exists, which is a big assumption.

Have a good New Year's Day, y'all. Have a good time—eat, drink, and be lighthearted—and take care of yourselves this year.