Fringeville #149: Rambling Random Thoughts Stewed Up and Served Cold

I didn’t blog on the weekend. I have a number of long overdue projects at home. My house has suffered greatly from my working crazy hours for years. I find myself looking at what seems like a long series of unconquerable tasks. I’ve decided to just start at the backside of the house and move south. Mission one: our nook. It is supposed to be where we eat. Instead it became a de facto office for all my various side jobs. Bookkeeping. Campaign Finance. Very occasional blogging. Even less occasional creative writing.

The consequences: a dining room table I can’t use because it is buried under a mountain of stuff, and a pile of containers, boxes of printer paper, and a thousand other pieces of clutter and flotsam scattered across the room. I am convinced Hoffa is buried under something. I married into an Italian family, so hey… who knows?

I started whacking away at it this past weekend. I shredded a couple trees worth of paper. I carted all kinds of things down to the cellar. There was some small degree of physical peril involved with that particular operation. My legs and ankles ain’t what they used to be, kids. On flat ground I walk like anyone else. On steps I move like a 99 year old man.

My physical decline over the last couple of years is alarming to me. I am not a big fan of this getting old shit*.

(* Kindly excuse this interruption to the blog post: ‘Shit’ was my mother’s favorite, and virtually only, expletive. Occasionally she would add fire and molasses when really incensed about something. Growing up, I can recall a thousand times she uttered “…oh, shit!”  Or “…shit, fire and molasses!” Anything could set her off: a broken spatula; dead relative; burned dinner; flat tire; missing button on a favorite blouse. She covered a lot of ground with just one cuss word. In her honor, the only expletive I will be using when I blog is ‘shit.’ Call it a hat’s off to Mom. A salute, if you will. Shit, fire and molasses! WTF was I writing about?”)

Sorry for meandering. Where were we? Ah, yes… legs and ankles!

In the process of going down the steps one time too many, I managed to very slightly sprain my ankle. I have osteogenesis imperfecta, so I pretty much know when I’ve strained, sprained or broken something. But this sprain came far too easily. I just twisted my foot a wee bit. But the intense burning pain was so severe I convinced myself that my prostate cancer had magically migrated to my ankle. I spent a half-hour before bedtime googling “prostate cancer and ankle pain” before accepting the fact that I am, at times, a nincompoop, one perilously at times thisclosetohypochondria.

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Moving on.

My next post will be #150. On the one hand, it is an achievement to note, because most blogs die after a couple dozen posts or less. On the other hand, it’s just the tiniest bit over 4% of that David Yonki has done with the Lu Lac Political Letter. So while I will be happy to hit #150, I suffer no illusions about where I rank in the scheme of things in the Blogosphere. I am a pee wee treading among giants.

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I continue to avoid politics in my social media. I truly believe that many, many people on social media have completely lost their minds. They are incapable (hopefully just temporarily) of rational discourse on politics.

Mind you, I’m not saying the whole nation has gone nuts. There’s still a big chunk of folks out there who don’t go anywhere near computers or smartphones. But among those who do, the insanity dial is set on high for way too many folks when it comes to politics.

All I will say about this last election is I did the same thing I’ve done after every election, win or lose and whether the election was for my campaigns or one I worked with: I got up the next day and moved on. I do not fixate on what has happened. I immediately start thinking about the next one.

If you are looking for me to wade into the fray and become part of this unholy mess on screaming social media, I’ve been there. I’ve done that. I’m done. I’ve got better things to do (see the next bit of randomness).

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I am going to write a history of chicken wings. It will be like nothing you have ever read. Just warning you.

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On a tight budget?

Aldi’s rules.

A week or so ago, we went there and bought a mess of ground beef, some ground sausage, and a bunch of sides. We’ve been as happy as a dead pig in the sunshine since then. I put together three batches of meatballs (though the first batch was cooked on a baking sheet because I am, as I said earlier, a nincompoop, and the dripping fat nearly smoked us out of the house).

I also used one pound of ground beef to make a homemade hand-to-hand combat heavy meaty and sweet spaghetti sauce in honor of my father. He was a master of heavy, meaty, sweet spaghetti sauce. One pound of ground beef remains. Last night, a pound of pork sausage went into a rice casserole that we demolished. We still have a shit-ton of pasta left.

You can’t get everything there, but you can get a lot and get it cheap. You have to bag the groceries yourself, and you ‘rent’ your shopping cart for a quarter, but it’s worth it. And I’ve never had a bad wheel on an Aldi’s cart, and they don’t have to hire someone to hunt down carts in the parking lot.

Shit, fire and molasses! It’s time for work. Stay safe and warm, folks. 

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