Post Thanksgiving Musings

 Another Black Friday has arrived.

Me at Ft. Meade Army barracks smoking a cigarette 1962

Last night I worked my regular Thursday night shift at the hotel. Occupancy was down because of the new COVID restrictions Delaware governor Carney has imposed. Even though there were less rooms, the guests are always interesting. My job at the hotel is like working at the crossroads of the world.

One guest called from the suite, which is an apartment that rents for $525 a night plus tax. He wanted to know if I had a vacuum cleaner and could I deliver it to him.  I told him "Yes, I have a vacuum cleaner but I can't do the stairs to the suite" (which is outside and up two flights of stairs). He said "No problem, I'll come over and pick it up."  

He came over to pick up the vacuum cleaner.  I asked him where he was from and why was he visiting Lewes.  He said his son is stationed at Ft. Meade Maryland and works at the NSA (National Security Agency). Small world! I told him when I was in the Army (1960-1963) I was also stationed at Ft. Meade and worked at the National Security Agency.  He said "Oh! You have to come back to the suite with me and tell that to my son!" I did and I found out his son is in the Navy. When I was at Ft. Meade, all branches of the service were represented, our concert barracks were in a row. The Marine barracks first, then Navy followed by the Army barracks and then the Air Force. The family was from Washington State. I told them that last year their Senator Patty Murray had stayed at the hotel. His wife asked me "How did you know our senator is Patty Murray?"  I told him "I follow politics and I know all the senators."  

Senator Patty Murray -D. Washington

This brief interaction with guests of the hotel where I work is one of the reasons I continue to work even as I enter the eight decade of my life. Thanksgiving is a day of loneliness for many. That often includes me. 

For years now I don't do anything special for Thanksgiving. I would have loved to have a couple of slices of roast turkey with stuffing, candied yams, cranberry sauce, and yes green bean casserole but my Thanksgivings at this time of my life, is not to be. I used to roast a turkey years ago but Bill doesn't like turkey. I "celebrate" my Thanksgivings like I did yesterday, sharing life with hotel guests like I did last night. One year one of my co-workers felt sorry for me and brought me in a plate of roast turkey with all the fixings. That was nice. 

Pat just called on FaceTime. Have to go!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Last night I heard a cacophony of police and fire engine sirens screaming down Route One.  Route One or Coastal Highway borders our property via a small cornfield. 

One, two, three, four, five, six ............. flashing light, more sirens ......what was going on? I've heard and seen police cars speeding down Route One before in pursuit of a vehicle exceeding the speed limit. Occasionally a fire engine would race down Route One enroute to a fire, but never all this activity. What could it be?

This morning I check my NextDoor app to find out what was going on. 

Oh, okay. President-Elect Biden arriving at his summer beach house in Rehoboth Beach, which is only about five miles from Casa Tipton-Kelly. 

Yes folks, for at least the next four years Bill and I will be near the center of the universe, where the most powerful man in the world summers. Bye bye Mar-a-Lago.

Trump Pardons Flynn

The most corrupt president in U. S. history just pardoned Michael Flynn, his first national security advisor who pleaded guilty twice to lying to the FBI. 

You all remember Flynn, the disgraced former general who lead the chant "Lock her up!" against Hillary Clinton at the 2016 Trump campaign rallies.

This pardon was expected but still disgusting to hear. Of course this is the first of many pardons of criminals that Trump will do before he leaves office January 20th. I guess in a way you could say this is Trump's form of conceding the presidential election to Joe Biden.

Yesterday 2,157 people died from the COVID virus. One person every 40 second. Another 170000 people were infected. U. S. hospitalization for COVID-19surpassed 87000 on Tuesday, an all time high. Since the global pandemic began, the U. S. has over 260,000 deaths and 12.6 million infections, the most in the world. And what is Donald Trump's priority? Pardoning a traitorous criminal like Michael Flynn, who conspired with Turkish president Erdogan to kidnap one of Erdogan's political rivals, a religious cleric who lives in the U.S.

Trump says nothing about the virus. He doesn't care. What Trump cares about is staying in power at any cost and enabling his like minded traitorous friends and enablers. And still, his Congressional Republican enablers, led by Moscow Mitch McConnell, say nothing. They too, by their silence, are traitors to this country. We will never forget their cowardice.

Birthday and Thanksgiving Thoughts In The Pandemic

 Thanksgiving Day here at Casa Tipton-Kelly is going to be like every other Thanksgiving pandemic or not. In years past I always work Thanksgiving Day at the hotel. This year is no exception. 

We did have a good number of reservations at the hotel for this year's Thanksgiving celebration, but after Delaware governor John Carney's new COVID restrictions, most of those guests cancelled their reservations. Thus this year will be a quiet Thanksgiving here in southern Delaware, the summer home of the Joe Biden, President-Elect of the United States.

Last week I entered my 80th year of life. Yes, I am now 79 years old. One of my younger brothers sent me a birthday card asking reminding me that next year I will be 80 years old.  "How did THAT happen?" he asked. Yes, how did that happen? Folks, I never expected to reach 60 years of age, let alone 80 years of age. 

I have a lot to be thankful for, especially reaching my advanced age in relatively good health. Walking upstairs is even more difficult for me. In not too many years I suspect I won't be able to walk upstairs. 

I'm especially thankful that Bill is still here. He's 92 years old now and fading.  Hard of hearing and his eyesight is failing and now his cognitive abilities are deteriorating. But he still knows who I am and is very sweet now. No more of those sometimes ferocious arguments we used to have over nothing. Every day I get up in the morning and round the corner from my bedroom to the kitchen and find Bill waiting for me to start another day, I am so thankful.

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving everyone!

Italian Pasta Salad

Ron's Italian Pasta Salad

 Hey! A recipe posting!

I know it's been awhile since I posted one of my favorite recipes, way overdue.

This recipe for pasta salad is one of my absolute favorites. This is one of those recipes that my stomach says "More! More!"  I could literally eat the whole container. 

So without further ado here is my version of Italian Pasta salad:

Ingredients

• 1 box (12 oz) tricolor rotini pasta
• 1 cup chopped cucumber (peeled and seeded, about 1 cucumber
• 1 cup halved cherry or grape tomatoes
• 1/4 cup finely diced red onion
• 12 to 1 cup Italian salad dressing

Instructions:

1. Cook pasta according to box instructions. Remember to salt your pasta water with 1-2 teaspoons of sale. When pasta is done, drain it and run cold water over it so the noodles can cool
2. Combine the cooked and cooled pasta, cucumber, tomatoes and red onion. Pour Italian dressing over it and stir together (start with 12 cup Italian dressing and go from there. I put about 34 cup dressing on the salad and then reserve the rest to add to the salad before serving to moisten it back up.
3. Can be eaten right away or refrigerated for a few hour before serving.

*I like it cold so I refrigerate for 2-4 hours before serving.

The original recipe calls for feta cheese (which I like) and black olives (which I also like) but I have omitted them because I prefer a minimalist pasta salad. 

In these times of COVID pandemic home confinement I find my recipes very comforting and often better than anything I could find in a restaurant. And look at the money I'm saving!

I have more recipes which I will share on this blog in the near future.

Have a great day!!!

Good Morning Folks!

 

Patience Ron, patience!

I just spent a couple of hours trying to figure out how to do a new post on the new Blogger format.  Oh my God, what is it with all these upgrades that make life more difficult?

After I couldn't find the button for "new post" I went to YouTube for directions on how to post on the new Blogger format. Of course I got a You Tube video of a Middle Eastern man speaking in a foreign language which was of NO help.  I suspect he was Indian because there was a lot of tongue activity in his language (tongue getting in the way of his words).

Then I decided to take the advice of my longtime blogger friend Ur-Spo and go to WordPress. I created a "Retired In Delaware.blog" title. That worked. But I can't figure out how to get a choice of format. Folks, my brain is just too worn out to figure out how to get a new format. So here I am back to Blogger. I finally figured out how to get where I can make a new post.

Doing a little research this morning I found out that the new Blogger format is for mobile devices. Uh, well thank you but NO THANK YOU. I'm not going to update my blog on the go with my iPhone. 

So here I am back at my old blogger.  I feel at home here. I've been here since 2005. This is where I die.

Next post I hope to get back to my normal blogging update. 

Thank you for your patience!

New Blogger Format

 So what do you think? Yes, a new Blogger format. 

I've been dragged kicking and screaming into this new Blogger format. Well, maybe it's time. I've been blogging with Blogger (Google) since 2005. Over that period of time I have spilled out my guts, said inappropriate things, pissed off people, ranted about everything from politics, friends, family and work and now I'm ranting about being forced in this new format.  

Well, maybe it's not so bad. It is a lot cleaner. Like a house you've lived in a long time, over time you accumulate things. My blog format had accumulated a LOT of things, including all those older pictures of me when I was young and vibrant, not the old man I am now.  Perhaps it was time to clean up my blog.

I've often admired my blogger friends who had Word Press blogs. They looked so clean. I have a blog on Word Press but I never took the time to learn the in's and out's of it. A bit complicated to say the least. I'm used to Blogger. And I prefer to stay with Blogger because that's where I'm comfortable. However, how long I'll be comfortable with this new format I'll let you know. I feel constricted already. As long as I can post my pictures and videos I suppose I should be happy. Maybe in time I'll learn how to navigate my way around this new format. 

Upgrades, the ban of my existence in this technical world of ours.

The Countdown

 The election is over. 

Trump isn't conceding. Anyone surprised?

The congressional Republicans continue to enable Trump. Anyone surprised?  

Yesterday had the highest number of corona virus cases in the United States yet. 

Yes, Biden won the presidency but we are still in great danger in this country because Trump is refusing to cooperate in the transition to the Biden presidency. 

Joe Biden will be president January 20th. Trump will leave the White House. Either dragged out by the Secret Service or just not come back from his grifter family holiday stay at Mar-a-Lago. Either way, he won't be back in the White House.

There's talk that Trump may run again for president in 2024.  Go for it Trump. Trump had over seventy-million fools he conned into voting for him. That's seventy-million suckers and losers who will continue to contribute MONEY to him, which after all is what is Trump is about. But nothing changes the fact that Trump is the LOSER.  

Ding Dong the Witch is Dead

Rejoice! Ding dong, the wicked witch is dead!

Joseph R. Biden, President-Elect!!

 

A Nail Biter

 Michigan was just called for Joe Biden, putting him closer to the 270 Electoral College votes needed to elect him the next president of the United States.

Avid MSNBC and CNN television watcher that I am, I couldn't bear to watch live TV coverage of the election results last night. I knew I couldn't go to sleep after watching MSNBC's Steve Kornacki continually show all the ways Trump could pull another rabbit out of the hat, like he did in 2016 (with Russia's help) and win re-election. I went to bed early (for me, 11 PM), hoping to wake up to the good news, I mean FABULOUS news that Biden was elected president in a landslide. 

At around 4:30 AM I work up for my nocturnal bathroom visit and I just couldn't resist.  I picked up my iPhone of my charging pad and saw where the presidential race was UNDECIDED!  

Oh damn! This was the worst case scenario. 

Of course Trump went on TV, from the White House now behind an unscalable ten foot fence (nice),  to declare victory, before all the votes were counted. Twitter went ablaze reminding Spanky that that's not the way elections work in the U.S. Here we counts ALL OF THE VOTES first before one or the other candidate can declare victory. You don't get to declare victory when you're ahead, YOU.WAIT.UNTIL.ALL.THE.VOTES.ARE.COUNTED.

The Blue Wall of Democratic states Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, which Trump narrowly won (with Russian help) in the 2016 with a combined total of 70,000 plus votes, enabled Trump to score one of the greatest political upsets in modern American history. This election that Blue Wall is trumping Trump's re-election as president. Wisconsin and Michigan have already been called for Biden. Absentee or mail in ballots are still being counted in Pennsylvania, Nevada, North Carolina and Georgia. The majority of those absentee ballots are favored from Democratic voters. 

We would have know the results of the election earlier but Republican controlled state legislators in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania forbade mail in ballots from being counted ahead of time. Trump claims that only ballots counted by election night should count. Of course this twisted logic comes from a con man who has cheated his whole life (and gotten away with it). Did you get the Catch-22 here? Republican controlled legislators pass a law that ballots can't be counted until the day of the election and Trump says only ballots counted on the day of election should count. Trump threatens to sue, which is another life long feature of his sad and evil life, threatening to sue anyone who stands in his way.

Biden is on the path to win this election however there is a drawback. It looks like Moscow Mitch will continue to be Majority Leader in the Senate of his coward, Trump sycophant Republican senators whose only function is to put as many conservative judges on the Federal Court system as possible and repeal the Affordable Care Act, also known as "Obama Care", which will take health care away from millions of American with pre-existing conditions.

I'm glad Biden is going to be our next president. However I am saddened and shock at knowing so many of my fellow Americans were willing to vote for Trump after knowing him. Trump's catastrophic failure as a leader controlling the COVID pandemic resulting in the deaths of 236,000 Americans, one of the highest death rates in the world. Trump's racism and formenting violence with his orgiastic rallies of fellow racists and "poor educated" also known as "The Deplorables". Hillary was right, they are deplorable. And they live among us folks. Trump attempting to shake down a foreign government (Ukraine) to gin up false evidence on Biden's son. All the rampant corruption in the Trump world from his many indicted fellow criminals to his cringe inducing family and yes including the sainted (in Republican circles) Melania. Don't let the pretty face fool you, she's just as evil as Trump. SHE.DOES.NOT.CARE.

I'm venting and rambling now. Time to bring this blog post to an end. Oh how I look forward to having a boring president that I don't have to wake up every day worried sick to my stomach at what did Trump pull while I was asleep. Yes, Biden is boring. I could Harding bear to listen to one of his stumbling, screechy speeches (Obama gives a much better speech). Oh sure, I know he overcame stuttering (like I did) but I can speak better than Biden.  I'm surprised he's been able to have a 47 year career in politics with his obvious speech impediment.  And yes, Biden has lost a few steps, I'll admit that. Biden is only a year younger than me but even I've "lost my step" (you should see me walking up stairs), I have more vim and vigor than Biden and I'm not as forgetful although I'm going in that direction.

I am so looking forward to posting blogs about my hum drum life these days, which isn't actually so hum drum, lots of drama around here especially with Bill who continues to slip mentally and physically. And then there is the drama with my Canadian friend Pat F. We haven't been about to get together for our quarterly adventures because of COVID. This week we were supposed to be in Philadelphia to celebrate my birthday (next Monday). We had to cancel that trip too because the border continues to be closed between Canada and the U.S. for the foreseeable future. Hopefully we can make the trip to Palm Springs this February to celebrate Modernism Week. The last time were together in person was last year in Palm Springs during Modernism Week. 

Hopefully the next time I write a blog Biden will be officially the next president of the United States. That is if Trump's Supreme Court appointed judges and the other conservative judges don't perform a coup and invalidate enough of the mail in ballots to deprive Joe Biden of the presidency. If that happens folks, expect a revolution in these United States because we won't stand for it. 

Trump is trash and he and all his sycophants and enablers are on the way to the dustbin of history. Only fly in the ointment is that we have to endure another six years of Moscow Mitch McConnell and Susan "I'm Concerned" Collins, of Maine, who was unexpectedly re-elected. WTF?

Just One Day To Go!

 Tomorrow is election day. 

After four LONG year we're finally going to end this great national experiment called the Trump presidency. 

For all of those of you who voted for this narcissistic, incompetent, criminal, lying big baby weak man, you like what you got? Really?

The Deplorables are still out there, and Trump and his unpatriotic enablers are going to do everything they can to steal this election.  

Trump has already declared that he is going to declare victory no matter what the vote count is tomorrow night. Trump is depending on his appointees on the Supreme Court to back him up.  For sure Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alioto and Bret Kavanaugh will back him up because they are noting but Republican political hacks, totally useless in applying proper judiciary conduct in any cases that come before the Supreme Court.

No matter what the vote count, expect chaos tomorrow night when the polls close. Trump loves chaos and he has nothing to lose. And he knows his Republican enablers will do NOTHING to stop him. They are ALL cowards and will be remembered in history as such.

We're finally here folks.  History is being made. Democracy is at stake. 

VOTE!