Have You Ever Gotten Caught in "Click Bait?"

 I got caught this morning wanting to know why I should put my potatoes in the dishwasher. 

Well, after clicking through about 50 other Kitchen hacks—pretty good ones, I finally found the one I wanted. You can wash your vegetables in the dishwasher. 

I knew that. Yeah, I’ve heard you can cook a turkey in the dishwasher too, but I’ve never tried that. 

I thought I would find some esoteric reason that the dishwasher would remove harmful substances from my potatoes. 

Nope. Just wash them. That’s a waste of hot water and electricity.

You see, I have a history with potatoes. 

Long-time readers may have read that I killed my two darling hens a few years ago by feeding them potato skins. (A potato peeling will never pass my current chicken’s lips.) 

It broke my heart to see my two hens, both dead, the morning after I prepared a Thanksgiving dinner, and thought I was giving them a treat to offer potato peelings. 

I’m saying this to tell people, “NEVER GIVE YOUR CHICKENS POTATO SKINS.”

I have not purchased a Russet potato since—although I probably have in a restaurant. And I do love potatoes, and I don’t want to malign them, for you know they have saved many a society. (And The Martian.). After my chicken trauma, though, I purchase only red-skinned ones. 

First, I heard that red potatoes are not sprayed, and I seek out organic. Besides, red ones taste better, and I’ve found they work well with everything I want to prepare, including mashed potatoes. Thanksgiving mashed potatoes and turkey gravy is my once-a-year indulgence.

It could have been a spray that killed my hens, for I just bought a prepared bag of commercial potatoes, and I don’t know their origin.  I suspect, though, that the Solanine tuberosum, a glycoalkaloid poison found in some species of the nightshade family, esp. abundant in potato skins, was the culprit.

Potato skins contain the same substance that poisoned Chris McCandless, the young man who went into the wilderness to live off the land and died there. (His diary stated he had eaten a poisonous plant.)

I know we have all eaten potatoes, and stuffed potato skins are delicious. If we suffered any side effects, we don’t know about them. People can tolerate larger amounts than can chickens/birds, and our potatoes are normally cooked which largely renders the poison harmless.  

Ronald Hamilton posted a paper on the Internet that brings new facts to Chris’s demise. Hamilton, it turns out, discovered evidence that closed the book on McCandless’s death.

To appreciate the brilliance of Hamilton’s investigative work, some backstory is helpful. 

McCandless’s diary indicated that beginning on June 24, 1992, the roots of the Hedysarum alpinum plant became a staple of his daily diet. On July 14, he started harvesting and eating Hedysarum alpinum seeds as well. One of his photos depicts a one-gallon Ziploc bag stuffed with these seeds. When Hamilton visited the McCandless’s home, an old school bus, in July 1993, he wrote that wild potato plants were growing everywhere. He filled a one-gallon bag with more than a pound of seeds in less than thirty minutes.

The movie, Into the Wild tells Chris’s story.

To end on a happy note: I never thought when I was growing up on a farm that chickens could be such fun. 

My dear son-in-law and grandson moved my little chicken house into the backyard. Hubby and I replaced the roof and shingled it with leftover shingles I found at Habitat for Humanity’s sales outlet. I stained the siding Cedar red and painted the trim green. Now it looks cute, and I can see it from the kitchen window. No more leaving chickens in the Wayback as fodder for the raccoon. All four chickens love being freed into the backyard. They talk to me and let me touch them. Blackie has shown them the pleasure of the shade under the lilac bush and the dust baths she has prepared. 

 

 

The first episode of my novel Song of Africa, is available on Kindle Vella#. The first three episodes are FREE. After than tokens are required for further reading.this was Kindle’s brilliant idea, for people like to read segments, and this gives a feeling for the book, and gives the reader the opportunity to keep reading or not.

Be the first to click  RAVE, or read, and please follow. I'd love it. My mom would love it, my cat would love it--the chickens would be so so.

I better get crackin’ onto Episode 2.

 https://www.amazon.com/kindle-vella/story/B09946NSS6 

 

 

Pulling Together

First a few quotes I'm contemplating:

 

“We either make ourselves miserable, or we make ourselves strong. The amount of work is the same.”—Carlos Castaneda.

 

“You never hear about truly self-actualized people, like Buddha or Christ telling people they’re stupid losers. It goes against the nature of enlightenment.”

 –Martha Beck

 

“Republicans and Democrats are today far more likely to view those members of the other party not as competitors, but as enemies, holding overwhelmingly unfavorable views of each other”—Online report.

 

“The vaccine fight, rather than an outgrowth of Trump’s divisive presidency, is just another example of how polarization is not just transforming American society — it’s literally killing people.”

 

(How? They are also voting down such systems as Medicaid, thus limiting health care. And because of mistrust of each other, they end up paralyzing Congress and the federal government.)

. 

 

The first two quotes came from an old blog post of mine. Some dear soul/ reader commented:

 

“Completely, u got this 1 down correct, man. Keeped me entertained for ages.” 

 

      

I decided to see what he was commenting from. The post was “Going with the Flow,” September 13, 2019-- my oh my, almost two years ago. So, I reread it and found I need to follow my own advice.

 

 

Don’t forget to read the True Story at the bottom of the page.

 

 

Presently, it appears that people, instead of hanging together--unified as we have done in times past, are divided. For example, during WWII, little children pushed their wagons around the neighborhood, collecting whatever pots and pans the neighbors felt they could spare. (The military needed metal for war machines.) Citizens bought war bonds to support the war. They graciously accepted the rationing of food and shoes even. Have we forgotten that? 

 

Have we forgotten that once we pulled together?

 

Have we forgotten that blacks and Native Americans fought alongside white Anglo-Saxon boys? Have we forgotten that 29 Navajo Code Talkers created an unbreakable code that helped win World War II? Although the Japanese were breaking every code the Americans were throwing at them, they never broke the Navajo code.

 

Now we are divided over Vaccinations.

 

Vaccinations, for heaven’s sake. It has become a religious fervor.

 

I’m mystified. 

 

I had hoped we would learn to stick together from this pandemic…

 

Nope.

 

I will repeat: “You never hear about truly self-actualized people, like Buddha or Christ telling people they’re stupid losers. It goes against the nature of enlightenment.” Martha Beck

 

 

How are we doing?

 

Do we want to see the people of the earth survive and thrive?

 

Biology says that we don’t need post-menopausal women because they don’t reproduce. However, psychology says we need them to keep our DNA alive and assist the next generation. 

 

Same with men.

 

Oldsters still have a job. 

 

I have quoted Richard Bach from his book Illusions many times. And I am again: “If you think your mission in life is over if you’re alive, it isn’t.”

 

We didn’t lose our hearts and minds somewhere over the years or get beaten down by the endless rabble that pounds us on every turn. 

 

We still believe in our country, except a mist has covered our eyes, and we believe the ultra-rich and the famous somehow have more smarts than we do. 

 

Yes, those who made it to the top of their game have done their hard work and had determination and a mindset that assisted the process. Success was important to them. However, it doesn’t mean they are wise.

 

Others focused on keeping the cogs working at home and with family—that was important to them. 

 

And the unsung heroes at home had dreams but felt stymied to reach them. Some of their stymied conditions were intended to keep them down. We built schools to make workers who could sit for long periods and do mindless repetitive jobs. And because of finances, we would even take PE, art, and music out of our schools. (Body, mind, and spirit fell to technological advances.) Keep those noses to the grindstone, build more gismos. Help make life easier for the populace. Slowly we were conditioned. We needed workers and consumers, so we hit the people with clever commercials. Earlier on, we had an excellent new attention device for the public—television. 

 

Early television was such fun, and we loved entertainment, and the dog-style instincts in us loved watching moving objects. And in our hearts, we believed that the ones talking were giving us the truth.

 

The people still believed in the American dream. To prove it, they were those few who popped out and achieved their dream—the exceptions proved the rule. People believed in the spirit of the country and in the pureness of people. 

 

Some remembered how Rosie the Riveter proved women could step into men’s shoes and get the job done. They remembered how the men sacrificed, missed their children’s childhood, were maimed and killed in their effort to fight evil. 

 

We forgot because it was too painful to remember.

 

Once GI Joe was considered a hero. He was a hero. In WWII, the military was filled with every man, not just career-minded ones. Or ones who liked kicking people’s butts.

 

A True Story:

 

A few years ago, we had a friend—he only left us to go to the happy hunting grounds. His name was Jack Carol.

 

He visited us often, and as he passed my kitchen window on the way to the front door, I would call out, “Hi Jack!”

 

“Don’t ever say that to a pilot,” he would answer.

 

He was a navigator during the Second World War.

 

The navigator sits behind the pilot, and according to Jack, it was the safest place on the plane.

 

That proved to be true for Jack, for he was shot down three times and twice was the only survivor.

 

The third time he was captured by a German soldier.

 

There was a lot of noise going on around the crash site, with shells going off and shots being fired, and the German soldier was leading Jack away from the turmoil. Jack felt he was going to be shot.

 

As they walked through the forest, Jack tripped, and as he did, he pulled the gun from his boot, slid it up his body, and laid it on his shoulder, and fired. He didn’t know if his bullet connected with the man behind him or not, but he ran and escaped.

 

He hid during the day and traveled at night, and he said he witnessed an aerial dog fight at times. Meaning planes, you know, as in Curse you Red Baron. 

 

Jack caught cold and developed pneumonia but ended up at a French woman’s farm. (Yeah, I know this sounds like a movie. She was not a young gorgeous French woman, but an older French woman with a heart of gold.) She was alone and living off her land, which wasn’t much. He said she wore a dress that was woven together out of cellophane. She hid Jack from the Germans and shared her meager fare with him. One day the US Military front advanced to her door. 

 

Jack came out of hiding, gave his credentials, and told the group of GIs how this woman had saved him. 

 

The following morning a US jeep appeared at her door laden with goodies—food and clothing.

 

And Jack was taken into their care.

 

He lived many years In San Diego. He didn’t fly anymore when we knew him, but he was still fascinated by flying objects.

Screech

 “And really, it wasn’t much good having anything exciting like floods, if you couldn’t share them with somebody.”

–Winnie The Pooh

 

This is better: A Sign painted on the outside of the Dutch Bros Kiosk here in Junction City.

 

The Art of Attraction vs. the Law of Resistance

The Law of Resistance–otherwise called procrastination. That’s what I practiced yesterday.

I have a video of a McKenzie River trail. I filmed the walk, but I didn’t talk while walking. I can’t pontificate when someone is with me. (My husband this time.) I figured I would add commentary later. 

Okay, yesterday I was prepared—so I thought. 

The temperature was reasonable after blistery hot days. I bought a mic and a trial editing program that might overwhelm me, but I can talk into it. I settled into the truck with my little dog. Let’s give it a try, I thought—SCREECH!

I felt inadequate for the task. 

All those other smart people who talk about The Law of Attraction, and how they’ve used it, and how successful they are, and how much money they have, plus houses, cars, and what all. I guess they are blissfully happy and healthy as well.

Am I jealous? Not really. I learn from them. However, I felt inadequate to talk about it.

“The Demons hate Fresh air.” wrote Auston Kleon in his book, Keep Going. 

See, I should have talked as I walked, that is, outside where the demons hide lest they melt like the Wicked Witch of the West when water was thrown on her. When the demons are quivering in the shadows, they don’t have time to tell me I’m not the person for the job.

I then go blissfully along like I know what I’m talking about.

I believed I ought to have my mind in a happy place before I begin talking.

Now I realize that an artist doesn’t wait for inspiration—they do the work anyway. As they work through the crap, they often come out victorious. 

I thought, You, the reader, don’t need to see the crap. But then, maybe you do—it’s part of the process. 

When I began filming the trails and talking about The Law of Attraction, I stated upfront that I am not an expert. I am a fellow traveler who likes the idea that my videos were a simple off the cuff work in process, like a house framed in, but with no drywall.  There is such potential with a work in process.

I was stuck somewhere in my studies that while laws govern the physical world, like “Water runs downhill,” or “For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction,” the spiritual world also has laws. 

That makes sense. Why wouldn’t they? The trouble is we really don’t know what they are. It’s an area that has been hidden to all but a few.

Oh, we have glimpses of those underpinnings of the spiritual realm–like one of my first noticeable ones was at the dry cleaners—remember, we used to use dry-cleaning. I had a knit dress—yes, I remember when it looked good on me too–those were the days… Oh, I digress. I picked up the dress that was folded and wrapped in brown paper. I KNEW beyond a shadow of a doubt that the belt was not in that package.

Being too embarrassed to blurt out, “The belt is not in the package,” I paid the clerk, went to the car, opened the package, and the belt wasn’t there.

 I went back inside and asked for the belt. They had it.

I’m sure you have had many similar experiences. The trouble is we tend to brush them aside as coincidences or anomalies. You know the one that tickles me the most is the Train Experience that I’ve mentioned before. While my daughter and I sat at Chevy’s Restaurant in Del Mar, California talking about manifesting, I said, “We couldn’t manifest a train here, there are no tracks.”

Not a minute later, a big truck stopped at the stoplight outside our window. Written on the tarp that covered the back of the truck was the word “TRANE.” (You know that’s the name of a company that makes heavy equipment.)

The Universe/Force has a sense of humor. (You notice I don’t use the word, God, here for it means so many things to so many people.)

Sometimes you think the Force that supplies our wants doesn’t have a sense of humor, and it doesn’t seem to. (Maybe this one is a left-brained apprentice to the BIG GUY.) This left-brained apprentice would respond to our asking for more money with, “Oh, you want more money? Here’s a penny.”

A penny is more money. If you ask for patience, he will give you an Opportunity to be patient. No pill there to immediately satisfy your desires.

You see that there is much unknown here. I do believe in the Law of Attraction. I think, however, that we magnetize events, people, and ideas to us unconsciously To do it consciously is another story. It takes Practice and more importantly, A Light Heart

A light heart is what I didn’t have the other day when I failed to record. I was into my inadequacies. 

And turning a negative into a positive is like the Greek God Sisyphus rolling the boulder up a hill. When he got almost to the top of the mountain, the boulder would break loose and roll back down to the bottom. He was cursed to forever roll that damn boulder.

Momentum—that’s when we get something started, and it tends to keep going. (Gravity was working against Sisyphus, but momentum took the boulder to the bottom of the hill.) The more we think or do this thing we do not want, the more resistance it has, and the more momentum it has to go where it has gone before. (Like trying to move the cat.) Stop pushing. Let the stupid boulder roll down the hill and stay there. Take a nap, walk the dog, pet the cat. That will break the mood, and so you can move on.

All these things are rolled into The Law of Attraction, which tells some people that it does not work. And proves it to the rest of us that we have work to do on our belief systems.

Tune in. More to come…

Questions?

I think this better represents The Law of Attraction–Walk up the mountain whistling, while The Law of Attraction pushes the boulder.

Have We Learned from the Pandemic?

 

First, look what came yesterday, a proof for my novel, The Girl on the Pier. The stripe is to make sure I don’t sell it. Everything fit, the spine worked, no unnecessary blank pages. I choose a misty/foggy cover for it is a bit of a mystery. First, why would a customer offer two million dollars for the painting The Girl on the Pier? Second, when he saw it he said, “But that’s not the painting, there is another?”

Read a Free sample click here

Now, onto El Bloggo:

“There is more love than hate in the world, but hate gets noticed.”

Have We Learned from this Pandemic?

 

I don’t know. Maybe.

 

Today I heard someone say she was tired of commuting, tired of her job, just tired, and didn’t want to talk to anyone. She just wanted peace and quiet and to crawl off alone. She said that recently she had spent a lot of time in meditation. “Did I cause this pandemic?” she asked. 

 

The answer was, “Yes. Along with all the others who were tired of the way it was.”

 

Wow, that hit me like an anvil.

 

That’s a pretty out-there statement, but what if that is true? We were tired of the way it was. Competition wore us out. Long hours at the job were draining us. Commutes were pushing people to the breaking point.  Kids were getting shot at school. We still had racism and prejudice, and that was after we thought we were smarter than that.  We allowed a wall to begin at our border. We separated kids from their parents at the border. We were discouraged and feeling that we weren’t getting anywhere near to what we wanted. We felt impotent to instigate change when issues such as global warming were staring us in the face.  (Oh yes, global warming doesn’t exist, say some, or it is a natural earth cycle—well, maybe we ought to study it.) We are having more wildfires because of dry conditions. Why did the winter slip past with hardly a cold day? What happened to the snows of yesteryear? When I was a kid, it was so blooming cold in the Cascades that the water flowing over Multnomah Falls froze on its way down. and during this time the Columbia River had chunks of ice the size of Volkswagens.

.

People like wild-caught salmon, but if the tributaries, the spawning grounds of salmon, dry up, there will be no fish. We take supplements, fish oil to make us healthier. No fish, no fish oil. We’ve come to accept such luxuries without thought of where it comes from. Californians are happy to have the electricity that the Dams on the Columbia River provide. That river needs input from other rivers. Other rivers come from snow-melt.

 

I wonder if we have learned anything. People are anxious to get back to “Normal” WHEN NORMAL SUCKED.

 

And now they call what’s coming the “New Normal,” insinuating that it means something not good. That further scares us.

 

I have tried to get people out of fear and into possibilities--I don’t know if I’ve been successful, for the fear mongers have a louder voice. And who am I anyway? Some little blogger sitting out in the sticks, taking walks in the forest, and proclaiming that we can create the world of our dreams.

 

Well, how stupid is that?

I tried to place a 30 sec video here, “Pond Ripples.” This site, however, had different ideas. The video is a moment of calm. The water was so clear, and the reflection so perfect we had to throw pebbles into the water to prove it was wet.

You can find it on https://www.youtube.com/JoyceDavis0001/videos

I would love it if you subscribed to my videos.