Well…today was pork shoulder day in the instant pot and finally, it turned out great…tender and falling apart…so I guess I hit the amount of cook time at an hour and a half that I was always under before…and I just winged it on a rub with garlic powder, onion powder, smoked paprika, chili powder, and cayenne pepper with salt and pepper…I cooked with chicken broth as the cooking liquid and threw some bay leaves and garlic cloves in…to flavor the gravy, I put onions, celery, and carrots in the instant pot as it cooked…by far the best one I’ve ever cooked and now I’ve got it down so I can repeat it…the smoked paprika made the gravy come out with an orange tint that was a little strange but it tasted good…so, I’m going to have a third meal today with a pulled pork sandwich with barbecue sauce and dill pickles…yummy…I did hit the library today and just wandered a bit there to look for more authors and ran across the guy who does the “Reacher” series named Lee Child and I like the Reacher tv shows and like the first book I’ve started…so that gives me another dozen books to read…Yay! Okay, back to reading…
Giving national security to the Chinese…
Well…selling out this country seems to be one of the hallmarks of the idiot trump and his cronies, starting with letting netanyahu call the shots on the Iran war and now letting don jr. and trump’s cronies coszy up to China by letting a company run by one of jr’s hunting buddies make the case for letting a Chinese company have access to national security data…is this frickin treason? It’s al grift all the time for these assholes who don’t care a bit about the US of the damage this will do to us…they only care about monetizing any and all relationships no matter the cost…they don’t give a damn about anything but themselves…and what the hell is don jr. doing talking to anyone about nation security? He didn’t pass the vetting to get a security clearance but I guess that doesn’t matter to these assholes…it sure didn’t matter to idiot boy when he stole thousands of classified documents and tried to use them to make money for himself…I sure hope all of this crap is investigated when we take back the house in the fall…geez…
April 10th
Well…up and moving at 4:30 today and there was no point to try to get back to sleep…and I even stayed up til 10:30 so there may be a nap in my future if I can even do naps anymore…it’s raining again this morning but it will end before noon so I may be going out for a ride after I make the pork shoulder in the instant pot…I do need to hit the library after it opens at 9 and I have one more book to finish before that…or not, I guess we’ll see…didn’t get a lot done yesterday and cooking will be the only chore for today…going to make a rub to apply before I brown the meat and then it ‘s under pressure for 90 minutes and that will give me time to steam the carrots and make mashed potatoes and gravy…feel okay this morning after the 5th day of no cocktails and I think I’ve gotten over the hump so I’ll be able to make that the new normal and it feels okay…still feel a bit worn out but that could be from not eating enough with only a bagel early and a couple of slices of ham for lunch…but I’ll fix that today…need to remember that I have calories to play with with not drinking…I did get a nice outdoor ride in yesterday and I plan on that for today, too…but first I want to have coffee and read a bit…more later…
TPS on the car…
Well…after putting the summer tires back on the car yesterday, the weather got nice and I decided to put the top down and run over to DD for some bargains…when I took off, I had a new light and beeping coming from the dash…looked down and it was one of the tire pressure sensors telling me a tire was low…the car drove like it, too with how sensitive Miatas are to tire pressure…so when I got back here, I got my little portable compressor out and yep, the right front tire was down to 14.5 pounds so I went around to do all of them…the rest of them were close so I filled all of them on one charge of the compressor…a pretty nice little unit that you can set it and when it gets to where you want it, it shuts off…not bad for 19 bucks…and I took the floor mat out of the driver’s foot well and vacuumed it and scrubbed the salt out of from winter…so now back to reading…
So now they are threatening the Pope…
Well…can these assholes sink any lower? The answer to that is yes they can..in January the pentagon summoned the then Vatican’s ambassador to the US after the Pope laid into the idiot trump and his cronies for everything they were doing like starving US citizens with the huge medicaid and SNAP cuts and basically said that is not christian…and the response was to tell the ambassador that the US “has the power to do what it wants in the world” and then threatened the ambassador that they “better take our side” and even brought up the “Avignon Papacy” where the French used military force to bend the Pope to it’s will…this is such bullshit and shows how depraved this administration is…any criticism of trump and his cronies is to be smashed by any means necessary, even though the Pope was just quoting the teachings of Jesus to these fake chistians…so what do you say repub Catholics? Is it okay to threaten the Pope for pointing out how depraved trump and his cronies are? He did nothing but tell the truth…these assholes are not christians…they are thugs…geez…
April 9th
Well…up at 5am again but slept okay and feel okay today and there really is something about this not drinking that I like…just fractured dreams last night but I expect that resetting my body is not going to be linear and I can live with that…didn’t toss and turn much but I think I need to go to bed later…I would like to get up to the coffee brewing again since that is a soothing sound…I did get a lot done yesterday but it looks like I won’t get an outdoor ride in today…it’s raining right now and that is supposed to continue for a while but maybe I’ll be able to get out in the afternoon…then it’s going to rain every day until the middle of next week so the yard work will have to wait…and it is going to suck a little with temps getting into the 60’s…I would like to get back to the 25 miles a day that two outdoor rides get me soon…it looks like I’ll be able to open up the outdoor water faucet this week since freezing temps are not in the forecast and we are heading toward May…and then I can wash the bike and the car and do a full cleaning of the car with doing the interior and waxing it…not much to do today…just going to ease into it and get the normal stuff started and see what happens….more later…
Got the tires switched…
Well…what an ordeal…I switch the winter and summer tires on the car today and it was a pain…the lug nuts they put on with the winter wheel were of a type I had never seen before and that I didn’t have a socket for…so I went back to discount to get one and they gave me one for free but when I put the wheels on, they lost a lug nut so now I’m going to have to buy one to match…what a pain…and man, are the winter wheels and tires heavy…each one must weigh 50 pounds when the summer ones only weigh about 25 pounds so it will be interesting to see how the car rides when I take it out next…I think I’m going to suit up and get on the outdoor bike here in a minute since the temp is 52 and the wind we were supposed to get didn’t come…also got the lawnmower fixed, I hope, so I can start on the yard next week…still having good results of not having cocktails but I’m still not past the boredom that comes with it…going to keep it up just to see how it feels…I did taste lunch a little today and I am looking forward to doing the pork shoulder Friday…okay, going for a ride…
Of course he folded…
Well…with the announcement of a cease fire with Iran, it is clear that the idiot trump got nothing he wanted…Iran still gets to keep all of it’s enriched uranium (that idiot boy claimed 5 times that was “obliterated”) and the deal is half of the Obama deal that the idiot tore up since he truly believes he the “bestest negotiator in the world”…and he spent over 300 billion dollars to gain absolutely nothing other than killing Iranians…and the mockery of him coming out of Iran is just delicious and made me laugh my ass off…look, when a stupid person is told he is the smartest in the world every day by his minions, this is what you get…and when we take back the house, he’ll never be able to use and abuse our military again…and he will be impeached for all of his crimes…geez…
April 8th
Well…okay, that was weird…after waking up at 3:11 after going to bed at 9:30, I was able to get back to sleep until 5:10 and in that time I had a full blown dream for the first time I can remember…this one was a doozy with the front door of the house that opened on a London street and the back of the house open to a lake…and weirdest thing was Mick Jagger and Rod Stewart just showed up and hung out with everyone….lot’s of food and drink and complaints from the neighbors that it was too loud and it went on for hours…I woke up and feel full of energy so I guess there is something to this new no cocktail life…the only drawback is that the tv time at night is so boring that I went to bed at 9:30…I guess that will stabilize over time…froze my butt off again so I added a wool blanket on top of the comforter and it acted like a weighted blanket after that… a lot less tossing and turning and I stayed warm overnight…it got down to 25 overnight and I am so damn tired of the cold going all the way down to my bones…have lots to do today and might even put the summer tires on the car after I fix the lawnmower…but it has to warm up to get the JB weld to cure so that might wait til later…okay, that’s enough for now…more later…
My taste is coming back…
Well…this is just so damn weird…after just two days of not having cocktails, my vision is heading back to normal and I have started to taste things again…just had lunch and I could taste the ham, mashed potatoes and gravy, and even the corn…not how it used to be but I’ll really take anything to make it better…so it looks like my days of cocktails are over if I ever want to be normal again…and really, I’m okay with that…just need to make no cocktails the new normal and I think I can…and being able to taste again will be great when we head for Italy in September…the dentist recommended that I get a water pik to work my gums and make them stronger so I ordered one yesterday…a rechargeable portable one that has lots of attachments and three speeds and that is supposed to be here today…and that I can pack with me for the trip…okay, time to read some more…