Off the Rails, in Flames, Plunging into a Yawning Canyon.

What does one wear to a Constitutional Crisis, anyway?

It's so bizarre. All hell is breaking loose and I'm planning lunches for the work week, because whatever else happens, I have to show up for work and do my job.

I was thinking about making a lentil red curry recipe I love, but this morning I suddenly changed my mind. I made a mujadara recipe from the Food Network, which stubbornly refuses to let me link to it.   Google "Aarti Sequeira" "Lebanese Lentils" and it should pop up.  Something Middle Eastern somehow felt appropriate. I've tried a couple of different recipes for this dish but this is by far the most amazing and restaurant quality. It has more spices, including a hint of cinnamon. The only issue I have with it: do NOT believe that you can caramelize three big red onions in 15 minutes as suggested. That's a 45 minute job minimum, if you don't want to burn them. Start the onions FIRST, let them cook down, stirring every 10 minutes or so, then cook the lentils when the onions seem about halfway done.  The end result is worth the patience with the onions.

I need to get into the spirit of registering as a Muslim. Because yes, we've gone that far off the rails that my fair, blue-eyed, born in New Jersey  and baptized Catholic with papers to prove it, Irish-American self will put myself on a Muslim registry if it comes to that, just to throw a wrench into the Nazi wheels.  Because fuck this noise.  This is not America.

I've been supporting independent media even more since the election, but was holding back on other issues, because I have heeded the wisdom that when the world is on fire, you have to pick an issue or two and not scatter your energy and your resources trying to fix all of it.  I've picked the ACLU and the NRDC as my membership/monthly donor choices. The ACLU is pretty much a no-brainer at the moment, but the NRDC took a bit of thought. When Twitler issued yet another executive order (and yes, this definitely feels like we're all at Hogwarts getting decrees from Dolores Umbridge on a daily basis), this time reinstating environmentally disastrous and not-long-term-job-creating pipelines that had been stopped for very good reasons, it dawned on me that the corporate world that the Republicans serve may be their Achilles' heel.  Because corporations don't owe fealty to the Republican Party.  It's the other way around - the Republicans in Congress are shameless corporate whores. So what happens when public opinion noisily favors clean air and water, and doesn't want pipelines that put the water supply at risk, and so forth? I'm thinking that most companies are more concerned with not pissing off the public and their shareholders than being grateful to this whored-out Congress for the opportunity to rape the environment.  Corporate leaders have kids and grandkids too, and they aren't all soulless.  Just a thought. So, back to the hard decisions of where I'll invest another $20 a month.

I don't have a lot of discretionary income. I know, I do go to Disney often, but it's in my backyard, and that pass actually costs slightly less than $30/month and comes with free parking and other discounts and is a hell of a lot cheaper than therapy, so if money is tight I can still do it and just "eat cheap." Otherwise, my TV is dying, my phone is due for replacement, the balcony floors are still carpeted with ancient and moldy carpet, I have a car payment again, and I am trying my best to pay of debts and boost my retirement accounts because holy shit I'm going to be 59 in June.  I haven't taken a real vacation in forever, and right now I'm saving my pennies to go see my other granddaughters in Asheville at some point this year, because for me, that IS a vacation.

I'm not whining, I'm okay, better off than a lot of people and grateful for it, but I don't have the resources to travel to marches or support multiple causes. I chose the ones I did because environment and civil liberties? Those are the things that matter most to me right now. I worry about the world my granddaughters will inherit more than ever now.  If everyone freaking out right now just picked one or two causes and set up a $10/month automatic donation, think how powerful the people fighting on the front lines would be. To paraphrase the late, great Warren Zevon: Send lawyers, angry grandmas, and money. Not necessarily in that order.