Good Things Friday (132) and Link Love
September 3, 2021
1. The fragrance of ginger, garlic, and green onions = heaven.
2. I’m so grateful for clean running water. We’re so lucky to have it though as we move towards either perpetual drought or aridification, we may not have it for long.
3. I took Rae and Bethany’s baking advice to make my second batch of biscuits!
Last time the dough was too dry, I had to add extra milk while mixing, and I felt the end result was too dense and tasted strongly of flour.
This time I overcompensated by probably an eighth of a cup of milk. I used 1.25 cups instead of 1 because I had so much flour that couldn’t be incorporated last round. Next time I will start with the 1 cup and add a splash if it’s needed as I mix. This time I grated the frozen butter, which was a lot more work than I expected, and only folded the dough about 5 times instead of the prescribed 10. Oh also I soured up the milk with a tablespoon of vinegar to make it buttermilk.
They were very wet when I was working the dough and I despaired that they wouldn’t work out as I transferred them to the baking pan. But! They were actually quite good! Much less floury tasting, lighter and fluffier. Not yet the layers I wanted but much closer.
4. I loved Xena the Warrior Princess when it was on TV and this thread reminded me I wanted to watch it again. Also Lucy Lawless still seems great as a human. Much better than that limp tool, Kevin Sorbo.
Challenges this week: I’ve only been sleeping in short blocks of an hour or two at a time. Something in my mind or body or both is preventing me from actually getting the rest I desperately need and this will only end in delirium.
The wildfires are raging on and that means our air quality is garbage. We are staying inside as much as possible but we still have to walk the dog and take JB outdoors for their mental and ocular health. The optometrist wants them to have 2 hours of outdoor time a day and that’s not happening but we are trying our best to do as much as we can.
It’s hard balancing the minutiae of everyday life, including a complement of its own horrific stressors like racism, COVID, being affected by the actions of horrible people, being subject to terrible decisions by political leaders, with the concerns almost too vast to comprehend with climate change and what feels like a sweeping wave of right wing Christian extremism taking over our laws, destroying our rights and suppressing votes.
11,000-year-old solution to modern problem: Ancient potato could thrive in changing climate
I’LL TELL YOU THE SECRET OF CANCER.
Thanks to @imawindycitygal for sharing. She’s right, this is so relatable as someone with chronic illness. Though I used to think people wouldn’t give a cancer patient terrible “medical” advice and boy did I massively underestimate the ability of humans to be nosy and stupid all at once.
I know some people don’t like email but I find it very useful to have decisions recorded in writing in ways I can search and find at a later date. Miser Mom’s proposals would make them even more useful.
Just once I’d like to see companies being audited and found to be behaving honestly. Today’s not that day: Sutter Health paying $90M in Medicare fraud settlement
Also Sutter Health: Final $575 million Sutter Health antitrust settlement approved. It’s past time for there to be full transparency in healthcare costs across the board. I’m so sick of these massive companies taking advantage of people.
Social Security trust funds now projected to run out of money sooner than expected due to Covid, Treasury says. We’ve always hear that the SS fund was in trouble but has the timeline ever been this short? I can’t tell if this is political fearmongering or if it’s legitimate but a whole lot of people rely on that money.
In Texas, Abortion Snitches Don’t Get Stitches—They Get $10,000. SCOTUS’s inaction this week signals the end of Roe v Wade. This FRAKKING country and their constant assault on reproductive rights is mind-blowing and outrageous but it’s happening right here, right now.
Texas Doesn’t Want Attorneys Asking Too Many Questions About Its BS Law. I have had it up to here with Texan Republicans. And CA Republicans too for that matter.
Pandemic concerns may prime people to discriminate against Asians and Latinos. May? *Looks around at all the increased attacks on Asian elders* May?
White supremacist praise of the Taliban takeover concerns US officials. It concerns me that it sounds like somehow they’re surprised as if American hasn’t been a model for the world in how to hate and terrorize our own citizens.
Fun fact: I once served Thanksgiving dinner in a South Anchorage trailer to the man who invented Xena, Warrior Princess.
Maybe it was the way I carved the turkey…?
I love it!!