November 30th

It's not even December 1st and I'm already sick of Christmas music.  I'm also already sick of Christmas commercials.  We've been bombarded since the day after Halloween with Christmas overexposure and commercialism.  I guess that's capitalism.

We've totally overlooked the meaning of Thanksgiving and jumped immediately into the shopping orgy of black Friday, Black Monday, Black Tuesday, Green Wednesday, Red Thursday, Cyber Monday, the day after Cyber Monday, Cyber Monday II, etc.

Yes, the Thanksgiving meal.  The annual event where family you can't stand congregate to pretend they like each other and that the family is a big, happy unit that belongs on a Norman Rockwell painting.  I guess using the name Norman Rockwell is dated and I should say Facebook or Instagram post.

As much as I love to cook for crowds, Quiet Rage is hanging up her Thanksgiving apron.  I'd much rather cook for total strangers than for impolite family ingrates.  No, my house is not an on-demand restaurant.  Wait.  I take that back.  Even restaurants require reservations so the kitchen can be staffed accordingly.

What pushed me over the edge this year were family members who showed up, ate, and then left without even saying goodbye nor thank you.  Yes, we did have a houseful.  There was an additional table set up outside on the back deck to accommodate the overflow.  I was out there with other guests when I came inside.  I asked, "Where did X and Y go?  They didn't even say goodbye?"

Their mother said, "Oh, they left.  That's what happens when you have to work the next day."

WTF???  This was about 6:30 PM and the mother was making excuses for her kids' lack of manners.  These "kids" are ages 30+.   I guess the rudeness apple didn't fall from the tree and the ensuing denial.

It's already planned out, folks.  The reservations are made for Thanksgiving 2018 for Quiet Rage to be out of town with my immediate family only.  

All of this goes back to a previous post about the holidays.  We all demand world peace from our leaders, but we all can't even get together for a holiday meal without wanting to kill each other.  Think about that.

As Souls

We are all as souls.  Say that out loud quickly.  As souls.  Some of us are bigger as souls than others. It's like that joke that has been going around for some time now, "Jesus loves you, but everyone else thinks you're an as soul."

There's a lot of truth to that.

As souls, we all have work to do on ourselves.  I'm really trying to embrace that each and every living thing has a glowing shard of what of once was the universal collective soul.  Like shattered glass shards, the collective universal soul was broken up into kabillions (I know that's not really a word) of bits and each of us has a little shard (not shart) and our purpose is to rejoin the little shards back to the universal God.  We are the broken Humpty Dumpty that fell off the wall and we need to be put back together again.

Moral of the story:  The next time somebody calls you an "as soul" turn around, give him/her the biggest, warmest smile and thank them.

Rohnert Park Wal-Mart

I have not been to the Rohnert Park Wal-Mart in 22 years.  How do I know that?  Because I purchased an item of clothing that I wore for a family photograph from there almost exactly 22 years ago to the date.  I hate that store with a passion.

Today I returned there after nearly a quarter century as it was rumored they sold pretzel buns.  I was not in the mood to make them and as I was going to Costco anyways (which did not have pretzel buns, either) Wal-Mart was just a skip up the street.

Now I remember why I don't shop there.

Walking into the store there was the toothless crack- head gray-haired grandma donning a SF 49'ers jacket with a filthy skirt, rumpled socks, and sandals.  She" was conversing with a homeless woman who was camped out at the entrance of Wal-Mart complete with her shopping cart full of goods, tent made out of plastic bags, and just about passed out right there on the cement.

Oh no, people... I have not even made it to the entrance of the store yet.

As I was walking to the entrance of the store there were some people in back of me.  All I could hear was, "Horny porn star, coming through!"

I did not hear it just once.  It was said repeatedly, "Horny porn star - coming through" I did not turn around to see who the horny porn star was as that would only validate their announcement.  I really wanted to laugh, as hearing this at Wal-Mart is so cliché.  Once inside the store it looked like something out of a third-world country.  I could not wait to get out of there.

No, WalMart did NOT have the pretzel buns I was looking for.  That's ok.  I was glad.  Just less time to get out of there.

Again, I tripped over the homeless meth-head woman camped out in front of the store on the way out.  The Horny Porn Star got lost inside the WalMart crowd and I was relieved of the barker.  There were aisles of campers, RV's, boats, and other pieces of s*** parked in the WalMart parking lot.  It was like a refugee camp.  You know what????  It really is.  WalMarts are bona fide camping grounds.  I bet you did not know that.

They really do cater to the trailer-trash crowd.

Affordable Housing - Real Estate Commissions

Here's the real definition of affordable housing:  slave quarters.  Let's just get that out there in the open, OK?  The sooner we realize we need SLAVE QUARTERS the sooner we can get over the euphemism AFFORDABLE HOUSING.

I've griped on this subject before.  Let's be real.  There is no way somebody making $20 an hour can even afford a 2 bedroom apartment in Sonoma County (if they are lucky enough to even find one) unless they live with a bunch of other people.  Sorry, but not everybody on earth was lucky enough to inherit something or have wealthy parents.

There are many reasons housing is out of reach.  I know my cute crush, Christopher Thornburg, seems to think that building more houses will magically solve our problems; however, at this point he is just a paid puppet telling the business world audience what they want to hear.  If not, they would not be paying $75 for a crappy breakfast.  If he told the truth we would all shoot ourselves after he spoke.

IMHO opinion, here are the reasons "affordable housing" aka SLAVE QUARTERS will never exist:

1.  Nobody sells their house to the lowest bidder;

2.  Real estate agents get paid by a percentage.  It's in their monetary best self-interest to keep housing prices high.  You really think they're working for the buyer?  If you believe that, I have a bridge I want to sell you.  Real estate agents want to close the deal at the highest price point you can take;

3.  NIMBY's rule.  Everybody wants to use modern slaves (cooks, gardeners, etc.) but nobody wants to embrace them into society and have them as a neighbor.  It's like enjoying all of our modern conveniences but shove off unpleasant, pollution-inducing production to China where it's not in our immediate vision;

4.  Property taxes are determined by the selling cost of a house.  I don't care how much Sonoma County says otherwise, it's in their best interests to keep housing costs high as well.  Higher the price = higher the property tax.  We all know how government employees need to keep the trough full for their obnoxious perks and pensions;

5.  Environmentalists.  People and business are bad for the environment.  The more people, the more demands for resources, the more they pollute, etc.;

6.  Sonoma County is a jewel of a place and that's why people want to live here.  Why is it special?  Because it's not overcrowded (yet) and clean.  See reason #5.  If we build more it will lose charm.  Everybody wants to live here, but it's cost prohibitive because, well, people just ruin things and we really don't want more of them around no matter how we tell the public otherwise;

7.  We need to make a decision as to whether we become San Jose North or a resort community like Carmel.  Either way, we will still need SLAVE QUARTERS;

8.  NOBODY HAS FIGURED A WAY AROUND THE LAW OF SUPPLY AND DEMAND....not even cutie-pie Christopher Thornburg.

I'm not sitting here thinking I have the answers to all of this.  I don't.  All I know is that for every finger I point at things I find annoying and wrong, three are pointing back at ME.

Amazon Prime Account Hack and FEMA Fraud

Blame it on the Equifax security data breach?  Blame it on TurboTax and the IRS?  Blame it on Anthem Blue Cross?  Blame it on Microsoft?  I've received so many notices now in regards to my personal identification being compromised it's become just another daily nuisance to deal with.  Seriously, I'm spending more and more of my precious time on the phone and writing letters cancelling credit cards, subscriptions, and loans I did not apply for.  I've put a stringent freeze on my credit and notified the proper authorities the identity theft, but do you really trust Equifax and the other credit reporting agencies to carry through with freezing my credit when they so sloppily handle it to begin with?  I think not.

The onus is on us, the innocent party, to constantly monitor and scrutinize any activity.  It's taking up more and more of my time, folks.  I've got better things to do than to defend my innocence while the perpetrators attempt to collect cash at my expense (pun intended).  Is this what a perfect 850 credit score gets you?  Of course.  People want to use my credit track record because they trashed theirs.

I received a phone call from somebody claiming they were from FEMA in regards to the disaster claim filed in the North Bay Fires and wanted to schedule a site visit.  I know better than to give out any more information over the phone than necessary.  We did at one time live in a house that was completely destroyed by the recent fires and a quick internet search discloses that.  However, we have not lived in that house for some years now.  I asked the person on the phone which address was used to file the claim.  They answered with an area in Sonoma County that was not heavily impacted by the fires.  Trash the claim.  Fraud.

The next day or so I received a letter via snail mail from the Small Business Administration saying that a claim had been filed for a disaster relief loan.  Again, fraud.  However, dealing with it took up an hour time on hold.

Yesterday I went on my Amazon account to purchase a gift for somebody.  The associated email address was one I did not recognize and I could not get into my own account.  Somebody hacked my account.  After doing some digging with the Amazon fraud department we figured out that it was a student in Texas who wanted my free six-month prime membership and free kindle book downloads.  There was no monetary damage done, but somebody was riding on the coattails of my account.  The Amazon representative and I had a little fun with the perpetrator.  Long story short account access will be cut off once the fraudulent fish bites a big fat worm.

I'm telling you:  snail mail and cash are making a comeback.  It reminds me of a song lyric by Sting (love him).  Never seen a miracle of science that did not go from a blessing to a curse

Kitchen Ballet

My sister-in-law was over the other day.  As always, I was cooking in the kitchen and she was sitting at the counter shooting the breeze with me.  She made a comment about the way I move about the kitchen.  She said it was like watching kitchen ballet.  I glide, slide, spin ever so gracefully putting food together that looks like a dance.  I guess I know my kitchen really well.  I know where everything is.....and I get uber upset if somebody messes with it.  It's my happy space.  It makes me happy to make others happy with what I cook.

Next week is Thanksgiving.  How many are YOU cooking for?  Me?  This year about 20 or so.  I don't cheat and go to Safeway or order a meal from Raley's.  Everything is done the way grandma did it right down to the 75 year-old roaster I use.  I do it up Midwest farm-style.  No, this is not the time to substitute kale for stuffing nor olive oil for butter.  It's one meal a year, folks, so spare me the health food lectures.  The old farmers had less health problems than today and they ate lard 365 days a year.  Relax.  I always think I make plenty of food but when it's all said and done there's really not much left over.  I take that as the highest of compliments.

New this year:  I'm horrible at baking - especially breads.  We've been experiencing an extreme pretzel bun shortage here in Northern California.  My son, who is an awesome bread baker, will be giving the pretzel bun baking experience a shot.

Red Neck Blue Tooth Speaker and Wine Glass

Thinking about you, little brother.  In doing so I got out my red neck blue tooth speaker and my red neck wine glass.  To make the red neck wine glass complete make SURE you put an ice cube in with that refrigerated grape juice that comes in a box, ok??  Who da thunk the red solo cup would be so iconic of all that is white trash?  I LOVE IT!!!!!  Let all the uppity-upps hang out in their perfect houses all trying to one up each other on everything.  On the contrary to the uppity upps, we all know we are a bunch of sorry *ss losers and just want to have FUN and we can laugh at ourselves.  That's why white trash like us always has a house full of people and friends.  We're never lonely.  Salute!!!  Red Solo Cup!!  It's so loved that Toby Keith wrote a song about it (below).  .......and yes, I would be the Princess Leah at the party.