The Grapes of Wrath
(sung to the Hercules cartoon them song)
Superham, hero of song and story
Superham, winner of ancient glory
Potato on the right
Onions fit in tight
Glaze on at the end, leftovers go with hen
it's the mighty Superham!
Not to put too fine a point on it, but the ability to shop has been lost. When I read over and over and over about food prices, I just have to wonder if our algorithm driven news feeds are just doing more ham (I mean harm) than good? A case in point was the beautiful Schneiders ham I got last week. Nine pounds for eighteen dollars. I cut it in half and cooked the bone-in side for Easter. Dinner was roast ham, boiled potatoes and cauliflower with cheese sauce. The whole bags of poatoes was $1.48 and the entire head of cauliflower was $2.88, so what did dinner cost? Three dollars? For two adults. Leftover I had the ham bone, that ten pound bags on onions ($5.99 two weeks ago) for mire pois, added some garlic, ginger and decrepit bok choy. Large pot of pho soup for what, another three dollars? That's a couple of lunches. I still have two pounds of ham. Sandwiches, ham and eggs for breakfast and ... and I still have the other half of the ham in the freezer. Now don't get me wrong, you have to trade a kidney for a decent T-bone steak these days, but let's just stop pretending that it is 1933 all over again shall we? The lineup at Starbucks for a $5.25 iced coffee is long and never ending. It's an extra dollar if you want the "nitro cold brew".
The MAGA Haircut
I haven't re-found the opinion piece that set off this thought process? It was about a month ago and probably in The Atlantic. It was about signalling which is a thing lately. Remember Diversity Bingo? So, I would love a small Canadian flag hanging on a little post, just outside my front door like the Americans do. I have always thought it looked nice. I would have one today, except for the truckers strike in Ottawa during COVID. They decided that our mortality (based on lockdowns, mask mandates and offering universal free vaccinations) was so very very wrong that they had to do something! We cannot possibly be dying at half the per capita speed when compared to our knuckle dragging neighbour to the south? Justin Trudeau is handling this. He must be doing it wrong? Let's see. Businesses are closed anyway, the roads are empty. All the pogey rules have been thrown out and the feds are throwing money at us to stay home. Let's take 800 tractor trailers, a thousand of our buddies, forty thousand pints of beer, and tear up four city block of our nations capital for three weeks. (We want those reefer trucks in hospital parking lots, piled up with dead seniors, just like they have in Florida! And Georgia. And Texas. So the symbol they chose, to represent all this hatred of modern medicine ... and liberals in general ... and our Prime Minister in particular was, of course, the Canadian flag. These racist, immigrant hating, uninformed, conspiracy driven traitors (yes, the crowd was full of separatists from Alberta), chose my flag as their symbol of hate. So now ... I can't one!! Every time I see one of those giant lifted pickup trucks with oversized tires hanging out the sides and couple of Canadian flags on it, I know he is not signalling the commitment to die for our county if necessary. He is saying that he does not tolerate ... "others" Hold that thought?
I had had the same barber in Guelph for going on, thirty years. Gerry had a chair at Barber Rino's (really) for many years. Then his own place (Mr. C's) at Edinburgh and Stone, then scaled back to having a little salon in the back of his house. After a surprise visit to the cardiac ward, he now only works a couple of mornings a week at Franco & Sons right beside Angels Diner. So I go there. Well, I went there about ten times. Sometimes, Gerry, sometimes someone else. It is a traditional old school Italian barber shop. All regulars, everyone knows everyone. All the Italian town gossip. Who's making it big. Who's sick. The Leafs (of course). It's nice. Well, it was. The other element that has crept in to a lot of conversations is a real intolerance for the changes to our society as the colour of our immigrant population darkens? I suspect that Guelph has the same societal problems as every other mid-sized Canadian city. Honmelessness lately is top of mind as it is so visible. Last I checked, almost every single homeless person I see, is white. Do these people, these Italians know what was said about them when started flooding into Canada. About the murder of 20,000 unarmed families in Addis Ababa? With pick axes? About the Manifesto of Race in 1938? The mass surrenders to vastly smaller British forces in Beda Fomm?
Listen. I love Italian people. Not because they are Italian, but because all people are the same. We are only about four thousand generations out of Africa. They know for sure that we are descended from a very small early human population and there are some theories that there may be an actual Eve. One woman from that small group, may have spawned each and every one of us.
There is a disease creeping over the lake head from out west! They have it down south and it is moving north, slowly but surely. It is the infection of ignorance. The pall over our enlightenment. It is the opposite of progress. I do not like it.
Our Optimum Week
Read em and weep boys and girls. There are $607 worth of new plants in my backyard ready & waiting for June 1st. I paid $7 and redeemed 500,000 points. Most of our groceries this month were bought with points. That funded a $500 trip to Homeless Depot for garden lumber. It also funded the "three amigos" who are helping me build it. A million a year should be easy for you!
Flyers were a bit week but there were a couple of interesting offers. Here is your list:
... and finally
Next week, I will be able to give you some additional status shots and perhaps even a new planted 12 x 16 vegetable garden in front yard. Needless to say, I really could have used some help with the weather. Three guys hired from 08:00 to 16:00. It was raining lightly when we started, a steady downpour by late in the morning and was sleeting those curtain of pouring rain down Stevenson St. in front of my house by mid-afternoon. I fed them take-out Chinese food and there was a live actual puddle under Andrea's chair where he was eating. Here are a couple of shots from the day. My cowboy hat is still drying out.
Mitch and Maddie