Friday, October 7th 2022
So there is some good news and some bad news. There are some advancements along the front in the North and the South. But now there are rumors that the Wagner group, and if I understand this correctly, this Russian military arm that basically creates death squads and mercenaries internationally, has been given the green light to recruit people in Belarus. These are the same guys who have been recruiting in the prisons. Really sad news.
Here is another article about the history of the Wagner group.
Also, it appears that the results of Russian occupation are pretty dim. If you’ve been following my account of life here and what it’s like dealing with people who live here, it seems there is no difference really to what it’s like living with the Russian occupiers. You can’t reason with alcoholics. We should be saying that as a mantra. You can’t reason with alcoholics.
As to whether Belarus is either actively going to join in the war or will be coerced into the position, here is a recent article concerning their position. As of the moment, the answer remains no. But it’s not out of the question and the question itself is not very optimistic.
Meanwhile, as a result of the region being liberated, Russia has again started shelling civilian infrastructure in Zaporizhia only a few kilometers away from the nuclear power plant.
And finally, the president of Ukraine, as always, is quick to talk about this attack, his current connections with the world, an eighth packet of sanctions against the Russians and his optimism about winning this war and putting Russia in their place once and for all.
You know, I don’t really know how common it is for the leader of a country to work so closely with social media. This is really a very interesting time for zelinsky and I’m not sure how many people in his position have got so much on their plate everyday and yet take the time to do their Instagram and YouTube posts. It’s a strange time that we live in that this sort of thing would happen. On the other hand, I find it hard not to see this as admirable.
I’ve been in communication lately with an old friend who is a different type of conservative. She is a Russian advocate, she is pursuing a career in politics and is very energetic about moving forward in directions that she believes very much in. She is a supporter of LBGQ Rights and women’s rights in general and is a supporter of middle class values. She supports economy first and foremost and she pushes for a connection to political and voter groups she feels she can be a part of. On the other hand, her rhetoric is typically conservative in that it’s extremely difficult to understand any of the specific points she’s trying to make. I’ve listened to several speeches and seen essays that she has written and I can’t find any logic anywhere or even any ideas about sustainability for all of this money she likes to move around. Basically, she’s a pure populist and speaks in the hope of getting applause for individual points rather than having any specific and understandable plan that might actually be helpful.
The reason I’m mentioning this is that as we were talking, she asked me if I really liked Zelinsky. She was quick to imply that she had personal knowledge that there are several personal things about him, wink wink hint hint, that we’re not so perfect. I told her that no one is perfect and that there are several things I have noticed that are imperfect about the man but that I would support him 7 days a week and 52 weeks a year over Putin as a leader and that there is probably more admirable about the guy than not. He is certainly, if nothing else, one of the hardest working guys in show Business.
Let’s just say that I understand the world we are living in. We have compromises handed us that there’s nothing we can do anything about and usually these compromises have a tendency to Fester later on. It’s a matter of problems being added on to problems being added on to problems in the world remaining as complex as possible. However, there are people living in the cracks of this complexity and those who wish to keep things as messy as possible so that their home there in the shadows and in the cracks are well fed. We have more than a few parasites making sure that their survival is most important and that their way of life continues at all costs.
Perhaps this is the thing I most enthusiastically push back against. I hope I’m not being too vague in my description or hiding behind the power of subtlety in my words here. I don’t like fascists. I don’t like power mongers and I don’t like the people who create insanity and human misery for the purposes of enriching themselves and gaining for themselves personal power. I don’t like manipulators and the parasitic World they create. I vote for ecology first. I vote for a sustainable future first. I don’t need to be labeled as an anarchist to say that I am not particularly in favor of a middle class Urban habitat for the world as the singular way of life to be strived for. I am not convinced that urban life has ever been sustainable or healthy. I’m not sure that urban life is the correct habitat for the human animal.
I’m of the belief that we are supposed to be a bit more integrated with nature rather than economy. I’m not of the belief that economic slavery is the answer to economic security. I am not of the belief that we are supposed to be compacted into a tiny space and that the perpetual creation of mountains of garbage is a sustainable way of life. I am not of the belief that this is the correct way to live on this planet. I am also not of the belief that our answers lie in the Stars. This planet is the only one we have and dreaming of a future where we leave because we have ruined the place we live in is a lot more complex and resource wasteful than simply learning to live here better and with each other more easily.
As for my old friend, I’m sure I wish her well on the road. But as for our conversation, there is one thing I said that I will repeat here:
There is also no panacea in the capitalist West. Everybody loves Zelinski ingratiating himself to Europe. But in my opinion, Europe never did anything for anybody and this illusion of a middle class is based upon an unbelievable waste of resources that the world itself cannot tolerate. This planet, nature, God if you will, doesn’t give a shit about economy. I am an ecologist first and last. All I see is that everything right now is an unbelievable waste of resources. It is a catastrophe ecologically and socially to waste our time in this ridiculousness. And we are now talking about millions of lives ruined.
Actually, I think I really wanted to talk to you in the hope that I would convince you that my words here have some weight. You might be someone who has some power in the future. Maybe you’ll remember your green friend and what he has to say when and if you get a chance to start making decisions.
I mean, what else can I do? In this I agree with my friend Mr. Zelinsky. If you have an opportunity to talk to people, you better make the most of it.
***
It’s a little bit before 10:00 and I’m in the kitchen/cafe staring out at another absolutely delicious fall morning. The trees are now obviously into their shedding stage. There are a few more colors, a few more sticks and a little less light in the sky. The sun is shining though and it’s bright and glorious. It rained last night so the ground is wet and the grass is glistening.
I had a brief walk around this morning. Yesterday, when I pulled out that forgotten cauliflower, I saw that it was actually pretty dry. Not dry enough to be considered dead but just no longer bringing up water from the soil. Or there was just no more water in the soil to bring up. We are working on that. This had me thinking that perhaps I should do a little bit of watering. Now I see that I don’t need it. Everything is what it’s supposed to be.
I haven’t measured it but my well is now reasonably full again. It is absolutely no longer at its full capacity. You can see the stains where the water level used to be. We will probably never be close to that again in my lifetime or perhaps to the end of time but at least I’m not bottoming out now. I’m using the well because it is equally convenient to using the new pump well we put in. It’s very close to the house and it’s just a matter of dropping a bucket down and pulling it back up again. With its roof leaning horribly, I’ve just unspooled some rope and done it by hand. It’s not so hard to carry two buckets of water.
I made some breakfast this morning but kept it small and simple. I’ve definitely been overeating but my body tells me that I have to put something in it now. That is the thing about eating and not being that physical. My body’s ability to process energy is not very good right now. I burn what I have very quickly. So I had a little oatmeal with some pumpkin and one mushroom just for the umami of it. Actually, it was not really oatmeal but a combination of grains pounded into flakes and even a little of my favorite corn in there. All in all, it came out a bit like stuffing. I have no complaints that it came out like stuffing. Stuffing and hot tea for breakfast is absolutely fine.
I decided to go ahead and get started on my bread for tonight and tomorrow. I’m going with the simple recipe of some whole grain and white mixed together. This time however I actually had some instant dry yeast. When I tell you that this was a glorious thing, you should believe me. I have never been able to find this anywhere in all the years that I’ve been here. The only way to use yeast is to buy a cube and because I don’t make bread that often, by the time you get back to it it’s moldy no matter where you put it. I usually use soda with a little bit of vinegar and though my ex partner comments on the taste being a little salty, I really don’t mind it.
But today I had instant yeast. Excellent for using and excellent for storing. I tossed my dry ingredients into the bowl and then my wet ingredients, the yeast, some warm water and a little bit of white flour to give it something to eat, and then just put everything together and mixed it until it was time to knead. Perhaps I should have waited for the yeast to turn frothy but I don’t really think it makes any difference. I’m going to let it sit here under a towel in the Sun for the rest of the day. I might knock it down once but really, I only want flatbread so when I want it, I’m sure it’ll be fine.
If you want to know why I didn’t wait for the yeast to rise it is because I watched a video of a bakery in New York that makes challah bread. They don’t do any pre rising or pre-mixing before simply tossing all of the ingredients into the mixer and letting the dough hook do all the work. They have a proofing period for the dough, two actually, at once after it is partitioned and the second after it’s been twisted into loaf form. If they don’t need to worry about it, I don’t need to worry about it.
As for something to do today, I’m not without chores. I have an area to rake under the walnut tree. I’m almost at the end of the harvest of this great tree and I am impressed with how many walnuts we have. My office right now is mostly taken up by the drying tray. If there’s any experimenting, it’s whether or not it’s better to bake the immediate water away from the nuts before letting them crisp up naturally or whether you just lay him out and let him go. There’s a slight difference in the color and I guess we will find out the difference in taste. I will tell you right now that even though the nuts are wet on the inside, they are extremely delicious. I am glad to be able to enjoy these things as we go into winter.
Other than this, I probably should do a wash. I don’t have so many clothes that need washing but again, on a sunny day like this, at least things will drive fast enough. To do so though, I definitely want to use the pump well. It just allows more water to the process faster and I don’t have to keep pulling buckets out of the well. I could just work with the well. It’s probably not that big of a deal to do so. I’ll figure it out when I get there.
After this, maybe today is the day to finally get started on this platform project for the warm room. I have all the materials I need and I’ve been thinking out the logistics for so long, I really don’t think it’ll be much of a job. If it’s more than 2 hours of work for everything I will be shocked. I still do not have absolutely everything I need. I need insulation for inside these things. That was the whole point of making this platform. It’s supposed to be a winter time way for me to be on the floor. But even without standard foam insulation or insulation squares, I have a ton of things I can put underneath them to block the air from coming up.
After this, there’s not really a whole lot to think about. I should go and get myself a cabbage, maybe a sugar beet plant and some carrots from the garden. If I’m making bread, I also need to put together a hummus. But that’s really about it. I don’t have any work obligations today. I have a few thoughts that have come and gone through my mind this week that I might wish to get down here. But there’s nothing pressing and nothing really for me to do except to try not to overdo it on my leg. That’s really the main thing is not to hurt myself if I don’t have to.
I guess if there is some kind of question lingering, it has to do with being in contact with some old friends this week. Probably, I stirred up a little drama with them. Not a lot. Mostly sympathy on their part I’m sure. But I think both of them will take something to make them forget pretty quickly.
We actually talked about sympathy and generous people during the discussion with my political friend. I don’t really need to explain her point of view but mine was that sympathy as a rationale for doing something was extremely overrated. Inevitably, it was an emotional choice and not a practical one. And most often, it was a matter of giving someone a fish rather than teaching them to fish and being more a part of the egotism of The giver. Neither of these situations suits my style of thinking. I told her a story without too many details to illustrate this. I’m sure it was a great story but I’m also sure that our entire conversation had more to do with her own sense of pity than actual interest in anything I had to say. Just another microcosmic element of a macrocosm I guess.
So this is the mood here in the morning. There is nothing to it but to do it. It’s just a matter of agreeing that I’ve spent enough time in my kitchen/cafe, that I’ve had enough tea to drink, enough oatmeal to take the edge off and the desire to move around until pain tells me to stop. I guess this is what life is like while waiting for the war to come and get us.
***
Well, that was actually pretty interesting. It’s a quarter to three and I have basically finished with one of the two platforms I’ve built for the warm room. It’s not beautiful. The wood was not very good to start with so it’s not exactly perfect. But it absolutely does the job. I’ve already got some carpet on top of the one I’ve made and it’s pretty nice to lie down on. It still needs insulation and I still need to make the second one but I’m pretty happy so far.
The problem is that I am about at the end of my walking around abilities. I have pretty much hammered my leg to about the limit I can tolerate. I’m sitting here thinking of whether I want to at least cut the boards for the second one. I don’t need to do the whole assembly but if I cut all the boards now, I can even put it together in a more convenient spot on Sunday perhaps. I’ll have my ex partner here and she will be available for some of the other moving around that is necessary for this project. It feels good though. It feels good.
The bread is made and I’ve already buzzed up a nice hummus which will sit and become what it’s supposed to be over the next couple of hours. I think sundown is 6:30 tonight. I usually never get that far but I seem to have a lot to do today. I usually just blow off all my work but today I seem to be getting everything I need to do done. It’s interesting.
There is another issue however. I have been sitting on the couch vegetating in the hope of allowing my leg to heal for 2 months. Actually getting out and doing some work and joinery has done a number on my eyes. Suddenly everything needs to be cleaned really well. It’s like I haven’t noticed or I just didn’t care but suddenly the level of cleanliness I require is much, much higher. Certain things I understand but a lot of it needs to get fixed and fixed quickly.
Probably I will forget all about this before the weekend’s over.
I only have five more boards that I need to cut. I have one sitting here that I brought out but I am not going to use it. It’s absolute garbage. I guess it’s okay to have one or two flaws. We can call them character or something like that. It isn’t absolutely essential that everything is spot on perfect. I understand I’m working with seconds and that the boards have their nuances. But some are better than others and I’m definitely going to have to hunt and make sure my last five are good ones.
I don’t know if this means anything or not but my life is full of ladybugs right now. I have one rolling around on my forearm right now and I counted three or four on the window of my kitchen. I also noticed I need caulking on these windows desperately. There’s a reason why these bugs are getting in. I think it’s time to tell them that they are not wanted and also to keep the incoming breezes to a minimum during the cold weather. Have to make a note of that. We need some insulation for the platforms and we need some caulking for the windows.
At some point last year I thought about simply replacing the windows. When I mentioned this to my ex partner she recommended some places that sell what people call plastic windows. What I have is very old single pain glass windows on wooden frames. I don’t know how old they were or how many times they’ve been painted but though they do open and close, they need substantial work or to be replaced. The cost of these plastic windows was a little high for my taste. My
I asked Ghenna if there was a guy around here who did Windows and he said there was. The problem of course with this is that Ghenna is only good on suggestions for things that bring money to himself. This window guy has never materialized no matter how many times I’ve asked. He was on business somewhere and then he was on vacation somewhere and then we just forgot about it. I don’t think this situation bears much discussion. I think I’ve beaten this horse to death already.
Ghenna has not called once this week. Something must have happened on Sunday. Perhaps I actually worked him a little hard. Perhaps his perception of the situation changed and I suddenly was not such an easy touch. Perhaps he came to the understanding that I was sick of his games and that he’s gotten enough money off me for half-assed work and drunken behavior. I definitely don’t need any more fist bumps. Whether he is showing up on Sunday or not is another question. And you never know, maybe he’s found another sucker to support his alcohol habit. Good for him. Seriously, good for him.
I had been waiting around for him to do something about picking this wood. I really didn’t need him for the cutting or the joining but moving the materials would have been a lot easier with a pair of good legs. I can do it but it’s a challenge. Let me rephrase that, I have done it already and it was a challenge. But I did it. And, exactly as with Lena, I just saved a few bucks by not bringing him in.
I know I’m doing it again. I’m writing words instead of doing actions. I still have a lot of things to do before we quit for the day off. Sitting here and creating language doesn’t get this stuff done any faster. It does give my legs a rest. That’s a definite positive. But if I’m going to do this, even if all I’m doing is prepping for when I’m ready to make the second and final platform, I should just do it.
Really, talking about things is all well and good but doing them is what it’s all about. Everything else is just empty language.
Oh yeah, before I forget. I used a different rake today and cleaned out probably 90% of the leaves under the walnut tree. I got about eight more liters of walnuts out of the exercise and for the most part, a clean yard. I hate to admit that but I think next year I’m going to get a weed wacker. It will not be a gasoline weed wacker. I have seen instruments that work on portable batteries like people have on drills. I started thinking about this again because it occurs to me that I should cut back the grass around the trees before harvest time comes. Everything can grow as it likes and I’m not really worried about creating a lawn. But gathering walnuts is a hell of a lot easier if you only have to contend with the leaves. If you’ve got long grass in there, this is the second problem. I guess I should also use it to control the weeds that grow around the boxes. It’s not for the aesthetics. It’s for keeping the amount of grass out of the boxes.
All this costs money, doesn’t it? I really have to put a moratorium on spending. I don’t really think so much money is going to be coming in this year. Maybe I’ll get lucky and pick up some students. I seem to have one or two positive reviews already this year and that might mean I get a few more calls. I wouldn’t mind. I don’t really want to go back to full-time work but a couple of students would make ends meet and take the pressure off me. And if I want new windows and a weed wacker next year, it would be nice if I had some students to help pay for it.
***
I guess this is enough. It’s 5:15 but I am on the couch in the kitchen and I can’t move anymore. I really only have two things left to do. I need to wash up and bring in one bucket of water and then do some cooking and I’m pretty much done. I know there’s not a lot left but I am just out right now. I have not been doing so much work lately. I don’t remember doing this much work actually. I am in pain, this is true, but I am so very tired. This is the main thing. My brain doesn’t want to work anymore. I am so tired.
A lot happened this week. I connected with a couple of people and got some comments here. There were some political conversations and some interesting back and forths. I don’t know if either of these things will mean anything come next week. We never can tell but I doubt anything will change. I don’t want to be mean to anybody but I can’t help thinking what I think. There is no obligation for me to be the center of anyone else’s life. I’m not asking to be taken care of. But still, a little movement wouldn’t be so bad.
I’ll be seeing my ex partner on Sunday. We ordered three more berry bushes but they will not be here on Sunday. My guess is but I will ask for some help to set up my office in the war room. It’s not necessary to do this this week. The weather is still warm enough to actually use the place. I do not need to sequester myself into the tiny apartment just yet if I don’t have to.
The war of course is always a problem. It’s kind of like playing poker with someone who is desperate. It takes all of the fun out of the game when someone needs more than the game will allow. Of course war is not a friendly game but you would think reasonableness should exist somewhere. There is none here of course but you would think it should exist.
When I was in my teens, I was in a regular poker game with some friends. It wasn’t very expensive to play. I think we started with quarters for an auntie or maybe a buck. The genuine result of our games was that a big winner might take home 40 bucks or a loser the same amount. Maybe this is $100 in today’s economy but we are not talking about big money poker. It wasn’t supposed to be painful. But then one day, this guy Dominic got himself into trouble. I think it was with a drug dealer. It probably was with a drug dealer. He came to our quarter auntie poker game trying to win $400. Absolutely pointless endeavor. It put all kinds of pressure on everybody and pretty much sucked the life out of the game.
The thing about gambling and gamblers is that sometimes they are not in it for the precision hobby. You can inspire to play like Daniel Negreanu. Negreanu is the world champion and considered the best player. He never bets without understanding the odds and just enjoys going with the game in this regard. I’m mentioning him because Daniel Negreanu is vegan. Just saying.
But then you have guys who just keep going deeper and deeper into their pocket and following the losses more and more. This is not a professional player. This is a professional loser and people like this are not really worthy of respect.
I’m saying this because it seems to me that we have a problem at the table. We have someone playing a hand of cards that’s probably not going to win and yet they insist on bullying the table looking for some payoff that probably doesn’t even exist. We have a problem at the table with us and we need to do something about it. Maybe we should just send him home.
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