Additionally, I ruminate about the stupidity of all of it.  All packaging should be biodegrade or be reusable.  We subsidize the corn industry to the point of having a surplus that we turn into syrup and jam into all sorts of food products unnecessarily.  Why couldn’t we turn that into packaging that composts instead?

Instead we have this:

We need more plastic to send our plastic to get turned into other plastic

We try our best to remember to bring our reusable shopping bags when we go to stores.  We still end up with piles of these petrol byproduct bags, but that’s good?  Shamefully, yes.  Because the BLUE ones and the CLEAR ones can be used to send other plastic products to the city.  Apparently, the garbage men aren’t bright enough to tell when a bag has beer bottles and yogurt containers and not other waste by the sound of it.

Sometimes, though, we don’t have enough blue or clear ones.  So that means, we have to purchase another petrol byproduct in order to send our petrol byproducts to get turned into other petrol byproducts (in the photo you will see in the clear bag on the left all the other bags that cannot get used for recycling getting prepped for their return to the product cycle).

Oxymoronic or just moronic?

Is this as good as we can do?

Then I realized that the video is all over the internet while trying to find out how to spell the deceased’s name.

Our tragedies are all just fodder for each other’s entertainment – be you Tiger, politician, victim of crime.  Our most grievous moments are all up for grabs.

Time to turn the news off.

I DON’T WANT TO SEE THE MOMENT OF ANYONE’S DEATH ON TV.  THIS IS NOT SUPPOSED TO BE CINEMA YOU CREEPS!!!

RIP Nodar.  Sorry your moment of death is being feasted on by the voracious jackals of our species.

One other lesson learned:  backfat must be ground up way finer than we did it this year.  Toooo chunky.

[View with PicLens]

We made 70 pounds of sausage this year. I know, it is nothing compared to the 400lbs that some of your families make, but without industrial processing, this is still an accomplishment. Next year, we agreed that an industrial grinder/stuffer is in order = more drinking, less labor, more meat.

We have been at this for three years now. Started out as family. Has expended to well, expanded family (if you haven’t been invited, consider this the promo piece to pique your interest (really people, we have a VERY tiny house, cut me some slack)). Quantities of meat have for sure increased but other lessons have been learned:

- be better organized (was much less drunk, bedraggled, and scatterbrained than ever before but my recipe quantities need to be bulletproof before the day)
- buy 30% more poundage of meat to allow for loss from bone, gristle, and sinew
- line up participants two weeks in advance
- prep all spice/herb/marinates the night before grinding and stuffing, and get help for this
- invite women but never let them touch the meat prior to it becoming sausage, as this would make it impure, especially if they are cycling (what? I can make up crazy rules too, Bible!!!!)

Please allow me to take a moment to talk about the Italian Fennel sausage we made. Because the fennel and meat were fresh, the result was an actual fragrance (gentle, no less) of an almost floral quality that permeates every bite. Hap’s insistence of red and green peppers provided just the right touch of sweetness to complement the spice. This is not a bun sausage. This is for pasta, not red sauce, with something delicate – like zucchini.

Game. I love me some protein not from an industrial farm. In this case, that means harvested by someone I know (Richard), or maybe myself one day. I understand what that entails – full flavor, what some people call gaminess. While this doesn’t bother me, as I would much rather eat an animal that has had a life in the wild than in a pen. In this case, all agreed that the duck/goose/chicken combo and venison (oh my god juniper berries are SO MUCH MORE complex than I thought they would be) were beyond all expectation. FAR beyond.

We also made some Iowa Breakfast that I am going to stuff the F out of with some F-toast, errrr, actually, stuff the F out of some F-toast with. Did I mention Chorizo? Look, Mexican/Latin is my cuisine of choice. I could eat tacos/burritos EVERY day of my life and look forward to dinner every night. But Chorizo? Did I mention Chorizo? Did I mentions hand made Chorizo so that your non-knife hand actually throbs because of all the hot peppers you have handled? Succulent, with tequila substituted for half the red wine vinegar? Christ (he’s my namesake, so I have right to use it, okay?), I would become a missionary of Chorizo if I could figure out a way.

So, really, the reason I am taking pen to paper (*sigh* – so long ancient technology) is art.

It started out with me asking Pete about his perception of the Beatles. This was prompted by my incidental and accidental re-exposure to them through Rock Band, which I would not have purchased on my own.

He was 6 years old and had no recollection, other than the aftershocks.

The aftershocks became the next topic… flowed into how artists and performance can so strongly affect experience.

Hell. I remember getting choked up in my dad’s red Maverick listening to “Here Comes The Sun” – at least 15 years after its release. As a four year old I was moved by the uplifting nature of that song. Eight years later, I remember being wrecked by “Long and Winding Road”. WRECKED!!! Had never had a relationship nor known heartbreak at that point, although Anne Marie Alexia did have my admiration in kindergarten and I did compete with her affections with by best friend Tommy Bordanero (he was better looking and smarter but I lived a street over). The power of music became the next topic.

I brought up a performance by U2 on SNL. Peter brought up one from Bjork.

U2 are rock gods. Even if you hate Bono’s cocky strides and musky odors, they ARE….

ROCK
GODS

Nothing any of us can do to take that away.

Despite that status, one which I am sure that they are well aware of, when SNL had a couple of spare ones at the end of a show in 2004, they played for a third time. For the hell of it? For the audience? To mock Ashlee Simpson? For the fun of it? Who knows, but they gave and obviously enjoyed it. The audience and cast were obviously thrilled. The engineers at NBC even seemed loathe to cut away. Based on Bono’s “…one more..” as the credits finished rolling, they probably played at least one more track for the live audience. What a gift!!! How real? I have a really low quality mpg of this. If you want to see it let me know. Very difficult to find online. Mention of it here though:

http://www.avclub.com/articles/inventory-ten-memorable-saturday-night-live-musica,1525/

Bjork. Ahhhh, that delightful freak girl/woman. Does she ever perform “Unraveled” and not mean it from the depths of her soul? Does she have perfect pitch? I would put money on it.

Christ (there he is again, our lord and savior – just shows up whenever he likes now, doesn’t he?), I don’t even know what to say to the following other than breath taking (minus the stupid black/white shifts in the first):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VbHGOFwH09k

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4Qe5K7UV_0

Bjork, married to Mathew Barney, speaking of incredibly evocative, powerful and strange, flowing to Joanna Newsome and Smog…..

Blah, blah, and …..

Epiphany.

Aside from any commercial aims in order to make a living or a mockery of the art/music business, the thing that makes an artist an Artist is:

Generosity. Integrity. Honesty. Craftsmanship. Commitment to message (or a possession by message in some cases).

Makes me want to stop listening to music as background, see more music live, and see more art.

All this at $25 for 7 pounds of sausage each, plus NO SAWDUST in the sausage despite the fact that there was plenty at hand.

Also, since so much sausage fun has been had because of this man, I feel compelled to plug his book and site:

http://www.amazon.com/Bruce-Aidellss-Complete-Sausage-Book/dp/1580081592

http://www.aidells.com/

Needless to say, sausage making leads to endless double entendre that never ceases to be funny.

There are SO many birds and rodents alone. We should come across their dead on at least a weekly basis.

Have you ever seen a dead squirrel that wasn’t smashed into the asphalt? What about a pigeon that gave up the ghost without a windshield? How about a deer taking it’s dirtnap in the middle of a trail?

I surmise the following:

Wildlife doesn’t die unless by violence or disease. Which make critters undead or like the Eldar. Orrrrr they eat their dead.

To the woman who “thought” that we were turning left by signaling “Stop” ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cycling_hand_signals ) and then proceed to lay on the horn, gun it, and race into oncoming traffic, thereby threatening my and my buddy’s lives, I give you this:

ORC 4511.55B  “Persons riding bicycles or motorcycles upon a roadway shall ride not more than two abreast in a single lane, except on paths or parts of roadways set aside for the exclusive use of bicycles or motorcycles.”  -  http://codes.ohio.gov/orc/4511.55

That’s right.  Two abreast.

As I tried to explain the hand-signals for her future reference, her daughter shouted at us for expecting her to know secret bicycle signal.  For her, I reiterate the Wikipedia link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cycling_hand_signals

They also became fascinated with what I do for a living in this conversation.  Was so out of left field I bobbled this one.  What does this have to do with the mother’s road rage?  I now understand why.  They are people of privilege.  Who are two slackers out on their bikes in the middle of the day to approach them and explain traffic law?  I mean her daaaddddy is a doccccctor/lllllllaaaawyer.  Her indignation and willingness to shout at two male adults whom her mother nearly killed was nauseating.

The girl also asked how old we thought she was.  Weird, but okay.  Glancing past the mother I took a peak, “I don’t know, 12?”.  This made her especially mad.  Cannot figure out what is wrong with 12 but it has apparently become passe.

The whole time the woman kept citing what her family and other cyclists do and what she thought we should be doing rather than addressing the fact that she was aggressive with 4000lbs of SUV in her hands.  She parted with a threat and a warning that we on our bikes are no match for her and her SUV.

Great.

The one argument that I keep in my back jersey pocket that is supposed to get knuckleheads like her to THINK about what they do on the road and she is using it as justification for her behavior.

No foul language was used in the exchange, but there was some serious birding going on when she passed and laid on the horn.  She asked if that was something I would be proud of?  Huh?  I would hope that if my daughter saw what you did to me that she would give you every offensive hand signal known to man.  You get the bird because I don’t have a horn, you idiots!  If these people don’t understand directional hand signals, I guess I shouldn’t expect anything better.

The exchange was a failure.  Mother and daughter both are going to hate cyclists even more now and I fear for when that 12 year old gets her license.  Next time, I am going to try the completely calm approach and only quietly state over and over again, “Please don’t threaten me with your car.”  If that doesn’t work, the next tactic will be to just shout down the next transgressor (because there is usually one on each ride).

I know what the right choice is for Hazel, but I still feel like a sucker when making that choice.

We are all used to product volumes shrinking instead of the supplier raising the price or raising prices and decreasing volumes. We just shake our heads and dig deeper into the lint. We are used to getting ripped off by normal companies but I dislike it even more when it is coming from a company that supposedly has an interest in the betterment of humanity/earth/food supply. I call BS.

If organic growers and suppliers ever want to take over the marketplace they are going to have to provide a more viable reasons to do so:

• prices more competitive to non-organic
• matching volumes of comparable, non-organic products

Until then, prepare to continue to be marginalized and fringe, “Granola” Suits and Marketing Drones.   Hasn’t it been proven that organic doesn’t cost more for the farmer and that is one of the reasons it makes more sense for farmers to switch?  Why is it costing more at the market?