All the Secrets of the Universe and Some Really Important Stuff Too!
The Romans read the future in the entrails of birds and other sacrificial animals. Well I’ll base my augury on the outer surface of one particular twenty five pound bird.
Other signs are equally favorable
I predict a successful encounter with the forces of gluttony.
So, we’re hosting most of the family this year. Camera Girl has outdone herself with five different pies and a twenty-five-pound turkey. I predict that by the end of the feast I’ll be almost immobile. But I’ll try to keep the grandkids amused with various holiday traditions. At some point I will break out the “March of the Wooden Soldiers” and maybe “Gulliver’s Travels.” Of course, both of these are 1930s vintage versions.
Hopefully we’ll head down to the first floor to play some pool and later on will come the pie and ice cream and coffee and some penny ante poker. And I’ll ask my grandsons what’s going on at school and what’s happening around town. I’m sure I’ll be brought up to date on whatever Pokémon acquisitions the youngest one has negotiated. I’ve never really figured out what Pokémon actually is. I assume it’s similar in intent to how we collected baseball cards as kids. All I know is that there are thousands of different cards and some are “worth” thousands of dollars. But to whom?
We’ve had our first dusting of snow. It changed into rain in the morning and I went out with the shovel and cleared the slop off of the driveway. And that’s necessary. It freezes at night now and that slushy mess would have turned my driveways into skating rinks by tomorrow morning and that is something I don’t need on Thanksgiving. So, we’ve broken the ice, so to speak, and have now transitioned into winter. Of course, I’m way behind on my yard work. And this makes it worse. But it’s Thanksgiving so I’ve absolved myself of all blame and won’t think about it until Monday (or Tuesday).
It’s interesting. Two recent international elections seem to be indicating a deep dissatisfaction with the Left’s incompetent economic and social programs. Maybe 2024 will be more than just an American protest year. Maybe the genie is out of the bottle and a whole lot of people are fed up with dysfunctional, incompetent, delusional Leftist ideas in general. If it is we’ll see much more in the way of signs in the coming months.
Biden’s minions keep popping up in the Times and the Post announcing how the economy is turning a corner and how wonderful everything is becoming. The latest hype is that inflation is reversing and now they have to be careful not to cause deflation. The delusional nature of this nonsense is absurd. It flies in the face of everyone’s knowledge of the cost of commodities in the recent past. Everyone who has to run a household knows that everything is now vastly more expensive. Things like cold-cuts have now become prohibitively expensive for many families. Even staples like bread and vegetables have to be purchased with an eye out for sales. But the Biden evangelists keep up the happy talk hoping that the stupid will buy into the lie. As jaded as I’ve become with fraudulent elections, I’m still curious to see if a point might be reached where even the people faking the elections might think it was in their interest to get the Democrats out of power, if only out of fear that the economy might completely collapse under the weight of complete incompetence.
Well, for one day we won’t worry about the cost of food. There are going to be pumpkin, apple, coconut custard, sweet potato and chocolate pudding pies with whipped cream and ice cream and who knows what other desserts. There’s going to be turkey and sausage stuffing and mashed potatoes and gravy. And another whole list of side dishes that I can’t even remember, but I know there will be candied yams and two kinds of buttered rolls. So, I have a lot to be thankful for. I hope your holiday goes well and I will check in from time to time.
Nobody is at liberty to attack several property and to say at the same time that he values civilisation. The history of the two cannot be disentangled. Civilisation is nothing more than a name for the old order of the Aryan world, dissolved but perpetually re-constituting itself under a vast variety of solvent influences, of which infinitely the most powerful have been those which have, slowly, and in some parts of the world much less perfectly than others, substituted several property for collective ownership.
Henry Sumner Maine
Note: several property refers to what we call private property.
Another politician that doesn’t parrot the woke talking points has won a big election Geert Wilders is an anti-immigration politician in the usually complacent Dutch nation. But maybe things are starting to change.
“The far-right and anti-Islam populist Geert Wilders was headed for a landslide parliamentary election victory Wednesday in one of the biggest political upsets in Dutch politics since World War II, and one that is bound to send shock waves through Europe.
The result puts him in line to lead talks to form a new ruling coalition and possibly become the country’s prime minister at a time of political upheaval through much of Europe.
The exit poll published by the national broadcaster NOS said that Wilders’ Party for Freedom won 35 seats in the 150-seat lower house, more than double the 17 he won at the last election.”
Of course as in most countries with a multitude of parties building a coalition government is no easy thing for a right-wing party. But it’s nice to see that the populace is begiining to wake up in the heart of the EU.
Not real snow, just a sloppy mess that has to be pushed off the driveways before it turns to ice tonight. But a reminder that there still is such a thing as winter here.
It is at this most festive time of the rolling year that I find portion control at the dining room table most challenging. This morning Camera Girl is making apple, pumpkin and coconut custard pies for the Thanksgiving Day feast. And so, I find myself standing over her shoulder watching the process with the sense of ownership and the pride that entails. I asked her if she’d ever heard the term trad-wife and she responded with a scowl that I could almost feel in my own face. She shook her head and told me to get the hell out of the kitchen until the pies were out of the oven. I think she feared that my comments would have an unhealthy effect on the flavor of her desserts. Not wishing to cause her undue stress at this very delicate point in the holiday preparations I forbore to grant her somewhat rude request and left with incredible dignity and obvious grace. Noblesse oblige you know.
It’s interesting to note that the rapid degeneration of female culture now forces the invention of a new label for what used to be the normal skill set of an adult married woman. Well, maybe rapid is just my perspective as an old guy. What I think of as normal has been under attack since the 1960’s. And now their granddaughters wouldn’t know a rolling pin from a road flare. And so, we’ve reached a stage where a “trad-wife” has become a commodity so valuable that to quote the Bible:
“Proverbs 31:10-31
King James Version
10 Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies.
11 The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her, so that he shall have no need of spoil.
12 She will do him good and not evil all the days of her life.
13 She seeketh wool, and flax, and worketh willingly with her hands.
14 She is like the merchants’ ships; she bringeth her food from afar.
15 She riseth also while it is yet night, and giveth meat to her household, and a portion to her maidens.
16 She considereth a field, and buyeth it: with the fruit of her hands she planteth a vineyard.
17 She girdeth her loins with strength, and strengtheneth her arms.
18 She perceiveth that her merchandise is good: her candle goeth not out by night.
19 She layeth her hands to the spindle, and her hands hold the distaff.
20 She stretcheth out her hand to the poor; yea, she reacheth forth her hands to the needy.
21 She is not afraid of the snow for her household: for all her household are clothed with scarlet.
22 She maketh herself coverings of tapestry; her clothing is silk and purple.
23 Her husband is known in the gates, when he sitteth among the elders of the land.
24 She maketh fine linen, and selleth it; and delivereth girdles unto the merchant.
25 Strength and honour are her clothing; and she shall rejoice in time to come.
26 She openeth her mouth with wisdom; and in her tongue is the law of kindness.
27 She looketh well to the ways of her household, and eateth not the bread of idleness.
28 Her children arise up, and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praiseth her.
29 Many daughters have done virtuously, but thou excellest them all.
30 Favour is deceitful, and beauty is vain: but a woman that feareth the Lord, she shall be praised.
31 Give her of the fruit of her hands; and let her own works praise her in the gates.”
To be fair, I’ve never seen her producing any tapestries or linen. And I’m pretty sure she doesn’t even know what a distaff is. But she did sew the seam on the change pocket in my jeans last week so maybe that’s close to rubies or at least emeralds, I think. And she does get up really early to walk the dogs. As far as sitting with the elders, I was hanging out with the duffers at the Grange during the election meeting and some of them recognized me so I’ll give her that. But I definitely don’t think that part about, “She openeth her mouth with wisdom; and in her tongue is the law of kindness” is way off. I think the law of sarcasm is closer to the actual situation.
But she has transferred some of these skills like cooking and household economy to her daughters so that’s very praiseworthy but honestly, I don’t think either I or my daughters have used the term “blessed” for Camera Girl. Annoying is the term that trips off my tongue because she accompanies all her accomplishments with a decidedly critical eye for comparison with my own efforts.
And in this she is obviously very unfair. I may not cook the feast but I often carry the grocery bags from the car to the kitchen. Surely the Bible has something good to say for the husband who does stuff. So, what am I wood? Maybe rubies aren’t the correct and gender specific analogy of my value. How about austenitic stainless steel or even Hastelloy 276 or some other corrosion resistant metal. Maybe even platinum! That’s even better than boring rubies. You’d think God being a man would have given us a few choice proverbs of our own to put these women in their place. Am I wrong? But I digress.
So, despite the annoyingness of the traditional wife, it is undeniable that she is the foundation of the family and of all functional human existence. Without a doubt the destruction of our society has been programmed with the elimination of good women and their replacement by career women defined by their barrenness, lack of domestic instincts and their proclivity for collecting cats. Without a doubt the males of this generation also bear a heavy responsibility for the current degeneracy of our culture. But I’ll save that for a different rant.
Today I’ll just end with praise for Camera Girl. Well done Camera Girl. And save that little extra portion of coconut custard pie for the two o’clock coffee bread today. I feel I need it.
