I'm about to go off on Donald Trump. Yes, some of you might hate me. I'll live with it.

 So I wrote this on facebook the other day:

I'm getting really tired of Mr. Trump, the inveterate liar, third rate carny con man, and general idiot. I'm tired of his blowing hot air out of his mouth in one direction and then, in the same day, claiming he didn't say what he said. I'm tired of his lies about Hillary Clinton. During her time in the public eye, her positives--and there are lots of them--include working as a US Senator from New York to get help for the First Responders after the World Trade Center horror. And she has continued to work hard for that. She worked very hard for equal pay for equal work for women. She worked for health care for all as First Lady of the US--which is the real reason people don't like her politics, she showed too many lazy dems and dumb repubs up--and that nearly cost her husband his second term and certainly brought 25 years of animus on her. And then, with the Clinton Foundation she's saved countless lives and made countless others livable by getting medicine and water and farming equipment and a host of other necessities to them. Oh, and she and Bill pay about 1/3 of their income into federal income tax: $9.6 million following their best year on the speakers' circuit; $3.4 million last year. Nothing Mr. Trump has done for the public good--including his modest donations to good causes in the distant past--comes close.
Oh, and if you are going to come back with unfact-checked nonsense about the Clinton Foundation--which has an "A" rating from Charity Watch, a non-partisan charity watchdog--please do your research before commenting.

One of the people reading it reacted badly because I insulted his intelligence. I was wrong. He also blasted Hillary Clinton in a long response. Here's what I wrote in my reply:

Dear X: I was strident. I apologize for being rude. BUTTTT, I think you are way, way off base with Hillary. She's spent her adult life working for women, children, underprivilidged people. In the time after she was First Lady, and after she was Secretary of State before becoming a presidential candidate, she was one of the top tier speakers on the speaker circuit. There are tens of thousands of people on various speaker circuits. Some get $300 a talk, some get $1 million plus. She was in the $225,000 range evidently, according to her tax records. Who would pay that? I don't know. Not me, but I don't live in that rare air up there. People who need a tax write off, I suppose. And she gave a lot of that money to the Clinton Foundation[s], which is a monstrously great foundation and from which no one in her family ever took a dime. Now you tell me that Trump is a "maverick populist" and I say, "no dice." He's a criminal through and through. He lies incessantly and often denies his lies on the same day he makes them. He's backed by every white supremecist group in the USA, he's backed by the anti-women, anti-choice, anti-life-after-birth crowd. He's cheered on by those he describes as "uneducated". He accepted a present of a Purple Heart medal from a man who had been wounded in war, held it up and said, "I always wanted one of these." yet did not protest the Vietnam War, simply got out on "bone spurs" and has recently declared that avoiding Venereal Disease was his Vietnam. Along with saying that going to military high school was pretty much the same as being in the military. With that in mind, he says he'd "bomb the shit out of Isis", would "carpet bomb the Middle East," and wants to know why we have nuclear weapons if we can't use them. He claims he was against the Iraq war when he's on video being for it. He claims he didn't want to see Gaddafi removed from his position, when he's on video calling for him to be summarily killed by a "strategical strike". This is a man you want to have nuclear codes? He's a pathological liar, a man who works with the mob in New York and New Jersey, a man who dumps his wives at the drop of a hat and now professes a Christian faith to appeal to the alt.right crazy right-wing Christian voters. This is a man who has never, ever done a decent thing for another human being without touting it endlessly. This is a man who just today patted himself on the back for calling last night's bomb in New York a bomb. He relishes idiocy. He has reporters arrested and then touts free speech. He incites violence and then hides like a baby when someone jumps on his stage. He calls HIllary out for her Secret Service body guards when he not only has Secret Service body guards but his own guards as well. This is a man who has cheated, lied, stolen money from enough people that more than 1,300 have sued him over it. This is a man who has paid cash money to two attorney generals who were considering taking Trump University to court for fraud--and who, after they received his contributions to their campaigns, decided not to. This is a man who says he contributes to political campaigns because he knows that when he calls in a favor his phone calls will be taken by them. This is a guy who claims he'll bring manufacturing jobs back to the US while making everything he sells overseas. This is a man who insisted that Mitt Romney could not be president if he did not release his tax returns and now will not release his own, after swearing on television that he would. This is a man who has a family foundation that buys gifts for himself. This is a man who suggests his opponent might be stopped by "second amendment, people". This is a man who, in the past, has paid no federal income taxes, yet wants more tax breaks for people in his tax bracket. This is a man who refused to rent his apartments to black people--and was caught by the US Department of Justice doing just that and had to settle to avoid a criminal record--who claims he is loved by the African American community. This is a man who decries illegal aliens and then hires them to work for him. This is the man you want for president? I understand, Haydon, that you are an Australian and so might not know all of this. But everyone in the USA knows all of this and much, much more about this man. So no, the choice of a person who ain't perfect but has given her life to helping the public sector, versus this man, this small, small human being whom we all hope someday will do something for someone other than himself...well, that's not a choice. He's a joke who never meant to get here, got here, is stuck being here, is trying desperately to get out of being here, and he should be shown the door. 

Peter Gorman Haydon: Now for Hillary: Never met a war she didn't like, eh? Hmmm....after 9/11, President Bush and insane Dick Cheney went all out on Saddam Hussein as terrorist protectors. Everyone who know anything knew that Hussain, crazy as he was, was keeping the entire Middle East stable. He kept them stable because he was crazy enough to attack anyone and win. But we also knew that he especially hated the Saudis, and if Osama Bin Laden had touched foot on his soil he'd have been vaporized. Nonetheless, Bush/Cheney insisted he was part of the Bin Laden protectorate and chose to go to war there. A vote was taken in the US Senate. It was NOT a vote to go to war. It was a vote authorizing the US President to go to war PROVIDED HE COULD PROVE that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. Yes, Hillary voted to give the president, President Bush, that power. But Bush then ignored the glaring truth that Hussein had no weapons of destruction, outed a CIA agent because her husband had proved there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and then invaded. That destabilized the Mideast. On top of that, Hussein's Royal Guard and much of his military were disbanded and sent home--without money but with all the weapons fo war they could carry. That's ISiS backbone and Hillary had nothing to do with it .The Spring was going to happen no matter what the US did. So we did out best to outfit the freedom fighters so that they'd have a chance. It has not worked out so well. ISIS has had an odd mesmerizing effect on a lot of disillusioned kids in the US, Europe and the Mideast. I don't think Hillary or anyone could have anticipated the draw of cutting people's heads off on TV would have on the gullible and hopeless. Should we have left Gadaffi in power? Should we have not tried to take down Assad? No. These were monsters, killing their own. As was Hussein, with the Kurds. But we didn't go after Hussein for the Kurd massacres, did we? No. We went after him on the false pretense--the absolute lie--that he harborded terrorists and had weapons of mass destruction.

Hillary's work as Sec of State will be evaluated properly in 20 years. It will ask the question: Did her work to bring Iran to the table prevent them from obtaining and using nuclear weapons or not. That's going to be a huge question for a while. Right now, that looks like some of her best work: Bringing Iran to the table, kicking and screaming. As president, I don't think she'll enter a single war. I only have my belief systems on that. But looking at her 40 year record, from blemishes to cool shit, and her cool shit so far outweighs her blemishes that it's a non-topic. You brought up, Haydon, that things were rigged against Berni. Not true. In all those thousands and thousands of emails there were 7 or 9 that suggested things to undermine Berni, none of which were acted upon. The superdelegates have been in place for years and years: They were not put there to stymie Berni, as he knows. Now I did not want to spend all this time on this issue, Haydon, but you pushed me with your rant. I hope you suffered as much reading this as I did reading your rant.

One more time, Spirit in the real world

Someone wrote to me last night to say they'd been in Peru recently and had had several great experiences with ayahuasca there. She noted that her experiences were different from what she'd read in my book Ayahuasca in My Blood and was curious about why that would be. She also noted that she went into the future with ayahuasca and saw her future grandchildren (her kids are not old enough to have kids, she said) and wondered if it was possible that she had really seen her future grandchildren. So I wrote her back, and for some reason added a story I'm sure you've all heard before--and which probably changes a bit with each telling, though I try to keep the facts lined up truthfully. So here's what I wrote to her:

Dear X: I'm glad you had a wonderful experience in Peru. As you noted, your experiences were different from what you read of mine. I would not expect someone else's experiences to be like my experience. Why? Because I think we're dealing with real spirits, and so what they choose to teach or share with us is individual. If we were just dealing with the chemicals extracted from the plant and they somehow did not have spirit, then I would expect that people would have more similar experiences.

   As to your vision: I have no reason to doubt that you were allowed to see future grandchildren. Or at least POSSIBLE future grandkids. I have often been amazed--truly amazed--at the results of visions in the real world. One of my favorites is this: I had moved to Texas and nothing was working out well in terms of my journalism. Editors who hired me got fired, a couple of magazines hired me then changed formats and dropped me, that sort of thing. So I was with ayahuasca in the jungle at Julio's house and asked what the heck I could do to make things better because the lack of work was taking a toll on my kids. Ayahuasca told me simply, that when I got back to the US I would have the work. I would have to do the work, but so long as I worked at doing the work, I'd have enough work. (This is the short version, so forgive me if you saw this somewhere and it was slightly different.)

    Anyway, I got home and almost immediately a magazine Skunk, out of Canada, asked me to write for them, and I started a monthly column that I still have 12 years later. Then the Fort Worth Weekly changed me from a free lance writer to a staff writer with a weekly income, but allowed me to work from home. And I got some freelance work and so forth.

    BUTTTTT, in the magazine/paper business, you don't always get paid quickly. Sometimes you wait a few months. So I remained broke even with the work I was doing, and the electricity was about to be turned off in my house. I tried to explain to my kids, and especially Madeleina, who was probably 7 or 9 at the time, that it would be like camping in the house with candles for a few days or a week until I got money to get the electricity turned back on.

   She was not having any of it. She refused to believe that the spirits told me I'd have the work if I did the work and that they'd then allow me to not have money and have the electricity shut off. And on the day when the man came to the house to shut off the electricity she had an absolute tantrum in the driveway. I asked the guy if he could go to someone else's house and let me have 15 minutes to calm her down. He said he couldn't but then began looking at some bushes I had. They were ordinary bushes, so I knew he was stalling to let me calm my daughter down.

   While the man pretended to be interested in the bushes, I spoke with Madeleina, and a bright yellow DHL truck raced past out house. In a few minutes it had turned around and pulled into our driveway. The driver asked if I was Peter Gorman and then gave me an envelope. In it was a check for $1000 from a magazine for which I'd done some background work on a story about a year earlier.

   The thing was this: I was not owed a check, and it wasn't a regular newspaper style check. It was a bank check. I showed it to the guy who was going to turn of the electricity and asked him if I could have 10 minutes to go cash it. He let me and I cashed it and paid what I owed and we kept the electric on and Madeleina was all crazy with "I knew it! The spirits couldn't lie! I knew it, dad!" and that sort of thing.

   Well, obviously I was guilty so I went into the house and called the magazine and explained that they'd mistakenly sent me a check and that I'd used some of it but that I'd send the rest back and repay them the remainder when I could. But here's the thing: The people who do the paying at the magazine said they hadn't sent me a check so that there was nothing to send back. I told them it wasn't just a check but a bank check. They said I was crazy: No newspaper or magazine pays by bank check, ever. Which is true. Which was part of the reason the whole thing was so crazy.

    So they said they hadn't paid me. So I called up DHL to see who had given them the envelope to give me. And then it got really crazy, because DHL said they did not deliver to my neighborhood, and that there was no record of anything coming to me. I hung up and thought, well, maybe I was nuts and it was a FedEx truck instead, so I called them. They were very clear that nothing had gone to me via FedEx that day or any time recently.

   So a real bank check got delivered to me that had never been sent to me, by a company that did not do business in my very rural area (at the time). It was spirit all the way. I have always thought that the spirits heard Madeleina and got her message that if they promised me I'd have the work if I did the work then it stood to reason that I should get paid in time to not lose my electricity, which would make it difficult to do the work. So they manifested a truck, a driver, an envelope and a bank check that was legitimate. Now that's spirit for you in the real world.

Gorman's Jungle Juice--for Mosquito Bites to Shingles

Okay: Years and years ago I was taught a basic jungle after-sting remedy. It was good. I worked at it and made it better via 20 years or more of trial and error. The ingredients are largely the same, the proportions very different, but I think that had more to do with cost and availability at the time than anything else.
    Gorman's Jungle Juice After Sting works on eliminating pain from mosquito bites, spider bites, wasp stings, hornet stings, black fly stings. It eliminates the itch, the redness and the bacteria, so that you don't scratch and spread the bacteria. It's very good. No one should go to the jungle or woods without it.  Make me a millionaire, but you'll be happy you did, no kidding. And the people that taught me the medicine get their very healthy cut, so it's a good deal for everyone. (I am not so enthusiastic about its value for fire ant stings. It relieves the pain temporarily, but not permanently. I've used it three or four times after being stung by several hundred fire ants and cannot say it's the be-all, end-all for those. The last time was just this week, mowing heavy lawn and stepping into several fire ant patches I didn't see.)
   Now 14 months ago, a friend of mine bought the rights, for two years, to market this. He's a businessman, so better in his hands to get it to the sports outfitters around the country than mine. But I am allowed to still use it and give it to people to try.
   So here's the thing: A grown up friend of mine, about 60-years-old, has a mom whose 80 and last week got Shingles. Badly. She was suffering horribly and unable to sleep from the pain of her nerve endings going crazy from the autoimmune condition.
   So I was singing for her--okay, you can call it my prayers that I do for people--and it came to me that if the Jungle Juice worked on the nerve endings going nuts from mosquito, wasp, spider bites, etc, it might just work on the nerve endings going crazy from Shingles. I told him that, then gave him most of a quart of the medicine. He started on a small patch of her Shingles yesterday. "She told me it didn't hurt her, so I covered them all this morning," he told me just a few minutes ago. "And now she's sleeping like a baby and my girlfriend and I were able to sneak out of the house to go get dinner. Her Shingles are drying up and just before she went to sleep she said they were at a 3-to-4 pain level, rather than an 8-to-9 pain level. So I think it's working."
   Now that is fantastic news. So here's the deal: Do you know someone with Shingles at the moment? Are they suffering. I can't spend a fortune, but I can give out medicine to five or eight people to see if it works. If it does, I'll find someone to get me to put out more, for free. I'll pay shipping if you ain't got the dough. I never had Shingles, but I had two sisters who did when they were kids and it would be just wrong not to make this available if it works. We don't know yet if it works. We know it's working on ONE person, but that's all we--I--know so far. But since Shingles has no medicine with which to treat it, if this works, fantastic.
   So get in touch if you know someone who is suffering from this. Email me via my website, pgorman.com (the contact is there) and we'll go from there. I'll provide it free as long as I have it.

Ladies and Gentlemen! Adventurers of All Ages!

 

Ladies and Gentlemen! Adventurers of all Ages!

Announcing the 2017 Tour Dates for the Gorman Jungle Jaunts!

January 2017

Saturday, Jan 21, through the morning of Monday, Jan 30

February 2017

Saturday Feb, 4, through the morning of Monday, Feb 13

June 2017

Saturday, June 17, through the morning of Monday, June 26

July 2017

Saturday, July 1, through the morning of Monday, July 10

Looking for a dozen intrepid seekers for each of the Jaunts. Looking for people who want to see and be in deep Amazon jungle; people who want to experience ayahuasca and the Matses’ medicines Sapo and Nu-nu in their natural settings; people who don’t mind dirt under their fingernails if they get it because they were walking in high canopy jungle or in a primordial swamp or collecting wild foods or even making clay pots. I’m looking for people who want to collect the medicines they’ll use and watch their preparation, people who would rather participate than observe and be served. I want a small group of curious people, humans interested in their personal growth, in the spirit world, in the Northwest Amazon as it is today but may not be tomorrow. I want people who see bathing in the beautiful Aucayacu river as an opportunity, not as a poor substitute for a hot shower; people who view the chance to eat a few local magic mushrooms while traveling overnight on a flat-bottomed river boat on the Amazon as a once in a lifetime thrill, and see night canoeing in dugouts while searching for medicine frogs a rare and wonderful opportunity. In other words, I want anyone who sees living as a bit of a risk but one worth taking.

   And if you join, my team—which will outnumber the guests—and the medicines and the jungle and the rivers and I will all work our collective asses off to give you something you’ll hold onto for a very long time. The medicines will astound you, the people will thrill you, the jungle will amaze you. So what are you waiting for? Drop me a line at peterg9@yahoo.com or head over to the pgorman.com website for more info, photos, and an idea of the trip itinerary and costs.

Leftovers Anyone?

So I was cleaning up my fridge to make room for some fresh stuff--just in case anyone in my family stops by, I keep it full and fresh, and Italo did stop by yesterday, and then Chepa this morning--when I realized I was getting up there in left overs. This is what I have in the fridge, all good, nothing spoiled. I think I'm cooking for more than one...
    There was a nice bowl of hot sausage, peppers, onions, tomatoes, and garlic. Good over rice or in an Italian sausage sandwich. Put that in a hero (that's bread), cover with a little tomato sauce and mozzarella cheese, put that in the oven till the cheese is done and you're in New York heaven.
    There were two baked chicken legs. Good for eating cold, heated up, chopped up into a salad. Anyway you like 'em
    There were three roasted chicken thighs. Originally meant over couscous with spinach and a salad, they're now good for burritos, the meat cut off and sauteed with a homemade barbeque for a pulled chicken sandwich, or turned into a chicken salad sandwich with scallions, mayo, and celery. Or that same salad stuffed into an avocado half for an Avocado Queen.
    There is one pork chop left from last night, sauteed, then baked, with some good saurkraut.
    There are two pieces of chicken parmesana, both with good fresh mozzarella and a nice tomato sauce. Could be heated up and had for dinner.
    There are two half-ribeye steaks, because I just can't eat 12 ounces of meat at a sitting anymore and I bought two last week. Both are medium rare, topped with onions, and still look like they'd tickle your throat and please your taste buds no end.
    A small bowl of coleslaw, homemade, that I made to go with the first of those two ribeyes.
    So tonight, I'm making shrimp. I've got a pound of 10-15s, so about 14 shrimp. I'm gonna make couscous--pretty instant--with fresh garlic and then make it spanish tasting with achiote and cilantro. The shrimp will be sauteed in garlic and olive oil, with scallions, a diced red pepper, a diced poblano pepper, a diced tomato and a huge handful of spinach. I'll add some Peruvian achiote to that as well and I've got the shrimp shells on the stove--I already seared them blood red--in water with half-an-onion and a Roma tomato to make a bit of juice to keep the couscous moist.
   I'll probably have 5-6 shrimp. Which means that tomorrow I'll be putting 8 fantastic shrimp into a bowl in the fridge to sit alongside everything else in there. If any of it was rotten, I'd toss it. If it was even a littl bit off, I'd put it outside, in the ditch near the road for the birds and any other animals that want it. But when it's all still at the top of its game, I just can't bear to toss it.
   So if anybody is in the neighborhood, stop by for fresh shrimp or a smorgasbord of really good leftovers. Mange!

Feeling good again

I don't know why I was so crazy the other day, why I didn't fit into my own skin, couldn't breathe deeply, couldn't get relief from almost anything, but it seems to have passed. I'm feeling very strong today, feeling good. Just went to the store and forgot to buy hummingbird food so I just made some here--it's just sugar water, so not a problem, but I realized I was snubbing the hummingbirds by being so distracted by myself. Now they'll eat good again.
   I think human interaction and being needed is important to me. Whether it's needed as a dad or a writer or a jungle guide or friend, I get grounded by feeling useful, feeling that there is a spot for me. And I think sometimes I don't feel needed at all. If Madeleina's at school, my stories for the magazines are all caught up, no friends drop by--remember, we usually have a busy house with house guests, but have not had many the last couple of weeks--if Italo doesn't come by and Chepa doesn't stop by for coffee...well, I can go 36 hours without human contact beyond a store teller. And I think that's part of what had me so edgy, and I do mean edgy.
   Anyway, I'm okay now and hope it will last. Thank you all for putting up with my rant of a couple of days ago.

Not liking this feeling at all

Woke up this morning feeling a little bit off. Over the first few hours I was up, from 4 am till 7 am, that "little it off" moved into a shallow breathing, slightly frightened, slightly paranoid state. Now it's noon. I've eaten fruit, had water, been outside, took out garbage, showered, used my Peruvian medicines, and it's still there. I'm not liking this. Might be because I've simply been too alone recently, with Madeleina back at school and some family issues that have sort of occupied everybody else's time and left little time for dinner with me. Might be because I've caught up on all my work and am now faced with either getting back to trying to work on another book or simply being at loose ends. Whatever it is, I don't like it, and it's too hot to mow the lawn right now, though when I get to that I should start feeling better. Dang. I'm not liking this at all. Sorry for complaining, just had to reach out to you all because there are no other humans on my horizon this morning.

This is for you, and I mean, personally...

Okay, this is between you and me. And I’m talking to you. And you and me are in trouble.
There are about 300 million people in the USA who are not infants.
About 160 million of them are retired
That leaves 140 million to do the work.
85 million of those are in school,
Which leaves 55 million to do the work.
Of that there are 35 million employed by the federal government.
Which Leaves 20 million to do the work.
2.8 million of those are in the armed forces, preoccupied with killing terrorists,
Which leave 17.2 million to do the work.
Take from that the 15.8 million people who work for state and city governments.
That leaves 1.4 million to do the work.
On any given day there are 188,000 people in hospitals,
Which leaves 1.212 million to do the work.
Then there are 1, 211, 998 people in prisons and jails on any given day.
Which leaves just 2 people to do the work.
You and me.
And there you are, sitting on your ass, staring at your computer,
Reading jokes.
Nice, Real Nice.

PS: This is copied from someone much smarter and more clever than I am, but it was nearly impossible to resist posting here. And since I'm weak, I gave in to the temptation... PG

Quick thought on an opinion piece I read

Very short but good opinion piece in the Huffington Post today that asks the question of why are news outlets screaming for Hillary Clinton to disassociate herself from the Clinton Foundation--or to shut it down completely--because it looks like it has the potential for a conflict of interest with foreign donations, while the same news outlets are not calling for Donald Trump to disassociate himself from the Trump organization? Very valid. Hillary Clinton--love her or hate her--is simply held to a completely different standard than other people. She makes no money from the A-rated Clinton Foundation, no salary, nothing, and everyone who knows anything acknowledges that the foundation is doing wonderful work in difficult areas, including AIDS, water, and women's rights among other things. And she said she will separate from the foundation if she's elected president. Bill Clinton has chimed in that if Hillary is elected the foundation will not accept any foreign donations while she is president. Bill will also disassociate from the foundation. I'm not sure about Chelsea, whom many people claim makes a huge salary from the foundation but actually., like her parents doesn't make a cent.
The Trump Organization, is strictly a money-maker. And while Donald has railed about the Clinton Foundation taking money from Saudi Arabia (our political ally, by the way), he is not holding himself to task for taking many millions from...yes, Saudi Arabia. And a number of other Middle-Eastern countries. His son Donald, Jr. has said that the Trump Organization also gets a lot of money from the Russians; we know Trump is in deep debt (maybe not for a billionaire but at least to the tune of a few hundred million) to the Chinese, and so forth.
Here's the thing: If the Clintons step away from the Clinton Foundation, the people actually running it will continue to do so and the good work will continue to get done. If Trump does as he said he will and turns the Trump Organization over to his children, he'll still be making money from that Organization and that organization will continue to do business with China, Russia, Saudi Arabia and so forth--with all profits going to Mr. Trump and his family.
I agree with the writer of the op ed piece: It's time for Trump to be held to the same standard as Hillary Clinton.

Nice Phone Call from My Kid

Nice phone call from my oldest, Italo, this morning. It was about 7 AM so I figured it to be Chepa but no, it was Italo. He'd been over yesterday and got my riding mower working after two or three years and then attacked the one section of yard I have not gotten to since the rains stopped--the section over the bridge on the hill by the chicken coop--which, by the way, needs major work to be operational again!!!!
     Anyway, not to be outdone, I had a couple of glasses of wine (a cabernet named 337--not bad at all), then got the push mower going and redid the very front lawn--just done last week, but we've had a couple of night rains so it has been growing fast--and then the section of lawn between the telephone poles and the drainage ditch off the road. That last is a bit of a pain and I decided to get the whole 10' by 150' piece of it done.
   Anyway, before the mowing I started a simple tomato sauce: Lots of garlic in good olive oil, a large, freshly chopped red onion, a good vine-ripened tomato. Once that was done I tossed in a jar of organic tomato sauce (about $2.48, I think it's Bertolli), cracked black pepper and sea salt. I loostened it with organic vegetable broth and put it on low. Near the time I was ready to use it, I put in a good three or four tablespoons of grated parmesan cheese to give it a bite.
   Later, after the lawn mowing and another glass of that 337 Cabernet Sauvignon, I sliced 3 half- chicken breasts in half, so I had six portions of meat, then breaded them and sauteed them and seared them in a bit of that olive oil with garlic.
   I transferred them to a glass baking dish, covered them in the sauce and topped them with fresh mozzarella cheese and threw them in the preheated oven at 350 degrees.
  While they baked I made a good bunch of steamed broccoli florets and then a nice romaine salad with tasty blue cheese I crumbled into bits and served that with my balsamic vinagrette for me and  organic ranch for Italo and his daughter, my granddaughter, Taylor Rain. No starch.
   The meal was definitely tasty. I haven't made chicken parmesan for a few months now--just too hot in the summer for it, right?
  So we ate and watched some Seinfeld, then they left and I washed some dishes, read a bit of news on the net and went to bed.
   I managed to sleep pretty good--thank you, spirits--and got up at 6. Then Italo's call came at 7.
   "Hey pops, you okay?"
   "Sure, buddy, what's up?"
   "I just want to say thanks for that dinner last night. That was fucking delicious!"
   "You're welcome, no sweat."
   "The thing is, I woke up feeling so good because of it. My whole body feels great! Thanks, pops!"
  I think he and Sarah and Taylor eat pretty well at their house. I don't know if they go out of their way to make the broccoli or would add the fresh ingredients to the tomato sauce, or buy an organic tomato sauce or the fresh mozzarella. Most people wouldn't. The same meal would still taste great without that stuff. But with it, and then the salad as well, my kid's body felt so good he had to call me to let me know. And that's cool. The phone call was cool, but even more cool was being reminded that fresh food can do wonders for the human body.
    Thanks for the reminder, buddy.

Not sleeping a whole lot

Well, I'm not sleeping a whole lot lately. The last few years I tend to sleep at my desk or at a table, sitting up, then, when I wake enough to realize I'm sleeping--or close to it--I head for the couch I sleep on. I can grab an hour there, then back to the desk, then back to the couch. In the end I get maybe 2-3 hours of sleeping horizontally and the rest sitting up. Not great for keeping my ankles looking like kankles!
   But the last week, well, I've been getting up at 3:30 or so--last night was 2:37--and cannot go back to sleep at all. I've been making coffee at 4 AM and sometimes that works to focus my mind so that I can grab an extra hour--if I only have half a cup (and I make it half-regular/half-decaf) probably akin to the way add drugs cause you to focus.
  Think is, I don't know why I'm not sleeping. Even if it's half sitting up, I can generally put my head on my arms and go out quickly and pretty much stay sleeping for a couple of hours at a clip.
  And a night like last night, a 2:37 wake up, well that makes for a very long night. Darn it. Once in a while I'll take a shot of cough syrup or the over the counter sleep-eze caps, but I don't like being dependent on those so I keep that to once in a while. Aaarrrrrgggghhhhh! This not sleeping makes for huge bags under my eyes and my brain is not as quick as it should be.
  C'est la vie, but I'm not digging it.