Sailing Through Life

If life is a river, then I've been drifting in a really slow part of it for awhile. I heard about some pretty rough white water up ahead, with dangerous rocks that are treacherous to maneuver, but so far I haven't hit it. Still, it makes me nervous so I pretty much wear my life preserver all the time.

Sailing through Maine for the past 12 years has been relatively easy, in fact almost boring. But hey, boring is way better than when I was moored in Washington, D.C. for 30 years and had to carry a baseball bat when I walked my dog at night. Oh right, I'm in a boat. Well, the boat is just a metaphor.

Early days on the river are a distant memory, and since my parents were at the helm it barely mattered what I did. I was just a member of the crew. I did what I was told and they fed me. If there were crocodiles in the water, I never knew about them.

As the Captain of my own ship for quite some time, I've  successfully avoided trouble spots without capsizing. But you never know when you'll enter a falling rock zone, or when bad people lurking on the river banks with bows and arrows aimed right at you are ready to strike. (I never got over seeing Deliverance.)

Today looks like another easy sail, but you never know. An iceberg could be just around the next bend. (Also Titanic.) Or a sea monster, or just a rowdy party boat full of Deadheads on LSD. Despite calm waters, attention must be paid.

Who Dat?

I don't understand all the bellyaching about face masks. What's the big deal? No matter what the rules are in the future, I intend to wear one in public for the rest of my life. I actually like it. Add a pair of sunglasses and a hat and I'm some sort of superhero.

Face masks make interacting with the world so much easier. There's no unnecessary chit-chatting with strangers and shopkeepers about the weather. (Yes it is very hot, or very cold, or a beautiful day, I agree, thanks for pointing that out.) No makeup is required -- I can can just go out "as is" and not fear running into anyone who matters. And who knows -- maybe, although it's unlikely, no coronavirus germs can enter my respiratory system. 

What's not to like?

The Need to Be Normal

I've recently begun posting some of my art on a Facebook page called Maine Artists. It's fun seeing the work of thousands of other artists posting their work on the same page. Naturally, any member of the group is able to "like" any image and also post comments.

It's there that I found with absolute certainty that my art is not "normal." While my images may get 17 likes, others might get 625 or 875. Those are usually very realistic depictions of the typical Maine landscape: Crashing surf, rocks, clouds. Lighthouses. Or boats -- for some reason rowboats -- in a harbor, nestled against a dock. Or pine trees and lobster shacks. 

While I have painted quite a few water scenes myself, most of my subject matter arises from inside my head instead of from outside in nature. This lack of what is generally expected and appreciated in a Maine painting causes me to be not very successful at selling my art. Still, I have a good time making it. And when someone does buy a piece, I'm happy to have found a kindred spirit.

Undeniably, being normal pays better. And not just in art, but in almost every endeavor outside of the entertainment industry. So all day we toe the line, dress appropriately, speak in low tones and never make waves, then come home at night and turn on the TV to watch all those daring celebrities who get paid to color outside the lines. 

Whoopi's Famous Chicken Recipes

Whoopi sure has come a long way since she wrote her Jewish American Princess Fried Chicken recipe (shown above) that appeared in the 1993 charity cookbook, Cooking in the Litchfield Hills. She's finally gotten in touch with her black roots and made the recipe much simpler. The new streamlined recipe appears below:

Ghetto Fried Chicken

Several large cardboard boxes

With a few friends, storm into a Colonel Sanders Fried Chicken restaurant. Fill boxes with as much fried chicken as y'all can carry. Leave quickly, run home and enjoy!

Alexa, Lock the Doors

America, land of the free and home of the brave, is a thing of the past. Now people are getting cancelled for saying that other people shouldn't be cancelled. Like Andrew Yang, a loser candidate for president in the last election, saying that Joe Rogan, the podcaster who is the latest winner of the the stone-throwing lottery, is not a racist. Uh-oh Andrew, watch out -- they're coming for you!

Is today the day the Gestapo comes to my house? After all, I've said some pretty rough stuff in the privacy of my own home. But is it really private? Could there be cameras hidden somewhere? Oh well, at least I don't have one of those Alexa machines.  

Looking for Racism in All the Wrong Places

Reading the New York Times is almost sickening. Thus I do it only once a week, on Sundays when we get the paper to do the crossword puzzle in the magazine. But sometimes, usually during breakfast the next day, I glance at the hysterically liberal attempts at news reporting that fill its pages and I'm always sorry.

Today I read an article about how the sport of skiing is "too white." The mountains must diversify! How to get more "people of color" to the slopes is now a big deal among lefty lunatics taking a break from trashing Trump. 

To entice more low-income and non-skiers, especially "brown and black people," many resorts are lowering their prices for their day and yearlong passes. They worry about looking "racist." Could it be that the cost of buying skis and all the rest of the gear --the boots, the poles, the goggles, the snow pants -- and then getting to the mountains, especially if you don't have a car and have to fly -- is prohibitive to many people regardless of color? 

It's funny that 78% of NBA players are black but nobody seems to mind, including the editors at the Times who rarely, if ever, report on that phenomenon staring us all in the face. The team owners, and even most of the fans, insist that blacks are simply better basketball players. 

The Chinese Food Olympics

Watching the Olympics on TV, which my fair-minded husband insists on doing, is like eating Chinese food. It tastes great but is loaded with bad things. Cornstarch seems to be the leading ingredient in most of the sauces, and in my favorite hot and sour soup. The next day the refrigerated leftovers are like prehistoric fossils preserved in amber. There's also enough salt and MSG to trigger a heart attack or at least a high-blood pressure event.

But it all tastes so good! It's fun to get Chinese take-out! (Unless it's like that restaurant on Long Island when I was growing up that turned out to be using cats in a few of their most popular dishes.) The current winter Olympics in Beijing are like that. Such fun! But if you dig a little deeper than what's shown on TV, you'll learn about the dark underbelly of the government-controlled games.

Most heinous is the treatment of those athletes who get a positive result on one of their twice-daily Covid tests. They are immediately whisked away to an "isolation center" akin to a Motel 6. The athletes are literally locked inside tiny rooms not even big enough for them to do any exercising, which is key to staying strong. They are served the same three crummy meals a day, every day, sometimes for weeks. They become physically ill and emotionally depleted at a time when they need to be in peak condition if they are freed in time to participate in their event.

This is how the heartless leaders of China, and by their silence the members of the International Olympic Committee, are treating the world's best athletes. You'd think at the very least they could send in some moo shu pork with a few pancakes and some wonton soup. 

My Contribution to Big Pharma

What they think of Covid in another galaxy.

Feeling crummy with a slight cough and a headache, and having had dinner last night with someone who seemed pretty sick although he said it was a reaction to a shingles shot he got the day before (even though his wife just got over Covid a week ago), this morning my husband and I took home Covid tests. It was my first, so I was pretty nervous about it. But after reading the accompanying literature I realized there was nothing to worry about since no matter what, it was almost certain to be wrong. 

For example, if you didn't stick it up your nose far enough, it could give you no information. And if you didn't twirl the swab around for exactly 15 seconds inside each nostril, you could get a false negative. (Or a false positive.) Then you had to put the swab into a tube and do some more twirling around while squeezing it, or was it swirling? Yes, it was definitely twirling inside the nostril and swirling in the tube. Then you had to flick it. With all the squeezing and twirling and swirling and flicking, I became quite rattled.

Then there was the part where you had to put in exactly four drops of the liquid, no more and no less, into the test kit well. Any less would give you a false negative. Or maybe positive, I forget. And if you read the results sooner than 15 minutes or later than 30 minutes, it could result in a false positive. (Or was it a negative.)

If you drank too much coffee beforehand, or not enough, the results could be invalid. If the phone rang during the test, you'd have to start over. And if you coughed during the procedure, all bets were off. 

Mitch and I both turned out to be negative. Maybe. But to be certain, we should take another test. Not sure why we would since it says right on the box that the test has not been FDA approved. Anyway, somebody made a cool twenty bucks on us today.

Whoopi's Two-week Vacation

The head honchos at ABC decided to punish Caryn Johnson, a.k.a. Whoopi Goldberg, for her clueless comment regarding racism and the Holocaust by giving her two weeks off. More than a punishment for her, it's time enough for the story to die down and for the public to think they did something about it.

How best can Whoopi spend her time off? Maybe she could do some reading about the Jewish religion. She could even go to Israel. Or Brooklyn. Or take a trip to Washington, D.C.'s Holocaust Museum. 

She could learn how to make real bagels. Or gefilte fish. Or kugel -- or at least find out what kugel is.

Better yet, she could do the paperwork required to change her last name from "Goldberg" to "Cushion."

The Ultimate Cultural Appropriator

Whoopi with her family members killed in the Holocaust, NOT!

Whoopi Goldberg is not Jewish. I bet you anything she eats blueberry bagels and thinks she's eating a bagel.

Her parents were both black and she grew up in the projects in New York City. Her birth name is Caryn Elaine Johnson. Her father was a Baptist minister.

She claims that Goldberg is "her name." She says she "feels Jewish." She doesn't go to temple or know anything about the history of the Jews, but she "likes the holidays."

Whoopi wears her hair in dreadlocks, like the African she is. 

She recently said that the Holocaust was not about race because the Nazis and the Jews are both white peoples.

She is truly an asshole. She named herself Whoopi after the whoopee cushion. That at least makes sense because she is just a big fat fart.

Crazy Times in Toon World

The Harvey Weinstein of Toon World?

In honor of Women's History Month this coming March, the brains behind the Disney empire decided to get Minnie Mouse up to speed. Enough with the dress and heels! So designer Stella McCartney was hired to upgrade Minnie's look in celebration of women everywhere -- and transgenders of course -- who don't wear dresses anymore. Stella created the black and blue pantsuit shown at left, suitable for Hillary Clinton although in a much smaller size. 

Okay, fine, I get it. Personally I haven't worn a dress since the last wedding I attended, and I can barely remember the names of the betrothed couple. Still, what's the point? Minnie Mouse is a cartoon! Do we now need to "woke" up even fictitious characters? 

And if we're gonna start changing iconic images, how about putting some pants on Donald Duck? The guy is naked from the waist (or where a waist would be if he had one) down, wearing only a sailor's shirt and hat. Yet he hangs around schoolyards and in elementary school classrooms. Is he exposing himself to little kids? Constantly, how could he not?

Mickey Mouse at least has the decency to put on a pair of shorts, and girlie ones at that. I say someone should get menswear designer Tom Ford to man-up Mickey, at least with some long pants.