12,000 Page Views!

Gee, I took a little summer Hi8tus and suddenly I hit 12,000 page views. No bragging though, since a Giff of 2  kittens picking each others nose will literally get millions of page views in a week.  -No! I will not post a nose picking link. If I do most of you will be out of here right now without finishing this post-. Still, if I close my eyes and hold my breath and pinch off my nostrils and ignore all evidence to the contrary, just before I slump over unconscious I feel like I have important things to say. When I come to I ignore the nose bleed and the ruptured capillaries in my eyes and carry on.

Oh, I am impressed with me, yes I am!

So what has been going on while I was lounging around trying to enjoy the summer? What? Egypt elected the Muslim brotherhood to run the government but fortunately, fortunately?, the military is still running the country instead (that's called a coup in the dictionary). Syria continues to slaughter their own people despite some hard core "tut tuts" from the international community. I'm also pretty sure that every email we send there ends with :( you'd think they would get the message . Mitt Romney wants to blow up some crap in Iran. It might be because Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu said we should, but I just think Mitt wants his very own war if he wins the presidency. W had 2 wars. Then Obama has been making due with one of W's thread bare used wars, he's such a democrat... lets face it, Mitt wants the best for himself. After a disaster and a mindless quagmire (over 100,000 total deaths in Iraq, over 3000 coalition deaths in Afganistan and still counting) Mitt needs a shiny new war he can call his own.  Then there was the terrorist attack on our embassy in Libya. At first we thought it was because of something stupid like an offensive video tape about Islam, but then we found out it was a preplanned terrorist attack instead. Looking good Middle East, doing things because you're evil is always more impressive than doing things because you're  stupid. You go revolutionaries! Middle East! Middle East!

On this side of the ocean the Supreme Court upheld Obama care with good justice Roberts ( surprise, surprise, surprise) casting the deciding vote. Poor judge Scalia of the pithy comparisons, will they be forcing us to buy broccoli next? No, they will be taxing us if we don't buy broccoli. See? It's different. Isn't it cool the way law works? Speaking of the law our last major military appropriations bill, the NDAA, had provisions in it that allows indefinite internment for Americans suspected of being terrorists. No trial, no lawyer, no habius corpus. No problem.  Even though Barack though it sounded a little unconstitutional ( because it totally is) he signed it anyway. Got to feed the troops, NDAA is an appropriations bill, and  the Prez gets some cool dictator powers?... Oh, well.  NDAA, Gitmo, and drone strikes Oh my! We're not in America anymore Dorothy. New world order! New world order!


Jerry Sandusky got the 30 to 60 years he deserved, but what about everyone else? It turned out that everybody but the cheerleaders at Penn State knew what Jerry Sandusky was doing for the last 15 years! So along with the Catholic Church, the Congress of the United States, The President, the Democratic Party, the Republican Party, Wall Street, the Supreme Court, every presidential candidate since 1980, an elite University has let you down. Thank god we have a rigorous free press to count on. You know the 4th estate wouldn't turn a senseless atrocity into a chance to bloviate for 2 or 3 weeks about... What? oops! sorry.

One evil/sad crazy person+ 100 round semi-automatic weapons. What could go wrong? 

Is it any wonder everyone just wants to party?

The Red Sox started slow... flirted with mediocrity?... traded the bad apples?... then stunk up the rest of the season? Who cares? If you are a Boston sports fan you have been wallowing in an abundance of riches. Time to let the other kids have some fun too. There is always hockey...oops!

 Kudos for the births in the small circle of people that tolerate me. Yeah births! Kids are awesome as long as they belong to other people. That way you have all kinds of reasons to party; births, christenings, birthday parties, graduations, weddings, blah, blah, blah, but you get to leave whenever you want and the kids stay behind. Woo Hoo! Of coarse trying to get your friends out of the house to party solo becomes problematic. They refuse (mostly) to use the duct tape option out of some misguided sense of decency or love for the child, but finding a quality masochist sitter to watch their little squalling mucus machines isn't always easy. 

Somehow I did manage to do a little partying these past few months. There was the Irish festival in Canton, there was a tasty Blues fest in Gloucester, A sweet little jazz fest in Portsmouth NH, and old standbys Lowell Folk Fest, Newport Folk Fest, and Newport Jazz Fest. I love me a fest. I even OD ed on crustaceans at the Rockland ME lobster festival. Good enough, but even nature helped me chill out this summer.

The best stuff is ofter what you miss.

Big sun spot activity this summer. So big that you were supposed to be able to see the Aurora Borialis down here in the USA. I saw them once up by Hudson Bay during my youth, but that was almost 30 years ago. So the night of August 8th found me in my trusty beach chair out at the end of Plum Island waiting for the big show. It was dark, the sky was loaded with stars, I had frosty adult beverages ready and absolutely nothing happened. Nothing but I got to be alone with myself for a change. No people, no diversions, no pressing matters.  Once you are out at the end of the island you are locked in until dawn, sweet. While I observed I though, then I though some more. I just let my mind wander off  on its' own. Let it run free for a change, let your mind run free! It's an awesome thing to do, as long as you aren't afraid of where it goes. I thought about unified field theory, I thought about  women, I thought about god, I thought about what god thought about women, I thought about what if god was a woman, I though about the way the world works, I thought about the nature of reality, for a brief moment I thought about space people, rock+roll, and green energy.  Finally it was morning, I saw no Aurora, and I was thinking mostly about breakfast. (seafood hash at Maggie's). I though about not getting what you want but getting what you need. Stones rule! No Aurora, no problem.

Less than a week later I was back at the beach with my chair and more beverages waiting on the Perseid meteor shower. Jackpot! At about 3 AM, after a slow start, pop! pop! pop! they started zipping by every couple of minutes. Bang zoom baby! mother nature was putting on a show.

Insert Disney theme music here.

I'm not a big outdoors man, I don't like bugs, dirt, camping, or being cold, but Wow! light up the night sky, or find yourself a spot that gives you the illusion of being one with nature - did he just say, "one with nature."? - and you will have just about the best high in the history of highs. Alcohol, drugs, or glitter covered strippers will be forever ruined for you... and it will be better than worth it. ( in the interests of sexual equality you my insert -well oiled cabana boy - for stripper in that last sentence. If you are gay go with both or neither I don't really care. Actually shouldn't "stripper" work for everyone?) I'm just saying.

Other stuff happened this summer. Dinner with friends, lots of work, beers at the ale house, a couple of trips to see Mom, fish chowder at the Causeway, my brothers birthday party in CT, "Breaking Bad" the last season, the most unpleasant political campaign since the other ones, breakfast with my nephew... man it just goes on and on. How about the restored version of -Casablanca-? On the big screen? With hot popcorn and an theater full of fans? Wow! I can think of tons of things I could legitimately complain about, I'm sure you could too, after all a stubbed toe still hurts like hell even when across the globe whole countries are burning, but don't you owe it to yourself to keep things in perspective?

...and it's pretty easy to be a grasshopper around here.

So keep it simple. Every day and in your cooking. Here comes 4 ingredients that will yield the single best thing you can make on a stove top at home. This is not fancy or expensive, it is just the best period.

Yeah, I know we already did Sunday gravy last year, but this isn't Sunday gravy. It also isn't close to being authentic, it's been making the rounds on the Internet for a couple of years, and it struck me as just wrong when I first read about it. So I am going to be the first one to tell you that despite the fact that you will make millions of other tasty things in your kitchen you will never make anything that tastes better. It is just marinara sauce. God's own marinara sauce.

Any time you cook a recipe that only has  five ingredients or less always buy the best possible ingredients you can. So you will need 2  28 once cans of crushed tomato's, 1 stick of butter, Mmmm! butter! 1 Large onion, and salt. You are using canned tomato's because  in 10 out of 12 months a year they have better flavor than fresh, you are using butter, Mmmm butter! because that is what the recipe calls for, you only have to peel the onion and cut it in half, and you know how much salt you like.

1. Put the first 3 ingredients in  pot with a healthy pinch of salt.
2. Simmer for 45 minutes.
3. Add more salt if you need to.
4. Remove the onion.
5. Use with pasta or in other recipes.

Now this is about cooking, and in a second hand way about eating, so feel free to modify this recipe any way you want. The only thing you shouldn't do is switch out the butter, Mmmm butter! Butter, Mmmm butter! turns this sauce into an umami bomb. I tastes like tomato, it tastes of onion, but it is an absolute party in your mouth because of the butter, Mmmm, butter! I know, I was surprise too. Wouldn't it taste wrong? Wouldn't it separate in the fridge? Wouldn't olive oil be healthier and more authentic? No, no, and who cares? This sauce is so simple and so good that if you dump some on a bowl of ravioli and watch yourself some Perseid meteor shower you will know your place in the universe and it will be a very good place.

There will be more posts in the near future. I'd say "sorry for the delay" but I'd be lying. Best summer ever? No, but definitely the best summer since the last one.