Heard a faint tapping at my door late last night and
"Ding-Dong Ditch"
The Cucumber and Zucchini abandonments have begun!
LOL!
The half-a-dachshund sized zucchini destine to be both grated and sliced for future moist cake-like zucchini bread, and deep fried and parmed for dipping in marinara.
The huge looks-like-an-oversized-marital-aid cucumber soon to be sliced with onions, vinegar, sugar, water and a touch of salt for immediate gratification in the form of the omni-present refrigerated bowl of cucumbers and onions.
This is a summer mainstay in Indiana.
I think there may actually be a law.
An earlier brunch this week with Chris and Don . Sandwiches from Almost Home and Political Chat for Hours.
Hard to beat good food, great company and politics.
James and Brenden by early this morning with breakfast sandwiches...installing a dimmer switch and showing me his new ride...saying
"...this is my 'Cuda, Mom"
in reference to a late friend of our's 1972 Hemi-Cuda- years ago.
James' new baby is an older Camaro. The interior is newly restored and perfect...all it needs is paint, now.
"Maybe Purple Haze"
Which, according to the Great Gazoogle...will look like this.
He has always found the most amazing muscle cars!
Since he was old enough to drive them.
Barn finds. Craig's List. Buddies cars.
He would seek them out, and then buy them, fix them up and make them awesome again.
And he took time to take me for an "0h-mi-god hang onto your ass" ride through a back-road straightaway this morning. I love the feel of these older models.
The suck you back into your seat, tired squealing on the take off, throaty rumble of the engine that announces itself long before you even see the car.
Perfect for he and Nicole's date-nights.
And no baby car-seat in it....
EVER.
~laughing~
So, I avoided a huge crisis...or at least a shock of my lifetime today.
John and I planning a Mid-July Adventure...small trip and getaway. Both of us checking the sights...securing hotel reservations...you know the drill.
When we tossed around the idea of an in room hot tub for one night.
And both went to work on this additional quest.
In the middle of the afternoon just as we were having very little luck with our search I managed to find one near the area we were staying...on Priceline.
We discussed it and went ahead with the reservations.
Since it was a well known named hotel I didn't think twice about it. Even thought there was no picture of the room.
Executive Suite
That is how it was billed.
Later I decided to call the physical hotel and ask if I could get an idea of the room, accessibility and such...and sooooooooooooooooo glad I did.
I knew maybe we were in trouble when he answered my questions with
"No there is no mini-fridge, microwave or coffee maker in this room."
Isn't this an Executive Suite...this was billed as one.
And certainly priced as one.
"Yes...this would be one of our Themed Rooms"
(...unless you are 18 and drunk...this is never a good sign...)
Then he sent a picture of Our Executive Suite.
Apparently the Executive they were talking about was Fred Flintstone.
(...I can laugh now...because they managed to change us to a really nice room that normal people wouldn't GASP when they walked into...before...this wasn't even a little funny, okay?)
Our Executive Suite was a Cave themed room...complete with tiger striped carpet, faux zebra furnishings and those Flintstone curtains...with a hot tub tucked in a cave like grotto in a corner.
It looked a lot like I expect the Jungle Room looks at Graceland.
No...just no.
Not even sure that candles everywhere would redeem this.
Executive Suite during the Stone Age, I am guessing.
(update...after a laughter-filled discussion and "Well, we were looking for an adventure" and possibly because we are BOTH a bit crazy...the cave-themed room is back on...and the poor hotel manager was rolling his eyes so hard you could hear them over the phone...it will be memorable...besides...yeah...hot tub...)
After all...anyone can stay in a nice normal hotel room...lol!
Anyway...
This Week's Book:
The book that lifted Anthony Bourdain out of the New York restaurant scene...and into our living rooms.
Since his untimely death, I must admit having started the CNN Parts Unknown Series back at Episode 1, and am doing a re-watch of the seasons. Nothing binging.
Just an episode each night.
What a loss.
~sigh~
About this book. I love the irreverent voice he gives his writing in this balls-to-the-wall expose of behind the restaurant scenes...and no...I will never ever ever order the fish on a Tuesday again.
Really.
Giving incredible life to his characters (co-workers) Stephen and Adam Last-Name-Unknown, among others...you can see them...smell them...laugh along with them.
Sous chef practical jokes are brutal!
Check out the one about the missing sous chef, saran-wrap, pig's blood and the walk in freezer.
Who knew that most of the sous chefs, runners and even some of the chefs were actually mobsters, ne'er-do-wells, and pirate-types.
I can see why this book launched an amazing career.
Excellent, gritty, read.
The Movie of the Week:
It is a Dinosaur Movie, okay, people?
It isn't War and Peace.
It isn't factual or a documentary or exist for anything more that entertainment.
So just enjoy, and don't dissect it!
A return to the previous Jurassic World (now overgrown and destroyed) theme park as a volcano threatens to make the un-extinct dinosaurs...er...extinct again.
A couple of great cameos by Ian Malcombe as he testified in front of Congress that we definitely need to let them go extinct again.
(...getting chomped by a T-Rex years ago may provide a certain degree of prejudice here...I'm thinking....)
Claire and "I'm an action figure now" Owen team up with Zia (vet) and Franklin (I.T. Guy) to SAVE the dinos after Congress rejects the idea to save them.
Franklin is hilarious. Love this character!
But it is never that easy...
There is an early plot twist as we learn the late Hammond had an estranged brother Benjamin (played beautifully and credibly, if a bit short lived, by James Cromwell)
Benjamin apparently lost his beloved daughter in a car wreck during the beginning of the Jurassic Park days...and used the new found technology to CLONE a replica of her...which he calls his grand-daughter.
No wonder John Hammond was a bit miffed.
And En Gen has nothing on the bad guys who want to get the dinosaurs off the island this time...to sell them and the technology to the highest bidder.
Like the Indominus Rex of Lost World there has been a whole lot of gene-splicing going on, too...
Creating a whole new bad-as-hell critter.
The Indoraptor
There is a scene with this monster and Benjamin's grand-daughter (in her room at night) that...if your young children watch it...they will have nightmares until they are in their 20's.
And there is lava.
Lots of lava.
Lots and lots of lava.
And apparently whoever came up with the lava scenes in the film really didn't understand the heat involved with REAL lava...as we see it coming within inches of people and their clothes and hair NOT spontaneously going up in flames...and our hero Owen actually having a hand dip in the stuff during a fall and scramble...and miraculously...he still has an intact hand.
Yeah...it is a dinosaur movie, okay?
A lot of action. A lot of teeth. A lot of bad guys. The Return of Blue...our favorite velociraptor.
One scene where they are in a compound with Bad Guys shooting at them, Indominus Rex trying to Eat them, Earthquakes from the eruptions, and lava dripping through the roof I thought to myself
"A Sharknado...all this scene needs is a Sharknado..."
Seriously.
Remember the car-type globes from Jurassic World?
At one point while trying to escape the magma our heroes bounce over a waterfall into the water below...kind of Extreme Zorbing.
All in all...it was a great movie.
The bad guys get eaten.
The good guys win...sort of.
The Dinosaurs get freed in The States, assuring us there will be a sequel.
And the creators made a metric butt-load of money.
It's a Win-Win.
Tell you who is NOT Winning...
Trump and Miller and Sessions decided to use their own policy to subvert an immigration law and separate children immigrating from Mexico from their parents...placing a couple thousand of them behind chain link cages that resemble dog kennel runs. These weren't border hoppers...they didn't swim across the Rio or pay some coyote to smuggle them into the USA. They weren't drug cartel, MI-13 members or mules.
These were families seeking a better life for their kids.
Seeking asylum.
Because that is WHAT America used to be.
So yeah...now we are know for Kids in Cages.
I'm just so proud.
Actually, I am. Of all the Resisters. Because after all of this broke...and once Trump realized that nobody but his slack-jawed ignorant base was buying the bullshit that the Democrats caused this...
And primarily because little Latino children in cages crying were terrible "Optics" politically only months away from Midterms the Orange Idiot quickly issued one of those EO's he is so fond of...and stopped any future separations.
Let us review.
This was essentially like setting your house on fire...deliberately.
Waiting until it was blazing high.
Then phoning the Fire Department, yourself...
Afterwards telling everyone how YOU saved your house by calling the fire department, and how brave and what a hero you are.
Got it.
SMH.
And waiting...and waiting....and waiting.
I'll tell you what, though...
Whereas, John Mueller may be this guy.
Attorney Michael Avenatti is more like THIS GUY
He may be a Merc with a Mouth...
But he is OUR Merc with a Mouth, okay?
Doing pro-bono legal work at the border to get these kids back with their parents.
The ACLU has already started a class action suit.
and Midterms...you're joking right?
Some of those assholes won't be able to get positions as dog-catchers after we are through.
And THAT is the point.
Because photos weren't bad enough...audiotape was released from one of the compounds where some of the very young children are detained...and there are 9 minutes of listening to sobbing and wailing children begging for their Papi and Mamita.
Dem. Rep. Ted Leiu played this on the floor (yesterday) loudly through speakers to all the Congress Members, with GOP Rep. Karen Handel attempting to stop it calling it Lack of Decorum.
He did not stop and the recording went on.
Decorum...when it is okay to separate tiny children from their parents and put them in cages...but you don't quite have the stomach to listen to the resulting terrified kids.
GOP...and anyone who still supports this President and his Administration...and I mean this sincerely...
Fuck You.
See all of you at the Midterms and in 2020.
We're cleaning the House...and Senate.
And because, apparently, there just wasn't enough sadness this week-
Koko died yesterday.
~sigh~
More Anon.
