Bernie WON Wyoming...Delegate Count...Grands...and Preparing for Virtual Naples

Nice turnout in Wyoming and yes...this does make 8 out of 9 States we've won recently!!!

And I did get a small laugh out of Niobrara County

Where Hillary got 0 votes and Bernie got 2 (count 'em) two votes. Envisioning two people showing up to caucus for Bernie.

"Nope...it's jes me an Earlene, here...but we both took a real hankerin' to that Bernie feller..."

That county proving beyond any doubt that your INDIVIDUAL vote really does matter!   Yes...we won Niobrara County!  Thanks...both of you!

Anyway...THANKS, Wyoming...and setting our sights on New York!

And for those keeping track

Slowly returning to normal from last week's crash and burn. Tried coffee again this morning. Only made it through about half a cup...but OMG...Coffee again!
It's getting there.

Missed out on my grand-daughters play last night...but was thrilled this morning to receive pictures and a video of them from James and Nicole!

James, Kaylee and Hannah

With Hannah Front and Center and Kaylee-Bug on Guitar with Shades!!!!

James is soon to accompany Kaylee to her Daddy-Daughter Dance :)

Nicole and Nancy and I, making plans for next week's Brunch and Coffee, Trip to Cox's Nursery and the planting of the rest of the garden together!

 Can't wait!

So...moving forward in Mayes' Year in the World, and beginning next week in Virtual Naples (Napoli).  Preparing my itinerary of things to  see, taste, try, explore, buy, and read today.

The City of Naples (of course)

Napoli Espresso (...supposedly the best coffee on the planet...per Mayes)

Explore Vesuvius

Explore Pompeii

Learn a bit of the Street Italian (phrases and gestures) Where else but Napoli?

Explore the Vemero District.

Read Virgil. See his tomb.

Learn to Tango  (?) seriously...we'll see. ~laughing~

Learn to make Arancini, Gelato and Pizza Margherita

Research Saint Lorenzo  (Patron Saint of Cooks/The Kitchen)

Buy a Corno

See Santa Chiara

Share the recipe for Grilled Peppers (Napoli Style)

Read The Gallery by John Home Burns

See Villa Reale Park

Learn to make Cannoli and Sfoglitelle  (both pastries)

Buy (and eat) Tiramisu Gelato!

So tomorrow we begin three weeks in  (Virtual) Napoli!

(A slight change in Itinerary as I am going to do Sicily when it is much much hotter outside..not early Spring.  What fun is sipping chilled Limocello when it is NOT 99 degrees outside? )

More Anon!

An Afternoon Shot...Ginjinha

So time to try the unofficial "drink" of Portugal.  Ginjinha.

Mine has been aged only a month. The best results are suppose to be at 3 months and every month thereafter...so this is rather young yet. 

In Portugal, Ginjinha can be bought for 1 Euro  (about $1.14) a shot.

Check out the video.

https://youtu.be/CstmsWrtm6E

It is ordered with or without  (fruit) and if you order with...two of the brandy soaked cherries will be added to the bottom  of your glass. After you drink the shot you eat the alcohol infused cherries. This can also be purchased in an all chocolate shot glass. To eat after the cherries.

As you can see, my Ginjinha is still very light in colour. As it ages further it takes on a deeper darker colour and the cherries themselves get quite greyish.

I decided to try mine "with".

and even helped myself afterwards with a bite of Dark Portuguese Chocolate for the full experience. Remember I told you the Dark Portuguese Chocolate was quite bitter. The Ginjinha balances that perfectly.

The taste was like a very sweet dark chocolate covered cherry cordial with a kick! 

I can see why this would be the perfect after dinner shot. 

The recipe is below. This makes about 2 cups. (aprox. 16 shots)

Ginjinha

1 cup tart cherries.

1 cup simple sugar syrup.

1 cup good brandy

pinch of cinnamon

Add cherries to brandy. Heat simple syrup to just before a boil and pour into glass jar over brandy and cherries. Add a pinch of cinnamon and seal jar. Shake. 

Let age for at least 3 months. 



And a very nice way to end our Virtual Portugal Adventure!

                                             Ginjinha in Chocolate Cups

Lord Byron...Childe Harold's Pilgrimage...Sintra

On a cloudy day the great castle sits, at  the top of the mountain, like something from a fairytale or dream.
Today we discover Sintra. The town that so enchanted Lord Byron, in 1809, his poetry made it known world-wide.

https://youtu.be/-VZ0cqDJIfs

Childe Harold's Pilgrimage to Portugal

XIV.

On, on the vessel flies, the land is gone,
And winds are rude in Biscay’s sleepless bay.
Four days are sped, but with the fifth, anon,
New shores descried make every bosom gay;
And Cintra’s mountain greets them on their way,
And Tagus dashing onward to the deep,
His fabled golden tribute bent to pay;
And soon on board the Lusian pilots leap,
And steer ‘twixt fertile shores where yet few rustics reap.

 XV.

Oh, Christ! it is a goodly sight to see
What Heaven hath done for this delicious land!
What fruits of fragrance blush on every tree!
What goodly prospects o’er the hills expand!
But man would mar them with an impious hand:
And when the Almighty lifts his fiercest scourge
‘Gainst those who most transgress his high command,
With treble vengeance will his hot shafts urge
Gaul’s locust host, and earth from fellest foemen purge.

                      XVI.

What beauties doth Lisboa first unfold!
Her image floating on that noble tide,
Which poets vainly pave with sands of gold,
But now whereon a thousand keels did ride
Of mighty strength, since Albion was allied,
And to the Lusians did her aid afford
A nation swoll’n with ignorance and pride,
Who lick, yet loathe, the hand that waves the sword.
To save them from the wrath of Gaul’s unsparing lord.

XVII.

But whoso entereth within this town,
That, sheening far, celestial seems to be,
Disconsolate will wander up and down,
Mid many things unsightly to strange e’e;
For hut and palace show like filthily;
The dingy denizens are reared in dirt;
No personage of high or mean degree
Doth care for cleanness of surtout or shirt,
Though shent with Egypt’s plague, unkempt, unwashed, unhurt.

Poor, paltry slaves! yet born midst noblest scenes—
Why, Nature, waste thy wonders on such men?
Lo! Cintra’s glorious Eden intervenes
In variegated maze of mount and glen.
Ah me! what hand can pencil guide, or pen,
To follow half on which the eye dilates
Through views more dazzling unto mortal ken
Than those whereof such things the bard relates,
Who to the awe-struck world unlocked Elysium’s gates?

 XIX.

The horrid crags, by toppling convent crowned,
The cork-trees hoar that clothe the shaggy steep,
The mountain moss by scorching skies imbrowned,
The sunken glen, whose sunless shrubs must weep,
The tender azure of the unruffled deep,
The orange tints that gild the greenest bough,
The torrents that from cliff to valley leap,
The vine on high, the willow branch below,
Mixed in one mighty scene, with varied beauty glow.

 XX.

Then slowly climb the many-winding way,
And frequent turn to linger as you go,
From loftier rocks new loveliness survey,
And rest ye at ‘Our Lady’s House of Woe;’
Where frugal monks their little relics show,
And sundry legends to the stranger tell:
Here impious men have punished been; and lo,
Deep in yon cave Honorius long did dwell,
In hope to merit Heaven by making earth a Hell.

XXI.

And here and there, as up the crags you spring,
Mark many rude-carved crosses near the path;
Yet deem not these devotion’s offering—
These are memorials frail of murderous wrath;
For wheresoe’er the shrieking victim hath
Poured forth his blood beneath the assassin’s knife,
Some hand erects a cross of mouldering lath;
And grove and glen with thousand such are rife
Throughout this purple land, where law secures not life!

 

https://youtu.be/9N0sUU_0Z9s

 

 Actually Sintra, tiny town that it is, sports three large castles.
Castelo dos Mouros, the Pena National Palace and the Sintra National Palace. 

The Castle of the Moors

The Pena National Palace

 

and The Sintra National Palace

Also in the Center of Sintra lies perhaps the most interesting structure of all. Located in the Quinta da Regaleira Estate...The Masonic Initiation Wells.

https://youtu.be/mhdItKFdC-E

 

 

Two matching towers and wells were built in 1904. The wells were never used for water, however. 

The walls and walkways inscribed with symbolism from The Knights Templar.

The "Inverted Towers" or "Initiation Wells", as they are known, are built in circles with landings between each ala Dante's Divine Comedy. They are divided into the Nine Circles of Hell. The Nine Levels of Purgatory and The Nine Skies. 

The Bottom floor reveals a Compass over a Knights Templar Cross.

One can only imagine the Initiation and Rituals that transpired here...very little is left written to explain their use.

Tomorrow, I will decant the Ginjinha that has been transforming into the lovely tart-cherry flavoured liquor omni-present in Portugal, and then we will bid Portugal, Tchau 

(Portuguese for Goodbye)

CNN: Clinton News Network? How DARE you. And MORE.

Yeah...yeah...this was suppose to be the continuation of Sintra Portugal with fairy-tale castles in the sky and poetry by Lord Byron...but we'll get to all that tomorrow and the weekend...okay?

So...I've dealt with the MSM blackout pretty well. I enjoy TYT Network nightly and follow several Bernie Sander's Groups. I have managed to ignore a lot of the MSM  bias...while others have been referring to CNN as the Clinton Network News for months now. I realize that Time Warner has a LOT invested in backing "their horse", and that is why even when Bernie wins the last 6 out of 7 States...they still fall back with an article how Hillary expected it...and it is no big deal.

So in the past couple days when Hillary (who is reeking desperation at this point) has attacked Bernie's competency and qualifications to be POTUS, attacked him over Sandy Hook, and insulted those of us who support him...I pretty much chalked it up to Hillary Hysteria.

Then I made the mistake of checking out CNN's headlines tonight.

WAIT FOR IT.

Their headline read:

"Is BERNIE Taking the Low Road?"

And commentary as to how horrible and unfair Bernie is being by responding to these personal attacks.

Unfuckingbelievable...No really...are you fucking kidding me????

I hope by the time he reaches New York he goes completely Brooklyn on your ass...okay? Really I do.  Enough is enough.

One of the Sandy Hook Families wrote THIS in response.

And although she says "No worries" here is part of a memo circulated to her supporters.

The bottom line is Hillary will lie, cheat, use dead children, pay her way to the top, in short do anything to attempt win the Presidency.  This is also why a huge part of her own party, myself included, is now saying

"Bernie or Bust"

and will not vote for her under any circumstances. Pretty much the same thing she (and her supporters) did in 2008  with P.U.M.A.  (Party Unity My Ass) so don't wag your finger at us and talk about singing Kumbayah...cause it soooooooooooooo ain't happening.

https://l.facebook.com/l.php…

The link has contact information for each State's Super Delegates. If your State was won by Bernie make sure you let your Super Delegates know that if they don't represent you in July...you'll vote their asses out in November.

 Back to our Virtual Adventure tomorrow...

Initiation Well  Sintra Portugal

Wisconsin Win...And Scribblings to Hillary

So...let's review.  Bernie has won in 7 of the last 8 states. Several of them in a landslide. And the one state that Hillary did win during that time (Arizona) they have proclaimed there definitely was voter fraud, and may even end up doing a re-vote.

Hmmmmmmmm.

Maybe it is just me...but they (the voters) just appear to be

"Not buying the Bullshit, anymore."

And it is about time.

A fellow Berniac wrote this missive, and she gave me permission to copy and paste it here.  I think it says EVERYTHING.



Hillary,

 I just read an article claiming you have lost patience with Bernie and basically will set out in earnest to destroy him and his campaign.

You've lost patience with Bernie? We've lost respect for you.

You have repeatedly been at the forefront of scandal

You have never met a lie you didn't like

You have repeatedly been against raising the minimum wage to a living wage...yet you brazenly took credit for doing that very thing aided and abetted by the Governor of NY...which incidentally is NOT your home state.

You have taught your daughter to glibly lie about a man who is the soul of integrity and honor

You have voted for a war (s) that we should have never gotten into, causing death, destruction, financial ruin, ruined lives and sorrow

You disrespect young people who clearly see you for the soul shrivelled, amoral despicable person you are.

You hinted that you would consider bringing back the draft..wasn't enough blood spilled or did you not profit enough from other people's misery?

You are willing to "compromise" on Social Security putting many seniors at incredible risk.

You don't give a damn about health care, except as it makes money.
for you.

You don't really want to help college students get an education that would leave them with little or no debt, as an intelligent and engaged population is your nemesis.

The shrinking middle class is nothing more than a catch phrase... you have no idea what people go through to be able to meet theirs and their families needs.

You are part of the disgraceful prison for profit system giving the US the reputation of having more people in prison than any other civilized country.

You have stood by while your DNC chair did everything she could to rig elections in your favor.

You support monied people and companies hiding their assets offshore to avoid taxes.

You accept money no matter who or where it comes from as long as it finds its way into your pocket.This is just the tip of your very slippery iceberg.

And you have the nerve to publicly say you've lost patience with Bernie Sanders, whose life has centered around advocating a better life for everyone.

You are going to dismiss and disqualify Bernie? Of course you are...ruining lives is your stock in trade. Will you ever get that whatever sleazy tactics you throw at him, “We the People” will always have his back and throw them right back at you?

You will ultimately destroy yourself, and we will finally have a President that has our interests at heart.

Hypocrite doesn't even begin to describe you.

I can't add a thing.

Go Bernie! 

 Wyoming on the 9th.

Okay....maybe just one more thing...

This is the actual pledged delegate count at this point

Hillary Clinton:  1295

Bernie Sanders: 1097

A difference of  198 delegates.

In 2008 Hillary tried to fill her basket with Super Delegate Eggs, too. Guess what? They never hatched...and when they switched sides at the Convention she lost the Primary Nomination to President Obama.   I'm going with the won delegate count at this point. We are closing the gap quickly.


Never count your chickens before they hatch. You think she would have learned this lesson in 2008.

See What Happens...Can't Leave Politics Unsupervised for Five Minutes...

without EVERYONE just losing their damned minds????

It has only been 4 days, people. 


The first thing I am told is that Nevada has shifted hands, and because of votes tallied from the Las Vegas area it has now gone from a Clinton Win to a Sanders Win.  Since this was dated April 1st, obviously I thought someone was having me on. No...it is TRUE.
  OMG!!!!!!!!!!!

Then they tell me that, after the Arizona hearings, they have established that there definitely WAS voter fraud...no word whether there will be a re-vote yet.

But wait...there is so much more...

Apparently, The Donald did the unthinkable by actually managing to piss off both the Pro-Choice and Anti-Abortion people...and pretty much women in general, with a series of declarations as to who should be PUNISHED if a woman has an abortion...first stating the woman should be punished...then stating the doctors......and then reversing his position to "play it as it lands" or let the standing laws stand.
Politics is hard, Donald.
I think he is beginning to see that. 


And Donald telling Kasich he has no business in the race now...and attacking Cruz's wife and making excuses for the photograph of his wife's nude photo that is circulating...

And Ted shrilly defending his wife's honor until

wait for it

Anonymous  (...and I absolutely LOVE this hacktivist group) stepped in and called BULLSHIT. 

More specifically, they released pictures of 5 different women that Ted Cruz allegedly boffed.  Affairs. The National Enquirer ran with it...and no one pays much attention to them, right?  Except that two of the woman aren't denying it and a third is lawyering-up...and lest we forget the Enquirer is the same hapless rag that first shed light on John Edwards and the Hunter Woman and Baby.

Anonymous says if Ted doesn't withdraw pronto they are going to release more details.

Can't leave these guys alone for five minutes, I'm telling you...

And Hillary...whose battle cry in 2008 (handily available on video) who said she would debate

"Anytime...Anywhere." Very Apollo-Creedesque.

Has been doing a merry run around with Bernie who wants a debate in New York badly before the Primary there.

Her, offering up time slots like the Saturday of the Final Four.  WTH?

Yet, when The Morning Show offered a premium time slot for both candidates she immediately refused.

And last, but far from least, Bernie has a solid lead in Wisconsin heading into tomorrow's primary there.

Even in my Post-hospital Pre-medicated state...I have to comment on these affairs.

 (pardon the pun, Ted)


After the Nevada and Arizona débâcle...if they find that there has been sleight of hand...rigging or out and out CHEATING by HRC or any of her Minions it should immediately terminate her run for the office of POTUS.  And I would feel the same way no matter which candidate did it...okay? Even Bernie.

Not that it will, of course. But it should.

The Donald?  I am hard pressed to see why ANYONE votes for him, anyway. But it is interesting to see him evolve...twist and turn...and begin to see the realities of politics. Someone is always going to end up pissed, Donald, always. And it is strange to see him telling Kasich he shouldn't still be involved when Kasich is the sanest of the three candidates. Admittedly, that isn't a huge distinction.

Ted...defending his wife's honour...just before Anonymous reveals 5 (count 'em) five extramarital affairs.  In Ted's defense, I find it extremely difficult to believe that (including his wife) Ted could ever find six women willing to sleep with him. But suspending that disbelief...and his proven track record for "Do as I say, not as I do"  anything is possible here.

Just sitting back and watching the show, folks!

And Hillary...Do the damned Morning Show, release the freaking transcripts...and get it over with.  Bernie is FROM Brooklyn. Good luck with that. Sure there is a lot of money-people in the state and obviously you have Wall Street in your pocket...but at the end of the day you are all still the 1% and "we the people"  still make up the other 99%. It isn't over until it is over.

This time Occupy means Occupy the Voting Booths!!!

So there you have it...and now I'm crawling back under the covers to rest a bit more. Anxiously waiting to see the outcome of the Wisconsin Primary tomorrow!

Later....

The Best Laid Plans...

Or how something so SMALL it is electroscopic can throw you  flat on your back in the hospital for several days.

Finally home. Food still looks nauseating...broths and ices and Sprite and water and the occasional cracker, preferable. 

Huge kudos to the ER staff, and the Med/Surg staff...the doctors, nurses and aides who made the past 3 days not only survivable, but a lot more comfortable.


I.V Zofran (and Phenergan) is our friend. As is D5W and LR.

Huge kudos to my sons James and Chris and DIL, Nicole for "being there" for me, helping me realize I had passed the point of being able to rehydrate myself, and that my electrolytes were severely compromised to the point of heart and long muscle involvement.

I am not sure I have EVER been that sick before. And the whole thing complicated by then not being able to keep any of my daily regular medication down, as well.

In short, it sucked. 

Badly.


A dear friend of mine who was huge into Oregon Trail (gaming) sent me this today...pretty much, spot on! 

~laughing~

 Taking it slow and easy. Postponing most everything pre-planned for this week
(an early week brunch, Bloomington Mall, and a Gardening Day) until  am a little more back on my feet, I think.  Going to finish up Virtual Portugal by Friday or Saturday...a sip of the Gijinha at this point completely out of the question, and would probably finish me off.

This too, shall pass....

It was, however; a bit amusing to encounter the new crop of mid-20-something nurses who treated and listened to me respectfully- like I was "Yoda" passing on nursing wisdom/stories from long long ago, way way back in the in early 1990's...I have become venerable in my own time.  

How quaint.

In my day...the FORCE we did use...to get the Doctor's coffee.