I wanna generator

I didn't loose any power in the last storm. And I can't remember when exactly we had that 8hr power loss in the neighborhood, either earlier this year or Fall last year. But hearing that people still don't have power in MoCo after 2 days makes me think, I should get one. Problem or problems:
1- Where the heck would I put it?
2- Where would I store the fuel for it?
3- What would I get?
4- How do I keep it from getting stolen?
That last question comes from chatting with a childhood friend in Florida. Generator theft is high there. Understandable as it's Florida, there are hurricanes and their spin off tornadoes and those things have the annoying habit to wacking out the power lines. More people have them and lots of people need them adn they are portable, thus theft. Here the problem isn't so much tornadoes, though we have them, but rather an aging grid. I can pretty much say that I'll lose power once a year, but for how long is unknown. A few hours to a whole day has been my experience.
I'll wrap it up in the basement fund.

Just like Scarlett O-Hara, but black and in the 21st Century

It has been a while since I've watched Gone with the Wind, but I think my desires kinda fit this movie. I want land, red earth, I want Tara. My Tara, which in my mind is a 4 bedroom townhouse near downtown with a bitching backyard.
About a week or so ago I got a call from Bob M. the Realtor who sold me the house in Florida. He was looking for business and wondering if I wanted to buy more property. Yes, I want to buy property. I can't buy more property because I have no money. I need to fix my roof and I really, really need to address my basement. What I need and what I want are two different things right now.
Also I've begun sorta looking at wooded lots in Virigina and imagining buying something out in the country. I'll put that in the fantasy box with an investment property townhouse in Baltimore.

The Message

First off I want to thank Nora Bombay's ex-roommate, the hardest working lesbian ex-Episcopal priest, for whom this post would not be possible. When NB's roommate left NoVa for NYC she left behind bibles and other religiously themed books. Those books wound up with me. Some I sold, some I gave away, and some I kept. Of those Bibles is 'The Message', which is like the regular Bible but on crack, or drunk or off its meds. Don't get me wrong I like "The Message" but sometimes I compare it with the normal NIV and think, 'Gad this is wacky.' For example (via Biblegateway):
NIV- The Cost of Following Jesus

18When Jesus saw the crowd around him, he gave orders to cross to the other side of the lake. 19Then a teacher of the law came to him and said, "Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go."

20Jesus replied, "Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head."

21Another disciple said to him, "Lord, first let me go and bury my father."

22But Jesus told him, "Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead."

Now the Message-

Your Business Is Life, Not Death
18-19When Jesus saw that a curious crowd was growing by the minute, he told his disciples to get him out of there to the other side of the lake. As they left, a religion scholar asked if he could go along. "I'll go with you, wherever," he said.

20Jesus was curt: "Are you ready to rough it? We're not staying in the best inns, you know."

21Another follower said, "Master, excuse me for a couple of days, please. I have my father's funeral to take care of."

22Jesus refused. "First things first. Your business is life, not death. Follow me. Pursue life."

In this example our Savior is being hard. The translation is, ah, different. No birds with nests in the Message, just we're camping and leave your father.

Wussman I love

The Help is a bit squeemish regarding some food. His last girlfriend has some severe food allergies and barely ate anything. I on the other hand believe if it bleeds I can cook it and eat it. He likes the openess I have towards food but sometimes I am a little too open. I had him cleaning mussles for a dish, at some point he noticed the mussles making noises and I made the mistake of telling him they were alive. Oh, the little remarks I had to endure after that.
Before the mussle incident he would proclaim that he didn't want to eat anything with a head on it. He would eat meat or fish, just as long as there was no head on it. After the mussles he's included them in the list of things that look back at him. Dang it, I want to cook and eat blue crabs! I don't want to hear bitching about food that can attack you.
Then there was the time with the rabbit. The rabbit had no head. But there I was cutting it into parts for browning and he walked into the kitchen. The way he describes it is that its little legs were all sticking up and then I cracked the ribs. Upon the rib cracking he turned on his heel out of the kitchen. He also likes to avoid me when I've got a knife in my hands.
He's quite happy to eat what I cook, but I could deal without the wussiness of his meat eating. With further discussions we decided if push came to shove and if he had to live off the land like his hero Daniel Boone, he'd toughen up and eat things with heads and faces. Until then he's the 21st Century equivilent of the bespeckled man in the bowler hat who steps off the stagecoach in dime store Westerns.

Fun Anglican Website

Considering I left the Church of England for the One True and Most Holy Mother Church (I kid, I'm just Catholic), I still keep looking back at the train wreck. I sometimes wonder if I left too early. Sigh. Anyway, Anglicans in Texas are a hoot. I subscribe to Wannbe Anglican and just found The NEW Anglican Firearms "Enthusiast". No I'm not doing this to scare the crap outta of my Jewish/Atheist liberal friends. A lot of people I know and like dislike my Lord and my G-d and are highly distrustful of guns and particularly conservatives with guns. However, being a separate person with my own mind and an American I am free to practice the 1st Amendment and maybe one day the 2nd, as the Help suggested we go to a shooting range for date night. Oh, kiss, kiss, bang, bang.
But anyway on Anglican sites, I found the Anglican Firearms Enthusiast, via Bad Vestments a blog about typically Anglican, sometimes Catholic, vestments that should be set on fire, 'cause sometimes service can get too colorful.

What we don't know

There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we now know we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns. These are things we do not know we don’t know. - Quote by Don Rumsfeld

I'm sitting here with my lunch, farmer's market gespatcho and Mexican Fruit stand avocado and I got to thinking about food. Particularly a question I asked the vendor who sold the soup a long time ago. I asked him if it was vegan. It must have been Lent when doing vegan Fridays (never again!). He said that the bread used was vegan. I was doubtful but bought it anyway. I never made bread and always figured it needed eggs and milk. I must have been confusing it with cake. But that was an illustration of what I didn't know. I didn't know that bread is flour, water and some sort of yeast or rising agent.
There is a lot we don't know about food. There is probably even more that we know that we don't know about food. There is probably even more than that which we don't know we don't know about food. The food unknown unknowns. As a society there is a lot we will know about what is trendy to know about food but will increasiingly loose knowledge about old foodways of cooking and food prep and food saftey because they are not as trendy.

Ah to be a free black woman

My goal one day is to own my house free and clear and have a decent FU fund. Financially I'm still slogging through. I don't know why it was a slog. Anyway the goal is freedom. I want to be free to run off to Florida and do absolutely nothing. Of course after 3 days I'll get bored and come back here seeking to be free to work on a project.
I want to be free from my stuff. Really do you own your stuff or does your stuff own you? Current goal is to clear out the basement. It would help if I didn't put anything else down there. The Goodwill box is filling up with clothes that I have finally come to admit, I probably won't wear, again.
I want to be free of burdensome expectations and duties. There are somethings I do because at some point I will get a reward, be it warm fuzzies or a fulfilled goal. There are things that don't relate to a bigger goal and I'm getting better at saying no. I don't have it down pat, but I'm getting better. And this also relates to being free of someone's or some group's idea that I owe them. Draw up the bill, itemize the services and I will pay legitimate debits that I incurred, but I will not be in perpetual servitude for vague concepts.
Going back to finances, I want to be financially secure. I don't want to be in a position where someone can dangle some half rotted carrot and I feel obligated to jump. Like with the way many colleges do with tenure and young PhDs. Luckily there is not much carrot dangling where I am, but I'm close enough to others where it is, and it ain't pretty.