Sad tale of Fruit in the USA

I thought I was done with my food rants but the American Farming industry said hold my beer!

One of the few pleasures of summer is fruit. If I must put up with the bugs and heat then at least I can eat some watermelon or peaches or plums! But no. The Fruit growers rather make huge soft ball size peaches, baseball size plums, and seedless watermelons. Since selecting fruit is a real crap shoot and the best we can do is by scent and looks. Watermelons no longer have that assurance    of the ground spot and a thump.

I hate to throw out a half eaten peach but when it is mealy and mushing in the mouth and the flavor is nonexistent eating it is loathsome… the plums are huge and as tasteless maybe a pop of sour….texture again is mealy mush…..Now these are not cheap fruits, nearly $4 a pound, these are not in the bargain bin either -no store here would dream of cutting the price of an older batch of fruits.

No these fruits are new… bred to be beautiful, big, and easy to transport; however, they sacrifice flavor and texture. They only reason for a fruit is flavor and texture. My melon was a splurge at $5 for a smallish, foot ball size (soccer). The center was already mushy….I was so disappointed and that was the last melon I bought. I who used to gage summer by how many  melons I ate…. 

I know we are in the middle of nowhere and at the farthest reach of the east in the US…but still. I get nice flavorful fruits across the boarder in Canada from all over the world and from inside Canada. I just can’t bring them across the border.

Cherries and grapes seem to the the only fruit not hurt badly by the new and improved looks department. But the American food growing industry is a sorry state of capitalism greed…bigger is not better. Many people have no clue and do not care how poorly the fruit industry is now…yes they produce more, bigger, but hardly edible to a person who once judged fruit by taste. It has been a dismal summer and now I am hoping I can find decent apples ( also ruined by the corporate greed)

Just a muse

This week has been interesting. Hot weather began the week and today it is chilly and foggy… rains are sporadic. We have a new floor in the greenhouse room and the sides of the foundation of the windows are repaired. All we need to do is remover the 10000 nails in the walls and paint. Some of the glass needs caulk and some wood is not good but caulk should help with leaks. Q is of a mind to repair whenever possible and never takes the first “experts” advice to tear down and replace, since we have learned every other person here seems to cheat. We are always amazed at the lack of aesthetic taste in the people here (natives and people from “away”) to them new is better and to us a fixer upper is better especially if it has a view. To us view is everything….even when laid up after surgery or with some malady at least we can watch the sea, or nature depending on which window we are at. There are a few things here that will defy fixing since it is impossible to re-position the refrigerator anywhere in this open living room/kitchen space with out serious money mad changes. So it will stay in its corner, and after almost a year it is OK. We are on a tight budget since we have a fixed income. Since we have a house for sale that has not been sold…there is nothing wrong with it ….it is big, in a nice town and has some excellent views too….make an offer!….. we must keep up that house too…..OY.

The problem with us is finding people to work. No one is house handy in this little family. One problem is the rich summer people throw huge amounts of cash at the local workers and they jump like beggars to catch the money…leaving the locals who also need work in the lurch…..The fancy people from away seen nothing wrong with $100 an hour these local yokels suggest and then think why the locals can’t pay that much!? HA!…. Who makes a $100 a day here? No one.

We have a lovely park just 3 minutes drive from the house and we take out afternoon tea there to sit and watch the sail boats or the mysterious bigger ships cruise past. We have seen bald eagles, many crows, seagulls, and other birds. Most of the time no one else is there…..it is like our private park. I like the place where we live now…..it was a good change…easier for me to take care of. The other house was bigger but just did not match our lifestyle.  If anyone wants a nice Old New Englander house is good shape in a lovely little fishing port in Maine let me know……

A new level of Frustration

I have not Blogged since May.  There is a lot going on emotionally and I am so tired of dealing with bureaucracy, and people who say they work ( handyman, fixing stuff building repair types) but never show up or never finish the work…..those who know me know that Q went for spinal surgery two weeks ago today… we have had small heat wave, and stuff.

I am dead tired most of the time and frustrated at this state( the views are lovely the people are not. ) Do not even get me started on politics ….it is like every country has gone insane. What is so wrong with sharing the wealth and everyone living a nice life? Why do all the politicians seem to want us…we the peasants to be serfs, indentured servants, or dead? There is plenty to go around even with 8 billion people on earth but a few of those billions want everything for themselves…. greedy, grasping, uncaring people who have not one shred of compassion, empathy, of the milk of human kindness( ant that is not dairy milk to the dairy lobby who insists only cow milk is in the milk case so I need to roam around to the “health food” aisle for my soy milk Phooey on that lobby) Well Phooey on all the lobbies.

There is no reason for wars no a days except of the war monger’s profits…except for the insane who are running nearly every country and they want POWER over others like some sadistic overlord. The racists, are in full swing and the funny thing is all of them have nothing going for them but melanin content in their skin. Racists come in every color too don’t even get me started on that…having been done to by other “groups”….

I have nothing positive to say today it is all frustration, anxiety, and the need to cry my soul out but can not. Plus I banged my toe ( the one next to the pinkie toe). Words for to day Fa! OY! and Phooey! I really hope your day it better…

Spring Time

I have been thinking about these religious observances this spring. We have finished Lent and now going into Ramadan.

Both are similar since they ask to give up some pleasure as in Lent and to fast from daybreak to sunset in Ramadan. What is missing is the original intent of these two self denial religious observances ….

The whole idea of the fast and the giving up of a pleasure is to feel for those in continuous need. To realize your wealth in the face of poverty and to become closer to the ideal of god the merciful. Not just to feel…but to act to end the poverty.

However these have just become suffer- fests. Before Lent there is all manner of indulgences from eating all the rich foods in the house to rid the home of the temptations of eating well. To the crazed festivals of the Carnival …then the self denial for 40 days.

In Ramadan it is a suffer fest and then a food orgy before sunrise and and after sunrise…a few traditional foods are used to break the fast….however it is a time of cranky people and closed shops during the day and parties in the night time. Women are expected to cook these nightly feasts while fasting during the day….

The whole intent of both is to become aware and DO SOMETHING in the community, the town, the city, the country, the world to end the suffering of billions of people.

What kind of brownie points are you getting if you suffer a little and say “oh poor people really have it rough”  or some such and not actually do anything to end the world suffering?

The wealthiest countries have the power to end war, to end poverty, and make this world a paradise on earth. But there is no will among the leaders. They sit on their bags of money, fat, richly dressed, smug in their opulent living and have no thought that the people they are bombing is their brother and sister…. only that the bomb makers are getting more rich more fat in their hoarded wealth. The wealthy do not care about anything but their money.

These leaders are very clever since their subjects are ignorant and believe the lies they are told to justify keeping their people under heel, stupid, and compliant to the monstrous wishes of the depravity of their leaders…..

So the sham pious fast during Ramadan not knowing that they could feed 10 people a day rather than fast themselves…. for that is as worthy in the eye of god as their own suffering….To spend their wealth for the comfort of those less fortunate. It is a shame on the religious leaders to not insist on these better more noble actions…why ?…they too, are fat and powerful, full of their own importance.

The world’s leaders sit on their bags of money refusing to  spend on the welfare of the needy….who, by the way, are needy because of their caustic evil actions in the world…. The wealthy have created the abject poverty in the world while twisting scriptures to make the poor, victims of the wealthy’s greed, responsible for not working hard enough to become wealthy. Yet…. and Yet… few maybe a hand full ( like less than five of the worlds billionaires ( and kings, sultans, presidents, rulers)  may have ever known want, hunger, homelessness, and the poverty billions live in everyday.  My bet is they never knew a day of real want in their lives.

There are hundreds of scriptures from every holy book in the world that says be kind to the stranger, feed the hungry, clothe the naked…love thy neighbor…..Love Thy Neighbor….but the fault lies in the Leaders and the readers of these scriptures who mangle and twist them to agree to their lust…lust for power, lust for gold, lust for depravity …..They justify their hatred, their killing with scriptures. And so the religions created to bering people together now blow up neighborhoods, create refugees, and those who seek peace. Those who have nothing left after the wealthy, the predator class, have sucked their bones dry and murdered their way to the top of their bags of money are still being used by the predator class.

A camel can go through the eye of a needle easier than the rich man and woman can enter heaven. 

An idea

Losing Notre Dame is like losing the moon, it has always been there and has been there for every writer of literature, of music, we read, of painters, we see, we listen to today…out lasted every empire it saw…Je suis inconsolable

However I have a grand idea. That will work better than the current war mongers MIC.

I shall outline my idea here and it was inspired by a new friend.

Let all the Billionaires contribute Just One billion dollars each to the rebuilding on Norte Dame….

From that money create the glass works in places using solar power to make the glass.

There will jobs for 100 years for artists, historians, craftsmen( and women) stone workers and the related skills, the related services, the related food, housing etc.

Let each wealthy country regardless of religion contribute…..

Let the scientist design the needed air quality, water quality, the  living towns & villages that will be all over the world for the people to create the items needed for a full remake of this grand symbol of human accomplishment that was built by people with grander hearts and souls than we in 1100-1200AD….

There is too much of money hoarded by these overly wealthy men and women that if spread around( and corruption kept in check) can create a new era of humanity. 

Stop the war machines and create the worlds heritage that is being destroyed by our unchecked hubris.

There are many tributes of mankind’s creative endeavors that need serious restoration now or be lost forever to the decay of the soul of human beings …..Venice, The Taj Mahal come to mind….if we look there are hundreds of areas all over the world endangered of being lost to all of us forever.

Are we not all the same specie? Have we grown so dull witted and closed minded that we rather destroy this earth and all that our species has created because someone thinks that owning 20 mansions means they can sleep in twenty beds in the same night?

Do not simply  put aside the artificial differences we created for use to make war-geld. But let us truly see we are one…we are like a rainbow from a prism… One Shard of Crystal that a beam of sunlight breaks into may colors…colors we, humans do not even see then all, but the others, our animal brethren see, even the flowers and insects see and product more colors than our puny human eye can see.

No one will live forever and many of you Billionaires are already elderly ….think you can take it with you…hahahaha.

 Have you gone so long with out your heart and soul that you wish your legacy to be greed and death? The possibilities are immense and this earth is all we have and You…old billionaires are going to die sooner than you think.

Refugee Part 3

Calling out the Bigots

I am frustrated today….I am angry at bigots, those prejudice people who seem to run all the businesses out there…( at least here) but Here is the same as every where else in the USA….no?

Since the republicans have been infesting the government for so long most people do not see the problem since it does not apply to them. I see it since it is happening every day to me and my husband….

My husband would like a part time job. He is fit and capable of working these jobs available here locally, but he is not being hired. He has passed the tests, jumped through the hoops but never hired. There is still a sign at Walmart saying it is hiring…just not hiring his kind….apparently.

At first we thought it was an age thing he is an older man…nope not an age thing half the people at the Walmart here is an old person. Then we thought that maybe because he can not stand for an hour at a time and must sit a bit? Nope many of the workers are allowed to sit and do their work there are disabled people all over working in the Walmart….so what else could it be? The only thing it could be is his name is Abdul, he is one of those mohammed dudes! you know those terrorists who have done all those school shootings lately…no wait those are white christian men, not mohammed dudes….

So the only conclusion I can reasonably come to is this - These people are bigots, prejudice, racist white people….

I am sorry to call this to your attention since I know few people care a fig about what happens to a mohammed dude. Lord know no one dropped a beat when we were being rounded up after 9/11….no one came to our aid when we disappeared after that midnight knock at the door….no one cared that we were American tax paying citizens either! So it was not about the money, was not about being an American citizen it was all about being a mohammed dude….and you what nothing has changed in the 18 years after 9/11…..so excuse me if I do not get all upset at your new problems…you all bought into the hysteria some time ago and have never let us forget it….

Refugee Part Two

Refugee part 2

I never thought I would become refugee again. But it has happened.

When I discovered G+ it was a very new social platform. I found company there when I had none in real life. 

I was a real life refugee when I joined G+ many years ago. I was happy to find something stable in my existence; and those I met there helped me through very dark and traumatic times. I am on my fifth house move since 2004, since becoming a refugee. However I was always on G+. No matter what my physical address was I had a place where everyone knew me and I knew them. People who cared about me and I cared about them. I could be intimate taking about my problems, illnesses, fears…my daily ups and downs. I was buoyed by my cyber friends. Moreover I buoyed my cycler friends through their struggles, too. We found each other across the globe! I have lost several dear ones and was grateful for their relatives to post that they had died suddenly so the worries could become the grief and the fond memories. As in “real” life people die here. However here on our G+ when we move we can still be friends. We can still depend on each others humor and concern and advice and snark attacks to make us laugh when we are weeping in the dim light in front of our computers..alone but not abandoned.

I left much behind me each time I moved.  Each time I landed in a new town I tried to fit in, or to at least be friendly and meet people. When one is new to a community it is hard to break through the barrier of static being. People who have not had to move from pillar to post have created their rich, full lives; making room for an outsider is not easy and most times not welcome.  A new person also is needy and may try too hard ….no one likes that either. Then age catches up and I found people in my age group were grandparents stable in their lives full of their grandees. Not much in common. I learned the hard way when one is being snubbed after a delightful chat with a new person and saying oh we must get together for coffee soon…their reply was “I don’t drink coffee”  BAM…you know that this chance meeting is not the thing…how do I meet others for just a chat and visit? No idea in these 18 years as being an other, an outsider…no idea how to go about meeting real life people. So the Social Media Platforms were a way to be social to connect with other humans on a personal level….we may not be in the same country or time zone but we have similar interests and can chat about stuff…..over my cup of tea and their beer since they are in the evening and I am in the morning…

Not anymore! G+ has abandoned their platform not caring about the human beings who populated that universe. We are all abandoned to the wind…each looking for another place to hang our hat…not wanting to lose each other! There are dozens of social media platforms some nicer than others each with attitudes or being so different it is hard to fit in anywhere. I know that feeling in real life as I am in my fifth home, a new area/state/country in 14 years, hoping this is the final one since I am growing older and tired of packing and moving and losing stuff.

Losing people.