May 21, 2025 Breakfast - Bagel and Lax. Lunch - Ex Novo Dinner - Vichyssoises and Steak Pita Sandwich

May 21, 2025  Breakfast -  Bagel and Lax. Lunch - Ex Novo  Dinner - Vichyssoises and Steak Pita Sandwich

Suzette worked at home today and she had a full day of activity, work in the morning, our lunch with TR and Linda, a dentist appointment at 2:00 and Physical therapy at 4:00.

I slept until 8:30 and made breakfast. I sliced a whole wheat bagel into three slices, toasted and smeared the slices with cream cheese, and garnished each with thin slices of red onion and Gravad lax and capers and we had a quick breakfast as we watched the market go through a major gyration from positive to negative as the results of a 20 year bond sale showed less appetite by buyers to buy U.S. bonds that sent the interest rate up 1/2% to over 5%.

The thing that could sink Trump’s budget would be if his Big Beautiful Budget Bill that adds 4 trillion dollars to the national debt so that future budgets became unfinancable because interest rates rose significantly and the cost to service the debt crowded out all other government spending. The current cost to service  approximately 32 Trillion national debt is 1.3 trillion per annum. That is already the largest cost category in the budget, exceeding the cost of 900 billion dollars for defense. If Trump’s budget increases the National debt to 36 trillion and interest rates double to say 8% because no one wants U.S. debt because the dollar losses its pre-eminence as the world’s safe haven currency, and the cost of servicing the national debt balloons to 3 or 4 trillion that will create a financial and budgetary crisis never seen before in the U.S. that was completely avoidable by reducing spending.  That debate is already happening in Congress with the fiscal conservatives calling for more cuts to Medicare and Medicaid to finance the budget without raising the national debt.

At 11:15 we drove to the new Taproom downtown, Ex Novo, in the converted Firestone building at 701 Central and met TR and Linda for lunch. It was wonderful seeing them. We shared our experiences of the last six months since we had seen each other. We told them about Argentina and Death Valley and we caught up on their trip back from Sayulita. They arrived at Nogales on April 1 and encountered miles of trucks trying to get across the border. After waiting hours in line, TR being TR crossed the median and drove on the wrong side of the road to the International border and was immediately followed by a caravan of cars and only had to dodge one or two coming south. They also made lots of improvements to their property in Sayulita and invited us to come to stay at their casita on June 6 for the annual IFAM flea market sale. We decided to join the IFAM so we could enter the flea market 1 hour early.

TR ordered a fried chicken Sandwich, Linda ordered green chili and corn risotto, Suzette ordered Shrimp and chorizo (Mexican White Shrimp | Spanish Chorizo | Pimenton Broth | Grilled Sourdough), and I ordered  Sweet Fennel Sausage Orecchiette. We shared tastes of the dishes except the fried chicken.   Suzette said the food was uniformly spicy and salty. My orecchiette was in a cream sauce dominated by black pepper, which I ate grudgingly. I ordered a glass of Martín Codax Albariño. Everyone else ordered one of Ex Novo’s beers.

After we ate Suzette and I filled take boxes with our leftovers and  Linda cleared the plates and we talked until 1:30 when Suzette had to go to her dental appointment.

I watched the market sell off end at 2:00. The Dow was down 817, the NASDAQ was down 270, and the S&P was down 95 points. I wonder if Trump sees the writing on the wall from today’s bond sale, that his proposed budget is sinking the US economy and way of life because many programs that Americans have relied on for years will be eliminated, like their health care and that Trump’s administration, rather than working for all the people is only working for the richest. The estimates are that the income of the lowest 10% will drop 2% and the richest 10% will increase 4%, a rather significant redistribution of wealth.

At 3:15 I walked to the bank and spent over an hour working with Wanda to complete the Indian government forms required by the changes sent by MUFG.  I am now hopefully on my way to dematerialization.

When I returned home at 4:30 I worked on an NDA for a client until Suzette returned from PT and turned on the news. We watched the news until 7:00 during which we decided to simply eat bowls of Vichyssoises and steak pita pocket sandwiches for dinner. I went to the garden and snipped 6 chive stalks and sliced them into thin ringlets while Suzette sliced and sautéed some of the grilled steak from last night with onion and chopped lettuce and tomato and fetched the creamy feta and heated two pita pockets.

We filled the pita pockets with feta, steak and onions, tomato and lettuce and garnished our bowls of soup with chive ringlets and ate a very quick and pleasant meal.

I was not feeling well, perhaps from the black pepper, so I went to bed at 7:45 after dinner and Suzette soon followed around 8:30.

I woke up at 2:30 and wrote this blog in the quiet time in the middle of the night that I love.

Bon Appetit

Garlic Cheese Toast | Crispy Crumb Topping