Today the weather finally warmed to 50 degrees, the rain stopped, the wind moderated, and the sun shone intermittently, so I knew I would ride.
I ate a pretty full bowl of granola with the fruit salad I made on Sunday, with papaya, orange, strawberries, and blueberries and a bit of milk at took my vitamins
Then at 11:30 I went to the dentist and at 12:00 met my new hygienist and had my teeth cleaned and x-rayed.
At 1:15 I drove to East Ocean and met Peter Eller. Peter ordered No. 16, Kung Pao Chicken and I ordered No. 16, Moo Goo Gai Pan, which is Chicken meat stir fried with sliced baby corn, snow peas, celery, onion, bok Choy, water chestnut slices, and mushroom slices in a lightly thickened chicken stock/Mandarin sauce served with a mound of fried rice and six or seven pieces of sweet and sour chicken slathered with red sweet and sour sauce.
My Moo Goo Gai Pan contained many of the same vegetables as the Chicken Massaman Curry I knew I would eat for dinner but I did not care because I wanted a dose of protein, carbohydrates, and vegetables. We discussed the Plasterer painting by Emil Bisttram and the Von Hassler restoration and I showed Peter the Catalog for the Mabel Dodge Luhan exhibit and encouraged him to see it.
After lunch I went home, checked the mail and the stock market. This was one of those rare days when my portfolio had a minimal loss of about $692.00, while the whole market dropped about .2% to .4% thanks to Apple perking up $.96 to $120.00. I had tried to determine what to sell and when to take the mandatory 3.65% distribution from my IRAs. The unexpected rise in Apple has almost convinced me to wait until the end of the year to decide whether to sell this year or next year depending on my expected income this year versus next year, because the pundits are projecting a better stock market growth for 2017 than 2016.
At 3:45 I felt good and rode 10 miles, all the way to Rio Bravo and back to see the Canadian geese and sandhill cranes feeding in the fields and the heavy clouds hanging over the snow capped Sandias.
When I returned home around 4:45, Suzette was sanding cabinet doors in the garage. I went in and watched the NBR business news on PBS and around 5:45 she came in. I told her I wanted to roast peanuts with which to garnish the curry. We went to the kitchen and Suzette heated a container of rice and curry in the microwave and transferred the remaining rice and curry to a single container while I toasted and crushed about 2/3 cup of blanched frozen peanuts from Talin until golden brown which took about 25 minutes at medium heat.
Suzette reheated the curry and fetched beers from the garage fridge. I drank a Lettfe from Belgium and Suzette drank a Stella Artois.
The curry was greatly improved by the tamarind paste and juice I added last night and the crunchy toasted peanuts I added tonight. We enjoyed our slightly exotic Thai dinner.
Later I ate a bowl of Java Chip ice cream garnished with poached pear slices, chocolate sauce, and a dash of Kahlua.
Suzette went to bed at 8:30 and I followed at 9:00 and read a bit of the new Business Week.
I love that the President of China has addressed the World Economic Summit at Davos, Switzerland today. It has filled most of the business news today and is the perfect antidote to Trump’s tweets. Not only does it make his tweets irrelevant as news, but it sends a strong message to the world that China stands ready to assume the role of world leader to advance the continuation of globalization and free trade. It should make Trump think twice before he closes our borders with a border tax that will cause inflation and start a world wide trade war, perhaps for the wrong reason, because it diminishes his status as a world economic leader, but will result in the right action, which is why I am not going to sell Apple this week.
Actually early on Sunday morning I called TD Ameritrade and talked to Mitch, who informed me that a mandatory distribution from an IRA does not require a sale of the stock. One can transfer the required amount of dollar value of stock from an IRA account to a taxable account and include the amount of the transfer in one’s taxable income.
Bon Appetit
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