August 26, 2021 Brunch - Frontier Sausage breakfast burrito. Dinner - Pork Spare Ribs and roasted vegetables and peach cobbler

 August 26, 2021 Brunch - Frontier Sausage breakfast burrito.  Dinner - Pork Spare Ribs and roasted vegetables and peach cobbler

Today was busy with activities and food.  I walked 2/3 mile at 7:00 and then fixed breakfast.  I sautéed and then poached the PPI handful of trout with potatoes and spinach with more spinach, a slice of sausage, and an egg and toasted a piece of French baguette that I buttered and spread with orange marmalade. 

Then I showered and dressed and worked until 9:25, when I walked to the Palmer’s house for a book club meeting. We met in the garden where we were served a Frontier burrito and orange juice and had a pleasant discussion of the Autobiography of Malcolm X until almost noon.

After everyone else left Peter and I stayed to talk with Charlie and Susan.  Susan made me a pot of jasmine tea and heated pieces of Frontier sweet rolls for a lovely impromptu lunch.

After lunch I went home and showed Greg the rotten wood on the pillars on the front porch and then lay down after watching some news and noting that the market was down.  I napped from a bit after 1:00 until 2:30.  

When I awakened i ate a handful of milk chocolate covered almonds and saw that President Biden was going to speak at 3:00 so I waited and watched him speak until almost 4:00.  He gave an amazing speech alternating from empathy for the 13 servicemen killed by an ISIS suicide bomber to hardened resolve to hunt down the leaders of ISIS responsible for the murders and continue the evacuation mission.

Then a bit after 4:00 I drove to the library and picked up Travels with Charlie by Steinbeck and The Night Watchman by Erdrich.

I returned at 4:30 and was able to talk to Chapado the roofer before meditation at 5:00.

Suzette arrived as we were finishing meditation at 5:30 with three beautiful ripe tomatoes.  She rested with a cocktail as I drank water and we discussed the day’s events and dinner as we watched the news.  Neither of us was particularly hungry or wanted to cook.  Suzette had eaten the Blue Plate Special at the Bistro of Spaghetti and meatballs with garlic bread late in the afternoon  I had already eaten three meals and a snack.  At 6:30 I toasted two slices of bread for a ham sandwich but when I went to fetch the ham I saw the PPI Pork Spare Ribs and Roasted vegetables in the fridge and felt compelled to reheat and eat them with a beer and slices of onion and the lovely tomatoes.

Suzette soon made a beautiful light dinner of one of the red tomatoes stuffed with ham salad and garnished with slices yellow tomato from our garden and cilantro.  She opened the Buttonwood Riesling bought at the winery on our visit to the Finger Lakes in April. It was not as good as some others we tried but its flavor and character increased as it opened up. 

After our light dinner Suzette made a peach cobbler with the rest of the peaches from our garden.  When it finished baking she made whipped cream sweetened with some sugar and flavored with almond flavoring for a peachy dessert. We enjoyed glasses of Riesling with dessert.

After dinner we were both tired, so at 9:00 I went to bed and Suzette soon followed.

It seems that almost all Americans who wish to leave Afghanistan are out or shortly will be.  By this evening over 100,000 persons had been airlifted out.

There is now some prospect that the Taliban and the U.S. will join forces in some manner to hunt down ISIS.  Probably, the Taliban will supply the intelligence for the US to target American drone strikes.  The U.S. will probably provide assistance to the Taliban to keep the Kabul airport open and the government functioning as it did for the prior Afghan government.  This could be a better result than Vietnam, where the US had no engagement with the country after it fell to Communist control.

I do not think the Taliban want Afghanistan to go back into the dark ages and have every educated person leave the country.

It was said several times that there is a huge difference between those persons who live in urban centers and those who live in rural areas in Afghanistan.

What a challenge the Taliban face.

At 9:00 I checked my portfolio and confirmed the bad news, that today I suffered a loss of .86%. But the good news is that even with today’s loss, my portfolio has gained a massive 20.68% so far this year.

I went to bed happy.

As I was telling the meditation group, you can choose to be happy/positive or sad/negative, depending on how you program your thoughts much of the time, with the understanding that life events will force you in one way or the other.

My dad believed in the power of positive thinking.  I consider it creating your own positive karma. 

The news of the day offered two good examples.  You could be sad that 13 American soldiers were killed or happy that 7000 persons were airlifted out of Kabul and the Americans’ determination that the airlift will continue.  Similarly, you could bemoan today’s almost 1% loss in the Market or focus on the over 20% gain for the year.  I prefer to dwell on the positive.

I awakened at 12:30 to finish this blog and drink a glass of water to help digest the pork spare ribs.

Bon Appetit