Monthly Archives: November 2022

Windy Chill

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As forecast, full-throated winter came barreling into northern Illinois last night as erratic gusts. The edge of same system that spawned tornadoes in the South? Our wind was brisk but, I’m glad to say, not deadly, unless you passed out naked and drunk outside in some hard-to-spot location, as visiting Florida Man might.

At least it will be a dry cold for the next week or more, weather scientists predict. Any winter day without ice underfoot isn’t half bad.

Late November dusk in these climes.

RIP, Christine McVie. I was much surprised to learn that her maiden name was actually Perfect. I heard years ago that that was her name before marrying John McVie but, in as much as I gave it any thought, believed it was a stage name. Dropping a stage name upon marriage might be a little unusual, but not inconceivable.

Who’s named Perfect? Christine’s father, Cyril Percy Absell Perfect, a concert violinist and music lecturer from near Birmingham, UK, for one. And I assume some generations of his paternal ancestors before him.

“This… name is an example of the common medieval practice of creating a surname from a nickname, in this instance one that originally denoted an apprentice who had completed his period of training,” notes the Internet Surname Database.

“The derivation is from the Middle English ‘parfit,’ meaning ‘fully trained’ or ‘well versed’, from the Old French ‘parfit(e),’ meaning ‘completed,’ ‘perfect,’ ultimately from the Latin ‘perfectus,’ a derivative of ‘perficere’ to finish, accomplish.”

La Dalia Brand Smoked Paprika

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Almost warm today, nearly 60° F. Then winds came through, followed by rain after dark, then cold air. Tomorrow the high will be around 30° F. There’s no denying winter.

Fact for the day: the Dehesa de Extremadura Protected Designation of Origin in Spain produced 3,860 tons of peppers in 2020. I’m assuming that’s metric tons. Also, a dehesa is, according to Wiki at least, a “multifunctional, agrosylvopastoral system” specific to Spain and Portugal, though it’s called a montado in the latter country.

I had to look all that up, including a source or two beyond Wiki. Why did I look it up? Curiosity sparked by a can of Spanish paprika that recently appeared in our kitchen.

Isn’t that a fine design? A bit of everyday aesthetics, holding 70 grams of that pimentón production, though possibly from a crop more recent than 2020, since the packing date on the can is September 5 of this year — or May 9, since I’m not sure whether it’s month/day/year or day/month/year in Spain. Sometime this year, anyway.

La Dalia brand (the flower is Dahlia in English, notoriously as in Black) and from the La Vera district in Extremadura, as verified by whatever EU bureaucracy is in charge of such things. It doesn’t add materially to my life to know all that, but I’m glad I do all the same.

Fourth Friday of November Fire

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The day after Thanksgiving — Stay Out of the Stores Day, let’s call it, though I also avoided e-commerce — I decided to burn some of the wooden debris left by the flying trampoline incident. Not to grill anything, just for the pleasure of it. Daytime temps were relatively mild, much warmer than early in the week, and while there was some wind, not enough to pose a hazard.

Pretty soon I got it going nicely.

That might look like I added some accelerant, but no. I put paper and about a half load of charcoal in the chimney starter and fired it up. Later, after pouring the red charcoal out of the chimney, I added sticks. That was all it took.

What’s the fascination with a robust fire?

I kept the fire going through dusk, having started it just before sunset. Eventually, the fire consumed most of the debris wood, though there are some other small piles out in the yard that I can burn if the urge strikes again.

When did humanity finally master the art of making fire? A long damn time ago, but the exact sequence of events, like much else about our remote past, is vague indeed. Still, the fascination remains, right down to the present day, in my back yard.

Thanksgiving Bird

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At Ann’s request, and our agreement, turkey was the meat for Thanksgiving dinner this year. I can’t remember the last time it was. More recently than this bird, however. Maybe this one? If so, it’s been quite a while.

How it looked on the table.

Not an overly large bird, since there were only three of us. Also, it came already smoked, so all I had to do was unwrap it and heat it for a couple of hours at a fairly low heat. Pretty tasty. Even at its size, much leftover meat remains in the refrigerator.

How it looked on the plate.

My plate, illustrating my longstanding preference for dark meat, with rolls, stuffing, olives and some mac & cheese artfully created by Ann. It’s now a Thanksgiving and Christmas specialty of hers.

Thanksgiving Break

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Back to posting around November 27. We’ll be home for Thanksgiving, as will Ann. Except for food preparation (and cleanup, which is mostly mine), best not to do too much next week, though I will work the three-day week. A good Thanksgiving to all.

I never get tired of taking back yard pictures, especially when some kind of weather event is visible.

Just a few moments of heavy snow this afternoon that didn’t stick for long. There will be a warming trend next week. Not warm, just warmer than now. A more seasonable chill.

While in the online thickets today, I came across a bill introduced to the U.S. House of Representatives earlier this year.

H.R. 6869 – To authorize the President of the United States to issue letters of marque and reprisal for the purpose of seizing the assets of certain Russian citizens, and for other purposes.

Rep. Lance Gooden (R.-Texas) introduced it, presumably as a novel way to help seize oligarch megayachts. I guess that would count as Congress delegating that function, since if I understand correctly, Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution specifically gives that power to the national Congress. Section 10 bans states from issuing letters of marque and reprisal.

Mr. Gooden’s bill has gone nowhere. Of course, he’s a backbencher (first elected in 2018) in the minority, so Nowheresville is going to be the destination of his proposals, especially ones considered eccentric. Come next year, he’ll be in the majority, but still a backbencher, so I’m not expecting any further action on the matter.

Still, can you imagine? Who would apply to be a privateer against Russian vessels? Maybe Somali pirates, who have been in something of a slump in recent years and who’d like the color of law for a change.

Victory Over Moths

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Is it too soon to declare victory over moths? I have a superstitious feeling that after I do so, I’ll see a moth flit by here inside our house, as soon as a day or two later. Our victory will prove to be illusory.

Never mind all that. I’m declaring victory over moths — noiseless, shadowy, harmless moths that still represented an insect invasion of my dwelling space. One to be suppressed, which was the consensus of everyone here. Harmless, but annoying all the same.

At no point in your ownership of a house have you seen it all, since there’s always the possibility of another novel expense or pain-in-the-ass nuisance you haven’t experienced before, lurking in unexpected places. In the case of the moths, lurking on walls, if moths can rightly be said to lurk.

That implies a presence of mind I’m not sure moths actually have, but anyway there they were, clinging to higher parts of living room and kitchen walls. Small gray moths had starting making their appearance sometime in the summer. Originally we took them for outdoor moths accidently in the house, but pretty soon their increasing numbers made us re-think that assumption. They were setting up colonies. That meant we had to start some aggressive measures.

I became the main moth assassin. Yuriko swatted some, and so did Ann when she was here, but mostly it fell to me, fly swatter or thick paper weapon in hand (we still have a few paper magazines around, ready to roll). There’s one! Twack! Wait, another — thup! Damn, missed that last one.

Sometimes it would take a few moments to identify them; there are spots on the walls I took for moths and vice versa, especially in the early days of moth suppression.

An aside: our fly swatter goes back to 2008, a souvenir of the Bluegrass Inn in Frankfort, Kentucky. Sturdy blue plastic, it had seen only intermittent use since then, but now its hour had come, and soon started collecting faint grey stains.

I hadn’t swatted so many insects since that day in Ulaanbaatar when I cleared our hotel room of a rich bounty of flies, or the (seemingly) all-night mosquito hunt in my low-rent digs in Pusan.

As house-invading insects go, individual moths are fairly easy to kill. Mosquitoes, and flies that aren’t in their terminal moments bumping up against window glass, are much faster and seem to be paying attention. Moths wait obligingly as you spy their position and prepare the swat. As long as you aim correctly that first time — because if you miss, it will take flight — the moth will immediately become an ex-moth.

Of course, containing an insect infestation with a swatter is a fool’s errand. I soon advanced to a chemical weapon. Raid, in this case, applied to what I believed were strategic locations, and away from where the dog might go. The moth population dropped for a while, and we experienced optimism that the bugs would be vanquished.

The moths had other ideas. Localized infestations were discovered in boxes of dry cereal and one particularly vile node was in a bag of dry dog food. These packages were tossed, contents and all, and replacement boxes and bags were more carefully re-sealed. For a while, fewer moths were seen. But they returned.

With the help of my research assistant Google, I looked into moth infestations. I determined that we had pantry moths, not closet moths. Our bugs didn’t seem interested in our clothes. Naturally, there were suggestions of products to try to deal with them.

So soon I turned to a biological weapon. A successful, inexpensive and easy-to-use biological weapon, one I am happy to mention by name, so successful was it: Maxguard Pantry Moth Traps. Put one together and you’re got a tent-shaped bit of thick paper. On the inside surface, Maxguard provides a sticky surface infused with “extra strength pheromones,” the box promises.

A glue trap for male moths, other words. Or rather (projecting a little more), honey traps. They come, attracted at the prospect of moth nooky, stick and die, forever unable to do their biologic jobs when it comes to reproduction, thus setting the stage for a localized population collapse. That was my hope, anyway, when I set up the four traps that came in the box at various parts of the house in late September, before my latest trip.

Since I’ve been back, a month now, I haven’t seen any moths — except for those many stuck to the glue traps. Dozens of them. Snuffed out of whatever it means to be a moth, by human trickery. We’re pretty good at that. So long, moths. You are not missed.

Glazed Morning

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Early this morning, not long after dawn, I woke for the usual reason and from the bathroom window I spotted a thin carpet of snow on the ground. First one of the season.

I took the obligatory picture a couple of hours later, complete with dog.Winterwood, Base Camp

One of those snows in temps hovering at freezing or just above. A lot melted later, but not quite all of it. Hardly the picture of woods on a snowy evening, but we’ll get to that before long.

Last Thursday, knowing that the warm days were running out this year, I stood at about the same spot and captured the yard about an hour before sunset.Golden Deck

Gentle winds blew, with more than a hint of summer.

On the Ballot (Last Time)

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While musing on political matters the other day, I found an image I’d made two years ago. I don’t remember why, except maybe I wanted to look up the minor parties in the presidential contest later, but forgot to do so. Until now.

For the record, the Greens got more than 407,000 votes nationwide and nearly 30,500 in Illinois, which was a few thousand less than in Texas. Go figure. But Texas is vast, and contains multitudes.

The Libertarians got a respectable 1.86 million or so votes nationwide, but only about 66,500 of those were from Illinois. The biggest state for Libertarians? California. It too is vast and multitudinous.

I had to look up the Party for Socialism and Liberation, so I didn’t confuse it with (say) the Party for Liberation and Socialism. It’s a 21st-century communist party, which split from the Workers World Party in 2004. The Workers World Party split from the Socialist Workers Party in 1958. The Socialist Workers Party split from the Socialist Party of America in 1938 (wonder what that was about) and I probably could go on, but at least the Party for Socialism and Liberation has a genuine red pedigree — redigree?

Moreover, the party platform is frankly revolutionary. That much is spelled out on its web site.

“In order to guarantee the interests of working and poor people who make up the vast majority of the United States, a new revolutionary government run by and for the workers and poor will be established. The present capitalist government — the role of which has been to defend the big-business system of exploitation by a web of hundreds of measures, legal and illegal, and has been accessible only to the super-rich elite — will be abolished.”

These particular reds garnered a little more than 85,000 votes nationwide, and about 8,000 in Illinois. The revolution won’t be televised, because the ratings would be just awful.

The American Solidarity Party, which says it is inspired by Christian democratic parties in Europe, got about 40,300 votes in 2020, some 9,500 or so from Illinois — more than any other state, so I guess we’re a ASP hotbed, for what that’s worth.

Not on the ballot for president in ’20 in Illinois: the Alliance Party (Rocky De La Fuente), the Constitution Party or the independent candidacy of Brock Pierce, known as a “cryptocurrency entrepreneur” and for being a child actor in the likes of The Mighty Ducks. Ye and his Birthday Party — I’m not making that up — weren’t on the ballot in Illinois either. Maybe next time.

The Natural Law Party, founded on “the principles of Transcendental Meditation,” was nowhere to be seen — because it seems to be defunct — nor were the New Whigs nor the Rent Is 2 Damn High Party.

All the News That Fits

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Two passings to note.

RIP, Margot Paulos, whose son Dan has been Lilly’s boyfriend for more than two years now. I never met Ms. Paulos, who lived on Long Island, and I’m sorry I won’t have that opportunity.

RIP, Norris Hickerson, whom I knew in Nashville ca. 1983, because we had some friends in common (especially Mike). One weekend in particular, sometime in my post-graduation haze that fall, about a half dozen of us hung out with Norris at his family’s suburban townhouse.

Soon he would return to Hong Kong, where, owing to a career move on the part of his father, Norris had spend many of his formative years. We lost touch until linking nominally on Facebook some years ago. He seems to have made a life for himself in Hong Kong, until passing suddenly of heart disease at roughly my age.

As expected, chilly air blew our way late last week. Not fully winter, but definitely a prelude. A few snowflakes fell Saturday night, but never amounted to much accumulation. And as long as the wind is low, walking the dog is still pleasant.

Spent a few minutes today ridding our dining table of junk mail, including the last of the vote-for-me postcards. Plus a faux newspaper, one of the odder direct mail political efforts I’ve seen lately, and one of the funnier ones since Phil Crane got the boot, which involved a series of amusing anti-Crane postcards.

One difference: the Crane cards were supposed to be funny. I don’t think that’s the case for the faux newspaper.

It looks like a physical newspaper, maybe one laid out by a college newsroom (something I know first hand). It calls itself the North Cook News, and comes in at a slender eight pages. It is a newspaper only in the most technical sense, produced by an entity called Local Government Information Services in the staff box, which lists no staff by name. North Cook News is actually campaign literature of the anti-candidate sort. In this case, against Gov. J.B. Pritzker.

Here is a sampling of headlines:

Maybe Gov. Pritzker should resign too;” [sic] former governor slams current one

Why hasn’t Gov. J.B. Pritzker been prosecuted for dodging property taxes?

— and my own favorite, for sheer entertainment value:

Report says Pritzker-family foundation funding ‘overnight camp’ for cross-dressing eight year olds.

Guess NCN was angling for some O tempora! O mores! sort of outrage, but these arguments apparently didn’t persuade enough voters to neutralize the governor’s 53.8% statewide vote percentage last week, or more specifically his 65.4% in suburban Cook County.

Armistice Day 2022

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It occurred to me not long ago, though it’s been true for a good many years, that every bit of writing, photography, film and other work created during the Great War is in the public domain. So I went looking for images of the first Armistice Day or thereabouts.

At the front. Really something to celebrate.

Paris.

London.

New York.

Actually, there’s some hint that the NYC pics are from November 7, when the AP erroneously reported that an armistice had been signed. No matter. The celebratory spirit is there.