Good mornin'.
One of my sisters just told me, "STOP obsessing about food, YAZZY!" And this on the day that I was going to write about how I started cooking. And how I didn't start, as most of the others did, with my mama's cooking.
Well, I'll just skip that topic. Though there doesn't seem to be much on my mind lately but food and death. Of the two, food seems preferable. I'll try to go on to a less irritating subject.
Aging.
I'm getting older and I am beginning to realize that my face won't be the same face at ninety, should I live so long, as it was at eighty. It certainly wasnt the same at eighty as at seventy. Recently discovered snapshots prove that without a doubt.
My lower face is starting to pooch out around the mouth, creating a sort of muzzle. Not an attractive muzzle either; sort of a floppy and (OLD) looking muzzle.
I knew a red-headed freckled faced long nosed gal who had a real muzzle-shaped face. She was just beautiful and looked like a fox, a gorgeous face if it all comes together and hers did.
Mine won't. It's like I said, a bit puffy and saggy at the same time. And above it, (though shrouded in Aristotle Onassis wrinkles) my same little four year old's eyes looking out at the world. Well, that is the deal of the cards.....I'll keep doing my facial exercises.
Now I ask you, isn't food better than this? I am closing for now, to eat a delicious lunch a la mexicana that is about to get ready on the stove. I may tell you about it tomorrow, and then, again, I may not. Love, YAZZYBEL
Good morning!
I just heard or read that the psychiatrist of James Holmes, Dr. Lynne Fenton, became "alarmed" in June regarding his state of mental imbalance. She reported it to the University of Colorado, who did nothing.
That was it. No excuses, no reasons, and no responsibility.
I'm sorry, Dr. Fenton and Colorado University, but alarm does not last that long---June to now. It's too strong, too intense an emotion to be sustained.
When you get an alarm, you turn it off and go into action. And turning it over to an institution or a committee is not action, most of the time. Followthrough was needed, and quick decisions "just in case."
I personally think Holmes's parents should have been notified, and if they were, they too should have moved to take some action regarding their son's condition of mind. Though I know from experience that parents are largely powerless in these situations where the kid is an "adult." But of all people in the world they are the ones who know him best and their input might have been valuable in the prevention of a mass killing.
This is a situation where a real evaluation of what happened when, who knew what when, could be of great help in preventing another similar situation. Nothing is going to happen unless the (associate)perps are held to account, either. There needs to be a law dealing with the responsibility of giving out drugs and the need for accountability. YAZZYBEL
Sunday==break time.
The other night I made the best tacos. They were Taco Salad Tacos. What made them worthy of the name?
Nowadays I often"fry" tortillas in the oven. So when I was making this dish, I sprayed a large cookie sheet and put in three corn tortillas (they can over lap, it doesn't matter) and cooked them a time until they were a little crisp around the edges. Then I folded two of them and kept the one flat. After the taco meat was prepared, I made the tacos in this order. Lay a tortilla on a plate, add cut up lettuce, tomato, onion and add a little salad dressing of your choice...add the meat, add half the third taco broken up, add hot sauce, add cheese, add sour cream if you like. (I like but I always forget it nice though it is.) Do it again with the other taco. What makes these tacos pleasant is the little broken up pieces of lightly 'fried' tortilla, than which there is no pleasanter substance.
Polenta Cornmeal came about because I was trying to buy Italian yellow cornmeal as it is not Genetically Modified. *
I could only find quick-cook polenta, so today I made a little bowl of polenta, salt, soda, lemon juice and milk, mixed it all up and baked it at 400 degrees on a well buttered cooky sheet. It came out thin, round and brown around the edges like a giant sugar cooky. I cut it in eighths. It was too salty, one, and it was a little grainy, two. Which means that cornbread needs that wheat flour that's in it in order to smooth out the results. However, it is edible and I am having some for my lunch with the gravy from the Meals on Wheels dinner. And I didnt want to put in any wheat.
* Genetically Modified in this instance probably means that the corn genes were melded with the genes of a poison that will kill the insects that eat the corn. Think about that. It is not supposed to hurt us folks, but here is how it kills the corn insects: it blows out their little insides.
Recently you may have read of Leaky Gut Syndrome. This is what it is. Those little teeny genes of GM corn/ insecticide are supposed to blow out little teeny holes in our intestines, allowing food to leak out and causing all kinds of heck in our body cavities. I don't know; I'm just sayin'. I look for foreign corn meal with no GM attributes.
Today in church, wardrobe attributes were confused. I myself started the morning in a light crepe shirt, which I returned to sender and preplaced with a tee and a warm jacket before leaving the house. A few wore the pale and jaunty remnants of midsummer (and looked cold), and a few had gone back to suits and ties or a combination of summer/fall that just didn't look right. It's warm out now, but it wasn't at seven, plus it was dark dark dark. The sun has now come out; a stew is simmering in the slow cooker I purchased at the Home Avenue Goodwill on the way home after church, and all is well here on Fairway Court, thanks be to God. YAZZYBEL
Good evening. Here I am writing about the Aurora shooting again.
I have heard some news items about the psychiatrist of the person whom I call "the shooter."
She is a person of position in the faculty of the Medical School, and has the responsibility of treating 12-20 students in the Medical School who were in need of psychotropic medication. What did students do, and how did they get through med school, before there were psychotropic medications to carry them along?
I'm sorry. I am a veteran /survivor of the psychiatric practice in the United States. I never have had to be treated, thank God, but my son did. I know but too well how medications are routinely prescribed for these unhappy youths, and what the awful results can be.
I think the psychiatrist and the Medical School of the State of Colorado should have to give long and explicit explanations as to what went on with the young man who killed twelve and wounded many others, garbed in garish clothing and apparently in a state approaching zombie-ism, emotionless and cunning. He spent quite a bit of time rigging up his apartment too, with explosive devices in order to harm the first responders who went in. These processes, setting up the killings, and setting up his apartments, for death-dealing, can't have been accomplished in a short time. What was his psychiatrist hearing? What was she thinking? How much did she perceive of his deep distress and the awful turnabout of his mind that put him on the path to horrible death?
We can't know yet. Perhaps she will gain some insight into her oversight. I am sure she is crying and distressed deeply now. It's terrible to have to stand in the aftermath of tragedy.
More of my thoughts about psychiatric medicating as they come up. And perhaps then, I'll shut up and go back to tacos which is what I was going to write about yesterday. YAZZYBEL
Well, the people of Aurora, CO, are carrying on with the help of the television industry. It is almost too awful to watch, all the grief and misery, and all the focus on the terrible incident---the argument about firearms and the Second Amendment--what the President said and what the Nominee said.
Here's what I have further found out about the shooter. He wrote a book or comic sketch of stick figures being shot by somebody. This is called "telegraphing," calling attention to one's plans before they come off. Does the shooter want someone to stop him, or is he daring people to figure him out before he does something terrible? In this case, since the writings apparently were not opened or paid attention to before the fact, it is all a guess. The ploy was a dud.
Some psychiatrists in his graduate program have made pronouncements, mainly, from what I have grasped, "I knew nothing. I know nothing." Doesnt anyone who worked in his immediate vicinity have any clue as to what he was really like, what he was thinking about anything? We won't know until the dust has settled and the complete story has been written, which brings us to a situation that has eerie recollections of another recent story: the Penn State coverup of a hideous reality in its midst. It is very likely that the 'truth' will never be made public, as to who knew whom or what, unless one fluke comes out of the dark with some claim on the public attention, which doesn't seem likely if this guy was as withdrawn and solitary as he appears to be. His parents are laying low; apparently they are 'cooperating' with authorities, but if they are saying anything valuable it is not for public ears, yet.
It is possible for a young guy to be solitary and withdrawn, and still be a normal person? Yes, but I am sorry to tell you that it is normal for a human being to have deeply dark impulses and thoughts. What makes them worth acting out is the question.
That is all I have to say about Aurora at this point.
We know nothing except for the grief of the American children, young and old, who were present at that debacle or who suffered terrible losses because of it. Perhaps I'll be moved to write more about it later. I have nothing new to say, I know. Maybe about the medications...YAZZYBEL
Good morning. I am just back from church and must be about my business of amalgating all the different thoughts, images, and plots from Absolom! Absolom! before tomorrow night at the book club.
So this is not the best time to organize my thoughts about the shooter in Aurora, CO, as they are just about comparable to the thoughts in Absolom!Absolom! However, I will try to start, and continue on in the days following if possible.
In the nutty night time, I heard a theory that this shooting might be
(1) all part of a master conspiracy where these shooters are all trained and set up by the government
(2) all part of a master conspiracy where these shooters are all trained and set up by the one-world organizers
with the idea that both groups, USA government or world government, are trying to destroy us.
Let's leave conjecture aside and tell what we know at this point. He was brilliant. He had 100 cc. (or whatever unit is used ) of vicodin in his blood when it was taken and anylyzed. (One of the commentators said that that amount would put him out of business: that it is a huge amount to have taken). He was a neuroscientist who was engaged in research to what aim I am not absolutely sure. He was a loner. He had no friends or associates. He had recently separated or been separated from his education program. He had recently purchased from the internet and had sent to him at home or work about 30 thousand dollars' worth of arms or ammunition. He had wired his apartment in a fiendishly (prejudicial word) intelligent way so as to kill the first responders who presumably would break in. Today is another day, and I am sure new disclosures await me on the TV as I drink something cold and prepare slowly to settle down with Wm. Faulkner.
He had parents, and they were not poor. He grew up apparently in ill-fated Poway, a beautiful little community with a lure for tragedy. (A SD suburb.)
I am thinking of those poor parents, who in this light certainly are poor, the poorest of the poor. If they have the intelligence of their son, they have long awaited a day like this, having with all their intelligence and resources absolutely no way to do anything about a possibility they await with cold fear.
So, this is all I will say today, and I will indeed have to expound further, perhaps Tuesday. But for today let it be said.
I kept hearing about the precise organization and coordination of the responder teams in Aurora which did indeed make an amazingly competent and heroic showing after the fact. My question is this: WHERE are the precisely organized and coordinated teams of doctors, caregivers, neighbors, friends or lack thereof, employers, educators, whom we need to start working at saving some of these desperately ill young men (mostly) before they ruin their lives and the lives of others?
It's a mind-boggling subject, though, isn't it? But as I looked at the wacko face of the shooter as first projected on the screen, and then the touching portraits of the very young student with big hopeful eyes, it makes me sad and it makes me mad. What happened in those years between? Why didnt someone care enough to step in and invite the guy to a chicken dinner or a game of golf? Why did the people to whom he consistently refused all social contact assuming they asked and he did--why did they not have some way to alert (who?) as to what might be going on inside that head, not to say that apartment? Oh, it's too confusing. I am going back to Absolom! Absolom! in desperation. YAZZYBEL
I grew up in a culture that never thought twice about one's right to bear arms. Of course, it was mostly men's right to bear arms as opposed to women's, but women had the right too and the right to learn the skill of handling a gun. When I went to camp I learned to handle a small rifle and was danged good at it. I still have my little badge from the NRA.
Arms are out there. We should not be a nation of sheep who don't know the first thing about a gun. If we are, we stand completely vulnerable to the multitudes of knowledgeable bad guys who are capable.
That is not the statement of a kind hearted liberal, nor of a good Christian. Who said that? A person who feels that we live in a treacherous world where nobody is looking after us, where nobody can look after all of us all the time no matter how high their intentions. Therefore, we must deal with the matter of armaments like we do with many other things. We acknowledge the truth as clearly as we can see it. And we act. Or, as now, we worry.
There is something wrong in our country when a ton of weaponry, ammunition, guns, automatic assault weapons can be bought by any one person over the internet and in stores, over a short period of time.
At least we know there's no truth to the rumor that our every move is being monitored by the powers that be, because nobody knew that a sick young man was purchasing all this stuff for some awful reason. We'll deal more about the sick young man that did the buying, tomorrow. Today, let's stick to guns.
Should we all be carryin'? Looking at the facts, guess so. However, look at George Zimmerman who was a good guy in his own books and who had the legal right to bear the armament he had, and the legal right to use it. He tragically, mostly for himself after the young dead guy, made a mistake in the name of justice or self-salvation or whatever, and popped that young kid in one unthought moment. Or thought moment.
Think of it, if we're all carryin'....think of the rain of bullets that would have ensued on top of the rain of bullets that Mr. Holmes sent off. Ditto, the same in Arizona when the young man shot so many people at the political meeting at the supermarket. Odd, when you think of it, that nobody in that crowd was carryin', Arizona being what it is. But suppose ten of them had been armed and disposed to take down the shooter. A maelstrom. Maybe somebody would have dropped him right off, maybe not. If nobody's sure who's who, and who's shooting, what's to stop one gun-bearer from shooting another gun-bearer in the heat of the moment, even if they're both dedicated to eliminating a crisis situation?
No, I don't think universal carrying of weapons is the answer, but universal proscribing of them is not an answer either. I don't know the answer. What is the answer? YAZZYBEL
