Category Archives: This and That at The Peanut Butter Cafe & Roadhouse

Making bread

Gee, I wonder about the power of urinary tract infections. I had one for Heaven knows how long. I thought I was feeling sluggish because of age, and maybe I was. However, after taking a week’s worth or medicine, I actually felt like doing something. And I did.

I went down into the basement and brought up a bread maker and I MADE BREAD. For anyone who really knows me, this is totally out of character. It takes a lot of “perk” for me to do anything involving the kitchen. I dropped the jar of yeast, but it didn’t break. The lid wasn’t on tightly and some yeast bounced out. If I hear creaking tonight, I will know the floor is rising.

The bread wasn’t that good, but, wow, does butter melt nicely on hot bread! Now, I need to remember where the bread knife is. And maybe the cake knife?

I don’t care if it’s outdated

I had to come back to this theme which can’t be updated. Well, the heck with it. Maybe someday I will study up and find a theme that will be compatible with everything and still feel like home. Who really knows?

I think I had to return here because I have been looking at all the stuff on social media and a lot of the time, I want to shout: ARE YOU REALLY COMFORTABLE ON YOUR HIGHT HORSE?

Fuyao Glass America – Well, not quite an American Factory

AMERICAN FACTORY

You can even joke about the President and no one will do anything to you.

I happened upon “American Factory” on Netflix, and my interest in watching it increased when I learned it was about a closed GM plant in Dayton that was revamped by a Chinese company, incorporating an American/Chinese workforce. I used to live in Dayton.

Certain quotes focused my attention. When explaining American culture to the Chinese workers who were coming here, the narration referred to American casual dress and one exact statement was: “They are very obvious, they dislike abstraction and theory.” The Chinese billionaire founder of the glass company says, “Americans love being flattered to death . . . Donkeys like being touched in the direction their hair grows.”

Later, in assessing American performance, a Chinese worker reported, “They have fat fingers; they are pretty slow.”

In a meeting with only Chinese employees, Jeff Liu, company president speaks in Mandarin about how the Chinese can encourage the Americans and impart wisdom to them. He tell them why they should: “We are better than them.”

In regard to Facebook, one difference between the Chinese and Americans amazes the former: “You can even joke about the President and no one will do anything to you.”

Sally and the Schoolhouse

 

I was recently reminded of Sally, Charlie Brown’s sister. If anyone refers to her as a comic strip character, I will be  tempted to smack them because in “The Velveteen Rabbit” we learned some things are just plain real.

Actually, I would be described as a Lucy personality, around whom flares often have to be set out. But that’s for another day. On this day, I looked up Sally and the schoolhouse and found this reference: Click here if you wish.

(The picture is from that site and I am piggy-backing on their permission to use the copyright. )

A bad mood day

Oh, yeah, on this day when I titled a post “A bad mood day,” I type a paragraph and then, out of nowhere, the browser crashes on me and swallows the paragraph. I suppose it is not a great loss. In a nutshell, I said that I had no reason to be in a bad mood, considering I am no longer sick and my house hasn’t burned down. My dog did die but that was a few years ago and so I can’t really cite that as an excuse for my low, foul mood today.

But here it is. It does seem that today has been one thing after another and the sense of having been banging my head against a brick wall has kept me frustrated. However, it is getting later in the day and, just when I’m thinking maybe I’ll feel better tomorrow, I look at BookBub to see this suggestion:
Kiss My Asterisk: A Feisty Guide to Punctuation and Grammar.

First, I think I don’t care because I’m 70 and my gosh if a participle dangles from me, it’s not the only thing. Second, I think my grammar is pretty good and I don’t want to look at a book that nitpicks me. Well, guess what, I looked at the synopsis – if you can have a synopsis for a grammar book – and it sounds like it is a grammar book for a generation that sees a period and thinks, “dot” as in “.com”

Now, I definitely don’t care; I’m simply ignoring a book I am afraid is going to call all the rules I learn outdated and be really lax with any grammar guidance. Maybe I’m wrong, but let’s not consider that because the thought has already triggered an intensification of my down mood and it will take time to dissipate. I don’t need to feel the intensification was not warranted.

Rats. Had I simply stopped with saying I didn’t care, maybe my feelings would have simmered down. But by expounding on why I wasn’t going to care about it, I stirred things up.

This has not been an inspirational post; it was not meant to be. It was for me. I stomped my foot with typed words.

I’m back

I petered out and more probably, became worried that I would slide from recording “I Love Lucy” type adventures into the controversial ramblings of a 70 year old. Well, it may be that there are some of you who thought I wouldn’t be able to keep my mouth shut. You know what; you were God Damned Right.

Joe Biden is back in the news, talking about running in 2020. I still remember how he mocked Paul Ryan during the debate in 2012. I remember his plagiarizing Kinnock and others. I remember his lying about his law school education.

I remember how to write sentences; I’m going to be doing that. They won’t be ones that fall of a band wagon – but then they never really were.