Some months ago, we watched a lot of news coverage about the devastation Puerto Rico encountered from a hurricane, and, along with the reports of damage were also reports that the infrastructure of the island was very unstable. You got the idea it was cobbled together and extremely vulnerable to adverse conditions. Whether it be corruption at work (or non-work) was not really addressed. The headlines just emphasized it was an island in a hurricane area that would be devastated by high winds and sea surges, etc.

That was, of course, bad for the residents when it happened. All sorts of news shows highlighted the disaster and the length of time for help to reach the residents. Apparently, some supplies set in delivery areas with no way of reaching those needing them.

What I have been wondering about lately is how recovery is being handled in Puerto Rico; I don’t find  internet news headlines linking to follow-up information. Is Puerto Rico being rebuilt in a responsible manner? Is there corruption siphoning off money or not? Is the power structure being rebuilt stronger . . . or are really long extension cords crisscrossing the island, sort of the way I manage to get my electric lawnmower to reach the far corners of my yard?

And, then, who holds the responsibility for rebuilding? The Army Corps of Engineers probably is trying to get power to people, but does that entail the building a secure infrastructure or it is just their job to provide access to power? I believe, in such situations, they work under FEMA and are not tasked with construction of a brand-new, really good infrastructure.

In short, I know nothing about what is going on in Puerto Rico now, although I was inundated with videos and pictures of the destruction and, before that, with predictions that a bad hurricane would deal with Puerto Rico the way the big bad wolf did with the pigs’ houses that were not built of brick.

So . . . is there money for brick? Is it getting to responsible people? This would be a slower news story, of course, and it appears that more than not, the public eye is drawn to the WHOOOSH and then when that is over, the newscasters intone, “Well, moving on . . .

For several years I didn’t watch TV at all, except for when I was at the Ohio Redoubt apartment and Der Bingle and I marathon-ed Midsomer Murders. That series can be a little confusing at times, and there were times, I’m certain, when he and I would be sitting there, not really wanting to admit we had no idea who killed whom at what English festival. But we soldiered on, with some   to provide cringing laughter.

However, I got it in my head that the TV screen here was too little and so I took advantage of holiday sales and then realized I had to justify this big thing with high resolution. So, Cameron and I watched some rental movies and then he tuned into some Netflix documentaries and I found myself binge watching my way through empires, dynasties, revolutions and Indie movies.

Then somewhere along the line, he put The Travel Channel on and, after having traveled to many exotic areas, I find myself watching Andrew Zimmern’s Bizarre Foods. This afternoon, although I have been telling myself I will quit after the current episode, I have kept watching and actually learning quite a bit about South American cuisine and German beer gardens (which I learned got their name from the groves of Chestnut trees that grew above the cellars that were dug when a law was passed that Munich could not brew in the hot, dry months of summer because of fires.)

I finally picked up the remote and just as I was going to hit the OFF button, the promo said Houston would be the next table visited. So, I watched, thinking about asking Quentin if he had been eating any of the featured foods. I was surprised to learn that Houston has the biggest Czech population in the US. Who knew? Not me – until now. So tonight I will probably be researching that and a bunch of other factoids I learned about various countries on the Internet. I guess that would be my homework.

I have written about my cousin Lana who is nine months younger than I am, and so, for a few months, we are the same age. She is the one who sat on Roy.

Anyway, her eldest son is head coach of the basketball team at Hanover College and the season has ended – but not before they won their conference for the second year in a row and not before they played in the NCAA. YEA!

Hanover College basketball page.

Ree Drummond, has cultivated the blog seed she planted back in, oh, 2006, into a major brand. You know it: The Pioneer Woman. It has grown from stories and pictures of her family’s enormous ranch in Oklahoma to include a TV cooking show, a product line at Wal-Mart, re-purposed buildings in small Pawhuska: The Merchantile and an in progress boarding house. She has done very well. I forgot to mention the cookbooks and her pets, primarily Charlie, a basset hound who was the subject of one of her books.

Charlie did what dogs do when they get old – he passed away. Unfortunately, he was one of the faces of The Pioneer Woman brand. She got another basset, Henry, and wrote how much like Charlie he was. On March 7th, she wrote an entry in the section known as Confessions and addressed the issue of Henry being just like Charlie and maybe the family should just accept it and call him Charlie. She was voted down. Thank Heavens. One would hate to think of the successful Charlie being nothing more than an advertising cog in the Pioneer Woman brand.

I don’t want to infringe on any copyright protected material, so I will not quote the entry, nor show a screen shot, but I would refer you once more to Old Man Henry (Charlie) on her blog. And maybe we should wonder what would happen should anything happen to Marlboro Man.

Daylight Savings Time is here in Indiana once again. It is my chronological Joe Biden. (I can’t stand that man.)

On the first day of DST, I am going to a movie in Auburn because I went to a movie early last fall and it was in the previews, scheduled to come out in November. It’s the remake of Death Wish and how bad or good the movie is is of no longer any importance.

You see, having seen the original years ago and again now and then on some movie channel, I was curious about Bruce Willis in the role. I wanted for November, but there were no ads for the movie; where did it go? Finally, I found out it was to be released in early January 2018; that was a big, fat lie. So, now, in March, it is in theaters – but it did not come to our comfy, refurbished Strand Theater here in Kendallville.

I am biting the bullet and going to Auburn for the matinee – tickets $5. I bought them online for the 2 o’clock showing and printed out my precious barcode receipt. I also received a coupon for a free small popcorn which can be upgraded to a larger size. Unfortunately, I have fallen flat-faced off my diet and really should not print out this coupon. HA! Who am I to fly in the face of tradition?

Just look at the date today and the date of my last post. I have been wrestling with the fact that DST is coming this Sunday, March 11. Yes, it has been a long struggle to come to terms with it once again – especially so early.

I’m going to repeat myself from years past: It’s the fact that I live in the far western part of the Eastern Time Zone and just at the time when the sun is coming up around getting up time, WHAM!! it goes back to being pitch black pre-dawn. That is a shock to one’s psyche. You remember what they always told you – it’s always darkest before the dawn. See, you not only are whisked back by the clock from light to dark, you are slammed into the darkest dark.

DARK DARK DARK

REALLY, REALLY

DARK

Okay, you’ve got the idea. Now, in the past, Indiana would opt out of DST and we would be on Standard Time all year. If you want to get complicated, you can say we go from Eastern Standard Time to Central Daylight Time. Or, as we used to say, we stayed on slow time.

Some years ago, Mitch Daniels, who was campaigning for governor hinted that he would put us back on NO DST. We would not move our clocks ahead. It may not have been a big, fat lie, but he didn’t have it work out that way. In fact, now he’s the Head of Purdue University, so you little sleepy heads, come Monday: GET UP.

I’m open to compromise. Atlantic Time is one-half hour ahead of Eastern Time. With that precedent, why doesn’t Indiana opt for one-half hour behind Eastern Time? It couldn’t be that complicated; after all, counties around Chicago opt to stay on Chicago time. I suppose that would add another twist to the fast time/slow time jargon that has confused many a younger soul than mine. But, hey, I’m sure Apple watches could handle it. Maybe.

I honestly do not know where this is from. It looks like a New Yorker cartoon, but maybe not. I found it in images – and I was not looking for aging or dwarves. (I think elves planted it there, just to give me a poke.)

It is gray outside; it is warm, very warm for February and I find myself off balance. Most years we have had enough cold weather that I think that perhaps, just perhaps, we will have a hint of warmer weather. This year, with the exception of the few days I typed how we were going TO FREEZE, it has been more than above freezing.

I am starting to believe that most of my life, I have been been toughened up by being slapped in the face by the biting cold of walks across a parking lot. This year, especially this month, I have experienced something like a tepid bath – not cold enough to invigorate you, nor warm enough to relax and soothe your muscles. Much to my surprise, I find myself missing that feeling of “Oh, Thank God,” when I scoot into the back of the house and lean on the door to make certain it is fully shut. “The warmth, the warmth,” my mind would silently exclaim with an atavistic surge of the genes that reach back to the Stone Age.

Now I am a blob, uninspired by the gloom and fog that float from one day to the next. The fault, of course, is not in the weather, just as it is not in my stars; it is with me. It has been said that February is the waiting room of the year (C.S. Lewis), but, if so, than I have been sitting here without an appointment.

That would seem to make no sense, and yet it poured right out of my fingers. I may mean that I have just existed during this time, sitting here not even glancing at the time, nor reading an out-of-date magazine, not anticipating what the appointment will bring.

My grandson is a great one for choosing really nitty-gritty informational shows, including those on how things are produced. Usually, I start out thinking it will be a HO-HUM show that I will listen to and glance at and, at times, find myself really enlightened.

This morning, though, introduced me to an episode that will stick in mind for a long time because it showed a video of fluffy little yellow chicks being picked up by their beaks and revolving around to reach the beak-clipping apparatus. It is necessary because the idea pecking order is not just a phrase; chickens who retain the hooked part of the beak will literally injure each other in a crowd. A chicken crowd is what you have in an egg production farm, whether it be cage-free or not.

Now, I know I have not adequately portrayed this image with words; it might be nigh on impossible, so I am going to search the Internet for a picture or video. If I find it, I will have to provide a warning first. The beak clipping is not painful, the industry claims, but it is something that you would not conjure up on your own – even in a nightmare.

I found an image: I suggest you do not try this ride at a street carnival. The video in the show I watched featured fatter little balls of chick fluff. It will be a long time before I can look at another Peep.