Right at 1779.

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Pageviews, this month, that is.  I'm free!  *grins*

I might make it to 2k, maybe and change.  Still, not worried.  As is that is more than I made in six month, possibly yearly, spans when I first started, and for years after.  Though, at this point, I doubt if that number is accurate.  I have learned, even as ill as I am, how to basically be a non-visiting visitor.  Not on every form of site, but on enough of them.  Kill adds, in part, then there are other things you can do.  I'm not a grand master at it, they are constantly at war with us, to unveil our online actions, and I keep looking for more better stealth tech... as I can.  How many visit?  Can't tell.  I just know, even now, only some who post comments show up as having visited.  Asked them, and they don't use all that much stealth tech, though maybe Apple is jealous of data theft and just keep it for themselves.  And microsoft is after people's souls, lets info hackers in so that it's more difficult to see what they are stealing, looking at, doing.  They just want dirt enough to keep you down, should you figure something out.  I think google is more like ms, but really is looking to fill the bank, only gently guiding the rest.  I suppose they know they can't compete with ms.  If they could, ms would simply cut that stream.  So, google plays along for it's little bits.

I keep looking for ways to cut them all out.  It's not actually possible without shutting them down.  And, yes, that is being considered.  Oh!  Looky there.  You see, they don't care what you say or think.  As long as they believe you think you need them, thus will put up with the intrusion, it is all good.  Talk about cutting them out of the circle and they get rather frightened.  If more people turned off their television, cut their internet, and went back to landlines?  These groups would flip out.  As much as they act as if they are even needed in business, which they aren't, they make a lot more money on your information, as middle men in your transactions, and such.  Cut those snakes' heads off and watch them squirm.  I don't think they know how to advertise as is.  They lost in television, they just piss people off with billboards, especially if they are blinding at night, print is dead, and the internet is blind.  They have no idea, at this point, what they are doing.  Really, many of these are ripping companies off.  They have nothing like the outreach they are suggesting.  They are probably counting my clicks, in spite of their ads being blocked from viewing to function.  Just as long as they have sent it, they count it.  Big companies had better wake up and find a different tack.  They are simply throwing money away at this point.  Then again, the big advert companies seems to play dirtier pool as to product quality and safety.  I guess I don't mind if they go the way of the newspaper.

Yeah.  Sometimes seeing it all happen, a bit into the future, some of the past, and tying it all together, is just a wee sexy.  What do They say?  Oh, sex sells.  I just see that in reverse... sort of.  Failure to cheat sell is sexy?  Something.  But seeing it is like wearing silk pj's, beside a pillowtop moma, on a tiger skin... meditating, mind you.  *blink blink*  Unlike a mathematician, who calculates distance velocity, time, acceleration, and decides it will never happen, I engineer the notion and know I will, in time, be close enough.  *grins*

Just chatterboxing.  Grinning.  And thinking of... some other things.  Later.

I think the day will be good.

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I didn't end up putting all of the dishes in the tub for a go at finalizing dirty dishes.  I have most of them there, I simply need to scour the cave for any last pieces, then set it all to soak.  I may shower first, as I am sure I need to be to town.  Even with a shower yesterday, I like to be extra clean, as well as that is possible.  Hmm, but I don't want to shower really soon, in case I need a nap.  A nap, just as with any heavy work, required a shower afterward... to my mind... before going social.  There have been times where choices and demands created a moment that was too slim to have my way, but that is rare.  Still, I can collect dishes.  And take a snack of anacin.

I may, since I am skipping dishes in the early, push a load of laundry through, maybe find some to fold and put up as well.  Just one load is needed, though putting all dirty laundry in the back opens up other areas.  Tea is brewing, thirsty.  I did have a spot of kefir first thing.  I love having that back on the menu.  It does take, if you consume much of it, a bit of work to push it through.  It's not difficult, hard, work.  It is pretty constant.  And it takes... other things.

Plus, while making a breakfast of some sort, I would like to sort the spaces and products out a bit more.  What sounds good?  Over easy?  Poached?  Scrambled?  Scrambled!  And bacon.  Might do the bacon, drain some of the fat, then scramble right over the bacon.  Yum!  Trash needs to go out, cat litter needs changed...  It is getting closer.  I was really moving on the kitchen until exhaustion hit full force.  While I am not moving ahead quickly, I am not only not falling behind, I am moving ahead if at a snails pace.  Help with the boxes was huge.  I didn't realize there were that many or that it would take that long.  There were and it did.

I need to be in town today, but just a quick thing.  I need to feed this bank account, take the recycling in, and maybe a thing or two else.  Nothing fancy, no shopping as I am to nervous about upsetting any apple cart, just some basics.  I may try to get a nap in by, say, 8:00.  If I need it.  Otherwise I will pull the trigger on a shower, set up the dishes after (or if I decided against a nap), then go from there.  Tea, I believe, should be done.  First just a cup, with lemon, honey, an ice cube or two... the medicinal cup, then on to the half gallon jug of it.  Yes, as a general rule, I drink tea by the half gallon.  Later.

I dug in.

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Breakfast, of course.  Then this, that, and some other things.  Finally I hit the dishes.  Dried and put up, the next batch is being collected.  I will rest for an hour or two, then take a shower.  I will be checking my potatoes.  If they are good I may do a couple of things.  Some of them will be peeled and sliced, a la french fries, others will be par boiled (or some such... just a hit and softening, perhaps a quarter the way done), and some will be baked, if I have enough.  The last two sorts will be skinned after they are cool enough to handle, then they will be french fry sliced.  If I have potatoes, enough good ones, to work these, I am hoping to kick most of the prep out today, then make a shot at McClone fries... minus the long storage chemicals, and a few other things... plus tallow (beef fat, as lard is to pork), along with peanut oil for the old school taste.  I think McDs has gone to all vegetable, which is partly why their fries aren't as good anymore.  They tried to blame it on vegans, but it was really just a shortcut to cheaper oil.  They threw their hands up, and paid the $5m fine, and cut their oil costs by a hundred times that a year, or something.  Rigged.  Then again most who eat there anymore, and more who are still welcome, wouldn't care if they were chopping up humans and adding them in.  Bleh.

Mostly asleep.  I would still like to push on through.  A shower, then a bite to eat, then perhaps to potatoes.  Hmm... then again, maybe I will skip on the potatoes.  That would be a lot of work, a lot of triple duty performance, it would take some organization, too much even If I was fresh.  I may have to do each of those on different nights, put them in batches so I can test them all through several nights, hoping that will be enough.  Rate each for difficulty, time and energy consumption, and end results or such.  Not as perfectly accurate, but much simpler, would be doable.  The hope is that they are all rather close enough but one is much simpler... raw, peeled, cut, most likely?  Though the partially cooked ones might be easier, just taking more time and focus on the project.

I have looked at other options regarding poaching eggs with nothing more than a pan.  The others seem to think that getting rid of the true whites, just keeping the 'whites' that seem to be attached to the yokes, is the way to go.   That doesn't leave you with much egg though... perhaps half?  I believe I will just do some easy over this time.  Maybe a bit of cheese on top... just a couple of sprinkles.  That and more bacon.  Dratted stuff is delicious.  Add that the forms are irregular and it adds to the hunger somehow.  I suppose I best get a shower in, then on to a bite.  I hope to make it later than 13:00, maybe 14:00, if that will make waking for the dinner bell difficult.  Bleh...  Push, shove, hop, and jump... still can't always do half of it.  Later... or more good night.  I don't think I will be back until after a bit or lot of sleep.

More today than yesterday.

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More, perhaps, yet to come.  First things first.  Painkillers.  I won't say they helped, not to my mind.  To my body?  Maybe.  I may take a small portion, again, each "morning", for the next several.  If I am more functional I will continue as such for a bit.  After that, a fresh pot of tea.  I am quite enjoying tea lately.  Can be warm when it is cool, or cool or iced when it or I am warm.  More lemons would be nice.  Lime just really doesn't do all that well with tea, or this type of tea, or the teas I like... to this point.

Then a food experiment, a little one.  One of my mothers used to poach eggs.  She had a steamer insert, with metal egg containers which fit inside all else.  I have no such thing and wouldn't be keen to use such an item.  So I went looking.  Poached eggs with a pan and boiling water?  Well, yes.  It worked okay.  Not perfect, some of the whites were lost.  Just swirl the water, then add the eggs.  My problem may have been the size of egg to the size of the pot, or that I added three eggs, medium of size.  Still, it really was better than I had actually hoped.  Absolutely edible.  In the video, he suggests waiting ten minutes.  I pulled them well before that, say after about three and an half minutes.  Even then they, while there was still some fluidity to the yoke, were a bit more done than I typically like them.  Hey, just another way to cook eggs if a good frying pan isn't available but a simple pot is.  A bit of practice might improve things.  I'll look for more ideas regarding doing it this way.  The cook was okay, but he seemed to leave too much information out or wasn't accurate in his presentation.  Still, it's a start.

I just set up the dishes to a fresh soak.  I'll set an alarm for an hour then attempt to clear out the last of the dishes.  Oh, there is more I could put in, but really not that much.  A few new things to wash, the cutting board.. and then oil it, and just a pot and maybe a pan or dish or such here and there.  If I can get this worked out, a shower, air dry, then a nap... hopefully awake by supper.  Bacon with the eggs, mind you.  Which reminds me, I best pull another portion of bacon out.  I buy three pound lots of odds and ends, cut that into thirds, seal those, freezing two and using one.  A pound of this lasts two weeks and easily is still good.  My next food experiment may well be deviled eggs.  I just, as I am working through new and old foods, things I have liked or wanted to try or trip over brand new in my searches, really am getting into foods.  Deviled eggs are an old thing, from when I was a kid.  I don't think I have ever made them, not sure I want to make them, only one way to find out.

Later.

From noon to...

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I have no idea.  I know I looked at the time.  I also know nothing was sticking in memory.  I might have been awake as early as 20:00 or as late as midnight.  I have no clue how long I have been awake.  I was tracking it.  It, as with the actual waking time, didn't stick.  If the second or third check had stuck, I might be able to narrow down just how long I was awake.  That simply didn't happen.  It seems some weather change moved in, with it rain.  All good.  I would still rather be camping, even if just in my back yard.  It truly is nice.

With, pretty much, nothing done yesterday, what had been my goals remain my goals.  I hope to make more tortilla dough, part it out, use some of it fresh, cook some to freeze, put dough in, and then in a week or two see if there is a reasonable way to reheat precooked, to see how they work.  I know the simple dough cooks well enough.  Though that doesn't work the best after a couple of weeks.  Use it well within two weeks.  Perhaps there is a way to make it last longer, just dough.  I don't know what that would be though.

Oh, right.  I only shredded the cheddar.  I went looking for corn starch.  It seems that I have tossed it.  Normally I would simply go buy it.  But with the mortgage companies (company actually, just using different names to scam us), playing dirty, I don't want to push things.  When I put money from one account into another I will have a delicate balance all around.  And I can't honestly be sure they will ever even really send the money they said they would.  So...  I'll be holding my breath until payday.  Bleh.  So, for now, I will simply use up one portion of shredded cheese before shredding the other cheese.  When I do obtain corn starch I will then do, say, ten pound blocks of a couple cheeses... a small portion will go into the fridge, to see how long and well it lasts.  The bulk will be put in the freezer, and it is the freezer cheese I will use.  There should be enough frozen to get a good comparison between the two sorts of storage to know if one is really all that much better than the other, perhaps a time scale of longevity for each, etc.  Science... while always ongoing, my home is my lab as that is where these things will function or fail.

I sure would like to kick out dishes, do some cleaning in the bathroom and kitchen, and prep a bite to eat.  Simple breakfast burritos would be fine.  I am really on my way to learning to cook quite well.  Over easy, scrambled, eggs... well done, chewy but strong tortillas, definitely make sure to cook tortillas all the way through... lots of little bits of this and that.  My cooking and baking skills are improving in leaps and bounds.  Oh, and I found my pressure cooker.  That is really good for roasts in a hurry, or such.  I am even looking into parts for it that allow for much easier cake, cheese cake, and other deserts items, right in the pressure cooker.  Yeah...  It isn't just fun and games though.

Hmm?  Oh... you know... I wonder.  I had stopped taking pain pills because pain had seemingly gone away.  I keep forgetting how high my threshold for pain is.  I can almost slice off a finger, or catch the cheek of my hand in a pistol slide... explosively opening it down to the bone... and not have pain be a problem.  Bleeding, an inability to stop really, is why I went in.  So, yeah.  I am going to try a bit of the stuff this evening.  If that allows function, I may have found the trick.  I don't want to take even o-t-counter meds for too long.  Perhaps a week.  After that, even if undetected pain seems to still be a problem, I will just have to live with it and work my way out of it.  Yeah.

Later.

Nothing going, three phone messages untouched, a couple of emails to deal with and...

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Natch.  Couldn't do more, or less, if I was on fire.  Might not even notice.  Nothing big or small, just how it is for the moment.

Leg has been hounddogging it, as if fleas were an issue.  It isn't fleas.  Just an ear infarction.  Listen, learn, or head on out unfulfilled for all I care.  *wink*

No sleep, not yet.

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Why?  Because.  I really wanted to sleep.  It just wouldn't happen.  Some things were considered while time slipped by.

Thunder, in the distance.  A wonderful thing.  No rain, or not that I heard.  At times I would slip into thought, deeply.  Too deeply would I travel to be aware of my physical surroundings.  It is cool, wonderful.  Thunder, rain, cool, all good things.

Something I have been fussing regarding of late is cast iron and high carbon steel pans.  I have done much to try to figure these mechanisms out.  They are a tech, but an old one.  They don't fit in this race-track of a modern life, where everything is supposed to be easy, nearly to push-button convenience.  That is simply not how these sorts of materials work.  Slowly, between this and that, reading here, watching there, a discussion from time to time, some notions are beginning to make sense.

One of the things that I knew was causing me discomfiture was... the smell.  While I, as a general rule, have avoided vegetable fats... which mostly is right... animal fats were not working either.  They worked better, as I did use vegetable fats a few times, attempting all options.  Vegetable fats simply don't do well.  Not the ones I have tried.  Animal fats would go rancid, but still worked, and worked better than the vegetable oils I have tried.  I recently saw a suggestion from a long-time cast iron cowboy chef... olive oil.  As well, I got several other notions regarding use and cleaning.  One of my mistakes, according to him and very reasonable to my mind, is that I have been using steel utensils.  Wood, he says.  Though I suspect bamboo might work well too.  Steel, or any metal nearly as hard as cast and I risk stripping the seasoning.  Yep.  For sure on the high carbon.  As well, there are other notions regarding seasoning and use.  So... I may restart the seasoning in my pans and dutch oven.  When I can get to it.

Some other notions are less of a change, more of the memory of want.  I really want to get going on hiking and camping.  I don't know if I can get to anything quickly.  This week?  I would really love to do it.  Not sure it is possible.  Even to set up my hammock in the back yard, perhaps the bivy tent.  More?  If I get them set up, spending a night or two out there, perhaps even cooking a meal, setting up a bathroom, just for washing, doing dishes, you know... a camp thing.  Though figuring out how to create enough privacy for washing more generally and specifically would be good.  Dry runs, mostly, though with absolute privacy, practicality, and a near future in mind.

I really would like to get into some kind of shape.  I am not sure how far I can go, with a full pack, once I am in shape.  I am guessing, just as with many who don't think they could go far, if you can keep at it, have a reason to push, I as many might find we can go much further on much less for a lot longer than is believed.  I have reason to get  going.  Time isn't in my hands, or on my side.  Next spring, if my license has been taken, is when I will be heading out.  Hopefully with outside transport, for a while.  Then I will be one my feet from the time I get to a drop-off area, where I can unload the very little I will actually end up taking.

As for cooking, that is good to study whether staying or going.  A cook who actually can make do and do it with some shine truly is of some value.  First to himself, then as a lessor hand on the side... better if you can cook very well for a medium to larger group.  Not a bad way to pay for ones room and board, if for me on a very short term thing.  I can't do such for long, too much time on the feet.  Though a meal a day might well be possible, with a little prep help and someone else doing the cooking or just ordering in.  Hit or miss is better than nothing.  The more you learn about prepping raw foods, the better you are at really cooking.  Taking what is at hand, knowing when an acid, a base, or a neutral is best, how to tell when meat is done, and how to cook meats and vegetables... from various sources... so as to create specific textures and flavors.  One thing about being cook, you always eat if there is food to eat.

Sounds like the rain is closing in.  I may attempt a nap.  Hmm, maybe a beer first?  Yeah, maybe, or two.

The idea was good.

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Work, food, cleanliness... bleh.  I am simply done.  It is 20 to 3:00.  I have made stabs and making jabs, only to pretty much fall down, doing nothing but taking a stroll in the process.  I go, I see, I set down before I fall down.  It's not quite that bad, if the idea is there.  Sometimes it is because I am physically tired, sometimes it is because my mind cannot hold focus long enough to see an effort go forth.  Yeah, I am hungry.  Something would be good.  Nothing is all that easy to make.  Hmm, pickled pork hocks aren't food, even sardines are better.  I have one pack of sardines, no crackers.  Milk, hocks, and then back to bed I suspect.

Maybe tomorrow I can get to something.  While I won't be making it to noon, I might be able to wake before noon, so have the afternoon ready for work?  I can't seem to sleep or stay awake on a regular basis.  It's just how it goes for now.  Hmm... if I am awake later in the afternoon, I might be able to make it in for crackers, two or even three boxes... plus a plenty stack of sardines and a few other minor things.  I sure have learned to love fresh fruit again.  Just an apple, perhaps grapes, even if slightly out of season they add a simple snack that is easy to put out, clean after, and double up if just one bit isn't quite enough.  Go fancy?  Just slice and add peanut butter.

Not sure why?  Still too cool for those of us who sleep the winters?  Too dark, for a similar reason?  Don't know.  I'll keep planning, and taking shots even if it seems to be that I am aiming at the moon.  Time for a nap or a full sleep.  Still might look for something easy and fast... right, hocks... and a glass of milk.  Sounds horrible but it really isn't.  Later or see you in the morning or early afternoon or... sometime.

Spending nights on days?

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Yes.  What I mean by that is, often, I have one of two choices.  I can either work, or push my schedule.  Sometimes I can do both.  And usually working leads to pushing.  Sometimes, however, I can't work, leaving me with just pushing.  Why can't I work?  Still rather oppressed by the cold.  The cold is definitely dead and gone.  Energy and the capacity to store it, is gone.  Even with food daily, sometimes even twice a day.  Although that does give me something to do.  And I have, mostly, been keeping up on dishes... so it's not a net negative.

In any case, I am going to push to get some work done tonight.  The trash cans were filled, I want to empty those.  Other trash was collected, in a large bag, and in a box or two... packing material fills space quickly, even when it is popped or crunched down.  Which, I suppose, is why they use it.  As well, I am hoping to finish dishes tonight, then get a shower in.  And, maybe, put my vitamins and over the counter meds/supplements back into production.  I may add a portion of the water pill as well.  At times I keep clear, that way, at other times my body falls behind.

That and continuing to push from nights back to days, again again, and I will be happy.  I would like to hit the bathroom again, though it only needs a very light touch-up.  With that, I should be able to begin on the kitchen tomorrow when I wake.  I have been inching my way through the kitchen.  Removing the boxes helped greatly.  What remains to be moved are jars and food stores as well, which can all go down in one fell... day.  A day may be as close as I get to a fell swoop for now?  If I can do more, though, I certainly will.  It would be wonderful to really rip into what is left to do out there.  Closer.  After that, the living room will get hit.  It is sort of like the kitchen.  Not so bad but it will cost some time.

I honestly think I can get those rooms sorted in a week, if I can get to my feet and catch my wind.  And I think that is coming.  Part of my problem has been the dark.  Spring sprang then shrank from it's initial blush.  All good.  She has been a pretty thing in spite of it.  A little help would have seen me out, but being ill it would have had to be strong healthy help.  I am healthy again, just tired.  I'll see about my friends soon.  If I can guarantee, by Sunday, that I can make it to at least noon twice this weekend, I'll make plans to get out and see people this week.  So, yes, push, push, push.  Ugh.

Hmm... what to cook though, this week?  Ah, more tortilla dough, though this time each separated into a batch (to make three big tortillas)... say six batches of that size, which should be three batches (I think) that I made last time.  Some of those I will roll out then cook then freeze... to see how that works.  The small pressed ones make good actual taco shells, the big ones are for burritos.  I prefer burritos, or even a burrito casserole if I want to feed some number... could even roll them to fit a casserole dish.  Do several, in layers.  Okay, but that's not new.  Hmm... beef stock, then use that for a beef stew?  Or maybe try the chicken stock to make a duck and gravy, reserving those drippings and the carcass to make duck stock?  Could be.

Later.

How to keep grated cheese from clumping?

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Well, yeah.  I thought I had heard about using corn starch... or some such.  All I could find was the notion of freezing cheese.  Well, while that might work, I... have my doubts.  Oh, sure, in time I will try that.  YouTube came up dry regarding my query.  I used the other browser to check, as this one is a bit quirky, being tied up with security, supposedly.  I found what I was looking for, and it seems as if what I had heard might have some truth to it.  So... I will try this.  Right now I have small enough batches that I don't think freezing is really the way.  Hmm, though I could try it with one part of it.  The suggestion is that frozen grated cheese thaws very quickly.  Tonight I can used the pepper jack fresh, then add corn starch, then freeze the remainder.  Yes, more beef and bean burritos.  This will be the last of all of it.

Last time I made four tortillas.  I think, for better results, I will only make, say six tortillas.  This is twice the dough as what I used to make both eight, then four, tortillas.  Four might be okay.  They ended up being thick and strong enough.  And, yet, I felt they could be bigger.  I would like larger yet, as well.  Experimenting is the only way to get a really good grasp on things, then you stabilize a recipe when it really works for you.  Not some French, German, American, or generally top chef, but you... or you and family, friends, whatnot.

It's about time to go do a bit of work in the kitchen.  Next time I make tortilla dough, I may attempt to roll it out and freeze the uncooked dough... and cook some of them and freeze them fully or partially cooked.  I'll see what others suggest and if there is a spread in opinion, go with both.  If only one seems to be common, I'll go with that.  It is fun, especially when it tastes so good!  Later.

The Profession.

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As my health deteriorated, with multiple organs failing, I prepared for death.  The constant pains and discomfort stepped the level of misery up seemingly daily.  The end had to be nigh, but on I went.  One of my acquaintances or family members introduced me to The Doctor.  He being a surgeon, who on his own, save for surgical staff, at his home, specialized in organ transplants and saving the incurable.  He had an impossibly uncanny ability to know who could use what organs, well beyond what common practice indicated, or even blood type.  Certainly, mainstream medical attempted to push and pull him out of business.  But when you have saved triple A elites, family members of judges, and many humbler class folk, some things are more difficult than they seem.

After an initial exam, he indicated that the problem was not beyond his medicine, assuming a heart and, by that time, a liver came in that would fit.  The other organs were not damaged beyond repair.  His strange natural gifts allowed him to pick foreign organs, even ones that should not work, and not only fit them, but do so without the risk of rejection.  It is the only reason I even considered surgery.  He told me, as all the others, to go home.  He would keep my case in mind.  If the organs arrived, he would give me a call and begin scheduling surgery.

As it turned out, the organs arrived within three months.  While I had returned home, he had put me on a medical regimen that would more surely secure my life for a longer time, and reduce the suffering, both of which worked.  Still, it was quite good to know that, in short order, I might well be back to a greater health, maybe even full health for the first time, nearly, as an adult.  It seems the heart and liver from the same donor would work perfectly.  I really had worried about having to go through two surgeries, or getting one in and never finding the other.

The surgery went perfectly well.  The organs were accepted.  Some short period of anti-rejection medication, while I lived in a bubble... a few months... was required.  Then another few months of weening me from the medication and I was back to open living.  It still took nearly a year before I was fully healed, but at that time, I was truly healed.  Sleeping regular schedules, being active for a full day, even heavier lifting, were the norm.  But... what to do with what remained of my life?  So, again, I went to see The Doctor.

I let him know it was a social call.  He agreed to meet me on the weekend, have me over for dinner with his wife and some of his staff.  I didn't want to mix business with dining, so waited until after dinner, as we all had general conversation in the living room.  I began with a general opening.

After being ill all of my adult life, I suggested, I had no idea what to do with a healthy life.  While, with my health and intelligence, I could probably get a degree in just about anything, with such lacking in experience and at my age, finding employment would be very difficult.  Adding health history into the billet, no company would bite.  I indicated that I wasn't being ungrateful, at all, I was merely searching for a solution.

They had heard this before.  Sometimes they could offer a solution, sometimes not.  The Doctor decided to perform a few tests, see where I stood, and would consider my situation from there.  The next week saw me filling out forms, doing evals, being intellectually, socially, emotionally, and in other ways probed and prodded.  Patience, I suggested to myself more than once.  On and on, from early to later, day after day.  At the end of the week I was sent home, told that the information would be examined.  If nothing came of it, a simple letter indicating that they had done what they could would be sent.  If something more, a call would be the means of communication, and from there all else would follow.

Less than a week later, a call.  No information, just an invitation to another Doctor and staff meal and evening of discussion.  So it went.  Again, in spite of my burning curiosity, I didn't open up before or during dinner.  And I tried to eat... fine food, didn't want to waste, and yet difficult to focus.  Still, food is food, good food better.  After the meal it became clear that my patience was the last of the keys.  It seemed I was to be groomed to replace The Doctor.  Flabbergasted, that is the word to describe my reaction.  I wasn't going to say yes, or no, only... listen, maybe feign at asking questions while I worked through their cumulative minds to see what it really was they meant.  It time, I learned that The Doctor had, at one time, been in my very shoes... all the way around.  He had not been the first Doctor.  Nor the one before him.  He didn't know beyond that.

So it went.  I was trained, and well.  I learned to see organ fits just as well as the man who had fitted me.  I became familiar with the aspects of the anatomy that were involved with this specialty.  I learned to call the tune at the surgical table.  I even, if only weakly at first, learned to understand that not all could be saved.  Slowly, over the next decade, I began to operate alone, then take over my surgeon's role fully as age virtually took his legs and wind from him.  Finally he retired.  I sought a replacement for myself, but those things take time.

We healed who we could, who arrived, requested, lasted the wait for replacement parts, and who could afford the process or if we had enough on our ledger to afford fixing them from our funds.  We avoided politics and other such, as best as we were able.  Even so, as the world changed, we got caught up in that.  A man had come in, a writer of some sort.  Rarely did we have time to read, save to stay up on our craft, read new notions, and such.  So his fame was not known to us, or his material.  A humble enough man, and quite ill.  We ended up saving him, then sending him on his way.  The state was quite displeased with this.  They sent a young political officer over to discuss this with us.  I took the call, releasing my staff as they have no control over the choice, and couldn't make the call anyway.

On and on, the young officer talked about the evils of saving a man who was against the state.  I simply suggested that, without testing, the state could not be found to be good.  He suggested that what I did might be grounds for treason.  I suggested that if doing my job was illegal, to some part of the state, in spite of no intent other than to do what is right, then what he was doing, by some in the state, might surely also be considered an evil.  On and on.  I would not recant.  I had expected to simply defend myself to a degree, offend him enough that he would leave, and be done with it.  Right as I thought he had experienced enough pain to just leave, I saw him reaching for his pistol.  I saw the intent in his eyes.

I moved toward him, reaching for his pistol arm.  He hurried a bit, to open his snappy but overdone holster closure.  Who would get there first, who would be strong enough, or fast enough, to secure the pistol?  Then what?  I was too busy to consider answers.

I still can't believe the tortillas.

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This time, instead of eight or was it twelve... I think eight... I made four tortillas.  They seemed too thin.  At that point, I didn't believe there was much to be done about it.  Fried beef, beans, cheddar, the tortillas, salsa, and milk, nothing at all fancy.  Sure, some spices/herbs... garlic, cumin, salt and pepper.  Even so, I was full quicker and ate less.  Home cooking is simply different.  No added sugars, and while the flour was white it was a better sort and very fresh.  I still hope to get over to home ground flour before long.  Fantastic.  That fresh, even once frozen, those tortillas really are something else.  The extra flour, and sitting it all under a bowl for 20 minutes, made it seem like fresh dough.

I still have a double batch of the dough.  I'll try that next week with something.  I just can't do fish tacos.  Something about the whole thing doesn't set right between my mind and stomach.  Maybe flank steak tacos?  Yes, along with fresh torn greens of some sort and salsa if anything remains.

I haven't been able to do much else, and I am dropping.  But today is cool to almost cold.  I thought it was supposed to be warm.  This up and down in temps, dark to bright to dark... that is all throwing me for a bit of a loop.  I think I am recovered, just, as with yesterday, still worn a bit.

I transferred money from savings to checking, and keep checking my local checking.  If I don't see money come in today I will, either this afternoon or tomorrow, get in and write a check to this account.  That and call to see if Freedom Mortgage/GMAC Mortgage, or whatever they are calling themselves today, has any real intention of returning money they refused in the way it was sent for four months, then charged, it seems now, overcharges in spite of suggesting they wouldn't.  Though if I have to push the issue, I will be opening up a consumer complaint.  Yeah, I know, they won't do anything.  One anti-bureaucrat getting punched isn't going to blip on radar.  Too big to fail, serves a valuable purpose (transfers taxes to the states and fed).  Still, it means if they continue, in time, someone might suggest they slack it back a bit.  Who knows.

First, though, a nap.  If I can wake before it heats up, or in any case, in time to check, call, and possibly get to town if all else fails, then so be it.  If not, tomorrow, I will probably just head in about this time, pay up to get my bank settled, and pick up some paperwork or print out what I need, though it goes back a bit so I may need older files than what I can access.  Ugh.  Later.

Gee, and you call ME a night owl.

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Vampires, foreigners, fellow countrymen who happen to be foreigners in a foreign land, wake-oholics and other options, of course, would explain late visits by So-and Whositz, et. al.  Still, it does make me chuckle.  Well, and it means, at least for the more local visitors, that I am not alone in the night.

It took a bit.  I finally remember to pull out some of the tortilla dough.  I had to push thawing, so used quad-sacking and the hot water the dishes are soaking in.  I don't do it in rinse water, in case of contamination on the dishes, but in a wash water I don't mind.  Worst case scenario, soap gets on the food and I toss it.  Bleh.  I also pulled the last slab of skirt steak... flat/flap(?)... something.  Memory can suck, does suck atm.  Especially since, after pulling it out and thawing it (soap free), I realized I wanted to do hamburger and beans with the tortillas.  I think, actually, I will just heat the steak, cut it, and have it as a "snack".  Then set up tacos with the originally considered ingredients.  I have cheese to grate, as well.  The food processor is much better at that.  What makes using the processor worth using is grating cheese in volume.  As I experiment with things, like how long home grated cheese lasts in the refrigerator, so how much to buy... well and if it freezes well, which is sort of the next step... and perhaps finding something to add to the cheese to make it last longer in the fridge, and is also acceptable to my notions of nutrition... so lots of experiments, in time, really...  In any case, I mean that I have a couple pound block of medium cheddar and pepper jack, each, to process.  So this is worth it, to my way of thinking.  Much more worth it if I learn to figure my needs accurately, how to also freezer grated cheeses, and then to them in ten pound blocks.  Cheaper to buy and grind yourself, by far... if you don't waste.

Just beef, beans, cheese... oh and some salsa, and tortillas.  I am hoping to make the tortillas much bigger this time.  I don't have a larger press.  So that means rolling them out... sort of by hand.  Using a roller, anyway, rather than a press.  I prefer eight to ten inch tortillas, but like them thicker too.  Last time I made, say, eight or twelve tortillas.  Given the size difference, I am hoping for three or four tortillas.  I added just a touch of flour to the tortilla dough and am letting it sit and fix as I type.  The oven was turned up, to heat the steak through, as well.  The timer is going off.  As I put the steak into the oven, I will begin the pan and cast tortilla flat grill.  I am hungry.  Later.

I had been losing my way.

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Between intense business problems, which are still ongoing if theoretically managed... the cold, which also is theoretically finished... to cleaning and other work, and the want of play such as hiking, photography, or even just getting out, which are all ongoing, to other business matters that aren't monetary but social, personal, religious...  So much on my plate, only so much me, time, effort.  I was getting stuck on one, then losing track when something else snuck up on me or came at me full face.  The work today helped me out of the mild but becoming more intense rut.

Beside holding off sleeping as long as I could into early evening, to avoid heat sleep related problems, when I woke I set the dishes up.  I have washed them as well, now... first wash.  They are soaking a second time.  The goal is to have them finished by true morning, or at least in a hot rinse, then yeah... maybe done before I need a nap a bit later.  Then a shower and air dry time while I tinker.  The trick with sleeping in the "heat", is to know when it is too hot, get out of sleep, and arrange naps and sleep periods as best I am able.  The thing is, when sleeping, if it is too hot, my body sort of dives... trying to get more or better rest.  So pulling out of that is really tricky.  Alarms aggravate that.  Suffering, one way or the other, is the only way... at least until I can balance my sleep, get used to some heat, or figure to catnap on a dime, and back.

If I can finish the dishes, I will be back in the kitchen, hitting it hard.  I'll do that as long as I can, take a break, then hit the bathroom as a change of pace, then back to finish the kitchen.  The goal is to have the kitchen table stripped, kept bare and clean, and ready to use for cooking or baking, sharpening, or other if more domestic type of chores and duties.  I won't eat at the table, really.  It's too big for one.  A reminder of somethings I'd rather not know.  Though making rolls, or tortillas, or egg noodles... sharpening blades and working up to sharpening razors... these things a good, tolerable, right.

Depending how things turn out, I will probably make a strong attempt to get to town today.  Just to deliver boxes, though a bit of shopping would be good.  I might as well clear the fridge as much as possible, sorting, tossing, planning.  I really would like to fix something good to eat this week.  Oh, tortilla dough... I need to get that out.  Bleh... keeping up on it all is harsh.  Worth a shot though.  Later.

Ah, that is definitely part of the problem.

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With spring having sprung, as it begins to balance then stabilize into early summer, the weather is both less erratic and warmer.  Good things, for health, mood, sun, and such.  However, as things change, my body really takes a beating getting used to more sun and higher temps.  More so if I attempt to sleep during the day.  In in the low 70's (I suspect), the days are way too hot for me as configured.  Sleeping during the day can cause literal deliriums.  The fan helps, right until the outside and inside temps are too close to matter, humidity is a bit thick which results similarly in little air circulation, or things like that.  The ac might help, though maybe not.  So?  So I need to, post haste, swing my days and nights back around.  That heat is what is causing the aches and pains, the headaches, and other such problems.  Well, that is where I would lay my money.  I guess I didn't realize the world hereabouts had reached that level of warmth.  No, mid-70's just aren't that high.  Only compared to more recent weather, the jump from the 40's and 50's.  That's what will get me... especially if it happens quickly... which I think it has.

Help did arrive.  And, while I thought it would be handy, until the work began I didn't realize how much there really was to do.  The boxes in three rooms were broken down.  Packing material was either decompressed and trashed, or at least boxed when the trash can became full.  All of the box husks have been put in the back of the Xter.  Today, perhaps tomorrow, I will be getting those in to recycling and taking the trash out.  This puts me way ahead on getting into the kitchen... my next primary goal.  And I am much more keeping up on the bathroom.  Not perfectly, but rather wall.  I have torn down to where the table is mostly visible, and would be easy to clear just a bit more for a major use, such as multi-wet stone sharpening, or making a large batch of egg noodles.

The goal is to truly clear the kitchen, find a real place for everything, then maintain that as long as I can.  Very difficult solo, not much easier even with two mind you but a bit more simple if everyone has at it.  You either cycle up or you cycle down.  Anyway... each time I have been doing this, the last few times, I get closer to figuring it all out.  Huh?  I mean, each time I have cleaned, or had help cleaning, for the last three times anyway, I have found or made more static places for more things.  Of course I have purchased a few more things.  The wheat mill, for example.  *cough*  Yeah... but I am far more ahead then behind.  I simply need, perhaps, another cart... an open wire one on wheels perhaps?  That should soak up the last of my small appliances, my new big wooden cutting board, and some other things.  Ugh but organization can be a pain.  I am closer than ever... for whatever that means.

Once I have a better situational handle on things, I can begin attempting to use the outside to cook a bit more often, doing more food prep more easily inside, and otherwise tinkering with how things are done so as to keep order, or at least a bit longer.  All while eating much better.  That will always be the weak link so it will need the most resistance and the greatest effort.  Which reminds me, I am hungry.  I am about to pull one of the batches for tortillas out, see how well it thaws, then make burritos.  Hmm... just hamburger and bean this time.

I want to make enough beans to have some for ham and beans soon, then have enough left over to attempt making my first real batch of homemade refried beans.  They, to be honest, will probably not taste all that much better.  What they will do, though, is get rid of a bunch of stuff that isn't good for people or animals from the canned, store-bought, variety.  It is a very simple food that easily stretches meat, is easy enough on the digestive system, is cheap, easy, and has a fair amount of proteins and fats all by it's lonesome to mix with rice for a, if only slightly, sub par entree.  Not today, or in the next few days.  Work and sleep have handed me my *cought* ask me later.  So I really do need a day or to to recoup, if I will make it to town tomorrow if necessary for some business.

Yeah, things are working out, being figured out, and being tended as well as I can.  I will do what I can not to sleep in the day, or for long, and with whatever I can use to make that easier when I have to do so.  Bleh.

I may have a way out, if all else fails.  I may be, as I get better and feel better, even considering attempting to create a backup escape plan.  No wheels makes leaving difficult without a copilot.  Saving enough money to escape, and not be a burden, is also a trick, even with a goodly amount of time.  Difficulties abound and yet, if all else, I will cut every tie, every string, every tether and I will fly with what I can carry if it comes right down to it.  Because I can.  My friend thinks I am a clever enough boy to figure things out.  True, or not, there are some places where clever simply doesn't spend.  Bureaucracies are among those.  Law tied, absolutism, and a few other things come to mind for certain types.  The law is the law is the law and it isn't just blind, it is stupid, unless you are rich.  It has been sic'ed on me, and I don't think there is a way to shove it off.  I am... sniffing around, looking for a way in or out, I just don't expect to find a way out as he may think exists.  We'll see.  Can't stay without a drivers license, can't have a license without medical, medical is useless without medicine, can't afford medicine, the VA and the state or on either end pulling.  I don't die but I can turn into vapor and drift off.  While you are ghosts to me, in a very odd way... I am most certainly, and probably closer to the real thing, a ghost in your world.  Even if I know both of these elements better than you know whichever one it is that you are truly in.  *wink*

Later.  *poof*

Sleep, at night.

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Not all that much of it.  Down sometime shortly after 2:00, before 3:00.  I slept well.  I woke quite a bit earlier than hoped, sometime around 5:00.  I simply couldn't sleep longer.  Muscle and bone aches, as if I had slept too long, and something else I can't identify... something that has been plaguing my sleep for a number of days now... just wouldn't allow me to continue sleeping.  On the good side, this morning, I woke before I was in much pain.  The last week, for the most part, I have waken needing tylenol or something.  I could use it today, but it wasn't the first thought on my mind nor is it seemingly vital.  I may use something, though anacin this time.

I have reset the dishes to a fresh soak.  I hope to get through them yet this morning, sometime.  As well, fried eggs and bacon this morning, before even that.  If that works, a shower, more dishes prepped for washing, and a bit of general straightening yet this morning.  I need to get back on my feet and kicking out a bit.  It did cool down, weatherwise, lately.  Perhaps that is why healing up, picking back up, after the cold is being so difficult.

I keep checking my account.  So far nothing has been returned.  Actually, someone or some company keeps pushing for money, causing extra overdrafts.  I have let my bank know that I can repair some of this, if absolutely needed, and roughly agreed to tend this sometime near or slightly after midweek if the funds aren't returned by then.  They have agreed to take off late fees, and other things.  I just want the money to be returned rightly.  Never can tell if a company will keep it's word.  Especially if you aren't just an accident, but a target.

If I can get some things kicked out, I may take a short nap in the late morning.  Just a little inoculation against later exhaustion.  A carrot, as sticks don't seem to be working.  And it might well work.  Or not.  Later.

Doing better.

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Sleep is just whack.  I have been trying to direct it, limit it, push here, shove there, get it to line up with something level and singular of direction.  The alarm, when I hear it, simply complicates things.  I can't go to sleep as I would wish.  I keep waking with my neck and shoulders out of place, and often too hot.  Something is off.  It's not the cold, that is gone.  It is simply getting energy reserves back, I really believe.  I will keep at it.  I am sure it will work out soon.  I would like to contact my friend, and also make an appointment with one of my fellow KoC'ers.  I have business with the latter, though consider him a friend as well.  And I want to try to help my friend get his legs under him, as well, after several rough years for him.  I can't quite do that, not yet, as I can't be sure what tomorrow will be like.  Some days I don't seem able to walk, just too tired.  Some days I sleep crazy long hours.  Bleh.

I am hoping, with a bit of help, to work tomorrow.  Nothing fancy, just a bit of straightening and recycling.  Boxes... cleared, broken down, put in the Xterra, and maybe, if that happens well, a trip to town to get rid of those right away.  As well, perhaps a bit of shopping.  I don't want to call and arrange something, as I can't be sure if or when I will be in.  However, if I am sure I will be in, I may then attempt to contact one or the other, of my friends.  While it is wonderful to share company with women, or a woman, man friends are vital too.  Some sort of balance thing.  They aren't pretty, but they can be handy, honorable, sage, and even good enemies.  Hmm?  Oh, my, yes.  A good friend often makes the best enemy, and a good enemy can be your best friend.  Keeps you on your toes or such.  Now, there is a difference between sparring and warring, sometimes a very slim one.  And, yet, it is how men are built, how we work.  Too old to be punching around, but that had it's place at one time in my life, both for kin and friends, and testing, plus some that were none of those things.

I may just attempt sleep.  I don't know if it will work.  I just took a Doom dose of tylenol.  It seems to be becoming less effective.  I may have to shift back to  anacin.  If I can sleep, and I ache when I wake, I will give that a shot.

Oh, still dreaming in the line of fire.  Love, war, the past, the future...  Being consumed, eating...  Sometimes quite terrible.  Even as hard as I am it still hurts to see some things, more knowing that I must play a dark part, in time, and there is no way for me to alter it.  Just as I have dreamed of putting the first nail in Christ's wrist.  Whether I did that or not, the truth of it remains.  Someone did that.  And what will come is just as terrible in it's own way.  And, someone, again, will have to do that.  Such heavy dreams.

Good night.

Out and about.

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Just a bit.  To the store, through a drive through, then back.  Milk, some fruit, butter, and such.  At this time of night there are only two places that seem to be open, of the fast food sort.  Taco Bell and McDonalds.  I have completely given up on the latter.  Every time I have gone through there, in the central location, the hamburgers have a very off flavor and scent... something rotten this way comes.  As well, the fries, beyond having been made vegan (though not for any reason other than that it is cheaper, the lawsuit was a ruse), have a terrible taste too.  I don't know what else they are cooking in that oil, or maybe they just aren't changing it.  There is another one in the south of town.  It had been their 24/7, then they changed it to midtown and seemed to shut the southern one down, now they are both open?  Haven't tried that one, probably won't.  I think the problem is when they started offering breakfasts at night along with dinner entrees.  Doesn't mix.  Taco Bell is far from my favorite, but at least the meat doesn't smell rancid.  I don't order sides, I've sort of given up on those at most joints, fast food or not.  The meat isn't really beef, not ground beef, and there isn't much of it, but then I'm not sure what I am getting anywhere.  It's buyers surprise and "delight" anywhere these days.

Did they really think we didn't notice?  Seriously?  Some of them are still pretty good, for fast food.  Others, like McDonalds, just seem to have quit even trying.  I guess they are aiming their taste profiles at the poorest of the poor who have no taste?  Or have they just quit trying to grow, and are now just sucking every dollar out of the franchises as they rocket nose first into history?  I really don't know, I just know I won't buy there without absolute, pretty much, necessity.  Don't laugh, it can happen.  It may happen to you tomorrow just because you think you know better.  And, yes, I will laugh and say I told you so... deep in your mind... in a place you can't shut it off or ignore it.  Oh yes I will.

Anyway... made it back.  I see gas prices are probably illegally being forced back up.  They don't even have enough holes to put the stuff, every container and hip available, pretty much, is full, and they are raising prices?  Full featured examples of how intervention derails supply and demand, making it so when there is a glut prices can still be forced up.  Bunk.  The sooner this train derails the better.

Everything is put away.  I've refreshed the kefir in the works.  In a bit I may prepare a pork chop to enjoy with an egg or two.  Sleep is still off, dreams are quite potent, health is back on track if I could just swing days and nights back to some correct position I would be quite happy.

Someone may be coming by tomorrow, to assess the tree situation.  I have had to major tree drops on my home.  Big enough to very possibly have shattered the roof, windows, etc.  I have been quite fortunate.  No power cuts, no damage, so far.  I really don't want to keep hoping.  A downed power line would really be an added major problem.  Though a crushed kitchen wouldn't be better, especially if I happened to be in it at the moment, or one or both of the girls.  Just an assessment, perhaps a direct quote.  I would love to slowly take those trees out while replacing them with something a little more tame yet still good for shade.  Perhaps even a fast growing group of trees, along with some longer lived but slower growing trees, with full intent of removing the faster growing, but less stable, trees as the longer lived trees come into their own.  Bleh.  Assuming I am here.

More irons in more fires, with more potential, this way and that, than an eight armed servant of God ought to consider even with his gifts?  Mayhap.  Now... scoot.  I have things to arrange.  Hmm?  Night you say.  Well... fine.  Enjoy music and thoughts, at your peril and own risk.

*Cheshire Cat grins*

*blink blink poof*

Long nap.

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I had hoped for a few hours.  I got that and more.  I am still tired.  I showered when I woke, and woke with a lark on my mind.  No, not a bird, mostly, a joke of some sort.  It was a wonderful morning for being an afternoon.  Possible?  More than probable, it simply was the way of it.

Millenial, as well as mainstream news, is dying?

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Well, that is the story, as far as the story on it goes.  Is it true?  With trust of media running at 6%, how could it not be true.  Then again, who is polling and who is answering those polls?  I never do polls.  *click*  Why?  It's beyond distrust, it's a sort of fear.  With the media as in bed with the wrong side of politics, as history, ethics, morality, and such go, answer a poll might well end up with misfortune hounding you, possibly to death.  How many Germans, if there had been strong polling, might have ended up in work camps for saying the wrong thing.  How many Russians, Chinese, North Koreans, and Cubans, among many others, end up worked to death or shot for disparaging a government.  The states needed slave labor, those who administered such became addicted to secular power over the life and death of another.

Are these forms of media truly dying?  Is, in other words, pop and propaganda, as news, dying?  No.  It's merely shifting.  Google, for example, is getting... forcing... the advertising hits.  You almost can't find a browser that hasn't been broken, more often by google, though all the techs are involved, all are also involved with government and leftism.  Though, for now, there are a few, if limited at such, means of avoiding propaganda.

As well, I think, after losing the "Hulk" Hogan, the pop media is hiding it's assets, or at least adjusting them so such hits can't hurt them that badly.  They really thought they could get away with anything.  That seems to not be true.  If You say you are worth a billion, guess what?  Lawyers will take that case.  Much more so than if you say you are worth half, or a quarter, of that.  Deep pockets are much more tempting to thieves, even thieves of thieves.  Play gangster long enough, someone will come for your marbles and gold grill.  Whether you survive is not an issue.

I would like to say the crushing of old media was good.  And, on it's own, it is.  As it stands, however, it is out of the pan into the fire.  Now it's faster, slicker, even less honest, government supported, industry bought, and you are it's target.  Not only does your mind and money become the target, but your very soul.  Yeah, the beast wasn't killed, it was simply loosed.  It's much more dangerous outside of it's cage.  Now there is no way to choose whether to be involved with it or not.  Think of that the next time you enter a restaurant or bank and have to face a bank of televisions, or have strange music piped in, or have to cycle through an advertisement, or dozen, just to do some small transaction or contact someone.

I won't miss society.  Society won't notice I am gone.  Deal.

The first business morning of a new week.

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Sleep has been very odd.  It might be lessening in demand.  Though that will take some time to know for sure.  I went to bed around 1:00, maybe 1:30 last night.  I was foggy of mind as I went down, so knowing which time piece, so how precise or off the time was, or even exactly what the time was that I saw, is all murky.  Still, that is close enough.  I ended up waking around 7:30.  I have as much trouble being sure of my waking time as my sleep time.  No real issues, it is simply that my schedule isn't stable, my health is still just a bit under, and some other things.  All will cause some troubles that way.

While I wasn't going to begin consuming kefir quite yet, I had fully intended on shaking the stuff I put in the fridge, to test or examine viscosity.  I like kefir a bit on the thicker side.  When I shook the bottle, the kefir looked good, as I gauge things.  I decided to give it a shot.  I have learned that, per day, only six to eight ounces is advisable.  Definitely when just staring or restarting the stuff as a food.  Once it becomes regular, then, perhaps, sometimes, a bit more can be tolerated.  You push it and you will be toilet bound quickly and for a while.  Yes, I learned my lesson.  Even so, I expect some... freeing of the bowels.  Hopefully not a slave to them though.  Excesses just shorten the brain and body notations of when an inclination begins and when a requirement is at... hand.  It is wonderful!  Just three clearings really got the kefir grains back into function and returned to healthy action.  I was a bit surprised.  All good.

I am waiting, for a bit, to contact my bank.  I did leave a message, on their servers, so was hoping an email would have been sent.  I will check their online site shortly.  I'm not quite ready for a phone call.  If I don't get something non-verbal, and if I can't quite push through to call, I may take a nap in hopes of being more ready this afternoon.  Bleh.  I know, but I really am a bit of a cripple.  Yes, everything needs to be right.  Why call and speak with someone if I won't remember well what was said, or won't have the strength for four different conversations with different people, all hostile even if they are in the wrong?  And, face it, dealing with businessmen these days is treacherous.  Still, it's on my mind, and I hope to at least begin the process of forcing the bank to do the right, and legally correct, thing today.  I don't expect a full success, or a quick one.  Rarely, even when right, does that happen.  Utah is a bureaucratic type of state, but laws can seem conflicting, and authority based societies doesn't, even so, always apply actual law.  I wonder if Alaska is as bad, or has become as bad as oil prices have collapsed?  I guess I will be finding out, but not until I escape and fix some of the problems at hand.

I am thinking eggs and bacon, but just a few pieces this time... if at all possible.  Gosh that was good after a very long hiatus.  Later.

Update:  There was a message, with a name and phone number, to someone within my bank.  It turns out that the bill was not forced.  Which is odd.  I had stopped payment on that, and checked... twice.  A reboot on their end might have reengaged that?  Don't know.  Still, something that had me suspicious seems to be right.  The finance company which is receiving my bills, the ones I agreed to pay, and the ones that were "automatically" taken out (as per my old payment program) are turning out to be the same company.  How does this all work?  Don't know.  I do know I now have to call and see if I can get that money returned.  Later... again.

Update 2:  Since I was in swing by calling my bank, I went ahead and called the finance company.  As suspected, they had actually taken payments which had been being automatically sent to the "other mortgage company", the one which had "sold my account to this new company" but was no longer accepting payments, which had put me in arrears.  In other words, these "two companies" are one company and this whole thing, start to finish, was a scam.  They have, however, told me that they will refund the extra amount that was sent.  Zero sure knows how to brownout every government agency, over and above as bad as they already were.  While Midas had it bad, Zero has it worse.  At least someone, after, can sell the gold, no one call see shit.  The Zero (and less) touch.

While I am still here I still have to do regular things.

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I really wasn't feeling up to tackling trash and recycling.  I am not sure if recycling is tonight.  Even so, it is out along with the trash.  I also did some work in the kitchen.  I am finally able to see some of the table top!  Oh hush, it wasn't that bad.  Just dry things, like egg cartons, ziplocs that weren't used or returned, plastic shopping bags, medical kit, and such.  A few more sessions in there and I might get enough cleared, and any cleaning needed, to consider sharpening knives.

I couldn't do some of the things I wanted.  Trash and recycling took what little wind I had.  But those two things weren't all.  I mixed another, and the last, batch of orange juice.  I am pretty much better, from the cold, I am simply not recovered.  As well, I mixed and redid the kefir.  I am amazed, for as long as that stuff just sat, that it didn't go bad.  And, yes, my sniffer is good enough to know.  I have never tried it with whole whipping cream.  Tonight, since I had some that will be timing out in a few days, I put that in... filling one quart and half filling another quart, then adding milk to make that more of an half and half.  Then I filled an half gallon jar with enough to get that going.  The kefir drink and grains all smell fresh.  I did cycle through three half gallon mixes to help revivify, which seems to have worked.  I thought I could have started on actual kefir the last time.  I didn't out of an abundance of caution.

The half gallon of kefir won't be sampled tomorrow though.  I want to give it time to set up a bit.  I thought about just adding much of the kefir grains back in, then letting it double steep.  Lots of options.  But between running out of steam on that project, and being curious as things stood, I just let it go as was.  I'll give it, perhaps, three days in the fridge, while double steeping the half gallon that is currently producing kefir.  The quarts?  Dunno, I'll just play those by ear.  On the good side, I think I could take packets of kefir grain with me, using it on the road when I gain access to a few quarts of milk, or such.  Now to practice with sprouts, again, and how to do that in a canteen or something.  Just vitamin C, and some other green foods, possibly produceable in winter, when and where all other such items are gone.  And, if truly starving... some of those green things might lure a deer close enough to eat.  Cicadas, deer... rain or not, green bits, thick milk... food, baby, it's what it takes.

I did write an email to an old friend.  He says he is bored, or not happy with life.  Perhaps a trip, to dump a bum to his fate in the Great White North would cheer him.  It may be the last chance he has to visit with me.  Ought do it just for that, if a friend he ever was.  Not my choice.  Maybe the lad has gotten too old for adventures himself.  If I hear nothing soon, I will know.  Most likely next spring, the the spring after.  Though I might be cutting loose here when required and figuring my way closer to there sooner.

I just took a few Tylenol.  I'll probably have another ogre sized sip of orange juice.  I think, other than that, I am done.  Good night.

I don't think with my stomach.

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Although, my stomach is well established in my mind.  When a friend suggests he has been killing various varmint, from rattle snake to skunk to other such, while I gave him a break on the skunk, not sure I would go there, I was certainly curious about snake.  I have seen it canned, offered fried, and such, on television news broadcasts... at least long ago when I allowed television in, but even since I was a child.  I never had the opportunity, at a fair or festival, to try such.  Now, he did end up trying, but he boiled the meat.  As a lizard, really, I just can't think that flesh would be good to boil.  Still, that is as far as he would go.  I was glad to get that out of him.  Food.  Most people have never been hungry, not really.  Bored with food, perhaps, to the point of not eating.  But food is there, somewhere, easily, and all around us, in America, in these times.

Some aspect of me, both here and then, has gone without food.  Now, because I am ill and not always able to figure out food.  Sometimes I can be a bit testy with food.  If I fear... something.  Though too if illness makes eating impossible, which it does from time to time.  And yet, I hunger to try new foods.  Just to be more able if all falls down.  I do get a bit cross with those who won't even try something new.  Not horribly so, just frustrated.  I'll tease, but not push... not too much... to my way of thinking.

Recently, for example, I heard that cicadas are going to be in full bloom in the North East this summer.  I wondered if they were edible.  I got quite a negative vibe, was accused of being subjected to PETA mind control tricks.  So... I dug in.  The first gen invaders (some of my kin) ate cicadas, and many ethnicities do as well.  Now, while I would prefer beef, pork, and such, money is becoming so tight and prices are rising very fast.  And, if I end up on the road, I may have to simply take what I can get.  A season of cicadas, while even if quite tasty would become dull quickly.  And, yet, that would be free food to fill for winter.  Not much hunting, just a bit of stooping.

Oh, yes.  If life gets hard, you, too, had better buck up.  If you don't have coin, or your coin is good nowhere... being a nobody... best to learn how to live where and how you are.  Later... or... good night?  Yep, the latter.  Good night.

I keep thinking about things.

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Until I can arrange things I am going to have some difficulties.  I realize that without medical approval I will be losing my drivers licence in months.  I'll push it out as long as I can, but on that score I am cornered.  I realize I can't trust my bank, probably either of them, at this point.  And, if my mortgage companies wishes it, it can keep destabilizing my finances.  I am definitely in a war I can't win.  If one I refuse to surrender.

I keep looking at buying and building a van camper.  I realize that is useless, and worse, without a drivers license.  Which means leaving will be on foot.  Which, too, is why spring is as early as it gets.  I will, eventually, have to survive in the cold, at times.  If I can get a bank that doesn't toss my money out, if I can get to a place where I can eke out a living, until I can figure out a more frugal way, if I can survive summers on even less...  Many ifs.  No real options.  At this point I am just beginning to figure things out.  I may pull all I have in the house out.

I don't know how much of it is personal and how much is simply a world that has politically and economically eaten itself and is now having to pay the price.  How many of these companies are truly doing this to everyone, even their mothers if they think they can get away with it?  My friend is a polar opposite, politically, and they are still going after him it seems.  Bogus phone calls, messing with his medical, pushing him.  Is this a prelude to genocide?  First of the ill and elderly, than of various groups, based on wealth, race, seeming worth, political want?

I suppose, if you are healthy and otherwise productive, and don't owe anyone, and keep very close tabs on your income and investments, and you don't get unlucky and have your credit stolen out from under you or handed off by your bank...  I suppose, if you duck well enough, you will do well enough.  I am honestly not sure there is a way out.  For me, there is walking.  I'll have to figure some other things out.  It won't be easier.  But best not be here when they actually come for me.  I can't swear I can be ready by next spring, that is merely the goal.  At this point, it honestly doesn't matter who the problem is, or the main problem source.  It's everywhere.  Best to just get out.

Yeah?  I have no illusion that life on the hoof is going to be good.  It is just better to be on the move before one isn't just traveling, but fleeing.  This is truly going to hurt.  It is only survivable compared to the options.

I rang.

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The questions that remain; exactly where, how, when to go.  It will take some prep time.  Next spring, closer to summer, is the earliest real time I can plan on leaving.

I did find paperwork, from this month, from my mortgage company.  They had several different amounts listed as owed, though all of them were close to what was paid near the first.  Further, the company that "forced" a payment isn't the same company I do business with.  It looks like not only did my bank make an illegal payment, they paid a company with which I do not work.  I am supposed to be working with Freedom Mortgage, the other company is GMAC Mortgage.  I think they have been scammed.

I did want to check, being that last months payments did remove half of the problem, I know that I wasn't being scammed by some other company, probably.  These finance companies seem to be serious snakes these days.  It is my bank's problem, for allowing that.  They will have to get it back and deal with all overcharges and fees attendant to their mistake, which seem to be nearly as "generous" as their rip off.  At least I know, pretty much for sure, that the forced payment isn't even to a company with which I work.  Tracking these things is tricky, when you are emotionally thrown by the thing... then have to start peeling back layers, checking names, dates, and such.  You have to do it though, or you will be at a severe disadvantage.

No event today.  That did throw me, but I... didn't think I was welcome, still don't think so.  Will know more in time.  Cute are puppies and kittens, until they aren't cute.  So it goes, so I hid.  One too many potential serious problems as is.  Don't need to be offed and buried in a shallow grave.  I'll avoid that, thank you.  Remember Lucky, the one-eyed, earless, three legged dog?  Yeah...  Go figure.  Later.

Bacon, work, and thoughts.

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I have been doing little bits of work.  I should be able to finish off the last load of dishes shortly, then get a shower taken.  Might take another shower later... if I can do it all it time for a nap.

There is an event today.  I have been asked to attend, and mean to do so.  However, I will call, if I remember and all, to make sure the invitation still holds.  Why would I ask?  Ah, the videos I have been playing lately.  Now, I do believe, and through their eyes I finally realized something, that some local men may have seen something I was missing.  Remember when I suggested that there are powerful coincidences, things that... tied more together than I ever could in words.  Many don't see all of those.  But when they do, and those start to add up even for them...  Believers are created.  Not saying for sure, only that I think so.  And, after adding their two and two together, by looking at what seemed to startle them, yeah...  Another one, one I missed.  It's a spooky world, or... at least the world really can sneak up on you.

I keep telling myself such things don't matter.  And yet I believe they do.  I don't think I am alone in that either.  If I said "heads", and you pulled out a coin and flipped 20 heads, you could call it a quirk.  If, then, you found yourself in a small building, and it was being dedicated to all the busts from all the local public areas... going through a building you had no reason to go through and actually meant to go around... then on and on, until you realize that a word can, at times, mean much.  It can affect or create destiny.  Why, someone might ask?  Ah, sometimes there is no reason.  Sometimes there is.  This is one of those things.  I know many, sometimes even myself, would rather believe it all means nothing.  And, then, it happens again.  At some point surrender or insanity are the two remaining choices.  Am I ready to choose?  I am tiring, and I'll never yield to insanity.  That's the best I can say.  However, that may not be welcome.  So... I will ask.

Bacon?  Yes, bacon.  I thought, perhaps, a small bit or four, not even full or even half slices, would work.  I bought remnants, love those.  While bacon sounded good, I didn't think I was truly all that hungry for it.  I fixed the first little batch, no more than an ounce once done, I suspect.  I had to try one piece to make sure.  Honestly.  However, that one piece about boggled my mind!  Oh, so delicious.  It must have been a very long time since I had bacon.  So, I gobbled that batch of morsels down.  Like the dog in the beggin' bits o' bacon commercial, my stomach was begging indeed.  Begging and praising.  Bacon!  Gimme more.  Bacon?  Bacon!  I ate another batch, barely keeping desire in check so as to not eat it raw.  Wow was that a powerful hunger.  I ended up eating three batches, if only a bit over two, maybe two and an half ounces.  I did well for as terrible as the hunger was... is.  Still remains.  Two eggs over the last bit.  No more bacon for a few days.  But boy am I looking forward to it.

This that and the other thing.  I am better, if not well.  I am digging, small parts at a time, into the kitchen.  I have certainly been cooking lately, and eating... if more moderately.  I have some notions in hand and perhaps more to do here and there.  Troubles to tend, as well.  Time will end up being what it is, producing as it does.  I do think they are honestly dead set on murdering me, one way or another.  Gotta say, I think they are doing it wrong.  Yeah.  The direct approach is about all that will work.  Is it the feds, the V.A. specifically, the state, a combination?  May never know.  Just understand that, if you are ill, weak, old, poor, or even rich but vulnerable, they will be coming for you.  They can't keep their promises, and as any big business with no oversight, your death... if they think it will buy them another day?  All part of the business program they know and love.  Watch yourselves out there.  The pigs are hungry, and some of them honestly think they are better.

Later.

Major troubles.

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In spite of paying up what I was supposed to pay up, and I was told I was caught up this first, some financing company has, somehow, forced another payment... a double payment actually.  They are doing something very wrong.  I'll have to figure it out on Monday.  This is what government workers and their cronies get you.  Oh, laugh it up, until it is your turn.  My bank had better get that money back.  For one thing, they can't force a payment from SS or military disability.  That is illegal.  As far as I am concerned, it will be on my banks back to refund that money.  If I am in debt, even though I was told I was cleared, then the financiers have to figure it out on their own.  Yes, trouble.

I wondered what the problem was.  My debit card wasn't working.  Now I know.  I still have money in another account.  However, this pretty much shuts down all but the basics until this is figured out.  No worries, I wasn't planning or needing to spend.  I will have to look at other things, though, too.  Overdrafts of sorts, no pay, daily fines, things like that.  All of that will be on my bank or I'll start dancing on toes right to bleeding toes all the way up.  And, yes, I am in the right.  Not just a bit, or morally, but legally.

When your government bureaucrats learn that you think they are what they are, they do set out to destroy.  Won't happen.  Later.

Looking closer, it is an e-check, one that I did not sign nor agree to, let alone know about.  As I said, I have paid four months of bills in the last two months, I was told that would catch me up.  So I don't even know why I would be, or how I could be charged this extra double payment.  More?  I don't think the check is to the company I have been paying.  Unless they sold the account, again, but didn't transfer payments or inform me, again?

Honey.

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I keep contemplating figuring out the various holes I find myself in.  Is there a way out?  Hard to tell.  Doesn't matter, in one sense.  Can only attempt to extricate, usually, from one trap at a time.  Though some traps are interconnected, and some solutions solve more than one problem, sometimes even with the same form of application.  Hmm?  Oh, for example, honey solves a number of problems, multiple problems, sometimes even with the same application form.  Though, for sure, all from the same base form of the matter... that matter being raw unprocessed honey.

Here are a number of videos regarding honey.  A very good think for a prepper, survivor, hopeful doubter, or whatever one chooses to be called who is attempting to arrange for a way through an immediate short or long term problem with life as we know it.  Of course most such folk already know about honey.  It is the ones who do not know I am attempting to inform... though if I get others to decide to push the button and buy what they don't have but ought to have, that is good too.  Here is a video.

Much sleep.

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I have been turning the furnace on, in case that might help.  Not so much.  Still, better to be slightly warmer while recovering.  I had turned off the heat a few weeks ago, and still do when I go to sleep.  Tried heating the place, again, a few days ago.  As I suggested, I don't think it's helping me get better, it does feel good.  I'll go with it for a few more days.  Then again these last few days, even week or two(?), the weather has gone from warm and mostly sunny to cool to cold, damp to wet, and much darker.  Now, that is sort of my weather, if, especially certain times of the year, like spring, and even fall if possible, a break and some light from time to time helps ease things.

Something, on another front, I am trying to change?  Food volume.  I am trying to eat more than every few days, or even just irregularly.  As well, I am attempting to cut the volume.  A small pork chop, two eggs, and a glass of milk; a cup of soup and maybe a small grilled cheese sandwich, a few small fillets of fish and just some smidgen of vegetable or even fruit.  More often, smaller amounts, better quality, more precisely cooked.  Even in the doldrums, I seem to be able to keep ahead of the cooking, prep, and dishes... mostly.  I suspect it will help a great deal in the longer run.  I do keep an eye to the paleo diet, I simply won't be an absolutist.  I will strongly lean that way, nothing more.  I suspect, in time, I will lose weight.  If that isn't of great concern so long as I am more functional than not.  And, honestly, I can get out and about fairly well most of the time.  It's more a matter of getting started.

Did I mention I have been sleeping a lot lately?  Yes.  I would say up to eighteen hours on a bad day, twelve to fourteen fairly regularly.  I can't quite keep on my feet, even with the furnace slacking the chill.  Tylenol and Vic's are still being used.  Hmm... I may actually begin using... nah... cough syrup, at this time, just wouldn't help.  All, of the symptoms, that remains is exhaustion, a bit of congestion, and minor aches and pains if I forget Tylenol... if that is really only needed once a day now that my days, wake times anyway, have shrunk.  Bleh.  At least I am not, to my mind, infectious.  No running nose or sneezing, which is how I measure such.

Hmm...  I cooked three chops.  They were on the edge.  I may just heat the remaining two, dish with a serving of apple sauce, procure a glass of milk, and call it a meal.  Cinnamon or allspice, to top the apple sauce, though?  Oh, I'll figure it out.  Later.

Campers, RVs, or diy.

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Have you ever thought about really traveling?  If you have looked at, priced, and considered RV's, you will find many problems.  Start to stop.  There is no lemon law for those.  I haven't bothered pricing them, if I suspect they cost, probably starting, at about $150,000, baseline, give or take.  Yeah, more than my home.  If I wished to make simple home payments I actually could probably "buy" one.  Maybe not, they might require a lot more of a down payment?  The thing is, I wouldn't buy one.  Manufacturers consider such a vehicle to be normal if it is in the shop eleven out of twelve months.  Huh?  Yeah.  Not that they all are, only that if yours is the one, you are just out.  I am not sure about preconfigured camping vans and various sorts of vehicles.  My guess is they are considered the same as RVs, with no real guarantees.  As well, some of the better ones don't cost all that much less, starting in the $100k range and easily going up.  Not to my liking.

There are, possibly, options.  Buying a commercial van, for example.  Perhaps arranging for it to be upkitted to 4x4 drive, then doing a bunch of work on your own.  Adding a water tank, perhaps a pump, a solar system, a bed, shelving, insulation, better flooring, connecting and entertainment center in, and much else.  You could do it for less, over time, and know exactly what is in there and how it is connected.  You could design the systems to work to your specs, to be added, removed, shifted, and such to your tastes and need.  And all for a good deal less than buying even a prebuilt camper van, but with a warranty of a regular vehicle.

Oh, they don't just hand these out.  And costs will add up.  However, after a year or two or even five, of traveling, even part time, some of the van could be deconstructed, and the base system could easily be sold back into the market, having saved a great deal on lodging.  The ten miles per gallon would hit you.  Though if you simply traveled, say, a tank of gas a week, or even every other week, you would be good.  Yeah, watch your p's and q's and you could really have some fun out there.  Not something for everyone, just a thought.

Not much.

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More than I had hoped, so enough and then some.  I have been meaning to go to the post office since Tuesday.  I had something in Monday, but the other thing I believed might be in wasn't in until Tuesday, though maybe Wednesday.  As is, sleep has been off kilter... with the cold and dark cold wet days.  I got out fairly early today.  Even then I had to push.  That was at about my bedtime.  Upon returning, or before I left (?), I did wash the dishes and set them to a rinse.  I haven't finished them, actually just waking a few hours ago.

I have been doing bits and pieces here and there.  Nothing big, just little things.  Kefir is back on the brew, for example... not sure it will work, it was abandoned for quite a bit.  Still, only one way to find out.  I also called my mother.  She was busy cleaning, but sounded hale and cheery.  You have no idea how true that is.  Anyway, all good.  Actually called and she didn't answer once.  Though that is fairly common with us busy folk.  :p  Well, she is actually busy quite often anyway.  I just talk like I am.

I had a visitor as well.  The beef will be in, depending on the chop shop, somewhere toward the end of May, so... depending... should be ready by early June.  Perfect.  I'll stop in and pick up a number of meat process workup sheets.  For myself, I want ribeye roast, chuck roasts, the other roasts cut into thin slices for jerking, and hamburger.  If there is more high end steaks somehow available... like new york strip, I would be happy with such.  I only really like ribeye, ny strip, porterhouse/t-bone and a few of the rare odd steaks, and only care for chuck roast roasts... if I am learning.  Still, I'm trying to keep this first cut simple.  I may speak with them there, though, too.

I told him about the appliances being unplugged.  And went further and suggested it might not just be people.  I seem to be haunted.  I used to think everywhere I moved was haunted until I realized that is very against the odds.  Anyway.  I even offered him the consideration that I might be nephilim.  Though in covering some things, I didn't go on to explain some other potential.  Not all are ready for all, and what I expressed, was probably quite enough and a stretch at that.  Then again, as I suggested, life is a story, little of the absolute truth of such do or can we know.  Through the glass darkly... not a song, but a saying by one of the doctors of my faith from long ago.  Though if even he was the originator of the phrase or idea is dubious.  Nothing new under the sun is a truth that is older than, well... it's older than me even if I am who I may believe.

He offered the notion that perhaps these things could be sent away.  Ah, and that is the part I did not finalize the story regarding.  There may or may not be ghosts.  If the bible is to be believed, there are other sorts of spirits.  Some of those spirits, if my story has a truth, are my kin.  Unbound by flesh but looking for a way back.  The difference between these spirits, and ghosts, is that these spirits have not had a means of a choice between heaven and hell.  Some believe they don't have a choice, and are surely damned.  I have some notion that, through me or through what I see through, there will be a choice offered.  Tall tale indeed.  But that might make chasing them off be the less of choices.  As God told me in a dream, if this about man, that death was not preferred... I have some notion that what was given to me was not just for men.  Tall, very tall, tales.

Crazy?  I can see that.  It's certainly possible.  Though men who do the same thing over and over, expecting a different result... which is most of them... are crazier yet.  Don't even get me started on women.  More, none of us has it fully right.  Wouldn't need Christ, salvation, or the rest otherwise.  How crazy?  Hmm, anyone's guess.  I like to think, aside from emotional outbursts from time to time, what I see fits with what I have experienced.  That most haven't experienced such would necessarily lead to doubt.  Even I have a reasonable sum of doubt about what I have seen, thus conclude.  A healthy skepticism, if more trust than not as well.

Anyway, in spite of my efforts and best intents, I may be heading back to bed after just a few hours awake.  Vic's both day and night, Tylenol once or twice a day, as much tea as I can swallow to keep fluids topped and dropped, and a meal or two a day, plus work when I can get it in.  It's all I can do.  And, yet, I will sleep when that calls.  Putting it off slows my recovery, I feel that in my bones.  Good night.

Hmm... I keep thinking if I should post a... well... why not.  Yeah, good night though.  I'll list to the last set, then this set, of music, then hit the dream factory.  Oh, I've been dreaming in spades... I'll try to remember some of them.  Bang bang, her baby shot her down, and other deeds and misdeeds of the Flying Doom Parade.  *poof*

Three questions.

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I don't think they can be answered.  Not fully.  Though there is a sort of answer, and some suggestions.  Someone asked, accused, announced, suggested... the Doctor?  Or was it just, The Doctor.  A statement, question, or something of a rhetorical natured phrase?  Something or such, so... and with the song of the bird in the bush but on the wind all at once?

He, she, us, them, they, me.

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Well, perhaps there are some things that are simply not akin to the others?

Wow. Good food.

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I really wasn't sure what to expect from the tortillas.  My mother makes them very well.  Others have made them well.  Self-doubt, on some things, seems more ingrained.  While I have made custards, deep enough french toast to have a, and done, internal custard, steaks to my liking, and try new things as often as I am able, some foods, even simple ones like tortillas, give me the jitters.  In this case I even had to adjust on the fly.  I am not sure if I wrote something down wrong, or misheard or misread something.  I had aimed for twice the batch the video suggested, ended up with four times the batch.  Which was fine, it seems that my uptick was consistent... or I simply got lucky?

I heated one of the cooled flank steaks, after all but cooking the tortillas.  I heated a can of beans.  Not my favorite way, but on a spur of the moment thing, store bought canned beans will handily work in a pinch.  Slicing the meat, then adding it to the canned beans to keep each other warm, I began cooking the tortillas.  Okay, it does take a bit.  The suggested time of four minutes, 1 minute then flip by four flips, seems to do quite well.  And, while I have heard that folding the tortillas in a towel will keep them warm, I... had my doubts.  Oh, by the way, that actually does work.

I planned to not sample the tortillas until I was done.  Plans, as I might have mentioned, get you to your duty station.  At that time they fall apart, but you should be able to figure out the rest, survival first (usually), from there.  Anyway, I had to rip into the first one.  It really was amazing.  Just plain it wasn't bad.  Add a few beans in a small torn off bit and... wow.  Steak just amped it more.  I doubt if I spent $2, that is two dollars, on that meal.  Even with milk, less with tea?  Maybe.

I have the remaining dough and last steak packaged and freezing.  I will try this meal in a week, see how it does.  Later, say in two or three weeks, I will try part or all of the dough.  I am not sure it will refreeze well.  Though that might be an experiment on it's own... or perhaps I could try to figure out how to halve the dough while frozen?  Bleh.  So many things to figure out, so little time?  Nah, plenty of time, most likely, if memory would serve.  So... there you go.

Later, perhaps good night.