Allyson

Okay, so Chris has made some changes to the blog, and I’m not sure I know what I’m doing. I hope this goes out without any issues, in any case.

There’s a lot of people right now who are complaining about rising costs. Now, some of those complaints do have a basis in reality. Right now, the cost of beef is up. Gas is still almost $4 a gallon near me, and probably a lot higher everywhere else in the country. Taxes are insane. Prices are still up from the previous administration, and while they are coming down, they’re doing so very slowly. So yes, there are some things to whine about.

But here’s the thing… Complaining about it really doesn’t get you anywhere.

I’ve taken on a few challenges in the past few weeks, stuff like how to cook within a budget and what can you make with only what you have on hand (ie no store trips). I always “win” these, partly because I already cook within a budget, partly because I spent a number of years being truly poor (not unhoused, but damn close), and partly because I cook with real food and very little in the way of convenience stuff. Also, I stock up on food when it’s cheap.

When I mention that it’s important to buy and preserve foods when they’re least expensive (for instance, freezing or canning tomatoes now, while they’re pennies to the bushel, instead of dollars per tomato later in the winter), I’m told that people just don’t have time for that. Which confuses me, because when I was working full time, caring for my family full time, volunteering a few hours a week with MS patients near end of life, and running a small religious group as well, I still managed to make food for my family. And it had to be “real” food because DoorDash hadn’t been invented yet, and most of the convenience foods hadn’t hit the market at that time. Real food was what we got. I couldn’t afford convenience foods, what little there was. “Convenience” food meant I got canned or frozen instead of fresh.

“But Ally, you don’t UNDERSTAND. It’s HARD. We can’t afford-”

I don’t really care, honey. I really don’t. Right now, I have a very pleasant budget. I just got back from dropping $300 on a big shop, because we decided to have beef this week (woo! big treat for us) AND salmon (not as bad as beef, but still pricey at $9/lb). We got a lot of staples we were down on, including beans and rice and canned tomatoes and such. I made a trip to a local “bump and dent” store on Thursday, where I got bags of legumes for a buck, cans of stuff for a quarter, and some fun dessert type things for $1.80 a can. That was a fun trip. Today’s grocery trip was nice, too. I came home with a lot of fresh veg (onions, cauliflower, broccoli, cucumber, tomatoes, sweet potatoes, etc.), some canned goods, some fresh meat (flank steak), and some canned meat (generic spam).

We have some really nice meals this week. I’m doing a “harvest bowl” which is basically chicken cooked with honey and cider, steamed butternut squash, cold arugula and other veg, served over hot rice. Very easy to leave out things people can’t have (me with the havarti cheese that’s supposed to go in it), or add in extra things to make it fit our diet better. We’re having flank steak with potatoes and mushrooms. We’ll have tacos one night, because it’s Tuesday (is there a better reason?). Good stuff, healthy, quick.

I’ve been putting up videos about easy and quick meals. I make them “the long way” myself, because I can, but I talk about how my made-from-scratch bone broth can be subbed out for a tetrapack or can of broth (or even ramen packet broth, I’ve done that plenty of times). I go over how to do it completely from scratch, and then I talk about quick substitutions so you can enjoy it in a half hour. I made chicken and dumpling soup for one. Last night it was ham and potato casserole with fried zucchini on the side. Easy peasy stuff. Mostly using leftovers. Less than $5 for each meal, and that’s enough food to feed 5 to 8 people (4 to 5 if you’re fat and like food, like we do).

What today’s young folks can’t afford, is to sit on their laurels and whine. What they need to do is learn to pinch pennies, make freezer scraping soup, and make do. Weren’t they just whinging on about “reduce, reuse, recycle” a few short years ago? This is the ultimate version of that game. I win.

I accept no cop-outs (well, not quite true… there have been a couple of folks who’ve been whining on social media, got schooled, and then turned themselves around and learned…. they get a pass, because they actually tried fixing it, so not really a cop-out). This is real life, and if you want to survive it (not win at it, mind… just survive it) then you need to listen up and learn.

If you are poor, you need:

• to know how to cook at least basics
• to know how to count calories, so you know if you and your family are getting enough of them
• a working knowledge of how the stove works, as well as the oven
• to be truly organized, because if not, you will sink

These are not options. Just as folks living through the depression had no choice about their lives, kids today (and adults) have to deal with the life they’ve got. You are living Here And Now, and therefore, you have to know enough to make it through the day. Yes, that means you have to go shopping. Yes, that means you have to plan meals. Yes, that means you have to know how to cook beans from dry, because $0.50/lb for beans is less than $1.50 for a can (and it takes 8 cans to make up that one bag, btw).

I can sometimes sympathize with people struggling, especially when I can see they ARE doing all the right things. Those ones get help from me/us. We often put our money where our mouth is. Our door is always open to friends and family, even those distant, and there’s always food here. It might be plain and cheap (or it might not), but it’ll be filling and nutritious, and that’s what counts. No one goes hungry at my house unless they actively made the choice to do so.

So no, I don’t accept someone is poor when they have an iPhone in one hand, Starbucks in the other, and a nice new car. We drive an old truck and an old Jeep. We rarely go out to eat, and we never waste calories or dollars on “coffee desserts.” We do have nice phones, but that’s a choice we’ve made because we can. I had the Nokia “never destroyed” version for a long time, as my first cell phone, because we could afford it and it did the job. Now, I have a nice Android, but it is my office and replaces a lot of computer stuff. I made the choice. Oh, and MY phone? My “nice” Android? It was the free one when one of the kids got their own nice phone. Heh…

Sure, you can complain about how the world is today. But do so with purpose. If veg is too expensive to buy, grow it. Don’t know how? Ask; I’ll teach you for free, and you can do it in a pail or a pot if need be. If you can’t afford 2 cars, figure out a way to do with one (we did, and we survived). If you can’t afford things, save up… even if it takes a long time.

And if you can’t afford basics (food, shelter, transportation, communication), then do NOT be out there buying crap that eats up your funds. No Starbucks. No convenience food. No booze or pot. No tattoos. No new clothes that aren’t absolutely necessary (sometimes work clothes are required, and that’s obviously a necessity). No hair coloring (unless you do it at home). All these things come AFTER basics. If you can’t afford to eat, you simply cannot do those other things. And yes, it sucks. I know; it was my life for many years. But that’s just What You Do.

You don’t have to like it. You do have to do it. And you know what else? I don’t have to listen to you bitch about it.

I’m not going to eulogize Ms. Parton. She was amazing, and if you think differently, well… you’re wrong. So I bring to you, Dolly’s first performance of Coat of Many Colors, from Jan. 13, 1970:

I’ve been a Dolly fan for years, and more than her music, I have loved her attitude. She understood how to give someone a hand up rather than a handout. And that’s what I remember her for. Rest easy on your bed of comfortable cotton, Ms. Parton. We miss you already.

This summer has been a ridiculously busy one, and real life kind of slapped us all in the face. Between car issues, truck issues, injuries, illnesses… we just haven’t been on here. And that needs to change. I’m going to be making a huge effort, though please excuse any hiccups between now and the end of September.

I’m going to throw some quick stuff together and hopefully I’ll manage to get my writing back in gear.

To give you a quick rundown of my summer, I spent early summer dealing with some minor but negative health things, and then went right into New Hampshire Renaissance Faire. I want to say, that was the most difficult and yet most satisfying year ever. We managed to raise over $147,000 for the NH Food Bank and over $97,000 for Rockford NH Meals on Wheels. All that by doing a fair that everyone loves anyhow. 🙂 It’s my most important charity event of the year, and I give it everything I’ve got.

Because I gave it everything, I then missed a couple of events I’d intended on attending. I was just … spent. But I did 9 library gigs this spring and summer, I believe, and that was a real record for me. I love doing 18th century library gigs, but wow, that was a lot. I moved from those into Maine Ren, which was a full 3 weekends this year. You might not think that sounds like much, but it’s four days (Fri, Sat, Sun, Mon) of hard labor for each weekend of fair. I managed to do something to my foot and ankle, so I missed yet another event after that one, so that I could take care of myself.

From there, I moved into Fort events, which are a little easier for me. I’ve made the sad but necessary decision to step away from my French F&I group, the Pequawket Alliance. I just don’t have enough time to do stuff with them. I’ll still see everyone when they come to the Fort, though, so it’s not an entire goodbye. Still, it was sad.

And then I missed the event I love doing every year, Hillsboro History Alive, because the truck’s alternator died. I was packed and ready to go, and then we fizzled. So I spent last weekend at home, sleeping and reading. I’m ashamed by just how much I needed that.

I have a handful more events this year. New library gigs may arrive, and I also have Auburn Duck Race Day (Sat. Sept. 12, 10am to 3pm, Auburn Village on Hooksett Rd, Auburn NH), the Timeline event at the Fort (Sept 26/27), Mayflower Market Days (Oct 17/18, in Plympton, MA), and the Hammond Castle Ren Faire days (Nov 7/8).

With more time on my hands, I’m sitting down to get caught up on my writing, which was sadly neglected since May. I’m working apace on my latest vampire novel, with a hope of getting it out for the xmas rush. That would be nice. 🙂

I’ll leave you with a little bit of the Working Man’s Blues:

This post is from a FB group called Collective Evolution. I’m sharing it here because it says a LOT.

***

I ran across this one in a queue of music that Google/YouTube curated for me. I must say, I have become a big fan of Inappropriate Jazz, which is advertised as “edgy angry woman singing.” I admit, I would not want to listen to the entire album in one sitting, but dispersed throughout my day, it’s a fucking pleasure. Heh…

So many people have told me what a lady should and shouldn’t do, over the years. I got tired of it, stopped listening entirely, and simply focused on being the best PERSON I could be. It wasn’t until my early 40s that the idea of being a lady came up again. I’m still not sold on it, but there are moments when I dress “as a lady” and behave myself with a modicum of politeness because it’s appropriate to the time. I suppose in those moments, I could be called a lady.

In any case, this song makes me smile.

Sometimes you think you know a musical artist, and then they throw you a curve ball. Alice Cooper was like that. He started out wanting to be the “worst band ever” and became popular. Then they did the 70s thing and went mainstream (that’s where this song comes in). And then shock rock became a thing, and he found his complete groove. I hope you enjoy. This is one of my favorite Cooper songs, and it never got air play because it’s not “scary” Coop stuff.

There are moments I like being a lady. There are times I actually settle into a comfortable grandma moment. But let’s be honest, now… I’m not that way by nature. This song sings to my soul. 🙂

I’ve seen this one go around lately, and it has that lovely “feel good” vibe. We need all these touchy feely things, and the future will be just fine.

The problem, of course, is that a colony on mars will help us with drinkable water. Servers orbiting the planet helps us figure out climate issues (because, while I may not see the widespread planet-killing eco disaster the Left claims, we do have things we do poorly, and being able to monitor the planet better would do good things). There’s a non-zero chance that AI might solve our pollinator problem.

I have found that there is a certain part of the Left that seems to believe that if we all just lived on tofu and kale chips, and only drank recycled pee, walked to work, and everyone had a garden, things would immediately reverse and the world would be rosy, and everyone would get along. Cue singing Kumbaya. Oh, I forgot not showering. I’m not sure where that comes in, but they never seem to shower. Ugh.

Now, I have no issue with tofu and kale chips. I rather like both, quite honestly, but I want them when *I* want them, not because nothing else is allowed. I’d rather avoid recycled pee if I can, unless I manage to get shipped off to Mars, in which case bring it on! We almost had most people working from home, and while I am dead set that it should be voluntary and not required (as it was with covid), it did solve a lot of problems. Six weeks into our lovely lock downs, all the smog was gone, plants and bees and gardens and animals were all doing much better. Sort of put shut to the idea that it would take decades if not centuries to repair “all the damage we’ve done.” I do think most people should have a garden, even if all they do is grow some peas or a tomato plant, because it’s good for the soul and it reminds us where food comes from. I think too many people forget that.

The thing is, we can responsibly use modern tools like AI and satellites for many things. I use AI all the time for research, where it cuts down on my “random searching on the interwebz” time. Yes, I verify everything I’m told, because AI is not infallible because WE are not infallible, and it learns from us. But it’s still useful. It takes research from “days or weeks” to “hours or days,” which is huge for me. I use it for organization. I love satellite images, because I can see all sorts of things. I can watch recreations of historical battles done by AI using extant information over real modern maps. It’s amazing. I’m sure people thought gas and electric stoves were the end of the world, at one point. I know that many people fought against the removal of candles and the addition of gas lighting. It’s always hard to accept change when it comes.

But here’s the thing I see… Building a colony on Mars? That means we’ll have terraforming going on, which is absolutely applicable to our own planet. If you can turn Mars red soil into something we can grow in, then we can apply that to the Sahara Desert. If we can explore (in a few decades) the methane oceans of Titan, then maybe we can also create safe ways to navigate the depths of our own oceans. And so on. Progress allows us to learn new things about our own world, even as we explore others.

Then, of course, there’s the idea that was often touted by Heinlein. When humans find a new frontier, they go for it. They go for broke. They do crazy, insane things to go exploring. And there is a certain percentage of our population that are simply wired that way, and no amount of “reprogramming” is going to change them. They SHOULD be encouraged to challenge the new frontiers. The other side of that is that those who leave Earth to go elsewhere will toughen the breed. Those left behind will not advance as quickly as the ones who go out and explore. He believed that those who never face the raw, unforgiving nature of a space frontier are far more likely to embrace socialism, authoritarianism, and conformist rules. (LA Public Library)

The end of the meme says, “That’s the only future I’m interested in.” That seems to be exactly what Heinlein feared, doesn’t it? Because the future I’m interested in includes infinite possibilities. There’s room for those who want to be home bodies, and those who want to explore. For the gardeners and the hunters. For the thinkers and the doers. The burger flippers and the rocket scientists. We need them all, and more. I want to know what’s in the deepest parts of our oceans, and I want to know what’s on that watery planet at the very edge of our telescopic vision. I want to meet aliens, and I want to be at peace with folks at home.

I want all the futures. I’m interested in every single one of them. From AI to pollinators to satellites. All. No boundaries. 🙂

Talking about taxing the rich made me think about Leftist math, which made me think of New Math and the troubles I had learning it. So this is for all of us who struggled with New Math. 😉

The big noise I hear from the Left is, trickle down economics don’t work. They cite a lot of stuff (Grok can give you a whole explanation, if you care to read it), mostly that cutting corporate tax rates doesn’t stimulate the economy because corporations then invest or spend the money on their executives, and that it “exacerbates inequality.” While I can agree with the idea that a good, effective fiscal policy should include incentives, fiscal sustainability, and broad opportunities rather than just trickle down, I don’t want to throw away the baby with the bathwater.

I look at the shenanigans going on in New York right now, and I can see that at least SOME trickle down works. It seems Mamdani was expecting the “rich folk” to stay and pay exorbitant taxes. When they left, their trickle stopped, and now Mamdani is upset. He ran on the idea of free childcare, free buses, and a bunch of other “free” stuff. The problem, of course, is that none of those things are free. They all require the work of other people, something socialists tend to forget about when they calculate how much to pay for things. Someone’s labor is worth dollars.

Now, please understand me… The person flipping your burgers is giving you labor, too, and that person is worth dollars. Right now, it appears that most people agree (and more importantly, the corporate overlords agree) that their worth is about $15 per hour. That appears, at least for now, to be sustainable for McDonald’s, Wendy’s, and the other burger conglomerates. This is (at least in my state, where the legal minimum wage is $7.25/hr) a decent wage for someone working in food service. Having worked at a McDonald’s in my youth, I can tell you that the training is excellent, the work is hard and exhausting, and the take home pay isn’t too bad. For a youth it’s excellent, and for a young adult it’s truly a living wage if you’re working full time.

One of the big issues I have with some capitalists is that they don’t appear to value the labor of those who are “below” them… the burger flippers, the guy who cleans the bed pans, the gal who greases the gears at the factory. Now, I’m not saying that low skill jobs should be paid the same as high skilled ones (whatever the skill may be). Making burgers is not nearly as complicated as making precision ball bearings (one of the local companies that hires young adults in my area of the world makes these, and provides training AND education to their workers, so that they can improve and better themselves while also doing a good job). Making precision ball bearings with a machine is not as complicated as making a plane engine. Making a plane engine isn’t even close to being as complex as making a rocket engine. And so on. There are tiers, and multiple factors do need to be taken into account… not the least of which is the idea of whether anyone would be anything but mildly inconvenienced by the disappearance of said job. If burgers stopped being made, people would eat at home, and probably gripe less and lose some weight. If precision ball bearings were to stop being made, planes would cease to fly in the sky, and many of our very important machines would stop working. And so on. Some jobs are worth more than others (which, I will also add, is not the same as saying the people in those jobs are worth more or less), simply due to their nature.

But I digress. We were talking about taxing the rich. Oh… no, taxing the ultra-rich. So here’s the thing: the rich (millionaires, for instance) are not the middle class they once were. Largely, they are not paying as much as they did. The ultra-rich (the billionaires, and our one trillionaire) are paying considerably more than their fair share of taxes in the world. Of course, that depends on what you consider fair. Some on the Left consider a 90% tax rate to be perfectly fair of a share. I do not.

In our country, the rich and the ultra-rich pay a lot. “High-income earners contribute the vast majority of U.S. federal income taxes. The top 10% of earners pay roughly 71% of all individual income taxes, while the top 1% alone accounts for approximately 38%. Overall, the top 50% of taxpayers contribute over 96% of the total income tax burden.” (NTUF) A few years ago, Elon Musk paid over $11 BILLION dollars in taxes, which is equal to 0.15% of our country’s budget. A single man. I think that’s considerably more than his fair share.

Now go look at the image above. By making the numbers look incomprehensible (and yeah, they ARE incomprehensible except for a few math geniuses), they make it scary. That makes it easier to get their ideology across. They present it in such a way that it sounds like a) the super rich are not working people, b) that taxing the super rich doesn’t affect other working people, c) that not taxing the super rich means you’re not investing in working people, and that d), all of this means our democracy will die. Because we didn’t tax the ultra-rich.

Fear is a great motivator. Part of the problem we’re seeing now is that, even when people on the Left start to figure out that they’re being duped, the fear kicks in. It’s incredibly motivating. I still get caught in some of the fear traps the Left tosses out, until I go investigate. The problem, of course, is that a single human being simply cannot investigate all of these things. Even doing a few is exhausting and draining.

In the same way Trump overwhelmed the Left’s social media machine in the first few months of his Presidency, by simply being a few steps ahead and tossing out media land mines as he moved, he was able to make certain they were always hours or days behind. By the time they caught onto something, he was already three memes ahead. Well, they’re doing that with fear. They’re chumming the waters of social media with fear bombs. Yes, I can look some up and dismiss them. But I just don’t have TIME to look them all up. And just enough of them have the potential to be real (or have portions of them that are based in reality) that you can’t just write them all off. So what’s a girl to do?

I rely on media that I trust, which is hard, because I just went through the whole “the entire media is lying to me” lesson. But I … trust but verify. When I can. And when I can’t, I move on.

So here’s the thing I keep reminding myself of. Our parents and grandparents and greats, they didn’t have access to the news we have. They lived very different lives, and in some ways, very much happier lives. The problems they had, they didn’t have to do with Iran or Iraq, or mass shootings, or kids eating Tide pods. The reason was, they didn’t KNOW about those things. They only knew what they read in the paper, and unlike the internet, the paper only has so much space. Only the most interesting and useful news goes into them. All the petty stuff? You might occasionally get a special edition on a Sunday that dealt with it, but not everyone read the Sunday paper for just that reason.

So I limit how much “news” I read. I can’t vet it all, so I only read what I can vet. I don’t stress out if I don’t know everything. I share interesting news at breakfast with the family, and they share their interesting stuff. Each of us likes different things, so we get a nice cross-section of the available news of the hour. It’s enough.

And when people ask why I’m not outraged over the fact that the ultra-rich aren’t being taxed until they decide to play Gatsby and stop working altogether? I tell them I don’t know those things, because I’m reenacting or sewing or working in my garden. M’kay, thanks.