It feels like home here at my sister’s house. I was just lying on the bed in the guest room and I went to turn on the bedside light. And I reached for the extension switch that I have in my bedroom at home. It wasn’t there, obviously.

I got up this morning and did a lot of nothing. Well, I had some thoughts. And I did some little chores. So, I guess I did something. And I convinced J to let me make dinner tonight. Which prompted a trip into Belfast.

I had three missions in Belfast. Pizza for lunch. Foiled. The pizza place that I like – one of my favorite pizzas currently, is closed on Mondays. Maybe Tuesday too, I don’t recall. Anyway, no pizza for you. I also wanted to see if the odlest shoe store in America, where I bought my current favorite pair of shoes – Olukai, had some Olukai short boots. They didn’t. They had lots of other brands. But no Olukia. Foiled. And lastly, I wanted to go to the grocery store and get the ingredients for the dinner tonight.

On the way, I stopped at a Chinese restaurant and picked up a quart of vegetable fried rice. I had been toying with the idea of rice with dinner and decided that instead of trying to make some (J does not have a rice cooker I don’t believe) and then adulterating it, I would just buy some. The counter person ws very nice and spoke Chinese with me.

At the grocery store, I found everything that I needed. I also found things I didn’t need and bought those too. It’s only money. At least I got all the ingredients for making Sweet and Sour pork. I hope it turns out ok. The meals I prepare here are hit or miss. And I haven’t made this dish before. Well, not recently. And not with this particular recipe. We shall see. I am going to do my best to follow the recipe as closely as I can.

Dinner

The meal turned out pretty well. We all had seconds even! I think the sweet (dude) and sour pork could have used a bit more garlic, but since I was using garlic in a tube, I couldn’t really measure the equivalent amount to what the recipe asked for. I am, though, a garlic fan in most cases, so needing more garlic could have just been a me thing. I also think a smidgeon more ginger would have been ok. All in all, I will call this meal a success. Woo hoo!

Augustus for President: I think one reason the whole country is no longer as unified as it seemed in the past is because there is no unifying media. And that is part of the reason that MAGA is unified – they have Fox news. There really is no equivalent on the left. And there certainly isn’t one in the center. Back in the old days, the lack of unifying media was unifying. Newspapers were ubiquitous. Then radio came along and there weren’t a lot of radio stations and everyone listened to the same stuff. And the same with television, up until the proliferation of stations that happened in the late 70s. Until then, there were basically three TV stations and people all watched the same news, the same entertainment, the same sports. Now, not so much. Can we make a US media outlet? Like Fox News, but unbiased? Playing 24 hours a day. With national news mostly. And international news. Maybe each state has a ten minute round-up of their local news. I think this is a brilliant idea. Then again, I think all of my ideas are brilliant. Sigh.

I love talking about the campaign. And the issues. Just saying…