I wish I could tell you that this weekend’s hellstorm was followed by something more seasonal, but no. It’s still cold, and yesterday we woke up to snow on the ground. Yes, it melted after the sun came up, BUT STILL.
Hello, Wednesday. Stormy Daniels is in Detroit tonight. Plans to see her still not gelled. She had to scratch her last date because travel delays didn’t put her in town in time to get her cabaret license, which she needs to dance in the city. I went out with friends last night, and suggested we tweet at her about taking her out to dinner. The way I figure it is, she’ll have to get the license during business hours, but her shows aren’t starting until close to midnight, which leaves hours to kill, and why not kill them with nice people who know the fun spots and won’t stare at her boobs?
This is my life now: Chasing strippers, and teaching myself podcasting. Which isn’t easy.
How’s everyone otherwise? What’s today’s news? Last night, someone said, rather mournfully, “I want gridlock in Washington again.” Who can’t identify?
So, a little bloggage? Sure:
Donald Trump’s addiction to lawyers, via Politico.
Via the WashPost, a spectacular video about how the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School journalism students put out the issue of the school paper dealing with the shooting there. Twenty minutes, well worth your time. I pass it along not only because it’s great video journalism, but because the picture it paints of the school itself, which is a virtual cathedral of learning, with a beautiful building, new computers, and opportunities for field trips to places like New York City. Compare this to a school in the poor parts of the city where you live. Kate’s high school was like this. Like many public institutions, quality varies widely.
OK, enough of the morning has slid by. Have a good one, all.
Connie said on April 18, 2018 at 1:05 pm
On another list where I hang out someone would have posted “first!” by now.
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Jakash said on April 18, 2018 at 2:02 pm
The seemingly random variance in the number of comments here and elsewhere is intriguing to me. 4 comments in the last 24 hours. Is it Sprinter’s effect? Comey’s? Certainly not Stormy’s! ; ) Regardless, it seems kinda odd.
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Joe Kobiela said on April 18, 2018 at 2:15 pm
Liveatc.net has the audio of the crew led by a former female navy aviator, bringing in the southwest flight that lost a engine, not a hint of panic compleatly professional, having had a engine on a Cessna 421 let go at 21000ft one night and landing on one engine I can tell you the pucker facter multiplies 10 fold, well worth a listen.
Pilot Joe
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Charlotte said on April 18, 2018 at 2:55 pm
@Joe — I listened to that recording this morning. Exactly what one would want in someone trying to get 150 people safely out of the sky. So calm. That poor woman, let’s hope the trauma knocked her out and that she didn’t suffer too much but boy howdy, how do you go through life when the answer to “oh that’s terrible your mother died when you were so young, what happened?” is “she was sucked out an airplane window.”
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Connie said on April 18, 2018 at 3:07 pm
This is going on in my neighborhood. They are about to tear down the old library on the property. Kind of cool, but a really bad traffic area already, so there are concerns. http://www.crainsdetroit.com/article/20180415/news/658211/first-major-retail-center-in-more-than-a-decade-planned
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Dexter said on April 18, 2018 at 3:15 pm
Stormy Fucking Daniels in Detroit…as an oldtimer who “snuck” into a Detroit burlesque theater (yeah, they had a least one left in the mid-60s years) at age 15, only to have my eyes bug out of my orbital cavity, I am now certain life has come full circle. OMG. I hope you pull this one off, nance. What a star in your legacy.
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Mark P said on April 18, 2018 at 3:34 pm
I have to say that Stormy’s boobs=porn. There’s that hidden grapefruit look, which I’m not judging either owner or starer, but I think I could keep my eyes on her face.
Southwest doesn’t strike me as a poor maintenance operation, but I think someone’s going to pay dearly for this one. Maybe the engine manufacturer.
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Jolene said on April 18, 2018 at 4:11 pm
I was stunned by the guts underneath the skin of the plane, as shown in the photo at the top of this article. So complex! For a non-engineer person like me, it’s hard to imagine how the such a system ever came together or how anyone could do a post-construction inspection and determine that it is correct.
And, yes, Nancy! Hope the Stormy meeting happens. I can’t imagine that she actually has anything of great import to reveal should she be freed from her NDA, but I admire her for being a badass nonetheless. She seems remarkably straightforward and confident.
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Jolene said on April 18, 2018 at 4:13 pm
Just noticed that the text for embedded links, as in my previous post, doesn’t stand out as much from the text surrounding it it as in some previous iterations of this site. Maybe only a problem on my device?
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Jolene said on April 18, 2018 at 4:31 pm
Hmmm, now I see that that link isn’t working. No idea why. Here’s the photo I meant to show you.
https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/18/us/southwest-emergency-landing-engine-investigation/index.html
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Deborah said on April 18, 2018 at 4:50 pm
The woman who died on that SW flight was from Albuquerque, so it’s all over the NM papers online. What a way to go.
We are having the most shitty weather in Chicago. Still very cold and supposedly snow tonight. I like cooler weather over the hot sticky stuff but this is beyond ridiculous. I’ve not been getting outside much because of my cold which is mostly over, but I don’t want a relapse. Tonight they’re having a meet and greet in the building for our alderman, hoping it will be interesting because I’m so bored. I’m up to season 5 of Shameless on Netflix, if you count how many hours that is, since I started at zero a few of days ago, it’s crazy.
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jcburns said on April 18, 2018 at 4:52 pm
Jolene, you left out the “http:” or “https:” A valid URL can’t just start with two slashes. Also, you ended up with a single smart quote trapped at the end of your link (I fixed it, btw.)
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Judybusy said on April 18, 2018 at 5:02 pm
Deborah, I’m also so crabby about the weather. It doesn’t help that on Facebooks memory feature, there are beautiful pics of tulips, crocus and daffs that were blooming this time last year. Today is cloudy, about 35. I just want to go home, turn on the heated mattress pad and go to sleep.
We are supposed to get a warm-up in the next few days!
I was so impressed by the pilot’s calm.
Also, in other news, MI is going to stop distributing water to Flint residents.
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Mark P said on April 18, 2018 at 5:06 pm
My brother, who was a metallurgist, could tell you all you want to know about turbine blade failure. With RPM from thousands to tens of thousands, there’s a tremendous amount of energy in a running engine. If a blade breaks, you don’t want to be anywhere near. It’s interesting that the broken window was significantly behind the engine. I hate being seated next to the engine. In addition to the noise, there’s all that energy just struggling to get out. I’ll have to remember the effect of the plane’s forward motion if I ever fly again.
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Jolene said on April 18, 2018 at 5:19 pm
Thanks for the fix, jc. I copied the link from its site, but must have somehow not selected all of it. Not sure how the quote error happened, but will remember to actually look at what is going inside those brackets.
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alex said on April 18, 2018 at 5:24 pm
Stormy. Now that would be the get of the century. Could make me a praying man.
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Jolene said on April 18, 2018 at 5:35 pm
More technical details re the challenges the pilot faced in landing the flight. Hats off to people who know how to do things in this world—unlike myself, whose main skill is mainly talking.
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Dorothy said on April 18, 2018 at 6:02 pm
My daughter went into work early on Monday so she could be there when the Pulitzer winners were announced. You can just imagine how thrilling it was for her as she was a copy editor on the Roy Moore follow up articles. She shared a few videos with us that showed some with cheering and speeches. The lobby was packed. You could feel how palpable the excitement was. And if you read it on line, you might read the story about Too Many Men in India and China. She was the copy editor on that story. We are beyond proud of her!
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Suzanne said on April 18, 2018 at 8:10 pm
Dorothy, that is exciting! I saw the Too Many Men story you mentioned this morning as I was perusing the Post online but I didn’t read it. I may have to go back and do so.
Everyone is crabby about the weather. The never ending cold gloomy dampness. It’s as if the weather is mirroring our collective mood.
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Mark P. said on April 18, 2018 at 9:18 pm
I hate to mention this, but the weather was wonderful here in Georgia today. Sunny, around 75, a nice breeze. I could get used to this, but I won’t have the chance.
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alex said on April 18, 2018 at 9:20 pm
Fucking snow predicted overnight. Last Friday I was getting bitten up by mosquitoes at a lake party. Wtf?
Haven’t heard whether the Trumps are invited to the upcoming royal wedding and curious how Kensington Palace will handle it, especially when the former U.S. heads of state will be there. But I cannot imagine they will allow the event to be upstaged by His Royal Anus.
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Jolene said on April 18, 2018 at 11:52 pm
Alex, Trump isn’t invited to the royal wedding, but neither are any other political leaders. Apparently, as Harry is not remotely likely to inherit the throne, it was decided that political leaders do not need to be invited. So you won’t see the Obamas there either; in fact, you won’t even see Theresa May there, which seems a little odd to me.
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Deborah said on April 19, 2018 at 12:49 am
Went to the alderman meet and greet, a bad haircut and a cheap suit, and all he did was talk about traffic and crime, he was so proud to report that they passed a bill today to triple parking fines in Chicago.
Also, I’m sick of Shameless, it was funny for awhile, Joan Cusack was a hoot, but now it’s maudlin and ridiculous, halfway through season 5, that’s it for me.
Plus, I couldn’t be crabbier, can you tell?
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jerry said on April 19, 2018 at 2:24 am
Snow? Oh that white stuff! Spring has arrived with a vengeance. Yesterday 78 and this morning I can just see one distant white cloud with a predicted 82. Just perfect,
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bb in de said on April 19, 2018 at 6:20 am
Enjoying much the same day across the Channel from you, Jerry. Whodathunk SW DE would be more temperate than central OH? (Short answer: not this expat.)
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Connie said on April 19, 2018 at 6:30 am
Deborah, at least we have gotten to see grass between the snows. We keep reminding ourselves that 2014 was worse, there was snow on the ground until sometime in May.
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Connie said on April 19, 2018 at 8:15 am
So I went to ready the Too Many Men story, and man that is weird and confusing formatting. Text rolling over charts. Story rolls down, story rolls left, huge white spaces in between sections. I kept getting confused. Sorry.
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Deborah said on April 19, 2018 at 8:30 am
Ahhh, the sun is out and according to my weather app will be all day. A high of 46 is predicted and for a whole week the highs will be out of the 30s. Hopefully we’ve turned a corner.
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Connie said on April 19, 2018 at 9:02 am
Stormy was in town last night. https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/detroit/2018/04/18/stormy-daniels-detroit-strip-club-trump/418402002/
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ROGirl said on April 19, 2018 at 9:22 am
That strip joint is down the street from where I used to work.
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Judybusy said on April 19, 2018 at 9:59 am
This morning I began reading the excess men story. It’s incredibly sad and worrisome. I now must work, but the sun’s out today.
Last night, neither of felt like cooking, so we pick-up food from a great Cuban restaurant in our neighborhood, Victor’s 1959 Cafe. I have leftovers. Is it lunchtime yet?
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Icarus said on April 19, 2018 at 10:16 am
it’s been so cold and snowy here in Chicago that we are grateful for 40s and 50s, which would ordinarily get complaints about being too cold. I for one need to get some stuff done outside and need clear skies and warmer weather.
I use to troll but now only occasionally lurk the Matt Walsh facebook page. He shared the story of that pilot and called her a hero. I cannot believe some of his followers have multiple threads saying she simply was doing her job, she’s not a hero. I have my suspicions why they are threatened by a female pilot.
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Bitter Scribe said on April 19, 2018 at 10:33 am
I know everyone has to make a living, but I wish Stormy would cool it with the stripping. It reinforces the idea of “the bimbo is just in this for the money,” and it’s a short step from there to “the lying bimbo is just in this for the money.”
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Connie said on April 19, 2018 at 11:25 am
The other night we picked up one of those all ingredients ready to cook boxes now available at Kroger. You know, the ones where the parsley is all chopped up and in its own little plastic bag ready to use, like Blue Apron. It was easy prep, OK tasting, $16 for a dinner for two – we ate every little bit – seemed a bit pricy.
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Julie Robinson said on April 19, 2018 at 11:26 am
Congratulations, Dorothy! You have every right to be a proud mama.
I did wonder, back in the 80’s and 90’s, as seemingly every other family was adopting a little girl from China, if China wouldn’t miss them some day.
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Dorothy said on April 19, 2018 at 11:36 am
Connie I agree about that formatting for that article. It was almost nauseating, the charts and the scrolling – then went from up/down to side-to-side. Someone over-designed that crap! But the article was very good anyway, if you can ignore the weird formatting (the illustrations, to me, were so unnecessary. Tell the story with actual photographs!)
I’m guessing Stormy has to do what she does best, which is stripping, to pay the bills for her attorney. She’s also capitalizing on her current exposure (ha ha) in the public eye. A leopard can’t change it’s spots now, can it? But she does seem very smart and savvy when it comes to going after Trump. I wish her nothing but success however she can grab it.
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Deborah said on April 19, 2018 at 12:45 pm
I think it’s inevitable that Trump is at least going to fire Rosenstein if not both he and Mueller. There are a number of orgs that are preparing people to protest immediately if that happens. I know I plan to. Here’s a link to one of them if you haven’t already responded https://act.moveon.org/event/mueller-firing-rapid-response-events/search/ I hope there is an enormous but peaceful response if it really happens.
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beb said on April 19, 2018 at 12:46 pm
An interesting side note to the terrible Southwest Airlines’ story.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/posteverything/wp/2018/04/19/sully-was-just-a-hero-why-label-the-southwest-captain-a-female-pilot/
or as the headline puts it: ‘Sully’ was just a hero. Why label the Southwest captain a ‘female pilot’?
The article acknowledges that there aren’t many women commercial pilots so unless reporters call her a woman pilot people would assume that like, Sully, she’s a man. But are reporters not calling her a hero? So is it better to call her a woman pilot or not?
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Jakash said on April 19, 2018 at 12:53 pm
Yeah, Scribe, I agree with Dorothy. And the fact that some people aren’t going to respect Stormy’s lifestyle or motivations is baked into the deal, regardless. Trumpkins have no respect for *Hillary*, for crying out loud, and she never did any stripping to warrant their disdain. Plus, they’ve defended all of Il Douche’s libertine douchiness and money-grubbing; it’s inconsistent (surprise!) for them to complain about her.
Nothing against the Free Press, but the Proprietress says on Twitter: “Of all the @StormyDaniels-visits-Detroit stories you’ll hear, see or read today, the @detroitnews ‘s is the best.” https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/detroit-city/2018/04/18/stormy-daniels-detroit/33968703/
“40s and 50s, which would ordinarily get complaints about being too cold” The only time I complain about temps in the mid or high 50s is if I’m at the beach — which is essentially never, these days. Jerry’s reference to 82 didn’t make me envious at all. One of the things that’s annoying about Spring to me is going from the 30s and 40s to high 70s or 80, with not nearly enough weeks in the 50s and 60s for my taste. As of the other day, the “average” high in Chicago is supposed to be 60. So, we’ve essentially missed the entire period of when its “supposed” to be in the 50s. D’oh!
And as long as I’m disagreeing with people, “$16 for a dinner for two” doesn’t sound that bad to me, Connie, depending on what was provided. I imagine those things are priced to compete with fast-casual restaurant meals and picking up ready-to-eat hot food at Kroger, not the price of the groceries, themselves. Though we tried Blue Apron and the thing that annoyed me the most was that the ingredients were *not* “ready to use.” There’d just be a head of garlic and un-prepped vegetables, e.g., which didn’t really make for that easy of a prep, for the money, IMHO.
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Connie said on April 19, 2018 at 12:58 pm
I think I could have made a small meat loaf and four smashed red potatoes, two servings, for less than $16. The make your own artisan ketchup part was interesting and tasty.
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Jakash said on April 19, 2018 at 1:22 pm
“Helpful hint: The proper term for a female pilot is pilot.”
https://twitter.com/OhNoSheTwitnt/status/986643637365825536
How little time is somebody going to spend on that Southwest story if they’re not going to find out that the pilot’s name is Tammie Jo Shults? The “female pilot” part becomes rather clear at that point, no? Plus there’s the flood of biographical details that immediately follows such a story. I don’t see why “female” should be necessary.
Would you say you were treated by a “female doctor?” And if you did, would that mean a doctor that was a woman, or a gynecologist?
Back to Icarus’ comment: “…multiple threads saying she simply was doing her job, she’s not a hero.” Uh, there are people who have jobs such that “just doing their job” sometimes (or often) requires them to be heroes. Not that hard to understand.
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brian stouder said on April 19, 2018 at 2:06 pm
It took me a day and a half to get “sprinter”…srriuosly – I was sort of looking for a reference to a marathon, or something(!!)
Aside from that, I’m off today – as one of my older brothers just got married. The ceremony was downtown at city hall, and in between times it was interesting to see various members of City Council, and at least one school board member, along with various local media luminaries flitting about (apparently the county council was busy doing something or other)
Regarding Stormy, et al, I cannot express how genuinely enjoyable all this Schadenfreude is, with regards to our national political news.
Our ridiculously ill-equipped president – who got elected in large part owing to the imagery of a “beautiful border wall” to keep ‘those people’ out – has freaking PILED INTO a cement wall with regards to the ongoing investigations into his pre-election collusion with the Russians.
As he has denied and denied and denied that there was ever any collusion, I wonder if he has ever even bothered to look the word up.
What were all those Russians in Trump Tower before the election discussing? “Dirt” collected by a foreign intelligence service, that could be used against his opponent? If words have meaning, DT’s campaign – not even to mention his career of worldwide money-laundering and Russian connections – is the very definition of the word “collusion”.
And the very best genuine laugh-out-loud moment I’ve had for weeks and weeks (and weeks!) was when the Donald’s fake-lawyer* made all sorts of news when it was revealed that one of his very few fake ‘clients’ was none other than the fake-pundit* Shit-For-Brains-Sean Hannity!
Really, if this was a movie (from, say, 10 years ago or so) who would have thought it was realistic?
*Ol’ ‘Shit-for-brains’ is very big on the concept of “fake news”, showing a genuine, gaping ignorance of what ‘news’ is. Does he have any understanding of what ‘freedom of the press’ really means? Apparently he (and millions of listeners) really do not
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Jakash said on April 19, 2018 at 2:44 pm
No doubt, Connie @ 40. If it was primarily just meat loaf and potatoes, that *does* sound like a rip-off. Even in pricey Chicago, you can get more of a meal than that, already prepared, for less than $16 in the hot-food-ready-to-go section of some supermarkets.
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Connie said on April 19, 2018 at 3:06 pm
Meat loaf for two, four redskins, and the stuff to make “artisan catsup”. Tomato paste, apple cider vinegar and brown sugar. Kroger has several less basic options available.
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Deborah said on April 19, 2018 at 3:37 pm
I made meatloaf and mashed potatoes (comfort food for the cold wet day) the other night with ingredients from Whole Foods which is usually on the pricey side, I spent maybe $10 for a pound of ground beef, a couple of potatoes (I like russets for mashed potatoes), some celery and an onion. I already had eggs, catsup and herbs so that makes up for the celery I didn’t use that I still have in the fridge and the fact that I got 2 meals out of it.
Brian, you are so right, if this had been a movie made 10 years ago we would have thought it was outlandish, that it would never, ever happen to a president of the US.
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Judybusy said on April 19, 2018 at 3:37 pm
I’ve always thought the meal prep companies were expensive and wasteful. I estimate we spend about $4/meal per person.
Here’s the boring, feel-free-to-skip breakdown. Blue Apron always brags that they make meals for $10 or less per person. Well, we spend about $100/ week for two on food. On average, this provides breakfast, lunch and dinner, since we almost always cook for leftovers, which for us comes in at 38 prepared meals. (we go out 2-3 times/month, and sometimes have popcorn for dinner!) I have never done the math till today, but that is about $2.60 per person per meal. Of course, it’s going to be a bit higher, because we shop at Costco, so we usually have things like coffee on hand, which aren’t included. So, thus the $4 per meal estimate above. People who are on FB know how cooking-obssessed I am.
Since the late 80’s I’ve also been really focused on reducing packaging. Most of the time, I don’t use plastic vegetable bags, but always bring used ones when I go shopping, and of course shopping bags to put everything in at the end. I keep an empty wine box/case in my trunk. You just never know when you need to pick up a case of wine!
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Icarus said on April 19, 2018 at 5:14 pm
My SIL gifted us Blue Apron 5 years ago. It was nice but you still have to do a not negligible amount of prep work and the proportions were small. Not to mention they skimped out on one of the minor condiments of whatever we were preparing (some sauce or spread, not enough for 4 pieces).
maybe it has improved over the years.
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Julie Robinson said on April 19, 2018 at 5:14 pm
Blue Apron and the like are selling convenience, but maybe it’s more like not having to think. Figuring out what to fix takes mental energy that we often just don’t feel we have.
We try to plan the next week’s meals over lunch or dinner on the weekend, and then make sure we have the fixings. Then we only have to think once! I love to make big pots of soup or dishes that will make multiple meals. No such thing as leftovers, only pre-made meals.
One time I was in a group discussing cooking and a man who didn’t do any of the cooking said he refused to eat leftovers. I suggested that since his wife was working just as many hours as he was, he should be cooking too. Silence all around the table. I am not good at this type of small talk.
Incidentally, they later divorced.
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Deborah said on April 19, 2018 at 6:05 pm
In my former life (with my ex), I used to spend my Sunday afternoons, cooking up a bunch of stuff and putting it all in the freezer for the week. I was the casserole queen. I didn’t get home until late and he’d throw the dish in the microwave, because he and LB ate earlier. Then when I got home I’d heat up the leftovers. It was a pretty dismal way to have meals I must say. Everything was labeled by days of the week so there was no thinking on his part. Oh, and of course, I’d do the cleanup for everybody after I was done eating. After I was through cooking and stocking the freezer on those Sunday afternoons, I’d take a nap, the most pleasant part of my week in those days.
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LAMary said on April 19, 2018 at 7:12 pm
It was the in house Brit’s birthday on Monday and I made a roasted chicken. The full on, roasted on a bed of vegetables. butter, herbs, a head of garlic halved and a lemon in the cavity five pound chicken. I figure that with the salad the whole meal for four cost about 15 dollars and it was so good.
Older son brought the birthday cake which cost another 15, but it was worth it.
Those boxed meals seem pretty scammy to me.
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Bitter Scribe said on April 19, 2018 at 7:29 pm
I’m impressed that Judybusy can feed two people for $100 a week. I spend more than that just on myself. Of course that does include beer and liquor.
I can cook OK but I’m lazy in terms of trying new stuff. I keep making the same dinners over and over. The last new thing I did was buy fresh brussels sprouts and roast them, instead of nuking the frozen kind. (They came out great.)
I work from home, so have lots of time, and have a good Internet connection, so there’s no excuse for not trying new recipes. I just have to motivate myself.
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