Tag Archives: senior citizens

Onion ice cubes, jalapeno ice cubes

Posted on June 29, 2014 by | 16 comments

onion ice cube jalapeno ice cube

Hi readers.  Thanks for coming by for a read.  This is an idea of mine that worked out really well.  Hell, it wasn’t my idea.  It was Jeanne’s.  But I’m the one put that whole bag of onions in the blender, liquified them, and poured them into ice cube trays.  Jeanne just thought of it because the onions go bad so quickly these days.

Anyway, even before the low sodium fanaticism and the sexual experimentation with various foods that followed, counting sodium mgs the way other people count calories, even before that I used a LOT of onions, a lot of jalapeno [and other peppers].

But Jeanne’s ice cube idea throws the entire thing into a new realm.  A new threshold, new horizon of culinary potential.  And you don’t have to chop them every damned time you get hungry and start searching for something to cook.

The onions turn into tiny onion chips when thawed, and a lot of onion juice.  They make an onion broth quicker than I can type it.  And the jalapeno ice cube are great anywhere.  Shove a popsicle stick into them and you have a jalapeno popsicle.  Otherwise just use them the way you’d normally use a jalapeno shaped like an ice cube.

Remember where you heard it first.  It was here.  Not Jeanne’s Library blog.  But if I could think of a way to keep them from melting I’d send some postcard style to her Johnson County Library Postcard Art project.  Because damn me, these are art.  Tastiest damned art I’ve ever eaten.

Old Jules

 

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Posted in 2014, America

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Where’s the Over The Hill Gang these days?

Posted on June 29, 2014 by | 15 comments

Hi readers.  Here’s an old guy made the front page of the KC Star today.  73 years old, affluent [660,000 in the bank and a paid-for $300,000 home], and some health problems.  Messy kinda guy, house full of wiring the county workers couldn’t figure out, Physicist from way back.

Gets himself some health problems, takes a fall or two, and Whoo0pee!  This old bastard has money!  The County decides he needs a full time guarded environment, someone with county government to handle his finances.  Hold him captive and the MO Supreme Court refuses to hear his appeals.  The County uses his own finances to fight him in court, sell off his house and all his belongings.

 The Saga of John Flentie
Kansas City Star ^| June 28, 2014 | Eric Adler

Posted on Saturday, June 28, 2014 4:08:06 PM by yldstrk

Sunken into the plaid couch of his cinder-block room, John Flentie spends nearly every waking hour obsessed with obtaining his freedom.

“I merely want to go home,” he says.

At 73, the once-affluent Parkville resident is not a criminal inmate, nor is he an enemy combatant. John Flentie, 73, has been under the guardianship and conservatorship of the Office of the Platte County Public Administrator since April 2012.. He has been committed to various nursing homes, including Cedars of Liberty, where he currently resides in a small, cluttered room. Frustrated by the loss of his freedom, Flentie spends his time listening to music, watching movies and trying to undo his guardianship.

John Flentie, 73, has been under the guardianship and conservatorship of the Office of the Platte County Public Administrator since April 2012.. He has been committed to various nursing homes, including Cedars of Liberty, where he currently resides in a small, cluttered room. Frustrated by the loss of his freedom, Flentie spends his time listening to music, watching movies and trying to undo his guardianship.

Instead — to the extreme frustration of Flentie, his lawyer and a cadre of former high school classmates who for two years have been advocating for the release of a friend they insist is as capable and highly intelligent as always — Flentie is a ward of the state of Missouri.

Since April 2012, he has been committed to various nursing homes under the guardianship and conservatorship of the office of the Platte County public administrator, which claims in court proceedings that taking charge of Flentie, his estate and his possessions was and continues to be for his own health and well-being.

(Excerpt) Read more at kansascity.com …

Seems to me we oldsters who are still free ought to be doing some thinking about this.  Hell, I hate this guy.  He was a CIA man or contractor for them for 30 years.  But the fact is, he’s 73 years old and what’s happening to him is merely a demonstration of what can probably happen to any of us.

Probably those of us who still own firearms need to go over there and shoot up the county offices the way Kansans and Missourians used to do back when they didn’t have as much to get pissed off about.

I don’t know what a person ought to do in a case such as this.  Probably he made a bad mistake thinking back when he first got involved with them that nothing of that nature could happen to him.  Same as I am prone to think about my ownself.  And other oldsters probably think about their ownselves.

Well, hells bells, it can happen.  And the legal system isn’t there to give them any relief, reassurance, or justice.  So do we sit still and wait for the jackboots to kick down the door, or do we raid the Platte County Courthouse and teach the bastards some manners and respect?

Even if the SOB they did it to was a CIA crapwad.

Old Jules

 Afterthought:  I responded to a comment with this anecdote, but I think it belongs in the main post:  I read a few years ago about an old guy somewhere who’d gotten caught up in the beginnings of something of this sort, went on the run in his car with police chasing him until they ran him off the road and he came out of the car shooting. They had to kill him for his own good. J

I’m probably more suspicious about these affairs than most.  Back when I was a lot younger my mom and all her brothers and sisters got together and had my Granddad hauled off to the State insane asylum where he spent the remainder of his life.  I used to get pleading letters from him to come break him out of there.  Cogent letters, though desparate.  I was young and early married, destitute.  Couldn’t afford to take care of him, or take him in myself.  But afterward I often thought I should have anyway.  He was the only one of the bunch worth shooting.

My uncle, Ursey, went out to his farm, “Hey Dad, let’s go to town.  Get a motel room.  Do some shopping for groceries, go to the auction.”  He left him napping in that motel room, went and got the Sheriff.  Came back and they hauled my granddad off to jail until they could get the county judge to involuntarily send him off to the State Hospital.

I hope each of those bastards – I trust they’re all dead by now, died of something lingering and dreadfully painful.  If not, maybe their next lifetimes can be something akin to his during those last few years.

J

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Posted in 2014, America

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Hyundai – Jeanne’s new ride

Posted on June 27, 2014 by | 15 comments

Hi readers.  Jeanne’s 1991 Oldsmobile’s headed for someone poorer and more desperate than she is.  Found herself a spanking new Hyundai with less than 100,000 miles on it and less than a decade old.  Ran it through all the mechanic pre-purchase checks and online automotive and title histories, and concluded it might be okay.

Maybe it will.  The Oldsmobile was doing some threatening and complaining it wasn’t getting enough treasure spent keeping it running.  So I hope the Hyundai measures up and lasts a while.

I’m thinking it’s named after a place I visited in Korea while I was on leave, travelling around site seeing.  Went somewhere, Taegue I think, saw a giant Buddha, rode a coal fired train around all over the countryside.  And came to Hyundai down the other side of the bay from Pusan.  Beautiful place.

Beautiful place all to hell, it was.  Trees blooming, a serene bay with all manner of Chinese junk looking boats and smaller boats with wiggletails used as oars.

People around Hyundai didn’t see much of GIs, same as up at Taegu.  I spent 30 days travelling around and a week-or-so at Hyundae.  A fond memory I hadn’t remembered until Jeanne decided on that car.

Hell of a deal.

Old Jules

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Posted in 2014, Adventure, America

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Personal lessons learned from the 20th Century

Posted on June 26, 2014 by | 2 comments

Hi readers.  This is mainly advice for my progeny, though I don’t have any progeny.

  1. Don’t live in places where the ruling individual is called, “strong man”.
  2. Don’t live in places where the governing body is called, “ruling Junta”.
  3. In places where the police enjoy broad discretionary powers including making people disappear avoid situations they might see as confrontational or provocative.  Avoid trying to explain your viewpoint to them.  Especially after they’ve disappeared you.
  4. Stay out of groups protesting the activities of right wing death squads.
  5. Avoid situations requiring mastery of the local language to communicate  the phrase, “I demand to contact the US Embassy.”
  6. If you believe you need to contact the US Embassy try to escape immediately.  Never mind the US Embassy. 
  7. Don’t volunteer for anything.

I’ve never done most of these things and I’ve survived thus far.  The proof of the pudding is in the eating.

Old Jules

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Some lessons learned from the 20th Century

Posted on June 25, 2014 by | 3 comments

Hi readers.  If we didn’t learn anything from the 20th Century, it wasn’t from lack of opportunities. 

For instance, 

  1. we should have learned not to get into any wars, alliances, or trading partnerships with Japan.  We tried all three and each one ended a step closer to our economic destruction.  The US prospered until it became involved with Japan.
  2. We should have learned not to get into any wars, alliances or trading agreements with anyone on the Korean peninsula.  The US prospered until it became involved with people living on the Korean peninsula.
  3. We should have learned not to get into any wars, alliances or trading agreements with anyone in the Middle East.  Too confusing.  The US prospered until it got involved with people living in the Middle East.
  4. The US needs to prohibit more things and criminalize more things.  Many currently wealthy families, such as the Kennedys, arrived at wealth and power through the manufacture, transport and sale of prohibited substances.   Prohibiting things is win/win for the worthy who have the courage to break the laws, take the risks, and do a little discrete killing when needed.  The US prospers when the people who matter profit.  Prohibiting things raises profits similarly to the way wars raise profits for people who matter.
  5. Finally, we need to recognize once and for all we’re God’s Chosen People.  I wrote about this almost a year ago, but little has changed since then.  Why the Jews used to be God’s Chosen People but aren’t any more.  The time has definitely come to assume the crown, take responsibility for the burden we bear, and invade Mexico.

Remember where you heard it first.

Old Jules

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Posted in 2014, America

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Thank you for your service.

Posted on June 25, 2014 by | Leave a comment

Hi readers.  Gotta smile.  Someone sent me this link to a Yahoo News article saying Executives running VA medical treatment facilities got themselves high-dollar bonuses the past few years.  And 65% of all VA employees got bonuses.

Ironically yesterday I also got another co-pay demand for the meager services I got from them in the form of prescriptions a while back.  Been paying $10 per month, and they ain’t happy about it.  Gonna take it spang out of my Social Security pension check.

I thought I had all that ironed out with them, but evidently I don’t.  At least I’ve gained the wisdom not to use their pharmacy again, to just use the Walgreen down the street and Medicare.  Co-pay isn’t such a killer.

The other up-side of all this is that people aren’t in any danger anymore of finding out I’m a veteran and saying, “Thank you for your service.”  The past couple of months have provided me with the reply I never could quite come up with before:

“How about we go over to the VA Hospital and jerk each other off?”

Anyway, I’ve got the pharmacy co-pay worked down paying $10 per month so’s when they snag it out of my SS pension check it will only be $50 or less.  Provided they don’t hit me with a co-pay on this Merlin@Home transmitter to monitor my defibrillator they sent without me asking them to.  If there’s a co-pay on that I’m going to have to consider the VA benefits equivalent of going postal.

Not that I’m complaining.  Hell it ain’t as though I did anything to deserve all this special treatment they’ve been giving me at the VA, first back in Texas by stroking my bird for six weeks, then here by actually taking my blood pressure and giving me a prescription.  After all, they’re paying for my physical therapy.  I’m grateful for that.

Next time I’m over that way I’m going to tell them a big “Thank you for your service.”

And meanwhile laugh my ass off.

Old Jules

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We few, we happy few

Posted on June 24, 2014 by | 4 comments

Hi readers.  Thanks for coming by for a read.

Down at physical therapy we’re folks who’ve seen 17-year cicadas emerge the way they did in 2013 enough times so’s we shrug it off.  Old hat.  Centuries change and we say to one another, “Back in ninteen hunnerd and eight-one I was fishing out in Colorado or somewhere and caught one hell of a brown trout.  Or maybe it was the Black Hills.  Rainbow trout.”

Seventeen year cicadas just ain’t going to impress people such as us.  Because we all remember all the words to, “I’ve got a feeling called the blues since my baby said goodbye.  Lard I don’t know what I’ll dooooo, all I do is sit and cryyyyy oh lard that last long day she said goodbye, etc.” 

There’s an instrumental version on the boom box and a pair of octogenarian who quit whatever machine they’re on and stand together and sing it everytime it plays.  Not too bad duo, either.  And all the rest of us mouth the words while they sing it through.

She’s evidently one of the people who’s got the kind of insurance pays for her to go down there forever as a cost saver.  His ain’t so good.  I overheard them saying his will be running out in a few weeks, a little before mine.

So I’m thinking I might get a chance to get up and sing some old Inkspots or Otis Redding, once he clears out of here.  Maybe Hair, too.  Everybody’s Talking At Me I Don’t Hear A Word They’re Saying Only the Shadows of Their Eyes. 

Maybe run through a little standup comedy.  Some tap dancing.

Fact is, though, if it weren’t for the fact my energy level and limitations are being demonstrated to me while I listen, I otherwise feel more prone to do some jitterbugging and Texas Two Step and trying to remember the words to songs and sing them except as background noise to 17 year cicadas.

 Got to see a Century change, we did, got to see Haley’s Comet once.  Four times around for those 17 year cicadas.  And we got a feeling called the blooooose.

Ought to be ashamed of ourselves.

Old Jules

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It’s been a long century

Posted on June 23, 2014 by | 6 comments

Hi readers.  Thanks for coming by for a read.

June 28, 1914, the Coincidence Coordinators [CCs] finally got a belly full of a particularly venal form of aristocratic, dynastic and imperialistic exploitation of world populations.  They pulled the trigger on the first, Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife, and started a ball rolling that didn’t end until the Berlin Wall went down in the 1990s.  Maybe didn’t actually end then.

But one of the problems with WWI was nobody could figure out what it was all about, so they couldn’t pick a direction and head there, cut out all the middle men.  That’s why WWI didn’t end until the USSR packed up its tents and left eastern Europe all the way back to Moscow.  Told them all to go, and sin no more.  Here’s the keys to this stupid wall we built in Berlin.

Certainly the dynasties are still around because human beings are creatures of habit.  There are still Kennedys and Bushes and possibly a Roosevelt-or-two hanging around threatening to rear their ugly heads.  But the last Century killed off an amazing host of parasites with names such as Romanov, Hapsburg, Magyar, Hirohito, Stalin, to name a few.

The only WWI museum in the US, the National WWI Museum in KC, says that while they’re going to have a lot of special displays and ceremonies between June 22, and June 28, they aren’t celebrating.  Standard cliché of “There’s nothing to celebrate in war.”

In one sense they’re right.  Damned shame all those commoners had to die fighting wars for aristocrats.  But when you think about it, all those dead Romanovs, Magyars, Kennedys have given rise to some opportunities nobody’s likely to take advantage of.  But the opportunity is still there to hang the rest from lamp posts.

Didn’t do much long-term good when the French did it way back in the day, but maybe they weren’t thinking big enough.

Probably not, though.  This guy in the White House now might as well be named Bush or Kennedy for all the difference between him, them, and the ones named Clinton-was, and Clinton wannabe. 

Maybe some black hand organization lurking around out in the bushes will rally around the flag, gather up all the Post Office workers, rooftop snipers and school killers and explain to them they’re killing the wrong people. 

I expect if that doesn’t happen something equally appalling will, and I’m damned glad I’m not likely to have to try to live through it.  20th Century was a piece of cake from where I was sitting.

Old Jules

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Posted in 2014, America, History

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Robert Jaws Shaw, James Mason and Faye Dunaway

Posted on June 20, 2014 by | 4 comments

Hi readers.  Some things are already good enough.  No johnny-com-lately movie maker needs to come along with some glue-sniffing team of 21st Century Drama mamas and papas attempting to do it better.

Robert Jaws Shaw in Battle of the Bulge is one example.

James Mason as Rommel in The Desert Fox is another.

Faye Dunaway as Bonnie in Bonnie and Clyde [Bastards have already given that one a half-assed try].

Anthony Quinn in everything he was ever in.

Burt Lancaster in everything he was ever in, but especially The Rain Maker.

Stevie McQueen in everything he was ever in.

Rod Steiger in everything he was ever in.

Marlene Deitrich in Blue Angel.

 Roy Scheider, Bruno Cremer, Francisco Rabal, Amidou in Sorcerer

Michael Caine and all the others in Zulu.

Everything else they can have with my blessings.

Old Jules

 

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Posted in 2014

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Named a car Killed in Action? KIA? Hell, I suppose.

Posted on June 20, 2014 by | 2 comments

Hi readers.  From the Civil War until today KIA has meant Killed in Action.  Never meant anything else that I’m aware of.  Everyone knew what it meant.

So when I began noticing little medallions on cars with KIA on them a few years back I assumed it was some after-factory patriotic thing that didn’t make any more sense than all these damned Chinese-made ribbons demanding people support our troops, eat our veggies, and go to church Sundays.

Well, guess what.  It’s the name of a real, actual automobile manufactured in Korea.  A good one, I’m told.  Though its sales were probably slow off the starting line.  Who the hell wants a car with Killed in Action medallions all over it.

Jeanne’s car search has led her in the direction of KIAs because they have lousy resale value.  Those and Hyundai.  Both Korean.  I heartily approve because I’d hate to give any support at all to Japan, whether it’s the car industry used resales, or anything else.

And Koreans are good folks, even if you can’t understand their inscrutable senses of humor.  Naming a car Killed in Action, for instance.

Old Jules

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