I spent 12 hours of my weekend cleaning petitions for submission to the board of elections (cleaning, by the way, is very legal. It just means I make sure errors are corrected). Monday night I went from work to the gym directly to the house where I was cleaning them. I got home a little after midnight after finishing them so they could be submitted this morning, on the final day they are due.

Last night i got about three hours worth of sleep because I kept having nightmares about the petitions. An election district was mislabeled, the school subdistrict was left blank, the addresses were invalid. One nightmare after another, waking up in a sweat each time.

I can deal with the lack of sleep, but the anxiety over this process just drains me. Unshaven, my hair a mess, and bags under my eyes big enough to hide a couch, my boss let me go home early so I could catch up on lost sleep.

Little does he know that zombie James or not I am going to be kickin' it at Bistro Europa tonight with you all. As draining as the process is I always feel like celebrating when it is done, even if I haven't slept in a week or can remember the last time I did laundry (which, thankfully, neither happened this time around, but the summer political season is just a few months away!).

Can't wait to see you all there tonight.

Bring Cash. They don't take cards and neither do I if you want a lap dance.

Hey everyone,


Hope to see you all tomorrow at Jim's party. Just a reminder, Bistro Europa is cash only, so bring some paper because they don't take plastic.


Love you kittens,

-James

I need to remember to take pictures when I am in the kitchen experimenting.

So tonight, around 8:30 I get hungry and go into the kitchen to do something about that. Two hours later I have made borscht, broiled some frozen smelt, and made a kumquat simple syrup.

(e:tinypliny) wrote about delicious kumquats at PriceRite. I couldn't resist. They are such a delicious and underrated fruit. So, I chop them up, squash them under a chef's knife, and drop them into water. I let them boil for a few minutes, then add sugar and simmer for two minutes.

Best part, after I strained the syrup to take out the kumquat rind. So now, as a product, I have candied kumquats! I put them in the fridge and they are delicious.

So, now I have kumquat flavored syrup for making cocktails or toping a dessert. The sweet citrusy flavor is in there, but the sugar killed the tartness I love so much. Tomorrow, if I am productive, I will mix something up and give a big toast to Pliny.

Cheers!

Howdy,

I told the good folks in my office that I started this two weeks ago. And I should have, I had the bacon in the fridge. But I didn't have a handle of vodka and just saying I had started it was sure to get me to actually do it. Now that the confession is out of the way...

Let me confess something else. I hate vodka. I mean, the flavor is alright and it mixes well. But it is such a pedestrian liquor. Now I am done confessing...


What happens when you have this



and you add this


why, you get this


and this



so I am infusing Vodka with a vanilla bean in one jar and bacon and pepper in another. Three weeks in the dark cupboard until it is ready. Expect a future post.

I bought a whole 14lbs frozen turkey.


FOR $3.98!

The place was so crowded I couldn't even check out the aisles, just the produce, meat, dairy perimeter.

Oh, and I just ate crabs I got there for $4. And I am not talking about the ones I got from the checkout clerk. HEY-OH!!!!

Seriously, that place is crazy awesome.

I was walking home yesterday and saw a bunch of police cars in the parking lot of the Wilson Farms on Elmwood near summer. The trunk of one car was open with a tree branch hanging out of it. A detective was questioning someone in the back of a patrol car. WTF?

Two people were stabbed and were treated at the hospital. But what was up with that branch?

Besides the pair of stabbings, Howard and Grayson were also charged with smashing the windshield of a woman's vehicle at 400 Elmwood and threatening her with a 5-inch steak knife.

I also saw an officer questioning the poor Wilson Farms clerk, from whom they got this hilarious bit of imagery.

They also face charges for fighting with each other around a nearby Wilson Farms store before entering the store and spraying blood all over Slim Jim products inside, police report stated.

Magic.

Ya, Matthew is having a birthday party this weekend. WHO CARES!

(e:Jim) will be celebrating second annual 29th Birthday! It will be at Bistro Europa on April 7th at 7:30. We will have the whole restaurant reserved for us, so I need to know if you are coming or not. So sign up here.

I try not to talk about how much I utterly detest the Catholic Church (the Church, not Catholics). I feel it puts Catholics on the defensive, and I don't want anybody defending the indefensible. But crap rabbit, this shit just pissed me off all day.

In Brazil, a nine year old girl was raped by her step-father and conceived twins. Abortion is illegal in Brazil, except under certain circumstances. The girl weighed only 80 lbs, and would have probably died had she carried both babies to a team of doctors.

So here we have
1) Rape
2) Pedophilia
3) The life of the mother
4) Incest (sorta)

So, with the blessing of the state an abortion is performed and the life of the girl is saved.

And in steps the Vatican. They excommunicated the doctors for performing the abortion and the mother for consenting to it. "God's law is above any human law" the Vatican spokesbishop said.

This infuriates me for a number of reasons.

First, the life of unborn children is more important than the life of the mother. Rome is saying they would prefer the nine year old would die. All life is precious, the Church argues. But what they mean to say is unborn life is precious, the living isn't.

Second, the church has a right to their own ideology. If they are against abortion, I am fine with that. But the vitriol they have for abortion is unmatched. The mother and doctors were excommunicated. The rapist/pedophile father is, in contrast, is still in full communion with the church. They give a choice to the doctors and mother, either save this girls life or save your eternal soul. The rapist/pedophile is free to rape away until St. Peter welcomes him with open arms into heaven. Do rapist/pedophiles get to spend eternity with their step children in heaven?

The Church has held it up over the last century as the supreme moral authority on earth. More so as it lost its role as supreme political authority in Europe. The church will put the full force of its moral power onto a lifesaving act but will make high positions of authority who deny the overwhelming weight of evidence for the holocaust. Politics is always before morality. Morality is a tool to political ends.

When other denominations are having debates relative to the 21st century, it is upsetting, but not surprising, to see the church having the same debate it had in the 19th century.

If these are the actions used to define you are a moral authority, you do not deserve a seat among those discussing morality.

...you NEED to see this.

I love my job.

It is the best job I have ever had. I deal with crazy people on the phone for about 30 minutes a day and the rest of the time I work on making the city a better place.

But I am still new at this. I just know I am going to work dozens of hours on a project that would improve life for everyone only to have it killed. That's what happens when the affiliation of the person who has the idea is placed over the quality of the idea itself. Thankfully though, that hasn't happened yet. So I will just be full of bliss.

kisses.