Waitin' for the Weekend

"No Shirts + No Shoes #2" by Clint Collide:

As always, if you don't have to time to watch it the regular way, just mute the sound and right-arrow through the pics.

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Tom and Damien: Chateau Poseidon updates

These boys are working and videoing so fast on their grand reno project, I can't keep up with them.  Here are their two latest vids.

Episode 7: Our First Thirty Days as Chateau Owners

Episode 8: Let's Talk about Money

They've also posted their first video en francais here.

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The Pork Boys Do Ossobuco

Well, fellas, it's been a long time since I posted about one of our dinners.  Because technical difficulties.  But I found a little work-around, so I have two pics of our most recent Sunday dinner to show you - a simple meal, but believe me it was grand!

It was Dinner in Italy at our house.  We started with Tuscan beans and greens soup, (what's the name for that, Frank?) with bits of cooked ham thrown in.  Quite tasty!  We Southerners found it much to our liking, natch - we were raised on greens, beans, and hamhocks.  Only it was a bit too salty, so the second time around, M.P. boiled some chopped-up potatoes in it, which corrected the saltiness nicely.

Ossobuco.  I found this pic on the net. 
It looks very much like what M.P. cooked up.

The main dish was ossobuco, which M.P. made for the first time last winter, and again last weekend, filling the house with a most delicious aroma.  The name means "hollow bone," and that's where the marrow is.  The beef shank with attached meat is cooked low and slow in the oven as the marrow melts out into the meat, giving every bite a rich, fatty, scrumptious taste!  It puts us into orbit, and we are only sad that we had to wait 70-odd years to discover this fabulous dish.

The green vegetable was fagiolini in fricassea (hey you in the back - watch your damn mouth, buddy), which is green beans cooked in a creamy sauce of egg yolks and lemon juice.  An Italian recipe, perhaps of Greek origin, it has a new and different taste.  I liked it.

For the starch dish, we had linguini alfredo, with a standard alfredo sauce, which we both love.  The bread was M.P.'s wonderful focaccia, handmade.  Our dinner wine was Gato Negro, something M.P. discovered a while back, which is dark and strong like Chianti.  Yeah, I know it's Spanish, but it worked fine.

Finally, the piece de resistance was the caramel-covered cheesecake that M.P. had baked that morning, which was totally Out.Of.This. World.  OMG, you have no idea.  Here's the one picture we got of it:

This made us pork boys happy as pigs in the sunshine, I tell you what!

We finished it off last night.  And that's all I have to show, but I hope from here on I can get more food pics to show here on the Blue Truck.  Later, guys.  Buon appetito!

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Sunday Drive: I Can Hear Music

The Beach Boys' 1969 hit brings back memories of someone I can't quite recall.  Was it a girl I was dating in high school?  That didn't work out, but I thought I was in love, and I do recall the warm, cozy feeling of this song.  Or was it later on, and I re-listened to this song, thinking of a boy I thought I loved?  Funny, I usually do remember personal things like that.  I guess the mind is aging like the body.  Oh well, it's still a good summer song, so enjoy.

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"Stop Scaring Us!"

I don't know why this popped up on my YouTube page yesterday, but it's well worth a listen.  Jackie Goldberg, past president of the Los Angeles School Board, sounds off vehemently against the homophobes in this speech from June 2023.  Ms. Goldberg retired last December after a lifetime of political and social service.

I wonder if this speech would get her sent to Alcatraz today. 

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Waitin' for the Weekend

"Memorable Men Alone #1" by Clint Collide:

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Is Your Marriage Safe?

Ten years ago, the Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage nationwide.  Now a new petition asks the court to overturn that decision.  Read this summary from ScotusBlog to get up to date on what's happening:

Will the Supreme Court revisit its ruling on same-sex marriage?

You may want to look at some stats from the Pew Research Center on Americans' opinions about homesexuality and same-sex marriage.  Be aware that the latest poll that Pew conducted on these issues was in 2023-2024, when two-thirds of Americans favored same-sex marriage; however, some people may have changed their minds since then.

Religion and views on LGBTQ issues and abortion

It's also interesting to scroll to the bottom of that page and compare the very similar figures for attitudes about abortion, which also was legal nationawide until 2022.  As I said in this blog ten years ago when the Obergefell decision came down, what the Supreme Court gives, it can also take away.

We may all be about to find out who our friends really are.

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Todd and Rob: A Fright and a Fix-up

If you're like me, you may want to skip the snake part, from about 3:00 to 11:00.  Or watch it have a good laugh as the guys lose their minds.

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Sunday Drive: Schubert, Serenade

Just right for a quiet summer Sunday.

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VJ Day Plus 80

Monument to Allied dead in the Kohima War Cemetery, India.

King Charles III released an audio message last night commemorating the end of World War II on this day in 1945:

Here is the speech broadcast by his grandfather, King George VI, in 1945:

Earlieri that day in Washington, President Truman had announced the unconditional surrender of Japan, sparking riotous celebrations across the United States:

My dad was an Air Force mechanic stationed in Aachen, Germany, at the time. I don't know how he celebrated, but I do know that just two months later, after being shipped stateside with maybe ten thousand other G.I.'s on the Queen Elizabeth, he was back home with his parents, safe and sound. Many others never made it home, or were disabled for life. Living or dead, we owe them all an immense debt of gratitude - as it says on the monument pictured above.

Their service and sacrifice saved the whole world from depraved tyranny and unspeakable horrors. As President Roosevelt had remarked some years before, that generation had a "rendezvous with destiny." They met it with courage and righteous determination, bequeathing to us who followed three generations of general peace, progress, and unparalleled prosperity in the free world.  

What destiny lies ahead for today's linked-in generation, and how will they meet it? This weary old man in his twilight years wonders -- but would rather not stick around to find out.

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David Archuleta: Dulce Amor

Brand new from little David, who is bulking up nicely these days.  M.P. tipped me to this video.  See what you think, fellas.

P. S. -- The lyrics are found in the video description on YouTube.  A bit of autobiography, perhaps?

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