Misc

Got a Fried Chicken Recipe that your Grandma won’t Mind you Sharing?

I’m going to cook boneless chicken breast today. I usually just broil it, but I’ve been wanting to try frying it, so that the outside is crispy. Like how Kentucky Fried Chicken looks.

Thing is, I don’t really have everything I need and I’m not sure of everything I will need. I plan to put in an order on Shipt.com for the materials that I’ll need. I could Google fried chicken recipes, but I thought it’d be more fun to try the recipes from people I interact with..

If there are multiple recipes, I’ll try them all, one after another. I regularly put in orders for meat from the Brower Farms and chicken is always included in the order.

Misc

Scam

I’ve been active on Michigan School for the Deaf’s Facebook page. Mostly because they’ve been posting basketball stats and I’m a big sport fan. Someone who appeared to be a 1985 MSD grad sent me a friend request and I decided to accept. This conversation immediately followed.

This is a scam. If I hadn’t caught on, she would have given me a phone number or pointed me to a website and I would have been asked for my sensitive information. The Department of Health and Human Services is a real government department, and they might have something called an Empowerment Program. But I guarantee they’re not handing out $450,000. This was nothing but an attempt at identity theft.

Football, Misc, Music, NFL, Sports

Halftime

I don’t care if the Super Bowl halftime show was sexy or not, or whatever it might have meant. I just don’t like those dance party halftime shows. I like rock concerts,. One year they had the Rolling Stones, another year they had Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, and Red Hot Chili Peppers suddenly appeared onstage once in the midst of an R&B performance, and it was super neat how the R&B guys jammed with the Peppers.

Football, Misc, NFL, Sports

The 49er’s Didn’t Win

I know, I said it would be cool if Kansas City won, even though I was rooting for the 49ers. But as the game processed, I really wanted the team I picked to win. Up until the last few minutes, I thought I would be telling you that the team I picked won. But no, the Chiefs turned that around. I was pretty emotional during those last few minutes.

Congratulations to all the Chief fans I have on Facebook. I thought it was a very good game, even though I’m disappointed that the team I picked didn’t win.

I’m home now, my brother’s here, we’re having beer.

Misc

The Dark Side of Society

On a local news station that I follow on Facebook, there’s an article on a recent human trafficking case. Two young women were lured into a trap and trafficked, in Flint and thereabouts. It’s just one of the many such stories I’ve been seeing lately. It seems like everyday there’s another such story in the news. Not all of them are necessarily about trafficking, but they’re pretty much the same kind of thing.

When I read these stories, a bunch of images go through my head and I become angry. I want the people responsible found and I want them shot. I think about women I know who were preyed on by these fucking pieces of shit.

Then I see the comments, the constant victim blaming. “The women should’ve been smarter, they should’ve used common sense and been responsible..” and all the horseshit. And, of course, there’s always the assholes who click the HaHa reaction. What could these guys possibly think is funny about the subject?

You can be the smartest and have the most common sense and still find yourself the victim in such a crime. But even if you were behaving irresponsibly, using drugs or drinking heavily or whatever, in a bad neighborhood even, it is not your fault if you find yourself assaulted, raped or trafficked.

I don’t care what the victim might have done prior being raped or trafficked. She didn’t rape herself, she didn’t traffick herself, nor did she ask for these things. The blame falls entirely on the people who made the move to rape or traffick the woman.

So, yeah, I blew up at someone today. I got a private message from him waiting for me, but I don’t know if I’ll read it, because it might piss me off more.

Misc

Ring the Bells

(This is what I read at the celebratory mass we had for Aunt Barb today.)

On the morning of January 8, I received a text from my dad informing me that Aunt Barb had passed away. That took a minute to sink in and then tears burst from my eyes.

The news wasn’t a surprise. We all knew the day was coming. For a few years, I’d been hearing about Barb’s declining health. In November, the word came that Barb’s time was preciously short and we needed to say our goodbyes.

Even so, you’re never really prepared to lose someone you love. Aunt Barb was an important person in my life. She had an impact on me as she did on many others who knew her. I know she was there for some of my cousins, and I know she was like a second mother to her younger brothers and sisters.

In my eyes, Aunt Barb was like a queen. She carried herself with dignity and she had an air of authority about her. But she was never demanding. She was kind, patient and understanding, and she talked to you in a way that made you feel respected. There were times when she stayed with us while my parents were out playing band gigs. We played card and board games, and laughed a lot.

Barb and I lived in the same building for a couple years. She had an apartment on the ground floor and I had an apartment on the second floor. We saw each other a lot during that time. When Uncle Gary moved into the building, Barb and I helped him with things. Gary called us his guardian angels.

I would like to think that’s what Barb is now, that she’s watching over us and she’ll always be with us in spirit.