I finally forced myself to sit down and go through the 19 propositions on my voting ballot so that I can go when early voting opens for Texans on October 21. What a task! The problem is that there are too many discrete issues lumped together in each proposition. I agree with some elements and others, oppose. There must be a better word for this than mish-mash, I thought. Then the word arose from deep memory: farragoes. So I looked it up to see if it is apropros.

Originally, it was used to describe mixed fodder, and gradually became "a confused mixture". Yes, this word does nicely here. 

Another problem with some of the propositions is that they overprescribe. Yes, I agree city council members should get a raise; no, I don't agree that their wages should double all at once. Yes I agree that getting measures onto ballots should be a bit easier, but no, I don't want it so easy that I face many times the number of propositions each voting time. Voters face enough farragoes as it is!

Here's a pithy thought for you:
"Be careful. When a democracy is sick, fascism comes to its bedside,
but it is not to inquire about its health."
​~ Albert Camus

A midden is a refuse heap or dunghill. I look at the alarming, sad, and just plain awful images of Ukraine and the Middle East and try to think of what it would be like to lose my home in a bombing, assuming I lived through it. I just can't really imagine it, and I guess I'm grateful I can't. But my heart is often heavy when I think of those poor souls. How much torture and angst those people (and the animals) suffer and for what? It is about power, money and control—the everlasting sources of war and fighting.

Juste Vengeance is the title in French of my movie, Revenge In Kind. The film is subtitled in French (in addition to Spanish and Japanese), but there've been no ads or publicity in Francophone countries to get folks to view it. So it is always a pleasant surprise when I log into my accounts to see the stats on Amazon, Apple, and GooglePlay and I see that someone has viewed it with French subtitles. Well, that happened today! I sure hope they liked it and tell someone else to watch it.

While there are regional variations, chile usually refers to the fruit and chilli refers to the prepared dish. Notwithstanding that distinction, I have discovered a great website (and I have nothing to do with it, so this is entirely objective) at https://www.chilipeppermadness.com/. Today I am making their recipe for fermented sriracha using jalapeños and serranos from my garden. After fermenting a couple of weeks, it should be ready to taste. Looking forward to that! 

I'm trying to build more anticipation in my life. Being 75, I've no idea how much longer I'll be spry, so I try to fill my calendar with a few things I want to see or do soon, just so that I can look forward to the treat. Planning for special food or dining out with a friend is one of my favorites. It's hard to beat satisfying hunger with some tasty food with good company.

Fermenting lid allows gas buildup to escape without my having to keep track of the process and burp the jar as necessary.

I don't participate in art shows much anymore because they are a huge effort and the profit is insufficient, but I will admit that many of them were fun. And it is pleasant to recall the better ones when I look at photos of the patrons and see my art on the walls. One such memory is a shot of a showing of my photography held in Fort Worth in 2021. 

I love pithy quotations that distill a thought about life, how we should do or perceive things, or inject humor into our perspectives. Here is one I plucked from a book I started (but never actually read more than half of) entitled Invitation to a Banquet by Fuchsia Dunlop. She wrote the quote when characterizing herself, but I think it can be applied to anyone when phrased the following way:

There was a thunderstorm with some very gusty winds that blew down a dead branch of a large tree. It was blocking my alley, so I tried to move it. When I turned part of it over, I saw this wonderland of mushrooms. It was a lovely garden unto itself.

Something nice happened. A golf buddy of mine read my book Filming an Indie: A Diary of Making Revenge in Kind. Then she watched the movie, first by herself, and then again with her husband. She sent me this photo of the movie onscreen as a little present to me. It makes me feel so good when someone watches RIK, especially after reading the book and thus knowing what it took to make it.

An artwork that I have loved for most of my life is the 14th century masterpiece tapestry of a Unicorn in a corral. It is so intricate and colorful. And the Unicorn himself is sad, powerful, and elegant. 

I have been blessed to have viewed this tapestry in the MOMA annex called the Cloisters in New York City—once in the early 1980s and then again in 2024. Both times I was lucky to be almost alone and was completely undisturbed during my meditation and appreciation. I feel that I not only absorbed it, I imprinted it in my memory to recall whenever I liked. I could not possibly count the number of times in my life that I have contemplated the Unicorn's  expression and his plight.

This week the New York Times surprised me with a challenge to spend 10 minutes viewing the tapestry online. So I was fortunate to have time to magnify and scroll, which is something impossible with the real artwork. Thanks to NYT, I present the screenshot below.

​