Green Stuff

A FIRST: So, on pandemic stay-at-home day ??? it's come to this: An artichoke was today's entertainment.

Truth be told, it was one of those not-so-proud of dinner nights: Tater tots and mini corn dogs. In an attempt to offset that somewhat, I finally got around to touching the artichokes Christian impulse bought last time we were at WinCo (a couple of weeks ago).The artichokes have been taunting me from the produce pile ever since. 

Honestly, they would have been a lot better when they were fresher, but I think we got to them just in time.

I turned to Google to find a recipe to prep them in our pressure cooker. But before that, we had to get the artichokes ready. Fortunately, we found a super short (just over one minute) tutorial called "How to Cook and Eat an Artichoke" on YouTube. 

The kids followed all the steps and in just a couple of minutes, our artichokes were in the pot. 

So what was the verdict? Meh.

Sure, most anything dipped into melted butter and/or mayo is delicious. But the kids both tapped out after about a dozen leaves. They were afraid they'd be 'too full' to eat the corn dogs and tater tots, ha ha. 

GREEN THUMB: This morning, we helped Kennedy get his little container garden off the ground. He came down here and picked up a three-tiered planter we inherited when we bought this house. I tried to utilize it a couple of summers ago, but it was in a spot in our yard that was inconvenient to water and access, so all my plants died and it was a hard fail.

Kennedy likes to cook, and his newish apartment has a balcony with good sun, so I figured the planter should have a home there. A couple of days ago, I offered it to him, and he took us up on it.

Keeping his distance from us while we worked in the yard, Kennedy dumped the old dirt in the boxes and filled the containers with some raised bed soil we happened to have. He packed it all in his car and stopped at Lowe's on his way home. There, he scored a half dozen herb starts.

So now he has two kinds of basil, two kinds of oregano, plus rosemary and cilantro. Nice!

AND THEN THERE WERE TWO: Perhaps you heard the news - Bernie Sanders dropped out of the race for the Democratic nomination today.

CJ was pretty bummed at the news. Bernie was 'his' candidate.

I asked CJ to write up a little something about what he thinks November's election is going to look like now that it's apparently down to Biden v. Trump. Here's CJ's forecast.

"By my prediction, while he may lose the popular vote, incumbent Donald Trump will be re-elected as President in November of 2020. Much like moderate Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by over three million votes in 2016, but failed to get the necessary Electoral College votes to beat Trump, I expect the same to occur to Joe Biden in this year's presidential election."

CJ's prediction makes me have Many Thoughts, but I'll just keep them to myself. For now.