Memories of Cold Winters

A recent snow overwhelmed a village.
Photo: Bing

It is bitter cold outside, it feels like 11 degrees Fahrenheit. The relentless Hawk is blowing arctic air, exacerbating the wind tunnel effect surrounding our house. Luckily, we are warm and cozy inside, thanks to capitalism.

When I was a kid growing up with my maternal grandparents, their tiny adobe style mud-brick winter house had two rooms, a barn for the animals, a tiny kitchen, and the hay loft for cats and mice. They never heated the big brick house because it required too much wood which they did not have. The communist farms had already deforested anything that could be cut down and used for wood.

The winters were bitter cold, and we stayed inside to stay warm. It was not unusual to have 5 feet of snow the entire winter. The whole country was situated above the 45 parallel north and all winters were extremely cold, with fast freezing temperatures and mountains of snow for months on end.

We had a whole mountain of salt at Slanic, that is something the Communist Party could not screw up in mining and delivering where it was needed. When the fresh snow melted in the city after generous treatment of roads with salt, because the sewers could not manage so much ice melt all the time, the streets turned into veritable ankle-deep rivers, with buses spraying the pedestrians with muddy grey slush and water. In many spots, the mountains of snow plowed off the streets protected the pedestrians from being soaked by passing cars and buses, but on larger streets, with pedestrian crosswalks, if you did not have tall rubber boots to handle the shallow river, or you were unlucky to cross when a vehicle drove by, you could count on taking a shower of dirty icy water.

Snow stayed more pristine in the country, 9 km (5.6 miles) away from the city only because the bus only ran twice a day, once in the morning and once in the evening, providing that it did not break down along the way.

Somebody had to go out and feed the animals and that somebody was usually grandma. Grandpa was busy fixing someone’s bike so they could ride to work or to see their relatives at the far end of the village.

My aunts Nuta and Nicuta lived at the end of the village, and I rode a bike many times to see them in summertime, never in winter. We walked from there to the crystal-clear river about one km away, with large fish swimming about. We were not afraid even though none of us could swim – the fearless ignorance of youth.

Grandpa rode his bike to work in bitter cold in winter. The round trip was 18 km (11.2 miles). If it sounds like a short distance, it was, but try doing that in subzero temperatures, surrounded by nothing but flat prairies, with no trees in sight to block the wind and gales of icy snow cutting your face like tiny daggers. It might as well have been to the moon and back to me.

All those cats living in the hayloft brought about fleas and did not make much dent in the rodent population living in the walls because I could hear them playing catch at night. Grandpa dusted the cats periodically with DDT but the fleas hitched rides and returned with a vengeance. We were covered in flea bites but warm from the wood stove. Good thing nobody developed allergies or terrible itching reactions and rashes from so many bites as there were no meds to be found in the socialist paradise we lived under.

I was so relieved when I was old enough to go to first grade and move in with my parents in the city into a much larger space of about 450 square feet. It felt like a cold palace in wintertime but no flea bites. And I had way more kids living in the same apartment complex to play with.

 

The Walking Dead and Freedom

For the past two years, I was dismayed at how many of my friends were watching and discussing on social media the series, The Walking Dead, and its companion, Fear the Walking Dead, two related shows about an apocalyptic world when Earth is struck by a mysterious virus originating from space.

Humans turn into the walking dead (zombies) when they die from natural death or from this virus. Everyone is infected, the CDC can do nothing about it, and it is actually blown up to prevent the escape of other variants of the virus. Nobody can evade the “turning” into flesh-eating zombies when they die of natural death, viral disease, accident, or are bitten by “walkers.”

The Bible says that the dead shall rise again but Christians had imagined that the risen dead would be normal humans again, not slow moving and guttural zombies who must feast on fresh blood and live tissue in order to survive.

Your dead shall live; their bodies shall rise. You who dwell in the dust, awake and sing for joy! For your dew is a dew of light, and the earth will give birth to the dead. (Isaiah 26:19)

In the Walking Dead, the action takes place on the southeastern area of the United States. In the companion series, Fear the Walking Dead, which intersects at some point with some of the Walking Dead characters, the story is told how the virus occurred on the west coast, the trials and tribulations of characters in Los Angeles area, San Diego, Mexicali, Tijuana, and  other compounds on farms in Mexico.

Life transforms from the mundane to a survival of the fittest, kill or be killed, kill or be bitten, a constant battle that takes the main characters from town to town, along familiar roads now strewn with abandoned bloody cars, and an ever increasing army of walking zombies in search of a living, breathing victim.

A group of survivors, led by officer Rick, eventually finds a prison with tall fences, barbed wire and cells that can be cleaned of corpses and the walking dead. This prison becomes their freedom, their home for the foreseeable future. They feel safe inside, they can grow food in the courtyard, they have some medical supplies scavenged along the way or during their daily incursions “outside.”

Outside is a world of danger, gloom and doom, so frightening that the alternative of living inside a prison for the rest of their lives seems like safety from harm, a bleak world, but secure. The world is far from secure, as various living, breathing groups survive by praying on the weak and the defenseless.

The virus cannot get to Sheriff Deputy Rick Grimes' group and the dreaded walkers, the feared zombies with sharp teeth, are neutralized by the existence of the prison fence. The prison, with its enforced fences and gates, becomes the symbol of freedom. Designed to keep people in, the prison becomes safe heaven and keeps undesirables out. However, in greater numbers, they can still break down barriers and the chicken wire fence.

The viral pandemic destroyed the world as they knew it and there was no going back. They were driven into abject fear by their own friends and relatives, infected by a virus and now dead. Fear and the instinct for survival at all costs had become the epicenter of their lives.

I could not help but recognize the same real or imagined fear, in our world, a panic bordering at time on mass-driven hysteria, that is still driving our population in the United States and around the globe, two years after the World Health Organization’s (WHO) declaration of a pandemic.

President Trump brought into the White House and on the world stage two specialists, Drs. Fauci and Brix, who proceeded to scare the American population with death and dying on a daily basis. Dr. Fauci never left the White House, coloring the proverbial “sky is falling” with various colors of fright.

The abject fear drummed up and identical narratives repeated on every venue of mass communication by eager to please journos, drove the population at first forcibly into lockdowns and then by personal choice behind a mask and self-exile behind closed doors. People’s homes were no longer their castles, they became their voluntary prisons from which they communicated with the outside world by virtual Zoom calls and smart phones.

People gave up their freedoms immediately because they were driven into mass hysteria by globalists with a plan to fundamentally change their lives into the Marxist Shangri La they envisioned as a way to control everything from the Build Back Better platform of the Great Reset agenda of the World Economic Forum (WEF). The Great Reset | World Economic Forum (weforum.org)

Build back what? Voluntary prisons? Better jails and isolation? By rules devised by a few psychotic billionaires and U.N.? Build better fairy dust solar and wind energy so we can stop using fossil fuels like the United Nations has been advocating for seven decades but nobody listened? Plunging us into medieval darkness and despair? Funny how suddenly prominent world leaders  inserted the same rhetorical phrase, Build Back Better, into their speeches. And they were all doing it for the World Economic Forum’s The Great Reset agenda, ‘never let a crisis go to waste, global communism/fascism.

An engineered for gain-of-function virus provided an amazing excuse to do all the things psychotic globalists at U.N. couldn’t – engage planet lockdown, destroy fossil fuels, destroy medicine, get rid of a lot of old people, reduce consumption drastically, reduce the food supply, reduce water usage, reduce land use by a whopping percentage, and force humanity back into the dark ages.

You are not just hiding behind a prison barbed wired fence to find freedom, you are hiding behind a soulless mask, where your social cues are hidden, your empathy and compassion are diminished, and you experience constant fear. Behind a mask, people tend to become more prone to outbursts of violence, less empathetic, and they tend to dehumanize their peers.

Your life is not much better than officer Rick’s group in the Walking Dead, or those in Fear the Walking Dead, hiding in your home prison as a safer alternative to the dangerous outside world governed by a virus created as a bio weapon in Wuhan, you struggle to escape the Corona-19 Virus, and in the process you have lost your freedom and your humanity in one fell swoop.

 

 

 

                                                                                                                                                            

Liberals Call Inflation Scaremongering

Invest in inflation. It’s the only thing going up. – Will Rogers

World War II ration card

The left is trying to justify the escalation of inflation as “Inflation isn’t inexorably a bad thing. In fact, it used to be considered good.” This is another overt attempt to habituate American consumers to soaring prices and to a new low standard of living and to shortages food, goods, and services, a diminished quality of life. What scaremongering about inflation gets wrong - The Washington Post

Inflation represents economically a rapid rise in prices caused by a range of factors. The rate of inflation is calculated by averaging the percentage growth rate of the prices of a selected sample of commodities, traditionally called a “basket of goods.”

There is not much good about inflation but plenty of bad: financial costs and a social cost. Even Keynesian economists recognize that inflation is damaging to the economy in general and to society.

Bondholders, for example, are exposed to losses from inflation. If the overall price level rises, the purchasing power of $1,000 for example, at bond maturity, diminishes, making bond investment an uncertain proposition.

Rising inflation makes it risky to enter any long-term contracts. Lending and borrowing money are also a big gamble – neither lenders nor borrowers would be eager to enter such long-term contracts. But investment becomes impossible without long-term loans. This results in a stagnant economy. A stagnant economy with high inflation then experiences stagflation.

Inflation causes consumers to change their behavior and no longer shop where they used to, they look for bargains elsewhere. Businesses engage in similar practices, they start shopping around for cheaper suppliers; businesses experience rising costs as well, which then slows down the efficiency of the economy.

Low inflation does not necessarily lead to high inflation in theory. In practice, we have seen what happened with hyperinflation in Zimbabwe, in Venezuela more recently, and in the Weimar Republic. There are pictures from that period of a man pushing a wheelbarrow of currency (Deutsche Marks) to buy a loaf of bread and of children building a pyramid of cash during the hyperinflation of the 1920s because it was just as cheap as using sticks or other materials.

In 1989 an article described how Nicaraguans stopped using piggy banks to save coins because due to the 161% inflation for a two-week period – a “penny saved is a penny spent.” Even offering 70% interest rate per month for saving accounts at banks did not persuade Nicaraguans to save money, they spent it as soon as they got it before more inflation deteriorated its value. (New York Times, June 22, 1989, p. 2)

A wise sage, Yogi Berra, allegedly said long ago, “A nickel ain’t worth a dime anymore.”

Indexing (adjusting monetary payments to the reported inflation rate) “seeks to reduce the social costs of inflation” for two reasons: 1) to reduce the capricious redistribution of income caused by inflation; and 2) to reduce the blow caused by our tax system which levies taxes on nominal interest (no adjustments are made for the decline in the purchasing power of money) and nominal capital gains (the difference between what an investor pays for an asset and what it sells it for, again, not taking into account the loss of purchasing power of money).

Inflation strips the purchasing power of wages. Seldom do wages rise faster than inflation but they do occasionally. Keynesian economists believe that in the long run “wages tend to outstrip prices if new capital equipment and innovation increase output per worker.”  Democrats, however, have been telling us since Obama that we must get used to “the new norm” of a lesser standard of living, a low growth economy, and a diminished country.

Inflation has been measured with the traditional basket of goods, food (at home, cereals, bakery products, meat, poultry, fish and eggs, dairy products, fruits and vegetables, other foods, away from home, alcoholic beverages), housing (shelter including rent, homeowner costs, fuel, fuel oil, coal and bottled gas, piped gas, and electricity), clothing (men’s women’s, boys’, girls’, footwear), transportation (private and public), medical care (hospital stays), entertainment (ticket prices), other goods and personal care services (shampoos, toothpaste, soap).

The Consumer Price Index (CPI) is used to make cost of living adjustments to wages and pensions each year. However, seldom do cost of living increases match the actual inflation rate.

The CPI market basket was altered in 1986 to reflect higher spending on housing and food eaten away from home. During the Obama administration, the way inflation has been calculated, “core inflation,” has omitted prices for groceries and gasoline, a move that makes inflation rate appear lower than it is.

The excuse for this omission was that food and gasoline prices are “sensitive to external shocks.” The price of gasoline and food are often the result of fiscal and monetary policies (money printing ad nauseam) by administrations in charge, both Republican and Democrat.

The escalating prices of food and the disruption in the supply chain world-wide has been the result of the pandemic created by globalists with a gain-of-function Corona virus which caused unnecessary deaths from purposeful lack of proper medical treatment and bankruptcies of millions of small, medium, and large businesses across the globe. Americans were also paid by a Democrat regime to stay home, leaving millions of jobs available and unfilled.

The fact that globalists are trying to destroy the fossil fuel industry is no longer a conspiracy theory as President Biden has closed the XL Keystone pipeline on the first day of his presidency, sending oil prices into shock, doubling gasoline prices at the pump, and changing the American status under President Trump from an oil exporting country to an oil importing country again dependent on the OPEC cartel and its oil production manipulation.

The calculation of CPI understates inflation by “excluding housing prices” but not rent and “hiding enormous increases in health care, schools, prescriptions, and higher education.” … What scaremongering about inflation gets wrong - The Washington Post

The Bureau of Labor Statistics uses the Laspeyres formula on:

-          Selected shelter services (housing at school, excluding board)

-          Selected utilities and government fees (electricity, residential water and sewage maintenance, utility (piped gas service, state motor vehicle registration and license fees)

-          Selected medical care services (prescription drugs, physicians’ services, hospital services, dental services, services by other medical professionals, and nursing homes and adult day care) Calculation : Handbook of Methods: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (bls.gov)

The CPI, if used correctly, is a prime indicator of inflation and recession. It reflects economic trends but influences them as well.

When inflation becomes galloping inflation as it did at the turn of the twentieth century, one mark in 1918, at the time of the Armistice, was worth 726 million marks in late 1923. Germans burned their marks as it was cheaper than buying wood for their stoves.

Inflation is an ancient problem. When Emperor Valerian was captured by barbarians in 259 A.D., Romans rushed to turn their money into goods, thus creating a rate of inflation at 1,000 percent over 17 years (too much money chasing too few goods).

Emperor Diocletian tried to curb inflation by passing an edict which fixed maximum prices (price fixing) on 1,000 goods, food, raw materials, textiles, wages, and transportation. It was an utter failure even though the punishment for violating his edict was death.

This is nothing new as our Federal Reserve System (the Fed), in control of our monetary policy (money stock and interest rates) is printing too much money to help pay our Democrat government’s bloated spending and debt to support their globalist mantra, Build Back Better. It should be more aptly renamed, Build Back Broke.

The Biden regime claims that inflation is 7 percent - the highest it has been since 1982, but is it only 7 percent? How accurate is this CPI? Go to the grocery store and the gas station and you decide.

Russia’s Veto Saved the Fossil Fuels for Now

In the 1980s, the environmentalists believed that using paper grocery bags harms the environment by excessive deforestation, so they moved in the direction of replacing the paper grocery bags with plastic ones. It made sense, plastic bags made from petroleum by-products were certainly cheaper and more plentiful.

Fast forward to 2021, environmentalist governments in counties like Fairfax, Virginia, moved to replace the plastic bags with paper bags by charging a tax of 5 cents per plastic bag previously given free (included in the price because nothing is free). Furthermore, a fine of $500 will be levied on anyone who dares to leave grass and other yard clippings on curbside in plastic bags other than heavy paper bags.

Fossil fuels have become environmentally and politically such a Democrat hot potato that they have been labeled public enemy number one, including plastics.

What is Fairfax County and other like-minded counties around the nation doing with the 5 cents tax per bag, or 8 cents in other places? Will they fund the bloated Democrat government or their guaranteed basic income schemes? And how is this tax going to solve the manufactured global warming which gave rise to a very lucrative climate change industry and a huge money-maker?

When Amazon and other online retailers run out of places to buy cheap shipping boxes, I wonder which forests are they going to cut down, and can excessive demand for paper and carboard boxes keep up with supply and with tree growth?

The U.N. Security Council moved to vote on December 13, 2021, on a resolution on climate change co-authored by Ireland and Niger, under the guise that adverse climate change can “lead to … social tensions …, exacerbating, prolonging, or contributing to the risk of future conflicts and instability and posing a key risk to global peace, security, and stability.” The concern is that climate change affects more negatively “women, children, ethnic minorities, and the most vulnerable.” Climate Change and Security: Vote on a Resolution*: What's In Blue : Security Council Report

According to the New York Times, “the resolution, which enjoyed wide-ranging support, would have significantly expanded the criteria used by the most powerful U.N. agency to justify intervening in armed conflicts around the world.” Russia Blocks U.N. Move to Treat Climate as Security Threat - The New York Times (nytimes.com)

It is claimed that the U.N. resolution was supported by 100 countries. Twelve of the fifteen Security Council countries signed on, but Russia’s veto blocked its passage. China abstained, and India, with its invited temporary membership status, also declared against the resolution. It is obvious that all three countries have similar interests, the survival of fossil fuels.

The U.S. government has been busy replacing fossil fuels with wind and solar power, doing severe damage to its economy and weakening its position in the world as a superpower. Biden closed the Keystone pipeline on day one and interrupted supply. “Nearly 40% of America’s electricity is produced from natural gas. When gas goes up, so does your electric bill.” Varney on the 'price' of Biden eliminating fossil fuels | Fox Business

The regime stopped giving new drilling permits on federal land and interrupted off-shore drilling. U.S. became again dependent on oil imports.  During President Trump’s administration, America became an oil exporter.

If the U.N. Security Council vote would have been unanimous in favor of the resolution, then members who would fail to take “drastic” measures recommended by “experts” to green their economies immediately, then they would have been considered aggressors against the global governance.

What might have been the expectations to green a country’s economy urgently? To close coal mines, oil derricks, refineries, oil and gas pipelines, and to give up fossil fuels immediately, with huge economic costs and disastrous economic results for that country.

If a country would have refused to comply, then the most intimidating measures against it would have been justifiable, imposing a global dictatorship of the U.N. to save the planet from climate change Armageddon.

So, Russia, China, and India, with one fifth of the world’s land surface and almost half of its population, saved fossil fuels for now. They viewed the manufactured global warming as a political fantasy and the preservation of their economies and of their economic development as most important for their peoples.

The West wants electric cars (they did not do so well recently in one foot of snow stuck for 24 hours on I-95 in Virginia), electric bikes, electric buses, ships, home and business heat and light from solar panels and wind turbines (when the wind blows and the sun shines, otherwise it is cold and dark). China wants coal burning power plants and builds them at high rates. Russia depends on natural gas and pipelines. And India is adding more coal mines.

Biden’s Green New Deal is neither new, nor green, nor a deal, it is a political plan aimed at killing fossil fuels and destroying the American economy that depends on the fossil fuels’ reliability and consistency.

So, the global warming/climate change scheme to enact global governance has been defeated so far. But the grand plan of one world government might still be realized. To achieve it now, the globalists are bringing out the pandemic green passports of Covid vaccination and the social scoring system which is already underway in China and in America.

Restricting movement of the population can be achieved in more ways than just taking away their fossil fuels; the government can cause severe inflation, double gasoline and natural gas prices, make their currency worth less, obstruct the supply chain of necessary goods and food, restrict access to clinics and hospitals, and restrict domestic and international travel. Under draconian Covid-19 lockdown rules, two years after the declared pandemic, Australians cannot travel more than 29 km from home. How Sydney residents can travel more than 5km from home for exercise (msn.com)

Mayor Muriel Bowser of D.C. has already enacted draconian rules that a person must show I.D. and a vaccine card to enter any business in D.C. It is racist to be asked to show I.D. to vote but it is necessary to enter a business.

If you have a green passport, you are not just vaccinated and boostered, but it is proof that you are now a compliant global citizen, and you can be given (by the global government) the privilege to enter buildings, to fly, to travel, to board a ship, to ride a bus, a train, you can use a bank, you can buy or rent a home, you can move from on town to another, and you can attend school. The social scoring system works wonders with population compliance and obedience under the Chinese communist dictatorship.

For now, Russia, China, and India have saved fossil fuels. I am not sure who or what is going to save a weakened America from its Marxist regime in control in Washington. They are busy printing money for trillion-dollar pet social programs and to finance national debt v. GDP which has reached astronomic proportions (127.61% federal and 141.24% total) at the time of this writing. The military is busy hunting down fictional, Democrat-invented systemic racism. U.S. National Debt Clock : Real Time (usdebtclock.org)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Snow and Food

Now that Sf. Ioan Botezatorul Orthodox traditions have ended on January 6, we are preoccupied with abundant snow and ice. The state park nearby is closed indefinitely as the damage from one foot of wet and heavy snow is too extensive and too dangerous to allow the public inside the park’s 508 acres of forested land and trails.

Humans cannot be trusted, they are too dumb to avoid uprooted trees and broken branches. I wonder how we survived for so long prior to the federal and state government daddy telling us what to do all the time?

The forecast predicts more snow and inclement weather to the delight of children and adults alike who secretly wish for more paid snow days.  Teachers, who have not taught much for the last two years, are up in arms if the schools do not close pronto.

Store deliveries of food and other necessities have come to a halt during last week’s snow emergency botched by the Virginia’s Department of Transportation. Roads were unplowed and people could not get out of their driveways, everyone was snowed in.

Supplies had already slowed down for months now due to Biden regime’s economic policies and preposterous Corona-virus never-ending mandates, job-killing economic payouts to people to remain on unemployment and welfare, and abject fear driven non-stop into the weak-minded population who remained shut-in for fear of death.

On my almost daily trips to the grocery store, I found the shelves emptier than before, with merchandise spread out to give the impression that shelves were full; but to the trained shopper’s eye, they were at least half empty. The milk and dairy refrigerators were empty, an entire wall of nothing. Where is the abundance I saw when I first set foot in an American grocery store, shortly after arriving from a communist country?

Empty shelves bring back painful memories of starvation and standing in endless lines daily for groceries in hopes that something will be delivered and we would have food that day. We are not there yet in America, but in this part of northern Virginia, it is closer and closer. When Walmart has so many empty shelves, it is extremely worrisome.

America is socialist now and it seems bleaker than ever, as the Democrat socialist regime in power aided by RINOs at the federal level, and in many Democrat-controlled states, are driving the economy into the ground. Yet everyone seems to want socialism despite people like me telling them, be careful what you wish for because nothing is free. Every decision has an opportunity cost.

There are beautiful vineyards in Virginia, dedicated to wine making. But our grapes, fresh fruits, and vegetables in grocery stores come from California, Florida, Washington state, Chile, and other countries like Peru and Mexico. I buy grapes from Chile and, invariably, when I bring the bag home, a weak bee crawls out of the package, and sometimes a Japanese beetle or two, stowaways from a warmer climate and from another world.

When grapes are too expensive, I replace them with a box of raisins. Raisins were a real treat in my childhood when chocolate was not available. In winter time, after searching all day, my dad would bring home a rare treat, a bunch of grapes, so dried out on the vine, they were practically raisins. Thus I was introduced to raisins, nature’s sweet treat, no sugar or other preservatives added.

The type II diabetic rates in the communist country were quite low for the simple reason that nobody was fat and everybody was hungry most of the time. Extreme thinness and low type II diabetes was one silver lining to our misery. We survived in a socialist economy run by the incompetent Communist Party apparatchiks who were well fed and rotund and did not care that we were not.

                                                                    Photo: Ileana Johnson

Piftie

A more traditional southern "piftie"

One of my Romanian friends on social media commented on a photo I posted recently that I had fixed “racituri.” It was a photo of a pork roast with vegetables which is normally served hot. I had no idea what “racituri” was, so I had to look it up. The dictionary told me that it is “crayfish.” I know that “raci” means “crayfish,” but these online dictionaries are not particularly good.

“Racituri” must have the root of “rece,” “cold,” meaning portions of something cold with small cuts of meat mixed inside gelatin derived from slow-boiling specific cuts of meat and bones, and served with any meal, including breakfast.

The best “racitura” or “piftie” as it was known in southern Romania where I am from, is made from the feet, tongue, and the head of a pig, raw meat deboned and the bone itself. Some cooks recommend that ingredients can be substituted with bones from turkey, rooster, or beef. The bone marrow extracted from boiling larger bones was also highly prized for its nutritional value and taste.

My parents were poor like most Romanians and could not afford many specialties that adorned the tables of the well-to-do communists, but mom made “piftie” at Christmas time and for the New Year’s Eve meal. It was cheap and easy to make.

“Piftie” had to be salted properly and contained lots of freshly chopped garlic, enough to send Count Dracula and other vampires into a tizzy. The resulting dish was served as an appetizer or a meal, with “sarmale” (ground pork wrapped in pickled cabbage or grape leaves) and “mamaliga” (a mushy grits-like polenta made from specially ground corn meal, salt, water, and butter).

“Piftie” was made by slow-boiling meat, bones, and cartilage for hours. When it cooled, it turned into a gelatinous mass containing pieces of meat. While hot, it could be poured into a beautifully shaped dish, giving it a certain aesthetic flare when it cooled.

It certainly worked wonders for one’s nails, which hardened nicely. I am not sure about the nutritional content, but it was a way to pacify the masses when large pieces of meat were not available to provide the family with necessary protein.

There was one advantage to having such a dearth of food and necessities – nothing needed preservatives because it never stayed any length of time on grocery shelves. Not having to ingest chemical preservatives in food was beneficial.

I am not sure how the phrase “sa faci pe cineva piftie” emerged. It means to beat someone hard, into a gelatinous pulp, resulting in shaking like quivering, colorless Jell-O.

The “pfitie” dish supported skin, hair, and nail growth during shortage times when vitamins and mineral supplements were not available for purchase because the communists were not good at planning or running an economy at all and everything was in truly short supply all the time. It was a constant daily struggle to find food and necessities that we take for granted under capitalism.

Mom also made soup from chicken feet which had no edible meat, it was just skin and tendons. But declawed feet could be boiled into a broth, could be ingredient in a stew, and, if cooked properly, could be chewed.

Chicken feet are natural sources of glucosamine and chondroitin that support joint health and mobility. We did not know this at the time or that 100 g of boiled chicken feet contained 19 g of protein and the broth contained traces of hyaluronic acid which promotes eye health.

As an American, I have never fixed “piftie” or boiled chicken feet because the memory of having to eat such dishes brings back feelings I would rather leave alone. It was not a treat to me and would never be a Christmas tradition. “Piftie” was a dish served cold by the necessity of avoiding starvation under the communist rule and their inability or desire to supply people with proper food. And the smell of boiled chicken feet turned my stomach.

 

A more aesthetic "piftie"

 

 

First Snow of 2022

The silence of the falling, sticky snow is shattered by limbs creaking, crashing in the woods with a loud thud, a collective sigh of nature burdened by the heavy, pristine white blanket. The trees look like white giants with droopy arms dragging the ground.

It is the first snow of winter and of 2022, eight inches accumulation so far, and still falling hard. The hawkish wind is blowing it sometimes sideways, drifting in sudden gusts a few inches that fail to remove any significant amount of snow, already stuck like glue to the ground and on all horizontal surfaces no matter how small.

Yesterday it was so warm that we wore short sleeves and ran the air conditioner briefly. I am now dressed like storybook Nanook of the North, in heavy wool sweater, thankful for the cozy heat from the twenty-first century’s furnace.

I am no longer freezing inside in flannel pajamas, wool pants, sweater, coat, gloves, and boots as I did during the communist regime when steamed heat, hot water, and electric or gas heaters were things only the loyal party members enjoyed on a constant basis in wintertime. So much for my white privilege.

The windchill is at 22 degrees Fahrenheit and I am praying that electricity will stay on, as our Marxist politicians in Washington, D.C. have been pushing their green globalist agenda with reliance on erratic “green” energy from wind and solar. Right now, the wind is blowing but there is no sun. Fossil fuels and wood are what people can rely on dependably. I hope there is enough stored electricity with Dominion Power and the falling trees do not knock down any powerlines.

We are cutting down trees at alarming rates to make shipping boxes for an economy that has been forced from brick-and-mortar stores to home delivery due to the flu fearmongering broadcast non-stop on mainstream media, frightening people inside their homes for almost two years now. Hiding and cowering in fear has turned the American population into voluntary prisoners inside their own homes.

The roads in our neighborhood are impassable and nobody has come out yet to shovel their driveways, nor are there any road plows in sight to clear the roads. The schools closed yesterday, and people wondered if it was wise to do so after two years of students learning nothing at home except how to play new online games, but people realize today with a sigh of relief that meteorologists were right this time. The popular saying, even broken clocks are right once a day, fits this weather forecast.

During my childhood, children would have already been outside, sledding, skating, building snowmen, having snowball fights, however painful with wet snow, and squealing with joy and occasional pain from injury. By the end of the day, when the streetlights came on, and they went home reluctantly, their clothes were wet and frozen stiff on their bodies. The children of this current generation are snug inside, staring at a blue screen all day, getting their exercise surfing the television channels or their electronic devices, still dressed in their pajamas. They are weak and pampered and would be unable to survive the elements outside for any length of time.

Welcome to 2022

A snow day from the past and a foraging deer
Photo: Ileana Johnson

It’s finally 2022 and humans are making resolutions for the New Year, leaving behind 2021, the year of Fright and Flu. A saturating rain is drenching the woods. The distant river is shrouded in a greyish fog, concealing the silhouetted trees with exposed skinny branches stretched to the sky but meeting half-way the low ceiling. The animals appear in hiding, save for a few chirping birds and the occasional sparrow.

A bag of peanuts in the shell is awaiting by the door. It’s too wet to trudge through the mud to feed the two resident squirrels, my treat for them for the new year. They are going to have to wait until the rain stops and make do with their daily foraging. They hid enough acorns in my flower beds to keep them for the winter.

I open the windows to air the rooms out – a European habit many Americans dislike – why waste a perfectly warm and cozy room and fill it with cold and humid air?

The neighbor’s Christmas lights are still on, twinkling, casting a reddish glow in the rain.

A foghorn blew on the distant river. Who was brave enough to take out a boat in this weather? Perhaps a duck hunter. I am not sure hunting ducks is in season yet.

On the first Sunday in January, that is tomorrow, the January firearms deer season begins and ends on January 31. One half hour before sunrise until one half hour after sunset, my deer family will be in grave danger. The required fluorescent orange and fluorescent pink clothing will be easy to spot by humans among the shades of brown in the woods. The deer can see yellow, blue, and grey colors but are not very sensitive to dark and bright colors like orange, pink, red, and black.

The woods are quiet, only silent to those unable to hear its pulse. It is alive with sound and dormant fall colors. Last night creatures went into hiding, frightened by the celebratory fireworks that continued way into the morning.

The rain drips off the roof, cleansing the driveway and making it more difficult for the squirrels to dig out their nuts.

The Canada geese are sleeping at the edge of the pond, huddled in their flock, small figures in the dim light of the heavy and steady rain.

The streets are empty, humans are still asleep, wrapped in their warm slumber, tired of the night’s revelries.

Welcome to the first day of 2022, another ordinary day in nature – rain and fog, full of life and miracles. Hopefully the Fog, Flu, and Fright will lift this year permanently, letting sun and the truth disinfect the falsehoods.