Quesadilla, Monday what's that? Tuesday it's lunch

So, Monday I'm playing with tortillas, and notice the name quesadilla on my YouTube research into this important subject, and figured cheese must be involved, judging from the name, but I didn't know what it was exactly.

Further study revealed it was something I'd seen but never identified, in restaurants.  And that you can put other stuff in as well as cheese.  So here's Tuesday's lunch, thawed tortilla, sharp cheddar grated, and lovely portabella mushrooms cooked in butter and oil till all the liquid is absorbed. All fried together till the tortilla, one side cooked fast, turned over, additions heaped on, then lid on the pan, cooked till the cheese melted, just a couple of minutes. It was great. And my experiment about freezing the tortillas worked fine.  They're a little smaller than they were supposed to be, so a little thicker, but nothing to fuss about.

  

The miracle of the internet...I realize this is hilarious to people whose knowledge of Mexican and TexMex is so much greater than mine. Bear with me, this bit of NJ isn't a Mexican food region.  More Indian and Thai, really, aside from the traditional Italian.

And I just finished reading yet another Maisie Dobbs, well, rereading really, but it's good enough for a second run.  This one was very moving, and I remember my mother telling stories of things like this happening at home at the outbreak of World War One.  She was about nineteen at that time, so remembered it very clearly.  I won't say more, because that will interfere with the mystery, and it's a really good narrative, definitely worth reading.  She also takes time to describe food, they're always stopping off in little teashops for Eccles cakes, and clothes, great detail on current fashions and how Maisie isn't much of a fashion dresser, but needs to look smart for business purposes.  She wears her cloches all the time, and even, shock, horror, gets her long hair BOBBED!  Scandalous.

My mother used to tell me that she, in her twenties when the short hair came into style, so much easier to care for, had her long hair bobbed.  At that time, the boast was that your hair was so long that you could sit on it. Not sure why you'd want to, but anyway, she bobbed hers.  And my father came home from work and nearly collapsed with shock.  Lizzie, your HAIR!  But I guess he learned to live with it.

I used to wonder about those long hair stories, until my Aunt Kitty, one of mom's older sisters, showed me her special dressing table box which held a ringlet of her hair, which she proudly used to say was auburn.  Looked brown to me.  Anyway, it really was long.  I guess she could have sat on it, if necessary!  And it was a long ringlet, not unlike my own before I'd got my hair cut as a kid.  Her dressing table had a cheval set -- a crocheted set of pieces to set your stuff on.  Ring stand, brush and comb, powder bowl with lid.  She'd been born in about the early 1890's, so she'd kept on with the fashon from them.

And Anne Tyler never fails.  I think I may have read this long ago, since it came out a few years ago, but it's worth reading again, if that's the case, and I'm reading it.  So much of my reading nowadays is electronic, I bless the libraries who made apps like Libby, on which I'm acquiring these, available.  It's much more laborious to get physical books now, what with curbside arrangements and appointments and that's okay, and you can't stay and browse, all the furniture rearranged to discourage hanging out.  And the hours are very limited, so this is a good alternative.

This is a really weird premise, where a widower's wife comes back to him a year after her sudden death in an accident, and walks about, exactly as in life, chatting with him, and visible to everyone, and  unnerving everyone but him, since he decides oh well, go with it, I was missing her too much to pass this up. That's as a far as I've got to date, but I'm definitely putting time aside for this today.

My spinning and plying stint is done, meaning my arms are telling me to quit for the day, though my spirit is saying, oh, don't listen to them.  But I know tomorrow will be less fun if I don't stop now.

Tortillas my way

 So I made the tortilla recipe I showed you yesterday, involving flour and milk. Mixed, rested, all that. I used whole-wheat flour.

Divided it into six bits as per instructions.

Then I flattened the first ball of dough with my hand, and rolled it with a rolling pin. The first one I overcooked and got a collection of little bits, which are crisp enough to sprinkle in soup.

On to T2. This gave me a ragged little effort, but I fried it, not too much, rolled it up with ham and cheese, and had it for lunch. It was nice and pliable, tasted fine, and needed work on the shape.

However I decided that everyone doesn't have a tortilla press, so what could I press (!) into service? Aha, a glass baking dish.

Soooo I sprayed olive oil into a plastic bag, inserted the dough ball, pressed the pan on it, and achieved something more like a tortilla and less like a dishrag. You can use anything heavy I expect, but I wanted to see what I was doing.

Oiled my hands -- this is good for your skin-- and tipped the last four tortillas, interleaved onto parchment paper, for the freezer. If this works as well as the wraps did, thawed right before fried, I'll be happy.

So that's today's foray into the wrapaganza.

This was fun, like preschool clay time.

Diwali and tortillas

 Last night was fireworks in the street for Diwali, Feast of lights. No bangs! Just fountains of light and it was lovely. Grown-ups in charge, cars moved away safely, kids kept at a safe distance.

Watched from upstairs, too chilly outside

Houses are decorated with lights all down the street. The Minn. Star Tribune had a silly feature about minnesotans celebrating Christmas early with lights. What do you bet it was Indian houses, celebrating Diwali at the normal time? 

There were similar silly comments on TV networks about Londoners setting off fireworks to celebrate Biden's win. It was the fifth of November, Guy Fawkes Night in fact

Ignorance is bliss, and a source of amusement, too..

In other news, I'm going to try tortillas, since I really like wraps and now I'm off on a wrapaganza

Like this

I'll let you know how it goes. I won't be making this today.

Handsome son is visiting this afternoon to drink tea, eat cornbread with peach plum lime jam, and help me pull pachysandra at the fence line.

Blogger is resisting all my attempts to left align this post. I'm a helpless prawn.

Food in war and peace, fruitflies always

 This came out in 1985

A local friend sent me this image, the cover of a book she has in her collection, a gift from an English friend, very old at the time, who clearly remembered all this wartime rationing and cooking.  I love that the title is a pun on Vera Lynn (The Forces' Sweetheart)'s hit song in wartime, to keep morale up:  We'll Meet Again!  M sent it after reading yesterday's post.  Here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5C4meGkNyc

Vera Lynn lived till June 2020. Aged 103.Think what she saw in her long lifetime. Some people are reviving her song to help get us through the pandemic. Think what she saw in her long lifetime.

The recipes in the book involve dried egg, margarine, cooking fat, and various other substitutes for actual food.  And there's a note explaining that austerity and rationing persisted for years after the end of hostilities.  Interesting historical and social notes there.

Fast forward to today's world of luxury, and jam!  Woman can not manage with memories alone.  She needs jam.  Today it's Misfits peaches and plums and lime chunks.  I'm trying the lime instead of lemon as a source of pectin. And I macerated the fruit since last evening in sugar and the lime pieces, to see if that did anything interesting.

Then added the rest of the sugar, not as much as usual, didn't have a lot of sugar in the house, but we'll see how it works anyway.  Sometimes additional boiling can take the place of a full complement of sugar.  In the background, the jars and lids bubbling away sterilizing.

No pictures of the unboildownable stage, since it's way too hazardous to be coping with boiling jam and a camera at the same time

And here's the result.  I guessed pretty well, since it exactly filled the three recycled glass containers I'd boiled. I won't know till it's completely cooled how well it gelled, but it did the two drops off the side of the spoon test fine, and the wrinkling on the cold saucer test, too. I'll know for tomorrow's breakfast.  And if it didn't gel well, I'll give it a different name, Sauce aux peches et whatever plums is in French.

Cook's note:  as well as humans liking organic produce, fruit flies are crazy about it.  I have never had so many buzzing into my face, getting all over, before I got Misfits produce.  Which probably proves that the produce has not seen insecticides.  So I wielded the giant spray bottle I had filled to take care of some critters that were eating into the house from the outside, and succeeded in wiping them out. Just a mixture of lemon juice and vinegar.  I had also added borax when the baseboard infestation was worse, but then washed the spraybottle and after that just used the benign mix.

Just as well, since I  had to spray the apples and pears on the counter, then wrap them in clean cloths, and when I got tired of  firing at these teeny little guys, I looked up ideas for a home fruit fly trap.  And found that an open jar containing a cup of apple cider vinegar with a dash of dish liquid worked just fine.

It's standing next to the fruit and there's population of tiny corpses in it, must refresh it now, and the fruit is left alone.  No more critters in my teeth. It's odd that even when their Auntie Edie is clearly seen at the bottom of the jar, more fruitflies climb in anyway.  You'd think they'd avoid the same fate.  But then we have humans, supposedly of a higher order of intelligence, claiming that they don't need to wear masks, so I guess we have no room to criticize the fruitflies.

Then after all this strenuous activity, it was time to display the makings of lunch.  Remember the pickling I did a while back?  Carrots and beets?  they came out a treat.  And they daily grace my lunch wraps or sandwiches, whatever I'm doing.  The colors scream at each other, so they're separated on the plate.

This is the Misfits Beet and Carrot pickle extravaganza, with the American Cheese on nice sliced deli ham, on wholewheat bread with a little spread of mayo.  It's really a Lurid Lunch combo.

Nice day, and this evening will be about noting Biden's now well over 300 in the Electoral College vote count, took Georgia and Arizona definitely, and I'm spinning and emailing and generally loafing this evening.

I sent a donation to the Georgia organization that's funding the runoff voter registration  and get out the vote push, and signed on with MoveOn to get the lady holding up the funding of the transition to get with it and release the funds.  We already have Republicans pushing to extend the daily intelligence  briefings to Biden. And Homeland Security has made an official statement that the election was perfectly clean, won fair and square, and no evidence of  any tampering or fraud. A couple of dozen DOJ AGs have written to urge Barr, the USAG, to drop the attempt to investigate the election, on the grounds that no evidence of any kind has been found to support his suspicions.

So we hope things are lurching in the right direction.

Maisie Dobbs and thoughts on masks

 

Right now, I just finished reading the first Maisie Dobbs book, called, doh,  Maisie Dobbs.  After that she's the main character in the series, but they have other titles.  I didn't post yesterday, for various reasons, one being that I am very concerned about inadvertently glorifying war by my words of appreciation for the people in combat. No criticism of those who posted movingly yesterday, just my take.

But I did read Maisie Dobbs, which is very much involved in the first World War, and the battle of the Somme, in the course of the narrative.  It's accurate, thoughtful, and compassionate reading, though it's really a mystery story, and she's a onetime battlefield nurse, now a private investigator and scholar.

The narrative also centers those men who had terrible facial injuries, to the point where they were shunned by family and friends, and had to endure this ingratitude on top of the war wounds and ptsd, then called shell shock.  But ptsd was little understood outside the medical community.

There were new technological advances in reconstructive surgery, and on masks, made of thin tin, colored to match the wearer's own remaining skin, but a sad attempt at trying to simulate normality.  The men wore linen masks, too, to disguise their facial appearance. 

Maisie's intellectual mentor, Maurice, points out to her that we all wear masks, whether physical or emotional, and this is coming home to this reader, now in the era of mask wearing almost all the time.

One odd advantage to people like me about mask wearing is that,  I can't very well recognize people, and  usually keep a friendly smiling face on all the time out of doors, just in case. But now the mask covers my expression to the point that I'm now finding my face relaxing when I'm out, and it's wonderful. I had no idea how much tension I was lugging around with this defensive smiling mask.  And my normal expression looks very glum now, no matter how cheerful I might feel, gravity does this when you get old, so it's a good idea not to dwell on it! 

My dad served and was terribly wounded, at the Battle of the Somme, mentioned in Maisie Dobbs, and in his later years, not very old, he only lived to his sixties, after all the other sibs had left home and I was alone there with both parents, he talked to me a bit about his experiences.

The horrifying accounts of battlefield medical procedures, scraping of exposed bone with minimal access to morphine, desperate to avoid gangrene and loss of limbs, that you read?  take it from me, they're true. He endured this as just a kid, about 20 at the time. After lying out in no-mans-land for two days till medics could get out and bring him in to the field hospital.  The Salvation Army were the brave medics. And the endless rehab back in England, and the nurses who were amazing and terrifying all at once.  He limped for the rest of his life.  There's more, but that's enough to give you the gist. He, like Billy in the novel, could have lost legs if not for this harrowing early treatment.

As his daughter, I read Sebastian Foulks' Birdsong, a novel based heavily in and around the trenches of the time, partly because if he could live it, the least I could do was read it.  It's a wonderful novel, a love story as well as a stark picture of history.  I really recommend it.  It's important to understand just what it is people endure in combat.

And I always say, the civilian population, little kids in year after year of  rationing and bombardment and darkness and cold with little fuel at home, collecting rosehips and tinfoil for the war effort,  and wondering where all their big brothers have gone, and when this would all end, they're to be remembered, too.

Somber today.  Let's try not to let violent men thrust us into war again.  

The wild cherry has left us

 New Jersey Native Cherry

Planted by birds

Spring 1990-November 9 2020

She had a  valuable life on the patio. In summer masses of honey scented blossom and an orchestra of bees, in fall cherries for birds and squirrels, in winter thorns beloved of squirrels.

This was after her last big snowstorm, the 2018 March one that brought down her biggest branches, leaving this survivor.

She shaded the humans, and was especially friendly to Handsome Partner who spent summer afternoons in his last years, in his wheelchair in the shade, watching birds and the antics of the ever present squirrels.

 Since she reached the roof, she gave green shade and privacy to the bedroom.

It was a long life, for a wild cherry. We should all be so useful and beautiful!

And now she'll warm a house down the street over the winter.

As my friend, reluctantly felling her, said, it's all part of the cycle.

It started out quietly

Nothing on the calendar today, lovely sunshine, then I realized I needed to do the prep for the pumpkin. Also bake bread.

I toasted the pumpkin for an hour and twenty, at 350f, then let it cool, easy slicing and dicing and freezing.

Pumpkin Junction

The rinds in the bowl are now outside for the dining pleasure of the squirrels. Six containers of cooked diced pumpkin in the freezer.

Then a ring at the door and it was next door neighbors who've bought the house they were renting, and brought me a little gift. 

This is the lady we've been giving plants to for her collection. I think it's a phalaenopsis, but I have to check, ages since I had an orchid. If any blogista knows please say.

Then it was lunchtime and I made a wrap of tuna salad, Munster cheese and lettuce. I'm getting into designing wraps. I've decided it's a minor art form.

Then a walk. Then the mail and the day went sideways. Letter from the HOA about the upcoming long-threatened fence replacement. 

There were shrubs or something unspecified which had to be pruned or removed. One week's notice to attest it done or the fencing company would do it and bill.

Translation:  one week to remove my 25 foot native cherry tree which is growing from under the fence, planted by birds thirty years ago. After HOA radio silence for three months because the fencing was held up by the pandemic, which they never mentioned.

So I  consulted with neighbor who had heard nothing, he called the HOA on speaker and he's wonderful about getting information without pushing, uses great language.

The upshot was that we could cut out a section of fence to get access to the tree roots. Neighbor knew I couldn't possibly pay a massive bill for tree removal.

This involved the neighbors on the other side with a bit of the tree their side, who are the other side of the fence about to be cut into. 

Whereupon the y chromosome factor kicked in, neighbor two rocked the tree to show neighbor one it's unstable.

See the angle it's leaning over? This is after a lot of foliage was removed and tossed into the woods.

 Neighbor one has for years been resisting my pleas to help me remove it. He would only trim a branch here and there. He hates to cut trees. So do I but it was dead. Far beyond the lifespan of the wild cherry. 

Which I confided in neighbor two and wife while neighbor one went to assemble all the saws and chargers and pickaxes and who knows what. He winked and I had an ally.

Then I stood back while they spent a long time grubbing it out to the roots. I texted neighbor three who uses wood all winter, to offer them the wood. Cherry makes a beautiful bright fire. Mixed with oak it burns steadily, loads of heat. No response yet.

Explained many times to curious kids why we were felling a tree, asked accusingly. I explained it was dead and needed to go and they grudgingly accepted it then got on with their football game and bicycling.

Much sweeping and finding of tools strewn over both patios, found another charger plugged in and returned it next door, receiving in return an empty container which had held cake, and picking a handful of lemon balm for the other neighbor to start in water.

Many transactions today. Among all this I baked bread.

Whole-wheat, white, oatmeal. Two weeks supply.

I'm going to sit down now and bask in my lovely neighbors.

Thanksgiving plans and pumpkins

 Handsome Son visited yesterday with groceries, and we continued talking about how to do a safe Thanksgiving meal.  I'm a bit hazy on safety of food sharing from a common dish at this point, so we're thinking he will pick up individual prepared foods, ready to reheat, at the store where he works, so that will be minimal contact, but we can sit at either end of the table.  He estimates it at six feet distance, so that will work. One Christmas when I was too sick to cook, he picked up a lovely meal, first course crab stuffed flounder, next cooked turkey with some veg, forget what, and pie.  It was great, what I could eat of it.  So we're thinking of a version of that, for different reasons, we're both hoping to be well then.

When he visits and I serve him tea and a snack, I'm gloved handling his food, and we have separate teapots, milk, etc.  I also wash my hands before gloving them.

So yesterday we had the Victory Cookie and icecream.  They had to be separate because the cookie is crisp enough you need to pick it up to eat it. But we bravely managed anyway.  Handsome Son liked it enough to do this whole thing a second time.  And now he thinks it would make a great Thanksgiving dessert.  Fine by me.  One issue solved.  He really enjoyed this. And texted me this morning to say he's still recovering from the sugar overload!

Then, while we were in this high level conference, next door neighbor opens the front door, calls out here's the pumpkin I promised, and leaves this in the hallway for me.

This is part of the Pumpkin Exchange Program.  He doesn't like pumpkin, loves the seeds.  I don't like the seeds, like the pumpkin.  So when I had my mini pumpkin I washed and dried and gave him the seeds.  He's removed the seeds from this much bigger one, and it's now mine to cook.

It's better for soup or maybe cake than pie, not really a pie pumpkin.  And it's in the oven now roasting happily away for the moment.  I looked up recipes for roasting pumpkin, mainly to find out the oven setting, and found a major problem in all of them:  they all say to cut it down first.  But here's the thing: I can't possibly get a knife through this behemoth. I need to roast it in order to cut into it.  So I just went on in the way I think might work. 350F for and hour and 20 minutes. Since it's already empty, this will be an easy job to peel and dice. I'll let you know how this works out.  It's on the last 20 minutes now.

Beautiful weather suddenly, in the 70s.  I was sitting out reading yesterday afternoon.  So, the allergies made a brief reappearance in the middle of the night, had to get up and attend to my eye.  Better today. It's such a treat, though to be able to be out without a coat, if only for a few days.  Lovely walking, too.

New alarms about the GOP admin refusing to release funding for Biden's transition team.  This may be another, yet another, court case. She's claiming the final vote is not yet official. Except that every state with a complete count has called it officially. But I really won't be alarmed about this.  There will be a lot of deliberate obstruction, and we will have to overcome it.  Kamala is a topflight lawyer, she will know exactly the remedies.  And there's ACLU which has done wonderful work through this whole period.

Meanwhile, Biden's already assembling his Covid team for planning to handle the virus. A real team, this time, with doctors and epidemiologists and people who know what they're doing. So I'll try to leave it to them to worry about!

Today is walking and spinning and just enjoying the day.  Seize the day, as they say.  Carpe diem. Which does not mean carp all day long.

Food still happens, even when the republic is rescued

Misfits day victory supper

Salad of lettuce, very crisp, carrot dice, hard-boiled egg, avocado diced, dressed with a mix of olive oil, malt vinegar, dijon mustard, black pepper, paprika. All the veggies came in today's box.

Top layer

 My misfits box came today, slight mixup, one lot of mushrooms which I had plans for, missing, one avocado which I never ordered, present!  They're fixing it now, refund for the mushrooms, but they say they can't refund the avocado because it wasn't listed anyway.

I think that means it wasn't billed.  Well, no problems there.  I don't usually go much for avocado after a period of liking them all the time, but I don't object to the occasional unexpected visitor. As you saw from the salad pic above.

Next layer

Washing in progress.  There's a ton of fruit, for which I have plans. And the white potatoes will make a vichyssoise with the rest of the leeks in the freezer, and maybe some celery if there is any. The carrots greens will be in a green soup at some point. I also got chicken broth.  And  hand sanitizer.

I'm amazed I was up to doing anything today after the excitement. Everyone's so happy! Church bells ringing in Paris. Thank you notes from all over, because it affects a lot of people outside our country.  Much work to do, to repair, address the pandemic, replace the people in the cabinet with people who want the country to succeed. A president and spouse we can be proud of. Likewise a Veep and spouse, Second Dude. 

Next: Georgia. We're already asking Stacey Abrams how we can help with the runoffs.

Meanwhile, I think I'll lie down and read a bit. 

Then for my Saturday movie extravaganza, another in my Christopher Guest ongoing festival. 

This is Spinal Tap.

And this is a day we've been dreaming of and working for. Wheeeeee!!!!

Finally exhaling

 We did it.  We took back our country.  Biden Harris took Pennsylvania, and they're officially recognized.

I'm relieved, excited, and can't wait for decency and respect to return to the White House.  That and a woman, our first female Vice President.  A brilliant, funny mixed race woman.  That checks all the boxes.

I was putting together the grocery list at Handsome Son's request, and promptly added icecream. To go with the giant cookie we'll be plunging into.

Next we work on Georgia senate runoffs in January and see if we can't take back the senate, too.  

Victory cookie

 It's the biggest cookie in the world, and I think we've earned it.

As usual I had to sub, no chocolate chips, so chopped walnuts. And I added in a teaspoon of lime zest, from misfit organic limes, just to see.

I'm using a white flour which I never had before lockdown when I had to order online. It's a southern product, probably a different wheat, much softer than the other ap flour common here. And this cookie has a fine crust and soft inside, I'm guessing because of the flour. It's White Lily, works for desserts,  too fluffy for bread. I expect it makes great biscuits.

This recipe said 18+ minutes, but using these ingredients, nearer 25. 

It smells heavenly.

And here's the cook's privilege, first wedge. It's gone now. This is pretty rich and sweet. This size wedge is plenty. 

Hooray for us! We saved the republic, that is not an exaggeration. We earned a cookie.

Doings on the home front

 Since I can't be out saving the world all the time, there's stuff happening at home too.

The Tank Lid Caper

Early this morning my neighbor who's getting the plumbing overhauled, was at the door with the promised tank lid, which looks like a match for the broken one at the condo.

I texted Handsome Son to come and get it, since he's off today, and get a cup of tea.  Both of which he did, and graciously let me take a pic.

Final Garden Clean up for the year

The flowers are done, so the pollinators are gone, and I can cut and toss.

Russian sage and Montauk daisies

Thyme and Autumn Joy sedum

News of the indoor garden

The weather's suddenly mild, so I finally, years late, got to separating and repotting the aloe previously hopelessly squashed into too small a container. The pots and soil are out in the outdoor closet, so the weather's a factor, not wanting to chill the plants being moved.

One section now lives next door in my friend Amitha's rapidly growing collection. She had seen me at work on the aloe out on the path, came to ask a few plant questions. That's why there aren't any pix of the process. People first. So my attention was on her. And while I was at it, I offered her a division of aloe. She has one,but a different variety, so she was happy to house it.

Back home I now have a working kitchen aloe 

And upstairs a leisured aloe chatting with her friends. Once her shape has recovered from the overcrowding in her former housing, I'll see about another repotting.

Also downstairs, I noticed the sudden eruption of a long stem and buds from the spider plant I moved and repotted. First in years, so I think the repotting was a Good Thing tm.

Then a cabbage onion wrap, and a longish walk in the sunshine to prevent kinks in my back from the garden cleanup. 

And it's still early afternoon. I attribute this cheery energy to the sunshine, the neighbor coming through with remembering the lid, and with some political news, to wit:

Bucks County, Pennsylvania, home of the wealthy one per cent, reliably republican since the dawn of time, turned blue!! Overnight news.

Also georgia Dem Ossoff appears to be so close to the appalling Perdue in their senate race, that he might, just might, force a January runoff.  And also in Georgia sen. Loeffler, who enriched her enormous portfolio using inside knowledge about covid, is in a January runoff against a Dem.  Two more bites at the Senate cherry! We may yet get this, friends! 

Unusual to have both State senators up, but Loeffler was appointed, not elected and must run in order to secure the seat. And, as the count goes on, Biden, too,  is narrowing the gap in Georgia.

We should warmly thank Stacy Abrams for a lot of groundwork that brought us to this place. Her endless work to preserve the vote and fight vote suppression is a big part of why Loeffler and Perdue didn't just walk away with the seats.

Suppression is the reason Abrams is not currently Governor of Georgia.  Their actual governor, in an interesting bit of karma, is quarantined for covid-19, and because of the draconian voting rules he put in place, in continuing vote suppression moves, can not vote! Snookered.

The first of that man,  you know who's, lawsuits trying to void uncounted ballots has been thrown out this morning on the grounds of no evidence.

Pretty good day, all in all. From humble toilet tanklids to the future of our republic, you get it all here! 

Keep breathing, keep watching, keep calm.