Cats and cars

I was quickly scanning the news and saw something about cat tariffs. I’m like, come on, this is ridiculous! Enough is enough! Will they stop at nothing?

Then I looked again and saw it was car tariffs. Oh. So different, cats and cars. One is practically a necessity and the other is just transportation.

While I’m not up for political anger today, and believe me, I have plenty, I will share my Amazon boycott is going great. My original goal was to reduce my spending on Amazon by 50 percent, but I might go the distance. I have not purchased a single thing from Amazon this year!

My Prime expires in May, and I’m pretty sure I will cancel it. And Dale is canceling his Washington Post subscription. Not needing you, Jeff, you meddling prick oligarch.

What I’m eating

We had a couple of nice days, and Dale cut up a chicken and smoked it on the grill. It was just gorgeous – I call it mahogany chicken. The first night we had it with roasted potato salad made with fennel and a sour cream/mayonnaise mix. He had me at fennel. Yum.

Then we had the leftover chicken chopped up in a salad with spring greens, red onion, mandarin oranges, spiced walnuts, crumbled gorgonzola cheese and homemade raspberry vinaigrette.

We finished that bad boy up with chicken tacos. As is often the case, we had a lot of filling, so some of that got frozen to be used later in burritos and such.

Oh, and I made one of my faves … Instant Pot bison curry with spinach and coconut milk. I made homemade naan to go with. Two servings went into the freezer.

Actually, we’ve been going through the freezer, which is rewarding in its own way. And our freezer food is most excellent. We’re back to cold and rainy weather, so tonight is soup. We had two individual servings of soup, so Dale’s having the white bean and sausage, and I’m going for the turkey carcass soup I made after Thanksgiving.

I’m making cheddar and red pepper drop biscuits to go with. We like carbs in this house.

What I’m watching

I thought I would miss the shows on Amazon Prime, but I don’t, so I will not have a problem giving them up when my Prime expires. I also decided I watch very little Netflix, so that got axed as well. For subscriptions, I’m down to the Classic Sci Fi Movie Channel and PBS Passport.

What can I say? I love PBS Passport, and I spent some time loading up my list with great shows. I finished The Mountain Detective. Hopefully, new seasons are forthcoming. I think it was the last episode where they showed a view of Alex’s butt as he got in the shower, and if all else fails, that’s worth another look.

For some reason, I really like the French shows. The content is excellent, and the language is soothing. Now I’m watching The Paris Murders featuring Chloe, an “intuitive” profiler who helps solve cases in the Paris homicide division. I like it a lot, and there are bunches of seasons, so that’s good.

A few I added to my list include: Poldark, Howard’s End and Prime Suspect.

What I’m reading    

I finally got The Onyx Storm from the library, and I just couldn’t get into it. I read the first two in the series and enjoyed them very much, but I think they really are targeted to a younger audience. The sex scenes are sort of silly and adolescent, in my humble opinion. Maybe I need to read about old people getting it on.

Kills Well with Others by Deanna Raybourn was a fun read. This is the second in her series about four women who happen to be retired assassins, but alas, they are called back to active duty.

And I’m still on my Irish crime kick. Broken Harbor by Tana French is a crime novel but more psychological than most. It was twisted, I’ll say that.

Just today I finished The Killing of the Tinkers by Ken Bruen. This was the second in his Jack Taylor series. I love these books, but you have to like it dark. He’s an alcoholic ex-policeman who finds trouble and sometimes solves crimes. The author laces the drama with lots of literary and musical references.