The Lady Doth Protest

 As someone who's older, wise, and far less afraid of what it will do to my family if I should be arrested for doing the right thing, I'm more inclined to join protests than ever before. Being me, I researched how do to it right, and safely. This information is cobbled together from many sources.

Attending Protests

The DON’Ts

Cell Phones: Don’t even bring it. Regardless of how you turn it off, turn off location service, use airplane mode, deactivate facial or fingerprint recognition, change passwords, etc., the police or other law enforcement agencies may be able to use your phone to prove you were there and/or remained after being told to disperse. It’s not uncommon for phones temporarily confiscated to be damaged. If you can afford it and must remain in contact with someone, consider a burner phone.

Social Media: Don’t use any social media platform to plan, respond to the plans of others, or otherwise make public your attendance at a protest, before or after it occurs.

Contact Lenses: Don’t wear them. They can literally melt to the eye when police use pepper spray or tear gas. (There seems to be some disagreement on which is more harmful to contact lens wearers, but the bottom line remains the same: don’t wear them.)

Makeup: Don’t wear it, especially eye makeup, which traps tear gas or pepper spray right by the eyes. This includes facial moisturizer, which can mix with pepper spray and help it cling to skin.

Jewelry: It can identify you in photos, be lost or broken, or disappear in police custody. Remove all of it, including piercings (if possible) and wedding rings.

Valuables: Leave them where they are safe, including credit cards and most of your cash.

Knives, Drugs, Weapons, or anything else you don’t want in your possession if you are arrested.

Long Hair Worn Loose (or grab-able, like a braid, topknot, bun, or pony tail). Restrain your long hair flat against your head with low-profile barrettes.

Purse: This means of carrying what you may want or need is the least convenient and the most easy to take from you. Replace with a small backpack or a fanny pack.

Signs on Sticks: Some protest organizers report that a sign’s stick can be used to harm the person carrying it or others. It’s also the best way for your sign to be seen in a crowd. Decide carefully and adhere to any guidelines set by organizers.

COVID Precautions

Even if you are vaccinated and boosted, a close crowd raises the chance of infection transmission.

Wear a face mask at all times, over your nose and mouth. If you have them, bring spares for others.

Carry hand sanitizer and use it often.

If you feel unwell or live with people at high risk for COVID complications, don’t attend.

Basics to Bring, in a small backpack or a fanny pack

COVID mask, not readily identifiable

Hand sanitizer

Water

Portable snacks like protein bars, fruit, crackers

First aid items: bandaids, antibacterial wipes, gauze pads and tape, menstrual pads, tampons

Cash and change, but not a large amount

Your ID, stored securely--in your sock or shoe, a zipped pocket, etc., not in a backpack

Earplugs to protect against police use of stun grenades to disperse crowds, although construction-grade earmuffs are better—but bulky

Protective shattterproof goggles for tear gas or pepper spray. If you wear glasses, goggles must fit over them. Together a non-unique COVID mask and goggles makes facial recognition technology difficult or impossible to use against protesters

Necessary medications in their original Rx container

Emergency phone numbers, written in permanent marker on your arm:

• One or two family members or friends to contact if you are arrested, injured, or stranded
• An attorney
• Any hotline offering legal support to protesters

A buddy. It’s important to have someone who will be looking out for you, and you for them.

Maybe:

• Print map of the protest area, on a single sheet of paper
• Eye wipes for tear gas or pepper spray relief
• Gas mask
• Heat-proof gloves to allow the return of grenades, which are hot

What to Wear

You want to be comfortable, able to move freely, and blend in with the crowd. Don’t wear anything that allows you to stand out or be easily identifiable. Some recommendations are to wear all black or gray. Your wardrobe:

Dark pants, fully comfortable, ideally with useable pockets. No shorts; you want as little skin as possible exposed to tear gas or pepper spray.

Dark long-sleeved shirt with no brand or logo. If you have tattoos, make sure the shirt covers them. Consider medical tape over any tattoos or scars not covered by clothing.

Dark hoodie or jacket as weather dictates, with secure pockets, no logo.

Shoes comfortable for standing and walking for long periods. Toe protection from work boots or hiking boots is a plus. Consider a thin sock under your regular socks to minimize friction if you’re not used to walking distance in these shoes.

A plain hat, no logo or pattern, to protect you from sun or other weather, and to cover your hair, making you harder to identify.

Safety

Before you leave for a protest, you and your buddy need a plan to establish:

• What time will we arrive, and when do we need to leave home?
• How will we get there? If we drive, where will we park? It should be well away from the event. Ideally, you walk or bicycle there, since license plate readers help cops know what car was where and when.
• What time will we leave? When should we arrive home?
• What events or situations would cause us to leave early?
• How will we change our plan if there’s a change in situation?
• Do we agree that if one leaves, both leave, even if we disagree?
• If we are separated, where will we meet?
• If the situation seems dangerous, how will we leave? Know local streets.

Share this plan with your written-on-your-arm contact before you go. If needed, they can send you help or look for you.

During the protest, practice awareness of what’s around you. Red flags include:

• Do there seem to be people who are not prepared and came last minute? Are they talkative with strangers? They may be from “the other side,” there to incite violence, identify protesters, etc. Or they may be plainclothes police officers.
• Is the protest skewing toward destrictuon of property or violence against people? That’s a sign to leave immediately.
• Is anyone protesting also carrying a gun or other weapon? Leave immediately.
• Do many protesters seem drunk or under the influence of drugs? Such individuals may show poor judgment if confronted by police, and you don’t want to be close.
• Does your intuition or gut feeling say something’s not right? Time to leave.

If the police use physical means to disperse crowds:

• If you can, learn what means the police department has available.
• Leave the area when it begins.
• Keep away from police horses and dogs, both trained to be aggressive and able to injure you.
• Consider padded protection or civilian-grade Kevlar vests. Rubber bullets can cause injury, including breaking bones. Shatterproof goggles will help but cannot necessarily stop a rubber bullet.
• Consider putting on a helmet if they’re firing rubber bullets.
• If police are using pepper spray or tear gas, put on a gas mask. Move upwind if possible. Do not touch eyes, nose, or mouth. Change your face mask if it seems contaminated.
• Be ready to help the injured. Carry extra first aid supplies, especially water to wash eyes. Some people say Johnson’s Baby Wash helps clean eyes.
• Stay calm. People panicked into running can injure others.
• Keep an eye on anyone nearby who’s elderly, disabled, or may require assistance to be safe.

If you are arrested:

• Stay calm. Do not resist arrest. Ask on what charges you are being arrested. Memorize the name of the arresting officer.
• If you can, tell witnesses your name before the police take you away.
• Control your words and body. Tell the police your name and show ID if asked. If you are injured, demand medical attention. Tell the police you are exercising your right to remain silent, and that you want to speak to an attorney. Say nothing more.

After the protest:

• Know more than one route home or back to your bicycle or vehicle.
• Be aware police may block roads or stop public transportation near the protest site.
• Once you’re home, let your emergency contacts know you are safe.
• If police used tear gas or pepper spray, wipe off anything that cannot be washed: leather shoes, goggles, and glasses. Launder all clothing and wash or wipe down backpack. Take a shower and wash your hair.

Brimstone Bread

 

 

 

This is a slight modification of recipes widely available online. I did not create the recipe.

BRIMSTONE BREAD
Takes 5-6 Hours

For the Red Bread

2 1/4 cups warm water (105-115° F/40-46° C)
1 tablespoon active dry yeast
2 tablespoons sugar
2 one-ounce bottles of red food coloring
2 tablespoons vegetable or canola oil
5 cups flour, ideally bread flour
1 tablespoon salt
Optional: another one-ounce bottle of red food coloring
Recommended: disposable food preparation gloves, metal utensils, parchment paper

Pour warm water into a large bowl. Add yeast and sugar. Mix thoroughly and set aside for five to ten minutes, until the mixture creates bubbles that form a layer of foam.

Take care opening and pouring food coloring, which stains, into the foam mixture. Add oil and stir to evenly distribute food coloring. Add flour and salt gradually, stirring to mix. You should have a red or deep red dough. If it’s lighter, work more food coloring into the mixture.

When it’s fully blended, the dough should come together in a single clump. It should be somewhat stretchy and not very sticky. Either in the bowl or on a protected work surface (a clean cookie sheet will keep counters from staining) lightly dusted with flour, put on your food preparation gloves then knead the dough for three minutes until it is smooth and uniformly soft.

Shape the dough into a ball. Lightly flour the inside of your bowl (no need to wash it in between) and put the dough in the bowl. Cover with a dish towel (which can stain if it touches the dough) and let the dough rest for ten minutes.

After the ten minutes has passed, turn the dough out and knead for another two to three minutes, then form a ball, return to bowl, cover it, and let it rest for ten minutes. Do this a total of five times.

When the dough has rested for the fifth and final ten minutes, divide it into twelve balls the same size. Cover two cookie sheets with parchment paper. Put the balls on the cookie sheets, where the dough will rise, separating them as far as possible.

If you have a warm spot in the kitchen, allow the dough to rise there. If you do not have a warm spot, turn on your oven and put your hand inside it. When you detect heat, turn the oven off and put the cookie sheets in the oven to allow the dough to rise there.

Caution: If the rising dough balls join with others, separating them will release the trapped air bubbles causing the rising. You’ll need to start over with the rising. Covering the dough with plastic wrap (a common bread-baking practice) can result in the two sticking, and releasing it also undoes the rising.

Leave the dough undisturbed for three to four hours. It will approximately double in size.

Wash your bowl and utensils for reuse. Near the end of the rising, prepare the topping.

For the Brimstone Topping

1 cup warm water (105-115° F/40-46° C)
2 tablespoons active dry yeast
2 tablespoons sugar
1 one-ounce bottle of black food coloring
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 1/2 cups rice flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
Optional: additional red food coloring

Pour warm water into a large bowl. Add yeast and sugar. Mix thoroughly and set aside for five to ten minutes, until the mixture creates bubbles that form a layer of foam.

Take care opening and pouring food coloring, which stains, into the foam mixture. Add oil and stir to evenly distribute food coloring. It should be intensely black. At this point you can add more red food coloring to darken the mixture.

Add rice flour and salt gradually, stirring to mix. You should have a fully black dough which is somewhat gritty, fairly sticky, thick while being liquid enough to ooze from your spoon. Cover with a dish towel (which can stain if it touches the dough) and let the dough rest for fifteen minutes.

Put on your food preparation gloves and take a handful of the black topping. Smear and pat it over the top and sides of your risen red dough balls. Repeat until they’re all covered. Use all of the black topping, adding more to ensure the coating is not thin on any of them.

Pre-heat the oven to 450° F/230° C.

Let the coated dough balls stand, uncovered, for fifteen minutes to allow the topping to fully stick to the red dough.

After the fifteen minutes, bake your Brimstone Bread on the center rack of the oven for 15 to 20minutes. If it won’t hold two cookie sheets, bake one, then the other.

Because rice flour is not as elastic as bread flour, the black topping will become crisp and will crack as the bread bakes.

Cool on cookie sheets until you can easily touch the bread. Finish cooling on wire racks, or eat warm. These make excellent sandwich or hamburger buns and are tasty warm with butter.

An Uplifting Message

Before COVID, I went on a cruise that appealed mainly to adults over 50. Based on observation, I’d venture a guess that at least half the passengers were over 60, and if you don’t think that makes a difference, you’re either young or need new corrective lenses.

What I noticed about the women was interesting in many ways. This self-selected group of older adults with money for a cruise included some who were able and willing to dress in a way that flatters whatever kind of body they had—but it also included quite a few of the ones who have given up and tuck their printed knit tops into their elastic-waist pants.

But both groups often sported the worst bras you can imagine. It seemed especially likely if they were overweight by as little as one dress size.

There is no reason for a woman who can pay for a stateroom with a balcony for a seven-day cruise to make do with a bra from Penney’s or Kohl’s that feels okay and supports her in a fashion that is decidedly not okay. Whether your small breasts have become droopy or you’re large and sagging, the mass of your breast should be lifted away from the body, not folded over on it, and aligned somewhere near the vertical middle of your rib cage. But on this cruise, it seemed breasts nearing the waist was the norm.

I’ve always been somewhat busty and once I got kind of fat, finding a bra that actually fit seemed impossible. Only in recent years have I determined that not only can a woman whose lingerie drawers include 42DDDs (several styles of Wacoal, the best I could do at the time) can indeed find bras that actually fit and support, but bras that are fully comfortable.

You just can’t do it at a the local department store, including when they have a “fitting event.” The fitter they’ve hired for a few days can’t fit you in the bras department stores carry.

Get thee to a dedicated lingerie store with a trained fitter. In another city if that’s what it takes.

Yes, if you’re large, that bra is going to have an underwire. It does not add any discomfort at all. If it does feel uncomfortable, that means the bra does not fit. Don’t let any sales person tell you differently.

Yes, even if you’re obese there are bras that will hold up the goods more than adequately, without making massive dents in your shoulders because the straps are holding most of the weight.

Yes, there’s a bra out there—more likely, several bras—that will touch your sternum like they did when you were fourteen and wore a B cup. No more dropping fish crackers and finding a small school of them when you get ready for bed, as I have. Seriously, I once found three grapes in that gap. Three!

Yes, there’s a bra for you whose straps stay up. All the time, no matter how you twist and turn. Yet they don’t dig into your shoulders. Miracles can happen, ladies.

Yes, there are bras for chubby and big women, pretty ones in prints and in great colors, with lace and bows, matching panties available—and no, they don’t have four hooks up the back, much less six like the last bra I bought at Macy’s, using a professional fitter who probably did the best she could with their stock.

Yes, you’ll pay plenty for a good bra, from at least $50 to a typical $75, and it’s possible to spend lots more. If you hand-wash and line-dry it, you’ll get years of wear. I machine-wash mine in a lingerie bag, because I’m a special kind of lazy, and I still get at least two or three years from a good bra.

Yes, a quality bra takes engineering of a particular type, but there are many manufacturers who’ve got it down and want to sell you a bra that looks great on you, feels fine, and makes you look great.

What, there’s no quality lingerie store where you live? That’s increasingly common. The internet is at your service. Look for websites selling Elomi (my go-to brand), Fantasie, Freya, Goddess, and more. Seek one with free returns if you do an exchange for another size, or just consider that part of the cost of getting a terrific bra. Seek sites with a human able to chat live-time about fit, increasing the odds of getting the right fit first try.

A properly-fitting Elomi bra with side support (the Cate is one of many I like) literally lifts your breasts four inches higher than anything Kohl’s, Penney’s, Dillard’s, or Macy’s sells, and is more comfortable.

I swear, it’s worth it.

Baked Caramel Corn

 

Since this is not a cooking blog monetized by how much text I make a reader scroll through to get to the damned recipe, I'll just announce that this is an excellent recipe, written simply enough for middle-school cooks and I-don't-really-cook adults to succeed. Enjoy.


MARYN'S BAKED CARAMEL CORN

5 quarts popped popcorn*
1 c. whole almonds or pecans, unsalted, optional   
1 cup (2 sticks) butter or margarine   
2 cups firmly packed brown sugar   
1/2 cup light or dark corn syrup   
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon vanilla

Yield: About 5-7 quarts caramel corn, Prep time: 90 minutes or so

Note: Requires very large bowl or pot for mixing. Can NOT be mixed in one bowl/pot used twice.

Pop the popcorn. Spray 2 or 3 large cookie sheets heavily with a nonstick spray product (even if you cover with foil or a silicon mat, spray the foil or mat) and spray a large container in which you will stir the popcorn (and nuts). Preheat the oven to 250 degrees (low heat). Mix the popcorn (and nuts) in your large container.

In a 2.5- or 3-quart saucepan, melt butter over low heat. Stir in brown sugar, corn syrup and salt. Bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring constantly. (This takes 7-20 minutes depending on the pan used and on the stove itself.) Boil without stirring 5 minutes. (This takes 5 minutes, silly.) Remove from heat; stir in soda and vanilla. The mixture will swell up and bubble considerably,which is why you need the large pot. Stir until this reaction seems to have stopped, about a minute.

Pour caramel mixture over popped corn (and nuts), mixing as well as you can. It will be impossible to coat every kernel. Work somewhat quickly, because once it starts to cool, the caramel won’t spread well or leave the pan voluntarily. It helps if you do this over a clean counter so any popcorn bits that are pushed out of the pan or bowl can be returned—but be careful, the caramel is hot enough to burn fingertips.

Turn onto the baking pans, flattening and separating clumps as much as you can. Bake at 250 degrees for 10 minutes five times.

Huh? Remove both sheets from the oven after ten minutes of oven time. Stir and rearrange caramel coating, which will be semi-liquid, to cover as much popcorn as you can, then return to the oven for the next 10 minutes of baking, for a total of five sessions of 10-minutes-of-baking. (This takes more than an hour, usually.) Alternate which of the two cookie sheets is on top and rotate them end-for-end for more even cooking.

Note: Do not block airflow in the oven by filling it side-to-side with cookie sheets. (This will make the sugar burn, and the whole batch taste of char.) If you can't fit two in without blocking it, do them one at a time until one tray is finished, then start on the second tray. It's okay if it stands and its caramel hardens before you begin.

Remove finished caramel corn from oven and cool completely on wire racks over waxed paper or foil (to catch what falls through). Break apart. Store in tins. Ha, as if it wouldn’t all be eaten immediately. In reality: Pick warm caramel corn off the foil with fingers. If you have metal fillings, check carefully for clinging shreds of foil and remove before eating.

* Measure how much popped popcorn you have using the 2.5 or 3 quart saucepan you’ll make the caramel in. Estimating it is fine. Less popcorn equals more kernels fully coated. We generally pop a cup of kernels, measure what we need using the saucepan, and much on the remaining cup and a half or so.

Or go with approximate values:
1/2 c. kernels = 12 c. popped, or 2 Tbsp. kernels = 1 quart popped

On Vertigo

 Because of the vertigo I had earlier, we re-watched Hitchcock's Vertigo last night. Of the entire cast, only Kim Novak is still alive.

I wish I could say it held up, but it did not. The sexism was really bad, for one thing. The age gap--James Stewart was 49, Kim Novak 24--bothered me and apparently wasn't well received in the 1950s, either. She's stunning, but what does she see in him? He's not rich, powerful, handsome, fun, or especially sweet. Zero chemistry on screen. At least the husband she's cheating on, also older, is filthy rich.

Whatever does Barbara Bel Geddes, the unrequited love interest, see in him? And puh-lease, don't tell me they went to college together when he looks his actual age and so does she, fourteen years younger. Stewart is a lean, lined almost-fifty and she's a girlish thirty-five.

The older man's assumption that a woman should be willing to change her appearance completely because he wants her to? Hell, no. When he tells her to bleach her hair platinum blonde and change the style, she doesn't want to and his reply is, "Judy, please it can't matter to you..." Dude, it's her head. How about you shave your head. It can't matter to you.

And since she was paid to turn herself into the same person in the past to commit fraud, why the hell does she forget how to move, act, and be more like the person she's imitating on his command--a role she played previously to perfection?

There's much more not to like. Two people swearing love when they haven't had an actual conversation? Nope.

His taking a half-drowned semiconscious woman to his apartment, where he strips her naked and puts her to bed, instead of to a hospital... Ugh. Creepster, especially when you add the age difference. It's not TLC, it's predatory.

And--spoilers okay on a movie from 1958?--why the hell didn't the nuns lock the tower door after the first death from a fall? And why would Judy be so scared of a nun's arrival that she backed away and "died again"?

And finally, Acrophobia would not be as good a movie title, even though that's what Stewart's character has.

Foam Alone

When we were new to this house, I got my first-ever new chair that was just for me. The plan was I'd use it in my sewing room/study. Which I did, for a while. It looked good with the carpet color, which we would not be changing. It fit my body and supported my back. It rocked. It rotated. It was magical!

But we needed more seating where the TV is, and my chair was appropriated. It even looks good in there. I had to make a solid case for getting it back, and I did.

We ordered a leather chair for the family room in June and were quite surprised to learn it would not be ready until March, nine months ahead. We joked about them having to first impregnate a cow, wait for her to calf, let the calf grow chair-sized...

My mom-mobile has long had a little body damage and Mr. Maryn thought it might be time to trade it in, since every time he sees it he gets mad at himself all over again. (Super tight parking garage in Toronto, steel meets concrete column.) Did I like the car enough to get one just like it? 

Well, you can't. There are no new models of this car within hundreds of miles. How about a road trip to where we used to live? Check it out--none there, either. WTF?

The foam shortage is what. It's a big deal to the furniture, mattress, and auto industry. The makers of the chemicals saw a huge reduction in demand at the start of COVID, laid off workers, reduced production to some low percentage, and hoped to hang on.

Little did they consider that being home for long periods of time made people want new furniture and mattresses. Or that working from home and/or home schooling demanded more spacious quarters that needed new everything because the old furniture just didn't work.

Less safety in air travel meant the demand for cars was up, too--cars with upholstered seats. So the foam industry came back hard, trying to make up for lost time, which caused them to make a grave error. Some workers had moved on, and training takes time, so production had not reached pre-pandemic levels.

Usually when hurricanes or other "weather events" are predicted, virtually all heavy industry shuts down well in advance, battens their hatches, sends workers home while it's still safe, and waits it out. Only the chemical companies had such high demand, and the Texas blizzard gave so little warning, that all five plants in the US were running when they lost power. All of them!

Improper shut-down damages equipment. Apparently it's freakishly good luck no person was injured or killed as machinery abruptly stopped. They lost supplies to ice and cold. Lines froze. Some burst.

It's a testament to plant engineers that they recovered as quickly as they did, the industry says. It wasn't all that quick, and orders for foam chemicals backed up even more.

My chair might come in May. Might.

Black Wines Matter

What's a properly self-isolating woman to do to support the Black Lives Matter movement? She can use her computer and her wallet, of course, but she can also put her money where her mouth is by purchasing wine from Black-owned wineries.

Sources: Newsweek June 6, 2020; Wine Enthusiast June 8, 2020; Rose Mansion June 4, 2020

Abbey Creek Wine
Alexis George Wines
Amour Genéve
Aslina Wines
Bodkin Wines
Brown Estate
Charles Wine Company
Charles Woodson Intercept
Corner 103
Darjean Jones Wines
Davidson Wine Co.
Domaine Curry Wine
Domaine Curry:
Dwade Cellars
Earl Stevens Selections
ENAT Winery
Esrever Wines
Eunice Chiweshe Goldstein Winery
FLO Wine 360
Fog Crest Vineyard
Free Range Flower Winery
Frichette Winery
Indigené Cellars
J. Moss Wines
Jenny Dawn Cellars
L' Objet Wines
L’ Objet Noir
L’Tonya Renee Red Blend
La Fête du Rosé
Le Loup Gris
Longevity Wines
Love Cork Screw
Lovelee Wine
LVE Wines
Maison Noir Wines
Markell-Bani Wines
McBride Sisters
Michael Rose Cellars
MYX Fusions
Okapi Wines
Ole’ Orleans Wines
P. Harrell Wines
Sapiens
Shoe Crazy Wine
Simply Love Wines
Sip & Share Wines
Sosabe Wines
Stoney Wines
Stover Oaks Vineyard & Winery
Stuyvesant Champagne
Stuyvesant Champagne
Taste Collection Cellars
Theopolis Vineyards
Tympany Vineyards
Vina Sympatica
Virgo Cellars
Vision Cellars
Wachira Wines
Wade Cellars
Wandering Wines
Wifey Brands
Zafa Wines