Ready to vote and other, less important, things

So here's my voting outfit. Ballot, mask, gloves.  I'm ready.

Meanwhile last night's supper, half of which is tonight's supper

Shiitake mushrooms, plus mixed mushrooms, farm tomatoes, sharp cheddar, egg, 400 till the egg cooked. Technicolor food.

I had fried the mushrooms in butter and oil first, then added them in. Then the liquid from the tomatoes was a bit too much, so I spooned most of it out, did a reduction on top of the stove, which powered up the flavor, poured it back over the doings. Very nice on top of a slice of whole-wheat bread.

Took about 20 minutes total.

About teaching, yes, I seem to have been doing it one way or another starting back in schooldays. It's mostly been art workshops for the last fifty plus years. My art blog Art, the Beautiful Metaphor is largely a teaching and sharing blog, same idea.

Originally, back in the pleistocene era, I arrived in this country with a terrific degree, figured teaching might be good, French, Latin, English lit, did a teacher training in Wisconsin where we lived then, complete with classroom teaching resulting in job offers, but we left Wisconsin for husband's job in NJ. 

Wisconsin ed people assured me they had teacher licence reciprocation in all states, it was portable, no worries.  And, once in NJ, I started the process of getting a NJ licence.

Only to find I'd moved to one of two states which will not issue teacher licences needed for public school teaching to noncitizens. The other is Texas. Or was at that time, mid sixties.

So I searched the statute and came up with an exception: I was certified to teach French. Foreign language teaching was exempt from the citizenship rule. Whereupon they came back smartly and said only if it's your native language. Oh.  And by the time we qualified to start the citizenship process, my Wisconsin licence would have lapsed couldn't be renewed from out of state, nothing then to reciprocate with. Catch 22.

So I taught Latin and English in a private middle school at approximately half the salary of a public school teacher.  In the end it was okay because I was finding adult instruction much more interesting, and kids not so much. I've taught kids now and then, special workshops, homeschoolers, etc, but my energies have gone into adults.

This was in addition to full time work in various organizations.  Yes, I've done a lot of things. 

Not just art. Antique identification, freelance writing, other material. This was professional paid, work, sometimes very nicely, when the organizers wrote me into grants.  But I've done a lot as a volunteer, too.

The thing I object to is the, frequent, assumption that  artists should be happy to teach and demo for nothing, on demand. For "exposure".  I usually point to my fee schedule and explain I can't buy groceries with exposure. And that my volunteer plans are already filled.

No, I will not donate a large artwork for permanent display in the Town Hall, if you can buy furniture, you can buy art.  No, I will not make videos for your library YouTube channel for free! The most recent outrageous request, couched as a terrific honor for me, hehehe.

People who know better typically do better, though, as when my embroidery guild chapter paid me to teach workshops. No question. And fellow artists always pay for individual teaching.

End of rant! 

Back to checking if the rain has let up so I can go vote, and save the world.

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Farm to fork!

Stopped at the farm on the way home, and added freshpicked lettuce and raspberries to my lunch of local mushrooms, pasture raised egg and roasted Yukon gold potatoes in a crust of parmigiano reggiano.

Dinner with Handsome Son Returns, after Hiatus

Between my being under the weather, and Handsome Son's work hours being unaccommodating, it's been weeks since we had a meal together.  So Friday we resumed, and it went over well.

Chicken drumsticks, roasted with thyme, then layered with baby bella mushrooms, sauteed in olive oil and butter, garlic salt and red wine, and a can, sorry, it's the season, no fresh tomatoes yet, of unsalted diced tomatoes.  All layered together,  medium oven.  Brown jasmine rice, cooked with crushed walnuts and golden raisins.  This was a pretty easy meal in some ways and went down well.  Glass of the same red wine used in the mushrooms, nice Italian.  Banana bread with crushed walnuts (noting a theme here?) and big pot of tea. And it leaves enough for a couple of meals for me over the weekend.  

So dinner was good, and after HS had been forced to tour all the new windows, admiring them at length, very patiently, he picked out some of my glass collection for himself.  When I had to reorganize before the windows were done, I put away all my glass collection for safety, and decided after weeks of not seeing it, that I probably only needed to hold onto a few pieces.  So Handsome Son was very happy to take away several nice pieces for his own use.  

This leaves a few I can take to the thriftie on my next trip there.  HS always gets first refusal on anything I find at the thriftie, or anything I'm planning to take there.  He's very good about selecting only what he wants, resisting the collecting temptation pretty well.  Partly this is because his condo is small and fills up easily! 

All my neighbors are resigned to having a tour of the windows if they stop in.  I think I may need to curb my enthusiasm a bit..
More strawberries today, and I got half a dozen nice basil starts, which are now potted up on the patio.  I need rosemary then I'm set.  Other herbs came through the winter fine, oregano, mints, sage, Thai basil, if the squirrel's rampage hasn't stopped it in its tracks.