lummi island wine tasting jan 6 ’22
COVID NOTES
As you all know, the country and the world are going through yet another Covid wave, this time the Ό (Omicron) variant, the most contagious mutation yet. All indications are that by this time next month the wave will have crested around here, and a LOT more people (mostly those who selected not to get vaccinated) will have been immunized the hard way, by surviving it.
More immunity for more people is a good thing, and the rapid spread of the Ό variant seems to be hitting enough unvaxed to improve overall immunity substantially without requiring their consent.
In any case, we have not yet set a date for reopening the wine shop for Aught-22. We are presently closed pending annual inventory and watching for the abatement of the Omicron Wave and the arrival of friendlier weather! Please stay tuned!
Friday Bread This Week
Because of the uncertainty of Island road conditions on Friday, Janice will be advising you about alternative arrangements for bread pickup this week, possibly at the Grange/Post Office. Watch for an email from her with details.
Read on for this week’s bread selections…
Each Sunday bread offerings for the coming Friday are emailed to the mailing list by Island Bakery. Orders returned by the 5 pm Tuesday deadline are baked and available for pickup each Friday in front of the wine shop from 4:00 – 5:30 pm. To get on the bread order mailing list, click on the Contact Us link at the top of the page and fill out the form.
Over the years the bakery has established a rotating list of several dozen breads and pastries from which two different artisan breads and a pastry are selected each week.
This week’s deliveries:
Four Seed Buttermilk – This is a new bread that sounded intriguing. While it includes all the elements of whole wheat, it does so separately by adding cracked wheat and bran in to the bread flour instead of milling whole wheat berries. It also has buttermilk and oil which will make for a tender bread as well as add a little tang. Finally it is finished with with a bit of honey and sunflower pumpkin and sesame seeds and some toasted millet – $5/loaf
Fig Anise – One of the more popular breads in the rotation. Made with a sponge that is fermented overnight, then the final dough is mixed with bread flour and fresh milled whole wheat. Honey, dried figs and anise bring in all the flavors of the mediterranean. A great flavorful bread – $5/loaf
and pastry this week…
Fruit & Spice Rolls – A break from the sweeter holiday desserts and pastries, these rolls are almost half whole wheat but still with plenty of butter, sugar, and egg for flavor and a tender crumb. Dried cranberries and golden raisins plus fresh orange peel and juice and an interesting mix of spices of anise, cinnamon, mace and cardamon round out the flavors along with a sprinkle of demerara sugar before baking for that extra bit of sweetness and crunch. An interesting and flavorful bun to have with your morning coffee or tea. – 2/$5
The Economics of the Heart: Basic Needs
We were in Portland with our trailer over the Holidays, somewhat comfortably marooned at an upscale RV park (with a pool!) just south of the city, and about 20 minutes from family events. Over Xmas and New Year’s the Pacific Northwest was in a rainy-snowy deep-freeze for pretty much the entire time, and we were stuck in Portland until the weather improved here on the Island, which was hard hit by snow and below-freezing temperatures. The very granular weather forecasts available now online allowed us to start home on New Year’s Eve (a Friday) and get to the Island by mid-day Sunday, with overnight bivouacs in Seattle and Mt. Vernon. Not to mention a salty and drenching front-row spot on the ferry in a 40-kt headwind Sunday afternoon.
The weather coated not just the car from the spray, but also much of the trip with anxiety and unanticipated difficulties. So naturally it has been a HUGE RELIEF to be HOME! Whew!
*****
As this is being written on the first anniversary of the attempted Coup and storming of the National Capitol Building on January 6, 2021 aimed at overturning the results of the 2020 election and keeping the Tweetster in power, it seems appropriate to muse a bit on our collective national situation a year after those events.
For starters, I woke up suddenly from a dream early this morning yelling “NOOOooooo!” At that moment in the dream a huge and magnificent futuristic passenger aircraft, possibly even a space vessel, very long, sleek, and powerful, had just taken off and was rising majestically into the sky. In the context of the dream (mostly forgotten) I knew that this event represented a crowning human achievement, the culmination of decades, perhaps centuries of development. It was buoyant with both promise and fulfillment.
Suddenly, a web of several Gigantic, Jagged Lightning Bolts exploded from the empty blue sky around it and blew the ship to pieces. THAT’S when I woke up yelling. And while there were a number of fragmentary memories of other parts of the same dream, they didn’t cohere into an explicit narrative. But I did find a lot of emotional pieces that built their own narrative about our collective and individual Humanistic Needs and how severely we have All been stressed over the past two years.
Though some assert that our country is “Christian,” the underlying principles of the Constitution are quite essentially Humanistic, more in line with Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs than either Testament of the Bible. The key principle here is the idea of Hierarchy: until the most basic needs are met, satisfaction of “higher” needs must wait. Air Water. Food. Warmth. Safety. These are all sine qua non essentials. Until these are met, philosophy and religion are Luxuries that will have to wait.
In the last few years we have seen more and more people around the world and across our own country suddenly lose their homes, animals, belongings, and family members to fires, hurricanes, floods, droughts, tornadoes (Climate Change is Here, Now, Real, and Indifferent), and political oppression over which they had no control. The bottom line for all of us to feel okay with our lives is to feel Safe and Loved. This is not complicated. This is the kind of social animal we are. We need to belong; we need to have physical and emotional nourishment; and we need a sense of security for ourselves and our tribes: a sense of Home.
While it is becoming increasingly clear that the events of last January 6 were part of a deliberate plot to overturn the results of the 2020 election, it is also beginning to look as if a significant number of the non-militia, ordinary citizens that took part may have been driven by the mistaken belief that the election had been stolen by enemies they were told were a threat to their basic well-being. A large percentage of these believers got their “news” from Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson, and the Gang at Fox News, many of whom now appear to be co-conspirators in the plot to keep the Tweetster in power indefinitely– the first American Dictator.
The America where I grew up in Maine in the Fifties was not complicated. Ike was a kindly President. The War was over. My parents worked and we got by well enough. The Russians were out there somewhere, but we were confident. We were safe. We could trust our leaders to do the right thing. We felt grateful and fortunate to be Americans.
At an unconscious emotional level, because no broader or deeper sense of satisfaction is possible until we feel safe, it is quite simple to manipulate us by making us feel Threatened by some vaguely defined Enemy. This is the stuff of 1984 Big Brother Authoritarianism, and the essence of the Big Lie Republicans are using to tear our country apart: You are not safe because Those People, those Socialists, those Coastal Elites, those Democrats, want to take away your Stuff. Lucky for you Big Brother is here to protect you. And your stuff.
We are all vulnerable to these threats, even more so after four years of the Tweetster and two years of Covid. We all need to take a long, slow, deep breath…hold it for a few seconds…and slowly exhale Aaaahhhh……..and let the next inhalation happen by itself.
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2072 Granger Way