The other night, when I was putting the house to bed, (locking the doors, closing the windows, turning off lights, drawing the curtains), the curtain, plus rail, in the living room came galumphing down and nearly took out my shoulder. After a few of these #@!%@#*! , I galumphed in to a chair myself and thought, “Well, that just about sums up my week; broken and broke!” And I went from being in a funk to floundering in the Slough of Despond.
‘This miry Slough is such a place as cannot be mended; it is the descent whither the scum and filth that attends conviction for sin doth continually run, and therefore is it called the Slough of Despond: for still as the sinner is awakened about his lost condition, there ariseth in his soul many fears, and doubts, and discouraging apprehensions, which all of them get together, and settle in this place; and this is the reason of the badness of this ground.’
Isn’t that such a great description of despondency? It made me feel better just by reading it and wallowing, for a while, in its awful miry scumminess.
Most of my funk came from the outcome of 4 month-long pension review/battle with our government pension department. It’s too vexing and complicated to explain in this post but, basically, the outcome was not in our favour. As a result, our pension income is, now, several thousands of dollars lower per annum than we expected it to be. The review results were delivered, this week, in a pleasant letter, and came with the offer of taking the matter through to further reviews and committees; and was signed, yours sincerely, ( by a sincere young man whom I have come to know well, mostly through an exchange of very annoyed letters on my part 😦 )
Yes, well, harumph and grump; I am not entirely sure I can be bothered with continuing my pension crusade. Whilst all this was going on, Vickie Lester at Beguiling Hollywood posted this quote, from Franklin D Roosevelt, which entirely suited my mood
Let us not be afraid to help each other—let us never forget that government is ourselves and not an alien power over us. The ultimate rulers of our democracy are not a President and Senators and Congressmen and Government officials but the voters of this country.
She was, of course, using the quote in relation to the shutdown of the US Government but, in my dealings with Government bureaucracies and officials and official forms, over the years, I have often felt that there is a complete lack of understanding by Government, (and its officials) , of its purpose and role; that is, it is OUR service and its workers are OUR servants whom we ask to use OUR money wisely and for OUR benefit. Democratic governments were never intended to be our rulers, our disempowerers, forever telling us what to do, and not to do, and which part of form WXB para. 8 c, sub-clause 24 we forgot to complete or completed incorrectly, and, and, and………….oh, and, by the way, does anyone remember when they last received a letter from a Government official signed, ” Your most humble and obedient servant.” ?
Thought not! That practice went out the window a long time ago. The Queen is about the only one who still remembers to use those words 🙂
Well, rant, rant……enough of it. To cheer myself, I made, and ate, my humble pie, otherwise known as Crostata. The recipe I use is based on thisone by Ina Garten, the Barefoot Contessa.
I am relatively new to the art of Crostata-making but I love its easy, rustic free-form style. And it is very forgiving of mistakes and carelessness. My Crostata, this week, had a filling of rhubarb and apple, spiced with orange peel and ginger. I used up some pastry I had leftover from a potato pie I had made earlier in the week . Until quite recently, I was afraid of pastry making, worried that it was too complicated for my culinary skill levels. But, in a moment of epiphany one fine day, it occurred to me that pies were once the most commonplace of foods and, therefore, should be as easy as pie to make. And so they are; with the help of a kitchen whizz, a good helping of nonchalance, and a light touch with the rolling-pin and a good hot oven.
Free-Form Pie; rough as….
Perhaps it’s not the best looking pie you’ve ever seen but it tasted absolutely delicious.
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A slice
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of humble pie
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for you
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and me 🙂
And to cheer myself even more, I challenged myself to make a sound recording. It’s as rough and ready as my Crostata but, hey, I did it. 🙂 Perhaps there’s still a little filling left in the old girl yet!
© silkannthreades
silkannthreades 