25- Did you vote?

Every election is important.

Every opportunity to flex your constitutionally given powers* is important.

I used an asterisk because in the constitution only white, male, Protestant land owners could vote.

Of course.

By 1830 most states had dropped the religious and land owning components.

In 1868, the 14th Amendment recognized African Americans as citizens, giving the males the right to vote.

Of course, this led to some states denial of this right.

In 1870, the 15th Amendment gave African Americans the right to vote. This amendment prohibited any state or local government from stopping them from voting.

But they still tried.

In 1890, Wyoming recognized a women’s right to vote. And they did so in the state constitution.

Go, Wyoming!

In 1920, the 19th Amendment was added to the constitution. This gave women the right to vote.

In 1947, all states granted Native Americans the right to vote.

And then some of states, outraged by being outnumbered, instituted a poll tax in the 1880s and 90s. This meant that people, mostly black men, had to pay a tax in order to vote. Naughty naughty. Some people will cheat to win, won’t they.

In 1964, the 24th Amendment stated unequivocally that no-one should be denied the right to vote because of bullshit, made up “tax”.

The 1960s were hot because in 1965 there was an amendment to the Voting Rights Act, the very same one the 2020s Supreme Court has been chipping away at, that banned the use of literacy tests.

In 1971, the voting age was lowered to 18. I am not sure if this was because of the Vietnam War. Because of the draft teenagers and 20 year old were old enough to die in a senseless war, but not old enough to vote.

Today your mission was to have voted.

It is the only way to send a message that some people will understand.

Beyond the economic blackout that is being planned for the end of the month.

Someone else said it best. Perhaps we should have a non-corporation holiday season and focus on the small companies.

FFS 10/31/25- Feed Me, Seymour!

It is definitely cartoon villain adjacent to give another country $40 BILLION dollars to shore up their currency when your own people are facing double or triple insurance premiums in 2026.

It is definitely cartoon villain adjacent to dangle food assistance for the food insecure people as a gotcha to make the Democrats do what you want and capitulate to the bullshit budget bill that will double or triple the healthcare exchanges premiums.

It is definitely cartoon villain adjacent to extort the Democrats to capitulate with your demands or 40 million American people will lose their SNAP benefits.

It is definitely cartoon villain adjacent to starve your own constituents.

It is definitely cartoon villain adjacent to give talking points to the bots that says that they don’t want their money to go to others having steak and candy and baked goods that they don’t have to bake themselves. And have it taken up by the mommy bloggers and the manosphere to endlessly repeat it.

Did you know that according to the USDA, in 2023, the average household who received SNAP got $332 per month. This is $177 per person. FOR ENTIRE FUCKING MONTH’S FOOD SPEND!!!

Now, I know that the vast majority of congresspeople and senators and people in the government do not do their own food shopping. I’m going to tell you gently that $177 is not steak money. It is money that goes to the dollar stores or Walmart to try to cobble some semblance of healthy food for the household. Again, for the entire fucking month. Breakfasts, lunch, dinner, a snack if you are lucky.

To do the math, even a little bit, $177 is roughly $5.90 per day. Again, not steak money. Hell, it isn’t even fruit and vegetable money.

But, but, Kate, it is in the name of the program “Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program”, it is supposed to be in addition to whatever you have to spend on food.

Ignorant fucker.

These numbers are from 2023. Before the inflation went nuts, before every little thing at the grocery store started to shrink in size, for the SAME price. This is known by the cutesy name “shrinkflation”. But what it really is is the multi billion dollar companies trying to make us pay more for less. Look, they cry, it is the same price as before.

Yeah, fucker, for less product.

This was hammered home to me yesterday when I pulled out the bag of Flaming Hot Cheetos so I could make a Halloween treat for Cookie Thursday is a Thing. This is not something I would normally buy the house as I anticipate no one would like it. The bag was 10 full ounces less than what was called for in the recipe I was following, almost half the number of ounces. 10.75 oz to the recipe ingredient which was a 20.5 oz bag. This made me take evasive maneuvers with the suddenly twice as much caramel than I needed.

I am lucky in that I can afford the prices and drive to more than one store, searching for the best price. But for how long? And even that is only if I maintain my current employment as a full time nurse in a hospital. But what about the ones that cannot?

As of this writing, a federal judge Rhode Island, Jack McConnel has blocked the administration from ceasing to pay SNAP benefits during the shutdown. Despite the lawyers for the administration arguing that SNAP doesn’t exist and there is not entitled to the $5 billion that was set aside by Congress in case of an emergency.

Like a government shutdown.

Their villainy strokes are so broad and diabolical you’d think they’d be afraid for their immortal soul.

Look, I don’t care if my tax dollars, and as a double income no kids couple we always pay, go to feeding the food insecure. It is a pittance compared to the corporate welfare that the gigantic companies receive every year.

So stop clutching your pearls and consider not torturing the single mother who is struggling.

The way better and bigger target are the corporations and the billionaires.

Cookie Thursday 10/30/25- Trick or Treat

Foiled again by the rain.

It’s been raining for 4 days. Cold, spitty kind of rain. The kind of rain that raises the humidity enough that candy won’t set.

But, like I wrote in last Wednesday’s Call Secrets of the OR, I am nothing if not flexible.

You see, Halloween is my favorite holiday. What’s not to love?

The costumes!
The candy!
The carving of the pumpkins! Or, if you’re me and busy, the buying of pumpkin to put on the front stoop.

I had planned four different candies for this Cookie Thursday is a Thing, Halloween edition! This is a traditional even that has been rained out several times during CTIAT.

But alas, it is too humid.

I was going to make an old fashioned vinegar candy.
I was going to make marshmallow candy corn.
I was going to attempt pop rocks again.
I was going to attempt strawberry mochi.

But what did I make as a pivot?

I made no bake matcha bark (gotta have something green, you know), caramel sweet chex mix, cheddar pickles and, the only recipe that made the line up for this Trick or Treat CTIAT Halloween edition, caramel hot Cheetos.

Also, there is a Trunk or Treat at the hospital right after CTIAT, so I didn’t want to get too ambitious.

The cheddar pickles was something I’ve made before and the department really liked. This was a super easy quick bake. Put the pickles in a layer on a paper towel and pat dry, taking care to make sure they aren’t too small or too large. Very goldilocks this recipe. In a mini muffin tin, put some shredded cheese into the bottom, top with a pickle, top with another layer of cheese. Simplicity itself.

Everything else was a new to me recipe.

The no bake matcha bark was decidedly simple to make. Three ingredients. White melting chocolate, matcha, and rice Krispies. Melt the chocolate, add the matcha, and when it is all combined to a pale green, add the cereal. Chill to set. This was surprisingly tasty. My husband swears by matcha, which is why we had it in the house.

I started the caramel for the caramel hot Cheetos. This is also a simple recipe, 2 c brown sugar, 1 c butter, 1/2 tsp baking soda, 10.5 oz bag of Flaming Hot Cheetos. Make the caramel, stir in the baking soda until the mixture is pale and frothy, add caramel to the Cheetos. Double check the bag against the recipe and realize that the bag was 10 oz of Cheetos.

Shrinkflation strikes again.

All of a sudden, I had more caramel than I knew what to do with. I portioned out most of the caramel into the Cheetos and stirred. I spread them out on a baking pan and baked at 250 degrees for 1 hour, stirring halfway through. I remembered we had a box of peanut butter chex that had not been eaten. I quickly upended it onto a baking sheet and stirred in the caramel. Now I needed more binder/fluid and I poured in the rest of the white chocolate. After the caramel Cheetos came of the oven, I popped the sweet chex mix in. I didn’t bake this for an hour, more like 20 minutes. When I pulled it out, I stirred it all together. The white chocolate was melty and the caramel was caramelly. Good enough. I chunked it apart and went to lunch with my mom.

When I got home I pulled the match bark out of the fridge and broke it apart.

I used parchment paper as boats for the four makes, so that the pickle juice wouldn’t get on everything and because it just looked neater that way.

Off I went to the hospital with my 2 trays of makes.

Another CTIAT Halloween down. Time to start planning the rest of the year.

Psych!

I’ve already got the rest of the year planned.

Call Secrets of the OR 10/29/25- all call cases are emergencies

All call cases are emergencies. I admit sometimes they are emergency adjacent but still the case must be done. There are the rare exceptions when the call team did a total knee in the middle of the night and then discharged the patient because the surgeon, who was 5 hours late, insisted. That’s for another time.

All call cases are emergencies. To that end, it is okay to tell another department who has their gurney waiting outside the room when you go to pick up a patient that their non-emergent test is just going to have to wait.

Yes, that happened.

Another nurse and I were up on the 4th floor picking up a patient. We packaged the patient up. This means that we removed all the monitors, and replaced them with our own, we cleared all the stuff from the bed that wasn’t the patient. We unplugged the bed and told the family to follow us to the elevators and opened the door.

To be confronted by a worker from another department, ready with a gurney, to take the patient to their department for a non-urgent test.

Um, no you may not have the patient for your non-urgent test.

No, I don’t care that this patient is next on your to do list.

No, I don’t care that it looks badly to your supervisor if you don’t get the test done in a timely manner.

This patient is ill, ill, ill and requires emergent surgery to fix what is wrong with them. Well, not fix, but to remove the offending body part that was making them so sick.

No, we have to rush down to the OR and start the surgery.

No, you will have to do your non-emergent test on them after surgery.

No, I don’t know how long the emergent surgery will take. Surgical cases take as long as they take for the surgery.

No, I don’t care that this is the last thing on your to do list and you get to go home after the non-emergent test.

Sometimes you just have to say no and mean it.

Even if it means blocking another department from getting their hands on the patient for a non-urgent test that could wait until morning. But they don’t want to tell the hospitalist the non-urgent test wasn’t done.

Sorry for delaying this non-emergent test for a real, honest to goodness emergency surgery without which the patient has a good chance of dying.

Nah, not sorry.

I’ll probably hear about this later from my manager.

Oh, well.

At least we saved that patient’s life.

FFS Friday 10/24/25- Fret not, the White House East Wing has gone to a better place

We should have expected this kind of reaction.

The reaction of an abuser when the abused stand up to them.

Also the reaction of a mob boss trying to shake down a business. I’m sure we’ve all seen the memes; “This is a real nice place, it would be a shame if something were to happen to it”.

This is a shakedown. Something we’ve already seen from this administration.

What happened to the East Wing of the White House this week went beyond that.

It was a message from an abuser to an abusee.

And absolutely was in response to the wildly successful No Kings Protest on 10/18/25.

He fumed all weekend and then went hard on “making the White House better”. In his image. After he “gilded” the Oval Office with tacky gold tchotchkes. After all, he wants a golden ballroom that none of us are ever going to step into.

He reacted by tearing out the East Wing of the White House. The image of our government as much as the Jefferson Memorial and the Vietnam Memorial Wall has been irretrievably broken apart.

Bit on the nose there, dude.

I saw a message from a trauma survivor that called this kind of over the top reaction that of a narcissist. Well, if the orange makeup is badly applied.

I was sickened and enraged by the pictures and video that were filmed and released by the Treasury.

If you haven’t seen them, google works just as well for you as for me. Watch them. Watch the gop try to soft pedal this desecration. Trigger warning, the pictures and video are obscene.

Also know that one of the talking points is that nothing ever happened in the East Wing anyway. And it wasn’t even original to the White House. As construction began in 1902 under Franklin D. Roosevelt and renovated several times. The idea of the East Wing goes back further. To Thomas Jefferson who

The East Wing was also the public entrance. Again, a bit on the nose. From the fascist who doesn’t like the American people and only cares about his image and his money. Not that any of his money will be spent building the ballroom.

That list is a who’s who of the billionaire elite and corporations.
Here is the list, sourced from the Time article released October 23, 2025 titled ‘Who is Paying for Trump’s $250 Million Dollar Ballroom- and What They Might Get in Return by Rebecca Schneid and Connor Greene.

Altria Group, Inc.
Amazon
Apple
Booz Allen Hamilton
Caterpillar, Inc.
Coinbase
Comcast Corporation
J. Pepe and Emilia Fanjul
Hard Rock International
Google
HP Inc.
Lockheed Martin
Meta Platforms
Micron Technology
Microsoft
NextEra Energy, Inc.
Palantir Technologies Inc.
Ripple
Reynolds American
T-Mobile
Tether America
Union Pacific Railroad
Adelson Family Foundation
Stefan E. Brodie
Betty Wold Johnson Foundation
Charles and Marissa Cascarilla
Edward and Shari Glazer
Harold Hamm
Benjamin Leon Jr.
The Lutnick Family
The Laura & Isaac Perlmutter Foundation
Stephen A. Schwarzman
Konstantin Sokolov
Kelly Loeffler and Jeff Sprecher
Paolo Tiramani
Cameron Winklevoss
Tyler Winklevoss

What you do with the names on the list is up to you.

The final thought I had about the East Wing (RIP) is that it housed the First Lady’s office.

Of course, it did. It’s all about control and hurting the women.

Aren’t you tired of being abused?

Cookie Thursday 10/24/25- Cotton Candy Cookies

Step right up, step right up!

Get your snacks before entering the big top.

Step right up!

What is a good circus snack?

Cotton candy.

Are there good cotton candy cookie recipes on the interwebs?

No.

But there is some AI slop where the picture doesn’t match the recipe ingredients.

But there is some AI slop where the picture is too good to be true.

Scary right?

And that is why Cotton Candy Cookies is a fitting edition to the Something Spooky This Way Comes October theme.

But I still had no recipe. So I read them all.

I had cotton candy, which none of the crappy recipes included. It seemed a good fit and was on sale.

I had cotton candy flavoring, which only 1 of the crappy recipes included.

You see one of the main problems with the AI generated picture is that the cookies looked like clouds. Like cotton candy. They were all sorts of colors; the palest of pinks and the cheerful yellow and the baby blue.

None of the recipes included food dye.

“Fine. I’ll do it myself!” Growled Obadiah Stane, the bad guy in the first Iron Man Movie.

He wanted control over the trillion dollar Stark Industries.

I just want a cotton candy cookie.

This cookie has been one of the true experiment cookies that I have done for awhile. I mean, Inflation Baking 2022 was the last time I really let my hair down in the kitchen. Experimentally, that is. My hair is always tied back when I bake and all the surfaces are freshly cleaned.

How to get the cotton candy into the cookies, without melting it?

Truly, a question for the ages.

I made a sugar cookie base (the one from the animal crackers week, nice to see that I am continuing the circus theme) and folded in cotton candy hunks.

Would this work?

Probably not.

But it was pretty.

When I pulled the first batch out of the oven, the cotton candy had coalesced into a ball of sugar. Kind of like a chip.

Perhaps these should be called Cotton Candy Chip Cookies.

I think I might be onto something here.

Or I could melt white chocolate chips and add the cotton candy flavoring to make a true chip.

Or I could melt white chocolate chips and add the cotton candy flavoring and the cotton candy and put it into a mold to make cotton candy chips.

Why do I only have these ideas when I am writing up the experiment results?

Call Secrets of the OR- Flexibility is your secret power

To be on call is to do battle with the unknown.

Every day.

Well, every shift.

Each moment you are on call can bring a phone call from the nursing supervisor. Or a text or call from a surgeon.

To be on call is to be vigilant every day. To sleep when you can and to know the power of a nap.

Some nurses and techs are unable to grasp this and stay awake all night, just waiting for the phone to ring to summon them to the hospital. Or they wake in a panic and check their phone, frantic that they have missed a text or a phone call.

Shhh. Relax. I always call twice. And so does the nursing supervisor.

This is part of our flexibility. The ability to sleep through anything and everything. The ability to work all night, have a small sleep with maybe a nap later and emerge ready to do battle with the unknown again.

More than that it is our flexibility to be okay with the known and unknown.

Will there be a case? Maybe.

Will I sleep all night and awake refreshed in the morning because there was no case? Maybe.

It is being absolutely okay with either instance that makes you flexible.

And don’t you forget it.

Battle stations.

Tuesday Top of Mind 10/21/25- No Kings is over, now what?

Yay, over 8 million people showed up to march. Well, 7-8 million, depending on who you believe.

Either way that is a LOT of people.

And there were even more who were unable to make it to an organized march.

It was a grand gesture.

Now what?

You may be feeling a bit down. From the adrenaline high, from the knowledge that the no kings protest was a show of no kings force but it was only that. A show.

The government is still shut down. Because the Democrats are holding firm on the ACA subsidy fight. So that everyday Americans, not illegals despite the lie they are trying to force down our throats, won’t see health care costs on the exchange skyrocket out of reach. I am proud of them.

The East Wing of the White House has been scarred. For one man’s ego and because no one ever told him no.

The House of Representatives is out for recess. Again. There have been 3 full weeks of work by them since July 1st. This is shameful and not what we voted for. Not only that, the deciding signature on the Resolution to release the Epstein files was elected in Arizona. Adelita Grijalva has yet to be sworn in by that coward, Mike Johnson. She was elected September 23 a full month ago. But Johnson would rather play ostrich with his head in the sand.

AI slop is being used for everything. I’ve seen many, many, many badly written headlines in the news with all sorts of errors- punctuation, spelling, word choice, and tense. I’ve seen badly shaped and colored memes that some people want use as a gotcha. Dream on.

It’s okay to feel a bit blue.

However, the pressure must be sustained. If there is anything I’ve learned as a nurse it is not to decrease pressure when the bleeding has slowed, that way leads to a hemorrhage.

Maintain that pressure.

Keep making the phone calls, even if you are talking to a machine.

Keep sending those emails.

Participate in Operation Mail Drop where scolding cards or postcards are sent to those in power. Yes, all of them. The object that you mail is up to you and your wallet. I’m not saying mail them something that might rot by the time it gets there, but I’m not not saying it either.

But, most importantly, VOTE.

There is a General Election this coming first Tuesday in November. Many states already have the early voting sites open.

It is your right to vote. Exercise it.

Send the next message to Washington that we see their depravity and their illegal acts.

And we won’t stand for it.

And we don’t care for it.

Keep the pressure on.

Keep the eyes on them.

We drown out the illiberal with protest

Millions have taken to the streets.

Frogs, unicorns, everyday Americans bearing placards.

Saying with one voice “No Kings!”

More are protesting in their own quiet way.

Because they can’t join a march. But protested with their pocketbooks.

Too bad there isn’t a way to quantify that.

This is a message from the American public who say no more.

This is a message from the America public for one man.

This is a message from the American public as one.

No Kings!

Remember we fought a whole Revolution for that.

FFS Friday 10/17/25- “No Food For You” to the nation’s hungry

This is in reference to the U.S. Department of Agriculture letter that advised state agencies to hold disbursements of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) for November. T

Their game is unknowable but is probably a lever to pressure Senate Democrats to vote to take on the so called clean continuing resolution to open the federal government. And probably a pain point to get those who are hungry and in need of SNAP to reach out to their representatives and beg them to open the government by passing the CR.

Diabolical in’t it?

That’s what they want. A reason to rat out the democrats to the voters for not doing enough to help those who are hurting.

I hope that people see through this charade.

Especially the ones that this hurts.

Especially as we hear that the government is giving now $40 BILLION dollars to Argentina to prop up their collapsing currency. Perhaps the attention should be on the United States economy and declining dollar. Just a thought.

According to the letter, the money exists in the USDA but the states are not allowed to spend it. The states are not allowed to give it out to the people who are on SNAP.

Instead those affected have to go to food banks, which are already stretched so so thin because of the economy in this country.

It is giving holding out bread to a starving person and then snatching it away and grinding it into the mud. That they then shove the starving person into.

It is giving Old Mother Hubbard with the empty cupboard to give the dog a bone. But she knows full well there is a second, secret cupboard for her own use and she hoards the contents. Even if the dog is hungry.

And shades of the Soup Nazi.

Full disclosure, I have never ever ever seen Seinfeld. I worked evenings/nights through the 1990s after I graduated from high school. I have only heard of it as a bit.

I direct those who are using this moment to make people hungry to Les Misérables by Victor Hugo.

And remember the name Jean Valjean. His prisoner number was 24601.

His only crime was that he stole a loaf of bread to feed his sister’s child, who was close to death from starvation. He received 5 years hard labor for that crime and 14 additional years hard labor because he tried to run.

I feel a relisten/rewatch of Les Mis is in order.