August 19th and August 21

August 19th:

Had a great lunch with B. from yoga. We celebrated our 10th anniversary graduating as trained yoga teachers! J We talked about what we knew of the others who were in our class at Desert Song. She still teaches there and I still go there for classes.

We sat at the bar which was quite comfortable because people were waiting to be seated at tables. She found the seats and they worked out well. We had these wonderful veggie burgers, and a creamed corn with some kind of curry and cilantro. I want that recipe! The burgers and the corn as a side dish were delicious. Their Cole slaw was pretty good, too. I have leftovers for dinner or lunch tomorrow.

Then she remarked on how the restaurant, Houston’s, didn’t look like there was a recession but there were lots and lots of empty commercial spaces in that mall/complex. There used to be small retail shops and offices and businesses but so much of it is empty now. This is true for all kinds of commercial properties these days; the large fancy ones and the little neighborhood strip malls (even if the strip malls have been completely redone like one near me.) The two other restaurants in that complex seemed to have a good business going today at lunch.

Her law firm has had revenue coming in slow down a lot in the last year. I don’t think they’ve had any layoffs there though.

“Excessive heat “for today and Thursday. But the temps are supposed to be “only” 110 and not 115 or so!
Lows sweeping in this weekend to lower temps. Dark is here by 7:15 these days.

August 21:

Overcast day and getting more overcast as the day goes by due to low and moisture coming into the state from the south in Mexico. It is a good day to try the hotter solar oven to see how it does on a day like this. Global Sun oven gets a little hotter than the Tulsi especially on days like this, I bet.

So, I chopped up zucchini, red bell pepper, onion, an ear of corn split in two, celery and carrots and olive oil, salt and pepper and a little garlic. The pepper and zucchini needed to be used in the next few days anyway day or so. Anymore, letting produce go bad seems a terrible thing to do to me especially since I have the easy way of cooking solar. Also, I made a brown rice and split pea dish. These are both in the Global Sun oven, rice dish on the bottom and the veggie sin the sun oven roaster pan on top of it.

I figure I’ll just leave it all out there for longer than it would take with a bright sunny day. Since no meat dish is involved, I’m sure it will cook just fine left out there long enough.

Later in afternoon: sun came out in full force about an hour after I put the food out.

Notes on State budget situation, From PBS program, Horizon on August 20th current
State Treasurer is explaining Arizona budget situation.

-State is broke. General Fund borrowed 386 million dollars to keep the lights on as of August 19.

-need balanced budget signed by Gov. or next Tuesday, we’ll need to borrow again and more.

-State gov can get 5-6 million by interagency borrowing. State agencies can borrow from each other but still need to leave enough money in each agency to fund that agency.

-Banks don’t want to lend to us unless we can pay it back.

-Will be running out of money by the end of October without a budget.

-Takes 6-8 weeks to set up credit facility for State to borrow money.

-some banks may not want to participate.

-Our rating is on a watch of some kind because of budget problems. This causes higher interest if we borrow and our rating is downgraded.

-If no resolution in budget by end of October, we might end up like California with IOUs, delayed payments, etc. Gov will have to decide who gets paid etc.

-New budget doesn’t allow for vote on possibly raising the sales tax in Nov. Why don’t these fools, Republican fools! (is my bias showing here?) in the legislature want the people to vote on this?? They can blame us for voting higher taxes in then and they can avoid any blame! GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

-we had last year in 2008 at this time 650 million dollars in the bank. State is spending at the same rate as last year.

all for now, Shamba