And his voice sounded terrible. To me, anyways. (Looks like I’m not the only one, although this Washington Post authro came around) The official two performances were a new song, The Days We Left Behind, and Wings, Band on the Run. I went to bed and didn’t hear his 3rd song, that Mark said was the best of the bunch. It was Coming Up from his 2nd solo album. Later I guess he actually did Help with Will Ferrell (the host of the SNL season 51 finale) on cow bell and Chad Smith (who’d been Will Ferrell’s doppelganger in the opening monologue) from Red Hot Chili Peppers on drums, and they also did Drive My Car. They moved over to a different set that looked more like the Cavern. I’m not sure if my local NBC station televised it; I was in bed anyways.
Like I said, this was on the SNL season finale, May 16th, which seems about 6 months ago now, even though it’s only 8 days later, on the Sunday Monday of Memorial Day weekend.
I felt like it was metaphor for our government now, too many old folks hanging on to power. congress.gov says “the average age of Members of the House at the beginning of the 119th Congress [2025-2026] was 57.9 years; of Senators, 63.9 years”. Embarrassingly many of those hanging on for dear life are my generation, baby boomers, although I’m either right in the middle or on the young side of boomers, depending on how you count. My brother, born in 1957, always said he thought his was the last real year of the baby boom, but according to Pew Research, the Baby Boom dates are 1946-1964. They’ve even prepared a chart that shows how long it’s going to take for us to die off. 
But then Sir Paul was on Stephen Colbert’s last show and sounded much better there.
And if you use Pew’s calculations, even Colbert is a Boomer. Somehow that doesn’t seem right to me. I’d label him Gen X. Sir Paul, of course was born during World War II; Elvis C’s a Boomer for sure, born in 1954.
But maybe there is some justice in the world. On Wednesday, the Brewers beat the Cubs at Wrigley, three times in a row, with Wednesday being the third time. One of the Cubs, Pete Crow-Armstrong, who I guess is one of the Cub’s great white hopes this year, made a really bad fumble. That gave the Brewers 3 runs. This’s the same Pete Crow-Armstrong (PCA) who a few days prior was involved in a heckling incident, where there was obviously bad behavior on both sides. People are loving Crow-Anderson, or Cubs fans are anyhow, because he’s intense and emotional, but got carried away. In a game between the White Sox and the Cubs, a woman Sox fan yelled “you suck” at PCA, who yelled back, “suck my f…king dick, bitch”. PCA later said he regretted his choice of words, but he was fined by MLB. One place I read it was a $5,000 fine but another place I saw “undisclosed”. But I think the fumble is a better comeuppance than the fine. And I think John and Megan were at the game.
I thought there was some other cultural observation I wanted to make … I can’t remember now. So, here’s some food and flower and Jasper pics to finish out.
Friday before Memorial day we had a Chicago Symphony. We decided to go eat lunch at the food court at the Sears Tower, and tried a new outpost of a chain of semi-healthy, semi- fast food, Mendocino Farms.
Their official photo of the crispy rice salad I chose, cardiologist friendly.
My photo of the same thing
Sunday the 16th I made a spinach and asparagus tart for Sunday brunch.
Another rhubarb cake attempt, this one a nice simple Danish-American version, a plain cake with chopped rhubarb. With whole milk and vegetable oil instead of butter.
There’s a small wedge left that I think I might make into cup trifles.
Roasted sweet potatoes on top of hummus with carrot ribbon salad with walnut & seeds on top. Not a very impressive picture but it was really good.
Recipe by this guy, who’s pretty hilarious.
On Saturday, we had people over for a porch & backyard picnic, that turned into a porch & kitchen picnic because it looked like it might rain. I made BBQ tofu and BBQ pork (in separate pots) and some buns and coleslaw to go with. I also made a quick appetizer, roasted cherry tomatoes over goat cheese whipped in the food processor with a little cream cheese and a spoonful of honey. Big hit, super easy, I think it’ll reappear at the cookie party. I ate the last dab on toast for breakfast on Sunday morning. People brought lots of nice sides, potato salad, fruit salad, Jane’s spicy Gougères. I made desserts: rhubarb handpies, and lime white chocolate blondies.
I only got 15 handpies – I was sure I’d gotten more the last time I made them, but I obviously made this July 2024 batch a lot smaller.
So, I didn’t get one Saturday, and I had a tiny dab of the cream cheese filling and plenty of rhubarb puree and a little piece of pie crust in the freezer. So I made a giant hand pie for me and Mark to split on Sunday night. Which was quite good even though it got a little too dark on the bottom.
Flower pics, yellow iris, honeysuckle, and hot pink peonies.
And here’s that picture of Jasper, drinking rhubarb sody pop.
