Author: vicSocotra

FREEDOM 250 AND APPARENT COLLUSION

Rocket escorted Deirdre to the start of the festivities downtown. You can see the weather-guessers getting up to their tricks today, with the possibility of thunderstorms and showers adding a little excitement to the prospect of running at something approaching 180 MPH on Pennsylvania Avenue. They were out for the first practice laps at 9:00 […]

Holly’s Dirty Diapers

So, Rocket and Deirdre are off on some adventure down in the old Refuge Farm territory in Culpeper. They just announced that they would not be back until tomorrow night. You can imagine how that made things get quiet around the Conference Table. Deirdre normally has the afternoon hot meal going at least in concept, […]

Deirdre’s Friday Numbers Dance Off

By The Numbers That is what led to the numbers game in the Socotra Conference Room on the fourth floor of The Trillium in Fairfax. You may have heard us call this our “Fifteen-Minute County.” Fairfax has attracted a substantial immigrant population over the years, and immigration has become part of the argument surrounding some […]

America’s Newest Heroes

Editor’s Note: The news this morning is trumpeting developments in Women’s Sports and a war over the roles of XX and XY chromosomes in a demonstration of the changing roles in our social structure. As the citation on Monica Lin Brown’s Silver Star denotes, there are other changes. Some of them are profound. Like the […]

Deirdre’s Dance Off

No, I am not going to pile on the details. I’ll save those for the book—either Cooking With Oil, which we hope to issue next month, or Cooking for the Crowd, which will come after all this anniversary celebrating is finally over. And the War. Please. These three really cook the books. My version of […]

By Viking to Tierra del Fuego?

There was a stirring in the Conference Room on the fourth deck of the Trillium building in Farmer Tysons Corner. There is a screen on the Socotra home page that appears after the “home” page with a global map covered with scrawls and lines. It is fairly comprehensive in the east-west direction, with occasional excursions […]

The Erection of a Monument

The above is what was approved last April. It is a big monument, signifying the start of a new century of national power. There has been some other activity in town that is remarkable for its energy. And for the jolts and sparks that will not settle into the usual gray legislative cycle of pale […]

Deirdre’s Mid-Week Recipes

You might have heard there are some changes coming up. There was a mild confrontation about whether school now starts with the sun blazing a hundred degrees and Labor Day still in the headlights. Here are some transitional recipes that make September’s arrival more fun! This one is a fun side dish, if I can […]

Before We Go Back to School

Hi! Deirdre here, now free that the fritters are done in the Galley. The messaging this morning is all over. Miles told me he was going to look at the mass shootings reported here and up in Michigan and Kentucky. The news here in DC is more settled, like how access to some of the […]