The demise of my sleeper sofa.

When did furniture become so cheaply built?

When I retired from the big DC law firm in 2020, the firm graciously offered to buy me anything I wanted, up to a certain price point. I opted for a full-size sleeper sofa. I figured it would be a great way to have both seating in the new place in Santa Fe and sleeping accommodations for overnight guests. Plus a full-size sofa would fit best in the 500-square-foot apartment I was getting. Genius, right?

Here's the sofa I asked for:

Stolen from Wayfair's website

Here's the sofa I got (I bought the throw pillows just recently): 

Lynne Cantwell 2024

You'll note that it has three sections across the back, not two. That's because what they sent me is a queen-size sleeper. It pretty much dominated the living room of that little apartment. It fits better in the condo -- but that has become a moot point since this happened a couple of weeks ago:

Lynne Cantwell 2024

See that little stubby piece of metal sticking up at the bottom of the picture? It was once welded to the pipe that I'm holding. The bed part still works fine; the sofa part, not so much. 

The two-by-four is part of my attempt to support that loose pipe so that the weld on the other side doesn't also break. It's working about as well as you'd expect.

The sad thing is that the sofa was actually pretty comfy. That's unusual for a sleeper, in my experience, and it runs counter to a recent trend that consumers have complained about: reasonably-priced sofas that look good online but are super uncomfortable once you receive them. I could blame the pandemic for my troubles -- I did take delivery of the sofa in the middle of 2020 -- but it turns out that people had been complaining about the quality of new furniture for years before the supply chain broke. 

What's the culprit? Cheap imported furniture, which caused sales of US-made furniture to crater, causing those manufacturers to lay off their workers and sell out to hedge funds -- which have done what they've done to every other part of the manufacturing sector they could get their hands on. That's how you get the Broyhill name attached to crappily made furniture sold exclusively by Big Lots. The made-in-the-US furniture companies that have survived, according to the article at the link above, are building much more expensive products for affluent customers who can afford to hire interior designers to do their shopping for them.

As for the rest of us, it might be worth haunting thrift and consignment stores for well-made pieces from the past. But who has that kind of time?

If I knew someone with a welding setup, I suppose I could get my sofa repaired -- but I don't. And taking it to someone's shop seems problematic. So I'm biting the bullet and buying a replacement from Apt 2B. The company has good reviews (which, hopefully, they didn't pay for), the furniture is made in the US (they claim), and the mattress will definitely be full-sized. It was three times the price of my retirement gift, but hopefully it will last longer than four years. 

It sucks to have to get a new sofa so soon.

Anyway, I'll report back.

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These moments of bloggy planned obsolescence have been brought to you, as a public service, by Lynne Cantwell. Stay safe! And make sure you're (still) registered to vote!

Native voting is pretty new, actually.

This weekend is the annual Indian Market in Santa Fe. It's huge -- there were 1,000 artists displaying their work this year -- and it was hot and crowded when I went yesterday afternoon. Collectors come from all over the country to see the best in Native American art. The artists come from all over the country, too; I met one who's a member of the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi (which, coincidentally, is Darrell Warren's tribe). (I wish I'd grabbed his business card so I could tell you his name. He tattoos his art onto buffalo skins, which you've got to admit is pretty cool.)

Along with the art, this poster caught my eye: 

Lynne Cantwell 2024

(The phrase is from Reservation Dogs, which ran on FX until last year. The photo is of Zahn McClarnon, who played a cop on the show. He also plays a cop on Dark Winds on AMC.)

It wasn't surprising to see a get-out-the-vote effort at Indian Market; we are in an election year, after all. But then I ducked into the Palace of the Governors in an effort to beat the heat, and I found an exhibit that explained why voting is a really big deal for Native Americans.

Here's the thing: Even though Native tribes were here first, the U.S. government treated their members as foreigners for legal purposes (along with treating them as stupid savages and less than human, but I digress). Birthright citizenship was not extended to Indians. They were allowed to enlist in the armed forces and fight for the United States, but they weren't citizens until Congress passed the Indian Citizenship Act in 1924. In that legislation, Congress left it up to individual states to decide whether to allow Native Americans to vote. Here in New Mexico, it took a court ruling to grant them suffrage. 

The case, Trujillo v. Garley, centered on Miguel Trujillo (Isleta Pueblo), a World War II veteran. After returning home from the war, Trujillo tried to register to vote in Valencia County, NM, but the county registrar, Eloy Garley, refused his request because he was an "Indian not taxed" -- a provision in state law that took advantage of a loophole in the U.S. Constitution. With the help of the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Congress of American Indians, Trujillo sued Garley in federal court in 1948, disputing the state's contention that he did not pay taxes -- and providing receipts. A panel of three U.S. district court judges agreed with Trujillo and ordered the county to register him to vote. For the panel, Judge Orie Phillips wrote: 

[The constitution of New Mexico] says that "Indians not taxed" may not vote, although they possess every other qualification. We are unable to escape the conclusion that, under the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, that constitutes a discrimination on the ground of race. Any other citizen, regardless of race, in the State of New Mexico who has not paid one cent of tax of any kind or character, if he possesses the other qualification, may vote. An Indian, and only an Indian, in order to meet the qualifications to vote must have paid a tax. How you can escape the conclusion that makes a requirement with respect to an Indian as a qualification to exercise the elective franchise and does not make that requirement with respect to the member of any race is beyond me.

Two weeks earlier, the Arizona Supreme Court had overturned the law in that state that prohibited Native Americans there from registering to vote. 

You'd think that would have been the end of it, but no -- Utah didn't extend the franchise to Native Americans until 1957. And all of these actions only allowed Native men to vote; Native women weren't allowed to register until 1965, when Congress passed the Voting Rights Act.

(Contrast that with the 15th Amendment, added to the Constitution in 1870, that enfranchised Black men. But I digress.)

Barriers remain, of course. Many reservations are vast, and people have to travel long distances to get to a polling place. In addition, some states require those who register to vote to have a street address, which disenfranchises folks on reservations whose homes don't have street addresses. The New Mexico legislature enacted a law last year that, among other things, allows tribes to designate their tribal offices as a legal street address for members who don't have one.

The issue, as always, is control. The powers-that-be have never been comfortable with granting rights to large groups of people who they have mistreated and who might just vote to turn them out of power. There's evidence that it actually happened in Arizona in the 2020 election: turnout was high on the Navajo and Hopi reservations, and President Biden won the state by about 10,500 votes. 

White folks have had the right to vote in this country for a long, long time. We shouldn't take it for granted. We've recently had a federal right taken away from us and left up to state legislatures to decide whether to grant. (You know which one I mean.) And there's that Project 2025 thing looming. So don't be a shitass -- vote!

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These moments of historical blogginess have been brought to you, as a public service, by Lynne Cantwell. Check your voter registration early and often!

Curmudgeon's Corner: I love my microwave.

I said I wouldn't do another political post this week, so y'all are stuck with this. 

Lynne Cantwell 2024

It has become trendy to dunk on the microwave oven -- or at least that was the sense I got when I was reading all those kitchen renovation articles last year. (I'm done with renovating my kitchen now, so you can stop showing me those, Google, kthx.) The current popular opinion is that a microwave is a big, boxy thing that takes up space on the counter or a big, boxy thing that hangs over the stove where a much more powerful range vent ought to be. People don't know how to use them. This article by Jacob Sweet in The Atlantic last year (sorry for the paywall) says, in part: "Not only are microwaves ugly, but they are not particularly user-friendly", and then talks about the "Potato" button, the "Pizza" button, the "Beverage" button, and the notoriously useless "Popcorn" button. He goes on: "After four years, I'm still not sure whether it's possible to set a cook time at an interval of fewer than 30 seconds; I just press '+30 Sec' repeatedly and watch to make sure nothing explodes."

I mean, he's right about the buttons. But a lot of the rest of his rant could be solved by reading the damned instruction manual. And as for ugly? Are you kidding me? That's like calling your dishwasher ugly! Or your refrigerator!

Although... Hmm. The trend nowadays in high-end kitchens is to hide dishwashers and fridges behind paneling to match the cabinetry. I begin to see where this is going.

Back in the mid 1980s, my in-laws gave us a microwave as a wedding gift. You want to talk about big, boxy and ugly? That thing was so gigantic that it needed its own cart. But it was a godsend for two working people, especially after the kids came along. I cooked everything in it except pasta and bread. Well, and eggs. I never mastered microwaving scrambled eggs; they would get fluffy, but they'd get all 'splodey first. Anyway, eggs were still on the "foods that will kill you" list back then, so we didn't eat very many of them.

All through school, my kids got home-cooked meals nearly every night. It was quicker to microwave a meal on busy nights than to sit in the drive-thru line at McDonald's.

That original microwave is long gone, but I still have the cookbook that came with it -- and I still use it. The guidelines for how long to cook things like winter squash (poke holes in your squash, put it on a paper towel, cook on high for about 9 minutes or until squeezy soft) and corn on the cob (leave the ears in the husk, put on the turntable on a paper towel, cook on high for 3 to 4 minutes per ear) are still pretty accurate. I even cook meat in it (on a Pampered Chef stoneware pan).

(When I told an acquaintance that I cooked meat in the microwave, she cautioned me that I should be careful because meat needed to cook to an internal temperature of 160 degrees Farenheit. I told her that I'd been doing it for years, and we'd never gotten sick from undercooked meat. Kinda blew her mind.)

Anyway. The very first appliance I replaced in my kitchen here was the microwave. Some idiot had punched through the plastic cover over the clock/timer display, so I could never tell what time it was or how long stuff still had to cook. Air fryers were all the rage at the time, but I don't cook much breaded stuff (being low carb). And besides, I didn't have room for another small appliance. 

Then I discovered this guy. It's a combination microwave and convection oven. It does all the usual microwave stuff, plus it serves as a second oven and an air fryer. I don't use the air fryer mode much, but I've made pork tenderloin and frozen pizza in it, and they have come out great.

Now granted, I had to go to the manufacturer's website and download the actual manual. At first, I couldn't figure out how to change the cooking temperature to something other than high, but the manual explained it. I also learned how to use the defrost feature by time instead of weight, which I'd never figured out on the last few microwaves I've had. And the manual has been useful for using the convection features.

Anyway, I love this appliance. I use it every day. People who trash microwaves just don't know how to use them. Read the manual, for crying out loud.

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I should mention that virtually all microwaves are made in China by one company, although you probably knew that. (Feel free to bail at the five-minute mark on that video -- the rest is a commercial for the video maker's channel.)

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These moments of bloggy cooking advice have been brought to you, as a public service, by Lynne Cantwell. Make sure you're (still) registered to vote!

When existential threats stop working, try joy. Weird, right?

The thing that's at the top of my mind right now is Vice President Harris's running-mate pick, but that's not what this post is about. I'm writing this on Sunday morning, and knowing what I do about the news cycle – not to mention Murphy's Law – I'm a tad concerned that any speculation I make might be moot by the time this hits the interwebz, and I'd have to junk it and write something else anyway. So let's talk about a different politically related thing. (I'll write about a non-political topic next week, I promise.)

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No matter who Harris picks, we have to give props to Minnesota Governor Tim Walz for being the first to call the Republicans weird. "These are weird people on the other side," he said on MSNBC. Not only does former President Trump say weird stuff (sharks and batteries, whut?), but their platform is chock-full of weird ideas. And his running mate, JD Vance, says weird stuff, too: "My God, they went after 'cat people.' Good luck with that! Turn on the internet and see what cat people do when you go after 'em."

rogistok | Deposit Photos

Walz's phrasing has gone viral. Even the Harris campaign is calling Trump, Vance, and their minions weird.

This has been going on for a couple of weeks now. So of course the moderate-to-liberal punditry is trying to steer the conversation back to their favorite topic: Trump is way worse than just weird; his reelection would mean the end of democracy. The Washington Post has run two opinion pieces along those lines in the past week: one by Jennifer Rubin and one by Colbert King. Other papers' columnists are doing the same thing.

I mean, they're not wrong. But the chattering class has been warning us about Trump's existential threat to democracy ever since the guy first rode down his golden escalator in 2015. Every election since then has been THE MOST IMPORTANT EVER!!! And yet every election has seen democracy prevail. 

It's not that we haven't come close to losing it. It's that something has always intervened to save us. 

And so when Americans who don't live and breathe political coverage hear, yet again, that this year's election is once again THE MOST IMPORTANT EVER!!1!1!! – they might tune out. 

But "weird"? That's a concept everybody can relate to. Plus it's funny. And it's annoying the crap out of the other side.

We're all familiar with the story about the boy who cried wolf. When the wolf finally showed up, nobody took the kid seriously. Would the town have been saved if the boy had changed his messaging?

Marketers of all stripes know that emotions drive engagement, and fear is a particularly useful emotion in that regard. Both parties use it: Republicans use migrants and crime in their scaremongering; Democrats use The Handmaid's Tale and Project 2025. Whether any of those claims are true is beside the point. What I'm saying is that the parties use them as tools to get voters on their side.

Joy is another emotion – one that marketers don't often rely on. But we've all seen the power of joy over the past couple of weeks. Democrats are fired up for Harris. There's been a lot of laughter and dancing. And we've had a lot of fun by calling the other side weird.

I know some of y'all don't believe in woo-woo stuff. But back in 2022, Druid priest John Beckett wrote about a ritual he participated in at the Mystic South convention that year. In the ritual, a seeress channeled Loki, the Norse Trickster god. Loki was very clear that His messages needed to get out into the world. One of His messages was this: Cultivate joy.

As soon as He took over the Seeress Bergrune, Loki began laughing and dancing – including asking questioners to dance with Him. And then in a tone that was both light-hearted and deadly serious, He said:

"Joy! There must be joy and we must make sure in this time that is dark and growing darker with war and disease and death and all the rest, joy or else my son [Fenris] will eat the world."

(In Norse mythology, Fenris, also called Fenrir, is the wolf prophesied to kill Odin at Ragnarok.)

And now here we are, doing just as Loki asked, and making politics fun. Weird, huh?

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Pop quiz for my friends from Kevin's Watch: How does Foamfollower defeat Lord Foul in The Power that Preserves? 

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These moments of bloggy weirdness have been brought to you, as a public service, by Lynne Cantwell. Cultivate joy!