Blog storage

A long while back I took what for me was a huge leap in techno geekery… I started using Google Reader to keep track of all the blogs I like to follow.

It was as if heaven opened up and the angels began to sing. No longer did I go one by one down my blogroll, which like a teenager was growing exponentially not by the day, but seemingly by the hour. Instead I was notified when new blog postings were published. My Internet perusing time was cut in half, nay, by thirds, no quarters.

Now, I’ve been informed that as of July 1, Google Reader will be no more. After a day of teeth gnashing, and hair pulling, I gathered myself together and began the arduous task of finding something to do with the list of 250 blogs that I follow.

Google has made it somewhat easy to create an archive of my list, allowing me to download a copy of the collected data to export to a new Reader.

Through my extensive research (I spent a good portion of one Sunday morning perusing various options), I decided to give Feedly a try. I was able to sync my Google subscriptions easily and they stayed in their category files.  I’m not saying the Reader I picked is the best, but it’s working well for me. (Disclaimer: I am not being compensated by Feedly, it’s simply the platform I liked best.)

If you’re facing the same decision I am, what to do with all those blogs you like, there is another option: email subscriptions.

Most blogs offer this feature, allowing you to sign-up for direct notifications of a new post, and unlike Certain Readers-Which-Shall-Not-Be-Named, email isn’t going anywhere. My subscription registration is located near the top of my sidebar – just click on “Follow” and input your email address.

I guess this is a round about way for me to invite visitors to subscribe to my blog if you’re searching for a new way to manage your reading list.

I appreciate your support and would hate to lose any of you.

*An excerpt of this post was originally published on IMSO August 21, 2009; meaning I have used a Reader to manage my blog roll for nearly four years.

Telemarketer: West Africa calling

Each of my peeps have their own cell phone. Have had since each of our kids reached middle school age and became active in after-school activities.

Most of my family and friends, and business contacts, call my cell phone if they need to reach me. Even my Luddite mother, who shuns the Internet but finally got her own cell phone, only calls my cell phone.

Still I keep our landline at home. Well, it’s a cell phone too, but we maintain the same number we had when it was tethered to the wall.

I’ve registered all our phone numbers (including the home phone) several times with the Do Not Call telemarketing registry. Apparently, simply registering doesn’t guarantee avoiding robo-calls.

That’s where caller ID has been so handy. I estimate that of the few calls I receive on our house phone, 95% are telemarketers. If I don’t recognize the number, or at least the area code, I won’t answer. Anyone who really wants to talk to me can leave a voice message, and I’ll call them back. Otherwise, I ignore the call.

Sometimes though, just for giggles, I do a reverse lookup on the listed caller. I’ve yet to connect an unknown number to a legitimate business or an actual person. Typically, I find links to rant forums complaining about receiving calls from the same number I did.

I love some of the comments:

406-577-1215: One commenter called the telemarketer “…Robot Human Vultures circling you to pick your bones and wallet clean.”

215-383-3357: Alleged to be a home security company. Seriously? Blind calling people about installing alarm systems, seems, well… ironic.

618-551-5665: A pre-recorded message about suing credit card companies. Again, ironic, since contacting someone on the DNC Registry is supposed to be a criminal offense.

412-532-0136: Another home security scam. One forum member is keeping track of how often he’s contacted, hoping to successfully sue for the potential $1,500 in damages per call.

222-555-7777: I thought 555 numbers were only used on TV and the movies. The area code is Mauritania, a country in West Africa. The caller, according to the forums, attempts to get victims to allow access to home computers for a virus check. Turning down the offer, IT specialist Warren quipped, “… didn’t drink a glass of stupid this morning.”

Until I disconnect my landline, I’ll keep checking caller IDs and ignoring telemarketers. How to you handle unwanted phone calls?

Today I shall behave…

Today I shall behave as if this is the day I will be remembered.” ~ Theodor Seuss Geisel

If I had to describe my personality, I’d say I’m fairly introverted. I don’t typically go out of my way to be noticed, staying under the radar whenever possible. I’m not what I would consider memorable.

That is when I can be recognized. From the fringe, where I can’t be readily identified, I can be totally psycho, but that’s not how I truly want to be remembered.

I don’t want to be remembered as the crazy motorist in the blue Honda, yelling obscenities and making rude gestures at anyone she deems incompetent to share a road with her.

I don’t want to be remembered as the ranting woman in mismatched exercise wear, with her mismatched dogs, screaming at cars speeding passed her during her morning walks.

I don’t want to be a doormat who allows others to take advantage of her stubborn belief that people are who they say they are, and avoids conflict instead of speaking up for herself.

What I do want to be remembered for is that I was that friend you could count on for a shoulder to cry on, an ear to vent to, the one who could make you laugh so hard you snorted, or the one who made you glad you knew her.

What I want people to remember about me is that I was the very best mother I could be. That my kids were raised to be happy, compassionate, funny, smart, and productive adults. That they are the type of people you want to be friends with too.

(I have only one person to impress as far as being a wife is concerned…  so, yeah)

I want to be remembered well, with smiles and warm feelings.

On any given day, I should be able to say I live my life like my eulogy depends on it.

Week 10: Inspired by Dr. Seuss, honoring his March 2 birthday. I chose this quote: “Today I shall behave as if this is the day I will be remembered.”

*Photo venue: Jesse Rodgers Memorial Cemetery, Fort Walton Beach, FL

Cafe con leche

Whenever I visited Hilde, my adopted Cuban abuela, she would drink espresso from china demitasse cups she brought with her when her family fled Havana.

The afternoon I helped her scrape black beans off the ceiling when her pressure cooker exploded, she made me cafe con leche, and a love for sweet coffee was awakened in me.

Using an espresso machine, follow the instructions for brewing, using about 5 tablespoons of Cuban, Dark Roast Espresso Ground, packed, for each cup of water.

Add 4-6 teaspoons sugar (per cup of water) to the pot the coffee drips into, stirring the first few drips to make a frothy foam. You want the drink very sweet.

Combine one shot of sweet coffee to a small cup of hot, steamed milk.

Prompt #12: In 57 words or less, tell us about the best drink you ever had.

Pocket full of pebbles

I’m not sure what it is about me, but I often feel that I am some sort of confessional magnet. Maybe it’s my perceived zen-esque attitude, or how I talk about my family, or… who knows what, but people tend to tell me things like I’m an Internet bartender.

Deep things, ‘this shit is getting real’ things, things where I want to put my fingers in my ears and sing “lalalalalalala lalala lalala,” until they stop talking, but I can’t seem to do that.

I can’t just say, “sorry, can’t help you,” even if I should, even if I know I’m getting sucked into a wormhole of crazy.

And let me tell ya, I know crazy – from everyday crazy, to highly medicated crazy, to “she should be wrapped in a net and put in a padded room” crazy. It could be that because I am intimately familiar with many levels of dysfunction, that I can listen to these confessions and honestly say “I’m not judging.”

Unless I have first-hand knowledge of continuing abuse – physical, sexual, emotional, psychological – I also know there are always two sides to every story, and I may only hear one side. I may be told a crock of shit, I don’t know, so I can’t, won’t judge anyone coming to me for help.

Take a situation like Rihanna and Chris Brown. The majority of what is known about their relationship has played out through the media. It’s pretty much a given that Brown did beat her, and now four years later, they appear to be together again. What we can’t know is what was said and done between them in private. We don’t know and most likely never will.

I know a woman who reconciled with a man who abused her as a child. If you were looking at this relationship from the outside and knew their history, how would you judge it? What we can’t know are the conversations they had that lead to their reunion.

After one rather onerous confession, I consulted my son. You may think that odd, but the confession involved someone who was having an extramarital affair, and who was also coping with a serious mental illness. While he doesn’t have the same illness, my son deals with his own thought disorders. I thought he could offer some valuable insight.

The person having the affair blamed his illness for his carnal straying. I asked The Boy his opinion… without giving him all the sordid details.

His answer was perfect – “Having (a thought disorder) doesn’t give you a ‘Get Out of Jail Free’ card, you still know what you’re doing.”

In essence, you can’t blame your crazy for doing stupid things, especially if you have your sort of crazy in check.

Numerous other friends have confessed affairs to me. I don’t know if they sought my blessing to cheat on their spouses, if they wanted me to absolve them of their sin, or if they merely felt a need to unburden themselves, but I’m left with this secret that I don’t know what to do with.

I won’t stop being friends with a person just because of an affair, but I try very hard to not get involved. I’ve gotten invested in that sort of drama before and it came back to bite me on the ass. I’m done with that. I won’t take sides, I won’t be a go-between, and I don’t feel it’s my place to tell the other spouse about the affair.

Okay, I may judge you for being a douche(tte) if you try denying culpability in an affair. I will taunt you for your sophistry, just ‘man-up’ and accept your full share of the blame.

It comes down to this… none of us are perfect. We all make mistakes and hope for redemption, but we need to own those mistakes. I won’t judge you for being human, I have far too much garbage in my life to criticize someone else. I simply don’t have a stone small enough to throw at anyone.

with a bang or a whimper?

It’s 5:33 a.m., Friday, Dec. 12, 2012. And, I’m awake. Not because the world is destined to end in less than 20 minutes, but because this is my usual insomnia-induced, circadian rhythm hell.

All my peeps are tucked, asleep in bed, oblivious to the pending doom. I’m fighting a powerful urge to rouse them all, making them huddle together in the hallway, like I did the morning we were under a tornado warning and the windows had started to rattle.

I don’t expect the end of the world… but I am also that person, at age 50, who can convince herself a bogeyman still lives under my bed.

Mayan calendar doomsdayers aside, I don’t literally believe ( I think in this case, the word usage is correct) the world is going to end. I still have Christmas shopping to do, and the College Kid is finally going to take that Study Abroad trip she’s wanted for so long.

There are things to do and places to go, people to meet… coffee to make. I have ten minutes left to finish my bucket list for Gawd sake.

Hopefully, I’ll see you soon…

Friendship Bread, the gift that keeps giving

With the holidays fast approaching, I dug out a favorite gift-giving recipe that is meant for sharing. Not just the final baked deliciousness that you present, but also the actual ingredients.

A friend (hence the name) gave me this recipe years ago. An audience participation project, it’s also a commitment of time, taking a minimum of ten days from start to finish.

Once begun, this project can take on a life of its own, but it can also bring you closer to your friends, especially if they aren’t familiar with how to keep the sourdough ‘alive’ and have to rely on you for their starter fix.

The traditional recipe makes a sweet, spice cake-type bread. The more contemporary recipe can be adapted to your personal tastes depending on the flavor of pudding mix you use. You can also use almonds or pecans instead of walnuts, or other dried fruits in place of the raisins and dates.

I’ve used chocolate pudding, white chocolate chips and dried cranberries… the resulting bread lasted all of ten minutes.

Starter:

1 (¼ oz) package active yeast (or 2¼ teaspoons bread machine yeast)
¼ cup warm water (110°F/45°C)
3 cups all-purpose flour, divided
3 cups sugar, divided
3 cups milk, divided

Directions:

1. In a small glass bowl dissolve yeast in water. Let stand 10 minutes. In a 2 quart container (glass, plastic or ceramic) combine ONE cup each of flour and sugar, mixing until well blended (this will help keep the dry ingredients from clumping when you add milk.) Slowly stir in ONE cup milk and yeast mixture, stirring well with a wooden or plastic spoon to avoid lumps (if lumps do form, pour the mixture through a sieve, pushing the lumps through the mesh). Cover loosely and let stand at room temperature until bubbly. Do not refrigerate at this point. Count this as Day 1.

2. Days 2-4 stir starter with a wooden spoon.

3. Day 5 stir in ONE cup each of flour, sugar and milk.

4. Days 6-9, stir only.

5. On Day 10 add ONE cup each of flour, sugar and milk. Divide starter into four cups of mixture. Use one cup to make bread, share two cups with friends, and keep one cup to continue starter cycle. The one cup of starter held for bread can be stored in the refrigerator until ready to use.

4. Using the remaining cup of starter, count this as Day 1 and continue from step #2.

Friendship Bread ~ Traditional

1 cup bread starter
2/3 cup vegetable oil
3 eggs
1 cup sugar
½ teaspoon salt
1 ¼ teaspoon baking powder
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
½ teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon vanilla

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350° F /175°C. Grease 2 (9×5-inch) loaf pans.

2. In a large bowl, combine starter, oil, and eggs. Set aside. In a separate bowl, combine dry ingredients and stir well to mix. Add to starter mixture, stir in vanilla and mix well. Pour evenly into prepared pans.

3. Bake in preheated oven for 50-60 minutes or until tests done. Cool for 10 minutes in pans before removing to wire rack to cool completely.

Friendship Bread ~ Contemporary

1 cup starter
½ cup vegetable oil
½ cup applesauce
1 cup sugar
3 eggs
½ cup milk
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 (5 0z.) package instant vanilla pudding mix (or favorite flavor)
1 cup chopped walnuts
½ cup raisins
½ cup pitted/chopped dates

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 325°F/165°C. Lightly grease 2 (9×5-inch) loaf pans.

2. In a large bowl stir together starter, oil, applesauce, sugar, eggs and milk. Set aside. Combine dry ingredients, stirring into starter mixture. Stir in vanilla and pudding mix. Fold in nuts, raisins and dates. Pour batter evenly into prepared pans.

3. Bake for 60 minutes or until tests done. Cool for 10 minutes in pans before removing to wire rack to cool completely.

It’s important that you don’t use any metal bowls, utensils or containers ~ only glass, plastic or ceramic. The starter will bubble up and smell slightly like beer. If it turns pinkish in color and develops a foul smell, it’s gone bad and you should discard it. Once begun, the starter should remain at room temperature throughout the 10 Day cycle. ENJOY!

*From the Vault of If Mom Says OK. Edited and updated. Originally posted Jan. 24, 2009