Please, Sir, May I Have Another?

You would think that an employer would compensate the employee if there is insufficient work to cover the full shift, but we're talking about incentive-based work and showing up is no guarantee of compensation -- or work.

The problem is that the employee (that would be me) has to continue to sit in the chair (or at least mill about the machine) and check the status of work while on the clock, but not for more than 15 minutes at a time, during which the employee (that would be me again) clocks out to keep from screwing up the line count per hour rate which determines the actual pay rate for that week (ain't consistent pay a bitch?) and still keep milling or sitting and checking for work. What a system.

In the meantime -- the 15 minutes while notifying supervisor, lead, and whoever else is on the list that you're out of work while the clock is ticking -- the employee (that would be me) still must keep checking for work, but not on the company clock so as not to screw up the line counts per hour.

On the plus side, the employee can either make up the lost time on her own time (Goddess forbid she has a family or a life outside of being chained to the computer) or lose the time completely. Either way, the pay will suffer -- and so will your compensation for vacation time, which is miniscule at the start -- and pretty miniscule no matter how many years of indentured servitude you decide to keep going. What a system.

I am beginning to feel like the indentured servants working in the early days of the Colonies here in the New World who demanded that they not be served lobster more than twice a week in their contracts. After all, who really wants lobster every single day -- even if the lobsters were as big as a picnic table? Too much of anything gets old really fast -- however it tastes.

I have worked incentive most of my life, from data processing to medical transcription, and it has never been this difficult to earn a buck. At least the other companies paid a flat base rate and the employee (still me) wasn't out of pocket for lost time due to lack of work . . . until more recent years. Employers put lost time back into the employee's lap (still me) and it was up to the employee (me again) to make up the time in order to end up with a decent paycheck. Along with this little nugget of wonderful magnificence also came the death of holiday pay, affordable benefits, and any other perks (read: paid benefits). Well, they did still count holidays as holidays, and some even paid bonus rates (1-1/2 times the base rate) for working on the holidays (Goddess forbid you should ask for it off without life-threatening illness or 6 months advance notice *begging and supplication*), but paying holiday pay, unless it comes out of the employee's vacation time (that would be mine) was not going to happen. When did employers get so greedy and Simon Legree-ish?

As I have said before, any way an employer can screw you, they will -- and they don't mind paying bonuses to other employees (even though it would be more than they would pay the poor wage slaves -- over and over and ad infinitum, ad nauseam.

It doesn't pay to work for incentive -- no matter what they tell you when they dangle the big numbers like a fat, juicy carrot on a really long stick ahead of you while beating you with a metal rod behind.

What happened to employee rights?

Oh, right. That takes a union -- and there are no guarantees there either, as Beanie will tell you when her job was abolished 2 years before retirement and she was forced into another job for which she was not trained. She was, however, informed that if she did not take the job she would not be able to collect her retirement until she was 65 (or is it 67 now?). She's 50 years old. That's a long time without a paycheck, especially after 28 years of service to the state.

Unions take your money and sit there like a spider at the center of the web doing nothing until someone tugs on one of their lines. The spider races to the point where you're trapped in the sticky web and wrap you up in more sticky threads just to hold you in the larder while they suck you dry.

Unions had a purpose and high ideals once upon a time, but the leaders have gone down the same path as the employers using you to spin stronger webs and slowly suck you dry while not having much in the way of influence on the bigger spiders the used to fight with Sting before they devolved. I have very little respect for any union that kowtows to employers and foists a job on an employee (in this case my sister) they neither want nor are trained for.

At least for once my sister took my advice and ran with it. She Looked through the postings, found something she was interested in that was in her pay grade and step level, checked it out, and started today on a new path, with a bit of trepidation, but a whole lot happier and looking forward to her remaining 2 years before she retires. She was so enthusiastic about the new job that she said she might stay longer than 2 years. She has options now and the union nodded and keeps taking her money.

Yes, the unions may have outlived their usefulness. After all, they are part of the reason employers have gotten away with slashing benefits and gave the employers a reason to move offshore where Indians and Pakistanis were grateful for the pittance they call wages and where they can use and abuse a whole continent of people who are now better off than they were before the offshore movement.

What has happened to employers? Are they really so thoughtless that they would cut off the hands (that would be mine) that keep them in business? Seriously, do they really not understand that without the people who have the skills and experience to do the jobs they require, there would be nothing for them to be greedy over? No workers means no work which means no revenue for anyone -- including the bosses (that would be you).

I do believe that employers have forgotten to whom they owe their new cars, boats, houses, mistresses, etc. It's not a good idea to keep pissing on the people who do all the work and make you rich.

As more and more companies and corporations take away more benefits and simple basic services, they stir an already seething pot about to boil over and destroy everything the employees (that would be me) worked so hard to make possible. It's time to stop pissing on the help and realize that well paid help with adequate benefits makes life a lot easier than getting into the trenches and doing it yourself. I guarantee that you have neither the skills nor the experience to sit in their chairs and do the work, and that will mean goodbye to new cars, boats, vacation houses, vacations, and life as you know it. Keep that in mind when you unzip your fly or drop those designer panties before you do your business.

That is all. Disperse.

Crazy High

I came across this recipe for a cake-pan cake which became popular during the Depression because it needed no eggs and no milk, both of which were rationed at that time, and now would be called a vegan cake. My mother, and all my old aunts, great aunts, and cousins, called it a Crazy Cake. Crazy because there was no dairy or eggs included.

Mom's cake had a thick fudgy icing and was dark as a chocolate cake could be. She made it all the time in a big old-fashioned 9 x 13 metal pan with curved handles that stuck out both ends. Mom couldn't cook for beans, but she could bake like the devil -- mostly because she preferred dessert to everything else. Her baked beans were a toss-up between watery/soupy and the bacon half done on top or burnt to a crisp. Her scalloped corn dish was the same, half done or very well done (at least the crunchy buttered cracker topping was crisp). You can't go far wrong with creamed corn since it's cooked ahead of time anyway. I will have to say that she did do potato and macaroni salads well with lots of chopped sweet pickles and a hefty dose of celery seed in addition to the celery already in the bowl, but there wasn't much cooking to do since my sisters and I cooked the macaroni and potatoes for her. It was our job, a job that I ended up doing most of the time.

This cake, however, was right every time.

When I saw the recipe on King Arthur Flour yesterday I knew at once it was Mom's (and the whole May family's) Crazy Cake. I didn't have the recipe for the fudgy icing, but I have other chocolate icings I know how to make.

Late last night, I decided I was going to make the recipe, opting for mixing the ingredients in a bowl instead of in the pan which the recipe calls for. I sprayed the pan with my favorite preparation, poured in the mixed ingredients, and 35 minutes later had a much lighter colored chocolate cake. It smelled delicious. I used natural cocoa instead of the Dutch Process cocoa called for, but it was still delicious even without the icing. Moist, tender, and reminded me of my childhood. The good parts, which usually involved food.

Next time I will use my dark black cocoa, or Dutch process, since I have them both and I may try the boiled cider vinegar since plain white vinegar is what I used last night. I don't know if it will make a difference, but I will find out. I don't think I'll add frosting and just eat the rest of the cake naked. It is still dense, fudgy, and good. I may even make another tonight -- or even this evening. Anything is possible.

Sometimes I need a trip down memory lane on my stomach, evincing the good times full of laughter and family and food like at our family reunions -- the ones we went to every year and spent with my mother's vast clan. I got to see my cousins the last Sunday before school started and there was always watermelon and crisp fried chicken and desserts that filled a table. There were also dishes of things I'd never tasted before and running around with the cousins as a child and meandering as a teenager since we were too mature to run around slipping frogs and bugs down each others' backs and whooping like Indians on the warpath, even if we went to Logan Elm where Chief Logan gave his famous speech and stopped a war between the local tribes and the settlers.

The tree was filled with concrete, a shell of history around a core of stable concrete to keep the illusion of Logan's Elm alive, but it was familiar and the gathering place of the family tribes. It's still a favorite memory.

One of the old aunts dressed in her Depression Era finery (old women shoes, thick stockings, and flower print dresses that hung nearly to their ankles) smelling of lavender water and talcum powder gave the recipe to Mom who was in transports of joy when she tasted the fudgy cake and thick frosting. Chocolate was always her favorite drug, and chocolate cake with thick fudge icing was beyond heavenly. Whatever the occasion, whether a homecoming at church or a pot luck dinner with family, Mom always made her Crazy Cake and we feasted on chocolate until even the crumbs and streaks of icing were gone from the pan, all of us in a transports of joy akin to love from chocolate-fueled pacifying brain chemicals. Nothing ever seemed so horrible that the Crazy Cake would not cure -- at least until the chocolate high wore off and it was time to refuel -- as long as there was cake and icing left to scrape from the pan.

The rest of my chocolate high is in the kitchen and I think it's time to refuel.

That is all. Disperse.

Work With Wings and Jet Propulsion

It never rains, but it deluges.  Well, that's how it feels. Work, for all its perks, has a lot of black holes and pissing contests.

I am not difficult to get along with, especially when left to my own devices. Too bad the new supervisor cannot understand or appreciate that concept.

The company is driven by statistics, but none of the numbers are straight forward. For instance, lines edited/typed per hour are based on how much work is done, except things like difficult doctors and faulty equipment are not figured into the equation. Especially by my supervisor. Quality is measured weekly, but the number that shows up on the paycheck is from 2 weeks before the current weeks being paid. If those 2 weeks were full of badly dictated reports and faults in the technology so that a report that should have been 50 to 80 lines long and ended up being 10-12 lines long and the rest full of blanks, then you're pretty much screwed. Nothing about technological breakdown is figured into the numbers and bad statistics will mean a bad paycheck. This is the case because the company gives you time to challenge errors marked (usually stupid or nit picky errors that do not have anything to do with quality or grammar rules) and the 2 weeks before have already gone through the reversal process. What a lovely way to run a business and screw an individual.

Now we come to this week. My new supervisor is hounding me about time on the system and time spent actually typing/editing reports. It seems that taking the time to research and make sure everything is correct in reports dictated by doctors who choose not to waste the time dictating -- or learn the way to speak English so it is understandable -- is counted as time not actually typing -- or working -- and therefore is questionable.  After all, quality is derived not so much from accuracy, but from getting reports done as quickly as possible with as few as possible sent through quality control (QC) without the fingers leaving the keyboard or stopping for breaks (bathroom, food, breathing) or research. One must keep typing/editing at all costs and leave the brain work to the supervisor who is busy micromanaging every moment of the worker's day/night/whenever.

It seems I also signed off as out of work (OOW) when there were still dictations to be edited/typed, except they didn't show up on my screen after several reboots. Now I am to email the point of contact (POC), who is usually not working at 3 a.m., and get an answer as to whether or not there is work before signing out as OOW -- while continuing to type nothing and rack up those all important actually typing/editing moments while accomplishing nothing, but waiting. That will put yet another crimp in my statistics and put me back on the supervisor's radar as not performing my job.

She actually questioned why I had so much downtime (time not typing/editing) and told me that I must close the gap between working and out of work while waiting for an answer as to whether or not there is work and still working with nothing to do. Goddess, how I do love bureaucracies.

Of course, signing in and out to minimize the time not actually spent typing/editing would make my time card look like a patchwork of indecision and insanity and sitting there checking every 10-15 minutes to find out if there is work while waiting for the POC to tell me there is work to be done (even when it doesn't show up on my screen where I can actually do something about it) is verboten. It messes up the time actually spent working versus the time I'm just sitting on my backside flitting around on the Internet while not getting paid because I don't get paid if there is no actual work done. Researching is also a waste of time even though it improves my knowledge and helps to decrypt the racing, stumbling language that does make it through on the faulty technology should be done on my own time -- when I am off the clock --- and when I can't actually use the report as a guide. I guess that means I must have an eidetic memory whether I do or not.

Things were not this difficult when I worked for the old supervisor, who was kicked up the ladder. The new supervisor is in a supervisory position for the first time in her working life and believes that micromanaging is the way to go to make herself look good. And that is always helpful.

At any rate, it's Friday night and I have only 2 more nights to work, and I have my cross stitching to help me regain some sanity in the interim when I'm not sleeping or working with my plants now that the snows have stopped and the frost has been absent for the past 3 mornings. I can finally put out my planters and plant some seeds and seedlings that might actually grow before the snow flies again, which should be in about mid-August.

I'm working my way through the boring, but necessary back stitching on my tree skirt. It's so mindless that I need a break and have started a snow leopard in the breaks between mindlessness and waking.

I found that the room I had originally designated my office is actually sunnier than my bedroom, or indeed the living room, and have set up shop on the love seat in the sun streaming through the window. I also have a great view of the driveway so I can see when delivery trucks or visitors arrive. I don't spend much time looking out the window as I am busy stitching and listening to a biography of Napoleon or music to stitch/study/read by. I much prefer it that way. It is relaxing as my mind slips to that zen place while my fingers stitch and the insanity recedes. It's a good place, and I am once again rethinking the office idea again. After all, I do need a place to go to work and be frustrated and it's not in the bedroom where I need to be able to sleep, although stitching and listening to music and/or books would not divorce me entirely from the hell my working life has become now that the micromanaging vulture that is my supervisor is watching me -- even as she sleeps.

Oh, for a bit of peace and surcease in this technologically imperfect world.

That is all. Disperse.

It Arrived!

I did something different with one of my cross stitch projects. I ordered a frame and mats cut to exact size online. I knew I'd have to put the frame together, but how hard could it be if my Middle Eastern beauty had the right look on the wall?

The disassembled frame arrived yesterday evening and I set about reading directions, getting my handy dandy screwdrivers, and put it together. It was a puzzle with all the parts and pieces, and there was still the finished cross stitch to get ready for framing. It was quite the ordeal, but once I figured out how the frame went together, the rest was a matter of carefully stretching the fabric across the acid-free foam core and lashing it into place so that the face at the center of the fabric would center perfectly beneath the mats, mats that were cut to my specifications.

It worked.

I chose a brushed metal silver frame and 2 mats: Caribbean blue and silver foil. I can't stop looking at it as it hangs on the wall beside my bed. It's beautiful and the mats set off the cross stitch so well.



This is what I began with, minus my signature, which is the year in which it was finished. I did that just before framing with the dark blue-green and a twist of silver metallic thread in the corner.



This is what I ended up with. Isn't she beautiful?

I remember when Beanie would finish the stitching on one of her cross stitch projects and she'd come to me to do the backstitching. She hated the fussy, and often tedious, backstitching. As I stitched I explained that the backstitching, as onerous as it can be, brings the work to life.  Since I've moved away she has had to do her own backstitching, but she does see what I meant all those years ago.

Hoity-Toity never frames her cross stitch, but she does cross stitch. She has a thing for women in hats, something she may have gotten from me since I used to have a collection of paintings, prints, and posters of women in hats, often with their faces hidden by the hats. I even found a silhouette of a turn of the century woman in a hat I found at a barn sale and Mom bought me a ceramic mask of a Victorian woman in a hat looking over her gaudily clad shoulder out into the room. It hangs in my living room now next to the bookcase by the doors onto the back deck. It just seemed right to hang there. I also have ceramic masks of all kinds hanging in my room and the hallway, and soon in the laundry room. There is one mask Mom sent me that is kind of creepy. That's why it's going in the laundry room where it can scare spiders and intruders coming through the laundry room door.

I have to finish the backstitching on the 5 x 7 Japanese geisha I finished in January (yes, I sometimes put off the backstitching too), buy the perfect frame and maybe even mat it, and it will hang in the Jack bedroom. For some reason I see that room as my Japanese/Oreintal/Asian room with fabric floor and table lamps and black lacquered furniture. It's still in my head right now because the room is still filled with boxes of cross stitch supplies, stationery, and books, as well as framed pictures. It is emptier by about 5 framed pictures, awards, and my Extra Class amateur radio operator license. I brought them into my bedroom to hang on the walls here.
Now all I need to do is find the right pieces to stitch and hang on the wall over my bed. I see a huge painted paper fan flanked by women with fans, Asian and Spanish and Moorish and whatever. Still haven't figured our where to hang the Indian beauties since the Jill bedroom will have princesses and fairy tale characters in cross stitch on the walls. That is where my grandchildren (mostly the granddaughters) will sleep when they visit. There is still a very long -- and bare -- hallway to populate with pictures of family and friends and maybe the odd cross stitch pieces framed by me. I can handle assembling the frames and choosing the mats. After all, the $50 that went for my Middle Eastern lady was money well spent, and a whole lot cheaper than the often $200 or more I spent for framing other, and often larger, cross stitch pieces. Live and learn -- and, in my case, spend a little less to get wonderful results.

That is all. Disperse. Go stitch your own masterpiece -- and don't forget the backstitching.

For Ruthie

I've been discussing various cross stitch designs from Lanarte's Cultures collection to Benway's NKF cross stitch design I've been trying not to start, the Oriental Beauty. Benway is a company I've not stitched before so we will see how it goes.  I found her on Amazon and was immediately entranced by the style and grace of the piece.

All full stitches and the pattern is color coded. Should be interesting when I get to it. It's been tugging at me since it arrived and I'm fighting the urge to start it NOW before I've finished what I am already stitching.  I might even get busy and photograph the other 3 pieces.

In other news, I finally found a kit for a geisha I wanted that goes with the 12 x 12 geisha I've already worked from Dimensions Gold. Unfortunately, Dimensions doesn't have it in stock any more and finding her has been difficult -- until this afternoon when I was looking for the Oriental Beauty.

The DG piece is called Enchanting Geisha, and she is quite enchanting.  I of course ordered her right away so I can have the pair I originally intended. I don't know why Dimensions decided to stop making that kit because they still have patterns I've seen everywhere for years, even decades (at least 2 decades). It doesn't make sense to me. There are dozens of lovely geishas everywhere and I managed to snag Kihaku after much waffling and counting pennies. I haven't started her either since there were projects that needed to be done first, like my grandchildren's Xmas stockings.

I've even decided, and chosen the patterns for, 2 more Xmas stockings. These are for my estranged sons boys, Aidan and Ian. I'll send them to my ex-husband and let he and his wife decide whether or not to tell the boys and their father where they came from. The decision has more to do with what I want and how I feel than with whatever problem it may cause my ex and his wife or my son. I don't need the credit, but I do need to do this for my own peace of mind. I hate leaving the boys out when I made stockings for all the other grandchildren even if they don't know who I am. I'm strange that way.

Besides, I like making the stockings. Maybe I should make stockings and sell them to whomever wants them for themselves or their children. Considering all the work and time I put into them, the stockings would not be cheap, and I should recoup my expenses and time. After all, the stockings are heirlooms and will last for decades. Shouldn't the price be commensurate with that? Artisans in every field expect to be paid for their expertise and time and materials.

I don't like pink, but Kihaku isn't something I'm going to wear, so pink isn't a problem. I was struck by the soft colors and pose of the graceful geisha and counted enough pennies to buy her a couple of years ago. I've decided that the Jack bedroom will feature geishas and other Asian entertainers (entertainer is what geisha means) and the Jill bedroom will feature fairy tales and the kinds of pieces that children would love. I hope my granddaughters will spend their summers and at least a Xmas or two in the Jill bedroom, unless I can coax their mother into moving up here with the girls and bringing their furniture, clothes, and things. I think this would be a lovely place for the girls to grow up and Megan can help me around the house. I'll cook and she can clean. We'll work it out somehow.

The girls can also help me plant and nurture a garden or two and figure out what to do with the hangar size garage and the 2 outbuildings that house nothing but spiders and possibilities.

Well this post turned out to be much longer than I intended. Maybe it's time for me to get back into the swing of things and begin posting more regularly.

In other news, just while I'm here and typing, I actually like my new job. I've already soared past the pittance of a rate that BTS paid me for 3 years and I also have 3 accounts so I won't be without work all the time while the doctors goof off and wait to inundate us with dictations they should have done all along. I've gone 3 cents a line and it's only the 4th week. Not too shabby. There's no one hounding me all the time to switch programs and do a stat report and I spend less time looking at the clock and more time typing, which also adds considerably to my bank account. It is also a change being paid every other week instead of the 4th and 20th, as long as they don't fall on the weekend or a holiday or the payroll department doesn't screw up and forget to get the payroll processing done on time and then prevaricating about why we aren't being paid on time. I just love when that happens. Don't you? /snark

Well, as anyone who knows me will tell you, I could go on much longer, but I will stop here. I want to get some stitching done and maybe even take photos of the other pieces I'm working on. One word of advice. Just because a cross stitch project is 5 x 7 inches finished does not mean it will be done any quicker than one that is 24 x 24 or even 24 x 36. I learned that one the hard way. Smaller means more work and much frustration, even if it is worth it.

That is all.  Disperse.

What To Get?

 Two people I know recently bought houses and I've been casting around for just the right housewarming gift. It's so much easier when the people live close by, but they live on the other side of the country, on the east coast. That is what makes buying the right gift more difficult.

I have an idea about their tastes. If I lived closer the ingredients for Cosmos and some tasty tidbits would be the perfect gift. Not so when the gift must be shipped across the country. What to do?

I've considered stitching something for their homes, something that would be tasteful and creative and something they won't have to hide in the attic or the basement or an unused closet until (and unless) I come to visit so they can trot it out just to prove they appreciate the gift. I do have better taste than an old aunt still living in her glory days at the turn of the century or stuck in the 1960s with  pink or avocado appliances in a kitchen where the linoleum was put down while still tripping on LSD. I do have better taste than that. I would venture to say that few of my gifts have ever been returned or hidden in the basement or tossed out with the trash or given to the church rummage sale to be passed from hand to hand to hand or left on an enemy's door step as a warning to get out of town.  Those kinds of gifts I save for people I don't like, usually the people who gave them to me in the first place because they have no idea who I am or what kinds of things I like (my family mostly, which is why I started giving out lists).

The dilemma is to give a gift that will be welcome and not cost me an arm and a leg, which is usually what I end up finding when I go looking for furniture and accessories for my own home. I can gauge the price by how much I like it at first glance. My approbation cools quickly when I check out the price. Even at clearance sale prices, my taste far exceeds my budget. Always has. What can I say? I have caviar taste on a fish bait budget.

I think I have finally settled on a couple of gifts, which will require a considerable amount of my time stitching them, but will result in gifts that will be welcome when they arrive. I'll save the reveal until after the projects are finished, framed, and have reached their final destination. I'm pretty sure both people are art lovers and would appreciate beautiful and thoughtful gifts.

If not, I still have a few of those really awful gifts to leave on their door steps to ensure they get out of town without delay. I'd even be willing to throw in a poltergeist or voodoo spell for good measure.

That is all. Disperse.

Bread, Underwear, and Jodorowsky

The sun is shining right now but the clouds are mobbed by flying fat men in goggles and pillowy piles of cumulus overwhelming the wispy mares' tails that have devolved into seahorses and earthworms humping their cirrus ways across the skies. The view reminds a bit of Alejandro Jodorowsky.

I rented a documentary about his making of Frank Herbert's Dune and how the movie was only made as a storyboard book to get a studio to back it. American studios passed on the movie and David Lynch was chosen by the De Laurentiis production machine to make Dune. Jodorowsky was devastated by the choice, but the team he assembled to make his vision reality individually went on to do great things in cinema, art, and special effects. Jodorowsky's visions for his Dune were borrowed and used in many other science fiction and fantasy movies, and continue to used the seeds he planted in modern movies, like Prometheus, which is the prequel for Alien and its sequels.

I've seen worlds and beings in clouds since I was a child looking up at the sky and dancing in the rain, but the worlds I saw through Jodorowsky's eyes have also seeded my imagination. His vision of a universal consciousness connected through the creative and spiritual death of Paul Atreides lives on. Jodorowsky wanted his vision of Dune to live and, although it didn't live in the movie he wanted to create, the images and the consciousness of his Dune live on. At the end of his movie as Paul dies from Feyd Rautha's blade slicing through his throat, everyone says, "I am Paul," so that everyone becomes Paul whose blood seeds the world and spread throughout the universe. In the real world of Hollywood, Jodorowsky's movie died before being made, but the blood of that movie, his vision and his images, the blood of his Dune spread like seeds throughout the industry to become part of the science fiction landscape. Jodorowsky got what he wanted -- to change the movie business -- and he did it image by image through the artists he changed and the vision he offered Hollywood, a vision that clung to their minds and their souls to become part of them and part of the future.
 

Okay, so the photo doesn't show the clouds, but the Kindle Fire was charging and the cord didn't reach that far. That is, however, a picture of the view from my chair as I write.

There will be rain again later as there was yesterday and last night. There is always rain here, at least for now, and it keeps the temperatures cooler than normal for the end of August when the dog days should be in full force. I've had to turn on the heat and sometimes use a space heater in my bedroom when the nights dip toward the 40s.

This week has been busy with unpacking more boxes and sorting things as they arrive. I still need to put together the Strathmore chairs I bought for the back deck. The plastic fold chairs were here when I moved in, as was the sun faded piece of carpet that remains on the deck. Kevin still has not come over to measure for the ramp for the back deck or to stain all the decks, which was supposed to have been done before I moved in. Well, He did go to pieces over Forrest being stolen and spirited away to Iowa, only to be returned in the dead of night and left on the doorstep when the thief's neighbors and various friends in Iowa let the thief know they were watching. It doesn't pay to steal a man's dog in this age of technology and Internet connectivity. It just doesn't.

tedwords posted a photo of Corb's underwear drawer and it is artful and creative. All the briefs and boxers are folded neatly and placed in order according to material, color, boxer, or brief. It's the underwear drawer of either a budding serial killer or someone who lines up his toiletries so the labels are easily read. Corb is an exacting kind of person with a creative streak, the kind of person that will either make a tyrant of a director or direct orderly mayhem when the end is near. I can just see him calming people and sorting them by age, height, and useful skills as they board the great ark that will take them out of harm's way, or protect them when the big deluge comes again. He's a good person to know when you're planning a party because everything will be beautiful and organized.

At any rate, here is a photo snapped this morning of my underwear drawer.



I have a fondness for lace and fripperies when I wear underwear. It's mostly for me. I like the feel of silk and lace.

I decided, since I already bought quite a bit of baking and cooking equipment, and had some yeast in the freezer that was about 3 years old, that it was time to see if the yeast was still good. The freezer did an excellent job of keeping the yeast dormant, but active when dissolved in liquid, even cold liquid in the manner of French bakers. I read recently that French bread is so good because the bakers do not rush the process, allowing the flavors to develop. I also wanted to try the semolina flour and a recipe from one of my cookbooks, so semolina bread must be made.

Two days ago, I made the starter. It's like making sourdough bread, but without the white sourdough bread that results. I let the starter sit for 24 hours and, yesterday afternoon before it was time for work, I began making the bread, sifting together unbleached flour, semolina, olive oil, salt, more yeast sprinkled over water, and the starter. The dough was very sticky; I still managed to knead the dough and put it in a lightly oiled bowl to rise, not for the 1-1/2 to 2 hours listed in the recipe, but for 8 hours while I worked. I chafed the dough and let it rest, after punching it down, cut it in half, made 2 rounds, and waited for the next rise while heating the oven. A few hours later, I had 2 perfectly baked rounds of semolina bread. It sounded hollow when I tapped on the bottom and it did not feel like a brick or fall apart, so I hadn't added too much flour while kneading. I could barely wait for the bread to be cool enough to try, so I tore off a hunk, slathered it with butter, and added some marmalade from one of the jars I bought in order to taste test for the perfect marmalade.

Just as a side note, Rose's orange fine cut marmalade is more orange jelly with a few hair fine slivers of orange zest rather than a real marmalade. The zest is barely there and scattered widely through a small jar and is quite unremarkable as far as jellies, and especially marmalades, are concerned. I have 4 other jars to test, but I will use this jelly because I hate wasting money and food, even if it is just barely adequate food.



The above is my remaining loaf beneath the book with the photo of what the bread should look like (and it does) and the Victorinox bread knife I bought that cuts through the crusty crust without damaging the tight, soft crumb inside. The knife does a marvelous job. I cannot understand how I lived without it before now.

Since I know how readers love pictures to go with the writing, I have decided to provide some of my own, taken with my Kindle Fire. I'm actually proud of the photos. Well, except for the photo of the clouds you cannot see because the light is wrong. I'll do better next time. For now,

That is all. Disperse.

Nothing Much

The new chairs arrived yesterday morning while I was still sleeping. When American Furniture Warehouse tells you to expect delivery between 7 and 9 on the scheduled day, expect the earlier time.

Two guys were walking around my yard carrying the chairs over their heads. I have four doors into this house, and three ways to get to the doors. They were at the laundry room door and needed to be on the back side of the house to bring the chairs directly into the living room. They had to walk around the house and down the little hill to get there and they did it in short order. The Saran wrapped chairs were unwrapped and the bigger of the two guys snapped a picture of them in place on his tablet, which is also where I had to sign the receipt with my finger. That was awful since most of it didn't show. I keep my nails short to type faster. It showed.

Anyway, the chairs are sitting next to each other and I'm getting used to them before I figure out where they will be placed. They are just the right shadow of yellow (flax) for the room and not too bright at all. They're also very comfortable. I expect the other two chairs I want for side of the room where the new chairs sit will arrive as quickly and in equally good order.

On a side note, I do not like the way LiveJournal has changed the site. Used to be I could make a comment and click the back button to find myself right where I left the page. Not so now. I have to scroll back down to where I left off and that is irritating at best. Now I point the comment to another window on my browser and close the browser when I'm done. Nothing works the way it should on LJ any more. So much for all the fussing about with the code and the look. It's awful.

Why is it that people want to get into pissing contests with me when I make a comment that their rancor pointed at the way the USA has done completely excludes the fact that their own country, and indeed every country and civilization since the beginning of time, was also founded on atrocities to each other and to the people who lived there before them? You don't fix a problem by pointing out how another country (not your own) has built their greatness on the bodies and blood of others. That's disingenuous to say the least.

This particular person has it in his head that I am telling Native Americans that they should just suck it up and get on with their lives. And why is it always Canadians? His latest broadside was just as pissy as his first attack on me. He said my spelling was atrocious without pointing to a single incident of my atrocious spelling, and all because I noted that nickel was spelled nickel and not nickle. I checked through my comments and there were no misspelled words, which tells me that he made up the atrocious spelling in his own mind. Maybe he shouldn't have mentioned that he was dyslexic when he said he knew how to spell nickel and spelled it incorrectly. He continued to one up me by saying that he had a degree in Business and his mother, 89 years old and still going strong, was still a syndicated columnist, throwing in a little aside that he had an IQ of 152 and had more history under his belt that I could even imagine. I declined to one up him with my higher IQ or the war zones I've lived in, the riots I've lived through, and the history I have seen in my nearly 60 years of life as the daughter of an American soldier. I felt it was more pissing that I was willing to engage in. I congratulated him on his accomplishments and simply told him that I was not born to privilege, but had made my accomplishments all own my own without any help from my family or my background. I have to keep reminding myself that he is another one of those Canadians inhabiting the high moral ground and looking down his nose at everything American while ignoring the rest of the world as he decries our checkered history.

I need to keep away from people like that and stop reminding them that they have no moral high ground because they will inevitably come back to bitch and moan at me while castigating me with their lack of wit and charm. Best to keep out of those my dick is bigger than yours discussions that always end up with them unzipping and hauling out the dick to show just how big a dick can be.

In the meantime, let me add that if anyone sees a misspelling on my posts, please let me know so I can fix them. I usually write these posts off the top of my head and welcome being able to correct them when I'm wrong. I don't see such correction as onerous or unwelcome, but a chance to make what I've written better. Thanks in advance.

Somehow or other my bedside clock got off the time. It's now about 2 hours ahead of what it should be and I don't know how that happened. Now I have some extra time to do the dishes before I wash my hair and clean myself up before trekking down the mountain to drop off some mail and pick up milk and bread and maybe a snack or two. I also have to draw some money out of my account to pay the housekeeper when she gets here tomorrow to wash floors, clean windows, vacuum, and carry away empty boxes after she steam cleans the sofa and chaise. The house will be livable again -- at least for the three weeks before it's time for her to come and clean again. Such is life.

Well, the birds are mobbing my decks again and I need to get going so I can go down the mountain for the mail. Btw, the picture at the top is of flax seeds and the actual color of the chairs

That is all. Disperse.

Spirits

The house smells like roasting garlic. It's for the hummus and baba ghanouj I'm making for hors d'ouevres. I'll bake pita bread tomorrow evening and then bake it again when I cut it up into triangles. I love cooking. I also realized I have some chocolate chips, 60% cacao bittersweet chips, and I think they would go very well in Tollhouse cookies, but I'll save those and bake them on Thursday. Nothing says holiday like something from the oven. I love this time of year.

Most of my local friends will get food baskets filled with homemade goodies for the holiday season. My mother is getting her favorite series, Forever Knight. I don't know why, but she has a thing for certain vampires and one werewolf (David Selby as Quentin Collins). For someone so straight laced, it just doesn't track, but there it is. She even had me learn to play Quentin's Theme on the piano when I was a kid. Talk about obsessions. My brother and sisters and I went in together to get all the DVDs for the series for Mom for Xmas and it doesn't matter that I mention it here since she doesn't have access to a computer. It was my idea because all she talks about is Forever Knight, she doesn't want to miss Nick Knight when it's on. Now she won't have to miss him. She can hole up in her room and watch him all the time.

If you detect a wee bit of the holiday spirit here, it isn't because of alcohol laden egg nog. I drink the occasional glass of wine, but the spirit is all me, generated by the colder temps and the endorphins pumping through my system from cooking and baking and basking in the aroma of home. I don't seem the like the domestic type, and in many ways I'm not, but when it comes to cooking and baking, just the idea of leafing through cookbooks and Gourmet or Food & Wine magazines makes me giddy with anticipation. It's the one little sliver of the shopping gene I do possess, grocery shopping. It's not unusual for me to get the urge to bake or put together a casserole or pot roast in the middle of the night and the aromas help me sleep when I eventually get to bed so that I dream of dancing sugar plums and feasting -- or noshing -- with friends and family.

The urge is building to go out and wander rows of live pine trees, inhale the scent and figure out how to get one home so I can bring out my boxes of ornament treasures, untangle the lights and invite some friends for a tree trimming party. This is the season of sharing food and fun, carols and conversations. Now that I have a place big enough and no guard waiting to pounce in the downstairs hall (no downstairs and no close neighbors watching through the blinds), I think a tree is definitely in order. After all, Mom and Dad brought all my ornaments and treasures with them the last time they visited together and it's time to let them out of their enameled boxes to hang from a live tree again. I feel a tree trimming party coming on.

Oh, and one more thing. I just signed a contract today for another book. I am not writing this one, but the authors requested the rights to use one of my pictures and posts in a book about feelings that will be out next year. I'll make sure you get a link to the book when it's published. From what I understand, the book will come out in several countries around the world at the same time. Not too shabby.

That is all. Disperse.

More good news

Sometimes I forget when I've submitted a story or book because it takes so long for the publishing community to respond. That was the case yesterday when I received an email to let me know the editors loved the story I submitted for the prestigious 24/7 anthology. I got in. The book will be published next year and my story will stand alongside internationally and nationally known writers.

It never gets old finding out my work is published. I still get a thrill every time someone compliments a story or an editor buys what I've submitted. My heart swells with pride when I see my name printed. I hope that feeling never gets old and I never become so jaded I can't find the joy.

One of the principles involved in the case over Andre Norton's copyrights left in her will contacted me yesterday to tell me the verdict is in. The appellate court overturned the previous verdict granting Andre's copyrights to Dr. Victor Horadam and granted them to Sue and Ollie Stewart, Andre's friends and caretakers in the last years of her life. Sounds like someone in the Tennessee court systems knows what they're doing. Sue is sending me the appellate court's decision so I can add it to the articles I've been writing, but you heard it here first.

Last night was one of those nights I decided to turn in early. I had worked hard all day, ran an errand that took me an hour, came home, ate a little something and went back to work for another four hours. When I was finished working I was finished. I decided to get undressed, put on my comfy gown and climb into bed with a book, and that's what I did. Except my mind still buzzed and whirled with ideas, so I wrote for a little while and then I read, falling asleep with the light on and the book still open on the bed.

I woke up and turned out the light. It was black outside the window and the man who drunkenly serenaded me on Saturday night was silent. All I heard was the soft swish of leaves against each other as a night wind whispered softly through the barely opened window breathing cool against the warmth of my skin, telling stories of far Arctic lands where snow and ice glisten blue under the moonlight and polar bears prowl the silent tundra. Even in the darkness under the warm covers the urge to set in writing the stories whispering on the wind wouldn't let up, so I got up and wrote a little while longer, writing until the urge eased and the night wind murmured a lullaby that soothed my burning thoughts. I turned out the light and went back to sleep, sliding into the soft, warm cocoon of dreamless sleep. It's the best sleep I've had for a long time and now I feel languid and warm, despite the cold, and wish to dive back between the still warm covers and sleep.

Pictures of home

The first load of groceries are bought and put away and I'm still a little shocked by the cost of it all, though I didn't get that much. Ah, well, everything costs more these days with the government putting more stock in growing corn for ethanol than in growing food for people to eat. Throw in the cost of importing food from other countries where farmers have been encouraged to grow specialty crops for export instead of crops to feed their people and that is indeed a dilemma.

This is also the first time I've had to decide between paper and plastic. I chose paper. I need to replenish my stock of canvas bags since mine have gone missing. I used those bags for nearly twenty years before it was the fashion to be green simply because it was easier to carry groceries home and fewer things I had to worry about throwing out in the trash. They were sturdy and capacious and I carried them everywhere I moved since I bought them. The canvas bags were also great for stuffing full of books and computer equipment and stowing in the trunk with each move, packing full of gifts and for filling with laundry to go to the laundromat, etc.

Here's a glimpse of some of the cottage.