Sisyphus

Posted on January 25, 2012 | 6 Comments

For anyone who eschews the Greek/Roman gods and stories, such as tales of Odysseus, shame on you. They’ll let you make comparisons and stories of your own throughout your life!

Sisyphus rolled a heavy rock uphill, and every time he got near the top, it would tumble down again. So his fate is to push that rock every day and wait for it to fall. That was me today. I’m dealing with bureaucratic, procedural, and emotional fallout following a layoff.

Many of the things I had to accomplish today are partially done, were horrible and I stood on my tippy-toes and made things 50-75% right. I’m exhausted and still have to pay bills and make dinner.

For example, the former employer sent information that during the past few years when he was hired full-time he went eight months without health insurance. The original administrator said that was our last healthcare program and she can’t provide proof of prior insurance under the same employer, insurance that we were paying for through regular payroll deductions since day one.

So I talked to boss-man, who found six of those last months and is working with HR to reconcile the rest, that they both proved WE paid for, in order to get a revised certificate of continuous healthcare that may allow us to get insurance after next week. So that may mean the employer stopped payment?

All the information that HR gave us on one sheet was either misinformation or outright lies. I’ve called every number on that page and only one has not gotten back to me. And here I go, pushing that rock up the hill day by day.

 

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New Tastes

Posted on January 25, 2012 | Leave a comment

I looked through my mother’s 1970′s and 1980′s recipe cards and a few things caught my eye. In 1973 we moved, again, in a temperate climate. The first few days there I met a good friend who shares the same birthday.

We hung out, mostly at her house, for the two years we lived there. Her mom was so cool. Warm with people and easy with entertaining. She introduced me to eggplant and pomegranate. No, not together.

I love eggplant and make a very traditional Greek moussaka. As to pomegranate, I make a lemon-berry trifle over the holidays and on special occasions and if pomegranates are in season, add berries for taste, visual appeal and crunch.

This one’s for the oboe player and her family. Cheers, Dee

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PIPA and SOPA Debate

Posted on January 23, 2012 | Leave a comment

over Internet Piracy. It’s tabled for now but this is the time to look at it in its entirety, find out exactly who’s behind it and why they want this to happen.

Then we have to come to understand it, and figure out how to tell all the old guys in Congress what needs to happen. Because we know or can guess it came from Hollywood so there are bad things in it for movie consumers, even if we pay our $6.50 for a matinee.

But who is on the other side? Now we can find out. No-one tells the truth so we have to sift through the debates and Google and Yahoo and Wikipedia can’t win either.

But we can. I said today that most of what has been legislated, has been done. Sure there’s tweaking over the years to require seat belts in cars or provide a space for a crime victim’s family so they don’t have to sit with the alleged criminal outside the courtroom. Those were good things we did.

But if your neighbors have a loud party, that’s a noise violation, already on the books. Assault and battery, even privacy and intellectual property or illegal drugs on the premises. Already on the books.

But creating all the laws we have on the books doesn’t always work for the Internet. We don’t have a EU for this, and that wouldn’t work because this is worldwide. So why don’t we work with the EU and other countries to define those who murder or commit child pornography or steal identities or money and make it illegal, knowing these folks will go to other countries and they can easily be caught there. Try Nigeria. We went to a great play about The Great Nigerian Spam Scam Scam. (Yes, the double scams were intended.) Now all the techies can tell me why this cannot be done. If you’ve a better solution, call the FCC and FBI and CIA.

Not only have our founding fathers given us a great start with a base, our Constitution, but we have made laws about everything from how many pigs you can have to the exterior color of one’s home.

One might think that freedom of thought and expression is all we have left. Dee

 

 

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To Gabrielle Giffords

Posted on January 23, 2012 | Leave a comment

with love and hope for your future health, happiness and ability to change what you believe you need to do in Arizona and the USA.

If you’re talking about strength in a life partner, NASA is always a plus!

We hope you will be able to overcome this heinous act that killed and hurt so many for no reason.

As we all overcome life’s obstacles, and we all have them, you have shown us a way to do it with love, pride, dignity and strength, as well as dedication to your constituents and your nation.

Please get well, because we need people like you, politics or no politics. You’re always an inspiration in my book, Dee

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Not WordPress Snowflakes!

Posted on January 22, 2012 | Leave a comment

WP is good enough to place (fake) snowflakes on my page over the holidays then take them off. We’ve been getting the real stuff! The big equipment has been out in force and my husband shoveled the decks today so we could grill burgers for dinner.

Not a lot to get excited for, though the ski resorts must be happy. A lot of ours melted today but will freeze overnight. Some stalwart XC skiers were out on the path today, that really needs more snow and grooming before it’s decent. Last year I believe it was packed by now with at least 18″ of snow.

Now the PIB’s (People In Black, from the Sundance Film Festival) are questioning their choices of vehicles and dress, as the snow didn’t stop until this morning and is expected to return for much of the week.

Living in the mountains for three years has been gorgeous, but we know to have two AWD vehicles with killer snow tires as well as all-year tires. Also I’ve four pair of boots: hiking; Wellies (from Scotland, Hunter Boots) for Mud Season; Crocs for taking the dog out in the morning; and hefty insulated ones for real deep snow/foul/cold weather. If you come out here in stiletto’s to walk anything but a runway, you’re out of luck.

I also have four hats, including a new Cossack hat my husband bought me before Christmas. That’s the warmest. And four pair of winter gloves starting with liners and going up to heavy duty that I couldn’t possibly drive in.

Now, as soon as we both (forget my husband, he had everything he needed eons before me or even planning to come out west) get everything, we can’t possibly look at going to another climate!

Our economy needs the snow. I drove in a blizzard to get one shirt to the cleaner. I can cook dinner and wash a shirt, but for interview time it’s best to leave it to a professional. I was working the windshield wipers, back wiper, and both defrosts while dodging clueless people in the middle of the street (the sidewalks were shoveled) and drivers backing out without ever having any visual contact.

When I returned a neighbor said that he trusts himself driving in this, just not anyone else. I agree wholeheartedly! Cheers, Dee

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Praise

Posted on January 21, 2012 | 2 Comments

I was praised for having a “good” blog by two fellow writers today, two people who are very important to me.

And I want to pass along this praise to another, the only grandparent I ever remembered, who died in 1984,  my maternal grandfather. Papa knew that we had a cliff less than 20′ from the front door when we were kids.

The last thing my parents wanted was for us to go down the 150′ cliff using a rope. The boys next door used the rope by our house. We were forbidden from doing so for about six days after moving in.

But Papa spent several months a year with us and even with one leg, he scrambled down the 12 feet to the rope that went about 75 feet down. It was frayed and he was worried about our safety, knowing that we would only use the trail to pick wild strawberries and blueberries on our land.

He bought thick natural rope and tied it (he used to build bridges) so we would have hand-holds up and down. It went down about 100′ and we slid through the rest of it, the ground could at least hold ferns, down to the creek.

We used to call him the “Summer Santa” because he got us roller skates and other things, but this rope will forever be in my mind as I age because it meant freedom and trust and my ability to jump off a cliff and be OK.

The other part to this, which happened just a couple of months after my mother died, is that now friend Juni Fisher sang her Whippoorwill song for my husband’s grandma’s surprise party and I cried throughout. Her mother whistled to bring her home. Mine beeped the horn of the old station wagon they gave me as a college graduation present, three times meant get 150′ up here and wash up before dinner is on the table and your father gets home.

No matter what happens, it all comes down to the ones you love, family and friends. I always told clients to draw a series of concentric circles, and these are in the center and remain so for me, including my husband’s family, of course, they’ve been very good to us.

I don’t need to bungee jump or fly out of a plane, I jumped off a cliff and am still here 40 years later. When a challenge confronts us or we have to move for a job, I remember that time when my parents let me grow up, take risks and become a responsible adult. Oh, I won’t do the cliff thingie again, Dee

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Yanking My Chain

Posted on January 20, 2012 | 1 Comment

It takes a lot of aggravation to get this dog to bite but I am in need of people to talk to in the USA, not Indians with bad phone connections. I was cut off five times. We have a question from our state with payments they say are due for going on COBRA for two months, several years ago.

Perhaps they’ll call me now. Even HQ doesn’t have a human answering the phone. I called to find out which package we should order this year, as we’ve used TurboTax from Intuit for a decade and have done well until now.

Let me tell you something. If you purchased audit protection, they’ll tell you if they need to do any work on your behalf it’ll cost extra. Then they try to sell you on retroactive years, as long as no-one’s questioned their guaranteed work.

If you call to find out if you need a better package for this year in order to correct their past mistakes, they’ll hang up on you or give you an alternate phone number that is a sex line. I have the number if that’s your thing.

Then they’ll send you to India, hang up on you a few more times, and now I am wondering at the people who have sent in my taxes for years. I trusted them. I thought we were protected. We even bought audit insurance but are told if they look at our case it’s going to cost us and all they want us to do is buy more insurance.

I’m looking at their competitor, finding out about importing our data from past years but they’re not easy to find either. Notice that no-one gives a phone number. You have to email a complaint that gets a number that is invalid or a sex line.

Hello, people! Millions of people use your software and I never wanted to do this but you’ve made it impossible for me to do otherwise. I’m a blogger and have a following and will take this up to the White House if needed. Here’s to the 99%, Dee

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At Last

Posted on January 20, 2012 | Leave a comment

You smile, oh and then the spell was cast and here we are in heaven, for you are mine at last.

RIP Ms. Etta James. Only Aretha comes close.

Perhaps every single gal 20 years older than me (I’ve eclectic tastes in food and music) remembers listening to “At Last” and perhaps “Someone To Watch Over Me” and I do.

I didn’t know her or her personal life, but love that voice. While we can buy that song, that voice, on iTunes it’ll never be the same now that she’s gone. I can’t even try to describe that voice, the passion and elasticity (I know, but it’s what I came up with to deal with her mastery of changing tone). In another life she might be an actress who can change persona in an instant.

Her gifted nature may have harmed her, but her voice will stay with us. For younger folks reading this, listen to her and she’ll open up a new world devoid of hip hop and anything that passes for music these days. In humble respect, Dee

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Short Ribs

Posted on January 20, 2012 | Leave a comment

First time I ever bought or cooked them. My sole experience is watching Top Chef with pressure cookers. I don’t have one so just winged it. I never saw these at our butcher counters as a kid so this is new.

I knew the bones weigh a lot so I bought three ribs (we ate 2). First I sauteed some onions and garlic while I parboiled two potatoes. Then I floured the ribs and browned them on all sides. Then I put everything into a baking pan, tossed in some Tuscan red wine, covered it and baked it for about two hours.

It was good! I had carrots and should have parboiled them with the potatoes but the pan was fully loaded. Next time. Listen to James Beard in one of my favorite cookbooks of all time (it’s on my list but you’ll have to look it up on Cookbooks and click), James Beard’s Theory and Practice of Good Cooking. If you know how to braise and what to braise, you can make up your own recipe. If you’re trained as a French chef. NO! You just have to know techniques and ingredients.

Do not be afraid of food. If your mom or dad were great cooks, just remember those childhood smells and tastes and re-create them. Then do your own riff on it and put it in your recipe file.

Next time I’ll make sure the oven is calibrated and probably leave it in for another hour to make the ribs mouthwatering-ly tender. My dear husband says that it takes me three times to perfect a dish. I don’t agree. But my first try with short ribs, he said “That was GOOD!” No, the dog doesn’t get these leftovers. Cheers, Dee

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Twinkies

Posted on January 20, 2012 | Leave a comment

As the company goes into bankruptcy, I thought you might be interested in a comment I wrote that was published in the NYTimes in response to Mark Bittman’s blog:

“When I moved back above the Mason-Dixon line to my hometown, that of wings, beef on ‘weck and Ted’s hot dogs, I got to choose my own hot lunch instead of something on a shingle. A gymnast weighing in at 87 lbs. my nutritious lunch every day was a slice of pizza, pint of chocolate milk and two Twinkies. And I didn’t gain an ounce. Must be that the juke box was playing the Beach Boys.”

Enjoy the day! Dee

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