Too Clogged to Blog

I’ve been sick, under the weather, not my usual self. Any of these apply. But to sum it up, I’ve been too clogged to blog.

My doctor blamed my grandchildren for my condition. In his medical opinion, those two adorable kids came back from Disney World and all I got was this nasty virus. Granted, they did have bouts of strep throat while away and returned with a cough and fever he diagnosed as croup, but I have no doubt I got this virus from my computer.

Computer viruses are different from people virus and never the twain shall meet; or so the good doctor claims. Eons ago they made the same claim about birds and swine. We know how that turned out.

What my medical expert doesn’t realize is that my computer and I are extremely close. I spend more waking hours with it than any other person or devise in my life. I’ve even named it Wordsworth. Words for short. They say that after living together for years, married people begin to act alike, talk alike and even look alike. Well, Words and I experience a similar phenomenon. I download a Spanish file into Wordsworth by mistake and mysteriously he’s no longer backed up. I eat tacos; the same goes for me.

So you see, it’s not only possible that Wordsworth gave me this affliction; it’s the most logical explanation. How did he become infected, you ask? I’ve done my own medical investigation by carefully backtracking his whereabouts for the past two weeks. Approximately ten days ago, I received a new friend request from facebook. Ever eager to increase my number of friends, I accepted her quickly. Too quickly. Had I examined this photo more closely, I would have noticed the crumpled tissue in her hand. Wordsworth’s immune system was undoubtedly compromised by this encounter.

Two days later I received a tweet about the upcoming flu season. Come to think of it, has anyone researched the link between bird flu and twitter? To calm my fears, I went to the CDC (Centers for Disease Control) website. I should have known better. People looking for disease control are probably diseased. Duh. Typing away at their germ-infested keyboards. And who knows where their hands have been.

By the way, if you’re looking for reading material the gang at the CDC suggest Morbidity and Mortality. When you finish that one , try Prevention of Chronic Diseases. Personally I'll wait for the Dummies edition.

A word of caution to you bloggees. I’m new to this blog thing and am not certain that this is the correct term and mean no offense by it. I assume if I’m the blogger, anyone reading would be the bloggee. Please feel free to correct me. Back to the CDC…

Do not, I repeat, do not (even though it’s quite tempting)
DO NOT CLICK ON Emerging Infectious Diseases.

I did. Within seconds Wordsworth became sluggish. He could barely open a file. He was out of sorts. Ten days later, that’s exactly how I feel now. Coincidence? I think not.

With lots of rest for us both and plenty of fluids, for me, not Wordsworth, we’re both getting stronger by the day. I’m down to a half box of tissues per day and Wordsworth is no longer creating pointless Power Point presentations. Soon we will be back to our normal selves. I plan to keep us that way. I make Wordsworth stop at the Lysol website before and after going online and I’m wearing rubber gloves.

Twitter Dee - Twitter Dum

Not to brag, but I now email, blog and have a faceless page on facebook. I’m still thinking about which picture to post. A very nice one came with my new wallet and I’m considering that one.

Mastering, well that may be a stretch, let me rephrase that. Learning the basics of these new telecommunication networks may seem like no major accomplishment to the average six year-old, but to a this boomer now eligible to file for Social Security, it’s something to crow about. Which brings me to Twitter—my new frontier.

I have friends who twitter. Oops! Twitter, they tell me, is not a verb. My friends tweet. I assume this word choice comes from the days when we found out things that others didn’t particularly want us to know and claimed a little birdie told us. Another thought is that this network was intended to send love letters setting hearts atwitter. I’ll use my search engine to find out the real story and report back.

A good friend of mine assured me that Twitter was a snap. Her 88-year-old mother was tweeting and would be happy to walk me through the process. No offense, to her mother, but if she could do it, so could I.

On August 6th, I decided the time was right. Twitter.com, ready or not, here I come. I entered my name. Choosing a user name is always fun. Cher was already taken as it always is, so I chose something easier to remember—my own name. Passwords are always difficult for me. I have more of them than the U. S. government has clunkers. I opted for my techno one. Twitter told me it was weak. I chose another. Twitter said that was weak too. I went through six more weak ones until Twitter was finally happy. Note: MuscleboundSr is now taken.

My next step was to Create Account. I was feeling pretty cocky until a series of twisted letters appeared on the screen. Twitter said this was for security purposes, so I couldn’t ignore it. I haven’t seen letters so squiggly since I renewed my driver’s license. I closed one, squinted with the other duplicated them perfectly. Just as I finished, Twitter crashed. It went twud.

Now I’d done it. I’d silenced Twitter. Tweets were no doubt circling in cyberspace bumping into one another and interfering with weather satellites. Had I toppled Doppler? Would those tweets interfere with airplanes like geese do? Would we have cable?

I didn’t know what the penalty for crashing Twitter would be. I imagined the Twitter police marching to our door. Chances are they’d have blue birds on their shoulders. They’d slap handcuffs around my wrists and cage me. Just in case, I ran upstairs and wiped my keyboard clean. If need be, I’d ask my husband to check our bank balance online.

And where in the world did I stand with Twitter? Did this crash mean I was a half-twit?

The news of Twitter’s demise made national, and though I didn’t check the BBC, most likely international news. Officials and conspiracy theorists have called it a cyber attack and blamed it on a group of politically motivated hackers. I know better.

But I ain’t singing.

Julie & Julia & Jane

Yesterday I saw Julie & Julia—the movie, not the people. I wasn’t sure it would be my cup of tea. Julie was a cute young woman worried about turning 30. 30! Need I say more? And I always considered Julia somewhat of a food snob. I based this notion on her insistence to use real butter and spices I’d never heard of.

I doubted I’d connect with Julia, as I do not claim to be a French chef. Or a French chef in the making. I don’t claim to be related to Chef Boyardee. As a cook I’ve had more years experience in the food preparation department than I care to admit—opening boxes, cans and the like. I can dip a spoon into a pot, take a sip, close my eyes, and smack my lips with the best of them, but my experience with cuisine, I must admit is nearly nonexistent.

I’ve seen clips of Julia on TV, but that as close as Julia and I have come. I don’t own her cookbook nor have never glanced through its pages at the bookstore. I feel much more comfortable with Betty Crocker. I’ve never seen a box with Julia’s name on the label in the Hamburger Helper section of the grocery. My limited encounters with Julia make me hungry, but have never, ever make me want to cook.

For these reasons, I was hesitant to attend this movie. I imagined the theater filled with chefs from area restaurants. Or worse yet, those dreadful food snobs who claim real Parmesan cheese does not come in a round green container.

I considered buying one of those fluffy white hats to wear, but thought better of it fearing it might block the view of a devoted Julia fan. I did, however, stop at the Dollar Store to pick up a whisk to tuck into my purse in case anyone questioned my right to be there. The whisk and I are no longer friends, as it became tangled with my keys and caused me to miss most of the previews.

I settled into my seat observing my fellow moviegoers. Comparing the audience to the boef bourguignon (stew) Julie prepared, the women were the meat. The few gentlemen were the parsley flakes she sprinkled on top. It may not have been parsley, but you get the idea. Take it from me, it’s very difficult to take notes in the dark; add to that the saliva dropping onto the paper and it’s nearly impossible. Rest assured, I saw no white coats or puffy hats so I felt safe.

For nearly two hours, I watched Julia dice mounds and mounds of onions (it’s such a shame they didn’t have those little frozen packs in those days), create culinary masterpiece after culinary masterpiece, and slather butter on anything that didn’t move. She used so much butter and it looked so good, at one point I considered storming the popcorn station just to get a butter fix.

I left the theater with an entirely new impression of Julia. She was no food snob. She was the goddess of the kitchen. I’d follow her anywhere. I’d learn to cook like her even if it meant doubling my husband’s cholesterol medication.

When I got home I decided to turn my kitchen into Julia’s. I hung my pots and pans on the wall. They fell to the floor as the 41-year-old handles dislodged themselves from the cookware. I’d go a gourmet shop to buy new.

I searched E-Bay for cookbooks with Julia’s name on it. I pledged ten dollars more than the current bids. I offered to pay for next-day shipping. No price was too high.

Until I could get my hands on those books, I’d have to settle for what I could find online. My googling efforts netted me some of Julia’s favorites. Vichyssoise! I’d heard of that dish. It sounded so, so French. And delicious. Then I read the English translation—Chilled Leek and Potato Soup.

Maybe I’d try her Deluxe Chicken Salad. If Kroger sells chicken salad in the deli, how difficult could Julia’s be? Dear Julia’s called for eleven (11!) ingredients, one of them being excellent light olive oil. I thought the stuff I had on hand was pretty good, but would Julia really rate it as excellent? Especially since the expiration date had passed two years ago. Besides, I had long ago instituted a 5-ingredient limit in my kitchen. I wasn’t ready to break it yet, not even for Julia.

I moved on to Julia's Braised Whole Fillet of Salmon. A good healthy dish. High in those fish oils Dr. Oz raves about. The instructions covered my computer screen three times.

I rethought this French cooking thing. Surely I missed the warning posted at the start of the movie: Do not try this at home. If it hadn’t been there, I’d contact Nora Ephron and suggest it. Meanwhile, I made reservations at the little French Restaurant in Cincinnati and prayed that someone would outbid me on E-Bay.

Dinner was tres fantastique.

As Julia would say, “Bon Apetit!”

New Technology & An Old Friend

In my never-ending effort to keep up with the latest in technological communication, I have created my very own Facebook page. Actually, it’s better described as my faceless book page, as I’ve as yet to decide on a photograph to post.

I’d heard my kids (one just turned 40, but they’re still kids to me) talk about Facebook and figured it was some newfangled distraction for young people. Nothing I’d be interest in. Then a few of my friends signed on saying it was they only contact they had with their children outside of Friday evenings when they dropped the grandkids off for the weekend. I still wasn’t interested. One by one my friends succumbed to the lure of Facebook and I realized not unlike the lava lamp in the attic, that I hadn’t realized I needed Facebook until my friends had it and I did not.

I attempted to look at my friends’ Facebook pages, but found them available to other Facebook people only, reminiscent of the fifth grade club that met in our garage and admitted no unless they could recite the secret password. I gave in and signed up for Facebook and could access my friends’ pages. The Facebook police informed me that my friends only allow certain people to view their information. I was the new kid on the Facebook block and must ask my real-world friends if they would be my Facebook friends. I experienced some of the anxiety I had in the second grade when we moved to a different neighborhood.

After some begging and arm-twisting I had friends. I had friends of friends who then became our mutual friends. But best of all I was in the loop. I checked my page daily limiting myself to 10 minutes per day as some of my friends warned of the danger of addiction. After a month or so of knowing whose grandkids had diarrhea, who had an OB-GYN appointment scheduled, and how effective a home remedy for hot flashes actually was, I questioned the value of Facebook.

I enjoyed pictures of grandchildren, puppies, and bald husbands. But after opening a colonoscopy shot that I considered beyond the boundaries of good taste, I thought about dropping out of the Facebook world. I was on the verge of termination when I a message I received changed my mind. It seems a friend of mine had a friend who was the brother of an old friend of mine. We were close friends in high school, but hadn’t been in contact for several decades. This gentleman directed me to the Facebook page of my friend’s husband. I contacted her and we’ve renewed our friendship. We live in different parts of Ohio and we’re catching up on the lost years by email. Oh, the joys of Facebook. Once again, technology is my friend.