I love making bread. I didn't always. The parts I didn't like were the mess it made on the cupboard (flour going everywhere when I kneaded the dough) and my uncertainty about whether I'd kneaded it enough, too much, used too much flour, too little. That's why I made sweetrolls more often than bread. Then I used the recipe that came with my first Cuisinart. Perfect. No mess, no fuss, no kneading, no guesswork. Loved it.
Friday I used my new Cuisinart for the first time and made the recipe for Classic Wheat Bread that's in the booklet that came with the processor. Lovely loaves. Lovely! And even though I think the water was a little too hot and almost killed the yeast. I was patient enough to let the dough rise properly and was graciously rewarded for that. We're already in need of more loaves so I have dough rising right now. This is another experiment because the only yeast I had in the house was the rapid-rise type. The dough was stickier. We shall see how it turns out. And I'll put a photo with this as soon as it comes out of the oven.
Then I'll invite you all over for fresh bread and butter. (NOT butter substitute. Never. Not on homemade bread.) Coffee? Well, I think tea goes better but I'll allow coffee. Better give me a call to let me know you're on your way so that I turn on the heater in the porch; it's so nice to sit out there.
See you soon?
Sunday, October 31, 2010
Friday, October 29, 2010
Politics as Usual ... or Worse
I'm so tired of hearing analyses, predictions, poll results, statistics, negative ads. For the first time since I turned 21 I actually don't feel like voting. I will, but my heart isn't in it.
Our country has become meaner. Too many are unwilling to see nuances, shades, possibilities; too many want everything to be in high contrast, black & white, yes or no. It makes for much easier decision-making when you don't have to take any mitigating circumstances into consideration. Shoot the bastard. He done wrong.
When Air America, the liberal talk-radio station, began a few years ago I heard or read why there had never been (and no longer is) a such a thing. The commentator said that liberals feel it's their duty to listen to all viewpoints and that kills the anger that listeners and callers are looking for. And then I heard Al Franken on Air America and he was doing exactly that: presenting three viewpoints on a topic. How can you have a good heated argument with THREE people? You need only two, and it's best if they hate each other. Needless to say, Air America folded ... last year? Anyway, it's gone.
I want the media to leave me alone in a political season. I want our political season to mimic Canada's: candidates campaign for 6 weeks. No more. I'm sure there's fundraising going on before that period but the actual campaign is 6 weeks. I don't want to move to Canada (partly because I haven't paid attention to their political system and don't have much of a clue as to how it works). But I don't want to be here either.
I'm tired. But I'll vote.
Our country has become meaner. Too many are unwilling to see nuances, shades, possibilities; too many want everything to be in high contrast, black & white, yes or no. It makes for much easier decision-making when you don't have to take any mitigating circumstances into consideration. Shoot the bastard. He done wrong.
When Air America, the liberal talk-radio station, began a few years ago I heard or read why there had never been (and no longer is) a such a thing. The commentator said that liberals feel it's their duty to listen to all viewpoints and that kills the anger that listeners and callers are looking for. And then I heard Al Franken on Air America and he was doing exactly that: presenting three viewpoints on a topic. How can you have a good heated argument with THREE people? You need only two, and it's best if they hate each other. Needless to say, Air America folded ... last year? Anyway, it's gone.
I want the media to leave me alone in a political season. I want our political season to mimic Canada's: candidates campaign for 6 weeks. No more. I'm sure there's fundraising going on before that period but the actual campaign is 6 weeks. I don't want to move to Canada (partly because I haven't paid attention to their political system and don't have much of a clue as to how it works). But I don't want to be here either.
I'm tired. But I'll vote.
Monday, September 27, 2010
Walking
My daughter runs. My other daughter does the elliptical. I walk. (I would be the oldest one here.) But I walk pretty doggoned fast, if I do say so myself--2.5 miles in about 42 minutes. I've walked for exercise for years and years and have decided that I simply love to walk. People say that runners become addicted to running and maybe I have the same affliction. If I don't walk, I don't feel out of sorts, but I definitely don't feel "in sorts." Walking makes me feel good. I know, I know, it's the endorphins. But I prefer to say that it makes me feel good.
These days I'm walking in "Adirondack fall foliage."
Saranac Lake, about 45 minutes into the mountains from me, was reporting that this past weekend was peak colors for leaf peepers. It's still fun to think that I'm living in a "destination" for downstaters who come up here just to drive around! And I'm sure that many of my readers (I believe I've added a few occasional peepers of my own--up from my 2 original readers, my daughters who read it occasionally out of obligation [But hey, that's what offspring are for, right? To be there for their addled elders.])--who live in equally beautiful parts of the world. But out here, New Yorkers, and even more so, New Englanders, make such a big deal out of it! So I try to appreciate the bejeezus out of it.
So go for a walk. It makes you feel good.
These days I'm walking in "Adirondack fall foliage."
Saranac Lake, about 45 minutes into the mountains from me, was reporting that this past weekend was peak colors for leaf peepers. It's still fun to think that I'm living in a "destination" for downstaters who come up here just to drive around! And I'm sure that many of my readers (I believe I've added a few occasional peepers of my own--up from my 2 original readers, my daughters who read it occasionally out of obligation [But hey, that's what offspring are for, right? To be there for their addled elders.])--who live in equally beautiful parts of the world. But out here, New Yorkers, and even more so, New Englanders, make such a big deal out of it! So I try to appreciate the bejeezus out of it.
So go for a walk. It makes you feel good.
Saturday, September 18, 2010
Top Ten
Starla's top 10 reasons not to surround your house and yard with 50-100-year-old oak trees:
10. Acorns
9. The size of the mulch pile that never seems to decrease because it's made up almost entirely of oak leaves, which take about 30 years to biodegrade, and acorns, which apparently never do.
8. Big acorns
7. The bunker mentality one enters when the sound of acorns pelting down from on high and hitting the metal roof on the house creates the sounds of an artillery target zone
6. Little pointy acorns
5. The tiny caterpillars that rappel down by the hundreds from the oaks in the summer--even the county extension people don't know what they are--and that probably feed on acorns
4. Chenilles, which is what my husband calls the lame-o "flowers" oak trees produce, precursors of acorns, which, if not raked (like one is some serious OCD patient) will mat in the rain and create a walking surface much like that of a greased cake pan.
3. The need, aside from one's normal OCD needs, to rake acorns because it becomes impossible to walk across the acorn-studded grass, which is akin to walking on marbles--even in shoes it's not fun.
2. Injuries caused by acorns rocketing down from 60-80 foot trees any time a breeze stronger than 2 mph blows
And the number one reason not to surround your house and yard with 50-100-year-old oak trees:
1. The insult of being hit by an acorn while raking said objects
I'm thinking maples.....
10. Acorns
9. The size of the mulch pile that never seems to decrease because it's made up almost entirely of oak leaves, which take about 30 years to biodegrade, and acorns, which apparently never do.
8. Big acorns
7. The bunker mentality one enters when the sound of acorns pelting down from on high and hitting the metal roof on the house creates the sounds of an artillery target zone
6. Little pointy acorns
5. The tiny caterpillars that rappel down by the hundreds from the oaks in the summer--even the county extension people don't know what they are--and that probably feed on acorns
4. Chenilles, which is what my husband calls the lame-o "flowers" oak trees produce, precursors of acorns, which, if not raked (like one is some serious OCD patient) will mat in the rain and create a walking surface much like that of a greased cake pan.
3. The need, aside from one's normal OCD needs, to rake acorns because it becomes impossible to walk across the acorn-studded grass, which is akin to walking on marbles--even in shoes it's not fun.
2. Injuries caused by acorns rocketing down from 60-80 foot trees any time a breeze stronger than 2 mph blows
And the number one reason not to surround your house and yard with 50-100-year-old oak trees:
1. The insult of being hit by an acorn while raking said objects
I'm thinking maples.....
Friday, August 6, 2010
A Night
This is a night when we did something. Many of my nights are do-nothing nights spent in front of the TV, but never just watching. I have to be doing something else, too. Tonight, I'm just vegging, though.We went to a lovely concert tonight on the old base. Around here, "old base" and "new base" meant a left turn or a right off US Avenue. The old base (left turn) has beautiful Victorian-era side-by-side duplexes. Each is three full storeys, apparently with butler's stairways and rooms for "the help" on the 3rd floor. They've all become townhouses and if I hadn't been married, I'd have bought one and worked however long that required! They are the 3-chimney, front veranda beautiful tall brick houses (slate roofs, of course, in this area). I believe they have hardwood floors, etc. Oh, to die for.
The old base "oval" also includes the lovely little Plattsburgh Memorial Chapel, where the concert was held--this was a fundraiser and I'd put together the brochure a couple of years before but never been (or even seen) the building. So I was happy to buy the ticket and then Bruce, who loves classical music, said he'd join me. How nice!
And the concert was good. The students at Meadowmount compete for spots there and I'm guessing are Julliard and Berkshire music students. They don't do light stuff for concerts, either. It was string quartets with 3-4 movements by Mozart, Shostakovich and Barber. Not easy going for these kids, either, I'd bet. But they were rehearsed and as a result made crisp, together entrances and only messed up the timing once or twice. String quartets have the same problems I've met in "foursome" vocal groups: Who's the boss? As I said, they did well most of the time. It was a delightful evening.
So I'm sitting here "after hours" with my martini and barefooted, as I love to be in the summer. It's August, and I'm just waiting to get older (the 23d for me). Meanwhile this is a lovely, warm (too humid) summer night. I hope yours is, too.
Friday, July 30, 2010
The Wonders of Technology!
I just have to post about the cool thing I just did.
I'm editing my audio tapes--I think I've mentioned that I read novels for the vision-impaired--and this time it's Gone with the Wind. The way this is done is to make 30-minute digital "tapes" at a recording studio at the local PBS station, bring them home on a flash-drive and edit them here. The 30-minute tapes are edited for errors, stumbles, too-long pauses, mispronunciations, etc. You get the picture. They usually wind up being about 24-25 minutes long. Then I "mix them down" into 55-minute episodes (with a 45-second break in the middle) and return them to the station, where the program's coordinator adds music, an intro that includes a synopsis of the previous episode (which I've provided typed out), and a closing w/music. (This is all done with Adobe's Audition program.)
So I was editing along and got to a sentence with the word daguerreotype in it, and when I had read that sentence, I couldn't remember how I had pronounced it when I'd read it earlier in the book. (It has 2 acceptable pronunciations.) Being a topnotch reference librarian (still!), I went to amazon.com, and found the version of the book, GWTW, that you can look inside. I searched for the word daguerreotype, found the page on which it had occurred, opened my edited tape containing that page, found the spot where I'd read it before and heard the way I had pronounced it then so I could do it the same way for this occurrence. I'd read it both ways this time around just so I could do this while editing, so I just deleted the other one and my reading will be consistent.
Ya just gotta love the power of technology!
I'm editing my audio tapes--I think I've mentioned that I read novels for the vision-impaired--and this time it's Gone with the Wind. The way this is done is to make 30-minute digital "tapes" at a recording studio at the local PBS station, bring them home on a flash-drive and edit them here. The 30-minute tapes are edited for errors, stumbles, too-long pauses, mispronunciations, etc. You get the picture. They usually wind up being about 24-25 minutes long. Then I "mix them down" into 55-minute episodes (with a 45-second break in the middle) and return them to the station, where the program's coordinator adds music, an intro that includes a synopsis of the previous episode (which I've provided typed out), and a closing w/music. (This is all done with Adobe's Audition program.)
So I was editing along and got to a sentence with the word daguerreotype in it, and when I had read that sentence, I couldn't remember how I had pronounced it when I'd read it earlier in the book. (It has 2 acceptable pronunciations.) Being a topnotch reference librarian (still!), I went to amazon.com, and found the version of the book, GWTW, that you can look inside. I searched for the word daguerreotype, found the page on which it had occurred, opened my edited tape containing that page, found the spot where I'd read it before and heard the way I had pronounced it then so I could do it the same way for this occurrence. I'd read it both ways this time around just so I could do this while editing, so I just deleted the other one and my reading will be consistent.
Ya just gotta love the power of technology!
Being a Mom
In the last 18 months I've seen several faces of motherhood: my niece being a stepmom; my daughter being a mom, and mom again; me being a stepmom/stand-in mom; a LOT of me being a mom of an adult child- or stepchild-in-need. It's amazing how similar all the situations are at heart. In the last couple of years I've coped with, in my children, stepchildren and nieces/nephews generation: serious mental health issues, geographic moves, near-death experiences ... and their aftermaths, hormones (I'd mistakenly thought that was over after middle/high school, silly me), and maturation in all of the above-mentioned children. Or so I hope.
What all the situations have asked of me is the wisdom of the sage. Like I knew what the hell I was talking about. I use common sense and love and common sense. I never took one Psychology course in college. But having taught and having been a research resourse for so many developing adults, I learned from what I looked up for them and from the questions they asked me outside of class.
Mostly people under 50 want to know: Is this a good idea? Am I looking at this thoroughly? Which path should I choose? And I REALLY try to say: Do YOU think this is a good idea? Have you thought of .....? What are all the paths? Answering a question with a question in my life has nothing to do with being Jewish (I'm not) and all to do with being a research librarian. All I could ever do was set someone on the path to finding the answer and hope like hell I'd helped them see where the signposts are.
Bruce says I should hang out my shingle as a therapist. I'm not sure he's wrong. I get off the phone after talking through a problem with any one of my "clients" and I'm exhausted. How do all you social workers/counselors/psychotherapists do it? All I am is a mom. Do you think you could talk to someone about creating a payscale for moms?
(The funny thing about this post is that there are relatively few crises now; last year was my damn-near-died year as counselor. I just decided to post this after the fact.)
What all the situations have asked of me is the wisdom of the sage. Like I knew what the hell I was talking about. I use common sense and love and common sense. I never took one Psychology course in college. But having taught and having been a research resourse for so many developing adults, I learned from what I looked up for them and from the questions they asked me outside of class.
Mostly people under 50 want to know: Is this a good idea? Am I looking at this thoroughly? Which path should I choose? And I REALLY try to say: Do YOU think this is a good idea? Have you thought of .....? What are all the paths? Answering a question with a question in my life has nothing to do with being Jewish (I'm not) and all to do with being a research librarian. All I could ever do was set someone on the path to finding the answer and hope like hell I'd helped them see where the signposts are.
Bruce says I should hang out my shingle as a therapist. I'm not sure he's wrong. I get off the phone after talking through a problem with any one of my "clients" and I'm exhausted. How do all you social workers/counselors/psychotherapists do it? All I am is a mom. Do you think you could talk to someone about creating a payscale for moms?
(The funny thing about this post is that there are relatively few crises now; last year was my damn-near-died year as counselor. I just decided to post this after the fact.)
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