Facebook has its uses

Tags

connections, contacts, postaday2013, writing

I have to admit that after being on Facebook for some time now, I have come to appreciate some of its features. It is very handy when it comes to remembering birthdays, Facebook often lets you know first thing when you log on, otherwise I would have forgotten a few here and there.

Another aspect that I like is when you find an organization that interests you, they inevitably have a Facebook page that you can “like” and voila, you are linked to the latest news and events.

What I especially appreciate are the schools or universities that have parental groups designed to be closed so that the parents can freely discuss their woes, concerns and questions. Various school administrators peruse the thread because they will come in and provide answers to many of the questions that are thrown out in the comment sections.

What I like best about Facebook is the instant connection I get with my family in France, just the fact that they click “like” on something that I posted, puts a smile on my face.

I know that to most these are the most obvious and basic observations but to an anti-techie like myself, this means that I have come a small way into the tech universe.

Standout

When was the last time you really stood out in a crowd? Are you comfortable in that position, or do you wish you could fade into the woodwork?

Once, when I was a senior in high school, my English teacher, Mister Faust, who was the best English teacher, our class was dedicated to Shakespeare and he had the gift of dimystifying the language. He had made plans to take us to the theatre to see A Merchant of Venice with Derek Jacobi at the Gotham Theatre in New York City. The idea was for the class to meet in the lobby a half hour before curtain call. My father still had his second restaurant Le Chatelet two blocks away from the Gotham theatre so I made the point to have dinner with my father. After dinner my father gave me a glass of champagne and sent me off wishing me a lovely evening.

As I walked towards the theatre I felt a presence following me and when I looked behind me, there was a man and he gave me a very bad feeling. I got to the theatre and the whole facade of the lobby was floor to ceiling glass. I could see my classmates and Mister Faust standing amongst a huge crowd of people, the lobby was packed. I quickly went to the revolving doors with two thoughts on my mind; getting away from the bad man and getting to my teacher. I went through the revolving doors and crashed through one of the glass doors, and burst into the lobby.

The entire lobby fell silent and I was in shock, followed by a tremendous embarrassment. I wanted to fall through the floor at that moment.

I still went to the play, I couldn't miss Derek Jacobi now could I?

To this day I would always rather melt into the background then be in front and possible be the focus of attention.

Quinoa and other ingredients, makes for a nice dinner

Tags

dinner, ingredients, postaday2013, protein, quinoa

Last night I had zero inspiration for dinner, I hate it when that happens, my hubby called and kindly informed me what was circling his brain in reference to din-din. He was craving quinoa with a pilaf twist to it and we had all of the ingredients right there at my disposal, so no problem, off to the chopping block I went. Now making quinoa is beautifully easy, heat water to boil, put quinoa in, cover and simmer for twelve minutes, fluff, shut off the heat and let stand for five minutes, all this easiness and plus it is a grain that is a complete protein, what can be better than that? The pilaf part was more labor intensive, chopping into small dice; carrots, celery, red pepper, yellow pepper, orange pepper, two vidalia onions and six cloves of garlic, crushed and minced. Once everything was diced, the easy part was sautéing it until everything was nicely caramelized and incorporating the vegetables into the quinoa. This was a hit last night, but the two men in my life were saying that it lacked a certain carnivorous quality.

Tonight the lack of meat was rectified with sausage. Sausage, like bacon, makes everything tastes better, at least in my book. I must say that leftovers are such a wonderful thing, even if you have to tweak it a little bit, the tweaking never takes too long and everyone is happy once again, fed and satiated.

Mirror, mirror on the wall

Think of your blog as a mirror: what does it reveal? Consider your blog name, theme choice, design, bio, posts… what does every element tell you about yourself?

My blog is very simple in every aspect imaginable. The name was easy, since it is about me and my life, I named it laurieancihols. I am not very good at coming up with titles or clever "jeux de mots" (word games), so I always keep it simple. Actually my blog is very similar to my mirror, what you see is what you get. Ever since I was 15, I made it a habit of not wearing makeup because I had seen many of my friends the next morning without their "face" and I didn't want to have that be something that defined me, my "face". So I took that to heart and tried to live with the adage "what you see is what you get morning, noon and night, no surprises"

The same goes with my blog, whenever I write a post, it is done as a stream of consciousness, I reread what I have written to check for spelling errors and punctuation but rarely do I rework it, it flows from my brain through my little fingers, to the keyboard and onto the screen, so from within my mind "what you see is what you get" as well.

I like simplicity, it makes life for me more understandable.

The best picture

Tags

bunnies, pictures, piglets, postaday2013

I saw the picture of the bunny on Facebook and the caption read as follows “Rob the giant bunny with his miniature piglet friends” It doesn’t get any better than this, my hubby’s name is Rob and he is as cuddly as a giant bunny and one of his best friends resembles a little piglet, our little Jack!
We have called Jack our little piglet since he first came to us with his adorable markings, not to mention, the adorable way he asks for food and the fact that he will eat anything that is offered, vegetable, fruit, cookie, ice cream, anything.

I love these two pictures!

Too funny? Not funny?

Can anything be funny, or are some things off limits?

I am pretty sure that the answer to that question is the existence of another question "Too soon?" That simple question proves that there are certain topics that only become funny after a certain amount of time when the pain has worn off and the underlying ridiculousness can be appreciated. I have heard that phrase a few times from stand up comedians when they, I suppose, are testing the waters to see how the audience responds and the "Too soon?" gives these comedians a graceful out,if you will, to go onto safer ground.

Another area that I think is off limits is when a pratfall injures the person. I happily watch "America's Funniest Home Videos" because I know that they won't ever show videos where the people have been seriously hurt, their pride probably bruised, but not their physical person. I laugh only because being the biggest klutz in this family, I empathize with the person falling and it is only by the luck of the universe, that I have yet to be video taped in any of my most awkward moments. I laugh at myself the longest and the loudest because I can only imagine how funny it must be to others and that cracks me up every single time. I can't help it and the more I try to squelch it, the harder the laughter comes, until tears are streaming down my face and I can't talk or barely breath, it borders on the pitiful.

New York pizza

Tags

favorite, food, pizza, pizzeria, postaday2013

Everyone has a favorite pizza place, mine has always been Frankie’s pizzeria on 31st between 23rd Ave and Ditmars Blvd. I remember eating there as far back as when I was five years old, I think, I remember a slice being 20 cents. This being New York City, there isn’t a shortage of “best” slices of pizza, I found mine a long time ago, not too far from my house. My hubby actually has come around to admitting that Frankie’s is his favorite as well. I love all of the pizza’s elements, the pizza crust which is a thin crust, nice and chewy and with a nice crunch at the same time, the tomato sauce is well flavored and they don’t go overboard with the cheese so that you can taste the sauce. The balance between the components is what defines this pizza and makes it the best in my book.

On the other hand I do prefer eating my own pizza that I make at home because my slices don’t sit as heavily as Frankie’s, my pizza crust is thinner and with the sliced onions, excellent Cento tomato sauce that I have found and the combination of fresh mozzarella and regular mozzarella, it seems that you can eat it without it going to your hips, lol.

Regardless, pizza is a wonderful food, I have never considered it to be “junk food”, it is simply bread, tomato sauce and cheese. I love it, it’s a finger food and fun to eat, albeit I always seem to eat it and drip it on me. I am gradually getting to a place where I have to accept that I need to break out the bib, the adult bib in my case. Sad I know, but my shirts and blouses are getting stained way too often these days.

Lifeline

You’re on a long flight, and a palm reader sitting next to you insists she reads your palm. You hesitate, but agree. What does she tell you?

As I sit here looking at my palm, first at my right one and then at my left one, they are different. I am looking for the life line to see how long it is and all of the lines on both of my palms seem pretty short, there isn't one that extends to beyond my palm so I really don't want a reading.

But since this is pretend, here goes nothing, she, the fortune teller, says that since my lines criss cross that means that I will end up living the rest of my life across the ocean in a small house with a smallish garden in peace and tranquility with a small dog and the only long line that I have on my palm represents my long marriage to my husband. She also says that the many short lines show many small grandchildren in the future milling around the small house and playing with the small dog (Jack).

Since these are happy predictions, I go into my pocket and give her a bill to show my thanks and she closes her eyes and goes to sleep while I sit next to her looking out the window of the plane dreaming of my small villa at Le Canon with my small garden that Jack has claimed for his own and fantasizing my daily trips to the market each morning, picking out nectarines, cantaloup, French bread and other goodies for lunch.

That plane ride is probably one of the best ever.

Trying to unsee something, very hard to do.

Tags

music, postaday2013, T.v, VMA awards

My hubby and I watched the VMA show Sunday night because like most of the world, we love music and the show has always been entertaining, you never know what Lady Gaga is going to do or what Katy Perry is going to wear. The fashion police is out front and center because musicians take a lot more risks then your average movie star and it is very delightful to watch.

Now I do not consider myself a prude or a puritan, but I have to confess that I was getting uncomfortable with Miley Cyrus’s performance when she was grinding against Robin Thicke during their performance and also seeing what she was doing with that styrofoam finger went way over the top to the point of ickyness.

Maybe because my baby girl had watched Miley Cyrus be Hannah Montana for so long and seeing her be a little girl made me feel a little dirty after seeing her rub her little physique against a grown man because Miley may be twenty but she still looks like a very young teenager and it was just too much for my little eyes and little brain to take in, my hubby was half asleep so he was spared.

Now I know that I could have changed the channel but it was too much like a car wreck, I couldn’t look away. The craziest was that Lady Gaga’s performance was so very tame by comparison even her outfit with the mermaid sea shells and thong was not provocative when measured against Miley’s gyrating, twerking and tongue exposure.

I suppose that I am writing about it because poor Miley hasn’t left the news as of yet. I am worried that in her pursuit of ditching the image that she had as a result of portraying Hannah Montana, she is letting herself be defined by superficial notions of what passes as adult behavior. I remember that being twenty is a heady experience, you are still a brand new adult and still figuring out what that means, I just hope that someone on her team will be there to catch her when the nay sayers get to be too much to bear.

This was one event, she has talent and seems to be such a sweet girl, so I am sure that she will grow out of this phase and get back to celebrating her music with her lyrics and her abilities.

P.C.?

Is political correctness a useful concept, or does it stifle honest discussion?

I think that political correctness is a tool that serves a purpose, it serves as a reminder that there are certain terms, positions and beliefs that are not acceptable and that we are hopefully at a stage in our evolution that has decided that enough is enough with bigotry and prejudice.

In the United States for example for reasons I can not understand there still exists a debate surrounding whether it is okay for a certain group of people to use the "n" word. There was also a debate as to why it is okay for the use of the word "cracker" and not the "n" word. I really can't understand why anyone in anyway would ever want to use a word that has such a vile history in our culture. The "n" word has no place in a person's vocabulary, now on the other hand, hearing the word "cracker" doesn't mean anything to me because the connotations are so very different. The history behind that word simply reveals the poor white people who cracked the whip against the slaves, they weren't the slave owners, just the overseer who made sure that the slaves did what was required and treated them as less then human. So I don't feel the same way about the word. We still desperately need sensitivity to the race relations in our country.

Another area that needs work is that there is a debate over whether certain clothing choices made by women condemn them to being victims of rape. Instead of focusing on the idea that teaching men that there is never any reason for rape. I am not sure where the political correctness is in this situation but I believe a little more political correctness is necessary. Shaming young women into thinking that they are to blame for their rape needs to stop and making education a vital part of young people, being careful with alcohol and drugs, teaching young men that no is an important word, drunk is never an excuse and clothing has nothing to do with the character of a person.

Just because someone has a thought in their head doesn't mean that it automatically needs to be shared; tact, empathy, compassion and diplomacy are very good traits to have and as Thumper said in the movie Bambi "If you can't say something nice, then don't say anything at all"