OK, so everyone has a life philosophy of some sort, right? Even if we may not be able to articulate it, and have never really thought about it enough to organize it down to a few simple phrases or paragraphs, I'm assuming most of us walk around with a set of beliefs we operate under most of the time. Shoot, that dude that wrote "All I Really Need To Know, I Learned In Kindergarten" made a mint off of writing about his life philosophy, etc. So, at last for public consumption, is Claudia's life philosophy, with the proviso that any and all sections are amendable and rescindable anytime:
Life is a marathon, not a sprint.
Virtually ANYTHING is possible;
Many things are likely;
Few things are probable;
Virtually NOTHING is definite.
Contrary to popular belief, neither death* nor taxes^ are inevitable.
Neither is much of anything else.
"Common sense" is really not so common.
Very few occurrences are truly accidents or coincidences.
There is, as Benjamin Franklin said, "a Divinity which shapes our ends." There is also free will, and thus we are responsible for the choices we make, and their consequences. These two concepts are not mutually exclusive.
Love (i.e., caring concern for the other guy) really does make the world go round.
There really isn't a whole lot wrong that a hot bath, a good night's sleep, a change of perspective, the passage of time, and/or one really decent, loyal, compassionate loved one on your side won't fix. Eventually.
We all gotta help each other.
*Genesis 5:24; 2 Kings 3:11
^Please! You don't want to know how many people don't pay taxes. Mobsters, survivalists, etc. And no, the government does not exert itself to catch them all, for many reasons.
OK, so that's my life philosophy. What's yours?
Until next time...
Good vibes to all of you,
Claudia
Sunday, December 2, 2007
Saturday, November 24, 2007
In Memoriam - Frank Meyers
Mr. Meyers was a cop. First and foremost. He was a loving husband and father of six. We lost Mr. Meyers November 4th. I ran into my old friend Scott at the library November 8th and learned of his death from cancer. It is a huge loss.
Mr. Meyers was an officer with the Penn Hills Police for many years. He was a big man, both physically and spiritually. He was an honest, hard-working, old-school cop. His wife was my babysitter, so I spent a lot of time with that family. I loved Mr. Meyers. We all did. Scott said it best --"He was like John Wayne to me." Exactly. He was like John Wayne to all of us: big and strong, loyal, willing to fight for what he believed in -- fight to the last drop of blood in him if it came to that. He had quite a few opinions, and if you were around him any length of time, you heard about them. But if you were a good, honest, decent person, Frank Meyers liked you. And if Frank Meyers liked you, there wasn't a damn thing he wouldn't do for you, give you the shirt off his back if you needed it and wouldn't think twice.
I remember him as a very kind man. I never saw him leave the house without kissing his wife goodbye. He loved kids, calling his youngest daughter, Lori, "Punkin", helping me with my math homework, reassuring me that my stepfather wouldn't be mad at me over a bad grade on a math test (OK, so Mr. Meyers didn't know everything), ready with advice and guidance for his large brood. And occasionally, a kick in the pants if need be. I never saw him disrespect his wife, and on the rare occasions I shared a meal with him, I never saw him get up from the table without telling Mrs. Meyers how good the food was. That was Mr. Meyers.
And though there may be those who wouldn't appreciate me telling you this, I saw him cry one time. I don't know for sure why, but I think something happened to his partner on the police force(?) Before Mrs. Meyers ordered me outside, I remember being astonished; I had never seen a man cry before. But I'm glad I did. It brought him down from a pedestal he probably wouldn't have wanted to think we had put him on, made him more human. It made me see that even the strongest men could hurt, and that we need to be care-full with each other. And a few years later, when I saw John Wayne, dying of cancer, accepting an Oscar with tears streaming down his face, I knew I was right. If The Duke can cry, anyone can.
One of my favorite memories of Mr. Meyers was the time they took their RV off to camp for a week. I was 7 at the time, and left in charge of their very old Beagle, Bulle. Twice everyday, I cut through Mr. Kassouf's yard to the Meyers' yard to give food and water to Bulle, and pet him and play with him a bit. He was a companionable old dog, and I enjoyed taking care of him. It may surprise you to know that it never occurred to me that I would be paid for helping out; I helped out at home, and at that time was not paid an allowance or anything. Hell, an adult told you what they wanted you to do, and you did it, no questions asked. On the appointed day, the Meyers family returned and called to let us know they were home, I didn't need to feed Bulle anymore. My mum called me out to the living room, and told me Mr. Meyers was very pleased with how well I had taken care of Bulle. I smiled, very happy to have pleased Mr. Meyers. Then she added, "He wants you to go down there a minute, they brought something back for you." Surprised, I walked quickly down to their front door, and was greeted by a smiling Frank Meyers, who had a really cute little yellow leather teepee in his hand. "Here, Claudia, we brought this back from camp for you." I thanked him effusively, turned to leave, and with a twinkle in his eye, he chided, "Didn't you see the zipper there? You better look in there, and see if there's something in there for you." I opened it and there was seven dollars in the wallet, a fortune to a 7-year-old in 1972. I just jumped up and down and hugged him in my excitement and he said, "Well, you deserve something nice for taking care of Bulle. Mrs. Meyers and I knew we didn't have to worry about Bulle with you taking care of him and that was real important to us." I told him that I liked taking care of Bulle, that he was my buddy, and we played a lot together when Mrs. Meyers babysat me. And he smiled down at me (he was so big) and patted my cheek and said his famous, "Atta girl!", and I went on home.
I heard that "Atta girl!" in conversation with Mr. Meyers almost everytime I talked with him. He had a way about him when he talked to you, like no matter who was in the room at the time, he'd rather be talking to you than anyone else. He laughed often, and his smile was as bright as the sun. I asked him one time why he became a cop, and he gave me the stock reply, "I like to help people." But when he came to our little William McKinley Elementary School to talk as part of a Penn Hills Police Drug Awareness Campaign, he was really in his element. 'Cause he hated drugs and what they did to people, families; and he loved kids. Helping people wasn't just a job to him, it was who Frank Meyers was.
We moved away from the Verona Hilltop area, and the Meyers', when I was 13. I wish now that I had made the effort to talk to him while he was still alive. Sometimes I wonder what he'd think if he knew my stepfather was a child molester; that in order to keep him from hitting us worse than he did, my mother would tell him, "If you don't stop I'll tell Frank, and you know how he loves Claudia." And most of all, I wonder what he'd say if he knew that, as a result of my childhood, I decided to become a Social Worker, and like him, be able to help people?
"Atta girl!"
Rest In Peace, Mr. Meyers.
Love, Claudia
Thursday, November 15, 2007
Of Logic and Chowder
Hey, People!
Just a short post to throw a few thoughts out.
In the future, I thought I'd introduce something I'm gonna call "Snapshots". "Snapshots" will just be short posts on a random thought or two that cross my mind, or a recipe, or something like that. Point being, they will be shorter. Reason being, of course, I'm too busy with life to mess with long entries, and you're too busy to read them. And I'm thinkin' if I keep it short and sweet, I'll be touching base more frequently, and so will you. So...
Last night, I was listening to Coast to Coast with George Noory. For the uninitiated, C2C is a lively mish-mash of the unexplained, unusual, paranormal, and socio-political world we live in. That might be putting it mildly. Anyway, at one point, George and his guest, Brother Guy Consolmagno, and various listeners were discussing whether our furry friends go to heaven, whether they have souls, and just exactly what constitutes a soul. After some discussion, Brother Guy summed up his opinion (heavily influenced by Thomas Aquinas): If a creature is capable of recognizing others as separate entities from itself, and is capable of loving them, then it has a soul. The prevailing opinion, then, of course -- if it has a soul, it has the opportunity, if judged righteous, to go to heaven. Let it be added that this gentleman is a Jesuit and an astronomer at the Vatican observatory.
My mother and I have housed (I refuse to say "owned") four dogs and five cats in our 42+ years together, dating back to stepfascist days. When I was about twelve, stepfascist took my dog into the woods and shot him. All because Rex tore a hole in the couch when he was left alone for a weekend, and we forgot to put him in the basement. (I guess banishing him to the garage for a year, throughout one of the coldest winters in Pittsburgh history, where his food and water repeatedly froze, and my mother and I weren't permitted to play with him, or even pet him, wasn't quite enough punishment.) Many times over the years, I have wondered aloud to my mother and others exactly what the caller did -- will our beloved pets be waiting for us in heaven? Especially I want my dog. I was heinously deprived of his full earthly lifespan by the wantonly cruel act of a very sick man. I want eternity with my dog. And if he's not there, I certainly hope (and choose to trust) that God will have some suitable consolation to offer me.
So I was telling my mother all about last night's C2C show. And we've discussed this topic many times before, with my mother echoing my hope about Rex, and equally wanting eternity with her favorite of our cats, Rama. Today my mother walked past merely hoping by offering her very sensible and logical opinion on this matter. She said, "Well, when God made the Garden of Eden, didn't He have animals in it? It just seems to me that if He would make an earthly Paradise with animals in it, wouldn't He have animals in the heavenly paradise that He intends us to occupy forever? And besides, when He told Noah to build the ark, who did He tell Noah to take aboard with him besides the other seven people?"
Of course, I replied, "All the animals, two by two."
My mother smiled triumphantly and said, "Well, there you go."
My mother's proudest accomplishment: she graduated from nursing school in 1959 and was a Registered Nurse for 34 years, and rightfully so. Getting a nursing license old-school was no day at the beach; neither is a nursing career. My mother has no degrees in philosophy, theology or any other "y", but she's no dummy; no old-school nurse could be. She reads a lot. She's a student of life -- intuitive, very astute about human nature. And owing to all her years of reading true crime and watching Court TV, my mother can watch true crime stories on "48 Hours Mystery" and its ilk and tell you whodunit, how and why, and how they screwed up and got caught. And as far as I'm concerned, today she blew off the map entirely one Brother Guy Consolmagno; Thomas Aquinas; and for good measure, my former Logic 101 instructor; who might have had his class's textbook dedicated to him by its author, might know that All S are P, Some S are not P, Some S are non-P, and some S are not non-P, as well as which of these statements are contrary, and which are contradictory, but, believing that God is a sexist, racist mass-murderer, might never know that God has an Eden in Heaven waiting for him, full of real Bambies (as opposed to brain-mushing tests named "Bambi".) Hallelujah, and God bless my mother.
Claudia's Clam Chowder Recipe
1/2 lb. bacon
2 bunches leeks, each containing 3-4 leeks, thoroughly washed and sliced
4-7 oz. cans chopped clams
5-6 medium potatoes, peeled if desired, and coarsely diced
1 quart half and half
1 cup each cornstarch and water, whisked together
Spray 5 quart soup pot with non-stick spray. On medium heat, fry bacon till crisp; crumble bacon and set aside; leave bacon drippings in pan. Put in sliced leeks, cook till almost tender -- do not brown. Put in diced potatoes, followed by liquid from chopped clams. Reserve clams. Turn heat to high till the potatoes are boiling. At this point turn heat down and let the soup simmer. When the potatoes are almost tender, pour in half and half. Turn heat up till it's all simmering again, then pour in cornstarch/water mixture slowly, pausing to stir frequently and check the soup's thickness is as desired (I like my soup thick; you can always put more milk in it when you re-heat it if it winds up too thick). Stir in clams and reserved bacon and heat through. YUM! Enjoy!
Good vibes to all of you!
Claudia
Sunday, May 6, 2007
Mall Rat?
Hello again!
Yesterday, I went over to the Pittsburgh Expo Mart, located in Monroeville, PA, to the Coin Show sponsored by the Pennsylvania Association of Numismatists. I used to be really into collecting coins, but I'm more into "pare down, unclutter, the less you have the less you have to keep track of or clean" these days. I kept some silver from Canada, Australia and China, a titanium coin, and a Pope John Paul 2 commem. Everything else I got rid of. What went out is too much to mention, but I got $180.99, more than I paid for it all, so I was happy. So much so, I splurged on the aforementioned Dairy Queen sundae at the food court of the adjacent Monroeville Mall.
I don't know about you, but going to the mall has lost alot of its appeal. I remember in my teens and early 20's going out to the mall with friends and thinking it was this big fun time. Ye gods!! I keep saying all the time now, I must be getting old. But I really must be, because as I took my turn about the mall yesterday, all I did was mentally shake my head. No National Record Mart or Tower Records, no Waldenbooks or B. Dalton (although there is a Barnes and Noble in the plaza whatchamacallit outside the mall and a Borders in a shopping center just down the road.) But, still. Where did the WQED/PBS store go? The Disney store? The G. Thanks? And the cheap jewelry kiosk where I got alot of my silver rings? I remember alot of people got excited when the new mall went in at Pittsburgh Mills in nearby Tarentum. My mum said to me, "There won't be anything in there for people like us." Well, at Monroeville, there's really nothing much that isn't high-end or at least highfalutin', mindless, soulless, or spiritless, except maybe Penney's and Eckerd Drug.
And the amount of people following me, trying to get my opinion on some damn survey. People, people. You don't want my opinion, trust me. I remember when this place called "The Truxell Opinion Center" used to be in the mall. My friend, Scott and I used to threaten that when just going to the mall wasn't enough fun anymore, we'd stop in Truxell's and give our opinion. "They don't want our opinion!" we'd thunder, only half in jest.
The food court yesterday was a different story: Manchu Wok, Uncle Charley's Subs, Subway, Sbarro's, Mrs. Fields Cookies, and of course, Dairy Queen. But, with my weight-loss plan goin' on, and the fact that I sold my coins for a check, not cash, I wasn't putting myself out for much food. That said, I think I'd like to spend my birthday (coming up in a month) at the mall. Just to eat, really. Then go to that plaza thingamabob with the Barnes and Noble and that other place with the Borders and really git down. Just like the old days...
News from the job front: I decided to sign on with the plaza again. It really was a horse race (no pun intended after the Queen-attended Kentucky Derby yesterday), but in the end the plaza offered the best all-around package of wages, close proximity, and length of workday, combined with being willing to work around my school schedule and my mother's increasingly fragile state. I was the only one surprised I ended up back there. Everyone else expected it. I really wanted to get out of fast-food and away from the seasonal nature of the plaza, but I will probably only be there a few more years, then with a Bachelor's degree, I can (hopefully) quickly "get on with my life's work", as Chuck Noll used to say. I have to go to a meeting Wednesday, then train the next 9 days after that (!!!) There's no telling what state my mind, feet, or the rest of my body will be in after that. I don't know how much working out I'll do, or anything else the next couple of weeks, nor how much blogging, nor what my schedule will be from the 19th to the 24th. Stay tuned.
Good vibes to all of you until then!
Claudia
Yesterday, I went over to the Pittsburgh Expo Mart, located in Monroeville, PA, to the Coin Show sponsored by the Pennsylvania Association of Numismatists. I used to be really into collecting coins, but I'm more into "pare down, unclutter, the less you have the less you have to keep track of or clean" these days. I kept some silver from Canada, Australia and China, a titanium coin, and a Pope John Paul 2 commem. Everything else I got rid of. What went out is too much to mention, but I got $180.99, more than I paid for it all, so I was happy. So much so, I splurged on the aforementioned Dairy Queen sundae at the food court of the adjacent Monroeville Mall.
I don't know about you, but going to the mall has lost alot of its appeal. I remember in my teens and early 20's going out to the mall with friends and thinking it was this big fun time. Ye gods!! I keep saying all the time now, I must be getting old. But I really must be, because as I took my turn about the mall yesterday, all I did was mentally shake my head. No National Record Mart or Tower Records, no Waldenbooks or B. Dalton (although there is a Barnes and Noble in the plaza whatchamacallit outside the mall and a Borders in a shopping center just down the road.) But, still. Where did the WQED/PBS store go? The Disney store? The G. Thanks? And the cheap jewelry kiosk where I got alot of my silver rings? I remember alot of people got excited when the new mall went in at Pittsburgh Mills in nearby Tarentum. My mum said to me, "There won't be anything in there for people like us." Well, at Monroeville, there's really nothing much that isn't high-end or at least highfalutin', mindless, soulless, or spiritless, except maybe Penney's and Eckerd Drug.
And the amount of people following me, trying to get my opinion on some damn survey. People, people. You don't want my opinion, trust me. I remember when this place called "The Truxell Opinion Center" used to be in the mall. My friend, Scott and I used to threaten that when just going to the mall wasn't enough fun anymore, we'd stop in Truxell's and give our opinion. "They don't want our opinion!" we'd thunder, only half in jest.
The food court yesterday was a different story: Manchu Wok, Uncle Charley's Subs, Subway, Sbarro's, Mrs. Fields Cookies, and of course, Dairy Queen. But, with my weight-loss plan goin' on, and the fact that I sold my coins for a check, not cash, I wasn't putting myself out for much food. That said, I think I'd like to spend my birthday (coming up in a month) at the mall. Just to eat, really. Then go to that plaza thingamabob with the Barnes and Noble and that other place with the Borders and really git down. Just like the old days...
News from the job front: I decided to sign on with the plaza again. It really was a horse race (no pun intended after the Queen-attended Kentucky Derby yesterday), but in the end the plaza offered the best all-around package of wages, close proximity, and length of workday, combined with being willing to work around my school schedule and my mother's increasingly fragile state. I was the only one surprised I ended up back there. Everyone else expected it. I really wanted to get out of fast-food and away from the seasonal nature of the plaza, but I will probably only be there a few more years, then with a Bachelor's degree, I can (hopefully) quickly "get on with my life's work", as Chuck Noll used to say. I have to go to a meeting Wednesday, then train the next 9 days after that (!!!) There's no telling what state my mind, feet, or the rest of my body will be in after that. I don't know how much working out I'll do, or anything else the next couple of weeks, nor how much blogging, nor what my schedule will be from the 19th to the 24th. Stay tuned.
Good vibes to all of you until then!
Claudia
Monday, April 30, 2007
Most Livable Pittsburgh
Well, hi!
Can't believe it's been just shy of a week and I haven't posted!
Pittsburgh was, for the second time in 22 years, voted Most Livable City by Rand-McNally. Yeah, Pittsburgh!! I know some people still have "hell-with-the-lid-off" type visions of my city, but that is way outdated. This city has had two renaissances since the 60's, and it's a city with sparkling scenery, great hometown folks, and arguably, the most beautiful baseball park in the US, if not the world. We have great colleges, world-class hospitals with state-of-the-art transplant centers and burn units, and are home to incomparable pharmaceutical, research, surgical, and communications pioneering.
When I say "great hometown folks", let me tell you, the people around here are world-class, too. I don't know about you, but I've been to other towns/cities, where you get lost, ask for directions, and people deliberately get you lost, just to laugh at the "greenhorn". Here, we not only give you accurate directions, we'll take you there, even maybe out of our way, just to see that you get there OK. I know this because a very nice letter was printed in our own Post-Gazette in '05, from a Toronto couple who, confused by the way the streets run parallel to the rivers here, asked for directions, and were not only escorted to their hotel by their new Pittsburgh friends, but were taken under their wings, invited out to some local hot spots, given their cell phone numbers just in case they got lost again, and accompanied to the Steeler/Penguin (I forget which) game they were attending. And that's just the way we are here. Friendly. Yinz come and visit now!
(Now if we could only do something about the Pirates, the property taxes, and the transit system!) Oh, God, did I really write that?
Good vibes to all of you!
Claudia
Can't believe it's been just shy of a week and I haven't posted!
Pittsburgh was, for the second time in 22 years, voted Most Livable City by Rand-McNally. Yeah, Pittsburgh!! I know some people still have "hell-with-the-lid-off" type visions of my city, but that is way outdated. This city has had two renaissances since the 60's, and it's a city with sparkling scenery, great hometown folks, and arguably, the most beautiful baseball park in the US, if not the world. We have great colleges, world-class hospitals with state-of-the-art transplant centers and burn units, and are home to incomparable pharmaceutical, research, surgical, and communications pioneering.
When I say "great hometown folks", let me tell you, the people around here are world-class, too. I don't know about you, but I've been to other towns/cities, where you get lost, ask for directions, and people deliberately get you lost, just to laugh at the "greenhorn". Here, we not only give you accurate directions, we'll take you there, even maybe out of our way, just to see that you get there OK. I know this because a very nice letter was printed in our own Post-Gazette in '05, from a Toronto couple who, confused by the way the streets run parallel to the rivers here, asked for directions, and were not only escorted to their hotel by their new Pittsburgh friends, but were taken under their wings, invited out to some local hot spots, given their cell phone numbers just in case they got lost again, and accompanied to the Steeler/Penguin (I forget which) game they were attending. And that's just the way we are here. Friendly. Yinz come and visit now!
(Now if we could only do something about the Pirates, the property taxes, and the transit system!) Oh, God, did I really write that?
Good vibes to all of you!
Claudia
Monday, April 23, 2007
Baklava and Stuff
Since in my last post I made what I'm sure will be seen by some as a flippant remark about discrimination against women, that, as a woman, I had faced discrimination in the form of being thought of by some well-meaning folks in my life (!) as being basically put on earth only for the purpose of being a help-meet and a brood mare, etc., I thought I'd cite two significant examples of discrimination against women that I had come across over the weekend.
The first, widely broadcast over CNN, etc. cited a study, done by Catherine Hill that shows that despite the passage of the Equal Pay Law in the 1960's, women one year out of college are earning, for the same jobs, 80% of what males are, and ten years after college, they earn just 69% of males' salaries for comparable jobs. This is compared to 59% for male equivalent jobs in the 60's and 78% in the 80's. When Hill probed the reasoning she was told, and I'm paraphrasing here, as CNN flashed the quote for about 5 seconds, "Employers assume women are going to take time out for young children and not be available to work the hours required." And although in my last post I said the same thing in a roundabout, sardonic way, that kind of thinking is prevalent even now, and exactly why there's a wage gap and a glass ceiling.
Is there any way for women to win? In today's economy, it still is at best a real challenge to a family's finances, and at worst impossible for a woman not to work outside the home. If she does work, she won't make as much as her male counterparts for the same job, she'll probably encounter some kind of sexual harassment or glass ceiling; if she takes off time to have children, she will not only make less than her male counterparts, she won't even make as much as the women like me, who decided to ignore the words of the well-meaners and not have children. (And let me tell you, I'm rolling in dough). If she decides not to work, well, the average age of widowhood in this country is 50, and that doesn't even take into account the marriages that break up over domestic violence, substance abuse, and the ubiquitous skirt-chasing and irreconcilable differences. I don't know for sure what it's like to go back to an office/restaurant and work after 30 years of homemaking and child-rearing, but I'm guessing it ain't pretty.
And as bad as things are in the real world, the glamour-pusses in the reel world aren't having a picnic either. In the 4/22 Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Mimi Yahn writes in her story, "Hating Women" that in 2000 she conducted a six-week study to track hate speech and bias language on prime-time TV. To make a long story short, 416 times out of 590, when there was any language at all that was demeaning, objectifying, derogatory, or pejorative, it was directed at women, with the rest of it spread between straight men, gay men, ethnic groups (mostly Asians, Jews, Native Americans and Arabs), and those seen as having problems with weight and appearance. Violence against women was ramped up as well. Whereas rapes and murders were once sufficient to fill the time between commercials, now women were "tortured, dismembered, beaten to death, burned, hung from ceilings and subjected to a range of horrific and sadistic
hate crimes never before seen outside of snuff pornography." Lovely.
Interesting to me was Ms. Yahn's observation that when referring to a white woman, TV writers simply call her a whore, but when referring to a black or Hispanic woman, they'll call her a "crack whore". Reflecting on the coarsening of our culture, Ms. Yahn summarizes, "Dehumanization is at the heart of it all." I couldn't agree more.
On the lighter side, I do remember a rash promise that I made in my first post that I would at times include recipes. I know quite a few of you really enjoy baklava. It's not that hard to make, if you're patient and just do it a step at a time. So here's my recipe. It's especially good at Christmas, Easter, or any time you want to apologize, cheer someone up, or impress someone.
Baklava
The Pastry:
1/2 lb. phyllo pastry sheets
2 sticks butter, melted (1/2 pound)
Nut Mixture:
5 C. Walnuts, coarsely chopped (I use a Mouli)
1 C. sugar
1 t. cinnamon
1/3 t. cloves
Syrup:
2 C. sugar
2 C. water
1/3 lemon (I use 2 t. Minute Maid Frozen Lemon Juice, it = 1/3 lemon)
1/3 C. honey
1 t. vanilla
Make the syrup first. Combine the sugar, water and lemon in an 8" pot. Bring to a boil; boil 10 minutes. I put it in the fridge until I pull the baklava out of the oven. It should thicken up during its time in the fridge to the consistency of good honey or maple syrup. If it doesn't thicken noticeably by the time the baklava's been baking for a half-hour, put it in the freezer. When you take it out, stir in the vanilla and honey.
While your syrup's boiling chop the walnuts, mix the other ingredients for the nut mixture in a large bowl. Set aside. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Next, spray a 13" x 9" pan with butter cooking spray. Melt the butter in the microwave in a small microwave-safe bowl. The phyllo sheets usually come frozen, in two half pound rolls of sheets. You just will need the one roll - 1/2 pound. Thaw it according to package instructions. Now I've heard some brave souls use paper towels, some waxed paper, etc. to keep the phyllo from drying out. I get two clean, clean dishtowels, wet them, wring them out thoroughly, put one down on the counter, the phyllo sheets on top of that, and the other clean towel on top to cover. Put a sheet of phyllo in pan, brush it evenly with butter (using pastry brush), repeat until there are 7 sheets of phyllo on bottom of pan. (Always cover unused phyllo while buttering). Put half of nut mixture on top of buttered phyllo, add 3 more sheets of buttered phyllo, then the rest of nut mixture. Butter and place the rest of the phyllo on top.
Bake in 350 degree oven for 1 hour or until golden. Check it after 45-50 minutes to make sure it's not getting too brown. Pour cold syrup over hot baklava. Cool. Cut into sqares, diamonds or rectangles, whatever suits your fancy. Enjoy! To serve these, I like to put them into cupcake foils because they look festive, they eat less messy, and most importantly, if they start to dry out a little, you can spoon a little honey on the top when you serve them and voila! Delicious!
Until next time, good vibes to all of you!
Claudia
Thursday, April 19, 2007
of Imus and the Virginia Tech shootings
Well, a sad week. This post will probably be pretty long. Those of you who object to reading "novels" might therefore want to skip over this post.
Monday's tragic happenings at Virginia Tech have knocked the Don Imus thing off the radar, at least for now, but I did promise to address that issue. So here goes.
First of all, let it be said that I am caucasian, and therefore cannot relate to how it feels to be black and be called a n-----, or a "nappy-haired ho". In fairness, I am a woman, and do know how it feels not to be given a fair shake due to that. I know, for example, that no man has ever had to field the amount of questions from well-meaning family and friends that I and many women nowadays do who put off (or decide to forgo) the marriage and children thing. You know the questions: "When are you getting married? When are you going to settle down and have kids?" As if somehow, if you don't, you're less of a woman, or have somehow failed to fulfill a purpose that apparently you must fulfill in order to have validity or stature as a "real woman". I was so relieved when I turned 40 and didn't have to deal with that nonsense anymore. And is there a woman out there who hasn't wished she had the height and strength of the lesser quality men who use those advantages to dominate us in personal as well as business relationships? I will not go into the differences in earnings between the sexes or any of the other typical gender battles, as I have digressed, and I believe I've made my point.
Not to say that this is even close to what black people have had to endure. And as has been stated elsewhere, God, to be black and female! It is definitely true that our society has a long way to go in terms of race relations. But I think the problem is alot bigger than that.
Once I read a book called "Miss 4th of July, Goodbye" about a Greek family that emigrated to West Virginia during WWI, was subjected to prejudice due to being foreigners, was threatened by, and fought back against, the KKK. The book was made into a movie for the Disney Channel starring Louis Gossett, Jr. and Roxana Zal. The book was written by Christopher Janus, and I highly recommend it. During the course of a conversation with his daughter Niki (the protagonist), her father George tells her, "Remember this, Niki: One way or another, everybody finds a n----- to kick around."
To my way of thinking, that right there is the crux of the problem. Just as the first instinct of many human beings is to strike out violently when we are angry, it seems that another toxic first instinct that we must own and master within ourselves is the tendency, especially when we feel frustrated with our lot in life, to immediately find somebody to feel superior to and kick around, figuratively or literally. Even in these United States, where all "men" are created equal, we have this problem. White vs. black, men vs. women, rich vs. poor, gay vs. straight, Christian vs. Moslem. And I know that you can pick out of each pair mentioned which one feels just a little superior, and which one gets kicked. I even saw an article in a magazine several months back about there being a division between women who stay at home and women who work outside the home!
My point is we will all have our differences. If we were all alike, as it is often said, it would be a boring world. Diversity should be a cause for celebration, not persecution. We as individuals need to cop to our tendency to hierarchize our place in the world, and our tendency to want to feel superior, and find a way to make peace with who and what and where we are in our little section of the mud ball. Our problem is not "out there", in others. We have seen the enemy, it is said, and he is us.
My kudos to the young women of the Rutgers basketball team for their grace in this situation, for their excellence on and off the basketball court.
As for the Virginia Tech tragedy, my God, where to start? My usual rant in a situation like this is where was everybody? Why didn't somebody see something was up and try to intervene? The problem nowadays is that we have forgotten how to be our brother's keeper, etc. etc. But we cannot fault the classmates and faculty at the college for not attempting to intervene. It is plain that they tried to intervene several times, to no avail. Tipped off by the young man's roommate, a magistrate ordered Seung-Hui Cho to submit to a psychiatric evaluation. The psychiatrist deemed Cho as perhaps a danger to himself, but not to anybody else. His guns were bought totally legally. He had never been convicted of a crime. His mental health issues resulted in a short-term, voluntary stay in a hospital, the termination of that stay equally voluntary, explaining why it was never mentioned in any record that would exempt him from owning a gun. The two young women that he allegedly sent inappropriate messages to declined to press charges. So it is obvious that once the young man got to college, people did try to call attention to his condition, only to apparently run up against a brick wall.
Of course this young man's problems started a long time ago. We know for sure he was bullied in high school, and probably long before that. We don't know what, if anything, his parents, neighbors, teachers, etc. did to try and stop the downward spiral the young man was on before he got to college. One thing I know, though: the younger the person, the better the chance of reversing such a violent, destructive mindset. Cho was about, what, 21 or 22 years old? How old is too old to fix mental illness like this? Does anyone know? Why don't we know?
I have listened to talk shows and read message boards ad nauseum the past few days. Some posters and talksters blamed the mental health professionals. They were trained, one argued. Regular people saw there was a problem, but the shrinks should have seen the extent of it and done something. But psychiatry is in its infancy, as much as people may not want to hear that fact. We don't know nearly as much as we need to know about the human body, and the brain is probably the biggest mystery to us. I suspect much of the testing to probe and understand the human brain may have been beyond us until very recently. And where is the funding for said testing? I was molested when I was a kid, and tho I am not going to get into THAT subject now, I will say this: I believe that many answers as to why some people become molesters are in the brains of those who were molested and went on to molest; those who weren't molested and went on to molest; and those like me who were molested and didn't go on to molest. And when we get off our duff, get our priorities straight, and put our money into studying things that will actually help us, and not the mating habits of the tsetse fly, we may be able to solve alot of our problems. Like molestation. And maybe even paranoid psychosis/schizophrenia.
The usual suspects pop up in the posts: guns, lack of religion/morality, the media, liberals, parents, psychiatrists, etc. But one young lady, a shining light to me, sees it the way I do. She posted on the MSNBC message boards as "Shut Up Girl". I tried to reply to her and get her permission to use her post here, or have her share her thoughts in a reply to this post, but I couldn't get logged in to MSNBC's site. I am going to share some of what she said here. I hope she won't mind.
"What the gunmen do is wrong and there is nothing that changes that fact; but we are ignorant to think that there is no one else at fault.
"...(we) have done a horrible job of teaching our children how to value each other. (We say) be successful, be important, earn money, be popular, but how often do we ever say, 'Be kind' or 'It is never OK to hurt someone.'
"There are some people who have not failed to teach this lesson, but this is the exception, not the rule.
"Everyone is so concerned about being cool, or worrying about themselves that they never stop to think how they might be hurting someone else.
"I have a hard time believing that no one can seem to figure out WHY these things happen; I think it is more along the lines that no one wants to admit why it happens.
"You are guilty every time you mock someone, every time you laugh at them, every time you snicker or point.
"You are guilty, every time you sneer at someone, every time you tell them how they have failed, and every time you make them feel as if they are never good enough to be your friend, or achieve their dreams.
"...We are blind to the pain around us, or maybe more importantly, we just don't seem to care. We are raised in a society that you can never let down your walls, or someone will dig that knife in a bit deeper. When all you really want to do is to know that someone understands how you feel and that someone cares and (will) not use that pain to hurt you even more.
"But that would be too much effort.
"When it comes right down to it, most of them are just angry that no one cares how much they are hurting, and they want others to understand just how far they have been pushed.
"In their minds, what better way to hurt others like they have been hurt, than to do something they have no choice but to notice?
"And that's the reality, whether we like it or not.
"We avoid talking about it, we just gloss it up and pretend not to notice our own role in what happens because it is easier to just blame insanity.
"We need to stop being blind and start leading by example.
..."Christian, Pagan, Agnostic...there is no shield for our actions; because let's face it, sometimes religion gets treated like a way of telling ourselves that we are good people, even as we are doing horrible things.
"And a way of trying to wash hands of any possible guilt, or possible blame.
"There is only one way to stop these sort of things, and I don't think the human race is really up to doing that just yet.
"We need to start caring more, and we need to start caring about the right things. Would these shooters exist if we didn't create them? Would these shooters exist if someone had taken the time to actually notice their pain and do something other than humiliate them with it?
"Think, people. And stop being so blind.
"This world depends on it."
Thank you, Shut Up Girl. I couldn't have said it better; that's why I quoted you. And yes, folks, I know that concerned people tried to intervene at VT; but what about before that? To try to make a difference when someone is as mentally ill as this young man was is damn near impossible. It doesn't happen very often, but I agree with President Bush: When you see someone who is acting that messed up, call attention to it, and don't quit until someone does something about it. It is your business, and it's just possible that if you don't do something, no one else will, and it is also possible that someone else's problems can quickly be made your business, just like this.
I would just like to add: Are the people who always say that people need to face consequences of actions the same people who are saying they don't want to see anymore of Cho's video or hear his ranting; the same ones who are blaming the shrinks, Virginia Tech, parents, liberals, guns, etc., instead of admitting that once again, we have seen the enemy, and he is us? Because who is "our society" if not us?
On a lighter note: If anyone is still with me, I would like to thank my Pittsburgh Penguins, who came out on the wrong end of the Stanley Cup Quarterfinals 4 games to 1, to the Ottawa Senators, after losing Game 5 by a score of 3-0. To the Penguin team: Thank you for a great year. You gave us lots of thrills and great times this year. You gave us a new arena, and hockey in Pittsburgh for another 30 years. The city of Pittsburgh loves its Penguins, and we loved cheering you on. Your learning curve was alot shorter than we could've ever dreamed, and we're looking forward to cheering you on again next year. We know you're just gonna keep getting better, and we're looking forward to taking that ride with you. Thanks to the Ottawa Senators, who gave our Pens something to measure up to. Ottawa, I just want you to know: you may have dominated our Pens this time, but we're gonna dominate you (and everyone else) the same way, only more, in a couple of years. Keep looking in your rearview mirrors, Sens. See that black and gold blur behind you? That's our Pens -- they're gaining on you. Enjoy your time in the sun, Sens. It ain't gonna last forever. [Claudia's note, 4/17/08, with the 2007-08 quarterfinals between the Pens and the Sens complete, with the Pens sweeping the series 4-0, I rest my case on that subject. Even if the Pens don't win another playoff game this year, I feel vindicated.] That said, I hope the team that took the Penguins takes it all!
Good vibes to all of you (the Senators, too)!
Claudia
Monday's tragic happenings at Virginia Tech have knocked the Don Imus thing off the radar, at least for now, but I did promise to address that issue. So here goes.
First of all, let it be said that I am caucasian, and therefore cannot relate to how it feels to be black and be called a n-----, or a "nappy-haired ho". In fairness, I am a woman, and do know how it feels not to be given a fair shake due to that. I know, for example, that no man has ever had to field the amount of questions from well-meaning family and friends that I and many women nowadays do who put off (or decide to forgo) the marriage and children thing. You know the questions: "When are you getting married? When are you going to settle down and have kids?" As if somehow, if you don't, you're less of a woman, or have somehow failed to fulfill a purpose that apparently you must fulfill in order to have validity or stature as a "real woman". I was so relieved when I turned 40 and didn't have to deal with that nonsense anymore. And is there a woman out there who hasn't wished she had the height and strength of the lesser quality men who use those advantages to dominate us in personal as well as business relationships? I will not go into the differences in earnings between the sexes or any of the other typical gender battles, as I have digressed, and I believe I've made my point.
Not to say that this is even close to what black people have had to endure. And as has been stated elsewhere, God, to be black and female! It is definitely true that our society has a long way to go in terms of race relations. But I think the problem is alot bigger than that.
Once I read a book called "Miss 4th of July, Goodbye" about a Greek family that emigrated to West Virginia during WWI, was subjected to prejudice due to being foreigners, was threatened by, and fought back against, the KKK. The book was made into a movie for the Disney Channel starring Louis Gossett, Jr. and Roxana Zal. The book was written by Christopher Janus, and I highly recommend it. During the course of a conversation with his daughter Niki (the protagonist), her father George tells her, "Remember this, Niki: One way or another, everybody finds a n----- to kick around."
To my way of thinking, that right there is the crux of the problem. Just as the first instinct of many human beings is to strike out violently when we are angry, it seems that another toxic first instinct that we must own and master within ourselves is the tendency, especially when we feel frustrated with our lot in life, to immediately find somebody to feel superior to and kick around, figuratively or literally. Even in these United States, where all "men" are created equal, we have this problem. White vs. black, men vs. women, rich vs. poor, gay vs. straight, Christian vs. Moslem. And I know that you can pick out of each pair mentioned which one feels just a little superior, and which one gets kicked. I even saw an article in a magazine several months back about there being a division between women who stay at home and women who work outside the home!
My point is we will all have our differences. If we were all alike, as it is often said, it would be a boring world. Diversity should be a cause for celebration, not persecution. We as individuals need to cop to our tendency to hierarchize our place in the world, and our tendency to want to feel superior, and find a way to make peace with who and what and where we are in our little section of the mud ball. Our problem is not "out there", in others. We have seen the enemy, it is said, and he is us.
My kudos to the young women of the Rutgers basketball team for their grace in this situation, for their excellence on and off the basketball court.
As for the Virginia Tech tragedy, my God, where to start? My usual rant in a situation like this is where was everybody? Why didn't somebody see something was up and try to intervene? The problem nowadays is that we have forgotten how to be our brother's keeper, etc. etc. But we cannot fault the classmates and faculty at the college for not attempting to intervene. It is plain that they tried to intervene several times, to no avail. Tipped off by the young man's roommate, a magistrate ordered Seung-Hui Cho to submit to a psychiatric evaluation. The psychiatrist deemed Cho as perhaps a danger to himself, but not to anybody else. His guns were bought totally legally. He had never been convicted of a crime. His mental health issues resulted in a short-term, voluntary stay in a hospital, the termination of that stay equally voluntary, explaining why it was never mentioned in any record that would exempt him from owning a gun. The two young women that he allegedly sent inappropriate messages to declined to press charges. So it is obvious that once the young man got to college, people did try to call attention to his condition, only to apparently run up against a brick wall.
Of course this young man's problems started a long time ago. We know for sure he was bullied in high school, and probably long before that. We don't know what, if anything, his parents, neighbors, teachers, etc. did to try and stop the downward spiral the young man was on before he got to college. One thing I know, though: the younger the person, the better the chance of reversing such a violent, destructive mindset. Cho was about, what, 21 or 22 years old? How old is too old to fix mental illness like this? Does anyone know? Why don't we know?
I have listened to talk shows and read message boards ad nauseum the past few days. Some posters and talksters blamed the mental health professionals. They were trained, one argued. Regular people saw there was a problem, but the shrinks should have seen the extent of it and done something. But psychiatry is in its infancy, as much as people may not want to hear that fact. We don't know nearly as much as we need to know about the human body, and the brain is probably the biggest mystery to us. I suspect much of the testing to probe and understand the human brain may have been beyond us until very recently. And where is the funding for said testing? I was molested when I was a kid, and tho I am not going to get into THAT subject now, I will say this: I believe that many answers as to why some people become molesters are in the brains of those who were molested and went on to molest; those who weren't molested and went on to molest; and those like me who were molested and didn't go on to molest. And when we get off our duff, get our priorities straight, and put our money into studying things that will actually help us, and not the mating habits of the tsetse fly, we may be able to solve alot of our problems. Like molestation. And maybe even paranoid psychosis/schizophrenia.
The usual suspects pop up in the posts: guns, lack of religion/morality, the media, liberals, parents, psychiatrists, etc. But one young lady, a shining light to me, sees it the way I do. She posted on the MSNBC message boards as "Shut Up Girl". I tried to reply to her and get her permission to use her post here, or have her share her thoughts in a reply to this post, but I couldn't get logged in to MSNBC's site. I am going to share some of what she said here. I hope she won't mind.
"What the gunmen do is wrong and there is nothing that changes that fact; but we are ignorant to think that there is no one else at fault.
"...(we) have done a horrible job of teaching our children how to value each other. (We say) be successful, be important, earn money, be popular, but how often do we ever say, 'Be kind' or 'It is never OK to hurt someone.'
"There are some people who have not failed to teach this lesson, but this is the exception, not the rule.
"Everyone is so concerned about being cool, or worrying about themselves that they never stop to think how they might be hurting someone else.
"I have a hard time believing that no one can seem to figure out WHY these things happen; I think it is more along the lines that no one wants to admit why it happens.
"You are guilty every time you mock someone, every time you laugh at them, every time you snicker or point.
"You are guilty, every time you sneer at someone, every time you tell them how they have failed, and every time you make them feel as if they are never good enough to be your friend, or achieve their dreams.
"...We are blind to the pain around us, or maybe more importantly, we just don't seem to care. We are raised in a society that you can never let down your walls, or someone will dig that knife in a bit deeper. When all you really want to do is to know that someone understands how you feel and that someone cares and (will) not use that pain to hurt you even more.
"But that would be too much effort.
"When it comes right down to it, most of them are just angry that no one cares how much they are hurting, and they want others to understand just how far they have been pushed.
"In their minds, what better way to hurt others like they have been hurt, than to do something they have no choice but to notice?
"And that's the reality, whether we like it or not.
"We avoid talking about it, we just gloss it up and pretend not to notice our own role in what happens because it is easier to just blame insanity.
"We need to stop being blind and start leading by example.
..."Christian, Pagan, Agnostic...there is no shield for our actions; because let's face it, sometimes religion gets treated like a way of telling ourselves that we are good people, even as we are doing horrible things.
"And a way of trying to wash hands of any possible guilt, or possible blame.
"There is only one way to stop these sort of things, and I don't think the human race is really up to doing that just yet.
"We need to start caring more, and we need to start caring about the right things. Would these shooters exist if we didn't create them? Would these shooters exist if someone had taken the time to actually notice their pain and do something other than humiliate them with it?
"Think, people. And stop being so blind.
"This world depends on it."
Thank you, Shut Up Girl. I couldn't have said it better; that's why I quoted you. And yes, folks, I know that concerned people tried to intervene at VT; but what about before that? To try to make a difference when someone is as mentally ill as this young man was is damn near impossible. It doesn't happen very often, but I agree with President Bush: When you see someone who is acting that messed up, call attention to it, and don't quit until someone does something about it. It is your business, and it's just possible that if you don't do something, no one else will, and it is also possible that someone else's problems can quickly be made your business, just like this.
I would just like to add: Are the people who always say that people need to face consequences of actions the same people who are saying they don't want to see anymore of Cho's video or hear his ranting; the same ones who are blaming the shrinks, Virginia Tech, parents, liberals, guns, etc., instead of admitting that once again, we have seen the enemy, and he is us? Because who is "our society" if not us?
On a lighter note: If anyone is still with me, I would like to thank my Pittsburgh Penguins, who came out on the wrong end of the Stanley Cup Quarterfinals 4 games to 1, to the Ottawa Senators, after losing Game 5 by a score of 3-0. To the Penguin team: Thank you for a great year. You gave us lots of thrills and great times this year. You gave us a new arena, and hockey in Pittsburgh for another 30 years. The city of Pittsburgh loves its Penguins, and we loved cheering you on. Your learning curve was alot shorter than we could've ever dreamed, and we're looking forward to cheering you on again next year. We know you're just gonna keep getting better, and we're looking forward to taking that ride with you. Thanks to the Ottawa Senators, who gave our Pens something to measure up to. Ottawa, I just want you to know: you may have dominated our Pens this time, but we're gonna dominate you (and everyone else) the same way, only more, in a couple of years. Keep looking in your rearview mirrors, Sens. See that black and gold blur behind you? That's our Pens -- they're gaining on you. Enjoy your time in the sun, Sens. It ain't gonna last forever. [Claudia's note, 4/17/08, with the 2007-08 quarterfinals between the Pens and the Sens complete, with the Pens sweeping the series 4-0, I rest my case on that subject. Even if the Pens don't win another playoff game this year, I feel vindicated.] That said, I hope the team that took the Penguins takes it all!
Good vibes to all of you (the Senators, too)!
Claudia
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
Interesting Little Question
Got a letter with an interesting question in the mail yesterday. The Smithsonian, for some unfathomable reason, thought they would like to solicit my opinion (!!!) on any number of things, so to that end, the darlings sent me a questionaire. Most of it was forgettable, and I did not trouble myself to do anything beyond drop it in the circular file. But one query from it has been on my mind today: What is the most significant invention of the 20th century? A.The airplane B.The automobile C.The television D.The computer
My opinion is the television, because before its advent, we didn't sit down for much of anything. People listened to the radio while doing something else; they didn't need to fixate on a screen lest they miss something. I think television was the first thing that got us to just "veg out" for any length of time. Of course, we have more time to sit in front of the tube. In the late 19th century "those damned communard trade unionists" who agitated for fair wages and safe working conditions also fought for and won the 8 hour day and the 40 hour week we enjoy. And in the 20th century, for perhaps the first time in history, we all didn't have to work from sun to sun to grow and hunt our own food. We just went down to the supermarket and there it was; "someone else" had done the growing, harvesting and packaging for our convenience. Also, the 20th century saw the advent of all those labor-saving devices. More leisure time, but what to do with it?
I'll grant you a certain right of hard-working, stressed-out people to our entertainment, but for so many people TV is a drug, a babysitter, a companion, a segue into an alpha state easily influenced by advertising and news- and entertainment-lite. It renders them mute, passive, less than present mentally and emotionally. I think that both watching so many hours of TV and the insane proliferation of channels spewing so much "infotainment", so little real substance, has left people numb and dumbed-down. Do we recognize quality entertainment anymore? Has the fantasy-violence and the constant reporting of real violence desensitized our society? Has the passive state of TV-viewing spilled over and made us reactive, rather than proactive in our real lives? I'd be interested to hear what you all think.
Good Vibes To All Of You,
Claudia
My opinion is the television, because before its advent, we didn't sit down for much of anything. People listened to the radio while doing something else; they didn't need to fixate on a screen lest they miss something. I think television was the first thing that got us to just "veg out" for any length of time. Of course, we have more time to sit in front of the tube. In the late 19th century "those damned communard trade unionists" who agitated for fair wages and safe working conditions also fought for and won the 8 hour day and the 40 hour week we enjoy. And in the 20th century, for perhaps the first time in history, we all didn't have to work from sun to sun to grow and hunt our own food. We just went down to the supermarket and there it was; "someone else" had done the growing, harvesting and packaging for our convenience. Also, the 20th century saw the advent of all those labor-saving devices. More leisure time, but what to do with it?
I'll grant you a certain right of hard-working, stressed-out people to our entertainment, but for so many people TV is a drug, a babysitter, a companion, a segue into an alpha state easily influenced by advertising and news- and entertainment-lite. It renders them mute, passive, less than present mentally and emotionally. I think that both watching so many hours of TV and the insane proliferation of channels spewing so much "infotainment", so little real substance, has left people numb and dumbed-down. Do we recognize quality entertainment anymore? Has the fantasy-violence and the constant reporting of real violence desensitized our society? Has the passive state of TV-viewing spilled over and made us reactive, rather than proactive in our real lives? I'd be interested to hear what you all think.
Good Vibes To All Of You,
Claudia
Tuesday, April 3, 2007
Pilot
Hello, everybody!
It's great to be talking to you! First, some introductions are in order here. My name is Claudia. I live in the Pittsburgh, PA area. I'm 41 years old. This is my first attempt at a blog, so bear with me, I'll try not to be too boring.
I decided to call this blog "Soup 2 Nutz", not because it'll be about cooking ("Aw, shucks!" some of you are saying. Hold On! I like to cook and I won't be above throwing in some recipes if some of you are interested.) I have quite a few interests and opinions, and I know you do, too. So this blog will be about everything from soup to nuts. My main thing tho, is, I want to give you info that will help you, cuz folks, I honest to God believe that we're all here to help each other.
So, away we go...
It's great to be talking to you! First, some introductions are in order here. My name is Claudia. I live in the Pittsburgh, PA area. I'm 41 years old. This is my first attempt at a blog, so bear with me, I'll try not to be too boring.
I decided to call this blog "Soup 2 Nutz", not because it'll be about cooking ("Aw, shucks!" some of you are saying. Hold On! I like to cook and I won't be above throwing in some recipes if some of you are interested.) I have quite a few interests and opinions, and I know you do, too. So this blog will be about everything from soup to nuts. My main thing tho, is, I want to give you info that will help you, cuz folks, I honest to God believe that we're all here to help each other.
So, away we go...
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