Blog Archives

Bad Moms

7/29/2016

Tom and I were not intending last night to go see the movie "Bad Moms".

   We were, in fact, planning on seeing "Ghostbusters". But I must have misread the show time, because when we arrived at the theater we learned that "Ghostbusters" had already started.
    After scanning the remaining offerings posted on the box office wall, "Bad Moms" seemed to me the most promising choice and Tom was likewise game.
     So we bought our tickets and entered the theater, unaware that it was not just a movie we were about to see, but the birth of an iconic cultural phenomenon that I'm predicting is about to take off like a race car and explode among the mothers of this country, mothers of every stripe, young and old, from California to the New York islands.
    Anyway, we entered the theater behind a group of five happily chatting women who appeared to be in their early fifties, a Posse, mayhaps,

not unlike my own.

   But when we entered the theater, though we were plenty early for the show, we saw that the seating area was already filling up with groups of women, two, three, four, five, even six, sitting together.
     Except for Tom there was not another guy in the place.
   "Whoa, what is this?" I rhetorically questioned Tom, then I apologized for having draggled him to a film that appeared to be an A-1 bonafide chick flick.
     We took seats at the back of the theater (our preferred spot) next to a mid-thirtyish-looking African-American woman who was saving 4 seats. Tom and I watched as more groups large and small of women arrived, teen-agers through middle-aged, though if I had to pick a dominant demographic I'd say late-twenties to late thirties, white, black, brown.

    Finally another man arrived, probably, we guessed, toted along by the woman he was with. I eyed everyone who entered and by the time the movie started I'd counted a total of five males in the crowded theater. You can see in the above photo how crowded the place was by all the women who'd had to settle for the too-close-to-the-screen seats. Tom and I were sans doute the oldest folks there.
      There was definitely a happy, hyped-up feeling among all these gal pals out for a good time,
which they didn't have to work very hard at having, as the place was filled with laughter -often sympathetic laughter - almost from the beginning to the end of the movie.
      I'm not saying one has to have experienced child birth to enjoy this film - Tom laughed as hard as I did - but amidst all the comic caricatures of overwhelmed, exhausted modern motherhood were just so many moments to which anyone who's ever been ensconced in the pursuit of child-raising could relate, including myself, though it's been many years since I was raising four young children and I certainly never entertained even such mildly rogue ambitions as the "bad moms" in the movie,

...who in truth are knocking themselves out trying to to be perfect moms,

...while having to deal with the peer-group pressure and pecking-order that determines not only their children's social status in school but their own as well.

But most of all the movie addressed, in the funniest way possible, the paradox of parenthood:

...and the invaluable gift of friendship.

After the movie was over groups of women congregated outside the theater,

...where as I passed by I heard
them talking about the movie,

...and, what else?

Motherhood.

I asked the above group of friendly young moms how it was that so many bands of women showed up to pack the theater on opening night. They guessed it was because the movie was being chatted all up and down Facebook.
And so I predict: From here word of "Bad Moms" is going to continue to travel among women

at lightening speed,

...and it's gonna be big. ;)

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Photographs Lost, Part 2

7/28/2016

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...Continued from yesterday:
So, then, last Thursday Tom and I drove to Seaford, Delaware to spend a few days visiting my 96-year-old mother,

...here in a restaurant, captured in one of my few post-lost photos from that trip.

It's a long drive from Columbus to Seaford, about 10 hours with our standard lunch break, which we always take at the Subway in the River Valley Mall in Ohio just west of Wheeling, West Virginia, and our standard dinner break, which we always take just south of Baltimore at a Greek restaurant called Hella's which has, Tom swears, the best crab cakes on the planet.

My sole pre-lost shot of Hella's, taken on a previous trip a few years ago.

     It was during our dinner stop at Hella's on this past trip that my camera first started hesitating when I tried to snap some photos of the restaurant and our food.   When I pressed the shutter button sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't. And the zoom-out had ceased to function. I had a strong feeling that my camera was on its last hurrah and that, dang, I should have brought my new one along! (See yesterday's post)
     My fear was that my camera would give up the ghost entirely any minute now, and I awarded myself a big HUYA (see post from 5/9/2015) for being dumb enough to leave a brand new camera still in the box sitting at home.
       Still, I kept my fingers crossed for the next couple of days I and managed to take lots of pictures in spite of the recalcitrant shutter button and non-working zoom-out. I took mostly pictures of my mom, of the things we did and the people and places we visited. I took pictures from our Friday night dinner at my brother and sister-in-law's house where they made the most delicious home-made chicken pot-pie, mashed potato casserole and corn bread.
       Those pictures are, alas, among the lost, but I did get the super-easy recipes from my sister-in-law, which I share, pictureless, below:

CHICKEN POT PIE
COOKED CHICKEN PIECES
2 CANS CREAM OF CHICKEN SOUP
1 CAN CHICKEN BROTH
ONE BAG OF HANOVER FROZEN VEGETABLES
PILLSBURY PIE CRUST
MIX CHICKEN,SOUP, BROTH AND VEGGIES TOGETHER
POUR INTO GREASED 9X13 INCH CASSEROLE DISH
ROLL OUT PIE CRUST WITH ROLLING PIN AND PLACE ON TOP OF DISH TO COVER INGREDIENTS
BAKE: 350 DEGREES FOR ONE HOUR and 5MINS OR UNTIL MIXTURE IS BUBBLING AND CRUST IS
BROWN+

MASHED POTATO CASSEROLE*
5 LB RED SKINNED POTATOES
1- (8 OZ) CREAM CHEESE (OPTIONAL)
1- (8 OZ) SOUR CREAM
SALT AND PEPPER TO TASTE
ONE STICK MELTED BUTTER
2 CUPS SHREDDED CHEESE
ADD WHOLE MILK FOR DESIRED TEXTURE
WASH, COOK AND DRAIN POTATOES. DO NOT PEEL.
MASH POTATOES AND ADD SOUR CREAM, BUTTER, SALT, PEPPER AND
MILK. (OPTIONAL TO ADD SOUR CREAM)
ADD SHREDDED CHEESE LAST TO POTATOES AND BLEND SHREDDED
CHEESE INTO POTATO MIXTURE. ADD MORE MILK IF NEEDED, TO CREATE
DESIRED TEXTURE.
PLACE INTO GREASED 9X13 INCH BAKING DISH.
TOP WITH EXTRA SHREDDED CHEESE, AS DESIRED.
MAY COOK IMMEDIATELY OR REFRIGERATED OVERNIGHT. IF
REFRIGERATING OVERNIGHT, THE DAY OF THE DINNER, BRING TO ROOM
TEMP FOR AT LEAST ONE HR BEFORE BAKING. BAKE, UNCOVERED,
AT 350 DEGREES FOR AT LEAST 30-40 MINUTES OR UNTIL HEATED
THROUGH.
IF DOUBLING RECIPE, YOU MAY NEED TO ADD MORE COOKING TIME,
UNTIL POTATOES ARE COOKED THROUGH AND TOP IS BROWNED

CORN BREAD RECIPE
2 BOXES CORN MUFFIN MIX
2 SMALL CANS CREAMED CORN OR ONE 14 OZ CAN CREAMED CORN
16 OZ SOUR CREAM
4 EGGS
1 ¼ STICK MELTED BUTTER
MIX INGREDIENTS IN A LARGE BOWL. POUR INTO A GREASED 9 X 13 INCH PAN. BAKE AT 400 DEGREES
FOR 30-45 MINUTES (UNTIL TOOTH PICK IN CENTER COMES OUT CLEAN). COOL AND CUT INTO SERVING PIECES

For dessert I made a batch of my now renowned blueberry bars, the recipe for which can be found in the 7/6/2016 post.

Anyway, on Saturday morning during a shopping trip to Walmart with my Mom - who proudly admits she likes going to Walmart and goes almost every day - I made an impulse decision: to buy a cheap little emergency camera in case my ailing Canon ended up going to camera heaven before my trip was over.

(Sigh) Would that I had resisted the siren song of this cute $29.99 digital blue demon;

...because, though I have no idea how or why, I'm sure it was that nasty little Vivitar that sucked every photograph off the memory card - the 32 GB, 10,000-photo card that was three-quarters filled with a year's worth of pictures - that I was trusting enough to feed it.
What happened was that when I returned from Walmart I removed the memory card

from my old pink Canon,

...and inserted it into my new blue Vivitar, just to try it out, which I did. I snapped a couple of trial shots. Then I deleted them. Then I removed the memory card from the Vivitar, put it back into the Canon, and carried on snapping for the rest of Saturday and Sunday.
      However it wasn't until Monday during our drive back to Columbus when I pulled out my camera to look over my photographs, as I'm always doing, that I saw to my shock that I no longer had over 7400 pictures. There were only a few dozen pictures left, those I took since removing the memory card from the blue camera and returning it to the pink one.
      And that's all I really know.
      Where did my pictures go? When I thought I was deleting one picture was I in fact deleting thousands? If that's what happened, how did it happen?
       (Sigh) Don't know.
        In truth, I guess I feel less sadness over losing those thousands of pictures from the past year - after all, the best ones are saved on my blog - as losing the ones I took on this last visit to my 96-year-old mother.
       Who knows if I'll get a chance to take another?

*this recipe bears a remarkable resemblance to my mashed potato casserole recipe, which is also very good, the difference being that this recipe leaves out the dash of hot sauce and horse radish that mine calls for. The recipe for my mashed potato casserole can be found in the 10/9/2014 post

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Photographs Lost, Part 1

7/26/2016

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Two-and-a-half years ago while Tom and I were in Spain walking our first Camino de Santiago de Compostela (see "Tighten Your Boots" at www.pattiliszkay.weebly.com) I bought a new camera at El Corte Ingles,

...a beautiful 8-story department store,

...in the beautiful city of Leon,

... after my old camera plotzed about halfway through our trip.

My new Spanish camera- not so new anymore in this picture - was a little pink Canon that took nice pictures.

Tom and I in a try-out photo taken by the salesperson in the camera department of El Corte Ingles.

    For the rest of the trip and the next two-and-a half years my little pink Canon was like an extension of my hand. I never went anywhere, not even for a walk around the block, without my camera.
     And I've taken thousands of pictures during that time, many of which have shown up on my blog.
     In fact I'll admit that my writing is often inspired by whatever photos I have at hand, and my main weapon for fighting my chronic and ubiquitous writer's block is looking at the pictures I've taken of whatever I want to write about, one picture being, if not worth a thousand words, maybe a couple hundred at least.
     But about halfway through Tom's and my second Camino walk last fall (see "...And Lighten Your Pack" at www.andlightenyourpack.com) the zoom-out on my camera seemed to be malfunctioning as grey spots would often show up on magnified shots, ruining what would have been some really awesome scenes:

Some tiny, gritty-looking particles were visible on the lens of my camera and I figured these must be the culprits. It was a couple of weeks before we arrived at a town big enough to have a camera shop where I hoped to get the lens cleaned, but the technician at the shop where I finally took my camera told me that the problem was not on the lens but inside the lens. Apparently dirt had gotten lodged inside the lens,

,...my fault, no doubt, since I kept my camera naked in my pocket as I hiked along the sometimes dusty Camino,

...and taking the camera apart would cost more than the 90 euros I'd paid for it.
     So I figured I'd do the best I could with my now-annoying - yet somehow still beloved - little camera, and buy a new one when I got back to the States.
     Yet after I returned home my intention to buy a new camera remained merely an intention.
     See, I wanted to buy a better camera than my little Canon, but how much better a one I needed I wasn't sure. So I guess it was a combination of indecision, lack of knowledge, not feeling like doing the research to educate myself, and how much easier it was to bee-atch about my camera wrecking my shots than to do something about it, that left me in a protracted state of inertia. Hence I continued to use my aggravating little pink camera.
      But then one day about three months ago while grocery shopping at Meijer's I made an impulse-turn down the electronics aisle to the camera section where I sought the assistance of the salesperson, a post-adolescent youngster who appeared to know as little about cameras as I did. So I thought, aw, heck and just pointed to a black Canon camera behind the glass display case, $215.99 reduced to $149.99, figuring that if it had to be locked behind a glass case it must be good.

     Besides, this camera did look rather fancier and more involved than my old pink Canon.
    You'll note that in this photo my new camera has not yet really been taken out of the box.
    In truth, I opened the box for the first time a few minutes ago to take this photo. I bought this camera back in April.

My point being, I procrastinated for 6 months before I bought a new camera then procrastinated for 2 months more before I took it out of the box because I didn't feel like reading the instruction manual. In truth I still don't feel like reading the instruction manual. But now I'm in crisis mode, which, sadly, is too often what it takes to get me motivated to get anything done.
But if only I had procrastinated for one week less, if I had pulled out my new camera and sat down with the instruction manual one week sooner and started using my black Canon before my pink Canon, already banged and battered by my cavalier klutziness, had entered its death spiral last weekend during a visit to mother, then surely I wouldn't have fallen into the camera-panic that caused me to take the impulsive - and, ultimately foolish - action that caused me to lose every photograph I've taken over the past year, over 7,000 irreplaceable pictures.
To be continued.

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A Tale Of Two Selfies

7/24/2016

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Last week House Speaker Paul Ryan took this selfie of himself in front of a gathering of the Republican House interns:

A short time later the Democratic House interns decided to congregate for a selfie of their own:

     Every picture tells a story, of course, but in this case the story is derived from looking at the two selfies side by side. Each portrays a group of smiling, fresh-faced, idealistic-looking all-American youngsters; but one photo is a sea of white faces, while the other is filled with faces as varied as a map of the United States.   No body of research or poll could tell more about political demographics in our country than do these two photographs. They are a study of two Americas.
     But as I looked at these photos I realized they also told me something about myself. About which group I’d choose, easily, to belong to. About which America I want to be mine. And, consequently, the basis of my own political beliefs.
     Back in the 1960’s when I attended a Catholic girls’ high school we used to sing a song during our school Masses, the lyrics of which were based on Psalm 133: What a great thing it is and oh, how pleasant it will be when all God’s children live together in peace.   Looking at the photo

of these young children of God in all their Divinely-ordained diversity,

...does in fact give me the pleasant feeling that I what I’m seeing is a great thing, an image of the world the way it’s supposed to be. Or at least the way I wish it could be, a celebration of God’s diversity instead of the denial of it that we too often see in this world and, sadly, even in our country. And I know in my heart that it is this wish for all God’s children to be living together in peace – and equality and availed of the basic human needs each of us requires – that ultimately drives who I vote for and why.

And to the mono- chromatic assembly of God’s children on the other side of the aisle,

...I say be of good cheer; for in the words of prophet Jeremiah, chapter 31, verse 17: There is hope for your future. As there is for all our futures.

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Rickrolled By Melania?

7/20/2016

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By yesterday morning the buzz around the Republican National Convention was about Melania Trump,

...and her now classic speech, which turned out to be a badly-disguised knock-off of Michelle Obama's 2008 Democratic Convention speech.

     Seems poor Melania stepped in it with both high heels as, since she'd claimed that she wrote the speech herself with almost no help, she was either a plagerizer if she did write the speech or a Fibber McGee if she didn't.
     However by last night an article in the New Times cleared up the plagerizer-vs-fibber question: turns out that Donald had hired two of the top political speech writers in the nation to write a speech for Melania, which they did, most of which she threw away, opting to write - or rather copy - her own speech.
      But by later last night a new question was swirling around Melania's speech: along with plagerizing, had Melania cleverly rickrolled us as well?
       For all you folks over 50 who have no idea what rickrolling means, well, neither did I until last night when while roving the internet I came across a reference to that activity and to Melania potentially having done it in her speech.
        At first I had a bit of a difficult time understanding exactly what the verb "to rickroll" meant, but after having researched it on several different pop culture and urban slang sites and Wikipedia I think I get it, more or less.

So back in 1987 singer Rick Astley came out with the catchy pop hit "Never Gonna Give You up", for which he made a music video as well.

      Some time around 2007 some computer whiz kid for God knows what reason thought up an internet prank that involved embedding a link to Rick Astley's "Never Gonna Give You Up" into links to random other sites. In other words, say you were looking for, I don't know, the Benihana's in Peoria Illinois, but when you opened the link instead of a sushi menu popping up you got the video of Rick Astley singing and dancing. That would mean you'd been rickrolled.
     I guess it's supposed to be funny. Actually it kind of is.
     Anyway, I guess the hip, internet savvy youngsters know all about and are into that sort of thing.
      But in more recent times rickrolling has been expanded to include finding a sneaky way to smoothly work lyrics of "Never Gonna Give You Up" into a conversation, lecture, speech, etc.
      The lyrics are as follows:
       Never gonna give you up, never gonna let you down, never gonna run around or desert you;
       Never gonna say good-by, never gonna make you cry, never gonna tell a lie or hurt you.
     Thus when Melania said at one point between the Michell Obama parts, “He will never, ever give up. And, most importantly, he will never, ever, let you down,” the young internet intelegensia sat up and took notice and the "did she or didn't she" debate has been roiling online ever since, though the major consensus seems to be that she did. After all, as Brian Flood, a writer for the Hollywood blog "The Wrap" pointed out in his article,"Forget Plagerism - Did Melannia Trump Rickroll Us With Her RNC Speech?": "...It's too bad her next line wasn't, 'He will never run around or desert you', but the reference is still too obvious to ignore."
     Oh, Melania, you prankster! ;)

References:
1. "How Melania Trump's Speech Veered Offcourse And Caused An Uproar" http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/20/us/politics/melania-trump-convention-speech.html

2. http://www.vox.com/2016/7/19/12221654/melania-trump-rickroll

3. http://www.thewrap.com/melania-trump-plagiarism-rick-astley-rickroll/

4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rickrolling

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The Republican Gun Convention

7/19/2016

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Within the Event Zone of the Republican National Convention:

    Imagine that our country were in the grip of an Ebola epidemic that was killing close to 100 people and debilitating three times that many every day.   Under these circumstances can you imagine the government allowing a group of Ebola carriers to congregate in a crowded area of a major American city during a time when that city was expecting an influx of over 50,000 visitors?   Can you imagine the state's governor shrugging off the pleas of the city's police, hospitals and the citizenry with the excuse that he had no power to order people carrying Ebola to stay out of the area because those people have a Constitutional right to freedom of assembly under the First Amendment?
      Our country is in the grip of a gruesome epidemic of gun violence which kills close to 100 people and wounds almost 300 more every day. It's been only a little over a month ago since 49 people were gunned down in Orlando and within the past week-and-a-half five police officers have been murdered with guns. Americans are on edge and live in fear of being shot in a public place by a psychopath with an assault rifle.
           And yet when gun-lovers and militant groups vowed that they'd show up in Cleveland for the Republican National Convention toting their hand guns, rifles, and assault weapons to exercise their rights under the Second Amendment and Ohio's open carry law, Ohio Governor John Kasich refused the pleas of law enforcement officials to give an executive order, declare a state of emergency, do something to ban guns within the Event Zone surrounding the Convention site.
         However, for the safety of the public, toy guns are forbidden in the Event Zone, as are light bulbs , tennis balls, canned goods, back packs, pieces of lumber, and a few other random items.

But assault weapons that shoot 300 rounds per minute are permitted and have shown up.

So here we have a 1.7 square mile area of downtown Cleveland packed with tens of thousands of people; there are angry protestors for and against Donald Trump and emotions are running high. Guns serve one purpose: to shoot people. Is it possible that, from among however many gun-toting activists show up for the Convention, not one will feel compelled to put his weapon to its use?
Maybe it is possible. Maybe nobody will shoot after all.

However one can't help but wonder how much of a temptation a crowd of thousands through which one can freely walk wielding an assault rifle would be for one of the too many deranged suicidal human beings who've made our country the mass-murder capital of the world.

   Such an individual would merely have to fire the first shot and leave it to the good guys with guns among the crowd to finish the job.
   A couple of years ago when American Ebola fighters returned home from Africa after risking their lives to stop a deadly plague they were ordered by law enforcement officials to stay away from public places even though they carried no danger to their fellow citizens.
      But carriers of guns, who've been killing Americans at an epidemic rate, are free to congregate and roam in a crowd that could that could turn volatile in a heartbeat.
      It doesn't take a psychic to predict that there will be another mass shooting in this country, and soon. Let's just pray it doesn't take place in Cleveland between now and Friday.

References:

https://www.quora.com/How-many-rounds-does-a-semi-automatic-rifle-fire-per-minute

http://www.bradycampaign.org/key-gun-violence-statistics

https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/2842638/RNC-Official-Event-Zone-Permit-Regulations.pdf

http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/14/politics/cleveland-convention-guns-event-zone/

http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/07/republican-national-convention-open-carry

http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2016/07/17/3799163/cleveland-police-ask-emergency-suspension-open-carry-laws-republican-convention/

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My Little Grandrobot

7/14/2016

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A couple Saturday mornings ago while still in Chicago and sitting around Claire and Miguel’s dining room table discussing over a box of Stan's donuts (see post from 7/11/2016)

the battle plan for the carne asada, or Mexican barbeque, we’d be throwing later in the day (see post from 7/12/2016),   someone remembered that we needed charcoal for the grill.
      “Alexa! Charcoal!” shouted Claire.
      I don’t think I was the only one who instinctively looked around to see who Claire was talking to.
      “Er, how come you just said, ‘Alexa Charcoal’?” I asked.
      “Alexa is our robot,” Claire replied.   She pointed to a small black cylinder on the window sill next to the fish tank.

"Alexa", Claire called, and a ring of light blinked on around the top of the cylinder and began moving in a circular motion.

This moving ring of light apparently meant that Alexa was listening.

    “Now watch this,” Claire said. “Alexa!” she snapped, “You’re bad!”
    A gentle female voice apologized.
   "Awww, Claire," I said instinctively.
    Claire laughed. "It's a robot, Mom! It doesn't have any feelings! Isn't it kind of creepy?"
   I agreed that it kind of was,

... kind of reminding me of the charismatic smart phones that seduce their owners and each other in the futuristic movie "Her".

I asked about the provenance and purpose of Robot Alexa and learned that Alexa was an unexpected wedding gift. She, it, whatever, is an Amazon Echo,

...a voice-activated speaker connected to a voice-recognition computer system called Alexa.

Hearing its name - “Alexa!” - activates the system.

    And Alexa replies in the most ethereal young female voice.
    If you say "thank you" to Alexa she'll say, "you're welcome".
    If you tell her "good-bye" she'll say "good-bye" back.
    If you wish her to have a nice day she'll wish you the same.
    A weence creepy indeed. But in a nice way.
    As far as what Alexa does, she seems to be a sort of planner/music player/storer and dispenser of personal and internet information. She knows the time, weather and the top news stories. She can call you an Uber. She can receive information and communicate it to your smart phone. Thus, for example, whenever Claire or Miguel think of something they need from the supermarket they shout it to Alexa and she sends the info to their smart phone for them to pull up when they get to the store.
      Anyway, once I got used to the concept I warmed up pretty quick to little Robot Alexa. Claire suggested some music in the house

while we were all busy at work getting ready for the carne assada,

...so I called, “Alexa! Book of Mormon!”. A few moments later from Alexa’s speaker came the familiar (at least to all “Book of Mormon” fans): Ding-dong. Hello, my name is Elder Price…
    Of course I didn’t really want the raunchy but tuneful “Book of Mormon” wafting throughout the house, I just wanted to see if I could get it. “Alexa!” I interruped, “Could you please switch to some easy listening pop music?” Alexa was glad to immediately switch gears to accommodate me.
      That’s something I learned about Alexa. New instructions don’t get tangled in old ones and she can switch back and forth between functions without losing her train of thought. acknowledging each new request in her silky mezzo-soprano voice.
      For example, I used Alexa as a timer while I was baking my desserts for the cookout. I could also ask her to tell me how much time was left or ask her to stop and reset the timer.

As I baked several desserts in a oven whose hotness I wasn’t familiar with, I kept Alexa pretty busy on timer duty.

       I’ll admit I was starting to grow fond of this helpful little robot when I noticed that she wasn’t listening as well to me as she did at first. I’d have to repeat my timer instructions or inquiries a few   times before she’d respond.
       Had Alexa been programmed to get aggravated with people who bother her every couple of minutes and keep asking her how much time is left or to stop the music and play a new song the person (namely me) might be having a hankering to hear while they worked? Or was my daughter’s robot going through some un-programmed sulky adolescent phase?
      Claire explained the problem to me. “I know this makes me sound like a bad robot mom," she said, "but trust me, Alexa works better when you're direct and keep the words to a minimum, like 'Alexa! Stop the timer! Alexa! set the timer for 5 minutes!'"
       And not, apparently, “Alexa, Honey, would you mind stopping the timer and re-setting it for 5 minutes for me please?”, which was what I'd just said to no reaction from poor confused Alexa,

...who really just needed a little robot tough love.

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Chicago End Shots

7/14/2016

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Views from the 606, the retired elevated train line, on Saturday evening

Setting out on Sunday morning from our hostel to the train,

...downtown to the Dunkin Donuts across from Union Station,

...from where we caught the Megabus to Columbus,

The highlight of our trip home was a stop at a McDonald's outside Indianapolis with such delightful modern art furnishings,

...that it almost made up for the food. ; )

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Carne Asada

7/12/2016

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     Continued from yesterday...
     On Saturday we had a carne asada, or Mexican barbecue, at Claire and Miguel's place.
     Carne asada also refers to the meat - carne asada - which is made from skirt steak marinated with spices and olive oil then cut into slices, cooked on a grill, and often served up in tacos.
      The plan was that Miguel's mom,

Lolita,

...would oversee the preparation of the carne asada, the home-made tortillas for tacos, and all the sides and fixin's, while I'd be in charge of - what else? - the desserts. In fact, as my cherry almond streusel pie had been requested in advance,

...I schlepped along 4 cans of Kroger red tart cherries on the Megabus, since I've not yet been able to find in Chicago this essential ingredient for my pie.

      As the guests - a group of Miguel and Claire's friends - were invited for 2 pm we had to hit the ground running on Saturday morning to get the shopping and cooking done in time.
       But first breakfast, of course.
       Tom and I woke up early and headed out around 7:30 am from our hostel back to the Bongo Room (see yesterday's post), hoping to beat the Saturday morning breakfast crowd.
       But crowded and lively as the streets of Wicker Park had been the previous night, this morning they were empty and quiet.

Along the way we passed a vintage phone booth,

...which appeared to have state-of-the-art working innards. Probably not many of these left on the planet, right?

The traffic was so light that I was able to stand in the middle of the street and get a couple of good city shots.

Anyway, between the empty sidewalks and the empty streets I guess it shouldn't have come as a complete surprise that most of the stores and restaurants in the area weren't yet opened, including The Bongo Room which, as it turned out, didn't open until 9 am.
It is me, or does that seem kind of late for a breakfast joint to open?

Oh well I guess in this neighborhood of the 3 am cookie crowd nobody gets up early for breakfast on a Saturday morning.

No problem, though, we found ample nourishment at a very nice - and - empty Dunkin Donuts.

After breakfast Claire and Miguel picked up Tom, me, and the cherries and drove us to their place,

...where we met up with the others and formulated a battle plan.

After a shopping trip to a local Mexican market, which was the best place to find skirt steak for carne asada, we returned to Claire and Miguel's and got to work,

...Lolita on the marinading of the meat,

...with a rub made from salt, lemon pepper, paprika, and olive oil;

...making a fresh pico de gallo salsa with tomatoes, onions, cilantro, and a jalapeno pepper from Claire and Miguel's garden,

...and home-made corn tortillas, cooked on a lightly-oiled griddle.

Me learning to make a tortilla.

Getting a second and third opinion on the tortillas,

...which came out beautifully.

I also got to work on the desserts,

...with the help of sweet Brisa,

...who also helped with the tortillas,

...the meat,

...and just about every job that needed to be done.

Along with two cherry almond streusel pies,

...I also made a peach pie,

...a fruit salad for which Lolita cut the watermelon shell into a beautiful bowl,

...and, as blueberries were on sale at the market that morning, a batch of blueberry bars. (See post from 7/6/2016 for the recipe)

As the guests started arriving,

...we started setting out the hors d'oeuvres,

...including a yummy guacamole brought by Josh, one of the guests.

Turned out the desserts were fair game, too.

Then Carlos went to work grilling up the carne asada,

,...and some tasty zuchini-kebobs.

...to go with the other sides of black and red beans.

We set out a butcher block on which people could cut up the carne asada, the better to fill a tortilla with.

A good - and delicious - time was had by all.

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Walking And Busing Around Chicago

7/11/2016

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...Continued from yesterday:

The purpose of our trip this time around was to spend some time with Miguel's awesome family, in town visiting from Arizona.

Brisa, Lolita, Miguel, Victor, Jose Luis, Carlos,

...and Dulce, here with Carlos and Jose Luis.

The plan for Friday was that we'd meet up in the middle of the morning for a day of bopping and bus-hopping around the city,
But first breakfast, of course,

...for which Tom and I headed to The Bongo Room, a popular breakfast spot a few blocks from our hostel.

This place generally makes the best breakfasts; however, as you will note below, the chef on duty on this day evidently has problems negotiating a sunny-side up egg, as both of our meals arrived with a case of broken yolks. I believe in the case of mine, the cook tried to salvage my broken sunnyside-up egg by flipping it over and making it into a sort of mongrel over-easy egg.

My eggs.

Tom's eggs.

We didn't complain, though. We don't like to complain. And besides, even with the broken yolks, the eggs were tasty, and the toast and potatoes were perfection.

After breakfast we walked back to the hostel

...passing this shop along the way:

I guess you can get about anything you want in Chicago.

Soon as we got our day necessities together we headed back out again and began walking towards Logan Square, where Miguel and Claire live, by way of the 606,

...which is a retired elevated train route that has been turned into a walkway and biking path.

After a few blocks on the 606 we met up with Carlos, Lolita, Claire, Brisa, and Dulce, who'd been walking in our direction from Claire's house.

Planning to meet up later in the day with Miguel, Victor and Jose Luis, who were touring the Northwestern University campus, we headed for the bus stop,

...stopping along the way at the famous Wicker Park Walgreen's that used to be a gilded-age bank.

We got off at Wrigleyville, from where we caught a second bus to our first destination of the day,

...Wrigley Field,

...the visitation of which had been on the bucket list of some of Miguel's baseball-loving family members.

We then took another bus from Wrigleyville,

...to Lincoln Park,

... the Botanical Gardens,

...the Lincoln Park Conservatory,

...and the zoo, where we stopped for a breath-takingly expensive lunch of hot dogs and french fries.

They were really good dogs and fries, though. Or maybe it was that, as the saying goes, hunger is the best seasoning.

We met up with Miguel, Victor and Jose Luis at the zoo,

...and after visiting the animals we strolled around Lincoln Park,

...where there were several wedding shoots in progress.

From the park we walked to Lake Shore Drive,

...and the beach along the shore of Lake Michigan.

Some of us went for a swim in the lake and some of us, like non-swimmer me, just rolled up our cuffs and waded along the water's edge, which I for one found satisfactorily refreshing.

After our swim we hopped another bus that left Tom and I off in Wicker Park close to our hostel,

...then continued on to Claire and Miguel's Logan Square neighborhood.

We had one final destination for the day, and that was dinner at Pizano's,

...a Wicker Park pizzeria several blocks from our hostel,

...to which Tom and I walked while the others took the bus from Logan Square

...and where we were able to snag an outdoor table.

We ordered three pizzas,

...one pepperoni,

...one Canadian bacon deluxe,

...and one pineapple and spinach. (To each his own, right?)

Now, I've had many's the great slice in my over half a century of pizza-noshing on this planet, but I can unequivocally declare that there is no better pizza anywhere than Pizano's pizza.* The crust of this deep-dish pizza has a je ne sais quoi -ness that sets it apart from every other pizza under creation, and the sauce, the sauce, the sauce...how do I even begin to describe this sauce except to say that every time I take that first bite of a Pizano's slice my taste buds are electrified by 10,000 volts of deliciousness?
Anyway, Pizano's makes one dang good pizza!

After polishing off a goodly portion of our pizzas we gathered up our left-overs boxes and walked several blocks through the festive Friday night lights and crowds,