When I got to the house yesterday afternoon the Internet was down. Dang. I hate diving into that kludge (as John calls it) of mysterious little boxes and wires under the shelf.
However, through blundering necessity, I've learned the difference between the ethernet adapter or the modem/router, and how to trace the tangle of cords back to each power source. Re-booting is simply disconnecting something and hoping it struggles back to life.
I still have PTSD from the early PC days at Microsoft, when crawling under your desk and yanking the plug out of the wall (cold boot) was the last resort before you called the intimidating know-it-alls working the tech support desk. They sure knew how to put an ignorant librarian in her place.
At least the tech support folks at our provider NCI in Omak are patient and kind with confused customers. They walked me though the re-booting process again, but no luck. From their end, it looked like everything should have been working, but spotty system outages are common out here in the boonies. This morning, the modem was lit up again like a happy Christmas tree and I am back in business. For now.
Everyone is busy and I don't have much planned, but it's nice being here by the river for these last summer days.
“Time heals all things. But if time fails, try cake.”
―
Here's a useless little factoid: German Chocolate Cake has nothing to do with Germany. It was developed by English-American chocolate maker Samuel German, and originally called German's Chocolate Cake. The first recipe was published in 1956.
The specimen above came out of a box and the sticky pecan topping from a can. I know, I know. But as far as cake mixes go, that's one of the better, and certainly as good as any German Chocolate Cake you'll find a supermarket bakery.
I made a pork shoulder yesterday, braised with apple cider and a pile of onions. The best thing about pork roast is smelling it in the oven all afternoon. When the meat is fork tender, boil down the cider liquid and onions for a delicious goo on mashed potatoes. Pretty good recipe. Welcome fall.
Pig and Cake sounds like some down home barbecue joint...but pretty much sums it up.
Hey, we were promised rain in Seattle yesterday but it never materialized.
I'm off to Twisp tomorrow for a few days.
“For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business,” T.S. Eliot wrote in “East Coker.”
I get a weekly email newsletter from the NYT called "Well." The topics are usually interesting and relevant. The subject this week was about our lack of focus, namely the distractions that prevent us from giving undivided attention to a task or goal.
Here is an excerpt:
"We tell ourselves that if we could just get off our devices, we could lock in. I find it amusing and slightly alarming to observe how my brain is online even when I’m not. When my thoughts reach an impasse or my memory glitches, my brain assumes a Google search is impending, help is on the way. There’s a pause where my brain wants to hand off the baton to the machine. When the machine isn’t there, there’s static before the brain, crackling back to life, remembers that it knows how to think without help, without every unknown addressed. It’s silly to say, but I miss the spaces my brain used to hold before it saw all the things it didn’t know as knowable. Creativity happened there."
Anyway, as a librarian, that line about having "every unknown" addressed resonates. It wasn't that long ago when we went to the library reference desk to look up simple facts about people, places and things.
How old was Frank Sinatra when he died? How many people live in Mexico City? What's the average monthly temperature in Palm Springs? And so on and so on, now instant gratification in the palm of your hand. No wonder we're addicted to our phones.
Where am I going with all this? My early morning screen time habit is hard on aging eyes, especially on these dark mornings. No worries, Feathers and Flowers isn't going away. I love sharing photos and news with our family and friends, but I’m experimenting with healthier screen times.
This cultivar was developed in British Columbia in 1936, and it was first apple produced from a formal scientific breeding program. Genetic testing has still not revealed its exact parentage.
According to AI, Spartans faded from production as they are prone to disease. No kidding. It's just a specialty cultivar now, primarily grown in the native region of Canada, or as a home garden "novelty." That's a nice word to keep in mind while you're raking up piles of rotting apples.
But I picked a basket of the nicer ones to do something with this weekend. They make pretty good applesauce, but that is a ton of messy work for something we don't eat very often.
In fact, I haven't been into canning much at all this summer, other than a small batch of chutney made with our Roma tomatoes and pears from Lone Pine.
