Mulberry Jam

I have a new toy tool this week, a sheet feeding scanner from Fujitsu. I hope to use it to get rid of some of the paper I’ve amassed over the years. And there is a lot of it. My husband and I are both writers, plus we’ve had our own business for years and have all the IRS-required paperwork to prove it. I have nearly a dozen banker’s boxes of papers I don’t expect to ever need but am afraid to throw away. If I can scan them into digital files and keep them on one of my extra hard disk drives, then I can save a ton of space.

But I admit to some nervousness, too. At least with paper you don’t have any software format problems. Plus you know paper will last. Who’s to say what the long-term durability of DVDs and hard disk drives will be over the decades?

And I’ve experienced the problems outdated formats can cause. Remember zip disks? For a few years in the 90s that was my backup solution. Zip disks were great for a while, but pretty soon they were just a problem. My external zip drive output to a parallel cable, but after 2001, my iMacs all came without a parallel port. For years I hung onto an old Dell laptop, vintage 1996, so I could read the files. However I still had no way to get the info off the zip disks onto anything else since that machine only had a floppy disk drive (remember floppies?). Like most backups, nine tenths of the stuff was useless junk, but the other one tenth included the only copy of my book manuscript. So I hung onto the vintage Dell, afraid to get rid of it, even though it could only run Windows 98 (and just barely creaking along at that). A friend finally came to my rescue last month with a laptop that had both parallel port and a USB drive that I could plug my thumb drive into. Now the old documents are on a DVD, which I sincerely hope will have a longer shelf life than the zip disks.

Despite my trepidation at the prospect of shredding most of my old paper and shifting to digital, I feel like I have to take that step. I live in a small house, and twelve boxes of boring records are taking up space I could use for better purposes. So I’ll take my chances and hope for the best. Have any of you faced these format problems? How did you solve the issue?

Our February weather roller coaster continues. Monday it reached 70 degrees, today it is snowing lightly. No doubt about it, today feels like winter. But the signs of spring are out there. My snowdrops are blooming, and tulip and daffodil foliage is starting to peek up. Robin flocks have already been passing through, though I don’t believe they’re the most reliable harbinger, since some of them overwinter here. More exciting is the fact that yesterday I heard a cardinal singing, a sure sign he’s beginning to think about staking out nesting territory.

The photo is a closeup of one clump of snowdrops that I naturalized years ago among the roots of the mulberry tree. Now they come up faithfully every spring, usually in early to mid-February, and I don’t have to do anything. Bulbs are so great for the lazy gardener!

An unexpected dose of winter weather hit us last night.  The result was beautiful, but dangerous.  This was one of the few times I can remember when the weather forecast was not more dramatic than the actual weather itself– the TV and radio weather people really missed a chance to get everyone all alarmed this time.

By the way, technical difficulties from earlier today have hopefully been resolved by now.  A little upgrade attempt that didn’t go quite as planned.  Thank heavens for webmeister Seth and his amazing multi-tasking skills!  Bless you Seth.

A week ago, a friend gave me a copy of Elizabeth Gilbert’s book “Eat, Pray, Love.” I was aware of the book when it came out last year. A book with a focus on food and yogic philosophy? You’d think it would be right up my alley. But I waited to read it and was eventually discouraged by some negative reviews. People seem to either love it or hate it, with few people lukewarm about either Gilbert or her story. The book begins with Gilbert at a very low point, facing a bitter divorce in her early thirties, accompanied by severe depression. After settling the divorce she finds it difficult to re-engage in life, and seems unable to leave the pain of the broken marriage, compounded by an unhappy rebound love affair, behind. To escape from herself and the situation, she uses a book advance to take a full year off, spending four months successively in Italy, India and Indonesia. These are the three sections from which the book takes its title. She describes her travels as a search for God. God is definitely a part of this quest, but it’s also about trying to find a way to become sustainably comfortable in her own skin.

The outset of the book is heavy going, as Gilbert describes crying oceans of tears and spending night after night in misery on a series of bathroom floors. But she won me over completely once she and the book arrived in Italy. She gives herself over to food and the pleasures of daily life, including the beautiful Italian language. Her description of being charmed by the florid profanity and histrionics at a Roman soccer game conveys her affection for Italy, and is itself completely charming. It is an abrupt change to follow her to a yoga ashram in India, living a life of austerity and prayer. Her new regimen includes five hours daily of scrubbing floors, a vegetarian diet, and daily wake-up calls at 3:30AM for prayer. But her search for an experience of God over four months of prayer and meditation is rewarded with a true glimpse of the transcendent. The final stage of her journey, in Bali, is embodied by a voice that’s clearly older and wiser than the desperate woman who began the story.

As with most memoir, the question for the reader is can you sympathize with (or in some cases, stomach) the complaints of the writer. In re-reading the negative reviews, it seems many critics couldn’t relate to her troubles or her goals. Before diving into the book, I had my own concerns about whether it would be my cup of tea. In the past I haven’t been a big fan of the hits of modern memoir. Excerpts I’ve read from books like “Prozac Nation” or “Running with Scissors” have left me cold. I feel little besides impatience with what seems to me to be endless navel gazing, wallowing in sad childhoods and victim psychology. This book, however, sucked me in immediately. Gilbert has an entertaining voice, able to cover her early mid-life crisis with a touch that’s doesn’t minimize her pain, but is light enough that she avoids taking herself altogether seriously. And she’s genuinely working to try to improve herself, to find happiness and to make her life better. Again and again, her wit and irreverence kept the book from being sappy or tiresome. I was happy for the hard-won equanimity she found, and enjoyed sharing the voyage with her.

Thanks, Kim, for giving this one to me!

Wow, this is full of good stuff.  Pointless quote marks  pointed out for your delectation and amusement.  Found this one on the Birdchick Blog.

It’s very cold and windy outside today. A great day to stay in with lots of pillows and a snoozy cat. I did manage to organize myself after lunch to make some cookies, though. I’ve been doing some minor tinkering with this recipe for oatmeal cookies and I’m really happy with them. They’re irresistibly chewy with a great caramelized almost toffee-like flavor thanks to all the butter. Thanks to Mom for sharing the recipe for these:

Favorite Oatmeal Cookies
3/4 c butter, softened (1 and 1/2 sticks)
1 c packed light brown sugar
1/2 c granulated sugar
1 large egg
1/4 c water
1 t vanilla
2 and 2/3 c rolled oats
1 c flour
1 t salt
1/2 t baking soda
1 c sweetened flaked coconut
1 c chopped pecans

Cream together butter and sugars, then beat in egg, water and vanilla. Sift all-purpose flour together with baking soda and salt and stir into wet ingredients, then add remaining ingredients and mix. Drop spoonfuls onto greased cookie sheet and bake for 10-12 minutes. Since I don’t have a convection oven, I usually bake them for 10 to 11 minutes, then turn the pan and finish for another 1-2 minutes. Cool on the pan before removing to a cooling rack. These cookies are best when allowed to brown to a light caramel color. They are flat and very chewy, almost like Florentines. While I think old-fashioned rolled oats are best, you can use quick oats in pinch—with quick oats use 3 cups of oats and be aware the cookies will be somewhat doughier and less chewy. I don’t have to talk to you about using real butter, do I? Margarine just would not be the same.