Out with the old, in with the new!

How I spent my afternoon

I wasted five hours of my life on Sunday when my mobile WiFi stick developed a problem. Of course, I got two really dumb tech people, and finally a smart supervisor who told me that everything I had been told to do wouldn't have helped and why and so I had to take my computer and the stick into a Sprint store.

That was Sunday, the night of the blizzard, and I just couldn't get it together enough until today to make the trek. I decided to have an attitude adjustment on myself prior to going and decided I was going to start off cheerful.

That lasted for the first 3 seconds until I was told I was in the wrong Sprint store. Luckily the right Sprint store was across the street. So instead of walking to the corner like a sane person, I was going to save time and cross in the middle ... on my side of the street was a bus stop so I could get on the street, and I saw an opening on the other side which seemed passable.

It really wasn't, and I lost my balance trying to navigate from the street up the curb to the sidewalk, and when I put my hand down on the snow pile, it was so mild today that my hand went straight down into the snow. I really almost did a face plant right in the (dirty) snow.

I was able to right myself and I noticed this man had stopped walking and was watching me -- I was about 5 seconds away from his coming to the aid of this little old lady, but I was good. Later as I sat in the Sprint store, I was watching people way younger and way lither than myself having the same difficulty.

So here was my Sprint Store view if I looked one way:

And here's out the window where I crossed the snowbank Alps:

I was told that I'd have to wait an hour (it was really more like 15 minutes), but while I waited I noticed people who came in with broken devices are really sort of twitchy -- like addicts who need to find their dealer FAST. There's a breathlessness about their need to GET. IT. FIXED. NOW.

So I got a new stick, chatted with the two young clerks as I downloaded it on my laptop. No way was I leaving without seeing that it worked. I was feeling proud of myself because I wasn't being twitchy and then realized it was because everything was going my way and I would soon be out the door.

Which I was. Onward to my Thursday lunch place which turned out to be having a private party for Syracuse University alums. Of course, I get upset when my routines get changed with no notice, and with the slush fest in the streets, and lugging my computer, I didn't want to go far, so I went to this place called Choux Factory.

When it first opened, all they sold were choux (little cream puffs) and coffee. That's it. That wasn't working for them, clearly, so they kept adding items, even sandwiches. Then there was a fire and it was closed for a few months, but now it's open again.

I ordered a Philly Cheese Steak, and imagine that sandwich made in an Asian style. It's Japanese owned and run, and this sandwich was beautiful. And tasted good too. Then they had these fantastic macaroons -- they are made like meringue cookies where they are dry and crusty on the outside, but moist on the inside. Got one almond and one coconut along with my iced coffee:

So I read magazines, watched the people walking by and then it was getting to be 4 oclock so I thought I should head home. Terrible slippery slush so I was doing the old lady shuffle. In addition to the slush, garbage is a problem. No pick ups since before Christmas and none expected until sometime next week. Here's my block:

On My To Read List

I ordered this book today, and it sounds fascinating. I'd never heard of this woman. Here's the first paragraph from a review:

The 19th-century eccentric Ida C. Craddock was by turns a secular freethinker, a religious visionary, a civil-liberties advocate and a sexual radical. Arrested and tried repeatedly on obscenity charges, she was deemed a danger to public morality. By the end of her life, Craddock had become a favorite of free-speech defenders and women’s rights activists. In Heaven’s Bride, historian Leigh Eric Schmidt offers a rich biography of this forgotten mystic, who occupied the seemingly incongruous roles of yoga priestess, suppressed sexologist and suspected madwoman.

Bon Voyage Rosie!

I had no idea that a real woman was the inspiration for this poster, which seems as inspirational today as it was during World War II. However, news reports today say that Geraldine Hoff Doyle, the inspiration behind the now-iconic Rosie the Riveter WWII poster, has died at age 86 in Michigan.

The New York Daily News says:

The poster of a young woman in a factory uniform and red polka dot head kerchief, her arm flexed to show off her muscle with a speech balloon stating boldly, "We can do it!" was designed to encourage young women to volunteer for the war effort while men were serving overseas.

Eventually 6 million women would heed the call and enter the workforce during the war years.

Accompanying the news article online is a poll asking, "Rosie the Riveter: Do you think she was an inspiration to women after WWII?"

At the time I answered (yes! of course), 80% of respondents had voted yes, she is still an inspiration.

Another First for Women

You'd think that at the end of the first decade of the 21st century, there wouldn't be many "firsts" left for women. I came upon this one today in an article in USA Today. This is Inger Klein Olsen who is the first female captain in Cunard's 170-year history. She will captain the 2,000+ passenger ship Queen Victoria.

She's not the first captain of a major cruise ship, but rather the third. The first, however, was in 2007 (according to the Cunard news release).

So hat's off to Captain Olsen! I'm not sure what they say at sea, but smooth sailing to her!

PS on Povitica

Even though I had written a formal thank you note (patting myself on my back), I wrote my client an email about how much I love the povitica. Here's what she wrote back:

Is it not the most rich, delightful piece of bread you have ever tasted? (Yes, alas, it is full of fat, sugar and calories—but what the heck! It’s the holidays, after all!) I eat it like you did: warmed for a few seconds in the microwave with butter on top.

You are correct on the pronunciation—I was pronouncing it exactly like you at first, until I heard a Croatian woman handing out samples at a local store several years ago pronounce it correctly. This bread is well known throughout Kansas City and actually comes from a local region/section of Kansas City called “Strawberry Hill.” That section of the city is made-up of Italians, Croatians, etc. And, boy, do they know how to cook!

Povitica

I thought, by my age, I had discovered every fattening thing that exists, but now I have found a new one, thanks to a holiday gift from a client. This is Povitica, which is a Croatian sweet cake.

It comes in a loaf pan, the size of a pound cake. Mine was labeled "English walnut" and it's lots of little layers of moist doughy cake with the walnut paste. It's wonderful.

This client is in Kansas City, and when I googled Povitica, it turns out to be mostly popular there. Just to add insult to injury, I buttered the piece I ate. Heaven!

PS about pronunciation: I was saying it wrong... I thought it was
po-VIT-i-cah but it is po-vee-TEET-sah which sounds much more romantic.