LOFT LIFE - Forming community is easier with help

I have learned something recently. In the three and a half years I have been publishing my blog here, I have probably resorted to begging for people to sign up as followers.

I don’t have a problem getting thousands of “reads” on my blog. I have, or at least I perceive, a problem with getting that little “follower” counter to increase. I ask myself, how do I get 7200 reads and only 72 followers?

Part of the answer is that I am solo in forming this community for my blog.

So a serendipity happened that taught me an important blogging lesson:

I began posting my SAME column on www.allrecipes.com as a premium member of that community, and amazing, my comments almost quadrupled. Lesson? 

They already have community. It’s that simple. I plug into an already formed community and my own community expands. Good news.

I also find friends and friends’ blogs there, like Petey’s Home on the Range blog, about farm life, with fabulous photos and stories about the animals, and some really, really good recipes, and Baking Nana’s rant about the poison in our food. I have found a good friend in her. The site itself is wonderful, filled with good recipes, good friends and good reading. I especially like Chef John's video cooking lessons.

One of the ideas I have used from Pat Flynn, who publishes some of the most helpful articles, blogs and podcasts for us bloggers and online entrepreneurs on www.smartpassiveincome.com  is to work with other bloggers. I love www.daisygirlproductions.blogspot.com 

and have formed an alliance with her for our blogs. We chat, we share, we leave comments, and now we even play Words with Friends on FB. Community. Ain’t it great!

Pat Flynn also has really great information on forming affiliations. I will take his advice very soon. And. he publishes his online income statements monthly just so we can see where his sources are. That alone gives him a solid following. More community.

So rather than re-inventing the wheel in forming my own community, I am now learning to attach to communities who have cross-networked with me, and that is working much, much better.

LOFT LIFE - Life

I probably should wait a few weeks before writing this. During deep emotional response to life’s little losses, isn’t always the best time to express raw feeling. But,then if I wait a few weeks, the raw feeling will get analyzed, objectified, and dried out--so maybe it is better to write during the feeling time.

It’s about a series of losses I have had lately. These aren’t losses of important things, like people. But, the accumulative effect of the losses seems to be almost as though it were more important than just mere things.

I’m the kid that collected Nancy Drew books, dusted them daily, and went out to replace any book that had even a scratch or a torn cover. This may appear to be some OCD reaction, but I don’t really think so. 

I was adopted. I didn’t feel much sense of belonging in my family. Long story. Another time. So there was some sense that in this collection, I was building a heritage. They were mine. They were precious. I took good care of them with a deep respect that they might get passed down to my children and grandchildren.

                                                                             

Now, one of those books is missing. I’m not blaming. I’m just saying. I kept my 36 Nancy  Drew books in pristine condition for decades. Now they are not in good condition. They have been boxed, moved, stored in basements, attacked by moisture, people, movers and age.

Then I was given three antique chairs, two ginger jars, and a carved wooden horse, all really valuable and to be treasured. Two of the three chairs are still in good shape, but the third is missing. Somehow in one of our moves it just got left. Again, not blaming, but I think of it. The ginger jars are cracked--again from misuse by others, not me, and the wooden horse got broken. It’s claim to value was that the carving was from a single block of wood. Now it’s in three pieces.

I lost two boxes in the move from California to Illinois, and in those boxes were kitchen things which included a bread knife, a gift from my dad, who died shortly after he gave me the knife. I am sad every time I slice bread.

But, I think it was the losses from the past few months that has gotten to me the  most. Last winter, I was shopping for groceries and when I got home, I went to put my rings and my gold bracelet on my dresser, where I always put them, every time I return home, but this time, no bracelet. This was a 14K solid gold bangle of gold given to me by my bio mom who wanted to give me a token of her love after we had been separated for the  first 28 years of my life. I have worn it for the last 30 some years every single day. I remember right after she gave it to me, I was asked to remove it at the airport because it “dinged” in the metal detector. Taking it off and placing it in an airport tray, I felt like I was losing my mother all over again. But I was able to put it right back on, right after the metal detector area. Not so this winter. It is gone. It probably got knocked off with the handle of a plastic grocery bag, and since it was winter and under my coat sleeve, I didn’t see it happen. I wore this token for three decades. I miss it. It feels like I’ve lost my mother because it was the symbol of our reunion.

And, now, this past snowstorm, where our cars were under two feet of snow in the apartment complex parking lot, someone used a tool to steal my Jaguar cat ornament from my car. I feel some kind of shock. The car has been in this lot for four years. Why now? Yes, it’s only a car. It’s only an ornament. It means little to me. Except, I am beginning to wonder if the girl who dusted off her books every day just isn’t supposed to have treasures on earth.           

                                                          

I mean this is not important, is it? I have friends who are losing husbands, mothers, fathers. These are just things. I keep telling myself this. I know everyone has losses. Everyone has these stories. But, it doesn’t really lessen my sadness.

It doesn’t feel like just things. It feels like I just can’t hold onto things I care about. I am trying to see the lesson. I can pontificate with the best of them. I know the lessons about moth and rust and earth and heaven. The closer I get to heaven, the less I even care about most of my things. I want to get rid of most of this stuff.

I just want my bracelet back. 

It’s not gonna happen. So I just want to stop feeling sad about it.

LOFT LIFE: That sounds like Anita

Funny how some things you think are going to be bad experiences can turn out to be life lessons that improve you.Our great T-Mobile saga, which I have to tell you became a source of great irritation and another big corp, impersonal bureaucracy disappointment, turned out better than expected for a couple of reasons. But, first the saga:We had been T-Mobile customers for more than five years. Thought that might mean something. Wrong.  
When their reps repeatedly made our upcoming upgrade date sound more like bad news, more fees, and not the devices we really wanted, we made a decision. But, we first confirmed, in the store, and over the phone, that our contract expiration date was September, 2012. 

We waited until October, 2012, and spent the extra month researching phones, and companies. We did this in our usual super analytical style. We visited both AT&T and Verizon stores, cornered a knowledgeable salesperson, and asked away at our many questions.

When we found out that Verizon would soon be switching their platform to the one AT&T uses, that made our final decision for us. We didn’t need to go through that transition with them, so opted for the company that had already established that platform.  

Then we had to choose phones. We were excited. We seriously considered the Androids, but after much prayer, thought and comparison, we decided to jump into the new world full bore and get the iPhone 5’s. We were elated, we were giddy. This was a big step for old folks. Now we had better phones than our children--for once. We could now sync with our Macs, our iPads, and we could Face Time, and access the iCloud (once we figured out how to to that), and many other amazing feats of modern America, modern Globe.

We merrily used our new devices, and even whittled down our monthly bill to only double what our T-Mobile one had been. (See changing my reality post).
Then we got the bill from T-Mobile--in November, informing us that we had broken our contract and owed them almost $800. Our elation burst like the proverbial hot air balloon snapping in mid-air and falling to the ground.
We did NOT AGREE that 2013 was the end of our contract. That was big news, and so we went to war. I immediately went in to my heretofore really friendly T-Mobile store and found them less than friendly--almost hostile. They couldn’t access my account, so they said. They suggested I call customer service. I did it right there. It ended badly. They couldn’t help either. They insisted our contract had been extended two years from August, 2011. I insisted I had no knowledge of that. They insisted I had to now work with their contracts department.
My son-in-law suggested eHow’s recommendation of certified letters to the company explaining my dilemma. I certified all my mail to them after that.
                               How to Win a Complaint Dispute With T-Mobile
                                   By Alexander Cequea, eHow Contributor

I also went online to read about T-Mobile contracts department. Amazing how many published letters of complaint were posted that sounded exactly like what I was planning to write.
In my utter frustration, on one of my trips to Costco, I stopped at the customer service desk for an unrelated question and found myself talking to Anita, who was kind, listened, even though she had nothing to do with this, and said, “Why don’t you work with the Attorney General’s office.”

I would have never thought of that. I went home, drafted my letter to the AG, and copied it into my email to T-Mobile’s contracts department.

To shorten the story, I eventually, after another email and two certified letters, received confirmation that, amazingly, yes, I was right, and now if I would please pay the final bill of $211, we could part ways. They credited the other $576.

So I returned to thank Anita, but couldn’t remember her name, and she wasn’t in that day. I told the customer service person there that I wanted to thank the kind person who cared about my problem, even though I did not get my phone at Costco. I said I didn’t remember who it was. After explaining how much she listened and helped, the rep said, “Oh, that sounds like Anita."

You know, that stopped me short. Imagine being the kind of person people can identify just by the description that you listen and are kind and helpful. Not only did she save me almost $600 with her wise suggestion, but she taught me an important life lesson.

I want to be like her. I want to listen better, be kind, be helpful, even when it isn’t my problem.
Thank you again, Anita. Bless you.

LOFT LIFE: The Big Easy wasn't so easy this time

We live in Connecticut. Our children and grandchildren live in California. So how did we end up in New Orleans for Christmas?

It’s complicated. That seems to be the catch all phrase to explain away totally irrational and uncomplicated reasoning. 

We chose New Orleans for three good reasons that seemed rational at the time: 1) I am a writer. I need to visit places to write about them; 2) we had a time share available for Christmas week--no small feat to accomplish with last-minute planning; 3) my husband assured me he would have a business trip to California or somewhere in December and I counted on using my free airline ticket to visit the kids, during his time away.

Well, I guess two out of three isn’t terrible. I did gather some stuff for my writing; we did stay in a time share condo in the Garden District. December The business trip never happened, so I will have to look into January of February for my trip out to SoCal.

We decided not to rent a car, and, after a taxi to the condo, we visited Walgreen’s for our 10 Jazzy Passes--NOLA’s answer to bus and trolley fares by the day. That worked out well to visit the French Quarter almost daily--which was only two miles from the Garden District, but not really a carefree walking area.

This trip, I had the foresight to ask hubby what his expectations for the trip were--like what did he want to do. This is different from my usual airtight planning where I forget to ask him what he wants to do. The asking part is a better plan. We did all he hoped for and more.

One request was to revisit the New Orleans School of Cooking on St. Louis Street in the French Quarter, which I found an online coupon for. We had done this about twelve years ago on our first trip to The Big Easy.

The class, taught by Michael W. DeVidts, was even better than we remembered it. This time, since I no longer eat chicken (Eat for your blood type advice to B types), we opted for the alternate menu of shrimp and artichoke soup, crawfish etouffee, and pralines. The last time we had gumbo, jambalaya, bread pudding and pralines. There is beer and lemonade included also.

I caught the chef on his way in to ask if there would be any chicken or chicken broth in our menu. He said it was too late for the soup, but immediately, cheerfully, ordered the kitchen staff to switch to veggie broth for the etouffee. Later he thanked me for my request, even saying he had learned something--that veggie broth tastes better with the crawfish than the chicken broth he normally uses. That made my day. I was feeling guilty for changing the ingredients for the whole class.

Michael has an outrageous sense humor, and added to his obvious talent in Creole-Cajun cuisine, attendees can expect a great history and culture lesson peppered with lots of wit and wisdom.

The meal was delicious, and really, there was no need after that to find these dishes, since we imagined that we had already had the best in NOLA.

                                            

We had other good experiences too. Walking along Decatur we discovered Key West Hats, where I was able to give Jay his other Christmas gift--a Fedora. Really, I think he looks great in this hat--so we got two. Here is one:

I expect to start hearing blues music any minute when I see him in this one. Beau, our salesperson, was very helpful. We let him know that our Fedora attachment came from watch Matt Bomer on White Collar, which I am sure has increased this trend for others too. Hey, if you haven’t seen this one, it’s on Netflix, and is really a good series. 

Of course we had the beignets, the chicory coffee, and Jay had to have that gumbo I deprived him of at the cooking schools.

But, really our overall feeling in NOLA was that we wished it were California for Christmas. It’s not that we didn’t have a good time. It was just that the food was very different from how we eat, or at least how I eat (see my July 2012 post, It’s not easy being green). Therefore I ended up gaining back almost HALF of the weight it took me a year to lose. Thankfully, back on green smoothies and sensible fresh food, I have shed half of the half gained, so all is not lost. And, it’s just that we aren’t spring chickens anymore, you know, so staying up late to hear the 10p.m. sets of live music really didn’t fit our metabolic rates anymore. And, it’s just that the French Quarter is not a cheery place to be even in the daytime, and at night, well, we weren’t so ready to venture there every evening by bus. The trolley wasn’t running from the Garden District to the FQ.

We ended up strolling down Magazine Street in the Garden District on a couple of days, and found a great pizza place with a Mediterranean menu for things like warm pita with humus, roasted red peppers, olives and pine nuts, and great pizza with focaccia  crust, and spinach and gorgonzola with sun dried tomato toppings. This too was more a California than a Creole cuisine. 

One evening we walked to the Trolley Cafe a block away from our condo, and I had the best crab cake I have ever had, loaded with crab and not loaded with bread stuffing. This was a pleasant surprise.

We also had dinner at a French restaurant, where I had pappardelle pasta with crimini and shitake mushrooms in a garlic and olive oil. I had just read about parpadelle in Patricia Cornwell’s Port Mortuary, so I was amazed to be offered a pasta I had never heard of the same week I read about it. It was fabulous. I also had red fish, which was also great.

But, three evenings we stayed in walking distance to our condo, choosing to eat at Houston’s, where we found California cuisine like ahi salad, kale salad (truly yummo), sirloin tips salad, with citrus dressing--a true masterpiece. We really prefer the Mediterranean and California cooking, so it doesn’t make sense to choose NOLA, where at least half of the charm is that heavy fried, bready, fatty, and saucy rich food.

At Houston’s we did order the barbecued ribs for Christmas eve dinner, and had soup so we could not be hungry and save half of our entrees for Christmas Day dinner, because, believe it or not, even in this touristy locale, most restaurants are closed on Christmas. “People in New Orleans cook at home,” our taxi driver informed us. So OK. 

I sound like I’m complaining. I am grateful we get to travel, try different things, and have these adventures. I truly am. We are blessed.

But as we ate our bbq in our condo and relaxed all Christmas Day, we were mostly thinking about how much we missed the kids.

LOFT LIFE: We have the Willys

Jay and I decided it was time to explore some more New England history for our long Thanksgiving weekend. So we decided on Sturbridge Village.   

Well, actually, we didn’t exactly decide it that way. I had a Groupon for a hotel in Sturbridge, which I remembered as Stockbridge (I do get these easily confused). So after explaining to Jay that we would be staying at the Red Lion Hotel, then go to Norman Rockwell (which frankly we have done enough that there’s not much left for us to see there), he agreed.

Then I looked at the Groupon, the address, and the MAP (which I had earlier claimed to be an expert at), I realized it was NOT Stockbridge or the Norman Rockwell area at all. Whew. That prevented spending another $300 at the Lee Outlets too.

It was Sturbridge, in the Sturbridge Village area, which we have never been to. The hotel was not the Red Lion of dim memory (mine) at all, but the Sturbridge Host Hotel and Conference Center. A good deal all around with discounted tickets to the historic village.

But, it wasn’t until we were walking around the rustic, historic Massachusetts site that we realized why we felt so at home there: we both have ancestors from Massachusetts.

Jay’s more famous relative is Willy Dawes, 

the one who got through the lines to warn that “the British are coming.” Family lore has it that Longfellow knew it was Dawes, not Revere who made it through, but that Paul Revere sounded better in a poem. Hmm. Also the family says Willy pretended to be drunk, so got through--but that he probably didn’t really need to pretend. Jay’s Granny Mac, recently died at 101, and was the oldest living Dawes, of the William Dawes Who Rode legacy. Quite a family history, Dawes is, including the VP under Coolidge, Charles Dawes. 



Charles Dawes




Anyway, that is Jay’s Willy.

Mine, who may or may not have as illustrious a claim to fame, was Willy Russell, a Massachusetts farmer from Cambridge, born in the 17th century, who lived in Concord, and decided to go to medical school and become a doctor. He was a handsome chap, the family says, and the women in the town would feign illnesses so they could get in to see the tall, dark doc. He ended up saying this was a lot of hooey, and went back to farming.

So we have Willy’s from Massachusetts, and felt that explained our at home feeling when we are in a historic Mass. locale.

We enjoyed many facts of our visit, including standing to watch the Shooting Match with those flint muskets, with costumed men shooting at targets for prizes of sheep and such. I was standing next to Mike, from Torrington, and we had a lively conversation about his being a practicing Puritan. Fun.

We had our pork loin with apples and pomegranate at the OxHead Tavern, on the hotel premises, a homey establishment with an illustrious history of its own. We loved the crackling fireplace, good service, good values and friendly people there, including a table visit by the manager, the aproned-Giuseppe Fasulo, who couldn’t have been more cordial.

The Sturbridge Coffee House (The Fireside Inn) in Fiskdale, up the road on Main Street, was also a real treat. Though perhaps not historic in its current form, we loved the coffee and treats, and had two breakfast there, wishing they were closer to us in CT.

All in all, we felt like we had returned to our history, and atThanksgiving, the perfect time to visit Mass. as descendants of the Mass. SOR (Sons of the Revolution) Willys.

LOFT LIFE: Changing my reality

My husband and I finally worked out our decision to replace our T-Mobile serviced- non-Internet touch phones with AT&T service for the iPhone. This was a huge decision really, because we are of an age group that still thinks a phone is a phone, and that paying more than $150 per month, not to mention hundreds for the phone itself, is just not within the realm of practicality.

I have many friends who brag that they are not on Facebook, not using the Internet except for an occasional email, and not spending their time in technology. They read, they garden, they visit grandchildren, they travel, they watch television, and they talk on their land-line phones.

I, on the other hand, am not such an anti-tech-y. I actually pride myself on thinking young, keeping up with technology relatively speaking, and enjoying the benefits of international communication, free calls to Spain through SKYPE, Face-timing my L.A. daughter, syncing my MacBookPro, my iPad and my new iPhone.

                                    

But I do confess, even with my somewhat savvy approach, I was hit with a blow to the gut, when the AT&T salesperson, Oliver, suggested 1G would not be enough to share with two phones, and also that I could actually save money by including my iPad in the data plan we were purchasing, which would only add $50 a month. The iPad data plan by itself would cost $30 for every month in which we were traveling and wanting 3G of data capacity. Whereas including it with the phones would only add $10 per month and with the 4G for the 3 devices, should be adequate, since we don’t use our phones for movies, TV shows or other data rich media. I am considering, however, podcasting from my iPad, and that might change the game radically. For now though, we email pictures, use GPS app maps, and browse the Web for news, travel info and other practicalities when we travel. The rest of the time we are on Wi-Fi. (Anybody lost yet?)    

Oliver made a throwaway statement, when I balked at spending more than $150 for a phone bill, that maybe we all need to change our “reality.” That got me thinking.

Truly, I am willing to examine my reality. I depend on technology. I used my old phone for calls, message texting, viewing the date and time, setting an alarm now and then, maybe using the tools (calculator and stopwatch) and not much else. 

But with an iPhone, things have, in reality, changed dramatically. Now my phone is synced to my MacBookPro and my iPad, and I can quickly get a message, check weather (more extensively with an app than with just seeing the daily temperatures on my old, non-Internet, phone). I can show my FB pictures to friends without having to load in my iPhotos, I can listen to music, I can have retailers scan purchases, I can Face-time my daughter and others, and on and on and on. If I wish to, which I don’t at present, I can watch a movie or a TV show, I can purchase things, read my Kindle, my Nook, my eReader, I can sync my calendars and appointments, and on and on.

                    So my new reality: this is not a phone. This is a mobile media center. Yes, so is my iPad, and in some ways they are redundant. But, having that choice of screen size is also a benefit. I can travel with both, and use whichever is more convenient. For instance, the iPad was really handy in viewing maps on the GPS app as we traveled from Princeton, N.J. to Connecticut on a route that was altered from our original plan, for which we had printed maps. Using the GPS on the larger screen, that turned to a black screen with lighted maps for night driving, was amazing. I don’t want a GPS that is stuck to the windshield with adhesive, partly because it is a common cause of auto break-ins and theft. This GPS goes with me not my car.

If I want to get a list of local restaurants when we travel, the smaller iPhone screen in just fine. If I want to get on a plane, my iPhone has my boarding pass, so no more paper. I can load my Starbucks card, I can transfer funds from bank to bank, and I can take really good pictures and email them to my laptop. 

As I adapt my life around new technology, I have to think that perhaps the money I am saving from the new way of living, equals if not surpasses the increase in my phone bill. For instance, I seldom use my printer, when I have a screen to view, which saves on printer toner and paper. I no longer need to buy checks, because I only use bill pay. This has the added advantage of my not having to shred bank statements, etc. constantly, because I am on paperless systems. I seldom mail a letter, because my friends mostly seem to enjoy texting, emailing, and calling. Really even emailing is becoming far less common, since texting is shorter and faster. That distresses my two or three friends who like the snail mail thing, but I try to accommodate them, even though my letters and notes are far fewer than if they would allow for technology.

OK, so what is the point here? I am changing my reality. I am going to enjoy the benefits of iPhone and not feel bad about paying for it. I will readjust our budget to accommodate more than doubling our phone bill. In the end, I actually expect to save money. I will not be buying paper books, CD music, or software for most things. I will use my free Kindle books, the occasional Kindle or Nook purchase, the library, and use Pandora and my vast collection of already purchased iTunes and CDs. I will not be purchasing any DVD’s, since Netflix, Amazon Instant Video, You Tube and other streaming sources fill that need just fine. Those things alone will save hundreds per year over what we used to spend. (We can’t find those diamond needles for the stereo anymore.) 

I can compare purchasing many things--for instance the Amazon screen shields, which are incredibly cheaper than those at the AT&T store. I had instant confirmation of that online and so could easily pass up impulse buying of a screen shield at $25 instead of $6. Two day free shipping makes the Amazon purchase very convenient.

I also noticed my new MacBookPro does not have an internal DVD/CD drive. I found that curious at first until I realized the rationale. It is thin and the drive takes up space. And, I have not had much reason to insert a CD or DVD lately, since most of my viewing and listening is from streaming, as mentioned above, and most software is downloadable from the Internet. 

Life is changing. We must decide whether to go with it, even stay ahead of it a little on the cutting edge, or to dig in our heels and insist on the “good old days,” which, frankly, weren’t always so good.

That reality shift actually began some time ago, without my realizing it, and is why I started this blog. I am a journalist. Newspapers are dying. I don’t want to die with them. 

Thanks for reading. As usual, would love your comments on your realities concerning the new world of technology.

LOFT LIFE: September

I come alive in September. It restores me in so many ways:  the humidity and heat of summer are waning and the crisp, cool air of fall enters into my being, invigorating everything in me.

                 

I do not do well in summer, with weeks of high humidity. In fact, this summer, I sat by our apartment poolside for hours with my sun-loving friends, visiting from more overcast sections of the country. This, for me, was a sacrifice of love, because besides this year’s very high humidity, I do not usually enjoy sitting for hours with sun beating down on my head, neck, face and limbs.

I could cover myself up more, block the sun, in addition to my SPF 45, but then I remind myself of the grotesque picture of (me) in Dan Greenburg’s (meant to be) hilarious book, How to Be a Jewish Mother, where (his) mother is seated on her chaise at the beach under her umbrella, clothed, hat-ed, and covered-up at a level that clearly cries out: I am not, nor will I ever be, a beach sort of gal. That’s me. But, I try to pretend, so as not to resemble me too much.

In any case, I did do the sun thing several days this summer, resulting in what I thought was sun-heat-induced eczema, breaking out all over my neck and scalp. Very depressing.  

I looked up the condition online (always a mistake) and decided it must be seborrhea. I have a good friend at church who is a dermatologist, and I knew I should be going to him professionally to get the real diagnosis, but I resisted, because I don’t like medication and   online it said it would be steroids.

So I bought some cortisone cream, which worked somewhat, but what really did well was the concoction my herb-wise friend Linda, who, when I told her I had eczema, put together for me, a salve of olive oil, comfrey and arbor vitae. She’s my herb-mountain lady. She got the recipe from her own herb-wise friend.

A few days later, I ran smack into my dermatologist friend at a church barbecue; so what was I to do? Even though I had decided it would be wrong to ask him for a diagnosis outside of his professional office, here he was, right in front of me. I told him about my self-diagnosed eczema; he took a look at the blotches on my neck and informed me it was not eczema. “You have polymorphous light eruption,” he said, with a straight face, which amazed me. I love having a disease no one has ever heard of, if it’s not terminal or lethal. Ha, Ha. He referred me to a dermatological website written by New Zealand doctors, where I read all about my ailment. My doc friend told me women from places like Norway get this skin condition when they holiday at the Mediterranean and sit in the sun and are not used to sun. So, here I got this European woman disease right here in Connecticut, and didn’t even get to go to the Mediterranean. 

Linda’s salve did work on this, as well, even though we had believed it was for eczema. (Linda also warned that some think arbor vitae can be poisonous, so the recipe is important.)

In any case, September rolled around, bringing cooler temperatures, fresh air, lower humidity, and with those, the real cure for my polymorphous light eruption: September. The P.L.E. is gone.

Besides better skin, in September, I think better, feel better, walk more, and generally feel energized. I start to believe again, as I do every fall, that I can do almost anything--even live longer. I get more creative, do more for my businesses, feel more inspired. September is my tonic.

I love September.

LOFT LIFE: Really?

You guys know I used to be a food critic, right? True. In California, I was invited into the inner sanctum of the California Restaurant Writers Association. They audition you--I mean you have to go through an interview, screening and acceptance, and then you have to follow a set of guidelines, one of which is that you never trade your review for any goods or services. They want to make sure you are incognito, that you are truly giving an opinion not traded for gain, and that you are a real critic, not an advertiser. It is really quite an honor.

I say all that to let you know that I passed! That means my food reviews have some credibility. Oh, don’t start laughing. 

This is just to introduce to you how much I love food, talking about food, eating food, criticizing food, etc. I also subscribe to a few food sites, where they send me recipes. The best of these is www.allrecipes.com where they have formed a truly meaningful community around sharing food stories, recipes, and even blogs. (My Spinning blog is on there.)

Today I received a recipe from Cooking Light, the magazine of which I used to read. Today’s recipe was for, get this, Cobb salad pizza. The name screams, “What?”
   

                          PhotoCredit: John Autry, styling, Mindi Shapiro

Maybe it’s just me, but that strikes me as hilarious. I mean, if you want a salad, why add bread underneath it, and frozen pizza dough bread even? Wouldn’t you want a nice, crusty whole grain aside your Cobb so you can enjoy the salad, fresh and cold without the baked white bread?

It also calls for mixed baby greens. So I had to do this research in order not to lose what of my mind I may still have left. Here’s what wikipedia says:

Various stories of how the salad was invented exist. One says that it came about in the 1930s at the Hollywood Brown Derby restaurant, where it became a signature dish. It is named for the restaurant's owner, Robert Howard Cobb.[1] Stories vary as to whether the salad was invented by Cobb or by his chef, Chuck Wilson. The legend is that Cobb had not eaten until near midnight, and so he mixed together leftovers he found in the kitchen, along with some bacon cooked by the line cook, and tossed it with their French dressing.[2] This version of the story (dated to 1937) is retold in episode 3, season 2, of comedy series Curb Your Enthusiasm, when Larry David searches for evidence to prove that another character has falsely claimed that his grandfather invented the salad.

Another version of the creation is that Robert Kreis, executive chef at the restaurant, created the salad in 1929 and named it in honor of Bob Cobb, the owner.[3] The same source confirms that 1937 was the reported date of the version noted above, with Cobb making the salad.

And here is what the original ingredients supposedly were:

iceberg lettuce, watercress, endive, Romaine lettuce, tomatoes, bacon, chicken breast, hard-boiled eggs, avocado, chives, Roquefort cheese, red-wine vinaigrette.

  Does this scream, please put frozen pizza dough under me?

The pizza Cobb deletes the original kinds of greens, substitutes the more trendy “mixed baby greens,” deletes the hard-boiled egg, substitutes blue cheese for Roquefort, which is not the same, and drizzles the whole mess with a white-, not red-wine vinaigrette, and the pizza salad version includes Dijon mustard.

Now I’m not saying you can’t adapt a recipe. I’m not even saying some might not find this pizza thing tasty. I’m just saying, it’s not a Cobb. Now, I ask you? And, Why? 

Now your turn to opine.

LOFT LIFE: I'll trade you 3 Tweets for 1 blog comment

Remember when you used to while away your free time writing a letter, playing a board game, chatting on the phone, or maybe reading a book? Ah, those were the days.

Forgive me if you are a reader here under 30 or a tech savvy senior even, and this next bit of info is obvious. But those days are gone for a lot of us. 

It’s not that we don’t have choice in how we spend our free time, or even our revenue-producing time, for that matter. We do.

But, it is the age-old dilemma of whether we will choose to be dinosaurs and luddites (The Luddites were a social movement of 19th-century English textile artisans who protested—often by destroying mechanized looms—against the changes produced by the Industrial Revolution...), or whether we will step into the “new world” and learn new things.

Such a dilemma is challenging me lately, namely, “to Tweet or not to Tweet.”
   I have elected to Tweet. That has taken on far greater dimensions than I expected.

Some of you will just say, “I don’t want any part of that waste of time. Others will say, “Duh, why not! How hard can it be?” And, still others, my dear friend, will say, “I don’t want to lose the old-fashioned art of real, personal, communication.

Those may all be valid concerns, but here is my dilemma:

I do marketing, advertising. I claim to have expertise in communications. So doesn’t it “behoove” me to include every efficient, effective form of communication for what I do for my clientele?  I think it does. (Don’t worry, I still know words like behoove. lol)

So lately, I have begun to explore other people’s blogs--younger people--who know the Twitter game, and other social networking, social marketing tools.

Let me tell you, this is VERY time consuming. I can attest that in my practice tries, over the past few days, I have become better and better at this.

Twittering requires spending a lot of time checking and rechecking your Tweets and responses. That is OK, because to do my job, I have to be online most of the time, and the checking is a few seconds, or maybe a couple of minutes if a response is called for.

But, the element of giving exposure on Twitter I didn’t count on, is how reciprocal this communication needs to be.

In other words, if I ask you to read and share my Tweets, and then forward you on to my blog, for instance, I am feeling really obligated to read your stuff and comment as well. Getting my “followers” and “comments” to increase, requires a certain amount of trading with those from whom I am seeing follow me and make comments. This can become as time-consuming as I wish it to be, or maybe more. 

One rule-of-thumb I am learning from other marketers, is that over-Tweeting is a no-no. Whew. That’s a relief. Wouldn’t want to over-Tweet.

Like anything we learn to do, eventually, we get better at it, and learn to discriminate, to select the good input, and leave the fluff. But, in that learning period, there is a lot of information overload. Big time!

I remember where I was when I first looked at a PC and a monitor, and wondered whether I would ever learn to use this new medium effectively. That was in 1981. Today, I can’t imagine life without my MacBook Pro, my IPad and my Kindle, email, texting, and now Tweets. (Haven’t succumbed to a smart phone yet, but I know it is in the cards, because the culture is USING these for things we need to do, like buying things. Is this the mark of the beast some ask?)

Bottom line: I have to learn new media, new networking and marketing techniques, if I expect people to pay me for my expertise. I have to keep up, become savvy about social networking and marketing with these tools. So even though I might prefer relaxing more, leaving technology for a few hours every day, the truth is, it fascinates me to see how quickly these new modes have taken over, and it is amazing to experience their power.

For instance, I Tweeted teasers for my blog (this is my test to see how it works for my clients before I do it wrong on their stuff), and I increased my readership more than SIX times what it has been in ONE DAY. That is incredible to me.

Do you know there are Tweeters who specialize in re-Tweeting? I follow one such person, and she faithfully re-Tweets my posts. 

Amazing. 

In all sales, if you develop third party resources who will multiply your efforts by promoting your services to their networks, you are way ahead of the game.

The downside: I still wonder about negative responses where you multiply complaints. For my clients in small towns, that could become serious. I have avoided creating Facebook pages for them for just this reason. I know I can monitor and moderate these comments, but that requires daily perusal to make things current.

I am still learning. I need to get better at this. I need experts and experienced social media people to tell me what pitfalls to avoid. 

Since there is no dearth of help on these questions for the avid, consistent researcher, I am sure by next month, I will find answers to these. One of the new market niches is obviously people to help us newbies navigate it all.

Please let me know what your thoughts are and your experiences with using social media for business.