Tweeting on Twitter

I signed up for Twitter months ago, but it has baffled me. I only posted five tweets in that whole time--not good use of a social networking tool. So I signed up for an extended education course at TCU--Jamie told me it was eassy to master, and I was wasting my money, but I really think in two hours I learned a whole lot. But I learned about tiny urls among other things, how to RT, what a hash sign is, and so on. Figure that out by myself? Probably never.Almost like an overload of information, that I'll have to process over time and experiment with. On the TIP sheet that my agent sent though, there's a space to indicate if you have a Twitter account--it, like Facebook and this blog, are ways to keep your name before the public and, someday I hope, sell books. But it's also like all the rest of social networking--it takes time. Still I'm going to try to be an active participant.
Of course I'm still puzzled that my children seem to feel obligated to tell the world where they're eating, etc., so you get a minute picture of the day. Oh well, I used to complain I didn't hear from them enough. Now I keep up withthem all the time. Nice to know they're alive and well and happy.
Found lunch money in the laundry today--when I took wet clothes out of the dryer. Fifteen soggy dollars--a ten and five ones--that I laid out on the kitchen counter to dry. And some change--I think I still hear change floating around in the dryer.
Most discouraged when I stepped on the scale this morning. Must have been that chocolate mousse. I'm back to Weight Watchers with a vegeance. I do use my new scale, and today I got out a measuring cup.I'm really going to keep track and be honest, about everything from tuna salad to wine! Salad for lunch--with blue cheese dressing, but it wasn't too bad in points. They served fried pita on the side, which I determined not to eat--but tasted a small piece and ended up eating four small pieces. So good, but not for diets, as Vance, the owner of the restaurant, smilingly agreed.
Warm spell in North Texas, but the stock show has two or three more weeks to go--who knows what can happen?

A miscellany

Aargh! I gained 2.5 lbs. last week, not sure how unless it was that decadent lunch of bratwurst, potato salad, kraut, and Black Forest cake--the latter is probably the real culprit. And maybe last night's dinner--chicken loaf isn't many points, but then there's the mayonnaise, and the oil and butter I sauteed the squash in, and the cheese-stuffed mushrooms I served as appetizers. Had friends from Dallas over, Scott and Lisa, a young couple whose company I much enjoy but don't see often enough. Years ago when I was new to Fort Worth, we rented a house from Lisa's aunt, Carolyn Burk, and Carolyn sort of adopted me. For years, she always called me on the birthday of each of my children, and she wrote me notes about how proud she was of what I'd done with my life. And she gave me the chicken loaf recipe. I asked Lisa if she remembered it, but she said she'd never had it. They both went back for seconds, so it must be good. After dinner, we sat on the porch with a final glass of wine--it was an absolutely lovely evening, with just a slight breeze. Today was an equally pleasant day, and I know it's too soon to count summer heat down and out, but this respite sure is nice.
Today I was featured in an online blog about why older women are better writers. I cringe a little about the headline, "Judy Alter--a perfect example of better with age," but here's a very complicated link: http://www.examiner.com/x-19445-AustinWritingExaminer~y2009m8d31-JudyAlter-a-perfect-example-of-better-with-age?cid=examiner-email. If it doesn't work, try googling Sylvia Dickey Smith. Copy is mostly what I wrote, not about Cooking My Way Through Life with Kids and Books, as I'd hoped, but a good picture of the cover, that lovely picture of my whole family on my 70th b'day and that picture of me that is 20 years out of date but the best picture I ever had taken. It also graces my website, www.judyalter.com. I'm grateful to Sylvia for the publicity.
Spent the morning at the office, staff meeting and sundry other chores, then came up and finished up the cookbook. A good feeling, although Katie, the editor, asked me last week, "What are you going to do with retirement once you finish the cookbook?" I'll have to think about that. I have ideas rattling around but nothing concrete. Meanwhile I am committed to writing a chapter in the forthcoming 40-year history of the Texas College of Osteopathic Medicine. I'm sure other projects will come along.

Recipes, weight gain, and water slides

Tonight I'm editing a portion of a cookbook with many recipes from an African-American woman who really broke color barriers and built a career for herself in the '50s and '60s as a teacher, caterer, and producer of food products. She was Lucille Bishop Smith, and I remember when I first moved to Fort Worth in the mid-sixties people used to serve Lucille's chili biscuits as appetizers. You bought them frozen at Roy Pope's grocery store (a still-existent stand-alone where "fashionable" Fort Worth shops, although they may suffer from Central Market now). Carol, who compiled this chapter found no recipe for chili biscuits, but I am tempted to try to recreate them with refrigerated biscuits and canned chili--Lucille would, I'm sure, squirm in her grave. But the recipes are wonderful--some I remember my mom making, like Seven-Minute Icing and Pumpkin Chiffon Pie. Others sound really weird--Japanese bean pie--yes, mashed pinto beans but mixed with sweet ingredients--and Banana and Pineapple Surprise Salad--the surprise is the addition of peanut butter, which sounds fairly awful to me. And do you know what dovering eggs is? It's beating them with an old-fashioned, hand-cranked egg beater. There are some recipes which completely baffle me--like the pumpkin chiffon pie which calls for serving it with Plymouth Sauce. What's that? My mom never did that for sure. Deviled round steak sounds pretty good. I am having such fun with these recipes.

But recipes get me into trouble. Instead of losing weight last week, I gained over a pound. I thought I'd been pretty good until the weekend, but that must have been enough to get me into trouble. Still, I was astounded when I stepped on the scales this morning. It can't have been the two handfuls of potato chips I ate at the party Saturday night. Maybe it was the salmon croquettes--another of Mom's recipes and a perennial favorite of mine. I gave a bit to Jacob Saturday night, and he said, "It's good, Juju!" And then I had one for lunch in a sandwich--add points for bread and mayo. And last night I fixed us lamb burgers with buns--okay, I really went over on points. So today I was fairly careful.

Last night we had a sort of late b'day dinner for Jacob because my present for him finally arrived. It's a Spiderman (what else?) water slide but of course he wasn't much impressed last night. Jordan just called to say that at 8:30 they hadn't had dinner, hadn't done anything but play with the water slide--and Jacob absolutely was having the best time ever. Nice to score a home run from time to time.

My fragile day

I allowed myself to be fragile today, knowing I'll be back to normal tomorrow. Got up at six o'clock, which is at least a half an hour too early for me, in order to make a 7:30 dental appt. Was in the dentist's chair until ten, with lots of drilling. They tell me after you've been in the chair, tilted back, for so long, it's not unusual to take a bit to get your "land legs" back under you and I did. I also felt exhausted, though I really practiced yoga relaxation techniques in the chair. Still it stayed with me through an otherwise pleasant day.
Lunch with Jean, who leaves this week for an almost three-week trip to England, a nap, and then out to Arlington with Carol Roark for dinner at Kathie Lang's. Carol, who works in Dallas, took the train to FW and then came to get me, was also exhausted, having gotten home from New Mexico and eleven last night and gotten up at her usual five or five-thirty this morning. So we didn't stay long. But Kathie fixed, as usual, a wonderful summer meal--chicken salad, herbed tomatoes, and sauteed asparagus. I tried to ignore the blue cheese in the appetizer tray and eat only the raspberries and pear slices but had to have some of the blue cheese--the tray looked so pretty and was such a tasteful combination. I'm going to remember that one. We three old friends had a good visit that ranged over everything from anticipated babies to aging parents--neither one of which relates to me at the time.
Bummer news of the week: I gained three ounces last week, going the wrong way. I am definitely on a plateau! But I think that's not bad considering the extravagant cooking class dinner I had and last night's pasta supper, before which I nibbled too liberally on the manchego cheese. So I'm off to a better start this week, I hope.