Armchair travel

I have finally been to San Francisco! Of course, I didn’t really go, but I discovered one of the great benefits of reading on the computer. It’s long been understood that reading can take you places that you’ve never been—but visiting them on the computer adds new depth to the vicarious travel experience. During pandemic, when so many of us are fearful of travel, this is truly a new opportunity.

I’m reading, as I said a few days ago, a mystery series set in Virginia’s wine country. But the current volume takes the heroine, Lucie Montgomery, to San Francisco. First off, let me admit that I am not the most adventuresome traveler. I remind myself of the little old lady who went on her first airplane ride. When asked how it was, she said, “It was all right, but I never did put my full weight down.” That’s me—I never put my full weight down when traveling, an uneasiness that baffles many of my more adventuresome friends. I simply point out that my horoscope sign is Cancer and one of the characteristics is that I am a homebody.

I also want to add that I have been to Los Angeles and southern California and have no great desire to go back, although taking the local train from LA to San Diego, right along the shore, was pretty interesting. But San Francisco intrigues me more than LA. For many years before his death, my children’s father lived in the mountains above Santa Rosa, and they visited him fairly often. Because Napa Valley and the California wine country was one of the few places on my bucket list, I used to joke I’d go with them. They could stash me in a motel and visit when convenient. Somehow, they never warmed to that idea.

The book I’m reading now, The Sauvignon Secret, takes the heroine from Loudoun and Fauquier counties in Virginia to San Francisco. Last night I found myself reading about places like Oakland and the Embarcadero and the Golden Gate Bridge. I started with the Embarcadero because I’d heard the term but had no concept of what it was. A quick computer search took me not only to the Embarcadero but allowed me to expand and shrink a map so that I could get a sense of where places where in relation to each other—Oakland, San Jose, Santa Rosa. Places that had just been vague names in my mind suddenly became real, and I saw why my children sometimes flew into San Jose, where Oakland lies in relation to San Francisco, the route of the famed 101. An instant geography lesson, and it all made sense to me. Not only that, but it increased my comprehension of and pleasure in reading the novel.

So now when I think about books I want to read, I’ll factor in places I want to visit. Napa is still on my bucket list, as is Alaska. But I hit the jackpot with a 2011 trip to the Scottish Highlands. Number one on my bucket list would be a return trip to Scotland. I chronicled that wonderful journey in blogs, beginning with May View from the Cottage: Scotland--a retrospective (judys-stew.blogspot.com). As I searched for that link, I got caught up in the nostalgia of revisiting that trip. Guess my next geographical exploration will be the Highlands.

Instead of fretting about travel restrictions and cautions right now, open a good book, boot up your computer, and travel wherever you want to go.

The blues of time change and computers--a frustrating day

 

Sophie on her princess pillow
looking a bit pensive
maybe it's the time change

I can adjust fairly well to the spring and fall time changes. Sophie cannot. Apparently she has a rather rigid interior clock that tells her when to do what. At seven this morning, she thought it was eight and wanted to go out. At three she thought it was four and I should get up from my nap—never mind that I didn’t even lie down until two-thirty. At four, she thought it was five and I should feed her. I’m hoping she’ll adjust, as she always has eventually, but it may be a rough couple of days.

I have my own problem with the time change. Apparently re-setting my Apple watch is beyond my pay grade. I don’t remember ever having to do this before, but now it is giving me messages about pairing it with my phone. On the phone, there are two options: automatic or manual. If I’m reading it correctly, the automatic requires a position only a contortionist could achieve. So I tried manually—zipping right along until it wanted my Apple username and id. And of course Apple didn’t recognize my log-in. Knowing my fingers are clumsy I had Jordan try. Still no luck. I am convinced that if you don’t log in frequently, web sites erase all your information, because this happens to me a lot. I have sent an urgent message to the granddaughter who works at an Apple Genius Bar, but she replies via text that she isn’t getting my emails. The internet gods are against me.

I did have one small victory. I was stymied getting to all the ancillary files offered by the Sisters in Crime subgroup, the Guppies. In fact, when I went to groups.io, it didn’t even show that I belong to that group. I put out a help plea, the president answered, tried to help, referred me to the web-guppy. Turned out to be so easy. I logged out and when I logged back in of course io didn’t recognize my password (another of those mysterious disappearances). But I hit change my password, corrected it, and all is well.

That was a small victory in the face of overwhelming obstacles in another arena. I am trying to upload audio files of Saving Irene to two platforms—with luck, it will someday be my first audio book, but I am not holding my breath. Again, I sailed along entering metadata, and then came to uploading files. It simply wasn’t going to work—neither platform could get beyond the zip file to the individual files. I kept getting the message that my files were not MP3. But they were—if they could browse beyond the zip file. I have written for help to both companies. Meanwhile, I am gnashing my teeth.

And, yes, it was dusk and gray far too early today. Like when we were just beginning to think about dinner. Grilled chicken because I bought bone-in breasts by mistake (the perils of drive-by pick-up grocery shopping—I never can figure out what kind of chicken I’m getting!) and asparagus the way Aunt Reva used to make it. A sauce of sour cream, mayo, and lemon juice, topped by buttered bread crumbs. Aunt Reva (no real relation but much beloved) was a good Missouri farm girl, and oh boy, could she cook. But that’s another story for another day.

Stay safe everyone. And buckle up for an unpredictable week. If you can stay home, please do. There will be ruffians—nay, terrorists—abroad.

You can go home again—or, using your hometown in fiction

I grew up in the Hyde Park/Kenwood neighborhood on the South Side of Chicago, and Chicago still holds a large part of my heart. So it was no surprise when I began to write a new mystery, Saving Irene, with new characters, that I discovered the protagonist lived in Hyde Park. What was a surprise was the learning I had to do to create a realistic fictional world in that familiar neighborhood.

If my character—Henrietta (Henny) James, a TV chef’s gofer--was to live in Hyde Park, she needed first an apartment. I chose Cornell Avenue, because I remembered rows of three-story buildings, some once private homes, others always apartments, but most with the bay window that for me characterizes much of Chicago’s older residential architecture.

Henny, who hates her full name, must learn where to shop, and dine out, and go to church, all the things that tie us to the neighborhoods where we live. All these years later (we won’t say how many), I found my memory was good on the big things but weak on the details. I would have to do a lot of research to create a believable fictional world. The internet proved to be a huge help.

Online, because I had no inclination to travel to Chicago during the pandemic, I discovered that some places prominent in my memory are gone. The YMCA where we had sock hops has been moved now far south and renamed. Cunag’s, the candy shop that made the thickest chocolate milk shakes ever, closed years ago. But the United Church of Hyde Park still dominates its corner at 53^rd and Blackstone, its congregations dwindling and the church in financial difficulty, the result probably of an aging congregation. Henny goes to church there—once.

Promontory Park

Keying in remembered names, I learned a lot: the Point, a grassy finger of land extending into Lake Michigan, is now part of Burnham Park which extends along the lake shore from 12^th Street to 57^th and is called Promontory Point. Its shelter house looks in much better shape now than when my friends and I went there to sunbathe and swim. Henny and her friend, Patrick, bike to the Point on rental bikes—yes, Chicago has a Bike Share program. I can even tell you where the rental stations are.

Being the assistant to a chef, even a second- or third-tier one with a show on a local television channel, means a lot of cooking off-screen. I discovered that the venerable Coop, once a pioneer in changing community grocery shopping, is no more, but Henny shops at a nearby Whole Foods and at Harper Foods on 57^th Street. The Hobby House coffee shop, where we went for late night coffee, disappeared, but there is a wealth of small restaurants—Valois, rumored to be a favorite of the Obama family, an upscale restaurants called

appropriately Promontory, and a university neighborhood pub, The Woodland Tap, known familiarly as Jimmy’s after the late owner, where they serve terrific Polish sausage sandwiches.

In my day, Hyde Park was the home of the first Morton’s Steak House. When I was in college, I worked in a hospital administration office (the hospital now condos), and my boss used to take me to Morton’s for lunch and let me have a Brandy Alexander. It’s gone downtown now, but there is a boutique hotel, the Sophy. Henny has a lobster roll there and luxuriates in a place she can ill afford.

Searching for cookbooks for her chef employer to reference, Henny goes to 57^th Street Books, an independent bookstore with an electric choice of titles with plenty of browsing chairs and corners. I used to go there on Sundays in college to buy The New York Times.

Henny’s work requires her to consult with Irene Foxglove, the chef, at the Foxgloves’ North Shore apartment. A search led me to put the apartment on North Clarendon; actual buildings there gave me details to describe the apartment. Henny is not quite brave enough to drive on Lake Shore Drive, known in my day as the Outer Drive (it always scared me a bit), but I learned that she can take a public bus from Hyde Park right up to Clarendon Park—an hour-long bus ride.

Writing about and discovering the changes in my little corner of Chicago was a lot of fun but also educational. I hope the combination of memory and internet research allowed me to create a realistic fictional world for Henny, Irene, and Patrick. As the saying goes, the devil is in the details.

An Aha! moment and no more boredom

This story begins with my shoulders. I know for sure I have one torn rotator cuff, torn so long ago the muscles have atrophied beyond repair. I suspect the other shoulder is in the same shape. Yes, my reach exceeds my grasp, and I can’t put dishes on the second shelf, etc. But mostly it doesn’t bother me. And then, sometimes it does. Last night was one of those nights. I woke about 2:30 with both shoulders painfully stiff—maybe I slept wrong. But I couldn’t go back to sleep. You know about those three o’clock in the morning thoughts—they can be devastating.  And for a while, they were.

But then I had an aha! moment and came up with an idea for a new book. No, I’m not going to share—I don’t trust a one of you not to usurp my idea and run with it. But I lay there creating notes for an introduction, a table of contents, a list of things to check on the web in the morning. In fact, I was so revved up about this I nearly got out of bed and headed for the computer—but that violates one of my principle rules for dealing with middle of the night wakefulness. So I stayed cozy and comfortable and plotted and planned—no, its not another mystery. I will give you a hint: it involves subjects dear to my heart, including Texas.

I did finally fall asleep again, and worried that I’d forget everything. I used to work for a man who would wake in the night, think of something, and call to leave it on his administrative assistant’s voicemail. I don’t have that option This morning I felt rushed when truly it was a day I had not much to do, except pick up my groceries at Central Market. To my joy, I remembered all the planning I’d done in the night. Internet exploration convinced me this this is good topic, because there’s nothing on it.

So today has been busy. I delivered an orchid to a friend for her birthday, picked up my groceries, explored on the internet a lot. Tonight, soup of the week—an accumulation from my freezer, which seems perfect for a chilly night. Then I’m going to investigate vacation housing for my clan, all sixteen of us, next Christmas. And then, the luxury of a good book.

So glad to be over my spell of boredom. It’s absolutely no fun to be bored or to feel sorry for yourself. Besides, today was rain free and a bit brighter though still not filled with sunshine.

Computer woes

Monday my internet connections--Facebook, Explorer, Chrome--began to act weird. Sometimes they'd connect; other times they wouldn't. Finally, they just wouldn't. Called the TCU Help Desk, where they told me what I dreaded to hear: call your service provider. It was too early in the day for wine, so I refilled my coffee and called AT&T. Eventually, after three calls to the robot and three reboots of my modem, he referred me to a tech--a nice young man, with a heavy accent difficult for my aging years. He was soon clearly beyond his range of expertise--he kept saying, "Hmmm," which made me nervous. Several times he asked me to type something into the URL line, and I almost shouted, "You don't understand! I can't get a screen. I can't type anything in." Finally he concluded I needed a new modem, which would arrive the next day. I looked to it as the be-all, end-all savior of my problems. This was not the first time an AT&T tech has led me astray.
Not so. The modem arrived, and I asked neighbor Jay (you know, the good-looking one) to come install it because I knew it was beyond me. It was almost beyond him. What should have been a quick set-up took almost an hour at the end of which he concluded it wasn't the modem at all: Explorer needed to be re-installed. He did that and it was magic--the computer, which had been dreadfully slow for a new machine--speeded up, and I could get all my internet sights and connections.
You don't realize how much you rely on the internet until you start piling up emails that you can only deal with by going to the net. So here I am, a happy camper, with a functioning fast computer.
It hasn't been an easy road. About three weekends ago my younger son, Jamie, walked me through buying a new computer and got it started. Then he spent about three hours at my house getting it attached to everything. All in all, it took the better part of one of his weekend, which he treausres. But I was grateful and all set to go.
Not quite. The week I spent at my older son's house was one of fine tuning. Every night when he came home from work I presented him with computer problems and he, my most patient child, worked through them--how to attach pictures to blogs and Facebook and similar issues.
I hope now, with the help of three good men, I'm in for clear sailing on my computer. As for learning Word 8, don't ask!
But I'm blogging again, and that's good news--at least to me.

Facebook and obituaries

Guess you can tell from the heading how I spend my first minutes at my desk every morning. I read email and then the newspaper. I would attribute my habit of poring over obituaries to my age--friends and acquaintances show up more often than I like--but I've always read them. I grieve over the children and wonder if the teenagers died natural deaths, were suicides or overdoses (ah, the society we live in). I look at people's ages--those younger make me feel lucky and those older give me hope for a long life yet to come. Sometimes I think it's ghoulish to read the obituaries, as though in the back of the mind lingers the thought, "At least it's not me." And yes, I've rough-drafted my own--when the time comes my children will find it on my computer.
But today I really studied the faces in those pages, and I concluded the photos often give you a clue to the lives the people have lived. Some are joyful, even playful, and you suspect the person lived a good and happy life. But others are plain--no smile, no hint that life was good. Did the family just not choose the right picture or was that how this person lived life? It's like a window into their past, and I hate to make quick judgments. For my part, I leave the photo choice to my children, although one not very flattering photo makes me look very contemplative, like I was a deep thinker. I like that but I think they may choose one of me in western garb looking young and happy. It's sadly out of date but maybe it speaks for my life.
If obituaries are a bit depressing, I find Facebook fun and interesting. I've developed more rapport there with several people I've known for years than I ever had when I saw them frequently. There's a colleague from TCU, now retired and living in Alabama, who reposts all my pictures of dogs in need of forever homes, joins in political discussions, and recounts some of her own adventures. And there's another acquaintance, now semi-retired from Baylor, who reposts those dog pictures, talks about her own dogs, teaching and other matters. Even my best friend from high school--we've kept in touch all these years but FB has brought us closer together and now we also exchange personal emails frequently...and we've had several good in-person visits. There's a man with whom I could not disagree more vehemently about politics and religion, but he reposts my dog pictures and sends me nice, appreciative messages on my non-political posts and wishes me a blessed day. I think I'd like to sit down over lunch with him sometime. And a new friend I picked up because she liked my reply to something the aforementioned gentleman posted. The web of friendship spreads, and I love it.
Sometimes FB is the first place I learn of breaking news--like today the Senate passage of the ENDA bill (wish I knew what that stands for--Employment Non Discrimination Act?). I can't think of other instances but there have been many. I know you have to take posts with a grain of skepticism (and check Snopes), but I still find it a good way to keep current on events and controversies--like the many opinions, facts, and misconceptions about the Affordable Care Act. Things I don't get from our diminished daily newspaper.
I got on FB to keep up with my children but they now post only occasionally. I also thought it was a good way to tell people about my books, and it is. But a friend who posts liberal, feminist messages said she also posts about her grandsons and animals so people will know she's really a nice person. And I guess that's what I want--for people to know me as a person and not someone who is just pushing her books. See you on the 'net.