Angel Ackerman's Blog, page 8

Two weeks later… April reflections

It’s no secret that time mutates according to your age and stage of life, or maybe as we get older our mental sharpness as it relates to time fades.

I normally try to share the adventures, the decisions, and the flavors of life with a bent toward advocacy and speaking up not only for oneself but also for creatures unable to do so.

The weather is experiencing schizophrenia as I recover from several weeks of conferences, class appearances and meetings. Friday night we had a freeze warning and today it’s 86 degrees.

I haven’t been keeping up with my workouts, at first due to a sternum injury that just healed this week, and now I’m afraid I won’t have the finances to go back. I also haven’t kept up with my medical team– mostly out of fear of medical bills and knowing that I have an MRI scheduled for my brain aneurysm next week. I will have to pay for that out of pocket, but I’m hoping that will cover my deductible.

Nobody wants to hear about those struggles. We all have struggles like that but I will tell you one thing: the less financial security I have in terms of a standard 9 to 5 job, the simpler my needs become. And so far, as New Age laws and the Bible all say, the universe always provides enough. Or maybe we learn to be content with less. Or our priorities shift. It’s been seven-and-a-half months since I lost my full-time job, and in some ways, not doing physical labor every day has made my life better.

But in other ways, it certainly makes the unknown in my life that much scarier.

I don’t know what has given me the guts to forge this path of pursuing my own business (Parisian Phoenix Publishing) but I do know that now, when I feel stress, I also have the power to do something about it. When life at my non-profit jobs or my warehouse job got stressful, what control did I have?

Now, I at least have that freedom to change direction as I see fit.

I am the boss in charge of using and selling my skills and talents.

Hopefully the world sees that.

And I have the opportunity to work in spaces like Panera Bread, my sunporch and at my desk with my jelly fish lamp.

And if you’ve seen my jelly fish lamp, then you know, it’s pretty cool.

Occasionally times might be lean, and we might get creative and inventive with food. Such as last night’s casserole? mexi-corn dish? I called it a concoction.

Angel’s Mexi-Corn Concoction

I’m not positive but I think one could locate all of these ingredients at the dollar store. My local dollar store is The Dollar Tree.

In one pan, start one cup rice. When I added the rice, I also added a sprinkle of chili powder and parsley. I use real rice so I covered that and reduced to a simmer.

In a small skillet, I combined:

One can, about 6 ounces, of white meat chickenOne can creamed cornprobably two ounces mild cheese*black peppersmoked paprika (if you are doing the dollar store you might only find regular paprika)a touch of the chili powder

*cheese might be the one ingredient not available at the dollar store. I added it to thicken the corn and make it creamier versus juicy if that makes sense

I stirred that and made it into a sauce.

Then, I opened a can of refried beans.

I layered the dish so that the beans were on the bottom, the rice in the middle and the corn sauce on top, but it turned out surprisingly satisfying and so I mixed it into a big, old mess.

What I really wanted was extra creamy mac and cheese, but I thought that would use up all the cheese and milk in my house and so I pulled out random ingredients and tried to replicate the savory, creamy textures but with more nutritional value than just cheese and pasta. I have been eating some sort of pasta or cheese dish for lunch for weeks now.

Yes, you might look at this and think it “weird” but I enjoy a culinary challenge of using up what you’ve got before going out and buying more. And I’m tired and just don’t feel like going to the store.

Almost like a vacation

This year’s Greater Lehigh Valley Writers Group THE WRITE STUFF Conference came and went in a flurry of excitement and camaraderie (in the middle of Mercury retrograde to boot). I gave myself Sunday off–and swore I would stay in bed all day watching Grey’s Anatomy, which didn’t happen, in part because I started reading books and talking to my authors and associates at Parisian Phoenix Publishing about the conference.

I attended all three days of the conference, as I am president of the group, and I treated myself to a hotel room at the venue Friday night so I could stay and enjoy the social. My friend William Prystauk and I keep saying we’re going to book a hotel room and sit at our laptops all weekend, so I invited him to join me. I figured we could have a nice dinner between events and catch up.

Yes, you read that correctly. We are writers, after all, so we want to book a hotel room and hide from the world at our keyboards.

Some history… and notes for memoir.

Anyway… last year’s GLVWG conference happened not long after I was released from the hospital after the scariest series of falls in my life. (If you’d like to read more about that, you can read it here. I have to say, I was reviewing it this morning, 13 months later, and my sense of humor amazes me. This was the second fall I had last March, the first of which happened at work on the first day of Cerebral Palsy Awareness Month. That fall is memorialized here.)

(One of the sessions I attended at this year’s conference was Jordan Sonnenblick’s session on memoir writing. I have known Jordan for 20 years and I did not know he wrote memoirs, but it turns out this is a recent turn of events so then I felt better. What I find fascinating about Jordan’s memoirs is that he writes them like his middle-grade fiction, but with his as a protagonist. I bring this up because one of his techniques for recreating his past was to map the scars on his body. I finished The Boy Who Failed Show and Tell last night, and I reviewed it on Goodreads. Some people classified the book as historical fiction and slammed Jordan for “promoting toxic masculinity” — as if in 1978 there was a universe without toxic masculinity.)

Joan & Bill at work

Last year, the conference occurred during the same weekend as The Lehigh Valley Book Festival, where I had volunteered, but I was nervous to attend the event, alone, after so many medical incidents. Joan asked me to be her photography assistant and so I did. This year, Bill ended up working as her assistant since he was in the building anyway. Joan provides author headshots at the event for a $40 charge. It’s a bargain, and the photos have many versatile uses that I don’t think writers consider.

So this year’s conference had not only a great conference line-up, but many of my friends milling about as extras. And I had the naive idea that I might have time to connect with some old friends I hadn’t seen in a while and connect with some new folks. That did not happen.

A hotel with history

Bill left work a little before 5 p.m. to meet me at the hotel. My daughter had stopped by at 4 p.m. at the end of the workshop with Jonathan Maberry to have him sign her battered copy of Rot and Ruin. We are slowly collecting the whole series, as the last books of the series seem to be harder to find. We currently have books one through three of the series, and I have ordered four and five, but I’m not sure I have the Texas bits…

The Teenager with Jonathan Maberry

A bunch of conference attendees and presenters were meeting at the hotel restaurant for a light dinner before the evening events and the social. I encouraged as many as possible to line up in a big, long table that we kept adding squares to the bottom. Bill arrived in time to join us.

Now, here’s where things get very interesting from a writer’s perspective. More than a decade ago, during one of my previous incarnations as the group’s president, we used to flip-flop between the current hotel and the one by the airport. Both were mid-range hotels with plenty of space for a large keynote and enough smaller rooms for break-out sessions. As prices would go up, we would pit the two hotels against each other and the venue that gave us the best deal won.

I’ve been away from the group for almost a dozen years, and a pandemic happened which made the conference virtual only for a while, and now we are building up the GLVWG conference game again, last year with Maria V. Snyder and this year with Maberry.

The hotel though has seen better days, in part because for more than a year now the owner of the land has submitted a proposal to the township to knock down the hotel and build a warehouse. As a consequence, the maintenance on this octopus of a hotel (the floor plan has arms jutting out everywhere) has been minimal.

Jordan Sonnenblick said his wedding used the venue in 1994, and nothing has changed since then. Well, except the name. I think that hotel changes names every other year. The toilets run and/or have low water pressure. Some areas of the hotel smell like “weed and old people” as The Teenager puts it. The restaurant is small. The food is limited. The coffee is terrible. And while the staff is delightful and they keep the place clean and functioning, there were a lot of small but important mishaps probably due to being understaffed. The parking lot is always full of trucks and there’s what appears to be a much nicer Hampton Inn right next door.

But amidst all of this– Bill knew the bartender from earlier in the hotel’s history and apparently she makes good drinks. So after dinner, we stayed for a beverage and heard from a staff member that they have been told the hotel is closing for good in December 2024. We shall see.

The Social William Prystauk, Marie Lamba, Dianna Sinovic, Jonathan Maberry, & Jordan Sonnenblick

From there, we moved down to the social. Mark Twain was kind enough to visit and I noticed a lot of people in literary cosplay.

I had a lovely time surrounded by friends and some of my favorite writers.

Jonathan Maberry at his table at the keynote luncheon

[I had intended this blog entry to be about my personal life, but I didn’t quite get there. I wanted to at least mention my OVR planning session yesterday. Better luck next time I guess.

PS–I still don’t like Grey’s Anatomy, and with every episode that passes I like Meredith Grey less and less. And I was so excited to get to Derek Shepherd’s death. But man– the whole arc of Meredith disappearing for a year to have another baby. So dumb.

And I cannot believe how you never see the kids, and Meredith never has any paid help, but yet she’s raising three kids as a single mom. And Alex just sells her her house back because it’s important to her to be at home and not in her family house.

Meredith is a spoiled, entitled brat who thanks to her past traumas believes she can behave however she wants and rules don’t apply to her.]

First Day of GLVWG Write Stuff

So today was the first day of the 2024 Write Stuff Conference with Amy Deardon on marketing and Melissa Koberlein on podcasting. The morning presentation provided an overview marketing checklist. The afternoon workshop allowed participants to workshop some ideas for podcasting to provide a realistic overview of what it takes to put a podcast together.

The conference will continue through April 13th, with a small workshop setting with keynote Jonathan Maberry tomorrow and a series of sessions on Saturday with Maberry, Deardon, Koberlein and YA author Jordan Sonnenblick and appointments with editor Donna Tollarico of Hippocampus magazine, agent Mark Gottlieb and agent Marie Lamba. As I maneuvered cookies from the dining salon to our meeting room 1,000 steps away on the other side of the hotel, I ran into Jonathan as he was checking into the hotel.

I saw the leftover cookies on the buffet table and felt it was my duty to transport some to the workshop room to combat the afternoon slump.

It’s always interesting to see the energy in the room and what people are looking for from an event such as a writers conference.

Personally, I’ve been devouring books by Sonnenblick and Maberry– finishing Curveball last night and INK earlier this week.

The Jelly Bean Distraction

Anyone who has ever been in my inner circle knows that I have a jelly bean problem. They are my favorite candy. Come Easter, I shove them in my face like some sort of crazed monster and eventually I forget they exist until Easter again.

In college, for spring semester final exams, I would walk to the Woolworth on Main Street and Bethlehem and buy all the jelly beans at 75% off and stow them in my desk drawer. While the other kids drank coffee to study, I ate jelly beans until my stomach ached.

This year, I did not buy jelly beans… until today. Three full days after Easter I found myself in the Dollar Tree where I could now buy jelly beans for 67 cents a bag. And one of the brands/flavors was Kool-Aid. Now, I turned 10 in 1985. I know the Kool-Aid Man well. I’d say intimately but that’s kind of creepy.

So, in part, this blog post is a review of Kool-Aid jelly beans. The bag is smaller than the others but the jelly beans are larger and a strange size.

The flavors are grape, tropical punch, cherry, kiwi strawberry and orange. They are tasty. The texture is thicker and crunchier on the initial layer than a lot of jelly beans. They don’t remind me of Kool-Aid but the do remind me of artificial fruit flavors. And I like them.

The Sweet Tart Jelly Beans, on the other hand, do remind me of the namesake candy and come in the traditional jelly bean size and texture.

The generic jelly beans are very sweet and bold and crunchy, but some are too chewy. They remind me of the basic lifesaver pack flavor wise. In taste and texture, they do not stand out.

Stray Cat Strut Easter Edition

A few days ago– Friday to be exact– I took Little Dog’s Mom to the grocery store as she is still in the “no driving” phase of cataract surgery recovery. I drove the car to the street to wait for her and when she got into the car she noticed some pawprints on the windshield.

Later in the day, The Teenager commented about pawprints on the hood.

The next morning, (yesterday) I went into our garage and smelled cat urine. I immediately texted The Teenager, “I think we have a cat in the garage.”

It took her about twenty minutes to find it, hiding behind a rocking horse from The Teenager’s toddler days.

So she texted her boss about borrowing a cat trap. We set up food, water, a bed and a litter box in the mean time.

Yesterday afternoon The Teenager set up the trap (with sardines) and this morning, we had a stray cat shaking and looking at us.

The cat is not reacting to us at us. It appears to be a “she” but we’re not poking around too much at her genitalia to be sure. We set up a crate in our mud room and soon she will need a bath (she is filthy), some fled meds and dewormer and hopefully after Easter passes we can have her scanned for a microchip.

In the meantime, if anyone in my neighborhood recognizes this cat and can send the owners my way that would be great. Because based on its behavior, this is someone’s lost house cat.

Never a good idea to perform CPR on oneself

I have been staring at this blank screen for two days– staring at nothing but a title. Yes, the one you see up there.

As many of you already know I am a perpetual fall risk.

I have been trying for about two years to study and track when I fall. I have monitored the effects of my blood pressure, my allergies and even sodium, and now upon looking at the fall data from my Apple Watch I suspect hormones and the full moon may have an impact. Like the ocean and the tides, I suppose.

Sunporch as a cat haven

It has been almost a year since I bought this Apple Watch and it has been a year, a week and a couple days since I was last discharged from the hospital– my first ever hospitalization for a fall.

On Sunday, I went out to my sunporch, and a cat had vomited on one of my new chairs so I went to clean it. And after scrubbing the cat vomit out of the chair, I went to throw it into the garbage can that we keep on the porch as part of our package opening station.

Now, this is where I understand but I don’t understand. I knew and saw that the metal supports for one of the dog’s place-stay platforms were in front of the garbage can. Somehow, I caught my foot on it (Can we blame cerebral palsy or could it have happened to anyone?) and I tripped. Unable to catch my balance, I fell.

Sunporch last Christmas

I landed with my hands in fists against my sternum, as if giving CPR to myself. I landed on a large block of stone that forms the step to my front door. The edge of the stone block hit underneath my breasts at the spot where a bra band should be, but I was in my pajamas.

I knocked my elbow pretty badly (it’s bruised and bumpy) and I cut my leg and bruised my foot. But that blow to my chest– my full body weight– knocked the wind out of me. I walked into the house slowly and somehow ended up on the floor curled up against the dishwasher crying in pain as I pulled up my pajamas to see if I had any visible damage.

I did not.

But it hurt. It left my nerves shaken as these falls often do and it was VERY uncomfortable to sleep that night. I woke up in the morning curled up on my side so I took that as a good sign. It hurt mildly to stretch my arms or cough or laugh, but all-in-all I felt okay.

Today, I woke up feeling worse. I put on a workout top that supports everything so the weight of my breasts doesn’t add more discomfort. But it definitely hurts worse. And walking is uncomfortable. Walking fast enough and long enough to increase my breathing often makes me stop and wait.

On top of all that, I got on a scale today. I’ve gained another 10 pounds. I wish I could say I didn’t know how that was possible. But I know. I can’t believe I’ve gained another 10 pounds in about three weeks.

So I went back to calorie counting today. And more importantly nutrient and macro “counting.”

Hopefully tomorrow will be less painful– because I have a job interview for a little something that might fit nicely into my life.

Blue skies and smarty pants

Today I had the pleasure of hanging out with one of the Parisian Phoenix authors in the morning and to go on a job interview this afternoon.

Both of these activities reminded me of the different types of intelligence and social interactions people have.

I have been working hard with my freelance clients and working on building the presence of Parisian Phoenix that I had forgotten that sometimes it just feels good to interact with new humans and to help people already in one’s circle with situations I have faced or thought about before.

I was not necessarily energetic or feeling like I was putting my best food forward before the job interview today, despite having a stellar morning with someone I respect and enjoy. Even now, I feel a little exhausted and out of sorts.

Maybe because I am learning to take care of myself in a new type of professional landscape.

The interview went very well, and even if I am not their final hire, I gave them some ideas that they can use. And the interview reminded me that I have more knowledge and experience than I sometimes think. Sometimes we are ready for the next adventure and have all the necessary skills without having scaled that exact mountain.

And sometimes it just feels good to have conversations with new people.

And when you are me, it always feels good to take photos of trucks and industrial scenes and blue sky.

Six months

As I am part of the Amazon Vine reviewer program, we get a lot of packages. I spend about an average of an hour every day opening packaging, checking out products and updating what items we are ready to review. The Teenager had a moment of brilliance, and created a package-opening station in our sun room– a garbage can for packing materials, a recycling can for the cardboard once I’ve broken it down and I set my Stitch Fix tool bag on the sill. It contained my ceramic knife, my safety box cutter, a sponge/eraser and my fingerless gloves among other little items like pencils.

The safety box cutter migrated to my desk. My Stitch Fix branded fingerless gloves ended up on the floor.

But on Monday, when I went to open a pile of packages, the clear bag of tools was gone. Just gone. My guess is that it fell off of the window sill and into the garbage can when The Teenager took out the trash, and it looks like it did it before she changed the trash as the trash can is empty. And the trash has long been carted away.

It’s nothing important. But the loss of the small cosmetic-bag-sized collection of tools from the warehouse made me pause and dropped me into a sadness, a grief, that I did not anticipate.

You see on Friday, on Friday it will be six months exactly since I left the Stitch Fix Bizzy Hizzy. I have had many interviews, many hopes and still put out many applications. In my heart I still hope to make my small publishing services and book publishing operation a success and live off that, but unemployment will end very soon so the reality looms.

I still believe I can succeed.

I did not anticipate the way the universe seems to be saying, “it’s over. It’s really over. Do not cling to these thoughts and items you clung to in the warehouse.”

I have a few friends who I have kept. Many other people I had hoped would stay in touch and it doesn’t seem to be happening, but life goes on.

I am so surprised by the depth of my sadness at losing a ceramic box cutter and a spongy eraser thing.

But sometimes you really, really have to let go to move on. And in my opinion, the universe or “God” or whatever creative power you believe in, kicks you in the ass to make you do it.

So one of the products I’ve reviewed is a pack of French motivational stickers– and if you know me, you know I adore the French language. These stickers make me happy and I am plopping them onto my computer and my calendar.

Another was a small message board that I have set upon my desk and I periodically change the quote and my goal is to post quotes from my clients, because my clients and authors are the people who keep me going.

Joe recently ordered a lot of hardcover books for the upcoming Pennsylvania School Library Association conference and when he asked me how much he owed me… well, it was a nice chunk of money, ending in $6 and some off change. He immediately texted that he would get me the $6 soon and for some reason that made me cackle. So I put it on the board.

And then, more recently, I had to announce the discontinuation of my “friends and family” rate for clients and one of my clients sent me a long email supporting my decision because I am not running a charity, he said, and I need to keep a room over my head, gas in my car and (my favorite) Panera coffee in my belly. So I added his quote, “You deserve to have an adequate income,” to my board. (I also placed the board beside my enormous “I’m kind of a big deal” mug and my silly jellyfish aquarium lamp.)

Last week created a lot of stress for me. Good stress I guess because clients all needed things and checks are coming in this week. But it also taught me that I really need to protect my sanity in this endeavor.

Today, I took the checks to the bank, deposited some cash payments from clients, and took my neighbor who just had cataract surgery to run errands. We visited the municipal building, which I had only ever seen the council chambers. That allowed me to view a few Wilson borough artifacts.

The Western Addition of the City of Easton, a blue print map of building plots available, dated 1893, hung on the wall. It was indeed blue, like the slate blue of an old fashioned chalkboard, and it showed what would later become Wilson Borough.

Why is the water going haywire?

Last night, I started the dishwasher as I always start the dishwasher. It’s not a built-in dishwasher, but the freestanding full-sized dishwasher that sits in the middle of my kitchen like an island. I wheel it to the sink, pulled out the house and attach the female end of the hose to a special male adapter that resides at the end of my faucet.

I went out to my desk and left the dishwasher to do its business. Our dishwasher will be 20 years old in early May, it’s a Maytag as most of my appliances are. It joined us in our home somewhere around May 10, 2004. I know the exact-ish date because I was eight months pregnant with The Teenager and I said there was no way I was doing dishes by hand once the baby came.

I rose from my desk to meander through the kitchen on my way upstairs to my bedroom. I planned to make tea and of course unfasten the dishwasher from its bondage to the sink if it was done. It was not. As I wandered into the kitchen, my socks slopped through deep water and I immediately thought one of the animals did something undesirable. I looked down to see only water. Everywhere. Around the bottom of the dishwasher.

I opened the door and closed it again wondering if my haphazard dish loading of the poor machine had caused a leak. And then I saw water pouring down the hose from the sink to the dishwasher, creating a stream down the front of my cabinet. I finagled the hose so the water couldn’t possibly follow that angle… and then I saw that the counter was flooded.

We had bathed my cat, the dog and swapped out our own towels the day before so I had a pile of clean towels a few feet away. I began mopping up the mess, still uncertain where it had stemmed from.

I told The Teenager I was done and she said she would investigate. She told me she never did determine where the failure had been.

In the morning, I washed more towels. One of The Teenager’s friends came over for a Tarot card reading and The Teenager asked me to stay nearby in case she got stuck. I glanced over her shoulder at the reading– both she and I are often choppy in our skills– and the whole reading just made sense.

Odd, I thought to myself.

I went about my work, researching and drafting some profile information on local political candidates for a freelance assignment I have. I was very cold and decided to take a shower to warm myself.

When I got out of the shower, puddles pooled across the entire length of the bathtub atop my beloved ceramic floor.

Why is the water going haywire? I asked myself.

Of course, I opted not to research it. Instead, I asked a friend who has some knowledge of these elemental natural matters. Turns out it was her birthday, so I took a moment to celebrate her and asked her what she thought.

I also turned on some yacht rock for quiet background noise. Spotify thinks I’m in a yacht rock phase.

“Ahh….new moon in Pisces,” she replied. “LOTS of water energy all over right now, my dear! Not all of it comfortable!”

So I googled it.

Difficult news and disappointments may leave Taurus (that’s me) disconnected or unsure. You might even feel a mix of anger and sadness. Whatever emotions come up, it’s important to acknowledge them and know that they are valid. Journal how you can use your intuition and wisdom to determine next steps and find solutions. Trust yourself. You have the strength to overcome.

Another site said that this is the time to wish upon a star, make a dream come true and manifest. This article also pointed out that it’s a Pisces super new moon. We have reached a portal for manifestation and spiritual awakening– in Pisces, the sign at the end of the zodiac, where dreams and reality merge.

That feels like my whole “theme” for 2024.

Merging reality and dreams.

And it looks like Venus will be in transit through Pisces until April 5 encouraging empathy, kindness and artistic expression.

And for Taurus specifically– it will be a time of renewal of friendships and future endeavors.

“Envision your dream life and believe in the path it takes to get there.”

Meanwhile, the Teenager says she will run the dishwasher tonight.

It’s Official– I prefer Panera coffee to Dunkin

In my neighborhood, we used to have three Dunkins within “walking” distance. We had one about a half mile to the east, at a major intersection in a weird section of the neighboring town. That one has since closed. That was the closest, and the employees didn’t give a shit, and they always would mess up even the simplest drinks but they would pretty much give away any doughnuts you could want.

There is the Dunkin a mile away, but that one is in the middle of a busy intersection of the highway, a main road and the meeting of several shopping plazas. A traffic nightmare and a tiny parking lot. But that one gets your drinks correct.

Then, there is the Dunkin about two miles away, a block off the leisurely bike path. That one has the largest lobby and bakes the doughnuts for the others. That’s the one I used to walk to so I could pee in the middle of my four mile daily walk. That was years ago. Hard to believe a decade has passed.

During that time, Dunkin has free coffee promotions and mug promotions, $1 iced coffee and now $2 iced coffee. I have realized over time that my loyalty to Dunkin was about convenience and frugality.

When I worked at Target I drank Starbucks iced coffee, because it cost 50 cents, the refill price, if we brought our own cups. Even then I preferred Starbucks to Dunkin.

But I have always enjoyed Panera’s iced dark roast. And finally, after years of considering it, I joined their monthly sip club in December.

On Sunday, I got my second month update of how many times I used my Sip Club privileges. 42 beverages since December 15.

The Sip Club retails for $11.99 a month. It allows the user to redeem one soft drink, coffee or tea (the simple Panera beverages) every two hours. I received an invitation to try the Sip club for $3/month for three months. I find Panera a relaxing place to work and an easy place to meet clients.

But 42 drinks in 60 days? I never anticipated that. I didn’t anticipate heading to Panera about once a week to escape my house and force myself to focus on projects I had been procrastinating. I didn’t anticipate having write-ins with a friend every other week, or suggesting to other friends that Panera could infuse positive work energy into a troubled project. I also did not think about how my favorite Panera sits beside a Barnes & Noble and a Dollar Tree.

Considering all of those things– I think the Sip club might be an even better business investment than HP InstaInk and Paper. I’m sold on the ink but I’m still on the fence about the paper.

Anyway… I had a Dunkin coffee today and it did not measure up to the coffee I enjoy at Panera.