M.J. Compton's Blog, page 46
April 12, 2017
Happy Grilled Cheese Sandwich Day
Yes! This really is such a thing. If you follow me on Facebook, you know I am currently addicted to grilled cheese sandwiches.
Trivia aside: when I was a child, we called them toasted cheese sandwiches, and they were usually accompanied by tomato soup, which is now a comfort food icon.
A great grilled cheese sandwich begins with bread. Not the spongy, soul-less, nutrition-free stuff on which we grew up (even if it was baked to music), but grown up bread. Like this:[image error]
This bread comes from a regional bakery and is 100% preservative-free. It also makes the best grilled cheese sandwiches.
Right now I’m on a Swiss and Havarti cheeses kick.
Then I use butter. The real stuff. Spread on the bread, not melted in the skillet.
A co-worker suggested mayo instead of butter. Not a good suggestion. I am a card-carrying member of the I Hate Mayonnaise Club.
Add these three ingredients together in a perfectly sized cast iron frying pan, and voila! Bliss on a plate.
April 9, 2017
Happy Name Yourself Day
I used to want to change my name, because very few others had my name. I couldn’t get those license plate name tag or anything else. Then I realized having an almost unique name was a good thing. Of course, nowadays, every Tom, Dick, and Harry…
I wasn’t the only person who wanted to change her name. This passage is from one of my favorite childhood books:
“What’s your name?”
The child hesitated for a moment.
“Will you please call me Cordelia?” she said eagerly.
“Call you Cordelia? Is that your name?”
“No-o-o, it’s not exactly my name, but I would love to be called Cordelia. It’s such a perfectly elegant name.”
“I don’t know what on earth you mean. If Cordelia isn’t your name, what is?”
“Anne Shirley,” reluctantly faltered forth the owner of that name, “but, oh, please do call me Cordelia. It can’t matter much to you what you call me if I’m only going to be here a little while, can it? And Anne is such an unromantic name.”
“Unromantic fiddlesticks!” said the unsympathetic Marilla. “Anne is a real good plain sensible name. You’ve no need to be ashamed of it.”
“Oh, I’m not ashamed of it,” explained Anne, “only I like Cordelia better. I’ve always imagined that my name was Cordelia–at least, I always have of late years. When I was young I used to imagine it was Geraldine, but I like Cordelia better now. But if you call me Anne please call me Anne spelled with an E.”
“What difference does it make how it’s spelled?” asked Marilla with another rusty smile as she picked up the teapot.
“Oh, it makes such a difference. It looks so much nicer. When you hear a name pronounced can’t you always see it in your mind, just as if it was printed out? I can; and A-n-n looks dreadful, but A-n-n-e looks so much more distinguished. If you’ll only call me Anne spelled with an E I shall try to reconcile myself to not being called Cordelia.”
I could related to Anne perfectly.
Did you have a favorite childhood story that resonated with you?
April 5, 2017
Going for Broke
Today is National Go For Broke Day, which research indicates started as a military slogan from World War II. What it means is giving your all regardless of the obstacles ahead. While most of us are not engaged in military situations, that shouldn’t stop us from Going for Broke.
Writers face this every time they sit at the keyboard and open their work-in-progress. Every time we submit to a publisher. Every time we decide to self-publish something we’ve created.We put it all on the line every time we go public with our stories. Will readers love our blood, sweat, and tears, or loathe them?
Because if we’re not giving our readers everything we’ve got, we’re not doing our jobs as authors.5505
April 2, 2017
Opening Day!
The calendar claims the first day of Spring is March 20. For many people summer begins Memorial Day weekend or the last day of school or June 20. Baseball fans know better. Spring started mid-February when pitchers and catchers reported for spring training. And today is the first day of summer.
My local Triple A affiliate doesn’t have its home opener until Tuesday. I may have to wear layers of sweatshirts, long johns under my jeans, and gloves to keep my fingers warm, but summer will have finally arrived. I live in a city that averages over 126 inches of snow a year, so opening day means the end is in sight.
The “chirrup” of a robin newly arrived from warmer climes isn’t the harbinger of the long, sunny and warm days to come. Give me “Play Ball!” any day of the week.
March 29, 2017
A Habit That Makes My Husband Crazy
I have one habit that makes my husband crazy. Well, I probably have more than one, but this is a biggie.
I talk back at the TV. Sometimes I yell at it as if it can hear me.
This goes back to a series of TV commercials from the late 1960s to sometime in the 1980s for a laundry detergent.
Why is it the wife’s fault the man doesn’t wash his neck?
March 26, 2017
Audio: 1913 vs 2017
My husband and I attended Capitolfest this past August. Capitolfest is held in Rome, NY and features three days of old movies–many of which are silent. Those are accompanied by the 1928 original installation Moller Organ. [image error]In addition to movies, there are always a couple of presentations related to the early days of film making.
In 2016, we heard the Library of Congress film expert George Willeman’s presentation on the Edison Kinetoscope, The presentation included many photographs of Edison’s laboratory and the work being done to make “talkies.” Several kinetoscopes were shown. The video and audio quality of the 1913 productions was amazing. Edison’s people worked very hard on the lip-syncing aspect of mixing sound and visuals. What we saw was spot on. (There was an amusing segment where a group of people were singing the “Star Spangled Banner” but the video was of the group singing “God Save the King”. )
Sometimes, though, watching TV, I don’t think technology has advanced much over the past 100 or so years. Digital TV has a lip-sync problem that makes me crazy when I’m trying to watch news programs.
Maybe modern technology needs a few lessons from Edison.
March 22, 2017
Goofing Off
Sometimes it feels like being an author while holding down a full-time Day Job makes my life all work and no play. It’s a good thing I love writing–almost as much as I love having written!
But I do tend to goof off a good bit. Facebook and Pinterest are two of my favorite time sucks. My very favorite, however, is reading. I could read 24/7. I read the way most people I know watch television.
What’s your favorite way to goof off?
March 19, 2017
Let’s Laugh
Today is National Let’s Laugh Day and in observance, I’m sharing a list of some of the funniest books I’ve read.
In no particular order:
The World According to Garp (John Irving)
Up Close and Dangerous (Linda Howard)
Drop Dead Gorgeous (Linda Howard)
One for the Money (Janet Evanovich)
Two for the Dough (Janet Evanovich)
Three to Get Deadly (Janet Evanovich)
True Confessions (Rachel Gibson)
Metropolitan Life (Fran Lebowitz)
Bet Me (Jennifer Crusie)
Welcome to Temptation (Jennifer Crusie)
March 15, 2017
Beware the Ides of March
Even though a soothsayer warned Julius Caesar to “Beware the Ides of March,” all he meant was March 15.
March, July, October, May: the Ides fall on the fifteenth day.
In every other month of the Roman calendar, the Ides fell on the 13th day of the month.
But Caesar’s assassination isn’t the only bad thing to happen on March 15 (yes, this is a historical fact, not just a line from Shakespeare).
According to the Smithsonian:
In 1360, a French raiding party began a 48-hour spree of rape, pillage and murder in southern England.
In 1889 a cyclone in Samoa wrecked three US warships and three German warships, killing over 200 sailors.
Czar Nicolas II of Russia abdicated his throne in 1917.
Nazi Germany began its occupation of Czechoslovakia in 1939.
Over 60 people were killed in the US and Canada as a deadly blizzard plummeted the Great Plains in 1941.
World record rainfall hit the Indian Ocean island of La Réunion in 1952–73.62 inches in 24 hours.
CBS cancelled The Ed Sullivan Show in 1971.
In 1988, NASA reported the ozone layer was depleting three times faster than predicted.
In 2003, the World Health Organization identified SARS–(Sudden Acute Respiratory Syndrome.
Have a great day!
March 12, 2017
Daylight Savings Time
This is the Sunday we “sprang ahead” to Daylight Savings Time.
Everyone seems to hate when DST ends in the fall, because it’s darker “earlier”.
Well, no. It’s darker at the same time; we simply look at our clocks differently.
DST is actually the “unnatural” way of measuring our days.
I’ve often wondered if the advice I read about avoiding the sun between eleven in the morning to one in the afternoon takes DST into account? Isn’t the sun supposed to be directly overhead at noon? Then wouldn’t the sun be hotter, brighter, more dangerous between ten in the morning and noon during DST because the sun would be at its zenith at eleven?
Several studies have found evidence suggesting that Daylight Savings Time is actually bad for our health. There are more heart attacks, strokes, and road accidents in the days following the spring ahead than there are at other times. And “falling back” triggers depression and earlier onset of Seasonal Affective Disorder in some people.
On the other hand, there is something to be said for the extra sunlight at the end of the Day Job day.
