Coffee Share 200920: The Great, Good and Not-So

This is a Weekly Coffee Share Essay. I’m part of a small group of bloggers who stay in touch and chat about blogging, writing, or just about anything else that might be of interest.

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Link to my Story Blog:  Table of Contents.

Greetings all,

I have a mix of updates to share today, but I want t start with my writing progress and news.

I shared that I’ve decided to follow the suggestions of many of you and expand my short 4K words story, Ayem Notthymn,  to something longer, but the first thing I ran into was a jam-up on a detail that I needed as part of the setup.  I knew this one item could be very interesting but I needed a perfect name of something to make it work. 

After fussing with many bad ideas for 2 weeks I woke up yesterday knowing the answer.  It was a simple two-word name that clicked just right and dominoed into a short research effort that renamed an off-stage, but critical character and placed the whole story in a place that would only work  in one real location.  Thus the expanded story, which had no clear location in the shorter version will now take place in central Oregon state (northwestern US) because — umm — you know, I’ll leave this detail hanging for you to check out when the story is ready.  I had to sigh in relief because I really need to visit the area to capture some of the ambience of the area, some photos of my own and some visual details to help set the scene. 

The location is only about a 11 hour drive from my home, so a road trip is called for.  I’m so glad the only place the idea would work was not in eastern Canada or Nepal or Argentina.

But real writing has finally resumed.  The reluctant muse has been kicked in the fanny and is now back at work and I’m looking for a road trip buddy because my wife has to work (her classes wait for no one).

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Up next: the status of the great spaghetti squash effort.  The season is done.  Both plants have one fruit left that may yet mature, but I’m getting doubtful.  Both have only one vine remaining with one fruit each but do not appear to be progressing.  However, the effort has been a full success even if I have to chuck those last two pods.  The end count of eatable fruit was about 32.

On a recent Saturday evening, we had our son and his fiancee over dinner and served up a huge pile of prepared spaghetti squash with a topping bar.  We had:

• various veggie spoon-ables; tomatoes, olives, capers, diced fresh peppers;
• some  sauces; marina, pesto, etc., 
• some cheeses: grated parmesan, mizithra, feta;
• a few other miscellaneous toppings for experimentation.

Anyway, you get the picture.  It was such a success, that our almost-daughter-in-law asked if we could repeat it for the rehearsal dinner so my wife and I are busy figuring out how to prepare the ingredients in advance to make this doable to serve about 35 persons.   This was fun, tasty, healthy and unique enough that everyone got into the fun mode of experimenting and commenting on what the liked.  We’re hoping our new in-laws enjoy the experience as much as the one who is joining our family.  Wish us luck.

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Then, I had to replace my mobile phone.  This should not have been such a big deal — but, it was.  Over the past 3+ weeks I’ve:

• been trying to order a new phone (my company makes this — I’ll just call it a challenge.)
• migrating my stuff from old to new (How hard can this be?  Very, apparently.)
• install the company-required security software. (Seriously? Am I the first person to go through this process, because this is not working. . . )
• reading as many terms and conditions as I could stomach before accepting some stage of multiple application installations which, I hope will allow my phone to boot up.   (My brain is bleeding.)
• fighting with the new UIF which is designed, not to help me, but to tempt me into using various tools that must access my location, photos, contacts, phone, ancestry, media, bank account number, health records, full genome, first pets name, criminal history and elementary school friends gender and pronoun preferences. . .

I have all but had it, with this new phone.  Even with low cost models I’m paying way too much to spend all this time getting basic things to work without granting unlimited access to Google, Samsung, AT&T, China, Apple (Wait!  I don’t even own an Apple. . .) BLM and the local SPCA to violate any privacy I might have left. Grrrrrrr – Grump – Grouse. . .

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On the other hand.  The marriage of our son to his wonderful fiancee is only a week away.  We are very much looking forward to this ceremony.

 

Most attendees will be out there in the zoom-asphere but they asked me to officiate.  I get the best seat in the place and I get to pronounce them husband and wife.  How cool is that!  It makes up for anything negative going on in our lives.  We are sooo blessed.

 

I hope you got a smile or two from my rant. Despite some strong efforts to the contrary, 2020 is looking to be a great year after all.

 

Thanks for stopping by. Did you post your coffee share yet? I’ll be around to check it out soon.

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