The Crab Chronicles

Trouble With the Curve

We survived the wacky weather yesterday without incident. Driving home was not fun. The sky outside my office was pitch black, the winds were high, and the rain was pouring. I had been watching that storm roll in, from my window next to my desk.

I had to run by the bank and by CVS to pick up prescriptions for Mother.

Michael made the JV tennis team at Lakeside. Yay! I was supposed to go to a meeting of all the tennis parents last night but the meeting was postponed to tonight, which is just as well.

I made  spaghetti for dinner, and it was good, but not up to my usual standards. I didn't have a bottle of red wine opened and I added white wine. Just didn't give it the depth of flavor that's so terrific. I basically take a jar of Classico and add a lot of things, like chopped green pepper, a red onion, portobello muchrooms, fresh garlic. Then I add extra Italian seasoning, onion powder, etc.

Mike ate two huge bowls. That's one of his favorite meals.

After dinner we watched a terrific movie that I had wanted to see in the theater but didn't get a chance - the Clint Eastwood baseball movie Trouble With the Curve. What I really liked about that movie was that it was about human beings. Nothing blew up. No car chases. It centered on the relationship between a young woman and her father.  Eastwood plays old men with flint, not a "cuddly grandpa" kind of guy. During the entire movie he only hugged his daughter once. But that was true to the character.

During one scene, I had a bizarre experience. I am watching Amy Adams and Justin Timberlake walk down a street, supposedly in North Carolina, and I realized it was a street in Athens, Georgia. I walked down that same street less than a year ago. I know, because there's a big sculpture of a frog there, and they walked past it and then past an optical store. I had sensed where they were, passing small storefronts, before I saw the frog, though. I lived in Athens for three years. Awesome place to live. Lovely downtown area.

I did a little research and read that they filmed the movie entirely in Georgia. Score!

One of the leads in the movie was played by a young actor named Scott Eastwood. He looks a lot like his dad. Did a good job.

Run With the Angels

The world is tilted. That's the way it feels, anyway - askew. We had 70 degree weather here yesterday. It was creepy. Michael and I both remarked how weird it was - don't know whether to run the heat or the air conditioning.

I slept with a fan on all night last night.

Saw a sad piece of news today in the paper. Dr. Ferrol Sams died yesterday. He was 90. In addition to being a doctor since World War II, he was a very fine writer. I've read all of his books.

If you like to read, whether just for fun or you actually appreciate literature, I am almost certain you will like Ferrol Sams' books. If you are a southerner you will truly appreciate him. There is more about his writing here.

I read his first novel, Run With the Horsemen and loved it. I gave the book to my parents to read. They were younger, of course, but still could identify with a lot of what he wrote about, in growing up in the South in the period between WWI and WWII.

Sams' books are very well written, and should rank right up there with To Kill A Mockingbird, or anything by any great Southern author.

Rest in peace, Dr. Sams. You were a remarkable man.

If you love to read and have a few minutes, I urge you to watch this amazing video of an interview with Dr. Sams:

 

Labels

I hate labels on people. A lot of magazines make a big deal out of saying a celebrity has "adopted children." I guarantee you Hugh Jackman doesn't wake up every day and think, "I need to take my adopted daughter to the dentist" or "I need to fix breakfast for my adopted son."

He thinks about them as his daughter and his son, period.

If you have biological kids, you don't wake up and say "I need to get my biological child ready for school" now do you?

There's a big discussion on Facebook from a bunch of moms who have adopted kids from Kazakhstan as babies, and how they "celebrate" their heritage. There's a lot of bending over backward to have children feel comfortable with their birth ethnicity, to not ignore it.

Now, I have read a lot of things about children being adopted by families of another race feeling very estranged, at times, and wishing to know more about their birth country and birth families. Used to be, all that was swept under the rug, which is certainly damaging to a child.

However, should we make a point of saying to our adopted children, you're a "Kazakh American" or a "Chinese American" or a "Russian American"? Can't we just acknowledge the birth country, and let it go at that? Then if the child has questions or wants to explore that, fine, go with it.

I have a neighbor who adopted a baby from China. She has had the child learning Mandarin right along with English ever since then. I think that's going a bit overboard, personally. It's their only child though, so whatever.

My heritage is Scottish, Irish, English, Welsh, French, and Cherokee. However, I never think about all that except occasionally when we're watching a movie and I can point to the screen with pride and say to my son "See those crazy looking people with blue faces? Those are some of my ancestors, the Celts. We scared the crap out of the civilized people!" LOL

Michael is mixed Russian and Kazakh. When I adopted him I was told very firmly that he was of Russian ethnicity. I didn't pay much attention to that. I didn't care. He was mine. Period.

Then shortly after I came home, Michael met my friend Kate, who is from Russia and works as a Russian translator. She took one look at him and said "Dee, I can tell you, he is part Kazakh!"

I was taken aback. Kate wasn't being mean or derogatory, just pointing it out.

Since we have no information on his birthfather [who never lived with him] and very little on his birthmom, we don't know what he is, ethnically. Aside from noticing his "Asian eyes" there is little to indicate his genetic ancestry. If I had a spare $300 I would let him do the genetic testing from that 23 and Me company, just because Michael thinks it would be fun to know.

I worry a bit that trying too hard to make a child comfortable with a birth heritage can make them feel estranged from other kids, because you're emphasizing the "different" and no kid wants to feel "different." A child wants to fit in.

My personal opinion is that parents should let the child lead the way on discussions of birth heritage and birth country. Don't hide it, but don't force it on them either.

Kids who look different from their families because of race.... well you should obviously discuss it. I still think a parent should not let it be a huge deal, but let the discussions occur naturally.

Just my two cents' worth.

Now I need to fix breakfast for my adopted Kazakh-Russian-American son.

Michael in Petropavlovsk in 2007, just before we left.

One Step At a Time

I got in the shower this morning thinking, what am I going to blog about?? My life is not all that interesting. Then again, I am launching a new business The Write Rainmaker so there's a lot going on in my world.

[BTW, if you are on Facebook, please go to The Facebook page and click LIKE. Thanks!]

It's exciting and scary at the same time.

I've been writing for attorneys since 1985, but mostly work product - pleadings, letters, summaries of information. Most folks don't realize the sheer volume of information in lawsuits. I've gathered records from third parties, bates labeled thousands of pages, organized them, summarized them, etc. Actual "legal research" is only a fraction of what goes into most cases. 

Attorneys are [usually] really good at practicing law. They usually need help with marketing. The younger ones seem to intuitively know the value of it more than the older ones, which is to be expected.

However, if my mother, who is almost 80, can blog, I can prove that "old dogs CAN learn new tricks."

I can also write blogs and website materials for non-attorneys, too.

Here's an excerpt from a message I sent to some of my friends who have small businesses:

Whatever your business, whether it’s making cupcakes, selling flowers, or selling a service like fixing computers, I can help increase your business by writing a blog for you. The more your website shows up in a Google search, the more folks will want what you’re selling.  So if I blog for you once a week, you’ll get a lot more hits than if I blog for you once a month. If I Tweet about your blogs to your followers, you will get more business. Everything is about how much your business is on the internet now.

Now back to really important stuff: FOOD. We had some Aidell's bacon and pineapple sausages last night and WOW. SO so yummy. Our usual Sunday night grilled cheese dinner was really nice with the addition of the sausages. All the Aidell's products I've tried are wonderful. [No, they don't pay me to say that, either.] I pop some of those on the little George Foreman grill and less than 5 minutes later they are ready to go.

Made Michael some yummy breakfast cereal and let HIM mix it up, so he WILL eat it, I am sure. It's just a block of cream cheese [softened] plus a cup or so of vanilla yogurt, a carton of fresh blueberries, oatmeal, and some cinnamon and sugar. He will eat a ton of that and it's healthy for him.

The high today is in the upper 50's, so a typical end of January day in Hot-Lanta.

Have a great Monday y'all!

The Lights of the City

I spent a lot of time yesterday working on the launch of The Write Rainmaker, but we also went to Kroger and ran errands. Our usual exciting Saturday.

Friday night, Michael and I went to the Fox Theater to see The Producers, a terrific show. We got there early, for once, and I discovered there is a small bathroom off the lobby, just outside the refreshment area. I didn't realize it was there and opened. The Fox has been restored over the years, which is wonderful. For a long time, you had to go all the way downstairs to the bathroom. I hate carpeted stairs. Fell down some carpeted stairs once, and they've made me nervous ever since.

The Fox is such a fun place though. It was built nearly 100 years ago. I love taking Michael to plays there. I forget sometimes how young he is. We were in the car Friday night and as soon as the lights of the city came into view he said "Wow Mom look at all the LIGHTS!" I tried to view them thru his eyes. Yep, midtown really looks like a fairyland at night, from I-85.

Anyway, we enjoyed the show tremendously.

I saw the original movie years ago and loved it.It came out on 1968 and flopped, which was so odd to me because it's hysterically funny. Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder are brilliant. It's about a failed Broadway producer who teams up with a mousy accountant and they decide to raise a lot of money to produce a play they are sure will fail. Then they keep all the money.

When I was dating a lot, years ago, I used The Producers as my test of dates. If I showed them the movie and they laughed and liked it, I knew they had good taste and we'd get along. If they didn't like it, bye bye. Maybe that sounds harsh, but it proved correct many times.

This is a scene from the film:

 

I like the musical version, the play. Loved the dancing. It goes off in slightly different directions, though. It's much more campy. There's a lot more broad physical humor.

I will publish a link to my review, when it's done.

Lots going on today.

Y'all have a great Sunday!

Attorney Writing and Marketing

I am very excited to announce that I have started a new small business called

The Write Rainmaker

Providing website copy, blogs, articles, newsletters, email blasts and more, for attorneys who want to increase their web presence and attract new clients.

I have been a paralegal since 1985, and I have a Master's degree in Creative Writing. I've been blogging for more than 7 years now, and I understand a good bit about SEO [Search Engine Optimization]. I've already been writing for several lawyers now, for a couple of years, but I am ready to expand my business.

I just launched a new blog devoted to The Write Rainmaker. Check it out!

So I've been working on some marketing materials for myself, and what I've got so far is below. I'm still working on a logo image.

What can I do?

Write weekly blog posts that will be picked up by search engines

Write and/or edit articles for the firm website

Write up case results for your website

Compose and manage email blasts to clients

Review your website and advise on ways to make the content more layman-friendly

Find speaking engagements for you so you can connect with possible clients.

Help you evaluate ways to make your website more appealing

 

Why lawyers need help with website marketing:

1. The lawyers who stay busy are the ones who have websites picked up by Google searches, because that's how most people find lawyers now.
2. Lawyers are in the business of practicing law, not writing for websites. 
3. Most lawyers write like lawyers. They need someone who can understand legal lingo and convert it to simple, direct language for a layman.

Why use me?

• 7 years as a blog writer and editor
• 28 years experience as a paralegal
• Master's degree in Creative Writing
• My rates are cheaper than the companies who "specialize" in writing lawyer blogs and websites
• I'm available to talk when it's convenient to you, not just 9-5
• I don't require contracts or up-front payments
• Impeccable references - you can talk to other lawyers who have used my services [for instance my friend James Radford]

I am still working on a Facebook page and new blog or website specifically for the The Write Rainmaker. In the meantime, if you know somebody who could use my services, please pass along a link to this page! Thanks!

Dee

[email protected]

Oh - and if you are not a lawyer but still would like me to help you write website materials or a blog, I am happy to discuss that with you!

Gotta Run

I was trying to get out of the house by 8 this morning but obviously that didn't happen, for several reasons. Oh well. I've got to run to the courthouse before I get to work, and before that I have to go by an ATM and get some money. Used to be easy to park at the courthouse. Not any more.

No big news to report. North Georgia has sleet and icy roads. Michael is ticked that we are just getting temps in the 40's and rain - he wanted snow so he could get out of school. It is what it is.

I gave him yet another lecture this morning about keeping up with his schoolwork. He's irritated that he spent almost 3 hours last night on a Biology project. I reminded him he waited until the night before it was due to START on it. Gotta plan better, Dude. Then he was too tired to do Spanish. And he forgot his English notebook.

Get a strategy. Don't just get mad and give up.

Maybe after I tell him 5,000 times it will sink in. Ya think?!?

I leave you with my favorite Far Side ever, Cow Poetry. 

Damn the electric fence!

I've done some poetry meetings. This is pretty much how they go, minus the horns...

Cooking Kale

Unlike most southerners, I am not too fond of "greens." I remember when I was small my uncle Jake coming into the house carrying a paper grocery sack full of collards and asking Mom to cook them for him.

Mom was always a good sport about it. She recalls those days now every time we have greens of any kind. She grew up eating turnip greens, but Mamaw didn't cook collards.

I hated the smell of cooking collards. I would always spend a lot of time playing outside on those days when Mom cooked collards.

I Googled collard green recipes and found Paula Deen's collards but they don't involve vinegar. Strangely enough, I found the Guy Fieri recipe called Southern Collard Greens is closer to what I imagine Mother cooked. (I fled, remember, so I don't know what she put in there except I know about vinegar.)

On New Year's Day, a few weeks ago, I had spinach for my dinner, among other things. I like fresh spinach, sauteed in some bacon fat with onions, with some apple cider vinegar added. YUM.

Took me years before I would eat spinach.

When I was a kid, the only green leafy thing I'd eat was lettuce. I ate a LOT of lettuce. That's probably why I don't much care for it now, not iceberg anyway. I love buttery Boston Bibb lettuce in our good olive oil & lime juice dressing.

I've been hearing a lot about kale, and so the other day at Kroger I got a big bunch of curly kale. It's certainly attractive.

I had heard a lot of noise about Kale Chips being so yummy. So I found a recipe and made it. Michael and I ate most of what I fixed, but I need to work on that recipe.

I washed the kale, dried it in my salad spinner, and put it in a bag with some olive oil, salt, and garlic powder. I put it on a cookie sheet in the oven at 350 for about 20 minutes. It certainly crisped up nicely, most of it.

The problem was that not all the leaves had the oil/seasoning mixture on them. I had put everything in a big plastic bag and I thought I had shaken it around enough, but clearly not.

Kale has tons of nutrients in it.

It's a great healthy recipe, though, so I will make it again. I just have to figure out the best way to season it and cook it for our family.

If you have a favorite way to cook kale, drop me an email or leave a comment and tell me about it.

Odds and Ends

Well, yesterday was full of surprises, unlike most Mondays.

We got a box of gifts from my sweet cousin Terri, who lives out in TX.She sent us some of her famous pepper jelly, and some lovely handmade soap from A Wild Soap Bar. They smell divine. Can't wait to use them!

It was COLD. As in, I had to wear my wool cape when I went out! That's like a coat. Usually only have to wear a coat here in Hot-Lanta a few times a year.

Michael had tennis tryouts after school and did fine. I nearly froze to death watching him for half an hour. All the boys were out there in shorts! Yikes. On Friday, the HIGH is supposed to be 39. 

Mother, who usually blogs about once a month, had a new blog ready to go last night. Did a little editing [not much] and put it out there for her.

That's literally about all I have to report.

Y'all stay warm!

above photo is from our last snow - 2 years ago!

LAGNIAPPE

Dan over at Single Dad Laughing published a page of funny and inappropriate short jokes. Some of them are quite naughty, but funny.

Videos You Should Watch

I don't really have time to write a full post, but I wanted to share a couple of videos.

I took Michael and Colton to see the movie Silver Linings Playbook. Terrific movie! It deserves a slew of Oscars.

 

 

Larry Correia is an amazing author and I've enjoyed his books for a while now. He was a firearms instructor for years and is an expert in guns. His opinions on gun control are so intelligent and clear, and I was tickled to see him interviewed on Mike Huckabee's show the other night. I watched it and asked Michael and Colton to watch it with me. Everything he says makes sense. For instance, the president wants to ban parts of rifles that are purely cosmetic, which is just silly.

The shooting in Colorado at the movie theater was in a place with signs posted that said NO GUNS ALLOWED. So of course the shooter chose that place, knowing there would be no armed resistance. Good guys obey those signs and don't take guns in those places. Crazy people don't obey the signs.

Watch this and you will understand why I like this guy so much.