Shipwrecked & Comatose

When you were a kid, did you wonder what Scooby Snacks tasted like? Shaggy wanted to eat them as well as Scooby.   They couldn't have tasted like dog biscuits, could they?  Would anyone's vocabulary contain the word "cranny" if it weren't for Thomas' English Muffins?  Has anyone ever used the word "cranny" without it being preceded by the phrase, "Nooks and..."? Yesterday I was online looking for a recipe and I found one on an old, neglected food blog.  The blog was a non-commercial, simply-formatted, ad-free Blogger piece - just like this one and The Essential Rhubarb Pie.  I miss the days of homespun bloggers.  When I first started blogging, food blogs were a community of simple sites, written from the heart, by people who weren't obsessed with self-promotion or media presence.  We formed a community.  We read each other's blogs and formed online friendships.  People read my blog because they liked my writing and my take on r

At the beginning of 2018 I deleted my Facebook .  I didn't tell anybody what I was doing.  I wanted to disappear and go on with a new phase of my life.  During that year I read more books, I had a cleaner house, and I wrote more blog posts.  I lost some weight too. The down side is that I lost some connections with people.  Facebook is the main way many of my friends socialize.  I had Instagram, but Instagram lacks the same interactive quality.  I can post anything on Facebook.  Instagram requires a photo.  It's also harder to share other people's posts on Instagram, so I don't have the option of sharing something I like from another friend with my friends list.  Furthermore, many of my closest friends didn't use Instagram regularly if they used it at all.  That left me with reaching out to individual friends with emails and phone calls.  I often felt guilty doing so because I know many of my friends are busy and going through difficult times.  There is a reason w

Every year around this time I find myself raging against the folks who believe there is a War on Christmas.  Over and over again I talk about how we are all entitled to celebrate the way we want , or how n obody is obligated to feel a sense of good cheer when wished a Merry Christmas , or how telling a non-Christian to have a Merry Christmas is like wishing someone else a Happy Birthday when it's your birthday .  I'm sure even my friends who agree with my are tired of reading posts like this.  I'm also sure I'm preaching to the choir.  My friends who believe in the War on Christmas are never going to read my rants and miraculously see the light.  I am nothing more than a single blogger with little to no audience (my last post here on S&C had twelve views).  I can't change the world, so I should give up. In that spirit, rather than return the rage of the War on Christmas, maybe it's time for me to understand where that fear and anger comes from. Fear and