Hidden In France

Adobe cauchemard

I've been on hold with Adobe for 88 minutes now and forced to listen to brain hemorrhage-inducing musak.  This is the third day in the row this is happening. 

Here is the shocking news my friends:  ADOBE DOES NOT OFFER TECHNICAL SUPPORT. At least not when there is a real big problem that goes over the person's level of training.  I've been told I'm now going through  the ominous-sounding 'escalation' level (which, even though i have kept my voice fairly level and my communication process reasonable, makes me sound like I'm a big baby with temper tantrums.) 

There is a mysterious level 2 of technical support, but i have my doubt it actually exists, or else I don't know who I have to shtup to get there. 

 (now 125 minutes of holding time) 

What do i do when I'm a little stressed? What do I do when steam is coming out of my ears, eyes and nose like in the cartoons.  What do I do when I'm stuck at my desk forced the listen to musak, clockwork Orange style?  I take a lovely stroll through flikr. Please come along...

 

via flowerbelt

(minute 131 of Adobe "technical support")  

via craft and creativity

 (minute 134 of Adobe "technical support")

 

via to lovemichelle12

(minute 136)

 

via All the luck in the world

minute 140 minutes!!!!!! with Adobe 'technical support." I give up, Bharwahhhrrrr.  Off to yoga.  

Hate comments, versus comment moderation

Hello there.. Is it spring in the blogosphere yet? I don't even know what's going on in your worlds.  My blogging has gone down quite a bit lately.  My ten year old is having some academic difficulties in school and so instead of ignoring him while he does his homework, comme d'habitude, I'm actually being a mother and paying attention to him, going as far as giving myself massive brain freeze trying to understand fifth grade algebra. There goes my precious blog-reading time.  

And then I try to read and leave comments but, okay.... frus.traaa.tion. 

Here is the pet peeve: could some of you please make it easier to leave a comment on your blogs?  

By the time i've entered my email address, my name and my comment, having to go through the process of comment moderation is like watching wood be wood.  I do not have that kind of patience, or free time. 

Personally,  I opted out of 'hold for approval', and 'random generated identification codes.'  My experience is that, unless you have a troll following your blog, someone who wants you harm, chances are that you will never receive a single hate comment.  My blog can be pretty argumentative and obnoxious, but anonymous hate comments are very rare, and they usually have something to do with (or against ) Obama.  I read them, shrug and delete them.  Freedom of speech yes but not on my turf.  Spam I never get because Typepad is excellent at filtering them.  Self-promotion is quite rare and easy to erase. If some jerk insists in free advertising, all you need to do is filter him or her out of your life by not allowing his or her API address. 

I like receiving comments too much to make it difficult for my reader to leave them.  It's worth the occasional visit of a bile-spewing anon. In fact reading anonymous hate comments kind of spice things up, they make me feel more important than i am, you should really try getting a couple of those.

I vote for moderating the comment moderation.  What do you think?  What is your personal experience with hate?

Healthcare: this is it

I'm thinking the country will become a much better place very soon.  My thoughts are with all the people I personally know who can't get health insurance BECAUSE they are sick. Crossing my fingers.

If you have 30 minutes, i encourage you to watch this.  One of Obama's best speeches I think.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

with a lot of bad ideas

...strung together and a lot of money, you can get yourselves one of these:

I'm taking polls.  I'm trying to be neutral here but what do you stink about this video?

Weighing things

 

 A few posts ago I asked you for tips on losing weight.  Well I have not lost much weight since but I did pay a great deal of attention to your suggestions, which ran the gamut from Loving Self Acceptance to the complete avoidance of carbs.  I don't know if I'm ready for such extreme behaviors, but I'm definitely ready for something.

One idea stood out among all the ideas you gave me.  I have never known much about the calorie content of food.  I'm French (or was) remember, and the French believe that anything can be eaten as long as it is eaten in moderation.  But after parroting that sentence over the course of a lifetime, i at last realized how asinine it was, really.  What the heck is moderation? A thick slice of brie on baguette can only be considered moderation in comparison to wolfing down the entire wheel and loaf, then washing those down with a bottle of Gevrey Chambertain. When is the consumption of chocolate truffles moderate.  After one? two? Or is moderation devouring the content of a box in one sitting... but only once a year at Christmas? How many calories do I need to cut before i can start losing serious poundage, do I need to cut 500?  1000?  How much I ingest on a daily basis?  As it is, i have no idea. I think i know, I tell myself I know, but really, I don't.

And what about exercise?  What is moderate? What is strenuous? Everything feels strenuous to me. How many calories am i really burning when i have sex, when I garden, when i pass the vaccuum?

Well my friends i am now no longer clueless, tanks to Jeanne of the blog Nantucket Mermaid.  Thank you so much Jeanne for introducing me to myplate @ LiveStrong. This is so awesome!  Myplate helps you track the calories you ingest and those you burn.  You decide how much weight you want to lose (I said a pound a week) and it calculates how many calories you are allowed tat day.  Then you enter everything you eat daily and it keeps a count for you.  So if toward the end of the day you have gone heavy on the cassoulet, you know you better have thin soup and kick in the butt for dinner. 

Maybe I am naive but I had no idea how to really do this.  Cutting calories is much easier once you know what's going on.

Next, I really would love for you to sign up and 'friend' me so we can stay motivate together.  It's really fast and easy (and free, and no they are not paying me to say all this.) 

May I remind you ladies that bathing suit season is crouching nearby and ready to pounce on you any minute now? Come on, let's do this together!  Any takers?

The images are via the sumptuous blog Beautiful Things to Share and represent a wildly idealized version of what i will never look like. 

what is introversion and is it bad?

I seem to go through phases of extroversion and introversion.  In the extroversion phases I feel super sociable.  I blog my butt off, I'm all over the web commenting, I call friends and have a burning desire to express myself, to write, to communicate. I crave visual stimulation and conversations. When I am in an extroverted phase i am funny, or at least think i am which amounts to pretty much the same as far as i'm concerned.

During the introversion phases I want to stay home and be quiet.  I go cocooning.  I resent phone calls and changes to my routine.  Images leave me cold, (see, no images here) music and noise irritate me. My own family irritates me (okay, that happens during my extroverted phase too.) It's just that things feel louder, more rushed, more aggressive. So i disappear a little. I go into reading frenzies, one, two three books, often at once. I cook. I eat.  When I'm in an introverted phase, the best way to communicate with me is through Goodreads. 

During my introversion phases my sense of humor is nonexistent, as you may have noticed. 

...which is not to mean that i feel depressed, (though the concept of manic-depressive comes to mind-- but I'm getting older and maybe wiser thus less eager to scrutinize my behavior and try to define it in pathological terms.)  I use to feel an introverted phase come and panic.  Now I welcome it as a reflective time, and trust the process.

I'm in an introverted phase this week, did you guess? (though writing here today could mean you are witnessing the trail end of it.) I'm at my desk wearing faux uggs and baggy clothes, there is a pocket radiator blasting heat near my desk. The dog and the cat are hard at work napping at my feet. Cozy and solitary.  I like it. For now.

Eat, Pray ... and then Eat some more

This title sums up my approach to dieting.  I Eat, I Pray that i won't get fat, then wash that thought down with a double scoop of haggen dasz.  Not that there is anything wrong with that.  Well.. wait.  Actually there is something slightly wrong with that, namely that:

  I will be in a bathing suit on the island of Kauai in under a month! 

           
 
 

Yikes! Pray, pray, quick!

It is said that the last five pounds are the hardest to drop.  What happens then when you are permanently five pounds over your limit?  Oh i know what some of you are going to say, that this is not a real problem, some people are 25 lbs over their limit. But please consider that my notion of weight limit, aka the weight i'm comfortable with, has stretched and loosened over time and with age, as did the skin under my arms and my tolerance for scattered socks around the laundry basket.    

I calculate that I have gained 1.5 lbs a year since my first kid, and that was 17 years ago. 17x 1.5... yep, that's 25 lbs, people!  You know how it goes. The weight once considered unacceptable soon becomes the new normal.  And a pound and a half at a time, I've plumped up, and up, and UP!

 

So today is day major reality check day.  I want to enjoy my vacation, and I'm pretty sure I won't enjoy the feel of my thighs flapping in the warm Aloha breeze.

I've never dieted in my life, though I've threatened to many times.  But this time I mean it.  But still, what am i going to do about it?  I was thinking i could start by asking for tips.   What works for you?  Or are you successful in channeling your inner Hilda, which would be just as invaluable to me. 

(Naturally skinny girls with 4000 calorie/day habits are exempt from commenting just this time)

 Pictures of the lovely Hilda by Duane Bryers found all over Google.