Pesto à la Sicilienne (ricotta hazelnut pesto)

Bonjour tout le monde! When I was in France, one of my favorite things to eat was a particular kind of pasta sauce, a pesto made with ricotta cheese and hazelnuts. It came in a jar like this, and could be found in the grocery store right next to the marinara sauce:

When I got home, I missed this sauce very much, so I went to google.fr and did much searching for a recipe.  Finally I found one here! :)  However, because this recipe is in French, only I can make it.  So, after making my sauce for relatives on Christmas, I promised I would translate it and post it on my blog.  So here goes!  

Note: the measurements are in ounces, which will have to be measured on a kitchen scale or letter scale (the original measurements were in metric grams).  It would be very difficult for me to convert all the weight measurements to volume measurements with any amount of accuracy since the mass of each ingredient is different, but weighing them is very easy.  Just put a medium-sized bowl on a small scale and tare it back to zero.

Sauce with Nuts and Ricotta/Sicilian Pesto

Vegetarian (contains dairy)

Difficulty: very easy

Price range: medium

Preparation: 15 mins

Cooking time (aka food processor): 2 mins

Ingredients (for 8 people):

8.81 oz. ricotta

3.52 oz. kernels of walnuts or hazelnuts (you can use either; the original recipe calls for walnuts but I like hazelnuts)

3.52 oz. grated or shredded Parmesan

2.82 oz. pine nuts

10 leaves fresh basil (in my opinion this is not nearly enough; you should more than double this)

3 cloves of garlic (or its equivalent in minced garlic, roughly 3 teaspoons I think, but be generous if you like garlic)

3 tablespoons olive oil

2 tablespoons tomato paste

1/2 tablespoon vinegar (whatever type you like works; I used red wine vinegar most recently)

1 pinch salt

1 pinch pepper

Preparation:

This is a sauce that can be served just as well on pasta (penne or spaghetti) as on thinly sliced chicken. [I've never had it on chicken, but I've had it spread on bread, and it was quite yummy.]  

Put all the ingredients except for the pine nuts in a food processor, and blend it for two minutes.  Make sure there are no big pieces of garlic (you can even mix it by hand before putting it back in the food processor [the French are a bit more blasé about sanitation; I'm all for hand mixing, just be sure you wash up]).  Add all the pine nuts and a little bit of broth if you think the sauce is too thick.  Blend it a little bit more, just until the pine nuts are in small pieces.

Now you have your sauce!  You can mix it with pasta or chicken and eat it as it is (which is how I've always done it) or put it in a casserole dish and cook it for a couple minutes (as in two).  

Enjoy!

bye, the end, love Chloe, bye bye!

Chloe's Story About Haley (written at age 6)

Merry Christmas everyone! My grandmother, E-mama, found this story on her computer that I saved when I was six. I've written it here with the original spelling, punctuation, and formatting. Of course, it was typed, not hand-written, as was normal for me. I hope you enjoy a six-year-old's narrative!

Chloe's Story About Haley

haley had a spechl dol and she loved it vare mch haley was a vere
nis litle Grl and she had the nisesd litl dol
win the toem kam fo hr to go hom she wint riet on
She had a babe sesdr wich did nat liek to
Plae awt sid wat haley likt the best
Hr nam was corls
That was so god she lovt hr
Wat a dae she had that vere fien evnen
Sh hd a brth dae she was veryhape
she was a nies litl grl
watfan she had
wndae she went to school
wat fan she had
she was the best litl grl at skol
she was a good litle grl
she mad los of frens
wan dae hr frins movd awae
she ded not havan bot she was sil a good litl grl
bot she sil did not hv ine fan no wandr wey
she was sel a goodlitl grl
thn wandae she lost a toth
wset she hape
that was a vere hape dae
tho hley wish god loved woow she was so hape
nowan kod love hr mwor
tho she was sach a good litl grl she was spshl to
wandae she wint to skol agn and she toold hr athr skool frens
to tel ther mathrs to stae wer thae lev and tel me the asr
tin of thim sed yes and for of thim sad no
bie chloe love chloe the end biebie

Cursive: a dying art

The earliest computer I remember my parents owning, the one that was in the guest room, I only have a vague sort of recollection of. I do remember that the actual screen was a significantly smaller part of the computer than anything I’ve seen in a long time. I also remember that when my mom would print something out, the pages would be stuck together, and they would have to be torn apart along the serrated line, and also separated from a dotted strip on each side. I would often help my mom out with her psychology work by tearing apart the pages of the things she printed, which was ok because I was young enough that I couldn’t read the sensitive information, and I thought tearing things apart was jolly good fun. I think this computer may have been the one that had a program for designing and printing greeting cards, which I thought was pretty neat as well. I knew enough of my letters to recognize the words “Happy Birthday” and “Merry Christmas,” and to spell the names of immediate family members. The rest was accomplished by pictures from clip-art.

Around age five, I began to officially learn to read and write, from a book called Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons. I hated it. I complained and squirmed every time I had to sit on that old, blue couch and work through a boring lesson. But I loved the stories at the end of each lesson. In fact, as soon as I was sure my mom wasn’t looking, I would pull the horrid, fat, yellow book off the shelf and flip through lesson after lesson, reading all the stories, until I got to the ones that were too hard and I couldn’t make out the words anymore.

I also remember scrawling out my letters as I learned them. I used that paper with the fat lines and the one dotted line going through the middle, and if I ever forgot a letter, I would double check something that was typed, because of course Times New Roman was the basic standard for the written letter. It didn't occur to me until later in life that the hand-written word was invented before the typed word.

My first recollection of using my newly-learned letters for long distance written communication was, of course, an email, probably to my grandmother. By the time I wrote this email, my parents had a newer computer in their bedroom. This computer had Windows 95, which was very cool. I remember struggling over this email, picking out one letter at a time, and asking, “Mom, how do you spell this? How do you spell that?” In the end, when my email was several lines long, I was so proud of what I had written. I had written nearly a paragraph of real typed text, which was so much more valid than anything I had ever written by hand. It just looked so perfect, those lines of Times New Roman all grouped there together on that screen.

Because I was home schooled, most of my tests, at least when I was younger, were oral. My early schooling emphasized stories and ideas rather than facts and skills (except for math, which I hated) and penmanship was never really very important. All of this changed when I attended a private school for one semester in fourth grade. My parents had always said that if I wanted to try out going to school, I could, so when I asked for it, they agreed. Suddenly, there was a strange woman teaching me every day who was very critical of my poor handwriting. One day she took me into a storage room to speak to me privately, and explained that my handwriting was very sloppy, and I was struggling with penmanship, but she wanted to help me by giving me extra homework that would help improve my handwriting. From then on, I went back to those pages with the fat lines and the one dotted line through the middle, and I would trace each letter again and again. I don’t recall for sure, but I think this may have been my first encounter with cursive. I completed the assignments and learned the letters, but I thought some of the cursive letters were rather silly, especially the cursive z. But the worst part was the connections. I could memorize the letters themselves, but the connections changed depending on what letters were next to each other, and I couldn’t figure out any kind of pattern. So I never used cursive, because it didn’t make sense to me.

One week, I had a writing assignment that was several pages long. Because I knew my teacher was still critical of my handwriting (it never improved despite pages of penmanship practice), I decided to type my assignment up and print it. This was of course a logical decision, especially considering that by that age, I could type quickly, using all ten fingers and without looking at the keyboard. When I read my story out loud to the class, everyone loved it, and laughed in the appropriate places. I was also very proud of my pages, neatly typed in Times New Roman, with equal margins, a heading with my name, and a neat little staple in the corner. I thought it was a much better presentation than the other students who had all written their stories by hand, and ended up shuffling through their pages torn out of notebooks, dropping them and getting them mixed up or stapling them facing the wrong way. When one student raised his hand and asked, “Can we type up our homework?” he was met with a firm and resounding “No!” And when I got my paper back, the teacher’s terrifying red ink had marked points off because it was typed. After that semester, I went back to home schooling.

Just before my sixth grade year, my family moved closer to a big city, and I was accepted into a relatively prestigious private school. My mom explained that I would probably be expected to write out my assignments in cursive, so I needed to be sure I knew how. Of course, I didn’t. Again, at age eleven, I went back to those horrid pages with the fat lines and the one dotted line through the middle, and re-learned my cursive letters. Then, as I moved on to words and sentences, I struggled through the connections, improvising when I didn’t know what to do. I would often pause in the middle of a word, think about how the letter ended and the next one began, try to figure out how to connect them naturally, give up and just draw the next letter with a line between the two. And occasionally I would throw in a Times New Roman letter if I forgot the cursive one. After I spent hours writing out, in cursive, my first one-page assignment to be turned in on the first day of class, my mom took one look at it, sighed, and said, “Oh well, you might as well just write everything in print from now on because it’s more readable anyway.” I had no complaint. And honestly, it didn’t matter, because none of my teachers in that school (which I only attended for one year due to financial reasons) minded that I preferred to write in print, or, whenever possible, to type things up. In fact, they liked the fact that I knew how to use a computer and was adept at typing.

A couple weeks before the start of my freshman year in college, I sat in a doctor’s office at the OU Health Sciences center, going over the results of my neuro-psych evaluation. I was about three months recovered from a major brain surgery (…well, is there any such thing as minor brain surgery?), was doing well, but being tested to see if everything was recovering properly or if I would need accommodations for a disability at my university. This doctor was fascinated by my case because my exact condition was one that had not been previously documented. The surgery had been to remove a birth defect in my brain that, at age 17, had suddenly begun to cause severe myoclonus (sudden, brief muscle spasms that were constant and only went away when I slept). [Side note: when I say “not previously documented,” what I mean is that other people are diagnosed with that particular birth defect, and other people are diagnosed with myoclonus (which is just a symptom), but no one, at least when I was at the Mayo Clinic, had ever been diagnosed with myoclonus caused by that particular birth defect.] The surgery was about 95% successful (I am satisfied with the results). During the course of that particular doctor’s visit, however, my mom happened to mention that I had never really been able to learn cursive. The doctor found this very interesting. He said that, of course, not everyone who struggles with cursive will go on to develop a rare neurological disorder, but in retrospect, because of the location of the birth defect, it may have had something to do with my difficulty learning cursive.

So I’m not afraid to say it: I’m twenty-one years old, and aside from signing my name, I don’t know how to write in cursive. But I can honestly say that since the last day of that particular semester in fourth grade, I have never once needed to. I didn’t get points counted off (that I know of) on my standardized tests for writing the essays in print. When I was accepted into the honors program at OU, they didn’t even look at my handwriting. Most of my professors require that I type up all my assignments, some of them I submit online, and nobody cares what my notes look like as long as I can read them. It’s easy to see that cursive is no longer a necessary skill, and in my opinion the time I spent learning to use a computer was much better spent than the time I spent poring over those pages with the fat lines and the one dotted line through the middle. I could sit here and be mad at my fourth grade teacher for punishing me for something that I couldn’t fix, but it wouldn’t be worth it. She may have been old fashioned and critical about the wrong things, but in the end her efforts didn’t change anything. She couldn’t stop me from typing, she couldn’t teach me cursive, and she certainly couldn’t change the fact that cursive is slowly but surely dying out.

The one way remaining that cursive still appears to be an integral part of society is the signing of signatures. Because most official documents must be signed in cursive to be official, some people would argue that some amount of knowledge of cursive is still necessary. However, based on my experience living in France for 5 months, it is possible that eventually, even signatures will no longer require knowledge of cursive. The following are examples of what actual, official French signatures might look like:

When I asked an American who had been living in France for some time about this, he pointed out that as long as the signature is distinct, recognizable, and difficult to imitate, it counts. And occasionally, when I’m at the grocery store and I have to sign one of those horrid electronic pads that makes my already-poor handwriting practically illegible, my signature, which the machine accepts, is an x. And of course, you can’t forget that in many cases, a pin number is accepted in the place of a signature. So when the day comes that the world realizes that cursive is dead (which I predict will be in the not-too-distant future), I will rejoice.

A Conversation Initiated by my French Book

It was one of those nights: up way past my bedtime, struggling to keep my eyes open, I opened my French book, determined to finish my assignment by tomorrow. As I stared at the lines I was supposed to be transcribing, visions of IPA symbols danced in my head. I started at the first line. /il plœʀ dã mõ kœʀ/… No, that couldn’t be right. /il pløʀ dã mõ køʀ/… I muttered the sounds to myself, trying to make sense of them, resting my head in my hands. My eyes were so heavy…

“Ahem.”

I jerked my head up. A strange green face was glaring down at me from midair, with the words FR 3038 written across it, and one wiry curl across the top of its head. Come to think of it, that curl probably was a wire.

“Sleeping on the job, are we?”

“Uh… what?” I tried to rub the sleep out of my eyes. “Wait a minute… you’re my French book. You can levitate?”

My French book laughed. “So it would seem. More to the point, I can talk. And one thing I can tell you is that you’re struggling with your homework.”

I sighed. “After five months in France, my pronunciation is halfway decent. I know how these words are supposed to sound; it’s just that the symbols all get jumbled up in my head. And sometimes, my French prof says something should be pronounced a certain way, when I’ve heard it pronounced otherwise.”

“Ah, well, you of all people should know that there are many different ways of pronouncing things. France has as much dialectal variation as an area of comparable size in America; say, Texas. And most professors are only concerned with what is considered the standard dialect.”

“But I don’t care about the standard dialect!” I said, eyes closed in exasperation. “I don’t want to sound like a walking, talking, college essay; I want to sound like a real person on the street! I want to shorten words; run sentences together; use the latest slang; speak with a southern accent! That’s what I love about living languages: that they’re always growing and evolving with the people. I want to be able to express my true self through my words, and understand the nuances and inflections well enough to understand the expressions of others. I’m not in it for the grade.”

My French book made a condescending sound, shaking his head. “Yes, that much is clear. But don’t you see what your attitude reflects? It just shows why you’re a linguistics major, not a French major. You would rather learn about the way people really speak and why they speak that way than how they should speak.”

I sighed. “Yes, and that was kind of the whole point of my going to France, to learn more about the way French people really interact linguistically. But I don’t feel like I made very much progress, really. I found it much more difficult to make friends in France than I do back home, and I don’t normally have the easiest time making friends.”

“Oh… I think you made more progress than you think,” replied my French book.

“Really?” I asked, skeptically.

“Yes,” he stated, “For example, how often did you participate in social interaction that required you to have some form of conversation, however long, entirely in French?”

“Oh, on a daily basis,” I replied.

“Well, there you go, that’s no small thing. And that’s just a start. How often did you have conversations, entirely in French, which challenged you intellectually because of content rather than verb conjugations?”

I thought for a moment. “Well, those sorts of conversations generally occurred with my classmates between classes, or during classes. The conversations between classes were fun and engaging, especially because I was able to talk to a wide variety of people. My classmates were from all over. But the discussions in class were much more stressful, because my French professors were much more prone to publicly criticize than my American professors. So it was much more difficult to think of anything to say when I was afraid that anything I had to offer would be shot down. I work pretty hard to ignore social anxiety in many group settings as it is.”

“Understood,” he replied, nodding gravely. “But recall, though: did anyone ever actually outright laugh at something you said?”

“Oh, only once,” I said nonchalantly, “but that was nothing. They were little kids, and if I were them, I would have laughed at me too. I actually loved to see them laugh. It was great to see little kids interacting and playing; it reminded me that all people, no matter where they’re from, start out exactly the same: as a baby, with no language, and no cultural presuppositions. Kids are kids.”

“Indeed,” my French book said thoughtfully. “You probably would have had a much richer experience had you stayed with a French family rather than by yourself in a dorm.”

“That’s for sure,” I replied.”

My French book paused, creasing his forehead in thought (I hoped the crease wasn’t permanent): “So, do you think meeting with that French family helped you feel more culturally integrated?”

I thought for a moment. “Yes, to an extent,” I replied,” “but it was partially the way I met them. I met them through church, and I think going to that church helped me a great deal to feel slightly more culturally integrated. I knew enough French to be able to get the gist of most of the sermons, and follow along in the Bible. And because that particular protestant denomination was somewhat liturgical, it wasn’t long before I could follow along in the prayer book and familiarize myself with some of the hymns and prayers, which of course helped with my French.” I paused. “It was also a good place for me in that it was a sort-of cultural safe haven. Having been brought up in the church, and having been a Christian for as long as I can remember, I am very familiar with the basic tenets of the Christian faith. And, despite some minor doctrinal differences, Christianity is basically the same from people group to people group, which is easy enough to see once you understand the sermon. I was worshiping the same God; my God. That was my respite; my breath of fresh air, and sometimes it was what kept me going when I felt like I was going insane or losing my sense of identity in the mad rush of understanding the French culture.”

“Yes,” My French book said as soon as he could get a word in, “but you said it helped you to feel integrated. You still haven’t explained how.”

“Well…” I reflected for a moment. “I think, if I had chosen to stay longer, that it’s a place where I could have made some kind of contribution, and been a valuable member of a group rather than just a leech. I think contributing to a group is really the only way to feel integrated into it. For example, I noticed that the tiny church I attended had a desperate need for better children’s programs. In the family I got to know, the parents would take turns staying home with the baby on Sundays because there simply wasn’t anyone to look after her during the service. I know enough about childcare to have helped, if I had chosen to stay longer.”

“If you had chosen to stay longer. That seems to be a recurring theme. But I’m curious: did you ever dream in French?”

“Yes… just once, a few weeks before I left. In the dream, I still stumbled for words, but it was definitely in French.”

My French book looked smug. “There, you see? That’s tangible evidence of progress, even if it’s just a milestone on the road to fluency.”

“So… basically, I was on my way to making significant progress towards fluency. If I were to go back, do you think I could pick up where I left off?”

He smiled. “I think there’s only one way to find out.”

Slowly, a strange buzzing noise filled my head, and I realized my eyes were closed, only I felt like I was levitating, much like my French book a few moments ago. Then I realized half of my face was squished against something smooth and hard, and I opened my eyes. I had fallen asleep on my French book. I sighed, and pushed my hair back out of my face. Time to finish my homework.

My Journey through Time with the Doctor

For me, it all began on one of those weekends at home with the family.  We all sat squished up on the couch watching one of those old black-and-white movies showing on OETA, something we enjoyed doing from time to time those days.  After it was over, everyone went their separate ways, most going to bed because it was quite late.  I don't recall anything about the movie, but I remember that I went back after the commercial break, when everyone was gone, to turn off the TV, and a new show had started.

The camera panned out over an old wrought-iron gate as a girl about my age climbed over it, with spooky music playing in the background.  Intrigued, I paused to watch.  The girl entered an old, abandoned (perhaps haunted) mansion, and began to explore, taking pictures.  In one room, she noticed some writing underneath the wall paper that was starting to peel up.  Underneath, she discovered a note, written 38 years previously but addressed to her, saying two things: beware the weeping angels, and duck.  It was signed: The Doctor. Surprised, she paused momentarily.  Then, realizing the significance of the latter part of the message, she gasped and ducked just as a large stone was flung across the room, hitting the wall right where her head had been.  Little did I know that one of my most memorable journeys in the world of science fiction, my journey through time with the Doctor, had just begun.

"Think you've seen it all? Think again. Outside those doors, we might see anything. We could find new worlds, terrifying monsters, impossible things. And if you come with me... nothing will ever be the same again!" -The Doctor

When most people think of shows or movies that changed the history of science fiction, they think of Star Wars and Star Trek.  Indeed, both had huge influences on the evolution of science fiction television.  But without looking at the bigger picture, you miss a lot.  The Pluggedinonline.com review (whose reviews I read often but always with a grain of salt, since they tend to be quite harsh) of Doctor Who says "Before Captain Kirk set his first phaser to stun or HAL 9000 sent his first innocent man into the vacuum of space, the good Doctor was cruising through the airwaves of Britain."  Indeed, while Star Wars and Star Trek may have set the standards for American science fiction television and film, Doctor Who was there before either of them, without the advanced special effects to draw the crowds.  How much earlier, you might ask?  Well, the first episode of Doctor Who was aired on November 23, 1963, years before color television became standard.  And Doctor Who has existed (though not continuously) for 48 years since.  If you were to watch the entire series from beginning to end, you would indirectly learn a great deal about the history of television, everything from the evolution of TV acting to special effects and even computer-generated music.  For a brief history of Doctor Who, check out this six-minute video:

"One may tolerate a world of demons for the sake of an angel." -Reinette (The Girl in the Fireplace, 2.4)

"The thing is, Adam, time travel is like visiting Paris. You can't just read the guidebook, you've got to throw yourself in! Eat the food, use the wrong verbs, get charged double and end up kissing complete strangers! Or is that just me?" -The Doctor (The Long Game, 1.7)

After watching my first episode, Blink (which, by the way, is still my favorite episode) on OETA, I found the rest of the series on Netflix.  In a matter of weeks, I had watched every episode since 2005, when the show had restarted after a 15-year hiatus.  I traveled to the year five billion and sat on the edge of my seat as I witnessed the end of planet Earth.  I traveled back in time and met Shakespeare, and watched him defeat witches with a spell from Harry Potter.  I also found out what really caused Pompeii to be buried (space aliens), and what one thing will survive for billions and billions of years because our kind just likes them too much (books).  I found out what those diet pills really are about (space aliens), what happens when a people long enslaved rise up against a dictator, and that the University of Mars is behind the times.  I traveled with the doctor as he marveled at all the beautiful things in the universe, like the Medusa Cascade, or a supernova.  I watched him save Earth countless times, and the universe at least twice, sometimes at great sacrifice.

Rose: Who are you?
The Doctor: Do you know like we were sayin'? About the Earth revolving? It's like when you're a kid. The first time they tell you that the world's turning and you just can't quite believe it 'cause everything looks like it's standing still. I can feel it. The turn of the Earth. The ground beneath our feet is spinning at 1,000 miles an hour and the entire planet is hurtling around the sun at 67,000 miles an hour, and I can feel it. We're falling through space, you and me, clinging to the skin of this tiny little world, and if we let go... That's who I am. (Rose, 1.1)

The Doctor has taught me many things, some odd, and some extraordinary.  But the one thing the Doctor stands for, for the young and young at heart, is that you can dream such big dreams.  The Doctor represents a universe that is so much bigger than your everyday human can see, a concept he has been teaching children since 1963.  The best way to put it is in the words of the Doctor himself: “You’ve got a lot to look forward to, you know. A normal human life on earth, mortgage repayments, the 9 to 5, a persistent nagging sense of spiritual emptiness. Save the tears for later.... You are so young, aren’t you…And you know right now, every thing’s ahead of you. You could be anything. You could walk among the stars.”

When you're a kid, they tell you it's all "grow up. Get a job. Get married. Get a house. Have a kid, and that's it." But the truth is, the world is so much stranger than that. It's so much darker. And so much madder. And so much better." -Elton (Love and Monsters, 2.10)

Read this if you own a Kindle: common cord problem

Ever since I can remember, one of my favorite ways to pass the time has been to curl up with a good book.  As a kid, I became a master in the art of rapidly hiding a library book at very short notice and striking a natural-looking pose, so I could sneak reads while I was supposed to be studying math. I have since refined my reading methods (and, by the way, passed all necessary math classes).  In January of 2010, I became the proud owner of a hand-me-down Kindle 2, given to me by my dad when he got an upgrade for himself.  My Kindle may be a slightly dated version, but for all intents and purposes, it was everything I ever wanted for reading: a small, portable device capable of containing hundreds of books at any given time.  And believe me, in the almost eight months I have owned it, my Kindle has gotten a lot of use.

Even though I read a lot from my Kindle, I always treated it carefully.  The only time it was ever damaged was the time I dropped it, for which I accept full responsibility, and luckily only the casing was damaged, so it still works perfectly well for reading.  However, the dropping incident did not in any way affect the cord, and the cord is the part I find issue with.

A number of weeks ago, I noticed that on a part of the cord just below the micro-usb end that plugs into the Kindle, the insulation had begun to crack and peel off, exposing part of the wire.  I was surprised, because I hadn't noticed it begin, and it seemed like the kind of thing that would happen over time.  So I showed it to my dad, and we decided duct tape would be the cure.  Upon inspection, however, we found several more places along the wire that had cracks.  So we patched it up, and I went along my merry way.

Skip to present.  I hadn't been paying much attention to the cord, since when I used my kindle I usually focus on the screen.  But today, I inspected the cord only to find that the deterioration had greatly accelerated, and in one place, a piece of insulation the size of the end of my finger had fallen off.  Suddenly, I could see myself being electrocuted as I plugged my Kindle in, or burning the dormitory down in the middle of the night, simply because I wanted to be able to curl up with a good book.  Not acceptable.

So, I checked online to see about ordering a new one.  When I looked at the reviews for the cord, I noticed that several other people had complained of the same problem.  Curious, I checked out the forum, and found this thread: Kindle 2 power cord fell apart.  This thread is full of people posting about the same problem, and there are 1,033 posts.  Wow!  It appears I'm not the only one.  People have complained about their cords falling apart, on average, after two years, but sometimes as early as three or four months.

Even though my Kindle is no longer under warranty, my dad suggested I call customer service about a replacement, since it's a known problem.  And... what do you know? They replaced my cord, free of charge.  They even reimbursed me for shipping.  And the customer service was great too.  Any time I call with a problem, they always say "I'm so sorry for [insert name of problem here]," whether it's my fault or theirs, which I find kind of funny.  My only concern is... is the problem fixed?  Yes, I have a new cord for free, which they technically didn't have to do, since my Kindle's no longer under warranty.  But I have to wonder: will the same thing happen to my next cord?  Or are they going to make them out of better plastic?  Other cords I've owned have lasted for years without problems.  But since Amazon seems to have decided not to issue a recall or a warning, I've decided to issue a warning of my own to my friends who own Kindles:

Regular inspection of your Kindle's cord is recommended for safety.  If you see any signs of cracks or fraying, call Amazon Kindle customer service immediately (1-866-321-8851) for a free replacement.  According to my experience and the posts in the forum, once the damage starts it will progress rapidly.  Expect to replace your cord at least every two years, and at most every three or four months with normal usage.


As soon as my new cord gets here, I'm going to get right back to my favorite pass-time.  Now that I'm an adult, I don't have to hide my reading every time I hear someone coming (although I have to accept full responsibility for my education).  But my Kindle is still my favorite book, because it's more than just a book; it's a medium for reading: it's easy to use, it's very portable, and, for old time's sake, easy to hide.

A Red Sparkle Story, or What I Did This Summer

Once upon a time, in a strange land far, far away, also known as Oklahoma, a young lady returned home from a long voyage abroad only to find that her homeland had been ravaged by a severe drought as well as high rates of unemployment.  Unfortunately in this case, the young lady was (and as a matter of fact, still is) me, and one of those affected by the unemployment was my mother.

                

 Now my mother, who is a psychologist, was looking for a job either teaching or practicing psychology.  However, the giant suburb of a city we were living in did not have many opportunities for that sort of job, so my mother looked elsewhere, which was fine with my dad since his job is done mainly over ye olde internet.  Thus, my parents turned their eyes and search engines elsewhere, and discovered that the Dallas/Fort Worth area had lower rates of unemployment, an abundance of community colleges looking for psychology teachers, and a direct flight to where my dad works.

               

Alas, just as my parents’ idea of relocating was merely beginning to be formed, we received the most dreadful news: our landlady wanted her house back.  And how much time, you might wonder, did we have to find a new place to live? A mere thirty days.  Thus, in a mad rush, our searching began.

                 

Once, twice, thrice we ventured in a southerly direction, spending afternoons searching for houses, but our searches were not fruitful, and were dreadfully exhausting.  The heat was especially trying the day we spent an hour or so waiting in the lawn of a house for the realtor to appear.  When she did arrive, it took some small effort to see past her loquaciousness.  Once we did, however, we discovered an invaluable sagacity acquired from many years of experience.  In other words, she talked a lot, but she was really smart.  This realtor would come to be an incredible aide in finding, and moving into, the proper house.

                 

One particular day, we looked at a rent house whose crooked and sagging floors made us dizzy, and whose rooms reeked of mold and dog pee.  After a brief conference, we decided we could never live there.  Later that same day, we visited a house that stood in stark contrast to that terrible rent house.  Being only eight years since its completion, it was newer than any house we had ever lived in.  The outside was pretty but somewhat plain.  Upon entering, however, the eye was met with a glorious high ceiling, and beautiful arches stretching throughout the walkway, giving the house a certain elegance, and above all, character.  A formal den surrounded by columns was on the left, while a wide staircase on the right swept upward towards the bedrooms.  Farther down, a modern kitchen opened up to the rest of the house, and just above the counters were two glass block windows.  Another plus to the house was its proximity to a large park covered in trails.  This was ideal for my parents since they are avid joggers, and for me, since I enjoy bicycling. 

                 

However, our time was running up.  We only had a week or so left, and the purchase of a home takes time.  Once our offer on the house was under way, we knew we would have one or two weeks of time after our landlady wanted us out of the rent house where we currently lived and before we could move into the new house.  So, we planned to stay with relatives.  After frantically moving all our possessions (except for what we could fit into a few suitcases) into storage, we stayed with my mom’s brother while he was on vacation.  It was almost like being on vacation ourselves, except for the fact that the landlady threatened to keep the deposit for dishonest reasons, and we spent part of the time conferring with a lawyer over the matter.  Later, when my uncle’s family came back from vacation, we went down to Texas to spend the rest of our “homeless time” with my dad’s sister.   Much of that time was very enjoyable as well, what with playing cards in the swimming pool, and other such activities.  However, some of that time was spent conferring with the person putting the flooring in the new house, who kept getting the color wrong, or with the person from the mortgage company, who kept needing more paperwork.

               

Finally, we left for the closing on the house.  In the middle of the long drive there, the mortgage company called and said they couldn’t close that day, and had to put off the closing indefinitely.  We were very frustrated, but we ended up going anyway to stay in a hotel and try to get things settled.  Up until that point, being without a home had never been more than a nuisance to me.  I never lacked for anything; I always knew I would have a place to sleep and food to eat and every worldly necessity, even if I didn’t know where I would be that night.  But after the mortgage company messed up the paperwork and postponed the closing, I felt a taste of the insecurity.  Walking down the sidewalk in the 115 degree heat, getting tired and wishing I could go home, and then realizing I didn’t have a home to go to, was frustrating.  But I knew I was blessed to have a roof over my head each night, wherever it might be.

                 

The day came for my younger sister and I to move into our college dorms, and we still didn’t own the house.  But we had thought ahead.  Everything we would need for our dorms was packed away in a storage room closer to our schools.  So my family temporarily relocated to a hotel near our schools for a few days while we got moved in.  And let me tell you, it was a relief to have a consistent place to sleep.

                 

Now, several weeks after school has started, my parents finally own the lovely new home.  I have been there once since they moved in; it was the weekend the truck came with all our things from storage.  I think I’m going to enjoy my weekends there, and I can’t wait to explore the lovely Dallas/Fort Worth area.  But the moral of this tale is: homelessness stinks, even without poverty.  I can’t imagine how difficult it would be to be affected by both.  So next time you see a homeless person, try to imagine yourself in their place.  

And also, if you were wondering about the title of this story, it is a family inside joke that refers to the name of the company that messed up our paperwork.  You can try and guess what it is if you want, but the name of the company isn't really important.  What is, is realizing that when a company gets so big that bureaucracy ties the hands of the lower level people and keeps them from actually helping customers, that company is too big to be effective.