So, it's come to this

This is not to bore you non-Farmville folks with details of a stupid game; this entry is only to illustrate cabin fever at its worst.  
On Farmville you can have all sorts of animals, plants, and trees.  You harvest crops and get paid; you build wineries and bakeries to use your crops.  You join co-ops so you can work together with friends for a bonus.
It's nothing but a time-waster.  
Oh, and you have to beg from your Farmville friends all the time; if you have a hungry dog, you beg for bones.  If you need watering cans for your trees, you beg for water, because it takes ten watering cans to get a tree from a sapling to a grown, producing tree.  
Yeah.  This is an old woman telling you this nonsense.  With age comes wisdom?  Obviously not.
So, on Farmville one can buy a nice little square orchard that holds twenty trees, so you can harvest those twenty trees all at once.  
Hang on here, I'm getting ready to illustrate how bad things can get when you're housebound, longing for spring and gardening weather.   

I decided it might be a good idea to buy a separate orchard for each variety of tree I have:  Grapefruit trees in one, peach trees in one, etc.  Do you see my many orchards along the edge of my farm, going all the way around the corner?  
So I am forced to beg my Farmville friends for water for the latest seedling tree, and for boards, bricks and nails to build yet another orchard, because some varieties of trees are still mixed in with other varieties.  
I think the time has come for the men in the white coats to come and haul me away.    


On a positive note, I've become a millionaire on Farmville.  

Memories and stuff

This is the main street of North Kansas City; judging by the cars, this picture must have been taken around 1950; however, it looked about the same in 1960.
That Woolworth store on the right was where I held down my first job, after school during the Christmas season.  On the left is Katz Drug, which is where I got most all my 45-RPM records of Elvis and Pat Boone and Conway Twitty.  On the left side of the street further back is a store that was called "Three Sisters".
Henry Hornet, the North Kansas City High School mascot, put this picture on Facebook.  Wow, what memories.
Now some silliness.  I almost hate to share this because I know how stupid it sounds, an old lady playing silly farming games.  So if it seems too crazy to you, just stop reading and send the men in the white coats after me.
On Farmville, you send gifts to your farming friends and they send gifts to you:  cows, chickens, building materials for barns (nails, boards, etc.).  At Christmas time there are special gifts and games we play.
So, there's this snowman.  You can't just by the snowman; oh no, your friends have to send you piles of snow until there are enough, then you have your basic snowman.  Then you have to beg friends for buttons and a carrot nose and a scarf.  I got all that done, and the only thing left was to get the magic hat, which makes the snowman dance.
Farmville told me I had to get the hat from one of two people.  Nobody else could send it.  The two people, though, don't play Farmville any more.  But I saw someone else's snowman dancing, and I really wanted mine to dance!  So I went to my friend's wall and begged her for a favor.
She told me she sent me the hat; wouldn't you know Farmville decided to be ornery?  It won't load, so I can't see whether my snowman got his hat or not.
I took a video earlier of somebody else's snowman dancing.  Looks like this is the only one I'm going to see for awhile.





I think I need to get a life; can I hear an "amen"?

Slow Internet

Don't you hate when your computer is suddenly as slow as molasses?  
I spend a lot of time farming on Facebook; so the first thought I had was, "Facebook is messing up again."  
Because lots of times, Facebook (or Farmville) is the culprit.  So I tried some websites that normally load instantly for me, such as Craigslist.  Good grief, they were barely inching along.  
I downloaded a Farmville toolbar to my Firefox browser yesterday, a toolbar that snags all the free gifts to my gift box automatically so I don't miss any goodies.  I know, most of you don't have a clue what I'm talking about.  But trust me, if you play Farmville, this toolbar is a must-have.  
Chrome is my browser of choice, but the toolbar only works on IE and Firefox.  So once I installed it on Firefox, I minimized that browser so it could snag all the gifts for me, and used Chrome for surfing.  
Last night, things were moving slower and slower.  My first thought was that I should not have downloaded that toolbar.  I always blame myself first for any computer problem, because I am such a non-techie person.  
Next thought to run through my head was this:  "Dang it, if this were a PC instead of a Mac, I could take it anywhere to get it worked on; now I'll have to get it to the Plaza in downtown Kansas City."  
This morning I turned on my computer and it was still slow.  Slower even than dialup, if you can believe that.  
"I've messed my my Mac," I thought.  
Cliff got up early this morning, opened up the laptop to check Craigslist and said, "This thing is barely moving."  
So it isn't my Mac!  It's the Internet connection!   
I called a Century Link tech.  
I always hate to do this, because I know it will involve a huge chunk of time and a lot of frustration as I turn off and turn on and unplug and replug everything involved with my computer, crawling on my hands and knees under a cluttered desk.  
Once I had explained our problem, the tech guy said, "OK, go to start..."
"I'm on a Mac," I told him.  "I don't have 'start'."  
"Oh; we're all Windows people here, so let me get some instructions."
I had a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach, but it was unwarranted.  He did just fine helping me on my Mac.  
Just as I had expected, I was told to unhook the router; the computer was plugged in to a filter, and I removed that.  He told me to click on one thing and another, type in this and that (hash?), read to him what came up, turn things off, put wires into different holes.  Whew.   
But when we were through, my computer was up to speed once again, and I thanked the man.  
"One more thing," he said.  "How would you rate Century Link as an Internet provider?  Would you recommend us?"  
"That question really isn't applicable," I said.  "We're out in the country and don't have any other options."  
If I had a choice, I'd have cable; it's faster than DSL.  But I don't, so I didn't bother to tell him that.
"Well then, how would you rate the help you've just received, on a scale of one to five?"  
"Oh, you've earned yourself a five."  
"Thank you very much; is there anything else I can do to help you?"  
"Nope."  
The things I have to do in order to play on my Farmville farm.  

Small world indeed

Last night my wireless router stopped working.  I turned everything off and went to bed, hoping it would fix itself by morning.  It didn't.   
I unhooked the router and connected the modem directly to my computer.  Internet happened!  Unfortunately, we need the wireless router in order for Cliff to use his laptop in the living room.  When he and I were taking our walk this morning, I explained our options.  
"I could call Linksys tech support," I said.  "I'll be talking to someone in India, so I never know whether I'll be able to understand them.  And I may have to pay a fee; I had to the last time I called them (to secure our Internet) because we've had our router for years.  I think the fee was good for six months' support, though; I wonder if it's been six months."  
Cliff didn't offer much in the way of feedback.  
"It would probably be easier to run to Oak Grove and get a new router," I said.  
Silence.  We were just in Oak Grove yesterday, after our ride.
As we arrived back at the house, I gave a long sigh and said, "OK, I guess I'll try calling tech support in India."  
The lady who answered spoke English with such fluency, it took me awhile to realize she did indeed have a faint accent.  
I was on the phone with her for at least an hour; Cliff says it was longer.  She had me undo some cords, type numbers into my address bar, click this, click that, stick a pin in a hole.  In the process, there were long pauses when we had to wait for something to happen, so she struck up a conversation with me.
"Where do you live," she asked.  
Totally forgetting she wasn't even in this country, I answered, "The Kansas City, Missouri, area."  
"Oh, is it almost summer there?"  
"It's spring," I told her.  
And we went on to talk about my garden.  
"What sort of things do you do on the Internet," she asked.  "Do you game?"  
"The only games I play online are on Facebook."  
"Which ones do you play?"  
"Mostly Farmville," I said.  "Sometimes a little Yoville."  
"Oh, I like Farmville too," she exclaimed.  "Do you play Farm Town?"  
"I used to, but I like Farmville better; a person can only play so many games."  
The conversation went on like that; at one point she said she was enjoying talking to me because "You're fun."  
So, later on Cliff and I went to the dentist.  I needed an adjustment, and Cliff had to turn in his partial for a couple of days to get a broken tooth fixed.  The dental assistant told us to both come on in together.  
When it was Cliff's turn, I said, "Oh, here I am without my camera!  I could be taking pictures of Cliff in the dentist's chair."  
"You like to take pictures of him doing things like that?"  
"I have a blog," I explained, "and I have a lot of fun with pictures like that."  
"On Facebook?"  
"No, on Blogger; I do have a Facebook account, though."  
"Do you farm?"  
At first I thought she was changing the subject; then I realized she meant the Facebook games.  
"Yes, I enjoy Farmville."  
"Oh, me too," she responded.  "What level are you?"  
"Thirty-seven, I think."
She said she thought she was somewhere around that level too.
"Sometimes I get bored with it," I said, "but then they come up with something new, like the co-op farming, and the puppies."  
"I know!  Do you have a puppy yet?"  
"Yes," I answered.  "I just got mine this morning."  
Now seriously, did you ever think grown-up people in so many countries from all walks of life would be discussing a pretend farming game so enthusiastically?  
What a world we live in.

Now I understand

You probably wonder what cave I came out of, to not know how Feta cheese should be used.

Thanks to a reader, I know now that it is not for cooking.

That's probably where my Fancy macaroni went wrong. Maybe I'll give it another chance one of these days.

Thanks to the Internet, I found out I can freeze Feta cheese in small batches and use it in salads, of which we'll probably be having many, very soon.

Have you ever met someone who refused to share a prized recipe? I wonder if this is the reason: They're afraid people will take liberties with the recipe and then blame them for the dish's failure. I've had it happen to me.

I am already so tired of winter! I'm too old to wish my life away, so I won't do that. But I'm starting to see why snowbirds like my sister spend the cold months in the South. I think I'll start haunting the seed catalogue websites and planning my next garden; that should get me out of my funk. I've been known to plant peas and lettuce in February; that isn't so far away.

I actually bought some milk yesterday at the store. As I told Cliff, since I don't have to milk the cow, I'm not going to, during this miserable weather. It isn't the cold temperatures that get me, it's the mess. It's really hard to clean up an animal that spends time lying in a dirty shed trying to stay out of the cold. Back when I milked lots of cows, I thought nothing of the cleanup part of it, although I really had no option anyway.

Since Bonnie's calf takes care of the milk, I don't have to worry about it. I like having that freedom.

I'm back to playing that silly "Farmville" on Facebook. It's never too cold to milk my cows and raise crops there! You can even have snowdrifts and snowmen next to your garden, and things will grow just fine. The only way crops will fail is if you don't harvest them in time, and even then it's no big deal. I find it humorous that it isn't children playing these time-wasting games: it's adults like me.

Here's my farm; as you can see, my cows are all in the dairy barn, nice and clean. The snowdrifts given to me as gifts by my neighbors have no effect on the rice and watermelons growing nearby. Kind neighbors come by while I'm sleeping and fertilize my crops for me, chasing away foxes and pulling weeds.

In real life, the only weed my neighbor would pull on my property would be the morel mushrooms that pop up in the spring; or the marijuana that grows wild at the back of the place, a result of the crops of hemp raised back during the Civil War.

These are my barns, and you can see I have a tractor that makes my plowing go faster and a harvester (the blue thing) that helps me harvest faster. Oh yes, everything is up-to-date on my farm. To show you how amazing this Internet world is: John, whose farm, as you can see, is next to mine, is the man who interviewed me for my job at Kohl's in the year 2000. He's a wonderful person, but I would never have expected to have heard from him again, since we don't run in the same circles or live near one another; we really aren't even all that well acquainted. And we neither one work at Kohls any more.

But one thing led to another, and here we are playing silly farm games together. Another of my Farmville neighbors was my first assistant supervisor when I started at Kohls... one of the best bosses I ever had. Another neighbor is my sweet, funny Jessica.

Say what you will about Facebook. I'm loving it!

I'm also loving how easy it is to take screenshots with my Mac. I'm loving how easy EVERYTHING is with my Mac!