Published in The Authentic Eclectic·Jun 21I Made a Poke Cake, And It’s Every Bit As Good As I RememberLet’s keep riding the retro cake train to Groovytown — It’s the Sweet Summer of Cake at my house. I’ve been dusting off old recipes and remembering old baking skills, experimenting with cakes I used to make when I was a kid in the 1970s. These Five 70s Cakes Have Been On My Mind Oh, sweet nostalgiamedium.com First stop on the retro cake rail line was a chocolate snack cake. Though I…Recipe Review4 min read
Published in Crow’s Feet·Jun 19These Five 70s Cakes Have Been On My MindOh, sweet nostalgia — My mission: to recreate the best desserts of my childhood I’ve been baking lately, after decades away from the craft. Maybe it was all those hours of The Great British Baking Show, or maybe writing my memoir jump-started my nostalgia. Whatever the reason, I’ve been making retro cakes and taking them to work to test on my coworkers. With mixed…Crows Feet Writing Prompt8 min read
Published in The Authentic Eclectic·Jun 17Four Ds Can Help You Reach and Maintain Inbox ZeroChapter 2: Hint — They’re not distraction, despair, dread, and defeat — Chapter 1 of this two-part series covered getting rid of 85% of your email inbox by aggressively deploying “unsubscribe” and unchecking automatic subscription offers whenever you surf or shop. Chapter 2 is about the 15% you still have. The four Ds of inbox management have become second nature for me…Inbox Zero8 min read
Published in The Authentic Eclectic·Jun 14The Scaffold of Sanity Needs Every Level — and the Building on Which it Leans — to StandWe’re just one broken plank away from succumbing — The rage and the ruin Five or six years ago, after a stressful year at work with a coworker who gaslit and undermined me, I found myself in a swamp of constant fury. The most minor setback set me off. When I wasn’t raging, I wasn’t giving a damn. I was phoning it all in…Mental Health6 min read
Published in The Authentic Eclectic·Jun 6She Said It Would Be A Spa Day, But She LiedA tale from the dog bed, by Jessie A. — Tales from the Dog Bed is a series by Jessie A., an 8-pound big-eared big-hearted terrier mix. Jessie loves to talk about her lives. Not just her life today, in Santa Monica, but also her past lives, which she remembers as though they were yesterday. …Series8 min read
Published in The Authentic Eclectic·Jun 3How My Inbox Stays At ZeroChapter 1: It takes a team — You have to trust your team I watch enough baseball to know there are nine players on the field. Not just one. I’m disappointed when an umpire call doesn’t go my team’s way, but I know that isn’t important. Umpires are consistent; if he calls a strike when my team’s at bat, he’ll call that same…Inbox Zero6 min read
May 30The Stillness of a Memorial Day MorningAnd every morning for the mourned — Memorial Day means many things. For children too young to remember or too young to understand, it’s the first real day of summer. Shorts and t-shirts. Picnics and barbecues. Hot dogs and burgers on the grill. Heaping bowls of red, white, and blue fruit (strawberries, watermelon, cherries, honeydew, white peaches…Memorial Day2 min read
Published in The Authentic Eclectic·May 28The Three-Month Clothes Buying SabbaticalI need a reset from buying duds that turn out to be duds — I’ve been on a tear these past few weeks, buying clothes and footwear for the new season. Tops. Bottoms. Dresses. Shoes. Sandals. Handbags. It all started a few weeks ago. Ahead of the approaching spring season, I culled through the winter wear and put a pile of reject-but-still-wearables in the…Clothes Shopping6 min read
Published in The Authentic Eclectic·May 24That 70s Cake, And Yes, I Do Mean Carrot CakeSo retro, so easy, so good — I was a kid in the 1970s when carrot cake exploded onto the dessert scene. …1970 S Food6 min read
Published in Crow’s Feet·May 22When Was The Last Time You Read A Newspaper?On paper, that is — I’ve been doing orientation for grad school these last few days. Online, of course. One class module discussed resources for research when writing papers. The school library was offered, mostly as a portal for online access to peer-reviewed papers and journals, not so much a stately brick-and-mortar building full of…Crows Feet Writing Prompt5 min read
