Adrienne V’s blog

Anise Memories

nobody@vox.com(Adrienne Veronese) — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 19:38:45 -0700

I love to garden, and the herb I love most in my garden is anise. It’s not one I’ve really found much use for in cooking. Fennel is a far more stable source for that flavor in cooked dishes, and while I suppose fresh anise is a novelty in salads, the palate does get bored with even the most exotic flavors, longing for simplicity.

I’ve had the same bottle of anise extract for twenty years. A quarter teaspoon in my mother in law’s pizzelles each Christmas and my husband was transported to his grandmother’s cookie tray, lost in memories of all things Italian.

I grow anise for the smell.

When they were little, I would take the kids walking along the bluffs in Santa Barbara, looking out over Channel Islands. It’s a year-round season there, so it was always in the air, but always slightly different, depending on the weather. Sometimes the salt sea would foam and mix with it just before a storm. When the wind blew down from the Painted Caves, there was a hint of pine mixed with it. In the fog, I was lost in the mystery of just the scent of damp anise surrounding me. The girls would run through the tall wild herb as I fantasized about being far away on an island off Greece, reading a John Fowles novel.

Now I grow it to remember Home. I grow it around my pond in the flowerbed, hoping for a whiff of foam to splash up from the fountain, the scent mixed in of pines that surround this mountain home, far from where they live their lives as adults now. I have no need for fantasies of far away places I’ve never been.

I do have a need to stand in this flowerbed, to close my eyes, be back in a familiar place, where children run laughing, magic is everywhere, and islands within sight hold mysteries we ask a thousand questions about but never really want the answers to.

I use anise to stimulate my most powerful memory inducing sense, to go home and be with my children. They are the ones who brought the flavor that distracted from the bitter, the sweetness to the bland, the mystery to the simple. They are the ones who inspire me to make my diners lift an eyebrow in curious delight, wondering just what flavor combination I've introduced them to. I wink at them and ask if they’ve ever read the Magus. We begin to discuss John Fowles and an island off Greece of mystery and magic.

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A PERFECT MATCH

nobody@vox.com(Adrienne Veronese) — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 03:05:08 -0700

I love horror films! When I saw this quiz, I couldn't resist. ALL I did was answer the questions honestly, and wasn't at all surprised when I matched with the film that started a genre.

I'd been to see Nosferatu as a little girl at Seattle's Grenada Organ Loft. The organist accompanied the film with the score masterfully, those enormous old pipes spanning floor to ceiling in the old Victorian theater.

I knew right there and then that I was hooked for life.

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Shame on you, YUWIE!!!

nobody@vox.com(Adrienne Veronese) — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 01:37:34 -0700

YUWIE: Social Networking With a Twist, or Just Twisted Social Networking?

I like the convenience of a website that allows me to socially network and blog all on one site! It's great to see opportunities expanding on the net for those like me!!!

In September I discovered Yuwie, the first social networking site to pay its members for doing the same things they would on sites like MySpace, Facebook, or Bebo. It's based on the concept of multi-level marketing, with each member being an "uplink" to those who join using their referral code.

I figured I'd give it a try, and had been enjoying the 500+ plus friends and fans of my blogs for about a month, when things began to get twisted on Yuwie. In October, Yuwie administration began offering rewards of referrals to members for reporting "indecent" content found on other member profiles. I assumed they were referring to spammers and those "cam girls", but still found the idea of paying to snitch highly distasteful!!!

The drama alone made logging onto Yuwie a real chore, as many blogs emerged in outrage about the Yuwie "witch hunt". Aside from the incessant talk about how to make more money off of "friends" by getting more referrals, Yuwie "snitches" seemed to be the primary topic of blogs and bulletins on the site for months! I felt pretty confident that my graphic art, nature photography, poetry, and music videos were well within Yuwie's TOS.

So imagine my surprise when I received a notice from Yuwie in late November notifying me that my account was locked for having images on my profile that violate their terms of service! I'd combined photographs, graphics, and music videos in creating my profile. It was impossible to know just WHICH image they found offensive! Because none of it was in violation of Yuwie's clearly defined TOS, the best I could do was remove all of it and start over!

As soon as I completed the changes, I notified Yuwie that my account was ready to be reviewed, and hopefully unlocked.

In the FOUR MONTHS that I waited for my account to be unlocked, I got curious and began Googling for blogs on the net about strange happenings with Yuwie. I found a few that seemed to be placed there for the benefit of Yuwie members jumping in to sing the praises of the website. One blog I found by Googling "Yuwie scams" mistakenly referred to Yuwie as a "pyramid scheme"! Curiously, not one blog mentioned the ongoing issue of Yuwie rewarding its members to snitch on their social networking friends.

But shortly after the mysterious unlocking of my profile recently, I found a forum on Yuwie, calling itself "the Yuwie Lockouts", and began to read about the nightmare experiences of other members subjected to the Yuwie twist. Very little about Yuwie makes much sense, but one thing is made abundantly clear. Whoever is running the site needs to sit down and read Miss Manners.

The variety of incongruous stories of the many victims of perplexing lockouts has made my head spin! The many Yuwie members I've encountered who were locked out were not caught spamming, were not lurking "cam girls", or sneaking indecency onto the "age fourteen and over" site! They were, however, exposed to a heavy dose of rudeness, Yuwie style. One could easily say Yuwie has used such badly twisted manners that it's taken indecency to a whole new level!

Here is one example of Yuwie's "decency" with a confused member that had been locked out, when he wrote to ask just what on his profile had been in violation....

"Dear Customer

Your support ticket: #xxxxx has been replied to.

Response: Read the message you were sent. It states: "Your profile layout violates our terms. I guess you read it, because your profile is now fine. Your account is unlocked.

Thank you, Yuwie Support Team"

SUPPORT Team??!!! Does that seem very supportive to you? Or just arrogant and rude?

Yuwie also scores low points for its choice in advertisers. For a site boasting high standards in decency, one Yuwie member put it succinctly when she mentioned one indecent advertisement commonly seen on the site: "I think it is horrible that on a "decent" site there [are] ads urging sex starved spouses to leer over to another site to have dirty casual sex."

Gee, that's a GREAT and oh so very decent message for Yuwie to be giving fourteen year olds about marriage!

The final point Yuwie's managed to score in its losing streak with me came in just this week, when Yuwie messaged me, with no explanation or apology about my four month lockout. The message was simply to tell me that Yuwie had "randomly" given me a referral, and provided the link if I wanted to add the member as a friend! When I went to the profile, it had no avatar and was marked "Private". Sorry, Yuwie, but that's just plain creepy!

I'm not sure another website with the ambition Yuwie started out with could behave in such a thoroughly confusing, perplexing, rude, unpleasant, migraine inducing, and uh...indecent way. If anyone should happen to suggest you give Yuwie a try, consider it an indecent proposal.

Guess what, Yuwie? Bad manners earns you only one thing, even on the internet...

Shame on you, YUWIE!!!

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Differences: A Profile

nobody@vox.com(Adrienne Veronese) — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 00:47:05 -0700

When you find yourself storming out in tears and slamming the door behind you, be certain of the intention behind the words that set you off. You could find yourself on a journey that leads you back to where you started, wondering if anyone will still be there loving you and understanding you that clearly again. There's a difference between being sensitive and being fragile.

...just a thought

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Buena Vista Social Club - Chan Chan

nobody@vox.com(Adrienne Veronese) — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 00:15:04 -0700

DANCE!!!

Buena Vista Social Club - Chan Chan

Buena Vista Social Club Chan Cuba Latin Jazz Salsa Estambul Aqui İbrahim Ferrer Compay Segundo Eliades Ochoa Omara Portuondo Ray Cooder Fenerbahçe

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