All posts by Dona

I have issues: Part 4 — Fear of Annoying People

Social Media, , , , , ,

I hate to be a bother. I hate to annoy people. I get worked up about possibly saying the wrong thing to someone at a party and worry about it the next day, and beyond. I don’t know how normal this is. I don’t normally talk about it, but I know it is the root of a few of my character flaws, like why I usually wait for people to call me, rarely initiate things with friends and why I dislike asking for help of any kind. I don’t want to bother them if they are in the middle of something. I don’t want to annoy them with my request. I don’t run my air conditioner if I don’t absolutely have to because a neighbor complained that it was loud — I wouldn’t want to bother her in her quietly air conditioned house. I just want to live my life and not be a bother to anyone.

Until the past couple of years this issue only manifested itself in real life, but lately I’ve been more conscious of feeling this way about my online interactions. For instance, when I first became active in Facebook I had all sorts of things streaming on my “wall”. I had my twitter feed and my friendfeed sent to my Facebook wall. I also allowed whatever app I was using on Facebook to be sent to my wall. These notices were then sent to my Facebook friends’ newsfeeds and I annoyed at least one person enough that he deleted me from his friends. When I asked him about it he suggested I join twitter if I wanted to update my status as often as I seemed to be updating it. I explained that it was twitter that was doing it.

Anyway, after that I tried to limit what was posted to my wall. I made a few mistakes, but seemed to be doing fine. Lately, however, a number of people are posting status reports that they are annoyed by other people’s wall posts. Of course (another of my issues is thinking that I’m to blame for everything) I assumed they were talking about my wall posts. Was my app/external site usage being seen by my followers and I didn’t know it? I searched the settings and double checked that what I was doing on Facebook was not annoying anyone. Not bothering them.

And then there is this blog. The theme or the plugins or the widgets is causing problems with commenting and viewing. I’ve spent entire days troubleshooting and have not found an answer.

This is one issue that is not going to be fixed by writing a post about it. I expect that I’ll have this issue until the day I die. I imagine it is part of a larger issue.

So if I annoy you in real life or on Facebook or on Twitter or on my blog, please accept my apologies. I really don’t do it on purpose.

17 Airedale Drive

Memories, , , ,

17 Airedale Dr
Horsforth, Leeds
LS18 5ED
UK

I don’t know how many times I wrote that address on letters and packages nor how many times getting a letter or package from that address made me very happy. Hundreds probably. I do know, however, that I’ll never write it on a letter again nor will I ever receive a letter from that address. (Although, in all honesty, it has been years since I did send a letter to 17 Airedale Drive.)

17 Airedale Drive in 1974
17 Airedale Drive in 1974

You see, it has been sold, or I’m fairly certain it has been sold. Yes, a Google search confirms it has been sold. I suspected as much when I received Jeremy’s Christmas letter this year and saw that Pat, his mother, moved into his house after a 6 month stay in a hospital.

Jeremy and his family lived at 17 Airedale Drive when I first met them. 17 Airedale Drive was where I stayed during my visits to England between 1974 and 1979. I have a lot of wonderful memories of that house with its beautiful rose garden in front and the front door with the stained glass window. I remember sharing Jeremy’s room with Sue and, on another visit sleeping in the tiny bedroom in front. I remember the kitchen with the tiny pass-through door to the dining room and the front lounge area with the comfy furniture. I remember the back garden where I had my first bread, cheese and wine meal.

So today I found myself Googling 17 Airedale Drive to see if it had been sold and saw that Google Street View was implemented along Airedale Drive. I’d been waiting for this — it was not in place when I wrote my entry about Google Street View in my neighborhood. I wanted to see what 17 Airedale Drive looked like now.

17 Airedale Drive in 2009
17 Airedale Drive in 2009

I sort of wish I hadn’t though. Jack’s roses are gone. A side addition was built — probably to expand the kitchen. But perhaps that was there in 2002 when we visited Pat. The back garden looks nice though — but the mural Jeremy painted on the garage doors is gone.

So someone else is living at 17 Airedale Drive. Someone is making their own memories in that house. Do they, I wonder, ever stop and think about the memories already made there? Probably not. And that’s okay.

Noodles on a snowy weekend

Food
Noodles drying on pans
Home Made Noodles

I remember walking into my mom’s kitchen once and seeing bowl after bowl edged with drying noodles. She explained that she was making homemade noodles for dinner. Her friend, Joan, taught her how*. I thought it was weird since store-bought noodles were not that expensive and had to be easier than making one’s own. After eating the noodles made by my mom I realized that home-made noodles were better than store-bought and maybe even worth the trouble.

I don’t know how many more times mom made noodles, but the memory of the taste and texture of those noodles stayed with me for a long time. I always looked for the thickest noodles at the store when I was planning on making something that involved noodles. I did find some nearly perfect noodles at a specialty store, but have not been able to find them since that first time.

So a few months ago I made a dish that called for noodles. I didn’t have any in the house (or perhaps the flour bugs got into them and I had to toss them) and didn’t want to go to the store, so I looked up noodle recipes online. I found a few, but nothing looked like the noodles my mom made. I could have called her, but thought she might not remember the recipe. Anyway, I finally found a recipe that looked about right — and it was delicious. (I added 1 tsp of dried thyme to give the noodles more flavor).

I made the noodles again last weekend during one of the snowstorms and Dean made Beef Burgundy. We’re still eating it since he made a double batch, mistakenly thinking Andrew and his friends were going to stay for dinner. (I didn’t think they would — since beef stew, even by another name, tastes the same to teenage boys).

Anyway, try the recipe sometime. We’ve had it with beef stew and with chicken soup. Both were very yummy.

*Joan also taught my mom how to make sausage, but I’m not interested in anything that has to do with pig intestines