CREAMY RICE AND RAISIN PUDDING

        Okay here is the rice pudding recipe. as you can see someone very carefully hand printed the recipe onto a "recipe card" many years ago. this was in the day when cooks exchanged recipes and long before computers .

        So this comes from a time when the Micro Manager was a very young woman. Notice the neat and definite printing.

       So since some of you asked for the rice pudding recipe , here it is.

   I had a lot of fun with this post and in particular your comments. I was surprised so many of you liked rice pudding and that much cooking was being done since we have been locked down.

COMFORT FOOD

     With being tied down in "jail" things are getting boring. I still haven't got disciplined to do some activities that can be done. Yes, it's spring and cleaning should be done. Yes, I could work on the family tree. None of these things are happening.

    We spend most of our time talking about the elephant in the room. There is much to talk about . There's the news. There's the virus and what it is like. There are so many unknowns. 

    So what does Red do? He makes some of his favorite food. I like rice pudding. I like most puddings but rice pudding is probably my favorite. I found a simple recipe ...one that I can follow and end up with rice pudding.

    So here I am hard at work.

     Now the best rice pudding was made by my Mom. She made her rice pudding in the oven. This pudding ended up with a skin on top. When we were little guys we used to fight to get the very delicious skin.

    So have a great day. What foods are you making while you're cooped up trying to not get the virus?

   

APRIL FIRST AND NO SPRING

      Okay, most of my followers have very nice spring weather. That's the way it should be for April 1.

      Meanwhile I'm left looking forward to spring from winter. Today we had a high of minus 12 C (10 F). There was a blustery  wind. It was far from a spring day. It would even be classified as a nasty winter day.

     Needless to say, very little winter snow has melted. The first snow melts off the roof. From my photo you can see that snow is still on the roof of all houses.

    So at 7:30 Pm I was sadly looking out the window when I thought this is a good day to mark a very late spring.

       So lots of snow on the roof.

     I noticed the evening sun on a wall. When I looked at the photo I thought this would be good for one of those fence photos. You  can see three separate fences and a shadow of a fence.

Ordering : Going to Hell in a Handbasket of Deplorables

They can order it online from lulu.com.  Just have to search "hell in a handbasket" and it comes up.  

    I hope this works for those who would like the book.

MY DAUGHTER JUST WROTE A BOOK!

     For some reason or other both of my kids are excellent writers. They wrote very well through school and university. They are both excellent readers. They read at a much higher level than I do. They also read a tremendous amount.

     So it was a big surprise that I got a package the other day with a book that my daughter had written. It was no surprise that she had written a book.

    She has written a small (66 pages) very tongue in cheek book on anger management (self help) regarding the political situation in her country (U.S.A.)

    So she's made an activity book that gets people to do all kinds of activities to get rid of their anger about American politics  and along the way think about things.

    The book is called Going to Hell in a Handbasket of Deplorables by M Arentz. To give you an idea of her sense of humor she said, "Mom and Dad , you knew I really couldn't help myself!"

WHAT KIND OF VIRUS HAVE I GOT?

      I am the only and official dishwasher around this place. No complaints about my job.

      So today I was washing the lunch dishes. About a quarter of the way through doing the dishes I noticed that the water in the sink had disappeared. Then I noticed that the plug at the bottom of the sink was gone. Wow , did the plug go down the drain ? I quickly decided that that was stupid. 

     Then I looked around for the plug. It wasn't on the drain board. It wasn't in the other sink. It wasn't on the counter. It appeared that it wasn't anywhere in the kitchen

    Just then, out of the corner of my eye I spotted the plug sitting nicely on the little shelf I made for it.

   Now there was no one else in the room to remove the plug out of the sink. I had to be the culprit. I had no memory of removing the plug. 

    So my question to you is , what kind of virus do I have that I would remove the sink plug before I was finished dishes and not remember that I did it?

CALL CENTERS

     I have ranted about this topic a few times already. Yes, I'm not happy at all with call centers.

     Just when you think they can't be any worse they get worse. Recently. I have waited more than two hours and then hung up. Recently, I have tried to speak to people who  have very limited English skills. I've tried to talk to people who have no clue of what they are supposed to be talking about. And worse, I have talked to people who could care less about what you want to know. The worst are those who are just dishonest little dummies.

     How are call centers able to operate and be paid for such poor service? Why do companies hire call centers that are poor performers?

    What really got me thinking about the call center topic again is that I've been doing income tax so wanted information on a couple of things. I could not get a satisfactory answer. 

    So with such incredibly poor service , I began to think about what we could do to bring about some changes. 

    Several changes were brought in to make the airline industry give better service in a few areas.

    So why not get some regulations for the call center business. 

    First set a minimum time that they have to answer a call. Five minutes maximum to answer any call. Agreed? The public has a right to decent treatment . Answering a phone in a very timely manner sounds fair to me.

   Then language skills testing must be developed. Call center employees must have a basic language skill so that they can be understood 90% of the time. A standard language test must be given.

   Call center employees must have a good knowledge of the products they are dealing with. Call centers should have to test employees. If the employee doesn't know the product , they can find some other line of work.

   So you see where I'm going with this. Call centers must perform or they face fines for poor performance. 

   Agreed? Now we have to get busy and complain to whoever will listen. Make lots of noise. Let's see if we can get some changes.