Perle Champion

Ever blocked or been blocked on Facebook? Solutions.

19 Mar 2014 Leave a comment

by Perle Champion in Facebook Blocking, Perle Champion

Caution! This is a rant! Have you ever blocked or been blocked by someone on Facebook?

Trolls – should be blocked.

The trolls that stalk women on-line should be blocked. I’ve had more than my fair share lately. My procedure is simple when I get those strange requests. No one should automatically click yes to a friend request without checking them out unless they know the person. When in doubt, do the following:

Check the picture – No picture – no way.
Check out their About tab and see what they’re about.
Note when they joined Facebook. Most of these guys are real new.
Check their friend list. There are usually very few and almost always women recently acquired.
Decline and when they try again, and they do – block them immediately and consider reporting.

Friend (or so you thought) – who block you.

There are two people who blocked me after what I thought was a silly difference of opinion. I know – so junior high – but what can you do. I was okay with that until I found out that once blocked:

They can still see me if they choose, but
I cannot see them – trust me. I ran an experiment with a friend, so I know it’s possible.

Unacceptable. No hard feelings, but if I can’t see you, I’ll be darned if you will be privy to my posts or comments. Solutions abound – I love the internet.

Thing is, once someone has blocked you, there is only one way to return the favor. You have to have their exact FaceBook contact and/or FaceBook email which is on their ‘About’ tab under Contact Information. If they have already blocked you, you can’t see that page, so you must use other options to find it.

Option 1

Type their name along with FaceBook into Google search. This works for uncommon names.
Copy the url given before clicking on it to see if it takes you to their page.
Getting on their page says you have the wrong address.
Getting a Facebook ‘sorry broken’ message means you have the right address.
Proceed to the dropdown box under the little padlock (top right), select ‘how to stop people from bothering me’ and paste the address in it. Confirm and you’re done.

Option 2 – if it’s really important to you.

Open a brand new page with another e-mail address and go find them this way (delete this page when done).
Go to someone’s page you have in common (a real friend or sibling).
Scroll through all their friends until you find the person in question.
Go to that person’s About tab on their page and voila.
Copy their contact info (whichever one has FaceBook as part of their name or email).
Close this temporary page and log back onto your account.
Proceed to the dropdown box under the little padlock (top right), select ‘how to stop people from bothering me’ and paste the address in it. Confirm and you’re done.

Success! No more peek-a-boo. I know – so Jr. High. End of Rant/Tutorial.

Question: Have you had occasion to block another or have you been blocked, and if so, what did you do. I’d like to hear your story.

The Cloud Dweller for National Faery Tale Day

26 Feb 2014 Leave a comment

by Perle Champion in Clouds, Memoir, Perle Champion, Poetry

I love Faery Tales. I read them and had them read to me when I was a child, and I had my favorites. I was not the princess. I liked the regular girls best before they gained that status. Cinderella and Beauty were the daughters of merchants/storekeepers; Red Riding Hood was a woodcutter’s only child; the heroine of Rumpelstiltskin was a miller’s daughter – and so on.

When I liked the ending as in Rumpelstiltskin I went with the story. Of course I was the miller’s daughter who triumphed over the wicked little creature who would steal my child.

Red Riding Hood I revised when I read it to myself. I was she, but in my version the wolf did not eat me, because I was so tough and so smart. It was I who rescued my grandmother just before my father arrived.

I pondered my propensity to make stories including faery tales suit my ideal – walk on clouds so to speak or ‘head in the clouds’ as momma put it. I wrote the below poem in one of those moments when I had fallen through those insubstantial clouds to the reality of a disabled child and sick husband, and…

The Cloud Dweller

far away

and long ago

there is a child

perle velvet cropped 5

i used to know

with wide bright eyes

asking why

but deep insidenot out loud

why that way

and not my

way

those clouds those

insubstantial

faery vapors which

upheld us

have given way

to the ground

i wonder if

we shall walk

together

as easily as we

flew

Cloud Dweller © Perle Champion 11/25/80

Sixty-Five and Asking – Now What?

24 Feb 2014 Leave a comment

by Perle Champion in Journaling, Memoir, Perle Champion

I started my cozy on the 14th and wrote 2-3 chapters and then I got sidetracked. The following week lead up to my 65th birthday of February 23. I found myself celebrating the whole week with various friends over long breakfasts, lunches, happy hours at favorite places all culminating with a great Sunday afternoon at my friends’ Daniel Day Gallery-Dream Mecca Studio. Daniel Day and Melody Musik truly are a renaissance couple.

The Gallery is a unique venue of live music (blues); art; sculpture; photography; handcrafted jewelry, clothing, and accessories; vintage clothing; and more than I have space to tell. Every Sunday afternoon from 2-6 there’s a party that overflows in beautiful weather onto the large patio out back. It’s byob and a cover charge of $12 covers the food hot from the grill, and pays the band. This Sunday, the sun came out to shine on all of us and the Jeff Jensen Band from Memphis rocked the house. Melody Musik who plays Clarinet in her band (yes, she’s a musician, too) played a Happy Birthday solo just for me.

My week-long celebration did include a lot of writing just not on my Cozy. I’ve been journaling as if my life depended on it. My journal is the running memoir of my life, and good or bad there is always something to write at any given moment. I remember reading Alice Koller’s 1991 book An Unknown Woman, which is basically her journal during a period of self-examination.

I feel I am at that place in my life now. I’ve toyed with writing my own ‘unknown woman’ memoir tentatively titled A Not-Yet Famous Woman – A Memoir, or considering the content maybe A Not-Yet Infamous Woman – A Memoir.

Being a Pisces, I am two fish. One goes with the flow wherever it goes; one fights its way upstream. I’ve no doubt that for some years now, I’ve taken the easy float with the current style of getting by. But now, I see my mother in her 80’s, and know I may have 20 or more years left to me. It’s not enough to go with the flow anymore. In rereading my old journals and journaling anew I’m exploring that fish that knew when to fight the current – not every day, but when it mattered.

At 65 I’m saying out loud what I’ve always known. It’s not enough to exist. I’ve become a woman of a certain age and I ask myself – Now What?

Writing the Cozy Mystery – a book review

14 Feb 2014 1 Comment

by Perle Champion in Nancy J. Cohen, Perle Champion, Writing the Cozy Mystery

A few days ago one of my favorite cozy writers, Nancy J. Cohen posted on Facebook that her new book Writing the Cozy Mystery was available in Kindle for all of 99 cents. I bought it immediately, and I just verified that is still on sale for 99 cents.

I’ve been reading a lot of different mysteries for some time, that are referred to as Cozy Mysteries or just cozies. I was reminded about a few interesting characters from my never published post 2012 novel, that I thought would be interesting and fun enough to have a novel of their own instead of being in a sidekick role (excerpt below). I wondered:

1. Could I write a Cozy?

2. Is it hard work?

3. Is there some kind of formula?

The answers are yes, yes and yes. The book does not disappoint. I feel as if I’ve been gifted with a precise step by step road map to writing a good first draft. I’m actually cutting and pasting some sections into a word document to give me direction in outlining my first ever foray into Cozy writing. NOTE: To cut and paste, you’ll need Kindle for PC (it’s free).

Some information in the book will be just a refresher for most writers, but I found the lists and hints helpful to have in front of me, so I could answer the questions for each character. It’s important to know your characters as intimately as you know good friends: their likes and dislikes, environment, job, dreams, fears, friends, past. Most of this won’t go into the book, but informs the actions, reactions, and interactions of your characters making them come alive for the reader.

Cohen uses a 3 ring notebook and a storyboard.

1. On the notebook she says:

“The Plotting Notebook is another means by which you can keep track of all the elements. You’ll need a notebook for each separate title with colored tab dividers.”

2. On the Storyboard she says:

“For a quick visual reference, I use a Storyboard or plotting chart. Divide a large white poster board into twenty blocks, or however many chapters will appear in your novel. Then write down all the story incidents or plot points that come to mind on sticky notes. Put these around the board in some sort of order. This gives you a general guideline for writing the synopsis.

There is a software that is similar to her block system, but I’d rather work with a notebook, poster board and post-its as she suggests. That way it’s in front of me while I write.

I’ll be blogging about the experience from time to time beginning with my this post.

Character study:

Character Back Story – Detective James Jeffries
Tomorrow was graduation.

He remembered how his Mother worried; he could tell the way she paced when she thought he wasn’t watching. She’d yell at Dad when he talked about it too. “No, absolutely not. It isn’t bad enough I worry if you’ll come back every day when you leave for work, you want me to worry about my only son, too. He should be a lawyer or a doctor or a writer. Lord knows he has enough imagination to be a writer. His school counselor said so.”

James hated it when they argued. He’d just turn the volume up on one his dad’s old viewer as he watched Sam Cade, Detective for Hire for the hundredth time. He’d pretend he was Sam Cade – super detective. “Yes, some day. Well, Sam Cade started in law enforcement, and then went private. And all the women fall for him and the regular law enforcers envy him. Yea, that’s what I’ll do. First, I’ll follow Dad’s path, but I won’t settle for just that; no sir, not me. I’ll get all the training I can get from the pros and then I’ll do what Sam Cade did. James Harden, private detective. Well, maybe I can change my name. James seems so, so ordinary.”

He remembered when he and his Dad used to talk long into the night on their weekly hike up into the mountains. He told James his fears and his aspirations, “I know that no matter what happens I’ve lived a good life. Boy, that’s all that’s truly important. Whatever you do in life, do it because you really want to, and do it really well. If you marry, marry for love and because of things and in spite of things. Your mom’s a good woman and when she met me, I was in law enforcement and she hated it. But I loved her in spite of that and she me too. Do you understand? I mean, you can talk yourself out of a lot of things just because you’re afraid. Don’t let fear ever stand in the way of doing what you love and loving people who may not love all the things you do.”

James wished he had written it all down, now. But sometimes, he lay back on a dark night on the side of a trail and let his mind drift back to those times and he could hear the distant voice echoed in his ear. “Follow your dreams, boy. Only a fool is never afraid, and only a coward lets fear stand in the way of what’s right for him.”

James thought. Thanks Dad, I’ll make you proud. I’m doing it Dad. I’ll be the youngest detective ever on the force.

Do you love winter Southern Style?

07 Jan 2014 Leave a comment

by Perle Champion in Cats, Perle Champion, Winter

Jasmine is irritated with me, but not for the first time since this cold snap began. If the temperature was at least above freezing, I’d have opened her kitty door to the screened in balcony that is her outdoors. But, it is not. The temperature this morning on my balcony was 7 degrees and I don’t want to know the wind chill, as I did not plastic in the balcony this year as I did in years past. My office window at right had enough frost on the inside to require an ice scraper.

Even at 35 degrees, when I let Jazmine out she comes right back in and stares at me as only a cat can. The odd ‘meorrow’ seems to ask accusingly, “What have you done to the weather?” She might venture out once or twice more before walking haughtily down the hall to lie on the leopard electric throw at the foot of my bed.

I keep that electric throw set on low at the foot of my bed from the day the temperature first hits 40 just for her. She knows she can count on that spot for warmth sunshine or no sunshine to warm herself day or night. Handy for her, since I rarely run the central heat.

I truly hate to run the gas central heat. It sucks the freshness from the very air, and in my opinion, most of the breathable oxygen. It dries my skin and my hair. More importantly, it dries my sinuses leaving me susceptible to any arbitrary bug, as it did last week after several visits to over-heated homes for dinner parties, etc.

Jaz golden eyes

I have to turn the central heat on occasionally to warm the bathroom for a shower, but it’s off again right now as I sit at my desk writing this Blog. I have a small ceramic heater whirring away at me feet at the moment, and I’ll move it next to the couch when I move in there to watch NCIS later.

I go to bed around midnight and I slip my feet under Jazmine’s throw just long enough to take the chill off and allow the down comforter to return my heat to me. Jasmine curls up on top of it for most of the night. The throw will stay on for Jazmine until we have several consecutive days at 70.

By Thursday or Friday the temperature will be in the 40’s and 50’s, and I’ll open her kitty door again. I love winter southern style – it comes and goes and seldom lingers more than a day or two.

Do you celebrate solstice?

23 Dec 2013 Leave a comment

by Perle Champion in Perle Champion, Solstice, Writing

Winter Solstice is my time to contemplate the past; celebrate my successes; glean a few lessons from my failures; and set a few goals, née, resolutions, for the year ahead. Darkest night behind me, Sunday morning I brewed a pot of tea instead of coffee; I set some sage to smoldering beside the candles on the altar and lit one candle in every room around my home; I open a new journal to page 1; and begin to plan for the coming year.

This year’s solstice, at least in part, was spent at various parties amidst friends. By day, I began an early spring cleaning/rearranging of my studio/office (aka my aerie). By night I enjoyed the festive mingling and conversations with friends; listening to live music, over-indulging in good food and wine.

Still, however late I arrived home on Friday and Saturday evenings, I lit the candles that I had set out before leaving the house and recited my annual evocation, née petition, née spell, for prophetic dreams of the path that lies ahead of me for the coming year.

I am one with the uni verse – See me.

Let me slip easily into the stream of time – Hear me.

Let me acknowledge my past, and accept my now – Help me.

Let me see in dream a little of my path ahead – Grant me.

That given time to contemplate, I may make better choices – Guide me.

As I give myself up to the ‘I am’ and slip into dream. Protect me.

So mote it be.

I Once Thought 65 Was Really Old.

19 Dec 2013 Leave a comment

by Perle Champion in Journaling, Perle Champion, Retirement

At 5, I remember thinking 65 was really old. Now, at 64, my jet black hair a memory, and my 65^th birthday just around the corner – not so much.

I am sometimes utterly amazed that I’ve been on this planet so long, as I’ve always been one of those people others say ‘burns the candle at both ends.’

Lately, I’ve been pondering the next 3rd of my life. Yes, I think I’ll make it to ninety-something, but not as some doughy old lady.

I can’t prevent getting old, but I can certainly prevent being a fat, infirm, old person. A very real danger if I don’t begin doing something about it now.

Somewhere around 58, I started slipping, and I can’t really put my finger on any one reason. I’ve been 128 pounds/size 7 with an occasional foray into 5’s (stress) as long as I can remember.

I think it was a combination – a not-so-perfect storm: A sedentary job at Saks I knew would end in lay-offs, as the company was slowly divesting itself of all its properties; menopause that although symptomless in my case, slowed my metabolism; eight months on unemployment followed 6 months later by another year on unemployment; and finally, meniscus knee surgery that kept me from walking my morning 5 miles.

I’ve been looking at the scale for a while now and I don’t like what it says. I look in the mirror and it confirms the numbers – 50 pounds in 6 years.

I’ve never dieted. Not sure I know how. In truth, I don’t think it’s about food. I kept a diary and I eat about 1200 calories a day. I think it’s the happy hours with friends – all those gratuitous calories in beer, wine, etc.

What Now?

Yes, You Can Publish from Your Journal

02 Dec 2013 Leave a comment

by Perle Champion in Freelance Writing, Get Published, How to Journal, Journaling, Perle Champion

For me, my journal is the running memoir of my life, my confidant, Wailing Wall, canvas for creative thoughts, and so much more. Most of the essays, remembrances and poems that I’ve published sprang almost full blown from the pages of my daily journal.

I belong to a few writers’ groups; have many writer friends and acquaintances; and whenever I say, “Oh that piece. It’s from my journal.” I’ve been answering the questions for years and recently a friend encouraged to put it in a e-book. Publishing has changed and anyone (for good or ill) can publish to Amazon’s Kindle platform for free.

Writing How to Journal and How to Publish from your Journal was the easy part. I’ve been journaling more and more with an eye toward publishing.

Formatting the book to upload to Amazon was the stumbling block for me. Fortunately, I found an easy and inexpensive software with great tutorials and I was off, and I found a great tutorial by a published author on how to create great book covers using PowerPoint.

Here it is:
Amazon is running a 7-day promo on it starting at 99¢ for the next 15 hours and rising in $1 increments back to the original sale price of $9.99. I’m hoping at 99¢, some more folks will check it out and give me some feedback.

The Tarot Revisited.

30 Nov 2013 Leave a comment

by Perle Champion in Blogging, Freelance Writing, Perle Champion, wicca Tags: Blogging, Perle Champion, Tarot, Wicca

My old Tarot deck perished in the fire a few years back along with so many of my things.

Some things were easily replaced, some not. A Tarot deck is so personal, so integrated with a person’s very chi, it is not as easily replaced as a couch, coffee pot or chair.

I’ve been looking, but nothing clicked. Today at Golden Temple, I decided to take the leap, and if a mistake, I’ll try another time til they feel right.

Tonight I’ll just shuffle and leave them on the altar amidst candles and my ladies. Tomorrow I’ll try a spread or two.

Do you love leftovers? I do.

29 Nov 2013 Leave a comment

by Perle Champion in Blogging, Gratitude, Perle Champion, Recipe

Leftovers part 1.
My brother, Rick’s, cheesy scalloped potato ham bake was one rich dish among all the other rich dishes, so I only had a few mouthfuls. Easy to do because I know he and mom will insist I take some home for later. We set an abundant table and there is always plenty to go home with each of us.

I love potatoes and took several generous scoops in a mason jar to add to my other leftover containers.

This morning I put a generous portion in my smallest well-oiled iron skillet, cutting the potatoes into smaller portions, I added diced bell peppers, spinach and let it all begin to brown on the stovetop. Then I beat an egg with a dash of Worcestershire and some Sriracha (red pepper sauce), poured it over the potatoes, and put it into a 350 oven to finish (about 15 minutes). Yum.

Leftovers part 2
Sometimes, as above, I want leftovers to be different than the original, but not when it comes to turkey and dressing. The Friday after thanksgiving I love to duplicate the original. I pull out a slightly larger iron skillet, butter it and carefully arrange the turkey and dressing with liberal dollops of gravy over them, followed by a portion the 3-cheese broccoli mushroom bake and some sweet potatoes prepared with onions and other spices – no sugar thank you.

I’ll put this to reheat in the oven around 6 to be ready by 7 and enjoy a Thanksgiving dinner encore.

Replete, I’ll pour another glass of wine and settle down on the couch to read, write in my journal, listen to music or throw on an old movie – programming is barren on the wasteland tonight.