I Read Many Books

The Meme With No Name

From Sunday Stealing

1. Have you ever pretended to read a book to impress someone?

A. No. I read many books. I have no need to do that.

2. Have you ever pretended not to read a book in order to avoid embarrassment?

 

A. No.

3. What’s your worst reading habit?

 

A. I chew my fingernails when I read.

4. What book are you most proud of having read?

 

A. All of them.

5. Do you buy most of your books new, second-hand, electronically or borrow via the library?

 

A. I do all of the above.

6. Have you ever pretended to watch a film to impress someone?

 

A. No. I have no need to impress anyone.

7. Have you ever pretended not to have watched a film in order to avoid embarrassment?

 

A. No.

8. What movie have you watched the most?

 

A. The Lord of the Rings trilogy. All 9+ hours of it. In case you don't know, it's really three movies, each over 3 hours long. The movies are The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, and The Return of the King.

 

I have to admit that Dirty Dancing is probably a close second.

9. What film do you tell people is your favorite ever?

 

A. The Lord of the Rings trilogy.

10. What film is actually your favorite ever?

 

A. The Lord of the Rings trilogy. (I'm starting to think the person who made up these questions has a penchant for lying. Do people normally make up things about such trivia? Aren't there more important things to lie about?)

11. What time do you usually wake up and get up in the mornings?

 

A. My alarm goes off at 6 a.m. every morning. I am usually out of bed by 6:15 a.m.

12. Do you wake naturally or does something/someone wake you up?

 

A. I wake up to a clock radio alarm.

13. How many snooze alarms do you need?

 

A. Generally none.

14. What’s your routine on a workday/work at home morning?

 

A. I get up, I turn on the computer, I fix myself a cup of hot tea, I read email, blogs, news, maybe write something, dress, have breakfast, sit down to work. That's the ideal world.

15. What’s your routine on a non-workday morning?

A. It's pretty much the same thing, except that I don't sit down to work, I do laundry or dishes or something like that.

 

Steering Me Along a Better Path

Saturday 9: Theme from Peyton Place ("Wonderful Season of Love")

Unfamiliar with this week's song? Hear it here.

1) Spring, summer, fall or winter: which season do you consider most wonderful?

A. I am partial to Autumn. But I also like Spring. Both are rather glorious around here.

Spring 2013

Autumn 2012

 

2) Crazy Sam (the person who dreamed up these questions) learned this song when she played flute in the high school orchestra. Did you participate in many after-school activities?

A. I played flute too! But ours was a marching band, not an orchestra. I had to attend all the football games and occasionally basketball games, and we had summer camp to learn marching routines. It was quite intense. I alternated between first and second chair flute, which was important because first chair (meaning you were the best player) sometimes played the piccolo, and we all wanted to play the piccolo. I also played guitar and sang in a rock 'n roll band.

3) The flautist next to her in the orchestra was Jeanne Pepitone. After a little Facebook spying, Sam learned that Jeanne is now Jeanne Moran, a nurse with a husband and a daughter. Sam shot her a "friend request." Do you keep up with your high school classmates?

A. We had our 30th reunion a few years ago, and many of us caught up on Facebook at that time and have remained FB friends. Some people you're better off leaving alone, though.

4) When she performed with the school orchestra, Sam was required to wear gray slacks and a black sweater. What are you wearing right now, as you answer these questions?

A. I have on blue jeans and a blue sweater.

5) Sam was especially dedicated to the school orchestra because she had a crush on Mr. Hanley, the school's musical director. He was the dark/thin/sensitive type. Tell us about a teacher you remember, and why he or she stands out.

A. One of my favorite teachers was Dee Jones, now Dee Sheffer, and retired from teaching. She was a very caring person who paid attention to her students, and I was a bit of a teacher's pet. She taught English and that was my subject. I was fortunate to have several teachers who were caring people, and many influenced me in positive ways. I could list a number of caring mentors who steered me along to a better path.


6) Because Sam was so crazy about Mr. Hanley, she was desperate to attend his band camp. Her parents wouldn't allow it unless she could pay her own way, and so she didn't get to go. Were your parents strict or permissive? If you have children yourself, what's your parenting style?

A. My parents were strict until I turned 16, then they sort of lost track of me. I have no children so can't really answer the last part of the question. I'm pretty lenient with the cows. They have no bedtime and their only rule is to keep it in the fence.

7) Sam liked Fridays because her favorite food, fried rice, was served in the school cafeteria. When you eat Chinese food, do you use chopsticks or a fork?

A. I use a fork. I also ask for a knife.

8) When Sam was a little girl, a new box of Crayolas could get her pulse racing. Now she loves her Sharpies. Do you enjoy shopping for school/office supplies?

A. I LOVE shopping for office supplies. I have more office supplies stuffed in a closet than I do clothes. I adore the smell of a new notebook in the mornings.

9) Do you have any plush toys? Or did you give them all up when you left childhood? 

A. I have a few Christmas stuffies in the closet, and in the living room sits one stuffed black dog to remind me of my dog, Ginger, whom I had for 17 years. But I have none that I snuggle or anything. I gave that up before I became an adult because of my allergies.

February's Full Snow Moon

Thursday Thirteen: Saving Money

Earlier this week, I finally convinced my husband that we needed to do something about the outlandish monthly payment we had with our satellite TV. With a phone call, and returning the second box we had in the bedroom, we managed to save about $240 over the course of the year. Not a lot - if it were up to me we wouldn't even have satellite TV - but better than nothing. I made a $30 purchase for an HD TV digital air antenna and have six free channels and a DVD player in the bedroom. That is all I need in that room.

So I thought I'd look and see what other things we might do to save a little do-re-mi.

1. Check your monthly bills (satellite, cable, internet, phones) and see if there are things on there you can downgrade or rid yourself of. Do you really need caller ID? Call waiting? Are you paying extra for such niceties?

2. Eat at home. We eat out about twice a week, and this likely won't change. I work for home and need the outings. But unless eating out serves some other need (as it does for me), then cutting this back would be doable.

3. Make a grocery list - and stick to it. I am bad about throwing extra things in the cart. However, to go along with this, I think you also need to create a menu for the week, so you know what you need to buy. If you don't buy potatoes, then on the night you want potatoes you won't have them.

4. Buy nonperishables in bulk. We do not have a Costco in our area so we must go to Sam's Club, but we make that trip about every six weeks. There we purchase tissues, paper towels, dishwashing detergent, Splenda, and similar items.

5. Reuse items. Grocery store bags can be used to line small trash cans, for example. Apparently there is a market for buying toilet paper rolls (I read that somewhere recently but can't find the link).

6. Don't pay late fees. How do you avoid this? Pay on time, of course.

7. Use the library. I am bad about buying books because I like new books (old ones upset my asthma sometimes) but I do use the library frequently for audiobooks. To be honest if I didn't use the library for audiobooks I probably wouldn't listen to them, because they are expensive. Our local library also carries DVDs, which saves on the price of purchasing those.

8. If it costs more than $100, walk away. We have a rule that any single purchase over that amount must be discussed with the partner. That keeps us from making purchases that we might regret later. We've had this rule in place for 30 years and it has worked well for us. Sometimes by the time you talk about it, you realize you don't really want it or need it.

9.  Stop magazine subscriptions, or don't renew. I go through periods where I do this. We seem to get a lot of magazines and while I generally read all of them, I certainly don't need them.

10. Keep your car a long time. We bought our 2003 Toyota new (which is a no-no but I think if you're planning to keep it for over 10 years then you could get a new one) and it's still going strong. We keep the oil changed and take care of it, and I expect to get at least two more years out of it. It is really nice not to have a car payment.

11. Comparison shop. Check on insurance fees, for example, and see if you can find something better elsewhere. If your bank is charging you fees for everything, maybe you can get a better deal at the new bank down the street. Or a no-fee credit card.

12. Don't waste energy. We have a hard time with this one - everything we own seems to take forever to boot up if you leave it completely unplugged. If you walk around my house at night there are all kinds of little red lights. About once a month I go around in the dark, look at what's glowing, and unplug things. If it gets plugged back in, then it's something we use, but sometimes something stays unplugged for a good long time and that's a saving.

13. Wait to buy. This is different from #8. Maybe you won't need whatever doohickey you're looking at in 30 days. Or maybe it will go on sale. If you find you can live without it, wouldn't the money be better in your pocket? Patience is a virtue.

And speaking of spending money on absolutely nothing, I read recently that the company that created Candy Crush made $1.8 BILLION dollars last year. The company charges $0.99 for little extra moves, or moving up a level, or whatever. With patience and persistence, you don't need to buy a darned thing on these video games, and I refuse to dole out my money in tiny little increments like that. Soon you've spent $20 and not even realized it.

Until I received my Kindle for Christmas, I didn't realize that companies were charging people like this, in increments instead of paying, say, $6.99 for the entire game. It's really a rip-off and I can see how it would get out of control quickly in the hands of a child or teenager (or impatient adult). Be wary of your internet providers who set limits - that can add up and be quite costly.

Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; there is a list here. I've been playing for a while and this is my 334th time to do a list of 13 on a Thursday.

Field Damage

When I went down to get the mail yesterday afternoon, I was greeted with the site of damage to our hayfield:

 

Some idiot decided to take a joy ride in the snow.

 

 

This will be a costly repair for us; this half of the field will have to be tilled, smoothed, and reseeded.

 

 

We're talking thousands of dollars.

 

 

 

This is the second time this winter someone has done this to this field.

 

 

This is not a problem we have had in the past. I called the sheriff's office, as we did the last time.

 

Apparently this was done between 6:30 a.m. and 3 p.m., so in the daylight.

 

Maybe you saw who did it?

 

 

They need to make reparations. When the culprit(s) is caught, we will prosecute fully.

 

 

People don't respect others any more.

Books: The Hummingbird's Daughter

The Hummingbird's Daughter
by Luis Alberto Urrea
Copyright 2005
499 pages
Kindle Edition


My book club chose this book for its March read. I daresay it will be among the best books I read this year.

Luis Urrea has created an intriguing world and characters based on nonfiction. In this story, which is set in Mexico, Teresa is a waif born of a woman known as The Hummingbird. Teresa is left on her aunt's doorstep, and pretty much left to fend for herself.

Teresa has a keen mind and quick wit. She is an astute observer of humanity, and Huila, the local healer, takes her under her wing. She teaches Teresa (aka Teresita) every thing she knows.

Along the way Teresa is noticed by Tomas, the lord of the ranch, and he eventually recognizes her as his daughter. Tomas is an interesting character in his own right, a man's man who takes women when he wants them and who lives in different worlds - the one his wife has created, and the more wild one he prefers.

Teresita learns to be a midwife and accompanies Huila on healing missions. The child appears to have great powers, and eventually this comes to be. Teresita dies and returns to life even as her family is telling her goodbye. She is hailed as a saint, who then performs miracles.

As in all things, politics plays a huge role, and religion is nothing if not political. The Catholic leaders cannot allow this heresy, and as rebellion stirs throughout the nation, the government and religious leaders move to shut off anything they deem a threat.

I will say no more to allow the reader to find out for herself what happens here, but suffice it to say the ending is fitting.

This book is an interesting commentary on religion, human relations, the patriarchy, government, and immigration. Who really should run a country, anyway? The people in some far-distant land or the locals who know what is going on? The conquerors who arrive with guns ablaze or the simple people who eek out a marginal living. And who is to say what religion is or isn't, and what is wrong or right?

My favorite quote from the book was this:
"The doing of good is the only prayer that God requires." Teresita spoke these words to pilgrims who flocked to her.

This was a long book but it moved very quickly. It took me a while to read it but I never grew bored. Many of the chapters are very short, and there appears to be a good deal of white space as transition throughout the book.

The page numbers are listed at top for reference, but as I read it on my Kindle I am not certain how long it was. I am categorizing this as fiction but it is really historical fiction based on truth, as the main character really existed.

What Would You Call It?

I noticed this morning that the pollution from the nearby industry was once again caught up in something called an "inversion," which is free market/capitalism speak for "the atmosphere can't disperse the dirt fast enough because of the air currents and now people can actually see how bad it is."

The dirty air this time went down the Catawba Valley instead of toward Fincastle. I took these photos between 8:47 a.m. and 9:08 a.m.

I don't know how anyone can find this acceptable, but apparently it is to some people. However, in my opinion, this is never acceptable, I don't care what the air currents are doing. Shame, shame.

Blacksburg Road in the Snow

Yesterday we had another snow. About two hours after it began, my husband and I climbed in his pick up truck to take a trip down Blacksburg Road to Fincastle.

Going down the driveway.

A house we passed.

The road. We were grateful that the asphalt was clear of snow.

This is an intersection that should be familiar to at least one of my local blog readers (Hi Di!). I was rather amazed at all of the power lines once I downloaded the picture.

About a half mile from Fincastle.

Almost there.

This tractor on the outskirts of town looked forlorn out in the field in the weather.

Fincastle. This photo is of Roanoke Street, taken from the bank drive-thru window.

Going back home, up our driveway.

 

The Blacksburg Road is one of the older roads in the county. It connected Fincastle to Blacksburg; hence its name. Nowadays the Blacksburg Road is a short seven miles or so, but long ago it was probably 40 miles or so. You can still get to Blacksburg if you know where to make the turn offs.

 

These photos were taken out the window of the truck with a Nikon Coolpix L22.

 

I Don't Do Candles

From Sunday Stealing

February Wrap Up

1) Candle scents in February:

A. None. I don't do candles, and even if I did, they would be unscented because I am sensitive to smells.

2) What I read in February:

A. The Heist, by Janet Evanovich & Lee Goldberg; Skipping Christmas, by John Grisham, Abhorsen, by Garth Nix, and I started but have not yet finished The Hummingbird's Daughter, by Luis Albert Urrea.

3) Top three songs I was drawn to:

A. Royals, by Lorde, That's the Way I Always Heard It Should Be, by Carly Simon, Weather Channel, by Sheryl Crow

4) Movies I saw:

A. I don't know. Maybe I didn't watch any, or if I did, they were not memorable.

5) Favorite tv moments of the month:

A. I liked the latest Big Bang Theory when ol' Sheldon got snookered by Amy, and Leonard bought a dining room table. I wonder if the table will remain in the apartment.

6) Something yummy I made:

A. Chicken breasts.

7) Restaurants where I ate:

A. Shakers, Cracker Barrel, Bellacino's, Tap House.

8) Five things I loved in February:

A. Snow, my husband, having some work, reading, doing a good thing

9) A goal I had for February:

A. To clean up my office. I did it! Yay!

10) In February I looked forward to:

A. Cleaning up my office and seeing my doctor.

11) Something I want to remember about February 2014:

A. We had 20" of snow.

12) A photo I took this month:

Saturday 9: Waterfalls

 Saturday 9: Waterfalls

Unfamiliar with this week's song? Hear it here.

1) This song encourages us to "stick to the rivers and lakes you're used to." What body of water is nearest your home -- pond, lake, river, gulf or sea?

A. We have three ponds on the farm. Several springs drain into them, and then from the big pond the water flows into Tinker Creek. Are you familiar with Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, by Annie Dillard? The book won a Pulitzer Prize. It all started here at our pond, which is one of several headwaters of Tinker Creek. Our whole area around here has many springs which flow into that famous body of water.

2) Have you ever visited a waterfall? If so, please tell us about it.

A. I think the biggest waterfall I've ever visited is probably the Cascades in Giles County, Virginia. I was only a child and went with a group - perhaps my father's business picnic, I really can't recall.  

3) This song is from a CD entitled CrazySexyCool. Which word best describes how you feel today: Crazy, sexy or cool?

A. Crazy. I'm pretty much always crazy. 

4) The girls in TLC originally began hanging around together in an Atlanta-area hair salon. When did you last sit in a stylist's chair?

A. I had my hair done just last week, thank you very much. I am letting it grow out. My stylist said it will make the soft white (aka gray) show up so much better.


5) While she she spent her adolescence in Atlanta, bandmember Tionne "T-Boz" Watkins was born in Des Moines. Do you live in or near the town where you were born?

A. Yes.

6) One of T-Boz' recent public appearances was on the Real Housewives of Atlanta. Do you watch any of the popular Bravo Real Housewives shows?

A. I have never seen those shows and have no plan to ever see them.

7) In the 1990s, band member Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes was romantically involved with an Atlanta Falcons football player. They shared his upscale, two-story mansion. How would you describe your abode (house, cottage, apartment, condo, studio, etc.)?

A. I live in a single family dwelling. It is an L-shaped ranch home, very small, with vinyl siding. What's unusual about it is we built it ourselves, with our own four hands (my husband and me) along with the help of family and friends.


8) Ms. Lopes was accused of arson when, after the couple argued, that mansion happened to burn down. When was the last time you lost your temper? How did you express your anger? (If it was with a criminal act, you may wish to keep it to yourself.) 

A. The last time I lost my temper was when my husband had trouble getting away from work to go to the doctor with me. I cried. He got his schedule changed.


9) Today the third member of TLC, Chilli, designs personalized handbags. They cost about $225 each. What's the most expensive thing you have bought recently?

A. Groceries. Have you seen the price of meat lately?

He Saw Some Ships

Last week my husband spent four days in Virginia Beach at a firefighters conference. I sent along one of my older cameras, a Nikon Coolpix 4600, and told him to take pictures.

When he returned he gave me the camera and said there were pictures on it.

These are all he took! I expecting shots of the conference or his motel room, maybe Virginia Beach, which I haven't visited since 1989. He said these ships on the ocean were the only thing worth taking the camera out for.

The man does not take many photos.

Thursday Thirteen #333

Thirteen things I wish I had done differently growing up:

1. Watched my weight. Up until I married at the tender age of 20, I did not have a weight problem. It crept up on me after I took a bunch of hormones for infertility. Suddenly there was poundage.

2. Exercised. I have always been rather sedentary - give me a book over a jog any time. But I would have been much better off if I had fallen into a regular exercise routine when I was a teenager.

3. Learned to cook. I do okay - I can roast chicken, and follow most recipes, but I don't know how to make a soufflé or crème de anything. I would like to be able to fix real, wonderful, and healthy meals.

4. Learned how to eat healthily. This ties into to #1 and #3. I grew up in a household where as long as you weren't hungry, you were eating healthy. I thrived on bologna and catsup sandwiches for a time, along with gallons of southern sweet tea. To this day diet books stymy me. I can't for the life of me understand how one tiny little ounce of chocolate can turn into 13 pounds. Seemingly overnight. It's like the worst kind of magic, with Aunt Clara performing a nose twitch with a broken wand.

Me in 2012.

5. Gone to college right out of high school. I obtained my BA 12 years after I graduated from high school, and my masters only two years ago, just barely managing to finish before I turned 50. I wish I had gone on and received a Ph.d. and become a college professor sometimes. I think I probably would have been good at it.

6. Learned to be less introverted. I am very shy and quiet (though some might think otherwise) and I do make friends easily. I love a lot of people and feel warmly toward even more, but I am not a person people call with invites for luncheons or anything much else, for that matter. This is a skill I think I could have learned easier when I was younger. I might still learn more about it now, but I think it's too late for it to make a major impact.

Some of my blogging friends when we met in RL in 2009.

7. Learned more "crafty" things. I am not very good at such things as painting, sewing, or creating stuff from broken whatevers. I have done some cross-stitch in the past and it was passable but nothing to write home about. The best compliment my art professor in college could come up with generally was "that is a nice line there," when she looked at my work. One nice line out of bunches of squiggles.

8. Kept less stuff. I am not up to hoarder status, thank goodness, but I do tend to be a packrat, especially with things like books and papers. Now I need to get rid of it.

9. Kept a list of books I've read. I did not start doing this until about 2007, and I have read at least 50 books a year every year of my life. So my list should have 2000 or more books on it, instead of about 450. I can't remember every book I ever read, that's for sure.

10. Spent more time outside. I was an indoor girl, always had my nose in a book, and while I would occasionally take a walk through the fields and forests that surrounded the farm I grew up on, I did not partake of them as I should have. Nor do I do this today as frequently as I would like. Things need to become habits.

11. Spent time looking at the spiritual side of life. I was raised outside of an established religion and my spiritual examinations, which did not really occur until later in life, have been and continue to be all over the place. I wish I had started sooner. I don't have time to cover them all now, much less truly understand anything.

Trillium.

12. Learned the names of herbs, flowers, birds, and other wildlife. I have learned some of this over the years but I would love to be able to walk out in the field and say, "this is a dewdrop" or "this an anemone" or "this is bloodroot" or "this is a trillium" or "that bird is a spotted watusy doing the meringue" or whatever. Instead I have to take a field guide with me and look things up.

13. Continued to speak and study foreign languages. I had three years of Spanish and a year of Latin in high school, and while I remember a few Spanish phrases, I've forgotten most everything I learned. There is no way I could carry on a conversation in Spanish, and I regret that.



Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; there is a list here. I've been playing for a while and this is my 333nd time to do a list of 13 on a Thursday.

The Lost Generation

Sunday I read an article about how baby boomers who are my age really don't belong in that category.

I wholeheartedly agree. I have long called myself a member of a lost generation. We are too young to be baby boomers, and too old to be Generation X.

I did not come of age in the 1960s - I was born then. The hippie era was a blimp on my radar, something I saw from a distance but could not experience because I was too young. I admired go-go boots, tie-dyed t-shirts, and long hair on guys, but by the time I was old enough to make those decisions for myself, it was 1975. Tie-dye was out and preppy was in. Rock 'n roll was out, and disco was in. I grew up watching The Brady Bunch and Charlie's Angels, not Leave it to Beaver or Father Knows Best.

So I am quite happy to see someone confirming what I have known all along - I don't belong with the Baby Boomers. The US Census defines baby boomers as folks born from 1946 to 1964. I am 50 years old and someone who is 18 years older than I has little in common with me. We grew up in different eras.

I grew up reacting to the world someone who was 18 when I was born was making. I could only sit back and watch because I was but a child, and unable to do anything else.

My first national memory is watching a man walk on the moon when I was six years old. I don't remember when JFK was killed because I was only 5 months old. My first real political memory is of the Patty Hearst kidnapping, not the Vietnam War, even though that was going on while I was alive. But my awareness was that of a young girl growing up in a rural area, where we only received one TV station.

Patty Hearst was kidnapped in 1974, when I was 11 years old. The things a true Baby Boomer would have been horrified by - Kent State, the shooting of Bobby Kennedy - went over my head. I was vaguely aware but my goodness, Kent State happened in 1970. I was seven years old. I was playing with Barbie and in the second grade!

So to lump me, and all of us who were born from about 1960 - 1968, in the same era, just seems wrong. I imagine there are some older Generation Xers who feel like they are in the wrong generation, too. And they belong with me, in this lost generation.

A book that will be released in the next year calls us "Generation Jones," named after the term "jonesying" which apparently my lost generation coined. It is not a term I use or care for but Generation Jones works for me. We might just as well have been Generation Smith.

For we are a small legion that cannot move forward because of those before us. We were not able to get the good jobs, make the decent money, and be upwardly mobile. We did okay, but we did not do as well as our older true Baby Boomer counterparts. By the time I turned 18, Ronald Reagan was elected president. There was a recession. When we built our house in 1987, the interest rate on it was 13 percent. At the time the talking heads said, "Oh, it will never go lower again."

Shows what they know.

But I am not a Baby Boomer. The US Census can stick me in there if they want, but I have not been, nor ever will be, satisfied with that moniker. I am not sure I will like Generation Jones, but I will say, as I have for many years, that those who are around my age are really a lost generation.

Pyrex Makes Good

Back in the middle of the month, I wrote about my Pyrex dish exploding.

The post, along with photos of the thing in a 1,000 pieces, can be seen here.

Apparently, exploding Pyrex is not a new phenomenon. Snopes.com has a post about here. Here's an article about Pyrex and Anchor Hocking dishes that notes that the January 2011 issue of Consumer Reports all but said "don't buy these dishes."

This Consumer Affairs site has over 1,000 reports of exploding Pyrex.

Pyrex is now sold by World Kitchen, and after my Pyrex dish blew up, I called the company the next day. I was nice and said I was only calling because I was concerned and thought they should know the dishes blow up; I did not ask for a replacement nor was I calling to ask for one.

The man who answered the phone did not seem phased by my description of exploding dishware. Instead he chastised me a bit because surely I had used the dish improperly, and then he said he would send me another to replace the one that broke. I got the impression that my phone call was not out of the ordinary for their customer service.

The new dish arrived last week. My old dish was made of purple glass; this one is clear.

It also came with a list of instructions and precautions.

I grew up with Pyrex, as I am sure many others did. I don't recall my mother having to post a list of things I should and shouldn't do with the glass, but apparently now that is the case. It seemed to me to be virtually indestructible in those long-gone days.

Here are the warnings for the dish I received:

• Avoid sudden temperature changes to your glassware. Do not add liquid to hot glassware, place hot glassware on a wet or cool surface, or handle hot glassware with a wet towel. Do not place hot glassware directly on a countertop or any metal surface or in the sink. Allow hot glassware to cool on a cooling rack, dry potholder, or dry cloth. Allow hot glassware to cool before washing, refrigerating or freezing.

• Oven must be preheated before inserting glassware. Do not insert glassware into oven for cooking or reheating until the oven has been preheated to the desired temperature.

• Do not use on or under a flame or other direct heat source, including on a stovetop, under a broiler, on a grill or in a toaster oven.

I appreciate the fact that the company replaced the dish; that was nice of them, especially since I didn't ask. However, I am not sure I want to use it. It seems to me like a kitchen is a place where people do things like set hot glassware down on counters or whatever, and I am getting older and more forgetful. I need things that are not quite so delicate.

So I picked up a couple of metal Wilson pans last week and plan on eventually replacing most of my glass cookware with something else in time.

But I did want to report that the company made good on the exploding dish.