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Doni’s Random Thoughts: From Auction Results to Shopping Peeves

• The final tally of the money donated for ANC’s Carr Fire Scholarship fund is $5,310. I am blown away by the generosity of every donation, both large and small, from bottles of Butter Creek wine contributed by Don and Elaine Cohen, to Janine Hall’s extraordinary Carr Fire Pendant. (Click here to see all the donations and contributors.) This was a wonderful collaboration between donors, bidders and the entire ANC family.

Janine Hall designed and created this pendant specifically for aNewsCafe.com’s online auction. Retail value: $2,400.

Barbara Rice, thank you for introducing Deb Segelitz to Matt Grigsby. Matt Grigsby, thank you for being the liaison between Deb and ANC four years ago, suggesting she have a column. Deb, thank you for starting the ball rolling for this first Carr Fire Scholarship fund that began when you commissioned the talented glassblower Paul Jones of Wales to create the Carr Fire Phoenix, just for this auction, which he mailed to Scotland, which you mailed to Redding.

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The Carr Phoenix glass sculpture, commissioned by Deborah Segelitz, created by artist Paul Jones. This was the auction’s first item.

Eleanor Townsend, thank you for being part of ANC since our very beginning, for being one of our first official paid subscribers, and for your extremely generous winning bid for the Carr Fire Phoenix, and for coming up with the idea of appointing Matt Grigsby as the Carr Fire Phoenix custodian. ANC subscribers and readers, thank you for all supporting this first auction and making it a success. We’re already planning next year’s auction.

Doni can resist almost any See’s candy, except Butterscotch Squares and Butterscotch Lollypops.

• I know that nobody has any business eating See’s candy, but a question on Facebook prompts me to ask you this in all seriousness: If you could only have two kinds of See’s candy, what would they be? Mine are See’s Butterscotch Square (which I can identify in any box of assorted See’s chocolates) and See’s Butterscotch Lollypops. OK, your turn.

Doni used put these in her kids’ Christmas stockings, mainly as an excuse to buy some for herself.

• I hear and understand complaints from small businesses about how places like Amazon Prime are killing their business. On the other hand, when I need something super specific, like a Number Whatever blade for a special lawn edger, or staples for a particular Swingline heavy-duty stapler, or exactly the precise halogen light bulb for a special lamp, it’s so much quicker to just order exactly what’s needed online. The other option is to spend gas and time to drive to the store, try to find an available employee, then hope the employee knows something about what you need, and then hope the store has it in stock. More and more of my encounters with store employees give me the feeling they’d rather not be there, and are irritated when they’re asked for help, so they’ll point to some aisle where I’m sent off into retail Siberia to fend for myself. One of my favorite lines, when there’s an empty spot where a product should be, is, “Everything is out on the shelves.”

Really? Everything?!! Then what’s all that stuff behind those big doors at the back of the store?

Drives me a little crazy. Drives me to ordering more stuff online.

Doni’s closed tool box has little lid-top compartments.

• There are  little compartments on the top of most tool boxes, perfect for small screws and nails and such. However, I’d be a rich woman if I had a dollar for every time I’ve opened the big lid without first closing those little lid latches. Tiny hardware scatters everywhere. If this is an IQ test, I’ve flunked, repeatedly, just this afternoon, as a matter of fact.

• More than three decades after my last baby, I still sometimes find myself, while standing in any line for a long time — say, at a grocery store — swaying as if I have a baby on my hip. I don’t want to know if this is abnormal.

• I love potlucks. And I love potluck Thanksgivings, like the one my son and daughter-in-law so graciously hosted in their home for 23 people. With at least 12 different dishes, my plate ended up with 1.5 teaspoons of 12 items that encircled my plate. It looked like an edible clock. It was delicious.

• After Thanksgiving I was felled by a wicked flu that lasted five full days and left me reminding myself that I really should make arrangements for a living trust or will, you know, just in case I don’t survive the next flu.

• I’m an optimist who doesn’t really believe in the concept of a “bad day” let alone a bad year. But I have to say, 2018 has delivered a disproportionate share of low blows to many people. I’m rooting for 2019 to be a kinder, gentler year for us all.

• Overheard at the Dollar Store between a man speaking to a woman: She’s like Cinderella, you know? But not the whining, I-have-too-much-work-to-do Cinderella, but the where’s-my-glass-slippers-and-fancy-coach Cinderella. 

• Doni’s Cautionary Cooking Tip: When leaving ingredients — like butter or cream cheese — out at room temperature to soften for a recipe, keep them enclosed in some Tupperware or other container. (I like to unwrap butter or cream cheese when they’re cold for softening because as they soften, the contents stick to the wrapper.)

First, a container is a good policy in case there’s an ant invasion. Second, it’s a good policy in case you open an upper cabinet and a thin wine glass unexpectedly leaps from the shelf and crashes onto the marble counter top below, sending tiny glass shards everywhere, even down my shirt. (So lucky it missed my eyes.) The resting butter was on the counter, about two feet from where the glass landed. But of course, it had to be thrown away, because it would be too great a risk to use it. (And if you look very closely at the far right half-cube of butter, you’ll see a shiny little shard poking from its front.) Learn from my mistakes. You’re welcome.

• Another word about getting butter to room temperature for a recipe. If you leave a cube of butter out overnight and it’s still hard in the morning, your house is too damn cold.

• I think my scale is trying to tell me something. I walk into the bathroom and just the floor’s vibration makes the light pop up … waiting. One son calls it a seismic sensor.

• I submit two reasons why some smart manufacturer should design bathroom sinks with mini garbage disposals: Brushing teeth after eating salad or popcorn.

• I always marvel at movie scenes where someone quickly steals a file or flash drive or something specific from someone’s office. It takes seconds for the thief to stealthily enter the room, open the file drawer that is in perfect alphabetical order, and expertly extract exactly what they came for.  No thief would have that kind of luck in my house, where I can barely lay my hands on exactly any paper I need at any particular time. They’d still be looking, sorting, cursing, hours after they entered, trying to figure out my filing system based upon a mix of first names, last names, nick names, project names and insider identifiers known only to me, like scary stalker, old dead pedophile, psychic prediction, asshole corporation, chicken-shit politician, etc. Maybe the next time I need to find an important paper I should hire a criminal to help me find it.

• This journalist is never too old to relearn a lesson the hard way, and be reminded of that fail-safe Journalism 1-A adage: If your mother says she loves you, check it out. Duly noted. Again.

• My 5- and 8-year-old grandchildren have so much stuff and so many toys that for their birthdays and holidays I’m going to give some small gift – like a book – but their main present will be Noni-grandchildren shared experiences. I’m open to suggestions appropriate for an 8-year-old boy and 5-year-old girl (other than Disneyland, mani-pedi’s, paintball or go-carts).
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Doni Chamberlain

Independent online journalist Doni Chamberlain founded A News Cafe in 2007 with her son, Joe Domke. Chamberlain holds a Bachelor's Degree in journalism from CSU, Chico. She's an award-winning newspaper opinion columnist, feature and food writer recognized by the Associated Press, the California Newspaper Publishers Association and E.W. Scripps. She's been featured and quoted in The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, L.A. Times, Slate. Bloomberg News and on CNN, KQED and KPFA. She lives in Redding, California.

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