May is the month of many birthdays, and that means .... cookies! These cookies are like brownies in cookie form with a bit of ginger flavor and chunks of white chocolate. That's really all there is to say about them, so let me tell you a bit about the people they were meant for instead, because they are special people, who I'll call by their code names, TFS and Carrot.
Almost two years ago now, I met a dude on the internet. Up until really recently, I wasn't in the habit of meeting people that way, but when you work from home, suddenly you discover that you mostly don't talk to other people in the course of a normal day, like you do in an office. So you find yourself reaching out for social interaction in whatever way you can.
The first thing I remember about TFS is discovering we were the same age (always a relief on the internet) and exchanging mutual and virtual high fives over being age buddies. But that was about the extent of our interaction, until he dragged his wife to the place where we hung out on the internets and I suddenly started to notice that she was super cool. She liked cool things, and she said funny things and other people I talked to would tell me stories of how fun and great she was to talk to.
So I admit at this point I started to kiss her butt a little. But hey it worked! Gradually, we started responding to each other in this public forum more, and then we started adding each other to things like Facebook and Last.fm and all those obligatory connection points, and suddenly almost without even realizing how, we had gone from complete strangers to talking almost every day. The completely unexpected had happened, which is that I made a real life friend from the internet. It's hard to imagine working at my computer now without my little chatting partner to help the tediousness go by more quickly.
So when J and I decided to take a trip to our nation's capital this spring, they made the extremely generous gesture of offering their home as a place for us to stay. We were a little nervous about staying with people we hadn't yet met in person, since we're both shy and slightly anti-social, but we gratefully took the offer and I'm so glad we did.
TFS and Carrot were generous and fun and they not only let us stay with them, but cooked us fabulous meals and played games with us and took us out to eat and were just excellent hosts. And we found that our friendship was just a great in real life as it is over a chat box and coming home I realized how lucky I am. Great friends are hard to come by, but with each new activity I involve myself in, whether it be school, a hobby, or just an internet website, I've managed to come away with some great friends and I now have a group of people I really love and admire.
Perhaps the only way I can show my affection is with cookies, but I hope all of the people in my life realize how much I really really appreciate you. My friends are worth more than a zillion dollars or a Nobel prize or even my dream job, and if you stick around, I will shower you with cookies forever!
If you have a special person out there that you haven't appreciated enough lately, perhaps some cookies are a good way to start. The recipe is from the March issue of Bon Appetit and can be found here: Dark and White Chocolate Chunk Cookies.
Almost two years ago now, I met a dude on the internet. Up until really recently, I wasn't in the habit of meeting people that way, but when you work from home, suddenly you discover that you mostly don't talk to other people in the course of a normal day, like you do in an office. So you find yourself reaching out for social interaction in whatever way you can.The first thing I remember about TFS is discovering we were the same age (always a relief on the internet) and exchanging mutual and virtual high fives over being age buddies. But that was about the extent of our interaction, until he dragged his wife to the place where we hung out on the internets and I suddenly started to notice that she was super cool. She liked cool things, and she said funny things and other people I talked to would tell me stories of how fun and great she was to talk to.
So I admit at this point I started to kiss her butt a little. But hey it worked! Gradually, we started responding to each other in this public forum more, and then we started adding each other to things like Facebook and Last.fm and all those obligatory connection points, and suddenly almost without even realizing how, we had gone from complete strangers to talking almost every day. The completely unexpected had happened, which is that I made a real life friend from the internet. It's hard to imagine working at my computer now without my little chatting partner to help the tediousness go by more quickly.
So when J and I decided to take a trip to our nation's capital this spring, they made the extremely generous gesture of offering their home as a place for us to stay. We were a little nervous about staying with people we hadn't yet met in person, since we're both shy and slightly anti-social, but we gratefully took the offer and I'm so glad we did.TFS and Carrot were generous and fun and they not only let us stay with them, but cooked us fabulous meals and played games with us and took us out to eat and were just excellent hosts. And we found that our friendship was just a great in real life as it is over a chat box and coming home I realized how lucky I am. Great friends are hard to come by, but with each new activity I involve myself in, whether it be school, a hobby, or just an internet website, I've managed to come away with some great friends and I now have a group of people I really love and admire.
Perhaps the only way I can show my affection is with cookies, but I hope all of the people in my life realize how much I really really appreciate you. My friends are worth more than a zillion dollars or a Nobel prize or even my dream job, and if you stick around, I will shower you with cookies forever!
If you have a special person out there that you haven't appreciated enough lately, perhaps some cookies are a good way to start. The recipe is from the March issue of Bon Appetit and can be found here: Dark and White Chocolate Chunk Cookies.
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