I Feel Seen

Our master bedroom is on the top floor of our house. There is a window over the jacuzzi tub, with wood blinds. I usually keep the blinds open to let light into the bathroom, since there are no windows on the house next door that face my bathroom window.

When we first moved in, over 20 years ago, Hubs asked me about not closing the blinds. It is a bathroom, after all, where we're naked when going in and out of the bath or shower. I told him he was welcome to close them when he's in there if he'd prefer, but teased him that the only way anyone would be able to see him that high up would be if their hovercraft was way off course.

Apparently, at the time, there was a second scenario. I learned that the hard way a month later when, wrapped in a towel fresh from my morning shower, I went to the mirrors opposite that window and caught sight of workers on my neighbor's roof.

 

Who hopefully did not catch sight of me.

Fast forward 20 years, to a time when the privacy I held dear pretty much does not exist anymore. Companies track my every mouse click online. A psychopathic billionaire has access to all of my personal, supposedly private banking, voting, medical, etc information on line. The cable company requires me to send a selfie or a copy of my license in order to allow me to get into my cable account (umm, no, I'll stay out). 

My life is an open book. And I decidedly did not open it.

And now . . .

. . . one recent night after dinner, we'd settled down with our Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter Layer Bars for dessert, intending to spend a quiet night in the den. 

Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter Layer Bars

At one point I got up to walk around a bit and when I looked outside, saw something I couldn't explain.

There was a light in the sky. And it was just sitting there. I watched it for some time, even got out the binoculars. Every now and then, I thought I saw a tiny flash of green or red. And sometimes it was just a circle of light, other times it looked like there were short rays coming out of each side. But it didn't move from that spot.

Huh?

Hubs looked at it. College Boy looked at it. We couldn't figure it out. It couldn't be an aircraft, nor the only star in the whole sky. We thought drones made noise, but we stepped outside and it was absolutely silent. 

An hour or so later we looked out and it was still there. So probably a drone, but what would a drone be doing sitting over a quiet Midwest neighborhood for hours at a time?

A few hours later, curiosity got the best of me and I looked outside. It was pitch black out now, still no stars, and it remained deathly quiet. But it was still there. It had moved to the right, and lower, at some point (I wish I had happened to see that), but it was just sitting. Now, in a different spot.

We can rule out rogue hovercraft, aircraft, star, and UFO, 'cause if it was a UFO it would have beamed up a fine specimen like me by now. So it's got to be a drone, right?

What was it doing? Peeping?

Seriously, I haven't felt this exposed since coming out of the shower to find workers on the neighbor's roof.

I gotta tell you the truth. I feel seen.

And not in a good way.

Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter Layer Bars

                                                                       ©www.BakingInATornado.com

Printable Recipe

Ingredients:

25 dark chocolate filled sandwich cookies, divided

6 TBSP melted butter

1 cup Butterfingers baking bits

1 cup dark chocolate chips

1/2 cup peanut butter baking chips

6 mini Reese's cups, quartered

1/2 cup Reese's pieces

1 can (14 oz) sweetened condensed milk

1/4 cup crunchy peanut butter

3 TBSP chocolate syrup

Directions:
*Grease a 9 X 13 baking pan. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

*Crush 18 of the cookies to crumbs. Mix with the melted butter and pat into the bottom of the prepared pan.

*Chop the remaining cookies and sprinkle over the crust, followed by the dark chocolate chips, then peanut butter baking chips, then quartered mini Reese's cups, then the Reese's pieces.

*Whisk together the sweetened condensed milk, peanut butter, and chocolate syrup. Pour evenly over the top of the other ingredients.

*Bake for 30 - 35 minutes, until the center is set and the edges start to brown. Cool completely before cutting.

Information Wars: Power or Danger

 

I got a frantic phone call from College Boy while he was at work the other afternoon. 

"Mom," he said, "quick, can you get onto FB and delete my account?"

Delete his account? "Why?" I asked him. "Please, I can't talk, I'm at work and I need it deleted."

"Just tell me, are you safe?" "Yes," he told me. "And have you done something wrong, are you in trouble?" "No," he assured me, "I just don't want any pictures of me on social media. I'll talk to you later."

Let me just take a step back here and say this:

Information is power.

And information is dangerous.

In this country, we have blurred those lines, and every day I see another frightening situation that proves my point.

Many states have decided that in order to have a book approved for their schools' curriculum, history, our country's past, must either be denied or rewritten. Politicians are using their power to deny students information. I wrote about this in my post Woke Up, about how I believe that blocking information from students, squashing critical thinking, will ultimately be to the detriment of our future. If we are going to have breakthroughs, in all industries, information, the good, the bad, and the ugly, all needs to be disseminated. Information, in the form of educating honestly, is power.

And power over information is dangerous.

When it comes to information itself being dangerous, I've talked about this before, we are tracked, spied on, made marketing targets without any ability to limit the personal information collected. It is not only creepy, but an affront to our ability to feel safe, to feel that our identity is safe, to feel that we can even discuss family issues with our children via phone or text. How can I feel that my identity is safe when companies I've never heard of send me birthday wishes? They know my name, my address, my email, my birth date. I am impotent, naked, unable to control what strangers know about me.

What I put out there myself, like on this blog, the recipes I share, the stories I share, that is, and should be my choice.

Strawberry Dark Chocolate Chip Cookies

 

But the rest of it, the personal information I do not put out for public consumption, should be controlled by me. Only me. 

More than that, a dangerous step further than that, is that not only do marketers have access to our personal information, but they don't just market us personally based on it. They are reckless with it, sell it, put it out there for others to find.

I did get into my son's FB account and deleted it for him. And then I waited anxiously for him to come over and explain why he wanted pictures of himself off of social media.

Besides a day job, College Boy engages in his first love, music. He buys and sells albums. I'll often hear old jazz or blues coming from his room, but the rare and limited edition records he buys and sells are mostly Hip Hop and Rap. He's extremely well informed on the history of the genre, and is engaged in the community, on Discord and other social media platforms where they share information, availability, purchases and sales. He'll stay up late, wake up early, sometimes even set me up on a laptop when there's going to be a limited edition drop.

Recently, he'd been able to buy a rare bundle, which he shared with his groups. In one group, some people offered College Boy a very lot of money to rip (copy) the album for them. He refused, it's not only illegal, but unfair to the artist.

One guy was very, very angry. When my son heard of a business that had a copy, he reached out to this guy. He didn't know if it would be for sale or not, but he wanted to just mention it. The guy responded by telling College Boy to "piss off." When College Boy said he was just trying to help, the guy's response was rude, borderline threatening. The guy then immediately changed his profile picture.

To a picture of my house.

I don't know how dangerous this guy may or may not be. I do know that he was able to go onto Google and find a picture of our home. And use it as a veiled threat.

Information can be power. And Information can be danger. We as a society need to identify which is which. But when it comes to personal information we, as citizens, should have a voice in setting the parameters for ourselves. We must have the right to protect our own privacy. And in some cases, even possibly ensure our own safety.

Strawberry Dark Chocolate Chip Cookies         

                                                                                      ©www.BakingInATornado.com

Printable Recipe

Ingredients (makes about 3 dz large cookies):
1 stick butter, softened

1 stick margarine, softened

1 1/4 cup sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar

2 eggs

2 1/2 cups flour

1/4 tsp cinnamon 

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

3 strawberries, hulled and chopped

6 strawberry cream cookies, chopped

2/3 cup dark chocolate chips

Directions:
*Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Line baking sheets with parchment paper.

*Cream the butter, margarine, and both sugars. Once smooth, beat in the eggs.

*Starting on the lowest speed until incorporated, beat in the flour, cinnamon, baking soda, and salt.

*Press the chopped strawberries between paper towels to remove some of the moisture.

*Mix in the cookie pieces, dark chocolate chips, and strawberries into the dough. 

*Drop the dough, by rounded tablespoons, onto the baking sheets. Leave lots of room, they spread.

*Bake for 12 - 13 minutes, until browned, then leave on the cookie sheets for 3 minutes before removing them to cool completely.