Prommin' Ain't Easy

 Things are adding up these days. Between the ticket, the tux, the flowers, even the haircut - my eyes are clouded by dollar signs.

But today, when my son tries on his tux before we leave the store, my heart will melt and the Benjamins will slip from my mind. Yes, my baby is going to the prom. And my pride will well up and and make me want to explode.

This is his first prom at his school. He went last year with a friend from a nearby high school and the emotions I described in the last paragraph are spot on. This year, he is going, as a junior, with a friend who is a senior. When I first heard the news, I squealed in delight. Then when I heard the theme - A Night In Paris - I squealed again. You would have thought I was going to the prom not him.

I am not sure why I got so excited but I suspect because it is different for boys than girls. I can only imagine what things will be like when my daughter starts 'promming'. I  foresee a potential Promzilla and tears. (My tears!)

For my oldest, he is easy. He has my husband's devil-may-care attitude which basically lends itself to me making the tux choice, flower choice and dabbing some product in his hair. The kid is just along for the ride.

Many moons ago, I had the almost perfect senior prom experience. It started with finding the perfect dress. It is funny now that my mom and I found it at the former Steel Valley Bridal on Eighth Avenue - a place I pass regularly traveling to and from work.

Seeing the worn sign on the side of the building triggers memories of standing in front of a large mirror in my emerald green gown, thinking there could never be a more perfect dress. My mom didn't want me to get the first dress that I tried on but after a few fruitless stops, we found our way back to Homestead.

Then I had the perfect accessory. A friend, whom I am still close with today and was part of my prom quartet, actually made our lovely cinch purses. She found material to match both the shade of my dress and hers and made elegant handbags. I have kept this purse over the years and love to take it out from time to time and replay the fun memories of our special day.

But the day did have its snag. A big snag you might say. My date and I, who were going just as friends, never really discussed the transportation issue. All we knew is that we were bucking the system and not getting a limo or fancy car like the majority of the participants would be doing.

Back then, everyone drove to the high school, showed off their fancy duds in a procession around the building and then drove off in a 'prom parade' of sorts to a dock in McKeesport to board the Gateway Clipper.

When my date came to pick me up, or so I thought, he was accompanied by his mother and sisters in their station wagon. I really didn't think much of it at the time since we were going to be taking lots of photos before going on our way. I just figured we would drop them off before heading to the school.

But after our family photo shoot, we started walking down the street to his car and he said, "Where are we going?" To which I replied, "To your car?"

He said his mother needed the car and I had to think quick. "No problem," I said calmly, but fearing the wrath of God as we turned around and I uttered, "Dad, I need the car."

The words we heard next were not really appropriate to be uttered in front of a preacher's son but hey, maybe my dad was moved to pray at that moment and was not was actually demonstrating how to properly break the third commandment.

To put things in perspective, I wasn't allowed to drive the big station wagon. (Too much car for a little lady.) And secondly, my dad is a man who goes the whole nine yards to make everything just right for special occasions.

As he was going inside the house to get the keys he went on about "I could have had the car washed and vacuumed." I believe he mentioned Turtle Wax and detailing, I don't exactly remember but I assured him it was ok, really, and everything was going to be fine.

(Also, keep in mind, my dad keeps his cars very clean. So even with three kids in the family, our rides were typically in good shape. There was nothing, in my opinion, that could have made the car look any better at that moment. I mean it had wheels and an engine, right?)

So my dad handed my date the keys and off we went. I am not sure we said much on the ride to pick up our friends, but once we arrived, as I predicted, everything was fine. Going to the prom was probably my best high school experience and I wouldn't change a thing.

Of courseg, as you would expect, a few weeks ago, after my son told me he was going to the prom and my squeals subsided, my first question was, "How are you getting there?" To this moment, I still don't have a definitive answer to this question.

Am I worried? Nope. I've been down this road before.

Not my prom photo but that is the emerald green dress.

My dried prom corsage and lovely cinch purse.

Hello, Its Me...NOT

It is a good thing my friends/family know me.

I mean even you, dear reader, probably would be scratching your head if my blog encouraged you to sign up for a $50,000 government loan that you never have to pay back.

"That doesn't sound like Kristen." You might say.

Don't get me wrong. I would love to get my hands on some free cash and I certainly would try to pass on the good fortune to people I know, but...we all know there are a lot of scams out there and if it sounds too good to be true it probably is!

Let's go back a few days. Last Saturday, I was out and about wearing my reporter hat, when the first text came in. "Did you send me a message on Facebook?" "Nope," I replied to one of the moms in my kids' Tamburitzan group. I didn't really think anything of her message until I got home.

When I logged onto Facebook there was a post from my aunt. Did you send me a message? I responded right away. "Nope, it wasn't me." Then minutes later there was a voice mail on my phone. "Kristen, can you call me when you have a chance."

All the evidence pointed to the fact I had been hacked. Me - a part of a sneaky scheme to snooker people out of their personal information and get their cash. Wow, that definitely does not sound like me.

So right away my husband and I started our investigation. We were able to log in and see where and what devices I had used to access my account. That is where we noticed someone in Philadelphia had my been on my page two hours prior.

Weird, I thought. I had only been as far as Churchill that day and yet my footprint extended all the way to the land of cheesesteaks, Rocky and the Eagles.

There was nothing out of the ordinary on my page or in my messages, which was strange. I have a whole thread of past messages I have sent and nothing new popped up regarding anything about loans. The one friend, who I spoke with over the phone, said she and I (the imposter) were messaging back and forth but there was nothing indicating any prior Facebook chats we had had. (Usually when you message someone and you have done so before, the previous thread appears before you start typing your message.)

So I changed my password and I posted a message on Facebook alerting my friends I had been hacked, but everything had been taken care of. Hacking into a Facebook account is nothing new. How many times have you gotten a new friend request from someone you already thought you had friended? That usually happens after someone has been hacked. It happens all the time but I didn't think it would ever happen to me. I really do not comment or post photos regularly and I basically use the social media site to keep track of all the happenings in the Valley Mirror coverage area.

My husband asked if I had done something irregular lately using my account. I did share a photo that a friend had shared, although I was not familiar with the person who was the original source of the photo. I have decided that I will no longer be sharing information from people I do not know. This makes me a little sad because Facebook is a great way to get information out about something that is lost, an event that is happening or just a good article to read. But this hacking incident has me thinking about the safety of my information.

I did receive an email message from the Facebook team. Apparently, someone reported a profile (Gina L.) they thought was impersonating me. "We’ve reviewed the profile that your friend reported and found that it isn't pretending to be you and doesn't go against our Community Standards. If you think we should take another look, please reply to this message and let us know."

Ah, yeah. I think maybe you should take another look. I have not completely read Facebook's Community Standards policy, but I would think impersonating someone and trying to get personal information from their friends is not a standard you would want in your community. So it wasn't this Gina L. person who you investigated. Can you keep looking until you find out who it is before someone else is a victim and actually gives out their personal information to a person they think is their friend?

Well, I guess Mark Zuckerburg is going to be very busy today trying to get to the bottom of this, but in the meantime, next time you share a funny cat video, make sure you trust the source because if not, you might find yourself, unknowingly, trying to get your friends to sign up for a free cruise around the world and all they have to do is enter their debit card pin number.

Roll With It

I almost hit the easy button.

You know that Staples commercial which features the big red easy button that customers are supposed to press to make their shopping experience as smooth as possible?

I joke with my husband that in life we always opt for the hard button - making daily experiences as complicated as possible.

This was the case a few weeks ago as we prepared for Easter. As usual we had planned on putting together our traditional Slovak basket of food to be blessed at church - the ham, kilbassa, Paska bread, nut, apricot and poppy seed rolls. My husband takes care of baking the bread and, in the past, had also taken care of the rolls.

We have not had good luck with our rolls. We have a family recipe that for some reason falls short each time. The dough on the top cracks or they don't raise enough or the filling oozes out of the sides. It is frustrating for sure, especially after you use almost a bag of flour and forget the price on walnuts these days!

This year my husband said, "I'm out. You want rolls - you can make them. Or make it easy on yourself and just buy them."

"Buy them?" I thought for a moment. Imagining the pure ease of just opening the package and placing them gently inside my basket. Now that is easy and I was starting to see the advantage to that kind of rogue living.

But then the little voice in my head starting making some chatter. "You come from a distinguished line of proud women bakers. Are you really going to throw in the towel? Are you going to shame the name of all that is Eastern European?"

So I was dealing with a mental tug-o-war. I figured I could buy them from a local church and at least justify my sixty dollar donation. But Holy Week is not the time to be looking for rolls from churches. By that time the ship has sailed. Now it was on to local bakeries. I found two options - one close by - one a bit of a drive. My husband made the decision seem so easy. "Please, just go to Patti's (Patti's Pasticceria in White Oak). It's close and you're done."

Oh if only I wasn't OCD. Friday morning I found myself driving around looking for cake yeast and poppy seed filling. I decided I wasn't going to use the family recipe. I was going off book. I picked a recipe from a cookbook my aunt bought me when I got my first apartment. It was a cookbook compiled by members of her church and each entry featured the parishioner's name and their special dish. It came down to Tom's Easy Nut Rolls or 2-Hour Rolls.

Nothing against Tom, but his yield was more than I needed. I didn't want to take the chance of having to cut the recipe in half and mess something up, again. So I went with Bev's 2-Hour Roll recipe and in two hours I was hoping to have some nice basket worthy specimen.

In honor of my Grandma Bishop, who always donned a bandana when she baked, I got my red headscarf and was almost ready to rock n' roll. But first.. I needed to pray. I needed a higher power to intercede on my behalf of my dough.

I asked my daughter to find the patron saint of baking and that is when we learned about Saint Honoratus of Port-le-Grand, France, who served as a bishop in the late sixth century. Apparently, after his death, praying to him helped stop floods and droughts ensuring a prosperous wheat crop. This made him a good friend to bakers.

There is even a cake named after the saint. The St. Honore cake was invented in Paris. It's a ring-shaped pastry filled with pastry cream and airy Italian meringue, topped with small cream puffs dipped in caramelized sugar, and draped with whipped cream. I don't know about you, but I'd wouldn't turn down a piece!

Anyway, my daughter and I prayed together and let the raising begin. I don't know if it was the recipe but, during the course of an hour,  the rolls tripled in size. I thought to myself even if they don't taste good, they sure will look good. When I cut them up, to put a few easy to snack on pieces in my basket, I did a taste test. To be honest, they could have used a little more filling but I was satisfied. Everyone who tasted them said they were good so I will used the recipe again - just add more of the good stuff.

So a special thank you to Bev for sharing her recipe and a special thank you to St. Honoratus. His feast is coming up on May 16. Are you thinking what I'm thinking? Ring shaped pastry filled with Italian meringue?