CategoriesArchivesJanuary 2012 |
Ruth’s hot spinach and artichoke dipI went to my friend Ruth’s baby shower last week. Everyone brought enormous platters of tasty food, myself included. I ate more than was required of a polite guest, but then, so did everyone else. So, when Ruth mentioned her spinach dip, I gamely went back to the food table, even though I’m not partial to spinach and dropped around a tablespoon-sized blob on my plate, saying, rather louder than was necessary, that “It looked delicious, but I’d better not be greedy, this way there would be enough for everyone to have a taste.“ Boy, was that dumb! See, Ruth’s dip was DELICIOUS! And now, I was hemmed in by my loud, “oooh, don’t want to be greedy,“ excuse. I should have just taken a smidgen and not said anything, but I did. And so after my outwardly generous restraint, I couldn’t very well gallop back to the food table, elbow my fellow baby-shower-attendees aside, bellowing, “Get out of my way, an emergency here, need more of that dip, pronto!“ No, I conversed, I played baby shower bingo, I admired all the lovely thoughtful gifts that all of Ruth’s family and friends had assembled to celebrate this special amazing time in Ruth and her husband’s life. All the while my mouth was lusting after some more of that dip. Anyway, Ruth, who is patiently awaiting the arrival of her baby daughter, kindly answered my email and included the requested recipe. I am over the moon, because not only do I like it, but my boy Will arrives from London in five days and he LOVES spinach and artichoke dip, and this one is the best I ever had, so I am going to make it for him and he will be happy. 2 cloves garlic, finely minced Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Melt butter in a saute pan. Add garlic and onions. Cook till brown. Add spinach. Add salt and pepper.Cook till wilted. Posted by Meg Tilly on Monday, November 29, 2010 in Recipes Hey Everybody…It’s SNOWING! First snow flurries of the year. Not only that, but it is starting to stick. Nothing visible on the grass or trees yet, but the deck outside the kitchen is almost all white. I wonder if by tonight we’ll have a winter wonderland? Highly unlikely, but one can always hope. I don’t know why the first snow of the year always feels so magical. That combined with the mandarin oranges appearing in the stores, is really making me feel like Christmas. And this year, oh joy, all of my children are going to be home for the holidays! Posted by Meg Tilly on Saturday, November 20, 2010 in Maddie DawsonI had a lovely surprise recently. You know how it is, one goes to one’s favourite bookstore and wanders around the aisles, picking up a few old faithfuls (authors one has read before and knows that a certain standard will be present) a few books that have been reccomended by fellow readers/friends whose taste one trusts, maybe grabbing a classic that one has intended to read for years and never gotten around to… And then there is the impulse buy. A book that grabs one for no discernable reason. An unknown author, reviews on the back by authors one doesn’t know. So, why did I not only pick up, browse through and actually buy Maddie Dawson’s the stuff that never happened? I don’t know. Maybe it was the cover which is absolutely lovely. Maybe it was because when I opened it up and read a few pages, it felt true. Maybe it was because it was her first novel and it was about the complications of marriage and what-ifs and longings and she had dedicated it her husband and in the author biography all it said was “Maddie Dawson lives in Connecticut. She is happily married.“ So, of course I thought, “Oooh!“ Seeing as how I sold my first “novel” as fiction even though there was nothing fictional about it, and I too had dedicated it to my mother, whose love I was terrified I would lose from the writing of this book. And after all it is an old writer’s tale that all first novels are based on life. Not that it’s true of course. In many instances fiction means fiction. And perhaps that is the case with the stuff that never happened. However, the possiblity of it was enough to prompt me to drop it on the stack of books in my arms and propel me to the cashiers counter. Not only that, but Annabelle, whose point of view the book is written from, was my age. Her youngest child had just left home. And even the tiny bit I had read standing in the aisle was enough to make me feel not so alone and adrift in my own musings about who-am-I-now-that-my-children-have-grown-and-how-did-I-get-here? Well, I am delighted to say that the $25.95 CAN purchase of this hardcover book was totally worth it! There is something so true about Maddie Dawson’s voice. Something that said, yes, that is the way life is sometimes. Emotions, relationships aren’t always neat and tidy. Sometimes there is spillover. Mixed feelings. I hope a lot of people embrace her book, so her publisher will be happy and sign her up for another novel.
Posted by Meg Tilly on Thursday, November 18, 2010 in Chewing the Fat Chocolate mystery solved!For those of you who were left trembling on the edge of your seat with regards to where the mysterious box of chocolates came from, finally, our curiosity has been satiated. The surprise present left on my door was from my sister Jennifer! She was very gracious about the fact that I said they were yucky on my blog, didn’t mind that we had thrown them away. “Better safe than sorry!“ she said. I’m lucky to have such a great sister. Thanks, Jenny, for thinking of us on your travels and sending us a box of chocolates as a happy hello. That was a very sweet thing for you to do. xo Posted by Meg Tilly on Thursday, November 11, 2010 in hello, I’m backWe arrived home last yesterday afternoon punch-drunk from sleepiness from having just completed a twenty-one hour plane journey that took the form of two taxis, three airports, two sets of customs, a ferry terminal and some driving. I had told Don back in Amsterdam, rather cockily, that I would drive home since “I had better reflexes with no sleep.“ Don drove. I would have made good on my threat, but I think the idea of me behind the wheel of his beloved car, scared him enough to grab a couple of hours of sleep on the plane. I was not so lucky. I think perhaps it was a clever ploy on Don’s part. See, ever since he got his i-pad, he’s been trying to entice me into sharing his newest, greatest excitement of his life. Sliding it into my lap, saying, “Don’t you want to even give it a try?“ Or, “Look at this new app I’ve just downloaded, it is the coolest thing ever!“ Once he even resorted to showing me how he could click on a metal and a chunk of it would rotate, glimmering and sparkling. I guess he thought since I have an interest in the gold markets that I would scream, “Oh my god! That is soo cool! Fantastic! Set me up with one of those i-pad puppies!“ Nope. Nothing. Didn’t do it for me. Another attempt was when he showed me how if I was curious about a stock I could just plug in it’s symbol and all this information would pop up about the company. “Where’s the dividend yield?“ I said. “Um… Okay, so it doesn’t have that, but look at what else it came do. See, charts! One year chart, two year chart.“ “Hmm…“ Now I was interested. “Show me the ten year chart.“ ‘Can’t do that.“ “Okay, what about the twenty?“ “Nope, um… five years is as far as it can go.“ Which is totally silly, because I like to look further back than five years. So, naturally, my tiny spike of interest in the i-pad flew out the window. He showed me how he could read books on it, sliding his finger on the corner to flip the pages. “I prefer to hold a real book in my hand,“ I said. “Flip real pages. Besides, I’m an author, if everyone in the world bought electronic books then I wouldn’t be able to hold a book that I wrote in my hand, feel the weight of it, the accomplishment, admire the beautiful cover and spine. Wouldn’t be able to walk into a bookstore and see it sitting on the shelf for other people to pick up and enjoy. Not to mention, I love the whole, going to a bookstore experience. Nothing can take the place of wandering up and down the aisle and picking up possible reads. Nope electronic books are not for me. The only way I’m ever going to bend on that is when my eyes get so old and weary that they can no longer read the print, even with my progressive lenses.“ And I mean it too. If we want bookstores to stay an integral part of our communities, we MUST support them! It breaks my heart to see bookstore after bookstore closing their doors. As a matter of fact, the holidays are just around the corner, we are all starting to make lists of possible gifts, why not trot down to your local bookstore and pick up a couple. Hmm… I just realized, I have totally went marching down a different road than the one I thought I was travelling. Back to my round-about story of the airplane, lack of sleep and Don’s i-pad pushing. Which I had managed, with no small sense of smugness, to waft around, entirely above such juvenile pursuits as fidgeting with electronic toys, blowing up whatever... “I have better things to do with my time than blow up things,“ I would say. “I would much rather cook something yummy, or read a book, or take a walk, a million things nicer than staring at a computer screen and wiggling my fingers and thumbs. I am fifty years old, have never played a computer game in my life and certainly don’t intend to start now.“ Well…That was then and this is now. What happened is, Don was showing our friend, Ken, all the marvels of the i-pad, because Ken is an Apple-junkie as well. He is the one who came up to our old island cabin years ago, cradling his new mac-laptop, sliding his hands lovingly across the top, showing Don how fast it booted up when we were parked outside the local elementary school using their Internet. He is the reason that Don got started on his everything-Apple binge. So, while we were bobbing down the Rhine, Don showed him a few of the so-called marvels of the i-pad and then Ken said, “What’s your favorite game on it?“ So, of course Don showed him the Angry Ducks (or chickens?) It seems all innocuous, and has little jaunty music and tiny movies about how the green pigs stole the eggs so the birds hop into a sling-shot and the player takes his finger, pulls back and aims and propels the birds into the air to try to land on the pigs and break through their fortification. Okay, now, the mother in me when I would see Don or Dave or even newbie Ken, playing this game is: First: this is rather violent. These birds are committing suicide missions here and you are helping them. Why not go outside and plant some flowers or rake some leaves or something. Two: Wouldn’t it be better for the pigs and the birds to just get together and try to start some kind of discussion. Like, “Hey, look, stop stealing our eggs. These are our unborn children we are hatching. How about if we lay a certain amount of unfertilised eggs per week, which we will give to you in exchange for you ceasing and desisting from stealing the ones we are trying to hatch?“ Now I know that this might seem a little like an agreement that one might draw up if one was living in a neighbourhood which was run by the mafioso, however, given the amount of angry birds I’ve seen hurled out of the slingshot to certain death, this seems like a rather good compromise. Be that as it may, in watching Ken, who is probably one of the most honorable and nonviolent men you would ever meet, hunched over the i-pad, ruthlessly flinging electronic birds to an untimely end, enjoying himself enormously, Don having fun by proxy, and me, gradually, reluctantly, being drawn in. Later that night, when we had retired to our cabin and Don’s mom and Ken had gone to their respective rooms, Don was reading and I had finished my book. I wasn’t sleepy and didn’t want to start a new book, because I’m the type of reader who has to read a book from beginning to end, sleep-be-damned. “Would you like to try Angry birds?“ Don asked all innocently, once again sliding the glowing i-pad my way. ‘No,“ I said. And then two minutes later, “Okay.“ Not a good move. I don’t know how much time I have lost propelling imaginary birds through the air, but let me tell you this. Don’t start. It’s like warm Kettle corn. The first taste is not so good, the second taste better, by the third handful, you don’t know how you lived all these years without it. Angry Birds is like that. You can’t just play one game, because there is the next one to crack and the next one. I didn’t sleep on the plane. No, I blew up birds and green pigs and enjoyed every minute of it. It’s rather embarrassing to admit, but there you have it. Therefore, Don drove home, as I had hogged his i-pad for a goodly portion of the flight, sleep was not necessary, there were pigs to explode. It wasn’t until we arrived on Canadian soil, that I realized I was wobbling on my feet. Our friends, Dawna and Bob arrived on our heels as they are leaving for Florida today and we needed to do the table trade-off before they left. We (Don and Bob did most of the work) carried a rather hefty disassembled dining room table from the back of their van into the house. Staggering across the wet lawn, our muscles screaming in agony, Dawna observed cheerily, “Lucy and Ethel strike again!“ “Oh no,“ I gasped. “Don’t even say that!“ Visions of some unsuspecting disaster lurking just around the corner. Which of course made her cackle happily. We got the table pieces safely inside and Bob and Don assembled it while I made coffee. It was good to be home. The milk in the fridge had gone off while we were away, but Dawna and Bob pretended they liked it black. Then their son called, and off they went to have dinner. Someone in customs had sawed the lock off my suitcase, so after Dawna and Bob left I opened it up on the living room floor and checked to make sure that the delicious, mind-blowingly good chocolate liquor we purchase at the Schokoladen museum at the Lindt chocolate factory was still in there. IT WAS! Yay! I guess it’s rather odd, one would think I’d be worried about my fancy clothes or expensive boots that I bought in London last year that are the impossible-to-find-combination-of-stylish-AND-comfortable, but no… The only thing I was concerned about where these, not terribly fancy bottles of chocolate magic. If you ever go to Cologne, Germany, don’t bother with paying to go into the museum, as it is rather simple and boring and not really worth the price of admission even if they give you a wafer cookie with chocolate sauce. DO however, go into the attached store and buy all the chocolate liquor you can carry! Don’t be put off by the unimaginative labeling. It is DELICIOUS! I wish I had bought more. Posted by Meg Tilly on Tuesday, November 09, 2010 in Chewing the Fat At long last…Hello there, Some of you may be wondering what happened to the promised wedding photo. Well, it’s a longish story, but here is the shorter version. Don found this Apple (yes, we are both Mac users) feature where you can download your pictures from your camera and then choose the ones you want, drag them over to different slots and once you are finished, all you have to do is fill out a form, pay for it, and a few days later it arrives on your doorstep in book form! It took a while to choose the pictures and decide the order and then it took a few days more for the book to arrive, and I didn’t want to post any of the pictures here because I felt that Amy and David should be the first to see them. Well, we got the book and we gave it to them and they loved it! So, finally, here you are, the long promised glimpse. And yes, of course, tears came, my heart so full it was overflowing.
Amy organized and planned the whole thing right down to designing and assembling her own invitations. And all her hard work and attention to detail paid off, because everybody said it was the nicest wedding they had ever been to. Posted by Meg Tilly on Saturday, October 30, 2010 in Chewing the Fat Oh, also…Around a week and a half ago, we received a Fed-ex package. It was very mystifying since neither one of us was expecting anything. I carried it into the kitchen and with the help of a kitchen knife it’s contents were revealed. A banged-up box of what looked like rather expensive Italian chocolate. A card was stuck under the ribbon, but there was no name or greeting attached. “Um! Chocolate,“ I said, popping one into my mouth. Italian chocolate is fancy, but personally, I don’t find them very tasty. It’s weird how I keep giving it a go though, like maybe this time it will magically be better. “What are you doing?!“ Don said, staring at me horrified. “Eating chocolate,“ I answered suddenly feeling guilty and not sure why. “Spit it out!“ His voice rising several octaves. “Are you nuts? You don’t know who sent that. It could be poisoned!“ “Don’t be ridiculous,“ I said, swallowing just to show him he wasn’t the boss of me. “Meg, for god-sakes!“ And even though he had a point, I dug through the bruised box of chocolates looking for something that might possibly taste better than the last piece, (that I would have spit out, if he hadn’t demanded that I do, because why waste the calories on something that isn’t making my mouth happy?) “I’m serious, Meg. You shouldn’t eat that.“ He was sweating now, quite profusely. I took a jaunty bite of the new piece of chocolate. Yuck. It wasn’t tasty either. “It’s free,“ I said, chewing nonchalantly. “I can’t watch this,“ he said, like I was going to fall to the floor in spasms at any moment. “Then don’t,“ I said like I didn’t have a care in the world. So, he took my advice and left the room, for which I was extremely grateful. As soon as I heard him pad down the hall and into the family room, I grabbed the garbage can from under the sink and spat the candy out. Then I stuck my head under the faucet and rinsed it throughly. It’s not like he scared me or anything… Okay, well maybe just a little, but if he was a proper husband he wouldn’t have bossed me and made me swallow that first piece. I left the box of not-very-tasty chocolates on the kitchen counter and called a few possible chocolate senders and made discreet inquires, like, “By the way, did you send us a box of chocolates?“ The interesting thing was, it was sort of embarrassing when I asked. Now, maybe I was imagining it, but there would be a slight pause as if the person on the other end of the phone was desperately trying to remember if they should have. Was it my birthday? Was there something wonderful that I had done that should have been thanked with a box of chocolates? The chocolates became a great mystery to me. Hardly anyone knows where we live. Who had I told my address to and forgotten that I did? Who do I know that doesn’t eat chocolate, because really, if you did, you never would have sent Italian chocolate. Not that I have anything against Italy! I love visiting, love their pasta, the architecture, the winding streets, the way they cook potatoes, fish, meat. The chocolate is the only thing I’m not particularly fond of. Which, of course, I never would have told the sender, as it is the thought that counts. Finally, my brain hurt from trying to figure it out, so I stopped. I thought, whoever sent it will call to make sure they arrived safely. But whoever is was, hasn’t. So, if the sender is an occasional reader of this blog, “Thank you so much for the thoughtful gift. I do enjoy chocolates. And the only reason I haven’t thanked you verbally, is because I don’t know who you are.“
Posted by Meg Tilly on Sunday, October 24, 2010 in Chewing the Fat Bolen Books frivolity and fun!Sunday was a BIG day for Bolen Books! First, Mel Bolen, who started Bolen Books (the two times winner of a very fancy trophy for the Best Bookseller Of The Year) is retiring. In a time when more and more of our beloved neighbourhood independent bookstores are having to close their doors, Bolen Books is flourishing. Mel has turned the reins over to Samantha Holmes. Who, Mel confessed quite proudly to all and sundry, has already been running the place for the last ten years. Apparently, the reins-turning-over ceremony was merely an opportunity to make the knowledge public and throw a great party to boot. And yes, for my old-time bloggers, it is the Samantha Holmes, who accompanied me to visit with Rosie when she came to Vancouver on her True Colours tour as my girls-just-want-to-have-fun-cohort, and whose name has appeared in numerous blogs over the years… Okay, that sounded like I’ve been blogging for decades, I should be more specific. “In the three years that I have blogged sporadically, Samantha Holmes, now the proud owner of Bolen Books, has been mentioned more than three times in my posts. How many times? I can’t say, but more than three.“ Here is a picture of me with my fancy-fabulous-friend, Samantha, at the Bolen Books 35th Anniversary/passing of the baton Shingding. It was a 70’s theme party with a 70’s band and yummy food that was popular in the 70’s and so there were 70’s flower power table clothes and… of course… one of those lights that changed colour. Well… Bob, (a publisher that I’d worked with) was there along with another publisher who I didn’t know, and she was standing by the light lamp and from where I was standing, the lamp’s strands were framing her head like a halo. And I was trying to be Oh-yes-nice-to-meet-you, but it was hard to be all proper and normal because the minute I pulled my focus away from that halo around her head, that light behind her would change colours. I was quite excited by the magic/halo/light show and how cool it looked, but I kept it inside. A few minutes later they had drifted to another section of the party and when no one was looking I made Don take a halo picture of me. We didn’t get the first attempt framed up properly. My head covered up most of the light strands, so for the next one I bent my knees. Don was a little slow pressing the camera button, and I was trying to look like one of those saint paintings on the church walls, but I was also, wishing Don would hurry up and take it before anyone noticed what we were doing and laughed at me. Hence, I don’t look quite as angelic as I would have under a less covert operation. After the picture was taken, I quickly removed myself from the area, as if distance would make me less embarrassed about how much I wanted that photo. It was going to be our little secret, but of course, wouldn’t you know it, we come around the book counter and who should be standing there, but my friend, Samantha. Well… what are friends for if not to tell secrets to? So, of course I told her, but it was sort of hard to explain, so Don took out his beloved i-phone and showed her the picture, which she thought was hilarious and one thing lead to another and… And then to top the evening off… The Blackberry/i-phone wars. Posted by Meg Tilly on Saturday, October 23, 2010 in Okay, so here’s the scary foreclosure thing I read…This is the part of John Mauldin’s Thoughts From The Frontline that I was telling you about. I had to read it more than once to really absorb it. The possible implications of this are mind-boggling. I find it both terrifying, horrifying and fascinating all at once. If this is indeed true, then those of you who have been or are in danger of being foreclosed on, you must read this. Those of you invested in the U.S. banks that are now in the newspapers with the foreclosure situation, I strongly recommend you read this. And for those of you in heavily in stocks, please be careful, because if this thing blows it could be huge, make sure all your eggs aren’t all in one basket. If you aren’t used to reading investment stuff, take it slow. You don’t have to understand everything. Read it once, twice, three times, or not at all. Reader’s choice. * * * The Foreclosure Mess OK, in a serendipitous moment, Maine fishing buddy David Kotok sent me this email on the mortgage foreclosure crisis just as I was getting ready to write much the same thing. It is about the best thing I have read on the topic. Saves me some time and you get a better explanation. From Kotok: “Dear Readers, this text came to me in an email from sources that are in the financial services business and with whom I have a personal relationship. The original text was laced with expletives and I would not use it in the form I received it. Therefore the text below has had some substantial editing in order to remove that language. The intentions of the writer are undisturbed. The writer shall remain anonymous. This text echoes some of the news items we have seen and heard today; however, it can serve as a plain language description of the present foreclosure-suspension mess. There is a lot here. It takes about ten minutes to read it. - David Kotok (www.cumber.com) “Homeowners can only be foreclosed and evicted from their homes by the person or institution who actually has the loan paper…only the note-holder has legal standing to ask a court to foreclose and evict. Not the mortgage, the note, which is the actual IOU that people sign, promising to pay back the mortgage loan “Before mortgage-backed securities, most mortgage loans were issued by the local savings & loan. So the note usually didn’t go anywhere: it stayed in the offices of the S&L down the street. “But once mortgage loan securitization happened, things got sloppy…they got sloppy by the very nature of mortgage-backed securities. “The whole purpose of MBS was for different investors to have their different risk appetites satiated with different bonds. Some bond customers wanted super-safe bonds with low returns, some others wanted riskier bonds with correspondingly higher rates of return. “Therefore, as everyone knows, the loans were ‘bundled’ into REMIC (Real-Estate Mortgage Investment Conduits, a special vehicle designed to hold the loans for tax purposes), and then “sliced & diced”...split up and put into tranches, according to their likelihood of default, their interest rates, and other characteristics. “This slicing and dicing created ‘senior tranches,‘ where the loans would likely be paid in full, if the past history of mortgage loan statistics was to be believed. And it also created ‘junior tranches,‘ where the loans might well default, again according to past history and statistics. (A whole range of tranches was created, of course, but for the purposes of this discussion we can ignore all those countless other variations.) “These various tranches were sold to different investors, according to their risk appetite. That’s why some of the MBS bonds were rated as safe as Treasury bonds, and others were rated by the ratings agencies as risky as junk bonds. “But here’s the key issue: When an MBS was first created, all the mortgages were pristine…none had defaulted yet, because they were all brand-new loans. Statistically, some would default and some others would be paid back in full…but which ones specifically would default? No one knew, of course. If I toss a coin 1,000 times, statistically, 500 tosses the coin will land heads…but what will the result be of, say, the 723rd toss? No one knows. “Same with mortgages. “So in fact, it wasn’t that the riskier loans were in junior tranches and the safer ones were in senior tranches: rather, all the loans were in the REMIC, and if and when a mortgage in a given bundle of mortgages defaulted, the junior tranche holders would take the losses first, and the senior tranche holder last. “But who were the owners of the junior-tranche bond and the senior-tranche bonds? Two different people. Therefore, the mortgage note was not actually signed over to the bond holder. In fact, it couldn’t be signed over. Because, again, since no one knew which mortgage would default first, it was impossible to assign a specific mortgage to a specific bond. “Therefore, how to make sure the safe mortgage loan stayed with the safe MBS tranche, and the risky and/or defaulting mortgage went to the riskier tranche? “Enter stage right the famed MERS…the Mortgage Electronic Registration System. “MERS was the repository of these digitized mortgage notes that the banks originated from the actual mortgage loans signed by homebuyer. MERS was jointly owned by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (yes, those two again ...I know, I know: like the chlamydia and the gonorrhea of the financial world…you cure ‘em, but they just keep coming back). “The purpose of MERS was to help in the securitization process. Basically, MERS directed defaulting mortgages to the appropriate tranches of mortgage bonds. MERS was essentially where the digitized mortgage notes were sliced and diced and rearranged so as to create the mortgage-backed securities. Think of MERS as Dr. Frankenstein’s operating table, where the beast got put together. “However, legally…and this is the important part…MERS didn’t hold any mortgage notes: the true owner of the mortgage notes should have been the REMIC. “But the REMIC didn’t own the notes either, because of a fluke of the ratings agencies: the REMIC had to be “bankruptcy remote,“ in order to get the precious ratings needed to peddle mortgage-backed Securities to institutional investors. “So somewhere between the REMIC and MERS, the chain of title was broken. “Now, what does ‘broken chain of title’ mean? Simple: when a homebuyer signs a mortgage, the key document is the note. As I said before, it’s the actual IOU. In order for the mortgage note to be sold or transferred to someone else (and therefore turned into a mortgage-backed security), this document has to be physically endorsed to the next person. All of these signatures on the note are called the ‘chain of title.‘ “You can endorse the note as many times as you please…but you have to have a clear chain of title right on the actual note: I sold the note to Moe, who sold it to Larry, who sold it to Curly, and all our notarized signatures are actually, physically, on the note, one after the other. “If for whatever reason any of these signatures is skipped, then the chain of title is said to be broken. Therefore, legally, the mortgage note is no longer valid. That is, the person who took out the mortgage loan to pay for the house no longer owes the loan, because he no longer knows whom to pay. “To repeat: if the chain of title of the note is broken, then the borrower no longer owes any money on the loan. “Read that last sentence again, please. Don’t worry, I’ll wait. “You read it again? Good: Now you see the can of worms that’s opening up. “The broken chain of title might not have been an issue if there hadn’t been an unusual number of foreclosures. Before the housing bubble collapse, the people who defaulted on their mortgages wouldn’t have bothered to check to see that the paperwork was in order. “But as everyone knows, following the housing collapse of 2007-‘10-and-counting, there has been a boatload of foreclosures…and foreclosures on a lot of people who weren’t sloppy bums who skipped out on their mortgage payments, but smart and cautious people who got squeezed by circumstances. “These people started contesting their foreclosures and evictions, and so started looking into the chain-of-title issue, and that’s when the paperwork became important. So the chain of title became crucial and the botched paperwork became a nontrivial issue. “Now, the banks had hired ‘foreclosure mills’...law firms that specialized in foreclosures…in order to handle the massive volume of foreclosures and evictions that occurred because of the housing crisis. The foreclosure mills, as one would expect, were the first to spot the broken chain of titles. “Well, what do you know, it turns out that these foreclosure mills might have faked and falsified documentation, so as to fraudulently repair the chain-of-title issue, thereby ‘proving’ that the banks had judicial standing to foreclose on delinquent mortgages. These foreclosure mills might have even forged the loan note itself… “Wait, why am I hedging? The foreclosure mills did actually, deliberately, and categorically fake and falsify documents, in order to expedite these foreclosures and evictions. Yves Smith at Naked Capitalism, who has been all over this story, put up a price list for this ‘service’ from a company called DocX…yes, a price list for forged documents. Talk about your one-stop shopping! “So in other words, a massive fraud was carried out, with the inevitable innocent bystanders getting caught up in the fraud: the guy who got foreclosed and evicted from his home in Florida, even though he didn’t actually have a mortgage, and in fact owned his house free -and clear. The family that was foreclosed and evicted, even though they had a perfect mortgage payment record. Et cetera, depressing et cetera. “Now, the reason this all came to light is not because too many people were getting screwed by the banks or the government or someone with some power saw what was going on and decided to put a stop to it…that would have been nice, to see a shining knight in armor, riding on a white horse. “But that’s not how America works nowadays. “No, alarm bells started going off when the title insurance companies started to refuse to insure the titles. “In every sale, a title insurance company insures that the title is free -and clear ...that the prospective buyer is in fact buying a properly vetted house, with its title issues all in order. Title insurance companies stopped providing their service because…of course…they didn’t want to expose themselves to the risk that the chain of title had been broken, and that the bank had illegally foreclosed on the previous owner. “That’s when things started getting interesting: that’s when the attorneys general of various states started snooping around and making noises (elections are coming up, after all). “The fact that Ally Financial (formerly GMAC), JP Morgan Chase, and now Bank of America have suspended foreclosures signals that this is a serious problem…obviously. Banks that size, with that much exposure to foreclosed properties, don’t suspend foreclosures just because they’re good corporate citizens who want to do the right thing, and who have all their paperwork in strict order…they’re halting their foreclosures for a reason. “The move by the United States Congress last week, to sneak by the Interstate Recognition of Notarizations Act? That was all the banking lobby. They wanted to shove down that law, so that their foreclosure mills’ forged and fraudulent documents would not be scrutinized by out-of-state judges. (The spineless cowards in the Senate carried out their master’s will by a voice vote…so that there would be no registry of who had voted for it, and therefore no accountability.) “And President Obama’s pocket veto of the measure? He had to veto it…if he’d signed it, there would have been political hell to pay, plus it would have been challenged almost immediately, and likely overturned as unconstitutional in short order. (But he didn’t have the gumption to come right out and veto it…he pocket vetoed it.) “As soon as the White House announced the pocket veto…the very next day!...Bank of America halted all foreclosures, nationwide. “Why do you think that happened? Because the banks are in trouble…again. Over the same thing as last time…the damned mortgage-backed securities! “The reason the banks are in the tank again is, if they’ve been foreclosing on people they didn’t have the legal right to foreclose on, then those people have the right to get their houses back. And the people who bought those foreclosed houses from the bank might not actually own the houses they paid for. “And it won’t matter if a particular case…or even most cases…were on the up -and up: It won’t matter if most of the foreclosures and evictions were truly due to the homeowner failing to pay his mortgage. The fraud committed by the foreclosure mills casts enough doubt that, now, all foreclosures come into question. Not only that, all mortgages come into question. “People still haven’t figured out what all this means. But I’ll tell you: if enough mortgage-paying homeowners realize that they may be able to get out of their mortgage loans and keep their houses, scott-free? That’s basically a license to halt payments right now, thank you. That’s basically a license to tell the banks to take a hike. “What are the banks going to do…try to foreclose and then evict you? Show me the paper, Mr. Banker, will be all you need to say. “This is a major, major crisis. The Lehman bankruptcy could be a spring rain compared to this hurricane. And if this isn’t handled right…and handled right quick, in the next couple of weeks at the outside…this crisis could also spell the end of the mortgage business altogether. Of banking altogether. Hell, of civil society. What do you think happens in a country when the citizens realize they don’t need to pay their debts?“
Posted by Meg Tilly on Monday, October 18, 2010 in Chewing the Fat kc dyerMy friend, Karen, aka kc dyer has released a new YA novel, so I thought I’d post the cover on my site to help her spread the word. Hmm… That didn’t work. I dragged the image of the cover off a book site, saved it to my desktop and then went through the whole “upload file” rigmarole, but obviously, I left out some vital step. I’ll try it again. Yay! Success. Although, maybe I’d better go to my site just to make sure. Be right back… It WORKED! Sometimes I’m so clever I scare myself. The only problem was the cover was hanging around quite a bit below the text so there was all this empty space, but I’ve done a little tweak, so, I think I’ve fixed that as well. On another front, I read quite a terrifying article with regards to the banks, foreclosures and why the banks have all suddenly taken a rest from evicting people from their homes. I am torn whether or not to post the article here. If what this person says is true, then it is extremely important information, not just for people who are or have been foreclosed on, but for anyone with U.S. bank stocks, or even, god-forbid, in the very worst case scenario, money in a bank. Now, the article didn’t say that last part, but of course I continued travelling down the road of what he did write and came to that unhappy place myself. However one of the reasons I don’t write so frequently is because I blog about what is on my mind, and quite often it has to do with what is going on in the world, financial, physical, political and I don’t want to hand all my what is going to happen to the world worries to you. Things are confusing enough without reading something else that keep you up at night. Says Meg-of-little-sleep. If I do decide to post the article in the next day or so, I’ll have the header be a warning, so those of you who aren’t interested can click on something else. Posted by Meg Tilly on Sunday, October 17, 2010 in Meg’s Fruit Crisp/Crumble Tasty TreatHello everyone, Yes, a wedding blog will be forthcoming, once I can pry a suitable photo from my husband’s grasp. But not today. Today I am going to post a recipe I just typed out for my friend. She was having a lot of house guests and was feeling over whelmed and so I made her a fruit crisp/crumble(?) to help out. I’m not sure what it’s called, just know that it is delicious. Anyway, one thing lead to another, the guests loved it, wanted the recipe from her, keep bugging her for it, and she has been putting them off, but it was getting embarrassing because she pretended that she made it, so a rather hilarious confession to me was made accompanied by a plea for the recipe. And I promised to write the recipe down for her to give to them. Which I have just finished doing, but then I thought, well, if her guests like my fruit-whatever so much… You probably would too! So, here it is. Enjoy! Love, Meg Fruit Crisp/Crumble Tasty Treat Preheat oven to 375° Place in pan: Approximately 4 cups of fruit. I eyeball it and fill the pan until it is around ¾ full. You can use crisp granny smith apples that have been peeled and sliced, or a combination of fresh or frozen berries. My favorite is a mix of granny smith apples, and a mix of the raspberries, strawberries and blueberries that I freeze over the summer. One or two apples depending on what I have in the fridge and the rest delicious berries. In a bowl mix: ¼ cup white sugar Mix. Chop a large handful of raw almonds, and a large handful of pecans until the pieces are around half the size of a baby’s tooth. Add to mixture in bowl and blend. Then dump mixture onto the fruit in the baking pan and spread until it is covered evenly. Cook until some of the fruit juices are bubbling through the top and you can plunge a fork into the centre of the crisp and not meet any resistance (i.e. an uncooked/or partially cooked slice of apple.) The timing really depends on whether you used frozen or fresh (both taste great) and how hot your oven is, since all ovens vary. So be flexible. Could take anywhere from 30 minutes to 1 hour to cook. When ready, take out of oven and let sit for a few minutes before you serve it or you might burn your mouth. To serve: scoop out a generous portion and drizzle heavy whipping cream over the top and around the serving (sort of like a cream moat.) Then… devour! Posted by Meg Tilly on Thursday, October 14, 2010 in Recipes Oops!Apparently the Caprica dates I was given were wrong and it aired last week, not this one. Sorry to those of you who tried to watch it. Posted by Meg Tilly on Wednesday, October 13, 2010 in Chewing the Fat CapricaHello everyone, So much has happened. Top on the Big Events list is…drum roll please… My son, David, is now a MARRIED MAN!!!! Huge deal. Way to important to squeeze into this pipsqueak of an update. In the next week or so I shall write a nice cozy blog, complete with a photo or two. Today I am too busy. I helped my friend make breakfast for her bed & breakfast, and now I am doing the prep work for our Canadian Thanksgiving Day Feast! I will be doing the whole shebang again in November when we travel to Jennifer and Phil’s house to help them celebrate the American one. And Emily is making the I-might-come-noises, that would really be great, because then I’d get to cook Thanksgiving Day Feast for two out of my three children. Actually, three out of my four children, because now that David is married…I HAVE ANOTHER DAUGHTER! Yay! I don’t know why, but there is something so satisfying to feed tasty food to the people you love most in the world. Cozy, cozy, cozy! Wait a minute, this was supposed to be a super short update. It’s like when I go to the grocery store to pick up some cream and I end up with a cart-full of deliciousness. Actually, probably not a very good analogy as I am not planning of doing the equivalent of a “cart-full” and it is probably not one of my more “delicious” blogs either. Let’s start again… Hello everyone, My old (from a long time ago, not old as in wrinkly) acting agent emailed me last week to tell me that the little cameos I did on Caprica will be airing on 10/12 and 11/23. Since the first one is this coming Tuesday, I thought perhaps I should post it, for the handful of interested parties, but really, to watch it you’d have to be really interested because another word one could substitute for cameo is small. Okay, off to my cooking. Will write more after the Thanksgiving cooking fest is complete (sometime after Monday.) Posted by Meg Tilly on Saturday, October 09, 2010 in I’m SO happy!I just received a wonderful surprise in the mail. A letter from Laura (my agent) with a royalty check for Gemma! That’s right. Gemma has earned back her advance. Which totally flabbergasted me, since they didn’t have me go on tour or set up a bunch of press or anything. So, despite Tooraj and Laura’s kindness in trying to beat the drum for Gemma, I was feeling a little blue about the whole thing. Sad, like Gemma had found a home, but she only got to eat a bowl of oatmeal for sustenance. But no! More of you discovered Gemma. Read her story. Took her into your hearts. So happy. Hard to believe, but including the sales from when I released it before, this little book has sold over 23,000 copies! Now, for you movie people out there, you might think 23,000 copies, that’s peanuts. Nope. In the book world 23,000 is quite respectable. Especially considering that out of the odd 1,500,000 books that are out there on the shelves, only 1.68% sell 5,000 or more a year. Thank you to all of your for supporting Gemma and me. xo Now, all I have to do is decide which charity I want to send the royalty check to. This is the fun part. Oh, also, for those of you who didn’t know, Gemma is also available in Large Print. You can check and see your local independent book store carries it. If not, they can order it for you, or you can get it from Amazon.com. I mention this because I am at the point where the print in some books is getting hard to read, and so if you are like me, or a little further along in the aging process you might find that Large Print books are a happy invention. I really like the cover they did for the Large Print copy. I wish I had a PDF of it so I could put it up on my site. Okay, I’m off to my writing. kc dyer’s dragon fly wishes at the start of the summer really worked and I’m around 3 weeks away from having a first draft on a new middle grade manuscript, maybe closer. My adult manuscript is resting with Laura, not sure what its fate is going to be. I try not to think about it too much, or I’ll tie myself up in worry knots. Breathe in, breath out. One step in front of the next, write one sentence and then the next, and before I know it, I have another possible novel sitting in a hopeful pile of pages on my desk. Posted by Meg Tilly on Thursday, September 09, 2010 in Bits and Pieces BC Book Prize AuctionI received a request from BC Book Prize to put a link to their auction on my website, so here it is. I went to the site myself and there are a lot of great things to bid on and in doing so you will be helping support and promote writers and illustrators in BC. Not only that, but the BC Book Prize group also tour authors and illustrators around BC to schools that otherwise might not have had the funds or opportunity to have a real live author or artist visit their school. AND every year BC Book Prize finds local sponsors who make massive donations to buy books for the school libraries in BC. Which is a godsend, since funding for our libraries over the last few years has been whittled down to a pittance. So, if you are feeling flush and you have your 8 month emergency fund socked away, and you have topped up your RRSP as well as invested in your TFS, and you have a little spare cash rattling around in your pocket and feel like doing a good deed, check out the auction and see if there is anything that grabs your fancy. Posted by Meg Tilly on Tuesday, July 20, 2010 in Chewing the Fat |
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