JulieLeung.com: a life told in tidepools

So I turned the comments back on…and then the spammers returned…!

It felt strange without comments functioning.

And yes I know conversation is a two-way street. I hope to be back driving in traffic soon, so to speak.

Ted, the girls and I spent the first week of October on vacation visiting his family on the East Coast. Someone in our family celebrated a birthday on our trip and we flew home last Saturday, our minds packed with fun memories and our luggage stuffed with gifts. I also brought home pink eye and a cold. It’s taken me most of the week to recover and rest. There’s been a lot to unpack, literally and figuratively. I’ve been trying to catch up on responsibilities, some of them neglected for months, while also relaxing and reading. Now that our travels for the year are finished, I have time to reflect, time for retrospection and refreshment. It’s still busy and yet it’s quiet.

I hope to write more later. In the meantime, I’ve posted some pictures in my flickr account. Ted has posted a number on his flickr site too, including a set of 62 photos from the trip. Here’s a picture I took today at my favorite tree in downtown Bainbridge Island:

A few weeks ago we spent the night with friends. They let us use their spare room which features some furniture and a toy kitchen set. Ted and I slept on the air mattress on the floor. In the morning, while we were packing, I discovered an entire pile of peas beneath my side of the mattress.

I had no idea. No bruises either.

Yes, they are plastic peas. And I only slept on one mattress, not a pile of twenty. Still, I remembered the fairy tale – the German version I read to the girls, a gift from friends – and realized I must not be a princess.

So I failed the test. But it’s okay.

Photo taken here

I’ve had an intense week (more later) and have had a difficult time keeping up with the spammers. So as a temporary stop-gap measure, the comments on this blog have been closed. My apologies. I hope to open them again this weekend. In the meantime, please email me: harrowme AT yahoo.com

Speaking of spammers, Suw Charman noted and blasted a most awful version of spam:

Sadly, it turns out that, after quite a bit of phoning and checking and ferreting out facts, this is actually exactly what it appears to be – marketers writing fake comments from a fictional character purporting to be supportive of someone going through a real, emotionally stressful time.

While I haven’t yet received comments from a fictional character in a viral marketing campaign – or at least I’m not aware of it – I have been receiving comments that appear authentic but are fake. Spam is becoming more subtle. I’ve received comments that must have been written by a human, specific and relevant to the particular post, but the link left by the writer was an ad. For example, I was upset to receive a comment on my post for the emergency identification program for car seats known as WHALE. The commenter claimed to have liked the WHALE program to the point of creating a web site with a url that sounded related to it. However, a quick visit revealed that it was someone’s business web site. Ick! (I deleted it, to remove the Google juice.) Also, while reading through another blog I found a comment that appeared to be from a spammer yet seemed sympathetic and supportive of a difficult situation. On behalf of my fellow blogger, I was disturbed.

The V$%gra spam was one problem, but this is another. I was annoyed to be bombarded by comments advertising drugs and p@rn. However, these spammers who disguise themselves with false identity and fake empathy will receive only disgust and disdain in return. As Suw wrote: This time round, though, the marketers have reached a new and despicable low.

Again, my apologies.