I have some more bakery rules for you, but I cannot focus on them tonight. Despite not leaving work until nearly 6:00 (and getting in early this morning), I fully intended to work out tonight. But my back suddenly became so painful that sitting and doing nothing is actually about a 3 or 4 on the 1-10 scale, and trying to row shot it way-the-fuck up the scale to a 5 or 6. (Especially weird because most of today was relatively non-problematic.) So I took some ibuprofen and ate some cookies, which will probably take care of the pain, but by the time it kicks in, it will be too late to work out.
This week's episode of Iron Chef: Friend's House required that I use a cabbage and some bacon as my Secret Ingredients, and the usual rules applied (make do with Friend's equipment and pans; create something that has some nutritional value in it, particularly in the form of vegetables and fiber). Friend often buys some bit of something at the local produce store--which isn't that great of a produce store, but he's enamored with it because, when he was unemployed, he'd buy the battered, bruised, brown, and/or slightly soft or moldy vegetables from the Really Really Cheap rack and create stews and otherwise feed himself for very little money--without any clear notion of what he's going to do with it. And, as with the bacon and the cheese in what follows, there may be little bits of things left from something else.
Then, when we're contemplating making dinner of a Sunday, he wants to use whatever it is he bought, along with whatever other scraps are sitting around--and, often enough, I'm the one who ends up figuring out what to do with it. Last week, for example, as I think I told you, I rescued a butternut squash that had a lot of moldy and brown spots on the outside but appeared to be otherwise okay (he cut off the oogy bits and I threw it in the oven, which was already on for the tart), and used the rest of the rutabaga, an onion, some fresh ginger that was sitting around, a little bit of leftover sweet potato (possibly from New Year's, but it wasn't moldy or anything), the juice from some oranges that were starting to go soft, and some of the applesauce he'd made from apples from the produce store rack. It made a lovely puree after it was all cooked together, it got rid of multiple odds and ends, and he now has several lunches' worth of soup in the freezer.
In principle, I like the thought exercise, and I like using what's available, and I particularly like not wasting things. I also know that having healthy lunches in the freezer, in easily grabbable packages, means healthier eating. But sometimes it feels like more of a chore, particularly when I'm the one who is doing all the work (Friend needed to do some work yesterday--several hours of it, it turned out), even though he is very appreciative of that. I was just kinda melancholy anyway yesterday (and today, too, for that matter), so that probably had an effect.
So: I cut the cabbage into thin strips and steamed it somewhat (though not till it was completely soggy). Meanwhile, I made some rice (a mix of brown and wild) and thawed a package of ground venison. The cabbage had to be steamed in batches, because of the small steamer; as I pulled it out, I put on some salt, pepper, and a little butter, as well as chopped-up cheese bits (probably no more than an ounce or two, of I have no clue what kind of cheese).
I added a can of black beans to the rice when it was done, and cut a few thin slices of semolina sesame bread, which I then cut into small cubes. I cooked the bacon and removed it from the pan, then poured off some (but not all) of the grease. I cooked a diced onion in the bacon grease, scraping up the fond as well. When the onions were soft and a little brown, I threw in the venison; when that was browned, I put the chopped-up bacon back into it. I spiced it with some venison sausage seasoning from Penzey's which is largely pepper of various sorts, I think. To assemble, in a lasagna-sized pan: a layer of cabbage; a layer of the meat and onions; a layer of cabbage; a layer of rice and beans; a final layer of cabbage, topped with some grated cheddar and the bread cubes. Baked the whole thing for a while--basically, until the top was a little crusty and bubbly, and I was guessing that it was more or less heated through, at least around the edge.
It tasted pretty good, though it does NOT retain its shape (e.g., like lasagna), and ends up being a heap more than a slice of anything. I would definitely make it again, though I would--of course--make some changes. In particular: I would use a grain other than rice--barley, farro, or cracked wheat would all be good choices--because rice isn't densely flavored enough. (If i did use rice, I'd perhaps do something with tomatos. But then you'd start losing the flavor of the venison.) Friend suggested adding corn, and you could do that, too, but I'd rather add some kind of dried fruit or tomatos. I might cook the cabbage a little longer. Definitely retain the bacon/onion/venison mix; that worked nicely to add some meaty complexity without being a big Wad O Meat. You could also do stuffed cabbage--leave the leaves whole and make the same mixture, but roll it up in the leaves--but this worked fine, even if it was less pretty.
Dessert included more of the bitter lemon tart, topped with a compote of orange juice, blueberries, and honey, and that definitely worked. I've now made that recipe at least three, and possibly four times, and each time it has had a too-bitter edge to it. I've decided I'm only going to make it if I also have oranges and can do a citrus mix. Brazen Tart has had good luck with that recipe, IIRC, but I'm not doing something right--and not doing it right the same way each time, apparently.
And, sure enough, as I've been sitting here, the pain has receded and nearly gone away completely. Which is definitely a good thing.
Monday, January 25, 2010
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Bakery Rules
It turns out that a number of things I learned at the bakery apply in other realms, including the office where I now work. Feel free to use them if they're useful to you.
1. Not every day can be a good day.
Bossman says this when something fucks up (or someone fucks something up). I particularly appreciated this when I was the person who fucked things up, but, in general, it's a useful thing to keep in mind. People make mistakes; it's just one of the things we do. Ergo, any plan that requires that everything go absolutely perfectly is a shaky plan. It's a much better idea to have some backup systems in place, though even they are going to fail you sometimes.
2. Blame won't laminate the dough or bake the bread.
It's kind of a corollary to the above. Bossman didn't say this, but the "not every day can be a good day" thing is, I always thought, a way to deflect that blaming. On one hand, if someone consistently fucks up a product, or consistently fucks up, then s/he isn't going to be a great fit--perhaps they should be packing cookies instead of mixing dough. But the kind of blaming and finger-pointing that has been going around in my office is really a waste of time and energy.
3. The person you think of as "that asshole" may still be the person you need to mix your dough.
In the bakery, despite the various tidbits I narrated for the amusement of you guys, people were pretty much expected to just deal with each other. The kind of backbiting and throwing people under the bus that we've been seeing in my office job weren't as prevalent. Everyone had their buttons, of course, but mostly everyone got along, especially once Brad was gone.
Part of this was structural, in at least two ways: For one thing, the "hierarchy" was nearly non-existent. Bossman was working right there alongside everyone else, not sitting in an office "downtown." He might be down in the office doing the books or something, and he was much more able to take off a day or a few days, but, in general, he worked hours that were almost as grueling as anyone else's. Thus, jockeying for "position" was kind of pointless; there weren't positions for which to jockey. (That's also why Brad was a problem: he imposed pointless hierarchy, and it just annoyed everyone.)
The other structural reason for this was that there were just enough tasks that required others' cooperation to complete that it wasn't a good idea to completely piss off someone else. This guy may do all the cookies or all the cakes, but he needs that guy to do at least some of the baking for him. The other person may need help making this product. Everyone may need to gather around the line to make bear claws, which means the person in charge of the bear claws better have his ducks in a row before taking everyone away from their work. I tacitly referred to this when I gave Phil credit for baking the croissants (and I could always tell when it was him and not one of the night guys who had done the baking, because Phil did it better)--I knew that, while my lamination was crucial, baking was a huge part of their beauty, and giving him credit for it acknowledged that. You can take the most beautiful product in the world, and if you bake it wrong, it's going to suck. Same thing is true in office-world, but not everyone seems to realize that.
Finally, though, it was a really good crew of guys, who had known each other and worked together for more than ten years--more than 15 years in some cases. It wasn't terribly difficult to get along with them, at least in my case. If you work hard, do your job, lend a hand, and don't be an asshole, you'll get along just fine. This is more a personality thing than a structural thing, but it does speak, a little, to Bossman's selection of people to work there. He was tolerant of people's personality quirks--basically, he ignored them or, when necessary, worked around them--which definitely set a tone.
4. It takes four times to get it right.
Bossman always says it takes making a new recipe four times to get it right, and that proved itself to be true so many times. Even if you get really close the first time, you're still going to want to do some tweaking--fill the mold a little less, bake it a little longer, use a different shape or size, whatever. You can't change everything at once--especially if you don't know exactly which thing will get you closer to where you're trying to get--so you're going to have to do it more than once or twice. Sometimes, of course, you just have to take a shot and go with it; you don't have time to tweak. But if you take notes, then next time you're going to get a little closer. And, on the flip side of this, expecting perfection from someone else the first time out of the gate is a pretty sure road to disappointment.
5. Meetings are generally fucking useless.
A few months ago, when I stopped in the bakery, we were laughing about how a "meeting" at the bakery was when Phil was loading the oven and I was cutting croissants and Bossman was making galettes and we talked about when we were going to make the rolls, because I was needed to be part of that operation. I'm completely making up the example, but the reality is, the real work didn't stop for "meetings." In my current job, managers--especially at my boss's level--go to so many fucking meetings that it's not even funny. Every time I turn around he has to meet with someone else in the organization, often at another location; what meetings mostly do is take him away from his actual work. As a result, the actual work takes even longer, because the people who need to do it are stuck in stupid meetings. It kind of blows me away sometimes.
The other part about it is the amount of hand-holding that seems to be needed. Some of that is structural: we need some systemic solutions to many of the issues we've been facing, and there are no systems in place, so everyone's kind of struggling a bit, but there's still a notion that when person A has a question, person B--and sometimes person C and person D--need to drop everything to solve person A's problem or question. I try not to fall into that myself, and I recognize that sometimes you really do need an answer before you can go on with your work, but it can make it difficult.
Anyway. I need to get some sleep. I should be packing and watering my plants--Friend and I are heading out of town tomorrow for part of the weekend--but I don't feel like it. There will be time tomorrow.
1. Not every day can be a good day.
Bossman says this when something fucks up (or someone fucks something up). I particularly appreciated this when I was the person who fucked things up, but, in general, it's a useful thing to keep in mind. People make mistakes; it's just one of the things we do. Ergo, any plan that requires that everything go absolutely perfectly is a shaky plan. It's a much better idea to have some backup systems in place, though even they are going to fail you sometimes.
2. Blame won't laminate the dough or bake the bread.
It's kind of a corollary to the above. Bossman didn't say this, but the "not every day can be a good day" thing is, I always thought, a way to deflect that blaming. On one hand, if someone consistently fucks up a product, or consistently fucks up, then s/he isn't going to be a great fit--perhaps they should be packing cookies instead of mixing dough. But the kind of blaming and finger-pointing that has been going around in my office is really a waste of time and energy.
3. The person you think of as "that asshole" may still be the person you need to mix your dough.
In the bakery, despite the various tidbits I narrated for the amusement of you guys, people were pretty much expected to just deal with each other. The kind of backbiting and throwing people under the bus that we've been seeing in my office job weren't as prevalent. Everyone had their buttons, of course, but mostly everyone got along, especially once Brad was gone.
Part of this was structural, in at least two ways: For one thing, the "hierarchy" was nearly non-existent. Bossman was working right there alongside everyone else, not sitting in an office "downtown." He might be down in the office doing the books or something, and he was much more able to take off a day or a few days, but, in general, he worked hours that were almost as grueling as anyone else's. Thus, jockeying for "position" was kind of pointless; there weren't positions for which to jockey. (That's also why Brad was a problem: he imposed pointless hierarchy, and it just annoyed everyone.)
The other structural reason for this was that there were just enough tasks that required others' cooperation to complete that it wasn't a good idea to completely piss off someone else. This guy may do all the cookies or all the cakes, but he needs that guy to do at least some of the baking for him. The other person may need help making this product. Everyone may need to gather around the line to make bear claws, which means the person in charge of the bear claws better have his ducks in a row before taking everyone away from their work. I tacitly referred to this when I gave Phil credit for baking the croissants (and I could always tell when it was him and not one of the night guys who had done the baking, because Phil did it better)--I knew that, while my lamination was crucial, baking was a huge part of their beauty, and giving him credit for it acknowledged that. You can take the most beautiful product in the world, and if you bake it wrong, it's going to suck. Same thing is true in office-world, but not everyone seems to realize that.
Finally, though, it was a really good crew of guys, who had known each other and worked together for more than ten years--more than 15 years in some cases. It wasn't terribly difficult to get along with them, at least in my case. If you work hard, do your job, lend a hand, and don't be an asshole, you'll get along just fine. This is more a personality thing than a structural thing, but it does speak, a little, to Bossman's selection of people to work there. He was tolerant of people's personality quirks--basically, he ignored them or, when necessary, worked around them--which definitely set a tone.
4. It takes four times to get it right.
Bossman always says it takes making a new recipe four times to get it right, and that proved itself to be true so many times. Even if you get really close the first time, you're still going to want to do some tweaking--fill the mold a little less, bake it a little longer, use a different shape or size, whatever. You can't change everything at once--especially if you don't know exactly which thing will get you closer to where you're trying to get--so you're going to have to do it more than once or twice. Sometimes, of course, you just have to take a shot and go with it; you don't have time to tweak. But if you take notes, then next time you're going to get a little closer. And, on the flip side of this, expecting perfection from someone else the first time out of the gate is a pretty sure road to disappointment.
5. Meetings are generally fucking useless.
A few months ago, when I stopped in the bakery, we were laughing about how a "meeting" at the bakery was when Phil was loading the oven and I was cutting croissants and Bossman was making galettes and we talked about when we were going to make the rolls, because I was needed to be part of that operation. I'm completely making up the example, but the reality is, the real work didn't stop for "meetings." In my current job, managers--especially at my boss's level--go to so many fucking meetings that it's not even funny. Every time I turn around he has to meet with someone else in the organization, often at another location; what meetings mostly do is take him away from his actual work. As a result, the actual work takes even longer, because the people who need to do it are stuck in stupid meetings. It kind of blows me away sometimes.
The other part about it is the amount of hand-holding that seems to be needed. Some of that is structural: we need some systemic solutions to many of the issues we've been facing, and there are no systems in place, so everyone's kind of struggling a bit, but there's still a notion that when person A has a question, person B--and sometimes person C and person D--need to drop everything to solve person A's problem or question. I try not to fall into that myself, and I recognize that sometimes you really do need an answer before you can go on with your work, but it can make it difficult.
Anyway. I need to get some sleep. I should be packing and watering my plants--Friend and I are heading out of town tomorrow for part of the weekend--but I don't feel like it. There will be time tomorrow.
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Simple Solutions to National Problems
If you are a Representative or Senator who votes against health care reform (by which I mean a plan that covers every goddamned person in this country, no ifs ands or buts), then (a) you lose your own health insurance coverage, as do all your children and your spouse, and (b) all the citizens in your district also lose their health insurance coverage, no matter whether their employers provide it or not. If you vote against it? then no one in your district/state, including you and your family, can have it either.
How's that sound?
How's that sound?
In Which More Things Suck
Be forewarned: I have other, possibly more-profound, thoughts rummaging around in my brain, but I'm out of the patience necessary to write them down, so you're stuck with yet another narrative about how work sucks, how my parents are doing, what I'm reading, and what I baked and/or had for dinner the past few days. Specifically:
Despite my best intentions--and, for that matter, at least some of my desires--I did not come home and work out tonight. Also? No yoga today. And whatever, is all I can bring myself to think about the whole thing. And? Popcorn, dried strawberries, cheese, and cookies for dinner. Also don't care about that.
Why, yes, you're correct; the suckage continues. We're beginning to piece together all the problems--or, rather, diagnose them--but it's still going to be a very long haul. If this were the only thing on which I needed to be working, it would suck, but would be manageable; as it is, though, there are several other important things I must be doing that I need to squeeze in where I can. There are several good, or, at least, useful things about the current annoyances, however. For one thing, I have sent people crap, kept people informed, showed my work, distributed spreadsheets, and so on, all the way along. If I have made mistakes--which I surely have--I have at least provided my work to other people, giving others the opportunity to identify those mistakes. That has not happened--if anything, I'm the one who has identified my mistakes. But the point is, I have shown people what I'm doing, rather than hiding it, which makes it very difficult for someone to say that we haven't inFORRRMMMMed them what's going on. Second, all those years where I wrote detailed accounts of shit, and tried to assemble my facts to make an argument? Turns out that comes in handy, and not so I can point my finger at someone else and say gotcha.
For example: if you tell me that I am "over budget," what exactly do you mean by that? In our context, that could mean:
(a) When we developed the FY budget for the organization back in May, we estimated our costs for widgets for the fiscal year to be $100. After six months, we have spent $60 and it looks like we're on track to spend $120 for the year. We are just plain buying too many widgets, and we need to cut back for the next six months. (Alternatively, we planned to spend more in the early months and less in the later months, but the dollars budgeted were spread evenly over the fiscal year, just for convenience.)
(b) We budgeted $100 back in May for this fiscal year, but, since then, we've reconsidered, and submitted several grant budgets, which allot a total of $120 for the fiscal year for widgets (more or less, because the grant budgets don't exactly line up with the FY budget, by dates). Thus, we are over budget on the FY budget--which the board examines--but just fine according to our grant budgets.
(c) We budgeted $100 back in May, and we've submitted grant budgets that allot $100, but we've seen more patients with insurance than we predicted, so we can afford another $20 in widgets, i.e., we are "over" budget on income as well as expenses.
(d) We budgeted $100 for widgets and $100 for mergatmacaters, both in the FY budget and the grant budgets. However, it turns out we need $120 for widgets and $80 for mergatmacaters, and both of those fall into the "supplies" lines of our grants. (In federal grants, you can move things around within your large categories, e.g., buy more dental supplies and fewer medical supplies than you originally said in your contract budget; you can also move things between categories--e.g., between supplies and salaries--but not quite as much. It's based on percentages, rather than dollars, and you can move a higher percentage of dollars within a category as opposed to between categories.) Thus, while we're over budget for widgets and under budget for mergatmacaters in the FY budget, we're absolutely fine in the grant budget, and we may draw down all $200 from our grant; the current internal rules say we can still only draw down $100 for widgets.
(e) We budgeted $100 for widgets, in both the fiscal year and grant budgets, but we should have budgeted $120, because that's just the cost of widgets, and we can't reduce that cost.
The solution to the "over budget!!11eleventy!!" crisis depends on which of the above scenarios is the case; no one solution will fix each of those issues. Thus, just telling us that we are "over budget" does not help us. In fact, it leads to us being told (as we have been) that, on a given grant, we are both over budget and under spending. Um, well, no, both of those things can't be true simultaneously, folks.
In any case, this is precisely where my analytical abilities come in handy (or we hope they do, anyway). What I've laid out above will actually be reasonably useful in this exercise, I suspect, and, in fact, each of the above is probably true in different parts of the budget. As noted, I'd be enjoying this more if I didn't have several other important things screaming for my attention.
However, some good food was also had this weekend. Saturday night we went out to a local hip expensive restaurant and had some fabulous food. Sunday Friend made some of his gumbo, which included wild turkey, venison sausage, andouille sausage, two kinds of beans, onions, celery, okra, corn, tomatos, rutabaga (my idea), and carrots, and I made the lemon tart again, and, once again, was disappointed by its bitterness. Monday we made squash soup (butternut squash, leftover sweet potatos, the rest of the rutabaga, onion, orange juice, homemade applesauce, all pureed), cracked wheat (I'd thought it was barley when I brought it over; oops), and a bit of wild turkey breast and a bit of venison tenderloin (garlic, black pepper, and a sauce of reduced wine, onions, and shitakis), both pan-fried in a little bacon grease. I had reduced some blueberries with orange juice as part of our breakfast, and the rest of that compote turned out to be a fine addition to the lemon tart; I suggested to Friend that he simply warm some honey and orange juice together to put over the tart for the rest of his enjoyment. I'd also made a batch of the barley sugar meringues, and these failed in a whole other way from the last batch, but were even better eating, so that wasn't a total loss, either. I also made a batch of soft pretzels and pretzel rolls Monday, which turned into more of a project than I really wanted but ended up being reasonably successful.
So, really, working out would have been a useful addition to tonight's program, in more ways than one.
Meanwhile, I'm reading "Get Real," by Donald Westlake, and I'm finding it kind of . . . sad. The book itself is quite funny (it's another Dortmunder and Kelp novel), and I keep laughing out loud at various bits, but, as you may remember, Westlake died a year ago New Year's Eve, so this is the last of the Dortmunder books, which bums me out. For 30+ years my dad and I have been reading Westlake and keeping each other apprised of the latest one. And Westlake was so prolific that he wrote under several pen names--he could write four or more books a year, but the publishers didn't think people would believe that he could write that many good books. In any case, I strongly recommend him.
Speaking of dad, apparently the dermatologist has decided that, yes, the rash is an allergic reaction, but likely not directly a reaction to the chemo. I pointed out to my mom (and apparently the derm guy said the same thing) that it's possible that when the chemo whacked dad's immune system, that basically facilitated an allergy to one of the other meds he takes (the usual blood pressure/cholesterol/etc. combos that men in their late 70s who have had a quadruple bypass would take). The doc also did a skin biopsy (which I had also recommended, thanks to one of the NPs at work, but mom dismissed), but the results weren't back yet.
So, back to the salt mines tomorrow, or the spreadsheets, anyway. I'd actually kind of enjoy it, because it's a kind of puzzle-solving, if the consequences of being wrong or fucking up weren't so bad (e.g., needing to make major budget cuts).
Despite my best intentions--and, for that matter, at least some of my desires--I did not come home and work out tonight. Also? No yoga today. And whatever, is all I can bring myself to think about the whole thing. And? Popcorn, dried strawberries, cheese, and cookies for dinner. Also don't care about that.
Why, yes, you're correct; the suckage continues. We're beginning to piece together all the problems--or, rather, diagnose them--but it's still going to be a very long haul. If this were the only thing on which I needed to be working, it would suck, but would be manageable; as it is, though, there are several other important things I must be doing that I need to squeeze in where I can. There are several good, or, at least, useful things about the current annoyances, however. For one thing, I have sent people crap, kept people informed, showed my work, distributed spreadsheets, and so on, all the way along. If I have made mistakes--which I surely have--I have at least provided my work to other people, giving others the opportunity to identify those mistakes. That has not happened--if anything, I'm the one who has identified my mistakes. But the point is, I have shown people what I'm doing, rather than hiding it, which makes it very difficult for someone to say that we haven't inFORRRMMMMed them what's going on. Second, all those years where I wrote detailed accounts of shit, and tried to assemble my facts to make an argument? Turns out that comes in handy, and not so I can point my finger at someone else and say gotcha.
For example: if you tell me that I am "over budget," what exactly do you mean by that? In our context, that could mean:
(a) When we developed the FY budget for the organization back in May, we estimated our costs for widgets for the fiscal year to be $100. After six months, we have spent $60 and it looks like we're on track to spend $120 for the year. We are just plain buying too many widgets, and we need to cut back for the next six months. (Alternatively, we planned to spend more in the early months and less in the later months, but the dollars budgeted were spread evenly over the fiscal year, just for convenience.)
(b) We budgeted $100 back in May for this fiscal year, but, since then, we've reconsidered, and submitted several grant budgets, which allot a total of $120 for the fiscal year for widgets (more or less, because the grant budgets don't exactly line up with the FY budget, by dates). Thus, we are over budget on the FY budget--which the board examines--but just fine according to our grant budgets.
(c) We budgeted $100 back in May, and we've submitted grant budgets that allot $100, but we've seen more patients with insurance than we predicted, so we can afford another $20 in widgets, i.e., we are "over" budget on income as well as expenses.
(d) We budgeted $100 for widgets and $100 for mergatmacaters, both in the FY budget and the grant budgets. However, it turns out we need $120 for widgets and $80 for mergatmacaters, and both of those fall into the "supplies" lines of our grants. (In federal grants, you can move things around within your large categories, e.g., buy more dental supplies and fewer medical supplies than you originally said in your contract budget; you can also move things between categories--e.g., between supplies and salaries--but not quite as much. It's based on percentages, rather than dollars, and you can move a higher percentage of dollars within a category as opposed to between categories.) Thus, while we're over budget for widgets and under budget for mergatmacaters in the FY budget, we're absolutely fine in the grant budget, and we may draw down all $200 from our grant; the current internal rules say we can still only draw down $100 for widgets.
(e) We budgeted $100 for widgets, in both the fiscal year and grant budgets, but we should have budgeted $120, because that's just the cost of widgets, and we can't reduce that cost.
The solution to the "over budget!!11eleventy!!" crisis depends on which of the above scenarios is the case; no one solution will fix each of those issues. Thus, just telling us that we are "over budget" does not help us. In fact, it leads to us being told (as we have been) that, on a given grant, we are both over budget and under spending. Um, well, no, both of those things can't be true simultaneously, folks.
In any case, this is precisely where my analytical abilities come in handy (or we hope they do, anyway). What I've laid out above will actually be reasonably useful in this exercise, I suspect, and, in fact, each of the above is probably true in different parts of the budget. As noted, I'd be enjoying this more if I didn't have several other important things screaming for my attention.
However, some good food was also had this weekend. Saturday night we went out to a local hip expensive restaurant and had some fabulous food. Sunday Friend made some of his gumbo, which included wild turkey, venison sausage, andouille sausage, two kinds of beans, onions, celery, okra, corn, tomatos, rutabaga (my idea), and carrots, and I made the lemon tart again, and, once again, was disappointed by its bitterness. Monday we made squash soup (butternut squash, leftover sweet potatos, the rest of the rutabaga, onion, orange juice, homemade applesauce, all pureed), cracked wheat (I'd thought it was barley when I brought it over; oops), and a bit of wild turkey breast and a bit of venison tenderloin (garlic, black pepper, and a sauce of reduced wine, onions, and shitakis), both pan-fried in a little bacon grease. I had reduced some blueberries with orange juice as part of our breakfast, and the rest of that compote turned out to be a fine addition to the lemon tart; I suggested to Friend that he simply warm some honey and orange juice together to put over the tart for the rest of his enjoyment. I'd also made a batch of the barley sugar meringues, and these failed in a whole other way from the last batch, but were even better eating, so that wasn't a total loss, either. I also made a batch of soft pretzels and pretzel rolls Monday, which turned into more of a project than I really wanted but ended up being reasonably successful.
So, really, working out would have been a useful addition to tonight's program, in more ways than one.
Meanwhile, I'm reading "Get Real," by Donald Westlake, and I'm finding it kind of . . . sad. The book itself is quite funny (it's another Dortmunder and Kelp novel), and I keep laughing out loud at various bits, but, as you may remember, Westlake died a year ago New Year's Eve, so this is the last of the Dortmunder books, which bums me out. For 30+ years my dad and I have been reading Westlake and keeping each other apprised of the latest one. And Westlake was so prolific that he wrote under several pen names--he could write four or more books a year, but the publishers didn't think people would believe that he could write that many good books. In any case, I strongly recommend him.
Speaking of dad, apparently the dermatologist has decided that, yes, the rash is an allergic reaction, but likely not directly a reaction to the chemo. I pointed out to my mom (and apparently the derm guy said the same thing) that it's possible that when the chemo whacked dad's immune system, that basically facilitated an allergy to one of the other meds he takes (the usual blood pressure/cholesterol/etc. combos that men in their late 70s who have had a quadruple bypass would take). The doc also did a skin biopsy (which I had also recommended, thanks to one of the NPs at work, but mom dismissed), but the results weren't back yet.
So, back to the salt mines tomorrow, or the spreadsheets, anyway. I'd actually kind of enjoy it, because it's a kind of puzzle-solving, if the consequences of being wrong or fucking up weren't so bad (e.g., needing to make major budget cuts).
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Random Thoughts Make a Post
I am tired of the smell of burning hair. Whenever I smell someone's hair burning these days, it's a pretty good bet that I'm going to have to be involved in the firefighting, and I am tired of that.
I am tired of our finance person playing the game of "Let's you and her fight." I am tired of asking for someone with different/relevant experience to review the budgets we are preparing and tell us what we're doing wrong, and getting absolutely no response whatsoever. Most of all, though, I am tired of being told that the way to solve problems that are obviously systemic is to throw time, effort, and more time and effort at them, rather than devising a system that fixes the problems.
I am tired of hearing about Tiger Woods' genitalia and what he does with it. I. Do. Not. Care. Really; I don't. If he were telling others what they should do with their genitalia, and it differed from what he is doing with his, then we could criticize him for being a hypocrite, but he is not doing that.
I am peeved at hearing someone disparage Mark McGwire for the "carefully orchestrated" way he revealed that he used steroids. Of course it's carefully orchestrated; did you expect him to blurt it out? He fucked up, and he knows he did, and he kinda hopes he gets to get credit without an asterisk for his home runs. (I don't really know how I feel about that. It's not as though we can go back and test everyone who held a record at some point, so it seems unfair to only punish some people. On the other hand, the Tour de France has been pretty relentless in drug testing and in throwing out offenders, so it can be done. I really think that, players' stupidity or cupidity aside, the message hasn't exactly been clear.)
On a related note, I find it disingenuous, at best, for McGwire to say that he only took steroids to help heal injuries, that he would never ever have used them solely to boost his performance. Look, dude: my dad has been taking steroids to address a rash that resulted from his chemo. When he was on the (legitimately prescribed) juice, his knees felt MUCH better. Within a day of stopping the juice? Back to the aching, nearly-80-year-old, did-physical-labor-for-45-years knees. Even he could tell a performance difference. Also, McGwire's claims that if there'd been drug testing in baseball then he wouldn't have used them kinda conflicts with his claim that he needed them, don't it? If you "needed" them, then the testing shouldn't have mattered, no?
I am pleased that my specific plans to drink more water are resulting in more water being drunk by me. My body seems happy about this, though the "happier" part is subtle and possibly related to the other things I've been doing as well.
I am pleased that I have managed to do some kind of workout for 9 of the last 10 days, for at least 30 minutes a day. It hasn't always been as long or as intense as I would prefer--45 minutes and a bit more intensity would have been nice on a few days--but I did it.
I have practiced at least a little yoga every day for the past 10 days. My specific commitment was to two sun salutations (a version a little different from the classic/standard sun salutation) each day, and I have done that. Yesterday and today I modified that a bit to incorporate a couple additional asanas. As I pointed out to myself, two sun salutations isn't all that difficult to fit in. Friend and I are going out of town next weekend--leaving Friday after work, coming back Sunday--so I don't know what I'll do on Saturday, as we'll be staying with friends of his, but I'll deal with it. Missing one day won't be an issue if it comes to that.
And I have been doing other things to help maintain in this high-stress environment. My back/hip are acting up again--time for more acupuncture!--but whatevs. My goal is to continue to try to work toward solutions. Not everyone is on board with that, but I can't control what other people do. And so to bed.
I am tired of our finance person playing the game of "Let's you and her fight." I am tired of asking for someone with different/relevant experience to review the budgets we are preparing and tell us what we're doing wrong, and getting absolutely no response whatsoever. Most of all, though, I am tired of being told that the way to solve problems that are obviously systemic is to throw time, effort, and more time and effort at them, rather than devising a system that fixes the problems.
I am tired of hearing about Tiger Woods' genitalia and what he does with it. I. Do. Not. Care. Really; I don't. If he were telling others what they should do with their genitalia, and it differed from what he is doing with his, then we could criticize him for being a hypocrite, but he is not doing that.
I am peeved at hearing someone disparage Mark McGwire for the "carefully orchestrated" way he revealed that he used steroids. Of course it's carefully orchestrated; did you expect him to blurt it out? He fucked up, and he knows he did, and he kinda hopes he gets to get credit without an asterisk for his home runs. (I don't really know how I feel about that. It's not as though we can go back and test everyone who held a record at some point, so it seems unfair to only punish some people. On the other hand, the Tour de France has been pretty relentless in drug testing and in throwing out offenders, so it can be done. I really think that, players' stupidity or cupidity aside, the message hasn't exactly been clear.)
On a related note, I find it disingenuous, at best, for McGwire to say that he only took steroids to help heal injuries, that he would never ever have used them solely to boost his performance. Look, dude: my dad has been taking steroids to address a rash that resulted from his chemo. When he was on the (legitimately prescribed) juice, his knees felt MUCH better. Within a day of stopping the juice? Back to the aching, nearly-80-year-old, did-physical-labor-for-45-years knees. Even he could tell a performance difference. Also, McGwire's claims that if there'd been drug testing in baseball then he wouldn't have used them kinda conflicts with his claim that he needed them, don't it? If you "needed" them, then the testing shouldn't have mattered, no?
I am pleased that my specific plans to drink more water are resulting in more water being drunk by me. My body seems happy about this, though the "happier" part is subtle and possibly related to the other things I've been doing as well.
I am pleased that I have managed to do some kind of workout for 9 of the last 10 days, for at least 30 minutes a day. It hasn't always been as long or as intense as I would prefer--45 minutes and a bit more intensity would have been nice on a few days--but I did it.
I have practiced at least a little yoga every day for the past 10 days. My specific commitment was to two sun salutations (a version a little different from the classic/standard sun salutation) each day, and I have done that. Yesterday and today I modified that a bit to incorporate a couple additional asanas. As I pointed out to myself, two sun salutations isn't all that difficult to fit in. Friend and I are going out of town next weekend--leaving Friday after work, coming back Sunday--so I don't know what I'll do on Saturday, as we'll be staying with friends of his, but I'll deal with it. Missing one day won't be an issue if it comes to that.
And I have been doing other things to help maintain in this high-stress environment. My back/hip are acting up again--time for more acupuncture!--but whatevs. My goal is to continue to try to work toward solutions. Not everyone is on board with that, but I can't control what other people do. And so to bed.
Thursday, January 7, 2010
Habit-Forming
The junkies and alcoholics I worked with say that practice doesn't make perfect; practice makes permanent. While addiction surely has a chemical component--take it from someone who was addicted to nicotine--it's reinforced by habits. Addicts learn to associate using with a set of behaviors, with, as they say, people, places, and things. If you really want to stop using, and stay stopped, one of the things you have to do is create new habits and associations. Some things you can't really eliminate, or, at least, not easily--for many smokers, for example, the post-meal cigarettes are the ones that are most deeply ingrained, and you can't exactly stop eating.
But, obviously, it can be done, habits can be changed. For me, once the physical withdrawal was gone, it was a very slow process of retraining, of disassociating things like meals with the cigarettes that followed the meals. In my experience, the habits weren't broken so much as disintegrated (quite literally, in the sense of un-integrating smoking with the things I did during the day).
I've also observed that there are various types of habits, or levels of them, or something. The ones with a psychoactive substance involved are off at one end of a spectrum, on one spoke on a wheel--I say that because I think one's own brain chemicals are also psychoactive substances of a sort, but probably belong in a different class than, say, alcohol or nicotine. And then there are the ones that are at a macro level, of sorts. For example, for me and for many people I know, regular exercise is a macro-level habit. We don't do the same things throughout our lives, and we don't do the same thing every week or every day; I don't play handball any more, though, for nearly 15 years, I played two to five times a week. We know, at some deep level, that physical activity is really part of what we want and need, and we figure out ways to make space for that in our lives.
It took me awhile to figure out what I was going to do after handball and after the bakery--walking? a gym?--but I eventually settled on the rowing machine, and that has been a great solution. (I define a "great" form of exercise as, first and foremost, one that I actually do.) As a result, I trust that I'll get back to exercise if things get crazy and I don't have the opportunity to do much for a week or two, and I've set things up (literally, in my living room) so that I can do a quick 15 or 20 minutes if that's all I have. Basically, if I set up the general parameters--have the machine; have DVDs or television programming with which I can occupy myself as I row; aim for working out after work rather than first thing in the morning, because I know that that works better for me--I am pretty good about doing the thing.
But some things are harder for me and require a different strategy, and I've been experimenting with some of those. One is water: it became obvious to me that I am not drinking enough water. So now I'm trying to create a new habit, of drinking at least one, and maybe more than one, glass of water at specific times of the day (when I get up in the morning; immediately after I exercise; at least once during the day). (There are a couple of others, too, but we'll see whether they last longer than the first four workdays of the new year.) In this case, just setting general parameters ("have water in the house") wasn't getting it done, so more specificity seemed to be in order.
Anyway. Work has been completely insane this week; I feel like I've done two weeks worth of stuff in the first three days. The Big Meeting was way less combative than I'd feared (having one's boss around apparently reduces douchebaggery), though of course it has further increased my workload.
But? Still better than hauling sacks of flour and making thousands of croissants every week. There are a few advantages to the bakery--most notably, WAY fewer meetings--and that knowledge informs my current work, too. So, win.
But, obviously, it can be done, habits can be changed. For me, once the physical withdrawal was gone, it was a very slow process of retraining, of disassociating things like meals with the cigarettes that followed the meals. In my experience, the habits weren't broken so much as disintegrated (quite literally, in the sense of un-integrating smoking with the things I did during the day).
I've also observed that there are various types of habits, or levels of them, or something. The ones with a psychoactive substance involved are off at one end of a spectrum, on one spoke on a wheel--I say that because I think one's own brain chemicals are also psychoactive substances of a sort, but probably belong in a different class than, say, alcohol or nicotine. And then there are the ones that are at a macro level, of sorts. For example, for me and for many people I know, regular exercise is a macro-level habit. We don't do the same things throughout our lives, and we don't do the same thing every week or every day; I don't play handball any more, though, for nearly 15 years, I played two to five times a week. We know, at some deep level, that physical activity is really part of what we want and need, and we figure out ways to make space for that in our lives.
It took me awhile to figure out what I was going to do after handball and after the bakery--walking? a gym?--but I eventually settled on the rowing machine, and that has been a great solution. (I define a "great" form of exercise as, first and foremost, one that I actually do.) As a result, I trust that I'll get back to exercise if things get crazy and I don't have the opportunity to do much for a week or two, and I've set things up (literally, in my living room) so that I can do a quick 15 or 20 minutes if that's all I have. Basically, if I set up the general parameters--have the machine; have DVDs or television programming with which I can occupy myself as I row; aim for working out after work rather than first thing in the morning, because I know that that works better for me--I am pretty good about doing the thing.
But some things are harder for me and require a different strategy, and I've been experimenting with some of those. One is water: it became obvious to me that I am not drinking enough water. So now I'm trying to create a new habit, of drinking at least one, and maybe more than one, glass of water at specific times of the day (when I get up in the morning; immediately after I exercise; at least once during the day). (There are a couple of others, too, but we'll see whether they last longer than the first four workdays of the new year.) In this case, just setting general parameters ("have water in the house") wasn't getting it done, so more specificity seemed to be in order.
Anyway. Work has been completely insane this week; I feel like I've done two weeks worth of stuff in the first three days. The Big Meeting was way less combative than I'd feared (having one's boss around apparently reduces douchebaggery), though of course it has further increased my workload.
But? Still better than hauling sacks of flour and making thousands of croissants every week. There are a few advantages to the bakery--most notably, WAY fewer meetings--and that knowledge informs my current work, too. So, win.
Sunday, January 3, 2010
Shakes
I had enough caffeine this morning to last me for about three weeks. It's one of those weird things: some days i can drink coffee and it's like drinking water; other days, the effect on my brain is like the drug that it is. (Tea pretty much never bothers me, no matter how much I drink.) In general I avoid it, precisely because I don't much like the wired feeling at all; it becomes difficult to focus on anything, and I end the day feeling kind of exhausted from trying to keep up with myself.
What I mostly did over the weekend was catch up on sleep and lounging--which aren't exactly the same thing. Friday I made stuffed collard greens (leaves stuffed with a rice mixture that included tomatos, currants, onions, garlic, cinnamon, cumin, and toasted pine nuts) and sweet potatos sliced and roasted with butter and a touch of maple syrup. Friend made a pork roast (topped with garlic, sage, pepper, and some of his homemade applesauce), thereby honoring the spirit of my maternal grandmother, who insisted that we have pork of some kind of new year's day. Yesterday for breakfast I made some maple-smoked bacon, then sauteed half an onion in a little bacon grease, then threw in some leftover sweet potatos, three eggs, some egg whites, and, once it was cooked through, a bit of cheese. Yes, it WAS tasty.
We then settled in to watch the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and, between Thursday's and Friday's dinner leftovers, we had enough food so we only had to warm things up. This morning we went out for breakfast, and Friend dropped me off at home, where I had intended to do some work in preparation for Tuesday's Big-Ass Financial Meeting, but I simply do not feel like doing that--plus, remember that lack of focus resulting from caffeine? Turns out that looking at detailed financials isn't really compatible with that.
I think what I most need to do before Tuesday's meeting is meditate. Or something like that, anyway. There are multiple strands to this, and it's difficult to tease them all out. More to the point, it's difficult to tease them out, and come up with useful solutions, without people getting defensive and bitchy and unhelpful. So I'm going to try to get my own (and my boss's) ducks in as much of a row as I possibly can, I'm going to have a list of what I think are relevant questions, and I'm going to try to maintain my own calm.
We'll see how that plan works.
What I mostly did over the weekend was catch up on sleep and lounging--which aren't exactly the same thing. Friday I made stuffed collard greens (leaves stuffed with a rice mixture that included tomatos, currants, onions, garlic, cinnamon, cumin, and toasted pine nuts) and sweet potatos sliced and roasted with butter and a touch of maple syrup. Friend made a pork roast (topped with garlic, sage, pepper, and some of his homemade applesauce), thereby honoring the spirit of my maternal grandmother, who insisted that we have pork of some kind of new year's day. Yesterday for breakfast I made some maple-smoked bacon, then sauteed half an onion in a little bacon grease, then threw in some leftover sweet potatos, three eggs, some egg whites, and, once it was cooked through, a bit of cheese. Yes, it WAS tasty.
We then settled in to watch the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and, between Thursday's and Friday's dinner leftovers, we had enough food so we only had to warm things up. This morning we went out for breakfast, and Friend dropped me off at home, where I had intended to do some work in preparation for Tuesday's Big-Ass Financial Meeting, but I simply do not feel like doing that--plus, remember that lack of focus resulting from caffeine? Turns out that looking at detailed financials isn't really compatible with that.
I think what I most need to do before Tuesday's meeting is meditate. Or something like that, anyway. There are multiple strands to this, and it's difficult to tease them all out. More to the point, it's difficult to tease them out, and come up with useful solutions, without people getting defensive and bitchy and unhelpful. So I'm going to try to get my own (and my boss's) ducks in as much of a row as I possibly can, I'm going to have a list of what I think are relevant questions, and I'm going to try to maintain my own calm.
We'll see how that plan works.
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