Foodstuffs

I am reaching the point--or possibly have already reached the point--such that I don't need to do very much grocery shopping for the next six months. This morning I got up and made a vat of chicken stock, plus cooked up the odds and ends of greens in the fridge (onion, garlic, two turnips, radish greens, broccoli greens, and a little broccoli), washed the lettuce for tomorrow's salad, and grated the carrots for the week's salads. I even managed to work out today, for the first time in what feels like a year.

In the freezers I have 20 pounds of blueberries as well as roasted beets, beet greens, wheat rolls, a few things of squash soup, pesto, and . . . some other stuff, too; I'd have to go look to figure it out. I don't know that I can fit anything else in there. The farm share runs through the first day of winter, so there's more food coming. And I'll need the occasional bag of pasta or grains or something, and dairy products of various sorts, but otherwise, good to go. I still have not hung a single picture, and i still have crappy furniture, but I have a freezer full of food.

What I have not done today is speak a word to another human being. That used to happen more frequently, but not so much lately, so it was kind of interesting. I've had some social engagements this weekend--dinner with Chuck and CK on Friday; breakfast with a pastry school chum yesterday; beer school with other friends last night--but I didn't have anything planned for today, and it ended up being a great opportunity to get some things done and just hang out.

The stock, especially, because that takes some time to cook and to cool--and may I say how wonderful it was to put the stock pot on a burner that actually was big enough for it? I am loving having a full-size stove and oven more than I can possibly say.

At work, some things do seem to be improving. The new Middlelord (i.e., the person to whom we all now report, and the Middlelord reports to the Overlord) has been putting in tremendous effort to learn about what we do, and where, and how, and all the details, and MidLord has been reining in Overlord, trying to keep OL from mucking about, so it could be going much worse. I've also been quite busy personally, because I'm the one who knows a lot of the details (and, actually, right now, I'm the ONLY one who knows a lot of the details). The next two months are going to be somewhat hellish--several major deadlines, for millions of dollars worth of funding.

The one thing that is making me roll my eyes is that OL keeps going on about wanting me to be "happy" at work, and "excited," and that kind of shit. I have said, multiple times, that I do not look for happiness with my job--after all, they have to pay me to show up. Of course I would like to have, and do have, a job that feels like it's on the side of good rather than evil, and of course I want to make a decent wage, and of course it's nice if I can enjoy at least some of what I do, but, when push comes to shove, it's still work.. So, it goes, and all of us appear to be pulling in approximately the same directions, so it's not intolerable. And? Still no sacks of flour.