Moving Day

Okay, I've moved to a new location:
here. Come on over!

Lettuce Toss

I finally gave up on the lettuce soup. Much as it pains me to do so, I decided to toss it. It doesn't taste very good, is the main reason. I mean, it's edible, and it's probably even reasonably nutritious, so I feel a certain amount of guilt about throwing it out, but it is just . . . Not Good. It was a valiant effort to use up the vegetation in the fridge, but ultimately it's just taking up space in the freezer.

Everything else is tasty, though: I've been eating the curried carrot turnip soup quite happily. I've also been throwing in bits of other stuff--some leftover rice, for example, works very nicely, as would any kind of greens--and of course I add cheese. The next cooking project will need to use some beets, as I have the most of that. And the turnips, of course. I basically have until April or May to get through it all, i.e., until the 2012 crop starts up. I'll probably make some stuff this weekend, so I have lunches for work. (Oh yes, it's so very nice to be able to say that.)

In fact, I'm starting work today. My new boss called yesterday and asked if there's any way I could come in before next Thursday, and I said sure, so long as we work around a few lunch dates I have. So I'll go in this afternoon, most of Friday (Orange--I'll email you to see if you can pick me up after all), most of Monday, and all day Tuesday. I reserved Wednesday for seeing a friend and doing any last-minute chores. One of the things that I think will help is that NewOrg is funded by many of the same funding sources as OldOrg, so the contracts will be familiar, even if the specifics differ somewhat. NewBoss is overwhelmed, so wants me on board right now. Yes, it is nice to be wanted and, presumably soon enough, appreciated.

I keep fibrillating about commenting on the various political firestorms of the day, but I keep staying out of it. For one thing,Charles Pierce does it so much better than I could. For another, the forced-birth nuts are making me insane. Their insanity would be mindboggling if I hadn't spent the past 40 years having my mind boggled by them--though they do seem to get worse.

And Willard? The stripper of assets? The disgustingly rich do-nothing, who inherited most of his money, and then used that pile to make another pile, all without working a day in his life, and whose positions change with the weather? Or Santorum (whom Pierce consistently reminds us is a dick), the hypocritical creep? Or N. Leroy Gingrich, staff-banger supreme and pompous windbag? What can I possibly say? The notion that these assholes are serious contenders for the nomination for one of our two major parties shows just how much we have become beholden to corporate interests and far-right nutcases. The fact that so many of them are campaigning on shredding what remains of a safety net, and the fact that they get votes from people who would be negatively affected by said shredding, causes me to turn away and read whatever novels come to hand. I cannot fathom it, and I cannot stand it.

Also, this blog will be moving soon, to wordpress. I haven't figured out the details of it yet, but I"ll let you know.

On the Right Side of the Glass

I"m having lunch with my new boss and coworkers next week--yes, before I officially start--and I'm looking forward to it. One of the coolest things about this whole process is that there is clearly a group of people who are eager and enthusiastic about what I bring to the table--rather than, say, shoving me out the door because they just don't think I have anything useful to add. Even though I'm not going to bother with the interview with the third organization, and I'm not sure I'm the best person for the job for which I interviewed last Friday, the fact that three organizations were interested enough to want to talk to me is very nice. On top of that, of course, one of the organizations did handstands and cartwheels to get me on board as quickly as possible. The second person with whom I met briefly on Wednesday asked NewBoss how s/he found me, the implication being that it was a great find.

Seriously? I feel like I'm back on the right side of the looking glass, where up is up and people want to use what I know and what I know how to do, where people consider me a valuable find rather than a thorn in the side. I had lunch yesterday with someone from the old place--someone who is also outside the bubble team--and s/he confirmed again what I was experiencing (and is experiencing his/her own version of it). So, oddly enough, my ex-boss's original statement, that s/he thought I would be a better fit and would be happier elsewhere, is accurate. The problem, though--for the old organization and for ex-boss, not for me--is that the reason that is true isn't because of some deficiency on my part.

But I don't want to spend any more energy on the old place. I have an opportunity here to continue building on what I've learned, and I'm excited to get to do that. The things I ended up doing at the old place because there wasn't anyone else to do them gave me the knowledge I needed to be able to step into this new role, and my new boss knows all kinds of stuff, and can teach me all kinds of stuff, that will expand my capabilities even more.

It's all a little surreal, because of the speed and intensity with which it happened. I'm trying to be calm about the success, too, just as I tried (and sometimes succeeded) to be calm about the challenge of being unemployed. So I'm making some bread right now, because that's my default activity these days, and later we're heading off to cheeseland for the night (fab dinner plus college hockey game), and the bread will be something of an experiment, because the final rising will be done in the back of the vehicle (where it will be cool) or in my fridge, i.e., will be a very slow rise. No idea if that will work, but no big deal if it doesn't.

Do a Happy Dance

To answer Larry's question below, I'm basically saying that there were a lot of changes at the senior management level, which is true, and that we were having difficulty figuring out how best to connect my skills with the organization's needs, which is true-ish. I've had a fair amount of practice saying this in the past week, what with two in-person interviews (to which I will return momentarily) and a phone interview, and I'm suspecting that it's asked mostly to make sure I don't launch into a screed of some kind. And, frankly, though I've kept the severance details private, the fact that I can line up people with whom I worked and who are still there is probably helpful, and I can line up ex-bosses back to the early 1990s probably says something,

So I had a phone screen on Monday, and the woman with whom I spoke called me back later that afternoon and asked me to come in for an interview on Wednesday (yes, yesterday), which I did. Just about 24 hours later, the interviewer/prospective boss called and officially offered me a job. The salary is very decent--it's about what I was making before my last promotion at the old place--and the commute is about the same as the old place (it's two stops more on the train, and maybe two more blocks of walking at the other end), so that's all good. Even better, though, the NewBoss is very very excited to have me on board--obviously, given that s/he turned cartwheels to get the references and everything else done in less than a day.

I start in two weeks, so the vacation is nearly over. I have had time to do some nothing, and I'll have some more time to do that--basically, I will have spent what is usually the worst part of the winter hanging out in my apartment with Loaner Cat, and I have ended up in a job where people are enthusiastic about what I bring to the table. It's a bit of a whirlwind--I really didn't think it would work out this well or this quickly, and especially not well and quickly together. Go figure.

And, hey, I still have a freezer full of veggies, and an active sourdough starter, and a cleaner apartment (well, that one needs some revisiting). I'm going to try to get a new faucet next week, and I might be able to get the fabric to make a curtain for the kitchen window, and then I'll be set for a bit. I'm trying to not get too excited, much as I tried not to get to anxious, but I'm permitting myself a day or two of happy-dancing, for sure.

Stuff

Damn, I am exhausted today, and not just because of the copious amounts of wine that got consumed last night. I invited my downstairs neighbor up for pasta with venison bolognese sauce (Friend came along as well), and yesterday I ended up making two kinds of crackers (whole wheat, and a rosemary flatbread), white bean dip (with a buttload of garlic, a shallot that needed to be used up, and some sage), a sharlotka from Smitten Kitchen, a blueberry caramel sauce to drizzle on the sharlotka, the aforementioned bolognese sauce (though I had to use red wine instead of white, because it turned out I didn't have any white wine), a batch of sourdough wheat bread with cracked wheat added to it, and a batch of fresh pasta, which I managed to screw up (luckily I had some dried, so no big deal). And I mopped up the cat hair and cleaned up the bathroom a bit.

The crackers were interesting. The flatbread was pretty good, but needs a bit of tweaking--a bit more salt, perhaps, and probably a lot more rosemary. The wheat crackers had a nice flavor, but the dough was a complete pain in the ass to work with. When I made the white bean dip, I put in what I thought was way too much garlic (which isn't really possible for me, but not everyone has my tolerance for garlic), so I took another can of beans and pureed it w/ some olive oil, then added about half of the first batch into it. Turns out everyone liked the full-on garlic version as well, so it'll all get mixed together for the leftovers.

The bread dough was quite a bit wetter than the other doughs I've made recently, even though I've been using the same baker's percentages. Basically, I take out all but what I'm going to refresh of my levain, and I weigh what I've taken out, and then add dry ingredients (flour of various sorts, cracked wheat, barley flakes, malted wheat flakes, oats--whatever suits my current fancy) and water as a percentage of the weight of the levain. Yesterday's was very active and puffy and wet--the bread tasted just fine--good, even--but I have no damn clue why it was so slack.

The sharlotka was pretty good, though I think I should have used more apples; the recipe gives number of apples rather than weight, and mine wasn't as high as the one pictured. I also thought the apples got too soft. (I reduced the total amount of sweetening, and I used honey for about half of the total--so probably 75 grams of sugar and 75 grams of honey--which might have affected that.) I'll make it again, though; it was a nice tasty dessert, and it's not loaded with butter, so it doesn't feel so heavy. The blueberry caramel was interesting, too. You see this dark purple sauce, so you expect fruit flavor, which is there, but there's this dark caramel flavor as well. Again, though, because it's a caramel that doesn't use cream or butter, it added some flavor w/o adding fat.

In other news, I had a job interview on Friday. The organization's entrance is literally ten feet away from the entrance I used for my last job--it's in the same building, down the same hallway, except you turn left for this place. They're building a new building and so will be moving out relatively soon, but it was still a bit weird to go down that hallway. I had to do a certain amount of la-la-la-ing.

It seemed to go well enough. It's a small organization, and the position is just the kind of jane-of-all-trades thing that I love, and it's a new position for the organization. The ED is interviewing a few more people, and then will ask a few of the interviewees back for a second round with the other senior staff; I don't even know that I'm going to be one of those people. Still, I felt pretty good about it, and felt like I had good answers, including about areas where I don't necessarily have a lot of experience. I also have a phone-screen interview on Monday; that one is for a lower-level position than the Friday interview, but it's a larger organization, so there presumably would be room for advancement.

I'm noticing that I'm not doing cartwheels with excitement for either position, but I think the reasons for that are a bit complex. For the Friday job, I think some of it is apprehension: although I believe that I can do the things the job requires, including the things that I haven't done much before, there's still a certain amount of fear around that, and a certain amount of convincing of others that needs to be done. That aside, though, what I'm sensing in myself is a kind of tiredness.

As I've said multiple times here before, my experience with "follow your dream!" is checkered, at best. I don't feel like rehashing that yet again today, but I also know that the backing and forthing and upping and downing I've done, particularly in the past ten years, has taken a toll on me. Hell, in those 10 years I have had three different careers--the biotech company, the bakery, and the most recent organization--and none of them quite worked out the way I had planned. (Sometimes I think my life course is teaching me to be a buddhist.)

Which isn't to say there weren't good parts to all of them, but that's a lot of change in one person's work life in ten years. I think that's the reason I don't have a whole lot of enthusiasm for any particular thing. I'd like to find useful work, at decent pay, with companionable people. That's it. So if someone is looking for a person with Passion! and Dedication!!ll!, I"m probably not that person--but I also don't think those things are necessary in order to do a bang-up job for an organization, even one with a very specific mission (which most non-profits have). I'm not so stupid that I would say this an an interview, but it also means that I don't have a good answer to "Why do you want to work here at SuperCaring Organization?" Um, because I need a job, and the position you have available fits my skills? So I blather about wanting to share my skills in the non-profit arena and leave it at that.

One of the people w/ whom I worked at the last place was pretty insistent on people needing to be Passionate about the mission. I challenged him/her--as diplomatically as possible--and basically said, I don't care why people take the job, I care that they do it well. S/he didn't quite know how to handle that (and used to insist that I do have the passion, even if I say I don't, because s/he liked me and couldn't square it all up any other way), but in my experience, passion doesn't mean someone can do a job well, and doing a job well doesn't require passion, it requires competence.

Anyway. I'm certainly not going to go into this in an interview--and let's hope there are more of them, and that one of them leads to a job offer.

Better, with Mustard

Well, that was fun, wasn't it? I know that Doing Stuff--just about any Stuff--helps somewhat, but I also know that it's possible to do lots of stuff and still keep sliding. Whatevs; I also know that Doing Stuff has its own virtues and rewards (I don't just sit around, and Stuff Gets Done), so I'll just keep hacking away at it and see what happens.

The two Projects I have in mind are getting back to the paint removal in the sunroom and making a curtain or shade of some kind for the kitchen window. Neither will happen today--today's tasks were applying for a handful of jobs I've saved from this week's search and getting my health insurance squared away, and, later in the afternoon, getting my hair trimmed. ( I had thought to put this off, because the place I go isn't cheap, but it's looking pretty ragged, and if I do get an interview, I don't want to be stressing about that. Yeah, I know, it's unlikely I would not get a job because my hair isn't at its best, but it will need to be done sooner or later.) Nothing extreme, but all of it useful and at least some of it involves not sitting on my ass; I may even work out.

For today's amusing story, I must relate my entry in the Most Ridiculous Injury contest. Last Friday I was making beer-and-mustard-braised cabbage with venison ring baloney (an incredibly simple and incredibly tasty dish), and, as I twisted the lid off the jar of mustard, I sliced open my finger. On mustard. Yes. There was some dried mustard on the jar, and it was sharp enough to slice open my finger. I've heard of cutting the mustard, but I haven't heard of cutting BY the mustard.

Anyway. The discussion of job application processes will have to wait for another day--but I didn't want to leave that depressing whine at the top of the heap. I'm a bit better yesterday and today, and I seem to have stopped sliding, at least for now. No telling how long it will last, but I'm trying to stay focused in the present. It's not necessarily safer here, but there's a good bit less anxiety.

Tumble Down

Now I been lookin' for a job but it's hard to find
Down here it's just winners and losers and don't get caught on the wrong side of that line
--Bruce
"Atlantic City"

I can feel myself sliding down a ravine. It's happening kind of slowly, and I keep thinking I should grab a boulder or a tree or a clump of grass and haul myself up, or at least pause the fall until I can get my bearings, but instead I just keep slowly sliding.

Oddly enough, the fear of falling is making it worse; I know that it can get very dark and deep and painful.

Back when I finished grad school, I was unemployed for more than a year. I had some temp work, and some small jobs, but it took me 15 months to find a full-time job. On top of that, I realize, in retrospect, that I was seriously depressed for probably two years before that.

It was hellish. I was miserable, and I knew that I was miserable to be around. I was sad and angry and scared. I was unemployed and deeply in debt and being forced to change careers. Despite having spent seven years and accruing the aforementioned debt to do what I truly loved to do, I wasn't going to get to do that, and I had to find something else to do, and I had to pay off all that debt.

When I finally got a job--literally weeks before I would have run out of money--I immediately set to healing myself. I worked through the shit, as best I could (pretty well, actually), and slowly rebuilt a new life. As I left that job, four years later, to work at the startup company, I got involved with Chuck. And despite the many, many good things that came out of that, nearly eight years later, once again, my life blew up: the company for which I worked went out of business (and the companty for which Chuck work moved, so we were both in dire straits there), my marriage blew up, and I was working in a low-paying, grueling job that had been intended to be an apprenticeship before I started, yes, something else I loved to do.

And then I pieced things together again, and quit the bakery, and found a new job, where, over the nearly four years I was there, I was promoted twice, and left the job making 60% more than when I was hired.

None of that matters.

What matters, right this minute, is that I have no fucking clue what's going to happen. I have some capacity for dealing with uncertainty, and some capacity for rebuilding, or moving to a new plot and building something else entirely. But will I be able to do it this time, before my money runs out? I'm over 50. Unemployment is at record levels. The jobs that are out there are either back at the level I was at in 1994 or they're just enough above my level of experience that I don't think I can do them; there's no guarantee that I can talk someone into hiring me for the former, and I don't see the point in trying to talk someone into hiring me for a position that I don't quite know how to do and don't think I can figure out in time.

Even that, well, something could turn up, or I could maybe get one of the lower-level positions that pays enough and, once again, work my way up (or not; there's a lot to be said for not).

But I'm sliding. I've spent the better part of the past two days sitting and doing not much of anything. (No, computer cards does not count as any fucking thing at all, except an exercise in mind-numbing.) I managed to work out Monday and Tuesday, but today, I managed to miss a train and I got off at the other end 15 minutes too late to get to the rowing class I had signed up to take, and I just turned the fuck around and got back on the train and came home. Otherwise, I have done almost nothing.

I was supposed to meet an ex-co-worker tomorrow, but it turns out that there's a board meeting s/he must attend--which added to my funk, as I was required to attend a board meeting in, what, September? maybe? And that means, if anyone I met remembers me, there will be questions, and my ex-boss will be making shit up or badmouthing me--most likely the former, about how I "chose" to pursue other options. I'm fucking UNEMPLOYED. Who the fuck would choose that? All I can say is that I hope s/he breaks out in suppurating sores and bloody pustules every time s/he says something about me that's bullshit. I'm trying very, very hard to keep away from the anger--I know, from the above-mentioned experience, that it is not a good path, and will only lead to more tears--but I think I can ask that bad karma rains down upon those who spew bullshit about me.

Then again, maybe no one will even notice.

For the ones who had a notion,
a notion deep inside
That it ain't no sin
to be glad you're alive
--Bruce
"Badlands"

(Yeah, sorry, Palladia is showing "Live in NYC" at the moment, presumably in honor of Clarence's birthday, and, as we know, Bruce is my personal deity. Or, at least, he keeps me going, and I'll take what I can get right now.)

So I know I have to find a way to stop the slide, to grab a boulder or a sapling or just dig in my heels. Because i just do not want to go back down into that ravine. I lived there for maybe three years, maybe more, in the early 90s, and revisited briefly five years ago, and I do not have the energy to drag myself out again, and the farther I fall the more dragging out of it I have to do. I have no fucking clue how I'm going to do it. But there it is. Drag myself out of it, right the fuck now, figure out a way to hold on and stop sliding.

Industrial Food

Time for another edition of Narya's Pet Peeves!

You may remember that my ex-in-laws had celiac disease (and a couple also couldn't do dairy, and one couldn't do soy or corn, either). I even had fantasies, for awhile, of having not one but two bakeries, one of which would have been gluten-free. (That particular fantasy required major lottery winnings.) It's a pain to manage it, though one gets used to it, and they did a great job of it. They own a store, as a matter of fact, that is all gluten-free, and they do a lot of mail-order business as well. I suspect they'll continue to face ever-stiffer competition, as many regular grocery stores are increasing their GF options dramatically. They have also been quite active in various celiac identification efforts. The condition seems to be on the rise, and not just because it was being under-diagnosed, though that's also the case. (I have my own suspicions about the increase, but I'll get back to them in a second.) Point being, I have a fair amount of close personal experience with people who really must avoid gluten at all costs; it's practically a poison for them.

None of this makes me peevish. In fact, I have a great deal of sympathy for people with celiac disease. As a result of hanging with them for the time I was with Chuck, I was able to see, first-hand, just how difficult it can be to get food one feels safe eating. It requires constant vigilance, particularly when going out to restaurants--even ones that claim to have gluten-free menus or options. If you throw the dairy-free needs on top of the gluten-free, like my ex bro-in-law, it can be a complete nightmare. Yes, Virginia, butter counts as dairy, so those veggies need to be steamed, or sauteed in oil (and, in his case, not corn oil).

Lately, though, I've been running into people who are claiming they are going without gluten, even though they're not celiac, because they have some idea that gluten is bad for them. They don't provide any evidence other than anecdata--somebody suggested it to them, possibly even a doctor, but no, they haven't been tested for celiac disease, or they've been tested and are negative. They've "heard" that gluten is inflammatory or something. Even this only mildly irritates me: people can eat what they want (even if their choices are stoopid). I'm seriously irritated by the lack of evidence for their claims, and suspect that the problems aren't with gluten, but whatevs.

What really puts me around the bend are people who claim that they're going "gluten-free" and then have something with gluten in it. Look, people: either you're gluten-free or you're not. If you are, then that Danish isn't something you can eat, and you had best be reading the labels of the salad dressing and every other damn thing. Gluten-free doesn't mean gluten-free-except-for-things-I-really-like. It means gluten-free soy sauce, and beer, and pasta, and all kinds of other stuff. It means that you can eat oats, but only if they haven't been contaminated by being grown too close to wheat. It means no bread, unless it's gluten-free. It means constant vigilance, not occasional dalliance. If you want to dally with gluten-free, that's fine, too, but then keep it to yourself. So, yes, this is an irritation to me: if you really want to do without gluten, well, okay, I'm not going to force you to eat my whole-grain, crusty, tasty bread, any more than I would try to force a vegetarian to eat meat. But then actually do without gluten, not just dabble in avoiding it. I may roll my eyes a little (secretly, and only if you're not actually celiac), but if it works for you and it helps you eat more healthy food, hey, go for it.

But I have a sneaking suspicion that a lot of the supposed gluten sensitivity is related to the over-processed crap that many people eat. Industrial food--like the food outlined in the first sectoin of "The Omnivore's Dilemma," for example--isn't healthy food; it's fuel, for an industrial cog, i.e., the workers. (Yes, I realize I sound like a Wobbly.) I also suspect that the flours used in industrial food fuck with the gluten in the food in ways that may well be unhealthy without causing celiac disease. That's not a problem with gluten per se, but with the industrial agriculture and manufacturing processes.

I realize that many people don't have much choice; if you're poor, you need as many cheap calories as you can get. I can shudder at the thought of the "meat" product in fast-food tacos or hamburgers, but I'm also, despite my unemployed state, much more financially able to make different choices. Even people who don't need to maximize their calories per dollar are besieged by shiny packages and convenience foods and, if they didn't grow up seeing someone cook from scratch, they're less likely to see that as something they can do. People get overwhelmed, and I understand that: I'm more annoyed by the producers of that crap than by the people who eat it out of necessity or even out of desire.

And I think a lot of the "gluten is bad" that's in the ether these days is a result of the same industrial food machine. It's a new market, a new way to sell Product. Take some half-baked data fragment and inflate it into a full-blown epidemic, one that can only be treated by going on this new (expensive, of course) diet and buying these (expensive) products. It helps the people who really do need a gluten-free diet by making more foods available for them, but that's incidental; the real aim is to create a whole other market for the products.

Said and Not Said

As I believe I've said before, when I was 14 or 15, I realized two things, nearly simultaneously: that, first, in some very fundamental ways, my mother didn't understand me, and, second, that there was absolutely no way to make that statement at the age of 14 or 15 and have anyone take it seriously--but it was still true. That conundrum might be apt for my current situation, but I can't tell for sure, and that particular uncertainty is one of the more difficult aspects of the whole thing.

Plenty of people, including ex-co-workers, have said that I was sort of doomed from the moment Ex-boss was put in charge, not because I'd fuck up but because of the particular situation into which I had to fit. That is, I have people telling me that my ex team, including its head, do not truly appreciate or understand what I bring to the table. While that is a satisfying thought in some ways, it doesn't sound any more "say-able" than my observations at 14 or 15. And, more important, I don't know whether it's true.

If it is true, that I was never going to fit into that team, because of fundamental problems with the make-up of the team, rather than because of some fundamental flaw in my abilities or skills, then of course there isn't anything I can do about it. On the other hand, if I was fucking up in some way--more than we all generally fuck up on a day-to-day basis--then I would want to know that, painful though it would be to hear it. I can't learn from mistakes if I don't know what the fuck they were, and, in this case, I don't even know that I was making any.

Back when we had our first conversation about my leaving, Ex-boss really didn't give any reasons for wanting me to leave. S/he said one or two things, but they didn't make much sense, s/he backed off very quickly when I basically said "Whaaa?", and I had the distinct impression that s/he was . . . trying to build a case of some kind, but then realized s/he didn't have what would be needed. S/he probably also realized (or had been advised) that it would go better if s/he just got rid of me, rather than engaging in a protracted argument. (And, frankly, if it's really fucked up, then on some level s/he also realized, perhaps only subconsciously, that fighting about it would open up a whole can of worms about the Bubble Team that s/he didn't want opened. If you're going to present a standard of behavior that I supposedly violated, then you had best not have fellow team members who violate those standards all over the place; that will not go well. I doubt that was even at the edge of awareness, however.) The few things that were mentioned were ludicrous--or perhaps I am incapable of seeing how it was me that was fucking up. My gut tells me it was the former (and tells me pretty strongly, which isn't exactly empirical evidence, but isn't insane, either, and is in complete accordance with various other parties' reading of the situation).

Overall, I got the impression that s/he had made this decision and didn't want to go through any kind of performance improvement effort--s/he had decided I wasn't going to be useful to the team and just wanted to be rid of me. Which, as I've said before, is a perfectly legitimate thing to want. It fucks with MY life, of course, to which I will return in a second, and I think it's fucked up in about 87 other directions, but it is what it is. And if that's the case, it's kind of like my mom not really understanding me, especially when I was 15: it's true, and it has significant effects on my life, but it's not something I can say and have people take it seriously (outside of my close circle of friends, of course, but even with those people saying it just feels . . . weird).

So was I fucking up? I'll never really know, I suppose. It's possible I'll know if they really made a mistake in getting rid of me, which is a different thing: There are a number of things that could break or crack in one way or another, but it seems unlikely that anyone on Team Bubble would then conclude that the reason they're broken is because they got rid of me.

All that aside, it still fucks with my life. If I was making mistakes, then I would have preferred an honest chance to find that out and fix it; if I wasn't making mistakes, then it doubles the karma ginned up by getting rid of someone who wasn't fucking up. Even if I'm right, I'm still unemployed, and satisfaction in my own rightness won't pay the bills. Of course, if some luck falls my way, I could end up in a better situation. (Yeah, I know, unlikely; even the unemployment guy was saying to me yesterday, "You need to get a job, especially because you're over 50." Um, yeah; knew that. But he was being nice, and ended up telling me about how he lost his job when he was over 50 and this job is a result of an enforced career change.) But there's no way to predict how that will go, and it doesn't fix any of the 87 aspects of the fucked-up-ness of getting rid of me. All in all, it seems like yet another exercise in random events causing major changes in my life--and people wonder why I don't have plans.

Anyway; let's hope that's my last spewing about that for awhile.

So yesterday and today I made (wait for it) bread! I riffed off of the Maple Oat Sourdough formula in the KAF Whole Grain Baking Book (or, as I think of it, one of my holy scriptures), by using a lot of levain instead of doing an overnight preferment with a little levain; using some barley flakes in addition to the rolled oats for the soaker and only soaking the grains for a couple of hours instead of overnight; and throwing in some KAF high-fiber flour. It was really quite lovely yesterday, so I made it again today to see if I could do it again, and it was even more beautiful--seems like I have a keeper. If I weren't such a slug and if I hadn't already hacked off the crusty tasty end, I'd take a picture for you.

Playing Center Field

"I'm just not happy, I'm just not happy. I'm just not happy because my life didn't turn out the way I thought it would." Hey, join the fucking club! I thought I was going to be the starting center fielder for the Boston Red Sox.
--Denis Leary
Quite a year it's been, eh? Any year that involves a promotion and a "separation" in less than six months is going to make one's head spin a bit, I suppose, and mine is probably spinning a bit less than I might have predicted. I'm finding that my biggest problem really is getting some kind of order established--but, then again, the holiday season probably isn't the best time to do that, either. Partly to give myself a handy excuse, and partly because it is, in fact, a time of year when things are closed and people are vacating and not a lot is going on, I've been cutting myself some slack.

But I've also tried to think a bit about what might work for me--ways to stay busy and productive, essentially, and ways to get regular exercise. If nothing else, perhaps I can get into some kind of decent shape again. None of that will happen by magic, of course, and I have well-documented motivation issues, which are exacerbated by not having any particular schedule, but it's something that's in my control, so it would behoove me to, you know, fucking DO it. Yes, I know that exercise, per se, is really fucking boring; that's why I much preferred playing an actual sport. Not an option now, so time to STFU and get off my ass. I'm currently planning on a yoga class tomorrow--my favorite teacher is actually teaching--so I'm going to drag my sorry ass over there in the hope that starting the year with a positive effort will somehow help. Yes, I know, that is magical thinking.

Food for the weekend planned so far: tonight we're having tuna steaks (frozen, vacuum sealed, purchased months ago by Friend, and we might as well use them up), and I'll probably do some kind of garlic spinach. There will also be fresh sourdough bread; a loaf just came out of the oven a little while ago, and it's pretty tasty. The leftovers will become Toast from France tomorrow morning.

Tomorrow there will be collard greens and black-eyed peas, along with a little pancetta to make the spirit of my grandmother happy. I'll probably make another loaf of some kind of bread, and possibly something sweet if I get really motivated, and we'll probably have some venison, too. Monday will involve pizza of some kind; I have broccoli rabe, two kinds of mozzarella (because, really, why not), and a variety of tomato products, including bolognese sauce in the freezer and multiple jars of roasted pureed tomatos from the CSA people; I'm sure I can make something out of that.

Anyway. Lots of la-di-dah-ing going on here, trying to pretend I'm not unemployed, but whatevs. I'll keep hacking away at it, and maybe I'll find a job.

As for you all, have a wonderful new year.

Great Wall of Vegetables

The final tally (in number of more-or-less-serving-size packages):
9 lettuce soup
10 curried carrot turnip soup
6 roasted Hakurai turnips
6 roasted purple-top turnips (half w/ garlic & ginger)
18 roasted butternut squash (some roasted w/ honey & ginger)
12 blanched spinach
6 blanched kale
2 blanched broccoli stems
7 blanched broccoli florets
5 sliced and blanched kohlrabi
10 roasted beets
4 blanched chard

The beets were roasted in a little water, but everything else was tossed with a little fat (olive oil, butter, or a combo), sometimes with honey, ginger, maple syrup, or garlic. The only things left in the fridge are cabbages and leeks; there are some potatos in the back closet, and a bag of onions from the store in the fridge as well, plus odds and ends of onions and garlic on the counter. So, with some grains--pasta, bread, rice, farro, barley--and some cheese (which I just bought in moderately mass quantity), I can get by with a very low grocery bill for at least three or four months, maybe more.

My stand-alone freezer is full to the gills, and I ended up having to use the freezer on top of the fridge as well (which I try to avoid, because it's frost-free and therefore wreaks havoc upon frozen foods). I still have half a bag or so of AP flour, plus whole wheat, white whole wheat, and a variety of specialty flours with which I will not bore you (spelt, anyone?), so I can bake, too. (Did I mention that sourdough is magic??)

I wouldn't say that I'm battling depression, because this time of year always sucks for me, for such a multitude of reasons, not the least of which is the relative lack of sunlight. I'm beginning to recognize that I really do need a plan, or a Plan, for how to spend my days. The past three weeks have been a whirl of creating the above pile of packages in the freezer, plus doing long-overdue cleaning tasks, with the occasional social occasion thrown in, but there's no order to it. That's the thing about being unemployed that I hated last time and don't want to recreate this time: the long days that end up being filled with a lot of nothing much, each livend with a dash of fear and a pinch of anxiety. I can spend hours (no lie) thinking that I Should Really Go Work Out--and by "go" I mean "change clothes and walk to the back bedroom"--and never actually do that. I can berate myself off and on for a day about how I should just get on the yoga mat--and never actually do it.

And, frankly, that cycle annoys me more than anything else. I recognize that it comes from the acres of time that stretch in front of me at the moment; when I'm most busy is also when I get the most accomplished, because I make schedules and I stick to them. When I'm just hanging out, I don't have a specific time to accomplish something, so I just . . . don't. This will make me insane if I don't find a way around it.

That, however, will have to wait for another day. I need to pack my crap and head off to the land of cheese and Packers fans. Enjoy whatever holidays, friends, and family members cross your path.

Reasons to Be Enjoying Unenjoyment

I spent the early part of last week cleaning and doing laundry and cleaning some more--plus going out to dinner with my furniture guy and with friends--and then . . . then I spent some time staring vacantly into space. I managed to get various small tasks accomplished, but I felt like I was doing them in a fog. Not surprising, I suppose. I even got a taste of schadenfreude on Friday, when I had lunch w/ an ex-coworker, who informed me that a proposal on which I did not work did not get re-funded (it's money the organization had been getting for multiple years). Yes, I know it's a little evil of me, but there it is. One of the advantages of the timing of my leaving is that there isn't anything due any time soon (except a big data report, about which I warned everyone), so it will be difficult--though, of course, not impossible--to blame me if there are issues with upcoming items.

As I vegetated last week, I realized a couple of things. First, this is the first time I've had two weeks off in a row since approximately 1994. Yes, seriously. I'm sure it will get old if it goes on too long (much the way it got old by the end of 1993, much less well into 1994), but a part of me was enjoying just being able to hang out. I will never be accused of being assiduous about housekeeping chores, but it was nice to be able to make a very long list of things to do and actually get them done, even while building in some baking and some slacking. There are still projects to be done--get more paint off of the sunroom brick; make curtains for the kitchen; clean up the desk in the back bedroom--but I accomplished a lot of crap.

Second, in case I have only mentioned this 472 times, sourdough is magic. It just kind of blows me away that I can use this goo to bake bread, with no added yeast. I've already gone through 10 pounds of flour, and I have resorted to giving away wads of stuff just to make room for more wads. Today, though, I made a batch of rolls that has extra fiber (in the form of barley flakes) and various fruity bits (cranberries, candied orange peel, date nuggets, dried apricots, and dried pears), and I glazed the rolls with a combination of ginger syrup and maple syrup. I'm thinking that these will become breakfast food; I haven't been eating well (or exercising, despite my resolutions to do so), and the Week of Slack has led to concrete strategies.

Third, the more I'm away from that job, and the more I think about the info I got on Friday, the more happy I am that I'm out of there. Yes, there is still a lot of fear and anxiety about finding a job, and yes, I realize this could be post hoc rationalization at its finest, but I think my gut is right about this one. The fundamental problem--and the problem at the core of my "separation" from the organization, I believe--is that the Head Honcho (my ex-boss) and his/her team don't know that they need to know things that they don't know. They think that they have it covered, and they cannot see beyond the bubble they've built. Personally, I think it's going to bite them, and the organization as a whole, in the ass, and I do not want to be around for that. When shit hits the fan, it splatters everyone in the vicinity, and there are people on that team who will do their level best to duck behind others when that happens. The thing is, if they manage to eliminate everyone outside the bubble, then they won't have anywhere to hide, or anyone to blame.

Don't get me wrong--I don't really wish for this to happen. For one thing, the bad karma generated by that kind of wish is not something I want to invoke. For another (much more important) thing, the people who are likely to suffer most, either in terms of reduced services or reduced staff, will be people who are way lower on the food chain. Even if the bubble team members lost their jobs (which I would be hard-pressed to predict), they will be better fixed, in terms of income and savings, for example, than line staff or program beneficiaries. And I think there's a very real risk here, because there are enormous changes in the works; many or most of those changes are systemic, i.e., outside of any given organization; and the changes will be centered around the part of the business that I was in but that the bubble team is not.

They could pull it off, of course; they are not stupid people, and they have at least a modest recognition that Things Must Change. But they are also systematically ignoring (or "separating" or reagarding as Negative Nellies) the people who know the most about the side of the business that will be changing the most and that will be the core of all the other changes. Bubble team members are doing a mediocre job transferring my knowledge and tasks to other people. And they are putting into moderately key positions people who do not know enough about the side of the business that will be the core of the new arrangements--but they are people who are subordinate to the bubble team, and are therefore Good & Knowledgable. There will be hiccups--as there always are--but the size and strength of those hiccups will be related, at least in part, to how much of the world outside the bubble they truly comprehend.

Here's another thing: there's no guarantee that, if I had been involved, the organization would have kept the contract that was lost--but I would have been Blamed, even if what was submitted was something that I did not fully support or something I did not think was what should be submitted. That's going to happen going forward, too. Contracts will be lost, or poorly managed, or whatever--it's a fact of life, particularly in an organization that now has no managers on my old side of the business (the other side is rife with them, but many are foot soldiers more than anything else, and no one has seen any urgency to get managers involved in my old side). It was one of the things that had become a serious challenge over the past year--not enough managers (and how often do you hear THAT said) to, well, manage.

My friend pointed out that I was doing three different jobs, with three different skill sets--not because I'm so spectacular, but because those tasks needed to be done. As we tried to mix our staffs and managers and directors and tasks together, I was increasingly being expected to follow a new set of rules (though finding out just what the relevant rule was remained an exercise in futility), hand off my tasks, and create a new job description/job for myself. No way is that going to work out well, unless the head person can communicate what s/he wants and the other members in the bubble are willing to break the bubble and build a new structure.

Yeah, as I said, failure of one kind or another was really the only thing that was going to come out of that, and I'm just as glad to be out of the way of the shrapnel. I'll figure out something, some way, somehow. I hope.

Roasted

If Tuesday was about blanching, Wednesday was about roasting: three butternut squash; two different batches of turnips (one was large purple-top turnips, which I roasted with garlic and ginger and butter; and the others were Hakurai, which I roasted with butter, ginger, garlic, and maple syrup); and two batches of radishes (one regular, one watermelon, which are a lovely purple color, both with butter, oil, salt), which came out quite tasty.

I'm definitely bringing a salad on Saturday--with the radishes, and some carrots and some cheese, as well as some bread, which will help me get rid of the things I least want to eat myself. The things that remain in the fridge are a whole butt-load of cabbages, some kohlrabi, and some leeks, and I have potatos in the closet as well. I'm tempted to roast or braise the leeks and just freeze them as is; I'm not convinced that potato-leek soup would freeze all that well (even if I leave out the milk until I reheat), and I've seen a few recipes for potato-leek gratin, which also would not freeze well. The potatos should keep in the closet for awhile, as it's pretty cool back there, though I do want to try to make some gnocchi, which also could be frozen. Basically, I won't need to buy food, except for dairy, for months--which sounds like a fine plan to me. I do need to re-up for next year's farm share, but at least that major expense is coming early in the unenjoyment.

Anyway. I still need to work out today, and Friend and I are having dinner tonight, using a Groupon purchased before all this set in. Tomorrow I'll start planning the cleaning.

Day 2: Enjoying the Unenjoyment

So now I'm officially unemployed. I'm not eligible to collect unemployment until the vacation pay runs out, I think, but I didn't go to a job yesterday or today, for the first time in awhile. Most of last week was just fine; I met with people, I provided information, I cleaned out my office. The business person kept asking me to try to take care of this and that before I left, and I basically made non-committal sounds and didn't do those things. You know what? I handed it off to you. I gave you the info I had so far, and the work I had done on those things, and they are now not my fucking problem. Seriously. I am not running around on my last couple of days to do tasks of any kind, but most especially not those tasks, because they're tedious and annoying and why the fuck should I do that? Bite me.

If you want to know the truth, I actually enjoyed ignoring the requests. Although I actually like this person in many ways (s/he is funny, for one thing), this person can be more than a little imperial, and it was delightful to just not do it. The other thing from which I took great joy was deleting files. The same person said, when I asked, oh, yeah, if you wouldn't mind, please do delete files and clean out your drive on the server. Certainly! With pleasure! Clearly you didn't value the work I did anyway, and clearly you assume that someone else knows what I knew about the various fiddly bits in the budget even though I've repeatedly said otherwise, so I'm sure you'll have no trouble at all, with either the various contract budgets or with the fiscal year budget.

I've ordered a case of schadenfreude, and I will be enjoying the consumption of it. It may need to age a bit, but that's okay; I have other things to do.

Meanwhile, though, I've realized that I need to find another topic of conversation, difficult though that task may be. It's time to settle into a routine that works--and that isn't about either my unemployed state or the complaints about the old job. The old job is a dead parrot, an ex-job, and there's no point in continuing to spend my time thinking about it. There are still some details to take care of: applying for unemployment; getting the cobra papers filled out; getting the final checks, which will happen in two weeks and then again after the first of the year, because I'm taking some of the income in 2012; transferring the retirement money. But that's all paperwork

Sunday I went to an exercise class (rowing) followed by a yoga class, and yesterday I got some exercise in the morning and then spent several hours with the hippy-dippy-restaurant folks. (I'm trying to help them figure out how to get out of the major hole they're in. Not clear i can do that, but it seems to be helpful to have them talk about it--I'm basically doing therapy with them, on some level.) Last evening I planned out the rest of the week a bit and watched the hockey game.

Today has been all about filling the freezer: chard, kale, and spinach are the items of the day, plus I made a batch of sourdough bread. I still have leeks, turnips, more turnips, lettuce, turnips, and potatos to address. And turnips. And lettuce. No matter; I'll think of something to make with all of it, or most of it, anyway. And I have to go to a pot luck on Saturday, so I might well take a salad, no matter what else I take.

Put Up and Freeze

For the second year in a row, the wheat cookies were the big hit--the cookie that caused the most spontaneous comments. Go figure. They do have a nice flavor, but they're not that amazing. Then again, people like what they like, and that's two years' worth of "like," so I'll have to concede on this one. My sourdough starter is bubbling away--I think I'll bake today with it, and then refrigerate it (it's been out on the counter). Otherwise, it needs feeding twice a day and you have to toss or bake with what you remove. I've noticed that the aroma has improved over the past few days; it's breadier, somehow, and not as pungently sour as it was at first.

Today's bread was the best yet, so yay. I froze three of the four loaves (batard-size, more or less), so I'll have bread to eat with my various soups. So: lettuce soup. Well, I sincerely doubt I would go buy lettuce to make into soup, but it's edible. I used all of the lettuce I had, plus onions, garlic, and potatos, and I blended it, so it's a chunky puree, and then I froze it in portions. When I reheat, some cheese or even some mascarpone or cream cheese or cream would probably help, and, with a hunk of bread, it'll make a meal.

I also made soup out of the large turnips and some carrots (added onions, garlic, ginger, spices, orange rind, and apple juice), and pureed that, too, then added a little honey. And I blanched and froze all the spinach.

The orange rind went in because I bought three oranges the other day to make the icing for the wheat cookies. One probably would have been sufficient, but whatevs; I grated the rind off all three oranges, then juiced them. I had way more juice and rind than I needed, so I froze the juice into cubes (so I can pull out only what I need), and I dumped the rind into the aforementioned soup.

I am so tiired . . . in the past four days I have made a double batch of barley cookies; wheat cookies with orange icing; two batches of banana clove muffins; three batches of sourdough bread--no, wait, four, I think?, whole wheat monkey buns, lettuce soup (10 servings). and carrot and turnip soup (10 servings). In addition, I cubed, roasted, and froze four butternut squash and an acorn squash, and I blanched and froze three bags of spinach.

I still have Hakurei turnips (and I"m getting more tomorrow), tatsoi greens, three or four heads of cabbage, a bag of radishes I don't know how I'll use, two heads of bok choi, a couple of leeks, some kale, and another butternut. Tomorrow, in addition to the turnips, I'm getting more lettuce (o joy), beets, leeks, and some greens, I think. Frankly, what with all of my flour and my sourdough starter and the bread that will result from combining the two, I have lunches for a couple of months, which pleases me. Friend didn't kill Bambi's grandfather this year--he got a doe for his mom, but only saw little bucks, and had decided to hold off unless he saw something big. He has plenty of venison in the freezer, so we won't lack for meat despite him not bringing one back this year.

The task for the coming week is to set up a daily schedule for myself. It is way too easy to fall into bad habits, and I want to use this time a little productively. But that's not a task I can do now.

Cookie Mania

The kitchen marathon continues . . . Thursday I only managed to make a loaf of sourdough, a batch of banana-clove mini muffins (half of which are just this side of burnt, which means I had to make another batch, as they're for tonight's beer event), a batch of whole wheat monkey buns with cranberries and dates (an experiment that worked reasonably well but needs some work), and two cubed, roasted butternut squash. Then my downstairs neighbor showed up with a bottle of wine around noon, and that was it for my productivity for the day. Which, fine; good conversation is always welcome, and I sent her off with the remainder of the monkey buns as she was going to a dinner with friends.

Firday I made two more loaves of sourdough and a double batch of barley cookie dough (it's supposed to be refrigerated overnight).The second batch of banana clove muffins got done, and I cubed, roasted, and froze two more butternut squash, along with an acorn squash. This morning I baked the barley cookies, plus a batch of wheat cookies (which got an orange glaze, a la wheat beer), and I have three loaves of sourdough cooling on the counter. The sourdough is akin to a lambic beer, because lambic beer is made with wild yeast, as is sourdough. I put some cranberries in it, too, as one might do with a lambic. I contemplated something chocolate or mocha, to get the porters and stouts in there--possibly even dipping the barley cookies in chocolate halfway--but then my ambition failed me. I'll be happy if I manage to work out.

I still need to make lettuce soup, curried carrot turnip soup, and maybe some potato leek soup and/or some gnocchi (I have leeks about which I keep forgetting, and I have a buttload of potatos). I keep thinking I should get up and roast the turnips for the soup, but then inertia pins me to the chair and the thought passes. (Roasting veggies gives them such a nice flavor.) None of this will get done today, but those cooking activities will use nearly everything in the fridge except some cabbage (which will keep), some bok choi (which I might take to work for one of my coworkers), and some celery leaves and parsley. I'll also have a full freezer, so yay for that; there's something a bit comforting about entering a period of unemployment with a freezer full of food. Between that and all of the flour I have, I could probably avoid buying groceries for a couple of months, other than dairy products. And I need to stock up on some canned goods, too--tomatos, mostly--but will wait until Friend is around with his vehicle for that.

I know that, ultimately, I need a winning lottery ticket or a job, but every little bit probably helps--psychologically as much as anything. Meanwhile, though, it's time to put this post to bed rather than continuing to tinker and needing to update.

Walls and No Bridges

One of the things that has been absolutely fascinating to me through the past two weeks or so--since the whole Narya's-Leaving thing became public--is that people have had such a variety of reactions to my impending departure. Other times in my life the events were "inside" me--I was going through a lot of turmoil of one kind or another, and those emotions overwhelmed my ability to truly pay attention to or be present for other people's responses. This time, though, I'm not feeling as overwhelmed, and as a result I can read the environment and other people much bettter, or I'm more open to what other people are going through, or something.

Several people are really quite upset--they regard this as more decimation of the staff in our portion of the program. One administrative person with whom I work is really quite upset; s/he said, "but you're the brains of the operation!" No amount of reassurance that it will be fine has any effect on his/her reactions. Several others have expressed similar sentiments, which surprised me--I really didn't think people were all that aware of what I do, much less that they thought that highly of it. So that has been quite touching, really.

The people I've worked with most closely for the past year--the other senior manager types--are somewhat varied in their reactions. One person tried to get as much out of my brain as possible . . . and then left town last week, not to return until after I'm gone. I don't think that person learned enough, but (wait for it . . .) not my problem either way. A second person is going to introduce me to people in other organizations who might be able to make use of my skills, which is really quite helpful, and has expressed a desire to be friends with me (we've already done some things together outside of work, so that's actually a possibility, and I like this person a lot). A third person wants me to write things down, and I did some of that, but basically this person wants things handed out on silver platters and, well, not so much.

The boss invited me to meet with him/her for a break next week, a while before the goodbye party starts (I'm "crashing" the goodbye party for someone else whose last day is the same as mine), which, on one hand, I think is just bizarre--this person just FIRED me, fer chrissakes! We can dress up that pig and put diplomatic language in its mouth, but seriously? The thing is, I think the boss actually likes me quite a bit, so it's not completely insane, and, for another, I wouldn't dream of missing it--I cannot wait to see what s/he has to say. Much to the dismay of various friends and family members, all of whom regard me as too nice and/or too trusting, I actually like the boss, too.

And that's been interesting, too. The objectivity I've been able to maintain enables me to see both why the boss is doing this and why it's a big damn mistake. As I have said repeatedly, the senior team around the boss has worked together for more than a decade, and they are only interested in each other, only trust each other. They practically have a secret language. There are different standards of behavior for the "in" group versus everyone else. There is an unwillingness to share, and a refusal to recognize how they keep others out. The difficulties are masked by their history of success--but I think that what has worked in the past will not necessarily work in the future for them. They speak the language of Change and New, but they absolutely refuse to embrace it on any deep level. Which, hey, might work for them.

On Sunday after my yoga class I ran into someone who has worked with the senior team for a long time, and s/he had absolutely nothing good to say about them (and was more harsh than I would be, to tell you the truth). S/he basically congratulated me on "getting out," and offered to provide me with a reference any time, for anybody, which was a bit of a surprise. S/he ticked off all the things I had noticed myself (with no prompting from me, mind you), except with an extra helping of bitterness.

So, basically, I was doomed, from the beginning. And, on one hand, the boss has the right to put together the team that s/he thinks will best serve what s/he thinks the needs of the organization are--and if s/he doesn't think I help with that, then of course s/he absolutely positively should get rid of me, and the manner in which that has occurred has been reasonably respectful and . . . I don't know, not traumatic?, as possible, under the circumstances.

The fly in this particular ointment, however, at least in my opinion, is that the very difficulties I've identified point not to weaknesses on my part (which is not to say that I don't have weaknesses), but to weaknesses of the whole approach, the closed-team (with lots of language about how it's an "open" team) approach. The boss and, thus, the team, do not let others in, which means there are whole worlds of information they don't have. That was less of an issue before, when their areas of specialty were also the areas on which their part of the organization focused. Now, though, there's a huge other area, and they do not possess nearly as much knowledge or expertise, but they think they do. So, frankly, either they'll figure it out or they won't, but they'll have to do it without someone who actually knows a fair amount about it, in addition to possessing other potentially useful skills.

Back to the original point, and I do have one: it's been fascinating seeing and hearing people's reaction to this whole thing. The details in the previous four paragraphs are, by and large, unavailable to the vast majority of people--but they nevertheless have sensed them and comment on them. I don't confirm or deny--I stick to the script--but I'm fascinated how much people have picked up without my saying a word or lifting an eyebrow.

But, as Arlo Guthrie once said, that's not what i came here to talk about. (As an aside, I make it a point to listen to the Thanksgiving playing of "Alice's Restaurant" by my local radio station.) What I came here to discuss, and I probably should have put it in a whole separate post, is the Wall of Vegetables in my refrigerator. And on my counter. And in my closet. Seriously.

I have five butternut squash (two others have already been roasted and frozen), an acorn squash, four cabbages, four bags of potatos, several bags of turnips, five pounds of carrots, a fuckton of lettuce (which is going to become soup, I think), celery leaves and parsley, onions, garlic, radishes, two or three bags of spinach, some kale, and . . . more stuff? I know I'm forgetting things. I need to get through as much of it as possible this week. The potatos will keep for awhile, as would some of the other stuff, but it's easy enough to hack up the squash and roast it while I do other things.

The other task of Thursday and Friday is baking, because I'm doing the cookies to accompany the beer samples on Saturday, but that will require a different discussion. And, despite my understandable and nearly complete lack of motivation, not to mention lack of desire to show up early to work, I do have to make an appearance tomorrow.

New Start(er)

Today's task--which took all of five minutes--was to start a sourdough starter. I've thought about it over the years but never wanted to be bothered. Now, though, with the prospect of time on my hands (and the very belated realization that, once I get it going, it can live in the fridge with weekly feedings and be happy), I figured I might as well. The baking season is about to start in earnest--at least as much because I'm going to have a lot of time to do it as because of the calendar. Plus, I bought a whole lot of flour (despite already having more than just about anyone I know except Brazen Tart), including 10 pounds of whole wheat, 5 pounds of white whole wheat, 25 pounds of all-purpose, and some barley flour and barley flakes. One of the bags of whole wheat split during shipping--I didn't lose much out of the bag, but KAF is sending me another bag anyway, which means I'll have close to 20 pounds of whole wheat flour.

Yeah, I know, probably a bit much.

But why not, I say.

Work sort of continues, oddly enough. My last day isn't for two more weeks, though I'll be off for Thanksgiving and the day after as well as two days the following week, so I only have six more days there. I don't have a whole lot to do, though. There are a couple of tasks I should complete, and I've done one. The person who's taking over a lot of the grant-management stuff picked my brain for a few hours the other day and has since left town, not to return until after I'm gone. S/he seems pretty confident that s/he has what the organization needs to know from me; I'm much less sure. The operations person was out of town all week and says s/he is busy all next week as well, but s/he wants to send an email request for various things from me. Which, whatevs; I'll do what I can. Personally, I'm not convinced they're going to have what they need, but I don't much care.

I've sent out some applications, I've handed the resume to a few people with whom I've worked in the past couple of years, but nothing has bubbled so far, which doesn't really surprise me much. The separation agreement was sent out yesterday in draft form, and it's fine (i'm not even going to detail it here, because of all the prohibitions about disclosure).

The reality is, I'm glad to be going. Part of it is of course wanting to get out of a situation where I know I'm not wanted--there is absolutely no percentage in wanting to prolong that. Another part, though, is relief that I can stop fighting some of the battles in which I've been mired. A number of things have been a continuous struggle. I tend to think that they've been a struggle because of the particular people or systems with whom/which I've been struggling, but of course it's also possible that I'm the reason for the struggle. In my time there, I've taken on some tasks that absolutely had to be done, that weren't being done or weren't being done properly, but haven't had the resources or systems or support from others to really get things working properly. And now? Not my problem. Perhaps someone else can figure it out; perhaps I've really been the obstacle; or perhaps some shit is going to hit the fan--and I can't bring myself to have much of a stake in the answer.

A few people have suggested that I not be completely forthcoming about what I know, but I'm not going along with that suggestion. For one thing, it just goes against my nature. For another, that's a good way for people to blame me later. But finally, I want what happens after I leave to be unrelated to me. They'll likely figure it out--they're smart people, it's not rocket science, and there aren't many things due in the coming months, i.e., they have time to get things in order, which also means that, by the time things are due, I will be long gone and not a likely target for blame.

As for whether I can find another job, I have no idea--I simply cannot predict. My previous experience is all over the damn map, and therefore not necessarily a good clue. And who knows--I could come in second for a dozen jobs, which would be encouraging, in the sense of getting nibbles, but would still mean I'd be unemployed. I could win the lottery. I could end up having to take a job elsewhere. Who fucking knows.

So I'm going to exercise, and bake, and read, and donate some time to the hippy-dippy restaurant, and do some more in the sunroom, and make curtains for the kitchen window, and soon enough, it'll be January. Or February. Or March. If I'm still coming up with projects in March, then I will start to panic a bit, but I see no reason to panic in November about what might or might not happen by March.

Brassica Family Fun

Because you know how I love my cruciferous vegetables.

I started off by roasting the beets and slicing and freezing them; the greens became part of dinner.

Then it was on to the kohlrabi. Start with a couple of onions; sliced thin, cooked in a little olive oil and butter until slightly caramelized, then a few cloves of garlic. (I use about 1.5 to 2 tablespoons of fat, and I usually do about half olive oil and half butter. That way I get the flavor of butter but also the benefit of the olive oil.) I added some raspberry honey mustard and a wad of preserved ginger (is there anything that isn't improved by ginger? I didn't think so), and then I added the very thinly sliced kohlrabi (I got out the food processor for that operation, because it's so much faster and doesn't leave me with hunks the way the mandoline does) and a little water. While that cooked for a few minutes, I cored some apples and threw them into the food processor to slice them (skins on). After the apples went in, I washed the leaves from the last batch of kohlrabi and cut that up, too, and added a little salt and pepper. I ended up having to put it into a bigger pot so I could stir it better. When it was done, I ended up draining the juices back into the pot and added another little bit of butter and deglazed the pan, and mixed that back in.

Oh, my, is this concoction tasty. It occured to me that, for a crowd, I could take that mix and layer it with sliced potatos and make a gratin out of it, maybe adding some good cheese at the end. As it is, I'll haul it to work with some cheese and be happy. I would have liked to have some bread with it, but I didn't get around to doing any baking this weekend.

For dinner, onions again, with a lot of different greens: the beet greens, a little chard, some tatsoi greens, and something else--spicy mustard, maybe? That cooked while the whole wheat fusilli cooked, and, at the last minute, I put a tablespoon of heavy cream into the pan and stirred it around. Mascarpone would probably work well, too. Some grated parmesan on top, and, voila, dinner--and two lunches.

I always feel a little virtuous when I use things like beet greens or kohlrabi greens. I shouldn't I know--it's food, and I shouldn't feel virtuous for using food rather than wasting it. But there you have it.

Meanwhile, spending a lot of time in my own head this weekend has allowed some of the anger to start to surface, not surprisingly. I'm trying to acknowledge it and let go of it, because, while understandable, it's not useful in this situation. On one hand, I can see how Boss wants to put together his/her own team (and, seriously, that is the only fucking explanation I can even begin to find); that makes sense. But then why go to the trouble of "wooing" me? Why spend so much time convincing me how wonderful you are, and how wonderful you think I am? Why promote me and give me a big raise and create a job just for me, only to fire me six months later? Did you really think I could magically figure out what you wanted?

It's kind of demented, really.

The challenge is going to be to continue to stick to the script about my leaving and to answer the questions about the things that need to be handed over. So: deep breaths, practiced smiles, and as much good cheer as I can manage.

Prepare for Change

I keep thinking I'm going to panic eventually, but I haven't so far. I am noticing an uptick in anxiety, but really, that shouldn't be a surprise to anyone, me included.

A few days after the last post, I met with the HR Person, which was helpful, and then HRP and Boss and I met this week (I requested that HRP join us, because I thought it would be helpful, and it was). We negotiated the quit date (2 December will be my last day, which means I have health insurance completely paid through December, and will start paying the COBRA in January, when our rates drop significantly because the company is switching insurance companies) and severance and such. Thursday, we (mostly Boss) told the other senior managers, while I was there, and there was major shock on the faces around the room--which was interesting not least because the other people around the table have worked with Boss for at least 10 years, and it seems to have caught them completely by surprise, too. Friday everyone else found out (and I told a few people privately before that announcement), and there was a lot more gnashing of teeth and tears from others than I would have predicted.

The announcements are all being couched in code that everyone will understand. We talk about it being a "mutual" or "joint" decision, but, given that I don't have another job at the moment, it's pretty obvious that it wasn't my first choice. I'm steadfastly not saying that to people, because there's no percentage in it for me to do that, but people aren't stupid, either.

All that aside, I still don't have any better idea why this happened than I did three weeks ago. On one hand, I'm not all that surprised, but, frankly, Boss would have been better off waiting six months. People haven't absorbed enough of what I know to even know all of the questions they should be asking--and while I am continuing to be professional, and I will answer the questions that people ask to the best of my ability, the reality is, a lot of shit is just not my problem any longer.

The best answer I can find is that this is Boss's opportunity: Boss has wanted this job for awhile and had to wait to get it, and now wants to put together his/her own team, which is understandable. I think it's also a mistake--my absence isn't going to wreck the place, and I am by no means irreplaceable, but I provide a set of skills and a body of information and knowledge that no one on his/her team possesses at this point. For example, in several meetings I've attended in the past month, meetings about the future direction the organization will be taking, I have asked questions (e.g., of consultants) that are based on my knowledge and that the other people around the table, including outsiders, clearly hadn't thought about but clearly regarded as important. There isn't anyone left who can ask those questions, and some of them are pretty crucial.

But did I mention that it's not my problem?

That part has been nothing but a joy to me these past weeks. Something comes along that I know is fucked up, and I try to do what I can--via email, if possible, so the record shows I tried to do the right thing--but others want it their way. Really? No problem, then! And when your actions fuck things up six months from now? Oh, wait: Not. My. Problem. And then I let go of it and move on to the next thing. I have the occasional twinge, because I have put so much time, energy, and effort into solving problems, but it's out of my control at this point.

So I'm planning my December. I'm applying to things that look like a good fit, and, now that it's public, I"ll start calling people I know; too soon to tell whether any of that will be successful. I can't look for jobs all the damn time, and, seriously, this is a crappy time of year for job hunting, so I'm going to refocus. The current plan is to reclaim my yoga practice; get regular exercise (possibly even lose some weight); do some general cleanup around the apartment; maybe take care of a few things (e.g., make curtains for the kitchen window); do some baking; read a lot of library books; and do some (volunteer) work for a local hippy-dippy restaurant that probably has less money in the bank than I do. (I have gotten to know the owners, and I offered my services and the offer was joyfully accepted, so that'll be fun, and will get me out of the house and won't threaten my unemployment.) I wouldn't be surprised if this plan carries into January or longer, but it's a pretty good plan, I think.

I'm looking forward to it, if you want to know the truth. If I haven't had a nibble of any kind by February, then perhaps my tune will change, but right now, it sounds like a fine plan to just have some time to sit in the sunroom and read. It also sounds like a fine idea to not have to worry that every thing I say is going to be misunderstood or will get me fired.

Partly in preparation for all of this, and partly because I had a 20%-off email from King Arthur, I bought a bunch of flour and other ingredients this week. Today I also did an inventory of what I have on hand, and, amazingly enough, I managed to not duplicate too much with my order, but I have an unbelievable amount of flour and grain products. Which, hey, for someone who likes to bake and who is about to have a bunch of time on her hands? Not so terrible.

My refrigerator was starting to look like a wall of produce, because, what with losing my job and all, I hadn't had time to get to very much of it. Today I focused on the broccoli (chop; steam the stems, florets, and leaves separately; chill, weigh and package; and freeze) and two of the three butternut squash (cube and roast, then package and freeze). Tomorrow I'll do something with the kohlrabi and beets (with greens), and maybe the (wait for it!) bok choi and turnips. And I need to bake some bread.

That will leave me with onions, garlic, greens of various sorts (spinach, a little chard, and some tatsoi greens), an acorn squash, and lettuce. Oh, and potatos--three bags of potatos, with which I have no idea what I'm going to do--and apples purchased last week, and, um, radishes. Monday I'll get even more lettuce, and more greens and turnips, and cabbage, so I might save the turnips and do them all at once.

I'm trying put up what I can--the freezer is my friend--which means I should be eating a whole lot of lettuce for the next two weeks, because that's the item that won't really keep. (Lettuce. Feh. There just isn't that much you can do with lettuce other than salads, which also means you need other crap--carrots, cheese, dried cranberries, whatever--to make it taste like food.) The farm share includes five more weeks after Monday, so even more produce will be coming my way. But that will have to wait for another post.