No Flour

Every time I start to write a post, I end up finding myself four paragraphs later having done nothing except bitch; sometimes I throw in some moaning or whining, for good measure. Then I reread it and I get annoyed with myself and I delete it and go to bed the end.

I had a friend in college--we still exchange the occasional email, every couple of years--who tried to teach me to juggle. I learned the basic principles and did it a little, but I didn't have the patience or enthusiasm to practice it the way it would have required to actually become even the least bit proficient. Nevertheless, that's what I feel like I've been doing lately at work. I'm juggling too many things, and I drop something every so often because I cannot keep them all in the air; or I manage to toss a thing away, but then three more things get tossed into the mix, and something else tumbles to the ground.

There are no 50-pound sacks of flour, and that still counts for quite a bit. I've had a few tantrums with my boss this week, though, because I'm getting quite tired of having him tell me that I Have To Do This Thing! Because It's Late! Or His Boss Wants It! That does not solve any of my problems. I know these things are late, and I even know what it will take to fix them, but I keep getting dragged into something that takes four times longer than it should, or I discover that the previous director of business operations--who is a friend of his--fucked us in yet another way. Next week's blowup will be because a final report for some bullshit little research project about which I know nothing but am still supposed to write was due this week, and I simply did not get around to (a) fedexing the data to the person who's supposed to analyze it (not least because I don't know what our fedex procedures are) or (b) calling the foundation and asking for an extension. I have no clue to whom I'd need to speak, and, guess what, i do not fucking care. It will have to get in line behind the various projects that bring in sums of money with two commas in them, because I deem them to be more important, and if anyone has a problem with my priorities, then I will point this out. I cannot do everything, and I refuse to try.

I hate the conflict, and I hate the timesuck of trying to be nice and polite and full of kumbayahity. I hate that people come barging into my office, no matter whether the door is closed, and then just stand there, even if I'm on the phone. I hate being underpaid, relative both to my coworkers and to the work that I'm doing, even as I hate caring about that. I hate the stupidity of several of the people who are making substantially more than I am and whose stupidity costs me even more of a timesuck. The meetings drive me batshit, especially when people are wandering in and out, answering cell or blackberry calls/messages, which I find incredibly rude. (Look, people, you are not transplant surgeons, so I do not see what could be so fucking important.)

We had a full-day strategic planning meeting this week, and it exemplified nearly everything that's good and everything that's frustrating about the whole situation.

I asked my boss if he wanted me to facilitate the meeting, and he said, sure, if I wanted to. Which I did--not because I actually wanted to do that, but because I knew that no one else would, I knew that he hadn't even thought about it (or put together any kind of agenda--for a full-day meeting!), and I did not want to waste all that damned time. It actually went reasonably well in many ways, in part precisely because I did facilitate it, with an agenda, and a vision of what we needed to do and how to get there.

One person wandered away not once but twice, and then started whining at the end of the day because she was tired of the whole thing and wanted to leave, and a couple of others wandered away briefly, but in general people stayed reasonably focused. We managed to identify what we need to do, and we started thinking about how to do those things--except then we got sidetracked because we had to come up with bullshit goals that the bigger organization thinks should be our focus. These goals by and large ARE bullshit, and they will not result in anything real or meaningful, in terms of goals, objectives, or our actual challenges in the coming year. (And, you know, if I got asked by higher-ups about the whole thing, I'd probably say something close to that--that the goals are bullshit and do not relate to the actual things we need to do.) On the other hand, we have a good team, with a lot of strengths, even if there are some glaring weaknesses as well, and we are doing good work, and we are well-funded, so it could be worse.

In addition, I have no difficulties just leaving at the end of the day, or occasionally leaving a bit early if I have something I want to do; I'm even refusing to go to the capitol city for a one-day (bullshit) conference/training session, because (people don't know this is the reason) I have tickets for the NHL playoff games and I will likely have a game one of those nights. There are very few jobs that would entice me, one way or another, to put in 70-hour weeks on a regular basis--or even 55-hour weeks; I did it at the bakery because I didn't have much choice at the time. The job could easily become a time- and energy-suck, and I won't do that. I don't have the desire or energy for it; no one else around me--either above or below me on the org chart--is doing it; and there's nothing to be gained from doing it. If I thought that, say, two or three weeks of intense effort would get me all caught up, and then it would be relatively smooth sailing, I'd maybe be convinced to do it, but it's not at all clear to me that that's true, so screw it. I may need to reevaluate that conclusion.

Meanwhile, I need to finish an editing job this weekend, and I'm hoping to do that Saturday so I can spend Sunday doing a whole big bunch of nothing much. Okay, that's not entirely true: there's an F1 race to watch, and the season's first Indy car race, and a bunch of hockey, so the only question is how long I can remain on the couch.

Blah Di Dah

I am monumentally boring these days. I keep slogging along at work, making headway on various things, but always always always with another mountain of crap to climb. I need time to stop for a month, so I can do everything that needs doing without getting behind on something else and without missing this or that deadline and without having to scramble and drop everything to do some bullshit thing or another. Failing the time-stops-for-a-month plan, I'll continue with the current approach, and I'll just turn to the bakery camera when I'm feeling overwhelmed. That continues to make me feel better, because I can look at it and know I don't have to get up tomorrow and sling dough for 10 or 11 hours.

I also have a freelance job at the moment, and it's one that has morphed into a somewhat bigger job than I think anyone thought it would be. I'm editing what are called "ancillaries"--tests, instructor outlines, powerpoints, etc.--and those usually go pretty quickly. However, this author is completely unclear on the concept of an "outline" in that s/he basically took the text of each chapter and turned it into bulleted sentences. A 25-page single-spaced outline isn't really an outline so much as it is a reformatted chapter.

It's been a time suck the past couple of weekends, and it will be next weekend, too. The thing that really is unfortunate is that it's my first job for this particular assistant (though I know the person with/for whom she's working) and I'm hoping it doesn't go too much over budget for them; I've given her enough warning about the state of things so they can alert everyone about it, and I've tried to scale my level of effort to a place that will work for everyone (i.e., they're getting at least some worthwhile copyediting out of it, but I'm not spending so much time as to make it exorbitant). And, hey, I'm glad to have the work, or, more accurately, the extra cash.

I did manage to get out a little, though; Friend and I went out to dinner Saturday night, and then yesterday marked the start of the outdoor grilling season. We picked up a piece of salmon, and I applied a paste to it that included salt, sugar, pepper, honey, balsamic vinegar, cumin, chili powder, paprika, oregano, and cocoa. It was supposed to be a dry rub, but I leaped ahead, thinking the "essence" from another recipe was a liquid instead of more dry ingredients, so I added the honey (subbing for some of the sugar), then threw in a splash of the balsamic, because I've been throwing it into everything. It was quite excellent, though I'd reduce the cumin by a bit next time.

I also have to add that I have been using my rowing machine. I was going to add a bunch of qualifiers there, about how it's not this or hasn't resulted in that or I'm not quite doing the other thing, but fuck it. I've been rowing 3 to 5 days a week, and I've been upping my distance/time a little such that I'm now rowing about 4000 meters (in about 28 minutes), and a couple of days a week I lift 5-pound weights for a (very) few minutes. I would like to get a heart monitor, and will probably do that soon, and I have not completely abandoned the idea of resuming my yoga practice. I find that viewing my Netflix selections, particularly the various television series (at the moment, it's "The Pallisers," based on the Trollope novels), works quite nicely as a distraction while I row; hockey works, too, because there aren't a lot of commercial breaks. Music doesn't work as well for me, though it has sufficed in the past; it's easier to lose myself in the viewing, and I don't have to choose from the crappy health-club viewing choices to do it. Not surprisingly, the exercise is helping my back pain quite a bit. It's not completely gone, and sitting too long in the wrong chair will cause it to flare up, but the rowing seems to be building core strength in ways that help. Baby steps, people--or any steps at all.

Simple Solutions to World Problems

No individuals were harmed in yesterday's meeting. In fact, in part thanks to my boss, everyone sat around holding hands and singing kumbaya.

Not surprisingly, I continue to fibrillate somewhat about the apartment thing. I keep Deciding--that I'm going to stay put, that I don't want to pack and move, that there will be plenty of nice places available next year, and so on, ad nauseam, but do I listen? No; no I do not. I peek at the listings here; I glance at the pictures there; I start to dream about granite countertops and a full-size stove whose pilot light doesn't go out whenever I use the burner, about a bathroom that doesn't suck, about a really great place! for not a lot more a month! which I can afford! Basically, I have to hunt my brain down, and haul it by the scruff of the neck back to the Decision, where I point to it and say, hey, brain, remember this? Because we are NOT MOVING. Lather-rinse-repeat.

I don't think it has all that much to do with moving, per se, but has more to do with fantasies about the Perfect Space. I realize that there is no such thing--especially not within the boundaries of my budget, generous though that is--but whenever I bump up against the thing that is irritating me (or the multiple things, in the current case), then I get frustrated. I also recognize that the owners of the current place could decide it would just be easier to have me move out, or they could dick around and not actually fix any of the things they said they'd fix, in which case moving has to go back on the table. But that would be foolish on their part. The rental agent I saw the other day said they've already had three tenants who had to move out (essentially break their leases) because they'd lost their jobs, and a fourth is about to join them, and this is all since December. It is going to get worse before it gets better. (And, to continue my point, I am actually willing to continue living here and paying rent here, if they fix the shit that's broke.)

Which is why the AIG assholes do, indeed, bug me. Why, exactly, do the companies need to retain the people who caused all these problems? Why aren't they firing those people? Clearly, they suck at their work, and, more to the point, with all of the people who are out of work--in part because of the aforementioned sucking of these "executives"--surely there are people out there who would be happy to take the jobs, and for considerably less than the assholes are making. Oh, they say, but there are so few people who truly understand all this international financial stuff!

Yes, exactly; that's the point. How 'bout we go back to the other plan, the one that involved making things and selling things rather than inventing new ways to shuffle money around while taking a cut for one's own pockets and the pockets of shareholders? I realize this sounds kind of simplistic, but, seriously, the whole point of banks and banking, so far as I can tell, is so people don't have to stuff their mattresses, and other people who want to start businesses (see: things, making and selling) can get loans. What else is there, really? This other shit is just a fancy version of what the mob does--it's money laundering, with a serious vig that you and I are forced to pay.

I've been watching "Bull Durham" with the Robbins/Costner commentary on while I row, and I am reminded of one of the best lines ever: "This is a simple game. You hit the ball, you throw the ball, you catch the ball." Seems like money should be the same thing, no? You make things; you sell things; you buy things. And they are things, not invented financial products that have little or no relationship to the actual world of things. There. Fixed.

Irritation Overlord

I had planned to take off on Thursday, in exchange for having gone in on Saturday and so i could catch up on my editing job, but nooooooo. A person in the organization is being a pain in the ass, and I therefore have to go to a meeting tomorrow morning. I am getting mighty tired of some things, most particularly of scrambling, constantly, to fix things and get things done and submit required things and smooth things over with various funding agencies, and then getting shit because I haven't also done it while balancing on my head and I haven't cured cancer. I jumped up and down and waved my arms around and cursed loudly a lot today, in the vicinity of my boss, mostly to blow off some irritation and partly to make sure he has my back and to figure out what our approach is tomorrow, so I can sit back and mostly shut up. Which I will make every effort to do, unless and until the person who's been being a pain in the ass starts pissing on my shoes again, at which point there will be issues. And then I'm going to come home and edit.

I saw an apartment today, and it had a balcony, and if you stand on the balcony, the thing outside is the beach. That's the good thing. It gets a lot of light, which is also good. However: it's $100/month more than the current place. It's a little smaller in the living room, which makes finding a place for my rowing machine a little more challenging. The kitchen is substantially smaller, with a lot less counter space. Most important, though, my spidey sense didn't tingle even a little--I didn't stand there thinking, "Wow; I'd really like to live here . . . hmmm . . . how can I make that happen? What do I need to do? Can I live with [this or that somewhat undesirable aspect]?" The location is tempting, the lake is tempting, but then I think about the deficits, particularly in the kitchen, and the extra money, and the cost of moving, and I'm not sufficiently tempted.

So send me calming thoughts for Thursday morning.

Ides After

Yes, I suppose I could be working on the editing job in my in-box, but it is incredibly poorly written, and I would rather not. I'll spend most of Thursday on it (because I am not going in to the office, because I was there on Saturday) and then the weekend, and, while that still probably won't be enough, because it is so sucktastic, I should be able to get a bunch done. Or something. Short version: I don't feel like working any more today.

Things are still kinda crazy at work, and I'm gearing up for a fight with the central admin folks, though I'll have to get my boss on board for it. Sometimes I think the people who work in the central office forget that their job is to support us, i.e., the people who are providing services to people who need them. The downtown folks often act as though our job is to do what they ask, and to do things on their timetables, and so on. I understand why, and I understand that they, too, are overburdened, but when I see how much of our budgets are going to support administration, I no longer care about their problems. There is one function, in particular (which I won't detail here), for which we are paying many, many, many dollars, yet it is done poorly. This particular function is done much more efficiently and effectively when performed in the for-profit world, because said performance determines one's pay and profit. I will not fail to point this out--politely, and as diplomatically as possible--when the occasion arises.

I have also begun a fibrillation about whether I should move. My apartment is, in many ways, quite nice: large, lots of closet space, decent light, decent (though not great) kitchen. But. Remember that flood 2.5 years ago? Well, I still have big blotches of paint coming off the walls in the living room and the kitchen ceiling. The bathroom walls get a little moldy, because there's no circulation in there, especially when I insulate the window, which I must do in the winter because there's no heat in the bathroom. The bathroom sink doesn't drain properly, and the drain-closing-thingy has never worked; the shower head needs replacement, and the water pressure in the shower is painfully strong. The stove is kinda eh; the pilot light on the right goes out whenever I use a burner on that side. The young woman who works in the office came up last week and made a list, and said she'd let me know, and said they wouldn't raise my rent, which is all good, but I haven't heard from her yet, which makes me a little peevish; at least call and tell me what the holdup is.

So I rummaged around in the ads, and came up with a few apartments that overlook the lake (as in, are practically on the beach), and I'm going to go look at them this week. Basically, I've decided that I will only move if I find something completely fab right on the lake; I do not want to do another citywide search, because I know I am not likely to find something better than, or as good as, what I have, at the price at which I have it. Plus, I actually like this neighborhood. The big things are going to be kitchens, because I do not want a small one, and laundry; both buildings I've mentioned have laundry rooms for which I will need to go outside, and one of them is a three-story walkup, i.e., I'll have to go outside AND schlep the laundry up and down the stairs. I can tell you now that it would have to be an incredibly fabulous place to overcome that drawback. Some people do not care about this particular thing--Friend and GFriend have tried to convince me it's no big deal--but I have not had to go outside to do my laundry since 1986, and I am in no hurry to change that. Plus, I hate to move.

I guess I still have this fantasy of having the Perfect Living Space. Big, self-cleaning kitchen, with lots of counter space and cabinets; a dining area in or right near the kitchen; in-unit washer and dryer; a bathroom that is toasty in the winter and has perfect water pressure, and has a window, preferably in the shower/tub; lots of closet space and built-in shelves and drawers (I've actually had this a lot, such that I don't own a dresser); a lot of natural light from the south, all day, but enough cross-breezes so i don't bake in the summer. A view would be nice, but isn't that relevant. Close to public transportation, and not too far from the grocery stores. A manager on the premises, preferably with an office and a willingness to accept packages. A balcony or deck, so long as we're fantasizing. And? I don't have to do any of the moving or arrangements for moving, I just show up at the new address on the appointed day, and all of my stuff is magically arranged exactly where I want it and can find it.

Back here in the real world, however . . .

I know I still have a few more words to contemplate, but the Top Chef discussion sidetracked me, and I've been busy, so it remains undone. I haven't even been doing much of interest; as noted, work remained nuts and will continue to be so for a few more weeks. I've been fighting something off, too, I think: Friday Friend and I had planned to go to a small little theater performance, but then he missed out on the half-price tix, and then we changed our minds, and and and, and I started feeling all clogged up in my left ear, so we just went to his house instead. As I was making my way over there I asked myself what I wanted/needed, and the answer that bubbled to the surface was, of all things, a hot bath. Readers, believe me when I tell you that my Self doesn't come up with that answer more than once every couple of decades, so I was a little surprised; on the other hand, if that's the answer I'm hearing, I'm gonna listen. So I did that, and then vegged out while Friend watched hockey and played the guitar, and I suspect I was all the better for it, despite the lack of excitement it signals; I even did it again on Saturday (the bath part, anyway), even though my tub isn't as nice as Friend's.

Anyway; enough blather. For tonight, anyway.

Home is Where?

Okay, I could go on about Top Chef some more, but no. I do have two other recommendations for you, though. I'm in the middle of Jeanette Winterson's The Stone Gods and I am really liking this book. On one hand, it reads very quickly, but on the other hand, it's got some deep implications in there, so it's a lot of fun. The other recommendation is a movie, Big Eden. It's about a successful gay NYC artist who "goes home" where he's not really out (or so he thinks) to the townspeople and his grandfather and so on. It's a romantic comedy, and it's very entertaining--on one hand, it's obvious what's going to happen and who's going to end up with whom, but it can't rely on gender tropes to get the lovers together. It's clever and amusing.

A central plotline--one that shows up in n romantic comedies--is the "going home and finding true love in the small town one left." This also made me think of one of kstyle's followup questions for me, i.e., where, exactly, "home" is for me. I've been ruminating on this for several days, and I have to confess that I don't really feel like anyplace is home, which kind of bums me out.

My home town is small and sad and worn out. It used to depend in part on industry--several of which have left town--and . . . I don't know. There were farms nearby, but they've all been paved and "Developed." The whole area has, with the completion of a major interstate, become a byway on the way to New York, and the farms and some of my town have become a suburb of NYC, albeit a VERY far-west-NJ suburb. Point is, there's not much there for me, and I'd have to drive everywhere, because it's not the kind of small town where people can or do walk anywhere. If I'd been able to be a professor, it might have worked, because there are a couple of colleges not too far away, but the must-drive-everywhere problem would still be in effect.

I did like Philadelphia, quite a bit. It's a city that's walkable, with lots of public transportation, etc., and it probably feels more like home than anywhere, but I only lived there for five years--less time than I've lived anywhere else--and it's not as though I have deep ties there. I used to feel at home there, but who knows if I still would; I'm sure things have changed in the 23 years since I moved away.

And here doesn't feel like home, either, despite the 23 years.

I guess I think of "home" as someplace where one has ties, and knows people, and feels welcome and embedded, but also where one can find worthwhile work to do. I have the work here, more or less, but not a whole lot else. I have been part of communities here--in grad school, and then when I played handball, and when I was married to Chuck--but all of those communities have disintegrated in one way or another. Grad school friends are dispersed, with one notable exception in the form of the administrator of the department, who has become one of my best friends. I'm only vaguely in touch with the handball players, in the sense of I hear from one of them every few months but not from any of the others. Obviously I'm no longer part of Chuck's community. When both Friend and my grad-school friend are out of town or busy, I can easily go two or three days without talking to anyone I know in this city. I could drop off the face of the earth and it would take people a few days to notice, which really doesn't sound like a characterization of "home" to me, and certainly not like the kind of "home" represented in media-world and romantic comedies (which yes, admittedly are not necessarily the best source for anything other than a hyperidealized version of the world).

Mostly, this doesn't bother me, mind you. Individual bits--e.g., the disintegration of my relationship with Chuck--might cause sadness or grief, but that's very specific to the relationship, not necessarily to the totality of my life in a place. So I don't know. I suppose I could try to rethink what could count as home, but part of the resonance of those concepts is how they vibrate some deep part of us, I think. (And, of course, there's the whole other unfathomable level of it that people who are truly homeless experience, which makes my situation rather trivial.)

Anyway. Must get to work.

The Business

As I knew she would, the Brazen Tart had some interesting contributions to the cook/chef discussion. By those lights, then Fabio is actually one of the best chefs on the show, because, during Restaurant Wars, he practically single-handedly saved his team's ass. (His memorable comment, as he put on a jacket to prepare for running the front of the house, was that you could give him monkey ass and an empty clam shell and he could sell it.) The judges even told his team's ostensible leader, Leah, that she would have been going home if their team hadn't won, because her dish sucked--that is, Fabio managed to sell monkey ass. Conversely, when Carla was having difficulty getting her dessert out because the freezers weren't actually freezing anything, Radhika didn't say, for example, well, let's call it chilled soup, or otherwise suggest a solution to the problem.

Arguably, that's marketing more than being a chef, but it's partly because Fabio understands that the whole enterprise is an experience (I'm not surprised that he has his own restaurant). It's about the food, most definitely, but it's also the experience. (One of the things I have enjoyed so much about going to one of the city's best restaurants--one of the places I went for my birthday last year--was that even though I was being served world-class food, I wasn't treated with an attitude. I have been there three times now, and the experience has been the same.) By these same standards, we shouldn't be surprised that at the farm, the team of Stefan, Carla, and Jamie were the team that nailed it: three strong cooks, and at least two people (Stefan and Carla) own catering businesses, which means they should have at least some chef abilities. All of their food was good and there was no drama.

The biggest problems with the industry as a whole, though, are that it's brutally difficult work and the pay is generally for shit. BT probably has one of the highest-paid pastry cook positions in this city, in that she gets a decent wage (and that's decent by industry standards, which is a whole other thing), plus she gets benefits, including health insurance and free hotel rooms around the world. At the bakery, I made $4-$5/hour less than she did, with no health insurance, and my benefits consisted of 80 hours of pay after I'd worked there a year (i.e., a two-week "vacation" that I opted to take as pay rather than as days off). People who work in restaurants probably were even worse off than I was (I was actually treated pretty well by some industry standards). At BT's place, however, the front-of-the-house staff, i.e., the servers, can make several hundred dollars a night in tips; this is not shared with the people who actually make the food. Thus, the restaurant world is much like the industries in which I have worked, i.e., the people doing "marketing" (the servers) make a big wad more than the people making the product or doing the actual work behind the scene. (I can't even say "marketing" without sneering a little.) Although, to be fair, salespeople also take the brunt of the shit from customers. Someone in the kitchen fucks up? It's the server who hears about it, not the cook who wasn't paying attention--that is, I am most assuredly NOT harshing on servers or salespeople; it's not work I do happily, though I can do it reasonably well if I think it's a good product. (Marketing people, though, ew.)

Part of the problem in doing this kind of analysis, though, is that there are so many different pieces and levels to the whole thing. The bakery was not a pastry kitchen--and it's a small business, not part of a large corporate entity, so Bossman could not operate at a loss. And, while he seemed to be doing reasonably well, he wasn't rolling in profit and he worked his own ass off. Here's the thing, though, that gets at BT's point: while Bossman had to operate as a "chef," i.e., he had to expedite things and run things, he could also operate as a cook, i.e., he still got to make stuff, which is the part he absolutely loves. He tried to make the team for--and eventually won--an international competition because he likes trying to make the products. I know that one of the things he liked about having me around is that that's what I liked, too, and, really, that's why I wanted own a bakery (especially if BT was a partner in the enterprise).

Bossman especially liked making products that sell. And that actually brings to mind a good example (and one of my lasting contributions to the bakery). There are always scraps when you make croissants--the edges and pieces that result when you cut and shape the dough. You don't want to throw it out, especially when it's made with 100% butter the way ours were. Bossman had me throwing a couple of chunks into the next day's dough, as a kind of sourdough-starter principle. Unfortunately, especially when I was making thousands, I'd end up with more scraps than I could use, and I could rarely get the night guys to use it in the doughnut dough or the danish dough. The scraps were affecting the quality of the dough. So I suggested we chop it up with cinnamon and sugar and make monkey buns. (We also tried a cheese one, which didn't really work, and a chocolate-cherry one, which a few people liked but which didn't sell.) We started using the large muffin tins, with muffin liners, but they tended to stick to the tins, which was a complete pain. Bossman had the idea of using these little standalone paper pans--you can get them in different shapes and sizes, and they're generally used for things like brioche and pannetone--and he measured the muffin tins to figure out the right size to get. Then we experimented with how much dough to put in. Then we figured out how to run the dough down the belt with the cutter and guillotine so we'd get squares of rolled out cinnamon-and-sugar-covered croissant-dough scraps. I kept a hotel pan in the reach-in freezer and threw my scraps in there, and once a week I'd thaw it and make monkey buns. They absolutely flew off the shelves, particularly at the farmers' markets.

I typed "money buns" up there, and that turns out to be pretty accurate. We solved the problem of what to do with the scraps by creating a product with them that makes money and that the customers love. For a small-business owner, that's the fucking holy grail. For a restaurant like BT's, I doubt it makes any difference, though I could be wrong.

Anyway.

Some quick notes for all of our "friends" over there on the right:

1. Go ahead and let Rush be your spokesperson. Please; really. I can't think of a better way to demonstrate how out of touch your party is with the people who are losing their jobs and houses and life savings and health insurance. Plus, he's giving Jon Stewart some fabulous material.

2. Please try, again, to understand the concept of a marginal tax rate, okay? And please try to get it through your brains that the highest marginal tax rate is still substantially lower than it was under several recent Republican presidents.

3. Those of you who keep threatening to "go Galt"? When, exactly, are you leaving? And will you be using roads built by the government to get there? Has your magic electricity generator been perfected yet? Who's going to build the factories and equipment you're going to use to grow food and deliver it? What are you going to do for water? Because surely you don't want to sully yourselves with anything that has the taint of a public works project, do you? You'll be constructing barrels to catch rain, perhaps? Who's going to make the barrels? And so on. But really, go ahead and leave, and don't take with you anything that you haven't made with your own two soft, pasty, overpaid hands.

ETA: One of the things I have observed in at least three different industries at this point is the fact that our ostensible meritocracy, piled on top of the managerial/hierarchical way we think about work (thank you for nothing, Mr. Taylor . . .), means that the only way people can make more money is to move up a ladder, even if the upward movement takes them away from the work at which they excel and that they may well love. Do you really want to turn great teachers into principals? Do you really want to turn great counselors into clinical supervisors or managers? Do you really want to turn great cooks into chefs who rarely cook a thing? No, you don't, but if you overvalue "management" and undervalue the people who do the actual work, then that's what you get. Nobody wins.

Top Chef, not Top Scallop

I'm going to hold off on the last few words to muse about Top Chef and about a post that Brazen Tart is promising to write. I should note that i didn't watch the first third of the season all that carefully. But here are some random observations about the cheftestants.

1. Three of the final four deserved to be there--Carla, Stefan, and Fabio. Hosea, the person who won, arguably belonged, but he made a few fatal errors in my book, to which I'll get in a minute. I think that possibly Jamie might have been the better choice, and I think that might have made for a more interesting last two shows, but, she was kind of a whiner. Although Jeff clearly had some chops, his ego was constantly in the way, and he seemed to think that just because a dish was complicated, and/or because he made every last component and grew all the herbs and ground all the spices with a mortar and pestle and did it all while standing on his head, well, then it deserved to win. Dude: the question is how it tastes, and complicated preparation techniques does not always mean good.

2. I loved Fabio, and I'm not surprised he won the "fan favorite" prize on last night's reunion show. He was funny, and he could cook like a mofo, and it seemed clear from a few of his dishes that he could really get some flavor going. I do think that he had less . . . classical training? classical chops? than some of the others, which might get to the cook-or-chef question that BT mentioned. But if he had a little neighborhood joint down the street and ran it well and didn't try to get too big or anything, i'd totally go there, because I know I could get kick-ass Italian food. (I also loved that he cooked a "last meal" for Lidia Bastianich, and won the challenge, with a broken finger, no less. When they interviewed him about his injury, he said that he'd rather cut off his finger and sear it on the grill so it wouldn't bleed on the food, and then cook the next day with nine fingers, than go home. Which was so amusingly over the top.)

3. I think that Stefan, Carla, and possibly Jeff and Jamie were closest to being actual chefs. I couldn't get a read on Jamie, but it became clear that the other three knew quite a bit about the techniques and the flavors and so on. Carla didn't know all the new molecular gastronomy/sous vide shit (which was part of her downfall at the end, in that she let her sous chef talk her into methods that (a) were wildly inappropriate for the meal she was trying to create, in the case of the meat, and (b) were touchy and difficult to pull off, rather than a relatively easy win, in the case of going for a souffle instead of a tart, especially when pastry is one of Carla's strong suits, and (c) both resulted in massive fail.)

I think it's telling how that group did in terms of trying to recreate a dish (and incorporating feedback from the chef who created the dish), and I wish that Jeff had still been around to participate in that particular challenge. Jamie kept coming close but then fucking up something, or she would do really well, but someone else would do just a little better, so I just couldn't tell with her.

4. Of the many things that unimpressed me about Hosea, the biggest ones were that he screwed up several challenges that involved fish, even though he kept telling us that fish was his bestest thing evah, and a second was that, even though he did make some things well, I never got the sense that he was doing anything all that interesting. I really don't care about his thing with Leah. I also got mighty damned tired of hearing him go on about how he and Stefan were battling it out. You know what, dude? Just do your own test and don't worry about everyone else's paper, okay? And I don't remember him ever making a dessert. I realize that fine-dining places will have separate pastry chefs and pastry kitchens and such, but I still think his lack of dessert chops is a major issue.

5. The thing that totally turned me off of Hosea, though, was the challenge where he was on a team with Leah and Ariane. Ariane was trying to hack up the lamb (I think it was) and doing a damned poor job of it. Hosea said that, yeah, he had done that kind of work--but he just let her go on fucking it up, even though she was a team member and struggling, and he was doing something bullshit-simple like roast potatos I think. And then in front of the judges he basically threw Ariane under the bus (or he and Leah did, which totally sucked). Don't get me wrong--I think Ariane was in a bit over her head, and not because she was the oldest one there. She may be a good cook, she could probably run a small restaurant and do a fine job, but she is not a top chef. All that aside, it was like he set her up to fail and then gave her a nudge over the edge. You'll also notice that, at the final judges' table, Carla started to cry, because she knew that the two fails had basically put her out of the running. Hosea stood there. Stefan, who is supposedly such an asshole, according to Hosea and others, went over to Carla and basically comforted her--and not in a patronizing way. He did that again after the three of them were in the other room, waiting for the decision. Carla knew she'd fucked up, knew it wasn't something she could rescue, and knew that that meant she wouldn't win. She didn't whine, she didn't blame anyone else--even though she could totally have blamed her sous chef, she refused to do so, which I thought was completely classy--but she was also sad, and who wouldn't be. Hosea never showed the slightest bit of empathy, at all.

And that actually gets to the point I wanted to make about being a chef. I'll be interested to get BT's take on this, but, to me, one of the questions is how the person in charge deals with coworkers and with mistakes. I'm not interested in working with or for someone who is going to throw me under the bus; fuck it--life's too short to deal with that. I'm also not well-suited to work with someone who's going to be temperamental. If you screwed up, Bossman would say, "Not every day can be a good day." If you didn't show evidence that you could learn, and avoid making the same mistake twice, well, he wouldn't necessarily trust you with much, but he also had run a business for 20-plus years and he knew that things happen. (My boss's boss threw him under the bus in three separate meetings yesterday, which explains why he was peeved--and she threw him for things that weren't actually his responsibility or his mistake.)

Now, let me also make it clear that I am not a chef. I'm a pretty good cook, and, if I had started 25 years ago, I might--but only might--have been able to become a chef. I also don't have the temperament to work a line at a restaurant, and I don't know how necessary that is to being a chef. (Whaddya think, BT?) Of course, as BT also has been known to remind us, it's food. Not world peace or a cure for cancer. I would like it to be prepared at least a little mindfully, and I would like to remember to eat it mindfully, and I'd like it to be healthy and tasty and leave as small a footprint as possible. And I want Stefan or Carla or Fabio to prepare it for me.

ThreeFour Little Words

philosopher I became a philosophy major almost by accident. I had nearly finished the political science major, and had taken a bunch of philosophy courses, so I figured I may as well do the additional major. Here's the thing, though: much political science tries to emphasize the "science" part, insisting that people who do work in the field ought not ask about what we ought to do in a given case. At the same time, a lot of philosophy became either the study of long-dead Europeans or highly analytical parsing of . . . something. Thus, neither field in which I was interested enabled its practitioners to try to find ways to ask real questions about real people's real lives. My own experience is that in order to illuminate a dispute of some kind, it is important to understand the assumptions at the heart of it--not least because it may be the case that the disputants do not share important assumptions and thus will have great difficulty reaching agreement. It may also be the case that some parties to a debate are being inconsistent, or dishonest, or disingenuous in some way, and it's important to figure that out, too. (I'd say that other debates are more purely political, in the sense that it's a fight for land or power, say, despite whatever historical justifications the parties involved bring to bear.) The thing is, I think it is profoundly important for us to ask ourselves what we ought to do--in a particular situation; with regard to the world at large; in terms of how we interact with the world. Take, for example, the statement that Oliver Stone had Michael Douglas make in "Wall Street" (though I've never seen the movie, I've obviously seen and heard the line): "Greed is good." No. No it isn't. I can tell you what the argument is in favor of greed, and I can also argue against it. That may seem trivial, but it's not. Many people have a sneaking suspicion that that statement is wrong--or right--but they aren't sure whether greed really is good or bad, or why. Different authorities say different things; many people who seem to be arguing against it do not live a lifestyle that seems in accord with a non-greedy philosophy. And just how pure do we expect people to be? I think it is the job of the garden-variety philosopher such as myself to try to illuminate those questions. I had hoped to do it in a classroom, but it seems my real venue is destined to be the barroom and the lunchroom.

Wittgenstein When I first read Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations, to be precise), in graduate school, I found it completely understandable--even easy, in many ways. Now, LW is supposed to be notoriously difficult to "get," and, indeed, many people in the class seemed to be struggling mightily with it. Thus, I wondered whether there was something going on that I was missing. At one point I stumbled across a paper I'd written in college (on Rousseau or Kant, IIRC), and, in rereading it, realized that I had anticipated my reading of LW, as it were, by a decade or so. That is, LW was easy for me to understand because I had already absorbed much of what he had to say, even if I didn't have his way of saying it available to me. There isn't a really easy way to sum up LW's Investigations, but, if I had to try, I'd say that his central point is that language and practice are intertwined--what we say and what we do are intertwined, in the way that mind and body are intertwined. Can we talk about them as separate things? Well, yeah. Does it make sense to do so? Not very often, especially not outside of a philosophy class. And if you start thinking about the deep and far-reaching implications of language and practice being intertwined, well, you'll come up with the Philosophical Investigations, or an Investigations-like approach to the world.

well-read I don't particularly think of myself as well-read, so that's an interesting thing for someone to associate with me. I've read a lot, which isn't the same thing, and, in the case of some of you, I've got an extra 20 years of reading. The variety of careers I've had contributes to the variety of things I've read, too. There are substantial gaps: very little Shakespeare; no Joyce or Melville; not much Dickens (because I really didn't like what I read a million years ago); nothing in other languages. But I do love to read. I don't remember not knowing how to do it, and there's not a whole lot I like better than falling in to a good story that's well-told. I don't read much non-fiction--almost none, really--in part because I like the escape of invented worlds.

Okay, the rest of the words will have to wait. I've been working like a dog, still, yet, though good things are happening. (A lot of shit is, too, but I can only do what I can do.) Apparently some shit went down today, but my boss was too peevish about it to tell me, so I'll have to get the scoop tomorrow.

Next Word

Well, yes, it appears that I have abandoned you, but I have not. I was busy Being Social the past few days, and working hard last week, so I have been slow getting to your other words. Events included a hockey game, a play, and, of course, much good food. (The play was "Desire Under the Elms," which, good lord, what a depressing piece. Also, of the two theater productions I've seen in the past two weeks, there were a total of ten characters, exactly one of whom was female. Also also, "Desire" is very very shouty; there's barely a word spoken that isn't in the form of yelling or some other kind of thrashing around. Entirely too much Drama for me, thanks so much. But I feel all Cultured and shit, so there you go.) So anyway; on to the words. I'll get through the ones I can tonight, but I'd rather take my time and ponder a few of these, so you may only get a few at a time.

Chicago Ah yes. I have lived here, let's see, 23 years, which is longer than I have lived anywhere else. Even though I know the city reasonably well--and I know quite a few bits of it, and I know some of it better than many residents, for reasons I'll elaborate in a minute--it still does not feel like home to me, and I doubt that it ever will. I'm not a midwesterner, for one thing, even though I don't know that I could tell you exactly what characterizes a midwesterner or a non-midwesterner.

The city comprises 77 neighborhood areas; the areas were originally delineated by sociologists in the 1920s, pretty much along ethnic lines. What's truly interesting is how much of that character has survived for nearly a century. There's still a south-side Irish parade; there's still a Polish neighborhood (where many people actually speak Polish, mind you, and the businesses advertise in Polish); the city still celebrates Pulaski Day. The city is also, still, profoundly Catholic, and specifically Irish- and Polish-Catholic, which have a different flavor than Italian or French or German Catholics. (People my age who grew up Catholic in this city will still ask people they've just met which parish they're from; someone I knew in grad school said it wasn't until she moved away from the city that she realized most people do not identify the place where they live by the parish they're from.)

Part of what this means is that people often grow up in and remain living in the same neighborhood, or near enough to it, for their whole lives. Chuck could tell those stories better than I, but many people regard "downtown" as a foreign country, and a suspiciously foreign one at that, despite the fact that the public transportation to and from downtown is actually pretty good for most parts of the city. (Except for the poor black sections, but that's a different story.)

The city also has a profoundly racist past: past mayors built housing projects in ways that were designed to segregate black people into overcrowded neighborhoods, and woe betide any black person who attempted to move to a white neighborhood. In the 1970s, whites basically fled to the suburbs, abandoning the city and the school system. This has not worked out well. One of the side effects is that many of the white suburbanites live in their outposts and possibly work there as well, sucking benefits from the fact that the city exists but not paying their fair share (see Myron Orfield's work on this). It is not uncommon for kids to grow up in the 'burbs and then live in Lincoln Park or Lakeview or downtown or Wrigleyville after graduation for a couple of years. (Some go to school in the city, thus expanding their years there.) Eventually they meet someone, marry, and then move back to the suburbs once they start procreating. They will have visited few other parts of the city and will have utilized public transportation for few of their ventures, and they will only rarely have interacted much with someone who is Not Like They Are, but they typically think they have lived in the city and Experienced it.

It is also still possible for people to arrange their lives so they rarely or never see someone of a different race--which, in a city that is slightly less than 40% black and slightly more than 40% white, is pretty amazing. I go out to dinner quite a bit, and I can tell you that most of the time, most places I'm eating, there are few or no black customers, which is only partly a comment about where I'm eating dinner. I can also tell you that vocal racism is alive and well: many is the time that someone has made a remark to me, assuming that I share their views because I share their skin color. The old ethnic white neighborhoods that haven't seen much development are particularly notable for this. (To Chuck's everlasting credit (and to the credit of his mom), although he has many of the markers to fit right into that mold, he profoundly does not.)

I'm unusual in a number of ways: I've lived in three very very different parts of the city, and have spent time in three or four others, including the neighborhoods in which I have worked. I take public transportation everywhere, pretty much (not having a car will do that to a person). At least two of the neighborhoods in which I've lived, including the one in which I now live, are racially much more mixed than the downtown neighborhood. I don't root for the Cubs OR the Sox.

So anyway.

There are things about the city I appreciate. There are things I enjoy. As anywhere else, there are many nice people. I live here, even though it's not Home, not least because I'm not even sure what would count as home for me these days.
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One last thing tonight: yes, I am peeved that Hosea won Top Chef. I'll elaborate at a later date, but let me say it had nothing to do with his supposed romance with Leah.

All About Me(me) x 5

Thanks to Jonquil (whom you really should be reading if you're not already): Comment to this post and, if requested, I will give you 5 subjects/things I associate you with. Then post this in your blog and elaborate on the subjects given. Here are the five that Jonquil provided to me:

Baking My experience with this enterprise has led me to begin to believe that I really have to go back to school every now and again, in order to master some new body of knowledge. Of course, one could argue, quite easily, that I have not "mastered" baking in any serious, Brazen-Tart-Top-Chef sense of that word, and, if I'm going to be doing that going-back-to-school thing, I really must either win the lottery or find cheaper ways of going back to school. Caveats aside, I find that there is, in fact, a subtle but real sense that I'm Much Better at this than I used to be. I was always a pretty good baker--I wouldn't have come up with the idea to start a bakery if I hadn't had some notion that I already had a frame on which to hang subsequent knowledge--but I can do more, and do it better, than I used to be able to do, and I like that. The chefs in school said that they would expose us to everything, and, indeed, they did. The bakery enabled me to use quite a bit of it, at one point or another, which embedded it even more deeply. This doesn't prevent me from forgetting useful bits (today, while making a batch of nougat, I'm looking at the pan of sugar, water, honey and corn syrup and thinking, "Hmm, I wonder if that's going to boil over?" Answer: Yes; all over the stove), especially because, now that I'm back in Officeworld, I don't use the bits every day. Flip side, though, I enjoy using them a lot more.

Buddhism Sometimes I think of myself as the accidental buddhist. I've never studied it or practiced it, in the sense of belonging to a sangha; I (mostly) haven't read the texts (though at two different points in my life I had a lover who studies one or another of the schools of buddhist thought, and one of them read Sanskrit, IIRC); I don't meditate or even practice yoga at this point; and i suspect my grasp of some of the concepts is more on the order of misconstrued lyrics than anything else. I also don't find myself in search of a religion or in search of meaning in my life. What I find useful about buddhism is that it focuses on finding truth (and provides tools for doing so); it doesn't have any deities; and it advocates compassion at all times. I find the distinctions between engagement and attachment interesting (though I have no clue whether I think about this in "buddhist" ways). I find it interesting that enlightenment is (at least theoretically) available to all, not through the grace of a deity or other intercessor, but through one's own actions, and that each being is responsible for his or her own actions. I have to add that my own attempt to practice compassion as Chuck and I were splitting up ended up being one of the best things I have ever done.

Homekeeping One of win-the-lottery fantasies has to do with buying or building a home that is a model in some way, or a home that has a masonry bread oven in the back yard, or a home that runs on solar energy, or . . . something. Even though I have lived in a major city for nearly 30 years, I have this fantasy of living someplace that is not-city (and definitely not suburbs; I cannot do suburbs, at all). What the fantasy is about, i think, has as much to do with the various arts and sciences necessary to keeping a home, especially the arts and sciences centered around the kitchen and the hearth and the sewing space (and the writing space and the art studio, as long as we've won the lottery here). I think that's actually the fundamental truth that comes out of a Marxist analysis, that we most of us, perhaps all of us, need and want to be able to do multiple things. (This notion is explored to interesting effect in both Ursula LeGuin's "The Dispossessed" (and some other work) and Sheri Tepper's "The Gate to Women's Country," in both of which the residents of the imagined societies are expected to learn and practice multiple arts, crafts, sciences, etc. Much of our capitalist society doesn't think in terms of home "keeping": instead, we're expected to use, dispose of, buy new, in order to create a market. That seems so fundamentally wrong to me, and so at odds with homekeeping.

Friendship I have spent much of the last 30 years living by myself. Since 1981, Chuck and I lived together for about 5 years, and I had a roommate for less than a year in 1983 or so, but I have otherwise lived alone. Given that my family is about a thousand miles away, this has meant that I've built multiple networks of friends over the years, and I love them all. Some fade in and out of my life; some were friends in a specific time and place; some are closer to me than some of my family; some are more casual; and, thanks to modern technology, some I've never seen or met in person. Doesn't matter. We're all a part of these great webs of life and death. Sometimes our intimate (read: marital and familial) relationships and the way our society puts those at the center of everything makes friendship seem like an afterthought, but it isn't. I don't feel as though I have friendships "instead of" marital or familial relationships, because I have or have had all of those; I feel as though the fact that marital/familial relationships haven't occupied the center of my vision and my living space has enabled me to see how friendship is the thing that makes the other relationships possible in some important ways.

Starting over again Oy. Sometimes I feel as though I've lived several lifetimes in this particular lifetime. What I mostly feel is thankful that I have some ability to be resilient, and thankful I have the friends and family who can help me and support me through difficult times. As y'all know, I can also feel sad or angry or self-pitying, sometimes even for stretches of time. But what else can you do except . . . do the next thing? Well, yes, you can blog about it, ad nauseam, but sooner or later you must get the fuck ON with it. I could easily allow myself to be consumed with sorrow & regret, and some days/times that happens; I wish I could have been a professor, or owned a bakery, or been a programmer; some days I even wish I could have had a kid. it's not that my life is somehow incomplete without those things--the Brazen Tart once pointed out, correctly, that one cannot do everything. It's that I would really have liked to do those things (or the first two, for sure, anyway), and I think I might have been good at them, and I wish i could have found out whether I would have been, and I feel like I would have been able to offer more to people if I had been able to do those things (i.e., it's not a purely selfish wish to have done them). Instead, I slog along, writing reports and proposals that maybe four other people will ever read, and it feels like a waste. But it is what it is. And I still get a comma in every paycheck and I still don't have to lug 50-pound sacks of flour up a flight of stairs, so, hey, it could be a lot worse.

Book Love

When I was in my early teens, I'd go to the local public library with my dad. I'd rummage around on the "new fiction" shelf, and the "adult fiction" (as opposed to the YA fiction, which I found tedious in multiple dimensions), and maybe look something up with the catalogue. I'd end up with a stack of books, and sitting in the car with that stack always gave me a little thrill. I'd read the first couple of pages of a few of the books, or look again at the description on the inside jacket flap, and I'd decide on an order in which I'd read the books, saving what i thought would be the best book for last.

It turns out that, 35 years later, I still do this.

I zipped down to the library late yesterday afternoon, expecting to pick up one book that was on hold for me and finding that two others had come in as well, and I stood on the train platform and started doing that surveying-my-haul thing.

While rummaging through the library's online catalogue, I stumbled across Bill Bryson's A Walk in the Woods, about his hiking on the Appalachian Trail. I have had to be careful where I read the book, because he makes me laugh out loud--he is a very good writer, and it's extremely funny. (He could use a good editor or spellcheck program, though; I've found three or four egregious typos.) I highly recommend that particular book, and I'm definitely going to find some of his other stuff as well.

The other thing I found online recently is a bakery-cam. Yes, that's right; there is now a live webcam in the back of the bakery where I worked. It's more a stop-action cam--it updates every 10 seconds or so, rather than being a continuous feed--but still. I just peeked in and saw Phil and Bossman making rolls (it looks like they have a new roll divider; I'll have to ask him about that). I have to say that watching it the other day made my stomach clench a little bit: I look at it, and I am nothing but happy that I'm not doing that any more. In fact, being away from it for a year (and being able to watch it on my monitor) has made me realize just how much I hated working there by the time I left, for a combination of reasons.

I liked the people, and I even liked a number of aspects of the work, but I got up every morning and had to will myself to not think about how much I didn't want to be doing it. That kind of numbing isn't good for anyone. I've had office jobs where that was true, too--I think it's unavoidable, no matter what you do; that's why they call it "work" and why they have to pay you to do it--but I never felt anything like I did at the bakery. I think it was the combination of low pay and physically taxing work, along with the knowledge that I had absolutely no future either there or in that line of business generally, that made it so depressing.

And as for today's rant:

Burger King has now managed to completely piss me off with a second ad campaign. The current one has these two guys, one with a bag full of their new mini burgers. He tells his buddy to watch, and shows the bag to a woman, who proceeds to squeal idiotically over them, about how cute they are, etc., as if (a) the burgers are babies and (b) all women squeal uncontrollably at the sight of something small and cute. It is beyond annoying. Their previous campaign featured the announcer saying something like, "people are going to bed hungry tonight," or something like that, the solution being BK's new late hours. It was beyond offensive. Got news for you, Idiot Ad-Writer: many people are going to bed hungry because they can't afford food.

I know! Let's cut taxes! THAT will work, for sure! Or at least that's what the idiot Republicans will tell you. I can't even write about politics, because it will make my keyboard explode. (If I could lose weight by ranting, I'd have it made.)

And another thing . . .

Orange's comment on the last post reminds me of another aspect of the whole thing that annoys the fuck out of me: I do not believe that all of the people who align themselves with the godbag asshats actually share the beliefs of the GAs. I believe that people like ol' Ann align themselves for reasons that are disingenuous at best, and cynical exploitation at worst. I also believe the leaders, or many of them, cannot possibly believe the things they promulgate. (Fred over at Slacktivist has written a number of posts about this, but I am too lazy to go find them in his archives.) I think that many of the people who DO believe are ignorant--sometimes willfully so, but often because they have little or no exposure to alternatives, and they are frightened of alternatives, and the people who preach to them, like the GAs and their fellow travelers, exploit and encourage those fears.

I've been slammed at work, still, which is wearing me out. Three major things are due in the next three and a half weeks (a proposal; a yearly report to the federal government, which has multiple aspects; a financial report for a federal grant) and several other things are due at about the same time, plus a coworker is out of town for three weeks, so I'm doing some of her shit, too. Between now and mid March, forget about it. But, hey, I can only do what I can do, and there are limits to what I'm willing to sacrifice. I've been working full force since I was hired--and this week is my one-year anniversary.

Anyway. I'm fried tonight, too, so I got nothin' else.

Sleepytime

I think I matched a personal best yesterday, for amount of time spent doing absolutely nothing. Saturday featured some running around--to get something framed, to pick up a few items at Trader Joe's, and to make tiramisu as a months-late birthday cake for Friend. Friend then fetched me and we hied back to his place to cook dinner (mahi mahi with lime butter; wild and brown rice; and a mix of slow-roasted tomatos, onions, black beans, and mango) and admire his "new" dining room. The room has been there all along, but it has housed computers and such for several years; he has been on a roll lately, rearranging stuff at his house, so he was very pleased to be able to have dinner in the dining room.

Yesterday, however, I sat on the couch in the sunny front room, with a fire in the fireplace and a cat on my lap. I had a book next to me, but I didn't exactly read a lot of it; I did spend a fair amount of time kind of staring into space, or into the fire. Friend continued to move crap around as part of his grand rearranging plan, and occasionally came in to put another log on the fire. I eventually got off my ass to take a shower, and, later, to start cooking dinner (more rice; cauliflower that was steamed and then baked in a cheddar sauce that curdled on me but still tasted good; cabbage that was steamed and then sauteed with onions in a little butter, with black pepper; chicken that marinated all day in lemon and ginger and was then basically poached/pan-fried in the marinade). Friend came in at the last minute to do the chicken, as the rest of the stuff was the time-consuming bit, and I did all that fussing so he could continue his operations. We ate in the dining room again, and then retired to sit in front of the fire for awhile. It was every bit as pleasant as it sounds, and I think he was pleased to be able to get more stuff done..

Today I wandered through Whole Paycheck on my way home, and once again bought more than I should have tried to carry (look! pistachios and cherries! I can make nougat . . . and almond paste--I could have used some of that the other day . . . and that fig and almond thing I like . . . Ginger-O's are on sale; must stock up). I managed to shlep it all home, and even did my laundry, which was the real task for the day. And I cut up the pineapple and the grapefruit and threw in the rest of the frozen cherries and blueberries, so I have fruit salad for the week. (I know; doesn't quite measure up to Brazen Tart's adventures in Kauai, does it . . .)

The tiramisu was tasty enough, though not exactly what I had in mind. First, I had decided to make a dacquoise instead of using ladyfingers, which worked reasonably well except it didn't rise enough and the almond flour wasn't fine enough (I suspect those two things are related). I also made a chocolate dacquoise, merely by dumping in some cocoa powder. I combined mascarpone with some "light" cream cheese and some heavy cream, in an effort to make it a teensy bit less heavy, and that worked okay, and I layered fruit in there, too (frozen raspberries, blueberries, and blackberries), to help cut the sweetness. I put a layer of regular dacquoise on the bottom, soaked it with coffee, smeared some of the cream/cheese mixture, and put on some berries; added the chocolate layer, did the same; and added the top layer of regular dacquoise. I had run out of the cheese mix, so I whipped the rest of my heavy cream and used that as a top layer. Remember those chocolate hazelnut cookies? I had crumbs from them in a bag and used them as a sprinkle on top instead of cocoa powder. I think for the next round I'll make ladyfingers or a spongier sponge cake instead of dacquoise, or possibly a combination.

Meanwhile, thanks to my responding to a stupid poll last week (on purpose, to fight the oh-we-christians-are-so-persecuted crowd), I've ended up on the email lists of the godbag asshats from the AFA and affiliated organizations. There's a part of me that wants to stay on the lists, just so I can keep track of their slimy shit, but I just cannot bear it. What a bunch of assholes. And, of course, what with the long weekend and such, I keep getting email, despite having sent multiple unsubscribe notices. If I'm still getting their shit by Wednesday, there will be problems.

I cannot abide them. They keep wanting to stick their noses into everyone else's underpants, for reasons that make no sense to me. Their views on homosexuality and their opposition to equal rights are offensive. More to the point of the shit they keep sending, they have this notion that somehow christians are being "silenced" and "persecuted." That is such a distortion of reality that it's difficult to take seriously. Are churches being burned? Are christians being sent to concentration camps? Are they being denied the right to vote? Are they forbidden to pray? Of course not; quite the opposite. Or, let's look at it this way: when is the last time the populace of the United States elected as their president someone who isn't at least an avowed christian? How many members of Congress aren't christian? (I suppose their answer to that would depend on whether they count catholics and mormons.) Then explain to me how one can even claim persecution with a straight fucking face.

Okay; that's as much energy as I can muster for the day. (It's a sorry state of affairs when I only have the energy to rant for two paragraphs . . . )

Letter of Love

Thanks to Bill, I have the letter "g." In particular, the task is to list ten things that I love that start with my letter. So:

greens I have always liked spinach--there's not much you can do to it to make me hate it. But of late I've been branching out, to kale, and collards, and beet greens, and I like those every bit as much, it turns out. It's felicitous that they're also quite good for you.

guimauve You know this as marshmallows. We made them in pastry school, and I loved them, not least because they are a cousin to Italian meringue, which I adore (beat egg whites, and then drizzle in sugar water heated to the correct temp, which I'm too lazy to look up right now, and let it continue to beat; the sugar cooks the whites). Guimauve isn't particularly good for you, and isn't particularly fancy, but that's not the point.

generosity And I'm not even really talking about money; it's more about being willing to give, whether it's credit, or a thank you, or a compliment, or a lollipop, or whatever. We all have something we can give away that someone else will be glad to get, and the giving encourages others to do likewise. It's a quality that I try to cultivate in myself, in part because I think it's one of those things that grows on itself and encourages others to be generous as well. I don't know that I succeed particularly well--that is, I don't think I'm *more* generous than the people around me--but that's okay.

game This one's kind of a cheat, in that I'm getting two for one, because I like game, as in venison, and wild turkey, and rabbit, but I also like game in the Michael-Jordan-he's-got-game sense. I think having game is wonderful to witness, or to recognize that one has oneself, on those days, or in those places or circumstances, where it all just comes together.

genitalia Speaking of coming together . . . okay, sorry, couldn't resist that. Genitalia are just fun. I realize people vary in terms of what they like to do with them, and what kind they like, and what they like to do. Not the point. The whole enterprise is one of the great pleasures in life.

g-spot And, hell, might as well throw this one in, too. I like it. I'm not going to provide any details, at least not any personal ones, and if you really need more, well, you know how to work the

google I sometimes wonder what the hell I did before the Google. If you don't use it, I can't explain it (but you guys are experts, I'm sure).

grammar If you don't care about it, well, then you are contributing to the downfall of civilization--ALL civilization.

goo-goos Most people do not regard this as a worthy goal. I disagree, deeply and profoundly. And I am extremely goddamned sick and tired of hearing the right wing of this country deride government; I am particularly sick and tired of hearing elected officials--who are collecting government paychecks--deride government. Especially the asswipes who have sucked at the public teat their whole long lives, but don't want a poor person to collect an extra fucking food stamp (coughPhil Grammcoughcough). Oh; wait; this is supposed to be things I love, not the rant zone . . .

Okay, so let me end with:
ginger Of course. Could I have left this off? No. I like it dried, fresh, pickled, and crystallized. I like it in sweet and savory dishes. I like tea made of it. I like the color. I love it deeply and passionately.

Needs

I'm very whiny tonight. (For the usual reasons: didn't work out; haven't worked out in a couple of days; not fitting into clothes; am not getting the support I need at work; am tired. Etcetera. There; now I don't have to detail any of it.)

I've also been annoyed by this article. And, really, who wouldn't be? I do not give a rat's ass that the people around you are taking two vacations a year ($16k) or have a car and driver rather than take public transportation, or have a nanny, or "need" suits and evening gowns, or need a vacation spot in the Hamptons or wherever the fuck the rich people are hanging these days. Really; I don't care. The culture that supposedly requires you to do that so that you can fit in is a broken culture. And it's broken in two very important ways. For one thing--and this is my lesser complaint, actually--that particular kind and level of consumption is problematic. For the other, more important, thing, though, the level of consumption is apparently provided and expected no matter how well or poorly these bozos perform. If I did my job as "well" as these titans of industry and finance, I'd be out of a goddamned job, not whining about how I just cannot get by on a measly half-million a year.

Take, by way of contrast, someone who has been incredibly successful in the financial world: Warren Buffett. Does he live that lifestyle? Um, no. Do his kids? No, again. I'm sure he's not perfect; none of us are. But the whole notion that one should be paid exorbitant sums (a) simply because others are making exorbitant sums, (b) regardless of whether one's own performance is good, in order that (c) one can maintain the Lifestyle of those others, is simply fucked, and not in a good way.

The worst thing, for me, is that these people don't actually MAKE anything. They do not build anything, they do not own businesses that build or make anything. You cannot eat, wear, drive, live in, or hold their "products." In fact, they work very hard to ensure that the products we need are produced elsewhere, in some other country, because that makes more money for the shareholders, who are, you guessed it, another part of this immense circle jerk. Not that I'm peevish about it or anything.

Weather Report: Exhausted with a Wad of Writing after Sunrise

1. I keep starting posts and then not finishing them, because bed or a hockey game or something is calling.

2. No, the proposal isn't done yet, and I'm exhausted today--bed didn't call early enough last night.

3. I'm quite glad about who got eliminated on Top Chef this week; the person who annoyed the shit out of me the most of the remaining contenders. It was also interesting because of the cheftestants who were eligible to be booted, i.e., arguably three of the best chefs on the show. Remind me to tell you why the person annoyed me, if you care.

4. Going on a three-day walk is not, in fact, "speaking out against breast cancer in the boldest way possible." Or, well, I suppose it might be, but you know what? Breast cancer does not give a fuck. Really. All of your "speaking out" won't do shit.

5. Also? Your life does not, in fact, have any meaning, and going on a three-day walk is not going to change that.

6. W/r/t the last post, I realized, based in part on your collective response, that my self-applied "loser" label has more to do with how I have lived up to my own expectations, rather than how well I have lived up to any external demands or expectations. I also recognize that at least some of the piles of crap that prevented me from getting to do some things were simply unavoidable--shit does, in fact, happen.

7. Did I mention exhausted? With a wad of writing to do today.

8. Made the cookies again (rosemary/cherry/lemon) and Was Pleased with them. They're cakey, rather than crispy, but I'm okay with that. Otherwise, little to report on the food front; I've had popcorn for dinner a couple of times this week, which tells you all you need to know.

Why was Aretha wearing that hat?

Because she IS Aretha, and, yes, she can wear any damn hat she wants. I also appreciated the subtext of shout-out to Marion Anderson.

As I noted elsewhere in Blogistan, I was watching Tuesday's ceremony in our conference room, on ABC, because that's the channel our TV-plus-rabbit-ears received the best. (We do not have cable at work, apparently, so we rigged this up so people could watch.) One of the blatherers commentators said, on seeing Nancy Pelosi and Senator Feinstein and the President-elect come on to the porch, that we would not have seen that tableau a hundred years ago. I blurted, because I could not help myself, that we would not have seen that tableau FIFTY years ago. There was general agreement about what I said, but the fact that the commentator was so ahistorical still kind of amazes me. Seriously: how can you claim to be a journalist and say something that fucking stupid?

Tuesday was also my first exposure to Rick Warren, and what a tool. At least I got a shout-out in Obama's speech. Incidentally, w/r/t the former, a number of my non-atheist friends were completely offended by Warren's recitation of the so-called lord's prayer (including my boss the ex-priest). It took me awhile to figure that one out, because, on some level, to me a prayer is a prayer is a prayer, and I find pretty much all public prayer offensive, particularly at sporting events and official government functions. (If you want to pray at any time, please feel free--I will even, you may remember, make space for said activity at my own (possibly) damned dinner table; but invocations of a deity at sporting and government assemblies are an enforced religious observance that annoys the fuck out of me.) However, I have learned that that particular prayer is profoundly christian, and, thus, at least potentially offensive to anyone who isn't christian but is religious in some way. Apparently there's a dispute within christianity, as well, as to whether one is supposed to have one's debts or one's trespasses forgiven; ah, sectarian disputes.

I believe we have "godless communism" to blame for much of this. I know you can find piety and references to deities all throughout U.S. history, but the upheavals of the beginning of the last century ratcheted everything up a notch. Communism, socialism, and anarchism, and, with all of them, atheism: many Powers regarded them as pure evil, and anything that could be associated with any of them, and anyone who didn't sufficiently despise all of those isms and anything associated with them, could be denounced freely. Same with labor unions, in part because the early labor movements were related, philosophically and sometimes politically, with the isms; all of them had as their goal a kind of liberation and justice for the common person.

Marx's historical analyses may well have been mistaken--that is, though the workers of the world may well unite at some point, I don't foresee that OR the withering of the state occurring any time soon. In addition, the attempts to create marxist-influenced society in eastern Europe/Russia and China were wrong in practice and possibly in theory as well (I do not claim to be any kind of expert on marxism/leninism). Nevertheless, Marx's analyses of capitalism and the oppression of the workers that results from it have much to recommend them. Some teacher along the way pointed out that Smith's and Marx's analyses of industrialism weren't all that different; rather, Smith is less disturbed by the oppression of the working classes that is a necessary facet of capitalism. If that's true, it is thus hardly surprising that the monied powers that be regarded any of the spawn of Marx's analyses as a danger. (Stalin and his evil ilk basically played into the hands of the anti-communist and anti-socialist forces by providing reasons for condemnation--reasons that had nothing to do with the message of liberation and justice that is at the heart of the marxist analysis. Whatever else Stalin was about, he was not about justice or liberation.)

On a completely unrelated note, it's been kind of strange to see Caroline Kennedy in the news of late. She's very close in age to me, and she was most frequently in photographs in women's magazines, either the ones my mom got or the ones I was reading for my dissertation, in the 1970s or so, i.e., when she was quite a bit younger than she is now. The current photographs show a middle-aged woman, which is a very striking reminder that that's what I, too, look like these days (and, let's face it, I don't have a stylist of any kind). Somehow, in my head, I'm still somewhere around 35. I'm trying to figure out how to revise that.

Some of it I know has changed: the other two women that my boss manages are in their mid-to-late 30s, and they're just in a different place than my boss and I are. I can definitely enter the rant zone, I can definitely go off on a tear, but the past five years seem to have made a major change in me. I don't feel as though I've finally reached some end spot, but I also sense that I don't get wrapped around the axle in quite the same way any more. I can't explain it very well, especially because most of you either don't know me IRL or haven't known me all that long, and I know that even to people who know me well IRL it may not be obvious, because, really, I am still capable of ranting like nobody's business.

But it just doesn't matter.

I guess part of it is that I've stopped believing that I'm ever going to do anything that matters or lasts, and I've stopped believing that I'm going to get to do any of the things I've dreamed of doing. Every one of my plans has, after a certain amount of effort and expense and time on my part, gone to shit. I'm doing basically the same work I was doing in 1986 when I left the east coast for graduate school in the city in which I still live. Yes, I have done some fun things--and paid dearly for them, in several senses of "paid," as well as met some wonderful people--so I don't want to sound too poor-pitiful-me, because that's not where I'm going with this. I've also foregone a number of things that might also have been fun--having kids, for example, which was something that I wanted to do only if I had (a) a partner (b) who also wanted to have kids. Having a kid by myself while I was in grad school, for example, or immediately afterwards, when I was deeply in debt and unemployed, seemed like a very bad idea.

So, given that, what am I going to do? Sit around and feel depressed and sorry for myself because I'm a loser? Yeah, okay, whatever; that doesn't sound like very much fun to me, so, no, thanks, I'll skip that. I've experienced depression several times in my life, and I have to say that I found it profoundly boring. I can expound on that if anyone cares, but I really did find it boring.

Okay, so no job I really want; no well-paid sinecure; no kids; no meaningful and fun work (though I do like my coworkers and my current job). I can either be happy with what I have--which is nice, relatively speaking--or I can be perpetually dissatisfied and depressed and crabby. Eh; the latter sounds like too much work. I'd still like to write a book, and I'd still like to start doing needlepoint again, but I don't know whether I'll manage either of those things. I'd like to live in a nicer space at some point, but the thought of moving makes me cringe, and I really don't want to pay all that much more for an apartment.

Whatever. I've resigned myself to being a loser. As noted, it just doesn't matter, so this doesn't disturb me nearly as much as it might have when I was younger.

One final note before bed: I constantly threaten my boss that he's going to be in trouble when I win the lottery. When things get really crazy, I inform him that I'm going to drain my savings account to play. Today he informed me that I'm never going to win, that he has called in all karmic debts to ensure that it doesn't happen. Which cracks me up--the thought that he's praying that I NOT win just amuses me to no end (though I don't know that he prays or even believes in a deity, per se, any longer).

Of Magic and Polar Bears

Okay, the Hairbozo on WNTW is cutting off all of someone's hair again. What a fucking surprise. She had hair nearly all the way down her back, and it was definitely in need of a good trim, but Mr. Whackhappy chopped it all off, to above her shoulders, and gave her bangs. What he basically does is create the need for constant hair fussing. Bangs need to be trimmed, or you're constantly pinning them back awkwardly, hacking at them yourself, or just moving the outgrown bits out of your face. (If your hair is wavy, you may even get the Bozo effect.) I thought she had gorgeous long hair, and a good trim and some styling advice--how to pin it up; how to do some interesting braiding--would've been preferable, not least because I don't much like the short haircut; it makes her look like every other person whose hair he styles.

Yes, I know, I need to get out more, perhaps.

Not this weekend, though. I'm going to tie myself to the computer and edit away, plus do some chores. And play some solitaire.

I particularly like Forty Thieves, and I have a version of the game that enables me to go back, to the beginning of a particular game or just a series of moves, and replay, as many times as I want. Apparently (because i am so lame I looked it up), a winning percentage of about 10% is common, with "good" players able to win upwards of 20%. My winning percentage is around 28% (okay, 27.6%). I tell you this not to prove my lameosity, of which you should be well-convinced by now. I've been playing it regularly (okay, sometimes obsessively) for maybe four or five years, and I will often replay a given hand multiple times. Other hands I win or bail on pretty quickly. I have a few basic principles--when to move cards and when to let them be; what cards to use to fill gaps in the board--but I don't have a lot of rules about using them and I don't count cards. (I try to keep track of deuces and threes and fours, which is 24 cards, but I'm not obsessive about it, especially not the first time through a hand.)

The interesting cases--to me, anyway--are the games that appear unwinnable for some reason and that I don't win within a try or two, but that I have some . . . "sense" can be won. Way more often than not, I'm right, even if it takes me awhile to actually win a given game. I had one yesterday, and I kept fussing with it, trying to figure out which kink was responsible getting stuck, in addition to the fact that two deuces of one suit were buried at the beginning of the hand, but, eventually, win it I did.

What's interesting to me is that sense that a given game can be won, and how often I'm right about that. (And it's not as though I replay every game; I bail pretty often.) I'm sure there are mathematical formulae about the whole thing, but I sure as hell don't know what they are. It seems that some part of my brain can do the calculations, however--or, at least, can reach the right conclusion--and I marvel at that a little bit. There's a kind of calculation going on there, an assessment of some kind, as though my brain can see the moves that need to happen, even if it takes me awhile to get to them, and it's clear that it's a product, in part, of playing a lot, along with some ability at pattern-matching, at least some of which is happening on a subconscious level.

And that's why I'm not just an atheist; I also eschew the magical new age crap. That is, I firmly believe that there's a lot of information available at any given time, but that we can only make sense--or make patterns that make sense--of some percentage of it. We have to learn to edit out the bits that don't fit or that are just (literally or figuratively) noise. Some conditions (autism-spectrum disorders, perhaps?) and drugs affect the editing functions, in ways that can be enjoyable, or scary, or overwhelming.

The point is, the information we're editing out is still there; it didn't go away, even if we don't have (conscious) access to it. Is it possible to develop mechanisms or techniques to apprehend more of the information consciously? Yeah, probably, and I'd also argue that what we call "intelligence" has something to do with the ability to manage large amounts of complex information quickly. But there are certainly limits, not the least of which are the fact that we communicate with each other. (Side question: if you take a non-human primate of a particular species to a new colony of that species, can the animal communicate? That is, do all chimpanzees speak "chimpanzee"? Are there local dialects? How are they communicated?) Thus, while I am occasionally surprised by the accuracy of information I wasn't aware of having consciously, I'm not surprised that it exists and that I can tap into it. It's not magic or spiritual.

I'd really like to tie this to Fred's post about gerbils and polar bears, but I really must edit, so I'll leave you to go read the post yourself.

More Nothing

Yes, it is cold in these here parts. Very cold, as a matter of fact. Squeaky cold. Bitter cold. Killingly cold. (Thus, the manager of our program for homeless people was very excited to have spent two hours out in the cold this morning, as she was able to get someone to go into detox/shelter.) Among the many things I have come to hate about the cold weather is that even those of us who are not, as we say, experiencing homelessness, end up wearing half of our closets on our backs anyway. One must thus have all of one's things for the day gathered in one place and ready to go, because one (a) cannot move much once all of the clothing is on, and (b) will get overheated if one runs around inside with all of those layers upon one's body. Whatever. I have sufficiently warm clothing and a sufficiently short commute that it's not that big a deal for me.

Work continues to cram upon me, but I keep slogging away. One thing due tomorrow got submitted today, successfully (I wanted to submit a day early in case there were glitches), which eased my mind a bit; the next part of that submission, due February 6, is a bigger deal with more and bigger pieces, and I have multiple things to do before that happens--things in addition to actually writing the damned proposal, I mean--but I continue to eat the elephant.

Today's idiocy: My bank has a "points" program, up for which I signed. It already has resulted in free money for me, in the form of a $50 Starbucks card (I had my choice of retailers and goods, and selected that particular thing), and, given that I don't pay for my banking, it really is free money. Occasionally they try to get me to sign up for this or that thing to get more points, some of which I'll do, and others of which I won't. One such promotion involved signing up to automatically transfer money from my checking account to my savings account; okay, no big deal. I signed up to automatically transfer $25/month for six months, starting January 15.

Except the bozo who completed this transaction signed me up for $250 a month to be transferred. Luckily, I was looking for the first $25 transfer today and didn't see it. I called a different branch--the branch I prefer--and asked someone about it. You can imagine my dismay when he mentioned a $250 transfer, instead of the $25 I was expecting. We straightened it out, over two phone calls, and nothing bounced, but I was quite peeved. Dipshit.

I moved my banking, such as it is, to this bank about 8 years ago, primarily because it was a small, locally owned bank. A few years ago it was bought by another bank in the region. Okay, not that big a deal. About 18 months ago, it was bought again, by a bigger bank. And a couple of months ago, it was bought yet again. I am still using checks with the name of the second bank on them, which should tell you how quickly this is moving. I find it tiresome, at best, and wish there were a good local alternative. By "good" I mean: free checking account; multiple no-fee ATMs in locations that are convenient to me; no stupidly outrageous fees for overdrafts and the like (I don't normally bounce checks, but I am offended by the exorbitant fees banks charge for that shit, and the predatory way they structure the charges, such that the largest checks are counted first and all subsequent checks will bounce, thus multiplying all of the fees and so on). A commitment to the community would be nice, especially if it takes forms other than plastering the bank's name on cheap crap to give away at 5k runs.

I left Comedy Central on after the rerun of TDS and Colbert, and eventually some comic came on, and he is annoying the everloving shit out of me, because he's being a patriarchal pig. Bring me more Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, damnit! Sophomoric? Occasionally. But not patriarchal pigs, generally.

Anyway.

I probably have more somewhere in my brain, but it ain't comin' out tonight. Sorry, campers; I'm just boring these days.

Systematic

I am about to make several people's lives a tad more uncomfortable. Not quite miserable, perhaps, although I'll give it the good college try (albeit neither for the gipper nor for the Reagan portrayal of same), but, yes, distinctly uncomfortable. It seems that we--and I use that pronoun loosely in this case--are not providing quite the number of services that we have told our funding agencies and our board of directors that we would be providing. This is by and large NOT true for the whole organization, just for one segment of it, i.e., I hasten to reassure you that your tax dollars are being spent prudently. But I am diligently providing my boss with the fuel to light some fires under some asses. And the matches. And the kindling. And, if need be, some bellows.

I'm kind of enjoying it, if you must know. Keep in mind that I'd be just as happy--even happier, really--if everyone were doing what they were supposed to be doing and I was merely gathering evidence that that's so. The reality is, I just like having systems in place, and backups for those systems, so that we know what we're doing, we can show other people what we're doing, and we have proof that we are, indeed, doing what we say we're doing. One of the things that's turning out to be fun about this job (and frustrating, some days) is the fact that there ARE no systems in place, despite the screaming need for same, which means I get to create them, which is a task I actually enjoy. This may not be a surprise, coming from someone who created systems to make 4,000 croissants or more a week.

I keep starting paragraphs and then erasing them, which I'm going to take as a sign that I'm done with this post.

Back to Work

First off, raise a glass in memory of Donald Westlake, whose work I've touted here repeatedly. In reading the obit, I discovered that he wrote an average of something like four books a year. I still recommend him, and I'm seriously bummed that this means no more Dortmunder novels.

Friday I had lunch with a new person at work, someone on whom I intended to rely for a bunch of things (things that are actually in her sphere of responsibility). Turns out that's likely not going to be possible, as she does not have the skills necessary to do her job. To her everlasting credit, she is the one who has figured that out--within days of starting the job, a few weeks ago--and she is trying to figure out wtf to do about it. She can't just quit without another job, but she's pretty sure (and I concurred, based on what she told me) that she's headed for failure in this one. The problem is, her boss explicitly told her she didn't need to know X or be able to do Y--but she does, in fact, need to know X and be able to do Y.

Her boss is just clueless about this, and I knew (knew, knew, knew) this would happen with this job, and warned my own boss about it when the hiring process began. I tried to be helpful, and made several suggestions about paths she can take, but I didn't try to reassure her that, oh, everything will be fine. I think she felt better just having her sense of things validated, and perhaps having someone else who knows the situation. It may also mean that my boss and I are screwed on some things, and I gave him a confidential heads up today.

Some good food got made last week. I needed to have some pork on New Year's Day, to assuage my grandmother's superstitions (as transmitted by my mother). Friend had pork chops and pork tenderloin in the freezer, and got out the chops, so I grabbed some cookbooks and rummaged around, trying to come up with something. I ended up modifying (of course) a recipe from one of the Silver Palate cookbooks. Okay, what I made was REALLY different from the original recipe, but it worked nicely.

I trimmed the fat from the chops and set it aside, then cut the meat into small chunks. I marinated the meat chunks in red wine, with a couple of splashes of balsamic vinegar; chopped figs; chopped prunes; dried cranberries, some molasses; fresh thyme; pepper; salt; and a little honey. It only marinated for a couple of hours--all day might have been even better. And I'd put fresh sage in it, as well, if I had any. I put a little olive oil in an oven-proof pan and rendered the pork fat in it, then removed and tossed the fat. I browned the meat, then removed it and sauteed half a large onion (the other half went into the beans) and threw in a minced clove of garlic as well. When the onions were soft, I dumped everything back into the pan--meat and marinade--and added some wild turkey stock, probably about 12 ounces. The stock was frozen, so I melted it and brought the whole thing to a boil.

Then it went into a 350-degree oven for an hour and quarter or so with a lid on it; I stirred it once in awhile. I eventually took it out, took off the lid, and threw in a little more red wine, then stuck it back into a lower-heat oven, because we were slacking and things didn't happen all that quickly. It ended up cooking for about 2.5 hours rather than 2, but it was extremely tasty--I would like to do it again, with venison, perhaps. It was good with the rice and beans, and i would have liked it with polenta or with a different grain as well. It was very intensely flavored, and it tasted rich, even though it wasn't all that fat-laden.

Back at work today, I started trying to deal with the huge pile of crap that I must complete in the next six to eight weeks. It's going to be ugly, and the aforementioned issue is going to make everything potentially much worse. But, eh, whatever. I'd intended to come home and finish up at least one of the two side projects I need to finish this week, but instead I worked out, hacked up a pineapple and a grapefruit for my week's worth of fruit salad, and made some rice for my lunches this week (I already have the stuff that's going to go on the rice). The other stuff can get done tomorrow.

Kind of a boring post with which to start off a new year, but, hey, it's all I got.