Monday, Monday

Today at work was a day of computer issues punctuated by meetings. Not fun. I'd love to go into detail, but unfortunately, somebody reading would surely know the person I complained about or lampooned mercilessly, so I will simply leave it as I hate meetings, and I prefer for my software to work the way I need it to. But given the state of the economy, I am happy to have a job at all, especially one that I can (for the most part) leave at the office.

I also appreciate that my job can be done while listening to audiobooks, which is how I connect my current work life with my degree in English. A few weeks ago, I started listening to Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver. Having just read (and loved) Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food, I thought this would be a good follow up. And I'm sure it would be. Unfortunately, the book was read by the author, and while I've heard she's a great writer, she is not a great narrator. So I gave up and brought the book home and asked Christine to return it to the library (she was studying there on a regular basis -- she is not simply my book courier). When she got to the library, she noticed that the first CD was missing and asked me to bring it home from work.

I didn't have it at work. Neither did I have it in the car, in my backpack, or in the case of any other audiobook. Now, in addition to my overdue book fines' single-handedly making up for my library branch's shamefully low funding (I would support a candidate who wanted to raise taxes for libraries and museums, but that's not a popular platform right now), I have had to purchase two books in as many years due to water damage (I carry them to work in my backpack with my coffee thermos and water bottle). So far they have been books that I liked, so it seemed worth it to me, but I was now faced with having to purchase most of an audiobook whose narrator made me want to eat my own head. And I had nowhere else to look for that disc.

When our department's IT guy finished installing the correct software on my computer, I remembered that my computer had been reimaged last week. I recalled the IT office at college and how the shelves were always full of CDs and DVDs that students had left in their computers when they turned them in or had them fixed. So I e-mailed the IT guy and asked, on the off chance, if my CD could possibly have gotten mixed up in some of the software used on my computer. His reply seemed a bit defensive (I realize that I should have stated more explicitly that I do not think anyone in IT would maliciously steal one disc of an audiobook about sustainable agriculture), and he said that he had not worked on my computer in quite a while before today. I replied, conceding his point, and admitted that he was the only IT person whose name I knew, and so might he know who reimaged my computer?

Five minutes later he showed up at my desk with disc one of Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. I could have kissed him. Well, not without losing my job, but whatever. I thanked him profusely and threw the disc into my backpack. I'm sure it's a great book, but Barabara Kingsolver certainly has a voice made for print.

I can wholeheartedly recommend In Defense of Food, however, including the narrator, Scott Brick. As you may have noticed from previous blogs, Christine and I are very interested in real, sustainable, and organic food. In the next couple of weeks, the farmers' market will be opening and, we'll be buying a share in a CSA. I look forward to updating this blog with our culinary adventures.

And while I don't have any pictures, tonight's dinner was a sandwich on the homemade rolls with cheddar cheese, avocado spread, lettuce, alfalfa sprouts, mayonnaise, and Dijon mustard. It was quite tasty.

Sunday

Day two of my return to the Blogosphere. Today was a good day, and I'd like to note it for posterity's sake.

Last night we slept with the window open, listening to the storm. I love the sound of rain, especially at night. When I was younger, whenever a storm came through, I'd sit on the porch with my parents and watch it. The neighbors across the street did the same, and we'd Ooh and Ahh over the particularly bright flashes of lightening and loud peals of thunder. Growing up in a poor neighborhood, we took our excitement where we could find it. Although I wouldn't have traded those evenings on the porch for any number of video game consoles.

I awoke around 9:00 and realized that the room was freezing. That's because at 9:00 my wife woke up and informed me that it was freezing. It's a service she provides for me, knowing how much I hate to wake up on my own time and realize for myself what the temperature of the apartment is. So she got up to do yoga (which is a Japanese word meaning, "You put the dog out; I'm busy sitting on the floor") and I got up to play Settlers of Catan online.

For breakfast Christine made polenta with butter and vanilla which we enjoyed with coffee (espresso for me, Americano for Christine). It was delicious. After breakfast, I put together rolls for dinner. As I was playing my second game of Settlers while the dough was rising, my brother (hereafter referred to as "Evan") called to invite me to my sister's (Dana's) for lunch. I told him I could be there when my rolls were done at around 1:30, and he said he'd confirm with Dana and call back to let me know what I could bring. He never called back, so I didn't bring anything.

After game three the rolls were glazed and ready to go into the oven. The recipe made too many to fit on one baking sheet, so I got out two smaller sheets. One of the smaller sheets had been put away dirty. Does this happen to anyone else? No amount of scrubbing could remove what I believe was congealed olive oil, so I resolved to use the large sheet and one smaller sheet. The problem was that the large baking sheet and the small baking sheet did not fit into the oven at the same time, which meant the large pan of rolls would come out of the oven five minutes before I had to be to Dana's and the next batch would be done fifteen minutes after I left. My wife, who stayed home to grade college English papers today, graciously agreed to take them out when they were done. I had time to split one roll from the first batch with her (they were awesome) before I left.

At Dana's I was greeted by my nephew, who smiled at me but refused to talk, and my niece, who extended her arms and demanded, "Up!" to everyone except me. Perhaps I need to babysit more often. My brother-in-law (Daryl) and soon to be sister-in-law (Kara) were there as well. We had tacos, chips and queso, and cheesecake for dessert. We discussed wedding plans, the hypocritical political positions our acquaintances hold, and whether Kara or my cousin Chris had worse taste in movies. Chris arrived shortly thereafter, and we never did settle the debate. Daryl was in another room watching the Tigers vs. the Royals, which I realized with some dismay was a sporting event, not great cats mauling European monarchs.

After lunch, I kept suggesting a game of Settlers of Catan, which got a tepid response, so when Evan and Chris went outside to "have a catch," I left to run some errands. We had run out of the organic dog food we started buying when we realized we love our dog (Lily) and probably shouldn't be feeding her sawdust and reconstituted fish bits. She loves it and has much more energy and much less body mass. It also make her obnoxiously regular. I'm grateful that we live on a ground floor apartment, but picking up a bag of poo in my pajamas is not how I want to greet the world every morning.

I got home shortly before Christine who was taking a break by doing the weekly grocery shopping (I've done it the last three weeks in a row and was just plain not going to do it today). I did help bring in groceries, including oil which I needed to make mayonnaise, and we made dinner together.

Dinner tonight was portabella mushroom burgers on the aforementioned homemade rolls, topped with caramelized onions, feta cheese, artisan lettuce, homemade mayonnaise, and Dijon mustard with roasted potatoes. It was delicious. While we ate, we watched the Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode Merlin's Shop of Mystical Wonders. Now Christine is on the couch sleeping off a migraine, and I am playing my fifth game of Settlers of Catan and enjoying my two-day writing streak. Soon I must wash dishes, hang up my work clothes, and go to bed.

It's been a good weekend.

I'm back. Let's see how long it lasts.

My New Year's resolution this year was to write more. The year is nearly a quarter over, and so far, I am not meeting that goal. I've had several people ask me if I'm writing, and I am writing this to let them know that no, I am not.

I was very prolific in college, but since then, I haven't written much more than a Facebook status or a response to a meme. The reasons for this are, 1. in college I got paid to write. Not much, but the satisfaction of writing things I knew my readers wouldn't read otherwise made up for that somewhat, and 2. in college I had deadlines.

When I was assigned a paper in college, I immediately began thinking about what I would write. I thought about it constantly, yes, even when it looked like I was just watching TV and eating grilled cheese sandwiches and French fries out of a to-go box (that was a great semester). Then the night before the paper was due, I would sit down and write it. It never turned out the way I expected it to, but it was usually good.

Now, no one pays me, and I don't have deadlines. Several people have offered to set deadlines for me, but the problem is that if I failed to meet their deadlines, nothing would happen. I wouldn't forfeit payment or waste my tuition. I'd just say, "I didn't meet the deadline," and nothing else in my life would change.

I do, however, see a light on the horizon. I'm not getting paid to write this, and it's not due at any time. But I wrote it. And I like it. I'm gonna chase this feeling.