Apparently it has been almost a year since I posted. Sigh. Let's try this again. If nothing else I can vent to nobody in particular.
When can I stop worrying and providing like a mom to someone who should be old enough to do it herself? It's a constant conflict - I know jobs are in short supply, but I don't think she tries hard enough. She can't wake up to an alarm clock or get herself out of bed in the morning. She doesn't have the training for anything for which a second or third shift would be an option, or even the smarts to apply for afternoon/evening jobs only. She seems headed for a life content to be on welfare and food stamps. I don't see signs of a return to drug use, but I can't rule it out for the future. She had her wallet and phone stolen last night because she can't seem to master the need to keep her valuables safe at all times, especially in the skeevy places she goes to. I was hoping for less drama this year, but I can't see that as an option. It's inconvenient and expensive to have her in my house, but she has nowhere else to go. I can't figure out how much I should contribute, help, or even care. I can't stop giving advice that isn't appreciated or wanted. This sucks and I'm frustrated. I don't want to give her ownership of the car she drives, but she has beat the crap out of it such that I could probably never sell it, and when she commits a traffic violation and they don't have an officer talk to her and get her license, the bill and violation goes to me because it's in my name, so is it time to sign it over to her and make it solely her problem?
The boy gained 30 pounds since his last doctor's visit in 2009. All overeating and inaction on his part. I'm going to try packing him lunches. He's going to try to go to kung fu as often as I can get him there, and has a P90X DVD to try (thanks, Joey). He has also agreed to try Gluten-Free January, but we'll see how far that gets. The girl is the one who appears to have a gluten reaction similar to mine, but good luck getting her to pay attention to her diet.
At least the job seems to be secure for this year, assuming I don't piss my boss off too much. I didn't realize that she can't take opposition in any way without taking it personally, so now I walk on eggshells. Still working on completing the prerequisites for the Medical Lab Tech degree at the community college just in case.
Linkin Park concert Jan. 31! Something just for me. Now if the weather can just cooperate...
Jan 1, 2011
Jan 15, 2010
Increments
I don't know when it happened, but I have become at peace with incremental progress. Maybe somewhere I leveled up in Patience and acquired the Consciousness of Progress skill. All I know is that I can now be content with the progress of a project involving many, many tiny steps and can see the end approaching ever closer without the feeling of impatience and endless futility that I used to feel.
It's a good thing, because a lot of what I do involves many tiny, repetitious steps. At work I fill endless numbers of 96-well plates, one well at a time, with as much precision as experience and good instruments can bring. At least there, I have measurable progress and an endpoint within hours, certainly by the end of the day. But what I do for fun is much worse. I knit. I needlepoint. I cross-stitch. Yes, the womanly arts of the needle offer many chances to drive yourself crazy doing something thousands of times to cover very tiny amounts of real estate. Knitting is good for slowly building something one stitch at a time. There's no equivalent of a multi-channel pipettor for knitting (okay, there are machines, but they don't count as far as I'm concerned). A mitten is good for fairly rapid progress, allowing me to actually complete something in one evening, but other projects call for serious amounts of time. Yet the finish line doesn't seem as endlessly far away now as it used to - I can appreciate two rows of the Pirate Queen's Booty Bag completed in a night's work as a substantial contribution instead of feeling it to be a hopelessly small addition to the whole. What brought about this change in perspective?
I have a huge needlepoint canvas - La Licorne Captive it says at the top, the Unicorn in Captivity from the tapestries at the Cloisters. It is 25" wide by probably at least 36" long (I don't want to unroll it to measure), with 10 stitches per inch = 100 stitches/square inch, so approximately 90,000 stitches to finish it. A two foot length of wool seems to cover maybe two square inches at the most, and I can usually manage about 3 or 4 of those in a sitting. After months of off-and-on work I have maybe 3/4 of the top half completed, but I can feel all those tiny bits adding up with great satisfaction. I could just as easily see my slow progress with despair over the infinity of stitches ahead of me, but somewhere along the line I learned to appreciate the slow accumulation of tiny elements into a whole. I find it easier to see days becoming years, too. Maybe it's just age - each year is now 1/50th of my experience instead of a larger part. Whatever the cause, I hope this perspective gives me some kind of advantage or insight or patience outside the realm of the needle. But now, back to the Booty Bag!
It's a good thing, because a lot of what I do involves many tiny, repetitious steps. At work I fill endless numbers of 96-well plates, one well at a time, with as much precision as experience and good instruments can bring. At least there, I have measurable progress and an endpoint within hours, certainly by the end of the day. But what I do for fun is much worse. I knit. I needlepoint. I cross-stitch. Yes, the womanly arts of the needle offer many chances to drive yourself crazy doing something thousands of times to cover very tiny amounts of real estate. Knitting is good for slowly building something one stitch at a time. There's no equivalent of a multi-channel pipettor for knitting (okay, there are machines, but they don't count as far as I'm concerned). A mitten is good for fairly rapid progress, allowing me to actually complete something in one evening, but other projects call for serious amounts of time. Yet the finish line doesn't seem as endlessly far away now as it used to - I can appreciate two rows of the Pirate Queen's Booty Bag completed in a night's work as a substantial contribution instead of feeling it to be a hopelessly small addition to the whole. What brought about this change in perspective?
I have a huge needlepoint canvas - La Licorne Captive it says at the top, the Unicorn in Captivity from the tapestries at the Cloisters. It is 25" wide by probably at least 36" long (I don't want to unroll it to measure), with 10 stitches per inch = 100 stitches/square inch, so approximately 90,000 stitches to finish it. A two foot length of wool seems to cover maybe two square inches at the most, and I can usually manage about 3 or 4 of those in a sitting. After months of off-and-on work I have maybe 3/4 of the top half completed, but I can feel all those tiny bits adding up with great satisfaction. I could just as easily see my slow progress with despair over the infinity of stitches ahead of me, but somewhere along the line I learned to appreciate the slow accumulation of tiny elements into a whole. I find it easier to see days becoming years, too. Maybe it's just age - each year is now 1/50th of my experience instead of a larger part. Whatever the cause, I hope this perspective gives me some kind of advantage or insight or patience outside the realm of the needle. But now, back to the Booty Bag!
Jan 2, 2010
Could be worse
It's cold out, and inside I have it set for 68F, which seems cold to me but saves money. But I minimize my complaining by reflecting on every century before the last, and how cold everyone must have been.
Read Dickens, or Little House on the Prarie (or anywhere else the Little House set up) and you'll realize that the rooms inside houses were often very little warmer than the outside. For most of human history people had little more warmth in winter than the deer and the birds. Sure, there was fire, but if you didn't stay right next to it, the effects weren't far-reaching. Imagine a tipi or yurt. Laura Ingalls would wake to see frost on the inside of the windows and on the nails sticking through the unceilinged roof. People in books speak of having to break the ice on their bowl of water before washing their faces in the morning. I stand around and wait for the tap water to get warm before I wash my dainty hands. How much stronger these people would be than we are in the same situations. Kids would go barefoot until frost, and probably did so indoors to save on shoe wear. No down parkas, just whatever skins you could wrestle from their furbearing owners or whatever you could weave or knit from your woolbeasts. It helps keep my woes in perspective to think that people survived a world warmed only by open fires (or at best, tile ovens) for centuries.
Did they feel as cold as I would? Were they so used to it that they were comfortable at a 50 degree room? Did mothers' hands feel the iciness of metal needles as they knit the next pair of socks like mine do?
And walking - in Dickens, people walk to a town 10 miles away because they can't afford any other transit. Characters take 2 hour walks just for fun every morning. If I walk 2 miles to my grocery store, I'm pooped and can't picture myself carrying bags of groceries back, so I use the car for that short trip, feeling secretly ashamed. But it's not just the walking, it's the time. Two hours of leisure walking time every morning? An hour each way to walk to the store? They didn't seem to mind cold, dark, rain - if it rains on your 10 mile walk you hang your wool coat and shawl before the fire at your destination and don them again for the walk back. And you'd be cheerfully conversing with your companion the whole way.
Shall we go into water? Would Americans be taking daily baths if they had to pump the water and chop the wood to fuel the stove to heat it? Would we do as much of any washing as we do now?
Do I have to weave my own fabrics? Do I have to grow or slay or can my own food? Do I have to use a chamber pot or outhouse? I keep all this in the back of my mind to remind me to appreciate this way life and not abuse it. And I always have this nagging feeling that we should never forget these things because we may some day need this knowledge again. Our current way of life (for Americans, at least) is probably unsustainable in the long run, and there's that "live simply that others may simply live" that ticks in the back of my mind. For now I will continue to appreciate 68 degrees and electricity and indoor plumbing. I'm not ready to go off the grid yet.
Read Dickens, or Little House on the Prarie (or anywhere else the Little House set up) and you'll realize that the rooms inside houses were often very little warmer than the outside. For most of human history people had little more warmth in winter than the deer and the birds. Sure, there was fire, but if you didn't stay right next to it, the effects weren't far-reaching. Imagine a tipi or yurt. Laura Ingalls would wake to see frost on the inside of the windows and on the nails sticking through the unceilinged roof. People in books speak of having to break the ice on their bowl of water before washing their faces in the morning. I stand around and wait for the tap water to get warm before I wash my dainty hands. How much stronger these people would be than we are in the same situations. Kids would go barefoot until frost, and probably did so indoors to save on shoe wear. No down parkas, just whatever skins you could wrestle from their furbearing owners or whatever you could weave or knit from your woolbeasts. It helps keep my woes in perspective to think that people survived a world warmed only by open fires (or at best, tile ovens) for centuries.
Did they feel as cold as I would? Were they so used to it that they were comfortable at a 50 degree room? Did mothers' hands feel the iciness of metal needles as they knit the next pair of socks like mine do?
And walking - in Dickens, people walk to a town 10 miles away because they can't afford any other transit. Characters take 2 hour walks just for fun every morning. If I walk 2 miles to my grocery store, I'm pooped and can't picture myself carrying bags of groceries back, so I use the car for that short trip, feeling secretly ashamed. But it's not just the walking, it's the time. Two hours of leisure walking time every morning? An hour each way to walk to the store? They didn't seem to mind cold, dark, rain - if it rains on your 10 mile walk you hang your wool coat and shawl before the fire at your destination and don them again for the walk back. And you'd be cheerfully conversing with your companion the whole way.
Shall we go into water? Would Americans be taking daily baths if they had to pump the water and chop the wood to fuel the stove to heat it? Would we do as much of any washing as we do now?
Do I have to weave my own fabrics? Do I have to grow or slay or can my own food? Do I have to use a chamber pot or outhouse? I keep all this in the back of my mind to remind me to appreciate this way life and not abuse it. And I always have this nagging feeling that we should never forget these things because we may some day need this knowledge again. Our current way of life (for Americans, at least) is probably unsustainable in the long run, and there's that "live simply that others may simply live" that ticks in the back of my mind. For now I will continue to appreciate 68 degrees and electricity and indoor plumbing. I'm not ready to go off the grid yet.
Mar 7, 2009
How to enjoy toast
It has been too long, hasn't it? Too bad you don't have access to the many postings I've written in my head.
How to Enjoy Toast.
Don't eat toast for a long, long time. When you do, eat disappointing bread. That way when you do get some really good toast you will have a keener appreciation for the whole experience. When you finally have baked a loaf of bread that is honestly, actually good in flavor and texture, your hands will tremble with the anticipation as you carefully slice it to an even thickness. Gently introduce in into the toaster and wait to see how it comes out. Put it back in if necessary to get the proper level of brown. Upon that perfectly browned toast spread a generous layer of real butter at room temperature, covering the entire surface of the slice from crust to crust, including the crust (which is not too thick in this nearly perfect loaf). Let the butter melt and sink in, so that the surface crunches under your teeth, while the still-soft layer beneath is now infused with the melted butter. The crunch, the softness within, the butter, the flavor of the bread - those of you who eat toast casually and easily have no idea what a sensual experience it can be. It was worth the hunt for millet flour to add to the other 6 flours in the recipe.
In addition to that racy bit of oral stimulation, I have been working on my dollhouse. I got 4 kits for furniture from eBay (thus losing my eBay virginity) and ordered different size doors to see which fit which openings. So far I have built 3 of the kits and am working on the 4th, which is much more complex, requiring more input from me than just gluing and staining. I realized the other night that the part I like most of all is that I have a place where I can set up this stuff and LEAVE IT THERE. For so many years I couldn't get out the sewing machine or do a jigsaw puzzle or set up any kind of craft without having it on a shared surface like the kitchen table, thus having to put it away every time the table was needed for something else. Now I have an entire room set up just the way I want it: table to work on with a stereo and TV to entertain me, lights I can focus on my work, and nobody else needing the space for any other reason. This is so satisfying, after years of compromise - I can't tell you how delightful it is. Just having that space exclusively for myself is something I so needed. True, I'm sanding and dropping pieces of wood on the rug and making a mess, but it's my mess and I am solely responsible for it. Love it.
I bought a piano, which sounds like an extravagance, but my tax refund and bonus and a fire sale all came together to make a great opportunity. Nothing is wrong with my old one except the tone, which sounds like the piano is wrapped in layers of blankets, and I had the chance to buy something brighter so I went for it. So far no luck finding a charity to take the old one, but I have interest from an ad in the paper. I can throw in a pile of old lesson books - my kids never play, after all those lessons. I had reconciled myself to just living with this dull piano because the money for a new one could be better spent on other things, but this was a good deal. I hope it's as good a piano as it sounded in the store. It's a Pearl River - I didn't spring for a Yamaha or anything nicer, but for a lower-end piano it sounded good. But I gotta get the old one out before I can move it in. Now I'll get back to saving for college.
Speaking of college, they say there are a lot of scholarships available for kids in FIRST Robotics - I hope so. They didn't do well at the regional competition they went to last weekend - 50th out of 61 robots, but they are also going to a regional in Annapolis where they have a chance to do better. The robot was designed poorly - they went with one of the possible design choices and it was the wrong choice, but they may be able to modify by then. They did get an award for their community service projects, though. I can put a few pictures of the team up on Flickr if I remember how. The boy now has glasses and a haircut and went from hippie to nerd overnight, in looks anyway.
The girl is still looking (so she tells me) for a job and hanging with dead-end boyfriend. She thinks she might want to go to art school spring semester, but I don't think she's motivated enough to do the work to get to that point. She thinks she wants to go spend a few weeks with her grandparents in Florida to get away from it all here. I can't see that working well on either side, but maybe try 5-7 days. I still have a ticket for her that she didn't use earlier. I think she will be bored out of her mind and they will be stressed, maybe shocked by her. I have to think about it more. Lots of alarm bells go off in my head.
How to Enjoy Toast.
Don't eat toast for a long, long time. When you do, eat disappointing bread. That way when you do get some really good toast you will have a keener appreciation for the whole experience. When you finally have baked a loaf of bread that is honestly, actually good in flavor and texture, your hands will tremble with the anticipation as you carefully slice it to an even thickness. Gently introduce in into the toaster and wait to see how it comes out. Put it back in if necessary to get the proper level of brown. Upon that perfectly browned toast spread a generous layer of real butter at room temperature, covering the entire surface of the slice from crust to crust, including the crust (which is not too thick in this nearly perfect loaf). Let the butter melt and sink in, so that the surface crunches under your teeth, while the still-soft layer beneath is now infused with the melted butter. The crunch, the softness within, the butter, the flavor of the bread - those of you who eat toast casually and easily have no idea what a sensual experience it can be. It was worth the hunt for millet flour to add to the other 6 flours in the recipe.
In addition to that racy bit of oral stimulation, I have been working on my dollhouse. I got 4 kits for furniture from eBay (thus losing my eBay virginity) and ordered different size doors to see which fit which openings. So far I have built 3 of the kits and am working on the 4th, which is much more complex, requiring more input from me than just gluing and staining. I realized the other night that the part I like most of all is that I have a place where I can set up this stuff and LEAVE IT THERE. For so many years I couldn't get out the sewing machine or do a jigsaw puzzle or set up any kind of craft without having it on a shared surface like the kitchen table, thus having to put it away every time the table was needed for something else. Now I have an entire room set up just the way I want it: table to work on with a stereo and TV to entertain me, lights I can focus on my work, and nobody else needing the space for any other reason. This is so satisfying, after years of compromise - I can't tell you how delightful it is. Just having that space exclusively for myself is something I so needed. True, I'm sanding and dropping pieces of wood on the rug and making a mess, but it's my mess and I am solely responsible for it. Love it.
I bought a piano, which sounds like an extravagance, but my tax refund and bonus and a fire sale all came together to make a great opportunity. Nothing is wrong with my old one except the tone, which sounds like the piano is wrapped in layers of blankets, and I had the chance to buy something brighter so I went for it. So far no luck finding a charity to take the old one, but I have interest from an ad in the paper. I can throw in a pile of old lesson books - my kids never play, after all those lessons. I had reconciled myself to just living with this dull piano because the money for a new one could be better spent on other things, but this was a good deal. I hope it's as good a piano as it sounded in the store. It's a Pearl River - I didn't spring for a Yamaha or anything nicer, but for a lower-end piano it sounded good. But I gotta get the old one out before I can move it in. Now I'll get back to saving for college.
Speaking of college, they say there are a lot of scholarships available for kids in FIRST Robotics - I hope so. They didn't do well at the regional competition they went to last weekend - 50th out of 61 robots, but they are also going to a regional in Annapolis where they have a chance to do better. The robot was designed poorly - they went with one of the possible design choices and it was the wrong choice, but they may be able to modify by then. They did get an award for their community service projects, though. I can put a few pictures of the team up on Flickr if I remember how. The boy now has glasses and a haircut and went from hippie to nerd overnight, in looks anyway.
The girl is still looking (so she tells me) for a job and hanging with dead-end boyfriend. She thinks she might want to go to art school spring semester, but I don't think she's motivated enough to do the work to get to that point. She thinks she wants to go spend a few weeks with her grandparents in Florida to get away from it all here. I can't see that working well on either side, but maybe try 5-7 days. I still have a ticket for her that she didn't use earlier. I think she will be bored out of her mind and they will be stressed, maybe shocked by her. I have to think about it more. Lots of alarm bells go off in my head.
Dec 7, 2008
Bread and more
These are a pair of nice-looking loaves, aren't they? Too bad they're not really that nice to eat. One is regular bread for crumbs, and the darker one is mock pumpernickel. I had some of that toasted for breakfast, some with tuna for lunch, and the rest is in the oven becoming croutons to have with the split pea soup I'm also making. It was pretty dry and dense aroung the edges. I can now make pretty loaves that don't rise to ridiculous heights with holes all throughout, but I still can't make them edible. What you can't see on those pretty loaves is the evidence I found this morning. I put them in plastic bags on the counter overnight, and this morning I discovered that someone had flang a fang into one, right through the bag. Many little holes, nibbled crust. Stupid cat. It might be the same one who licks plastic bags for no particular reason, or the one who believes that everything edible in the house is rightfully hers. I also have a piece of beef in the crockpot with some onions, so it smells like Grandmommy's house. There will be no limas, however. This is my weekend cooking orgy so I have decent food during the week. If the boy doesn't like it he can eat Spaghettios.
I took the boy out to get Christmas presents today, and actually bought myself something I didn't need. It probably helped that I wasn't spending my own money - I had a gift card from my last co-op. I got CDs of Leonard Bernstein's Candide and his Beethoven's 9th. Barbara Cook's soprano makes the hair stand up on my neck, it's so good. And you can even understand the words, unlike opera singers.
Parking lot story. I pulled in, 3 spaces from a cart return. Lady next to me, 2 spaces from the cart return, sails in with her full cart and bangs it into my car. While I'm sitting in it. Never pauses or looks. Unloads her stuff, bangs into my car again (leaving a dent), then drives the cart around my car to park it 4 spaces from the cart return. Go figure. That one had me shaking my head all the way home.
Not much to report, but I'm trying to stay in the habit of writing. Just brain droppings, really. Oh, and the vanilla macaroni and cheese tasted fine - smelled like vanilla but didn't taste like it. Maybe make pudding with the rest of the rice milk. Weird stuff.
Dec 4, 2008
Ingredient FAIL
As I'm waiting for the gluten-free mac and cheese to finish in the oven, it smells like cake in here because the gluten-free Whole Foods unsweetened rice milk contains - vanilla. I thought I'd try rice milk because making mac and cheese with regular milk and forgetting to take a lactase pill makes me feel crappy. I tried LactAid milk, but apparently the active lactase enzyme can also break down cornstarch, so it doesn't thicken. Gluten-free, the rice milk said. Unsweetened, it said. Didn't look close enough at the ingredients, did I? Should be interesting. Either way I'm gonna eat it - not wasting all that cheese and all that good rice pasta.
As you can see, the boy is getting rather hairy. He wanted to grow it long and see what that's like, so I said fine as long as you take care of it. He looks like he came out of my high school yearbook. He has begun the heartbreaking struggle of high school social life - he likes a girl who does not like him that way. But she has a crush on a cartoon anime character that he resembles, so there's hope. How many times did we get our hearts stomped on during those years?
My former in-laws are ignorant cretins. But you knew that. Whenever we went there, it was excruciatingly boring for the kids and I, since there was no hospitality to speak of. No one cleared dolls off a chair for us. No one engaged us in conversations or seemed to be genuinely interested in us. No one checked to see if we were comfortable or in need of attention. The best the kids could do was wander off to the spare bedroom to watch a TV that wasn't tuned in to golf. Not much of a relationship to begin with, harder to maintain as the kids got older & had more interests of their own. Last week Ex bugged me to contact the girl (he can't seem to maintain contact with her himself, which is a whole story for another time) and have her call his parents. He had mentioned to us before that they believe she never thanked them for birthday gift. Okay, it's possible, also possible that she called and they just forgot. She agreed that she would be sure to apologize just in case she didn't. So she calls them, and they lambasted her for 10 minutes about what a bad grandchild she is, she didn't thank them, she never goes to see them, etc. Hello? Do they call her? Do they show any interest in her? Have they given her a reason to want to stay in touch? Do they understand that she has a full-time job, boyfriend, etc? She thinks her dad has been talking trash about her to them. Yes, she probably hasn't seen them since graduation, but she has been working the few times her dad went over there. I was so pissed at this. These people have done nothing to engender feelings of love or even obligation in these kids, other than overloading them with gifts. That family has never understood that material goods do not equal love. I'd be happy to never see them again. I'd love to tell her that she's 18, she can decided for herself how much contact to maintain, but I'll be the diplomatic parent and suggest she continue to make the effort, although what she will get out of it I can't imagine would be worth it. I have tried to be patient and civil with them, but it's just not worth it.
Rant over. In other news, I have finally bought a digital camera after the first one went missing, so I can show you the knitting projects I've done once I figure out how to put them here. Or just e-mail them. But for now, I'm going to go see what vanilla macaroni and cheese tastes like.
Nov 26, 2008
Happy Thanksgiving!
Like it says, happy Thanksgiving to all. I will make a pumpkin pie tonight, and lasagna tomorrow, gluten-free of course. I thought I might have to go in to work Friday (we have off), but my cells cooperated and the stars aligned, so I have 4 days off. I left early today (well, late compared to everyone else since we closed at noon) and thought I would stop at the grocery store, but the Shop Rite parking lot was full in places I didn't even know they had spaces, so I decided it could wait. The cats, however, are all thrown off by my coming home early and will spend the next two hours fighting because they think it's dinner time.
My 401(k) is now officially tiny, since I lost $100,000 in stock losses and split what was left with the ex. At least that's one more official thing that's done. They are still pondering the request to split the pension. It's all imaginary money anyway until I retire, which apparently I won't be able to do for a long time.
Not much else going on except for occasional robotics events. I suppose I should put up the tree one of these days, although I expect to be regularly extracting cats from it. I will do what I did last year and wire it to the wall so at least they can't knock the whole thing over.
Fun things I can do with a 4 day weekend:
- vacuum the dust from under the fridge
- shred assorted documents
- order new checks
- change sheets
- scoop the litterbox
- arrange old photos by approximate date
- eat lasagna
- make bread crumbs from GF bread
Are you excited yet? Woohoo!
Have fun, don't eat too much.
My 401(k) is now officially tiny, since I lost $100,000 in stock losses and split what was left with the ex. At least that's one more official thing that's done. They are still pondering the request to split the pension. It's all imaginary money anyway until I retire, which apparently I won't be able to do for a long time.
Not much else going on except for occasional robotics events. I suppose I should put up the tree one of these days, although I expect to be regularly extracting cats from it. I will do what I did last year and wire it to the wall so at least they can't knock the whole thing over.
Fun things I can do with a 4 day weekend:
- vacuum the dust from under the fridge
- shred assorted documents
- order new checks
- change sheets
- scoop the litterbox
- arrange old photos by approximate date
- eat lasagna
- make bread crumbs from GF bread
Are you excited yet? Woohoo!
Have fun, don't eat too much.
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