Rainy Sunday Soup

I find cooking soup to be rather cathartic. During the cold, rainy months of winter I spend many Sunday evenings making soup. Today's soup was a red lentil Thai soup. Delicious. The only bummer was it wasn't nearly as pretty as the picture in the cookbook. Now, I wait for my olive oil couscous cake to finish. I know, sounds weird, but I wanted to try it. Bon Appetit recipe. It was an evening of substitutions, however. I could not find bird's eye (the red one) chilis at the store, substitute serrano. I had spices with no labels in my cabinet - hmm, smells like coriander (could be cardamon, who knows?) and paprika (also might be cayenne...) No lime, substitute lemon. The soup substitutions were easy and it turned out quite yummy. Then for the cake, no muscat, boiled some red with sugar until it got a little syrupy. Did not have an orange so I used the lemon peel. It called for date syrup, but I decided to make a wine reduction instead. It is all a bit of an adventure and could taste terrible. That's what cooking is all about. Just don't venture with expensive ingredients, that's when it kind of stinks. This cake, apart from the olive oil and eight eggs, was fairly cheap to make. Especially since I didn't buy the right wine. I'll let you know how it tastes. Smells good in my oven.

A Kinder, Gentler DMV

Remember the horror stories of the DMV. The hour long way followed by a confrontation with something that resembled death-warming-over ready to say NO to whatever the issue. Now, when you go to the DMV, they give you a number. A calm voice announces, "Number B0072 now being served at window 8." I even heard sounds of laughter today as people were conducting their business and getting pictures taken. I wanted to know if there was anything else I could do about a parking ticket I felt was issued unfairly and was denied the opportunity to contest because I was out of the coutry while the time elapsed. I had no knowledge of the ticket until it arrived in my mail and I retrieved it a month later upon returning from China. By then, a fee increase and a denial to protest the citation. The kindly man at the DMV today said, "Keep fighting it! Those officers abuse their power sometimes and if you think it was issued unfairly, petition - again and again." So the City has not heard the end of me. You might think it trivial and a waste of my time, but darnnit, that officer did abuse his authority and pretty much issued the ticket because I issued an expletive. While rude, not illegal as far as I know. Hey, I was PMSing, it does some wacked out things.

I love the DMV. I think I will holiday there. People were having fun, they were smiling to do their job. A tough job, no doubt. But it was just so darned quick, easy and pleasant, better there than the dentist. Seems like other official places of business could take a lesson from the kinder, gentler DMV.

A bad fit

I try to sit down and write about issues at work that keep coming up and seem to frustrate me to exhaustion. I go over and over in my head whether it could be better elsewhere or different. Perhaps it is the grade level that does not fit, perhaps the profession. Perhaps I work in a very negative environment. I am not talking negative in the sense that people are down on each other. Negative in the sense that I feel and probably others feel that we are not in this together. We are pretty much on our own and well, sink or swim, figure it out. This is my perspective. I know there are people who are oblivious because they know it can be worse and so this is better. There are people in the middle. There are those, of which I have tried to become, who just close their door and get to teaching and that is the best advocate they can be. Try as I might, I am just not built that way. It is simultaneously one of my strongest qualities and my weakest. I struggle as to where to focus my energies and never seem to find the balance that allows me to be at peace.

I guess it is kind of like the friendship I had that recently ended. I was the ender because I found myself continuously feeling hurt and exhausted by the friend's behavior. At first I felt I should fix it, work at it, apologize, forgive, be the better person, etc. Then, I was annoyed and nit picky about everything this person did and said. I seemed to be seeking out reasons to hate this friend and constantly rationalizing why it was okay I was no longer friends. It was hard for me as I am a loyal person. However, I suppose as I get older I do realize that the people around me matter. Perhaps this is analogous to my job. I do not have to keep rationalizing my failure to stick around. I do not have to listen to people who say it is better than other places. I do not think it is better for me, unfortunately. This friend was not a bad person, in fact, quite the opposite. The qualities that bothered me, just like in work, upset the balance and I was not able to find peace with this person. My own personality was at odds, and is at odds with my work situation. I identified the things that bothered me and why I was really not able to accommodate for them, and that seems to be the very same place I have arrived at with my work environment. The obvious is that I need another place, the hard part is figuring out what it is that I need to be at peace and enjoy my job.

Even harder, perhaps it is a bad fit all around. There is only one way to find out - get out and experience other stuff.

Happy VD Day!

Venereal Disease Day, I mean, Valentine's Day. Okay, I admit it, I love getting cards from my mom, a nice little reminder that she's thinking about me, but it does not necessarily have to be on February 14th. She sent me a spring card last year with a little chick and a daffodil on its head. It was pretty darn cute and made me giggle.

I am not some bitter singleton that detests Valentine's Day because I am all alone, yeah boo-hoo. I could really care less about being single. It is quite a desirable state most days. Lucky_girl sent me a card too, see how loved I am?

No, its the same reason you all get tired of having cARp stuffed down your throat and thrust in your face as soon as the previous holiday has ended, we cease to honor the "holiday's" true nature. We seem to have forgotten the point. Regardless of whether, like my brother, you believe U.S. holidays are dumb, many of them are rooted in traditions of other nations. Despite your religious beliefs, there seems to be a pretty basic principle about treating your fellow human being with some dignity and respect.

Rid yourselves of the chains of mylar balloons and little bears that say "I love you." Rid yourselves of the 1,000 extra calories you probably do not need anyway. Rid yourselves of tacky Pokemon cards and twelve varieties of Hershey's Kisses. I hereby empower you to spread love and goodness as a decent, wonderful human being:

(1) Help a neighbor;
(2) Stop and smell the roses and pick up some trash while you're at it;
(4) Smile;
(5) Write a nice note to someone and mail it in the real mail;
(6) Volunteer to help a child read;
(7) Spend time with your kids;
(8) Massage someones' feet;
(9) Give the benefit of the doubt;
(10) Love completely because we won't be here forever.

As a teacher, I did not do my job today to impart some of this to my students. I have borderline bronchitis and feel like cARp. I allowed them to partake in the commercial side of the holiday without adding the important things like: inclusion and friendship. My voice is like Lauren Bacall and my head feels like its swabbed in cotton candy. We can not always be on, try as I might.

As to my family and friends, you are loved by me, everyday, this day and the other 364 days. I think about you always - when I run, as I teach, in the car, in the store, when the day truly stinks or when its really great - you are the people who get me through my days. I do not need today to say how special you are to me. (Touche, I used it anyway.)

Little Miss Interrupter and Mr Angry

Did you read those Mr. Men books as a kid? You know, Mr. Happy, Mr. Angry, Mr. Chatterbox? Here's a picture, in case you forgot.

I am going to write a new one to give to a co-worker. Its called Little Miss Interrupter. Let's be clear. I work with first graders, so does this "woman." (Quotations because her maturity, not her gender, is in question.) First graders have to be taught how to wait their turn. They interrupt and need little reminders that they should listen when someone is talking and wait until the time is right to interject or ask a question. All is forgiven in first grade land. All is not forgiven with Little Miss Interrupter. She fails to wait for the appropriate time to interject. She exits conversations, then without first listening to see what people are talking about, she rudely enters them loudly and without pause. It is exhausting. My lunch is invariably spent with another first grader. I like to leave my room and have lunch with my fellow teachers. It is an opportunity to talk to grown-ups (usually,) work out problems and take a little break. Some people are lunch workers, I am not. On several occasions, I have acted overly offended, "Oh my god, I totally didn't finish what I was saying, hellooo?!?" Hoping the effect would be least offensive way to tell her she is rude. On several other occasions I have redirected the conversation back, "I'm sorry, but I really wanted to hear the end of so-and-so's story/point/joke." At this point, I would rather share lunch with my students who are less rude than this individual. I am at the point where I would like to say, "You know what, you have interrupted me and its rude. Please listen more carefully when people are speaking. It makes me feel like you don't care about what I have to say, and if that is the case, then I don't really need to continue this conversation."

Of course, it would sound diplomatic coming from anyone else, but I have this tendency to sound berating. Not so good. Guess I will just have to muster up my very best "first grade voice." Perhaps I will use this as a lesson to help my students help me solve my problem, maybe they have a nicer way to say it.

On another note, Mr. Angry was at the drugstore. I was standing in line at the pharmacy waiting to buy my monthly supply of 12-hour Sudafed (because I might make meth with it, yeah, right,) and Mr. Angry was in front of me. Mr. Angry was obviously irritated and perhaps feeling sick. I was completely in la-la land thinking about how I was going to make enough meth from one packet of sudafed, I mean, thinking about how many licks it takes to get to the center of the Tootsie roll pop. Mr. Angry brought me back to pharmacy land. He was scolding the pharmacist for having announced over the loudspeaker that his prescription for ______________ was ready and that she had announced his prescription for prozac would cost blah-de-blah amount. Granted he was embarrassed that people might have known that he was manic depressive or whatever, but I actually was not made aware of this point until he did so by getting angry with the pharmacist. Now, I will forever remember this dude and that he takes prozac (which is probably good info, so I can cross the street and all,) because he made such a scene. I agree, they should not have announced it, but he made it worse by pointing it out because no one was the wiser until then. I will have to point and laugh now. I can learn from this. Next time, lean over the counter and say, "It is more professional to maintain the privacy of your customers prescriptions. In the future, please do not announce what they are."
Doh!