Red Nose

Thirty Days of Truth 11 and Other Stuff

Day 11 → Something people seem to compliment you the most on.

This one is really easy. I get the most compliments on my pumpkin pie, which is the best pumpkin pie in the whole entire world. I have even gotten emails from complete strangers who found the recipe through a Google search telling me how awesome this pie is. Modesty, however, prevents me from taking full credit for this creation, because it's my gramma's recipe.

So (if you celebrate it) how was your Thanksgiving? Ours was laid back and lovely, despite cloudy and cold weather. We lazed around for most of the day, because I did not have to make the BPPITWEW. Then we hopped in the car and headed down to the Annapolis area to eat with my cousin, his wife (the architect of the feast), her daughter, their neighbor, my brother, and my sister-in-law. We have a family pact to avoid discussing politics -- why ruin a perfectly fine family gathering? -- so we swapped stories and stuffed our faces and had a fine old time.

Then Joe got up in the dead of night to go to work -- he had to be at the store at 4:45 am to fend off the hordes of Black Friday shoppers. He got home in mid-afternoon, only slightly battered, and we promptly went out to dinner.

And tomorrow? Alas, back to work!

Thirty Days of Truth 10

Day 10 → Someone you need to let go, or wish you didn’t know.

Y'know, I'm having a little trouble with this one. I suppose I wish I didn't know some of the people from my past -- various boyfriends or criminals or psychos or false friends -- but they're in my past and the past is gone. There's no one in my present life that meets the criteria for this day's topic.

And that, my friends, is something for which I am very thankful.

Chocolate Cake In A Coffee Mug

Would you like some chocolate cake?

Of course you would.

So have some -- make it in five minutes; bake it in three; enjoy it as slowly as you possibly can but I guarantee it won't last longer than the time it took to cook it.

Ingredients

4 tbsp flour
4 tbsp sugar
2 tbsp cocoa
1 egg
3 tbsp milk
3 tbsp oil
3 tbsp chocolate chips (optional) (but really really really really good)
A splash of vanilla
A large coffee mug

Method

Mix the flour, sugar, and cocoa in the mug. Add the egg and stir it all up. Add the oil, milk, and vanilla; mix well. Add the chocolate chips. (They'll sink to the bottom; this is good.) Microwave on High for 3 minutes. Don't panic if you look in the nuker and see the cake rising up out of the mug; it's okay. It'll sink again. Cool and eat devour.

I actually got this recipe from my pals Judy and De who both sent it to me in a forwarded email. I thought, "How good could it be?"

The answer: Wow. It's especially good with the chocky chips, because they melt on the bottom and make a sort of frosting. Oh hells yeah.

 

Thirty Days of Truth 9

Day 09 → Someone you didn’t want to let go, but just drifted.

Well, see Day 1. The problem with not keeping up with the people in your life is that they drift away.

I did, however, make a conscious decision to let one person drift away. She was a good friend, but she got angry at me for something pretty trivial and ended our friendship without even telling me why -- I had to find out from a mutual friend. Over the years I thought about trying to resurrect that friendship; it seemed sad to me that it ended over something that she never tried to talk to me about or work out.

And then I'd think better of it. Of course, there's a lot more to the story than I care to talk about here, but let's just say that when I thought about that friendship, I realized that I was actually a bit relieved when it ended.

Sad, but true.

At one point she popped up on Facebook and friended me; even sent me a long, very chatty email that made no reference to the past. I friended her back, thinking well, okay; maybe this is a good thing.

Then she disappeared again -- poof! -- Facebook page deleted, no email, no nothin'.

I wish her well, but again, it's a friendship that's better left drifting.

Things I Am Doing

1. Procrastinating with Nanowrimo. I have not written very much, but I have been thinking deeply about one of the characters in this book. She is going to change; she is too much of a stupid caricature in the current version. I have thought more about her backstory and now I'm puzzling over how she needs to behave and push the story forward. So maybe I'm not really procrastinating -- I'm incubating.

2. Practicing a very simple juggling routine. There is this sort of jokey talent show to benefit the company's yearly Big Charity Drive on Friday, and one of the folks I work with asked me to juggle in it. This is a Good Thing, actually, because it has forced me to practice. I'm a little worried that it will be boring because the song I've chosen (John Boute's Treme -- if you watched the HBO show then you've heard it) is over four minutes long and I don't know that many tricks well enough really make it dazzling. Oh well. I'll be lucky to get through it without dropping everything.

3. Fighting off a cold. I may lose this battle, but if I can just keep the worst at bay until I get through the frickin' talent show I will have succeeded. Then I can collapse into a snivelling heap and be sick for a couple days.

4. Slowly cleaning out the basement. I have gone through four boxes and one suitcase of my mother's things, ruthlessly tossing out stuff that she held dear but that has no meaning for the rest of us. The suitcase is now full of framed photos, which I will parcel out among my siblings and their kids at various family gatherings. I also emptied several penny stashes and converted them to currency -- over $40.00 worth. Yep, that over 4,000 pennies. Thank you, Coinstar!

5. Looking forward to having next week off. I am planning to write and clean. I may have to succumb to the cold, but let's hope for the best.

 

 

 

Thirty Days of Truth 8

Day 08 → Someone who made your life hell, or treated you like shit.

There was a point in my working life -- 20 years ago or so -- when the thought of getting into a car wreck or coming down with a serious illness or being a victim of some sort of disaster was incredibly appealing to me. Mind you, I didn't want to die or be permanently disabled. I just dreaded going to work.

Why in the world would I wish for something like that?

I had a toxic, toxic boss. This woman was incredibly needy. In our little group, she always had one favorite and one goat; these roles rotated throughout the group on no set schedule. For quite a while, I could do no wrong. My writing was the best! My design skills rocked! My subject matter expertise was superb! I had conversations with her where she confided her troubles with her own boss, and then she would break down weeping. Or she would openly criticize the other members of the group and tell me how they couldn't do anything right.

Then I had the temerity to disagree with a directive. From then on, I could do no right. This chapter is completely incomprehensible (no matter that the real SMEs thought it was the best explanation of a complex topic they'd ever seen). This page is ugly. Changes were made, remade, unmade, and made again. Move this paragraph up one pica. No, never mind; it looked better before.

I sent a draft of a customer survey to her for review. At first the edits seemed reasonable until I got to one particular comment wherein she accused me of going behind her back and undermining her decisions!

When an instuctional design position opened up in another division, I jumped. She thought I was being disloyal. I was never so happy to make a move. I never looked back. And I quit hoping I'd be in an accident.

Thank You For Your Service

Today Americans and Canadians honor those who serve in the military; those who protect and defend us from those who would harm us. There are lots of vets in my own family.

My great-uncle Earl served in World War I. My Pop and my father-in-law served in World War II. My cousin served in Korea. My brother served in Vietnam.

I am grateful for their service and for the service of all who serve, men and women. Too many come home in a box, either physical or mental. To go to war is a terrible thing to ask of them and I wish, hope, and pray for the day when their service will be unnecessary.

Thirty Days of Truth 7

Well, I did have to edit this topic and delete a renegade "for" that was hanging on to the end of the phrase. But that's neither here nor there; the question remains:

Who in my life has made my life worth living?

Pretty much everyone in my life, past and present, has made my life worth living.

Perhaps that's a cop-out, but I really can't choose. Everyone, from my family to my friends to everyone I've come in contact with has, in some way, made my life worth living.

Even those who have hurt me have shown me that life is worth living. When I was riding in the detective's car the morning after I was raped and I saw the brilliant sunrise on that cold winter morning, I realized that I was going to keep living, that I had survived, and that life was new and sweet and stretching out ahead of me.

 

Expiration Date

Can't wait to have some generic honey nut toasted oats for breakfast!

Wait! Better check the expiration date, in case it's too old to eat.

June 1911?! Uh-oh.

Thirty Days of Truth 6

Day 5: Something You Hope You Never Have to Do

I've been thinking about this one a lot. I am just superstitious enough to want to keep my truly darkest fear to myself.

Instead, I will say that I hope I never have to find another job.

I really like my job, even on days like today. Today was just one of those "one thing after another" days -- it wasn't bad; it was just littered with lots of different little tasks, so much so that I couldn't put a solid chunk of time together to make progress on my big projects.

Be that as it may, I still don't want to look for something else. I'm the type of person who tends to stick around -- I was at Software Co. for 16 years, after all, and I've been at my current company for eight. I have to be pretty damn miserable to think about leaving a job.

I do keep my resume up to date, so it's not that. I think it's that I hate having to go on interviews, to gladhand, to ask the right questions and worry about giving the right answers. The best interview I ever went on was my first interview at my current company, because I didn't really care if I got the job. So I was really relaxed and just yakked with my current boss about instructional design, technical communication, and cool ideas for doing  cool stuff.

But now the thought of having to go out and compete for a job with younger folks who have more degrees and will work for less money just fills me with dread.

So please, Powers That Be, don't make me have to find another job. Please.