Frog and Goat

I have begun working on my second and final paper and it’s a painful process because my work on it makes it abundantly clear that I need to get the heck out of my place of employment (POE). My paper is a cultural analysis of my POE and while most times when one of these is commissioned by an organization the organization says, “Whoa, look at all our dirty laundry. We’d better make some changes.” Instead I’m saying look at our dirty laundry, no wonder I’m miserable. And misery makes me want to cook.

I started a batch of granola but realized I needed coconut. A quick call to the better-half means he’ll bring some home since he was going to stop by the store later today anyway.

I’ve already made a batch of falafel nuts. And now I’m moving on to a batch of these tasty sounding nuts.

OK, so it’s that time of year again and this still cracks me up:

Ain’t finger lickin’ like chicken

I’m off from work this week. Partly it was for mental health purposes and partly because I need to write papers for the end of the semester. Naturally, I’m dragging my feet on the paper writing. I decided to go with the shorter one first and while that sounds like a good idea, I feel like I’ve analyzed the semester-long project to death with all the reflection on the class wiki and blog that now that I have to synthesize, I’m just not interested. The part about not being interested tends to happen to me at the end of each semester and I just need to kick my own butt and get going. At least I have set up where I want to go with the paper. I just need to get on with it.

I realize I’ve reached the bottom of the barrel when I mention weather here but I’m sick to death of windy days. It seems like for the last week it’s been windy and my poor chapped lips are tired of it.

Let’s see what else? We went to delux last night for dinner and I’m not interested in going back. The pluses are that draft beers are $2 on Mondays and the blue plates are a dollar less. The mac and cheese side dish was good. The design of the place was nice and the ceiling changes color! It’s hard to remember what the bar upstairs looked like that time I went there with the loud band, dim lighting and free flowing drinks and it was called Paradise Cafe (? I think. It’s hard to remember).

The minuses: was there actually truffle on the truffle fries? The fried chicken was the saltiest thing I’ve tasted in a long time. If I hardly touch fried chicken it means it sucks. Also, I’ve turned into an old lady but for the love of god will someone please stop having dining tables smack up against bars? If I’m with my old husband and my old friend then I don’t want to be rubbing asses with 20-somethings doing shots. Especially after I’ve eaten part of a shitty lump of fried chicken. It pisses me off. You damn kids get off my lawn.

This afternoon the better-half and I went to see the final show of Shadow Play at VCU. It was absolutely captivating and we were engaged the entire time. There were some laugh out loud moments and some more solemn ones. It was original and clever. All done without a word of dialogue. Kudos to the theatre students at VCU.

There’s a group of people at work who decided to have a Sushi Lunch Event! on Monday. I’m off next week and will have to miss it. Which stinks because I’ve been vocal lately to certain people that I’m amenable to hanging out and doing things within the organization. My own unit sucks the lifeforce from me so I’m looking for fun elsewhere. Anyway, with all the emails about sushi floating around I had to get a sampler from Fresh Market a little while ago. I just finished the last bit of wasabi and I love the way it burns. Yeah baby!

I’m hoping the better-half won’t see this post until after he decides to stop by the store and buy sushi for dinner tonight–hee.

As you can tell I’ve eaten lunch by myself today and that’s been great as the last two days have been a freaking nightmare about lunch so much so yesterday I said I’m not eating lunch. And that was freaking that. This whole let’s eat lunch together thing has taken on qualities that could be explored in an after school special. Scene: The girls at West Beverly must hang out together all the time and one day Brenda decides not to eat at the Peach Pit but at In-Out Burger. Bitchy comments fly and Brenda doesn’t get invited to go shopping. In the last five minutes of the show a reunion at the Pit brings everyone back together. Happily Ever After. Screen goes dark.

When you start looking up Johnny Paycheck lyrics you know you’ve gotten to a bad place at work, yet again. I’ve been doing some interviews with people I work with to find out what they think of our organization’s culture. I have a paper due at the end of the semester on organizational culture.

It’s nice to hear that some folks think we’re back on track and we’re ready to regain our footing. It’s also been nice to hear how the organization was before I got here. I was here about a year before things started going to hell so I don’t know much about how things were because I only experienced one good year. The last few have sucked with layoffs and uncertainty.

Yesterday I talked to the mirror image of my unit and what a different attitude they have. An interesting point came up that when they moved to our present location they immediately unpacked. There are people in my unit who have not unpacked. It’s been about a year. Doesn’t it say quite a bit that we still have packed boxes? I think my cultural analysis paper will be tough to write…I will have to strike a balance between being authentic and resisting the urge to call people out. My bias will have to be held in check.

In other news, I was asked by my professor to talk about my recent presentation and whether or not my partner did his fair share. I was honest but now feel guilty. I hate being in this position and I could have certainly declined to discuss it but as I do not want to work on any more large projects with him (I’ve done it 4 times already), I felt I needed to answer her questions. Still. The guilt.

Can’t it just be Friday, 4:45pm? Then I’ll be out of here for a week.

It’s in the 70s here and humid. I feel like I’m in Florida. Luckily a cold front will be moving through later today and then we’ll be sitting pretty with cool temperatures. The better-half purchased a whole chicken the other day and we’ll be roasting that tonight. It seems odd to be making such a warm and comforting meal when it’s balmy outside. I’m sure I’ll get over it when that chicken comes out of the oven.

This morning, to mix things up, we made an omelet with mushrooms, onions and some peppers that have been encased in olive oil. The peppers are a mix of jalapeno and habanero from our garden. The peppers aren’t hugely spicy–they’ve been roasted and as I said, sitting in a jar of olive oil so there’s a quiet heat to them. I need to practice my omelet making but this one was good. I think next time I’ll make two so they cook quicker than one giant one. Both Julia Child and James Beard say that omelets should cook in something like 30 seconds. Mine took longer and had a tiny crust.

I’m kind of bummed today because I don’t have class.

I’m tired of the BS and think I’m going to have to take Thanksgiving week off. It’s a lot of little things that are annoying the everliving out of me and I see nothing changing so I need some time off. Luckily we already have 2 1/2 days off already so I’ll only be giving up a few hours for a week’s worth of vacation. In fact, I’m wishing I had the nerve just to say I’m using up some of my sick leave and will see you in January.

Speaking of Thanksgiving, I’m not sure what we’re going to do. We’ve been invited to both sides of the family and herein is the rub: my father is still not talking to me (which is just fucking stupid) and the better-half has no desire to spend a huge amount of time with his extended family (could be because one of them owes him money for work he did and it could be that others are boorish).

Well, this is a rather whiny post isn’t it?

Speaking of whiny, I can hear some Bob Dylan in the background and I’m becoming irritated. Props to Bob and all, but his nasal whine in the background may as well be a pack of cats in heat.