Archive for January, 2016

Jan 31 2016

The Rush

Published by under Work

It’s 6:15 am. Do you know where your Suzy is?

She’s blasting down the highway in her Ramones-powered car, cursing the darkness and the blare of oncoming headlights equally. And hoping that the day’s marathon won’t be as bad or as long as the rest of the week’s.

I’m a slow learner. At least I left my book at home*, so I did learn something. No reading for you!

At this early hour, I had not only caffeinated and donned my faux adult disguise, but also cleaned out the litterbox twice, including one of Clyde’s patented DeathDumps(TM). It’s all about the glamor with me.

The point of these predawn endeavors was to get the mountain of work done to prepare for the annual fundraising event at work. It seemed that everything went wrong, from the computer system varying from barely working to not working to shut down, to the facilities guy ordering the wrong supplies I needed to create name tags and labels.

As I was sorting through donations one day, one of the doctors stopped by to observe that events are extremely inefficient fundraisers, since the return on one’s effort was so low. This was not news to me, though I can’t say I appreciated that remark at that particular point in time.

Every day, I thought I could get X number of things done, and every day I fell short of the mark, no matter how long I worked. Being the Little Suzy that Could was getting pretty old pretty fast. In the end, I logged about 55 hours of work and five bottles of wine in one week, and I did get it all done in time.

I’m trying not to think about next year’s event. Maybe I’ll forget how bad it was by the time it rolls around again. Or maybe I’ll be better at preparing for it. Or maybe we will come up with a more efficient way to raise money.

Well, Scarlett, if tomorrow is another day, next year is a whole year away.

*I often sit in my car and read on the rare occasions when I take a lunch break. No matter how unlikely it is that I will need it, I have an innate dislike for leaving the house without a book**, a tendency I share with Jessica. Once Megan and I picked her up and Megan asked if Jessica had a book with her, and she responded, “Really, Memmin, have you ever known me to be without a book?”

**Back when I used to travel, I was always amazed by the people who would get on a flight, especially a really long one, with nothing to read. And there’s always one person who falls asleep before takeoff and stays that way until landing.

A YEAR AGO: An all-girl road trip to the South Coast.

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Jan 27 2016

Adventures In Cooking

Published by under Calamity Suzy,Cooking

OK…Take Three!

It took me more than an hour and no less than three attempts to make mashed potatoes, a first (and hopefully, a last) for me.

I dared to schedule a slow cooker dinner on a wild and stormy day, and amazingly was able to merrily use electricity all day to make the following Sunday dinner:

Cider Pork Roast with Apple-Thyme Gravy

1 boneless pork shoulder roast (about 3 1/2 lbs.), tied
1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt, divided
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 1/2 cups apple cider
1/3 cup Calvados or other apple brandy
1 tablespoon plus 1 tsp. finely chopped fresh thyme leaves, divided
1 teaspoon pepper
4 Gala apples, peeled, cored, and sliced; divided
3 tablespoons butter, divided
1 tablespoon flour

1. Sprinkle pork with 1/2 tsp. salt, then brown in oil in a large frying pan over medium-high heat, turning as needed, 10 minutes. Transfer pork and pan juices to a 5- to 6-qt. slow-cooker. Add remaining 1 tsp. salt, the cider, Calvados, 1 tbsp. thyme, the pepper, and 1 sliced apple. Cover and cook until meat is very tender, about 4 hours on high or 7 hours on low.

2. Meanwhile, about 20 minutes before pork is done, heat 2 tbsp. butter in a large frying pan over medium heat. Add remaining 3 apples and cook, stirring frequently, until tender and light golden, about 10 minutes. Transfer to a bowl; tent with foil.

3. Transfer roast from slow-cooker to a platter and tent with foil. Strain slow-cooker juices and skim fat; set aside. Melt remaining 1 tbsp. butter in frying pan. Add flour; cook, whisking often, until golden and bubbling. Slowly whisk in juices and 1 tsp. thyme; cook until slightly thickened, 6 to 8 minutes. Transfer to a gravy boat.

4. Slice pork, scatter with reserved apples, and drizzle with gravy. Garnish with thyme sprigs and serve more gravy on the side.

I used the same pan I browned the pork in to sautee the apples and then to make the gravy (why waste the flavor?) and substituted regular brandy for Calvados.

Attempt One to make mashed potatoes came to an end when I smelled something burning. I knew I’d turned the slow cooker down to “keep warm”, so I lifted the lid on the potatoes only to discover that I had forgotten to add water.

I grabbed the pan, turned off the burner, and took the whole thing straight to the compost pile with the pan hissing in the rain.

Back in the house, I filled the burned pan with water and hoped for the best. I filled another pot with water before I even put the potatoes in it. Passing by to check on it progress sometime later, I lifted the pot lid only to discover that this time, I had forgotten to turn on the burner.

I am pleased to report that Take Three, with the three key ingredients of water AND potatoes AND fire was entirely successful.

I am going to be one scary old lady.

A YEAR AGO: A slightly more successful cooking venture, though not without its own adventures.

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Jan 23 2016

Coincidentally

I couldn’t wait for Megan to open her Christmas stocking. I was sure I had included the perfect present*: a gift certificate for getting her hair highlighted with the ever-wonderful Angelika. Her reaction, however, was not what I expected: she burst into peals of helpless laughter.

Me: ???

Megan: (Gasping) Open your stocking.

Inside my stocking was…a gift certificate for highlights with Angelika! With the added bonus of being drawn by Jessica.

We were both laughing. I love it that Angelika kept the secret and that we both gave each other what we really wanted.

I left work early one Friday to cash in my present – getting highlights takes about three hours – and as Angelika was washing the color off my hair, I heard a familiar voice.

Me: Richard? Is that you?

Him: Susan? Is that you?

We were both laughing. We had been on our date at the bar just the night before! Richard was getting his hair cut before his business trip and admired my shiny new highlights. Giggling, yet glamorous, I made my way through the rain to Monica’s new store. We were having fun chatting and I was trying to persuade myself that I did not need that fabulous orange handbag when Angelika came through the door! It was her first visit to Monica’s new shop, and she just loved the playful, yet peaceful atmosphere and the word of cuteness.

I had enjoyed my little staycation last month so much that I indulged in a rerun, staying at the little inn on the estuary, where I lounged in the bathtub watching the birds and feeling beautiful. It was the perfect end to a glamorous day.

A YEAR AGO: I got the hell job. Without even suspecting its hellishness. I would soon learn…

*Technically, we just give each other stockings, but there are occasional exceptions made.

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Jan 20 2016

The Office

Published by under Friends,Work

Hello from Absurd World, where the Wi-Fi at work hasn’t worked for over a month (wish I could say the same), despite the original estimate from the IT folks of two days. They finally got it sort of working this week, but its tenuous grasp fails a few feet from my office (and the CEO’s). There is no estimate for if or when it will work in the wilds of our work stations. Even though it used to, when my technophobe Old Boss had that office. I imagine New Boss will be less than impressed when she moves into it, especially since she lives on her iPhone.

I spent about a billion hours printing postcards last week for an upcoming fundraising event. In keeping with our technologically challenged theme, you can’t just load up the printer with postcards, enter the number you need, and say Go. It jams almost immediately, so you have to feed it a page at a time, like a particularly querulous baby. Bite-sized pieces. It makes it hard to do anything else, especially when you need to print 400 of them. And that was after I ordered 400 blank postcards from the facilities guy and got 1,000 index cards instead.

divider

Things are still in flux at work. The Old Boss has not finished emptying out her office of more than two decades’ worth of things and stuff to make way for the New Boss to move her two decades of things and stuff into it. The Old Boss has been coming by on the weekends to excavate, and her method seems to be shoveling paperwork from her office to mine. My desk is FEMA worthy on a Monday morning.

New Boss is still doing her old job in addition to her new job, so I am assisting with both and working on the transition, notifying the countless people who need to be notified and filling out seemingly endless forms and gracefully leaping through hoops of bureaucracy. On the bright side, I have not typed up a handwritten document all month. New Boss shares her Outlook calendar with me, so I know where she is and what she’s doing, and we even have a standing meeting on Monday morning to talk about what needs to be done that week. Hopefully she will find someone to replace her and we can get back on an even keel. It would be nice to have a year which is not so full of constant change.

divider

I ended a long day at work by meeting my former co-worker and current friend Richard at a charming oceanside inn’s bar, right in Hooterville. It’s a cozy place for a glass of wine on a rainy winter evening:

bar

We had a great time catching up, and I’m lucky I caught him when I did, because he is off to Mexico and France on business. He’s always going somewhere fabulous or just coming back from somewhere fabulous. Being with him is so fun and inspiring. We should do it more often.

A YEAR AGO: A family dinner.

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Jan 16 2016

Ode to an Engine Light

Published by under Bullshit,Car,Country Life,Family,Work

I just wouldn’t be Me if there wasn’t something wrong with my car.

I was driving to work one morning, listening to Bobbie Gentry* and being blinded by oncoming traffic as usual when I noticed the bright orange engine light blink to life on the console. This did not console me. I still think that they should be little dollar signs instead of engines, maybe Michelin style with $ indicating a routine repair and $$$$ indicating one you have to mortgage your house for, or possibly your soul, assuming you have one.

I texted my brother Jonathan and asked him if I could stop by his place on my way home from work to avail myself of his unpaid mechanic services, and he said yes. He recently put up the car port that used to house my beautiful old Mustang Josephine:

josephine

and when he did, he poured a concrete foundation which included a mechanic’s pit so he can work on the family cars in relative comfort. He used to lie in a ditch to do this, so it’s a big step up. The car port also houses a solar powered washer and dryer along with a body-sized freezer. Just in case.

Jonathan read the code and then looked it up while I petted his mini cat Scout. She is about 2/3 the size of a regulation cat, but her purr is twice as loud as most cats’ and her fur is twice as soft.

The code means that the engine is not getting hot enough. Apparently this is not as bad as having your engine do the opposite, but it will have to be addressed. Jonathan checked the coolant level and the hoses and it seems they are not the cause of the excess coolness. I was once again chastised for not keeping a better eye on the gauges “They aren’t there just to be pretty, Suz”) and got into further trouble when it was revealed that I had failed to procure a Chilton repair manual.

In my defense, I thought I had, but when I went to look for it, it turned out that what I thought was the manual for the current car was the one for its predecessor** and of no use at all. I ordered a new one, which should be here soon, and the considered opinion of my unpaid mechanic is that all it will probably cost to make the engine light go out (for now, anyway – I’m sure it will rear its ugly head agin sometime in the future) is a $30 thermostat for the car and a batch of my world-famous cheese biscuits for the mechanic.

*She was gorgeous and the poignant song I was listening to, “Ode to Billie Joe”, knocked the Beatles out of first place on the charts in 1967. You know your life isn’t going well when you’re listening to a lot of country music. Some of my favorite lines recently are: “Tearstains on my pillow/bottles in the trash/I’m a little bit long on sorrow and a little bit short on cash.”

****Even though I have only ever owned Fords. If they were good enough for Clyde Barrow, they are good enough for me. You can read Clyde’s (alleged) letter to Mr. Ford here. And many other fascinating missives. You’re welcome.

A YEAR AGO: Visiting the ever-fabulous Erica and Jessica.

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Jan 12 2016

Possibilities

Published by under Family

We are solidly in the part of the year where no cold water is required in the unheated shower. Just turn the hot water as far as it goes and hope for the best! Sometimes the floor is so cold that it feels wet to my bare feet, though it’s perfectly dry. Well, more or less. I usually remove a mushroom or two from the corners when I clean the bathroom. Doesn’t everyone?

But I shouldn’t complain compared to my sister, who took a week off to ferry Rob to various medical appointments. They drove to San Francisco and back in one day – around eight hours of driving and not a feat I would ever willingly attempt – to consult with a neurosurgeon about Rob’s ever crumbling spine and the side effects of its decline. Rob has had two surgeries to shore it up over the past few years. One was on an emergency basis – you know you’re in bad shape when they operate on you on Super Bowl Sunday – and the other wasn’t, but you can’t keep cutting a guy open and shoving his esophagus aside to root around in there indefinitely.

This was the surgeon’s verdict, though he added that if Rob found himself in an emergency situation, as he did the first time, surgery could be done. But it’s a last resort. He recommended, as the last surgeon did, that Rob quit smoking, which will be a challenge for someone who would smoke in his sleep if he could.

Later that week, they consulted a pain specialist in the county seat (a mere three hours of driving) and he had several ideas, including medication and possibly steroid injections, and Megan is confident that they will come up with a plan which will help. She speaks fluent Medical, but I can’t understand half of it, but it’s good to know that Rob isn’t facing immediate surgery and that there are options out there to help him deal with his pain. He’s so stoic. I would love it if he could at least be more comfortable.

A YEAR AGO: The many joys of Erica and Jessica, including Jessica’s plan for world domination. Don’t worry: she’ll be a benevolent ruler. And the world will be a sparklier place.

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Jan 09 2016

These Magic Moments

Published by under Cats,Country Life,Family,Friends

Good morning! It’s a rainy one, and I’m trying to ignore the wind chimes. Yellow Dog just walked by, on his endless quest for his old friend and playmate, Schatzi. I know how he feels. Part of me is still convinced I might, just might, find my Roscoe waiting for me when I get home from work, even though most of me knows it will never happen. My heart is slow in catching up with my head.

I arrived at work on Monday to find that an admirer had left me a beautiful orchid (“to celebrate your beautiful heart and spirit”) and that Monica had left me a beautiful Christmas present, which was revealed to be two exquisite wine glasses with a peacock feather pattern and a handmade rosemary scented soap:

IMG_2267

I was delighted and told her that she made my day. Monica replied that each day has a “perfect moment” and we should share them with each other, so we have been doing that ever since. Here are a couple of mine from this week:

My perfect moment today was an iridescent, emerald green hummingbird resting in a stray ray of golden afternoon sunshine. Just for a moment.

Crossing the Hooterville Bridge, the last wooden bridge left on historic Highway One, with an empty road ahead of me ending in a glimpe of pink sunset peeking between the clouds, with a skein of black birds wheeling overhead.

As I drove down the muddy driveway, I noticed the thinnest crescent of moon glowing in the sky with Venus glittering nearby. The sky was the unearthly enameled blue of Italian Renaissance paintings.

Yesterday it was the incredible Technicolor sky as I arrived at work:

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On my way home from work on Friday, I stopped in to say hello to my brother, in keeping with my New Year’s resolution. He was making soup and his mini cat Scout was curled up napping, though she deigned to be petted. She’s about 2/3 of regulation cat size and is super soft.

It was nice to catch up with Jonathan. He is plotting to get the grandfather clock at my house running again this year, and I’m hoping we will have dinner together soon. As I drove home, I thought how lucky I am to have such wonderful, inspiring people in my life.

A YEAR AGO: The madness of Covered California. You can’t make this up.

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Jan 03 2016

Powerless

Published by under Country Life,Weather

windchimes
Look Out!

I woke up this morning to the wind chimes singing a warning, that cheery harbinger of uncheery power outages to come. I put on the heat while I could and went back to bed, watching the wind toss the trees and rain around through the skylight and waiting for the inevitable.

Although the sole source of heat in the house burns propane, it needs electricity to make it blow the feeble breaths of warmth that reach about a two foot radius from the heater, completely ignoring most of the house, especially the bathroom. A power outage renders the heater a giant, useless plastic box. It’s beyond me why James installed that rather than a wood stove or fireplace when power outages happen every winter, sometimes for days at a time, in a place where the temperatures can (and do) dip below freezing overnight.

Of course, he’s the same guy who built a house without closets or insulation, where the light switches say NO when you turn them on, and devoted a whopping three feet to counter space in the kitchen, so I shouldn’t be surprised. You do a lot of drugs, Miller? Back in the hippie days?

The power went out as expected at about 10:30 in the morning, ruining my last day of freedom before the soul crushing five days a week grind starts up again tomorrow. It seems to be a universal truth that the more time you have off, the harder it is to go back to work, and this Monday will be Mondayer than usual after a long weekend and with the start of the new boss’ reign. I have never switched bosses while having the same job before. New year, new boss!

The new year, however, has the same old bad habit of power outages. The cold and silence are punctuated by the howling wind, tinkling chimes, and my landlord’s cacophonous generator, which usually starts up about .00010 seconds after the power goes out. People say the shortest measurable time is that between the light turning green and someone honking, but I beg to differ. I’m not sure if the generator racket is more nerve-wracking than the total lack of heat and light, or vice versa.

We are slated to have rain and storms all week, so I’d better get used to those wind chimes.

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Jan 01 2016

Shiny New Year

Published by under Cats,Country Life

2015
Goodbye, 2015

The last day of the old year and the first day of the new one both dawned bright and beautiful. I ended the year on an industrious note. First I applied expensive toxins to my remaining cats, earning the patented Glare of Death from Audrey and making Clyde cringe under the stairs, which made me cringe, both because I knew he was upset and because it reminded me of his lost brother Roscoe, who always slunk in and out of the room under the stairs.

I find it mystifying that the cats have fleas in the depths of winter, when you’d think the cold and rain would have eliminated them, but Audrey is scabby and crabby, so there are at least one or two, either in residence or in passing, since in keeping with her general intolerance of everything, she is spectacularly intolerant of fleas.

De-fleaing (or hoping to de-flea) the cats led to washing all the bedding (four fun-filled loads) and vacuuming, and while I was at it, I cleaned up my desk:

desk

so the house ended the year clean and shiny, ready for the shiny new year.

I headed to the Gro for a couple of items so I could make faux pho for dinner, stopping by my brother’s place on the way for the last hug of the year. The Ridge was white with frost, and the sun burning it off made a thin mist in the air, like smoke against the blue sky. Down at the store, I picked up a couple of late breaking Christmas cards and ran into our friend who made the epic family garden possible as well as the necessary groceries.

Last night, on the last night of the old year, Clyde cuddled next to me and the Evil Genius purred on my lap. All was forgiven. As I sipped local sparkling wine by the sparkling Christmas tree and indulged in the final season of “Downton Abbey”, I felt a spark of hope for the new year. May it be kinder and gentler than its predecessor.

Happy new year to all of you from all of us!

A YEAR AGO: A frosty new year.

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