Relaxing isn't that easy

We were working on something together and other people were involved as well and things were not going smoothly once they were out of my hands. She told me about her difficulties and I decided to bypass the obstructions. It could cause me problems down the line but it was important to my boss to make sure her request was granted.

All of our contact was through emails and phone calls and when the plan was finally worked out, we arranged a meeting in my office.

She was attractive and engaging.

I told her why all the problems existed and she told me that she totally understood. I told her that my boss and myself were taking a risk in bypassing some of the system. She told me that there would be no problems.

Her request isn’t complicated but it does open the door to other people making the same or similar requests and we cannot accommodate everyone so usually we accommodate no one.

She placed a Yogi Kava Stress Relief tea bag on the desk from her bag as she rummaged for a pen and she said that she was using a lot of them. Once she was all set, she asked if I wanted the tea bag. On the envelope it states “Eases Tension and Promotes Relaxation.” I told her, “I’ll take it.”

Think, think, think

So that was the second time that I had left my keys in work this month.

I took the filing cabinet key off of the ring because I figure that I will forget to take my keys yet again.

Both times I had stayed late and was rushing to leave.

It is past midnight and I should be trying to sleep. Sleep is important. Sleep can help prevent death.

If I were a better blogger, I would add a link to that previous sentence pointing to some article siteing some medical study on the importance of sleep but I have never even claimed to be good blogger or even any kind of blogger at all.

Sleep is important; I know this and I have been trying to be more respectful of that but sometimes it gets in the way which is sometimes why I will wash dishes at two in the morning.

...

Sometimes, I will watch people in meetings and wonder if their job has made them crazy or if they were crazy to begin with. I will ask myself if his job has caused those nervous ticks or if he came with them. I will then wonder how much damage my job is doing to my own sanity.

...

In the scheme of things, her office is pretty high up there and she runs her office. I deal with her only occasionally.

She confides secret things in me and I wonder why. The secret things are not of a personal nature and the secrets are safely trusted to me but often they are things that I do not need to know.

Secrets have weight and secrets have substance.

I can tell you a secret and it will weigh less on me. You can hear a secret and it can weigh less on the person that told you the secret but it can also now weigh on you, it might even increase in weight if you add up what it weighs on the teller and the hearer, but you can also hear a secret which will weigh less on the teller and really have no weight on the hearer, so the secret actually loses weight. It all depends on your relationship to the secret.

Monday past

It is quieter without all of the school children. Places are not too crowded.

More customers are good for business but they interrupt my routine.

The train was more crowded than usual and some folks took the opportunity to demonstrate that the general public is mostly comprised of stupid people.

Ash Wednesday

It is Ash Wednesday. It is also school vacation. Downtown is three times as busy as it normally is; people of all ages are everywhere.

Thank God for yoga pants!

It is no secret what your ass looks like in yoga pants and showing all that you got is no accident.

I am the king maker

I am the king maker.

I am not the king.

And I actually only help the king to remain seated, so I am not even the king maker.

My philosophy is to be the number two guy. The number two guy has almost as much clout as the number one guy but the number two guy never has all of the problems of being number one. Nobody tries to overthrow the number two guy.

But today I am president, not vice president, not acting president not even president-elect.

President of my local labor union. It seems a little bit of a joke; an unfunny joke.

I looked to my left and to my right and then to both again and I saw nobody better and I sighed.

I feel that I am too reasonable for the job.

Today

So.

I am still here.

Just mostly quiet in the corner.

Things are busy so some aspects of my life have slowed down or have been put on hold.

Most of what I write are about observations and interactions. I am still observing and I am somewhat still interacting but it's different lately. I feel more removed.

There are two kittens in the house now and how many pictures of kittens have you seen in this space and what is as photogenic as a kitten?

I can tell you how many pictures you have missed; five, maybe six. That is all that exists from any of my lenses.

I just had trouble spelling lenses.

I read a long post from far away. I expected that it was going to take longer to read so I didn't bring other things to do at lunch so here I am drinking a black ice tea and typing.

The black ice tea, unsweetened, was obtained from Starbucks. My order was: grande black ice tea, unsweetened and with no water. I had learned the previous day, that you can order your ice tea without any added water. I had always noticed that they diluted their ice tea. I had assumed that they brew it extra strong so that they can add water to it so they do not have to keep brewing it through out the day.

The previous day a manager handed over my ice tea and said that it was without added water and we talked and I found out that you can get it without added water. It is extra strong but it you sip from it the ice will dilute it somewhat.

Or get it without extra water and then make yourself another cup of ice tea by dividing it with a cup of your own water.

Exciting stuff, huh?

Work has been stressful. I do not like having responsibilities that I do not have any authority over other then the big boss saying in a meeting that this is "your show" when everyone around the table has large titles and larger paychecks. I am not sure that I would listen to me if I were them but I consider them all somewhat friends so they make considerations for me.

It also helps that I usually know what I am doing.

I have decided to lose some weight mostly because some of my pants do not fit but also because I want to lose the weight. I am keeping mind of my calories.

I need new brown shoes. I wear a size ten.

I keep on trying to improve on basic beef stew but I usually fail. My best version adds browned potatoes finely diced which disappear into the broth to flavor and thicken it but it takes a fortune's worth of time to brown potatoes.

Adding bacon ruins both the stew and the bacon.

Stew is usually better the next day, just like chili.

I am trying to read more and it helps when the author has not written a boring story.

The new bartender will look you in the eye as if she is smitten with you. Well she does if you are me, I haven't really notice her do it to other people. It makes me uneasy.


There is no Little Italy in the City of Boston; it's the North End but those from out of town will say Little Italy because the North End has no meaning to them.

Here and there

It was cold in the kitchen on Tueday morning so I turned the oven on. It took the chill off.

I finished making my coffee and washing the dishes and then touched the off button on the front of the range. Normally the touch is followed by an electronic click and then the oven shuts off but there was no click and the oven did not shut off.

I believe I said,"Shit."

...

After work, part of the house seemed a little cool which is not uncommon on one of the coldest days of the season in an old and drafty house with tall ceilings. I turned on a fan to circulate the warmer air by the ceiling around to the rest of the room.

Later, when I returned to that part of the house, it was even colder.

I believe I said,"Fuck!"

...

I do not think that I will get my oven repaired; I will have it replaced.

I did get the heat working again.

...

We were warned about the interruption tha was to happen at 11:30AM.

We were not warned about the rant that was to follow the interruption.

The room is mostly full of knuckle daggers and mouth breathers.

They mistake having a big mouth with having courage.

Christmas Day

I ended up making a stew. I started out helping my mother make stew. I started helping because I was given a knife, an expensive knife, supposedly from Japan. It was a Christmas gift.

It's a very good knife. It is the kind of knife that makes you want to chop vegetables.

Once I found out that I was no longer helping but doing, I changed the recipe. That's the right of the cook. He how cooks gets to chose the ingredients.

More onions was the first change.

Christmas, open gifts, go onto the next day.

The youngest niece placd a clementine in front of me. I peeled it as I thought of someone else that has me peel thier clemtines.

Coffee

photos

Slow down

People are impatenient and stupid for the most part which usually makes me look like a genious because I will often take the time to think about a situation.

Coffee

So, I think I have finally found a way to make a very good cup of coffee at home. It is a big day.

Can not share

So, there are all sorts of fundraising activities going on where I work due to Can Share.

I am all for helping out my fellow man in need but I think Can Share is stupid. I am supposed to lug my cans of food to work so that someone else can lug them somewhere else. Other people think that this is stupid too so they raise money to buy food.

Sometimes, people hold bake sales to raise the money.

I think it is a lot to ask a stranger to trust the baking skills of another stranger in a non-professional setting but I guess folks do it.

I like to be a team player so I dropped by the table of baked goods. There were cookies, cakes, cupcakes, quick breads, store bought items and the like.

I asked for two cupcakes. I asked for two because the lowest bill I had in my pocket was a ten and nobody ever has the proper amount of change at these things so I tried to increase the total amount of my purchase.

The cupcake was red velvet in a foil cup liner. I peeled back the foil to find a paper cup liner. I sighed a little because I then doubted the baking skills of the person who baked the cupcakes because those paper cup liners are supposed to be removed before you fill the foil cup liners with cupcake mix. But those paper cup liners are actually that, paper cup liners so there is no harm in using them but they are redundant, it is like using two paper cup liners. One of the things that I like about the foil liners is that they often peel off easier and that gets ruined if you use a paper cup liner inside the foil cup liner.

I remove those paper liners and save them for another day when I don't want to use the foil liners.

If you google whether or not to remove the paper ones from inside the foil ones, you get a bunch of ignorant opinions. It seems to be quite a controversy.

But I just want to say, "Do not bake cakes for bake sales."Just do not do it. Nobody wants to buy a piece of cake at a bake sale. The cakes are always left. Haven't that been noticed yet.

I think bake sales are stupid, too. For the amount of effort and the cost of ingredients is often more than gets paid for your questionable baked items. How about I just hand you a twenty that you can toss into the till? That way I don't have to bake, you don't have to sell it and nobody has to throw it away at the end of the day.

Why don't you just hand my baked goods over to the homeless and cut out a bunch of middle men? I can bring in sandwiches.

The whole process is stupid.

I don't have much

These pictures are last first.

Pumpkin Pie

Gravy-ed

Not Gravy-ed

Steamy Mashed Potatoes

Biscuits Not Homemade

Turkey

Turkey

Pictures from a shopping trip to Whole Foods