Grateful Monday

Trackgrease and Roxy came by to visit this weekend.

This weekend my son Trackgrease and his partner made it up to visit. Since they had said they were coming by a couple of times before, it was nice that they actually made it and stayed with us and went to church with us, too.

Trackgrease has been making a living singing, and I have always liked the sound of his voice when he sings. So it was no big surprise to hear him singing well at church. What did surprise me was that he even sang the out the children—neither the words nor music are easily findable in the hymnal.

I really shouldn’t have been surprised because he has mentioned that he might like to become UU minister. I don’t think he quite gets it that he has to finish a bachelor’s degree before he can enter the seminary, but that’s OK. Its a good goal. Suna and I would both like to take classes there, too. Just for the helluvit.

After church we went to South Congress. It was my idea. I wanted to do something nice for Suna, but I wasn’t prepared for the press of that many people. By the time we headed back north, my nerves were already shot, but I was trying to hold on. Then I made a wrong turn and got trapped in a parking lot where nobody moved and I couldn’t turn around to get back free. This set up a full-fledged panic attack. This couldn’t have helped Suna, who was already jangled from a series of stresses she has already blogged about. Sigh.

So I am grateful for Suna not freaking out when I had a panic attack. And I am grateful for one of the last things Trackgrease said to me before he went back home. He said he was glad that he could still come stay with me and feel like my son. So am I.

Food for Thought: Valentine’s Day Edition

This Valentines cake looks delicious.

Photo source: Peggy’s Cake Decorating Ideas

Appetizer: What is your strongest childhood memory about Valentine’s Day?

I remember making cards and exchanging candy hearts in elementary school. By the time fifth grade rolled along, it didn’t mean anything because we bought boxes of cheap little cards and the school required us to give them to everyone in the class.

Soup: Who was your first crush?

Tammy Z. was a cute little redhead I met in first grade. She was the most beautiful girl I had known at the time. I think I had a crush on her because her name was Tammy, and I liked the song from the movie. I can still hear Debbie Reynolds singing it in my head.

Salad: Did your crush return the feelings?

We talked, so I guess that’s probably a yes for first grade.

Entré: Other than the massacre, what does Valentine’s Day make you think of?

Suna. I think school killed the spirit of Valentine’s Day for me. And she’s the first person I’ve known since elementary school to whom it matters. And who makes it matter to me. Still, I think every day should be Valentine’s Day.

Dessert: What are you going to do for your Valentine this year?

Last weekend when her ex had the boys, I took her out to a nice dinner at Z-Tejas, and we picked out some patio furniture for the new front patio. I spent much of Saturday putting it together. Hopefully, we will enjoy it for years has we have drinks—iced tea, beer, something stronger—with the neighbors and watch the neighborhood go by.

Update on Prospects

These pansies perked up after a rare rain

I mentioned last week that I was confident about the future in the face of diminishing opportunities. This week I have some news to reinforce that confidence.

First, I heard back on the initial interview for the extended contract. The recruiter said that they were impressed with my credentials and would fit in well with the existing team. That means I have passed the first hurdle. We’ll see how it goes from here.

Next, I had a one-on-one with my new boss on the Fruit Company contract. I like her. She seems to be a straight-shooter. She also mentioned that she isn’t happy with the current mix of rotational, contract, and dedicated staff. While acknowledging the difficulty of adding dedicated staff in this economy, she said that doing so is one of her top priorities.

So that’s where things stand as I wait in the dentist office. Hopefully, cleaner teeth will make everything seem even rosier—and thornless.

Patio Furniture

This is the new patio furniture that has been wet since I finished putting it together.

Suna and I celebrated Valentine’s Day early this year. We went to Z-Tejas, a restaurant that has some of the best food and deafening acoustics. Hopefully, the next time we go there, it will be warm enough to sit outside.

The other part of our Valentine’s Day celebration was to go to the Home Depot and buy some new patio furniture for our new patio. While we were deciding which set we wanted, we ran into the guy who built it for us. That was kind of a cool irony.

So I spent a good part of the weekend assembling the furniture. Even Ikea could learn something about packaging from Home Depot’s Hamilton Bay brand. Not only did they package all the tools required (as does Ikea), the shrink wrapped the nuts, bolts, washers, and spacers to cardboard backing that was labeled with the part reference from the assembly instructions. I was astounded.

This week, I am grateful for my special Valentine, Suna. Not to mention that I am also grateful for the new patio furniture and the patio to put it on. I’m looking forward to sitting out on the patio and sipping some cold beverages while getting to know the neighbors better.

Oh, and I almost forgot to mention that we got a healthy rain last night. It wasn’t enough to break the drought, but I appreciate every drop.

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10 February Update: Added the picture I didn’t get to take when I was putting the furniture together.

Spring Cleaning (of the Camera)

Beccano: just two years ago

Suna asked me to clean off the excess photos from the camera. Even with a 4GB card, we have to do that every couple of months.

Well, that’s never as easy as it sounds. First, I have to look at the pictures. Then I have to figure out what to do with them. Then I found out that Windows writes tags to the files to help search for them, so that meant I had to start looking at some of the older pictures.

One thing leads to another, and I found this shot of Beccano. I haven’t seen this little kid in a long time. He’s almost grown now.

Makes me wish there were more pictures of Trackgrease around. But we didn’t have digital cameras in those days, and we didn’t always remember to process the pictures we did take.

Does that mean I’m getting older, too? I hope not.

The Recession, RIFs, and Wow

I’ve wanted a camper van for a long time. This one looks fun, but not for a long trip.

Photo source: BBC

This week was a difficult week on the job front. Yes, I still have a job, but my days are numbered. More on that later; I’m going to stay chronological in this post, even though I don’t really believe in linear time.

The first thing that happened was that I was invited to interview for a job. That’s never a bad thing, and I was excited. The interview went well, and we all had a good time. Anytime you spend most of the interview laughing with the interviewers, it’s a good thing, whether or not you get the job.

The next morning, I called the recruiter to touch base. She still hasn’t heard anything, and it’s a bit premature for that interview. But she did tell me that the fire has gone out around one of my other irons. That regulatory body decided to move someone they already employed into a contract position rather than reduce headcount in one place and bring me on in another. I have to admit it makes accounting sense, even if I don’t like it.

Then the department where I’m currently contracting at the Fruit Company was reorged. My boss is now filling the vacancy I originally interviewed for. Given the length of time it takes them to make a decision an the current economy, my contract will be long over—I may even be retired—before they free up the funding to add another instructional designer.

The state of the economy causes me to worry a bit, but I’m still confident and hopeful. I heard a promising bit on the news. It seems most companies are taking their RIFs upfront this year, front-loading the job cuts to save money the whole year. That means many economists are expecting job losses to slow as the year progresses. They’re now talking about peak unemployment of less than 20%.

I may not be able to find another contract soon, but at least the one I’m on can only expire once. That’s something to look forward to.

Food for Thought #3

This chicken and broccoli casserole is called Chicken Divine. It looks divine, and I think I’ll try it some time.

Photo source: recipetips.com

Appetizer:What was the last song that got stuck in your head?

Honestly, I haven’t had a song get stuck in my head that I didn’t consciously put there in a while, so I’m having trouble answering my own stupid question. (Why did I pick this one when I wrote these a couple of weeks ago?) I’m going to go with Kris Kristofferson’s “ Who’s to Bless and Who’s to Blame?” It’s the last one I picked up a guitar and started singing for no apparent reason.

Soup:What does that song make you think of?

I think it’s about a man wrestling with belief versus disbelief, something I do constantly. If there is a God, why does the world suck? Or how much worse would it be without one? I want to play this song together with Greg Lake’s “ Closer to Believing.” If I can find or write a couple more, I’ll have a spiritual journey in music.

Salad:What is your favorite song in a language other than your native tongue?

That would be “ Lo Siento Mi Vida” by Linda Ronstadt, Kenny Edwards, and Gilbert Ronstadt. It was the first song I ever heard Linda sing in Spanish, and I keep it close to my heart after all these years.

Entré:If video killed the radio star, will the Internet kill Literature?

I believe it will certainly change the predominate forms of literature. Shorter forms will previal: poetry and short shorts. Short stories and novels may become rarities.

Another thing is that the predomince of video on the Internet seems to be part of a change in brain wiring. We seem to be shifting back to a more visual, less linear form of thought. For more on this, see The Alphabet versus the Goddess: The conflict between word and image.

Dessert:What was the last thing you read for the pleasure of reading?

I’m currently reading a compilation called Vampires, Wine, and Roses: Chilling tales of immortal pleasure, among other things. I thought it would be cheesy, but it’s turning out to have some really thoughtful selections. Who realized that Shakespeareused the language of vampirism to make the separation of Romeo and Juliet more poignant? I certainly didn’t recognize it until JR Stephenspointed it out.

If…

The BtVS Scoobie Gang (from the first or second season)

Photo source: Hulu

Jo derived these five questions from Evelyn McFarlane’s The Book of If: Questions for the Games of Life and Love. Somehow, I think five is the perfect number for these question things.

If you could program the perfect evening of television shows, which ones would you select and in what order?

I assume in this mystical place, we would magically have new episodes of the shows, not just reruns. So I’m including a couple that are no longer on the air.

6:30-7:00: Friends—This is the exception to my general dislike of sitcoms. Even though I didn’t really like any of the characters, I enjoyed their foibles and felt as if I knew this collection of twenty-somethings stuck in early adolescence.

7:00-8:00: House—I don’t know what I like about this show so much. It is formulaic and filled with really dislikable characters, but they somehow seem real, if somewhat emotionally arrested.

8:00-9:00: Buffy the Vampire Slayer—This is the best show ever. I actually like most of the characters, even the bad guys. It has horror, humor, and character development. I also liked that the strongest characters (emotionally) were the ones without special powers.

9:00-10:00: Fringe—This is the most Buffy-like show on TV today: great writing that puts realistic characters in totally bizarre situations. Again, a good mixture of horror, humor, and character.

If you had to name the one area of your life that you are the least self-disciplined in, what would it be?

I’m really not very self-disciplined, even though I work at it. There are so many areas I could cite.

But I’ll have to agree with Jo and choose eating. I just love to eat. I love most of the flavors and textures of food. And as with most of life, even the icky stuff has value.

If you could enact one law that applied only to your own family, what would it be?

See I don’t think you can legislate family. Although the family has its power structures, what makes a family work is how we negotiate within those structures.You can’t force people to respect each other or be nice to each other or even take responsibility for themselves or each other.

Once you apply a power structure to those things, they tend to shatter. Even if you attain compliance, that attainment is temporal and breeds resentment.

If you could relive any single family outing in your life, what would it be?

I think it would be the trip I took to North Carolina to meet The Prince and Flo. I really enjoyed the time we spent there. It was totally stress-free and the weather was awesome.

The trip back with Suna and Beccano was fun, too. Even though we were pushing to get home, we stopped to have fun and see some of the sights.

If you could eliminate one hereditary characteristic from your family, what would it be?

I wouldn’t. We are what we are. If you change anything about us, you change something that made us what we are and, therefore, who we are.

Songs of the Heart

I think this was a high C note. I love hearing Suna sing.

Photo by Beccano

I went back to church yesterday after having missed a couple of weeks with the creeping crud.

My voice still isn’t under control, so I didn’t sing along with the hymns as I usually would. My throat wakes up in a different place emery day. That makes finding the initial pitch very difficult. And since I have relative—some would say questionable—pitch, I have to find that first pitch to make sense of the melody or whichever part I sing.

But yesterday, my voice was almost back to normal—just a little wobbly. In Microsoft terms, trying to hit a note could yield unpredictable results.

I found myself standing between two really good singers, namely Suna and Saranda. Suna sings alto and Saranda, soprano. When we got to the third hymn, they each knew their respective parts perfectly. Add to that a decent arrangement of this tune, and I was transfixed.

I stood between them and listened to the interplay of their voices rendering the parts. It was so pretty that I forgot to try to sing until the last verse rolled around. While I didn’t do the tenor partjustice, I really enjoyed the parts that worked.

Suna wants to get a studio set up in the old office. I’m looking forward to doing so. One of the first projects I want to try is recording some of these simple hymns, with Suna and Saranda doing the leads.

That’s I’m what I am most grateful for this week: being surrounded bysuch lovely voices.

Super Bowl XLIII

Harrison is the latest football player to discredit the team for which he plays. Totally lacking in honor or sportsmanship, he is a disgrace to the game. Photo source: PSAMP

Suna and I just got back from a Super Bowl XLIII party at our friend Austin’s house. This was an exciting game—well, at least for the last quarter.

Arizona did a wonderful job of almost winning the game. They lost by only one point after both teams staged remarkable drives to take the lead. I’m surprised at how close the game was considering that the refs all appeared to be wearing Terrible Towels, and they had no problem throwing them if Arizona could be implied as a rule violation.

At the same time, James Harrison (#92) was penalized a half foot for assault and battery. He had one of the Arizona players down on all fours and proceeded to punch him in the back. When the Arizona player tried to extricate himself from this position, Harrison picked him up, threw him over backwards, and proceeded to punch him in the face. This assault had more than one person at the party calling for Harrison’s ejection from the game.

One Steelers fan even commented that Harrison shouldn’t be ejected; he should be arrested. Indeed, it wouldn’t have been Harrison’s first arrest for assault.

Seriously, this one should earn Harrison the Michael Vic Sportsmanship Award.

But, according to Suna, the high point of the game was Bruce Springsteen’s halftime performance. I thought the best part was Springsteen executing his trademarked knee slide into a stage-mounted camera. The look on his face as he extracted the camera from his crotch was hilarious.