THE GOOD NEWS...
Thoughts from the Old Stomping Grounds:
The good news is that Thanksgiving break starts Saturday afternoon, and that I can skip work next week to pretend I'm working on the Goat's schedule; the bad news is that the school has a bang-up Thanksgiving dinner as a late lunch on Saturday. That's not bad news on its own, but since we are having Thanksgiving itself at my mother's, and going to the Goat's nearest sister the day after, and coming back to a dinner given by one of the Goat's new colleagues for some visiting friends from the West Coast [from whence he came], that makes four turkey dinners in one week, if my count is keeping pace with events. I love turkey, but even my eyes may begin to glaze over at some point...The good news is that I have a conscience; the bad news is that after several weeks of letting my ninety-odd year old hostess cook me delicious dinners two nights a week, I decided I had to do some of the cooking myself. Ever have one of those days when nothing goes quite right? What I should have done was stop work and concentrate just on the meal, but I was bouncing back and forth between meal prep and my homework for next week's load, and I got rather scattered. Having overdone the last chicken I roasted for the Goat, which I wound up christening "Chicken Vesuvius" because of the non-Cajun blackening of the poor bird, I was careful to avoid that mistake this time, and wound up serving this one just one degree north of Not Quite Done.
Post-game advice from the former chef: I didn't have the oven turned up high enough [or maybe I wasn't high enough] and tried to cook the potatoes with the chicken rather than on a rack above it... So the chicken and some of the potatoes were just barely done, and the burner I thought I had the zucchini cooking on turned out not to be working, so by the time they were done, the chicken and potatoes were almost cold. And the gravy was lumpy. One of the things I really used to pride myself on, back in the old days when I actually cooked all the time [read: before kids and a better cook in the house] was not having any trouble with gravy or piecrust, or any of those supposedly fussy things.
Well, those days are gone...
Anyway, my grandmother was very nice about it, and insisted on cleaning up the kitchen after me the way I insist on cleaning up after she cooks, which also felt a little weird. A cousin is coming to stay with her next week, and I can at least tell myself that I gave her a leg up in getting food ready for him. And the zucchini were perfect, although probably not quite cooked enough for her...
I think the computer I use at my job here has some very peculiar illness, if not a virus per se, and it just decides to give up every once in a while, slows down, and won't let me get anything done. Our tech staff is largely elsewhere getting a new office up and running, and the guy they have holding down the fort is more of a paperweight than anything else. So I just try to figure out what I can to give it a swift kick in the ass. It's not like I can kick back and read or play solitaire while it gets its act together: that would not make a good impression on one's office-mates. Or concubiclists, or concubines, or whatever one calls those people one is piled on top of, always smiles at and never really has anything to say to. Since I am in in on a mail-room level on this job, nobody knows how to handle me, and I'm not about to start spending lunch or coffee break laying out my former career, or how overqualified I am for the work. That is not the way to win friends and influence people--or at least, I have always hated it when other people did it to me...
...and I need the work.
I have had the very odd experience this week of running into people I thought were my friends, only to get a distant, if friendly, response from them to my rush of joy at seeing them. Is it because I'm a faggot now, and no longer quite as acceptable as I used to be? Was it always a friendship of circumstances rather than connection? I don't know what it is, but it leaves me feeling that I didn't know them as well as I thought I did.
On the other hand, I had dinner last week with my best friend from play-group and kindergarten, whose mother still lives in the area, if you can call the last stages of dementia "in" anywhere, and it was as if he and I hadn't been away from each other for long at all. It's been years. I guess I shouldn't expect the people I like to feel the same way about me. I seem to remember someone once saying that 90% of the love in the world was unreciprocated, so we should appreciate it when we find some that is. That love is the one that keeps the world going 'round...
I am really looking forward to seeing the Goat tomorrow, especially tomorrow evening, though it sounds like we won't be able to move after our Late Lunch, judging from tales of past repasts. And here we are, back where we started:
It's going to be a long week.
Hang in there, guys.
Turkey helps...
C
Post-game advice from the former chef: I didn't have the oven turned up high enough [or maybe I wasn't high enough] and tried to cook the potatoes with the chicken rather than on a rack above it... So the chicken and some of the potatoes were just barely done, and the burner I thought I had the zucchini cooking on turned out not to be working, so by the time they were done, the chicken and potatoes were almost cold. And the gravy was lumpy. One of the things I really used to pride myself on, back in the old days when I actually cooked all the time [read: before kids and a better cook in the house] was not having any trouble with gravy or piecrust, or any of those supposedly fussy things.Well, those days are gone...
Anyway, my grandmother was very nice about it, and insisted on cleaning up the kitchen after me the way I insist on cleaning up after she cooks, which also felt a little weird. A cousin is coming to stay with her next week, and I can at least tell myself that I gave her a leg up in getting food ready for him. And the zucchini were perfect, although probably not quite cooked enough for her...
I think the computer I use at my job here has some very peculiar illness, if not a virus per se, and it just decides to give up every once in a while, slows down, and won't let me get anything done. Our tech staff is largely elsewhere getting a new office up and running, and the guy they have holding down the fort is more of a paperweight than anything else. So I just try to figure out what I can to give it a swift kick in the ass. It's not like I can kick back and read or play solitaire while it gets its act together: that would not make a good impression on one's office-mates. Or concubiclists, or concubines, or whatever one calls those people one is piled on top of, always smiles at and never really has anything to say to. Since I am in in on a mail-room level on this job, nobody knows how to handle me, and I'm not about to start spending lunch or coffee break laying out my former career, or how overqualified I am for the work. That is not the way to win friends and influence people--or at least, I have always hated it when other people did it to me......and I need the work.
I have had the very odd experience this week of running into people I thought were my friends, only to get a distant, if friendly, response from them to my rush of joy at seeing them. Is it because I'm a faggot now, and no longer quite as acceptable as I used to be? Was it always a friendship of circumstances rather than connection? I don't know what it is, but it leaves me feeling that I didn't know them as well as I thought I did.
On the other hand, I had dinner last week with my best friend from play-group and kindergarten, whose mother still lives in the area, if you can call the last stages of dementia "in" anywhere, and it was as if he and I hadn't been away from each other for long at all. It's been years. I guess I shouldn't expect the people I like to feel the same way about me. I seem to remember someone once saying that 90% of the love in the world was unreciprocated, so we should appreciate it when we find some that is. That love is the one that keeps the world going 'round...I am really looking forward to seeing the Goat tomorrow, especially tomorrow evening, though it sounds like we won't be able to move after our Late Lunch, judging from tales of past repasts. And here we are, back where we started:
It's going to be a long week.
Hang in there, guys.
Turkey helps...
C
No comments:
Post a Comment