Woah yeah, woah no!

Well.

Things began to pick up in late October, not just because of the glut of fall holidays (Halloween and Thanksgiving, my bi-fecta of awesome). The Election! Oh, the election. All of our hopes confirmed, the grand catharsis. The relief, the release of tension. The weight, almost literal, lifted. The realization that I'd felt so bad for so long and I didn't have to have that low simmer on anymore. Then, in early December, another switch flipped, and I was suddenly rushing into a new job, a new city, a new life. And, to paraphrase an album I like very much, everything that happened happened that day.

This is the short version, clearly. The long version starts on December 15 and doesn't stop until, well, not even now. On December 8 and 10, I interviewed on the phone. On December 13, I woke up in my own bed for what would be the last time for many weeks. On December 15 I interviewed in person. On December 17 I interviewed in person in New York City. On December 18, I flew almost all the way home for the winter holiday. On December 19 at 2 AM, I arrived at home in a rental carload of strangers from my cancelled final flight leg. On December 19 at 11 AM, I was offered and accepted a new job. On December 20th, I booked tickets to California for a new job work trip. On December 22, in my jammies and in front of the fireplace at my parents' house, I gave a complicated "three" weeks notice. On December 28, I flew back to Bostonland. I worked for My Now Former Big Corporate Employer for three days. I had a calm but bewildered New Year, portentious in every way: this, friends, is A Very New Year. January 1: officially on the payroll at My Moderately Sized Independent Employer. January 4: fly to California for "our" sales meeting, whereat I say things like "oh, I'm new. What day is it now? Yes, this is my second day on the job." January 10: fly home. January 12-16: my final week at My Now Former Big Corporate Employer. January 16: I take the bus to New York City, and I do not intend to leave without a lease; on Jan. 17, I have an apartment. On Jan. 19, I begin training for my new job with my new boss, who comes up to Bostonland. On Jan. 23, I rent a truck. On Jan. 24, I wake up at "home" and head for "home": we load the truck with about 1/3 of the Rocket Household possessions and move, at least a little, to New York. On Jan. 26, I start my new job, just over one month from sitting in front of the fireplace with my mom and dad and talking about how truly insane the next four weeks would have to be.

I've been working for three weeks, and I work from about 8 in the morning to around midnight. This is exceptional and will not be the norm. But, as I've proven over and over in the past two months, I am the kind of lady who Does What Has To Be Done. The rest of the Rocket Household and attendant possessions arrive Feb. 28 in a second rented truck.

So you'll understand, dear reader, if I have no idea what day it is.

Except that it's Valentine's Day. I am drinking Pinot Noir and listening to Lou Reed. Happy Valentine's Day!

Cold creeping in

Saturday night saw the first "killing frost" of the year in Bostonland, with Sunday clear and cold. Monday much the same, especially in the morning. Soup weather. This was dinner tonight, thrown together with my usual approach. I have a pressure cooker, a stovetop machine I highly recommend, and that makes this a 20 minute affair, no lie.

Velvet Potato & Cauliflower Soup with Roasted Garlic
serves two for dinner with planovers; certainly serves four for dinner with a salad or sammich
~1 TB olive oil + 1 TB butter (omit for vegans)
~medium onion, diced
~2 cloves raw garlic, smashed and roughly chopped
~3 medium white potatoes, peeled and cut into 1" dice or so
~small head of cauliflower, florets and stems, cut into medium chunks
~5-6 c. water
~vegetable bullion cube
~1/8 tsp. dried thyme
~white pepper
~salt to taste
~1 large head of roasted garlic*
~chopped chives for garnish, optional

Heat oil (and melt butter) in the bottom of your pressure cooker or soup pot. Add diced onions and cook over medium-low until very soft and translucent. Throw in raw garlic, potatoes, and cauliflower, and toss to coat in fat. Add thyme, pepper, bullion cube, and water, and...

a. ...lock the pressure cooker down. Crank the heat to high and let it be until the vent releases a strong stream of steam, then turn down to medium-low. Ensure that a modest, quiet stream of steam continues to issue from the vent and hold at pressure for 5-7 minutes. Then, remove from heat and loose the steam release valve. When all pressure is released, crack open the cooker and proceed to the next step.
b. ...bring to a boil over high heat. Then, reduce to a simmer and simmer until vegetables are completely soft, however long that takes in a soup pot. Proceed to the next step.

Remove all cloves from the roasted head of garlic and add to the hot pot, stirring in. Then, puree soup until completely smooth in batches in a blender (I have not graduated to an immersion blender, no). Return soup to the cooker/pot and bring back to steaming hot. Serve with crusty bread and a late season salad of spinach, beets, carrot, and apple.

*What, you don't just roast a ton of garlic on the weekends in the fall? That's odd. Here's how: lay a head of garlic on its side--still in its paper--and cut off the tops of all/most of the cloves, setting this cap of cloves aside. Repeat with two other heads. Place opened heads, roots down, in any shallow oven-proof receptacle (I use a glass pie dish). Drizzle slowly and liberally with olive oil, letting oil permeate and soak in. Sprinkle with salt, dried thyme, dried rosemary, black pepper. Place clove caps back on and drizzle those tops with more olive oil. Cover the receptacle with foil, tightly crimped shut at the edges. Roast at 375 degrees until the heads of garlic yield to light pressure on their sides and the cloves are caramel-colored, about 40 minutes give or take.

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I didn't mean for this to become a food blog, honest. What I'm not telling you, here, is The Disaster of the Spaetzle. Let us never speak of it again.

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Halloween is coming up. It's pretty much my favorite holiday, though in recent years I've been disappointed in my observation thereof. I am at fault entirely on this, because I have failed to actually live in Boston since we moved here: I've failed to make friends, I've declined to learn about the social life, I don't know anything about clubs, groups, venues, events, etc. So it comes Halloween and I experience a little regret. Why didn't I make a life here, so I could celebrate my favorite holiday with friends? Why wasn't I able to do like I did in Chicago, and get through the first, difficult months of reaching out and building a social circle? And there's the answer: I already did that; I built a life in Chicago and that's where my life was. And also: Boston's only been a stopover for me, drawing even now to its close and taking any shame I feel for being aloof and unsocial with it. Next stop, New York City, which is something I can say on the record now that I've made the announcement to my uppers at work. Shuh-BOOM.

14 June

Today, we are 29. This is the "pushing 30" year, the one about which many people are giving me that look. That look that implies that somehow this is the last good year.

I hate that look.

They're wrong, of course. I'm really excited about getting older; my grey hair is coming in quite evenly; I'm in the best shape of my life; my parents are still alive. I love my career, even though I hate my current job, and I have high hopes for the next step, which could be here even before the calendar year closes. I love my friends, even though I live near so few of them right now. I have a comfortable, small, lived-in apartment with a well-edited collection of books that only just fill the shelves and homemade art on the walls. I like my neighborhood even if I don't like my city. I do what I want, mostly, and am looking forward to the next thing.

Not too shabby, I must say.

HaLOLween

Dig my costume, worn at work today:


HiLARious.


Happy Halloween, all y'all weenies. I sure do miss my friends.

Today was my birthday, and it's been quite a week.

I received three birthday cards, each one featuring a cat in a state of either whimsy or affection. All senders pointed out the similarity between the cat on the card and my personal cat. I thought, whose freaking birthday is this, anyway? Mine or his?

Happy birthday to me, y'all, ME ME ME.

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My series of unfortunate mornings began plainly enough: unexplained 20 minute transit delay on Monday. We sat on the bridge right before Charles MGH for some time. On Tuesday, I thought I'd save a few minutes by hopping on the bus--turning a 10 minute walk into a 3 minute ride. But traffic turned my 10 minute walk into 15 minutes of going nowhere. On my train car, the doors stopped working, which lead to 15 minutes of futzing at Harvard before they emptied my car into the adjoining and moved us along (and I'd even had a seat too...). On Wednesday, I thought, "I'm going to get up in plenty of time to take a shower, really think about what I'm going to put on, eat breakfast, and make it to work on time, finally." Instead, as I sliced the bagel that I'd purchased at the farmer's market the previous afternoon, I sliced open my left index finger. Even as I did it I realized my stupidity--bagel slicing! The number one home kitchen injury! And me with six years of bagel-inclusive food service work! I screamed silently in the kitchen, bagel cast to the floor and bloody knife askew on the block. Then I ran to the bathroom, dripping blood--finger cuts bleed a lot and this one was not deep but definitely open. Once I'd taken the edge off the throb with cold water, I slapped a pantyliner on it and went looking for the gauze and tape. Which I found, right where it should be. My cut is now knitting together from the bottom up, from the little comma at the bottom of the slice created by the serration of my bread knife.

For my birthday, all I really wanted was to not oversleep, not get on a dumb bus, catch a train that went straight to my stop without breaking, and not cause myself injury. Everything went swell.

The actual day of my birth was a Thursday, moreover. My dad and I hashed this out over the phone this morning, with the last of the juice my mobile had (who lets their phone run down on their birthday? Me.). I don't recall what Thursday's child figuratively is, but it is not meek and mild. Is it swarthy and busy? Meticulous and stingy? Bad with names? Shouty?

I am many things on many days.

Deck the Halls. DECK THEM!

Faithful readers may recall my previous tales of the types of lawn decorations to which one might be subjected in the suburbs.

Well.

The ghosts came down not two days after Halloween and that same morning, though I was not awake to watch, a large and whimsical inflatable turkey took their place. It took me a day and a half to notice that the thing I sighted from the front window was not still the ghosts and Tigger-vampire. The turkey was up until the weekend after the holiday. We had an empty front lawn until three days ago. Now, when I mused that Christmas might be our landlords' holiday, I had no idea I'd be this right. I now live in a house that proudly displays all of the following, in plushly inflated and glowing nylon and from L to R as one stands on the sidewalk facing the house: a large polar bear in a night cap; a small holiday sleigh piloted by Santa; a (real rotating) carousel with whimsical riders; another festive Tigger and Pooh Bear combo; a second Santa popping from a present (two Santas? Doesn't it freak the children?); a family of snowpersons; and, at the center of it all and blocking my view of the lights across the street, a 15-ft tall snowman (height includes Lincoln-like stovepipe hat, natch...) clutching something that looks like a baseball bat in his airily muscular arms.

I don't think "fa la la la la" when I see a 15-ft snowman clutching what looks like a baseball bat outside my front window; I think, what is that snowman doing with that baseball bat, and is he on my side?

The decorating holidays are weighted to the autumn and winter. It's all down hill from here.

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Happy birthday to my Mom, as of yesterday!

November One

This year's Halloween saw me NOT dressing up in any of the following rejected costume concepts (in no particular order):

1. Sexy Anne Frank. This was just...wrong, somehow.

2. Posing self perfectly still at the bottom of my building's stairs with blood and bruises and a broken high heeled shoe as "the woman who took a bad fall down the stairs of her apartment building." Even though this has the added benefit of being part of the scaaaaary Halloween decorations of our two-flat, it was rejected immediately by my sig. o. as well as the panel of nutrition students against whom I tested it as OVER THE LINE.

3. Valerie Solanis. This was a very strong contender, but I didn't wish to be seen as jumping on the renewed Andy Warhol bandwagon on this, its latest swing through the zeitgeist, no matter how much I myself--unrelated to the current rise in his mass cultural stock but fueled by the recent PBS documentary that is part of the rise--am really re/discovering Andy Warhol just now.

4. Nora Pumpkinhands. A pumpkin blight this year (as well as inherent size restrictions of pumpkins themselves) made finding ten similarly sized, small pumpkins to fit on my fingers very difficult. Also, this idea was dumb and would prevent the hoisting of Cold Ones at various collegiate parties to which I had initially planned on, ehm, inviting myself.

5. Columbia. Because I never did finish sequining, by hand, that entire damned jacket.

6. Maude Lebowski. Curse my failure to hit up "Wigs and Plus" on Milwaukee in Chicago before we moved!

It was an uneventful Halloween. I hope to find candy on clearance sometime today or tomorrow.

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Monday and Tuesday saw me heading to the southern exurb of Canton to work for a local produce organization/distributor, packing apples to send out to their big money donors. The pitch: money, lunch provided, and practically all the apples I could cart off. I took a half bushel each day; the check is on its way to me, via mail; and I got out of the house for a few days. A nice bit of toil for some very nice people.

The best part of all? Doing good work and knocking people back on their asses with my effectiveness. That's a great sadness for me, in this extended unemployment: that my ability to totally wow an employer is sitting stagnant. I haven't even had a real, official, for-an-open-position job interview so I haven't been able to really shine on the job market. It's hard to get through the door, even if I know I'd really stack up well against other applicants once I got through.

I registered with a temp agency late last week. Given the two-day job this week and some more freelancing for my former position, I haven't been in a position to call up and ask what they have for me on a given morning. Tomorrow, I'll call. This is my first temping experience. I don't really know what to expect, but perhaps I'll be working.

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Last week I sold some camping equipment for $40, thereby doubling my liquid assets. I didn't pay any bills in October--rent, credit card bills from grocery store trips, power bill, cell phone bill--and I can't pay any in November. I am entering forbearance on both my student loans. I am borrowing money from my parents to pay for my prescriptions last month, this month, next month. As I predicted, not working by November first has indeed put my ass in a veritable sling, financially.

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I'm profoundly unhappy right now, for all the reasons I've already addressed. My thought that this move would be a good (if not a not bad) career choice is being tested. The longer I can't find work in my field, the less time I'll have at a resume-building job before I leave Boston (at roughly the speed of sound...listen, if you will, for my sonic boom) in mid to late 2009. The less rich a resume I'm able to wrangle out of this whole experience (which is not yet a true fiasco, despite the growing feeling that I'm in some sort of hard luck urban comedy; did I mention that last week I got hit by a car whilst biking the two miles home from the grocery store in the next town over? Well, I did, by a white SUV that dinged off my right pannier as someone in the car screamed and then, then, the Bastard. Drove. Off.), the less strong of a candidate I'll be for my next job search.

I've put in only for jobs I feel qualified for--that my skills fit at least in part--because I don't feel like approaching a company for every offering is a good strategy. For more than one of these positions, I've felt I am a very compelling candidate, with skills and experience that make me worth calling back. For none have I been contacted for more information, interview, or references. Nothing nothing nothing, even when I contact friends of friends and associates of coworkers. Nothing.

Chin up and all that bullshit.

That is all.