Bizarro-land

Yesterday at work I went to an event. Remember how I cloaked it with hopefully non-searchable terms? Yeah. That event.

It was absolutely fantastic. I saw colleagues from my former job who greeted me with hugs and "I'm so glad you're back!" I caught up with them; I knew as many or more people there than the current person who will oversee my work, who accompanied me and five of the youth that we took there. So far REALLY so good with this experience, y'all!

There was one really, extremely crazy-odd situation though. As we seven (kids, me, boss) walked into the auditorium, there was this guy sitting in there, alone with his laptop. He looked at me. I looked at him. He seemed vaguely familiar and was STARING at me. As I typically do when I feel like I should know someone, I greeted him and introduced myself.

"Hello there! You look REALLY familiar. I'm Stewie McStewerson, and I work for NonProfit Organization here in State County."

"Stewie, It's Steve N."

My mind started racing. Who is Steve N.? Steve N? Is it my freshman year in high school boyfriend? I had heard he'd moved to my state to practice medicine. Was it the former development guy at Other NonProfit Organization? That guy was tall, too, and it would make sense for him to be here at this event. Or maybe it's that total asswipe from my freshman year of college. Could it be?

Suddenly it clicked. Steve N! I told all my companions, "Hey, y'all this is totally crazy! Steve N. is a friend of mine from college and I haven't seen him in years!"

Steve N. looked at me funny. Then it *truly* clicked. Steve N. was NOT a friend from college; he was a former boyfriend from when I first moved here from the northeast where I had been teaching high school. At the time he was in his first year of medical school. I don't remember what happened between us, but we clearly remained friends at the end of it all.

Steve and I had a lot of friends in common back then. I had met him through an extremely close friend from my hometown who had also gone to the same university as I did. She and I were roommates. After college I went to the northeast to teach, and she came south. I taught at a private boarding school; she taught through a nation-wide teaching program that brings recent college graduates into underserved populations. Rural areas. Urban inner-cities.

Steve and I exchanged cards and caught each other up on our lives. He's an M.D. (not surprisingly), and has specialized in adolescent medicine. He runs two low-cost clinics up in the mountains of my state, where he lives with his wife and 18 month old. We had lunch along with my boss, and talked about our shared interest in access to quality health care and health information for our youth. He reminded me of how my sister had gotten pretty angry with him one time for calling her place of work at that time a cult. (He was right, though)
Meeting up with him inspired me to touch base with those friends from that time of my life. They live all over. Atlanta, Los Angeles, and even my town. I made several emails and phone calls when I got home last night.

I still don't remember what went down with us. Steve N. made reference to when "we were trying to figure out what we were," but that still doesn't ring any bells with me. We laughed about my awkward memory, but I didn't let on just HOW much he'd escaped my mind.

It was a seriously crazy day. Fun, but crazy.

Calling all researchers and computer geeks!

That means YOU!

Marc writes via email:

Hola Beibi:

Saw this linked from Lifehacker.com to organizedhome and thought of your freezing question. (BTW, Lifehacker is on my "daily" link list.) Also, the GOE has blocked securetunnel so I can't get your blog any more (wah). Do your geek friends know of any more proxy sites?

(Geek is a good thing here, in case you wondered)

Can anyone help an expat out? I know you're up to the challenge. I miss Marc a lot.

En route

Well, I dropped almost $100 yesterday on lumber. I am the proud owner of six 10' by 12" untreated boards and two treated (cause that's all they had) 4"x4" posts for the inside corners.

Ideally I'd have gotten cedar or another rot-resistant wood to avoid the potential arsenic leaching of treated wood. Unfortunately the cost was prohibitive per board, plus the boards were one inch thick instead of two. If I had more personal resources (a truck, specifically), I might could have rounded up wood instead of buying it. It fits with my sensibilities more to re-use things. However, I had one trip to one place, and that was probably even pushing the limits of friendship! (Thank you, Charlie! Couldn't have done it withoutcha!)

The Plan is to create two 10'x4' beds, two feet high. I've enlisted the help of a friend to do the cutting and measuring and drilling together. I've located a circular saw and drill I'll be borrowing, and I hope to provide said friend with a good, home-cooked meal in exchange for his help. He's in graduate school, though, and time is tight. He also has his own wood project, so cross your fingers that he can help me out.

************
Compare [kom pa' re, in local lingo] is a large grocery store next door to my Big Lots. I almost didn't go in there yesterday after picking up some home essentials*, but then I noticed a local Latino music station had parked outside and was broadcasting live. That particular station knows where the action is, so I figured I'd better take a gander.

It's fantastic. I almost mean that in the supernatural sense as well as the more common usage. I felt like I had walked into Mexico. Instead of one aisle of "international" products, the whole store caters to the area's already large and still growing Latino population.

I felt almost guilty, given my preference for local foods, to be salivating over such exotic produce at such bargain prices. I bought a whole bag of tomatillos for $1.35, cilantro bunches 2/$1, a green pepper for about $.25, and a couple of green plantains for I don't remember how cheap. They have an incredible freezer section, and I can't imagine how much richer my life can be now that I have a source for chicken feet and necks.**

I went home and chopped up the tomatillos, cilantro, green pepper, a medium onion, 5 cloves of garlic and one frozen jalapeno. I added three chicken breasts, frozen, and a can of broth, and let it all cook overnight in the crock pot Marianne passed on to me a number of months ago.

I woke up several times last night with my stomach growling.


*stripy, Fruit of the Loom, hipster underpants, 4 for $3; retro orange, yellow, pink and red flowered shower curtain, $4; Ro-tel (warning: flash), $.49 per can; coffee, $1.50 (um, i hope it's at all palatable at that price).

**I know myself. I'd never buy the feet. I'd possibly buy the necks for stock.

1976 was a good year for cream of mushroom

My favorite cookbook is immune to current fads; it hearkens back to my childhood, and it's the first place I go when I want comfort food. It's also unintentionally hilarious, long out of print, and falling apart.

The contributors are familiar. When I leaf through the pages, the last names bring me back to classmates, former neighbors, local business owners and famous former residents.

Some highlights (and these are direct quotes).

Metric section
Don't be afraid of grams and liters!

Pheasant in a Clay Pot

Ham hocks 'N Beans
True soul food*

Grandmother's Stuffing
And Grandmother was from Greece!

Coq Au Riesling
White instead of red wine for a great classic dish

Chicken Breasts, Forgive me Chavez!**

*the recipe calls for Michigan navy beans, and most of the Junior League contributors come from my hometown, which is 96.99% white
**I don't understand the reference, and the recipe uses exactly 48 seedless white grapes

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Betty Ford's Contribution

Liver Deluxe (Serves 4)
1 lb. liver, sliced thin
2 cups brown gravy
Sprinkle of parsley
Dash of salt
Pepper
1 large onion, sliced thin
8 slices of bacon, fried crisp
1/2 cup flour
1 T butter

Sauté onion in butter. Dredge slices of liver in flour and brown each side. Pour gravy on liver and season with parsley, salt and pepper to taste. Simmer for 2 minutes and arrange on a serving platter. Place bacon on top of liver.

Wow.

Exhaustion

I am just absolutely wasted. Not in the alcohol sense in the least; I'm just physically wrenched.

Part of it for sure is the almost 50-hour week I worked this week (like running a 10K the first day you begin to work out!). Part of it is coming down from the rollercoaster of housemate drama, which is almost wrapped up. Part of it is having stayed up way too late last night.

The effect that this wearyness has had on me is that I am staying in tonight rather than being too terribly social. Sorry Jerrysan and friends...won't be making it to DorkFest after all.

Another result is that I began to cry an hour or so while plowing through "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time." I'm thinking it must have triggered the empathetic, must-cry switch, because I'm finding myself red-faced, puffy and snotty. From about 1/2 the way through to the end (I devoured the book...read it in maybe 2 hours), I had tears rolling down my cheeks, stinging my eyes and irritating my skin. It's even lasted beyond finishing the book; I occasionally have been bursting (actually not bursting. more like...melting) into tears this evening.

*******

On the garden front: I have begun 18 tomato seedlings--two kinds: one I can't remember, but is basically a big, red slicing tomato and then Indian Stripe, which is a lot like a Cherokee Purple. In addition, I've got 8 pepper seedlings (jalapeño and then frigitello, thanks Jamie), 9 basil and 9 more sorrel seedlings. I am concerned about the first batch of sorrel I've begun; I used some pretty old, ratty potting soil. So why not begin again, right? I'm hoping to transplant the first ones and see what happens, but I don't think it did it right the first time.

Did I mention the peas have begun to sprout outside? It's very exciting, yet I think I screwed up by not putting enough soil on the plot. There's really just whatever is on the ground already, not even dug up because of the mimosa roots, with a thin layer of compost spread on it.

I feel very lost in this gardening process, and strangely not all that invested. I kind of expect failure, in a way. Maybe that way I won't be disappointed.

Tomorrow I'm going to try to make the beds; Charlie has a truck and said he'd help me haul some lumber. I have no idea what I'm doing, but at least I'll have the boards. Note to self: find a day and a way to get the compost delivered. Yeesh!

Countdown!

I want SO BADLY to talk about this neat thing I'm doing for work. Let's see if I can scoot around possible search engine terms. Consider it a game!

I work with people 10-23 in general. Specifically the group I work with most often is 14-18. Those people and I are going on a trip lasting less than a day next week. We're going to the city to talk to some people who make lots of important decisions for the state.

Every so often, residents choose these people who make lots of decisions to work for them. One of the chosen people who is in the city making decisions has decided to throw out an idea, formally, that relates to the sector of ages of people that I work with. Currently, this age range that I work with can care for their body and mind in some specific ways that the people who caused them to come into being wouldn't necessarily like, were they to find out. They can't find out now, because the other people, the ones chosen to make decisions in the state's city, have until now realized that it is a bad idea to risk even worse problems.

So this one chosen guy put forth the suggestion that the state change that rule, allowing the people who caused my group and their cohort to come into being to know about private information about my group and their cohort.

The group and I are going to go talk to the chosen people about why that's a Bad. Idea.

So cool.

If you can't make head or tails of this post, email me for a translation and some links.

Wherein I learn

My good friend Marc is living in Ethiopia with his wife and child*, and I've been keeping up with his life via his blog. Over the last few weeks, his family and friends-oriented blog has turned into a hotbed of comments controversy.

Now, I knew absolutely nothing about Ethiopia before Marc moved there. Wait, strike that. I knew about injera (yum), tej (yum) and other foods I've eaten at local restaurants. Paradoxically, I also "knew" (as only a young American child in the 70s and 80s can) that there were "children starving in Ethiopia," and so we were urged to eat the food we were lucky enough to get. Even if it was SQUASH!**

So when Marc started writing in his blog, I found it fascinating. He's extremely well-traveled, and my experiences in other countries have been limited mostly to Europe. The differences between European and American cultures seem to me to be very subtle compared to what Marc is seeing.

So, here's the part that I'm finding so interesting***: Ethiopia has a very government-controlled media, and so it seems that blogging has been one of the only ways to get the word out. As one commenter over on the blog said, Ethiopia is like a Soviet propaganda machine. Skype doesn't work because of a government phone monopoly. Blogger is blocked, apparently to control what gets said against the current regime. There's an issue with freedom of the press, or rather, lack thereof.

I have to leave in 30 minutes for work, so I'll wrap this up succinctly. It looks like the Ministry of Information may have found Marc's blog, because there's this guy over there making some really random comments accusing Marc of government subversion. The same guy accused me of being a suicide bomber for Eritrea. Because of my WTF comments and questions over there though, I've had some interesting exchanges with people who follow Ethiopian politics.

Marc? Thanks...if it weren't for you I'd probably not have learned much about Ethiopia, its strengths and its weaknesses.

(Donning asbestos suit now, because any comment about Ethiopia seems to bring out some very strong opinions, and I've got thin skin for a flame war!)

*I never thought I'd link either of those words with Marc!

**Note to any Ethiopian readers: I'm admitting to ignorance of your country, here. I'm not saying that Ethiopia is bad. I apparently am saying, however, that the common perception of Ethiopia in the US in my childhood was that of starving children.

***Mind you, my understanding is rudimentary at best. I've had a couple of kind folks help me to figure out what's going on, but I'm still learning.