Monthly Archives: August 2006

misjudging

Number of hours by which I misjudged my departure from work (so far): 3 and counting.

Number of thunderstorms that have rolled through while I sit all alone on the 5th Floor of work: 3, and counting.

at least there is some symmetry in the universe.

edited to add: this is what one looks like after leaving work at 4:45 and returning home to dash through the rain and climb into bed before ones brain catches up from the job and starts to ruminate on all the camping packing that must occur before 12:30 PM the next day.

5AM me

More of that vacation for which I am working so hard

I’m at work late b/c I’m going on vacation tomorrow again. Since my semi-promotion with associated massive increase of responsibility and introduction of a new and steeper learning curve, I’ve been kind of more stressed about going out on vacation than before. Pros: end up working lots later than usual, and I comp that overtime as vacation days. Cons: end up working lots later than usual, occasionally calling into work from the beach, and planning to go to starbucks while at assateague to take advantage of wifi and make sure all is quiet on the western front.

Anyway, I’d like to point out that my very talented friend jesse has posted some actual real swear to god knife skills to his blog. This is very important: at least 3 times this summer I’ve been chopping lazily with the biggest baddest knife I could find and have narrowly avoided losing a digit. Every single time I’ve lost instead a big old chunk of fingernail (luckily there were nails long enough to cut off) and I’ve had to stop the cooking to find the nail and remove it lest I poison someone, or worse, slash the inside of their throat. So I’m all about the knife skills these days. Then maybe people won’t be so scared to come over for dinner.

csa week 10

2006CSAwk10

corn, beans, eggplant, tomatoes, cubanelle peppers, green peppers, hot peppers, shallots?, cabbage, sunflowers! and I just ate all my cabbage! and now I have more! crap!

leftovers

week 7: green pepper
week 8: potatoes, beets, radishes, hot peppers, chard, thai eggplant
week 9: cubanelle peppers, white and purple eggplant, potatoes, kohlrabi stems?

I had to toss the beans from weeks 6 and 7. And I didn’t use all the mint, but I did use some. I am going camping next week so I’ll try to do that feta/cubanelle pepper spread again, and will make baba ganoush, and might do something with the cabbage. or might not, that stuff will keep! and I’ll bring all my tomatoes with me (at kelly’s request), as well as all radishes and green peppers. and then I’ll only have a little bit of stuff left!

example: why I don’t think “feminist” is a dirty word

a friend of mine reminded me about feministing.com yesterday, and I found a link to a horrible forbes article called, charmingly, “Don’t Marry Career Women.” I should have posted about it yesterday when it was live, but it was just too squalid. Apparently forbes caught on, and they yanked the very horribly funny slideshow illustrating just WHY you shouldn’t marry a careerist. I found the list (and some quotes and smart commentary) at feministe. the reasons are:

1. You are less likely to get married to her.
2. If you do marry, you are more likely to get divorced.
3. She is more likely to cheat on you
4. You are much less likely to have kids.
5. If you do have kids, your wife is more likely to be unhappy.
6. Your house will be dirtier.
7. You’ll be unhappy if she makes more than you.
8. She will be unhappy if she makes more than you.
9. You are more likely to fall ill.

the original photos from the goofy slideshow are here, if you’d like to read along. my favorites: the cheating, and the cheetos. edited to add: brilliant sans-photos captures of the original slideshow, so you can see the amazingly high-brow text.

Now, doesn’t this read just like a 1950s pamphlet? Some of them are ridiculous, like #3 (obviously contact with men who are not married to you leads directly to cheating) and #9 (the rationale for this one is that women are the ones who monitor their husbands health, make drs appts, etc., and without that MOTHERING it’s easier for the masculine health to suffer). What’s really horrifying, though, is that regardless of how weird and messed up the author is, at least one other person, probably 3 or 4, thought that this was an appropriate article for forbes to print. you know, forbes? the magazine for businessPEOPLE? the one that profiles women CEOs? the one that lists the best companies for women to work for? totally bizarre.

So today the article has been watered down to appear as a point-counterpoint piece and is here. there are some vile message boards here for readers to discuss and that are full of hate and reactionaries.

And just to emphasize how amazingly bad this whole thing is, the article originally appeared in the Forbes careers and leadership section. because, you know, only men are leaders. And honestly, some of the assumptions about men that are required to suspend disbelief and make this point are very insulting to men, too.

this whole fiasco is a sterling example of why feminism is still relevant. As long as there are people out there who think, honestly, that this is the sort of thing that is appropriate to introduce into the public discussion through a heretofore respected publication, well! Obviously we have not reached equality, and even more obviously, we have an incredibly long way to go.

edited again: lest we think the author is a rational and logical thinker, another article he wrote for forbes.com called the economics of prostitution has been mirrored here. and also, turns out dude is the executive editor of news for forbes.com, so maybe there weren’t any checks on his writing. however, you’d think SOMEONE would have caught on that he doesn’t really seem to have a healthy concept of marriage or of women.

5K

Michelle and I are planning to run the koman 5K for breast cancer. As it’s a fundraiser (don’t worry, y’all will see an email soon enough, and if I don’t know you and you want to donate, I guess leave a comment?) I decided to send an email to my entire office. 2 locations. everyone @ new jersey, actually. I DID ask a colleague (new favorite word!) if it was inappropriate and he said not (exact response: “I don’t care!”) so I went ahead and sent it out.

anyway, the blogworthy part of this exciting story occurred when one of my coworkers stopped by and asked if I’ve been running. I wasn’t sure if he’d seen my inappropriate solicitation for donations, but turns out he had, and was just stopping by to say that yeah, it LOOKED like I’ve been running, because I look great. Well! I look great! If I’d known running was such an overall positive experience, maybe I would have started doing it a long time ago! ha!

(and for the record, this coworker is a gracious family man of an engineer. it was very nice of him to say.)

ancient history

have *almost* finished uploading all of my old journal posts to wordpress. I just have to fix a couple of figure locations and then I’ll start deleting all the old pages, and then will move onto the crafts stuff and old photo archive pages. I want to get my blog all pretty and happy and sleek and trim and like a jungle cat, but it’s taking some time: I’m lazy, etc, and also when I first started this here blame thing in 2002 I was armed only with ms word, a general reluctance to buckle down and really learn html, and an ftp site. it was good for what I needed, but it was a hassle and a half. I heart wordpress, by the way. it is superduper.

edited: done. have loaded all photos/etc up, fixed all links, etc. phew! it is so weird, by the way, to have a record going back almost 4 years of this kind of thing. I’ve never been so glad that I’m such a charming individual [ha!].

to see

I’m very excited about this Chihuly installation at the NY Botanical Gardens — I wanted to go see his installation in chicago a few years ago but never got around to it. I saw a movie on pbs about his installation in venice and it amazed me, totally, and started me really thinking about glass. Now I have a bookmark folder of locations where I can learn to blow glass – if I had gotten a job in pittsburgh I would have been able to afford lessons at the pittsburgh glass center but that didn’t pan out, and I can’t find a place convenient to me in NJ yet. am still looking though!
Details:

“Gardens & Glass” – World renowned glass sculptor Dale Chihuly’s installations dazzle throughout the NY Botanical Gardens, Bronx River Pkwy at Fordham Rd (B/D – Bedford Pk Blvd station + 20 min walk or Bx26 bus east or Metro North – Botanical Gdns station) Open Tu –Su; 10:00AM-6:00PM, thru October 29. $20/$18 – students & seniors/$5 under 12. While there, see “Waterlillies & Locusts” (thru September 17) & “Victorian Ornamentals” (also thru October 29). For more information, call 212.220.0503 or go to www.nybgo.org. see also “Transplants/Transculture”

what I did this weekend. with More! exclamation points!

* I went running, twice! sunday was the first week of a full 20 minutes of running and I am happy to report that both my knee and the rest of me handled it like a pro!

* got my hairs cut and my toenails polished!

* I met a new baby! wee little amelia! she is wonderful! and even more so b/c instead of crying when I held her like most of my relatives do, she fell right asleep!
digicam 061

* I also cooked up a storm: eggplant and tomato risoto from world vegetarian and the dense chocolate loaf cake from how to be a domestic goddess for the baby momma and baby daddy, and a cabbage salad for a bbq.

* I went to a bbq! in brooklyn! at paula’s and cameron’s! it was fun! wine and cheese tasting! fancy sausage! seeing friends I hadn’t seen in months! the only thing it lacked, seriously, was kareoke! and it’s AMAZING, but everyone really seems to like cabbage salad. This time around it included chopped cabbage in a sesame oil, red wine vinegar, honey, and dill dressing, tossed with smashed toasted almonds. Almost Gourmet. And when I say gourmet, I’m pronouncing the “met.” That shows you how serious I am about cabbage salad!

* I went to the noguchi museum! with the CU alumni group! and it was fun! and ps, now that I’m elected to a three year term on the alumni council (did I mention that I’ve been elected to the alumni council?), I expect I’ll be attending a lot more of these CU gatherings!

* and then I took a short nap in my armchair!

* and woke up and did 3 hours of project management training while knittting industriously away on a corn baby!

pure! glamour!

you know what’s glamarous? working until 10:30 PM on a friday night.

at work they have semi-promoted me to a phase manager of a big ol’ project and I am mildly stressing out. my boss has told me that 1. the project is v. impt and when the project manager says to jump, I jump, and 2. that I was recommended for a mid-year promotion but the big big big boss suggested it become a 3/4 year promotion and also, a promotion contingent on me not screwing up this big ol’ project. Well! so today we had our first deliverable go out and it was the most last minute of last minute affairs because of a late approval from the PM. I didn’t get a chance to adequately review it, so I left a bunch of comments on the writer’s chair. Like, a LOT of comments. Like, lots of blue ink. I shouldn’t have HAD to review it like that because 1. the writer is supposed to be a specialist for this kind of document and also it *had* been reviewed by the PM and by the writer’s boss, but there were lots of uglifying formatting errors and there is NOTHING that makes a client doubt your science like an ugly report, sadly (and irrationally) enough. so now I’m wondering if I should take this up a level and let the PM and the writer’s boss know about the comments, or if the fact that I reviewed it after it went out is too damning to breathe a word of to anyone (except for you, dear public internets).

Outside of that, I am working to Effect Change from Within by sending emails to people’s bosses when they do a really bang-up above-and-beyond job. Like how our office administrator and drafter stayed until 7:30 getting the report together with me tonight and fedexing it around the country, and not only that, but with smiles on their pretty pretty faces. I made sure to send an email out right away and to cc all kinds of important people and to bcc the wonderful ladies who helped so they would know the were having accolades heaped upon their heads. I am a big fan of praise when it is deserved. it makes things so much Better!

best part of getting this report out? one of the copies required a handwritten note with directions as to who should receive it, and I made sure to use my new lovely fancy KarinaJean, P.E. stationary that my silly silly company provided me. Honestly! it says on the left side “CompanyName” and on the right side

“KarinaJean, P.E.
Engineer”

awesome! not awesome enough to make up for staying until oops, 11PM tonight, but shoot, kind of awesome, no?

Beach! whoot!

lest you all think this is a CSA blog only:

Last friday michelle met me at the train and we hopped into the wee insight and drove south.

rt. 1 bridge, delaware

we headed to assateague for part 1 of my beach vacation august. we got in at 10:30 on friday and set up our tent behind dad and maggie’s camper, and hit the hay. sat. and sunday were lovely in a sit on the beach and get pink kind of way… monday I took it a little easy from the sun, and tuesday the wind was too brutal and kicked up too much sand. actually, monday night the wind blew so hard that it pulled my tent up from the ground despite the tent stakes (but luckily while we were in it) and tossed us around and tried to roll over (but we were in it!) and then just petulantly snapped the leeward pole right in half. we splinted it in the middle of the night while michelle held the tent down (aka laid on her back inside) and taped up the other obviously damaged poles (just splintered) and went right back to sleep as the wind blew the tent over the top of me like a noisy down comforter.

but wednesday, now, that was a perfect last day at assateague. classically gorgeous, temperate, sunny, and the kind of beach you don’t want to walk, much less drive, away from.

digicam 027

we caught some rays. got on the road an hour and a half late. took copious photos of the wee ryan, who hated the beach at first but after the brilliant coaxing of michelle, now can tolerate it as long as you don’t make him look directly at the ocean.

digicam 030

and then michelle and I picked ourselves up, rinsed off, and drove north to the metro ny area. it’s nice being on car trips in the daytime! We also 1. stopped to buy a peck of peaches and some cukes and then 2. found out that the jerky outlet, despite it’s great business model, has closed. well. that’s ok. we stopped for cokes and spicy chips at a wawa and made great time up the highways.

there WAS some excitement in delaware (what would a michelle and kari car tirp be without excitement?) — we came upon a van that was driving very erratically and very fast and swerving and tailgating and when we looked at the driver, it looked like he was sound asleep. So I fell back and put my hand at the ready by the horn while michelle called 911 and filled them in. luckily, after she called he pulled over and we drove off feeling a little more secure that we wouldn’t experience an awful horrible terrible accident.

I dropped michelle at the path and she was home by 8:30, and I picked up my veggies and headed home and washed my beach towels and read books in my recliner. Aaah. what a lovely vacation.

and I go back in just 6 short work days! that makes for some real perspective at my desk in front of my computer. perspective, and some lovely deep bronze tan color, my friends, even with the spf 50. no, really. are you laughing at me?

CSA Week 9

2006CSAwk9

cubanelle peppers, white and purple eggplant, basil, potatoes, peaches, tomatoes, kohlrabi stems? and 2 jars of honey.

when I first picked up the share I thought maybe I had grabbed something fancy and not meant for me! the giant bunch of basil and the 2 jars of honey threw me – but the farmer posted to her blog that she’d traded for some south jersey wild flower honey. it’s unpasteurized, too, which means I’ll have to be a little faster about eating it once it’s open. it looks SO GOOD.

Now I’m wondering if I can “grill” peaches on the broiler or should I invest in a grill pan. I asked my friend jesse in his new cooking blog (which is super! awesome! a must-read!) cause y’all know what’s good with honey: grilled peaches. Dizam!

I’m still due for the tomato-eggplant risotto from world vegetarian. my copy of the book came while I was at the beach. And I am going to visit a friend in bklyn who recently gave birth on sat., so I want to bring her something to eat too.

leftovers:
week 6: beans.
week 7: cabbage, eggplant, green pepper, cranberry beans.
week 8: potatoes, beets, radishes, mint, basil, hot peppers, chard, purple and thai eggplant.

I had to toss the chard and the beans from week 5 but brought all the tomatoes with me to the beach and ate them up. I am hoping to go to a bbq on sat. where bringing some kind of elaborate cabbage dish would be appropriate. And I MUST cook the cranberry beans because they are so weird and good sounding.

CSA week 8

2006CSA8

potatoes, beets, cubanelle peppers, radishes, mint, basil, tomatoes, hot peppers, chard, peaches (!), purple and thai eggplant.

leftovers:
week 5: chard
week 6: oregano, beans.
week 7: cabbage, eggplant, green pepper, cranberry beans.

I never ate that lettuce from week 4 and had to toss it this morning. I can’t remember what happened to the chard from week 5, and also, I think that week 6 beans were overlooked when I made bengali style beans from world vegetarian this week and they might not be happy anymore.

I didn’t make the tomato/eggplant risotto from world vegetarian this week like I meant to, but I will do that when I get home. it might not be BEST to keep eggplant over a week, but it works. I’ll use the rest of the eggplant for baba ganoush, just to get it all cooked.

also: this week I discovered (thanks, joy of cooking!) that cubanelle peppers are actually ITALIAN peppers and that they can be substituted with bell peppers in recipes. So I made a really yummy feta cheese/roasted pepper spread, and also some delish sauteed peppers (saute with olive oil, toss with red wine vinegar until evaporated, remove from heat and add chopped mint and garlic). I was able to use up the cubanelle peppers from weeks 6, 7 and 8. excellent!

I’m going to be away from monday-wednesday, but am going to try to get back to nj on wednesday im time to get my veggies. yay! I’m taking all my tomatoes with me and I stuck the last of the bengali beans into the freezer, I hope they come out ok. And I’ve already eaten all the peaches, they were So Good.

CSA week 7

2006CSAwk6

corn, cabbage, tomatoes, basil, cubanelle peppers, thai hot peppers, 1 eggplant, 1 green pepper, cranberry beans, other beans, and a magnificent onion.

week 4: lettuce, oregano
week 5: cubanelle peppers, hot peppers, chard, and pea pods
week 6: kale, corn, basil, oregano, cubanelle peppers, beans.

I only have a little corn left from week 6 b/c I’ve been eating it raw for lunch, and I really do need to check to see how the lettuce is doing. I ought to cook all the cubanelle peppers (dunno how yet) and all the beans this weekend. also, kale. and chard. ha!

my non-heatstroke was totally worth it.

all that cooking last night was totally worth it. In honor of stacey’s cooking blog devoted to world vegetarian by Madhur Jaffrey and also my northern neighbor and friend who’s been cooking from it a lot lately, I requested the book from the library and it is AMAZING. it should be required reading for all csa members. it is about 4 inches thick and includes all kinds of vegetables and best of all, it’s indexed really really well. I’m absolutely going to buy a copy of my own.

so, all that hot sweaty cooking I referred to last night culminated in this beautiful stuffed eggplant dish:

stuffedeggplant

which is not only one of the best tasting but the easiest eggplant recepes I’ve ever made. I’m pretty scared of eggplant because it can be so bitter, but this was brilliant! It was good after I made it and it was even better today at lunch. I might eat it again for dinner. Supertasty.

warm

ok, so maybe I do get some street cred for not having A/C. It’s awfully hot out there. it’s not hot, say, when you walk out of your office building and go sit in the sun for a few minutes until the heat sinks into your bones. It’s hot when you go home, bake eggplant for an hour while simmering a tomato filling to stuff in them, wash dishes in warm water, and then go to the gym for a run before heading home to sleep spread-eagled on the bed in as few clothings as possible with a fan pointed directly on you. to my credit, I will say that I am pretty good at managing the hot apartment schemes – between closing the shades when I leave in the morning, opening them at night, and blowing night air into the apartment starting as soon as I get home, at least my apartment isn’t any warmer than the out-of-doors. and Man I love ice water. it is the best.

I spoke to my brother last night who DOES work outside, and he said at least he’s working outside and not inside hot sticky close electrical rooms like some of the guys. I still need to touch base with my mom and make sure that she’s doing her best to weed only under trees and near fountains. For that matter, there MUST be some fountains that need inspection, don’t you think?

(in case there are some readers from far off lands that aren’t familiar with this heat wave we’re having, hi! feel freel to introduce yourselves in comments! and yesterday we had a high of 99 or something with a heat index of 110, today it will be 103 with a heat index of 115. but! bright side! tonight it will get down to 79 degrees, which is downright sleepable – none of this low 80s stuff that is so sweatifying. Excellent.)

knitting. the beast that won’t die.

even though I’m still putting the corn baby to bed, so to speak (don’t worry Joy! I made the larger size in anticipation of hot summer weather, so hopefully the bambino won’t be too big when you finally receive your very late shower gift), I am still thinking about things to knit. It’s awful! gramma once told me that her favorite part of weaving was the planning, and I know she meant the cool math that she did to come up with her beautiful patterns and to do the “impossible*” but I love the planning most too. I love looking at yarn and patterns and touching them and thinking about them. So today I ended up buying two patterns! argh! it started when a friend of mine linked to the orangina tank (which is very cute) and I continued browsing her patterns and saw this very cool sweater (I prefer the long sleeve version, and I’m thinking about using andean silk because it’s way cheaper and also looks lovely. It’ll be a lot warmer b/c of the alpaca content, though. Something to keep in mind. And then when I went to buy the sweater pattern I came across these crochet hat patterns which are in styles I’ve been trying to find for AGES. I can sort of crochet, so I bought that pattern too.

So, yeah, I know, more projects in the imaginary queue. but at least I’m not buying yarn for these projects! the reason for that is this off-the-top-of-my-head list of projects that I already have yarn for and/or are in various stages of completion:

  • I owe a very cool lady this chemo cap, and I also need to figure out how to cable correctly. Doh.
  • God, I still have this eyelet skirt on the needles. I always tote it to the beach with me b/c the yarn is cotton aka not a hassle to knit with. but it’s a Lot of knitting. Hvae I mentioned I always have to size my needles down to get gauge? even more knitting.
  • I have the yarn for the cheesylove sweater too, and I’ve always meant to make it. you know how these things go! it’s awfully cute, though. I love it. even if it is super cheesy. and not only will I learn how to make a sweater but also fair isle hearts!
  • I also have the yarn for the sitcom chic cardigan. I secretly wonder if the raglan shoulder shaping will do my figure any good, but shoot, I have the yarn, and I can always use a cardigan.
  • Speaking of cardigans, I have the yarn and pattern for the sweet mary jane cardigan. I love the bed jacket shaping! it’s cute and classy, and I have to admit that the photo really sold me on it. it looks SASSY.
  • I’m also still working on those regia ringel socks that I started over a year ago. Ahem. But! I did finish the first one and start the second! that’s something, no?

I think that is enough airing of the hair shirts. suffice it to say, I have a lot of things all lined up and I want badly to do them but most of all to plan plan plan and buy yarn and if only I could spin straw to gold, I’d also be able to wish all my pretty yarn into these pretty projects. sigh.

*note to gramma’s impossible: she wanted to weave us all checkerboards, but someone told her it was impossible with the type of loom she was using. She sure showed him. she did the math and figured it out and busted through it and they were the coolest travel checkerboards ever. additional sidebar: I definately got my crafty stubbornness from my gramma. she is so cool.

shiny car! this’n’that!

I picked up my new car yesterday evening and it is SO BEAUTIFUL. they washed it and vacuumed the insides before I got it, and it’s so brill. shiny! this is convincing me that hey, maybe I SHOULD wash and wax my car more regularly. shoot, it really DOES make a difference. have I mentioned to you how nuanced the paint shade is? when it’s clean it’s really not boring blue at all. amazing!

I was so glad to wash my hands of the chevy cobalt I was driving. That thing, while I’m sure is very nice, is just not for me. it *only* gets 30 mpg, the automatic made me both pissy b/c I had no control, and also caused me to drive really fast, and also, the headrest jutted out in such a way that I believe caused me to have a horrible back spasm on my way home from the beach on sat. So, I wash my hands of it! sadly I left my flaming lips cd in the car and I hope that the people who rented it right away this morning will return the cd to me intact.

tangentially, you may have noticed that I went to the beach on sat. We had a good time. And also, first time ever to the long island beaches without a surfit of either seaweed or jellyfish or both — that plus no paying and no sunburn (both benefits of getting to the beach at 6PM) equals very successful trip!

Also, in the heat, I might be perfecting the sweaty nap. it sounds very glamorous, I know, but it’s a skill ANYONE can practice. Speaking of heat, it’s hot! but because I don’t work out-of-doors I don’t mind it that much. I mean, it’s hot, and it’s kind of warm at night when I want to be sleeping, but it’s not that bad, all in all. did I mention I don’t have an air conditioner? see, if I worked out-of-doors that would lend me real street-cred but because I sit in a sealed up, ice cold office building, it just makes me reasonably tough. That, and it means I only use a maximum of 100 kwh of electricity monthly which means I can afford to purchase 100% nj produced wind power as my clean power source.