Time Slayer

I'm often amazed at my ability to wile away the time.  Here's how yesterday progressed.  This may be typical.

7:30 am - Take son to school.  Yell at him the whole way for missing his carpool this morning, insisting on better time management.

8:00 am - Realize sore ankles are probably from run yesterday.  Read paper.  Have breakfast.  Think about work and looming deadlines, blogging, and sore ankles.

9:00 am - Google local running store:  Metro Run & Walk.  If going to continue running without serious injury, need right shoes.  Today.  Store not too far from home.  Appreciate good luck in finding store in such close proximity.  Peruse entire website to get true sense of who they are and what they do, including who and what they link to.  Discover they hold running clinics.  Think about signing up.  Put off decision until tomorrow.

9:45 am - Justify reasoning for pending shoe purchase to husband.

10:00 am - Think about work deadlines for a few minutes.  Shower.  Watch end of Rick Steves' travel to Italy's hill country (Orvieto!  Assisi!)

10:25 am - 25 minutes late for work.  Get back to home office.  Check mail and blogs for ten minutes.  Put nose to grindstone.

11:05-11:40 am - Phone meeting.

11:40 am - Leave for Metro Run and Walk.  Schedule is free until 12:30 so have plenty of time.  Drive 20 minutes to store (oops, wrong turn).

12:05-12:40 pm - No other customers so get personalized and prolonged attention.  Understand that shoe shopping should not be rushed.  Find right shoes.  Sign up for loyalty program.  Discover $10 reward off next purchase!  Browse apparel in store for ideas on next purchase.  Wear new shoes home.

12:55 pm - Hungry.  Make lunch.  Call Mom and Dad.  Read article in magazine.

1:45 pm - Notice time!  Put nose back to grindstone.

3:00 pm - Get reprieve from car pool duty.  Be thankful for extra hour to work.  Try to stop mind from wandering to new sports bra I'll need since I'm going to be running more.

3:15 pm - Search web for best sports bras and sales.

3:30 pm - Upbraid myself for lack of attention to work.  Get back to work.

4:25-5:15 pm - Drive to Kohl's to see what sports bras they have in stock.  Buy dress shirts for son.  Realize what time it is and leave without buying sports bra.

5:30 pm - Catch up on news of the day.  E-mail.  Facebook.

6:00 pm - Decide to walk the dog.  Realize much better idea is to go for run to try out new shoes.  Change clothes.  Stretch.  Short run (don't want to press it until shoes are broken in a little more).  Stretch.  Shoes are great.

6:45 pm - Catch up on news.

7:10 pm - Only worked 3 hours today?  How can that be?  Get back to work.  Dinner?  Too committed to job to be distracted by mere bodily needs.

7:20 pm - Reply to e-mail from friend.  Listen to stomach rumble.

7:45 pm - Back to work, slacker!

7:55 pm - Too hungry.  Congratulate myself on working late.  Resolve to work more tomorrow.

9:45 pm - Take off new shoes.  Compare to old shoes.  Congratulate myself on smart purchase.

11:00 pm - Have hard time falling asleep, thinking of looming deadlines.

Quick Italian Dinner Fare

 


Insalata di Puntarelle is apparently some kind of Italian chicory salad. This recipe is not made with chicory but with Belgian endive and celery cut into thin strips. The dressing is garlic, anchovies (I used anchovy paste because I had it on hand), extra-virgin olive oil, red wine vinegar, dijon mustard, and Kosher salt. Super easy to make. Seriously, the prep time was all of 10 minutes. The trick, and do not skip this step, is to place the sliced endive and celery into a bowl of ice water in the refrigerator for an hour. You drain it then and toss with the dressing. Fantastic! It's fresh and crisp and has a nice little bite. I also refrigerated my salad plates, too, to prolong the chill of the salad.

 

 I found this salad recipe when I was searching for a pasta dish for dinner.  I found a Capellini with Shrimp and Tomato Cream Sauce that sounded interesting, and easy.  The good folks at Epicurious had made that recipe part of its Quick Italian Dinner Fare menu, which the salad as a first course and Apricots with Amaretto Syrup for dessert.  All the recipes were easy.  The Capellini was good but a little bland.  Next time I'll try some more red pepper to spice it up.  The Apricots were good, too.  They weren't what I had been expecting, but that was probably because I used canned apricots (sorry, it was what I had on hand).  It was also very sweet.  I think next time I'll cut down on the sugar (and use fresh apricots) and see if that helps.

All in all, it was an enjoyable meal.  Easy to prepare (hurray!) and tasty.  I should have probably started this post with the main course, but it's the Insalata di Puntarelle that I've been craving and has become a staple in my kitchen.







Excellent Women, Barbara Pym

I discovered Barbara Pym’s name on a list of authors you should read if you love Jane Austen. I love Jane Austen, so I made a beeline for my local library to find some Pym and Elizabeth Gaskell, another author mentioned in the list (I loved the TV productions of Gaskell’s North and South and Cranford). I’ll get to Gaskell in another post.

In Excellent Women, Mildred meets her neighbors who have some marital strife, her minister becomes engaged, and Mildred listens sympathetically, shares her observations with the reader, and makes tea. That's pretty much it.  Mildred is the same person at the end of the novel as she is at the start. There is never a point in the story where she has to make a serious decision or face more than a minor upset of her routine. Rather than a story arc, it is a story (straight) line. I looked in vain for that moment when Mildred’s story reveals something about the human condition or opens a new way of looking at a subject or…something. Mildred likes the life she has chosen. Good for her, but why should I care?

Excellent Women in written in first person narration.  It's Mildred's observations that we're meant to care about, but they did not seem especially keen or insightful.  Perhaps if the story were told in third person narration, the focus could have been pulled back and Mildred’s world expanded.  The reader would then be privy to the motivations and desires of some of the other characters and the story might have been richer. As it is, three-quarters of the way through I was ready to give up. The only thing that kept me going was the (futile) hope that Mildred would finally have some kind of revelation. Sadly, no.

Excellent Women is reputed to be wickedly funny. I don’t think so. I'll stay with Jane Austen. This book is also a reputed classic, and there was a time when I would have found a way to like it for that reason.  Happily, that day has passed.  I did not wholly feel that I had wasted my time with Barbara Pym and Excellent Women, but I am sure there are other authors whose work I will appreciate and enjoy more. I am also quite sure that I will not be reaching for anymore of Pym’s work.

Moscow, Belgium, Directed by Christophe Van Rompaey

From the opening scenes of Moscow, Belgium, the audience can clearly see - and almost feel - Matty's fatigue.  She's not the woman she used to be, and her appearance shows she believes it.  The 41-year old mother of three, separated from her cheating husband, has a fender bender on her way out of the grocery store, backing into a truck driven by Johnny, younger than Matty and, we learn, known by name to the police.  Johnny offers to fix Matty's car, and she invites him to stay for dinner.  There's a romantic spark, and Barbara Sarafian as Mattie is great at conveying the struggle Matty has with herself about whether to pursue a relationship with Johnny.  Easygoing, fun-loving Johnny seems to be just the tonic Matty needs.  Slowly, her transformation begins as she remembers the person she used to be and realizes that not only does she want to be that person again but that it's possible, thanks to Johnny.  It's not syrupy or false, though.  It's a hard process for her, and we sympathize and root for her at the same time.

There's a heaviness and pallor that hangs over the characters, their lives, and even the food in Moscow, Belgium, but Johnny is the ray of light shining through the clouds for Matty.  Or is he?  Are Johnny's issues evidence of human weakness or something deeper (not crazy deep but maybe unstable deep?).  In the end, Matty has a choice to make.  My main problem with the film is that I cannot convince myself that the Matty I had come to know would make the choices she did, and this left me feeling unsettled and almost angry.  My reaction may be atypical, though.  Moscow, Belgium isn't your typical romantic comedy, but it's authentic in its depiction of one woman's halting steps to making her own decisions and doing what's right for herself.

A Few Ruminations

• Why is it so hard to get a clean wine glass in so many restaurants?  From national chains to mom-and-pop joints, too often the waiter or bartender puts a spotted, lip-stick smeared, food-speckled glass in front of me and expects me to drink from it.  Is it just my luck or do others have this problem too?  At a chain steakhouse, the bartender held the glass to the light and the proceeded to wipe the glass on his dirty, stained apron and then pour wine into it.  I appreciated his effort but...yuck.  At a small Italian restaurant in Philly (that had Opus One on the wine list), I was brought a cheap glass that was also filthy.  We had the house Chianti, and it was awful.  I couldn't help wondering if they would have poured the Opus One into that same glass.  Shudder.  At a chain barbecue joint we used to go to often, the wine glass would look clean but had a foul odor, to the point where it was so offensive that I couldn't drink the wine.  At our local neighborhood restaurant, the glass invariably smelled of bleach.  Asking for a new glass doesn't always work because the replacement is sometimes worse and the server is irate at my request.  If a restaurant doesn't care what they're putting your drink into, will they care what they're putting into the food or how it's being prepared?  I only worked in a restaurant for three days, I think, before I quit, so I don't have any experience.  I'd really like to know if there's something I'm missing. 
• I know that, as a parent, my job is to raise my child (now a teenager) so that he will be able to leave the nest and spread his wings.  I know that you have to let go and let your children make their own mistakes.  Knowing that and being able to do it are two very different things.  What I've been wondering lately is how close do you let them get to that brick wall that you're sure they're going to run into before you step in?  I've learned my teenager is aware of the wall and has become rather adept at avoiding it (but too close for comfort too many times, in my view).  I trust that he's heard enough of what we've said over the years and that he's got a good head on his shoulders.  The big mistakes are easy to see and recognize that action is necessary.  It's those smaller ones that keep me up at night.  To a teenager,  parental advice is like white noise.  I remember that much.  But when do you step in?  When do you let things go?  How do you stand back and watch without losing your sanity?  At times like this, all I feel like I can do is apologize to my mother.
• We found this great website called Family Fantasy Sports.  It's made for families (duh) and it's fantasy football.  It's very user-friendly, and you can form your own league or join one (registration closed on September 30th).  My siblings and I formed our own league of eight teams.  My sports-crazy nephew loves it, my teenager loves it, and most of the adults love it, to varying degrees.  I've found that it's given my brothers and me an outlet for our sibling rivalry (my sister chooses not to engage--a lifetime's experience, I suppose).  Believe me, the last thing I needed was another distraction from work, but my team needs me.  I am currently the general manager of the third worst team in the league, but I feel my fortunes are about to turn.  And boy will my brothers hear about it then.  Omnivores rule!

Home Improvements

I spent the last few days trying to find paint for my office and son's bedroom.  I think I'm going with with a sage green-gray (Behr Koala Bear) for my office, but I think a warm brown (Behr Peanut Butter) might be a better and smarter choice in the long run, and it's what my husband prefers.  I'm conflicted.  Anything has to be better than the pale blue I have now which I despise.  I had curtains, but I think I'll put up mini-blinds instead.  I'm not sure whether to get the light blocking or light filtering.  My office still doubles as our spare bedroom for now, so the light is a factor.  Here's what we have now:

I definitely like warmer tones.  I had thought gray for my office, but I can't do it.

My son wants a gray with blue undertones (Behr Gray Tradition) for his room to cover the bright yellow and baby blue he picked out when he was 8 years old. He's leaving for college next year.  So yeah, it's definitely time for a change for him.

I tried the online paint designer apps at Home Depot, Lowe's, Valspar, and Benjamin Moore, but the colors don't look anything like the chips.  The last factor is our potential move out of this house in a few years.  I want to make smart re-sale choices, but ones I can live with.  Any suggestions and comments are greatly appreciated!

We're looking at front doors, too.  Our current front door is wood and has taken a beating from the direct afternoon sun.  I love wood doors, but it just doesn't make sense with the full sun and expense.  Fiberglass it is, then, which is what most of the neighborhood has, and a new screen door.  Here's what we have now.  You can clearly see the issues we have:

I'd really like to replace them this year, but it may have to wait until next year as windows are the bigger priority.  Outside talking to the neighbor, I looked at my house and saw this:

The damn woodpecker's been tearing apart one of my windows.  There used to be a cedar tree there, but one of the snowstorms this past winter brought it down.  I guess the woodpecker thinks my window trim is an adequate replacement.

We also had a new dishwasher delivered this morning.  We bought a Whirlpool when we moved in 9 years ago, and it hasn't been great for us and has been even worse lately.  We have to run the pots and pans cycle to get the dinner dishes clean.  I hate wasting all that water and still getting dirty dishes.  We bought a lower-end Bosch to replace it.  We were looking at a KitchenAid, but since Whirlpool owns KitchenAid we nixed that.  The Bosch model we ordered has good reviews and uses less water.  I'll let you know how it works out.  Here's the in-progress pictures:

We're still amidst a prolonged bathroom remodel necessitated by two leaks.  When we moved in, every room in the house had an ugly border on the walls, which you can see in the following pictures.  We painted over all of them, except the ones in the bathroom.  When we repaint, I may put the Behr Peant Butter or a shade or two lighter in here.  Do darker colors work in a smaller bathroom?  Here's the soon-to-be un-stalled progress:

Last but not least, we had carpet installed this summer in our family room to replace the carpet that had ripped on the seam.  What an ordeal selecting carpet was.  I'm not completely thrilled with the color, but I'm hoping it will grow on me as time passes.  On the plus side I hope, we bought the Smart Strand which is supposed to be better with and for stains.  After dog issues, red wine, and numerous other mishaps, that is a definite improvement.

I was tempted to post pictures of my husband's home office, but I won't because I'd like to stay married to him.

What has perhaps made me the happiest and most improved my life?

New felt pads on the corners of the drawers in the bathroom.  The old pads were smashed or missing and the drawers would stick.  Such a small thing.  I could have taken care of it a long time ago, but I always forgot to put it on the to-do list.

Now I really have to work (at my real job) after spending all this time paint, door, and dishwasher shopping.  Sigh.



Reluctantly Back to Reality

I'm just back from a super-relaxing Girls Weekend in Ft. Lauderdale.  If you ever head that way, I highly recommend the Harbor Beach Marriott Resort and Spa.

Notice my toes.  I had a pedicure at the spa the day after we arrived, and it was fifty minutes of bliss--cucumbers and a cool cloth on my eyes, a back massaging chair, and foot and leg massage.  Then I went to the sauna.  And then the pool.  Then the beach.  Just heaven.  There was not a single thing that I would have changed--except to stay another few days.

I had tons of work to do for my real job before I left.  As luck would have it, my body revolted against me and I came down with a terrible cold two weeks before I was supposed to leave.  Ugh.  My main concern, of course, was that I would recover in time for vacation.  All the work I had to do?  I planned to do it, but I also needed a new dress, purse, shirt, and shoes for vacation.  I thought long and hard about my priorities and then went shopping.  I did not get shoes, but I should have.

How cute are they?  They shout girls' weekend, don't they?  If they had a heel, they would have been mine.  I think I may still get them.  It can be my welcome home present to myself.

I'm slowly but surely returning to real life.  Besides my pedicure, I'm left with two tangible reminders of vacation.  The first?  Sand in my suitcase:

The second is my little beach bag that I bought at one of the gift shops at the hotel.  It was the perfect size to fit my book (Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis) and keys, ID, money, phone, etc, and to carry to the beach and lunch.  Despite it being October, I refuse to stop using it.  I may look like inappropriate for the season (it's boot time, isn't it?  October 1?), but I don't care.  Here it is:

My husband was very productive when I was away, thankfully.  I have my office painted now, and I absolutely LOVE the color.  It makes me happy just being in my office now.  It's Behr Rejuvenate.

The color is warm and soft and has been instrumental, along with my scented candles and the Spa channel on Sirius, for holding onto my vacation attitude.  Oh, and wine.