Random Thoughts

[Lucky]

Estella Havisham in Great Expectations.

Yes. My first thought.

[Mara]

Estella Havisham in Great Expectations.

Agh, Estella is the worst.

If I was a man I'd like to think I would love Dorothea Brooke.

But I don't have much experience with men having imaginary literary girlfriends the way most of the women I know (and I myself) have imaginary literary boyfriends. In fact, you could chart most of my life by my literary boyfriends, listed chronologically.

As a sort-of side note, I know a surprisingly large number of nominally straight women with crushes on Kara "Starbuck" Thrace.

[Mara]

I received a "conditional" offer of employment from that job I've been trying to get since August. The salary they offered was a little lower than I was hoping, but still a bump from what I make now. But I'm not sure how "conditional" helps me... should I put in my notice with my work? They still need to contact my references, two of which are going to be beasts to get on the phone (although they should give me good references once they can actually reach them.) And I think they haven't gotten my background check yet, though there should be no problems there, either.

[MadMan]

I'm still unconvinced that hipsters exist. I think people made it up. Like leprechauns or compromise in Washington politics.

Liz Lemon is pretty awesome. So is Tina Fey.

[dreamdead]

"Conditional" as in pending the securing of additional funds to cover your salary or just pending your references coming through for you? I guess you can't put in a notice until the latter is secured, if that's all it is.

Frustrating, especially after all the work you've already put into the job application process...

[Mara]

"Conditional" as in pending the securing of additional funds to cover your salary or just pending your references coming through for you? I guess you can't put in a notice until the latter is secured, if that's all it is.

Frustrating, especially after all the work you've already put into the job application process...

My sister: Sheesh, are you getting a job or adopting a baby?

Yeah, it's been a long process. As far as I know, this is conditional only on my references, so that shouldn't be a problem. It's just a matter of time (getting in touch with everyone, processing the paperwork, making a final offer, and me putting in my 2 weeks notice.) I couldn't be more eager. I should have left this job two years ago.

[Pop Trash]

I'm still unconvinced that hipsters exist. I think people made it up. Like leprechauns or compromise in Washington politics.

I don't think they exist in Iowa outside of a few in Iowa City.

[Lucky]

But I don't have much experience with men having imaginary literary girlfriends the way most of the women I know (and I myself) have imaginary literary boyfriends. In fact, you could chart most of my life by my literary boyfriends, listed chronologically.

True, I think men are more visual creatures than women.

[MadMan]

I don't think they exist in Iowa outside of a few in Iowa City.

Maybe.

[Mara]

This probably speaks more to my emotional state than anything else, but...

My parents are having computer problems and asked me to come look at it. They are easily aggravated with computers, and I'm no genius, but am pretty good at following directions and applying some common sense. Also, my parents have been helping me out a lot recently and I wanted a way to repay them.

So I fixed it up all pretty, and I am so happy about it. I am happier than I have been in a couple of weeks. I was trying to suss out why it meant so much to me, and here's what I think: I've been in such a state of flux and worry, and so anxious, that I haven't felt good or useful in a really long time. And here's something that I could do, that was unquestionably a good thing to do, that definitely helps people I love, and is now completed. At this moment in my life, that's huge.

[Wryan]

It's great to find the joy and value in something, even if it's something others might consider small. Hope the job works out soon. You really deserve it. I got proxy stress from all the stories you've told us.

[bac0n]

Don't put in your notice at work until you have an official job offer, with a start date.

[Spun Lepton]

Don't put in your notice at work until you have an official job offer, with a start date.

Agreed.

[Scar]

Don't put in your notice at work until you have an official job offer, with a start date.

This.

[Mara]

Yup. Watching the calendar like a hawk.

My parents also advised me to nip or tuck if I need to (for instance, giving slightly less than 2 week's notice at my current job) to ensure that I have three days off (Mom: "Minimum!") before I start the new job. I've been so down and worn out that I wouldn't be starting off my best without a slight break. If I can swing it, I'm totally going to do it.

[bac0n]

Yup. Watching the calendar like a hawk.

My parents also advised me to nip or tuck if I need to (for instance, giving slightly less than 2 week's notice at my current job) to ensure that I have three days off (Mom: "Minimum!") before I start the new job. I've been so down and worn out that I wouldn't be starting off my best without a slight break. If I can swing it, I'm totally going to do it.

I cannot recommend this enough. Especially it is some place you've been at a long time. The few days to decompress are the best. I did it after my previous gig. The last few months there in particular were stressful and depressing, and that week of funemployment was just what I needed to let the water flow under the bridge, so to speak, so that I was ready and rarin' to go at the new job.

I think this next time, I'm gonna need two weeks' off time ;-)

[bac0n]

Oh, and it was just after my oldest daughter was born, too. I took two weeks off for paternity leave, got back, submitted my two week notice that very day, and wound up getting another week off to spend with my newborn. It was awesome.

[Mara]

If I get the time off, in addition to doing some writing and cleaning my house, I'm considering hooking up my N64 and playing all the way through Ocarina of Time.

[bac0n]

If I get the time off, in addition to doing some writing and cleaning my house, I'm considering hooking up my N64 and playing all the way through Ocarina of Time.

Hehehe, i did that the the gig previous to the one I mentioned. I was out of work for about six weeks. When i got the job offer, I went straight to best buy, picked up a copy of Onimusha 2, and played that sucker dawn to dusk for five days until I beat it. It was pretty awesome, something I'll never be able to do again.

[EyesWideOpen]

The two months I was out of work with my back injury were the best two months of my adult life.

[ledfloyd]

If I get the time off, in addition to doing some writing and cleaning my house, I'm considering hooking up my N64 and playing all the way through Ocarina of Time.

Oh man. I want to do this even though I don't have time off.

[Watashi]

I've been having excruciating back pain these past two weeks while trying to sleep. It was probably due to my poor posture and lack of exercise, but I took a risk and bought one of those super expensive memory foam mattress toppers. Best purchase of my life. I slept amazing last night and woke up with zero pain.

[D_Davis]

We're streaming our D&d game for the child's play charity. Playing Ravenloft.

Twitch/dobervich


It's super fun.

[Mara]

Disclaimer: my roommate of the last four months has been a really cool person. She is probably moving out this week and I will miss her.

But we have the weirdest interactions whenever food is an issue. I've discussed bits of it before.

The current thing having me shaking my head is food preservation. Because I garden, and because I am frugal, and because I enjoy it, I do a lot of food preservation. I buy in bulk, cook in bulk, and freeze things like sauces or stocks so I can make quick and tasty meals later. I can items from my garden and produce that I buy in bulk in season. I also have a new dehydrator this year (seriously I love it so much) and so I dehydrate fruit and vegetables. At the moment I am dehydrating apples because I negotiated with a local orchard to get a huge number of them, and am going to eat the dehydrated apples with my lunches for the rest of the year.

Many of the projects are time-consuming so I tend to do them on the weekend. My roommate likes company so she will sit in the kitchen while I putter around. I don't mind; we just talk.

The weird thing is that she thinks the way I preserve food is wrong somehow and that I am being dangerous. I have been dehydrating the whole time we've lived together (zucchinis and tomatoes, then peach season, peppers, now apple season) and she doesn't trust what I do with the dehydrated food, which is putting it in zippered bags in the pantry. Every time I take stuff off the dehydrator she asks if I am going to put it in the freezer and then looks worried and a little scornful when I say no.

The first time she saw me canning (peaches, I think) she asked if I was going to put the peach jars in the freezer. If I wanted to freeze peaches, I wouldn't have spent four hours canning them first! Same with when I made blueberry jam ("Most people freeze jam," she said defensively. "Yeah, people who don't can it first," I said.) This doesn't even include our cyclical conversation (I don't know if she forgets it or is honestly still confused) about what can and cannot be preserved via canning and what sorts of supplies you can use (short version: you can use mason jars. You can't can in anything else. Not regular glass jars. Not Tupperware. NOTHING ELSE.)

Then, on the completely opposite end of the spectrum, she offers very unhelpful insight into canning that is actually very dangerous. There are recipes you can mess with, but you cannot mess with canning recipes. The ingredients need to have the right amount of sugars and acids in order to preserve properly, and adding or subtracting ingredients can be extremely dangerous. For example, if you want to can tomato sauce, it works pretty well since tomatoes are acidic. You still need to add some lemon juice, though. But if you added other vegetables like celery to the sauce, it would throw the pH off and bacteria will grow and kill your jars. If you try to add, say, ground beef to the tomato sauce before canning, congrats! You now have botulism! Any complicated sauce is better to make and freeze than to try and preserve it. (In all fairness, there are safe ways to can foods with different pH levels, but it usually involves pressure canning which is too complicated/expensive for me to want to do in my house.)

My roommate thinks she knows a ton about canning because her mother and grandmother canned things, but as far as I can tell she never participated or educated herself on how it works. She will suggest changing the recipe or try to tell me that I can eliminate steps, including the processing step!!!!!!! [If you're unfamiliar with the way canning works, that would be like saying you should marinate chicken, cut it up, add vegetables, but there's no reason to cook it.] I'm very careful with making sure the jars get a good seal, keeping it clean and sterile and never touching the underside of the lids. But every time I have canned she has made a fuss that I should sterilize the rings (which keep the lids on the jars but do not touch the preserved food or the underside of the lid, and therefore only need to be clean and not sterile.)

This is getting long. It didn't feel long in my head.

Anyway, one of my favorite thing about fall is making roasted pumpkin seeds, and because my recipe calls for raw seeds so I can only ever get them in season. I am notorious for going to pumpkin carving parties and convincing everyone to give me their pumpkin guts so I can make seeds and then eat them all. I cleaned up this weekend and made probably about 8 cups of roasted seeds. To keep the seeds from being too fibrous to enjoy, I boil them in salt water first, and then after they dry overnight I roast them with olive oil and Worcestershire sauce until they are crisp. Basic food preparation rules means that these are fine to leave at room temperature in Tupperware, though they will get stale after a week or two. The seeds are too dried out to grow bacteria, and olive oil doesn't go rancid. As soon as I finished my first batch, my roommate said "Are you putting these in the freezer?" No, I'm not. I get a look. She ate a few and thought they were okay, but as I took my second batch out to stir them halfway through cooking, she ate one off the tray and said, "Oh, these are so much better. They're chewy and not crunchy." I said, "They're chewy because they're not cooked. They're supposed to be crunchy; that's the fun part."

She got a little snide about how they could be so much better if I made them the way she thought I should make them. I scooped some half-cooked seeds in a bowl, said she could eat those if she wanted, and kept cooking the way I wanted to. First of all, I'm not making them for her. I make them for myself, though I do share with family and friends when I get a good haul like this week. Secondly, I know that my seeds are delicious. I love them. My family and friends and random people who taste them love them. My former roommate who just came back to visit me bought a pumpkin so I could make a small batch of them to eat because she didn't want to miss out on them. I have good taste.

Meanwhile, my roommate not only acknowledges that she doesn't cook, but she's proud of it and a little scornful of the whole idea of cooking. She kind of sneers, like I'm doing something simple and outdated. Fine; she can eat out every meal if that's what she wants. But it bugs me to no end when she acts like I'm cooking something wrongly and she knows better. Or if I make a really good meal and she says something like, "That smells disgusting" or "I can't even watch you eat that. It looks gross."

I just... am so tired of it. I like my roommate and I think she's a good friend, but it would be so much easier if I didn't live with her. Which I probably won't be soon. Yet again I'm starting to feel like I have gotten to old to deal with roommates.

[Mara]

The first time my roommate visited me (before moving in) she was a little short of breath and I offered her something to drink. All I had in the house was water, milk, and an iced herbal tea drink that I make in the summer. She asked for some of the tea, sipped the tiniest bit, made a face, and gave it back. No big; if you don't like my tea, I don't care. I offered her water instead and she declined.

It was weeks later, after she moved in, that she mentioned how much she hated the tea. I could tell she hated it, so I wasn't surprised. She started listing all the things I should have done to make it taste better (mostly adding a ton of sugar) and I ignored her because I make it exactly the way I like it. Also, she likes to drink orange juice mixed with milk and sugar so I'm not taking her advice on drinks.

This wouldn't be a big deal, except I get comments every single time I make the tea or drink it (which is often; it is my evening drink.) Sometimes just "ugh," sometimes "I can't believe you like that stuff." The tea is very fragrant, so when I brew it up the whole house smells good. Every time (without fail, if she is home) she will come downstairs and ask what smells nice. When I say I am making tea, she'll say "I don't know how something that disgusting can smell so good."

YES I GET IT YOU DON'T LIKE MY TEA. Lucky you; you don't have to drink it! Stop commenting already.