Drying out - Day 11; 20 to go

This whole experiment has been pretty anticlimactic so far.  I feared it would be much more difficult to give up drinking for the month. Right now, I'd say it's been one big nothing.

I've certainly had times when I would have liked a drink.  Like the time I made chili, and thought it would be delicious with a beer.  Or when I made a lovely Saturday steak dinner, and I thought a good Cab would be the perfect complement. Or when I had an awful, stressful day at work, and as I left the office, I thought, "Now I'll go home and NOT have a glass of wine."  Or when I went out with M for Happy Hour at Oyamel with amazing tacos 2 for $4, and delicious margaritas for $4 - and I had club soda.  Or when I went to the Tabard Inn with D for Sunday, and the warming fireplace, the cozy living room, the wood panels, and the jazz bassist and guitar on a cold winter night just screamed red wine or bourbon cocktail (and I don't even drink bourbon), but I had cranberry and soda.  Those times were tempting - but each time, I reminded myself I was not drinking for the month, and got over it quickly.

As for the mental and physical effects of not drinking, it's pretty anticlimactic, too.  So far, I might be less puffy (but I'm also over my cold).  I've lost a few pounds (but I'm not shrinking away).  I haven't had my willpower cave (or ever really be tried).  I have not craved a drink (or found it difficult to pass one up).  My social time with friends, some of them drinking buddies (M and D - both of whom I've been known to imbibe with), has been enjoyable.  And I have not been more or less inhibited with them.   I'm only a third of the way through, so it will be interesting to see if anything is compounding.

I'm interested to see how this experiment shows my relationship with alcohol.  Basically, at this early stage, I'd say it's a nice life enhancer.  As a foodie, I think wine, beer or a margarita are a nice complement to well-made meals.  After a long day at the office, a glass of wine helps me chill out, but I found myself  chilled out anyway after not very long without it.  As a social tool, it's nice to have the added effect of of a small buzz of wine in my system.  But all of of this, while nice, has not been notable.

And though, I have a while to go, and I intend to drink again, perhaps (if good comes out of this experiment) in a new way it's been One Big Nothing.  And that is A Good Thing.

Small chick eats nothing for lunch

I realize it's probably my hang-up, but I do get somewhat annoyed by petite women with weak voices who eat nothing for lunch.  Today at Starbucks, while I ordered a hot chocolate - for both the warmth and pleasure of it - I heard the woman next to me order in a polite squeak - a tall iced green tea, "unsweetened" she emphasized, and an oatmeal with soymilk, "no toppings" she added.  Not the worst lunch, and certainly health-conscious - but as I looked at her petite body, her perfect coif, her stylish, but not overly individualistic ensemble (Heaven Forbid!), and her flawlessly "natural" make-up, I wondered if and when she lets go and owns her footprint in the world.  Does this woman ever even have an orgasm?

It also reminds me of this old blogpost with an excellent quote from my  alter ego, Nigella!

Random Act of Culture

How completely wonderful!....A flash mob of the Opera Company of Philadelphia performed Carmen's La Toreador at the Reading Terminal Market in Philadelphia.  This "random act of culture" was supported by the Knight Foundation's arts program which will pull off 1000 or so such marvelous stunts around the country over the next three years.

I LOVE that kind of arts philanthropy - so creative and with many social benefits. Art philanthropy is especially challenging.  Its social good is recognized, but often determined by some lofty cultural arbiters.  It has a metric - butts in seats, tickets sold - but this has inherent challenges, too. And the shrinking audiences would suggest low demand.  Arts philanthropists often underwrite exhibitions and operating costs of theater and music, as well as arts education and arts exposure (those discounted tickets, those school visits). What does a philanthropic gift for the operating costs of the opera company achieve?  Lots, of course, but it's a rather elite inaccessible art supported by wealthy, mostly white patrons.

This endeavor lets unsuspecting regular people encounter opera in the everyday - perhaps they will be inspired to go to a performance, perhaps they will think opera (and opera singers) are more cool, maybe they will be feel a sense of community engagement and connection, or perhaps it will just bring surprise and joy and to their day, as it did to mine (albeit via You Tube).  Enjoy!

Wanderlust

I'm a traveller. I recently tallied that I've been to a total of 46 countries since my first trip abroad when I was 15. Another travelling friend said she aimed for the same number of countries as her age - so I can slow down my pace a bit to reach 50 by 50. In fact, I wouldn't mind slowing down the pace - visiting a bit more of the US and cutting down on grueling long-haul flights. But no doubt, I have a little wanderlust in my blood. As soon as I land in a foreign place, my senses are stimulated, and the adrenaline kicks up. And while I talk about being 'done' with the travel, I think I'd still like to get to Egypt, Vietnam and Turkey and so many other places, so I suppose as long as I have the opportunity I'll keep getting on planes.

This NYTimes article, 41 Places to Go in 2011, is an annual feature, and got my blood pumping again. A few picks tickled my fancy...

Tlemcen, Algeria; Oualidia, Morocco; and Tozeur, Tunisia were three destinations on the list. I don't have a particular favorite, but I'm drawn to northern Africa by its geocultural junctures of Islam, Africa, the Middle East, the Sahara desert and the Mediterranean Sea.

Salonika, Greece I've never been to Greece, and I'm not a beach person, but I've lately found myself thinking it would be an awfully nice vacation - sailing, exploring pristine and remote coasts, ancient history and amazing food. Enough to do to accompany a good chillax. Direct flights from London on BA...

Erzurum, Turkey I'm not psyched that Erzuram is a winter sports capital, but this mention reminded me that I'd like to go to Turkey sometime, and definitely go to Istanbul and well beyond.

Koh Samui, Thailand My good friend Michele's move to Thailand next month makes it all the more likely that I'll try to go there for a visit. Bangkok for sure - been there, love it! - and this place is called a lower-key Phuket, with a focus on wellness and food (no need to say more...). And when in Thailand, hopefully get to Cambodia or Vietnam.

And closer to home... Fogo Island, Newfoundland I'm finding "remote and rugged" more and more appealing these days (if it can't be Paris). This place sounds blissfull. The NYTimes tagline? An art colony blooms on remote and rugged shores....Take me away, I'm yours.

Other destinations in the article are appealing in some way or another  - Milan, Melbourne, Estonia, Iceland, Spain, Portugal, the San Juan Islands - but these just captured my imagination. As for the US, I totally want to explore more here...and don't know where to start. Perhaps some national parks, New England or the Blue Ridge mountains....

As for me for real, the current travel I've got possibly teed up - New York and Guatemala in February, London, Geneva and...Disney World (!) in March.

Drying out - Day 4; 27 to go

I like to drink.  Especially wine, especially red.  I also like margaritas with Mexican food.  A cold gin & tonic on a summer day.  A beer with junk food and sporting events.   I drink regularly - almost, but not always - every day. I drink from 2 to too many drinks.  I drink to complement and savor a good meal.  I drink to chill out, to take the edge off a hard day, to de-stress and unwind.  I drink as a social activity.  Sometimes, but not often, I drink too much.  A few times last year - 2 or 3 specific times that I recall - I drank more than I should have, when I knew better, and when I had some regrets.

I'm abstaining from alcohol this month.   I have reasons - various and sundry - for not drinking.

1.  I feel "puffy."  Water retention, that may or may not be related to alcohol, is beginning to bother me.  I'm curious if I will de-puff when I lay off alcohol for a bit.
2.  I feel like crap - tired, run down and fighting a nagging chronic cough.  Alcohol, and other vices and excess are not what I need.
3.  It's time to cleanse and detox.  After a month of holiday indulgence - wine, food, spending - I want to practice some self-discpline and cleaner living.
4.  I want to jump-start the next 5.  Over the last few months, the pounds crept on.  A function of several things - lots of fun, lots of stress, a metabolism that screeched to a halt at 40, a little break in the groove of my swimming routine.  But later in the year, I caught on to the stealth creep.  I have reversed the trend, even losing 3-4 pounds over the holidays.  Losing the empty calories in alcohol will hopefully help jumpstart the next Minus-5.
5.  I'm curious how I will feel experiencing life stone sober.  True, the vast majority of my life is stone sober, but what will a dinner party feel like (Actually, I didn't drink NYE over our five course dinner, except the glass of champagne with dessert.  It felt fine - a little boring but fine.)  What will Happy Hour feel like at Oyamel on Thursday when I don't/can't have one of their delicious margaritas?  Will it be difficult to be at a bar and NOT drink?  Will I be tempted?  Will I be VERY tempted?  Will I cave?  Will a bar be louder and more obnoxious when I'm not drinking?  Will I have a good time?
6. Can I do it?  I'm curious whether I can go a month without drinking - and somewhat scared that I can't.  Self-discipline is hardly my strength.  I hate regimens and rules.  I cave on my resolve on all sorts of piddly things for piddly reasons.
7.  And if I do cave,  is it my lack of self-discipline (my chronic lifelong trait) or actually evidence of a drinking problem.  I don't think so, but is that just denial and self-delusion?  You know that "i-can-stop -anytime-I-want-to-I-just-don't-want-to."  Well, the next month is my little test of those systems.  I didn't drink for months when I was pregnant.  More recently, I've gone days, but I don't think a full week, without a drink.  I'm never interested in drinking before evening - a daytime drink makes me tired and sick.  I sometimes don't finish a whole drink when I drink in the day.  So this is the time to put the "I'm pretty sure I don't have a drinking problem" to the test. What is my relationship to alcohol anyway?  
8. I'm curious to observe this as an anthropologist while I'm not drinking.  Do I crave it?  When?  What are my temptation points?  Do I need it or do I enjoy it?  Can I resist it?  I hope to get better insight to my relationship with alcohol in its absence.

It's the end of Day 4.  So far, so good.  On Sunday, as I sat down to a nice salmon dinner, I looked at the wine bottle on the counter, and thought it would be nice with the piece of fish, but I overcame that pretty quickly.  Today, I had a stressful day at work, and I thought, "Now I'll go home, and NOT have a glass of wine."  It would have tasted good, and felt good, too, but the moment passed.  I've made some plans for dinners and drinks over the next few weeks.

I'll report back of some of the other outcomes on issues 1-to-8 over the next month.  Until then, Cheers!

Happy New Year!

Hoppin' John

Sauteed Kale

Long Grain Brown Rice

This New Year supper was absolutely delish.  We totally devoured it.  Hoppin' John is a southern dish with black-eyed peas, a bit of bacon, celery, onion, and flavored with bay leaves and thyme.  It is traditionally eaten on New Year's Day, as the black eyed -peas are supposed to bring luck and/or prosperity (depending on the source you read - but I'll take either!).  Greens are the typical side dish - these were sauteed in olive oil with plenty of garlic.  Add liberal amounts of hot sauce.

There's a bit leftover for Skippin' Jenny tomorrow!

New Year's Eve Dinner

Carrot Soup

with sherry & orange

Baby Romaine Green Salad 

with walnuts, cranberries
& tarragon vinaigrette

Paella

Filet with Bernaise Sauce

Potato and Fennel Gratin

Roasted Root Vegetables

Molten Chocolate Cake 

with vanilla ice cream & fresh raspberries

Perrier Jouet

A wonderful last-minute,  foodie "potluck" New Year's Eve dinner party for 6, including dear friends Nancy, John, Megan and Tony.  A perfect start to the year.

2010: Year in Review, Part 3 Dear Daughter and other Loved Ones

Dear Daughter Seriously, I sometimes think I think my wonderful, thoughtful, giving, deeply insightful, kind, innocent six year-old daughter doesn't deserves a mother as flawed as I am.  I am in awe of her miraculousness.  I'm not the most maternal of women.  I would not be mistaken for a martyr.  I do not have infinite patience, endless capacity (or even desire), to nurture, boundless energy, and constant cheer.  I savor and pursue my adult life, sometimes at her expense.  I'm far from a helicopter mom or even a doting one.  My fuse can be short; my attention divided.  I sometimes half-jokingly refer to my mothering as "benevolent neglect" - that I hope will foster independence, scrappiness, and a provide a good adult women role model.  Despite my "bad mom" persona, I do make sure she always knows she is loved, safe, and secure. So far, so good...knock wood.

Quite honestly - between you and me -

2010: Year in Review, Part 2 - Men, Love , Sex and Ex

Life's Big Buckets in 2010, part 2 of three - This part is a Biggie - bigger than it should be, I'd think.  But what is Life without  Love?

Men, Sex, and Love - Or some combination thereof...sometimes.  The biggest trial of all.  As usual.  My half-full glass and pragmatic romantic view prevails.  It was a good year.  There was progress, there were setbacks; but more progress than setbacks.

As we entered 2010, I was enjoying a romantic interlude with Hiking Viking.  We seemed to be navigating our complexities and individual needs, desires, and directions well.  We were even growing closer and more emotionally intimate with whispers of sweet nothings and love.  Perhaps this was the harbinger - we really didn't belong in that territory, as lovely as it was - because CRASH!- BANG! -BOOM! we had some deep uglies suddenly and immediately afterward.  Uglies that left me reeling and confused, though in hindsight, it was more likely a necessary course correction.  We managed a bit more in a gentle, kind, supportive friendship - two people who seemed to get each other...with benefits.  But nice, and even right, as this was, it was  not safe or comfortable territory for me.  I tried to feel my way around this zone...but CRASH! BANG!  BOOM! in one of these (perhaps misguided)  conversations, I encountered anger, blame, vitriol - hurling accusations and spewing resentment - and our friendship was mutually declared over.  I have never in my life declared a friendship over - I've grown apart (sometimes intentionally); I've created space;  I've lost time and priority in friendships that had mutually served its purpose.  But I have never actively severed a friendship.  It left me reeling and destabilized again.  Another area, as the year closes, where I have found myself destabilized and second-guessing myself, and my mojo shaken.  Enough bandwidth...onward and upward.

Vegitect is a big character in this year's screen play.  Springtime, and all is possible.  New, green design gigs and newfound legs underneath himself made him ripe for romance when we met.  Here is an awesome man....witty, sexy, creative, handsome, and international.  :-) We found ourselves and each other in shared a passion for creativity in its infinite forms, and in our individual resilience always manifesting from the core.  Our compatibility and chemistry was notable.  I sometimes long for the promise of April - venturing to Paris with friends, and getting sweet, funny international text messages on l'autobus and brilliant sketched postcards for my birthday. But I feared... no, I knew... that he was not ready for involvement, and I told him as much, while I carefully skirted emotional attachment. Hell, I was so fuckin' prescient, I even wrote into My Main Gal Hax about the issue on an online discussions in June, that was later published in the Washington Post in September.  And prescient indeed... timing and time is important.  And as time passed, the messiness and acrimony of his divorce became more apparent, and the reality of throwing his dreams, drive and financial stake into a start-up in a crap economy became all-consuming.  It was a shit-storm in which I could not get sucked into the vortex, nor toss the life ring from the edge.  I have had my own shit-storm, and as recently emergent, I can say that life's personal shit-storms are best weathered independently.  But here and now, Dear Vegitect, I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for your wit; your bizarre and endearing sense of irony; for sitting on my porch on early summer evenings talking with a bottle of chilled Spanish Cava or with sparklers in hand; for your photos, sketches, and sexy texts; for a well-planned mystery picnic; for teaching me the secrets of a perfectly fragrant and delicious daal; for the flowers; and for your continued friendship.  XO.

And while a few other minor characters made cameo appearances as love interests - one in particular that was not to be - it was a most of all a year of love and learning. And my learning has essentially led me to believe that it is timing that is mostly determinant, and that it takes time to see if love will stick among the competing vicissitudes.  And for the moment, I'm taking a chosen break, but surely not forever.

Irony  This was the year that I learned that Dear ex-Husband re-married.  I learned it on Facebook.  Two years after the fact.  This may well be my most mortifying and humbling moment.  I was enraged!  Anger and fury that I rarely feel, let alone express...but I did both to the fullest.  It felt amazing. But I know the source of my anger is also my disappointment, my sense of betrayal, and my sadness.  He and his wife are now expecting a baby any week now. And Dear Daughter suffers at the hands of an evil stepmother - it is not a cliche; she is a character study of immaturity, insecurity and passive-aggression. And Dear ex-Husband continues to make bad decisions that only spiral him downward, and his charm cannot save him anymore.  And the only good thing to come out of all his 2010 shenanigans is that I am freed of the horrible guilt and self-flaggelation for our failed marriage that I inflicted upon myself daily .    Did I make mistakes?  Yes.  Will I do things differently with my next partner/husband from the insight I have gained into (un)healthy, (dys)functional love and partnership?  Indeed, I fervently hope so.   Do I share the responsibility for our failure?  I do.  But I no longer blame myself.  There is nothing I could have done differently to save our marriage - as much as I tried and wished.  His latest antics are only proof that he could not and did not show up.  Not for me, and sadly, these days I worry, not even for himself.  And with all his hooey, I'm clearly, markedly, definitively better off without him.

2010: Year in Review, Part 1 - Work and Wealth

Overall, I'd declare this year Good overall, but most notably a year of Improvement and Progress.  :-)  For once, "most improved"doesn't feel like a consolation prize, but a hard-won, much-cherished feat.  The series of tragedies and bad news of years past have ebbed.  It was a welcome reprieve, and interestingly I noticed and appreciated the absence of constant losses and unheavals.  How often do we notice and appreciate that "nothing bad is happening" and therefore I am grateful?  Of course, I am grateful for the many good fortunes in my life this past year, and humbled by the setbacks.  Rather than a chronological review, this year I will examine Life's Big Buckets, and how each one fared.  This is a blog post in three parts (and some parts are a work in progress, as I continue to edit bit by bit).

Work - My job is demanding and stressful. At times, it can totally suck the life out of me.  For the better part of this year however, it sustained me and fulfilled me.  My boss, our CEO, announced her planned departure for early 2011, and this had some wonderful outcomes.  It was a great relief to know that a huge stressing, anxiety-producer will be releasing its grip.  Also, perhaps her own knowledge of her transition took some burden off her as well, because our relationship eased and became more trusting and respectful (for the most part).  Also, my ego was boosted, as both several members of our board and our funders saw me as a viable candidate to take on her role....but I am both smart and sane, and announced I would not be applying.  It was terrific to have the best of all worlds - good enough to do it, smart enough not to!

Take that NYTimes!

As much as I LOVE the NYTimes, this highly insulting article is totally dismissive of the DC, specifically Capitol Hill, dining scene.  It pretty much says that every recent restaurant opening up on the Hill is some version of junk food for simpletons!  I won't take it!

But this blogger from my local blogsite,The Hill is Home, says it best, New York Also Thinks DC Looks Fat In Those Pants!

Social Science Palooza

Weird science!  I'm WAY behind on my writing - but this cool article by NYTimes columnist, David Brooks, summarizes the (bizarre) results of recent social science research.

People are strange and complicated creatures.  At least that's my excuse, and I'm sticking to it!

Freedom

Tonight, as I came in from fireside drinks with dear old friend, M, and I realized NO ONE was at home. NO ONE will be here for at least the next 24 hours.  Dear Daughter is with Dear ex-Husband, and au pair has flown off to Chicago for the holidays.  The house is empty, and ALL MINE.  I own this house - as much as anyone really can own their house in the United States of America - that is, the bank and I own this house, with lots of equity, and an affordable mortgage payment - which is good enough.  My obligations are all my own...I am only responsible for myself here and now.  I walked in the door, stripped off my clothes, and made lots of noise.  Tomorrow I will wake up, and make myself some good strong coffee, and take as long, as hot a shower as I please.  I will fart to my heart's content.  This is freedom for  this single working mom, folks.   Freedom plain and simple.

2010 Year in Ideas

My favorite issue of the New York Times magazine is out! The Year in Ideas presents some of the best innovation, ingenuity and imagination concepts of the year in various disciplines - medicine to design.  I just eat this issue up...and here are a few ideas that tickled my fancy:

Relaxation Drinks - With the energy drink market saturated for products like Red Bull , it makes sense that the next frontier in the specialty soft drink business would be relaxation drinks.  These drinks are loaded with natural relaxation agents like Valerian, Kava, and Melatonin.  As much as I actively seek ways to chill out, I'm not a likely consumer.

Youth Condom - After learning that many young people were doing it with condoms that didn't quite fit, a snugger (let's not say smaller, shall we?) condom, Hotshot, is marketed to 13 to 15 year olds.   I'm not that psyched that fourteen-year-olds are having sex - but a good 13% of them have been sexually active by age 15, and I want them to be safe, so I'm a fan.

Turbine-Free Wind Power - These wind powers vibrate from a passing breeze, and can convert the wind vibration to energy.  Since they take up little space and require less air area than wind turbines, they are well suited for urban spaces like the sides of buildings and rooftops.  I think wind farms are beautiful, but apparently, if I were better acquainted with them, I'd know they are noisy and cause danger to wildlife.  These oscillating panels are a step in the right direction for greener power.  I think the green innovation of this era is awesome!

The Train that Never Stops - A high-speed intercity train in China loses 45 minutes during its journey just because of 3-minute station stops along the way.  But this invention would save that precious time. Passengers enter and exit through pods that attach to the top of the train as it speeds through the station, and enter the train through a roof hatch.  Makes EZ Pass look old-fashioned!

Like.

Who are the people in your neighborhood?

Mind-blowing!!

This wonderful NYTimes feature, Mapping America: Every City, Every Block depicts 2010 census data through powerful color density graphics for every block.  Maps show race and ethnicity, income, education, housing, and families stats for any zip code and the specific census tracts of each - in my urban area this is about .25 square mile.  Go ahead, plug in your zip, zoom in, and get insight to the demographic composition of your own neighborhood.

I could have played with this for hours, but for now, I've learned some fascinating statistics for my little corner of the world, Census Tract 6802:

Winter Medley

Oh, the weather outside is frightful...


It's frigid cold these past few days.  The kind of cold where your face stings and your ears ring, and your fingertips go numb...with gloves.  I'm enjoying the real winter cold even though it's brutal when walking just a few blocks.  I've been drinking lots of hot chocolate, coffee, and tea.  I love bundling up in my new coat, cute hat, snug gloves and my scarf-of-the day.  I cherish the last moment in a cozy warm room before hitting the bracing, but exhilarating, air, or the first moment there that welcomes me back from it.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

It feels more like Christmastime than those balmy 50 degree days that Washington sometimes has in December.  At around 4'oclock on a gray, blustery day, it can look quite stark and dreary - those naked, gnarly tree branches in our concrete jungle.  But by 6pm, the holiday lights start to glow from the yards and from the Christmas trees framed in the undressed windows of inviting homes.  I love window-peeping in the urban winter landscape.

Let it snow.  Let it snow.  Let it snow.

It would all be softened by a little snow.  A white soft blanket that would cover the greys and muffle the harsh echoes.  And my guys at Capital Weather Gang are predicting the season's first snowfall will arrive tomorrow. One to two inches - a lit more than a dusting, and likely not lasting.  But that first snowfall is such a thrill.  Every. Single. Time.

Brown paper packages tied up with strings...

And I've got some holiday cheer, too.  I've been wrapping presents - one of my least favorite things to do, and usually put off until the very last minute.  But this year, I've engaged dear daughter and we're choosing paper and ribbon colors for each gift.  She writes the labels in her darling, newly-learned, uneven handwriting "To: Helena.  From: Grace and Victoria " and my heart melts to watch her grow up right before my eyes.  So present wrapping is not so awful this year, and we're doing a few per night.

Hallelujah!


Hallelujah, indeed!  Tomorrow, we're going to the Kennedy Center for the Messiah concert of the National Symphony Orchestra.  Every part of that last sentence is a superlative!  Such a wonderful treat.

And today, I will say, for the first time in a few days or a few weeks, It's a Wonderful Life.

Fa la la, la la, la, la, la, la.

Menu: Anyway, inspired by Nigella

Shrimp with Maryam Zaira sauce

Cocktail nuts

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Scallops and Chorizo

Flatiron Steak

Spinach with Chickpeas and Sherry

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Pots de Chocolate with fresh whipped cream

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Red and white wines and beer

Coffee

Sicko

I have been smacked upside the head with the flu.  My head pounds - the sinus pressure has given me an awful headache.  My joints and muscles ache from head to toe.  I have no energy, and even little efforts are exhausting. I have a scratchy throat and a dry cough.  Even my eyes feel awful - heavy from being tired, and irritated from alternating between dry and tear-y.   And with each passing hour in my bed, in my pj's,  I feel worse, not better.

I'm not good at being really sick.  Dragging and moaning a bit when a little under the weather is my specialty.  But when I'm really sick, I'm in denial.  I assume I can power through if.  My worst case prognosis tends to be to force myself to take care of myself with naps, ibuprofen, fluids, and vitamins, and  I'll be back at it in a coupla hours, or a half day at most.  So when Plan A (power through it) and Plan B (self-administer sick TLC for a few hours) don't cut it, I find myself a little stymied.  I'll be better by evening, right?  Or by the class I'm registered for tomorrow morning?  Or by the time my guests arrive for my dinner party tomorrow night?  At this point, I'm not so sure.
  

Books 2010: Corduroy Mansions by Alexander McCall Smith

I'm a longtime fan of Alexander McCall Smith's #1 Ladies Detective Agency series.  These books which are set in pastoral Botswana, tell the tales of Precious Ramatswe, a lady detective or a certain age and a certain size.  Each one describes a gentle African beauty of culture, people, and geography with humble respect and dignity.  There is something that is both simple and profound at once in the same sentence, the chapter, the entire novel, and the entire series.  It is a quick and easy read, but never insulting of one's intelligence.

Until now, I had not found McCall Smith's other novels all that appealing.  During the period that I was reading about the ladies detective agency, I was traveling back and forth to Africa.  This time, I was traveling back and forth to London, when I became immersed and enamored with Corduroy Mansions.

Corduroy Mansions is a townhouse divided into several flats in the Pimlico area of London.  Each flat has its own cast of characters, with somewhat interlinking stories, each totally absurd, yet somehow almost perfectly plausible.  One twenty-something flatmate living among the group of young women living together entirely by circumstance, is the junior staffer of an abhorrent MP who ends up firing her by text message. While another of these post-uni young woman works at a health food store, and somehow offers her boy-crush a free colonic irrigation.  A middle-aged gentleman is desperate to have his mid-20's son move out to his own place, and schemes ways to push him out of the nest.  All this while a desperate divorcee schemes her way into the nest.

The novel has an agreeable pace and tone.  McCall Smith carries you easily through each sentence and chapter, but never insult you intelligence.  And while the plots unfold in a simple, seemingly one-dimensional narrative, there is an additional plane of biting, droll wit, so subtle it's often almost missed, like one character's somewhat neurotic observation of the fish seller always being prompt, "she liked that in someone who sold perishables."  There were many times when reading, I just enjoyed the little subtle joke or the totally nuanced absurdity, and I could imagine McCall Smith's twinkling eyes as he wrote it.

4 out of 5 stars for a good read, an gentle read, and a natural humor...this one's easy on the eyes, and only as taxing on the brain as you want it to be.

A compliment

At a strange time when my mojo is hobbled, and I'm spending far too much time second-guessing myself, I got a unexpected nice compliment from our Controller today:

 "You have the biggest budget, the most responsibility, and you are the only one around here interested in reviewing your numbers.  You know right away when there's an error for accounting reclassification."

OK, not my usual point of pride, but I'll take it.