Good afternoon, friends and neighbors!
A new job.
New, later hours.
New work.
New kitchen, new people, new rules, new lifestyle, new rhythms, new responsibilities, new challenges, new criteria.
New expectations- from the job, and from myself.
Let’s kick some ass.
Good afternoon, friends and neighbors! It’s good to be back behind the keyboard. Emily and I had a great time down in Florida, despite a few hiccups along the way- a bit of motion sickness, misplaced forms of ID, you know… the usual. Right?
As I hoped, or possibly feared, Florida gave me a lot of quiet time to think. Of course, my wife, mother, and in-laws were present to streamline things and make sure I didn’t spend the entire time sleeping or lost in thought- but there were plenty of moments when I knew I had to get my head in order, and more than a little worried about what that order might mean.
It’s a very frustrating and disconcerting thing to be afraid of your own thought processes. Here I was, trying to take a vacation that I sorely needed, and I couldn’t even do THAT right. My parents-in-law- who were putting us up in their house in the Lakeland area of Florida- gave us a blank ticket for whatever we wanted to do. “Treat yourself!” they said. “Whatever it is you want to do, do it because you can. You need to relax!”
A wonderful invitation, and certainly something Emily and I availed ourselves of- but self-care is not the same as “treating yourself.” Self-care is often doing things you don’t want to do- or are afraid to do- because they need to be done to make yourself better.
Good evening, friends and neighbors!
This week’s entry is going to be a little light, and next week’s is gonna be… well, non-existent, because I’m finally getting to go on vacation. Emily and I will be heading down to Florida for a few days to see her folks. It’ll be our first chance to ACTUALLY get away in nearly two and a half years, and frankly, it couldn’t have come sooner.
I got up before my 5 am alarm clock again the other day- thanks mostly to my cat. It’s a little hard to sleep through eight pounds of furry, purring lump flopping itself on to your chest- even if your alarm isn’t supposed to go off for another half-hour.
Ugh… fine. Covers off. Slippers and house hoodie on because the heater has yet to kick on. I use my phone and watch as a flashlight to find my glasses- Emily doesn’t have to be up for a few hours yet. Best not to wake her.
Shuffling through the dark apartment on the way to a lightswitch, I almost trip over Cleo twice. She’s weaving in and out of my legs and purring- thrilled as all get out that I’m awake to feed her, even before I fix my own breakfast.
“Yes, cat, I’m coming.”
“Yes cat, you’re getting fed.”
“Jesus Christ, you act like we never feed you. Keep your fur on.”
As I tip out half a can of weirdly uniform, monochromatic glop that claims to be turkey with sweet potatoes and gravy into her bowl, watch her take a few sniffs and walk away, I reach over and shut my alarm off.
“This is my life.”
Yes, yes it really is. I asked for it to be this way.
Good evening, friends and neighbors!
In the process of… “researching” for the top 10 cocktails list, one of my friends from back home asked a very serious and pointed question:
“What, no Cosmos?”
If I’m honest, I’ve never had a Cosmopolitan. Besides the fact I’m not a huge vodka or cranberry fan (outside of martinis and/or scones), I rarely like my drinks too sweet. Those are all good reasons not to get a cocktail. There was also one bad reason- that it’s a “chick drink.”
“Dude, go get one. Get good vodka in there, and report back”
“Alright, but I bet I’ll get a funny look from the bartender.”
“If you do, take a picture. Just get the drink- it’s like cranberry candy.”
So I did. I walked into a new bar that I had just found, bellied-up to the bar, loosened my tie a bit, and asked the bartender for a Cosmopolitan.
The bartender- a woman- didn’t make a face, but she DID pause for a moment before saying “Okay, you want that in a stem or a bucket?”
“Um.. a stem? That’s how it’s supposed to be served, right?”
“Oh yeah- but some guys find stemware girly.”
I’d already been conditioned to think of certain cocktails as “chick drinks.” That was bad enough- but STEMWARE? Using the proper drinking vessel for a certain drink is “unmanly?”
Guys- if this is for real, we have some SERIOUS fragility problems.
The Black Hat Baker 