Gus Update

It seems the couch is the new exer-saucer. Gus seems happy as long as he can dance and look at cats in the sunlight. (And really, isn't that all anyone wants?)

Yet another list of books

I don't know much about who Donald Barthelme is but I'm always interested in book lists. His looks quite good.

Finding Your Passion

I stumbled across this quote in a recent in an interview with Joseph J. Plumeri from the Willis Group:

Q. What questions do you ask job candidates?

A. What I really want to know is what kind of person I’m dealing with. So I ask only one question. I say, “Tell me what you’re passionate about.” That’s it. Tell me what you’re passionate about.

Q. Do they ask if you mean at work or outside of work?

A. Whatever you want to talk about. Tell me what you’re passionate about. Digging holes. Riding bikes. I’m looking to see if they’ve got a passion. I’m looking to see if there’s anything inside, other than what they do. And how passionate could they be, therefore, about being here? And how excited and involved could they be?

I spent a lot of time thinking about this. What am I passionate about?

The answer starts with something weird and very specific, but why I'm passionate about it ends up explaining a lot about who I am and how I see the world.

I really like yeast. I am passionate about yeast. Yeast is the foundation of so many things I find wonderful: bread, beer, sauerkraut, yoghurt, sourdough, and champagne.

I have been baking bread since I got my first apartment in 1996, and find it an easy way to calm myself through kneading dough, the smell of bread backing, and the amazing transformation process that starts with four ingredients (flour, yeast, salt, water) and delivers a crusty, warm gooey loaf of wonderful.

Since 2006 I've made most of the bread we eat at home. I mix the dough, let it proof overnight, and will bake something in the morning. I don't carefully measure this, and have added lots of ingredients to mix it up over time: left-over blueberry oatmeal, rye, onion bits, and nuts.

And beer! I have started to taste beer like some taste wine, paying close attention to characteristics of breweries, how the water quality impacts the beer, and the funny things yeast does to transform water and grain into Guinness.

And what ties this all together, and why I am passionate about yeast, is that to work with yeast relies upon a process you can't fundamentally see, but have to trust that it will work out. It is not precise, it is forgiving and finicky. You can't rely upon it to realize the same result each time you use it, as yeast changes over time, and that changes the flavor.

So yeast yields serendipity, and I love serendipity. And I think the universe is mostly serendipitous, and not precise, and finicky and forgiving. There are so many things that could go wrong, but often we happen to find the spouse who makes us happy, your genes combine in random ways to yield a lovely child with your little hands, and your Saturday afternoon is filled with quiet and the smell of bread baking.

And yeast can be like that smell: we can trap it and bottle it, but mostly it is all around us. I've made hard cider by simply leaving apple juice sit out on the counter, and sooner or later you have homespun hooch. And then vinegar.

You can make sourdough anywhere in the world by simply letting the yeast live in the dough you make. And I think that we could all be happy somewhere, make something of our lives with the ingredients we're given, if we just be sure to pay attention and not try to be precise but forgiving.

Parkway Finds

Parkway Finds
Originally uploaded by minvervah

Shylo found these two 8-tracks in the parkway near our house, and they have been officially added to my collection of oddities at work that I carry with me from desk to desk.

Other fine items in this collection include a picture of Martha Stewart, two cans of SPAM (one Elvis Hawaii edition, one regular SPAM), play-doh I've had for 5 years, a box with Ganesh in it, a plastic penguin, and every cool thing Cathy G. has ever given me.

I also keep an inflatable man in a drawer. Sometimes, I take him out to freak out the interns. It never fails.

Chicken and Tabby

Chicken and Tabby
Originally uploaded by minvervah

This pretty much sums up our life about now: cats and our son, The Chicken.

riiiight.

riiiight.
Originally uploaded by minvervah

Officially my new favorite photo.

Nice Wheels

Me And The Alderman

CAPS0609 025
Originally uploaded by kastigar

Before the CAPS mtg.

Yet more flotsam and jetsam

1. I would love to have a pair of pants like this, but I'm not the right size. I would love to have these for casual Fridays, weekends, etc.

2. I keep mulling over an essay (yet to be written) about how the 21st century will be about authenticity. In the era of globalization and technology and virtualization and tourism, finding what's real will be of increasing importance.

On Static vs Dynamic

About two weeks ago, I bought my afternoon coffee and forgot to put milk in it. "Oh well", I figured "I'll just drink it anyway." And so I did. But for the first time in my life, black coffee actually tasted good.

Last night I was brushing my teeth and noticed a prickly white hair poking out of my head. I had seen suspicious bits of white appear when shaving, so the maverick whitey hints at a trend: I'm about to go gray.

Neither of these things bother me. I've watched Shylo's body change so much in the past months because of her pregnancy--her curves have altered, she no longer likes tomatoes, she naps a lot--that it isn't hard to imagine that my body wants to do something different too.

One of the glorious things about growing older is watching how things change, learning what is static about yourself ("I like bicycles") vs what is dynamic ("Just black coffee please thanks"). I still have oblong feet but now I like to run--I never used to.

Perhaps the biggest thing to remember about "the change we can believe in" isn't how much our government can change, it's how we can transform ourselves. The recession has made me spend a lot more time inside, literally and figuratively.

What have I learned? I feel happier as an adult. One of the most powerful things was to learn how to control my moods, find the right tools to avoid being sad. I'm lucky--something I used to think was so static is now dynamic.

So what if my hair turns white? Soon something else will change, and I'll barely notice.

Yellow Puppy Dog

Thrift Store Find?
Originally uploaded by minvervah

This was the crowning top of a display in a thrift-store in Crystal Lake. I like the contrast of the dry beige with the wet yellow, but good god, it is hideous.

It was placed next to someone's collection of bells from different states. People's desire to collect things always puzzles me. "I'm in Wyoming, I should collect a bell" someone must think. But mostly they were from lame places in Florida.

Baby Thoughts

The old lady who lived in the house across the street appears to have died. Appears?

Yes, appears.

She did not come over and tell us she was dying. She was 100, so we knew. And we'd see her soft living room light come on, then later go off, a definitive sign that the woman who had been a girl during World War I was still hanging out, night after night.

The caretakers would sit outside and smoke. There was a rock at the end of the old woman's driveway, and the caretakers would sit, always at 8am or 8pm, and smoke. The shift would change.

The smoking stopped a few weeks ago. Before Christmas? Now there is a green sign planted in the snow: "For Sale".

Soon new neighbors will move in, perhaps another couple with children, a couple like we are about to become. Their children will dance on the lawn, they will decorate the house. Perhaps we'll become friends and step inside for dinner?

But I won't forget the lady, living alone at the end of her life, sometimes slowly answering the door, the light usually on in the evening.

ChiBoGa

Arid Greenhouse Bloom
Originally uploaded by minvervah

Since we had to head up to Highland Park to pick up a crib for Gus, we decided to head over the the Chicago Botanical Gardens to see what was happening. For a garden in the winter in Chicago: not much. But the orchid room and the desert room are always a treat, and I made Shylo take this picture because it looked other-planetary.

Truly Pattern Recognition

"She is increasingly of the opinion that worrying about problems doesn't help solve them, but she hasn't really found an alternative yet."

-- William Gibson, Pattern Recognition

Echoes Of Subprime

"By mid-2003, as the drumbeat of criticism--and a string of investigations--intensified, there were some hints of remorse. At its annual meeting in May, J.P. Morgan Chase issued a statement saying, "We have seen far more than the usual number of serious accidents at the intersection of Wall Street and Main. And our financial institutions, including J.P. Morgan Chase, must take their share of responsibility for that." Two months later, J.P. Morgan Chase and Citigroup agreed to pay a combined $286 million for "helping to commit a fraud" on Enron's shareholders as SEC enforcement chief Stephen Cutler told reporters. The two banks also agreed to ensure that their clients who used complex financial structures account for them in ways that investors could readily understand. Investors will have to wait until the next bull market to gauge whether anything has really changed."

(The emphasis is mine.)

Reading "The Smartest Guys In The Room" this weekend was amazing. To imagine that such a business existing boggles the mind, and seems like a better warning of the current financial difficulties than the LTCM crisis was previously.