chocolates et al

...but first, the Funny Story for the Week:
* * * * * * * * * * * *

"Hey, there are crunchy bits in this chocolate! ...oh, they're just toffee. Well, that's good to know."

"Yeah, just don't do as I did, and find out, after the fact, that the crunchy bits in your food are broken glass..."

"Ow!! How'd that happen?"

"Broke a condiment bottle."

"So, um, what happened? Doesn't that usually involve a trip to the emergency room?"

"Well, yeah, and I was going to do that, but then I did a little research online."

"And?"

"Well, if your dog eats a Christmas ornament, you're supposed to feed him cotton balls. All the little fibers wrap around the bits of broken glass, they become harmless, and eventually he just passes them out the other end."

"So??"

"I ate a bunch of cotton balls."

"COTTON BALLS?"

"Yep. They taste really gnarly, too."

"And it worked?"

"Yeah. They said it was easier to get your dog to eat them if you soaked them in half-and-half first, so I ate them with some ice cream."

"Uh. Ice cream."

"Yeah. They were...weird."

* * * * * * * * * *

So hey, now you know what to do if you accidentally eat broken glass. :-)

Second funny story of the day: the same friend who sent me the gorgeous French rugby player photos just crashed his hard drive, and was worried about the repair guys finding the rugby players. So he asked me (semi-jokingly) if gay porn was illegal. Given a straight line like that, how on earth could I resist?

"Only if you don't share!!"

So I told him that (a) every hard drive in existence probably has porn on it, and not to worry, and (b) if pressed, he could always say it was for a friend. (Which, oddly enough, it was. He downloaded it all so he could send me a CD of it. The sacrifices he makes, poor boy...LOL)

And, along those lines, a brief moment of very telling embarrassment: I was looking for one of my chocolate cookbooks and couldn't find it anywhere. Went through the entire bookshelf, the chocolate section...nada. Finally I turned the entire house upside down looking for it, and where did I finally locate it??

...in with the erotica.

*chuckle* Right idea, wrong (sub)genre.

(But hey, at least I know what I was thinking when I put it there...!)

At any rate, I have now finished fifteen or twenty pounds of chocolates, in a six-hour run: English toffee with and without nuts, lots of caramels; cinnamon, jasmine, and Armagnac truffles, chocolate covered macadamia nuts, cherry-almond clusters, chocolate covered apricots, and chocolate covered pears. I am contemplating making two batches of fudge (maple walnut and white chocolate-Meyer lemon-lavender) as well, but having eaten nothing but sugar all day, I think dinner comes first. :-)

I have also bought some duck eggs, for Christmas presents...I am flying to Maryland on Friday to visit family and pick up my cats...so I need to bring some Xmas presents. If I work at it, I think I can get one or two of my Celtic-knot pysanky done before I leave. (Those are very nice...basically batik done on eggs, except that I draw the lines in 22KT gold leaf, and set precious gems into the design...sadly, no photos of this work on my website (yet), but will eventually get around to it. They are gorgeous, some of the most beautiful work I've done. (There are photos of some other eggs on my website, in the crafts section, but they're the simpler ones.))

At any rate, I am now COVERED in chocolate (smudges on hands, arms, cheeks, forehead, chin, hair, shirt covered in chocolate from where I wiped my (chocolate-covered) hands on it, chocolate under my fingernails, chocolate on my feet, chocolate embedded in my watchband. Not to mention chocolate all over the kitchen, dining room, and floor. Chocolates are wonderful things, but dang, are they messy. (But then, so are most of the worthwhile things in life. ;-) )

It's really too bad I don't have an S.O....I suspect he'd be thrilled. :-)

Tien

Other random updates

Lessee:

Work is going really, really well. I love it. I'm getting to do all the things I've always dreamed of doing--leaping in and learning a new market, a new technology, and getting to build strategies. I've been reading like a maniac and interrogating a lot of my new coworkers on their understanding of our technology and our market--after a month, I feel like I'm finally getting my feet under me. Best of all, it looks like I'm getting free rein from up above to do exactly what I want to do--analyze the market, determine our strategies and best sales potential, and then go out and try to get deals. It's a wonderfully complex and interesting problem, and I feel really, really, really lucky to have stumbled into it at just the right time. I'm ecstatic.

(It is now occurring to me--after years of swearing otherwise--that I might really enjoy running my own business...something to tuck away and think about. We'll see how this one goes. :-) )

Snake: Isis is doing much, much better--she's breathing a lot easier, and is generally looking better. Unfortunately, the culture came back as pseudonomas, which is a nasty and hard-to-eradicate bug. So she is on another week's worth of injections. I feel so bad about it--I know she hates getting the injections, and that they sting like crazy--but there really isn't much choice: we have to get the infection. I'm just hoping she doesn't decide that all humans are evil and start biting. I dont' think she will--she's a very calm snake, all things considered--but it must be a horrible experience for her.

I'm going to try handling her some more this weekend--just so she doesn't associate being picked up with being jabbed with a needle--and also feed her. I feel so guilty about the whole thing, even though it's exactly what I need to do. It's just that there's no way to explain to her why we're doing it. It's always hard with your "kids".

Along those same lines, I get my cats back soon! I'm flying out to Maryland on Dec 3, and am returning on Dec 8 with my cats!!! They have been living with my brother's wife for two years now, and I absolutely hated not having them--but while I was unemployed, there wasn't a chance of being able to get them back, I couldn't afford a place for them. I adore my cats, and I have felt just awful about not being there for them--especially since I promised Sweetheart I would always be there for her. But Tara took fantastic care of them (for which I owe her infinite thanks--you couldn't possibly believe how much I adore my cats)--and soon they will be coming back home for good. I'm ecstatic.

Meanwhile, in the continuing bizarreness of my ex's life, Rob was going to come down tonight (as he has for the last week and a half) to help me inject Isis. But he didn't make it today. Why? Well, just as he was trying to leave for Southern California for Thanksgiving, one of his chameleons went into labor. She gave birth to a bunch of live babies...and while that was happening, one batch of eggs started hatching! (Six months ahead of schedule, too.) So he is up there frantically constructing cages for the new babies, to hold them while he's away. Chameleons aren't that smart, and mom will actually eat the new babies if they're where she can see them. (I've seen one do it.) I'm amused. Rob's other ex (I'm the ex-wife, she's the ex-fiancee) is coming by to help me instead.

I'm not sure who the livebearing chameleon was, but the eggs that hatched were for Chameleo lateralis--the carpet chameleon. They're gorgeous little critters, like tiny jewels--adults maybe three or four inches for body + head (with the tail curled), and the colors are bright and beautiful--like tiny Persian carpets. The adults can live in surprisingly small cages--I'm vaguely considering whether I could sneak one in and keep it in my office. Probably not, but I think it would be pretty cool. At the moment I have an orchid or two there, but would really like a small terrarium. (Yeah, I know, it's not very corporate, but you have to draw the line somewhere.)

Fiber! I almost forgot about fiber. I have finally reached the point where I'm ready to start a new project. I've been doing some sampling, and my base yarn is going to be at least 1 ply of a brown cashmere/silk mix that I bought from Woodland Woolworks. It's pearly gray to pale tan spun up--looks beautiful in itself, but I wanted to add a little soft fuzziness to it. I tried 1 ply black angora and 1 ply cashmere/silk, and that looks OK, but I really want something with more sheen, to match the silk. So I have started asking around for black satin angora. I think the idea is to do another ring shawl, except this time in a ghostly, slightly haloed silver-gray--kind of a "ghost" shawl.

And, last of all, a friend (in fact, my former boss) just sent me a CD of photos of French rugby players in the nude ("Dieux du Stade"). Gorgeous black and white photos, very artistic, and woo boy are those guys hot!! I definitely have to get the book and at least one of the calendars. If you want to find it, search for "Dieux du Stade" (which I think translates to "Gods of the Stadium"). I don't know how they managed to get the French rugby team to pose in the nude, but Great Mother, they're gorgeous. Never let it be said that I turned down eye candy. :-)

Nonetheless, I find it very amusing that my former boss, the very proper cut-no-corners Boy Scout-pure corporate exec, is sending me porn. My good moral example is clearly having an exemplary effect on him. Soon I will have him running around in body paint and a tutu, and my job on Earth will be done.

(Don't worry; I don't think that will happen in my lifetime. But there's always hope. :-) )

Tien

Chocolate time!

"I'm not doing chocolates this year," I said. "It's a huge amount of work, I just started a new job, I've been burning the candles at both ends for a month now, and besides I need to finish writing my book."

"Nope. Definitely not doing chocolates this year," I said.

Which does not quite explain how I managed to return from last weekend's grocery shopping with 1 gallon of super-heavy whipping cream (actually manufacturer's cream--40% butterfat!), 3 lbs of butter, 2.5 lbs of frozen raspberries, 2.5 lb frozen boysenberries, 2 lbs of almonds, 1 lb dried sour cherries, 2 lb premium dried apricots, dried pears, a bottle of Armagnac, and, well....stuff. You get the idea.

What can I say, I'm weak.

(Besides, it just wouldn't be Thanksgiving without chocolate excess. ;-) )

At any rate, having acquired all this stuff, it would of course be a shame not to use it. So I am making chocolates again this year, as I have for pretty much every Thanksgiving for the last eight or nine years (I skipped it the year I was traveling SE Asia). But this year I am keeping it relatively simple and straightforward, with a minimum of fuss:

• chocolate-dipped dried pears
• chocolate covered apricots
• cherry-almond clusters (dried sour cherries and almonds in chocolate)
• vanilla-jasmine-orange-blossom-honey caramels, dipped in chocolate
• Armagnac truffles
• jasmine truffles
• English toffee

and that's it. (I was tempted to throw in white chocolate-Meyer lemon-lavender fudge--because the stuff tastes so fantastic--but enough is enough.)

Believe it or not, for me that's pretty restrained; normally I do another six or seven flavors of truffles on top of all that, and make about 30 lbs of chocolates. This year I plan to make about 20 lbs, but I'm never quite sure exactly what it will come out to.

Unfortunately, since I received my divine directive to make chocolates after my chocolate supplier's warehouse sale (they're a wholesale business and only sell to the public a few times a year), I'm restricted to only the chocolate I have on hand (I keep a small stock on general principles). I had thought it was going to be OK. I counted five 3-kg packages--some open--and figured that was probably about 13-14 kg of chocolate, which comes out to about 27-30 lbs, which should (almost certainly) be enough for a Thanksgiving run.

But, one of those packages turned out to be empty (or rather, it had 5 lbs of cocoa in it), so it turns out I only have about 10-11 kg of chocolate, which is about 20-24 lbs of chocolate, and that's pushing the edge. I think it ought to be OK, but I'm actually worried about running out. Normally I stock up to at least 60 lbs of chocolate before I make a big batch. But we'll see.

But more about this chocolate? you say?

I've been a chocolate fiend since time immemorial--I used to make chocolate truffles and bonbons (buttercream icing, chilled and dipped in chocolate--creamy and buttery inside, chocolate on the outside, yum!) in college, twenty or so pounds a week. I experimented with a lot of different flavors. I used Ghirardelli chocolate, which was the best I'd found. I made decent truffles.

Then I discovered Valrhona. Wowza. Valrhona was not only WAY better than any other chocolate I'd tasted, it showed me a whole new level of chocolate...I had no idea that chocolate could have such complex flavor overtones, like the different varieties of coffee. It was like growing up drinking instant coffee and then being introduced to real coffee.

That was when I got really interested in making gourmet chocolates. I've experimented with a lot of different flavors over the years--pretty much any sweet spice, any fruit, and any liqueur, plus white truffles (truffle truffles!), and, er, stuff. Lots of stuff. I have a bookshelf full of books on chocolate, not just the plain chocolate desserts but actual chocolate technical manuals, etc. I spent one winter helping out at Donnelly Chocolates --Richard Donnelly is one of the top ten chocolatiers in the U.S., I got a giant marble slab 2.5'x4.5' for tempering chocolate...and so on. Not totally overboard, but pretty close.

So anyway, that's my chocolate history. The stuff I'm making this year is mostly very simple--the dried fruit--or the stuff I can't live without, my favorites. They are:

Armagnac truffles. Armagnac is the lesser-known sibling of cognac, and is a restricted appellation--only grapes grown in the Armagnac region of France may be made into Armagnac. (Rather like Napa wine--if it isn't grown in Napa, it can't be called Napa wine.) Armagnac is single-distilled, and aged in oak, which gives it a stronger and less subtle flavor than cognac, which is double-distilled. (It does, however, have great complex flavor.) Because it has a stronger flavor than cognac, it does better in truffles, and Armagnac truffles are one of my favorites.

Jasmine tea truffles. If you have never tried these, they are *fantastic*. You get the wonderful floral aroma of jasmine tea, mixed with chocolate...and the aroma just keeps going and going and going. They are my favorite truffle, hands down.

Other favorite truffles include whisky truffles (after much experimentation, I've concluded that MacAllan 12 is the best), cinnamon, raspberry and boysenberry, Chambord, Bailey's Irish creme, and orange truffles. Orange truffles I make with orange curd, which is related to the lemon curd you can buy in stores. Basically, you boil 1 pint of orange juice down to about 1/4 cup; mix 4 egg yolks with 1/2 cup sugar, add 1 tbsp of orange zest and 3-4 tbsp of butter, add the orange juice, and heat very slowly over a low flame until it's thickened. You get this wonderful, sweet, rich, intensely orange-flavored stuff that I could eat by the spoonful. *wonderful* stuff, I'd love to try adding it to croissants someday. A spoonful of two of it added to chocolate truffle mix is great. (For the detailed orange curd recipe, buy a copy of The Cake Bible by Rose Levy Beranbaum. This is also one of my favorite cookbooks.)

I'm particularly proud of my caramels. They are absolutely fantastic, and the secret, once again, is jasmine tea. I make my caramels with orange blossom honey, vanilla beans, and jasmine tea. (And lots of cream and sugar, of course.) I slice the vanilla bean lengthwise and add it to the cream, heat the cream to boiling. The minute it starts to boil, I yank it off the heat and add a tablespoon or so of jasmine tea. (I use Peet's Yin Hao Jasmine tea, which has the strongest jasmine scent I've found. It really does matter to the quality.) I let it steep for a minute or two--just long enough to get the jasmine scent, but not the bitterness of the tea--then strain it out, scrape the seeds out of the vanilla bean and add them back into the cream. Then I make the caramels.

What you get out of all this is an intensely floral vanilla caramel. Using real vanilla beans adds a complex floral flavor that you just don't get from vanilla extract. I also use Tahitian vanilla beans, which are larger and more aromatic than regular vanilla beans. (They also cost the earth right now. I was lucky enough to lay in a supply before vanilla prices (recently) quadrupled.) The jasmine tea adds more floral notes, and the orange blossom honey caps it off. People swoon over these caramels. But it's really not the recipe--it's the quality of the ingredients.

(I get my orange blossom honey at the farmer's market, where they sell pure orange blossom honey (the stuff you buy in stores is mostly diluted). I buy the stuff year round to put into my tea, but the honey for my caramels I buy only in the spring. For some reason, the early-season honey is always the most intensely and gloriously floral--so I watch for the first honey and taste it as soon as it turns out. If it's a good year--which it isn't always, rain and other stuff can alter the flavor--then I buy six to eight pounds and hoard it away. That way I'll always be able to make these caramels, even if it's a bad year for honey. Yeah, I like them that much.)

You don't have to go that far, of course, to make fantastic caramels. But I love food--and cooking--so much that I pay a LOT of attention to what goes into things. It's rather like working with fiber--you can make a good thing out of OK fiber, or you can make something fantastic by paying more attention and choosing better fiber to work with. Whether it's worth the effort depends on what you're using it for. It's possible to get pretentious about it--and some people would probably consider my efforts at least somewhat pretentious--but for me it's not: it's about being true to the art, and respecting the ingredients. It's about making it the best I can make.

Oddly, I didn't really have this attitude until I encountered Valrhona chocolate--I worked at candymaking, but I didn't push myself to the same degree. I think for me it's the chocolate. Valrhona isn't just a candy, it's something made by people who are passionate about chocolate, who care about quality more than anything else, who live for their art, as a master vintner lives for making great wines. To do less than my best with such a chocolate would be disrespectful, both to the chocolate (fantastic) and the artisans who made it for me. It would be like saying their efforts are nothing.

Come to think of it, I feel more or less the same way about fiber. If I'm working with great fiber, from someone who has been breeding their flocks for decades to get their results--I feel I owe it to the shepherd to create something as beautiful as I can. They have given me a gift from their passion--I add my own passion to it. I don't think I'd feel the same way about random fleece from a range flock. It is really about the life-force, the connection, between the maker and the next recipient down the line.

Anyway, I made a small batch of French truffles today (that's just for Thanksgiving dinner--I said I'd bring chocolate ;-) ), tomorrow I will start making caramels, and maybe some of the toffee. Frenzied chocolate-dipping doesn't start until Friday. :-)

Tien

Wow!! Kodo (Japanese taiko) is coming to town!!!

I am SO psyched. I found out last night (at the International Taiko Festival) that Kodo is playing in the Bay Area in February. Kodo is the pre-eminent taiko (Japanese drumming) group in the world, they play all over the world to rave reviews and standing ovations. (Their "Best of Kodo" CD was named one of the top 100 classical CDs by Sony.) I think they are one of the best performance troupes I have ever seen. See http://www.kodo.or.jp.

"Indeed, if there is such a thing as perfection in music, Kodo comes as near to it as any group in the world."

--The Boston Globe

"Superlatives don't really exist to convey the primal power and bravura beauty of Kodo."
-- Chicago Tribune

Taiko drumming is primal, precision, and incredibly athletic--top taiko drummers are as muscular and "cut" as any top athlete, but can play with great delicacy as well. One of Kodo's signature acts, "Monochrome", involves nine drummers playing in unison, from barely audible to filling the entire concert hall with sound--and sounding like a single drummer until they choose to explode into complex musical rhythms.

On the other end, they have one of the largest drums in the world, almost 6 feet across--the o-daiko. The o-daiko is so large that it is traditionally played by two people--one beats out a basic rhythm on one side, the other improvises and plays the main tune. Playing the o-daiko is not for the faint of heart--it's an incredibly athletic performance and a test of physical endurance. They're literally whacking away on this thing with giant clubs, 3" in diameter. The deep bass notes of the drum vibrate in your body--it's felt as much as heard. But again, it's not uncontrolled passion; they know exactly what they're doing and how to get precise sounds out of the o-daiko.

(To give you an idea of how athletic they are, one year Kodo ran the Boston Marathon--just for the fun of it--and then gave a concert afterwards. Wowza.)

Taiko drumming is a mix of primal music, martial arts, and (a little bit) dance, as in rhythmic and dramatic movements of the whole body. But you really have to experience it. If Kodo is coming anywhere near your town on their One Earth Tour, buy tickets. You won't regret it. I have been going to their performances since 1987 and have yet to see them get anything less than a standing ovation (one year they got three!). They are truly legendary.

Anyway, if you have the chance, do go see them--it's one of the best performing acts I've ever seen, and I like exotic theater. (There's a pretty cool--if small--photo here.)

Tien

P.S. (snakes and antibiotics)

Someone asked if I couldn't just grind up medication and put it in Isis's food...unfortunately, that doesn't work for snakes. They eat whole food, you see...and unlike mammals they don't eat all that often. I feed Isis three rats every other week, and that's plenty for her...so if I wanted to put antibiotics in her food, I'd have to inject the rat (or feed it a pill), then feed it to Isis, then wait a week for her to digest it...well, you get the idea. :-(

You also can't "pill" a snake, for anatomical reasons. The first 1/3 of a snake is mostly esophagus (gullet), plus a little bit of lung. Which means that on Isis, you don't hit the stomach until about two feet along her length. So if I stuck a pill in her mouth, it'd just sit there in the first two or three inches of her neck, and wouldn't make it into her system at all.

(Why is there nothing important in the first 1/3 of a snake? Basically, because boas are constrictors--they strike, grab their prey in the mouth, wind the first 1/3 or so of their body around the prey, and squeeze. If they had vital organs there, they'd be squeezing their own vitals. Not the best thing to do, so all the "important" stuff is located further down. I think the only thing you get in the early bits is a little bit of the lungs.)

Oh, and the ribs fold down. I think that's partly so they can get through tight spaces, but also to keep themselves from breaking their own ribs while catching prey.

Snakes are actually very interesting anatomically--all their vital organs are crammed in lengthwise. I *think* they may even have only one lung, because there isn't space for two.

Anyway, I think snakes are pretty darn cool, and the way they move is really interesting as well. But you can't pill them very effectively, which is why poor Isis is getting injections.

Tien

Paychecks, shopping, and knee anatomy

Got my first paycheck on Monday! What an amazing experience. I looked at it and said, "Yowza! I could live an entire MONTH on this!" And to think I get another one at the end of the month. And the month after. It's really weird.

I mean, if you think about it, it's sort of odd. I put on clothes, I go off to work, I wander around and talk to people, and type a bunch of stuff on the computer, put together a presentation or so. And in exchange, I get a big chunk of money deposited into my bank twice a month. It sounds like an amazing scam or something. Especially after TWO YEARS of being unemployed. It's bizarre.

So anyway, I seem to have gone instantaneously from starving-graduate-student poor (watching the debts mount up) to "earning" huge sums of money as a successful computer professional. I feel like I have financial whiplash. It's going to take some time to get used to having money to spend again--being able to go out to dinner, and so on. Mind you, it'll take me about two years to dig myself out of debt, but at least I no longer have to worry about impending bankruptcy. Thank goodness.

Speaking of money, I just got back from my latest shopping spree...you know, thrift shops may just convert me to *enjoying* shopping. (I usually dread it--I'd rather have my nails pulled out.) Just got back from the Palo Alto Goodwill with more upscale clothes--3 jackets, 3 blouses, 3 pairs of pants--all for under $60. And actually had fun shopping.

I've always dreaded clothes shopping because I never know what's going to look good, and of course you can't take it back to try it on with everything else in your wardrobe. At $40-80 per blouse, I can't afford to take chances--if I'm not absolutely certain it's going to look great, I'm not going to buy it. So I've mostly stuck to "traditional" looks, which are pretty boring.

The nice thing about thrift shops, though, is that instead of $80, it's only $5. In other words, I don't have to like it $80 worth, I only have to like it $5 worth. Five bucks is cheap, so I've been encouraged to experiment outside my usual range, and try new styles. Today I bought a "jacket" (one of those shirt/jacket blends) that was way too long, looked at it, and decided it might look good with a belt. So I bought it, and got a belt. This afternoon I'll try it on with some of the pants in my closet--if it looks good, great! and if not, it goes back to the thrift shop. I lose a grand total of $8. If even one outfit in 3 winds up "working", I've already saved money over the cheapest possible item I could buy at Macy's (or anywhere else for that matter). So I can afford to experiment a lot. :-)

(It also addresses my other problem with clothes shopping, which is what I call "seamstress sticker shock". I can sew. So I know exactly how much the fabric cost for any particular item would be, and have a hard time convincing myself to pay ten times as much for the same article pre-made--especially since it doesn't fit. At $8, I couldn't even buy the fabric for the same cost, so I save money even over making it myself.)

Finally, I went to the orthopedist (I have health insurance again!) and he wrote out a prescription for physical therapy, to help fix my knee. Then I went to my cycling coach, who is also a physical therapist, and he did a full evaluation and workup on my knee. (I hadn't been able to ride my bike much at all because of knee pain.)

It turns out that, of course, I got muscle atrophy on my left side when I had the knee surgery done a year and three months ago. The medial gluteal muscle (= middle of the butt) is still quite weak--it never strengthened up properly. The m.g.m. is responsible for stabilizing the knee--without it, the knee tends to bow in.

So far, so good. Now, the body tries to keep the knee from bowing in, so without the medial gluteal, the other muscles of the leg try to compensate. The iliotibial band and lateral quads (outside and front outside of the thigh) tighten up, the whatever-it-is-quad that runs diagonally across the thigh tightens up, and the adductor muscles (inner thigh) tighten up--all in an attempt to keep the knee in place.

Now, it turns out that three of those muscles (the medial quad, the diagonal whatever-it-was, and the adductors) cross and attach at the knee in roughly the same place, on the lower right part of the kneecap (this is the left knee). So, when you crank all those muscles tight, presto!...you get tendonitis. Which, in turn, is causing my knee pain.

It's all very simple. (And yet so complicated.) So, in other words, weakness in my butt is giving me knee problems. That makes total sense, but it's also pretty wild.

Anyway, my coach (Curtis Cramblett of Revolutions in Fitness) did some PT-style massage on the muscles. Which was excruciatingly painful--essentially they're going in and breaking all the knots at once, instead of easing into it like a regular massage therapist would--but dang if the knee problem didn't feel better almost instantly. So I've been sent home with stretching and strengthening exercises, and some tools for getting knots out of the rest of my muscles. Curtis thinks there should be no problem with my doing the AIDS Ride in seven months. (Whew!)

Work-wise, I just got a new manager (finally!). Everything is in flux right now, so I have no idea how things will turn out...but having a manager and a definite office makes me feel much better. I even have my phone working! Whee!

Oh, and I am finally contemplating another fiber project...I really need something to relax with after work. I'm experimenting with stuff, but leaning towards another ring shawl, this one with 1 ply of black angora and 1 ply of brown cashmere/silk mixture. I might use red satin angora instead--gorgeous stuff!

But who knows...it's a beautiful day today, and after my acupuncturist's appointment I'm going to a taiko (Japanese drumming) festival in Berkeley. Tomorrow I may go help my ex run some logs through his "portable" sawmill. He's been sawing some redwood logs for the Sierra Club, which is clearing out some inholdings (settlements) on recently acquired land.

Isis is doing better (I think)--at least, there's less wheezing. She didn't have a good shed, though, so tomorrow I'll probably spend several hours putting eyedrops on her eyes, then trying to take off the extra eyecaps.

this weekend is mostly going to be quiet time for me...I've spent the last three weeks burning my candle at both ends and in the middle, it'll be nice to have some time off. I'm also skipping my annual batch of chocolates over Thanksgiving, and taking time off/working on the book instead.

Tien

snake saga

Well, work is starting to make a bit more sense, as I settle in. I always forget that things look much more complicated when you know nothing about them. But when you break things down into individual bits, they look much less intimidating. So I am working on two customer proposals--small things, really--and getting estimates from various people, and adapting existing presentations and getting marketing (I hope!) to create another small case study that I can "borrow" for my proposal. But it's starting to rock 'n roll.

It turns out that the organization is a lot smaller than I thought it was; today I got someone to explain to me how the various pieces "sew together". Instead of a bunch of confusing pieces, it turns out to be a pretty logical arrangement--I always find that things make more sense when I understand the underlying logic. So that's all good.

What is not so good is my lovely snake, Isis. (There's a photo of her on my website in the snakes section, and also under the "textile arts" section--that's her with me in the photo of my wedding dress.) I got her into the reptile vet this morning and he thinks she has severe pneumonia and that it's probably gone septic (systemic). We're starting her on injections of Baytril, they're doing a culture, he recommended that I move her off the coconut husk I've currently got her on and onto Astroturf, and I'm supposed to turn up the heat in her cage to about 85 degrees. Seven days later, back to the vet.

I'm hoping she comes out OK. I know a lot of people don't like snakes, but Isis is a wonderful and extremely friendly snake--especially for her breed, which is supposed to be kind of nippy. I've had her for over ten years now. I remember her when she was just a baby--small enough to fit into the tip of a tennis shoe! (She escaped once, early on, and we actually found her in my shoe. Good thing I looked before putting it on!) She's now over seven feet long, and way to big to fit into a shoebox. But still very sweet. Rainbow boas live 30-40 years at least (according to the vet), so she could easily be with me for another twenty or thirty years. I'm very, very fond of her.

Anyway, I'm spending tonight switching out the substrate (putting in Astroturf), and I just bought two new heating pads for her cage. Tomorrow Rob (my ex) is coming by to help me inject her with the antibiotics--she's too big now for a single person to manage it, so he'll be coming by every night for the next week. The vet warned me that by the third day, she'll be getting verrrry cranky about the injections. Apparently they sting like hell. So I need a second person to hold her in case she decides to bite me. (Can't say that I'd blame her if she did.)

Poor girl. I wish there were some other way to give a snake antibiotics, but you can't feed them pills, so it's injections or nothing. I hope it clears out the infection.

The vet also pointed out that she had several layers of retained eyecaps (which is what happens when the skin over the eye doesn't shed successfully--it builds up in layers until the snake has trouble seeing). On his advice, I bought some wetting solution for hard and gas-permeable contact lenses. I'm supposed to keep her eyes damp (dripping it on her eyes) for three or four hours, re-wetting every twenty or thirty minutes, then run her through a warm, hot towel to take off the retained eyecaps. I have the sneaking feeling that this is my karma coming back to bite me...I never should have made that crack about chameleon tongues. [grin]

Anyway, I'm off to go clear her cage and install Astroturf...I do hope she's OK.

Tien

oh yeah...almost forgot...

...I checked out the gym at work. Woo baby. Really swanky gym, complete with wood paneling, towel service, climbing wall, basketball court, swimming pool, ping pong table, masseuse, steam room, etc. (LOTS of etc.) And it's only open to people in our office complex--which is 70% empty--which means almost no competition to use the gym. Woo.

It doesn't have quite as many weight machines as I'd like--unlike 24 Hour Fitness, which has two or three of everything--so I think that if it were at all busy, it would be a pain to use. On the other hand, it isn't busy and isn't likely to be anytime soon, so it works great.

But the good news is that they have great personal trainers! I was surprised. Since the gym is so under-used, and since most of the people going to the gym are corporate types who just need basic fitness programs, I was expecting to find a group of rather dispirited, low-level (low-skill) trainer types. But no, they've got at least one really good guy on staff, who has experience in all kinds of exercise types and dynamics, and used to design rehab programs. I toured the gym with him on Thursday, and by the end of the tour was quite convinced that he'd be a great trainer. (I think he's actually the director of the training program, but not sure.)

I'm really excited about this--my knee has been extremely tweaky lately, and I was worried about whether I'd be able to do the AIDS Ride this year. But I think if I can get him to develop a rehab program, spend three months working on the knee, and start a serious cycling program come February, I should be OK. I've also gotten in touch with my cycling coach, to see if the two of them can work together.

Hmm. Reading through the last two posts, it occurs to me that I may be trying to do too much at once....I do sound kind of hyper.

Hmm.

Well, I just signed up for Netflix, which means I should soon have an endless supply of stupid action movies. I think my first three are The In-Laws (the 1979 classic version, not the recent remake--I still think it's one of the funniest movies of all time), The One (Hong Kong action movie with Jet Li), and Bad Boys (aka "Will Smith is damn cute").

And at some point, I really will slow down and go back to normal. :-)

Tien

2 weeks on the job...

Boy, this is tough. I've been working REALLY hard on picking up the basics of the wireless industry, and how to negotiate deals, and so on, but the bottom line is that my boss is now gone and I'm supposed to handle, estimate, etc. everything except for one major customer (being handled by the other project manager in the group). Which is...interesting...since I'm coming new into a company, industry, and job function. Don't get me wrong, I learn fast, but this is a bit ridiculous.

Anyway, the four things I'm trying to sort out simultaneously are:

• what is our product, how is it built, and how do we market it to customers?
• what is our market, what do cell phone manufacturers want, what do carriers want?
• what deals are in the pipeline, and what new ideas could we go out and sell?
• who does what in the company--who do I go to for advice, who do I walk warily around, who has the information on ______?

I think once I have a manager it will be slightly less overwhelming, but the bottom line is, the more of this I can pick up and the faster I can pick it up, the better for me. I want to be handling all that stuff--the business side, P/L, margins, scouting and negotiating deals, setting strategy--but I know so little about it that everything is new, everything needs thinking about. Right now I'm trying to set priorities and filter things down to the stuff I need to know immediately. Which, fortunately, isn't nearly all of it.

But it's still overwhelming.

In a way, it's kind of fun; I have a lot of brain that usually goes to waste, because there's nothing around that needs the kind of speed I can manage when pressed. So it's great to have something that is challenging me, that is pushing me to my limits intellectually. Not only can I learn a lot of stuff, it's crucial that I learn a lot of stuff really fast--which is great! I love a challenge.

I'm also getting to meet a lot of cool people--there are a lot of creative multitalents at Openwave, and it's one of the most intelligent companies I've seen in awhile. This week I discussed theories of mind mixed with group theory and astronomical metaphors with our product strategist, and origami and spinning/weaving (!) with one of our engineers. I was really impressed that a male engineer would understand spinning/weaving and loom construction, but it turns out his wife is a fiber artist and he finds these things fascinating. So lots of creative people, I think that'll be lots of fun. I'm going to bring in my silver spindle and show it to Kevin (the engineer) on Monday.

Meanwhile, the quote of the day:

"YOU have a TRUCK???"

It appears my coworkers have a lot to learn about me. ;-)

I'm starting to think about starting another spinning project again; my initial projects have petered out, and the blackwork embroidery just isn't working for me at the moment. I spend all day staring at a computer screen and doing meticulous eye-work, working on a project that requires intense concentration and counting threads just makes things worse. So I am considering doing another project as fine as the spiral shawl, and am debating whether to make it of handspun, or use a millspun yarn and concentrate on knitting. When I get back from work, I"m fried enough that I really need an hour or two just to settle my brain, and I think spinning would be good for that; but on the whole, I enjoy knitting better. I'll probably try a couple things and see what I like best...I really want quick and simple projects, things that occupy the hands but not the mind. Maybe I'll knit more socks.

(The only problem with that is that I'd have to dye the yarn first...my brain is really not up for project design at the moment, all circuits are busy at the new job. I may just dive in and start spinning a superfine yarn in, well, *something*.)

At any rate, it will be nice to take out and fondle my fiber collection.

I have been making progress on writing the book, but have decided to put it on hold for a week or two. It's not that I haven't been able to write it, but I've been pretty close to stressing out what with everything going on at work, and part of it is because in the time I'm not at work, I've been working on writing, so my brain never gets a break. It's frustrating to me because I want to work on the book, I'm enjoying writing it, I'm just going into overload. So I sneak in a bit here and there, but I really need to give it a rest. Pfahh.

Meanwhile, I'm a bit worried because Isis is sick. She's my Brazilian rainbow boa, and she's been pfft!ing lately (which means she's having trouble breathing--like a human with a clogged up nose) and lately she's started gaping, sitting around with her mouth open, which usually means more serious breathing difficulties. Unfortunately, she's also shedding, which makes it hard to figure out exactly how serious the problem is. As the skin loosens, it's normal for snakes not to breathe quite as well as they usually do, so minor respiratory irritations can look exaggerated. But she's never gone as far as gaping before, so I'm quite worried.

My normal vet can't see her until Wednesday, which is very bad (respiratory infections can go nasty fast), but there's another exotic animal vet in Belmont, who can probably see her Monday. My ex has offered to run her up there on Monday, so that's great.

(He's having problems with his chameleon collection--a raccoon fell into his water tank and drowned, so they had a dead raccoon in the water tank for a few days without knowing it. The rotting raccoon (yeah, that's really gross) apparently infected all his chameleons with some nasty protozoan, so he drove down to Mexico to get medication from them (it's over the counter there) and has been treating them. He also ran a couple of microscopic exams of the bacteria (to identify it), and just had to show me the photos of the protozoan-thingies on his digital camera. *sigh* Geeks.)

So anyway, that's most of the news from down here. I'm excited to say that I have a hot date on Monday night--but, alas, it's with my former boss and his boyfriend. *dramatic sigh* But I'm still getting to spend time with friends (another friend has a B-day party on Thursday), and that's a good thing. At some point this work thing is going to let up--probably in a month or two--and then I can get back to normal.

Finally, the Bizarre Quote of the Day:

"And then I showed my vet how to handle a chameleon with a tongue that won't retract..."

"Uh, so how DO you handle a chameleon whose tongue won't retract?"

"You wedge something in its mouth so it can't bite it off, and keep the tongue wet. After three or four days, it heals up and retracts."

"Uh...how do you keep the tongue wet?"

"You put the chameleon on a wet paper towel, you raise the humidity to nearly 100%, and then you drip water on the tongue with an eyedropper."

"By hand?"

"Yep."

"For THREE DAYS????"

"Well...we didn't know it was going to take that long."

Somehow I just have this image of some poor soul, sitting there at a desk with a chameleon on it, dripping water onto the chameleon's tongue with an eyedropper. ("So, umm, what do YOU do for a living...?")

Anyway, I'm glad the chameleon pulled through, but man, is that a funny image...

And, with that, I leave you--it's time to go to the farmer's market, and later this afternoon a friend is coming over with hairsticks, and we're going to play with hairstyles. She's teaching me the French Twist, and we may just do some experimenting. Whee!

Tien

fiber arts and corporate fashion

Aside from all of that, I've been doing alterations on pants. Mostly for my own use, some for my acupuncturist (I've been trading sewing work for acupuncture while I was broke). I now know just about every possible way to hem pants. Beware, beware, I'm dangerous now! LOL

Actually, I have been pretty impressed with how my fiber arts background has been helping me. I've been doing a lot of shopping in Ross et al. But of course in those shops they have everything from cheap to expensive on the same rack, so you can't just assume it's good quality; you have to look, you have to know.

So, having spent ten or fifteen years in various forms of fiber arts, I'm finding that I can easily distinguish different fibers at a glance, and see how well the fabric's woven. Being a seamstress, I also know a lot about finishing techniques, so a quick look will tell me a lot about garment construction.

There's nothing particularly magical about this--most fiber artists can do the same thing--but still, it's nice being able to notice all those details. It's resulted in my having an extremely expensive-looking wardrobe for darn near nothing--and yeah, I can tell the difference. :-)

...speaking of which, I went through Sears today (looking for a steamer to steam out wrinkles in my new wardrobe), and was looking at the clothes there. There really *are* distinct classes of clothing. Sears has a slightly different cut from Macy's, but above and beyond that, the types of fibers are very different. Where Macy's has a cashmere sweater, Sears has a similar-styled acrylic one. Where Macy's has a silk suit, Sears has polyester microfiber. On the surface, they look more or less the same; but on anything but a casual glance, the difference is glaring. I liked the blue acrylic cashmere-alike sweater a lot, but I couldn't wear it over the burgundy wool suit-pants; it just looked cheap.

(Lest anyone accuse me of snobbery, by the way, I'm a Birkenstocks, jeans-and-body-paint girl myself. I really couldn't care less whether someone can afford a $500 suit, and left to my own devices I'd cheerfully skip the whole clothes thing and run around naked; but I am just absolutely fascinated by corporate fashion, and what it says about your social class. Mostly because I'm trying to figure it out right now. People of my job rating/level are supposed to wear high-class (but not obnoxiously expensive) "casual" outfits, and I've been trying to figure out exactly what this means. Fortunately, I have a butch dyke and a gay Frenchman as fashion consultants--how could I possibly figure this out on my own?? LOL)

I vote that we all go to work in body paint.

(Tien thinks about her coworkers, past and present.)

Okay, I vote that we all wear clothes. {grin}

(Well, except for that cute guy down in IT, and that other guy from down the hall at my last job, who...oh, never mind. But they can show up naked if they want, I won't complain. ;-) )

That's all the news from my first week on the job...heaven only knows what comes next. :-)

No progress on the fiber arts front, for obvious reasons...but I am meeting my cycling coach on Monday. Hopefully he can do something about my knee problems. :-)

Tien

first week of work!

Apologies for the long silence, but this was my first week at work, and I've spent most of it frantically learning about the wireless industry, about which I knew absolutely nothing. (I'm working at OpenWave, btw: http://www.openwave.com, which does wireless messaging, email, and browser applications.) So suddenly I've been dumped into it, and being a professional services project manager now, I don't just have to understand the technology; I have to understand the technology, the market, our customers' needs, and incidentally how to negotiate with customers, handle billing, estimate efforts for custom jobs, and write up contractual documents. And when we can book revenue and when to take revenue, and a whole bunch of business-side stuff about which I had (previously) been blissfully ignorant.

Oh, and my boss quit Wednesday.

So all in all, it's been an interesting week. :-)

What this means is:

(a) I am getting ALL the projects, current and prospective, dumped on me, since my boss is leaving;

(b) there are all sorts of interesting politics going on around what will happen to the group;

(c) instead of getting a month and a half to learn about my new company, products, and industry, I have to figure it all out next week. After that, I have a new manager who will also be new to all of this, so I have to suck as much as possible out of my old boss's brain before he goes.

So...it's been a wee bit busy.

I'm actually a bit sorry that the guy who hired me isn't sticking around; I think he's a good manager, smart guy, would love to work for him. It's also not clear what's going to happen if he leaves--though I'm not worried about getting laid off, for various reasons. (It's way more likely that people will argue over who gets me, a prospect I find highly ironic after over two years of unemployment.)

There's a considerable amount of politics around all this that I won't go into, mostly because I don't understand it (yet). But since my boss is going, I'm getting tossed into all the internal and customer politics that he would otherwise have been fielding for me. (And here--honest to goodness--I had sworn that I was going to spend the first year or so being apolitical, and "just doing my job".) But since I enjoy untangling political stuff, it's not a huge burden--it just means I have to pick it up waaaay faster than I had planned.

The good news is that I think I can actually handle all of that. Maybe.

We'll see.

But there are two other bits of good news from this week:

(1) the bits of my sample chapter (for my book on AIDS Lifecycle) got reviewed by my writing class on Monday, and got excellent reviews! More than that, my writing teacher (who is multiply published herself) said, "I think it'll be a good book, and I think it will sell. And I think this will be a good sample chapter."

(2) I spent an hour talking to someone who's filming a PBS documentary on AIDS Lifecycle, and offered him help in a bunch of things (not least of which is finding riders to interview). He was really grateful, and offered to do free footage for me if I needed something to promote the book! I have no idea what I'd do with it, but it was very sweet of him to offer. Between that and the other TV producer who said she might be able to do a half-hour author spot with me if the book got published, that's very cool news. :-)

More on fiber arts and fashion in a separate post...this one's getting way long.

Tien