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One week before the Thanksgiving holiday in the United States.
There was a potluck lunch at my office. I was unsure if I would continue
my boycott of these (initiated by irkedness at the fact that it's always the
same people who contribute, and the same people who don't). But the
disappointed visages of Jennifer and Elizabeth (bringing to mind a
Golden Retriever lying with its head on its paws, in the slight rain,
outside the locked door, mourning the absence of its warm, comfy
doggy bed (with cedar chips) just on the other side) made me decide
to attend. (And I'm not part of the freeloader group.)
So last night I made the first incarnation of
C-Dawg's Subtle Citrus Salad, and a variant thereof.
I did this thusly:
I started with two big tubs of cottage cheese (small curd). Into the cheese
I poured some Kern's guava nectar, and stirred prodigiously.
I then poured some more and stirred. This I did until the curds had taken
on a pleasant pinkish tinge, but stopped before it became a soupy mess.
Then, I mixed in a whole package of Craisins. With those succulent dried
cranberries forming an optimally spaced matrix, I then spooned
it all into two pie plates and leveled the surface. On top of one, I arranged
mandarin orange segments around the outside, radially aligned; the other
received a random sprinkle of baked apple chunks, which I had bought in
a can containing apple pie goo, then sprinkled cinnamon on top.
The apple one was done, but I had a surprise in store for the orange
version.
Two hours earlier, I had cleverly begun heating some canola oil in a saucepan,
and along with it, quite a few cloves of star anise. In the hope that the oil was
now able to trigger subliminal impressions of licorice, I brushed raw
pumpkin seeds with the oil and toasted them for an hour, and then
lined the circumference of the first plate with them. A perfectly formed (and
unused) seven-pointed anise clove I placed in the center as a garnish.
The salad was well received at the luncheon.
But, before lunch, my co-worker Art told me that he was going to leave the
company, once again making me a programming department of one.
Several hours later, I was in the office of the chief of the e-commerce
division, when the Big Boss came in to inform him of this. Then he said,
"Edward's a big Python guy, right?".
Sly, and totally transparent.
The Chief pounced on that immediately: "You can't have him!"
I, of course, was thinking, "Yes! Have Edward work with me."
This is particularly amusing because, a week ago or so, during my annual review with the Big Boss, he said to me, "Anything you need?
Anything I can do to help you? Is Art working out -- or should we get someone
else?" At which point, the universe quantum forked, and in a different universe
than this one (where I'm not such a responsible, upstanding guy), I said that
Edward would be better in that position :) In the spacetime continuum that
we're sharing now, I said I supposed he was doing fine, and I didn't need anything.
But the possibility remains that, after finishing a big contract he's working on now,
Edward might begin to work with me behind the scenes, making the infrastructure
hum, instead of delivering the pretty pictures and dancing icons to customers'
desktops ;)
After work, I joined some of the young'uns outside for some skateboarding. Several months ago, at Nolan's house,
I'd gotten on a skateboard for about two seconds, and wondered if my memories
of 'boarding in my childhood, where it was as easy as riding a bike, were
somewhat tinged with the passage of time. I wasn't any better today, but I kept
at it, and after five or ten minutes was at least able to stay on it for a straight
twenty feet. And sometimes, if I was lucky, persuade it into a gentle turn, but that
didn't really work out too well. It had to be easier as a kid. I felt like
such a doofus.
B5 watch
Two Three episodes into season 4.
The year is 2261