Today, I mainly worked from home. So I rose at 6:30 with some reluctance, but the 7:30 status meeting meant I needed to be going sooner. The last meeting is at 5:45 PM, which is a large bracketing. I did cook dinner in that bracket and finished eating dinner for the previous meeting. I also rested a few times.
So my alarm went off after I sat up in bed. I turned it off, put on my slippers and robe, and found my home office. The sun rose, and it was dark again in the mornings after the time change; as the sun rose, I could see that the day would be gray, and we had Oregon mist but no rain to measure. It is always strange to have blue in the sky and Oregon mist, but here in the Pacific Northwest, we just smile and know we live in a unique, wonderful place with rainbows and sunny rain.
I did not have to rush, and soon, hours of Zoom meetings took most of the morning. I finally washed up and dressed. I had coffee, a banana, and then one toast with jam to take with my meds. It was beautiful–when you stop eating sweats, some jam was a treat.
Scott is at Swift at Nike WHQ, and I will drive to meet him for lunch. We have lunch on Thursdays. We talk about work while eating at the cafe. I have the pop-up: chicken and tiny dumplings with veggies and mashed potatoes. Scott has the salad bar. I have been reacting to salad, so I did not do my usual salad with Scott. It is always good to catch up with Scott.
They are remodeling our workspace until next week, so I head back to the Volvo Cave. I arrive there without any issues in Air Volvo. The traffic is light; I suspect some folks took an early local spring break.
I spoke to Matt V on the phone. Matt (or M@) will manage my estate should the need arise, and I updated him on my paperwork and planning. We also discussed gaming items as M@, and I have been playing Role Playing Games (RPG) for years. We used to alternate running (DM-ing in RPG speak) games. I am thinking about playing with more groups (M@ liked the idea), but he suggested using Dungeons and Dragons and not Savage World. He uses a simplified set of characters for new players. Interesting. More to come as I think about the future.
And I am so glad to be thinking about the future and not worrying about HAVING a future. F**king brain tumor. I look forward to many years of playing games with M@ and discussing gaming plans with him. He is an expert gamer, and I seek his thoughts and advice. Again, it is good to focus on future fun.
I return to working in my home office. During endless status meetings starting at 3ish, I carry the laptop to the kitchen and do the dishes while listening to the meetings. I then begin to cook dinner. I boil water for pasta, open a jar of pasta sauce, heat it in a pan, and brown some sweat Italian-style sausage in another pan. All of this happened while I attended three status and process meetings.
I wash the pasta in cold water to prevent it from cooking and sticking together, then put it in a large glass dish. I then add some ricotta cheese mixed with dried parsley in dollops to the pasta. I tear up some good mozzarella and put that between the dollops of ricotta. Meanwhile, I combined the sauce into the frying pan of browned sausage. Let that cook for a while. I reserved a cup of water for the pasta, and I mixed that into the sauce (the water was salted, and thus, starch and salt were added to the sauce–an improvement). I carefully pour the boiling sauce with sausage onto the pasta and cheese. I tear up more mozzarella and sprinkle with bread crumbs. I baked this for about an hour, adding hot water to the sides of the dish once to keep the pasta wet.
This is a revision of the same scratch-made sauce and cooking the pasta first recipe from the NY Times. I would say that the pasta was overcooked, and I should use uncooked pasta and add two cups of water next time. Still, it was good. Corwin liked it. I think the jar sauce was a good upgrade. More to come.
I took out all the trash and recycling that had piled up in the house. I was happy to get it out of the house and into the container, and I was glad to see that it was gone on Friday morning. Just more chores that need to be done.
At 7AM, I took a nap after eating all that pasta (which was not good for me–but it was sooooo good); I rose for Theology Pub on Zoom tonight. Today’s topic was justice and avoiding unintended consequences when seeking justice. We had seven of us on Zoom, and we talked about many things and some early Christian Father’s writing on the sources of evil. I got to quote the pagan Hesiod on justice, how the world was created by Zeus (in his story), and what he intended for us of the Iron Age. I will be loaning out my translation of Hesiod. We concluded that justice is found in the community. Jesus was building communities and churches–it is about us together.
We finished around 9, and we all enjoyed that chat. We ended the Zoom meeting. I then started on the blog. I am feeling a bit better about the future and the surgery. Meeting with friends and talking about God and justice seemed to help.
Thanks for reading!
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