Phone Calls

Figured something out just now.

When everyone had landlines, if you called someone at home and they answered, and it wasn't dinnertime, you were cleared for a nice phone conversation.

With cell phones, people answer when they're busy, when they're in the car, when they're just about to enter a movie theatre, what have you. You never know if it's a good time to have a nice chat. You have to awkwardly establish whether now is a good time, whether the person deems you important enough to spend time talking to rather than whatever activity you interrupted.

I think that's why I don't call people except my parents, who have a landline and therefore if they answer, and it's not dinnertime, we can have a conversation; or my sister, who has no qualms about stating that she's in the middle of Walmart and we'll talk later.

Is that the way it is for other people? Have cell phones killed the meaningful phone conversation? It seems like everyone else is forever and annoyingly glued to their cell phones so some conversations have to be going on. But how do you know when to call? Do people pre-arrange times that the other person will be free to talk?

Man I hate cell phones. I don't want to be available at all times. I want to be available at the office and at home, both times I can talk (though at the office, only for short, important personal matters and of course, work things). I don't want to be available 24/7 for work. I don't want to be bothered in the car. Shopping time is shopping time. I remember when I was shopping for my Dad's birthday present and I forgot my cell phone. I hadn't done that in forever, and it was so freeing. There was nothing that could disturb me. What I was doing was what I was doing.

I only grant cell phones their usefulness for emergencies and the "I can't find you, we were supposed to meet in front of the theatre, oh, you're at the other entrance" type of call.

Plus, I want to smack the phone out of the hands of anyone who is texting while talking to me in person. Every. Single. Time.

This and my survivalist bent makes me think I would be well-suited to living in a cabin in the woods.

You know.

Like the Unabomber.

Revisiting the Past's Music and Food

My horoscope today was "It's not fun being bossed around by someone who isn't as efficient or smart as you are, and today you're not willing to do all the work while someone else gets the credit. Fortunately, there is no need to do anything drastic to draw attention to yourself. If you continue to pursue your goals and follow your work ethic, others will eventually appreciate your unique contribution." I found it funny.

I didn't actually get bossed around by anyone today. First, I got to work seven minutes before eight which should have been just enough time to look up which conference room my eight o'clock meeting was in, make a latte, and get there.

That only works if the conference room is in one of the six surrounding buildings.

It was on the other side of campus entirely.

Luckily, my boss's boss was supposed to go the meeting too and I ran into her on the stairs, so we drove over and were late together.

But it was a hectic start to the morning.

After a two-hour videoconference I spent all day in lab building inanimate things and keeping some alive things alive. The lab I'm working in this week doesn't have a computer hooked up to speakers, so it's the CD player or silence. I dug out some CDs I burned two years ago when a similar thing happened (before we got speakers for the computers - now they're just lost because of the lab renovation). Turns out I made two CDs of Rasmus and Travis, and then loaded up the back-end with Weird Al. I don't know why I thought it was a good idea. I do know at the time I was having to come in at midnight a lot and wouldn't have cared what the graveyard shift janitor thought of my music selections. But I've been the only one in lab so it doesn't matter.

Today is my Friday because I'm taking tomorrow off. It's been a month since I didn't have to work on the weekend, so I blocked off the first possible day for vacation. On my calendar, 8 am through 7 pm tomorrow is labeled "Abby needs a weekend".

I keep my gCal private, don't worry.

My associate director doesn't keep his private.

My friend Yael came over yesterday for us to cook dinner together. I learned that just because you think you have such a great idea of a vegetarian dish to make doesn't mean you didn't have that same thought the last time. Luckily Yael said she had liked the Moroccan Couscous with Vegetables and Chickpeas, but I need to research more recipes. I don't have many vegetarian dishes I make besides that and the tortilla and bean soup. I guess there is a whole Internet out there at my fingertips I could utilize. Somehow I rarely think of that for recipes.

Addressing the item on my to-do list, "Eat more cheese", this week I tried Iberico (from Trader Joe's). Yum! Smooth and a little peppery.

Cheese is so awesome.

The Uncanny Likeness of Food

I work in cell culture, which means that we grow immortalized cell lines in specialized media that has everything in it the cells need to survive. It's a scientific-sounding soup with amino acids, vitamins, sugars, salts, and some other things that sound really appetizing like "putrescine". All of which are nice, well-behaved powders on their own.

Then you put the cells in, wait two weeks, and in the end it smells like crap.

Well, not exactly like crap, if you know what I mean. But not good. It's even worse when you have a bacterial contamination and they're putting their own smell in there.

And when you work in cell culture, you have to deal with the smell all the time. Every time you finish a culture you have to pour out the junk and clean the container. Recently there was an episode where one of my project teams was waiting outside a conference room and a cart full of used glassware went by. Everyone else gagged at the smell but I didn't react. The project lead commented on it, and I had to reply that I think I must breathe through my mouth automatically at times like that. I've had long training.

But as blase as I am about the smells, there's one thing I won't do. I won't compare them to food.

Sure, one type of media looks like fruit punch. Another looks like apple juice. But I won't compare the smells to food. I keep catching myself halfway through a thought - like "Hmm, this smells like--no no no stop there".

And today's lunch meeting was the perfect example why. The lunch meeting food was ribs, corn, beans, and cornbread. I took a bite of cornbread, thought it tasted kind of unpleasant, but also really familiar. And then it struck me. It tasted like cell culture.

And that was it. I didn't eat any more lunch.

The thought still horrifies me.

Projects

The latest thing my latex allergy has reduced me to is making my own underwear.

I used to have a supplier, but though their website is still active the style I buy has been out of stock for about two years, so I've given up hope.

With the demise of that supplier, I'm left with three options. Buy the hippie, all-cotton, we-sell-yoga-supplies-too underwear that I've bought before and know doesn't fit; pay $9 a pair for the Barely There style I've also bought before and know is too thin; or make my own.

Frugality, practicality, and distaste for hippies led me to Option 3.

So I've been making a lot of underwear. Each type of elastic works differently, so I've been trying to get the lengths just right. To that end I spent around four hours this weekend ripping elastic off garments to put it back on again. So far I've made pairs too big, too small, and a few that are just right. Hopefully I can soon hit the Goldilocks every time.

But since that's what I've been doing, it's made it uncomfortable to answer all those "So what are you doing on your weekend?" questions. You want to watch the Super Bowl? No, I want to go home and make underwear.

Yes, the most annoying part of my latex allergy is the social awkwardness.

I finally updated the Google Analytics code in this blog since the delightful redesign courtesy of Melissa and Robosaur, and found out that my blog got hits for the following three web searches:

1. real twinkie filling recipe
2. multicultural Christmas cookies
3. weird twinkies

I don't think my entry about having a twinkie tasting helped whoever was the first and last searches. But I do wonder what the second searcher thought when it led here.

Today I made a pistachio pie to bring to New Year's Eve tomorrow. I tried to be clever and used the crumbs from the leftover Christmas chocolate chip cookies for the crust, but as I mixed in the warm melted butter and baked it in the oven to brown it I realized I had forgotten a basic characteristic of chocolate: it melts. So it looks kind of funny, but it should taste all right. The cream cheese layer tasted fantastic, and I would know because I used every single one of my fingers to wipe off the implements it was that good. Just cream cheese, powdered sugar, some CoolWhip (which they've reformulated and tastes less plastic), a little vanilla, and a drop of the pistachio flavoring my mom gave me for Christmas. It's good enough that I'm not worried the cream cheese layer is twice as thick as the pistachio pudding layer when it was supposed to be reversed.

What with the color of the pistachio pudding and its various parts I should call it "Frankenpie".

Normally, at Christmas, I describe my baking as whether or not I had a good "showing". This year was definitely a good showing.

Since I was off work I had a lot of time to bake. I started first with what I thought would keep the best: candies. Homemade caramels, almond toffee (like Almond Roca), and the Heath bar/toffee candy/cracker candy my roommates dubbed "fire candy" in college because you only have to light something on fire once before your friends won't let you live it down.

Then I moved on to the longer-lasting cookies shortbread and snowballs, my great-grandmother Mimi's candied orange walnuts, and sweetened condensed milk fudge.

Then I made divinity, the fluffy white confection I resent having called "white fudge", because fudge is much easier to make than divinity. Divinity is like a nougat because you cook a sugar syrup and whip it into egg whites. Growing up, our neighbor Mrs. Barnes, used to make it at Christmas each year, and every year since she passed away my sister has judged my divinity against the high standard of Mrs. Barnes'. Since it's been eight years I'm not sure my sister can remember what Mrs. Barnes' divinity was like anymore, but the texture of this year's was very good, and it's even keeping longer in the tin.

To round off the platters I fulfilled my dad's request for non-chocolate cookies with snickerdoodles, molasses crackles, and macaroons. I don't see the appeal of macaroons. And I made chocolate chip cookies because they're my favorite, and everything else I made was everyone else's favorite.

A pretty good showing.

I also made golden cake to use up the egg yolks left over from the macaroons and divinity, which I'd do again if I use a lot of egg whites. It used orange oil so it was nicely orange-scented and had a good texture. And enough cholesterol to down an elephant, but it's the holidays. Whatever.

Besides the baking, I have not been very productive on my vacation. I have made three pairs of latex-safe underwear. I've almost finished a baby quilt for Project Linus. I have quilted less than one square on the quilt for myself. I have flipped through and discarded five books from the library; stopped reading The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe twenty pages from the end because something in the style was simply off-putting besides the fact that I think Mr. Tumnus is a pedophile; and ignored my usual budget and frugality and spent more money than I like on various things like underwear supplies, filters for my vacuum cleaner, incandescent lightbulbs for my stockpile, and duplicate makeup to simplify packing when I travel.

I also have gone puddle stomping and played on the park across the street.

And essentially, right now I'm stalling before I go do several months of shredding. What might be fun is that I found a can of WD40 my landlady left here when she was repairing my doorknob with screws and woodglue and made it so it didn't really turn. Normally I use Pam on my cheap, Walmart shredder but WD40 might make it work even better. It will also be mind-numbing. Even my DVR'ed Mythbusters might not be enough entertainment.

It's Christmas break! For me at least - I'm taking some of the break I've saved up over the last "challenging" year (in work speak, "challenges" is code for "problems" but it's become so common that we're probably going to euphemize it even more to "opportunities for improvement").

I won't get to separate completely from work. I'm going to the work lunch next Tuesday since I will literally be right around the corner from the restaurant, I have to finish a performance review request I got at the last minute on Friday, and I have to follow up on something else that has been difficult because someone isn't emailing me back.

People not emailing back on a timely basis is a new pet peeve of mine. It joins the list with people twiddling on their phones while they're supposedly talking to you, toilet paper coming from the back rather than the front, drivers who purposely speed up or linger beside you so you can't merge, and charity marathons.


A girl I know from Tech had a wreath making party, so now I have a wreath on my door. Paired with my 3-foot prelit $15 Target tree, this is the most I've ever decorated for Christmas. Laura had pine branches she said she got for free from a Christmas tree lot. Good to know. I saved the white ribbon of a present years ago and finally got to use it. I'm very magpie-like with ribbon. I like keeping pieces of ribbon. I even always want to keep the ribbon that comes on the free toothbrush I get from my dentist, but I normally can convince myself to throw it out since it has his name repeated over the entire length. I'm glad this piece of ribbon finally came in handy. After the branches die I'm going to retrieve the ribbon and ornaments just in case I want to use them again.

I'll probably have to wash them. I sprayed hairspray on the wreath to try and make it live longer. I should have thought more about that before I did it. The wreath smells like Garnier Fructis Sleek & Shine With Natural Bamboo Extract rather than pine. Oh well. I don't sniff my front door too often anyway.

My activities during my vacation are limited for now because I'm not completely mobile until my burn heals more. I also don't want to start my Christmas baking yet because I don't have freezer room and the candies that would last until Christmas require whole pots of boiling sugar and ::cough:: I'm a little hesitant to do that right now, considering. So I'm working on my latest quilt.





This is a quilt I pieced several years ago. It's all built around the center fabric, which is a pattern of narcissus, daffodils, and hyacinths. That fabric is one of only two I have ever been so struck by that I purchased without having a specific project in mind. When I did set out to design a quilt around it, it took a long time to find exactly the right complementing fabrics. The yellow wasn't too hard - it's a very small yellow/white check. The purple came along after I realized a purple would match the hyacinths better than a deep blue. But the green took forever, and I actually had a spotted medium green that I wasn't completely won over by, but which was the best I could do, until I found this dark green.

So I want to do this quilt right, and tonight spent a few hours trying to design an appropriate swirly pattern to quilt into the borders. I'm blogging now because I gave up after I was using Excel to graph a sine wave, thinking that might work (it doesn't). So that'll be a battle for tomorrow.